There is no Undo button for the Ayahuasca experience
In this article, I will share my personal feelings as a neophyte taking part in the ancient Ayahuasca ritual for the first time, as well as practical recommendations for choosing a retreat, preparing for the ceremony, integrating the experience, and ensuring safety measures. I hope my experience will be of use to those who are seriously weighing the pros and cons. Please note that this article was originally written and published in 2017, so some places, organizations, and routes may have changed since then.
I have never had trouble describing my experience of anything, whether it be an encounter with a unique person, a childhood memory, a strange dream, or a parachute jump. However, the experience of the Ayahuasca ceremony is so extraordinary that I find it hard to find the words. And it’s not even about clearly and accurately reflecting the variety of colors, sounds, and bodily sensations. No, the difficulty is trying to answer the central question, “WTF was that!”
There are milestones in any person’s life whose meaning and nature cannot be understood until they actually occur. The first sex, the first fight, the first death of another being, the bungee jump, the birth of children, and many other moments for which your mind is not prepared in advance. Other people’s stories don’t help much. It takes personal experience. But it changes your worldview forever. The only relief is that despite the uniqueness of your experiences, the event itself is an integral part of our culture, and therefore it is easier to integrate and organize it in your mind.
But the experience that ayahuasca provides is not adequately reflected in our culture. There are no mental models, no traditions of discussion, not even language. Therefore, a personal story about something that does not fit into the usual “born-studied-married-worked-died” model will be listened to with polite attention by others at first, then laughed at nervously, making references to the cartoonish perception of the hallucinogenic experience, finally felt anxious and hinted at the need for medical intervention. And only some people who have experienced enough in their lives, or are very observant, or are simply more open to everything new, will not be in a hurry to dismiss the incomprehensible, but will study it with curiosity. Especially since for a small part of humanity this experience is far from new.
What is Ayahuasca
Although the native tribes of the Amazon Basin have practiced the Ayahuasca ritual for more than four thousand years, the Western world is only now truly trying to understand the nature and impact of this phenomenon. English botanist Richard Spruce was the first Western scientist to mention the ingredients of the potion in 1851, but until the middle of the 20th century, it was mostly only chemists who clarified the composition of the Ayahuasca used by the various tribes. In 1967, a unique symposium was held in San Francisco entitled “The Ethnopharmacological Search for Psychoactive Drugs” under the patronage of, you would not believe, the U.S. Department of Health. The print edition of the multidisciplinary scientists’ speeches instantly became a classic of psychedelic literature. A powerful impetus for the popularization of ayahuasca came from the research and books of ethnobotanists Terence and Denis McKenna, who conducted many experiments on themselves. Today there are large-scale scientific experiments on Ayahuasca, regular conferences, progressive psychotherapists combining the ritual with traditional therapies, and in Silicon Valley, according to New-Yorker magazine, it is now one of the liveliest topics for table conversations. In the coming years, we will probably see an explosion of public interest in the Ayahuasca ceremony and an exponential increase in the number of those who have had their first direct experience.
“….the native tribes of the Amazon Basin have practiced the Ayahuasca ritual for more than four thousand years…”
Ayahuasca (aya, aya, iowaska, yagé) is a decoction of mainly two plants — psychotria viridis (chakruna) and banisteriopsis caapi (Ayahuasca liana), the first of which contains the main active ingredient, while the second neutralizes enzymes in the stomach, which eventually allows the medicine to be taken as a drink. How the Indians first thought of boiling these two complementary plants together is a mystery. It is important to note that in 2008, the Peruvian government declared ayahuasca a national treasure, an integral part of traditional medicine; a drink of undeniable medicinal value and a source of natural knowledge. In Brazil, three religious organizations have even emerged on the basis of Ayahuasca, officially using the decoction in their rituals. Incidentally, one of these churches, the UDV (Uniao de Vegetal), a mixture of Christian and South American beliefs, sued the U.S. after customs seized 113 liters of ayahuasca from them and recently won a resounding victory. The court allowed the UDV “to use Ayahuasca tea within the United States in religious rituals for the purpose of contact with God”.
The Indians address ayahuasca as “Mother Ayahuasca,” calling it “the vine of the spirits” or “the vine of the dead,” and now I can see why. A person is given access to another space. One can perceive it in different ways. Some believe that they see a world of spirits as tangible and real as the people and animals with whom we interact every day. Others believe that what they see is merely a projection of their subconscious and are curious about what it might reveal to them. The only thing impossible is to remain indifferent and skeptical of what is happening to you during the ceremony. All your sensations of the “other” world — visual, auditory, bodily, olfactory — are as intense and real as they are in everyday life. Sometimes it seems that the world you discover is even more real than what you are used to, which is not surprising if you stop running away from the idea of where we all came from and where we will inevitably go. Ayahuasca doesn’t just let you into another world, but importantly, it allows you to actively interact with those who inhabit it. As you go along, you learn with whom and how to communicate, from whom to get help, and how to protect yourself. There is a unique opportunity to “work through” — to purify, burn, transform — those aspects of one’s consciousness/personality/world that either do not lend themselves to conventional methods, or are deeply and cunningly hiding, poisoning our lives for years on the sly.
Properly prepared ayahuasca is non-toxic, scientists have not yet been able to determine a lethal dose, is not addictive (even the opposite), and has no negative physical effects on the body. However, if an unprepared person drinks too large a portion, the intensity of the experience may discourage any desire to continue next time. You should not drink the decoction from untested hands, because charlatans often slip extremely toxic enhancers (like “toé” datura) in order to “get the client stoned for sure”. Taking the decoction simultaneously with other medications can be dangerous, which is why there is a strict rule to stop taking any medications (including vitamins) 2 weeks before the retreat. Ayahuasca can sometimes cause anxiety, panic and paranoia and therefore is not recommended for people with severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Those with a weak heart and high blood pressure should also be careful, as the exertion is similar to a roller coaster ride. The rest of us can try the healing effects. A 2015 study in Brazil, for example, showed an 82% reduction in depression from a single dose of Ayahuasca in volunteers with moderate to severe levels of depression. A large-scale 2012 study examined the long-term effects of ayahuasca from multiple perspectives and found no evidence of pathological changes in any area. Moreover, ayahuasca users performed better than the control group on neuropsychological tasks, showed higher levels of spirituality and demonstrated better psychosocial adjustment. Internet forums are full of stories about the astounding therapeutic effects on psychosomatic health. Even if only a small part of this folklore is true, ayahuasca looks like an option with unlimited upside for those willing to pay the price — to take a “leap of faith.” It’s like being offered to jump without a parachute with the promise that after 30 seconds of falling you’ll be handed one in the air. Or it’s like this — your heart will stop and you’ll die, but don’t worry, our resuscitators will definitely bring you back to life. Either way, ayahuasca is best taken as a very extreme experience.
“It’s like being offered to jump without a parachute with the promise that after 30 seconds of falling you’ll be handed one in the air.”
Choosing a retreat
When I decided to do the Ayahuasca ritual, the question was when, with whom, and where. I was told about some Peruvian shaman who comes to Ukraine for a couple of weeks specifically to perform ceremonies “for friends”. There was a great temptation to do it here and save a tangible amount on airfare. However, my intuition convinced me to look for an authentic ritual. I’m glad I listened to myself. The fact is that ayahuasca is a neutron bomb, it exposes your inner world, removes hidden clamps, dissolves the protective shell and unravels old psychological knots. Within hours you find yourself in an extremely vulnerable, shaky and potentially suggestible state. Sadly, the Internet is overflowing with stories of brooding charlatans taking advantage of the interest and naivety of Western tourists, adding to the statistics of theft, rape, poisoning and serious psychological trauma. If this is your first experience, an offer from unfamiliar people saying that a famous shaman has come to town — join us, except for logistical convenience, does not bode well. You cannot evaluate the quality of the process and are forced to entrust your priceless psyche to a stranger who has no obligations to you. Of course, it is quite another matter if the shaman who comes on a guest visit is recommended by a close friend who has attended dozens of ceremonies in various places and can tell a real quality from a fake. If there is no such friend, as in my case, then the only option is to find a time-tested retreat, with a shaman who has a reputation and therefore has something to lose. What Nassim Taleb calls “Skin in the game.
One should approach choosing a shaman the same way one would choose a neurosurgeon, a gynecologist, or a baby sitter — by doing thorough research into the alternatives and doing cross-checking recommendations from various sources. As a result of an intensive search, my circle narrowed down to 4 reliable retreats and beyond that the choice was only in the minutiae. The reviews of one of them were in the “luxury” category, but for the journey inside myself, I was more looking for ascesis. The other retreat offered “two-in-one” — ceremonies at night and active jungle excursions during the day. This appeals to busy American tourists, but the all-in-one approach did not inspire me. The third quality retreat was disconcerting in that it looked like a business factory, effectively letting portions of tourists through.
“One should approach choosing a shaman the same way one would choose a neurosurgeon, a gynecologist, or a baby sitter.”
In the end, I chose “Nihue Rae,” and I was satisfied and ready to recommend it. In Shipibo, “nihue” means air (breath/breeze) and “rao” means medicine. At that time it was almost the only known retreat whose owner (Ricardo Amaringo) is not a foreigner, but an actual local, the main shaman, which ensures a steady continuity of the traditions and rituals of the Shipibo tribe. With a clear structure of all ceremonies at the same time there is a certain looseness, lack of tension or, if you will, humanity of the process. There is a feeling that you are in experienced, careful hands of people who care about your condition. This applies not only to the shamans, but also to the assistant coordinators, who are ready to talk to you at any moment and, most importantly, to listen carefully. When you are confused and bewildered by your experiences, this proves to be extremely important. It seemed to me very reasonable to have a general rhythm where the ceremonies take place four times a week and alternate with Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday off. At the same time the necessary intensity of the experience is achieved and there is an opportunity to gather strength, reconsider, and rest. An indirect indicator of the quality of the retreat is the large number of guests who return here again and again. I also liked that Niue Rae specializes only in Ayahuasca, making a decoction without additives, and not other popular rituals like San Pedro and Cambo. The decisive argument was the flexibility of schedule — most retreats require groups to check in on certain dates, but at Niue Rae, after checking in on a Saturday, I was allowed to choose any length of stay, paying for the days actually lived. I had originally planned to spend 2 weeks at the retreat and another 1 week traveling to Peru. But in the end I decided to spend all 3 weeks at Niue Rae and get the most out of the experience by doing 11 ceremonies instead of 8. The inner world journey was more enthralling. And sights like Machu Picchu have been standing for over 500 years, so that will also wait.
Journey
I made a decision about the trip quickly and in 2 weeks I was already in Peru. But it is better to plan such a trip half a year in advance, then firstly, the ticket might be cheaper, and secondly, there will be enough time to find unavailable in Ukraine pills to prevent malaria. I flew from Kyiv to Lima, and then took a local flight to Iquitos from the same airport. I did a silly thing by combining two flights without a break, which resulted in 17.5 hours to Lima, 5 hours of waiting time between flights, 2 hours of flying to Iquitos plus check-in beforehand at the airport. Total of about 28 hours from home to the hotel. It is better to sleep 1–2 nights in Lima, but not in the center, but on the outskirts, in a trendy area Miraflores or Barranco. It is advisable to ask the hotel to send a cab to Iquitos airport, but you must be prepared, as in my case, that no one will meet you. Local hustlers will take you to the hotel in comfort by car for 20 soles or in a three-wheeled motorcycle wheelchair for 10 soles ($3).
Iquitos, the largest city in the Peruvian Amazon with a population of more than 400,000 people, has no land connection — people and goods are transported by plane or ferry. The city is curious only because it is an example of a boom in the 19th century, when, after the invention of rubber vulcanization, a rubber boom broke out in the world. Millions in profits multiplied so quickly that some nouveaux riches even sent their laundry to England from Peru. The profits were not reinvested in infrastructure, but spent on imported luxury goods. The boom ended as quickly as it began when the British smuggled out the seeds of the rubber tree and planted them in their Asian and African colonies. Only miraculously preserved buildings like the Casa del Fierro, designed by Gustave Eiffel and delivered in parts from Europe to Peru, remind us of the former grandeur of the “beautiful era”. It was impossible to live in the house, by the way, because it got so hot from the local heat.
The guidebook “Lonely Planet — Peru” was extremely useful, thanks to which I chose cozy hotels in Iquitos and Lima and got an adequate idea of where, what, when to eat, walk and sleep. Who has often been in India, will be at home in Peru. However, in Peru I got the impression of a slightly higher crime rate than in India. Need to be especially careful at the giant Iquitos market “Belén market”, where you feel like a walking purse with gold fringe. I recommend taking a tour to see the floating villages, leaving a mixed feeling of amazement and sadness. 7,000 people live in shabby wooden shacks standing on stilts or bobbing on the water. Belém is called the “Venice of Loreto” because of the ability to travel only by boat and canoe during the rainy season, but only a sick imagination could draw a parallel between these cities. My guide showed me his house, his family, explained why he lives on the water — you don’t have to pay anything to the city. The houses have no sewage system, waste and garbage go straight into the river, in which the local kids have fun bathing. Despite the minimal square footage, each house has several dogs. When asked why there is such a predilection for animals, the guide answered simply: “Protection from nocturnal thieves.
At 9:00 am a motorized rickshaw picked me up from my hotel in Iquitos, picked up my “colleague” from Canada, and took us deep into the jungle for a 40 minute daring ride through seemingly impassable mud and potholes. Next, local teenagers on a flatboat took us on a scenic river to the retreat in 20 minutes. Niue Rae is a fairly vast area surrounded on all sides by jungle.
Retreat
The retreat has a couple of dozen huts of varying purposes and sizes — dining room, living room, ceremonial place (“maloka”), medicine house (“casa de medicina”), art house (“art-maloka”), guest huts (“pasajeros”), shaman and coordinator houses, gift store, separate showers and toilet facilities. There’s also a full-fledged soccer field where locals play hardball, putting money on the line. Guards with rifles on their backs patrol the center’s perimeter. The sight of the guards disconcerted the Americans, who arrived shortly after us: “Should we be afraid of anything? The guests were assured that the weapons were supposedly for shooting snakes.
There is a small poultry farm and a mini zoo with some kind of pig rat, turtles, rabbits, and giant pigeons. Huge, gorgeous parrots walk freely around the grounds and have a bad habit of repeatedly yelling “Ola” (Spanish for “hello”) at 6am. Friendly dogs also scurry around, opening doors to all areas with a deft swipe of their paws.
The level of organization in the Nihue Rae retreat is top-notch — as soon as you arrive, friendly English-speaking coordinators bring you up to speed, patiently answer a million questions, give you the keys, and check you into a one-bedroom tambo, which is designed for two people. In fact, this is a wooden plywood one-story cottage, which instead of large windows is stretched a fine mesh. Inside is an ascetic’s paradise — a bed with mosquito-proof gauze, a shelf, a bench and a table. Outside hangs a personal hammock. Clean bedding and a towel wait on the bed. There is no danger of getting cold — it is the same 33 degrees during the day and 23 at night. Sometimes it rains for a couple of hours, under which it is pleasant to wander barefoot as when you were a child. After sunset there are mosquitoes, from which it makes sense to protect yourself with long clothes, socks and a natural repellent. I made the mistake of relaxing and after a week I stopped thinking about them altogether, only melancholy marking the signs of new bites. I was also too lazy to take malaria prophylactics. I paid for such carelessness in full — the next day after my arrival in Kyiv my temperature skyrocketed, I had chills, fever, aching muscles, and headache. On the third try the tests revealed malaria, so I had to “prolong the retreat” — to spend 7 days in a solitary ward of the hospital. I also had to organize an urgent search for medicine, which was not available in Ukraine. However, thanks to the efforts of excellent doctors, family and friends, I was quickly back on track.
Preparation
On the first day of the retreat it is necessary to undergo a cleansing ritual by drinking Vometivo (vomiting agent), a remedy to cleanse the body of all kinds of accumulated impurities, decay products and parasites. It’s disgusting and looks like glue. It penetrates uncontrollably in all natural directions. Later each week on Tuesdays and Fridays, another ritual, the Floral bath, is offered. As disgusting as the Vometivo procedure is, the Floral bath is delightful. You take a normal shower, without shampoo, then you take a bucket of scented infusion with the petals of plants, you go deep into the jungle, where you ask the spirits of water and plants to wash away all your dirt and filth, and then slowly and with pleasure pour this elixir on yourself, rubbing along the petals in places of all your old injuries. You can’t shower until the next morning, but you don’t want to either, because you’re all fragrant. You feel a slight rush of energy in the body and a general improvement in your mood.
At first during the retreat it seemed strange to me that I had no need to do anything. Especially confusing was how, after six Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes a week, I could live so long without physical activity. I even started looking around for a place to do gymnastics. However, already after the first ceremony, which started around 8:00 pm and ended around 3:00 am and squeezed my nervous system in a centrifuge, I realized that I wanted to spend the whole next day without movement, lying in a hammock. Subsequently, I didn’t even think about exercise until the flight out of Lima (a couple of lazy games of table tennis don’t count). It’s also interesting to see how the inner “speed demon” slows down. The first week you still feel the usual urban itch to run somewhere, do something, do not forget anything, have time for everything. But your nervous state so contradicts the peaceful atmosphere of the chirping jungle, lazily scattering tobacco smoke and sluggishly moving insects, that willy-nilly you start to stumble and eventually slow down your running in place, organically integrating into the calm rhythm of the surrounding nature. Because food is cooked for you, clothes are washed, and there’s nothing else to do, you’re on your own all day-reading in a hammock, sleeping, journaling, smoking mapacho in a rocking chair, or chatting with new buddies about life.
Diet
A certain discomfort may be caused by dieting. It is recommended to start it a week before the retreat and end it a week after. A complete renunciation of salt, sugar, oil, medicines, any stimulants and sex. It is also recommended to exclude certain foods which could interact negatively with Ayahuasca (avocados, nuts, canned foods, smoked meats, etc.). In the retreat itself, the food is fresh and of good quality, but unbearably monotonous. Tasteless rice, beans, rarely egg whites, baked potatoes, bananas and apples in the morning, afternoon and evening. Oatmeal on water is added for breakfast. The only 2 foods I will miss are lunch fish, which we called “chicken-fish” for its extremely juicy, delicious meat, and crispy, juice-splattered green apples. In general, I thought that giving up my daily coffee would cause me the most difficulties, but the withdrawal syndrome only lasted a couple of days. But the agony of giving up salt surprised me — I did not expect such a strong dependence on innocent crystals of NaCl. It was as if the exuberant, cheerful, festive world of flavors had shrunk into the dull, gray, empty Mongolian steppe.
Ceremony
“So, after these three weeks, would you recommend the Ayahuasca ritual to people you know at home?” my new friends asked me. I shook my head doubtfully, “I don’t know. I wouldn’t wish what I’d experienced on anyone”. In fact, how can one ardently recommend brain surgery to dear people without anesthesia? Unless there is no other choice. It is fair to say that some of the ceremonies gave me a sense of healing recovery, boundless peace and faith in myself. And most of the people with whom I participated in the ritual described their experience with the epithets “amazing,” “divine,” “grandiose,” and “full of bliss”. But even they sometimes had ceremonies that they groaned “no, that was too intense”. You might ask, “Where did all that drama come from?”
And what else would you expect from a drug that brutally rips off everything you’ve held so dear, close and familiar, opens the safes of your most intimate fears, shuts down your will, and ruthlessly pushes you into the reality you’ve been running from all your life. At this moment, very inopportunely, time also freezes, stretching the torture into infinity.
However, it usually begins very gently. Twenty-five people gather in the evening in the spacious Moloka room and take their assigned seats on mattresses. Next to each is an empty bucket, a roll of toilet paper (in case of vomiting) and a fan. The passenger receives 25 to 50 ml of thick, dark decoction, the taste of which becomes more and more unbearable with each ceremony. After 20 to 40 minutes of waiting in complete darkness and silence, the effects begin to show. It’s as if something inside you is sending faint threads that fill every corner of your mind and body. Following the new bodily sensations, a kaleidoscope of moving patterns blossoms, gaining both brightness and speed with each passing minute. What came so subtly turns out to be a harbinger wind of a giant storm. The first wave knocks your consciousness off its feet, and then mercilessly twists, smashes, crushes it like an empty bottle on the rocks. Sometimes, as if in mockery, the wave retreats and you feverishly try to cling to the familiar environment, groping the rough floorboards, wiping off the sweat pouring down like a river and greedily sucking the cool night air with your lungs. But soon you feel with longing the inexorably growing wave, and you know exactly that it is impossible to hide from it. The dance of images and the cacophony of sounds becomes more and more frantic, so that only sparks of consciousness sometimes pick up scraps of thoughts and splinters of feelings from this hectic mess.
In the process, the mind at first tries to ironically observe, then nervously interpret, then hysterically understand, but quickly surrenders to the all-on-your-way-sweeping power. Any of your usual explanations, assumptions, tricks and excuses lose force here, and you are forced to stare with a shudder at what you really are. It is impossible to look away or close your eyes, because you still feel and see everything.
“Any of your usual explanations, assumptions, tricks and excuses lose force here, and you are forced to stare with a shudder at what you really are.”
At first there seems to be hope to cling to familiar semantic anchors. You ask forgiveness from all people, try to lean on love, remember your wife, children, mother, plead with God, kiss the cross on your body, but in response you hear only the Homeric laughter of the Universe. You realize that you are alone with IT… Naked, empty, defenseless. A tree without roots. A crab without a shell. A bee without wings.
Superficial words can not convey the full extent of existential longing, red-hot nail burning all the gut of your personality in an ornate closed algorithm. The most secret fear bubbles up from its dark depths to the surface and fills your heart to the brim with chilling terror. You cease to understand whether you are still alive or already dead.
Support
Everyone present has a flashlight, cleverly taped with red duct tape so that the bright light is not annoying in the dark. But the flashlight isn’t just needed to get outside to the bathroom. It also comes in handy when you want to signal SOS. When the intensity of your experiences exceeds your ability to organize them in your head, when the walls and the floor dissolve before your eyes, and the whole familiar world turns inside out, you can and should call the coordinator for help. All you have to do is turn on your flashlight and point it at the wall behind you. Here I had an unfortunate slip-up. Once I was so badly crushed that I realized that I could no longer manage on my own. With an effort, I remembered the flashlight, fumbled for it, and hopefully turned it on. However, time passed, and to my dismay no one rushed to me, they just did not notice me. As it turned out later, I had turned on the flashlight, but in total confusion, I had aimed it not at the wall, but at the floor! Desperate to draw attention to myself with the light, I tried to call the coordinator by name, but suddenly I realized with a shudder that I could not remember her name: “Sylvia? No! But what then?!” Saying someone else’s name didn’t make sense; many people were laughing or crying during the ceremony, saying different words. Then it hit me and I started calling out, “Help!” Again, no one heard me. I was alone with it… Remember the mooing Nemo from “The Matrix” when his mouth disappeared? After the ceremony was over, I asked my neighbor Daniel if he was paying attention to my screams. He didn’t hear anything, though his experience this time was pleasant and quiet. And then I suddenly realized that the word “Help!” I wasn’t yelling, I was WHISPERING. Oh, how Daniel and I laughed heartily as I showed him my face like a bug pressed to the mattress by a needle, with the flashlight resting on the floor, whispering the “SOS!” signal. One thing’s for sure — it was a healing laugh… By the way, the next time I was hit even harder, I still aimed the flashlight at the wall and got help from kind people.
In the most difficult moments support is provided by coordinators or a shaman. During the ceremony, each of the participants is escorted and seated on a small mat opposite one of the four shamans. Nearby you are sure to put your bucket. The coordinator whispers in the shaman’s ear what your intention is and he begins to sing a song (“icaro”), intended for you personally. The icaro can lift you to the heavens or plunge you into the abyss, bring you bliss or turn you inside out. Sometimes I adored and hated shamans at the same time, because inside me I felt both a wild urge to purify myself from something alien to me and a desperate unwillingness to leave it. The Icaro itself is the most amazing piece of music I’ve ever heard. It shattered my idea of what sounds a human being can produce and, most importantly, what a tremendous response they can evoke in the human soul. However, if one carefully chooses a resonant melody over several thousand years, success is inevitable.
It is possible to identify several stages in the process: first, waves of unfamiliar bodily sensations, then an intense visual and sonic series, an increase in conflict, and finally, after the climax, a time of profound reflection, revelations, and insights. In fact, at these moments there is a chance to finally find out what has been hiding in you since childhood, to get rid of it, or at least to work through what has been poisoning your whole life. Conversely, the ceremony can take place on a spectrum of totally positive emotions, filling you with a previously unknown sense of unshakeable peace, immense power, and awe. The religious man can finally have the experience he read about in the descriptions of the lives of the saints. The rational mind of the atheist is forced to recognize the existence of something that he cannot explain, but which he is now unable to deny.
“The rational mind of the atheist is forced to recognize the existence of something that he cannot explain, but which he is now unable to deny.”
Generally speaking, people’s memories in the aftermath of the ceremony are a separate entertainment. It is impossible to explain to a virgin what sex is. But we, who have just experienced something unthinkable, are all at one with each other, can share freely, and find understanding in each other. Sometimes the experience is very funny, sometimes unspeakably sad. I remember a story of an American who was in awe of the endless stream of beautiful insects when, all of a sudden, a real bug fell down on him from the ceiling — you can imagine how this guy flew up! The French neighbor had lived through several decades of his alternate life and could recount in detail the events of all the years. There have been stories far worse than that… But to describe specific experiences outside the “circle” — is a futile exercise. The experience, like a childhood memory or a dream, is interesting only to its owner, maybe to the people who love him or her. For the rest of us, it’s all nonsense, illusion, self-deception. However, this only means that everyone needs to have their own unique experience.
Sometimes the effects of the medicine are so strong that even when the shaman announces the end of the ceremony, some people lie still, unable to speak. After particularly difficult ceremonies, just seeing the candle flame, hearing people laugh is bliss, because you realize that you are, after all, back and can again be aware, feel, think. Humor helps a lot — the way we laughed after the story of our “thrillers”, I may have never laughed. It was not for nothing that psychotherapist Viktor Frankl said, “Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation”. At the end of the ceremony fruit is handy, because without dinner, and after a five-hour “marathon” you feel a brutal appetite. Someone immediately crawls into his den to sleep, others stay to exchange impressions until morning. People read poetry, sing quiet songs, play the guitar and hang. There is a pleasant atmosphere in the maloka, as if the coast, which survived a fierce storm, is once again filled with diverse life.
Often people who are into psychedelics decide to try ayahuasca for the same recreational purposes. They are often sorely disappointed. The shaman constantly repeats that ayahuasca is a powerful medicine that must be treated with due respect. The modern man, who is used to taking antibiotics, alcohol, painkillers or something stronger for every occasion, finds it very difficult to perceive the words “respect” and “medicine” in the same way. However, the first ceremony shakes you up like a blind kitten and quickly teaches you humility, so that the next time you beg, “Mother Ayahuasca, please be kind and gentle with me.”
Plant Teachers
In general, what the shaman, aka curandero, told me changed my perception of medicinal plants very much. In the Shipibo culture it is believed that a number of plants and trees (“master plants”) have the ability not only to heal people from various kinds of mental illnesses and psychological trauma, but also to give some knowledge, which cannot be obtained in other ways. The greedy, uncontrolled consumption of various plants (coffee, tea, coca, tobacco, marijuana, etc.) for pleasure, inhibition or stimulation, as we Westerners are used to, is an abuse with dire consequences. Each plant has its own purpose, method of preparation, ritual of ingestion, diet before, during and after. Otherwise the medicine becomes a poison.
I was also surprised to learn about the “Master-plant diet,” where a person spends a long time (from 3 months to 2 years or more) in isolation, living in a cabin deep in the jungle, keeping contact with people to a minimum, eating a very ascetic diet and taking regular plant extracts from a shaman’s recipe. To me, such a long isolation in nature may be healing in itself, but after ayahuasca, I am willing to accept that some plants are capable of giving one something more. Again, it can be seen as access to the wisdom of the “plant world” that has lived on this planet, incidentally, much longer than we have, or as the catalysis of inner insights originally stored in any human being.
Each ceremony is unique and destroys all your expectations. It’s understandable — a fresh brew is prepared every day, so the concentration of the drink changes, as does the weather, atmospheric pressure, the mood of the group, and above all the state of mind of the individual. Axakals like Denis McKenna constantly talk about the importance of “set and setting,” referring to the criticality of both one’s inner mood and with whom, where and how the ceremony takes place. Not knowing what to expect this time, you go to the ceremony as a scaffolding if the last time was hard, or as a celebration if the experience was inspiringly luminous.
Cleansing
The locals call ayahuasca “la purga,” which means purification, because it frees the person from excess — literally from all sorts of parasites, but more importantly, from various mental blocks, emotional clamps and the effects of previous trauma experiences. The physiological aspect of the cleanse (vomiting and diarrhea) is usually the most frequently discussed on the Internet. This may be because, for modern man, the uncontrolled vomiting of anything in public is something unthinkably shameful. However, in the context of the ceremony, such a cleansing is perceived not just as normal, but even as desirable, because it indicates a successful healing process. Most people feel real relief when they manage to get all the crap out of themselves, which, by the way, can take quite frightening forms during the ceremony. For example, my neighbor, an emergency room doctor, told me that after the cleansing, she found horrible-looking black and green snakes in her bucket. Many mentioned a variety of “insects” and “crustacean creatures” that they had to get off. The next morning, everyone gathers for a group discussion of the experience and receives advice from the shaman. Here people already quietly clarify whether they were able to be cleansed yesterday or not. However, this is all individual. Some people have never used their bucket for its intended purpose in two weeks.
People
The group was eclectic. Travellers from Australia, Canada, Germany, France, England, the Philippines, South Africa, and Tasmania came to this jungle-starved Peruvian retreat. On the map in the dining room I saw markings of guests from China, Iceland, Japan, and some small islands in the Atlantic Ocean. There didn’t seem to be anyone from Ukraine before me. The ages also varied — from an 18-year-old young man to a 70-year-old elegant lady. A high-tech entrepreneur, a philosopher, a reanimation doctor, a linguistic professor, a media manager, a translator from the language of the deaf-mute, a programmer, a farmer. Each has his own reasons, and not everyone is willing to be candid. One is solving problems inherited from parents who fled war-torn country. A single mother does not want her daughter to suffer the life-long torment of her own. Someone has a need to make a drastic business decision. Or the desire to heal the effects of a seemingly inconspicuous facial injury from a car accident. An intention to get rid of some addiction. A dream to learn to trust your intuition. A longing to understand one’s path. Or a curiosity to have an experience unlike any other. In short, there are as many motivations as there are people.
We witnessed and participated in the Spiritual wedding of two new friends. The American Ashley and the Frenchman Remy met at Niue Rae a year ago, fell in love, and now, in addition to the official celebrations in France and the United States, they asked shaman Ricard to unite them according to the traditional ritual of the Shipibo people. A few days before the ceremony, their faces, hands and feet were painted in a special way, and on their wedding day they were dressed in traditional attire and seated in a ceremonial maloka on a separate, brightly decorated seat. The shaman said special words that tied their souls together and warned them that they would need a separate ceremony at the same place. After congratulations, the boys were the first to drink the festive portion of ayahuasca. I don’t know how I could have tied them together more tightly, because even before the wedding, this couple had amazed me with their careful, attentive, and tender attention to each other.
When you first go to an unknown place in the jungle, to strangers to drink from their hands the most powerful psychedelic in the world, you are inevitably paranoid: “What if this is a cult? What if I’m poisoned or programmed? I’ll be so vulnerable! What if…?” Fantasy helpfully paints a grim picture of myself willingly headfirst into the mouth of a predator. But soon you become convinced that although it is normal to be afraid of the unknown, in reality everything is easier and brighter. I have to say I never expected to see so many nice people. Simple, humble and approachable shamans. Coordinating assistants with such kindness and participation that you could apply it to a wound. Among “pasajeros” just like me, of course, there were a couple of people who made me uncomfortable at first, but later it turned out that this was more a projection of my clamps and fears onto them. In general, you have to be prepared for the possibility that during the ceremonies someone might tremble from overexposure-I’ve heard stories of people running screaming into the jungle. The assistants then found them, calmed them down and returned them to the safety of the maloka. There were cases when people were so frightened by what they saw that they interrupted the retreat and flew home the next morning. To be honest, after the first, fourth and eighth ceremonies I was so crushed that I also planned to pack my backpack in the morning. But then, after talking to the shaman and the other guys, I calmed down and let the medicine do its job. In general I was unspeakably lucky to meet extremely bright and kind people who supported me in especially dark moments. Each of them gave me something — attention, advice, or a personal secret. Although they admired my strength and resilience, I don’t know how things would have turned out if they hadn’t been there for me.
Art
The Art-maloka (house of art) is very conveniently located on the territory of the retreat. Those who wish to express their feelings can do so, for example, with paints on canvas. Judging by the paintings hanging in the area, the retreat is sometimes attended by very talented people. The last time I painted with gusto was in my distant childhood. Suddenly, the urge to pick up a pencil was there again. It was naive and simple, but I experienced a state similar to Flow. Which is not surprising, since art therapy has long been known and popular in medicine as a way to harmonize a person’s psycho-emotional state.
Interestingly, in addition to the Ayahuasca ritual itself, you also receive a “master plant diet”, which means that every day at a certain hour you take an extract of a plant from the local garden. On the day of your arrival, Ricardo will talk to you, find out your reasons for coming, your intentions, and prescribe a diet with a plant specific to you. This diet is “friendly” with ayahuasca, in synergy with it.
Technical details
Why and how does ayahuasca work? Science has a number of hypotheses. Clinical studies have shown the effectiveness of ayahuasca in treating all kinds of addictions, which, like a stray dog full of fleas, every human being is full of. Any addiction is a complex phenomenon rooted in all levels: biochemical, physiological, psychological and transcendental, that is, beyond comprehension. Ayahuasca seems to affect each of them. According to the “biochemical” hypothesis, taking drugs, for example, stimulates the release of dopamine in the mesolimbic system of the brain or “pleasure center”, which in turn stimulates further drug taking. The mesolimbic system is responsible for shaping motivation, pleasure, reward, and, unfortunately, addiction. Ayahuasca inhibits the release of dopamine in the “pleasure center” and thus weakens the link between the source of addiction (the drug) and the associated reward. In this sense, the mechanism of action of Ayahuasca is similar to the way modern antipsychotic medications prescribed for schizophrenia and other psychoses work.
The “psychological” theory suggests that ayahuasca opens access to subconscious emotional problems from the past, showing their connection to present behavior, as well as the consequences in the future if the person continues to live as he or she used to. This gives one a choice of what to do, and one can decide to give up the compulsive behavioral substance, stay out of trap situations, avoid toxic people, etc. From a physiological point of view, dopamine releases from drugs are also related to “synaptic plasticity,” a process that changes the connections between neurons and forms addiction. The “pleasure and reward center” usually responsible for human learning is “cracked” by dopamine and so-called “diabolic learning” occurs, i.e., a rutted highway between stimulus and reward. Ayahuasca is supposed to reverse this process, allowing the neural jungle to absorb the dangerous highway.
Finally, the “Transcendental” hypothesis is based on the well-known fact that people who have had so-called “peak psychedelic experiences” find themselves able to overcome their addictions. The literature of any religion is full of examples of the radical reincarnation of a sinner into a saint as a result of God’s revelation which overturned his/her whole being. Bill Wilson, founder of the famous Alcoholics Anonymous movement, hospitalized with a diagnosis of incurable alcoholism and sinking to the bottom of a black depression, howled in a fit of despair: “I’m ready to do anything…God, if you exist, reveal yourself to me!” Suddenly he was in another space, at an indescribable height, surrounded by blinding light, gasping with ecstasy. A fresh wind enveloped and pierced him. But, he said, it was not air, but Spirit. Suddenly the thought that shook him came, “You are a free man.” When the ecstasy passed and the rational mind took control, Bill thought that perhaps he had lost his mind. From that point on, however, he stopped drinking alcohol for good. In the 60s and 70s, before the U.S. government launched the PR campaign to discredit psychedelics, clinical studies were conducted which found the effectiveness (in 50% of cases) of high doses of LSD to treat alcohol dependence, following the model of initiation of the “peak psychedelic experience”. Many people are known to have a similar peak, ecstatic experience while taking ayahuasca, which may also explain the subsequent recovery from addiction. As famous comedian, UFC commentator and author of a super-popular podcast Joe Rogan says: “If during a psychedelic experience you communicate directly with God, then where it happens — in your altered consciousness or in reality — is not so important, because the sensations and experience in both cases are identical.”
“If during a psychedelic experience you communicate directly with God, then where it happens — in your altered consciousness or in reality — is not so important, because the sensations and experience in both cases are identical.”
— Joe Rogan, American comedian, podcaster, and commentator
Result
The big question is what for? Some joke that one Ayahuasca ceremony replaces ten years of psychotherapy. I’m not so sure about one ceremony, unless you are very lucky. Two months after the retreat I asked my new ayuasca friends what had changed in their lives, if there was any progress. A friend from Australia confessed, “Yes, some things have changed. In general, I feel happier in my daily life. I’m also more organized and I’m finishing more important things. Other people’s behavior is affecting me less…”. A California friend wrote: “I have largely cleared myself of self-doubt, especially about work. On my return I feel much better, more capable and skilled. The experience I’ve had has changed my attitude, my mind is now less at war with itself than before. Also my intention was to improve communication with people, to get rid of blocks. It has come true, as I feel empowered to speak and write more, to do so in a more direct way.” The German entrepreneur said that after this retreat, he began a new phase in his life as he made two cardinal decisions — first he married a wonderful girl, and second he launched a new technological project that he had nurtured in himself for three years. The twenty-year-old American, whose mattress was next to mine during the ceremony, answered: “One particular change in me is that since then I have no longer smoked marijuana and drank much less alcohol than before. I now have a different perspective on my interaction with substances, plants, energy and spirit in general. One of my intentions was to find direction in life in regards to my career. I’ve established that I want to pursue healing, helping people. Right now, I’m exploring chiropractic and naturopathy as options for a career as a doctor. I’m also starting to notice a kind of dissonance with my old buddies. I find it hard to spend much time with them, I feel like I’ve grown a lot during my ayahuasca experience and I have less in common with them. Overall, I feel like my life has gotten a fresh start. I feel like I’ve grown and I’m ready for some serious challenges.”
I can’t deny myself that I’ve been forced to face the parts-aspects of myself that were unfamiliar or intolerable to me. I know how hard I tried during the ceremonies, but to what extent I succeeded, I’m still only trying to realize. Something clearly burned-melted down inside, but what? I can’t deny that some facets of my usual behavior have already changed, but it’s not a tectonic shift, but rather some expansion of degrees of freedom. It was as if, for a short time, the roots of some problems had been exposed, and I could taste life without their oppression. However, it seems that the main work is to be done here, in the familiar world. It was as if a fork had appeared in the neural forest of my brain — the old road to the left and the new path to the right. I now have to make my own choice of where to step. However, my experience of life suggests that true changes are so organic that it is difficult to notice them yourself, they just happen, and then you even wonder how it was possible to live differently.
Of course, I’m a little sorry that, unlike others, my experience of ceremonies has been so exhausting and stressful. However, it is said here that ayahuasca does not give you what you want, but what you need. Moreover, the psychologist Jordan Peterson, a connoisseur of archaic myths, notes: “Gold is guarded by dragons, so what you need most is always where you’d least want to look”. I definitely met my dragons there, and, apparently, not without benefit: anger and irritability softened, empathy increased, a sharpened sense of my own boundaries and a willingness to stand up for them. Perhaps the most valuable thing was that I began to have a different attitude toward what disturbed and frightened me — I began to look into it more often, more willingly and curiously, to study fear up close and to act in spite of it. Of course, not in everything and not always, but for the revelations I had already received in this way, I was truly grateful.
“Gold is guarded by dragons, so what you need most is always where you’d least want to look”
— Jordan B. Peterson, Canadian psychologist
I keep thinking why some people are taught so harshly by Mother Ayahuasca. The famous American podcaster and writer Tim Ferriss recalled his first ceremony as follows: “The most painful experience of my life multiplied by a thousand. It was like I was being torn apart and killed a thousand times a second for two hours. I thought I’d burned my motherboard to the ground. I remember telling myself that I would never do that again. A few months later, however, I realized that 90% of the anger I had been carrying around inside me for decades since I was a kid had evaporated”. Tim has been taking ayuasca regularly ever since.
Maybe the ancient myths are right that the shortest way to heaven is through hell. By the way, in today’s world it is easy to confuse what is harm and what is good. In fairy tales, it is not the water of life that is beneficial, but also dead water. Yin and Yang again. Order and Chaos. One is inextricably linked to the other. In this sense ayahuasca is a metaphor for Life: during the ritual you pierce, thickly, convexly, deafeningly, succulently live all the drama that smolders in your subconscious like coals every day. The meaning of the ceremony, as of all life, is to destroy all that is empty, barren, dead; to resurrect all that is worth blooming, fruiting, and living.
Recommendations
What tips would come in handy for me before my trip:
1. To learn as much as possible about the ceremony itself and other people’s experiences, especially about typical mistakes, wrong expectations, fears, and ways to correct them.
2. Participate in the ceremony only in a reliable retreat and with trustworthy kuranderos. You climb Everest on your own, of course, but the role of a professional guide from the locals is difficult to overestimate.
3. Learning any basic breathing concentration technique beforehand, be it anapan in vipassana, pranayama in yoga, or anything else, is very helpful. Oddly enough, breathing is almost the only thing that helps you ground yourself when your whole familiar world is coming apart at the seams.
4. Don’t neglect malaria protection. This, as I found out, is curable, but there’s nothing pleasant about it.
5. Take seriously the diet before, during and especially after the retreat. My early experiments with getting in and out of fasting taught me why pilots believe that the most dangerous parts of flying are taking off and landing.
6. Plan at least 6–8 ceremonies for the first time. Some people, like me, won’t have enough for 11 ceremonies. It takes some number of attempts to adapt to such an unusual experience and learn if not to navigate freely, at least not to get lost at all in the woods.
7. But with the size of the portion you should not hurry, and it is better to start small, increasing gradually to understand the personal sensitivity to the drug. Some people need only a couple of sips, others need an extra portion.
8. Don’t be shy about talking about your experiences and asking more advanced people for advice. Sometimes you feel both forbiddingly lonely and unable to extract any sense of the night’s adventure. Fortunately, there are always those who have experienced something similar many times. Their hints or even just their attention help you digest the experience and look at everything in a new way.
9. If possible, give yourself a few days to adapt after the retreat so you can take your time getting back to the urban rhythm. The contrast between the two worlds is too strong.
10. The ritual is not recommended to everyone and not always. Decide to participate only when you clearly understand the necessity. Ayahuasca is not an entertainment, but a brutal operation. In any case, you will stay alive and healthy, but the process may turn out to be one of the most difficult (and significant) experiences of your life. However, when has effective medicine ever tasted sweet?
Useful Links
1. General information about ayahuasca from the International Center for Ethnobotany Education and Research
2. Wikipedia article on Ayahuasca
4. New Yorker magazine article “The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale”
5. New York Times article “Ayahuasca: A Strong Cup of Tea”
6. A good selection of links about various aspects of the Ayahuasca EROWID ritual
7. 3 methods to help soften the experience of heavy ceremonies
8. What foods to avoid before, during and after the ceremony
9. Reports of experiences with positive and negative ceremonies
10. An overview of the results of 28 scientific studies of the effects of Ayahuasca on humans
11. Hypotheses Regarding the Mechanisms of Ayahuasca in the Treatment of Addictions
12. A Study of the Effects of Ayahuasca on Depressed Patients
13. Research on the long-term effects of Ayahuasca use
14. Research article on the therapeutic potential of ayahuasca
15. A review of the scientific literature on ayhuasca
16. Review article “The Essential Guide to Ayahuasca”
17. Musician Sting talks about his experience with the Ayahuasca ceremony
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result. More information about me here.
