Tū Wairua: A Rongoā Māori approach to healing and connection with psilocybin containing mushrooms.

Tū Wairua is a Māori Health Science collaboration led by Rangiwaho Marae, (Ngai Tāmanuhiri) in Te Tairāwhiti, Gisborne, Aotearoa (New Zealand). Tū Wairua embraces the reawakening and reclamation of sacred ceremony and ritual in healing to reconnect Māori collectively to the wider ecological and energetic systems in which we find ourselves misalignedfrom in the post-colonial world. Guided by Māori elders and representatives, healers, and rongoā practitioners, we interweave traditional healing practices with more contemporary clinical/scientific approaches to create the fabric of the project.

Tū Wairua has developed a rongoā (traditional Māori medicine) marae-based psilocybin-assisted therapy, delivered by Māori for Māori. This has been piloted in a cohort of healthy Māori volunteers under a Phase 1 trial, including Māori kaitiaki (facilitators), to inform intervention development for a controlled trial with a Māori methamphetamine use population in Phase 2.

This presentation will provide a background on the Tū Wairua project and my involvement, share cultural values and principles that are fundamental in Māori health and thriving, convey insights to date around the strengths and challenges of bridging Rongoā Māori and biomedical science. I will also share an indigenous methodology I am applying throughout my research that recognises researchers as absorbent beings with bodies that have a role in the generation of knowledge within the sciences.