Icaros and Healing in Ayahuasca Ceremonies

Susana Bustos, PhD (Psychotherapist & Music Therapist)

Thursday 29 May, 2025 8PM CEST (6PM GMT, 2PM ET, 11AM PT)

Online via Zoom

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Shamanic song, or ikaro, holds a central place in the Peruvian Vegetalismo tradition, where it plays a vital role in spiritual, ritual, and healing practices. In this presentation, we will begin by contextualizing the use of song within the broader framework of Amazonian plant medicine traditions, before focusing on its specific role in ayahuasca ceremonies. We will explore how ikaros are used by healers (curanderos) to guide and support the ceremony, as well as how participants experience the music’s influence on their inner journey. Drawing on music therapy perspectives, the discussion will highlight the healing dimensions of these songs.

This event is ideal for anyone interested in the intersections of music, healing, shamanic traditions, and plant medicine—whether you’re a student, practitioner, researcher, or simply curious about indigenous knowledge systems.

This presentation is part of our “Psychedelics & Music” series which explores how sound and music shape, reflect, and interact with the medicine.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERs

Susana Bustos, Ph.D. holds degrees in Clinical Psychology (1992) and Music Therapy (2001) from Chilean universities. Her doctoral research studied the healing effects of shamanic songs on participants of traditional ayahuasca ceremonies in Peru (California Institute of Integral Studies, 2008).

Susana has oriented her clinical work, academic teaching, and research to exploring the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness, including their extreme manifestations (such as spiritual emergencies), and to the art of integrating these processes in daily life. For about 25 years she has studied entheogenic shamanic traditions from the Americas, and has worked towards building bridges for conversation between these traditions and Western psychotherapy.

From 2016-2020 Susana directed the Spiritual Emergence Network in the US. In 2018, she co-founded the School of Vegetalismo and Psychotherapy, which offers education and clinical supervision to professionals whose clients work with master plants. Susana teaches and mentors students in training programs in the Bay Area and abroad focusing on research and/or the development of clinical skills for psychedelic assisted therapy, and serves as a subject matter expert in the Board of Psychedelic Medicines and Therapies.

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