NPR

Ex-British army officer faces 13 years in Romanian jail over ayahuasca ceremony

I volunteer with an addiction recovery support group in Dublin and have worked with several people who have gone through Ayahuasca rituals (mainly they travelled to Eastern Europe to do so). Initially I was neutral about it, figuring that it couldn't do these people (who were universally in a pretty bad way on coke or heroin before the ceremony) any harm & might even do some good. However now I'm very much against. In every case the addict has ended up worse off after the ritual - more dependent on their basic drug & trying desperately to scrounge money to do the ritual again in the mistaken belief that the 10-12 hours of relief that they got could be extended into lifetime cleanliness. In 2 cases the addict actually became psychotic because they were in too bad a place to start.

From what I can see Ayahuasca might be ok for a healthy or clean person but is somewhere between useless & dangerous for an addict. The "shamans" that pop up in Europe seem to be just taking money from vulnerable people who know no better. I love the claim that simply because it's plant-derived it should be treated differently from synthetics. My worry is that it's becoming more prevalent & articles like the above give a completely unbalanced view of the dangers.

Any posters with experience or different views?

The Joe Rogan podcast with Graham Hancock brought me here.

Anyone actually tried it? A mate used to make DMT that we smoked. It was always after a big night out, but I really enjoyed its psychedelic visuals and the fact it faded within minutes. Things like cactus that last for hours just make me uncomfortable and anxious.

Haven’t tried it but I know a lot who have... one mate actually travelled to Peru for an authentic jungle experience.

What I gather is that the ritual seems to be a major aspect of the effectiveness of the experience. Suspend judgement here for a sec and indulge... altering your state of consciousness can be a powerful tool for transformation or healing. There are many ways to do that ranging from something as simple as drumming a simple rhythm for ages right up to full blown psychedelics. There are some common elements to some of these experiences and that can lead to beliefs of religious / spiritual nature associated with that. It seems that the ayahuasca experience is a particular example of this phenomenon with many of those offering the service professing to various degrees of pseudo sainthood and the like... let’s call them urban shaman. I doubt the sincerity of many of these types who certainly aren’t shy of charging like wounded bulls at the wallets of those lining up... and anyone working with shifting the state of consciousness of another individual had better be well and truly clued up before they start meddling.

In that sense, offering up ayahuasca rituals or trips for someone deep into addiction cycles seems pretty fucking risky to me. What I’ve heard of the trip is that it can be pretty intense in opening the individual psyche up to primal trauma. Taking a junkie back to the memory of whatever experience sparked their spiral into addiction... yeah. That might work.