In 2024, 13 years of struggle and resistance of the Wixárika people will mark in the defense of their sacred Wirikuta territory. 13 years ago, a series of extractive projects began in that territory located in the state of San Luis Potosí, and since then the resolution of the legal opinion has been awaited based on an injunction that the Wixárika people raised against the mining concessions offered to several foreign companies. The projects are on hold pending the outcome of the resolution, but this will change in the following months.
Wirikuta, which means “origin of the universe,” is one of the five sacred points of the Wixárika people along with San Blas, Nayarit in the west, Cerro Gordo, Durango in the north, Isla de los Alacranes, Jalisco in the south, and their own territory in which they live in the center. According to their cosmogony, a long time ago, when the world was immersed in darkness, the deities made a pilgrimage to Wirikuta in search of enlightenment. There they found the light and Tamatsithe blue deer and older brother, became hikuri (peyote) to be able to transmit this wisdom to his people. Since then, the Wixárika people (known as Huichols, but the correct term is Wixárika) have made pilgrimages year after year to Wirikuta to meet the hikuri and receive the necessary teachings and guide the communities according to their culture and traditions.
The Wixárika or Wixaritari emphatically affirm that their spiritual and material existence depends absolutely on Wirikuta, so that, if it disappears, which would happen if the mining exploitation of the 78 existing concessions were carried out, it would mean the end of their culture and their death. as a people. Hence the importance of paying attention to the resolution of the ruling, because from now on there are only two possibilities: that the ruling is favorable to the Wixárika communities or that it is not. If the second happens, it will be necessary to continue the fight from different fronts.
Although mining exploitation is the greatest threat to Wirikuta, there is another danger perhaps more subtle but equally harmful to Wixárika survival: extractivist spirituality. I am referring specifically to the groups that travel to Wirikuta to extract peyote, often in large quantities, for the purposes of mystical tourism. These groups are made up mostly of foreigners in search of the meaning they do not find in their industrialized societies in the United States, Canada or Europe, and of nationals who practice shamanism in its version. new age known as neoshamanism. The excessive exploitation of peyote by these groups is becoming a real problem both on a cultural and spiritual level for the Wixárika, who face increasing difficulties when locating peyote, but it is also beginning to represent an environmental risk. because it is in danger of extinction.
This case is not an isolated event. It comes from a long history of socio-religious transformation that we can trace back to the 19th century, when a series of spiritual transformations occurred in Europe, including the beginning of the decline of religious institutions, the individualization of spiritual practices and the emergence of orientalism. . However, the real boom of this type of spirituality occurred in the sixties of the 20th century with the birth of the so-called new age and new religious movements. These terms are not free of problems, since on many occasions they are used to discredit movements simply because they are critical of the institutionalization and academization of spirituality. However, one cannot deny the existence of a matrix of postmodern spiritual meaning that, in its enormous diversity, shares certain characteristic features such as the emphasis on the sacralization of the self, the constant mobility between different spiritual practices, syncretism, among others.
The first wave of this type of spiritual phenomena typical of the sixties mainly recovered Eastern teachings and practices, which had already had European and American fascination since the middle of the previous century. However, it was quickly followed by a fascination with the traditions of indigenous peoples, especially those linked to entheogens and altered states of consciousness. In other spaces I have delved into the critical aspects that I consider salvageable from this type of phenomenon, but also its limits. in my book Reconnect us. Beyond the monopoly of religion (Kairós, 2023), I emphasize that the great danger I find is their tendency to want to radically differentiate themselves from traditional religion by considering themselves supposedly free of all dogma, when in reality they do not represent an authentic alternative to religion but rather an alternative religion, that is , they repeat features typical of the great historical religions simply from contexts, tools and subjects constituted in properly postmodern ways.
When Christianity arrived in Abya Yala, it condemned traditional practices as satanic or primitive. The towns and communities were forced to convert to survive, sometimes managing to keep their practices secret or through syntheses that integrated their own traditions with those imposed by the evangelizers. Today there is another type of violence against the spiritualities and cultures of indigenous peoples, but it no longer comes from the contempt of the colonizer, but, paradoxically, from their appreciation. In other words, the current cultural colonization that people experience does not occur exclusively through external violence that wants to strip them of their ways of life to impose those of others, but rather through the appreciation of these spiritual and cultural values that become an object consumption and, therefore, open themselves to the extractivist market, charlatanism and the misuse of ancestral techniques. This discourse worships the “cosmic Indian”, maintaining discrimination and classism towards contemporary communities.
The debate is open. Can only those who are part of an indigenous people learn from sacred plants? What does it mean to be or identify as indigenous? Shouldn’t they be universal teachings that all people should be able to learn from? These types of questions are, in my opinion, really valid questions in a multifaceted problem with no easy solution. Personally, I have been able to witness everything: diversity of people doing very profound spiritual work using sacred plants, confrontations on the verge of blows between members of indigenous communities and urban and white neoshamans for arguing about cultural appropriation, marakames (spiritual guide) saying that only the Wixárikas can really learn from peyote since it is typical of their culture and that the peyote that is grown in Wirikuta is the one that brings wisdom, not some peyote grown elsewhere.
My quick appreciation of this issue, since I consider it to be a matter that requires much more depth of analysis, is that we need an interreligious and intercultural dialogue in this regard. I have no doubt that original traditions have a lot to teach us urbanites. Our ability or inability to learn from these traditions, in my view, will define the survival or not of the human race. An interreligious and intercultural dialogue in terms of mutual fertilization between sociocultural and spiritual realities can be one of the urgent paths to regenerate the spiritual sense and alternative ways of life in the midst of the civilizational and climatic collapse in which we find ourselves.
«The current cultural colonization that people experience does not occur exclusively through external violence that wants to strip them of their ways of life to impose those of others, but rather through the appreciation of these spiritual and cultural values that become objects of consumption» .
Elías González Gómez
The problem, however, is that this is not the approach that predominates among these groups that visit Wirikuta and extract peyote in large quantities, either to consume on site or move it to different Mexican cities or abroad. On the contrary, these types of searches are permeated by an experiential notion of spirituality that leads to consuming peyote or ayahuasca whenever possible; of spiritual materialism that seeks its own benefit from spiritual practices; spiritual tourism, reduction of spirituality to wellnessamong others. Of course there are many cases of moderate and ritually more appropriate use of peyote by non-Wixárikas, but here I am referring to those who consume it under logic and quantities that turn spirituality into an extractivist mechanism. Therefore, without neglecting the great fight against the mining companies, particularly in Wirikuta, we must pay attention to this phenomenon of extractivist spirituality because slowly but constantly it is bleeding not only this but other sacred territories in Latin America and the world. whole.
Photo: Lalis Jiménez
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