L’usage des diètes en médecine traditionnelle amazonienne : implications pour une nouvelle phytothérapie

Traditional Amazonian medicine as well as naturopathy has a great amount of resources and a wide variety of healing techniques. Plants diet is one of the techniques widely used in the Peruvian High Amazon. In this case, the healer puts the patient in isolation in the forest with very strict alimentary diet and physical norms to administer him/her herbal preparations. Through an inner journey and a deep physical cleansing, the patient releases his vital energy and thus finds the way to heal. The diet experience leads the human being to reconnect with nature and plants, re-establishing a link often lost because of an urban and materialistic lifestyle. Through this process of purification, the human being will not only release his self-healing vital force but also open to spirituality and thus meet his essence. Plants diet, as an instrument of healing and personal development, is now spreading more and more towards Western cultures and contexts. Beyond its contribution to what is called shamanic tourism, the possibility of its cultural transfer with the use of plants from European flora is envisaged.