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Within Peru’s northern coastal and highland areas exists a tradition of
applied indigenous wisdom that has thrived for millennia, and while still
strong, it too faces the inescapable pressures of transformation. Known as
curanderismo, this shamanic tradition utilizes the knowledge acquired through
its great past to provide individual healing to community members and techniques
in maintaining harmony and balance between the human and natural worlds.
Reaching forth from the very dawn of Andean civilization, it is a preeminently
practical tradition, emphasizing our ability to form and sustain balanced
relationships among ourselves and the environment as well as providing
time-honored techniques for re-establishing these desired conditions when they
are absent. Essentially holistic, the methodology of curing entails the ritual
blending of knowledge, cosmology, herbal practice, and visionary experience in
its therapy. The final result is the transformative power it communicates
through it innate artistry and the dramatic presence of the sacred.
In its current form, Peruvian San Pedro Curanderismo highlights the balanced
integration of traditional wisdom and practice within a structure inclusive of
change and the specific needs faced by the modern world.
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