[Rod_Cloutier]

I been really looking for ways to grow as a person, a spiritual awakening, to free myself from the traps of Western culture and materialism. On chance, I happened upon review of people who travel to Peru, Brazil, or Columbia to have the Ayahausca experience. This is a psychedelic herbal tea which has been taken in the Amazon for thousands of years. Some people pay as much as ten thousand dollars to experience and partake in this pilgrimage.

Unfortunately, the teas are illegal throughout much of the world. (Who makes these evil bans and prohibitions) I found that I can order the herbal plants online however, and there are numerous online sources that can be consulted on how to prepare and brew the teas, minus the experienced shaman being present.

I took Ayahausca yesterday. It was beyond my wildest dreams and expectations. Pure joy, exploding rainbows of love and joy. The joy was so intense it felt like a thousand orgasms per second for a hour, then it diminished very gradually over a period of about six hours. It made me feel alive again. The experience was the best thing that has ever happened to me since childhood. Anyone looking for serious personal spiritual growth- this is highly recommended!

A way to escape the materialism trap in the western world that is ruining our civilization, and which is destroying the natural world. An example as explored in this documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSisvA- ... ilpage#t=2

Here is a few pictures I found the morning after on the internet of exploding rainbows. (These do not capture the joy and rapture of the experience however)

[Ibon]

After more than 40 years hiatus psychologists are once again using psychotropics for treating patients with specific psychological disorders, specifcally PTSD. Plans for using this for treating alcohol and tobacco addiction.

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014- ... -disorders

Under proper supervision, either with a western trained psychologist or authentic shaman, there is great potential here for folks to break destructive mental patterns.

Since consumption is a form of addiction I think ayahuasca could play an important role.

Having also experienced this wonderful vine I can only concur with Repent! The experience can be blissful as Repent reports but it can also be brutally confrontive and you do need the support of someone experienced if the vine chooses to take you down a dark path.

[Rod_Cloutier]

It is already being used as medical therapy in Vancouver for the treatment of drug addictions:

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/Shows/Th ... 166412138/

[SeaGypsy]

The Ozzie versions of Ayahuasca are among the worlds best sources of DMT, now also classed in the same stream as coke and smack! absurd. Anyhow, it has changed my life. Make sure you have good guidance & thoroughly research the juice first, it is no doubt the most profound substance I have tried.

[Sixstrings]

I took Ayahausca yesterday. It was beyond my wildest dreams and expectations. Pure joy, exploding rainbows of love and joy. The joy was so intense it felt like a thousand orgasms per second for a hour, then it diminished very gradually over a period of about six hours. It made me feel alive again. The experience was the best thing that has ever happened to me since childhood. Anyone looking for serious personal spiritual growth- this is highly recommended!

What an awesome post, Repent. I've seen that tea on NatGeo documentaries, pretty cool.

I dropped acid one time, many years ago, in an Amsterdam hostel. The time distortion was disconcerting, but I didn't panic; time would slow to a crawl and a minute would be an hour, then it would speed up and an hour was gone in a second. And all of this while sitting drinking beer and playing cards and wondering how the people in front of me couldn't tell I was tripping off into another galaxy.

Then I found myself sitting on a bathroom floor with a Dutch girl with blue hair and having deep conversations about nothing, for several more hours. Then I just laid down to go to sleep, end of story.

But actually that was the best part. As I closed my eyes, the colors came. Here's what I saw:



Perfect geodysic spheres. Like a computer graphic, multiple spheres in rainbow colors and they expanded and contracted down to a point and expanded again. What's amazing is that if -- being sober -- I try to picture that in my head I can't see the whole thing all at once, but I did, on that acid trip.

It's a fond memory, and I'm not poo-pooing these things, but personally I never took psychadelics again and I've no desire to repeat it and don't take any other kind of drugs. I'm too cautious and conservative now, and a good pinot grigio is enough for me.

EDIT: okay I can't help it, I have to be contrary. I had a good trip that one time but I'm actually thankful nothing bad happened to me. I wouldn't repeat it.

Is it *really* wise for folks to order this tea and brew it up and just drink it? I'm glad you had a great and safe experience Repent, but is that really safe? I'd be scared out of my wits to just brew some mail order tea from the Amazon jungle and take a swig.

But you are certainly The Most Interesting Man In The World for doing it, that's badass.

[Plantagenet]

Loved your story about tripping out in Amsterdam, 6. That sounds fantastic. I was in Amsterdam last December, and the trippiest thing I did was take the train out to Haarlem and go to the Teylers Eerste of Godgeleerd Genootschap---the oldest museum in the Netherlands. They were putting a special exhibition with all of Rembrandts etchings. Each attendee got a little magnifying glass, so we could get right up to the etchings and see all the marvelous little swirls and burls in the prints. Rembrandt can be trippy in his own way.



Less scientific work has been done on ayahausca than other psychedelics, but an MRI study shows that ayahausca activates the optic nerve system in addition to neural activity.

MRI study shows ayahausca hallucinations involve optic nerve bundle

Thats probably why the colors people see appear so intense, as Repent experienced.

[Plantagenet]

. I suggest Kincaid.

Thanks but no thanks, Peter. I've got very broad tastes in art, but they don't go as far as Kincaid. My art collection started with a nice little collection of late 60s Comix and art (Crumb etc.), and expanded to include Japanese woodblock prints and more recently with my trips to Europe I've been picking up American and European etchings. Its all been collected at flea markets and antique shops (no Rembrandts, but I've got some nice stuff including a nice etching by Whistler I found in a London street market and a spectacular "big head" Japanese woodblock I found at the Marin flea market---the one that used to operate right near the funky Houseboats). Most recently I've started collecting French hand-colored etchings after I found a couple of Veder etchings at a Paris street market during my january trip to Paris for 5 euros.

I'll leave Kincaid to you---you know its funny,but thats exactly the kind of artist I would've imagined that you would like.

By the way---Do you have any experience or opinions on ayahausca? I'll bet your enjoyment of Kincaid prints would be even more fulfilling if you took some ayahausca?

[Rod_Cloutier]

Is it *really* wise for folks to order this tea and brew it up and just drink it? I'm glad you had a great and safe experience Repent, but is that really safe? I'd be scared out of my wits to just brew some mail order tea from the Amazon jungle and take a swig

It was scary. It took me six months to work up the nerve to try it, but wow. Ayahausca is not for everyone, side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and high blood pressure. Anyone with a heart condition or who takes serotonin anti-depressants should stay away from it.

However anyone contemplating suicide, this medicine could give you a new vantage point and a new lease on life.

[SeaGypsy]

Pure DMT is available with a wide variety of sub sets of psycho actives, with none, or almost none of the above described side effects. MAO inhibitors to prolong the experience, or a 15 minute time warping near death experience from the comfort of ones favourite spot on the Earth. The business mans lunch.

We all have this substance in our blood at all times, but under ordinary circumstances, only birth & fully serious near death experience cause the mass release of this chemical from the pituitary gland. We are when dosing this substance, inhaling the very fumes of birth & death.

6, don't worry, plenty of boring people have tried Ayahuasca, (lol!)

[Sixstrings]

It was scary. It took me six months to work up the nerve to try it, but wow.

I'd seen this before on NatGeo but didn't realize how popular it's become. I did some research on it. Sounds like most people go down to Peru or wherever to have the experience with a shaman. From what I saw, a shaman may charge anywhere from a few hundred dollars on up to $10,000.

Have I been under a rock, is this not uncommon now, people just taking it on their own without travelling to a shaman?

I definitely respect you for doing this on your own, that's pretty amazing.

The drug is a MAOI inhibitor and that's why one definitely would not want to have SSRI anti-depressants in their system, and the resulting interaction can actually be fatal. From what I read, the shamans put people on a limited diet as some foods can interact with it too. Apparently one also wants to avoid any over the counter drugs, cold medicines, etc., and certainly any recreational drugs or alcohol.

Just watching some testimonials on youtube, it does seem to be a whole other level from LSD etc., and a transformative experience.

Another tip I saw was that one would want to be careful about the dose. This one guy said the shaman started him out with a small dose, to build up to more. Apparently too little is no good and just gives you the nausea, and too much is maybe dangerous.

It's none of my business, but do you plan to have someone around if you take it again? Just be safe, Repent.

However anyone contemplating suicide, this medicine could give you a new vantage point and a new lease on life.

Sounds like it does have great therapeutic application. Would be nice if laws could loosen up in the US and science / psychology branch out a little bit and find some new ways of helping people.

I'm so neurotic, I probably need this ayahuasca more than anyone. But.. I'll stick to my stubborn hard-headed miserable sobriety, baggage and all -- I like my baggage! Don't take my baggage away!

[SeaGypsy]

Terrence Mckennar is my Shaman

[Rod_Cloutier]

It's none of my business, but do you plan to have someone around if you take it again

That also a great thing about Ayahausca -it is non addictive.

In 2008 I shattered my right hand and wrist in 5 places, they were over prescribing opium based pain killers to me. I was addicted for sure, I would take 2, 3, 4 times the recommended dose just to feel calm and pain free. After it wore off I could not wait to be able to take it again. After my arm healed, the prescriptions stopped and I went into severe withdrawal. I could not work for two months, I spend my days peering out my window wrapped in a blanket, if only I could get some...

I feel no compulsion to ever take Ayahausca again. If I am still alive in 30 years maybe I would take it again, it is completely a different experience than with opiates.

[Rod_Cloutier]

I took Ayahausca again, and I experienced even deeper revelations. I experienced Ego death, where my human ego fell to the side with a shrug and a hmpth...

I saw the world from a higher vantage point, from a higher dimension of being. From there I could see that as a species and as a civilization we are in the very late autumn of our time here. That we were like trees and our leaves were showing their brightest colors of the season, before they will fall off and die. I felt sadness because we are killing our planet and destroying the habitat that supports life. I could see the withering of the stalk and of the vine that supports our civilization, knowing that this is part of the divine process; decline and death are natural. I saw our species was in overshoot and the consequences of overshoot will start to arrive within the next year. That this is the last year of business as usual, and then there will be profound changes.

I saw the world that will emerge after civilization dies, where if the survivors of the collapse continue to destroy the Earth, that life on this planet will end. Conversely, the survivors could choose another path and experience a new spring and lease on life, to let nature recover and live within that nature rather than trying to dominate over it.

I saw the upcoming death of my wife, who will pass on in the near future, it was hard to see the obvious. Even with the obvious staring me straight in the face. I then saw the death of my own body in about 13 years, a combination of sleep apnea and liver failure. The vision of the death of my spouse was hard to see, but the acceptance of the eventual death of my own physical form seemed easier to take.

All the while I felt intense joy at the process, the divine mechanisms were doing exactly as they were intended, nothing was broken everything that occurs happens naturally.

How to spend the last year of business as usual, I think I will be seeing my wife as the special gift that she is, and shower her with love and attention for the time we have left together.

The end is scarier than the beginning.

[Rod_Cloutier]

I was wrong, Ayahausca is somewhat addictive. I took it again last night, this time the experience was different yet again.

I was led through a dark place of demons and devils, I felt absolute fear, despair, and sadness. I felt sadness to the Nth power, and then after suffering with this for what seemed like eternity, I decided that sadness no longer served any purpose for me and I let it go. Letting it go was like a cosmic orgasm of release.

I then felt ultimate despair, loneliness and isolation to the Nth power, it seemed like an eternity of my own personal hell. If I have a personal hell, this was it. Then I decided that despair and loneliness and isolation no longer served my purposes and I let them go, and again it was like a cosmic orgasm of releasing it.

I cried to myself, to god, for every pain, loss and misfortune I had ever experienced, and then fell them all at once to the Nth power, again a personal hell without escape. At some point I decided that pain, loss, and misfortune no longer served my purposes and I let them all go, I forgave all my enemies and adversaries, and again it was a cosmic orgasm of the release of the Nth power of all of this negativity.

I then experienced unending spiritual orgasm until the effect of the medicine wore off. I woke up this morning grappling with the significance of releasing negativity- was the whole point of all of the suffering in life just to have cosmic orgasms? Is that the whole point of it all? All of that pain, hurt, etc, just for an orgasm?

Life is a stranger thing than I thought was possible.

[Ibon]

Each time is unique. Each time different. One time bliss, one time a deep darkness. The crazy thing is that it doesn't really depend on your conscious state of mind when you start the journey. The medicine decides where to take you. This is only for the brave of heart. I am at the moment debating a second experience with Ayahuasca. That it is deeply therapeutic there is little doubt as Repent shares here.

[Sixstrings]

There's an hour-long Ayahuasca documentary on rotation on CNN now.

Saw it the other night, thought of this thread.

They focus on a lot of Iraq war vets, going to Peru. And then there was a female veteran who was the victim of sexual assault. Seems to be an effective treatment for PTSD.

There are negative sides to it too though, and some ayahuasca deaths, most especially if someone is on a MAOI inhibitor anti-depressant (or do I have that reversed, and the anyhuasca is the MAOI inhibitor).

Basically you shouldn't be on any kind of drugs like that at all, going into it, or any recreational drugs in your system.

In the documentary, there's an American down in Peru they call "the gringo shaman." And a lot of westerners (peru is the west too but you know what I mean) are running ayahuasca camps.

I'm not poo-pooing this -- just be careful, is all!

[Sixstrings]

I then experienced unending spiritual orgasm until the effect of the medicine wore off. I woke up this morning grappling with the significance of releasing negativity- was the whole point of all of the suffering in life just to have cosmic orgasms? Is that the whole point of it all? All of that pain, hurt, etc, just for an orgasm?

Life is a stranger thing than I thought was possible.

Wow, all I did last night was go grocery shopping. I found buy one get one free PB, sugar, and tea. I was pleased with that. I'm so boring!

Here's a question, is ayahuasca the ONLY path to enlightenment?

Can't life itself fire the same neurons this drug is firing off? Maybe folks just need to get out of the box they are in? Climb a mountain, have some great new natural experience -- uninduced -- or if you need healing love, then find that with a fellow human being and have it naturally. Just for devils advocate, is this not the same as turning to anti-depressents?

And, do we really NEED or WANT to be rid of our pain? The buddha taught that pain and suffering and adversity is the best teacher. And that you can't grow or change without, actually. And suffering is the one thing we all have in common -- not everyone is happy, but everyone suffers. Suffering enables compassion and empathy.

What about other paths to enlightenment, besides ayahuasca.

Have there been any studies with the vets and something like Zen buddhism.

Simple meditation is transformative too, and negative things often boil up out of nowhere and by surprise once practitioners still their mind to quiet.

Tibetan buddhism gets really far out there. Those guys can actually slow their heart rate and vital signs, at will.

If ayahuasca helps people and there are no downsides and not a lot are dying from it then I have no problem with it.

Otherwise, though, I think there are religious paths to enlightenment. Zen buddhism is really nice. There are also a lot of imagery type of meditation, which is different from zen.

Personally -- I like plain old water a lot. Nothing relaxes me like water. I swim in the ocean, on my back and I literally feel all the crap just melt away. I've got good water pressure on my shower too, and sounds corny but a little imaginative meditation works, I just imagine all the problems and crap just washing off.

Sorry to get off topic from ayahuasca. And great post Repent. Just be careful is all!

And Repent -- are you in contact with others that have a lot of experience? Please be careful with it, really I wish it could be legal in the US for clinical situations and just have a nurse on site or something you know? If someone gets a bad reaction alone, or in the Peruvian jungle, maybe that's not good. Even with meditation, zen priests tell people it's best to have some guidance and not be doing it on your own at first -- and there's no drug involved with that.

[Rod_Cloutier]

There are so many sources of credible people who have tried Ayahausca, all of them are positive. Here is a TED presentation of one of the better ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... LTocRM#t=1