MARÍA SABINA, SPIRIT WOMAN (1979)

Schedule

Sat Mar 29 2025 at 07:30 pm to 09:30 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

Philosophical Research Society | Los Angeles, CA

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A rare screening of Nicolás Echevarría’s intimate 1979 portrait of the "Saint Mother of the Mushrooms," Mazatecan poet-healer María Sabina.
About this Event

Join us as we honor and celebrate the Mazatecan shamanic healer María Sabina, the “Saint Mother of the Mushrooms,” with a rare screening of Nicolás Echevarría’s breathtakingly intimate portrait MARÍA SABINA, SPIRIT WOMAN (1979).


Filmed deep in the misty mountains of Oaxaca, Echevarría follows Sabina’s daily life, as she expounds upon her spirituality and wisdom of humanity's (often fractured) relationship with the divine spirit of nature. Recognized by the people of the Sierra de Oaxaca as a powerful holy woman, Sabina was one of the last priestess healers who knew the ritual mysteries of the hallucinogenic mushrooms that grow in the region. It was she who was visited by R. Gordon Wasson, the ethnomycologist who – after experiencing one of her shamanic psilocybin rituals– brought word of hallucinogenic fungi to the world at large. Wasson’s reports would lead the likes of psychonautic pioneers such as Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Carlos Castaneda and Albert Hofman to trek to Mexico to experience the ritual firsthand in Sabina's mountain homestead — before returning northward to spread the gospel to the consciousness-exploratory 60s counterculture. But she condemned the way in which “the West” came to adopt “magic mushrooms” for recreational use, desecrating the spiritual power they hold in indigenous ritual traditions.


Echevaría’s gorgeously shot and hypnotic film allows us, with reverence, to witness the sacramental use of the teonanacatl mushrooms – which Sabina referred to as “The Little Children” – in their traditional medicinal practice. Echevarría’s camera was given extraordinary, as it captured the mystery and magic of the powerful indigenous ritual, as Sabina prepares and performs a psilocybin ceremony for locals in need of physical healing, by way of the fungal teachers’ powers of psychic and emotional cleansing.


A truly beautiful gift of a film, María Sabina, Spirit Woman is an important document which contains some of the only footage ever recorded of Sabina, preserving the words, wisdom, and practices of one of the last indigenous healers of her kind, who now stands as one of the most important figures in the history of entheogenic medicine.




Dir. Nicolás Echevarría, 1979, 81mins, Mexico, Unrated, Spanish and Mazatecan w/ English Subtitles, Color, Digital.

Special thanks to Mónica Martínez Orihuela at Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía (IMCINE) and Sylvie Shamlian & Nicolas Pedrero of Spectacle.





Ticket price: $12 (in-person event only).

Please email [email protected] or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.


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ACCESSIBILITY

PRS wants all guests to be able to enjoy our events safely and comfortably. If you require any accessibility accommodation, please reach out to [email protected] before showtime and we will be happy to assist you.


REFUND POLICIES

All sales are final. There are no refunds for PRS events , except in the event of a medical emergency, including but not limited to a positive COVID-19 test. Ticket exchanges may be granted on a case by case basis, pending circumstances.

In the event that PRS is forced to cancel an event entirely, tickets will be refunded or vouchers offered for a rescheduled event.


PARKING

Limited parking is available onsite at PRS in both the front lot (entry from Los Feliz Blvd. when heading east) and back lot (entry from first alley way, off Griffith Park Blvd. from intersection with Los Feliz Blvd.), as well as street parking on Griffith Park Blvd. and (after 7 PM) on Los Feliz Blvd. We encourage attendees to consider carpooling, walking or biking to events if possible, and please be considerate of our Los Feliz neighbors when parking.


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Where is it happening?

Philosophical Research Society, 3910 Los Feliz Boulevard, Los Angeles, United States

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

Tickets

USD 14.64

The Philosophical Research Society

Host or Publisher The Philosophical Research Society

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