Ayahuasca Plus Westerners Times Money
The equation of the price of spirituality – Shamanism in the market economy – Iquitos, capital of the big business – Healers as professionals – Anyone can learn – A theft at the ayahuasca plantation – Booms and envies – Wild ayahuasca under threat – The pilgrimage of the limbic system – Ayahuasca is not for everyone
The construction of the house where Randal was to carry out his dieta was undertaken by don Rogelio’s sons. Dollars flowed during the gringo’s apprenticeship.
Text and photos by Carlos Suárez Álvarez
Originally published in issue 258 of Cáñamo magazine, June 2019.
When Randal was just settling in the community of Santa Sofía and planning the material conditions of his apprenticeship as a curandero with don Rogelio, the issue of money came up. The maestro showed no anxiety whatsoever about it; to the foreigners who arrived at his house and asked about the cost of treatment, he would always reply: “Friendship, that’s the best advice I got from my grandfather. ‘Never look at the money, look at the people. You’ll be happy all your life.’ I’m realizing now that what that old illiterate man told me is true.” Since his answer included no figure, visitors would press him. With a certain shyness, don Rogelio would reply: “The full treatment is one hundred and fifty thousand pesos, it includes one ayahuasca session and three baths with medicinal plants.” But he would always add a warning: “So many people have come, sick, telling me: ‘Rogelio, I don’t have any money.’ ‘You’ve already arrived at my house, brother. I’ll make time.’ I do everything, I cure them, and they leave. ‘Someday you’ll send me someone else.’ And they did.” That was how don Rogelio liked to boast of his humility.
After several unsuccessful attempts, one afternoon Randal brought up the matter again. “I want to offer you two million pesos a month.” And it’s no wonder that don Rogelio shifted uneasily in his chair and smiled awkwardly, nodding with a mixture of surprise and disbelief, and that, when trying to respond, he stammered. Two million pesos was three times the Colombian minimum wage, reachable only by a minority in the country, by no one in his village. Shaking off his embarrassment, don Rogelio replied: “I’m a friend to everyone. Don’t worry about giving me two million. One and a half is enough. I don’t see the money, I see the person. Money makes you enemies with everyone. Of course, let me not lack food. And beyond food, let everyone who comes here become a friend. Money corrupts anyone. It makes you proud.”
The agreement was set as follows: Randal would become don Rogelio’s disciple in exchange for one and a half million pesos a month; he would also hire don Rogelio’s daughter as a cook and her husband for odd jobs; don Rogelio’s sons would build the little house where Randal would retreat from the noise of the world. A convenient deal for both parties, and they were quite hopeful.
Randal, his maestro don Rogelio, the latter’s daughter and her husband, with the children. The young couple worked for Randal during his stay in exchange for a modest salary.
money flows
Ayahuasca shamanism is the only form of indigenous knowledge that has allowed some Indigenous people to succeed in the market economy. Don Rogelio, however, was not an example of this prosperity. His agreement with Randal, though economically advantageous, was exceptional, and only sporadically did a foreign visitor show up at his home and leave some money—nothing compared to the business in nearby Iquitos.
Iquitos, capital of the Peruvian Amazon, where thousands of Westerners travel each year to specialized establishments to undergo “traditional” treatments that last at least a week and cost, on average, over $100 a day—up to $400 at the most expensive one ($3,000 for a week!). In most cases, the native “shamans” are salaried workers, though in some instances they become owners or partners in the business. Introducing the variables of gringos and money into the ayahuasca shamanism equation—does it amount to a perversion or profanation of sacred knowledge?
Unlike other esoteric shamanic rituals that are closed to outsiders (such as the Yuruparí of the Eastern Tukano in the Colombian Amazon), ayahuasca healing is an open medical system centered on individual health. This means that the healer receives anyone who needs them in their home, from neighbors to strangers who travel great distances drawn by a good reputation. Sometimes the hosts find themselves with numerous patients living in their home, to whom they must dedicate time and energy that would otherwise be spent hunting, fishing, tending the chagra [plantation], and engaging in other tasks that ensure self-sufficiency. For this reason, the healer charges for their services, and has done so since this medical system took shape. What form the payment takes varies—from labor to food, to industrial goods, and of course, to money. The how also varies: sometimes a fixed price is set, other times the patient gives a “gift” (and they’d better, because if they don’t, they know the healer might get angry and, moved by resentment, turn into a sorcerer to take back what they gave—in other words, to return the harm they had removed).
Ayahuasca has become a major tourist business in the Peruvian Amazon, especially in Iquitos.
Not only is charging an essential part of the ayahuasquero system, but so is the fact that anyone can learn—regardless of race, sex, age, or social class. There is nothing aberrant about Randal Nerhus, a man in his fifties from the cornfields of Iowa, being received by don Rogelio, an eighty-something Cocama. The medical system is open, and when a patient is healed, they must undergo the same diet followed by an apprentice (who is always said to be “healing”). Anyone who goes on a diet can, by definition, learn; anyone can go on a diet.
And so Randal dieted and paid, month after month, waiting for the revelation. He drank ayahuasca with each new moon, and for the following eight days he adhered to a strict dietary regimen (no salt, no sugar, no fats, no spices—only select foods) in the isolation of his little house at the edge of the jungle. Several times a month, at night, he took a small dose of ayahuasca and worked with his master on the icaros (healing chants), the use of the chacapa (a leaf rattle/fan), and blowing tobacco, always present. Sex was out of the question for two years: “I’m surprised it’s not hard for me to abstain,” he once admitted.
And so it went, month after month, but the revelation never came, the spiritual connection remained elusive. He began to worry. He paid for another month and dieted again, and when he realized that the attention he received from don Rogelio was less intense than he had expected, he decided to change the financial terms. Perhaps he had imagined that his master would be with him every day, teaching him the mysteries of the jungle, but don Rogelio limited himself to doing with Randal what his own grandfather had done with him: keeping him in isolation, feeding him little, and asking him for patience. They saw each other only during the four or five ceremonies held each month. “It’s not easy,” don Rogelio would say again and again. “And that’s what happens with those who want to learn. Many get bored. Drinking and dieting, drinking and dieting, who knows how long. A year, two years, three years... I don’t know. I don’t give the gift. The gift is a vision that I don’t know who gives us. I only guide, nothing more.” When, three months into the diet, Randal announced that the payment of one and a half million was too much and that from then on he would pay half, don Rogelio couldn’t hide a look of disappointment and a sigh of frustration.
Randal, shortly before the first ceremony of his apprenticeship, in the house where he would later spend two years.
BANISTERIOPSIS boom
Healers are professionals who have always charged for their work, and anyone can learn, which is why ayahuasca shamanism is so heterodox. However, these two premises do not mean that the influx of gringos and their dollars into this medical system lacks repercussions; it certainly does.
One morning, master and apprentice walked deep into the forest to visit a small ayahuasca plantation owned by don Rogelio. After several months of dieting, a notable transformation had taken place in Randal: little remained of that obese, pale, swollen gringo from the first days. Randal walked with agility, noticeably thinner, his skin glowing, beard thickened: he looked great. Along the way, don Rogelio stopped from time to time to show his pupil different plants and explain their properties. Randal listened enthusiastically, trying to absorb everything. They joked until they arrived at the plantation, only to discover, with great regret, that the mature ayahuasca plants had been stolen and the newly planted ones uprooted.
Don Rogelio took it philosophically and offered two alternative, complementary explanations. He attributed the eradication of the newly planted plants to jealous neighbors. “I’ve been working for seventeen years with people from all over the world who come to my house—not the governor’s house, not the mayor’s house in Leticia, but mine. My neighbors say, ‘Why do they go to that old son of a bitch?’ They’re jealous.”
A fundamental characteristic of Amazonian societies is social equality, which demands limiting the accumulation of power/money by individuals. There are positive formulas: those who occasionally have a lot give away or redistribute. And negative ones: those who do not share their abundance become objects of theft and slander. The healer, as the only specialist prone to accumulation, is subjected to stricter control, frequently accused of witchcraft, dragged into painful spiritual wars. Today, by becoming a “shaman” through globalization, he has easier access to money. Neighbors pull their hair out when they see gringos arrive at don Rogelio’s house: “He’s selling the knowledge and leaves nothing for the community,” they say. They steal from him and sabotage him, but it’s harder than before: stealing don Rogelio’s large refrigerator, the motor of his canoe, the power generator, or the gas stove bought with Randal’s money is somewhat difficult.
Don Rogelio was able to acquire numerous items during Randal’s stay, thanks to the payments made by his student. A refrigerator, a generator, a gas stove…
Regarding the theft of ayahuasca, don Rogelio ventured that it had a clearly commercial purpose. “Before, ayahuasca was worth nothing, but now, since the gringos seek it so much, it’s scarce. People prepare it and send it to Bogotá. Or they also send it fresh to Iquitos, where they pay very well for it.” Iquitos needs to satisfy the thirst of the ten thousand foreigners (probably more) who arrive each year aiming to undergo a “traditional treatment.” Furthermore, immense quantities of the processed remedy are sent from there to the five continents, supplying the intense circuit of ceremonies held in any Western country. Not long ago, ayahuasca was a plant species with almost no commercial value; nowadays it is one of the most prized because it is increasingly difficult to find.
“If we don’t plant it, it will disappear,” says Elizabeth Bardales, a forestry engineer from Iquitos and owner of a prosperous medicinal plant processing business.
“Every day they bring us thinner plants, there are no more grandmothers,” says Diego Flores, who runs a medicinal plant buying and selling stall in the Belén market.
“In two years, there won’t be any left,” warns Bowie van der Kroon, a Dutchman based in Iquitos and exporter of dried and processed plants.
Extensive areas of the Peruvian jungle are already suffering another bonanza, a term used in the region to describe these feverish extractive episodes driven by Western whims/needs. The quinine boom wiped out the cinchona trees, the rubber boom caused a catastrophe of slavery and violence, the fur boom reduced jaguar populations and their prey, peccaries and agoutis, to minimal levels as they were used as bait. Although wild Banisteriopsis is threatened, there is no danger of extinction: its high commercial value and the ease with which it grows are encouraging many locals to start plantations to meet the infinite demand.
“Before, ayahuasca was worth nothing, but now, since the gringos seek it so much, it’s scarce. People prepare it and send it to Bogotá. Or they also send it fresh to Iquitos.”
limbic success
Why this sudden success of ayahuasca? What do Westerners who travel to the Amazon to try it seek? What expectations do they bring with them? Of course, many people pursue an almost recreational experience: the possibility of immersing themselves in that fantastic world popularized by the Peruvian painter Pablo Amaringo in his beautiful paintings.
Many others, Randal among them, claim a spiritual motivation. “I think I was never very happy,” Randal argued on one occasion. “I’ve never felt complete and that has always been a constant in my life. That has led me to be a seeker, a person always searching. Time will tell if this experience with ayahuasca is what I have been looking for my whole life.” Randal, who never found satisfaction in buying a new car, having a big house, working 50 hours a week, and taking care of kids. “I can’t imagine doing that; I respect the person who does, but I wouldn’t like it at all.” Randal, whose long search took him from India to Japan, from China to Mexico, from the United States to, finally, the Amazon jungle, where after months and months of dieta he felt far from his goal and fully discouraged because he had not had the expected revelation, felt, in his own words, “behind schedule.”
To this day, Western science solidly supports the role of ayahuasca in a whole series of disorders that could well be grouped under the category of “spiritual problems.” The most typical is depression. The experiments of the Brazilian researcher Dráulio de Araújo and his team conclusively demonstrated that ayahuasca offers almost immediate results for the treatment of severe depression. Araújo administered, in a hospital setting, doses of ayahuasca and placebo (a brew with similar appearance and taste) to 29 patients who had not found relief for their problem with other antidepressants, confirming what various Western therapists have been announcing for some time.
It is estimated that more than twenty thousand people arrive in Iquitos each year to undergo a “traditional treatment” with ayahuasca.
How might ayahuasca be effective against this epidemic? One of the most intriguing and ambitious theories was recently proposed by American physician Joe Tafur, co-founder of the spiritual medicine center Nihue Rao in Iquitos. According to Tafur’s theory, detailed in his book The Fellowship of the River, when a person experiences abandonment, sexual abuse, or other traumas during childhood, their limbic system—which regulates basic bodily processes like breathing, digestion, and emotions—can be damaged. If the limbic system is harmed early in life (or later due to severe trauma such as war or sexual abuse), it may lead to various difficult-to-cure pathologies of unclear origin, such as autoimmune diseases (psoriasis, multiple sclerosis) and emotional disorders like depression or addiction.
Tafur compared existing medical research with his own experience at Nihue Rao, finding that many patients who took ayahuasca recalled childhood sexual abuse. For some patients who had lost hope of recovery, ayahuasca combined with diet brought significant relief. In The Fellowship of the River, Tafur describes dramatic cases where a single ayahuasca session can trigger a life-changing revelation. However, while these cases do happen, they are not the norm—and certainly were not the case for Randal.
An "ayahuasca tourist" at a retreat center in Iquitos is about to take a dose.
PROSAIC ending
It could have been an epic ending: that after two years of regularly taking ayahuasca under the careful guidance of a wise teacher, the devoted apprentice, overcoming doubts and enduring hardships, would achieve enlightenment and leave behind his existential anguish. It was not so; everything ended in an anticlimax, so common in life. Don Rogelio warned his pupil, from the very beginning of their relationship, about the enormous difficulty of his endeavor. “I can teach you the practical part,” he said, “how to blow tobacco smoke, how to move the chacapa, some songs, but I don’t give you the power. The power, no one knows where it comes from. Taking ayahuasca and dieting, taking and dieting.” He also pointed out the problem of age. “This knowledge is learned as a child. The child, who knows nothing, is taken by his grandfather, as he took me, and taken to the chagra and fed, and the child is docile, lets himself be taught. Besides, he doesn’t have the needs of an adult.” He meant sex, of course, the essential abstinence for learning medical practices. Randal insisted repeatedly that throughout the two years of dieting he had respected the abstinence.
Perhaps it was the method. Perhaps instead of dieting eight days a month after a large ayahuasca intake, and taking small doses every three or four days, the diet should have been longer, the ayahuasca doses stronger. Many ayahuasqueros practice diets of several months and give their apprentices enough to knock down the toughest, but don Rogelio feared risking Randal’s health.
Or maybe it was the time: if he had extended his stay another year… Or maybe he lacked focus? Because when Randal finished his eight days per month of isolation and strict diet, he had some freedom to choose his meals and receive visits (including mine and that of a brother who came from Iowa) and to spend a couple of days a month in the city of Leticia, where he had family and financial matters to attend.
But perhaps the reason for his frustrated attempt was summed up by Randal himself a few days before leaving, perhaps forever, the Amazon jungle and ayahuasca. He told me this in his hotel room in Leticia, after shaving off his castaway beard, satisfied, at least, with having lost fifteen of the many excess kilos he had when he arrived, but with the disappointment of someone who sees that the dream he pursued was just that, a dream. He said, with a touch of sadness: “I think ayahuasca is not for me.” Since his departure, I have heard little of him, but one thing I am sure of: he keeps searching.
