SLAYIN THE ANCESTRAL DRAGON: The harsh truth behind Ayahuasca

by Horacio Hernández

Behind Humanity’s awfully limited understanding of the human mind, there is one area in particular that is so key, yet so confusing, that we could call it its Holy Grail. Consciousness is so important, and yet so hard to decipher, that it can break apart effortlessly any discipline trying to explain the mind: neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, cognitive science… you name it.

Personally, it’s a subject that enthralls me. The study of consciousness throughout my life has been as fascinating as it has been excruciatingly painful and difficult. When you push your mind to its limits in every possible area, you slowly develop an uncommon, remarkable skillset in areas you never imagined could be affected… but it comes at a dire cost. Questioning your own sanity becomes a habit, and the mind has mechanisms in place to defend you from change, making every single one of these processes devastating, to say the least.

It’s worth it.

It has always been. No matter the cost. Every time you expand your consciousness, unbelievable things start happening all inside you and all around you.

Logically, with such a passion behind finding new ways to understand my mind and go deeper into my own consciousness, Ayahuasca seemed inevitable at some point. With first-hand knowledge of how strong these chemical substances are, for many years I stayed away from it. However, as articles and documentaries kept popping out about how helpful this experience had been for many, last year I finally decided to do it. My wife, Marianne, was interested in trying it, too, so, a month ago, we finally decided to try it.

For context, in my exploration of the mind, I have tried a bunch of different chemical stimulants. I have undergone and understand the relaxing, clouding effects of Marijuana, the focused, empathic environment created in your mind by pure MDMA, and the attention-driven effects behind Metamphetamines, among others. Under proper guidance and with the interest of using them as tools and not as recreational drugs, I vouch for the effects of MDMA and psilocybin as powerful and helpful devices for people who want to use enhancers to understand their own minds better, as well as the minds of others.

For all I had read, Ayahuasca was going to be a mind opening experience. Many claimed to have resolved profound trauma while using it. Others talked about opening portals in their mind to different dimensions, whatever that means. The people that would conduct the session repeated once and again how this ancestral “medicine”, as they called it, allowed people to heal.

Following the guides’ recommendations, we didn’t eat anything a day before the session. The time finally came for the date and, driving to the far away house where everything would go down, I completely opened up my mind and made a point about accepting the experience that we were about to live, whatever came from it.

Two of the guides greeted us as we walked into the place. One of them asked us to go for a quick “briefing” session, where he patiently explained the schedule. First, people would undergo Kambó, a toxic frog poison that is applied on your skin after slightly burning it open in five different spots. The guide explained how this fantastic “medicine” would cleanse us of all the toxic stuff we had inside us, and prepare us correctly for Ayahuasca.

Then, they would give us something called Rapé. The guide didn’t explain this very much, he just said it was also a preparation for Ayahuasca. After sharing as a group together what our goals and expectations were, he explained that we would finally drink the first dose of Ayahuasca, which would take thirty to forty minutes to start “healing” us. After that, there would be a second dose for those who wanted it, and for those having trouble to “connect”, as he explained it, the guides would provide Xanga, which is a smoked version of Ayahuasca which would help with the process. That would last all night, and the next morning, after rest, we would try Bufo, a smoked version of a different substance that, he said, was much stronger but much briefer, and would be like a “rebirth”.

For all I know about preparing your mind for a process like the one we were about to live, I was wary of all these chemicals being inserted at the same time into our bodies. I glanced at Marianne and we quickly agreed that we would only take Ayahuasca. The guide insisted several times on the rest of the stuff, but we didn’t budge. After a while, we went back to our tent and sat on a porch right next to it.

People started arriving and they were immediately subjected to Kambó. After one of the guides burned them and put the toad poison on their skin, they would spend three or four minutes waiting, and then suddenly start vomiting violently and almost uncontrollably. This went on for thirty to forty minutes; meanwhile, one of the guides chanted right next to the person, took deep breaths of some weird tobacco they had, and blew the smoke at different parts of the person’s body. When each person finally finished vomiting, they would go lie down on the grass or on their mattresses, looking exhausted and devastated.

As I watched with Marianne, I furiously scrolled through webpage after webpage, trying to find at least a shred of evidence that would support a detoxifying treatment using toad poison that clearly created a violent reaction on your body. I found none, and I even found warnings as to why this could be dangerous if the doses were too high. I checked up Rapé, too, and it turns out it’s tobacco, but smoked through the nostrils. Again, I just found health warnings everywhere, and no evidence it helped in any way. After a while, I gave up and resigned to just watching that horrific process.

After several hours of that, when everyone had gone through that torturous “cleansing” and a little rest, the guides called us to the center of their garden, where mattresses were lined up on the grass so we could sit or lie down, and they started explaining the experience we were about to live. They asked Marianne and myself to be far apart from each other, which we immediately complied. I didn’t like the idea of her being on the other side of the garden, but I also didn’t want to interrupt her process, whatever it might end up being. The guides explained how they went to the Amazonas and were taught by their “abuelitos” (grampas). They were calling their shamans “abuelitos”, but also tobacco, the fireplace in the middle, and some of the psychedelic drugs we were about to ingest. As they talked, they smoked tobacco and blew it on their arms, legs, and chest, almost obsessively. They explained that tobacco was misunderstood in the modern world and that it was a great medicine, too.

My mind was open, but so much of what was happening didn’t seem to add up. I was making a conscious effort not to judge any of the things I was seeing or listening to, but, admittedly, I was having a hard time doing so. Two of the guides were married and their kids were there. They constantly blew tobacco smoke on them and kept saying that their kids were doing Kambó and the rest of the stuff since they were three or four years old. The little kids sat there, playfully, as kids usually do, while I tried to imagine how in the world you can burn your four-year old and insert toad poison into his/her skin.

The guides started asking everyone to introduce themselves and explain why they were there. Marianne was first, and visibly nervous, she explained with great detail how she wanted to know herself better, why her consciousness was important to her, and how much she expected this to produce something different and valuable. Her words cheered me up a little bit again, but after her, the energy in that place took a nosedive. Every single person after her told the rest of us how much they were hurting, and how they expected this to solve everything. These people seemed to be really hurt, and depressed, and some of them frankly desperate. After everyone was done talking, the main guide explained that it was very important to let go during the process, but to go in it with a very specific intention. The other guides kept repeating that we were all in a healing process and how happy they were for seeing us there.

Suddenly, the guides told us it was time for Rapé. The first person to get it was sitting right next to me. One of the guides knelt down in front of her, lit up a pipe, placed one of the ends into the woman’s nostrils, and blew the smoke into it. I was shocked. The woman, naturally, started coughing in desperation and made gestures trying to explain that she couldn’t breathe. The process of blowing the smoke into her nostrils must’ve burnt her. The guide instructed her to open her mouth and inhale to get air. Suffice to say, when the guide got to me, I politely refused. I was relieved to see on the other side of the fire that Marianne had refused to do this, too.

By the time the guides finished, everyone looked shot. By now, most of them had already had vomited, spit, coughed, and it seemed to have taken a toll on them. I couldn’t help but think, “instead of healed, they look broken down”. I couldn’t understand any of it. The main guide interrupted my thoughts to announce that it was finally time for Ayahuasca. He produced a small jar with an oozy, black liquid inside, and started pouring it into little plastic cups. The guides started giving them out to everyone, asking us to wait before drinking it. When everyone had their cup, the guide acted a ritual on the jar and thanked it, thanked the fire, thanked the tobacco, and then finally asked us to drink it. As I plunged it into my mouth, I couldn’t help to feel nauseated as the guides offered Ayahuasca to their kids. One of them drank it as I felt an agonizing sensation of uncomfortableness creeping on me, greatly enhanced by the fact that I saw the guides drink, too (and I had eyed them several times using a crystal pipe smoking what I only assumed was Xanga, the smoked version of Ayahuasca). I felt unsafe surrounded by guides who were also going to be under the effects of all these things; what if anything went wrong? As all these thoughts raced my mind, I suddenly remembered I had just drank a powerful beverage, which would amplify all these alerts greatly if I let them. I took a deep breath and let go of all these worries, making a mental note of just keeping an eye on Marianne at all times. Luckily, the cup didn’t taste as bad as how I had read everywhere, so I just sat down and waited for it to start while I flattened my thoughts and concentrated on the reason I had come.

While I patiently waited, the guides started singing and playing a guitar and other instruments. My mind was clear and free of judgements. My purpose was very clear. After all my investigation about the process, I had concluded that Ayahuasca would be like a lucid dream, in which, completely conscious, you would have access to your subconscious and vividly hallucinate into the ideas you wanted to form. I wanted to use that process to understand how my consciousness works, and from there, to evaluate different aspects of my personality, my goals, and my own mindset.

This isn’t new for me, either. I do the whole process at least once a week, but without any enhancers. I wouldn’t call it meditation, either; strict meditation has never worked out that well for me, but I found a way to do it consciously, shutting down my prefrontal cortex while I execute basic mundane chores (like playing on my cell phone or washing dishes). This is a fantastic process, but it is also incredibly hard, and limited. Whenever I try to sustain it for more than twenty minutes or so, my head starts hurting badly, and the clarity of your thoughts starts waning; it’s either that, or you fall asleep. I wanted to time it right to show up when the effects of Ayahuasca kicked in, so I was mainly waiting and trying to stay focused.

About half an hour had passed. No effects for me, but some people around me started vomiting on their cans. Marianne got up and sat in front of the fire. She looked calm and peaceful, and I could tell she was already feeling the effects. The main guide and the kid were nowhere around; they probably had retired to one of the bedroooms in the house behind the garden. Most people looked like they were already feeling the effects. Some lied down. A couple were already fast asleep and snoring. The guides made a pause to remind us to let the ancestral herb cleanse our system (I guess they referred to all the vomiting), only to immediately start singing again. The minutes trickled by, while people groaned on their mattresses, sitting up only to vomit in the can again and again.

An hour or so had gone by, and I still felt nothing. One of the guides got up and ceremoniously announced the second dose for “those who hadn’t connected”. I stood up, grabbed a refill, and gulped it quickly. Thinking that maybe if I moved around a bit the effects would start, I went to the bathroom, walked around the garden for a bit, and came back. Marianne was still in front of the fire, looking calm and collected. I lost track of time, as the minutes slid by. I started feeling cold, so I stood up and approached the fire.

One of the guides stood up too and approached me. “You haven’t connected?” I shook my head. She looked disappointed. “Many times, when we are truly toxified, the ancestral herb doesn’t find a way in. It’s why we do Kambó and the rest of the stuff. Let me help you.”

We went back to my mattress. I sat down as she pulled one of those crystal pipes I had been eyeing. “I’m sorry, would you let me disinfect it before I use it?” I felt super awkward asking this, but I wasn’t about to catch Covid from one of these people after avoiding it during two years. After spraying it with my disinfecting product, she lit it up and said: “Smoke it all the way down. Keep it in your lungs and swallow it.”

The guide repeated the process five times. “Are you feeling anything?” I shook my head again, feeling like something was wrong. Why wasn’t I feeling anything? When she pressed the pipe against my mouth while firing it up, the smoke burned my throat much worse than the last five times as I put it in. As I was struggling to keep the smoke in, she muttered, “It’s unbelievable, only one sip of this and I go haywire immediately”.

Her words fell on me like a heavy, cold slab of stone. I had just drinked this thing twice, and had smoked six full pipes. She stood up and said, “let me hit you with Rapé”, but I immediately answered, “No, I’m fine. I think that’s enough”. What the hell was I doing ingesting so much of this thing, when one of the guides who had experience doing this could only fathom a smoke of it?

Understanding I had probably overdone it, I sat down on the mattress to wait again and refocused. No use thinking about my dumb mistake anymore, and no way I was going to ingest any more Ayahuasca or any of the other stuff these people were consuming. A last glimpse at Marianne confirmed she still looked ok, so I closed my eyes, breathed slowly, and cleared my mind again. I patiently waited for the effects to start to go into my “meditation” state, meanwhile only letting silence be navigated by the groans, chants, and vomiting sounds around me.

As I had feared, the effects hit me suddenly and very hard. I had read about people seeing hallucinations, but this was nothing like that. My vision just became badly blurred, as when you see through a huge amplifying glass. Dizziness was making it hard for me to focus, so I closed my eyes. A bunch of colorful geometrical figures appeared, slowly moving from one side to the other. I was curious at the figures, but tried to focus on my purpose as the guide had suggested, so I accepted the lights and let them dance while I kept my eyes closed. I would just open them every now on then to keep checking on Marianne, who kept staring at the fire. I am usually very proficient at shutting down my prefrontal cortex, but here I was struggling. It was hard to focus. The mind kept wanting to wander off into the colors or any thought that raced by.

The choice is yours.

*Imagen tomada Google