Ayahuasca Shaman

We were very pleased to read a lengthy and reasonable article about ayahuasca in today’s Los Angeles Times Magazine. The author, Gina Piccalo describes an ayahuasca session she witnessed in Southern California, as well as giving a good history of ayahuasca as well as several interesting facts I hadn’t known before.

Central and South American tribes, including the Shipibo, Tukanos and Kofan, have been using it in their spiritual practices for hundreds of years or more. Today, spiritual pilgrims travel to Peru, Ecuador and Brazil, where ayahuasca is legal, to partake in ceremonial experiences.

It was the beat writers Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs who introduced ayahuasca tea to North American popular culture in the early 1960s in their publication “The Yage Letters.”

Ms. Piccalo reported that for years ayahuasca was a “largely underground phenomenon … like peyote and psilocybin mushrooms” attracting “academics, journalists, psychiatrists and other soul-searching intellectuals.” It was partly because of a Supreme Court runing in 2006 that enabled ayahuasca to become more widely popular to the point that the ingredients to brew ayahuasca tea are now readily available on the internet, and it is being used by people from all walks of life, from lawyers, doctors and celebrities to working class folks.

“Some scientific studies,” she said, “suggest that ayahuasca has legitimate uses as an alternative psychotropic medicine that can abolish depression, cure addiction and improve brain function..”

One of this writer’s favourite authors, Graham Hancock, wrote a fascinating book called “Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind.” Its thesis is that ayahuasca and other hallucinogenic plants inspired ancient, primitive people to decorate the walls of their caves with patterns based on psychedelic visions. Hancock, who has taken it 26 times, says ayahuasca improved his life. “It is extremely powerful,” he says. “Its effects can be deeply disturbing, and there may be some short-term trauma, almost like a post-traumatic shock disorder, with coming to terms with very disturbing insights about yourself.” But he also said that because of ayahuasca, “I’m a better husband and father. My behavior is much more examined.”

The entire article, “Ayahuasca: A Strange Brew” is available online at http://www.latimes.com/features/magazine/la-tm-ayahuasca.02feb3,1,6118145.story?ctrack=3&cset=true

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