From Village Healer to Global Shaman
In the era of the “psychedelic renaissance,” Shipibo matriarch Justina Cerrano has found prosperity through her work with ayahuasca—a visionary Amazonian brew with antidepressant properties that fuels a $60 million-a-year tourism industry.
Before each ceremony, Justina Cerrano blows tobacco smoke over each participant to offer them protection. At the Arkana spiritual healing center, near Iquitos.
Text and photos by Carlos Suárez Álvarez
Originally published in eldiario.es in March 2024. This report was produced with support from the Amazon Rainforest Journalism Fund, in collaboration with the Pulitzer Center.
Forty years ago, before ayahuasca became a global phenomenon, Justina Cerrano worked as a healer for her neighbors in Vencedor, a Shipibo community on the Pisqui River in the Peruvian Amazon. At that time, she had a revelation: “Ayahuasca told me that people from all over the world would seek me out and take me to other countries. My dreams are coming true.” Today, Cerrano is the soul of the Arkana Spiritual Center, a specialized lodge near the city of Iquitos, the international mecca of ayahuasca shamanism, where the "maestra” conducts ceremonies for foreign visitors. The night before, she took ayahuasca with about twenty Americans, Slovenians, Dutch, and Thai, and sang her beautiful chants until dawn. She is tired but satisfied, grateful for the appreciation she receives and for the income: “I’m happy to earn this money working with ayahuasca. I do it for my family.”
Ayahuasca is a bitter brew with visionary properties, made from boiling a vine of the same name along with other plants, whose therapeutic potential has turned it into a surprising phenomenon. According to a recent study by the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Science (ICEERS), a foundation that promotes the responsible consumption of ayahuasca in Western contexts, in 2019 there were 232 specialized tourist establishments operating in the Amazon (especially in Peru) and Costa Rica that received more than 60,000 people that year alone, generating a business close to 60 million dollars. But this tourism is just a tiny part of the picture. According to ICEERS, today more than four million people worldwide have tried ayahuasca, and only 10% of them belong to indigenous Amazonian peoples.
In the Shipibo community of Vencedor, in the Peruvian Amazon, maestra Justina prepares a plant-based remedy for one of her patients.
the humble work of healing
Far from the spotlight of that global movement lies the Shipibo community of Vencedor, where the healer Justina was born 65 years ago and where she still lives when she is not at Arkana. She is the only healer in this idyllic village of 300 people and the most respected in the region. While she stays in Vencedor, a constant flow of patients arrives from neighboring towns. “I cannot refuse when patients come; I have learned to help,” she says. She welcomes them into her always-busy home and treats them with plant-based remedies out of vocation. The payment is modest: “For those from my Shipibo culture, I charge what they can give,” she explains. “For mestizos, I charge according to the work involved.”
The role that specialists like Justina Cerrano play in primary healthcare within their communities is fundamental: “Traditional medicines with proven quality, safety, and efficacy,” explains the WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2014–2023 document, “constitute the main, and sometimes the only, source of healthcare for many millions of people.” In Vencedor, the recently inaugurated health post remains closed for parts of the year, lacking professionals and medicines.
Ródano Vega, head of the community, denounces the “neglect” suffered by the peoples of Pisqui. Among his grievances, he highlights the poor condition of the local school. “Our children have the same rights as children in the city to have a good school,” he protests while showing a building made of rotten planks. “Our children could get hurt here; we are worried.” The importance that the Shipibos place on education is revealing: no one overlooks that integration into the market economy is inevitable, and studying is essential to face it successfully.
Justina Cerrano, her husband, and one of their sons pose next to an ayahuasca vine in the Shipibo village of Vencedor.
the AYAHUASCA business
Ayahuasca shamanism is the only form of traditional knowledge that has enabled Amazonian Indigenous peoples to achieve a privileged economic position. Maestra Justina explains that her goal is for her children and grandchildren to become “professionals” so they “won’t have to suffer.” The matriarchal tradition of the Shipibo people is embodied in this remarkable woman: mother and grandmother, cook and caregiver, breadwinner and mentor to her husband, children, nephews, and sons-in-law. She taught all of them to heal, and they now accompany her at Arkana, also earning a good salary.
This prosperity would be impossible without the contribution of Mexican national José Sáenz, founder of the Arkana Spiritual Center. Sáenz, 50, earned an MBA at Harvard and spent years working in Mexico’s hospitality sector until he suffered a depressive breakdown in 2013. He traveled to Iquitos to try ayahuasca: “It was a healing experience,” he recalls. “In one week I achieved what would have taken me years in conventional therapy.” Motivated by this transformation, in 2016 he opened Arkana near Iquitos, “a healing center that uses natural medicines, where people come to address issues of the modern world: depression, anxiety, addictions, trauma, sexual abuse. Some also come looking for direction in life.” Encouraged by the success of this initiative, Sáenz later opened a second center in Cusco and another in Mexico. A one-week retreat at the Arkana center in the Amazon costs $2,280—high compared to the average—but according to Sáenz, this ensures high safety standards.
Although researchers consider ayahuasca physiologically and psychologically safe, several deaths have occurred at Amazonian retreat centers in recent years, such as New Zealander Matthew Dawson-Clarke, who was fatally poisoned by a tobacco infusion, or Briton Unai Gomes, who suffered a psychotic episode and attacked another retreat participant, who killed him in self-defense. To prevent such incidents, Arkana has an admission process to ensure that clients do not suffer from cardiovascular issues, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder, and are not taking contraindicated medications. Additionally, ceremonies are conducted in a controlled setting with multiple facilitators and security personnel; finally, post-retreat integration services are offered to participants once they return home.
Residents of Libertad, the community adjacent to Arkana, benefit as well. “It’s a blessing,” says local Daniel Panduro, now head of security at Arkana and formerly a fisherman. “Fifteen years ago, we used to catch 40 kilos of fish per night. Lately, only five.” Seventy percent of Libertad’s families have stopped exploiting the forest to work in tourism under labor conditions rarely seen in the Peruvian Amazon. “Thanks to Arkana, many people started improving their homes, buying things like motors. Our quality of life has improved.”
The ayahuasca ceremony begins with the distribution of the brew. On the left, Luis Pérez Cerrano, son and apprentice of Maestra Justina, offers the remedy to a Thai woman.
psychedelic renaissance
Maestra Justina’s success, which is also the success of Arkana, can only be understood within the context of the “psychedelic renaissance”: a paradigm shift in psychiatry that promotes the use of what were once called “hallucinogens” to treat a range of conditions that modern pharmaceuticals have failed to resolve. Earlier this year, Australia became the first country in the world to allow the prescription of MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder, and psilocybin—the active compound in “magic mushrooms”—for depression.
In 2019, Dr. Draulio Barros de Araujo, a neurologist at Brazil’s Brain Institute, demonstrated the antidepressant effects of ayahuasca in clinical trials—one of the most conclusive among many studies highlighting the potential of this plant medicine for treating anxiety, addictions, and grief. Luke, a 30-year-old American working as a facilitator at Arkana, knows this well. Diagnosed with depression at the age of eight, addicted to Xanax by 12, and drinking heavily by 21, he confesses, “From the time I was 21 until I turned 28, there wasn’t a single day I didn’t get drunk.” On the brink of suicide, he decided to try ayahuasca, first in Denver, Colorado. “The experience changed my life.” He later traveled to Arkana, spent a month as a patient, and was soon after hired to join the staff. “I haven’t touched alcohol or any other substance since.”
In addition to ayahuasca, other plant medicines are administered during retreats at the Arkana Spiritual Center.
ceremony
Over the course of a one-week retreat at Arkana, participants drink ayahuasca four times. At night, in the maloca (ceremonial hut), a deep silence sets in, accentuated by the sounds of the surrounding jungle. Participants drink the bitter ayahuasca, grimace in disgust, and retire to their mats, where they await the effects. The dim light is turned off, and that is when the charisma of Justina Cerrano emerges. She leads the ceremony through her beautiful songs, accompanied by her sons, son-in-law, and nephew. A marvelous symphony that, according to the shamans, shapes the participants' experiences and constitutes “the medicine”—something difficult to verify in a laboratory. Soon, the first vomiting will be heard, and shortly after, someone will need to be escorted to the bathroom by the facilitators; not for nothing is ayahuasca known in the region by the graphic name “the purge.” Often, the experience is physically and emotionally intense.
After midnight, when the ceremony ends, the light reveals faces of amazement, enthusiasm, or dismay. Months later, once the experience has been processed, Matthew, a 39-year-old Canadian plumber who had suffered from depression and anxiety since his mother’s death, describes his experience as “very tough,” but says that “the anxiety is gone, and so is the sadness.” His sister Danielle, a 41-year-old financial executive, describes a life-changing transformation: “For the first time in my life, I felt my head light and my soul happy. The last ceremony was the most beautiful night of my life.” Brian, a 41-year-old actor from California, arrived at Arkana with depression, alcohol abuse, and suicidal thoughts. “I had an incredibly positive experience with ayahuasca. I no longer have suicidal thoughts, and although I still have down days, I’m not depressed like before.”
The socioeconomic profile of the participants at the Arkana retreat—professionals in midlife—aligns with the data collected by the Global Survey of Ayahuasca Drinking, a study led by the University of Melbourne that surveyed eleven thousand ayahuasca users worldwide. According to the survey, the average age of first use is 30, and two out of three users have a university or postgraduate degree, often holding executive positions or working in liberal professions. Additionally, 94% consume it in ritual contexts under the guidance of a specialist.
The morning after a ceremony, the participants in the ayahuasca retreat share their experiences in a "group circle".
EXTRACTIVE TENSIONS
The commodification of ayahuasca has allowed people like Luke, Matthew, and Brian to find relief from their depression, while also improving the economic situation of numerous Amazonian families. But it also bares its teeth: for the 800,000 people around the world who consumed ayahuasca in 2019, as noted in a report by ICEERS, it was necessary to harvest a vine that, although it can be cultivated, is usually collected from the forest. Populations of Banisteriopsis caapi, the scientific name of ayahuasca, are being depleted: the vine is becoming scarce, and its price has skyrocketed. “There used to be ayahuasca near my home,” recalls Maestra Justina, “but now we have to go farther and farther to find it.”
The overexploitation of the vine is yet another threat to the biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest and raises ethical questions for those who benefit from its trade. José Sáenz has responded by establishing a collaboration agreement with the community of Vencedor: the locals have planted 50 hectares of ayahuasca in exchange for wages, a motorboat, various tools, and a Starlink antenna that now allows them to communicate with distant relatives. According to Ródano Vega, the community’s leader, “Thanks to our maestra Justina, who has this knowledge of medicinal plants, all these benefits are coming to our community.”
Today, the Shipibo matriarch Justina Cerrano proudly shares a form of medical knowledge that was once dismissed as superstition or ignorance. She has traveled to several countries; her life and songs can be found on Spotify and YouTube. In the most unexpected way, she has secured a source of income that allows her large family to face the challenges that market integration poses for Amazonian peoples. Amid the vortex, she remains steadfast and confident, and during ceremony nights, as her grandparents did, she calls upon the spirits of the forest in search of health and well-being.
