Patients and Impatients
A German accountant is tired of seeing auras and dreaming the future; a local cook suffers from aching bones; two successful Canadian financiers feel an existential void; a young woman from a riverside village believes she’s been cursed; a group of tourists craves extraordinary visions. Different paths, same destination: the ayahuasca experience.
David and Nikki, both on a spiritual quest, shortly before the start of a ceremony. At the Kapitari lodge, Iquitos.
Text and photos by Carlos Suárez Álvarez
Originally published in issue 203 of Cáñamo magazine, November 2014.
CLAUDIA. A middle-aged German woman, head of the accounting department at a major company, happily married, lives a conventional life until one morning she wakes up and the world is crisscrossed by beams of luminous energy shooting back and forth, going everywhere and nowhere. People have auras, and when she gets close to them, she feels their fears and troubles, their moods. She vividly dreams that a friend is pregnant; when she mentions it, the friend is astonished (and frightened): no one knew. She dreams that her husband will change jobs and move to another city; he laughs it off, but a few months later, the dream comes true. Recurring dreams of jaguars prevent her from resting; she grows worried: what if one night she turns into a feline and devours her husband? She wakes up exhausted. She doesn’t know how to handle her new power. Problems with her coworkers begin; she believes they’ve turned against her, that they envy her efficiency and joy. The situation reaches a peak during a professional convention, when a gigantic anaconda appears before her. She flees in terror. She falls into depression. She sees a psychiatrist, who prescribes her a medication whose side effects may induce suicidal thoughts. She sees another, who recommends she try “paranormal” therapy. A book sets her on the path: the jaguar and the anaconda are from the Amazon (the dreams were a sign). She discovers ayahuasca and Sachamama, the spiritual healing center run by the Capanahua healer Francisco Montes. She flies from Germany to a rustic, wall-less hut in the middle of the jungle. There, she follows a strict dieta for two weeks, in isolation, and drinks ayahuasca four times. In the second ceremony, as she vomits, she feels that “something leaves the body.” By the end of the treatment, she “clearly” understands what is happening to her: “Now I know it’s not a physical problem but a spiritual one. And I know it’s because I’m too open; and I’ve seen how I can close myself off from that dimension of the world.” When she returns to Germany, she will dedicate herself to helping people suffering from workplace harassment, like she did. She has dreamed of six numbers she must play in the lottery (and she will).
Norma went to the local ayahuasquero because she was experiencing bone pain. To heal, she followed a strict dieta and drank ayahuasca 22 times.
NORMA. A woman in her fifties from the small town of Llanchama, about an hour from Iquitos, presents a concrete and down-to-earth case: she turned to a local ayahuasquero a few years ago because she felt unwell throughout her body. “My bones and arms hurt; they told me I had arthritis.” At first, she was reluctant to take ayahuasca because she feared the visions, but she went through with it—exactly twenty-two times. “I saw animals and snakes of all sizes very clearly, but that’s just ayahuasca.” The treatment lasted three months, during which she ate only roasted fish and green plantain without salt. She was healed, and once she felt better, she saw no reason to continue. “Now I’m fine, working without problems.” Interestingly, while most foreigners seek out the visions, she fears them; for her, ayahuasca is a physical remedy, not a path to enlightenment.
Harry Greenwald, successful in the Canadian financial world, felt a void in his life. When he learned about the DMT molecule and ayahuasca, he didn’t hesitate to travel to Iquitos.
HARRY AND SAM (1). Let’s turn the Canadians Harry Greenwald and Sam Perhar into archetypes of the Western patient. Urban professionals (apparently successful) who, at the end of each day’s financial trading, come home only to sink into a meaningless void. They pretend to be fine, but they know they’re not, and they seek a solution to their anguish. Harry researches online and comes across the DMT molecule, present in ayahuasca, which someone dares to call “the spirit molecule.” For months, he debates with his close friend Sam the merits of visiting Nihue Rao, a spiritual healing center they’ve been recommended. They decide to pay the seven hundred dollars for a week of treatment and arrive in Iquitos hoping for a revelation, a message. Upon arrival, they are given a disgusting purgative and put on a strict diet: light food, no salt, and a master plant they must drink each afternoon in juice form (also repulsive). When they take ayahuasca, they realize it is nothing like what they expected. Harry: “It was terrifying. There were many sounds, whispers, laughter from spirits, and things were spinning around me. The structure of the maloca was really scaring me. I felt very uncomfortable, nauseous. Then the shaman began to sing to me and things reached a dramatic point. Everything was spinning, I was swaying side to side, I grabbed my head. I hated it so much that I said to myself: ‘I will never drink ayahuasca again.’ Once the shaman finished singing, I vomited a bunch of crap. And then I felt calm, relaxed.” Sam’s dizziness was not much different: “There was a fractal, creatures, strange things… A lot was happening but nothing was vivid, everything was dark. I couldn’t navigate. I wasn’t able to do much or interpret a message. And I was very scared.” Instead of vomiting, he suffered persistent diarrhea.
Lisbet was suffering from colic and diarrhea; the nurses at the hospital recommended that she see a traditional healer, as there was nothing they could do for her there. She drank ayahuasca with Lucho Panduro, the ayahuasquero from her village, Tamshiyacu.
LISBET. Lisbet is a resident of the town of Tamshiyacu, known for the large number of ayahuasca retreats in the surrounding area. She has known about ayahuasca since childhood: her parents warned her it was a “diabolical” drink and that if she took it, “God wouldn’t take her in.” But as an adult, Lisbet fell seriously ill with colic and diarrhea, and hospital medicine couldn’t cure her. “The injections made things worse.” It was the nurses themselves—also locals—who advised her to see a healer. “This isn’t good,” they said. “If we keep giving you this, we might kill you. Better to go to a traditional doctor, and if it’s something spiritual, let them take it out.” Indeed, Lisbet went to the ayahuasquero Lucho Panduro. His diagnosis: Lisbet had been cursed—witchcraft. They drank ayahuasca to identify and fight the source of the harm. Lisbet was overwhelmed by a world of incomprehensible visions until the person responsible for her illness appeared beside her: a relative of the family with whom her parents had recently had problems. Lucho drove him away, and Lisbet began to vomit and vomit until nothing was left inside. The man was gone. In the following days, Lisbet followed a strict diet and drank infusions of ojé, a powerful purgative. By the fifth day, she had fully recovered. Since then, she drinks ayahuasca periodically, “when my stomach is dirty and when I’m having bad luck.”
Sam Perhar, focused shortly before drinking ayahuasca for the third time. His first ceremonies were disappointing: lots of diarrhea, no visions.
HARRY AND SAM (2). “People need to know this is not a fun ride. Ayahuasca is going to take out your shit.” After the fourth and penultimate ceremony of the treatment, Harry and Sam declare themselves “disappointed.” “Disappointed,” explains Harry, “because we expected our questions to be answered. And they haven’t been. Instead, we’ve just been purging. Yesterday the purge was violent: a lot of vomiting. And just when I thought I was done, I vomited a hard, round piece of matter; I hope that was what these people have been trying to get out of me all these days.” Neither he nor Sam have experienced the advertised visions that ayahuasca supposedly produces. Sam doesn’t think the cleansing is enough: “We knew there would be purging, but we thought it would come combined with visions in the same ceremony, not that there would be a lot of purging over many ceremonies before the visions arrived.” Harry is frustrated: “So far ayahuasca hasn’t shown me anything. And right now I’m not convinced because it hasn’t given me guidance.” Harry and Sam embody at this point a crucial confusion in the ayahuasca experience, which largely weighs down the experience of first-time (and not so first-time) foreigners. On the internet, as well as in most scientific or popular publications by more or less savvy experts, ayahuasca is a drink whose fundamental property is the visionary experience triggered by the DMT molecules contained in chacruna (Psychotria viridis) or huambisa (Diplopterys cabrerana). According to this explanation, ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi) provides monoamine oxidase inhibitors, an enzyme present in the human stomach that, if not inhibited, destroys orally ingested DMT, preventing it from reaching the blood and central nervous system. In other words, it is commonly accepted that ayahuasca is secondary, its function being to allow the activity of DMT. According to this theory, the indigenous people, who have been using this medicine for centuries, are foolish; and the Westerners, who have just discovered it, are the ultimate experts. I say the indigenous are foolish because they named the decoction after its least important component: ayahuasca. Also in Colombia: there the vine is called yagé and its decoction with chacruna is called... yagé! Even more foolish are those (many cultures) who use ayahuasca without the so-called DMT molecules. Another obvious fact often overlooked, perhaps because it is too obvious, is that in regional Spanish the remedy is called “the purge,” and that one of the most common reasons natives give for taking the remedy is to “clean the stomach” and thereby “expel bad energies.” Unfortunately, very little research has been done on the amazing purgative properties of the vine (alone), as well as the effect of this purge on mood or, in other words, on spiritual health. And with this lengthy explanation I do not diminish the visionary properties; I simply qualify their importance.
At one of the retreats frequented by gringos, it is common to see scenes like this: energetic cleansing with tobacco on the left, and cologne water on the right.
TOURISTS (1). I think J.P., John, and Nikki (United States); Evandro (Brazil); David and Marjolene (Ireland); Asaf (Israel); José and Emilio (Mexico); and Matthew (England) won’t like being called “ayahuasca tourists,” but if they’re not, they sure seem like it. Their stay at Kapitari (Luis Culquitón’s spiritual healing lodge on the outskirts of Iquitos) is for most just another stage in a long journey through Peru or South America. The couple, John, a prosecutor, and Nikki, a computer programmer, both in their thirties, are wrapping up the final month of a year-long trip around the world. “A spiritual search,” they explain. They look happy, very close. Evandro, a forty-two-year-old Brazilian flight attendant living in San Diego, is also on that quest. “I want to be touched by the spiritual world and get to know myself better, so I can become a better person. I’m searching for a purpose in my life, something beyond making money and spending it.” The Mexican brothers, aged forty-five and forty, who operate a loading crane at the docks in Los Angeles, are the only ones who arrive with the exclusive intention of solving a specific health problem they don’t want to share. Marjolene and David, a couple, came to ayahuasca on the recommendation of her mother, who had tried it in Ireland; they want a more genuine experience in the jungle. Asaf, the youngest, tried LSD a few months ago, and the experience sparked his appetite for new psychedelics, hoping to find “a deeper truth.” Matthew and J.P. are the only experienced ones. Matthew has taken it twenty times: in England, on his own, and at different lodges in Peru. He likes strong ayahuasca: “It puts me in a state of consciousness where I don’t know where I am, nor what a book or a clock is. Then I have divine revelations.” J.P. has advanced further on the spiritual path: an expert in these matters, he boasts colorful visions and knows and uses esoteric terms; it’s no surprise he writes psychedelic poetry and shares it at the slightest opportunity. The group socializes in the maloca and the dining hall, chatting about this and that, playing guitar, exchanging readings, and bonds grow tighter… Good vibes! The atmosphere reminds me of a summer camp.
Harry Greenwald, discouraged the day after his fourth ayahuasca experience: violent purge. Disappointment.
SAM AND HARRY (3). When they see me on Saturday morning, after the fifth ceremony, Harry and Sam announce they have something to tell me. Not Harry, for whom nothing changed: “It was very similar to what I experienced the previous days. I purged a lot on two different occasions, and after that I relaxed and enjoyed the feelings that arose in my heart.” Then Sam speaks, visibly moved: “It started like the other days. I took a good dose, vomited, and was invaded by very pleasant feelings, and I had some reflections about love: that I had to love myself more in order to love those around me more. I was very satisfied with that: ‘It’s a good way to end,’ I thought. But I saw someone go for more and said to myself: ‘There’s no danger, it’s my last night, I could take more.’ And I did, and it was a smart decision. I took it, returned to my mat, and a little later I closed my eyes and that’s when it happened: I met Mother Ayahuasca. She said: ‘Welcome, stay here with me.’ I felt like she was taking care of me, I felt safe, I didn’t want to leave, I was happy. I had some visions, but not many. And I also saw that She could be jealous, because She told me: ‘Stay with me, this is where you want to be.’ It was interesting. And then I began to reflect on my family, my parents, my siblings, and while I had these visions Mother Ayahuasca brought a warm feeling to my heart, and showed me that love is the key. Yes, love was an important theme.” And Harry, on behalf of both, concludes: “It was very important that at least one of us had this experience. Had we left here without communicating with Mother Ayahuasca it would have been frustrating. We would be saying: ‘What the hell have we done?’ But since it happened we have no doubts about its validity. We understood it.”
J.P., an experienced spiritual traveler, recounts his visions in detail to his groupmates at Kapitari, a spiritual healing lodge on the outskirts of Iquitos.
TOURISTS (2). The Englishman Andy Metcalfe and the Australian Jungle Jeannie are the facilitators, that is, the organizers of the retreat (in Iquitos, ayahuasca speaks English). Gathered in the maloca before taking, Andy and Jeannie emphasize that visions are secondary. “Some people have incredible visions,” Andy explains, “but it doesn’t happen to everyone. For me, it’s clear that ayahuasca is not about visions. I always say this at the start of retreats: ‘Don’t come with great expectations of amazing visions, because they might not come. However, ayahuasca has many different gifts to give people, which arrive in a great variety of forms. The real gift is the healing it will give you. Almost everyone, with very few exceptions, goes home feeling better than when they arrived.’” Andy speaks very clearly, but people don’t understand, and after three initial ceremonies in the vomiting darkness, complaints begin. Evandro, the Brazilian flight attendant, is a bit disappointed because he expected to “pass to the other side,” or in other words, “that my ego would die and then I would become aware of the great energy of the cosmos and those realms that people call by many different names.” What happened instead was that he vomited and then had thoughts about the importance of family and love. For the rest of the participants, it was something similar: vomiting in the dark. And David, who did have visions, didn’t understand a damn thing. “That’s what I say,” Jeannie argues. “Visions are not only not the most important thing but often distract and confuse.” However, this is not the case with the experienced spiritual traveler J.P.: “I saw a being with many tentacles and eyes in strange places. It sucked something viscous out of inside my body and ate it. ‘Won’t it hurt you?’ I asked. And she said, ‘No, because I can transform it.’ Then I went again through the wormhole and when I came out the other side I could see the middle world, and I started to fly, but I was still in my human form, so I thought about changing into something that could fly. I had options: an eagle, a condor, or a hawk. And I said, ‘Condor,’ and I transformed into a condor. I was flying in a dark space and automatically associated it with Einstein. The universe was not static and the tools we are using depend a lot on the senses, they are largely the expression of the human, we think too much like humans to perceive anything beyond, that’s why our technology won’t take us further.” And he continues like this for about fifteen minutes. Jeannie considers him the “guru” of the group.
SAM (4). Sam writes to me a few months later. The experience has shaken him so much that he has already booked another week at Nihue Rao. “I’m going with my younger brother and two cousins. It will be a family event! I’m really looking forward to going back. I have stopped drinking alcohol since my last trip: my mind is much stronger and I’m in better physical shape. I’m eager to do more cleansing and have a more interesting and deeper experience. We’ll see what happens.”
