A velada is a night vigil. In Mazatec practice in Oaxaca, Mexico, it is a ceremony led by a healer in which people consult the mushrooms about illness and serious problems. In the account R. Gordon Wasson published, people brought questions about illness, a stolen donkey or a relative far away, and the Mazatec he met treated the mushrooms as sacred and never sold them in the market (Life, 1957).
His description of the 1955 velada led by María Sabina mentions about 20 people, an altar with Christian images, the last candle put out before midnight and chanting through the night (Life, 1957). A 2015 review notes that Mazatec ceremony blends Catholic and older practice (Carod-Artal, 2015).
That is one outsider’s account of one night, written by a man with a theory about mushrooms and the origin of religion, and scholars say it treated María Sabina as a relic rather than a person (Spiers et al., 2024). This site describes the velada as culture and history only. It gives no guidance on taking part in or copying it.
Sources
Last checked .