Communal Work, Ceremonial Becomings, and Rights to Knowledge: An Interview with Elías García Méndez

Elías García Méndez delivered the morning keynote for Psychedelic Intersections 2025. García Méndez is a Mazatec educator and founder of Casa Adobe Galería, an art gallery and cultural center in Huautla de Jiménez, Mexico. Casa Adobe highlights the survival and endurance of the Mazatec community's language, artistic expression, and cultural life in the state of Oaxaca. García Méndez sat down with Andrea Sánchez Castañeda, CSWR Postdoctoral Fellow of Indigenous Plant Medicine Traditions of the Americas, to reflect on his keynote, the work of Casa Adobe, and the significance of sacred plants within the Mazatec community.

Andrea Sanchez Castañeda: Your keynote at “Psychedelic Intersections” focused on the Mazatec word and concept,  xábasen. Could you explain why you chose to speak about this topic and tell us more about what xábasen means? 

Elías García Méndez: I chose this topic because xábasen, a form of community work, fundamentally represents what we do as a family. Work is never purely individual, though there are times when it appears to be the work of just one person. As an individual, I work for the community by investing my effort, time, and resources. As a family practice, xábasen happens less often nowadays. Elders—people over 40 or 50—still practice xábasen, but their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren do not. The practice has declined significantly. 

I also decided to address this topic because it represents what we’re doing at the gallery. We don’t charge an entrance fee; our goal is for people to visit and feel comfortable. We welcome them and remain present with them. It’s a continuous responsibility—we’ve received visitors as late as 9 pm, and we respond. This is our work—our xábasen is to serve them. We are fortunate that the gallery operates within our home, allowing us to dedicate that space and time to it. 

The concept of xábasen, which means placing the work at the center of the community, makes us, as individuals, secondary. The work itself takes precedence. However, accepting this secondary role has created internal tensions within the family and among our team members because it’s a heavy burden. The gallery’s work mainly involves preserving Mazatec culture—a tremendous responsibility that demands a lot of energy and constant attention. More and more, people and institutions recognize our gallery as a cultural center, and through this recognition, xábasen extends into other areas. 

All of this is grounded in the painters who helped establish Casa Adobe. Every time someone asks me how it started, I always say it was thanks to an artistic xábasen. Painters like Asunción and René Alvarado, Sergio Nieto, Miasma, José Luis Jacinto, and all of us who are part of this project, we’re doing our community work. 

When you go to a xábasen in the community, no one provides monetary compensation. The work is not transactional; it’s entirely voluntary, we expect nothing in return. The gallery follows the same principle. Everyone contributes voluntarily.  For example, we just held a conference on the Mazatec huipil,¹ and no one was charged. We do not seek to profit — we’re here to give back. People come and say, “I want to help with this,” “I brought bread,” “I brought this or that.” That’s the true xábasen: we all help each other. 

Few people currently practice xábasen. Young Mazatec people leave for urban areas to study or work, and rarely return to participate in community life. This exodus threatens our culture. Their children will not learn these customs, develop affection for their neighbors, or become aware of community needs, and within a few years, this will disappear.  

That’s why we want to show that xábasen can be done in many ways. For example, researchers arrive from around the world. They complete master’s degrees, theses, even pharmaceutical research, obtaining what they sought, but they do not share that knowledge with the community. They take it, and God knows how it’s being used. This is not xábasen. As a gallery, we invite researchers who have developed products or knowledge to return to the community and share it. For example, a student from Harvard, Henry Munn, came to research Mazatec archaeology. He wrote his book, published it, and even married a Mazatec woman.² His work exists, and some of us know about it, but most people here don’t. But the fact that the book exists is valuable—we can access it. That’s a form of xábasen, giving something back and sharing it. Other researchers have contributed parts of their work to the community, like Munn did. 

That’s what we’re looking for: people who understand that this work needs to return to its source. I also think we can draw a parallel with what happens in a healing ceremony. Everyone involved in the ceremony to heal someone is doing a spiritual xábasen. And each of those people calls upon specific deities, who in turn help each other to heal the one in need. 

ASC:  I wanted to ask you about the importance of territory. What is the role of the land for xábasen? And why is it so important that this kind of community work happens specifically on this land? 

EGM: When research is carried out here, people don’t just take away some data or a series of facts. They are also taught the language of the community and its way of thinking. They take the warmth of the Mazatec people with them. They take the richness of our biodiversity—images, knowledge, so many things. It’s never just what they write down. That’s why I think it’s so important for those research projects to be brought back to the community. As a teacher who works with other teachers and with students, I see how little we know about our own community. There are no spaces where this work is shared. The municipality doesn’t invest in a place to collect and make that information public.  

And as teachers, we often don’t take the time to research. The curriculum is already established, and the students have no ability to relate what is taught in school to their experiences outside.  A clear example is medicinal plants—it’s easier to go to the pharmacy, but they don’t know that we have a wealth of medicinal plants, and that with a tea made from a specific leaf or root, you can cure yourself, and not spend much money. For me, it’s essential to give back to the communities what belongs to them. Just like with medicinal plants, many pharmaceutical companies have come here to take advantage of that knowledge.  

We, or our grandparents and ancestors, already know the power of each plant. But that knowledge was lost slowly as our ancestors died, and nothing was ever recorded. Right now, we’re gathering information ourselves so we can have it in the gallery for people to come and see. We’ve had many teachers come and say, “I didn’t know about the Mazatec agricultural calendar,” or “I didn’t know about this plant.” It makes me think: we live here —how can we not know these things? 

This is why it’s such an important part of our work, and if a researcher or a visitor wants to come here, we always open our doors for them to do their work. We also ask them to give something back, to settle accounts with the community. This knowledge is being folklorized. It’s turning us into a kind of spectacle, and it’s not taken seriously as our “natural wealth.”  

ASC: I resonate with many of the things you’ve said, because they’re similar to the thoughts I’ve had in the community I work with. There is a fascination with plants that are seen as more spiritual, or that are thought to hold some special power. The role of plants in daily life, as part of traditional medicine, is overlooked. 

I’d like to return to the theme of xábasen. During your keynote, you closed by reflecting on environmental destruction, saying, “We must do work together as a community, there is still time.”  What sort of acts do you see that xábasen could contribute to slowing or resisting the human destruction of the planet and its biodiversity? How do you think that sort of communitarian work can have an effect?  

EGM: What we are all living through right now is a catastrophe, and we are witnessing, day by day, the changes happening to our environment. My community suffers from these effects every year. The loss of biodiversity is hitting us hard, and it’s not caused solely by us, but by the whole world. We must create a new kind of person that is conscious of their surroundings, who knows that they live on borrowed land, and that this land has an owner—a deity who was here before them—and who understands that every action, for good or for ill, will have an effect on the community. 

When you work, when you use your energy, that energy converges with the energy of that deity, that God who was here before us. When you realize this, you become more mindful of not harming our Mother Earth. In our community, we have deep respect for the chikones, the guardians of the hills. They are like intermediate deities who protect the flora and the fauna. They are spirits who watch over our physical and spiritual spaces. But no one respects them anymore. People do as they please—they cut down trees, they build wherever they wish, and there is no respect. When someone knows that a deity is present, they are more careful and cautious about what they do. But very few people do this. Community work (xábasen) is not only between physical people, but also between people and spiritual beings. They make us see and feel them, and they make us realize that there is someone who lives here, so I can’t come and destroy what belongs to him. There should be a communion between these two states—our physical realm, and their spiritual realm.  

This should be an urgent priority for us: to return in a new way to the root of respecting this land, and teaching the future generations that every time you go to a well, to a river, to a tree, you respect them. That’s all there is—respect. You can contribute with simple actions toward change.  

I believe that the whole world is suffering the effects of climate change. If we don’t commit to the community work of protecting all of our natural wealth, it will all collapse soon. We must be grounded in reality, not living in a bubble-world where everything is happiness—a Disneyland world of bliss. I think we must be concerned about all of us, especially those of us who are teachers or in institutions that are shaping these new people. This is what I most want people to hear. 

ASC: Following up on what you just said about the role of teachers, would you say there is a relationship between the territory, the work of the community, and the training or preparation of the curandero or the chota chijne?  

EGM: Wise one (sabio).  

ASC: Yes, wise ones. Could you tell us about the training of wise ones, and the role the territory plays in their training?  

EGM: The wise ones are people who must have a very close relationship with the community, and they always fulfill their reason for being as healers [curanderos]. Like any deity, they do not charge for their work. I can tell you that the true healers do not take payment for curing people.  

That is the role they were given by virtue of being healers. That is their job, the basis on which they should work for the community. When they start to profit, their own community becomes aware of it and prefers not to come to them for this reason.  

A healer doesn’t have a sign outside their house that says, “I’m a healer, come for cures and cleansings.” Healers stay away from that kind of publicity. The healer knows what their work is; they know they shouldn’t charge. That’s why the moment they start charging, the community pulls away from them. 

There are people who go to healers precisely because they have the gift of curing the community. Those with few resources can turn to a healer, and they can trust they will be healed there. But when they start to charge, the ones who come to them are the tourists, the foreigners, those who need an “experience.” This cleansing isn’t bad, but it’s something that’s discussed a lot here within the community. 

Healers don’t go around showing off or advertising what they can do. Instead, they keep themselves in a constant state of purification, meditation, staying in balance with Mother Earth, working with her. These are aspects that aren’t mentioned much in academic books about healers. Instead, they focus on the person who performs a ceremony, or a description of the ceremony. Researchers don’t live with the healer, they don’t understand their daily work, their ongoing practice of meditation and everything else involved. For the healers I’ve known, there’s a certain respect. 

ASC: You mentioned your journeys to Peru, to Egypt, and into the future in your sessions with a curandero during your keynote. Could you share more about these journeys? 

EGM: This story is a bit long, but I will try to summarize it.  

When I went to Egypt, I was with my brother; no healer was present. He already had experience with mushroom journeys. I went with him because of the trust between us. It wasn’t something I did at a young age; I first ate the mushrooms when I was about 23. I never felt the need to consume them before. But I felt the moment had arrived, and I said, “I’m Mazatec, and one way or another, I have to learn about the mushrooms.” We went to my grandfather’s house on a ranch, very isolated, totally silent, and dark at night. It was an experience I’ll never forget—I was able to go to Egypt in all its splendor. That ceremony wasn’t done with saints or any Christian images, nor was it with Mazatec deities. It was simply my brother, myself, and a desire to do a natural ceremony to see what the saint children [mushrooms] offer us.  

It was such an incredible experience, I even managed to speak with the trees. There were many trees there, and during one of these conversations, the tree asked me, “Why are you searching so hard if you aren’t paying attention to the little details? Notice when a leaf falls, when it detaches itself, pay attention to that moment.” We often worry about so many things, and we don’t notice the beautiful little details all around us. I think that lesson has given me peace and patience to pay attention to the little things. I think that trip and the conversation with the trees was when I started to understand, we have to go step by step. At times, we get excited —we want to change the world —but it’s ok; it’s a long process.  

That was something really magical, I don’t know how to describe it. My brother, who on other occasions has transformed into an eagle during his ceremonies, was able to guide me well. He brought me back, because there was a moment during the journey where I didn’t want to return.  

That journey was very different from the journey where I saw the Incas. In that case, I went with a friend who was a healer and a sabia [wise woman]. She’s not very old, younger than me, but she has a power and an energy to guide these journeys, and she would use elements like tobacco, cacao, and incense as a way of purifying the saint children (niños santos) and hold a ceremony in the way true healers do, but without religious imagery present. I asked that we go to a river, and at that river I saw four doors, one that led to Peru, one that led to some weavers, and other doors I didn’t enter. The one I really liked was to the weavers, because the whole path was woven like a petate mat, with baskets all around. 

The sabia guided me during the ceremony, and she saw the Incas as well. Another friend had joined us, and I saw that friend personified as a wise Inca, and I had some conflict with her. I felt that the Incas had come here before, and I perceived a conflict between the Mazatecs and the Incas. I started to reprimand her—I said, “Why is she here?” She has her place, she has her space, she could do her work there in her place, not here, taking advantage of the shaman (chamana). I told her she had to leave.  

What I liked most about that journey was the path to the weavers. She didn’t even tell me, but the healer’s family were basket makers. It was as if the mushrooms were asking her to reconnect with her ancestors and their purpose. That was the message she remembered—"where are you from, what are you on earth to do, and how do you return to that purpose?”  

That ceremony was where I had a transformation into a crocodile. My skin began to scale over, ; everything became scales. My jaw started to stretch. But I could see the Inca, I could see the healer, and I could see my own body, covered in scales like a crocodile. It was a powerful experience; I could actually feel my jaw stretching. I had that pain in my jaw for several days after the ceremony from all the stretching.  

In a third ceremony, only I had the mushrooms. I consumed them, and they showed me a very modern place with white armchairs. I was there alone; there was nobody else present —none of my family, nobody. Then I could see these spheres, and these modern buildings, like the one I was seated in. It was such a peaceful place, all white everywhere: white furniture, crystals, things like that. The spheres were flowing between different forms, and they made delicate sounds when they would pop. I liked this experience where I was alone quite a bit; it brought so much tranquility, so much peace, and so much cleansing, in such a beautiful space.  

ASC: You mentioned your transformation into a crocodile—could you describe the role of the nahuales in Mazatec culture? 

EGM: The concept of nahuales exists in nearly all Mesoamerican cultures. Among the Mazatec people, this tradition has become somewhat distant, because in a way, we are the result of several cultures: the Olmec, the Mexica, and the Toltec, and they introduced this idea of the nahuales. 

From my point of view, everyone has a nahual. I think mine, a crocodile, was given to me during a ceremonial journey. I can explain why. On several occasions, we considered closing the gallery because conflicts arose among collaborators. By maintaining composure and steady resolve as tensions escalated, we managed to reignite the fire of this project. One must maintain composure and calmness—and that’s what my nahual gives me. That’s what a crocodile gives: that kind of steady presence, that way of moving. 

In my brother’s case, his nahual is an eagle. It comes through a ceremony, I want to emphasize that. He becomes an eagle because he wants to travel, he wants to be free, he wants to roam the mountains. The transformation occurs there, in that mystical environment, during a ceremony—the moment when one becomes a nahual, and when nahuales gain the power to communicate with us, or when healers become nahuales to work with those who need assistance. Every nahual contributes its natural gifts: its power, its form, its spirit, its temperament. All these gifts contribute to this work of healing. 

It is said that where Ricardo Flores Magón³ was born in Eloxochitlán—he was a Mexican thinker and journalist, an intellectual of the Mexican Revolution—the people had a custom of spreading lime around the house before a birth. When Ricardo Flores Magón was born, there were tracks of a tlacuache [opossum] around his house. People attributed that nahual to him because he was hard to kill. When he began spreading his anarchist and revolutionary ideas among Mexicans through his newspaper called Regeneración, it brought him a lot of conflict. They jailed him, tied him up, ambushed him— they did many things to him…and he wouldn’t die. They eventually sent him to a prison in Texas. After everything they did to him—the persecution and all that—he died. But he didn’t die from any of that; he died of anemia. That’s the power of a nahual—it gives you that ability to survive. Around here, lately, people don’t really talk much about that anymore—only in the spiritual realm, during ceremonies, where nahuales can be seen. 

ASC: To conclude, how might researchers contribute to you, the gallery, and the community? Are there research topics you consider relevant that could benefit your work? 

EGM: If Harvard could return some of the information it holds about the Mazatec people, such as the Mazatec codex and related documentation known as the Lienzo de Huautla,⁴ and Mazatec dictionaries dating to the 1600s, if they could share some of that material, this would be incredible. The community would also love to see the archives of Henry Munn and the Wassons, which I went to see myself. The community would reconnect with itself. You may not realize this, but there are people who yearn for that reconnection. 

ASC: Of course—it’s about revaluing the whole tradition. There’s been a loss, a rupture.  

EGM: It would be a turning point for my community, a turning point for everyone. Such a project could benefit all the young people. It would be profoundly meaningful. I don’t think we would be asking for much, but I know it’s a task that requires significant logistics; nevertheless, many people here would support it. 

¹ A huipil is a common traditional tunic worn by Indigenous women in Mexico and Central America, and each community decorates it with patterns distinct to the community. [Return to Section]

² Henry Munn translated Vida de Maria Sabina into English—see Maria Sabina: Her Life and Chants (Ross-Erickson Inc., 1981), later released as Maria Sabina: Selections (University of California Press, 2003). Munn also published “The Mushrooms of Language,” in Hallucinogens and Shamanism, ed. Michael Harner (Oxford University Press, 1973), among other essays. [Return to Section]

³ For more on the life of Flores Magón, see Claudio Lomnitz-Adler, The Return of Comrade Ricardo Flores Magón (Zone Books, 2014). [Return to Section]

⁴ For more information on the Lienzo de Huautla, see “Ayautla, Lienzo de San Bartolomé,” Wiki-Filología, https://www.iifilologicas.unam.mx/wikfil/index.php/Ayautla,_Lienzo_de_San_Bartolom%C3%A9   [Return to Section]

García Méndez, Elías. Communal Work, Ceremonial Becomings, and Rights to Knowledge: An Interview with Elías García Méndez. Edited and translated by Paul Gillis-Smith and Andrea Sánchez Castañeda. In Psychedelic Intersections: 2025 Conference Anthology, edited by Jeffrey Breau and Paul Gillis-Smith. Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2026. © License: CC BY-NC. https://doi.org/10.70423/0004.11