Fishers of Men
- Adam's Blog

Malaprops Reading, Asheville North Carolina

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 21:41:14 -0800

What does God have to do with Ayahuasca?

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:05:10 -0800

Every Story Has a Story: Adam Elenbaas’s Fishers of Men: The Gospel of an Ayahuasca Vision Quest-questions by William Torgerson, author of the forthcoming Love on the Big Screen

Adam Elenbaas, author of FISHERS OF MEN: THE GOSPEL OF AN AYAHUASCA VISION QUEST

Note from William Torgerson: I first met Adam Elenbaas when he became my fellow graduate student in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing Program at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville. Because Adam and I wrote primarily in different genres (Adam in creative nonfiction/ myself in fiction) we didn’t see much of each other in classes, but we did fall into a fairly-regular Friday afternoon round of golf, where I think cheap green fees, wide-open spaces, and lively conversation were the primary attractions. Adam grew up in rural Minnesota the son of Methodist Minister, and he has a B.A. in Philosophy, an M.A. in English Language and Literature, and an M.F.A in Creative Writing. Currently, Adam lives in New York City and is working as a free lance writer and yoga and meditation instructor. Adam is also a contributing editor and one of the founding writers of RealitySandwich.com, a popular counter-cultural web magazine devoted to consciousness studies.

In the subsequent interview, my questions for Adam appear in italics and his responses follow.

For those who haven’t heard, can you give us some background on the Ayahuasca plant and how it is used in a healing ceremony?

Ayahuasca is a powerful medicinal tea that has been made by shamans of the Amazon for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. The tea is made from a leaf and a vine. It is cooked over a fire with water and boiled down for many hours. Then it is drunk by the shaman and all the participants of the ceremony.

Throughout the night, the shaman(s) guide the ceremony by the singing of traditional songs called “icaros.” Along with the icaros, the shamans shake chakapas (leaf rattles) and use mapacho (tobacco) smoke to anoint people and protect the space of the ritual.

The effects of ayahuasca are what we in the West might call “psychedelic.” Yet, the experience is also vastly different from “getting high” or “tripping out.” The senses are all enhanced, sharpened, or heightened. The sub-conscious is brought to the surface and is often projected into visionary symbols in front of your eyes. The tea is also a purgative, so one of the features of an Ayahausca ceremony is the cleaning of the deepest levels of psychological disease. As the repressed layers of the self are faced, purging occurs. Aside from this very “psychoanalytic” explanation of the healing process, Ayahuasca could be said to quite literally open up a door to the spirit world. I’ve often said that it’s like realizing Narnia is for real, and you’ve found a wardrobe door. Ceremonies usually last about six hours. That being said, I’ve also been in many ceremonies that lasted until dawn! Talk about hard work. Which is why I say that this is quite different from taking acid or mushrooms or smoking pot. Ceremonies are often described as “many years of psychotherapy” in one evening. It’s an incredibly disciplined and challenging ritual to take place in—as ancient and revered by people in South America as any vision-quest tradition on the planet.

At some point you hadn’t conceived of this book, and now it’s been published with Penguin. Looking back, what were some of the most interesting parts of the process for you?

The process of writing my book was the process of not just textual revision but also self-revision. As I was working with an incredibly powerful psycho-therapeutic tool (referring now to the ritual use of Ayahuasca) I was “coming of age.” The ceremonies in South America inspired me to write about my life, as if writing about it were the Rosetta Stone for truly understanding myself, my karmic heritage, my relationship to the church, my preacher father, Christianity and Jesus, and the new age or “hippy” culture I was supposedly now a part of. Taking a psychedelic plant with shamans certainly tends to get you labeled a hippy, anyway!

The process of writing the book was also a recovery process. Not recovery from some “thing” (like substance addiction or patriarchy), or someone (my father or his father or my family or the church) but a recovery of personal faith. What is my faith? Who am I? What are some of my core beliefs and how do I hold them without marginalizing others? The question “Why did I lose faith?” in my revision process (which was about writing self-centered, angry or bitter draft after draft of the book), was replaced by the question, “What is my faith?” And “How can I give something to the world?”

I’m interested in the ways that you connect God, especially Jesus, to the use of hallucinogens. Can you say a little about how that works for you?

I don’t think it’s as simple as taking a hallucinogen and having visions of God. As we saw in the 1960’s, people often take drugs for hedonistic purposes, and even though they say they want to “get higher” or “expand their mind,” they end up having nightmarish experiences, even schizophrenic breaks from reality that can be seriously damaging to long term mental health. I worked with schizophrenics for the past two years in NYC as a social worker, and many of my clients experienced their break as a result of too many unconscious drug choices.

That qualifier being issued, I think it is also possible to use psychedelic plants with integrity and respect. After all, that is how shamans and indigenous peoples have used psychedelic plants for thousands of years. But okay, once you are in one of these rituals, how does the ritual and the plant facilitate these transformational visions of God?

My answer is that it does so by eliminating the consistency of mental concepts and boundaries. Wherever a system exists by principles founded on opposites (it is this way, not this way), Ayahuasca will eliminate the dualism and present a visionary episode in which x and y are not an either/or but a both/and. It does so in a way that is so true, so purely true, that you must face the truth that you ARE everything you despise. You ARE everything you reject. The Universe holds all of the possibilities you would like to marginalize or exclude. As your former belief system (based on various forms of judgment and marginalization) is deconstructed, so are you. During those moments, you will cry or laugh or vomit or scream or shake. The shaman will come to you and sing or start blowing smoke over you until you come to a place where you have to accept the paradox of living in a universe that is ABSOLUTELY—RELATIVE.

What does it mean to be absolutely relative? It doesn’t mean a contradiction. Not ever again. Instead it means living in the moment (the absolute) and listening for the voice of discernment (the relative) that is always there to guide you.

People come away feeling alive for the first time because they are not living by principles but by faith (listening to God’s real-time voice, not laws, in the moment).

Just imagine getting bombarded by the infinite nature of the cosmos, and the infinite nature of something you are seeing for the first time, called your soul, for six hours straight, in the most intensely catalyzing experience you’ve ever had. And the entire time, it’s not that you are seeing God, it’s that you are seeing something you never had the ability to even imagine. It puts you so much in awe that you say, “Oh my God,” over and over again, and as you are doing so you realize that at one point that very saying, “Oh my God,” was a real statement uttered during the most intensely real moments of human experience. And now it is you, having the primitive realization that you are calling on God, and not by habit or cliché, but by the realization that something vastly larger and more creative and conscious than you is present and always has been.

Did I read you right in that I believe write that you experienced forms of a Godly connection with your use of recreational drugs before you participated in the Ayahuasca ceremonies?

I think that many meditation instructors, yoga gurus, even pastors like my father, were at first inspired by more recreational psychedelic experiences. In some ways the psychedelic experience simply blows your mind to the point where, once again, you say, “Oh My God,” and you mean it. It’s not just a saying.

That being said, I am very cautious to glorify the “psychedelic” experience, as if it is just one thing that can be gained by mechanistically swallowing something, etc. Not all psychedelic experiences are gateways to the divine. They are ancient religious healing technologies that should be used with a great deal of care. Some of my first psychedelic experiences were also very scary, and I had no help or context to place them safely into my psyche. I suffered as a result.

Certainly I can imagine many Christians dismissing your book as written by someone who passes off getting high as religious experience, but you’ve got me thinking about your own visions—where you write thick descriptions of a dragon—and how there’s a lot said about a dragon in the book of Revelation. Do you see connections between your visions and the Biblical dragon? How do you see the visions you’ve experienced as connected to the visions in the Bible?

Well, not just the dragon from the book of Revelation, but the serpent from the book of Genesis. The serpent is largely misunderstood in the book of Genesis, I think. I refer readers to Joseph Campbell’s ideas about the creation myths and serpent symbolism within them. The snake is an age-old religious metaphor. Snakes shed their skin and are continually “born again.” They drag their bodies along the rocks and die every so often. So do humans. In the book of Genesis, the fact that the serpent is the guardian creature at the foot of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is representative of the classic “genesis” of the soul’s birth into duality (where before it had been situated in Eden, which was an eternal place). Now, once the fruit was eaten, humans will know the cycle of birth and death, over and over again, because that’s how the life cycle works in time and space. The message of Christian salvation (Jesus stepping on the head of the serpent, for example) is the idea that people can stop the cycle by remembering their eternal self within the life-death cycles of dualism (voila! Salvation).

The idea of the serpent as a tempter is not present in many other world myths that also have a serpent at the foot of a tree of the knowledge of opposites. In those myths, the serpent is simply a guardian. So you see the serpent is often revered as tempter, deceiver, predator, and also as a healer, regenerator, evolver, etc. The entwining of two serpents, the double helix, is another common motif that represents this dual nature of the serpent(our own DNA is double helixed), so there is always that paradox about serpents that represents good and evil. One represents our fall from grace, and the other represents the evolution of consciousness.

Does the “purging” in an Ayahuasca ceremony have anything to do with the Christian notion of sin?

Purging is just an existential workout. People work out for lots of reasons at the gym, and the same thing goes for Ayahuasca ceremonies.

Most of the time when people purge, they are actually purging the notion of sin itself and not anything particularly “sinful.” In other words, if you feel that you screwed up in the past and you won’t forgive yourself or make changes and move forward, then you are condemning yourself. Condemning yourself is impossible because the nature of reality is love and acceptance. Condemnation is impossible. Life accepts everything. So does God. And since you exist eternally already, there is no salvation prayer necessary. If people don’t “know” these things, or aren’t operating with some semblance of these truths in their lives, then they are trying, to some extent, to live under the banner of a lie, a deception, a condemnation, or a judgment. All of these are impossible. Trying to do what is impossible creates stress in the body and mind. It creates suffering. Ayahausca simply shows you the truth: “You have been struggling against your SELF. Life accepts you and everything always.” Once you see the truth, if you try to put up a fight (which is pretty inevitable given our conditioning) you purge.

Ayahuasca helped me to stop fighting (as does any good spiritual practice from any religion). It’s not about purging yourself of sins; it’s about releasing blockages that you have to love (the impossibility of sin). It’s about seeing where you are holding and then releasing. It’s about finding where your fight is and then making peace.

It’s like in the movie Star Wars. Luke had to go into the cave to face himself, but he was told not to bring a weapon. If we make “sin” the enemy, then we bring a weapon into the cave. We don’t need a weapon to understand ourselves, just courage and love and peace in our heart and mind. Purging might seem violent, and it is often scary, and some people enter ceremonies or caves with weapons. I don’t think it’s necessary, and I hope my book reflected that spirit.

When it comes to your participation in Ayahuasca ceremonies, there’s a point in your book where you write, “I don’t need this anymore.” Why did you believe that? What changed and brought you back to the Ayahuasca tea ceremonies?

There are many moments where you say, “I don’t want to go back into the cave ever again.” But, if you know in your heart it’s out of fear, then you know there is still more to learn from your cave.

In truth, I was afraid. Other times when I have taken a break from drinking Ayahuasca, it has been because I felt like life was calling me to other things. It’s always about listening and being real with yourself. I think we should all have some practices that call us into the cave to face ourselves again. God is like a mirror. The result is always that you get to live with a renewed sense of hope because the answer in the mirror is always forgiveness.

Sometimes we think, “I ‘get’ the message” of forgiveness, and I don’t need to learn it again. But it is not a once-and-for-all principled lesson; it’s not a once-and-for-all prayer that you pray. That would warp it again into a fear-based ideology or dogma. Forgiveness is a way of life that sometimes needs an oil change or a detox or some retreat or some work. It’s very easy to forget love, and I find the experience of facing myself and being humbled something very refreshing. Dare I say that I might get pummeled the next time I go into my cave!

Are you at all concerned about the long term effects of ingesting the ayahuasca tea? Has anyone looked into that?

No. I’m not. I think the fact that this practice has existed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years is the best testimony to its sanctity. I would be curious to see studies done, though!

As a writing professor working in classrooms, I’m always talking about the professional conversation that surrounds any topic. This means I ask students to think about their beliefs in relation to the major voices speaking into any given field. What’s some of the history of the conversation surrounding Ayahuasca? Who is writing about it today? Where are the hottest pockets of tension?

I’m the first to publish a personal memoir from a major press about the subject. There are anthropological works. The best probably being, Singing to the Plants, by Stephan Beyer. He blurbed the back of my book!

Otherwise, Jeremy Narby, (a Stanford Anthropologist). Lots of conversation about eco-tourism and the diluting of indigenous traditions by white people. That’s less of an issue for me because I’ve met too many indigenous shamans who believe, and have known for decades, that the destiny of this plant was to be shared with the world.

Now that the book is out, are you working on a new project? Can you give your readers some idea of what they might see next from you?

I’m working on another book. Its subject matter is a sort of second tier of the “coming of age” journey. It’s about settling into your thirties, finding a wife, starting a family, falling in love, finding yourself and your professional contributions dialoging with larger societal issues, your implication in the snares of your own culture and family history (money, power, materialism, indifference, marital faithfulness, etc). The subtitle of the book is, “How to Fall in Love and Not Die.” It will also explore my deeper experiences with Ayahuasca ceremonies and several new Christian-based Ayahuasca traditions I’ve explored.

Note from William Torgerson: to share on Facebook, click the title on this blog and then click the “Facebook Share” that follows this post. In order to promote my own book, I’m always looking for Facebook friends who read. If you’re willing, send me a friend request. Both Adam and I welcome comments, questions, or challenges meant to extend the conversation that lives in this interview.

My Latest Project: Nightlight Astrology

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 14:08:04 -0800

Five years ago I had a powerful spiritual awakening while drinking Ayahuasca (a visionary plant medicine) with traditional curanderos (healers) in the Amazon Junglesnear Iquitos, Peru. I recently published a book about my experiences called,"Fishers of Men: The Gospel of an Ayahuasca Vision Quest." Over the course of the past five years and eighty-plus ayahuasca ceremonies I was guided by ceremonial visions into a study of the planets and heavenly bodies. Having never studied astrology, and knowing only as much as my horoscope"sign" from popular magazines, I started receiving archetypal lessons during ayahuasca ceremonies, all of which regarded the various planets and heavenly movements of our solar system. Nightlight Astrology was born out of my increasingly deep respect for the science of spiritual evolution; as well as my deepest respect for the power of astrological counseling. The more I study these ancient arts and offer my developing guidance to others, the more humbled I am by the rich lessons of life and human history. I know now without a doubtthat I am an eternal student of the movements and patterns of the universe. I know this as much as I trust that life is eternal.

Before I began to study astrology for myself, I had always heard of astrology in terms of its predictive ability. Astrologers, as I understood them, were fortune tellers. The premise of astrology was that our fate was pre-determined and somehow locked into the stars above our head. It turns out that's not what astrology is about at all. Like so many foreign traditions poorly transferred into popular culture, astrological horoscopes from magazines, and fortune tellers, are poor representations of the ancient art of astrology.

The vision of Nightlight Astrology is to salvage the study and art of astrological counseling from the grips of misunderstandings and stereotypes. To provide readings, counseling,education, and training for absolutely anybody who is interested. Nobody gets priced out from either receiving astrology counseling or from training to be an astrological counselor. Whatever anybody has to offer will be accepted with 100% gratitude and all services and education ceaselessly given from the heart.

By the year 2015 it is my goal to have created a community of astrologers and a four year Astrologer's Training School. The mastery of astrology counseling will not come by studying under select master astrologers, like a traditional apprenticeship, and certainly not by my personality. But rather, the mastery of our astrology practice will come through our commitment to personal and group study and transformation. In my opinion this democratic learning model has its roots inthe world's most ancient mystery schools and philosophical academies. Until 2015 Nightlight Astrology will run successive 1 year intensive trainings as preparation for the 4 year program that will begin in 2015. My hope is to staff the 4 year program in 2015 with graduates from the 1 year intensives.

I am not looking to make an extraordinary profit from Nightlight Astrology. I believe that now, more than ever, all of us need to live within our means and escape from a debt-based model of economics.

I want to grow closer to the divine, and I want others to grow closer to the divine. My business goal is the simplest: I am building a company that is devoted to giving the wisdom of astrology to others as freely as possible. Nightlight Astrologers will be committed to offering their services, throughout their lives, on a donation basis. Training to be a Nightlight Astrologer in these formative years will be based entirely on donation as well. If anybody wants to study astrology intensely and learn to counsel and educate others with astrology, then they should not feel priced out of training, either. The desire to be educated and to learn about the human spirit is a rare inspiration that should not be afforded to only those who are very wealthy.

Starting this October, I am eager to deepen my own studies with a group of like minded astrology students in the first one year intensive training (check out the website for more information). In the meantime, I am beyond eager to work with absolutely anybody who is interested in studying their birth chart. Please visit "Donation Based Astrology" at www.nightlightastrology.com for more information on how to schedule your birth chart reading or astrological counseling.

Having a vision is an amazing thing. It feels like fate when you have a vision. It feels like you can see the future. But having the courage to follow your dreams and the heart-power to do what you must is bigger than any vision. It's bigger than your fate. Making decisions in life is about spiritual discipleship and evolution. It's about knowing and facing yourself on the deepest levels. It's about servanthood and teaching what you've learned. Along this path of courage the sun and the stars and the moon are like lampposts. It's important that we understand them because they can help guide us. When we enter into an intimate realtionship with the cosmos, the heavens can illuminate the path in front of us and the world within us, until moment by moment we reach our goals, we touch divinity, and we begin life again for the first time.

Fishers of Men featured on "The Journey Home" Santa Fe Public Radio

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:34:35 -0800

http://diegoradio.com/wp-content/uploads/7-16-10.mp3

Fishers of Men Gets Starred Review in Publishers Weekly!

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 16:02:30 -0800

Fishers of Men: The Gospel of an Ayahuasca Vision Quest
Adam Elenbaas, Tarcher/Penguin, $23.95 (288p) ISBN 978-1-58542-791-8
Author Elenbaas, a New York writer and therapist who grew up Minnesota-nice until he rebelled into a sex-and-drugs period, writes of his discovery of the curative and transformative power of the psychedelic experience. Elenbaas participated in ayahuasca healing in Peru; ayahuasca is a jungle vine brewed to make a highly purgative, hallucinogenic drink. The healing experiences allow Elenbaas to come to terms with himself and a family history of men who can't figure out what to do with themselves. At the heart of the book is the relationship between Elenbaas and his father, a well-intentioned progressive Midwestern Methodist minister who cares more for his job than for his family. The tension in their relationship is heartbreakingly poignant, and the book's best writing comes when Elenbaas writes with an observer's eye about his family and his experiences. The conclusions he draws are less than profound, but the journey he writes about should not be missed. Less about drugs and more about family, this is a book for fathers and their sons; it beats the swagger of war stories. (Aug.)

Conversation with Penguin: What Made You Write Your Story?

Sun, 30 May 2010 19:05:49 -0800

What motivated you to share your story of psychedelic experience?

I wouldn’t call my experiences with ayahuasca “psychedelic.” That word is pretty loaded. I suppose it’s a useful word for people who have very little understanding of altered states of consciousness or their role in mystical/religious experiences. “Psychedelic” is a term that most people associate with the 1960’s, tye-dye, classic rock n’ roll bands, the counter-cultural movement, or the words “far out.” My story is not psychedelic in that regard. I guess what it takes is learning to re-teach the word into culture by bringing something new into the moments when the word is spoken or written. I think that’s what my book does to some extent. Juxtapose the word psychedelic with words like “discipline,” “sustainable,” “sincere,” and “trust,” and you’ll start getting to what the core an Ayahuasca ceremony is all about. It’s about learning to walk a disciplined and ethical life-path.

But more than a book about ayahuasca, I’m telling a story, the archetypes of which have always felt timeless to me. My life has felt mythological since I was a kid, and so I tried to bring out the mythos of my own personal coming-of-age story.

I first felt inspired to share my story without an audience or publication goal in mind. I was a graduate school student, and I realized that there was no story and no fiction or mythology more interesting to me at the moment than my relationship to Jesus, the Christian Church, myself, the ayahuasca tradition, and my dad (a Methodist preacher). I had returned home from the jungle after getting my head and heart blown open and sewn back together from the fibers of the rainforest. I had seen visions of Jesus. Actually spoken to him in these visions. He wasn’t the guy I grew up fearing. Even if Jesus never existed at all (I believe he did exist), then my mind showed me not to be imprisoned by the stories of the fundamentalist culture I grew up in (which had been pretty oppressive). I had visions of Jesus in the Amazon that were deeply healing, and I made peace with Christianity, later my father and my family, and now I’m working on my culture and my planet.

But why share my story? To be honest, this is my home. This is my planet. This is my tribe. And I think we can do better than we’re doing. I’m a writer and story-teller. So I’m using my gift and my passion for words and language to tell people that it’s possible to open our hearts to unconditional love for one another. I have a message to share, and I think it’s important. We can heal ourselves, our families, our mothers and fathers. We can do that work. It’s totally possible.

Living the truth of universal love is what I would call evangelism. It doesn’t mean we have to blow out all the structures of society and live in a commune. It’s not about saying a prayer and getting saved, either. We just need to wake up a little. We need to examine our motivations, our material desires, our greed, our lust for power.

We need to look inside and do our homework. Clean up. Purge if we have to!

After a while of writing my book in grad school (it was my thesis project), and doing more ceremonies in Peru, I thought, “Man, I think I might have something really cool to share with the world here.” The ceremonies guided the creative process, too. So it’s written from my heart, and from the heart of these ceremonies, to the world.

You refer to ayahuasca, the psychedelic jungle vine, as a “medicine.” What do you mean by that?

Used in the appropriate context, with the appropriate guidance and safety precautions, and with a “guide” (like a shaman), ayahuasca is medicinal; it’s a medicine.

How does it work? We hide our true thoughts and feelings all of the time. We repress them because we think that they are bad, or we are afraid of them. We have to face ourselves and love ourselves if we are ever going to transcend the stuff we don’t like about ourselves.

Similarly, most people don’t take time to de-stress. People don’t take time to reflect on their lives and look objectively at where they’ve come from, where they might be going, or how they truly feel in the present moment.

When you enter an ayahuasca ceremony whatever is being repressed, all the pain and baggage of not just our lives, but of the species, and of the planet, is felt all the way down to the bones. It’s not a joy-ride. It’s scary and extremely challenging. And when you get to the point where you feel it’s your fault, or you feel it’s someone else’s fault, you can’t handle the “drug trip” anymore, and you simply cannot love and accept the immense pain that you are seeing at the core of your reality, you purge. You give it back to find that your true core is love. You vomit or defecate or scream or laugh or cry. Inch by inch, you come back to the surface of life where there is no need for pre-meditation. Now you’re in it. Now you’re a living meditation. At which point you realize that the real drug was your habits and behaviors, your ingratitude and your fear. Poisons are literally drawn out of your body and mind.

You might not be perfect when you get home, but you will have seen something so filled with power and love that you will have very little room but to walk your talk.

To me, that’s medicine. And I’m not exaggerating. Ayahuasca can be just this powerful. It’s like realizing that Narnia or the Lord of the Rings is somehow real, and your life is part of it.

How did you first get involved with psychedelics, and why did it seem like a possible solution to your problems?

My first time it didn’t seem like a solution to anything. I took mushrooms because I thought I would get high and have fun, like smoking pot. Instead I was sequestered into my bedroom all night having the most terrifying but healing experience I had ever had.

When my friends found me and were freaking out, afraid I’d lost my mind, to be honest, the nature of the mushroom experience changed instantly. Fear and paranoia took over. So afterward it was really obvious to me. Duh. No wonder this stuff originally came from shamans and rituals and traditions. This stuff is psycho-therapeutic. You need a container for this. You need a guide. You need structure. You have to do this the right way or it could mean trouble. That propelled me to study more about indigenous forms of shamanism and altered states of consciousness in mystical and religious experiences. I wanted to repeat my mystical experience in a safe and ancient place. Which led me to Peru.

You write that you’ve become even more connected to your faith after going through numerous shamanic ceremonies involving ayahuasca. How did these ceremonies help you renew your faith?

Well, I kind of already said this, but the ceremonies helped me to be honest with myself and others. About my shortcomings. About my gifts and talents.

Sincerity (even if it’s imperfect) attracts other people to the same kind of sincerity. It makes Fishers of Men. And we can gather ourselves together into one tribe called humanity.

I saw so clearly in my visionary encounters with Jesus that this universalism is what he was talking about. About people loving themselves and each other equally. About coming together to live with each other and nature in a sustainable way. To retain individuality but not at the cost of others. It was a tall order that Jesus brought to the table, I think. And many others have brought the same message.

As a young man, I realized that I didn’t want to abandon the good in my religion, or in my father (the preacher) or my family. Simultaneously, I don’t have to buy into every ounce of doctrine or dogma that has been fed to me over the years (by my family, my father, my religion!). It’s ironic because the one thing all Christian preachers will claim as the most unique aspect of Christianity, the one thing our faith supposedly holds over all the others, is a “personal” relationship to God. Yet, so many Christian ministers will call the kind of personal revelations that I’ve had “sacrilegious” or “blasphemous.” Thank God my father never did that to me.

So there it is. I found my personal relationship to God in the Amazon, not in a Christian church. Jesus was right there in my visions, speaking to me. Love is in my heart. I call myself a Christian, and my faith is personal. I hope that every single person finds a personal connection to reality, to love, to God, to teachers or a special tradition, to anything at all that is helpful and pointed toward love.

And it’s work. It’s not “Say a prayer and ask Jesus into your heart and that’s it. You’re saved.” Eternal life is never at stake. That’s the promise of redemption. What’s at stake is right here and right now. The real spiritual work is our shared existence today. That’s real Christianity. At least that’s how my faith was reborn in the Amazon.

Does your faith now differ from when you were a Baptist Fundamentalist and, before that, a Methodist?

At all points of the faith journey there is nothing at stake eternally. I’m sure that many Christians would differ with me on this theological statement. So maybe that’s the difference between my faith back then and now. This simple statement: eternally, there is nothing at stake.

Regardless, I believe that we’re all on the faith journey toward the union of eternity and duality, whether we like it or not. Back then (when I went to those churches) I was more judgmental, afraid, and confused. But I had a lot of good in my heart, too. I had moments of great clarity and courage. Moments of compassion and servant hood. We all do I think. No matter where we are at or what our faith looks like. So I don’t think of it like “I once was lost and now am found.”

There are really good people in every church in this country. I used to belong to these churches. Now I don’t. No big deal. Some people in Christian churches are far more enlightened than people drinking Ayahusaca. It’s all very relative. Love is love. Ultimately we have to walk our talk until heaven is on earth.

Do you advocate psychedelics for recreational use? If not, who do you think should undergo this experience?

I don’t advocate that anyone take a medicine or have any experience that they don’t feel led to by their own spirit or intuition. I think that psychedelics for recreation is missing the point. I think it can be highly dangerous. I saw that much from my first experiences with them and was very careful. I’ve worked with schizophrenics who weren’t so careful around the time they had their “break.” And even though I was careful I still had scarring psychedelic experiences in the beginning (all recreational). I’ve never had a bad ayahuasca ceremony.

I think that anybody who hears about it, reads about it, and feels led to the adventure of drinking ayahuasca should follow their heart! Even more than drinking Ayahuasca, I hope that by reading my book people feel inspired or a little more awake. I hope that my book, and my story, will be read by families, by fathers and sons, just as much as psychedelic enthusiasts or spiritual seekers. I wanted to tell a story rather than write a book about some “thing.” Ayahuasca ceremonies themselves taught me to focus on the story, the personal transformation process, and the journey, rather than the destination of some “tradition” as a cure-all, etc.

Do you think psychedelics should be legalized?

I think they should be studied. My friend Jeff Guss, who I met in Peru drinking Ayahuasca, is heading up the Mushroom and Cancer study at NYU. They are learning incredible things about pain and terminal illness. I think more studies like his need to be funded. Psychedelics as medicine need to be understood. Seen clearly. I don’t see a place for their use recreationally (just my opinion). I think recreational use, or legalization efforts toward that end would be a step backward. I think the shamanic use of ayahuasca for therapeutic and religious purposes will be legal eventually. A lot of work will need to go into that process, but I hope it happens.

Again, more than psychedelics being legalized, or even studied, more than some kind of agenda I have for the ayahuasca tradition, I hope the shamanic archetype of sharing stories to help guide our culture is cherished.

During the course of your memoir, the Lodge where you started participating in ayahuasca ceremonies changes dramatically, attracting many more people than ever before. As more people turn to psychedelics, do you think there’s a danger of this age-old treatment becoming too commercial?

The tradition is already dealing with that very issue. There are hucksters out there. There is an ayahuasca tourism industry. There’s a lot of conversation in the online communities and forums. We’re going to have to deal with the transparency and sustainability of the business side of these healing lodges. But people who devote their lives to opening lodges and healing centers shouldn’t feel bad for doing so, either. Most shamans I’ve met are very eager to share the medicine with the world. Most organizers I’ve met are incredibly ethical and not out to make billions of dollars. It’s hard to be greedy with the medicine because you’ll just end up puking if you are. Still, some people get away with being manipulative Ayahuasca businessmen or women.

I think it’s going to be almost impossible for this tradition to get too commercial. Ayahuasca is not exactly a proponent of capitalism (I don’t think). It will constantly strip us of our inauthentic or murky attitudes and dealings. I am very interested to see what happens over the next few decades. I have a lot of faith that we have a medicine here more powerful than our ego’s desire to commercialize or make money.

How important are shamans when taking psychedelics?

Shamans are important. Structure and guidance is important. We have to remember that boundaries are part of life. The ground we walk on. Gravity. Sun rise. Sun set. Moon waxes. Moon wanes. Breath in. Breath out. Systems. Rhythm. Forms in time and space. The resonance of different shapes and frequencies and structures. Science. These things are part of life. We’re not here to destroy or transcend duality. We’re here to evolve with it. Shamans are guides. Prophets and religious leaders are guides. Scientists are guides. Group traditions are guides. Art is a guide. You are a guide. I’m a guide. But the container of a ceremony and the presence of elders and leaders and shared rituals, these things are really important. I wouldn’t take a recreational drug any longer, and I wouldn’t drink in ceremony without a shaman or structured ritual in place. Ceremonies are part of learning how to create new structures in the world.

Momentum Literature Underground

Tue, 25 May 2010 20:42:07 -0800

This past Saturday night I did my first live reading from my book. I wasn't sure what to expect, and fifteen minutes before the show started my stomach was fluttering.

I wasn't nervous to read. Even though there wasn't one person in the audience beside my fiance and two friends who had ever heard of Ayahuasca, I wasn't nervous to talk about my visions. I didn't fear the judgment or the assumptions people might make, "he's a druggy" or "he's a hippy" or "he's in a cult." As a matter of fact I don't really fear that from anyone because I've yet to get that response from anyone who takes some time to speak with me. Turns out what made me nervous was the temperature of the room. It was cold. Yet in my head I was searching for a reason to be nervous. Why was I shivering a little and feeling anxious in my stomach and throat?

It's funny how simple things can make us run around inside looking for an explanation. As if explanations are certificates of ownership: the title to a new sports car, a 12 month lease in the best spot in Manhattan, a college degree, an engagement ring. We have these things because "x led to y and y led to z." And the linear chronology is very important. That's how love stories are made.

It was my first reading, and as much as I love a good linear narrative, a start to finish story (that is, afterall, what my book is like) I got a good chuckle watching how far into my head I got about it before I finally calmed down.

I was trying to think of things I could have eaten, remembering something about the violence of Jupiter in Aries, the fact that it was almost five years to the day that I had drank my first cup of ayahuasca in Peru, and then wondering, "will I forever be thought of as a "niche" writer, an ayahuasca artist?"

Then I started thinking about one-hit-wonders. The BeeGees for example. But then wait. They were a one hit wonder for ME, but maybe not for the countless fans who enjoyed something other than "Staying Alive" 15 years after the fact? Arrogance. Why am I shivering? Am I a navel gazer? This is ridiculous. My thoughts aren't usually this fussy. What did I eat today?

"I can't believe they are blasting the AC in here?" my fiance grabbed my arm and cuddled into my shoulder.

(Insert the one man standing to clap at the dramatic ending of a sports film).

AHA.(Light goes on in my head and a smile across my face) It's cold, you dork.

Sometimes we construct powerful stories. We look for the clues and follow the event trail and make a narrative. And then sometimes we've got to stop all of that nonsense and stick to the facts so we can do a good job of what's right in front of us. It's cold. It's making me shiver before I go on stage. That's making me a little nervous. I'm going to do some core breathing and warm my body.

And if it weren't for that moment, would I have really listened to the rest of the readers for the night, or would I have kept searching for an explanation to my discontent, continually reinforcing myself with the idea that, "I'm usually better than THIS."?

There were forty people. Local artists reading. Some basement on White street, between Broadway and Lafayette. Piano. Christmas lights strung up. Open bar. Folding chairs. Local photography on the walls.

A few folks cried and gripped each other's arms when I read from my book.

A few thanked me.

Someone said, "I think that did something to ME. That was like my own journey."

And some kid said, "I did acid a week ago, and the lights on Broadway were really impressive."
"Oh yeah?" I asked.
He nodded. "Beautiful."

The lights on Broadway were really impressive. Simple facts that surround the sharing of stories that can so quickly turn into something else.

The light is impressive...

Will the Real Ayahuasca Tourists Please Stand Up?

Tue, 18 May 2010 19:51:28 -0800

Having drunk in nearly 80 Ayahuasca ceremonies with four different shamans from three different countries on two different continents, I still do not feel capable of defining exactly what makes an Ayahuasca ceremony "medicinal" or "authentic." But I'm also convinced that I've never met an official "Ayahuasca tourist." To me, the conversation about Ayahuasca tourism is usually a cloaked conversation about what constitutes a reverent psychedelic experience versus a recreational one. I think it’s an important conversation.

Psychedelics have always been profoundly enlightening for me and hardly ever what I would call "fun." Though I've had my share of psychedelic giggles, for the most part my "trips" have been sobering, painful, and highly transformational. I remember the first night I ever tried a psychedelic. At the time I was addicted to morphine and methadone, was a habitual drinker and was living a sexually promiscuous lifestyle.

One evening a friend brought mushrooms for us to try at my apartment in Chicago. Far from "getting high," I was taken on an intensely psycho-therapeutic journey. As the evening progressed I saw religious confusion and rebellion on my bookshelves, bursting with colors. I saw anger littered through my compact disc collection. I saw fear of my father in my toiletries. I saw drug addiction and sadness in the mirror, under my eyes, in the roots of my hair, in my dried skin and how it felt to touch my stomach and my liver. Everything was intelligent. Everything meant something. Everything was symbolic, like a small flame was given to me and a voice was calling to me, whispering, wake up.

It was only several months after my psychedelic awakening that I locked myself into my bathroom to withdraw from methadone and morphine for the last time. Despite terrible nightmares and terrible fevers, my intention was clear: I want to be healthy again. Something far bigger than me had given me a vision during my mushroom journey, and I would never be the same again.

After quitting drugs cold turkey, I spent months researching the indigenous cultures that used psychedelic plants for healing and ceremony. During my research one evening in graduate school, I stumbled across a National Geographic television program that filmed an Ayahuasca ceremony at a lodge upriver from Iquitos, Peru. That same night I decided that I would travel to the Amazon Jungle to drink Ayahausca.

I arrived in Iquitos, Peru some five months later and drank Ayahausca three times in the jungle. During my first three ceremonies I experienced what I can only describe as universal oneness, I saw and spoke to Jesus, and I puked out enough drug residue to fill several purge buckets. Compared to who I was before I went to Peru, I have been happy and entirely sober ever since.

In my opinion, if somebody is using Ayahuasca to heal and to grow, in order to bring more love to our planet, then, to me, it is "beneficial" and "medicinal." So on one level, my answer to the tourist question is simple: I haven't ever met an Ayahuasca tourist. I've met a lot of people with good intentions. I choose to see things that way.

However, on another level, there are many tensions about Ayahuasca and psychedelic medicines that are worth talking about. It's in my opinion that most of our differences in the Ayahuasca world come from what assumptions we make about Ayahuasca or psychedelic medicine itself.

The first of these assumptions is that Ayahuasca is a purely benevolent medicine. In other words, we believe that simply drinking Ayahuasca, under any circumstances, guarantees growth and healing because Ayahuasca is medicinal by nature. The extreme example of this generalization, one that has frustrated and even angered many devoted to the medicinal use of Ayahuasca, occurs when all psychedelics are referred to as "medicine." Many of us immediately get the vision of some naked guy at Burning Man yelling out, "I'm tripping balls on this killer medicine, dude!" But if you've worked with Ayahausca in the jungle and screamed or puked your way through a childhood molestation sequence, then you know that it’s very different from just “tripping out in a really great setting.” Those who have had deeply intensive healing sessions with Ayahuasca or any psychedelic medicine know that healing work can be terrifying and extremely difficult.

On the other hand, sometimes people who are regularly involved with the ceremonial and ritual use of Ayahuasca can be holier-than-thou about other forms of psychedelic use. The extreme example of this generalization comes when you meet people who will not attend Burning Man on principle. Well that's just a hedonistic hippy parade. That's just rebellious and childish. There is no tradition. That's not sacred!

The tension between these two groups of people is never clear cut. It's impossible to say who's "authentically shamanic" and who is "posing." We can never define what makes something healing or medicinal, whether or not a shaman and ceremony are necessary, etc., but we don't give up the conversation. Tension always seems to arise whenever there is a mention of words like "unceremonious," or "medicine," and “psychedelics,” or phrases like "Ayahuasca tourists."

So what can we do about our tribal conflict?

In the old days if the tribe were divided, it would be a good time for a story around the tribal council fire. So here's a story that might help.

* * *

In April of 2008 I went on a Reality Sandwich field trip to Peru. The Curandero Seminar, hosted by U.S. native Carlos Tanner, featured five different Ayahuasca shamans and a variety of interactive study sessions, including a handful of Ayahuasca ceremonies. The day before leaving to the jungle to cover the conference for Reality Sandwich, I had spoke at The Ayahuasca Monologues in Manhattan.

After sharing my visionary Ayahuasca story, I was greeted by a former alumni from the particular lodge I had been working at in Peru. When I told him about my trip to Peru to work with new shamans, at different lodges, he was shocked.

"Be careful of all those witch doctors and the black magic down there," he said to me. “I can’t believe you’re drinking at a different lodge.”

By the time I reached Iquitos and greeted the other guests at the conference, I had formed an irrational fear in my head. Never having drank with any other shamans but those at my lodge of choice, I was afraid that I might get attacked by witchcraft in a ceremony, or that the mastery of the shamans and the strength of their mesa might not be sturdy enough to support me should I need serious help.

Sitting in the sun on the veranda of a café overlooking the Ucayali River in Iquitos, I quickly formed judgments about each guest of the conference and the quality of the conference itself.

"I mean, I hope this stuff works like I've read about. I want to leave my body and trip the fuck out, man." One young man from New York seemed like he had no idea what he was getting himself into. His only goal seemed to be about as intelligent as “getting stoned” or “wasted.” I quickly assumed that his intentions were not good. In the exact same and mechanical way, I began to form judgments about each one of the conference guests.

Carlos Tanner's conference introduction furthered my opinion.

"We couldn't book the hotel, so we're staying at a reservation park that has good bungalos."

Only fourteen guests had arrived. The conference website had advertised nearly a hundred. Carlos and his master had a falling out regarding witchcraft, money, and the death of one of their patients. And the young conference staff, Carlos, an Aussie named Justin, and a young Brit named Ashley who was suffering from the venom of a brujo that had been hired to kill him, were scrambling to find a fifth shaman to replace Carlos's teacher.

Because of the disorganization and the disintegration of my biggest expectations for journalistically covering an important shamanic conference for Reality Sandwich, I figured that the focus of my article would be to expose "Ayahuasca tourism" at its worst. I had also decided that I would not drink in any of the Ayahuasca ceremonies for fear of my life.

However, as the week went by I befriended one of the conference guests, a psychiatrist from New York who had drank in nearly a hundred different ceremonies with a variety of shamans. One evening while we were sitting in the back of a crowded utility van driving back from the jungle to the city of Iquitos, he asked me, "You really think you'll be hurt if you drink?"

"I just don't feel like this kind of Ayahuasca shamanism is good. The guys hosting this event don't seem to have integrity. Why should the shamans they hired?" I asked.

"I've been just fine, Adam. Does that mean that I am under their spell? You came all the way down here. It doesn't seem objective or journalistic for you to formulate this opinion without at least trying it out. You can sit next to me in ceremony, if you’d like. You’ll be okay.”

Although I was still scared, somewhere a voice inside of me said, He’s right. Get over yourself and drink in the last ceremony. Nothing bad will happen to you. You’ll be okay.

The last ceremony was held at the Spirit of the Anaconda lodge with a shaman named Don Guillermo (a reputable shaman from Jan Kounen's Ayahuasca documentary, "Other Worlds"). Before the ceremony began I confessed my fear to the group, "I'm scared that I'm going to freak out again." Nobody said much.

Several hours into the ceremony I began to cry when I heard the vomiting and purging of other conference guests in the lodge. I heard laughter and the sounds of people receiving healing all around me. In my mind's eye I saw each guest as a child, and I saw the host of the conference, Carlos, as a little boy. Then from the heavens I saw pink and purple and golden star dust falling onto each one of us; blessing us. I listened to the sounds of Don Guillermo's Icaros and began to feel sick to my stomach as I contemplated the way in which my fear had separated me from being present at the conference. Inside of my stomach I felt a heavy sensation beginning to work its way up and out. I was at the epi-center of a planetary problem. The real conference was everything, the arrogance and indifference and cruelty was my human condition. I was subjective history. Arrogant anthropology. Fear based journalism. I doubled over and dry heaved into my bucket. Although nothing physically left my body, in my visions I saw slimy yellow ooze pouring out of my mouth.

My plan had been to return home and write a cynical story for the Reality Sandwich audience about "Ayahuasca tourism." Gone. Back to oblivion. Purging so hard I had nothing to report and everything to confess.

I was going to say mean things about these people who were only doing their best. I don't know anything about anything.

The next morning I apologized to Carlos. "I judged you and this whole conference," I said. "I'm really sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing."

"It's okay," he replied. "It's hard working with Ayahuasca. We're all just doing our best."

"I'm sorry I didn't participate more this week," I said.

"Don't blame yourself. This is exactly why you came down here. You came down to learn this lesson. You're welcome back next year. Write a great story for Reality Sandwich!"

On the airplane ride home I thought, now this is a good story for me to write about.

I began to jot in my notebook:

Perhaps in the tension we feel between what constitutes sanctity and profanity, we should explore our personal history and not pretend to be objective when we can't be. If the conversation about Ayahuasca tourism and sacred psychedelic medicine is always concerned with such outward things like ceremonial candor, ritual procedure, rank and merit, then we will have failed in the same way many religions have failed. We will allow petty denominational differences and fear-based assumptions to divide us. I come back to what Jesus said, "Take the plank from your own eye before you take the splinter from your brother's."

We should stay balanced by remembering that ceremony and tradition are not always restrictive and elitist, while sanctity and healing are not always ceremonial or traditional. It's important that we learn to see the good in each other, always.

On the road of life, isn't everybody a tourist anyway?

Fishers of Men - Adam's Blog