Over the past three years, a group of indigenous women from the Awajún community of Shampuyacu transformed two medicinal plants into herbal teas that can be sold to support the preservation of their forest and cultural heritage. Thanks to the alliance with the Takiwasi Laboratory that has provided technical assistance and guidance, in December 2020 the sale of the brand Infusiones Nuwa finally begun at the national level. These are made with Amazonian plants such as ginger, vanilla and clavo huasca. A series of videos tells this beautiful story.
Author : Conservación Internacional
Audio : Spanish
Subtitle : -
In the month of January 2021, passed away in Libreville, Gabon, at the age of over 80, the famous healer Bernadette Rebiénot. This tribute video was produced by Jean-Claude Cheyssial. We also share a tribute written by Dr Jacques Mabit who was fortunate enough to be initiated by her into the Bwiti ritual at her Oyenano Center 20 years ago. This extraordinary 5-day experience under the effects of the sacred plant iboga, equivalent to Amazonian ayahuasca, deeply marked Jacques' path. The link that is established in this context is almost filial. Hommage à Bernadette Rebiénot.
Author : Jean-Claude Cheyssial
Audio : French
Subtitle : -
Presentation n°1: "Medicinal and therapeutic properties of the coca leaf". By Dr. Selene Manga, infectious disease and epidemiology medical doctor, trained in traditional Andean and Amazonian medicine of Peru, she works in the Doctors without Borders program.
Lecture n°2: "Myths and realities of medicinal cannabis". By therapist Sebastian Strikic, psychology student, University of Buenos Aires, postgraduate in Indo-American Traditional Medicine (Rosario University, Argentina), founding member of Cannapeutas Latinoamerica.
These presentations were made on January 19, 2021 in the auditorium of the Takiwasi Center, Tarapoto, Peru.
Author : Martín Huamán
Audio : Spanish
Subtitle : -
Lecture by Dr. Jacques Mabit given during the II Day of Dialogues between Medicines "The spiritual approach to addictions", organized by the GASS association on September 26, 2020 in Barcelona, Spain. The stigmatization of addictions in Western society is related to a concept of drunkenness perceived as a form of pathological and harmful escape from reality, a rejection of our incarnation. However, in Western roots, the essence of Christian spirituality claims not only a right to drunkenness but a duty to a certain spiritual or mystical drunkenness that reintroduces us to our dimension as incarnated spiritual beings. Traditional Amazonian medicines, with their knowledge of induced drunkenness, can teach us the way of a reunion with our deep nature, in coherence with the foundations of Western Christian roots.
Author : Asociación GASS
Audio : Spanish
Subtitle : -
Official trailer of the film “The Way of the Plants - A journey to healing” directed by Aurèlie Marques and Louis Bidou. This is the living experience from the point of view of drug addict patients who have chosen an alternative treatment with Amazonian plants. Heartbreaking life stories that intersect in the heart of the Peruvian rainforest. Rehabilitating traditional Amazonian medicines means putting spirituality back at the center of healing.
Author : Aurèlie Marques, Louis Bidou
Audio : Spanish
Subtitle : Français
Testimony about the experience with the dieta of teacher plants by Eduardo Araya, psychologist, sketcher and photographer, who participated in his first plants dieta in Takiwasi six years ago. Becoming aware and abandoning a dependence on alcohol and marijuana, healing different aspects related to childhood, reconnecting with his artistic side and healing the male lineage are some of the benefits obtained by Eduardo through working with master plants and psychological accompaniment.
More testimonies: Testimonies.
Author : Gary Saucedo
Audio : Spanish
Subtitle : English, Français, Italiano, Português
Intervention by Dr. Harold G Koening, psychiatrist and researcher at Duke University Medical Center, in the "II Symposium Dialogue between Medicines: the spiritual approach to addictions" that took place on September 26 2020, in Barcelona, Spain, and was organized by the GASS association and the Takiwasi Center. Science has moved away from spirituality, but scientific evidence shows how, through its practice, health benefits increase. Thousands of scientific studies support this claim. Particularly in the case of addiction, due to their nature and the personality structure of the people who suffer from it, the positive impact of this practice on the resolution of the disease is surprising.
Author : Asociación GASS
Audio : English
Subtitle : -
Intervention by Dr. Manuel Almendro during the II Encounter of Dialogues between Medicines "The spiritual approach to addictions", held on September 26, 2020. After four decades of work in the world of clinical psychology, Zen meditation and indigenous medicines it seems crystal clear that these three streams of service can be integrated. There is a point of connection between all of them: spirituality as the search for the ultimate meaning of existence. The abandonment by Western society of this search has constituted and is the root of extreme suffering, addiction as a negative path of this search, and machine-like and suicidal materialism.
Author : Asociación GASS
Audio : Spanish
Subtitle : -
Lecture by Jordi Trainé at the II Days of Dialogues between Medicines "The spiritual approach to addictions", Barcelona, September 26, 2020. Some of the topics addressed: the human being as body, soul and spirit; mental contamination, and emotional differentiation from energetic and spiritual parasitization; diseases of the spirit and diseases of the soul and their manifestations; somatization of spiritual and soul illnesses; personal experience of Christian spirituality in traditional Amazonian medicine practice; therapeutic and personal experiences.
Author : Asociación GASS
Audio : Spanish
Subtitle : -
Lecture by the Claretian Father Rosendo Gualima from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, presented during the II Day of Dialogues between Medicines. Father Rosendo provides a testimony about how there is no contradiction, quite the contrary, between his Amazonian roots and Christian spirituality. A position that is not always well understood, but that is of vital importance for the communion of knowledge and the medicine of the soul.
Author : Asociación GASS
Audio : Spanish
Subtitle : -