Plant Spirit Medicine

Eliot Cowan and the 1995 book

The Plant Spirit Medicine Association states that Eliot Cowan (1946-2022) earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology, studied ethnographic documentary filmmaking at graduate level, and trained in acupuncture under J. R. Worsley in England, where he received a master's degree and taught at the College of Traditional Acupuncture. On returning to the United States, the association says, he committed to reviving plant-based spiritual healing, and the anthropologist Michael Harner introduced him to techniques for contacting plant spirits. These details come from the practice's own association and have not been checked against independent biographical sources.

Cowan's book Plant Spirit Medicine was first published in 1995 by Swan'Raven, according to a library catalog record, which lists later editions from Granite Publishing and Sounds True. The association gives the same first publication year. Sources reviewed here do not document how the practice was taught or spread between the early 1980s and the book, and no earlier date is asserted.

Wixárika teachings and Five Element theory as stated by proponents

The association describes the practice as spiritual healing rooted in traditions that combine Chinese Five Element theory with an Indigenous practice of calling on plant spirits. It also says Cowan held the title tsaurirrakame-mara'akame and was an elder in the Wixárika (Huichol) tradition, and that he apprenticed other Westerners as mara'akate. The library catalog lists Huichol Indians among the book's subjects.

The association page that was reviewed does not name a Wixárika teacher or describe the Five Element framework in detail. No independent scholarship on how Wixárika communities regard the practice, or on the Five Element content, was found in the sources reviewed, so the attribution to Wixárika and Chinese sources rests on the accounts of its proponents.

Western interest in shamanism as background

Scholarship on the wider setting notes that the word shamanism was introduced by eighteenth-century German explorers of Siberia and was later applied to Native American and other settings. A 2007 monograph by Andrei Znamenski describes how scholars and writers in the 1960s and 1970s recast shamanism from a mental disorder to spiritual wisdom, and links the interest to anti-modernist currents in Western culture. The sources reviewed do not connect this account to Cowan directly, so it is given as context and not as an explanation of his work.

The name and who uses it

As a proper name, Plant Spirit Medicine refers to the practice taught and recognized through the Temple of Sacred Fire Healing, which the Plant Spirit Medicine Association says it supports and preserves. The same words appear as the title of Cowan's book. The reviewed sources do not survey whether other practitioners use the phrase for different methods of working with plants, so this page treats the term as the name of the Cowan-derived system.

Words from the Wixárika language

In an ethnobotanical study of the Wixárika, also called Huichol, the term mara'akame (plural mara'akate) is used for shamans or spiritual leaders, who participants said can communicate with all living things. The association uses the compound title tsaurirrakame-mara'akame for Cowan, and the sources reviewed do not define tsaurirrakame. The use of a Wixárika title in a Western training lineage should not be read as the same thing as the role in Wixárika communities, which the sources reviewed do not compare.

Not herbal medicine and not plant teachers elsewhere

The association says that in Plant Spirit Medicine no substances are prescribed or administered, which separates it from herbal medicine and phytotherapy, where plant preparations are given. It is also distinct from other plant-centered traditions. A 1984 field study of mestizo shamans in Iquitos, Peru, describes vegetalistas who use plants called plant teachers under conditions of isolation and a prescribed diet, which is a different tradition, region and method. Similar wording across traditions does not show that the practices are equivalent.

How the association describes the work

The association says practitioners call upon the spirits of plants to bring balance and harmony to their patients, and describes the practice as gentle and subtle, with no substances prescribed or administered. It gives the Five Element framework as part of the practice, and lists reported outcomes such as uplifted mood, more energy and a sense of connection to people and surroundings. The pages reviewed do not describe the sequence of a session, its length or its cost.

Consent, scope and referral in the association's ethics statement

The association's ethics page states that at the first session a healer must explain the nature of the healing in plain language and recommends written consent. Healers must not give a medical diagnosis or advise a particular course of medical treatment, must not countermand instructions or prescriptions from a registered medical practitioner, and should refer a client elsewhere when needed. Information shared in the healing relationship is confidential, with stated exceptions such as child safety, self-harm concerns and legal requirements.

Training and credentials

The association says its members maintain competence through assessment of personal strengths and limitations and through continued learning, and that it supports continuing education. The pages reviewed did not state a curriculum, required hours or an independent accrediting body, and no independent register or training standard for the practice was found. The association is a voluntary professional body, and its standards have not been externally audited.

Outcomes stated by the association

The association's public description presents the practice as spiritual healing for balance and harmony. It says people have experienced a boost in spirit, along with improvements in health that it calls side effects, such as uplifted mood, more energy and connection to people and surroundings. Its ethics page states that healers will not claim to treat any disease, and that advertising must not mislead or claim superiority over other modalities. These are the association's own statements of intended scope.

What the sources do not claim

No source reviewed lists specific medical conditions for which the practice is used, and the association's ethics statement rules out diagnosis and disease treatment claims. People who seek such a practice may do so for emotional, spiritual or relational reasons, but the reviewed sources contain no survey of why people use it. Uses described by other sellers or teachers were not used as sources, so claims made in marketing material are not recorded here.

Searches run and what was found

On 2026-10-06 a PubMed search for the exact phrase plant spirit medicine in titles and abstracts returned no records. A search for plant spirit or plant spirits in titles and abstracts returned only two 1984 ethnographic papers on Peruvian plant teachers, neither about this practice. A search of the literature on Wixárika healing and a search combining shamanism with randomized trials or systematic reviews also found no study of Plant Spirit Medicine. A second literature index was unavailable at the time of searching. The searches found no controlled study, no systematic review and no published outcome data for the practice.

Nearest research: shamanic healing in general

A 2025 scoping review searched PubMed, CINAHL and Scopus (initial search January 2024, updated August 2025) for shamanic healing as a clinical intervention. Of 124 records, 16 publications met its criteria: one clinical trial, two case series and ten case reports. The trial was an uncontrolled mixed-methods feasibility study of five shamanic practitioner sessions in 23 women with temporomandibular joint dysfunction, with reported declines in pain and impairment that were stable at nine months. The review excluded studies of pharmacological interventions.

The review's authors concluded that shamanic healing has potential benefits and a relatively low risk of harm, but they also state that the heterogeneity of populations and methods and the lack of quantitative data make conclusions difficult, and that the case series and feasibility study lacked control groups and adequate size. Plant Spirit Medicine is not named in the review, so these findings should not be transferred to it, and an absence of studies is not evidence that it has no effect.

Shamanism as a Western category

Znamenski's history shows that shamanism is a term that entered Western humanities from Siberian ethnography and was extended to Native American and other settings, and that its meaning shifted over the twentieth century. The 2025 scoping review defines core shamanism as common elements found across cultures with the cultural elements removed and the practices adapted for a Western audience. Whether Plant Spirit Medicine is best described in these terms or as a distinct lineage is a classification question that the reviewed sources do not settle.

Questions the sources leave open

A study of Wixárika and mestizo mushroom knowledge reports that Wixárika participants described certain living things as divine entities with autonomy and feelings, and that older people continued to treat illness with plants and mushrooms. This describes the worldview of that study's participants only. The sources reviewed contain no Wixárika statement on Western practitioners using Wixárika titles or teachings, and no scholarly assessment of the debate, so none is reported here.

Indirect harms reported for shamanic healing

The 2025 scoping review reports that in six of its ten case reports shamanic beliefs were associated with delayed conventional care or barriers to it, and that in some cases people with likely psychotic features had their mental health treatment impeded by those beliefs. Other case reports described physical harms from specific procedures, such as ingestion of metal objects and insertion of needles, which are not procedures described for Plant Spirit Medicine. The review does not address this practice, so these reports show the kinds of indirect harm described for shamanic healing, not their frequency here.

Plant preparations and interactions

Because the association states that no substances are prescribed or administered, herb-drug interaction data do not directly apply to the practice as it describes itself. They apply if a person also uses herbal products. An overview of 46 systematic reviews found that most herbal medicinal products studied were not linked to serious drug interactions, but flagged St John's wort and mistletoe for serious concerns and reported the most frequent interactions with antiplatelet and anticoagulant drugs, with poor-quality primary data limiting firm conclusions.

Care boundaries

The association's own ethics statement says the practice does not replace conventional medicine and that healers must not countermand a registered medical practitioner's instructions. Consistent with that statement and with the delays in care reported in the scoping review, symptoms that are new, severe or worsening, and any mental health crisis, call for assessment by an appropriate health professional and should not wait on a spiritual practice. This information is educational and not individualized advice.