Listening to Ayahuasca. Rachel Harris, PhD
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far exceed any other intervention, including psychotherapy, which, admittedly, does not have a very good track record. Since a significant portion of the national health-care budget is related to lifestyle choices, any improvements in diet and exercise have an impact on the national cost of medical care.
The responses about dietary changes after ayahuasca followed a strong pattern: less sugar, junk food, and red meat; more vegetables and fruit; and smaller portions. A number of people became vegetarian, some vegan, and a few were trying a raw food diet. One woman reported that her anxiety level around food was gone. Another said, “Junk food is less appealing, even chocolate,” which I consider a major breakthrough. “Each ceremony is a reminder of how food affects me, and I let go of crappy foods that creep back into my diet.”
These changes were not the result of willpower or discipline — nobody mentioned those stalwarts of the dieting world. Rather, the desire for a healthier diet seemed to unfold spontaneously as if based on some kind of revelation. Some people reported that they heard a voice telling them to change their eating habits. Others came out of a ceremony and changed lifelong patterns with seemingly no effort, as if they simply decided, “I now just prefer kale to chocolate.”
People felt better after the ceremonies and enjoyed an increase in vitality and energy. A few mentioned that their breathing had improved and that they felt younger. I remember returning home after my first ayahuasca experience and calling all my friends to tell them I’d discovered the fountain of youth. My joints felt as if they’d been oiled like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. Of course, I’m ten years older now, and ayahuasca has not literally made me younger, but I do still believe that the process of aging is ameliorated to a certain extent by drinking ayahuasca.
People reported that the medicine seemed to help an array of complaints, from minor aches and pains to asthma and migraines. People described being more aware of their bodies and their energy levels, along with a greater desire to take care of themselves. One woman wrote, “I’m more drawn to natural foods. Now I can feel why they’re better.”
At the same time that people improved their eating habits, they also increased their physical activity with hiking, yoga, and other kinds of exercise. Diet, health, and exercise are inextricably linked, similar to how reductions in depression and anxiety are associated with improved relationships. There’s no way to determine what caused what, but clinically, it doesn’t matter. The lived experience is one of great relief and improvement.
I recently asked a shaman about backsliding, and he laughed. “Of course,” he said, “most of us need to hear things many times before we can change.” This is a more realistic attitude than expecting instant changes in behavior, and it helped me assuage my own guilt and dismay for not following the advice I have received from Grandmother Ayahuasca. In almost every ceremony over the last ten years, she’s given me straightforward advice: Eat lite. I know she means in terms of both quality and quantity. It makes perfect sense. Have I done it? No.
I’ve only recently been able to talk to friends regarding my failure to follow Grandmother Ayahuasca’s advice. I started with my Rolfer, Neal Powers, whom I knew forty years and forty pounds ago. My weight gain is embarrassing enough, but it’s even more so since he’s in better shape now than he was back then. He’s a winter swimmer in San Francisco — yes, he swims in those cold, shark-infested waters for the sheer joy of it, and he has the shoulder girdle to prove it. Perhaps because I was lying in my underwear on his Rolfing table, I decided to unburden myself of my dilemma. As he worked, I admitted, “In every ceremony I’ve done, I’ve gotten the same message — Eat lite. It’s not as if it’s a secret that I’m eating too heavy. I mean, the evidence is all around me. Literally.” Then I gestured to my midsection as if he might not have noticed an extra forty pounds.
The next person I chose to bare my soul to heard Grandmother Ayahuasca’s message in a totally different way. Steeped in a lifelong spiritual quest, my friend thought I said, “Eat light” — just like the women mystics of the Middle Ages who mysteriously survived on air and light rather than food. My friend was so relieved to hear the message was Eat lite that the conversation veered away from the real crux of the matter — that I was not following Grandmother Ayahuasca’s advice.
I’ve recently received a different message from Grandmother. Not long ago, I spent two nights of ceremony confronting my abusive childhood history and the full extent of the resulting damage. I’ve had so much therapy in my life, I didn’t think I could be surprised by anything, but I sobbed through those two nights as though hearing my own story for the first time. With quiet compassion, the voice acknowledged, No wonder you’re not eating lite. Reflecting back on the messages I’ve received about diet, I think this last one shows that Grandmother Ayahuasca has a learning curve of her own. It’s as if she understood me more deeply after these recent ceremonies and changed her message accordingly. Of course, I’m still hoping for the spontaneous breakthrough that’s not about discipline or willpower, but simply wanting a healthier diet, wanting to take better care of myself. I’m still hoping for the spontaneous cure that so many others have reported.
Drug Use
The people who participated in my research study were very experienced with psychedelics. Three-quarters of them had used LSD, psilocybin, or mushrooms. Half had used MDMA, or ecstasy. The overall number of ayahuasca ceremonies represented in this research project was 2,267. At the extremes, twenty-four people reported having twenty or more experiences, and ten people reported having only one. Let’s be frank, that’s a lot of trips. However, as I discuss later, these drugs are not addictive.
The strongest addictive drug I failed to ask about was tobacco. Cigarette smoking is widely considered to be one of the most difficult addictions to break. There’s currently research at Johns Hopkins indicating that psilocybin helps people to quit smoking.11 It’s possible that ayahuasca does also, but this requires further study.
In the indigenous cultures of the Amazon, shamans smoke mapacho cigarettes made with Nicotiana rustica, which is supposed to contain nine to twenty times more nicotine than common tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum). Tobacco is considered a major plant teacher, along with Grandmother Ayahuasca, and the smoke from mapacho cigarettes is often used to clear negative energy. Sometimes the smoke is blown into the brew; other times it’s blown directly onto someone when they’re having difficulty during a ceremony. Some traditions soak the tobacco leaves in water and then snort the water up the nose before drinking ayahuasca in order to open up energy channels for increased receptivity to the medicine.
In one of my early experiences with ayahuasca, I was in Costa Rica in a very large group with two shamans from Ecuador. The shamans sat at one end of the maloca, or longhouse, where they had arranged a makeshift altar. They directed the men in the group to sit closer to the altar, relegating the women to the outside circle. I was having a particularly difficult time and was unable to marshal my energy to summon help. When one of the assistants finally noticed that I appeared disoriented, he brought a shaman over to do a healing. The shaman blew mapacho smoke over me to clear away negative energies. Unfortunately, the smoke only made me more nauseous, which I hadn’t thought was possible. I waved him away, not understanding the respect and faith with which shamans revere the spirit of tobacco, a typical example of cross-cultural misunderstanding.
In the questionnaire, I also neglected to ask about drugs like heroin and methamphetamine. However, I did ask about one of the most problematic addictive drugs in the world: “Any changes in your use of alcohol (since drinking ayahuasca)?” The monetary and human costs associated with problem drinking and alcoholism far exceed that of any drug. In the United States alone, the cost in 2006 was $223.5 billion.12 Some people explained that they rarely drank alcohol and reported “no change” after trying ayahuasca. But almost thirty of the eighty-one people in the study reported that they drank less or stopped drinking altogether after ayahuasca.
A few people reported a shift in their perception of alcohol. A twenty-nine-year-old woman said, “I used to drink four times a week, not too much, but a few glasses of wine. Now I hardly drink. I see the darkness of alcohol now.” In addition to her change in attitude toward alcohol, it’s interesting that she didn’t see eight to twelve