The funny thing about this trip is that three months ago I had never been interested in South America, nor in drugs. Yet, here I am in South America, looking for a shaman.
`Phenomenologically, the effects of ayahuasca are multifarious — they include hallucinatory effects in all perceptual modalities, psychological insights, intellectual ideations, spiritual uplifting and mystical experiences.’ — Benny Shanon
# Presentation
Ayahuasca is a powerful, hallucinogenic psychedelic drug. This brew has been used for centuries as a spiritual medicine by indigenous tribes of the Amazon basin. It is a mixture of two plants or more, and acts both for spiritual healing and as an anthelmintic, vomiting or killing off parasites, thus acting on both mental and physical afflictions. In the early 20th century it arrived to the Western world, and has since then spread like a feather in the wind.
# Medicine & Effects
Its effects as a medicine are gradually unveiled by modern medicine, revealing what shamans have known for a long time, namely its potential to treat various psychological or psychiatric disorders and other acceptance or mindfulness capacities, together with an incredible power to alleviate addictions. They are not yet accepted as treatment in Europe, but the growing body of evidence and numerous feedbacks of life-changing experience suggest it’s only a matter of time before psychedelic substance get accepted as medicines. Of course, taking addictive anti-depressants for years with various side effects while seeing a shrink or two can be a lot of fun, but maybe solving your issue with a week-long retreat without any post-treatment addiction can be interesting too! At least it’s worth considering a shot or two, a shot lasting up to 8 hours.
The documented effects of ayahuasca are indeed multifarious, starting at the psychiatric level and covering all range of human capabilities for creativity and connexion, be it philosophical insight (without formal education background), music playing, faster thinking, agility, aesthetic delicacy, coordinated motor control, musical improvisation, compassion or connectedness. Ayahuasca inebriation opens up personal and interpersonal potentials, with long-lasting effects. Let’s take a typical example: Benny Shanon has been using and investigating ayahuasca over many years. He wrote a book based on about 2,500 experiences, including his, and describes one of his own sessions as ‘the most wonderful piano lesson of [his] life’.
“[P]sychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. When you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope; he goes away and works on what he has seen.” — Alan Watts
# Risks
- Get high upon the mountain like Moses.
- Feeling sick with waves of cramps, nausea, vomiting. More rarely, diarrhea.
- Terrifying bad trip, feeling paranoid and fearful. Quite commonly, people feel that they are about to die. Hitting yourself during the ceremony also seems fairly common.
- Psychological damages, particularly if you are not prepared enough.
- Since ayahuasca raises blood pressure and heart rate, people with underlying heart conditions can die when taking ayahuasca.
- Incompatibility with other medication containing selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (such as Paxil, Lexapro or Prozac).
- Finding a charlatan instead of a well-trained shaman; more about this below.
# Preparation
The purification process starts long before your lips touch the magical concoction. Spicy and heavily-seasoned foods, excess fat, salt, caffeine, acidic foods and sex shortly before, during or after a ceremony are to be avoided. Fasting, praying and meditating precede the ritual.
The concoction itself has brewed for hours, or even days, mixing two plants that complement each other: the DMT contained in a plant (typically chacruna) mixes with the Banisteriopsis vine and its key ingredient: monoamine oxidase inhibitors, or MAOIs. Normally when people ingest DMT — a not-uncommon compound in nature — the monoamine oxidase in our gut knocks it out. But the monoamine oxidase inhibitors allows the DMT to reach the bloodstream and hence the brain. As a result, ingesting only one of these two plants has no effect, whilst taking both takes you off.
# Ceremony
I’ll wait for my own experience to give a personal account of how it went, but in a nutshell: people sitting in a tent, shamans chanting, distributing the brew, watching the fire, the urge to vomit, the visions, the unstoppable experience, the wandering, the shamans helping and chanting.
# A sacred plant
The ritualistic context of ayahuasca makes it even more powerful, and it is not your typical recreational drug; actually, it is unlikely to create any addiction and would rather free you from former addictions. The ceremony itself ought to be in the presence of one or more well-trained shamans, both to secure the ceremony and to help you interpreting your visions.
However, ayahuasca is not the only sacred plant. There exist others, such as cannabis, magic mushrooms, brugmansia, peyote or San Pedro cactus. They typically open the doors to ‘the spirit world’.
# Charlatanism VS Shamanism
Many charlatans, eager to cash in on the increasing tourism demand, will offer you an ayahuasca trip but won’t know the proper dosage and use of the plants. Shamans, on the other hand, have trained for years before undertaking any ceremony. Fake shamans may mix in other, stronger plants such as the angel’s plant, toé, which can cause brain damage and lead to violence and death.
There are stories of such bad trips, with fishy shamans. That is a reality one needs to be aware of. Repeatedly, today at Iquitos airport, travelers are as likely to be offered ayahuasca — or at least canisters of a dubious brown liquid — as they are a taxi.
# Where to go?
Removing the touristic spots found on the internet, there were two main leads:
- Iquitos, Peru, seems to be the best place for ayahuasca retreats, where you are as likely to be offered a taxi at the airport than ayahuasca.
- Rainbow communities are hippy-style communities regrouping in remote forests, and have a reputation for substance use.
However, as a personal trip, I decided to go to Colombia, to start the trip with nature and dancing, while starting to learn Spanish, necessary for what is coming. So far, I haven’t really danced nor seen nature… and nature ought to start next week, heading south.
‘Glamorizing ayahuasca with celebrity quotes and citing the LA Weekly in calling it “exceedingly trendy” is irresponsible on so many levels!’ — Ira Israel
# My personal trip
The idea is that you end up in front of a shaman taking ayahuasca because ayahuasca called you. And this verb, ‘called’, is the important one, even though I understood this very late. I could not put the finger on why and how the idea of going to South America and take an ancient drug got stuck in my mind, until I talked with Y. What Y., who had tried ayahuasca, magic mushrooms and others in South America, told me, is that there were many sacred plants. Ayahuasca was not his: he tried it, but his sacred plant was the mushrooms. But, and that’s where it all suddenly made sense to me, but if ayahuasca was calling for me, then this is what I ought to try. To search for the shaman who was calling.
Starting this moment, the ‘call’ had become the obvious reason of why I was making plans to go to South America. It finally made sense, after growing for weeks, even though there was a clear logical step missing. At the same time, I was learning to let go of the logical mazes I had created in my Cartesian mind. It was time to just follow my instinct.
I had no clear lead in Colombia, so my trip starts here for the nature and to learn Spanish (started with classes for a week). And while I was there, I also decided to finally start diving and pass the Open Water certification. Also, when seeing the map of Colombia, a month ago, my eyes were drawn to the southmost city of the country. Leticia. Even though I knew nothing of it, it imposed itself as a natural stop. At this point, I’m following my instinct rather than reason or advices, hence I’m slowly heading to Leticia, taking my time and finding my own flow, not running.
As if ayahuasca had running jokes, I met a Swedish girl at the El Viajero hostel, who talked both about a rainbow family and about Leticia. When I asked how Leticia was, she said I ‘had to go there’. C’mon, I got it, I’m going, I’m going…
Facing oneself at its deepest core is what seems to be the most common effect of the drug. To me, this self-exploration is by far the greatest promise of ayahuasca. Not to see how ugly or how beautiful you are, but just to see. To get freed from the mechanisms stuck in your mind, those that create obsessions and heart blindness. Healing by seeing. So, my expectations are rather modest, and even though I take the risk of not being ready seriously, I have no doubt concerning the whole trip. My instincts simply tell me I’m ready, and there is no need to ask.
Hopefully, this trip will satisfy said expectations and I’ll know where to go next. For now, I stick to these words: Don’t run. Hence, I shall walk towards Leticia and see for myself. And this, is my story.
