Within shamanic practice, plant medicines and entheogens are regarded as sacred instruments for entering altered states of consciousness that are essential to the work of healing and divination. By shifting perception into what is often described as non-ordinary reality, they enable the shaman to journey among different levels of existence, communicate with spirits, and access forms of knowledge that are ordinarily hidden. These visionary states are not pursued for their own sake, but as carefully guided conditions in which spirit allies, ancestors, and other entities can be encountered and consulted.

In the context of healing, such substances are understood to open a diagnostic vision, allowing the shaman to perceive spiritual or energetic causes of illness. Through these expanded states, the shaman may discern imbalances, intrusions, or forms of soul loss, and then be guided toward appropriate interventions. The same visionary capacity supports practices such as soul retrieval and the extraction of harmful influences, with the plant medicines functioning as allies that reveal what must be addressed and how it may be restored to balance.

These altered states also serve the purposes of divination and prophecy. Under the influence of plant medicines, shamans seek insight into future possibilities, distant events, or hidden aspects of a situation affecting individuals or the wider community. The images, voices, and symbolic patterns that arise are interpreted as messages from the spirit world, offering guidance on practical concerns as well as deeper existential questions. In this way, entheogens become a bridge between ordinary awareness and a more encompassing field of spiritual intelligence.

A further dimension of their role lies in the relationship with the spirits of the plants themselves. Many traditions regard each plant as possessing its own conscious presence and teachings, so that working with it becomes a form of apprenticeship to a non-human teacher. Through repeated ceremonial use, observance of taboos, and disciplined preparation, shamans cultivate a respectful bond with these plant spirits, learning healing songs, ritual protocols, and cosmological understandings. The plants are thus treated not as mere chemical agents but as sacred allies whose power must be approached with reverence and responsibility.