Sergey Baranov is the founder of Huachuma Wasi, a healing center in Peru’s Sacred Valley of the Incas, welcoming guests from around the world throughout the year.
His path with Huachuma is guided by a sincere love of life and a relentless search for truth and meaning. Together with his wife, Mercedes, he has created a setting for authentic inner work — a place where what arises may be exactly what you have been looking for, and perhaps even more.
Sergey is the author of five books, including 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 his most recent title, UNPLUGGED: Psychedelics, Farming, and Crypto The Three Pillars of Freedom. His books are available on Amazon.
His writing is shaped by a lifelong spiritual search and more than two decades of uninterrupted shamanic practice. Having lived in several countries across different continents and grown up within diverse cultures, Sergey came to recognize the universal core of human experience beneath all cultural differences. After exploring various spiritual traditions and seeing the limits of approaches that rely too heavily on words, he found shamanism to be a unifying path open to people of every background and belief.
In every culture, people share the same essential longing for love, meaning, belonging, truth, healing, and connection. The forms may differ, but the deeper experience remains the same. For Sergey, cultural differences are only surface expressions — decorations that can obscure the essence. What truly moves and heals us is shared by all.
Through his work with the sacred Huachuma cactus, Sergey discovered an ancient way of honoring life through direct experience and relationship with nature. The expanded state of consciousness that Huachuma can open becomes a doorway to profound spiritual healing and awakening. From there, one may reconnect with inner guidance and return to daily life feeling renewed, reoriented, and aligned with what matters most.
As Sergey says: “What you are seeking is already within you. This truth cannot be understood through words alone. It must be experienced. Knowing is a feeling.”
His spiritual path has become his livelihood. Doing what he loves, he introduces people to an ancient healing sacrament that grows naturally in the high Andes, the place he now calls home.
Huachuma shamanism can take many forms. Sergey’s approach is inspired by an ancient cultural stream centered around the mysterious temple of Chavín de Huántar. His work serves as an anchor into this deep mystery that lies beneath the modern face of Peru.
While deeply connected to Peru’s ancient shamanic traditions, Sergey believes the true shamanic experience has little to do with appearances. He respects traditional ceremonial dress as part of native cultures, yet as a Westerner he prefers to hold ceremonies in a grounded, approachable way that removes unnecessary barriers between facilitator and participants.
His dedication to serving Huachuma comes from the belief that it offers one of the most beautiful experiences life can hold. For him, it is a key to clarity, sanity, self-confidence, inner peace, and joy — qualities so many of us seek.
His purpose is to share this medicine with those looking for healing, answers, and the sense of magic many remember from childhood.
Sergey is happily married to Mercedes, and they have two beautiful daughters. While Sergey leads the Huachuma ceremonies, he is always supported by the quiet presence of his wife, whose native wisdom is deeply felt and cherished.