Maria Sabina, Mazatec healer, curandera, and Shaman. A native of Huautla de Jimenez, in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, passed away in 1985 at the age of 91. She is famous for the role she played introducing the sacred mushroom ceremony velada to the world. "I was eight years old when a brother of my mother fell sick. He was very sick, and the shamans of the sierra that had tried to cure him with herbs could do nothing for him. Then I remembered what the teo-nanacatl [mushrooms] told me: that I should go and look for them when I needed help. So I went to take the sacred mushrooms, and I brought them to my uncle's hut. I ate them in front of my uncle, who was dying. And immediately the teo-nanacatl took me to their world, and I asked them what my uncle had and what I could do to save him. They told me an evil spirit had entered the blood of my uncle and that to cure him we should give him some herbs, not those the curanderos gave him, but others. I asked where these herbs could be found, and they took me to a place on the mountain where tall trees grew and the waters of a brook ran, and they showed me the herb that I should pull from the earth and the road I had to take to find them... After regaining consciousness, it was the same place that I had seen during the trip, and they were the same herbs. I took them, I brought them home, I boiled them in water, and I gave them to my uncle. A few days later the brother of my mother was cured." Carlos Castaneda, the best selling author that wrote many, many books where he outlined how he became a sorcerer's apprentice under the auspices of a Yaqui Indian shaman he called Don Juan Matus is reported to have a connection to Maria Sabina. In 1955, Gordon Wasson and Allan Richardson, made history by becoming the first documented, or at least widely publicized, white men KNOWN to have participated officially in the nocturnal mushroom ceremony. Under the guidance of Maria Sabina, Wasson and Richardson each consumed six pairs of the mushroom Psilocybe caerulescens mazatecorum after which they began to feel the effects, manifesting visions of geometric patterns, palaces, and architectural vistas. The results of that experience was published in Life Magazine, May 13 1957, in an article titled "Seeking the Magic Mushroom." That article is considered the inspiration for Dr. Timothy Leary, Dr. Albert Hofmann, and others to try similar mushrooms and halucinogens. Most of the above from: "Shamanic Voices: a survey a visionary narratives." Arkana Books, (1991) by Joan Halifax, Ph.D. I pulled the shroom in 3D-Animationsstudio and made the texture with Corel Photo Paint8 and mapped it with UV-Mapper in Poser5. Smiley Freebee from DAZ. My new video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le-SUmgFcLo&feature=channel_page