In most countries outside of South America, if you want to drink Ayahuasca, you must pay quite a lot of money to a facilitator/curandero, and then drink in potentially a troublesome group, squished in with a lot of random people. And that is not to say that this experience may not be very well worth the money, it is just that many people may want to go deeper themselves, without the potential distractions and costs.
But there are some who say that you should never drink alone, except only under the auspices of a shaman who has trained for 12 or more years in a South American tradition. I strongly disagree with this, and believe that the only way we are going to catalyze a new culture of plant medicine work in the west, is that people do drink alone to go deeper with the plants and themselves. This is in fact the purest way to drink ayahuasca, and a very effective way to understand these plants, the state of “things” and also oneself.
Nobody is saying that first time ayahuasca drinkers should drink alone or that drinking alone is the way to go if you are a first timer. I had a sitter for my first time and my 2nd time as well, and believe it should be a matter of course in your first few times that someone is there for you, simply to make sure you are safe. I know a guy who ended up needing to talk to his neighbour, (who he had never connected with before) and he felt like calling the ambulance. There is a story on the internet of a man, who after drinking ayahuasca by himself at home, came to consciousness driving their car at high speed at the edge of his city having no recollection of the previous night. And then there are other quite common stories of people who drink by themselves who end up calling the paramedics because they start freaking out. Perhaps after 2-3 times you will be able to drink without a sitter, but that is up to the individual to ascertain.
A major disadvantage in these ayahuasca groups in the west is that they are EXPENSIVE. To actually accumulate decent experience when you are paying for it, is going to cost you a lot of money that may be simply unaffordable to many people. If you are really serious about this, unless you want to go to The Amazon, perhaps you are going to want to go a bit deeper by yourself.
In many respects, the group is a bit of a distraction. People can make noises and the energies and personalities in any given group can be quite distracting. Depending on who and where you drink with, you may be forced to sing songs, sit up all night next to a roaring firing getting burnt to a crisp, your “shaman” shouting at you if you don’t sit up straight or they may sing all night some raspy repetitive songs which are supposed to guide you. You may also find yourself in a group where the “shaman” is there to heal you too, some may be ok with this, but others may not want that kind of interference in their process from a person, only to have an experience and healing with the plants.
When drinking by yourself is where you are really going to be able to focus internally and truly go within, undistracted by a “ceremony”. And besides, the deepest work is quite individual in the first place, it doesn’t matter that all these other people are around you and you do not need them around you in order to go deep into your experience.
My belief is that it is by going into the space, that you are going to learn, and often you are only going to learn by your own mistakes and where you may even get singed. And that is not a bad thing to learn from your mistakes and experience all kind of potential darknesses and issues. This is all part of it too, in life as well of course. If you are unprepared to meet “the wilds”, then maybe you should not drink ayahuasca at all. Or maybe you should only drink only pissweak ayahuasca with a shaman who claims to keep you protected from “the wilds”.
The deal with ayahuasca if you drink a non-pissweak dose, is that it tends to show people their shadow, to reveal the darkness, and to propel people deep into potentially very chaotic and crazy mental and emotional states. Therefore with ayahuasca, it is necessary is to face the darkness and demons, whether within or without, and there is often lot there to be faced. Why should we need someone else to protect us from our own darkness and demons? A lot of people want to coddled form their own negativity (or the negativity of the world), but I’d say one of the primary purposes of ayahuasca is for you to see your own negativity so you can realize it and work through it, so that you can be sober and consider how best to act in the world. That is often really hard work and nobody can do it for you. Only in this raw space are people going to realise what egotistical arseholes they are being in their life, something I find to be a common revelation, the ayahuasca itself working through people’s denial and barriers to realizing their own errant behavior.
So much of how people take ayahuasca in the modern day is just feeding “spiritual bypassing”, which is bypassing that deep investigation which clearly bears the most fruit. And to do that, I believe you need space and not all the obscuring and often quite external factors of “ceremony” and “tradition”, which can often act to block out the personal revelations. Yet, the truth is very confronting, and for many just being aware of their real position within the matrix may be extremely confronting in and of itself.
When drinking with yourself, there is nobody and nothing there to obscure you from yourself, there is only you. There is little chance to practice too much ceremony or tradition, as this only becomes most apparent when there are a group of people are witnessing that. I also highly recommend low dose mushrooms in the float tank, in that case, there is only you. In such a situation, where is the possibility for ceremony or “tradition”? or even technique? You take the low dose of mushrooms, get in the tank, stay as still as you can, and actively surrender into yourself. And so to bypass all this structure and tradition, there is an easy way, just drink by yourself, maybe with some music playing, or just in silence.
Not everyone who does this work is lucky/unfortunate enough to have a “master” to guide them in the process. Actually, only very few people I’ve found ever find such a fabled “master ayahuascaro” in the first instance. It is also true that many, if not most of the “masters” are self taught or learnt from a teacher who was self taught and/or taught by the plants and spirits, not some tradition passed on from father to son for many generations, like a lot of people mistakenly believe.
One thing I am having to continually point out to people, which is that there is no singular South American “tradition” in South America. You have many indigenous tribes, whose ways are quite relaxed and down to earth when it comes to taking ayahuasca. They generally just drink the medicine and typically don’t make such a structure around it. But westerners have these ideas of a singular shamanic craft which exists throughout the Amazon. The closest that comes to this, is a largely Peruvian mestizo model, which is a newish model designed to suit a post-conquered, mixed race Amazonian peoples, often with elements of christianity, witchcraft and sorcery typically taken out for the tourists.
One other thing I like to keep reminding people of, is that Terence McKenna and Jonathon Ott when they went to Iquitos in the early 1980’s were not able to find psychoactive ayahuasca. Strongly visual ayahuasca is just not a tradition, except for the shamans who largely use the ayahuasca to psychically fight each other. The form of mestizo shamanism whereby ayahuasca is given to gringos at a high DMT dose is largely only a new tradition which has existed for a few decades. I personally don’t see this tradition as necessarily being most suited to helping westerners perform the healing and deep work they clearly need to do with the medicine.
Perhaps the real meat of mestizo shamanism, is to learn and listen and work with the plants, through singing icaros. I myself do not sing icaros, although there are several styles of singing and vocal techniques that come through me at times. I find icaros too distracting, and I don’t think are the best aural soundtrack to deep self inquiry.
Western people have this idea that compels them, the “mystique of shamanism”, a great illusion, like a mirage, the reality of it which never truly seems to come into view. But shamanism in its essence, is actually very simple, it is the communication with spirits, good and bad, and that is what people who have worked past their own shit will start doing naturally after perhaps a few dozen sessions.
My view is that the primary teacher is the plants, and the spirits we can meet in the space, who we can look to as teachers and healers. The primary wisdom and learning really is inbuilt into the medicine itself. It doesn’t come from “the master ayahuascaro” in his powerpoint slides, youtube videos or even in his songs, or in any kind of transmission. People are so desiring a human father figure, teacher, like they would have been seeking a guru in the 1960’s and 1970’s, when the fact of the matter is that most of these gurus were fake and scamsters. The same is unfortunately true in the amazon today.
To my mind Ayahuasca is very powerful as a healer of the human body and psyche, and that is its niche. But also, Syrian rue and a DMT containing plant admixture will often give people what they are looking for in terms of visions and insight just as much as ayahuasca, if not moreso. Terence McKenna never recommended to people that they take ayahuasca, he recommended 5+ dried grams alone in a dark room. And to myself and many other people who are deep into psychedelics, mushrooms are just as much a valid medium as ayahausca. The visions, experiences, wisdom and communications, are just as potent and meaningful than with ayahuasca. It is just that the mushrooms do not have so much of an obvious tradition in any culture, and that may be because the mushrooms do not easily lend themselves to forms of structure and control.
Every individual who drinks ayahuasca has a different intention of course, some individuals will be absorbing the lessons from the plants and other beings showing them the nature of the universe and their own patterns and psychology. And this requires just as much work in the days and weeks after drinking ayahuasca, by looking and inquiring into what is not working, and letting it go. Ayahuasca is in some sense, a medicine of letting go of what is not working. It will show you what is not working, and you will feel and experience that, and have the potential to purge out of you, rather than hold onto it.
Left to their own processes, and assuming the individual has some sort of connection to their own wisdom, the wisdom of the plants or other beings, then learning can proceed. Perhaps human beings are too addicted to being taught something by other human beings. Many people want to learn a “craft”, and Peruvian mestizo shamanism appears to be some sort of default to many westerners.
Yet, after a time working with the medicine you start to carry out a spiritual sort of work, effectively a kind of shamanism if you like, whereby you are called to communicate with different beings and spirits, and that is literally the dictionary definition of shaman. There are many beings and contexts in the spiritual worlds, and through communication and work with these spirits, presumably the physical 3D world is effected.
Another issue with drinking under the auspices of a shaman or facilitator, is that you are often placed under their guidance. In that case, you may not even begin to get a chance to find your own guidance and develop your own way. You will likely remain under their “protection” and “guidance” and you may never really get a chance to grow beyond that. This often becomes a relationship of power, and many “curanderos” may want you to remain under them, and be dependent on them. Certainly it isn’t good for business if a whole bunch of people decide that brewing ayahuasca is easy, and that they prefer to drink alone. And that is not to say, that simply drinking with their preferred maestro is not right for them, or may not be the most beneficial way of drinking ayahuasca for them.
But if you are drinking in the west, it is not uncommon to pay $150-400 a night, and so to actually have the money to get proficient then costs quite a lot of money. I would say it takes at least 10 to a few dozen sessions to work through the most obvious crap on your plate and only then do you have some space to go forward and truly learn.
Drinking with a facilitator as long term model, that you will be able to do for decades, may not be sustainable for many. Tim Ferris in his recent book “Tools of Titans” writes of people drinking in small groups of 3-4 people every 3 months for psychic and emotional health. And realistically, a group of friends can organise to meet to share a brew. Indeed, I’ve noticed this sort of model is increasingly popular, and that more and more people are drinking alone or with a few friends. Not that this it is without its perils of course.
For people who are starting out brewing, going to drink with someone with many years of brewing experience, should result in a superior drink. It is similar to wanting to eat out at a restaurant, rather than cook yourself. You want to experience new flavors and dimensions in food, that you may not have the time, skill or inclination to forage for and put into the food you are cooking. Another reason to drink with other people in a group, is to participate in the community and culture of this gathering form, and to share and connect with others on a similar wavelength. One strange thing I have been hearing recently is of groups where people are not even allowed to communicate or talk to other participants in the group, when I have found a big part of the group experience is the communion and communication between participants which for many people is a highlight.
A big impediment for many when it comes to brewing for themselves, is obtaining the plant materials in the first place. In Europe it should not be a major problem ordering plants from the internet, and North America may not present too much difficulty in obtaining the plants either as the vine grows in Hawaii and Florida for example, with online companies which cater to Americans.
However, in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, countries in Asia and the rest of the world, obtaining ingredients may be a bit trickier. It is also possible to order various plants from overseas vendors who carefully disguise the plant products which will clear customs in most countries no problems.
In Australia, there are acacia species which contain DMT which are very viable DMT containing admixtures. However, most people do not know how to find and harvest these plants and the learning curve of identification and correct harvesting is quite steep. If you live on the east coast, the situation is quite tricky, with no common species being a reliable and sustainable source which everyone can easily access. If you live in Western Australia, the quite common Acacia Acuminata will be your go to. I recently had occasion to drive from Kalgoorlie to Perth and the narrow phyllode variant and also broad phyllode variant were pretty much lining the side of the road over the 600 kilometer stretch. The phyllodes or leaves from this species are I believe the most sustainable source in Australia. I have been trying to encourage some individuals to start an online business selling these phyllodes, as possession of acacia phyllodes is legal within Australia as far as I understand.
People are often scared to brew themselves for legal reasons. I would suggest such people are better off not brewing, until they work through their fear and paranoia. Law enforcement in Australia does not appear to have any priority whatsoever to charge people for brewing up an acacia tea in their own home, and since when was the last time Mr Plod came into your kitchen and asked what is that tea you are cooking on your stovetop? When was the last time you heard someone being arrested for ayahuasca? Maybe in Scandinavia the situation is somewhat different, but even there, police are not actively going out of their way to bust down people’s doors for brewing ayahuasca.
In terms of actually making the tea, it is not even worthwhile me giving instructions here. This is an art that you must learn that takes time. People who are really serious about this will make sure to read what they need to know. I know a woman who spent 100 hours reading everything she could before even making her first tea and was largely successful in her first few attempts. It is not hard to find information about how to make the tea on the internet and as usual, the human mind tries to make things more complicated than they really are.
On the ayahuasca.com forums, it has been generally recommended that people drink the vine by itself, without any DMT containing admixture, and only then proceeding to brew up with the DMT containing plants. Taking a high vine, and low DMT dosage, is very effective medicine, not taken so much for the visions.
To make the tea, it is essentially a matter of brewing the plants, making sure the water covers them, in water acidified with a small amount (like 1-2 cups to a pot) of apple cider vinegar or lemon juice for a few hours lightly simmering (not even bubbling) 2 times for a few hours each time. What is most significant to take into account are ratios of plants and how much plant material to use, and that can really vary. For example, Acacia Acuminata could be dosed at 12-25 grams, rarer weaker batches may require 30-40 grams or more. Ayahuasca Vine normally is sufficient at 60-100g when combined with DMT admixture plants, but some vine may be stronger and even 30-60g may only be required and some may require 200 dried grams. I consider it important that the ayahuasca and admixture are combined and “married” in the pot, rather than separated. So for example, a general good ratio would be 20 grams of Acacia Acuminata and 100 grams of dried Caapi vine brewed together, which taken together would be a very strong dose. 2/3rd’s of that would be strong to medium dose and half of that should be medium to mild and 1/3rd of that or 30ml should be quite mild.
When taking Syrian rue, I prefer to separate the DMT admixture from the rue, as I find this works more reliably for people. Syrian rue is generally dosed around 3-4 grams per person when made into a tea. When cooked a few times the brew needs to slowly simmered down into a drinkable portion, between 30 and 100mls is good. Finding out these amounts and how strong the plants may be, is not that hard, but can also be a matter of trial and error.
At the end of the day, the issue is not about whether people drink ayahuasca alone, but whether people can safely take psychedelics alone. Actually, not THAT many people will be inclined to do this, but pretty much all of those who decide to, are capable and have initiative. I would suggest that ayahuasca, especially Banisteriopsis Caapi and Psychotria Viridis are just one part of a healthy diet of psychoactive plants. I myself like to regularly utilise cactus, mushrooms and various DMT sources, for their different teachings and perspectives on reality.
Taking psychedelics alone can be very tricky, it is not easy to do and presents many dramatic internal and external states. We can be exposed to much data and obstructions, malevolence, all of which must be worked through. Yet, with persistence, what is presented can be worked through, and in working through all this data, the individual learns and hopefully better understands themselves and the world around them, so that they can hopefully become truly effective human beings.
I really enjoyed your article. I did drink ayahuasca alone a few years back but healing didn’t happened till i went to a ceremony. Actually 2 of them. Not sure why was that but I did go through a transformation or the beginning of one since then. There is so much truth in many things you say and I am going to drink ayahuasca alone again and see if this time is different. If because I have more experience with it I can go deeper.
I suppose the product has a lot to do as how the experience goes too. I am looking forward to find our though.
Hi Julian ,
Great article to have stumbled upon. Lots of food for thought here. There was a point where I was really stuck in my life and felt like psychedelics might really help. I was looking into Pscilocybin mushroom retreats but I was priced out. Eventually I just sourced mushrooms myself(from a field) and did some reading and made my own ceremonies . I could see from these experiences that I really needed to be alone with myself and I was glad not to have to deal with the distraction of a group of strangers. I also felt that being observed would have interfered with my ability to let go and let body and soul release to the degree that it did . Also with the amount of sessions I needed there was no way I could ever have afforded to pay for that in retreat costs. I do hear some convincing arguments for the benefits of doing these things in groups but I suspect that the group retreat model is just smart business economics.
“And to myself and many other people who are deep into psychedelics, mushrooms are just as much a valid medium as Ayahuasca. ”
Interested in this point. Do you think then that someone who can work with mushrooms can do the same level of deep shadow facing work without Ayahuasca ? Two different roads to the same place maybe?
That is good to hear you have become self sufficient. It is a story I increasingly hear! I am not sure mushrooms can allow the same type of deep shadow work to occur, but they are still a very effective tool for healing and self inquiry.
Is it ok to take caapi vine extract by yourself for the first time with no DMT? I want to experience some alleviation from a deep depression but not ready for the full experience. Since this is a lot milder is it ok to take alone? I have no one who can sit with me.
Yes, people on the ayahuasca.com forums used to recommend people take the vine brew by itself first off, the issue is that there will often be no pronounced effect at first, but it is a good way to dip your toes in the beginning.
Spiritual bypassing is easier without integration. Integration works best in a group setting
Julian, if taking it alone (with or without sitter), how do you protect the space n yourself from bad entities? From what i understood, the shaman is there to precisely do that for you (in best cases), so im curious about ways to do it without any outside help from another human.
Torping and Soplar work very well, and burning incense resins helps too!
https://youtu.be/UOaFFTceUuc
Yes i watched your video on torping n soplar. Thanks. However, if u are deep into aya space, will u be aware of entities trying smth on you? I ask because it can get intense and when u surrender fully…there is little energy or thought there to be on the watch for dark entities. The incense though i see how it can work. Sorry Julian, can i ask u smth else? What are ur thoughts on ketamine? Got offered in sri lanka the other day by another expat. I told him no thanks im going to peru do aya and iboga afterwards. But im having a massive indecission time, truly paralizing indecision, so i thought…should i give ketamine a go? Its lab made hence im really sceptical. Your thoughts on ketamine would mean a lot me.
You need to train yourself to be on the watch or lookout for entities, if they are becoming an issue for you. Yes, you will be aware of the entities and how they influence you in the space, it should become fairly obvious!
I go into my thoughts on Ketamine in my book Articulations!
This is a much needed, practical, and down-to-earth article on taking ayahuasca. Obviously not everyone has the money to take regular trips to South America to work on spiritual growth. That would mean that this medicine is only available to the rich or well to do segment of society who have time on their hands to travel frequently. And it would be a huge detriment to society to withhold such a powerful tool from people who need it, to tell them that they must spend so much money to only experience this only a few times in their lifetimes, when real growth comes from many more regular sessions. When in reality they can brew themselves for less than $10 per session. Hearing this from someone who is experienced really answers many questions, while also preparing novices to the dangers they need to look out for. Thank you very much, Julian!
I respect your viewpoint and believe that what is true for you is the ultimate truth and we should embrace our reality and respect that of others, as long as the intent is for betterment, we are all working towards enlightening ourselves and others and all paths are valid. Ceremony in groups and drinking alone when ready with the right intent does work on the quest for enlightenment. Application of your lessons received and personal discipline being the largest aspect of progression with personal growth.
Hey Julian,
Thanks for your work brother….deeply appreciate!
Anyhow I feel a deep connection to you and your psychedelic approach. I do my Aya allone in the portuguese bush and therefore I want to ask you if you could provide your favorite Aya-Recipe?
Would be awesome!
Sorry Julian, much respect to you and thank you for your time, I truly appreciate your article, far more than you may know for a while. Thanks again
Seeing the title of this article reaaaaally upset me. Th is a phenomenal way to allow people to take on opportunistic beings and a LOT of darkness without ever being aware of it. A+, if your goal is to encourage people to work with dark energy, angels included. Yes angels, no spirit worth working with wants your energy like that.
Advising someone to drink Ayahuasca alone might be one of the most reckless things I have ever heard of. It may be beneficial for you, but I can guarantee if you talked to a good shaman, they would tell you what a bad idea it is. Ayahuasca keeps your crown chakra open for the duration of the ceremony, and for a while after that too. It is beyond dangerous to tell somebody to do that by themselves. If you’re picking up other people’s energy in ceremony, that’s totally natural, and you’re supposed to learn to make a shield from it. The ceremony exists out of respect, and to drink this sacred medicine, by yourself, is entirely disrespectful to Mother Ayahuasca. The shaman is there to guard the space, and to make sure the energy is clean, the icaros are literally songs FROM the Ayahuasca, literally out of the tea itself, and the organization is to help keep out any entities. If you have any problems with these things, stop working with ayahuasca immediately, or accept the medicine in its entirety.
I spend a lot of time in the astral, and as comfortable as I am working with energy far outside my realm of understanding, I have seen that drinking Ayahuasca alone is just about the most disrespectful thing you could do to it, besides mixing it with coke, heroin, or meth. I know too many people that think its okay, because they trust themselves enough to take it alone. YOU ARE INGESTING A MASTER TEACHER, who asks for community, love and understanding, amongst other things, not chasing some fantasy of ayahuasca being a spiritual cure all. It doesn’t matter where you might be on the scale of enlightenment, you are disrespecting like 4 of the 5 things that Mother Ayahuasca has asked of the people who seek it.
There are PLENTY of entheogens you can eat by yourself, without disrespecting them. But this is one of the only teachers out there that begs to be in group. If you can’t handle being in a group when you drink this medicine, you really shouldn’t be working with it. Period. Don’t try to find ways to make it easier on yourself, either sit down and do the work, or find a different teacher.
I don’t take disrespect to the divine mother lightly. Please stop encouraging people to drink this by themselves. If you want to disrespect Mother, that’s on you, but please, for her sake, do not encourage other people to follow in your footsteps. Respect everything Mother ayahuasca asks of you, or stop working with it. You are literally slapping Her in the face with this article.
I honestly find it so interesting how some sanctimonious people think they have a right to tell people what is respect and what is the right way and how that works and that they know the right way and that you don’t!
What a bunch of BS, there are no spirits, evil or good, no crown chakra nor any other chakra, no such thing as “mother ayahuasca,” they are all figments of your imagination.
“I spend a lot of time in the astral, and as comfortable as I am working with energy far outside my realm of understanding, I have seen that drinking Ayahuasca alone is just about the most disrespectful thing you could do to it, besides mixing it with coke, heroin, or meth.”
Take a deep breath, count to ten and just chill a bit, ok?
Nicky I understand your concerns, although you could form a more well rounded opinion by researching traditional plant dietas, such as those undertaken in the Shipibo culture.
They usually involve the person going into isolation to allow space to commune with the plant spirit – no groups and no disrespect to ayahausca
Strongly disagree.
Thank you for this. I agree that people need to take their own power to do this kind of work. In fact those are a lot of what the lessons lead you towards. But please don’t confuse real healers, the indigenous accumulated knowledge of plants and the power of ceremony and ritual to amplify this kind of work. There is a lot of sensationalism around the “shaman” and ayahuasca tourism. And it’s these very things that are also ruining the work around ayahuasca. You are gonna get scammers and idolization. But if it is truely done right it can send you extremely deep. This is also the place where there are more possible dangers. I also feel that if you have a serious illness you are gonna need help from a real doctor. This is where the knowledge if plants come in. Where the healer helps you in your healing, not doing the healig for you. You are the one that still has to do the work.
Thank you Julian for sharing your experiences. On websites, YouTube and in blogs I have often been warned against drinking Ayuhasca alone. But seldom have I experienced the concrete reason what can happen to the user in the worst case.
I can understand that many people, who earn money with Ayahuasca, hold this opinion and there are only a few testimonies of “Bad Trips”, which were later considered as important experiences.
Are there any links to negative experiences with Ayahuasca?
Hey Detlef,
I’m not sure where to find links to negative experiences with ayahuasca, perhaps erowid? Ayahuasca can be “negative” for people in general, as it brings up a lot of negativity and you have to process it during the experienced. So “negativity” is not the real issue here, the most primary issue is probably dealing with the malefic entities, to my mind.
I think you don’t know the reason of a Sharman and why it’s so important to have a Sharman with you ….when doing it on your own who with control your negative energy ? The Sharman are there to protect you and take on your negative energy and then they Perg it up as a proses there very important and must be respected people who do it on there own increase the chances of taking of bad anergy that might be around then at the time ….there is a reason the tribes have healers and us in the west most people don’t have a clue
i loved this article so much! thank you!
There’s an innacuracy in this article:
“mushrooms do not have so much of an obvious tradition in any culture”
México has a long standing history of ceremonial use of shrooms.
not just Mexico, but around the world….from cave paintings in Algeria or the Sahara desert to Siberian shaman to pagan European cultures
Thank you Julian for a great article. I find , drinking alone in a good setting with proper respect and asking for protection essential and is how I have always done it. The times I have done it in group, I took on others stuff, like an empath, instead of getting rid of my own, and even got Psychically hit on by another Guy in the group. That was the last time I did Ayahuaska in a group. I am Blessed to have 8 superior Watcher Brothers and Sisters, looking out, and “Sitting” with me, Knowledge and Faith that they are there, To assist when needed is imperative while the Spirit of the Vine does her work. Iam thankful that I have had the opportunity to these methods of interacting with the spirit realm. Hard as this work can be, it is no wonder how the world and brothers and sisters incarnate get taken over by the darkness during every day activities. Sad to say the least. And many are not willing to do the work to get clean and light again, finding it easier to wallow in the evil and darkness that seems to have permeated Love and Light (Myself included). It has been 15 years since I have done the work to get light again, and have started the process to get well, due to some shit that has attached to my body. Praying it can be remedied with the help of this most Sacred Medicine, and the Spirits of light. Again, thanks for sharing, Love Omnaka
Wonderful article. I too believe that we should explore ourselves, I also know that we are explorign and enterign the spiritual realms and yes we do need “protection” however, if one is connected to their own spiritual guardians and ask for that protection then they will recieve it. The idiginous tribes have their own traditions which are honored and effective in there communications but they are not the only way. Each tradition has it’s own way to communicate within the spiritual realms, this is not “exclusive” and one needs only to look at the work of Emoto “Messages From Water” to see how our thoughts and intentions effect all of energy, and everything is energy in various forms. So as long as the spirits of the plants, just as within any other sacred setting, are approached with respect, and one asks their own spiritual guides, angels, team always from the light to protect them, then protection will be given. One question I do have is this, if the spirits of the plants are benevolent, then do they themselves not protect you? and if they do not then which “realms” are we journeying to? so many questions. In the end it is the experience one has, for only we may truly know our own truth. It’s unfortunate that Ayahuasca has become exploited based on money making for if these “shamans” were truly working from the heart for healing others then the prices would not be so ridiculosly high making it unobtainable to many. My personal approach is, keep the respect of the spiritual world in your heart when working with them, for they do not need to share anything with us yet they share so much in so many ways. Thank you for openly discussing the need for others to feel confident in drinking alone. BUT one must be respectful always. 🙂
Hi Angel, I’m sure you probably know much of this, but I just wanted to respond to the cost concerns for those that don’t understand why it can be so costly. There are certainly a great deal of charlatans out there – and anyone thinking of journeying with others needs to do a TREMENDOUS amount of due diligence on potential organisers – otherwise you’re putting yourself at UNBELIEVABLE risks to numerous to mention – but there are also some world class organisers and their high costs I believe can be justified. I have done stunning Iboga and Ayahuasca ceremonies, and in both cases, these were 3-day ceremonies where the £1,000 cost covered 3 days of comfortable accommodation in a European country, 3 full days of food, unlimited bottled water, tea and delicious fruit juices, and the organisers’ costs for the supply of a sound system, luxury mattresses, blankets, pillows, candles, incense, singing bowls, sanitary provisions, buckets to be sick into and all the people who organise and take care of you, including – at my Ayahuasca ceremony, a world-class harpist, and – in my Iboga ceremony, an amazing masseuse – and all the people holding space who travel overseas to look after you during the ceremony and the days after, help you to the bathroom, clean up your vomit and do all the cooking and cleaning. The high cost is never for the plant medicine alone (or absolutely shouldn’t be). Both organisers also took us to vegan restaurants where we didn’t have to pay. Ceremonies, properly run, are complex affairs to organise and coordinate, and not without risk for the organisers, and the people who organise them need to earn a reasonable living because facilitating is their chosen profession. They don’t have side professions. At least these guys don’t. You definitely don’t want to attend a ceremony organised by people cutting corners. At least I don’t. And you do really want good quality, freshly cooked vegan food prepared for you. All in all, I think £1,000 was very reasonable. I realise this is prohibitively expensive for many which is a real shame and it does sometimes take me months to save up which is a pain, and if you went to the jungle, you could possibly eliminate some of those costs, but I chose to stay in Europe close to my family (I really don’t want a 10-hour flight straight after a ceremony – a 2-hour flight is hard enough) with organisers who I knew personally who are world-class, and there’s just no getting around the cost of renting a large guest-house in Europe for a long weekend. I actually happen to know that the true cost of the Iboga ceremony was £500 per head, so the additional £500 was profit. There were 18 participants including myself, (it ran beautifully, luckily for us) so that’s £9k profit for the 2 organisers (or £4.5k each), and they didn’t actually pay the people holding space, but they do take potentially significant risks in transporting the plants through customs and it wasn’t £4.5k each for 3 days’ work: they spend weeks organising each ceremony, reassuring people, chasing payments, distributing literature and providing advice on preparations, and weeks after the ceremony providing after-care advice and support on integration. They were permanently on call when I needed advice during integration, even during the night when I had recurring nightmares that scared me to death – and they don’t do that many ceremonies each year – perhaps 2 per month and they did spend 7 years with the Bwiti tribes getting properly trained which is a massive commitment. I think it’s quite reasonable to be honest and I’m absolutely overjoyed they put themselves in a position to provide a ceremony that was safe and allowed me to spend 2 days vomiting on a mattress listening to ridiculously beautiful music and looking after me while I purged my guts up and emerged no longer dependent on multiple substances. I know they didn’t save my life – I did – but that was the best £1,000 I ever spent – except for the £1,000 I spent on my Aya ceremony when I discovered what pure bliss actually feels like and discovering my true nature and who I wanted to be! Overall, these guys, through their commitment to proper training and living on the road – and taking great risks to encourage and facilitate awakenings for us Westerners who are wantonly destroying indigenous lands and the planet – are providing a monumentally valuable service to humanity and Mother Earth, more valuable even than if they had trained as psychotherapists. But again, you should not even be spending £50 to attend a ceremony unless the organisers are world class. Some people apparently ruin their lives that way.
I have sat 16 or more times and enjoy the community of group, but I am now looking for a deeper experience and feel that solo may be right for me. Could you give me some pointers on getting started?
Very interesting perspective on things. I recently attended my first aya ceremony(with great success) and I’m interested in Dieta. The next group Dieta is 2-3 months off and double the price of the Aya Ceremony. I’m finding it hard to bottle my curiosity and wait it out. I live within a forrest of wildlife. I feel the forest calling me and I want to test the waters. I’ve reached out to my initial shaman of which is an absolute badass in regulating the flow of ceremony. I have a lot to learn and I’m willing/open to learning. I hope to soon learn how to brew the bark of pine/oak/pecan and continue my research. Thank you for your view and inspiration.
Be your own shaman is my motto because the shaman can and WILL bewitch you, molest you, or have you abandon all your dreams to keep you thinking your true destiny is to starve in a jungle. They use fear of having a bad trip or “honor the jungle “diatribe to lock in $$$ high price medicine. I can buy ten kilos for the price they charge for a session. I drank by myself my first time after 4 sessions. in retreats, I saw the shaman and staff trying to molest the woman and Facebook pages delete your posts because they sell $$$$. be your own shaman better than starving in the jungle with a sham n and staff with no western morals or laws protecting you.
Fantastic article Julian, as always.
Have had 2 sessions with Confusa and Rue and both were alone. First time was wonderful. Second time was a proper shadow dive. Thought I was going to die. It was awesome! Had to process abandonment, shame, guilt etc. Really amazing teachers and processes. It was actually your talk in Brunswick this year that about how you ingested 100 grams of DMT with some Rue which gave me the confidence to do it alone. Really the only way we can see where our limitations are is to literally test them. And that’s what I did. And I am so grateful.
Again, fantastic article and thank you for blazing a trail. 🙂 Cheers
Hello Julian,
I am realy happy to read this and other posts here on your website. I got to know about ayahuasca one day listning to a radio program. Someone called Graham Hancock was telling about it. He talked about how he was doing research on all kinds of stuff people use all over the world. From coffee to alcohol, from marihuana to mushrooms. All my life i said the only reason I would use a drugg (or something) it would be to fix myself or to come closer to myself. As a kid I saw how my mother and others were losing themselfes to alcohol and other stuff and I knew this was not the way. Running from yourself. I was afraid to become the same and lose touch with myself. I have always known about the entities. In sober states i have met and felt a lot of them. Still the older you become in this world the further you drift from yourself as there is no room for the inward, no time to maintain your relationship with yourself. It has consurned me from a very early age for it was also a reality for me as real as the world we live in today. Yet still it hapend to me to. I lost the battle of living in this material world. A crazy world. I live in the Netherlands and just like you discribed in another artikel about Australia, it is a very obsessed material world I never felt comfertable in. I was always convinced I was strong enough to manage and work my way through it and all was going to be right some day. But you can not do this for long. Now in my fourties I’m so broken, waking up in the morning starts with tears, a waterfall of tears. Even before waking up. Now I know this is the reason ayahuasca has come down on my path. From the moment I heard the interview with Graham I knew ayahuasca was my way to get back to myself again. The thing is, the First three times I was in company of my friend who just sees ayahuasca as an trip for exitement. Just a trip. He greatly desturbed me in my own progress. It soon became clear to me i needed to do this on my own. My friend is on a vakation now and this is my moment of going for it on my own. The last time ayahuasca was crawling around my body like a snake so I knew What to expect the next time. In the three times with ayahuasca I saw some visions of the structure of this dimension we live in now but I know this is of less importance. The artikles you whrite here confirm all my feelings about my intuition on this medicine. Allso on my view of this world. It feels good to read them. All the things you whrite about, your view of this world, the entities, this 24 hour economie we live in, people who want to loose themselfes in alcohol and drugs, the egoïsm and so on, make me feel like I’m not that lost at all. It is the pain I have to deal with. I just want to be me again. I got all the time in the world now and I wll take my time. The coming week will be the time. No other people around, just my dogs, cat and plants. I just hope to meet some good entities too. I one day was visited by an angel. This angel came to tell me not to lose myself to the dark side of this life. Now i know the dark is in everything and everyone. I have seen the world like this for al long long time now. I see how the dark and also the light has an effect on everything and everyone. It has been reality to me for all of my life. Most of the time i can’t see them or it but i can see the effects and outcome of forces, dimensions and entities. I consider myself lucky to be aware of this reality. I just hope that these things I learned along my life will help me when i take my next ayahuasca. Becouse that is wy I feel I’m here, to see more clearly. To learn to handle myself. I want to thank you for the great explanations here on your site. Maybe i will let you know how it went. Greetings Astrid.
It can be a really tought program we are going through here, and I wish you all the best Astrid!
Dear Astrid – your message resonates a lot with me. I would be glad to hear from you about your process if you like to.
Greetings and much progress for you.
Ottmar – Ena
Thank you for your article Julian! I share your view about how much of a business Ayahuasca has become and i totally appreciate your idea of people training themselves instead of relying on a shaman-dealer. Mistakes will be made for sure, but that´s how experience builds up. Seems like reaching for enlightement comes with a very high price tag if you are not careful with the marketing. So many people can´t afford these prices for knowledge that belongs to everybody. Nature provides for free and we only need to reach for it . Nevertheless, a lot of studying and practicing of many tecniques sober prior to the experience (such as yoga, meditation…) are required in my opinion in order for the solo psiconaut to effectively train the mind and get all the potential out of the session. In the age of information, ignorance is an option.
Julian
Have you ever drank ayahuasca, in the Amazon, with an experienced shaman? If you think the shaman yields no bearing on the ceremony, you are very wrong.
If you don’t have the knowledge or tools to protect yourself and your space, drinking alone can be very dangerous. The medicine “opens” your energy, and without protection you are left susceptible to both light and dark energies. There is the possibility that entities could attach themselves to you. Without you even knowing.
The shaman acts as a conductor of an orchestra of energies..through his relationship with the plants, built through dietas over many years. A master curandero can provide profound healing, induce visions and even take away the effects of the medicine all together, if need be.
Hi Patrick, I’ve drunk with many curanderos in the Amazon. I don’t enjoy or find much value in that paradigm personally. I find it quite contrived and distracting, and maybe prevent the individual getting down to the work they need to do.
My point of view is that individuals who desire so, can learn within the framework of the knowledge implicit within the space, to protect themselves and deal with the darkness. This is necessary if the invidual wishes to become an independant traveler and explorer of these states.
Patrick, Acacia Acuminata and Syrian Rue are the two common plants used here in Australia, neither of which they use in the Amazon. It’s unfortunate we don’t have an alternative name to “ayahuasca” as the brews we are making aren’t technically ayahuasca. You might say acacia and Syrian Rue have nothing to do with shamanic culture.
I came to ayahuasca but was put off by the South Amercian ceremony; the Spanish icaros – which I don’t understand as I don’t speak Spanish, the cultural aspects that I can’t relate to, and the noise of others about, and so concluded to do it myself, alone.
I will admit, I’m slightly terrified going alone but I wouldn’t want it any other way. No doubt the shamans know some stuff by doing it for so long but as Julian pointed out, this is an entirely personal journey, and one I would prefer to discover myself.
Thanks for inspiration Julian!
I had 4 group ceremonies with Ayahuasca in which I did not receive any guidance nor support during the bad trios ! I was asked to pricess fear alone as this was my personal journey and the facilitator was not ready : unable to integrate.
My conclusion was that I might just as well do it alone ..!!! The group was annoying and noisy , the music was terribl and distracting, the facilitators were arrogant and non supportive!
It’s a lie that a shaman can protect you from entity attachment! God is in you too and can be your protector just as a stranger’s “God” can be !
I actually did not find God in any of these culish ceremonies , they were more like a sorcery practice !
Be aware and stay away from group ceremonies and be your own guide and light !
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I’ve spent a decade watching the Ayahuasca tourism industry take off and become more commercialized, and develop a current of something dark running through it. It’s particularly disparaging to see an atmosphere of fear and paranoia being created, with people warning that one needs a “real shaman” in order to protect oneself during the experience. There is definitely something cult-like about some of these attitudes. It’s equally concerning to see the same people display a complete lack of critical thinking by flying to the jungle in another country and taking a powerful hallucinogen with any total stranger that calls themself a shaman. For every real curandero, there are countless charlatans taking advantage of American tourists for money, and it breaks my heart to hear about people actually dying or suffering health problems because of this.
Beyond safety concerns, I also feel that one is better off journeying alone or in the presence of an experienced sober sitter who will not interfere any more than necessary. One thing I really hate about Ayahuasca ceremonies in particular is the pressure to have an intention, which can easily turn into anticipations and disappointments. The most profound experiences in life (and not just those of the psychedelic variety) come from having an open heart and mind.
Great article Julian.
Thank you very much for this article. A different point of view for many people interested in drinking alone and looking to learn more if can be as beneficial both ways, I have not seen many articles that speak about this
This was a great, sound & wise read; in contrast to the many, many misinforming, sensationalist & even dangerous publications on psychedelics that are out there. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for this essay Julian. Fadiman and others recommend a sitter. You break ranks with these authors, which is good news to me and other like me who would rather have a go by ourselves rather than pay so much and travel so far. You make a good case for the cautious use of these entheogenic plants on one’s own. This is a relief! Some of us do not want to travel to South America to use these medicines, besides looking at YouTube clips of these ceremonies does not make it look appealing with the screeching icaros and obedience to the shaman/guide. Besides, I cannot shake the feeling whilst looking at these clips that some of these setups resemble cults! Thanks for casting light on this concern many have about going at it alone.