Meet Sergey Baranov
Sergey Baranov is the founder of Huachuma Wasi, a healing center in the heart of the Sacred Valley of the Incas in Peru, open year-round to welcome spiritual seekers from around the world.
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His work with Huachuma is rooted in a deep love for life and an uncompromising search for meaning and truth.
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Sergey and his wife, Mercedes, have created a space for genuine inner work, where what you encounter may be exactly what you have been seeking and perhaps even more.
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Sergey is also the author of five books: 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; and Dancing in Hell with Eyes Wide Open: How to Survive the New World Order. His latest book, UNPLUGGED: Psychedelics, Farming, and Crypto The Three Pillars of Freedom. His books are available on Amazon.
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Sergey’s writings emerge from a lifelong spiritual search and two decades of continuous shamanic practice.
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Having lived in multiple countries across different continents and grown up immersed in diverse cultures, Sergey developed a deep understanding of the shared core of human experience that exists beneath cultural differences. By exploring different spiritual traditions and seeing through their limitations, most notably their reliance on words, he eventually found shamanism as a unifying path, accessible to all people regardless of background or belief.
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Across cultures, humans share the same essential needs and desires for love, meaning, belonging, truth, healing, and connection. While cultures express these needs in different forms, the underlying human experience remains universal.
Cultural differences, according to Sergey, are surface expressions, decorations that mask the essence. What moves and heals people at a deep level is shared by all, regardless of where they are from or how they were raised.
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Through his work with the sacred Huachuma cactus, Sergey uncovered an ancient way of honoring life, rooted in direct experience and relationship with nature. The expanded state of consciousness facilitated by Huachuma serves as a conduit for profound spiritual healing and awakening. From this place, one reconnects with inner guidance and returns to everyday life refreshed, reoriented, and deeply aligned with what truly matters.
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In essence, our work with Huachuma is to remind you that what you are seeking is already within you. This truth cannot be understood through words alone. It must be experienced. Knowing is a feeling. — Sergey Baranov
What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous.
― Thomas Merton
Sergey’s spiritual path has become his livelihood. Doing what he loves, he introduces people to an ancient healing sacrament that grows naturally in the high Andean environment he has made his home.
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Huachuma shamanism can be practiced in different forms. Sergey’s orientation comes from receiving inspiration from an ancient cultural stream whose center is the enigmatic temple of Chavín de Huántar. His work with Huachuma acts as an anchor into this profound ancient mystery that lies beneath the veneer of modern Peru.
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Although Sergey’s work is deeply connected to the ancient shamanic traditions of Peru, he believes that the true shamanic experience has little to do with appearances. While he respects traditional shamanic dress as something that naturally belongs to native cultures, being a Westerner, he prefers to facilitate ceremonies in a more down-to-earth manner in order to remove unnecessary barriers between himself and the participants.
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Sergey’s passion for serving Huachuma is driven by the belief that this is one of the most beautiful experiences we can have in life. He sees it as a key to clarity, sanity, self-confidence, inner peace, and joy, qualities we are all searching for.
His purpose is to share this medicine with those who seek healing and answers, and the sense of magic many of us experienced in childhood.
What do I feel when I look at these mountains? I feel eternity. Here I am, a mortal human being whose life is nothing but a moment stretched in time.
What would my life be if I had not found a way to learn and perceive directly, bypassing cultural filters, by embracing the shamanic way of direct experience?
To find one’s purpose, one must learn to move through the fear of the unknown. That very step which holds you back is the step that must be taken. And when you do take it, a new horizon opens, and you begin to see further along your path, just as you see the valley from the peak of a mountain.
Your life is a reflection of who you are. You can see yourself in it as if in a mirror. But it is not a static image. You can change it by changing yourself. The secret is simple, and nothing is hidden if you know where to look.
— Sergey Baranov
If you want to learn about loyalty, get a dog.
If you want to know yourself, drink Huachuma.
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— Sergey Baranov
Sergey is happily married to Mercedes, with whom he has two beautiful daughters. Although Sergey is the one who conducts the Huachuma ceremonies, he is always supported by the quiet presence of his wife, whose native wisdom is deeply felt and loved.