Sage of the Diviners: Reconciling Christianity and Salvia divinorum

Considering S. divinorum’s roots in Mazatec shamanism, the Church arguably has grounds for a cautious approach to the plant. Syncretic descriptions of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for instance, may immediately evoke the concept of sin; in Christianity’s creation story, the tree was a place of temptation, harbouring the Devil in its branches.