Current scientific research focuses on what the sacred plants can do for us: heal our wounds, cure our addictions, and expand our minds. This paradigm sees the sacred plants as useful prepackaged collocations of active molecules. But in indigenous cultures, shamans heal because they are in a personal and mutual relationship with the healing spirits. In such cultures, when the sacred plants are used, encounters with the world of the spirits are not visits to the therapist; they create a relationship that entails obligations as well. In this view, the sacred plants are autonomous others who are not means to our ends, but rather ends in themselves. This presentation explores whether our understanding of the sacred plants is enhanced by viewing their uses—like vision fasts or dreams or talking circles—not as conventionally therapeutic, but rather as a sacred shamanic ceremony that has its own often unforeseen purposes, which may not be to heal us, or to heal us in ways we do not expect.