January 21st, 2025
Contributing writer for Wake Up World
Without going deep into this fascinating subject, which I do in my books, a few words could be said in a shorter format than an article offers to bring clarity and disperse confusion.
There is a problem among spiritual seekers, those who seek truth and meaning in life, travel to remote locations, spend time in deep meditation, and experience altered states of consciousness, all to find answers to life’s burning questions. This is an admirable task to embrace as a human being and perhaps the most essential adventure in life. After all, what is it all worth if you don’t know yourself? Who is living your life? I was one of these people obsessed with the spiritual quest. You can read about it in my first book, PATH: Seeking Truth in a World of Lies, published in 2013.
The dilemma of reconciling daily life in the material world and spiritual quests needs to be resolved.
Moving through life while facing challenges, I realized certain things, to put it lightly, using sacred plants. These insights reshaped my outlook on the world in a way I could not even imagine. Among those was my relationship with money, a painful and broken relationship that was conditioned from birth. I was born in Ukraine, part of the Soviet Union, in 1976. My childhood was under the Iron Curtain, through which we were not allowed to look, an oppressive political regime filled with the omnipresent fear of the government.
Of course, as a kid, I didn’t understand what this meant, and the fear I’m now describing was something I saw in my parents and grandparents, who were whispering things at home to one another. A critique of the government was considered nearly treason and could get you on the KGB watch list or even arrested. In Marxist philosophy, a totalitarian form of government, the dictatorship of the proletariat and collectivism, does not allow for critical thinking or questioning of authority. It is how an authoritarian regime preserves itself and remains in control. People of Communist China know this to be true. They are living this nightmare as we speak. The adaption of the Soviet-style communist mind control was broad and invasive.
Before COVID, Americans, Canadians, Europeans, and Australians, to name the significant so-called free democracy zones, could not even understand the concept of tyranny. To them, it was an ugly chapter in human history, an episode that happened somewhere, a long time ago, seemingly unrelated to their lives. However, COVID changed this and brought tyranny home. Thus, a copy of the Soviet Era oppression became the prevalent narrative—something we lived through in the past.
When COVID hit the mainstream, people were scared to death, lost the ability to reason, believed in government propaganda, and followed mandates. Not everyone. Many of us refused to submit to tyranny, even though, initially, we were concerned.
Imagine how those who lived through government oppression all of their lives felt about it if just a year of the mainstream media fear porn left scars in people’s minds for life. Of course, we weren’t masked and forced to medical treatment. Nonetheless, people of the communist regimes know what it’s like to live in fear. We can smell tyranny from afar. We can see it coming before anyone else. Upon arrival, we recognize the patterns from the start. Like with the cold symptoms, you know you got cold when your nose started running, got a sore throat, and headaches. Symptoms are how we diagnose sickens. It is the same in politics; symptoms are how we diagnose tyranny.
This lengthy introduction to the subject is essential. It shows that matter and Spirit are one. Your soul suffers when your body is in pain. People in jails aren’t happy. Animals in cages are miserable. Physical and spiritual are just two aspects of being. Two different frequencies from the same ethereal signal. Snow is water frozen in time. It’s the same element with a distinct appearance.
If the Universe is physical and metaphysical, an all-encompassing cosmic body, then recognizing oneness in Spirit and matter is logical. It is no different on the scale of our lives. Macrocosmos and microcosmos are the same; they only differ in scale. The larger Universe includes lower worlds. It is a vast, infinite, interconnected existence of all words governed by universal principle. The smaller word is a self-contained system that reflects the larger reality. Psychedelics can be used as a bridge between the macrocosmos and microcosmos, the larger reality and you, helping you understand the interconnectedness of life. Such profound spiritual experience impacts you, changes you permanently, and makes you value life and love freedom.
Pretending to be happy when you are either sick or poor is a lie. Neither sickness nor poverty are fun. Apart from getting some cold, I never was ill to know this to be accurate, but I was poor; I know a life of limitations. I also saw both of my parents fighting cancer and chemo, which had devastated their bodies and souls. Both died in agony and indignation.
Being a triple immigrant and a slave laborer in a cult in California, a story I share in my first book, PATH Seeking Truth in a World of Lies, I know what it feels like to be a second-class citizen, a utility unit, barely a person.
For the first time, in my latest book, UNPLUGGED, Psychedelics, Farming, and Crypto, the Three Pillars of Freedom, I share things with my readers that I kept secret throughout my life. I felt ashamed of my past. I share this with you to put things in perspective and encourage you to improve your life.
I have already won the game. To me, it’s not about the money. It is how I think, feel, and live my daily life. I have freed myself from all spiritual and political ideologies and crafted a life of love, creativity, fulfillment, and joy. More money will not change anything in my life other than provide security and a bigger cushion to fall on whenever the psychopathic global elite decides to disrupt society again, either through the next pandemic, manufactured environmental crises, or wars, thus paralyzing our ability to make a living.
A cushion, or a buffer zone, is where you meet the world on your terms. It’s a place of peace amid political and economic storms. It’s a zone where you maintain your sanity and calm when those who are unprepared lose their minds to stress, fear, and anxiety. COVID-19 taught us this lesson. During COVID, I realized the need to get financially free, or at the very least, economically stable and resilient to external influences. Being a full-time healing center that relies solely on people’s ability to travel, we found ourselves alone in 20 rooms, of which only two were occupied. Airports in Peru were shut down for ten consecutive months.
The material world dictates rules by which we all have to abide. Unless you plan to live in a cave, you must face and embrace the reality of money and accept its role in your life. A ball of rice, it’s just not my destiny.
For a spiritual seeker who walked his path parallel to the material world, running away from it like a plague, such a drastic change of heart and mind nearly felt like a betrayal to my values cultivated over a decade of spiritual search.
“Have I lost the path and sold my soul to the Devil?” A thought was creeping in.
However, all these revelations came through my ongoing healing work with plant medicine, particularly with the Huachuma, the Cactus of Sanity. It showed me my programming and how it shaped my mind from an early age. It was shocking to see through this while realizing that, in fact, all that was just cultural programming. Like a computer, I was programmed to hold certain beliefs about money. “Money is evil; money is scarce; money is cancer; money is a way to lose your soul; you can have the money only if you make a deal with a Devil,” etc.
While deeply examining these beliefs, literally seeing them under the microscope of the enlightened consciousness, I concluded that none of them hold any water. In other words, they have no merit in a world of Spirit.
These were made-up lies, mind bugs, and parasites implanted in my consciousness by the socialist and Marxist ideologies in school. We were taught this. Neither was it intrinsically true nor inherently good. It was a mind-control psychological operation (psyop), programming that only allowed seeing reality in a certain way—a Truman Show, written and produced by Karl Marx.
Money is energy that fuels civilization. It’s neutral. It is us who give it meaning. Seeing money as such allows you to get impartial. You begin to understand that assigning meaning to it is simply unnecessary. The moment a meaning is assigned to it in our minds, we become slaves to a narrative that separates us from the energy of money. We get cut off from the source of abundance when we lock our minds into a limiting narrative. Apart from this being simply a lie, believing that only evil and greedy people can have money is highly disempowering and forever enslaving. Perhaps these people have all the money because the rest of us are rejecting it. According to this mental conditioning, a decent person must suffer, remaining forever poor. What an insidious lie! An inverted reality, indeed.
Because of such beliefs, good people don’t strive to be rich, fearing spiritual loss or damnation. But who benefits from us holding such beliefs: the control freaks and liars in material and spiritual worlds. Neither of them wants you to be rich. Because money is power, and money is freedom. They want to maintain power over you and use money to prevent your resistance to their tyranny.
The hippie wave of the 1960s began as a rebellious anti-establishment movement with which I resonate entirely. However, intelligence agencies infiltrated it to control and direct it. MK Ultra was involved in LSD experiments, which didn’t intend to help people but to control minds. Self-isolation does not lead to societal change. Apart from causing public distrust, you aren’t growing by dropping out. Instead, the opposite action makes a change possible by “dropping back” into society with a higher consciousness, like Neo, who fights Agent Smith in The Matrix. The hippy movement got the first part right. However, a return to society is required to affect change.
For many people, rejecting materialism is a mask under which they hide their inability to cope with the world, a weakness disguised under idealism. The unwillingness to take responsibility for one’s life is conveniently hidden under a rebellious mindset. A true rebel cares for the rest of society and contributes to long-term solutions to societal problems. By quitting, one contributes nothing. Richard Heart is one of them—a crypto founder of HEX and Pulsechain who currently faces the most vehement government prosecution in the history of crypto. Being able to settle long ago, he refused to bend his knees to Big Brother and kept the fight going. I respect and support Richard Heart.
Still more, as I have already said, a true spiritual quest is the noblest of all adventures in life; however, if taken to an extreme, it can get out of balance. Often, a legitimate pursuit of meaning and truth can become an escape route, a spiritual escapism, that prevents a person from addressing real-life problems, both personal and societal.
Being economically weak leads to constant lack, poverty, and an inability to make an impact. To challenge the power structure, one must be spiritually and financially stable. Andrew Tate is a good example of it. A kickboxing champion is now running for the highest office in Britain, trying to make Britain Great again. Otherwise, the anti-system stance of those who cannot afford a decent living is ignored, which results in a lack of meaningful impact. Societal challenges must be faced and used for self-growth, not run away from.
What I see missing is balance, a convergence of spiritual outlook and materialism.
The “hippie mentality,” often associated with countercultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s, embodies values such as peace, love, environmentalism, and spiritual exploration. These values are hard to disagree with; however, the power structure exploits them for political and economic gains.
Large-scale change requires awareness, involvement, responsibility, discipline, strategy, and structure. Playing guitar on the beach all day is nice but not very effective. A balanced approach blending spiritual values with pragmatic strategies is needed to address personal and societal challenges.
While making you think that poverty is noble and even spiritual, admirable and desirable, thus supposedly showing your commitment to spiritual life, they enjoy what life has to offer at our expense. In the material world, these are the political figures.
A similar trend can be seen among many spiritual gurus who enjoy a lavish lifestyle while preaching humility, surrendering, and modesty. Many of them are having sex with their followers while preaching abstinence to others.
It was no different when the world was on lockdown; political elites were secretly partying. Fear for us, fun for them! Poverty for us, money for them. Hypocrisy among spiritual teachers is similar to that of political leaders, although it may have a slightly different flavor.
If you want to change your life, you must change your mind. Your life cannot be changed otherwise. Everything begins in your head. Whatever your mind can see can achieved. Seeing is achieving.
Of course, to see with your mind, you first have to learn to see with your eyes. Staring at objects while being mentally absent isn’t the seeing I’m talking about. Seeing with the full attention and presence is what I’m talking about. Learning to see with your mind is the next step when this skill is perfected. Only then can you see through matter and gaze at the Spirit. To get to the metaphysical, you need to get through the physical. Everything we use in life was once an idea in someone’s mind. We create objects by envisioning them in our heads first. The great pyramids of Giza were once just triangles in someone’s mind.
I transformed my life with the help of sacred Huachuma medicine, and I can help you transform yours when you visit us in Peru. Everything can be changed; nothing is set in stone unless your name is carved into your tomb.
UNPLUGGED is a book that teaches you how to manifest the reality you want for yourself. It’s a statement of success available to anyone who understands how energy works. Spirit and matter are one despite having different appearances. Everything is energy, and when the code is cracked, manifestation follows.
Heaven is not a limited space for the privileged few. It’s an infinite reality of which we are part. It’s only a matter of our perception and programming.
It’s always open for those who dare to enter and utter one’s name. “Fortune favors the bold” is the English translation of the Latin proverb.
For others, it’s fiction or an unachievable place that dreamers only mention in books. Heaven is not a place we supposedly came from and lost; it’s a place we find inside ourselves and manifest our life.
You are just a cup away from the Paradise lost to the Paradise found; Huachuma shows you the way.
“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” is a proverb that means you can provide someone with an opportunity, but you can’t make them take it if they don’t want to. There is a difference between talking and walking the path.
I can show you the path to healing and spiritual awakening, but I can’t drink the medicine for you. I can only do it for myself, for which I am eternally grateful.
Your reality is the reflection of your mind. By changing your mind, you change your reality.
Please watch my documentary Devine Cactus Huachuma
About the author:
Sergey Baranov founded Huachuma Wasi, a healing center in The Sacred Valley of the Incas, Peru. He is the author of Path: Seeking Truth in a World of Lies, The Mescaline Confession: Breaking Through the Walls of Delusion, The Cactus of Sanity: Huachuma in a Time of Chaos, Dancing in Hell with Eyes Wide Open: How to Survive the New World Order and UNPLUGGED: Psychedelics, Farming, and Crypto the Three Pillars of Freedom. Sergey’s passion for life on Earth and its preservation is the driving force behind his work.
All of Sergey’s books result from a lifelong spiritual search and nearly two decades of ongoing shamanic practice.
To learn more, please visit www.huachumawasi.com
Follow Sergey on Instagram & X.com
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