Five Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Ayahuasca

There is a wealth of information about Ayahuasca and the Master Plant teachers available today, a large amount of it centering around personal life-changing experiences, the beauty of the visions and dramatic insights and revelations received from the plants. These are all great, but there are many things about Ayahuasca that don’t receive so much media attention and which people are often surprised to find out about. So especially if you are fairly new to plant spirit medicine, or if most of your understanding comes from  YouTube accounts of intense psychedelic experiences, here are five facts about Ayahuasca that you may not already know…

1 - Indigenous Amazonian people are concerned that Ayahuasca may be endangered.

The rise in demand for Ayahuasca over the previous decades, “Ayahuasca Tourism” in the Amazon Rainforest and exportation to other countries all mean that the Ayahuasca vine and chakruna plant are being used in much greater quantities than ever before, leading to concern around the sustainability of their use and the potential for them becoming endangered. Not only Ayahuasca, but other psychoactive master plants including Peyote, San Pedro and Iboga are all depleting in their numbers in the wild. Amazonian people are also concerned about the potential effect that harvesting so much Ayahuasca and chakruna so quickly may have on the ecosystem.

Where there are many efforts being made for reforestation and ensuring careful and conscious use of the plants, demand for Ayahuasca continues to rise, and it is bought and consumed rapidly despite the teachings of reciprocity, care for the land and giving back equally to what we take that are so commonly shared with us by the plant spirits. Conscious use of Ayahuasca or other Master Plants includes careful sourcing, mindful use without over-consumption, and an awareness of what we are giving back when we do receive from the plants. And where conscious use of the plants is important for them and for the planet, I believe the teaching and practice of reciprocity is just as much for us as for them - by putting these teachings into practice and realizing that the Master Plants are not simply resources for unlimited Human consumption and must be approached and used consciously, we are given the opportunity to remember our place within the greater whole, to live the interconnectedness we may be shown in ceremony, and to heal and grow spiritually through our actions.

2 - The plant spirits told the people how to make the brew (according to the legend)

When taken individually, the Ayahuasca vine and chakruna leaves don’t have a psychoactive effect (although they do each have their individual healing properties). It is the synergy between the two plants and the alkaloids that they contain which allows for the psychoactive experience to happen. One often-asked question is how it was ever discovered that, out of all the plants growing in the Amazon, these two, when cooked together, would have this effect.

The Amazonian people say that they were told how to make the brew by the spirits of the plants. Where this may seem like a difficult concept to grasp from a modern Western perspective, if we send our imaginations back to a time when life was very connected to the Earth, without our modern technology or industrialization, the relationship between people and plants would have been incredibly deep and important. Without our modern-day distractions, I believe it would have been very natural to perceive and form relationships with the spirits of plants, to receive wisdom from them (much as we do during a plant dieta), and to receive information like which plants to cook together to make the Ayahuasca brew. This explanation also makes a lot more sense to me than the possibility that it was discovered by accident.

Much of the Amazonian Ayahuasca healing tradition is deeply connected with the spirits of many plants, not just the Ayahuasca vine and chakruna leaves. It is said that the plant spirits told the people how to make Ayahuasca, and that Ayahuasca helps the people to connect with the plant spirits for healing. One beautiful gift that often comes with drinking Ayahuasca or during a plant dieta is the realization of, and strengthened connection with, the plant spirit world, which is absolutely everywhere, not just in an Ayahuasca ceremony or in the Amazon Rainforest. After the ceremony or dieta, this connection can be built and strengthened wherever you are, and a perception and communication with the plant spirit world can continue to grow for many years afterwards.

3 - The ceremony is influenced by the tradition you drink within

Whether working ceremonially with Master Plants, taking herbal remedies, or using plants for any health benefits or spiritual uses, our intentions always have a huge impact on how the plants work and where their power and medicine is guided. There are many Ayahuasca traditions throughout the Amazon, and now increasingly in other parts of the world, and Ayahuasca ceremonies can take many different forms and can be held within different worldviews, with different intentions to the ceremony. And where it is still essentially the same plant spirit, the way that the plant is being used can hugely affect the nature and outcome of your experience. This is why if someone says they drank Ayahuasca, it doesn’t really mean anything in particular – there are so many types of ceremony and types of experience that it’s possible to have.

This is an important thing to take into consideration when thinking about drinking Ayahuasca and where to drink it, as a lack of understanding of the culture and tradition within which the ceremony is held can sometimes lead to uncomfortable experiences which don’t necessarily guide you to where you were hoping to go, or to the healing you need. And especially in the case of religious or spiritual trauma, understanding the spiritual background of the tradition and the worldview within which they work can mean the difference between an insightful and healing experience and one which is potentially re-traumatising. South American ceremonies can be based in animistic Earth-based spirituality, Christianity or be Christian-influenced – usually by Catholicism in Peru, or they can be atheistic, or be influenced by an increasingly wide range of spiritual and religious traditions, all with different fundamental ideas and intentions around the purpose of the medicine and how healing is guided. It’s always good to do some research and ask some questions before joining a ceremony, especially if you have a specific reason for drinking the medicine, to make sure that the ceremony and its tradition will be a good fit for your needs.

 4 - Drinking Ayahuasca is often considered to be an Occult practice

Considering Ayahuasca’s love for the hidden, unseen and unconscious, it is no surprise that her use in the Amazon is widely connected with occult practices and witchcraft (usually referred to as brujeria in the Amazon.) It is rare to find a Peruvian Ayahuasquero who doesn’t deal with the world of black magic and secret manipulation in some way – hopefully in a healing ceremony this will be assisting the participants to liberate themselves when they feel they have been manipulated or controlled by someone or something else. In the Amazon, it is a very common perspective that illnesses are the result of a curse or a form of black magic and that when these curses are removed, we naturally return to good health.

This is one thing which can come as a shock to Westerners entering into the plant spirit world with very little previous exposure to this kind of worldview, and this can sometimes lead to someone leaving the ceremony more anxious and fearful than they were when they got there – they approach the plants to confront a trauma from the past but end up terrified of which people could be putting spells on them.

It is not Ayahuasca’s intention (nor, hopefully, the person serving you the Ayahuasca) to make you more afraid – one of the gifts of the medicine is the way that she can help you to confront and build a healthier relationship with your fears – so it’s worth taking a step back with this to see the bigger picture here and acknowledge that whether something is labelled as black magic, or as a limiting belief we picked up from somewhere outside of ourselves (like from a parent or a teacher in childhood) or as a controlling or abusive relationship dynamic, the essence behind all of these things is the manipulation and abuse of power. The methods by which it happens may differ but whether you are dealing with a ‘curse from a brujo’ or a ‘spell that the media put on you’ or ‘breaking away from an ex-partner who still has a hold over you,’ in all of these cases the role of the medicine is to help you to free yourself from whatever that person’s power over you may be and remember your own wholeness and personal power.

Perhaps because of its unfamiliarity, it can sometimes seem much more difficult to deal with the idea of bad magicians and sorcerers putting spells on us than to find liberation from the curse of a past abuser or society. But regardless of what or where it originated, the process of liberation and reclaiming your wholeness is essentially the same; so rather than fearing the unknown practices of an unknown place, it’s much more helpful to be open to welcoming the teachings of the medicine as you remember your own personal power, sovereignty and wholeness.

5 - It’s not about the psychedelic effect or even the ceremony

Ayahuasca has gained a lot of popularity in recent years because of the strong psychedelic effect that often, but not always, comes when it’s consumed. But the real power of the medicine is not about what happens in the ceremony, the visions or even the insights received. Some of the most powerful healing and personal shifts can happen after a ceremony with very little visual and psychedelic effects, and it is often said that the real ceremony, the ceremony of life, begins when the Ayahuasca ceremony ends.

Ayahuasca, and all of the Master Plant teachers, have traditionally been a deeply integrated part of the cultures and communities within which they are consumed and this is very noticeable in the way that a reverence for the plant spirits remains a big part of indigenous cultures – in the Shipibo culture, the traditional artwork is almost entirely made up from designs inspired by Ayahuasca visions, and various other traditional ceremonies are held with structures that include teachings around how to live a conscious and balanced life and be in harmony with the Earth. With acknowledgement of these teachings that we are not separate from the world, that everything is connected, and that our true health is not separate from our relationship with the planet and our community, reducing Ayahuasca’s power and message to the events of one single ceremony or one personal insight, or expecting one miraculous be-all-and-end-all healing to happen in a ceremony is missing out on the bigger picture and the deeper message of the medicine – that our wellbeing, our relationships, and our understanding of our place on this Earth are all connected. The medicines can give us an understanding of the roots of our suffering and a new perspective on our relationship with life, along with some useful tools and remedies, but it is in how we live outside of the ceremonies, and how we experience the plant wisdom in our daily lives that we can truly experience the magic in a deep and sustainable way.

Ayahuasca, and the plant spirit world, are always full of surprises and there is always something new to discover from the infinite amount that we don’t know. Has something about Ayahuasca ever surprised you, or did you find out something you weren’t expecting? Leave a comment about your surprising discoveries or revelations below!