The grandfather sent tobacco to take its place within man. Through smoking, the people talked with God – Mito de la Creación Carirí (Carirí Creation Myth)

Tobacco has a unique position in the plant world. For the indigenous peoples of the Americas, tobacco was considered a sacred plant; for many of them it was the most sacred plant. It is said to be the grandfather plant, from which other plants emerged.

It can be taken in different ways: smoked, snorted or drunk. During smoking, Mapacho is used as a way to clear energy of a space or a person. The tobacco can clean the ceremony space from the energies, create protection, and allows the healer to enter the space where healing can take place. Tobacco also helps invoke the power of other medicinal plants, as the plant spirits sympathize with the spirit of tobacco. During ceremonies and healing, tobacco can be also used for transmitting the energy of the healer to the patient, if they are struggling with decreased energy or a difficult process.

One potential way of using tobacco is drinking. It has a great power to cure many illnesses. The tea is very pungent and effectively cleans the intestines, blood and body, killing all parasites, viruses and bacteria. It clarifies and centralizes the mind. During drinking, people speak with great clarity.

In our modern society the Tobacco plant is quite underestimated and not completely understood. For antique cultures Tobacco has been a sacred plant which can cure many types of illnesses and infections. Today Tobacco is not a medicine but a business product that makes humanity sick. But the plant cannot be blamed.

First of all, Tobacco is not equal to a cigarette. Tobacco (Nicotina rústica) is a medicinal plant used for curing; it holds psychoactive powers. Cigarettes are a mixture of more than 50 substances which are harmful for health. Only one of them is a particular species of Tobacco (Nicotina tabacum), degenerated by the selection process of modern genetic manipulation.

The question also arises – what leads modern man towards smoking large quantities of cigarettes? Maybe it’s the anxiety of our modern society: the famous stress? Maybe it’s the spiritual emptiness of modern culture? We should think about this before judging one little plant which does not itself harm anybody.

Humans have started to abuse nature for their profit. For this purpose they also take advantage of addictive and weak minds of today’s humans. It’s not only Tobacco, but also the traffic with drugs coming from other plants. We can also think of the prosperous pharmacy business with hypnotics, anxiolytics and other preparations which have been born from the master plants, and are used without the knowledge of tradition and “positive” usage of the medicine. We should always carefully distinguish the context and intention of medicinal work with plants.