María Sabina and the Mazatec Psilocybin Healing Rituals

Biographical records state that María Sabina Magdalena García was born on 22 July 1894 in Huautla de Jiménez, Oaxaca, Mexico, where she later died on 22 or 23 November 1985. After her father died when she was three years old, she grew up in poverty. She served her community as a Mazatec sabia, or wise woman, conducting traditional healing rituals known as veladas using entheogenic psilocybin mushrooms, particularly Psilocybe caerulescens.

Historical documentation indicates that R. Gordon Wasson participated in and recorded her velada rituals during the 1950s. This documentation brought international attention to her practices and contributed significantly to the popularization of indigenous Mexican entheogenic mushroom use among Westerners.