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There are also stories of people dying and the locals dumping their bodies elsewhere so that they don't ruin others experiences or stop people from coming to tr

There are also stories of people dying and the locals dumping their bodies elsewhere so that they don't ruin others experiences or stop people from coming to try the 'Medicine'. IIRC, the primary drug in Ayahuasca is DMT, which can be acquired other ways (that are less likely to make you puke) than drinking their jungle juice.

fyolnish 12y ago
Citations please?
- hluska 12y ago
  In the interest of fairness, I will share a few decent articles, then give my opinion: http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/jennifer-logan-s-death-in-peru-puts-focus-on-purging-ceremonies-1.2948955 http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/jennifer-logan-s-death-in-pe... https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ayahuasca/ayahuasca_death.shtml https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ayahuasca/ayahuasca_death.s... http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/24/justice/ayahuasca-death-kyle-nolan-mother/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/24/justice/ayahuasca-death-kyle-n... The first article is not about ayahuasca, but provides some excellent advice for spiritual seekers. The second is the best article. The third is CNN, but it is likely the incident the OP is talking about. Ayahuasca and salvia both completely scare me. They are not meant to be administered recreationally, and they can both bring about some states that can lead to dangerous behaviours or permanent mental illness. However, if administered correctly by a well trained shaman, each have therapeutic qualities. The problem is too many people with western dollars read Carlos Castaneda and embark in search of a shaman. And, there are many unscrupulous people who will say anything to make a buck.
chisleu 12y ago
It is DMT + an MAOI which allows the DMT to not be destroyed when you drink it. The MAOI has a prolonging and intensifying effect, and has psychedelic effects of it's own. Smoking DMT isn't the same as eating pharmahuasca, which isn't the same as drinking ayahuaska. That said, it is very, very rare for anyone to have a reaction. The quality tours have trained medics in the village, and the villages are jammed deep in the forest like some of the hippy tours. Smoking DMT is a very clean experience. It is intensely visual in nature and completely cerebral. Pharma/Ayahuaska is a heavy body load as you drift in and out of the altered state often called "hyperspace". I don't really recommend the MAOIs because of the complications they can cause, and you can have just as spiritual of an experience without drinking their "jungle juice". haha ;)
- thinkpad20 12y ago
  > The quality tours have trained medics in the village Somehow I don't derive much reassurance from that. :\ I guess some people are just more comfortable rolling the dice with their brains than I am...
  - MrBlue 12y ago
    "I guess some people are just more comfortable rolling the dice with their brains than I am..." I feel the same way with people who take pharmaceutical anti-depressants.
  - hnnewguy 12y ago
    >"Somehow I don't derive much reassurance from that." If you live in a major urban area, and hang around in the right circles, it's very likely you can find a local party with which to partake, and thus get to take advantage of top-notch medical care in case of emergency (if that's your worry).
    - cnp 12y ago
      Agreed, you don't need to go to South America. Good luck
paolomaffei 12y ago
"We modern smart men have figured a way to have trippy experiences without puking and going into an uncomfortable jungle with this funny superstitious shamans, we are the best!" As if doing a hit of DMT was nearly the same thing as a proper Ayahuasca ceremony done with a shaman coming from a 10.000 years lineage. Sigh.
- dEnigma 12y ago
  Of course it's not the same. For one thing there is a lot less bullshit involved in simply smoking DMT. Seriously though, there are a lot of factors involved but I'm sure going into the jungle to drink ayahuasca under supervision of some self-proclaimed shaman isn't the only reasonable or effective way to have your spiritual experience with DMT.
- thescribe 12y ago
  Yeah, lets listen to superstitious people! Why appeal to the age of an authority? If there's anything measurably beneficial about Ayahuasca I'm certain it can be extracted into a precisely dosed pharmaceutical.
  - hluska 12y ago
    I doubt that anyone who has actually tried ayahuasca (or a similarly potent hallucinogen) both with a shaman and without would agree with you. Do you have any citations to back up this opinion? The danger of your opinion is that it precludes research into things like drumming and chanting. Humans have been using rhythm to build a sense of community for thousands of years. Could there be something here for science? Could we learn how to help therapists and patients bond much faster? I don't know these answers. Do you?
    - thescribe 12y ago
      Oh interesting, I hadn't thought of this from a therapy point of view. Any time you mix spirituality and treatment my mind goes immediately to scam, which is what I assumed this was.
MrBlue 12y ago
There is only been one documented case of that ever occurring. I've taken Ayahuasca on several occasions and have only puked once which is very normal as it is part of the purging process. In fact, I prefer taking DMT orally (via Ayahuasca) as the experience is much easier to control even though it lasts longer compared to smoking pure DMT.
messo 12y ago
It's currently an 'ayahuasca-boom' going on, that is taken advantage of by many locals who want to earn easy money. Another risk is that some of the shamans mix in other plants than the core ingredients, which can be dangerous. There is also the possibility of unwanted interactions with pharmaceuticals. With proper research and preparation, the 'jungle juice' is remarkably safe to consume.
- fapjacks 12y ago
  Not to mention you can legally buy all the supplies you need to make Ayahuasca at home in the States.
rosser 12y ago
Yeah, that happened. There's another center in the jungle I know of that changes its name every time they have a guest die. And I've heard stories of "shamans" who add a paralytic to the dose they give attractive young female guests... But you know what? Those are the exceptions. I've taken ayahuasca dozens of times, and am booked for another trip to Peru next month. I've been fortunate only to work with reputable people, and have consistently only met others in my travels that have also worked with reputable people. Please don't judge a tradition that's thousands of years old, and actually remarkably safe — with a few caveats, that the reputable folks will screen for — on the basis of a couple of cretins who look at the plants and the gringo tourists and just see dollar signs.
- api 12y ago
  All that kind of shadiness is a consequence of prohibition -- since it's illegal, black and grey markets staffed by crooks and irresponsible flaky types fill the vendor niche. Without prohibition you could go to a professionally run center and take pharmaceutically pure DMT+MAOI instead of shaman piss, and do so with experienced genuinely psychologically educated guides and with modern medical care available in case of a reaction.
  - rosser 12y ago
    I disagree. It's legal in Peru, where all of the cases I listed occurred. (Technically, it's a gray area where, in the case of indigenous practitioners working on foreign guests, the law literally has nothing to say — neither legal nor illegal, but tolerated because tourism dollars. Indigenous folks treating indigenous folks is black-letter legal, and protected.) It's not prohibition, but rather greed and predation, that create most of the harms that have happened in ayahuasca practice in the jungle. I've never done it, but I have a strong sense that pharmahuasca would be cold, sterile, and missing some of the je ne sais quoi that the "shaman piss" [1] experience offers. I'm sure it would still be a valuable experience, and one I'd be open to exploring, but drinking trees works well enough for me, thanks. I mean, sure you can puke (I often do, sometimes several times in the course of a night), and it tastes horrible, and your sweat smells like tree bark at the end of the night — let alone the end of the week. That's just the process, though, and "optimizing" it out would probably also remove many of the things that are actually among the most valuable (for me, and everyone else who does this more than once with whom I've spoken) aspects. EDIT: footnote added. [1] Interestingly, in one of the earliest-documented shamanic traditions, tribes on the Siberian steppe would use amanita muscaria mushrooms, which are visionary, but also mildly toxic. The shaman would take a shaman-sized dose, and journey, then collect his urine (which still contains threshold doses of psychoactive metabolites), and serve that to his "patients".
vinceguidry 12y ago
> IIRC, the primary drug in Ayahuasca is DMT, which can be acquired other ways (that are less likely to make you puke) than drinking their jungle juice. I strongly suspect that with psychedelics, the context in which they are taken is far more influential on the kind of experience you have than the actual neurochemical effects. A sugar pill given to you by a man in a white coat and a soothing bedside manner is going to have a bigger effect than the same pill given to you by your next-door neighbor the handyman. The service these fake shamans are providing can be of value even though the shamans are fake.

fyolnish 12y ago

Citations please?

hluska 12y ago
In the interest of fairness, I will share a few decent articles, then give my opinion: http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/jennifer-logan-s-death-in-peru-puts-focus-on-purging-ceremonies-1.2948955 http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/jennifer-logan-s-death-in-pe... https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ayahuasca/ayahuasca_death.shtml https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ayahuasca/ayahuasca_death.s... http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/24/justice/ayahuasca-death-kyle-nolan-mother/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/24/justice/ayahuasca-death-kyle-n... The first article is not about ayahuasca, but provides some excellent advice for spiritual seekers. The second is the best article. The third is CNN, but it is likely the incident the OP is talking about. Ayahuasca and salvia both completely scare me. They are not meant to be administered recreationally, and they can both bring about some states that can lead to dangerous behaviours or permanent mental illness. However, if administered correctly by a well trained shaman, each have therapeutic qualities. The problem is too many people with western dollars read Carlos Castaneda and embark in search of a shaman. And, there are many unscrupulous people who will say anything to make a buck.

chisleu 12y ago

It is DMT + an MAOI which allows the DMT to not be destroyed when you drink it. The MAOI has a prolonging and intensifying effect, and has psychedelic effects of it's own. Smoking DMT isn't the same as eating pharmahuasca, which isn't the same as drinking ayahuaska. That said, it is very, very rare for anyone to have a reaction. The quality tours have trained medics in the village, and the villages are jammed deep in the forest like some of the hippy tours. Smoking DMT is a very clean experience. It is intensely visual in nature and completely cerebral. Pharma/Ayahuaska is a heavy body load as you drift in and out of the altered state often called "hyperspace". I don't really recommend the MAOIs because of the complications they can cause, and you can have just as spiritual of an experience without drinking their "jungle juice". haha ;)

thinkpad20 12y ago
> The quality tours have trained medics in the village Somehow I don't derive much reassurance from that. :\ I guess some people are just more comfortable rolling the dice with their brains than I am...
- MrBlue 12y ago
  "I guess some people are just more comfortable rolling the dice with their brains than I am..." I feel the same way with people who take pharmaceutical anti-depressants.
- hnnewguy 12y ago
  >"Somehow I don't derive much reassurance from that." If you live in a major urban area, and hang around in the right circles, it's very likely you can find a local party with which to partake, and thus get to take advantage of top-notch medical care in case of emergency (if that's your worry).
  - cnp 12y ago
    Agreed, you don't need to go to South America. Good luck

paolomaffei 12y ago

"We modern smart men have figured a way to have trippy experiences without puking and going into an uncomfortable jungle with this funny superstitious shamans, we are the best!" As if doing a hit of DMT was nearly the same thing as a proper Ayahuasca ceremony done with a shaman coming from a 10.000 years lineage. Sigh.

dEnigma 12y ago
Of course it's not the same. For one thing there is a lot less bullshit involved in simply smoking DMT. Seriously though, there are a lot of factors involved but I'm sure going into the jungle to drink ayahuasca under supervision of some self-proclaimed shaman isn't the only reasonable or effective way to have your spiritual experience with DMT.
thescribe 12y ago
Yeah, lets listen to superstitious people! Why appeal to the age of an authority? If there's anything measurably beneficial about Ayahuasca I'm certain it can be extracted into a precisely dosed pharmaceutical.
- hluska 12y ago
  I doubt that anyone who has actually tried ayahuasca (or a similarly potent hallucinogen) both with a shaman and without would agree with you. Do you have any citations to back up this opinion? The danger of your opinion is that it precludes research into things like drumming and chanting. Humans have been using rhythm to build a sense of community for thousands of years. Could there be something here for science? Could we learn how to help therapists and patients bond much faster? I don't know these answers. Do you?
  - thescribe 12y ago
    Oh interesting, I hadn't thought of this from a therapy point of view. Any time you mix spirituality and treatment my mind goes immediately to scam, which is what I assumed this was.

MrBlue 12y ago

There is only been one documented case of that ever occurring. I've taken Ayahuasca on several occasions and have only puked once which is very normal as it is part of the purging process. In fact, I prefer taking DMT orally (via Ayahuasca) as the experience is much easier to control even though it lasts longer compared to smoking pure DMT.

messo 12y ago

It's currently an 'ayahuasca-boom' going on, that is taken advantage of by many locals who want to earn easy money. Another risk is that some of the shamans mix in other plants than the core ingredients, which can be dangerous. There is also the possibility of unwanted interactions with pharmaceuticals. With proper research and preparation, the 'jungle juice' is remarkably safe to consume.

fapjacks 12y ago
Not to mention you can legally buy all the supplies you need to make Ayahuasca at home in the States.

rosser 12y ago

Yeah, that happened. There's another center in the jungle I know of that changes its name every time they have a guest die. And I've heard stories of "shamans" who add a paralytic to the dose they give attractive young female guests... But you know what? Those are the exceptions. I've taken ayahuasca dozens of times, and am booked for another trip to Peru next month. I've been fortunate only to work with reputable people, and have consistently only met others in my travels that have also worked with reputable people. Please don't judge a tradition that's thousands of years old, and actually remarkably safe — with a few caveats, that the reputable folks will screen for — on the basis of a couple of cretins who look at the plants and the gringo tourists and just see dollar signs.

api 12y ago
All that kind of shadiness is a consequence of prohibition -- since it's illegal, black and grey markets staffed by crooks and irresponsible flaky types fill the vendor niche. Without prohibition you could go to a professionally run center and take pharmaceutically pure DMT+MAOI instead of shaman piss, and do so with experienced genuinely psychologically educated guides and with modern medical care available in case of a reaction.
- rosser 12y ago
  I disagree. It's legal in Peru, where all of the cases I listed occurred. (Technically, it's a gray area where, in the case of indigenous practitioners working on foreign guests, the law literally has nothing to say — neither legal nor illegal, but tolerated because tourism dollars. Indigenous folks treating indigenous folks is black-letter legal, and protected.) It's not prohibition, but rather greed and predation, that create most of the harms that have happened in ayahuasca practice in the jungle. I've never done it, but I have a strong sense that pharmahuasca would be cold, sterile, and missing some of the je ne sais quoi that the "shaman piss" [1] experience offers. I'm sure it would still be a valuable experience, and one I'd be open to exploring, but drinking trees works well enough for me, thanks. I mean, sure you can puke (I often do, sometimes several times in the course of a night), and it tastes horrible, and your sweat smells like tree bark at the end of the night — let alone the end of the week. That's just the process, though, and "optimizing" it out would probably also remove many of the things that are actually among the most valuable (for me, and everyone else who does this more than once with whom I've spoken) aspects. EDIT: footnote added. [1] Interestingly, in one of the earliest-documented shamanic traditions, tribes on the Siberian steppe would use amanita muscaria mushrooms, which are visionary, but also mildly toxic. The shaman would take a shaman-sized dose, and journey, then collect his urine (which still contains threshold doses of psychoactive metabolites), and serve that to his "patients".

vinceguidry 12y ago

> IIRC, the primary drug in Ayahuasca is DMT, which can be acquired other ways (that are less likely to make you puke) than drinking their jungle juice. I strongly suspect that with psychedelics, the context in which they are taken is far more influential on the kind of experience you have than the actual neurochemical effects. A sugar pill given to you by a man in a white coat and a soothing bedside manner is going to have a bigger effect than the same pill given to you by your next-door neighbor the handyman. The service these fake shamans are providing can be of value even though the shamans are fake.