I was watching this talk, and I was struck by the part which I am linking below (1:09:07):
https://youtu.be/tXVEssTtdSM?t=4147In this segment, she is drawing a parallel between the vegetal processes of San Pedro and the psychotropic effects of its ingestion by humans. She points out that the cactus plant, as it grows, will change its structure to respond to weather conditions. So, if the plant lives long enough, those structural changes become a record of the climate. And then, she goes on to project anthropomorphic agency on the mescaline chemical, saying that the mescaline is "learning" from the people who ingest it, and adds to its "memory" information about modern diseases of the mind (like depression, etc), which then enable it to help other people more efficiently.
I can definitely appreciate that this could have been a nice fairy tale to tell a few centuries ago. But, I don't think it works in 2023, because it is contradicted by modern common sense. It just sounds very naive. It's like when a contemporary composer studies Mozart and then tries to write a piece in a similar style. It just sounds naive. Because you can feel it's a modern attempt at reviving an old style, without the context in which the original style developed.
It's true that we desperately need frameworks for understanding the effect of psychedelics, in order to amplify their benefits. But we we need those frameworks to be authentic and relevant to our contemporary conditions; instead of imitating styles from millennia ago, and from other cultures.