 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. Comments04/11/2012 23:10
04/25/2012 07:10
If you're an early riser, great. If you're a night owl, that's fine. Just don't try to change that unless you absolutely have to for reasons that can't be avoided. 05/11/2012 17:56
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