28 posts tagged “ayahuasca”
Plant Spirit Shamanism 2009 Ayahuasca and San Pedro Journeys to the Amazon and Andes of Peru – New Dates and Discounts
I am pleased to announce the new 2009 dates for our Magical Earth and Cactus of Vision programmes to the ayahuasceros and San Pedro shamans and healers of Peru.
The Magical Earth Amazon Adventure and Ayahuasca Programme
(Off Iquitos, Peru)
There are two opportunities to take this adventure in 2009:
May 30 – June 12 and
October 30 – November 12.
I am also pleased to announce that we have been able to reduce the price this year – while expanding the programme and enlisting the services of new Master Shamans! Our ayahuasca programme gives you an authentic experience of real jungle medicine, shamanic healing, and plant spirit medicines – and is now almost 30% less expensive than comparable events run by ‘ayahuasca tour’ companies.
The Cactus of Vision Programme
(Cusco, Peru)
November 14 – 20 2009
We also now offer two-trip discounts for people who book both the Magical Earth and Cactus of Vision programmes, giving you a further 5% saving on prices.
For a FREE Information Pack on either or both of these courses, email ross@thefourgates.com or visit www.thefourgates.com
Dennis McKenna (brother of Terence), Senior Lecturer and Research Associate at the University of Minneapolis, reviews my book, Plant Spirit Shamanism in HerbalGram, the Journal of the American Botanical Council, and concludes that “You will find much here that is of value… whether you want to learn to practice plant spirit medicine or simply want to gain a better understanding of it this book will be a useful addition to your botanical library”.
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The full review can be read here: http://content.herbalgram.org/wholefoodsmarket/herbalgram/articleview.asp?a=3240
The book was also reviewed at length by Timothy White, founding editor of Shaman’s Drum, in issue 73 of the magazine. Mr White concludes that “Plant Spirit Shamanism offers a readable melange of information, insights, and viewpoints on spiritual plant medicines. I feel comfortable recommending this volume to readers interested in magical herbs, as well as to those beginning to work shamanically with plant spirits”.
The full review can be read here: http://shamansdrum.org/Pages/ReviewsPlantSpirit.html
Plant Spirit Shamanism: Traditional Techniques for Healing the Soul is published by Destiny Books/Inner Traditions, 2006. Append.; biblio.; glossary; illus.; index; notes; 250 pp.; $16.95 (paper).
i have been running sacred journeys to the Amazon rainforests of Peru for several years to work with the ayahuasca shamans and introduce participants to this jungle healing, magic and medicine (i also run similar trips to the Andes for participants to work with the san pedro shamans) and have personally witnessed many healing miracles through participants' involvement with ayahuasca. These include physical, mental, emotional, spiritual (and what i can only describe as 'miraculous') healings.
An example of the latter would be a female participant on my 2007 Magical Earth ayahuasca journey to the Amazon who longed for a baby but had been diagnosed with polycystic ovaries which makes pregnancy highly unlikely (she was also on the pill - which is 98% effective against pregnancy - to help regulate her condition).
She asked ayahuasca to help in her desire for a child - and less than a month after her return to England (notwithstanding her medical condition and her use of the contraceptive pill) she was pregnant! Her son was born less than a week ago.
How ayahuasca can work like this is a mystery that has defied Western science since scientists first started studying it, but experiences like these show that it does work (it has also been shown as effective in helping people off addictions and there are reported cases of cancer cures, the healing of deafness, and overcoming anxiety and emotional problems, amongst other things).
i believe it is a great sadness that the Western world is so ready to ban this miracle brew as a 'drug' - especially when their own legal drugs (alcohol, tobacco) and 'medicines' kill so many people each year according to their own official figures. Ayahuasca is a great sacrament and medicine - but soon the only place we will be able to freely take it is in the more enlightened environment and culture of the rainforest.
Visit http://www.thefourgates.com for details of ayahuasca journeys.
Participants preparing ayahuasca during our 2007 Magical Earth Amazon Adventure to work with the ayahuasca shamans.
The government of Peru has announced ayahuasca as central to its cultural heritage and an important part of the nation's traditional knowledge and the shamanic practices of the indigenous communities in the Amazon rainforest. The decision of the Peruvian government, signed by the director of the National Institute of Culture, Javier Ugaz Villacorta, was published in the Saturday edition of El Peruano, the official daily of the country.
In the statement of recognition, the Peruvian government maintains that ayahuasca has psychotropic qualities and can transmit the wisdom of the very foundations of the world. It also states that the effects produced by its consumption are equivalent to entering the spiritual world and receiving its secrets.
According to the National Institute of Culture, the ritual of ayahuasca central to traditional medicine and one of the pillars of the identity of Amazonian peoples, and its use is necessary and indispensable to the Peruvian Amazon. "Knowledge of ayahuasca states is required for all members of Amazonian societies at some point in their lives and is essential for assuming the role of privileged individuals" it said.
At last! An enlightened government!
On October 6 1999, Dutch police kicked down the door of a church in Holland and arrested two Ministers, Geraldine Fijneman and Hans Bogers, while they and their congregation were in the middle of a religious service. Geraldine and Hans were held by the police for three days, charged with leadership of a criminal organisation and distributing drugs.
Their crime? They were members of the Church of Santo Daime, a religious organisation not too dissimilar from Catholicism in its ceremonial aspects; the significant difference being that the Santo Daime church uses ayahuasca, the sacred 'vine of souls' of the Amazon, in its ceremonies to commune with its god.
In effect, then, the behaviour of the police in Holland was a form of religious intolerance; a situation made all the more bizarre because ayahuasca is a plant – a natural, organic, living, growing thing, not a ‘drug’ and, furthermore, there is no evidence whatsoever that it is addictive (in fact, it has been successfully used to treat addictions).
The ayahuasca in question was not being ‘trafficked’ either, but handed out as a sacrament within the church, in much the same way as Catholic communion wine - and nobody's kicked a door down over that yet.
The situation that befell the Santo Daime church was preposterous in other ways too because the active ingredient of ayahuasca is DMT - which is already present in significant quantities in the human body. Following the legal logic displayed in this ‘drug bust’, therefore, if you ever decide to make babies you will, by definition, be a drug trafficker yourself.
But perhaps the most important aspect of this case is the question it raises: what right has any authority to dictate what is or is not an acceptable form of worship? The members of the Santo Daime congregation in that church on that October evening were hurting no-one and doing nothing of an aggressive or harmful nature - indeed, they were at prayer when the door of their church was splintered. It was a question which would quickly come to occupy the minds of the police.
On November 20, just a few days after the arrests, a large crowd gathered in the centre of Amsterdam, to protest against the raid and to demand the legalisation of ayahuasca. So troubled were the prosecution lawyers at this, and so embarrassed by their raid on a church, that they made it quietly known to the Santo Daime lawyer that they would drop the case if the church would accept a warning about its drug-taking activities.
The reaction of the Santo Daime lawyer, however, was “no thanks”. In fact, hearing that the prosecution were about to drop the legal proceedings, the church itself decided to take the case to court since it wanted a clear decision on the legal status of ayahuasca to avoid similar harassment in future.
And so the defence became the prosecution and, on May 21 2001, the Ministers for the Santo Daime church were acquitted by the court. Judge Marcus ruled that the Minister, Mrs Fijneman, had indeed owned, transported and even distributed a DMT-containing substance [which she would also have done had she been pregnant and then given birth, by the way], but as there was no proof of a public health risk from ayahuasca, her constitutional right to Freedom of Religion must come first. Since ayahuasca is the holy sacrament of the Santo Daime church, he ruled, it was essential to the defendant’s faith that she be allowed to use it.
The church was also within its rights to demand the return of 17 litres of ayahuasca that had been confiscated by the police, as well as compensation for the time the defendants were in custody.
Apart from the considerations of civil liberty and the right to self-determination and individuality without State harassment, there were spiritual considerations here.
The shamanic traditions of many cultures have long used Holy plants such as ayahuasca as a means of moving out of ordinary consciousness and into non-ordinary reality where spiritual communion can take place. Used in this fashion, and in a respectful way, these plants can be exceptional allies and teachers, opening doors into other worlds and new areas of consciousness. Just about as far as you can get from ‘drug-taking’, in fact.
Ayahuasca, of course, is a plant/spirit of the Amazon. In our own culture, sacred intoxication has traditionally been provided by the magic (psilocybe) mushroom. Whether you personally believe that this plant is divine and has its own spirit, it is nonetheless, a plant, just like ayahuasca. The question therefore arises: who has the right to say that you are allowed/not allowed to consume a perfectly natural substance - plant material - for your own purposes, in circumstances that are not harmful to others or yourself?
You can, after all, write on the head of a pin the names of all the people worldwide who are injured through the ceremonial consumption of sacred substances during an average year. In the same year, there will be thousands of deaths as a result of tobacco smoking and alcohol-related accidents and disease. So why don’t we make those drugs illegal instead?
In other, perhaps better informed, cultures, mushrooms are revered, not feared or controlled in this way. In Mexico, they are known as Teonancatl (‘the flesh of the gods’) and used in sacred rituals and healing ceremonies for the sick.
Mazatec shaman and healer, Maria Sabina, tells us something about the reverence in which they are held when she remarks that: "There is a world beyond ours, a world that is far away, nearby, and invisible. This is where God lives, in a world where everything has already happened and everything is known. The sacred mushroom takes me to the world where everything is known”
These plants are Holy and have been regarded as such for thousands of years. The people who may choose to take them therefore have every moral and spiritual right to do so, and they deserve better treatment than the State seems able to give.
If you are searched, questioned or arrested for carrying any controlled substance, contact RELEASE on 0207 603 8654, a charity offering free advice and assistance 24 hours a day. Say nothing to the arresting officers until you have spoken to a solicitor.
For a free information pack about sacred ayahuasca journeys to the Amazon (where ayahuasca is a wholly legal sacrament) email ross@thefourgtaes.com or visit http://www.thefourgates.com
