Why Psychedelic Justice Cannot Happen Without Indigenous Voices — Dr. Bia Labate

Dr. Beatriz (Bia) Labate — Brazilian anthropologist, prolific author of 29 books, and co-founder of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines — joins Claudiu Murgan for a wide-ranging and intellectually rigorous conversation about the history, politics, and spiritual dimensions of sacred plant medicines. Drawing on 29 years of personal ayahuasca practice, decades of fieldwork across Peru, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, and her pioneering work on social justice in the psychedelic field, Bia challenges mainstream narratives at every turn: the psychedelic renaissance is real, but only if you are telling the story from a Western biomedical perspective; prohibition is not simply about patents but is a centuries-old colonial legacy; and ayahuasca is a profound mirror, not a magic pill — as capable of inflating egos as it is of dissolving them. Candid, scholarly, and deeply passionate, this episode is an essential conversation for anyone who wants to understand what is really at stake in the global conversation about plant medicines. Contact Bia.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello everyone, welcome back to a new episode of the Spiritual Inspired Show. I am your host, Claudio Morgan. For previous episodes, please visit Oralverse Network, spiritualinspired.ca, and our YouTube channel. Brazilian anthropologist, prolific author of 29 books, and co-founder of the Chakruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines, Dr. Bia Labate, joins Claudio for a wide-ranging and intellectually rigorous conversation about the history, politics, and spiritual dimensions of sacred plant medicines. Drawing on 29 years of personal ayahuasca practice, decades of field work across Peru, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, and her pioneering work on social justice in the psychedelic field, Bia challenges mainstream narratives at every turn. The psychedelic renaissance is real, but only if you are telling the story from a Western biomedical perspective. Let's start. My guest uh today is uh Bia Labante. Uh Bia, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yes, thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

You've been very busy lately and uh very hard to uh reach you and uh settle down for this interview, and we'll talk about that as well. But I want to um start by asking you, Bia, your work bridges academic anthropology and grassroots activism. How has your formal training shaped your approach to sacred plants and psychedelic cultures?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Yes, I am uh uh traditionally I have dedicated my whole professional life to studying psychedelics. I think I have a kind of uh quite unique trajectory. It's hard to see somebody who had never had a job outside psychedelics. Uh, I practically never had one except like six months of a volunteer or uh contract operation that I had in the UN. But since my master's and PhD, and then as an experience in uh as a professor in different universities, I worked in in the Heidelberg University and in Cide in Aguascalientes, Mexico, and Ciesas uh in Guadalajara, Mexico, and then in CIIS in the US. Um, so I have in California, I have always been a researcher. I have a master's and a PhD, and I have uh focused mainly on indigenous uh uses, the interface between indigenous and non-indigenous uh plant medicines. I did research on peyote, on mushrooms, on ayahuasca, on sacred plants in general, uh, and I have also created an emphasis on social justice and talking about marginalized voices in the field of psychedelics, like queer voices, voices of women, of people of color, of immigrants, of the global south. So my whole uh career has been around studying sacred plants, studying context and populations, publishing several books, doing activism, and the work of Chakruna is a continuity to this academic training, to these publications, to the peer-reviewed articles, but it's trying to make a bridge between academia, community, and media, some kind of dialogue between the three. So not as academic and as hermetic and expensive and hard to reach and hard to understand, like academia, but also just not like a regular psychedelic society that is more like practitioners and not so much researchers or clinicians with grounded experience and publications. Uh I mean, grounded experience in academia, not experience per se. So we're trying to make you know a bridge, and then media is trying to find more dynamic language, more accessible ways to deliver academic knowledge. So shorter articles, uh shorter type titles, flashy, sexy titles, a kind of uh appealing opening image, some concern on um, you know, less references, less quotations, less footnotes, a way to digest and translate more that that knowledge, but keeping the rigor, keeping the the quality, because it's also experts uh that are trying to write for a larger audience. So it's different than just regular media that tends to be more generic. Uh, so that's more or less how Chakruna was born. Anyway, I don't know if that's what you're looking for.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yes, and uh, it's interesting that uh you didn't focus only on one uh plant, but uh you, as you mentioned, went across uh every every range from Peyota to Payahuasca and um you know San Pedro and all those uh plants that are very important for uh this uh community and especially from a healing perspective. And we know that these plants were banned by the governments uh just because the pharmaceutical industry cannot patent them. And do you see a revival these days where these plants will come to the forefront again with a medicinal um uh scope and they will be much more uh research under medical supervision for those in need?

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Yeah, just just one note that I I do not think that they were banned because the you know, only that they are hard to patent. I mean, the prohibition of sacred plants or fungi, or there's different ways to call it plant medicines, or other people use psychedelics depend on a little bit on on your background. Um, I don't think it's uh just because governments can't patent it. These are like strong legacies from colonization, you know, when uh the Spanish and the Portuguese arrived in the old world, they got to know this, some of these traditions, and uh they were immediately stigmatized and considered uh the work of the devil and a kind of superstition, or indigenous people were seen often as even non-humans, like uh there were philosophical debates on whether indigenous or black, like slaves that were brought from Africa, whether they had souls or not, whether they were humans or not, and they were very much objectified and their traditions rejected, and there's a lot of stigma. So there are deep like moral dogmas, religious dogmas uh that influenced the way that we in the West understand these traditions. And then there's also um like a whole historical discussion about this alliance between biomedicine control and legal enforcement and what some authors call the biopolitics, biopower on the controls of bodies and controls of minds of people. So there's so many different like legacies that influence and shape like prohibition, uh, that this is one of the more deepest, the deepest grounded roots uh systems that unite different countries in persecuting certain plants, certain traditions, certain minorities, certain uh populations. So just a note, I mean, I think there's certainly an influence of uh more contemporary interest in uh certain plants and patents versus communal uses or underground uses or religious uses or traditional uses. That's legitimate, but I wanted to make that remark. And whether there is a revival or not, I think there's certainly among us in the West a strong interest and revival. The idea of revival can also be uh made relative if you consider that depends on who tells the story, right? From the perspective of the West, of like let's say a male-centric, a biomedical-centric, uh West scientific western scientific perspective, there is a revival. I think if you if you tell the story from the perspective of an indigenous shaman in the Amazon, or the story from the perspective of uh uh a healer in the Wishadica tradition in Mexico in the deserts, or uh some boga practitioner in Gabon or Cameroon, there isn't a revival. I mean, this there's these traditions have always existed and continue to exist, and they exist independent and in their own merits. However, I I do think that there is an expansion uh of the use and you know spreading across the globe. Uh for sure there is a big interest in plants like ayahuasca or mushrooms that have been part of Western culture for a long time, peyote. But also we have to yeah, to just uh consider things like in perspective, and I think it's always important to go back to research. There seems to be a huge explosion, but also again, the field doesn't seem to explode so much. There's also a contraction in other directions, so it's something to further look into. Uh, then the actual numbers.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Yeah, and along the same lines, in uh 2020, the uh drug enforcement administration uh wrote a report titled Ayahuasca Risks to Public Health and Safety, and you rebutted uh all their fundings uh findings. Uh, did you hear um anything from them uh based on your own uh reply?

SPEAKER_01 10:15

No, I wish. It's like I don't think the DEA would bother to answer to our paper. Uh I do I do feel very proud about this accomplishment. This this paper, we we filed a FOIA request that is the Freedom of Information Act, and so we were supporting uh some colleagues that were uh challenging the government, and we filed with them this um request to um to investigate uh paperwork inside the government, and then we found this original report, and then we had the pleasure of uh writing a critique. I mean you can see a lot of the science uh is is done like an instrumental extension of prohibition, and you can tell that there is a very strong bias, and uh it's really not like uh a research trying to find facts and evidence, uh, but it's more trying to fit a certain ideological pursuit, and a lot of the drug war and prohibition is based on this kind of research. So, in a way, it wasn't like a surprise to find this document, but it was definitely a pleasure to find it, and it was a better pleasure to write a critique. Uh, and we did get a lot of good feedback from the community and researchers, uh, but yeah, it's a little bit the drug war is is based on this kind of random approach that they will go after a few groups and a few situations, but not all of them because they don't have capacity, and so there is always this fear that you're gonna be persecuted, but this an uncertainty uh on whether this will happen or not. And so um it's important to continue publishing and raising awareness. Doing public education is at the core of what we do.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Yes, and usually the government or these agencies will highlight a handful of uh bad instances or cases that went wrong instead of looking at the multitude uh of good ones, successful ones with amazing uh results. It's always uh the same approach with them.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Very true. It's what we call this metronymic relationship. You get one little case that is something that went wrong, and this stands for the whole. Uh, because there has been one pilot that did something stupid with mushrooms, or because there is one person that uh, you know, took this in a very unproper setting or had a pre-existing condition that wasn't screened, and this becomes representative of the problems per se, which is a very unbalanced and unfair approach compared to other drugs, uh such as tobacco or alcohol, you can certainly have you know alcohol coma or death-related episodes. I think in one regular weekend in a city, you have in a big city in any of like country, uh, you just have dozens of problematic cases, and it's not because of that that we outlaw alcohol, it's a very unfair scale. Based on again on religious and moral and cultural dogmas and stigmas that are long legacies.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Yes, and in most cases, the use of sacred plant medicine on on certain occasions will diminish the dependency on the drugs you just mentioned, tobacco and alcohol.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Yes, although you know it's also we have to be careful not to make this like distinction. This some drugs are super good and others are super bad, and these are super hard, and these are soft. We have to look very delicately. Uh, there's a lot of it depends a lot on the individual and the context. I think you can certainly have uh a non-dependent and non-problematic use to certain hard, so-called hard drugs, and you can also have a problematic use of certain sacred plants. I don't think it's solely determined by by the properties of the plant, but a lot by the context. So it's really depending on the relationship you have with the substance and the setting you are placed in. And we also have to avoid this bin, uh have to be careful to avoid this binaries, good and bad, evil and and savior. Uh there's a lot of tendency to glorify sacred plants as a kind of counter-discourse to the demonization, but we should not fall on the extreme opposite either.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Yes. And Bia, you've participated in ceremonies across many traditions. What are the most important lessons you've learned from these diverse practices?

SPEAKER_01 15:26

I mean, this is a really hard question to answer. I don't know how to answer that. Uh, you know, it's an ongoing study. I think I tried mushrooms about 35 years ago and tried ayahuasca 29 years ago. I have been drinking ayahuasca for 29 years now. I have had several phases. I had phases where I wanted to go very deep and even learn how to heal and to sing and to support, you know, a healer as his assistant. I did that for like 10 years. I participated in different traditions of ayahuasca. Uh I had phases that I I was quite skeptical of ayahuasca and I distanced myself a little bit. I never really got out of it. Uh so I think, you know, it's a it's I see it as like learning as some kind of craft, some kind of art. If you would ask a musician, you know, what it is to play music for him and what did he learn. I think it's it's a practice that I have that has helped me a lot to shape who I am, not only uh professionally, but personally. Certainly, personally, it has helped me a lot. You know, I think we all live in very challenging times, suffering uh pressures of the legacies of the systems of oppression, the legacies of colonization, of uh you know late-stage capitalism and all its paradoxes and inequalities, uh, big legacies of heteronormative and patriarchy, uh, systems of racism. And we are, you know, it's challenging times. We also have a lot of ecological crises and a lot of future uncertainties. And I always say that sacred plants, specifically ayahuasca to me, has helped me shape better my humanity and who I am as a person, uh, feeling some sense of belonging, some sense of uh meaning in in more deep existential questions about why are we here, what is life, what what exists beyond this great mystery of what is, you know, after we die, what happens, and what is our relationship to this invisible world, or this world of spirits, or of the world of ancestors, the world of um non-humans, so to speak, and what is our relationship, relationship to Earth, and how are we part of it, and you know, how we are part of uh communities, and what are you know our multiple roles into uh our different communities and also our multiple intersectional identities about who we are. Uh, this uh plants have always been deeply existential and also philosophical for me, because as an intellectual, as an academic, as a researcher, I also like to think about those things a lot. I have deep pleasure in deep, endless, speculative, philosophical discussions, and I think this plants they open up a lot of material, good material. They are good for us to think as well. And then there is the part of the aesthetics and the pleasure of the beauty, you know, the beauty of the ceremonies, the beauty of of the songs, the beauty of the traditions, uh, and the wisdom and the knowledge and and the deep uh you know worldviews and systems of knowledge of traditional people. For me, my fascination with ayahuasca has always been in hand in hand with my head researcher as a researcher of indigenous traditions and uh you know, publishing a lot of books and publishing a lot of articles, organizing conferences and trying to honor, celebrate, elevate, platform, give visibility to these traditions, understand you know the meaning behind things or how things came about. The a love and a curiosity for culture is what led me to be an anthropologist, and this is my specific area. Uh, it's very juicy. I like to say a lot that ayahuasca is not addictive, but studying ayahuasca is definitely addictive. And I've just coming out of our spiral of our latest conference, Academic Culture 2026, which we call in an endured nickname of PCU. Uh so we're just coming out of a big roller coaster marathon of a huge conference, PCU 226. Uh, and I continue to be very much in awe. We had these two very uh interesting Shipibo maestras that are just incredible beings who sort of blessed the work of Chakruna and myself, and we're on stage real, our real rock stars talking, you know, about their lives, about being mothers, about being healers, about caring for people. Uh, they open up saying that they they know what's happening in the United States, the president, and they want to help. They want to help heal. And everybody almost like cried, and it was very emotional. And there were a lot of really powerful moments. We also had uh another artist, you know, that built her whole life like with her own art. I mean, I can't tell you how many beautiful stories, traditions, and things, you know, involve this work. And I'm really honored to be able to do it and and yeah, to be here today talking to you.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Beautiful. Thank you very much for sharing that. And in fact, I just realized you are the second Brazilian on my show, Aluna Lua. She's also from Brazil, she lives in um California, and Ayahuasca saved her when she was very young. And uh she stayed on the path and is very successful, built her own community, um, does the medicine or applies the medicine a little bit different these days, but again, she evolved to her full potential because of the plants, because she realized that this is what will save her and bring her to her full potential. Um potential blooming.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

What's the name of this person? Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Aluna Alua. I will send you her contact.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Okay, I don't I think I do not know her. But yeah, for sure, ayahuasca has inspired so many of us. And it's a very intriguing and you know endless path. I think it's like this journey that you never fully arrive and you're always just learning more and more. And as you have more experience navigating ayahuasca, you also learn how to uh to be able to to like behave yourself in ceremony and and get the best out of this dialogue because it definitely involves a lot of surrender and involves a lot of faith. And you also have to ask really hard for the things you want. You have to put your part on it. You have to put your part during the ceremony, you have to follow the etiquettes, the protocols, the diets. Take this contract, if you will, with the plants seriously, uh, and having uh that discipline, those tests, those challenges, and and being able to follow them and to um dedicate yourself gives you more and more. And then of course there is the after, which is the real work uh that a lot of people like to call integration. I think I am a little bit more school, old school. Pre-internet, I am 54, will be 55 very soon, uh, next week, actually. Uh and or in two weeks, I'm more or less. Uh when I was young, I was raised without internet. I'm really glad that I had that experience. I think I I first got into a computer around like I was, I think uh it was a little computer on the corner of my university that I started to do emails. They were like those black screens with some green letters that look a little bit like a Pac-Man thing on the screen. And I was trying to do emails um and learning about it in this little corner. We had a lot of um, you know, different, I think, views of the world. I don't want to romanticize or glorify the past, but yes, ayahuasca was not spread all over, and you couldn't Google ayahuasca and go everywhere. I was actually doing my field work uh in Pucalpa about 26 years ago when I first tried to learn how to Google something, and I did Google ayahuasca when I was in Pucalpa in this little uh like cafe in Peru, which was fun. Uh, so at that time, you know, we didn't have all this language. For me, at that time, the way we frame things, and it's kind of stuck with me, is like your homework. In a way, you sort of know what you have to do, or you have that intuition, that gut feeling, you have that sense of honesty with yourself, of integrity. Um, and I think these plants help us like reach that and put us back on track and keep ourselves honest. Of course, they are not a magic pill, and not everybody that is in this path is ethical and has integrity. Quite on the contrary, we have a lot of really big egos. And with all my respects, I'm sorry to say, a lot of males with big eagles. I think there's a huge level of ayahuasca like mystification and like charisma and seduction, and people that take advantage of this position of leadership, trying to advance personal agendas that are quite selfish and uh self-centered. So there is a lot of it, but in principle, I think that ayahuasca can help a lot uh in us finding that alignment and that honesty and that integrity with ourselves, like a big mirror, really. But like a mirror, it it has all of it. It's it has the good and the bad, the ugly and the the pretty. So uh, you know, in a way it's really up to you which direction you're gonna take. I can I can tell you that to me it has helped a lot and it continues to help. It's not the solution of everything, it's an ongoing work, it's a work in progress. I feel a lot of people that are fascinated with ayahuasca they want to be healers and they think they have a huge role, they think they help others, they think they are very experienced. Uh, they think that, you know, they somehow are more advanced. It's just a phenomenon. I have seen it over and over again. There's something about people getting incredibly vain with their ayahuasca experiences and thinking that they are kind of you know special because it's really profound. So I think how do we hold that power, that magic, that impact, that enchantment, that awe, that adventure into this other world, to the spirits, to the Amazonian mysteries, to the forests, to, you know, to all of it, and want not to become like indigenous, not to claim to be a healer, not to want to, you know, be the one saving everybody, like enjoy it, appreciate it without trying to appropriate it, and without thinking that you are on some kind of like special mission that ayahuasca told you something, because ayahuasca tells a lot of things to a lot of people. So it's a very interesting arena, uh, and it's it's it's been quite a journey.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Yes, and I discuss about all these aspects you mentioned in my introduction to the next book, uh Dreaming with the Plants, which is all about shamanism and sacred plant medicine, which will come out in October. So I'll give people, as you mentioned, the good, the bad, the ugly, so they understand uh what the benefits are, when can be used, in what type of uh circumstances. So um I hope it will become like a compendium for those who are interested, and they will read uh in my interviews with uh those in this community which are very experienced, they created their own communities, um, they practice sacred plant medicine in a canteen and uh supervised environment, so people can learn a lot about that as well. And going back to what you mentioned, ceremony and traditions, and you are from uh Brazil and you know Peru is nearby. How are the there are there any differences in terms of the icaros they are uh singing, the the like curanderera and curanderos, uh how they prepare the medicine, anything significant?

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Oh yeah, there are a lot of different traditions of ayahuasca, like there's dozens of them, and each one has their own flavor, so to speak. I have had a lot of experience with Santodaimi. I also attended a lot of uh UDV, Union do Vegetal ceremonies. Uh, I've attended a lot, the so-called scene of the neo-ayyahuasca groups, or neoyayahuasqueros is a term that I coined in my masters that was kind of adopted by the field in Brazil. Uh, that's to speak about the new traditional uses. Uh, when ayahuasca arrives in the big centers in the late 70s, early 80s in Brazil, it starts to combine with different modalities such as artistic expressions or uh therapeutic expressions, western western uh eastern philosophies, or even other works like people working with homeless people and ayahuasca and all kinds of combinations. I studied that in my masters and in my PhD, uh, I studied the indigenous Peruvian mestizo uh and indigenous tradition of vegetalismo. So the title of my PhD is ayahuasca mamancuna merci beaucoup about the internationalization and diversification of Peruvian Amazonian vegetalism. Uh, and then I studied a lot this interface between like indigenous uh you know gringos, so to speak, like people from the global north going to places like Peru or Colombia or Brazil, and also the shamans coming out and going on tours and tending to populations in the West. Uh, I discuss a lot this intersection, and I have had uh, I think my my first trip to Peru was in 1997. I have been going there. Uh, you know, I I try to go at least once a year uh to the Amazon or you know, do about one or two or three retreats or diets per year. Uh so I have been going for years, and my favorite modality that I have, you know, hold closest to my heart, I think like many people is Shipibo, uh shamanism, and absolutely adore that format. But I've also sat with different indigenous peoples uh in been in Colombia three times and uh also helped a friend uh lead ceremonies in Brazil, a Huny Queen young man for a few years. Uh, not me leading, he was leading, I was just helping him support with the organization. I had I was sitting with a mean being the assistant of a vegetalista, mestizo vegetalista, Peruvian in Brazil for 10 years. So there's a lot of commonalities. I also have a little booklet called uh opening the portals of heaven, ayahuasca, um ayahuasca Brazilian music. We're trying to make this comparative analysis through the music and find um, you know, uh what is common, like do the hymns and the shamadas, the chants of the UDV, do they have legacies uh from the Ikatos or the Mestizo sort of chanting? Uh I'm sorry, I feel I'm talking a lot about myself and not answering your question. Uh it's just that it's really hard. It's a big question. There's different traditions. I think some of them are more like festive and kind of have musical instruments and are sort of healing through happiness and through like celebration, and others are more like you know, in the dark, in the silence, and kind of deeper inside, and it's more like going to the depth like of the forest, if you will. Uh, so there's you know different chants, different different ways to conduct the ceremonies. You know, there's commonalities like normally doing limpias or you know, cleansings or passes or things like that are happening in different traditions. The fact that you sing, and I think the concepts behind it, this idea that you know ayahuasca is like a plant spirit, that it's like an agent, uh, a being that has intentionality, that has some kind of subjectivity, that has some kind of personality, or you know, it's it's like deeply inside, it's like a human. It has its own idiosyncrasis, and you have to you have to learn how to communicate with this plant spirit or this ally or this relative uh of yours, and you have certain disciplines and certain rules to follow, and you have a guide that is more experienced, and that is a sort of master of this relation and kind of intermediary between the realm of the humans and the non-humans, and uh is responsible for the translations and for these trips going into this other world and coming back because it's this ability to be in that state and to to journey into these realms, but also to come back that makes uh the whole difference. Because if you're just going there and you and you stay there and you're lost, it could be even dangerous. You could like become non-human, or you could you know go to the world of the ancestors, like there is a level of danger and a level of respect, and a lot of level, I think also of understanding uh this duality between light and shadow and and uh you know healing and harm that is kind of common to different traditions. I don't know, there's a lot to say. I'll stop.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Yes, yeah. I mean I had my own share of uh both sides of uh taking uh Mother Aya. So uh yes, I I have my own experience with that. And uh while in Colombia, did you work with um the Kogi as well?

SPEAKER_01 35:37

No, I never went to any Kogi. I I I I was a lot. I had a friend, I have a friend, Herman Zuluaga. Uh he he is on the outskirts of um Bogota about one hour. I had another friend, Jimmy Weiskopov. I did trips visiting them. I also worked on a documentary, uh, so I had a little bit of different Inga, camsetta, different traditions, uh sat with different people uh throughout the years. I worked on this documentary with the Italian crew that we went filming. We went to Leticia as well. Uh but no, I have never been with the Kogi.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

And have you studied the Noya Rao plant?

SPEAKER_01 36:23

I have dieted different plants. I have not dieted New Arao per se.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Because I heard that is um quite an interesting uh experience also done in Peru. Because I interviewed uh Carlos Tanner, which is the founder of the Ayahuasca Foundation, and that's his bread and butter, pretty much. And you wrote uh, as you mentioned, uh many books. Uh, which one has been the most challenging to write, but had uh the most impact?

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Well, each book is a little bit of its own life. I actually had this very big trip on like not my last diet, but the one before. Uh, then I had a whole book trip for hours and days where I was revisiting every single book as and every single book was a kind of live creature that had its personality. Uh, you know, I don't have children, and I'm always very like amazed by people that have children. It must be wonderful, but also yeah, very challenging. And I I often like to see like parents mentioning, you know, the personalities of children. They each one have a different one. It's kind of funny and and curious because they are often like from the same parents, and how do does each one become its own thing? So I think that you know, a book like other creations, or you know, I feel artists are more like the the piece of art becomes its own thing. The books they tend to gain its own life. It's hard to explain. They sort of you have a vision and you have a theory and you have a plan, but it it becomes something. It's like you're you're helping something to emerge, something to become. And the process is not clear since when you started. So you uh you started, you know, with a certain idea and it it shapes up. I will mention here one book that was extremely challenging to publish was our book, Ayahuasca y Salut. I think this book was the book that took me more years. I co-edited it with my great friend José Carlos Bozo, uh, who is an independent um researcher these days. He used to work in ISEERs, and he he is a pharmacologist. Well, he's a psychologist that did a PhD in pharmacology with Jordi Riba, and we had very different approaches. He came for a more from a more biomedical uh and pharmacological perspective, and I was an anthropologist, and we had a lot of intellectual disagreements, but it was also a lot of interesting intellectual conversations. He's definitely been some kind of mentor to me uh in my understandings of the whole biomedical uh part of it. I've always tried to be very interdisciplinary and be an anthropologist, talking to an audience of medical doctors, psychologists, pharmacologists, health professionals, counselors, and that kind of thing. In all my books, I've always tried to have an interdisciplinary approach and have a session on the science, you know, and try to, I have done books that were more like on the science side of things, that is less my interest, but also trying to attend to this public interest. For example, uh ayahuasca healing or the therapeutic use of ayahuasca. But this book with him was hard because uh only not only of the intellectual things, but uh we had challenges with the publisher. Uh, and you know, it's very hard to publish in Spanish. There's not a lot of people also that is are interested in this. And we went through different phases with the book and with the chapters. Anyway, it took forever. Uh, but I think it's a really good collection of articles. Uh, and I have this colleague in high regards, we know each other, I don't know, more than maybe 20 years or 18 years or something. Uh, and then later on, I think uh he got more interested in studying global health and studying, you know, more uh public health, global, global study, uh, global health, and kind of uh came closer to my interests. So I'm proud of this book because he helped me shape who I am, and I I I hope I helped shape him a little bit. He's a very prolific author, and he has published a lot. Uh, like he's a publishing machine, and so that's you know, that's one book that I can mention. Another book that I can mention is um our book, Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond, that has a very beautiful cover by my wife, Clancy Kavner. That is a very strong collection talking about the globalization of ayahuasca and different modalities. Uh, I think that's probably one of the most rigorous books and also definitely the most prestigious because it's with Oxford University Press. Then you have my recent books, uh uh, our recent books, not only me, me and my colleagues, co-editors, with Synergetic Press. We have our, you know, we have our uh trilogy, Query Psychedelics, Psychedelic Justice, and Women in Psychedelics that are shorter articles with more uh you know, more accessible language following this style of Chakruna that I mentioned in the beginning. So articles like the materials we publish in our website, I think that they have been quite influential. Uh, then I have yeah, different books. I I have one on psychedelic healing and culture that is meant to be a sort of interface between anthropology and biomedicine as well. Uh, that I feel it's it's been quite influential, has some really strong essays looking like an anthropological look on how the science around psychedelics is is being done. This book was based on the psychedelic uh plant medicine track that I curated in the psychedelic maps conference, psychedelic science 2017. Uh so the way I conceptualized that track was already thinking of a collection trying to fill a gap, a gap that exists uh in the literature uh with uh you know with the publications. Then we have some more strong, like heavy drug policy, harsh, kind of cold books, uh the politics of drugs and and drug policy in the Americas is of that period, have one drug policy in Latin America and the Caribbean, those those were books that are part of the legacy of my years of working drug policy in Mexico, uh doing some like more uh heavy and more quantitative and more like drug policy work that is less on shamanism, ritual, religion. Uh, and I have an influential book also in Spanish of my years of Mexico that is about different drugs in different sacred plants. Uh, I don't like to call those drugs. Uh, in in Mexico, ritual. Religion and tradition. That's an important book. We have a huge book on peyote. That's also one of the more influential pieces of my years in Mexico. Between working and living there, it was eight years of my life. So that's a really impressive book. I have a recent book with uh Sandra Goular on the ritual use of sacred plants in different countries of the Americas, and we have our version, new version of that in English, psychedelic plant, psych psychedelic uh plant medicines of the Americas, that is going to be launched by North at uh North Atlantic Book uh in May 26. But we had pre-copies for sale at our conference. And I have a book that I absolutely adore uh drug policy prohibition and religious freedom, regulating traditional drug uses. It's looking at how different drugs, I'm using the word drugs here very loosely, psychoactive substances. It's hard to find a common good word, uh that you know are used traditionally, like cat or salvia or peyote or mushrooms or ayahuasca, uh San Pedro, but how these drugs, the substances have been used in certain settings, and how is the process of translation into the Western biomedical and legal frameworks, and how this transition is is not simple and is uh just uh you know challenging because the the categories don't quite translate, it doesn't match. And also, what how is it that you define religion? That is a very you know, it's a passion book for myself, and I think I'm just I can go on forever, as I say, it's 29 books and three special journal editions. The the special journal editions with Dr. Monica Williams and Sonia Faber, Dr. Sonia Faber on like racial justice and uh the you know psychedelics and and racialized, marginalized populations, they have been quite influential in shaping discussions around this topic in the fields. And I think the most important and perhaps more visible book is the in Portuguese is the use of ayahuasca. Uh the ritual use of ayahuasca. It's called The Ritual Use of Ayahuasca. It's based on my first conference, which I created in 1997. Uh uh that you know, it became a kind of Bible, if you will, of the topic and got reviews at the time in English journals, which was prestigious and uh unexpected, and it really helped set a lot the framework for the entire field. And this one, the this other one that I mentioned about music, I really like it. It's kind of you know thin and simple and straightforward. And my own book that I got a prize for, The Ritual Use of the Reinvention of the Use of Ayahuasca in urban centers, that was my master's. It was a book that I uh I enjoyed a lot. Um, yeah, sorry. Wow, quite prolific.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Impressive.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

It's impressive, it's like a mother talking about uh, you know, about about their favorite children or something. Each one has a story. I want to say that when Chakruna tried to apply for the IRS to get a 501c3 status, they rejected us because they thought we were a public, you know, we're trying to make a facet to sell books. And I said, no, they're all my books. And then we had to like challenge them. We had to put all the contracts of all the books in Spanish, English, Portuguese. We had a few books in um Germany. They the contracts uh I got all of this contracts, I translated that time. We didn't have AI, translated all of it. It was like over 180 pages and a back and forth of several months, and then we got we got author authorization uh of you know the IRS to to be a nonprofit because it was coming across as we're trying to pretend to be a nonprofit to sell books. Uh I think that's kind of funny.

SPEAKER_00 48:42

Bia, what's next uh for you and for um Shakruna organization?

SPEAKER_01 48:49

Oh, that's a really good question. As I say, we're coming out of our big conference, uh psychedelic culture. Um a lot of different like media stories are coming out, and we have to um um like define I have to put a bunch of materials out, uh, you know, different stories are coming out, and we have to get the videos. There's a lot of post-production things that that would need to be done. Last Glorious Parts, you know, follow-up. It was three entire days with three simultaneous tracks. We had two workshops, we had uh three parties, one big party, one fundraising dinner, and one speakers and sponsors dinner, two workshops and 56 panels. Wow, a huge amount of information, and a huge amount, over 200 speakers. So it's a lot of post-production things. Uh, we had our Instagram account banned by Meta. Uh we tried to appeal it. We hired a lawyer, we sent a very good response. Uh, they did not give it back to us, and so we uh, you know, we had to lose that Instagram account. Chakruuna Latino America had over 10 years and over 10,000 followers. It was a big loss. We are mourning that loss, but we also decided to open a new account and start over again. Uh so now I'm planning to launch a few things in Portuguese and Spanish and giving a little push to our Chakruna Latinoamerica um branch and trying to cultivate a new Instagram account. So I hope you can help with the show announce it. Also, hope invite everybody to join Chakruna as a member. We have member-only activities and circles. We are entirely grassroots self-funded organization. We're doing quite unique work. Uh, it's been a real big effort, and it's just our own blood and sweat and tears. I'm also, again, super proud and super grateful to be doing this work. Arrived here in the United States nine years ago. Uh, didn't have like any kind of family support here, or you know, friends from high school or university or big cousins and uncles to help me start everything from zero with my wife, Clancy, uh, who's a clinical psychologist, co-founder of Chakruna. The Chakruna team is a lot of Brazilians, Mexicans, and American Gen Z. We also have a few people in Europe. Uh, it's a lot of hard work and self-funded organization. So we're trying to improve all our systems as well. You know, there's a lot of things that go into creating a nonprofit, a lot of compliance issues. The United States is very strict. Uh, nonprofits have a lot of rules. So we're just looking into uh improving a lot of our methods. We're also working on a lot of different books. We're working on a a book on yay, how original. What are how what an idea, a new book. Yes, I kind of like book addicted. It's you know, we like to do like mapping the fields and doing collections that help advance the conversation to another level. I think the book Queer and Psychedelics is also a great example of this, which is a you know something that Chakruna definitely has a huge pioneering work in advancing this, and this book has certainly been very influential in creating a whole new generation. So we're also launching a new website. Uh, we're creating, you know, changing a little bit the narrative and the programs. The the new website has four programs, which is education and honor, tradition, and culture, and some of our uh indigenous reciprocity work is going to be placed under this new program, and then fostering community and incubating leadership. Uh, we have a fiscal sponsorship program and we have an internship program, we have a membership program, and yeah, just keeping all the the org alive. I'm very you know proud of where we arrived. We're also arriving to our 10th anniversary in I think November 2026. It will be 10 years since we published our first three articles on what is now Chakruna Institute. At the time it was born only as a Chakruna blog, born in Mexico. Actually, before that, we had our other site, which was Drogas, Politicas and Cultura, Drug, Drug Politics and Culture, which was started exactly like this publishing short articles of academics. I started to publish articles of the conference we were doing on Brazil and Mexico in Guadalajara on drug policies at the time. Uh, and we had that blog, and then we created a collective that existed for like three years, and that migrated into becoming Chicrina Latinoamica. So it's it's this entity with a lot of branches, a lot of people, a lot of collaboration, a lot of love, a lot of spirit of service. You know, we feel it's really important to keep advancing this work with sincerity, keeping the to at the at at as the time passes and more entities collapse, and the field continues to have deep issues with funding and deep issues with uh institutional and professional advancement, like even opening a bank account can be extremely challenging. Insurance, all these things because of the stigma and the scheduling system systems, they are they continue to be real. So as time passes and we like manage to escape all the attacks and all the crazy things that exist with you know compliance issues and uh just hate around like this substances and prejudice and you know again.

SPEAKER_00 55:00

Yeah, more education is required for sure.

SPEAKER_01 55:03

Uh say again.

SPEAKER_00 55:04

I said more education in this field is required.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

Yeah, so as we continue to advance and continue to exist, it's like the longer you exist, you kind of start becoming a legend, and we're coming across as a pillar of the of the community because we're managing to stay afloat. I think the big challenge, frankly, is to manage to stay afloat. It's a very new field with a lot of problems, a lot of challenges, and a lot of virgin areas, a lot of like things that need to be done. But it's also a field with a lot of opportunities. Uh, so I want to conclude by just inviting everybody to join us in this movement to check out our newsletter. You can follow me on Instagram, La Bate Bia, uh, or LinkedIn. And you know, Chikruna has four websites. We have uh Psychedelic Culture, Indigenous Resprosity Initiative, Chikruna Institute, and Chakrina Latino America. I also have my website, Bia Labate Net, uh, and follow us in our newsletter, join our membership. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

Thank you very much, Bia, for all your uh work and um initiatives and for bringing this uh knowledge to the world. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 56:16

Thank you. I appreciate the invitation. Take care, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 56:20

And to my viewers, thank you for uh watching. Uh share it, leave a comment, and until next time, love and gratitude.