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The Use of Plant Diets in Traditional Amazonian Medicine: implications for a new approach in herbal medicine.


Web link: phyto.revuesonline.com/articles/...

Pages: 169 - 179

Abstract

Traditional Amazon medicine, as well as naturopathy, has great resources and a wide variety of care techniques. Diets are one of the widely used techniques in Peruvian Haute-Amazon. The healer is responsible for putting the patient in isolation in the forest with a diet and very strict psychocorporal standards to administer herbal preparations. Through an internal journey and deep physical cleansing, the patient releases his vital energy and finds the way of healing. The experience of diet leads the human being to retain a link with nature and plants, often lost due to urban and materialistic lifestyle. Through this process of purification, Man will not only release his vital self-healing strength, but also open to spirituality and thus meet his essence. Diet, as a healing and personal development tool, is now increasingly extending to Western cultures and contexts. Beyond its contribution to the so-called Shamanic tourism, the possibility of its cultural transfer with the use of plants from the European flora is envisaged.