Podcast transcript: Jerónimo Mazarrasa on the use of Ayahuasca outside the countries of origin

Giancarlo

Hello, welcome to the fifth episode of the mangu.tv podcast. Today we have Jerónimo Mazarrasa. Jerónimo is an ayahuasca community activist, and independent researcher, he has produced and written two documentaries about ayahuasca. The first about the Brazilian ayahuasca churches, the second about the use of ayahuasca and the treatment of drug addiction. 

In the last 20 years he has travelled extensively through South America researching a broad range of ayahuasca practices, and has lectured internationally on ayahuasca tourism and the appropriation of indiginous knowledge. He works as a social innovation coordinator for the ICEERS foundation and is a founding member of the Plantaforma. In the last 5 years he has given most of his energy to find out how ceremonial plant practices can be integrated outside of their country of origin.

Welcome Jerónimo. Let's start with the origins of ayahuasca. Tell us a little bit about the cultural context. What do we think? When it was invented by who and what was the initial use of this plant?

Jerónimo

Ayahuasca as we know it today, as it's mostly used in the world, is the most popular formula.

It's actually preparation. So it's a combination of two plants. This already makes it different from other sort of psychoactive plants of traditional use that people might be more familiar with, like peyote, or magic mushrooms or tobacco in which they're just simply plants that are being applied.

Ayahuasca is actually a preparation, they're two plants which are cooked together to create this decoction. So because it is a preparation, because there's a formula we can assume that somebody came up with it. Very very likely an indigenous person in the Amazon or a group of them, or many indigenous people in different groups at the same time, all of these things are possible.  We will never know. All we know is that there is a beginning to this formula and that it started with a small group of people, of one or many, and that ever since this happened. And this probably happened hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, ever since this happened, this formula has been expanding and it's been growing out of its place of origin, whatever it was somewhere in the Amazon.

It went from this early discover or discovers. We imagine that from there to their family and then from there to their neighbors all within the same group, and then from there to other indigenous groups, I mean, we can assume this because we've seen it happen. We know now there's at least, you know, around 70 indigenous groups that use ayahuasca in the Amazon.

And then this expansion has continued to happen beyond indigenous groups. Already a few hundred years ago, it went from indigenous groups to urban populations in the jungle. And this was sort of a mixed blood, a mix of indigenous and colonist sort of nationals.

From there either expanded to the cities outside of the jungle, from there, it expanded to other countries. And from there more recently, perhaps in the last 20 or 30 years, it has expanded to the rest of the world. Nowadays you can find ayahuasca sessions, I would say just about in every country, in the world.

And in some countries in the Amazon, in the Amazon countries, of course, in the countries of origin, it's quite widespread, just to give an example, the ayahuasca church in Brazil has more than 30,000 members. We're talking 72 indigenous groups, at least 50 or 60,000 in the proceeding churches, tens of thousands of people in the Amazon are consuming, are partaking in ayahuasca. Outside of the Amazon. For example, in Europe, for example, in Spain, where we are right now, I estimate there must be, more than a hundred, guides or facilitators providing this. 

Giancarlo

So before we dive into the present, I would like to structure this conversation between, you know, the past, the president of the future of ayahuasca.

So before we dive into the present, I want to stay a little bit on the historical use. You know, you said hundreds, maybe a thousand years ago. What do you think was the reason for using this plant? Why did the indigenous people start using this plant?

Jerónimo

We don't know, there's of course, myths and legends, you know, in the cultures and the people that have traditionally used ayahuasca it tends to feature very prominently in the creation myths together with other very important plants. For people who are living in the Amazon, some plants are absolutely key to their survival, among the manioc, for example, which is a staple food. And this means that this is also reflected in their creation myths so very early at the beginning of time, humankind was given manioc. Usually by some sort of spirit ritual or mythological creature so they could thrive. So this gives you an idea of the importance of the plant in cultures that have traditionally use ayahuasca, ayahuasca usually comes pretty close or right next to manioc as something that came at the beginning of time, and this gives sort of an idea of the importance that it has in the culture.

In terms of the use, what we see is that as the population and the cultures in the Amazon have changed because there's been a lot of changes in the last 500 years since the Europeans arrived. So what we can see is that there was on the sort of the most traditional use of ayahuasca that we know, or what we believe are the survives of the most traditional use. It's a very communal, even one could say political use of ayahuasca. It is consumed in group rituals that involves a series of dances where the most important myths and times of the year and times in the mythological calendar as well were reenacted and recreated, danced.

It had to do with the connection of the group to the environment and nature to the territory and the alignment of all the social forces, the forces, the alignment of the human group to its environment. And this meant being in peace or in the right relation with different spirits that own the animals of the forest and nature.

I'm not doing the best job, anthropologists have written long and wide about this, but I mean, I think it's a good enough sort of summary. Then when colonization happens, there is a sort of devastating, ethnocide that happens, because of the plagues, because of the diseases and because of just cultural destruction that came with missionary work and with colonization in general. And what happens is a lot of these groups become that decimated, and then millions die, and then the survivors are gathered by priests, into things called reductions, which are the sort of villages that are built around the church that usually combine 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 different indigenous groups that were living in the area (what is left of them) are now living under, you know, close to the church and there is a new sort of culture a new ethnic identity emergence out of these. Ayahuasca use is continued there, but it changes and it goes from being, like I said, something very cultural or very political to, it seems like something much more fixated on healing on individual healing.

You have people that are severely traumatized and they have lost their culture. They are losing their culture, you know they're being colonized. Conquered and then vanquished and then ayahuasca begins to and continues to be used in sort of healing rituals that have more to do with individual healing.

A group of people get together to heal their traumas. It still ties to the old traditions and the spirit work and all of this sort of indigenous culture aspect, but it's not so perhaps not so tribal and, and more spiritual and healing. From there, cities begin emerge in jungle, the process takes hundreds of years and then sort of a mix makes mixed mestiza, mixed population between half colonists, half indigenous people that are have indigenous, you know, you could say bloodlines, but no longer recognize an indigenous identity or an indigenous ethnic group.

They begin to gather in cities and they begin to practice this sort of folk healing. That has elements also European or Spanish, curanderismo which are the sort of the village, the rural folk, healers, bone setters, people working with plants, ect.

So here enters a very strong influence of Catholicism, but still maintains a link to the indigenous groups. And the songs very often feature words in indigenous languages even though sometimes people don't even understand what they're saying. They feature calls to different things. They feature calls to different groups of plants that are power plants and spirits. There are a lot of these vegetalismo which is a sort of urban folk healing ayahuasca phenomenon. There's a lot that one recognizes of the original indigenous traditions, but there's also a lot of new stuff.

Then there is the phenomenon that happens in Brazil where there is a population that is no longer indigenous, but it's actually of African origin that had gone to colonize the jungle and work in the rubber boom. They come in contact with ayahuasca and they develop these sort of syncretic religions. That is a mixture that contains elements contained in ayahuasca, but also elements of African traditions and European Christianity. There's three of these religions in Brazil.

And then from there you would jump to the Western, where it becomes a sort of psychotherapeutic tool, so you can see there are such a wide range of uses throughout history.

Giancarlo

I heard that some tribes would use it for evil purposes, to send curses to enemies, they talk about this dart, poisonous darts. Can you comment on that? Is this something you're aware of? 

Jerónimo

Yes, I think they would not say that it is used for evil purposes, but for self-defense. Right. There's been traditionally among indigenous groups, there's been in the Amazon, there's been peace. And so there's been warfare and there's also been, periods of peace and periods of warfare. These things that happen between neighbors, we Europeans are also very familiar with this. Americans also had wars with their neighbors, it's just human. In the Amazon sort of traditional view disease is not the random act of a virus or a bacteria that you just happened to catch because you touch your face after you've touched something infected, but it's actually a sort of a voluntary, it comes as some sort of transgression or as the effect of others.

So either you broke a rule, you stepped into an area that was tabooed. You ate the food that you shouldn't, you took a plate, things from a tree or animals from a place of the forest that really shouldn't be. And then the owner of the spirits of the forest took revenge on you by making you sick.

Or as later as people begin to live closer and closer together, and in cities, this became more having to do with your neighbors, other people made you sick, or took revenge on you because usually in the reading they were jealous. So there's something very different than there Amazonian people believe that jealousy is highly toxic and undesirable. We believe that jealousy is a byproduct of success and that having haters is a sign that you're doing everything right in the Amazon, they would disagree. And they would say that having haters is what made you sick. 

Giancarlo

Very good. Thank you very much. Last question regarding the cultural context and the history. Is there a difference between the different areas, the different countries of the Amazon? Is there a difference between the Peruvian use of ayahuasca compared to the Brazilian, the Colombian, the Ecuadorian?

Jerónimo

Yes, of course. There is a difference from tribe to tribe, and from group to group, there's differences even in the Brazilian churches, which are much more recent there's difference from church to church. You could say in that sense, I think it's easier to understand the ayahuasca cup practices as a sort of art form. 

I don't know how to speak of something like hip hop, there's such a thing as hip hop the general sort of art hip hop, it's very different in New York than Atlanta, both things remain hip hop, but they're sort of very local flavor, it is part of the art form, that it makes it different. It's even different from neighborhood to neighborhood, and it's different from rapper to rapper. This is also the case with ayahuasca, except perhaps it's even much more varied than recent hip hop because it's not been around for 50 years, but for hundreds if not thousands.

Giancarlo

I understand, But just to say a little bit more about, what I hear is that the Peruvian practice is more in the dark, is more introspective is more for, (and maybe now we already starting talking about how it is used today) but you always hear the Peruvian ritual is, inner journey, where as like the Brazilian, sometimes it's more celebratory is more dancing, more celebratory. What do you think about that?

Jerónimo

I would say being very sort of making a big generalization. I would say that most of what we understand to be the Peruvian design, it's actually descendant from what I was describing previously as vegetalismo. So a group of people gather around a healer in order to get individual healing. They'll do it together, but they got around one person in order to get individual healing. And this happens in the dark, and usually it's only the healer who sings. It comes directly from this indigenous tradition, the line that I drew before in what we call the Brazilian design, but we could call it the Brazilian design. There is actually a lot of influence from the churches. By this, I mean the influence of African spirituality. 

The main difference, one big, big difference that we could make between Amazonian shamanism and sort of African spirituality is that in Amazonian shamanism; one person stands in the center and everybody is sort of an audience or their subjects of the healing. And there's one shaman in the centre. In African spirituality, everybody participates. In rituals you have some things like Umbanda, macumba and Vodou, it's not just one, it's not just the main leader that gets the spirits that come through, it's everybody, not everybody, but a lot of people I mean.

So out of these comes, certain ways of the Brazilian quote, unquote “modern traditional design” that involves the lights being on and everybody's singing as opposed to one person. And then lastly, you could have roughly speaking a sort of Colombian or Yagé culture thing. It is similar to the Brazilian, sorry to the Peruvian, but I would say that in Columbia, because of the historic situation and because of all the violence that happened, ethnic identity among indigenous groups is much stronger than it is in Peru. So while one finds in Colombia while it resembles the Peruvian, I would say it has a stronger tribal or ethnic cultural aspect and difference and in this way it is closer to something that happened one step before vegetalismo.

I don't know if that makes sense. 

Giancarlo

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. This is very useful. Allow me a personal question. What was your personal story with ayahuasca? How did you discover it? How is your practice evolving? Do you still use it? What's your preference in terms of this thing? You describe a more African participatory versus a more Peruvian with the healer who does the healing? What's your personal story? If you don't mind sharing?

Jerónimo

My own path with ayahuasca has been very long, it started 20 years ago. I approached ayahuasca because of a personal interest in all of these substances. But even before this, before I discovered shamnic use of plants. I was already into psychedelics and sort of experimentation in a more sort of psychonautic way with my friends and in college. I think lots of people have similar experiences. I went to Grateful Dead concerts. I went to raves. I was interested in this because I felt that some of those nights, things were very special or important things were happening. And I was curious about this. So I became curious about traditional use. And then I started together with a Canadian collaborator, working on a documentary about it, because its the best way to approach something that you're curious about is to make a documentary about it.

Giancarlo

You know, I agree. 

Jerónimo

Or, or a podcast, it just gives you a fantastic excuse to contact people that you find interesting and you don't know and ask to sit with them and have a conversation about these topics. The same way but 20 years ago. So on the one hand researching for the documentary and filming.

And on the other hand, I was participating in all of these things. I was very interested in my own personal process. It's been 20 years now, thanks to the documentary I've been able to contact, and to be with, and to sit with, and even to drink ayahuasca with, a very broad varied group of people, of the different many different examples of all the different three designs that I described before I've been able to experience.

I think that there's one part of ayahuasca that is an exploration and then there is one part that is a practice. So the more one drinks, the better one gets at it. You can associate, for example, like if you got into poetry or if you got into film, the more movies you watch, the more you enjoy them, the more you get out of them, the more you understand about the history of filmmaking. And so perhaps the more you develop a certain taste, for what is it the type of films that you really enjoy and you really appreciate. And then that tends to sort of get narrow. It happens, you see people who watch a lot of films, they become sort of picky about what they like and what they don't like. Same thing people who listen to a lot of music, they become your jazz feans, they become kind of very particular about what this is exactly. I find that it happens the same with ayahuasca, I find that, or at least that was my experience at the beginning, I wanted to see and experience as much as possible. And with time, what I wanted, what I was willing to, the places where I was willing to drink ayahuasca myself, my interest in the different expressions of ayahuasca remains, but the places where I would sit to drink, which is a different story, where I do my practice have with them sort of narrowed down to a very particular group.

That's it, I mean I'm a little bit hesitant to go into what group that is. I don't think that it's that important. But I think most everybody that has been drinking ayahuasca for some time will resonate with the story that you get to a point where you narrow. And I think this also important as in a way it's like any other work I think, if you're doing psychotherapeutic work you tend to have a psychologist, a therapist, 1, 2, 3, when you start, and at some point you sort of settle down with a person that will become your therapist for the long-term.

Sometimes these relationships are very, very long, they last decades. It's true that one could try other psychoanalysts. But at the end the work that you've done with the person that you have chosen already weighs heavier than the possibility of finding more interesting or better psychoanalysts or the same I sometimes make the example with friends. Once you have a friend, which it takes many years to make a real friend, once you have a real friend, somebody, the idea of trying a different friend, it doesn't make any sense. And it's possible that there'll be another person out there that could be more interesting for him or for you.

But you already have this friend and the 10 years you spent with them is what friendship is, not about how interesting or original or you know.

Giancarlo

This is a very good point. We are going to maybe explore that a bit more in depth when we're talking about the current use, but I just want to reiterate what Jerónimo is saying.

This is a practice and some people might go from shaman to shaman from peak experience to peak experience, but to get the most out of it, he recommends sticking with one that you resonate with and doing the work. In terms of your last question about your personal experience, what would be the couple of things that you credit ayahuasca for having helped you with?

Jerónimo

I think in my own life the effect of ayahuasca has been so broad, that it is almost invisible. It's almost invisible because it's everywhere. Not because it's so small, but because it's so big that you can't see it. So it'd be really hard to say. I mean, everything, I have no idea what my life would be like if I hadn't come across it, not just because of the experiences I had because of my work, but because I spent so much time working on this documentary.

So much of the travels I made, so much of the friendships I developed and then eventually, you know, the work that I do now for ICEERS, which is an NGO devoted to these plants. At the end my entire life. Of course, I have friends and families and I have interests outside of ayahuasca, such a large part of my life already for 20 years has revolved around it, that it's difficult, it's almost impossible to separate, in that sense. 

But I would tell a story of a recent experience I had where I was, I felt (and this has happened sometimes, other people I have heard comment on this) during the night, the effects were so strong that I felt that I'd been dipped into a bathtub full of it. And there was nothing else running through my veins. I was completely soaked, like a sponge and I would say to what degrees that I have been integrated with. That said, for people that are curious, I actually don't drink that much ayahuasca anymore, maybe three, four times a year, or sometimes two times a year.

It's usually concentrated over a couple of weeks during the year. And then the rest of the time, I barely drink, so just for people to understand that. Another thing that tends to happen is that the more time goes by the less you need it. 

Giancarlo

So let's get into the present situation of ayahuasca, who and when exported ayahuasca from the jungle to the west?

Jerónimo

It's hard to say. For example the history of Spain, that is the part that I know best, it seems to arrive, that we know of, around the late eighties to the early nineties. I mean, there's some previous explorers that went in pretty deep but that's when you begin to get the stories, it's usually tied to the ayahuasca churches that are traveling and they're bringing it, this is the point of entry to most, not everyone, but most of the early people. Then this establishes a link. So that the churches would pass, for example, like the past to Ibiza, people would get experience of it and then this establishes a link and then the next thing that happens is that people go to the Amazon to search for this, and then they enter the culture and then they visit more. And then there starts to be more visits back. 

That's sort of how it develops, another through visiting ayahuasca members, also visiting shamans, and then the other way around, and then people visiting the jungle and then bringing it back to their countries of origin. Lately there is a second sort of thing that happens around certain psychologists, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, interest, there's a second wave there. I would say, but it's been very organic and it's exactly the same thing as what I described. I think what happened with the tribes, you get one person and if this person finds it interesting, useful, enriching, and then the people around them have some, perhaps some distress or what is this, I have never seen this strange shit, this awful mess, you throw up, then they try it and then they feel that their lives have been enriched. And from there, it jumps to the next person and then to the next person. So just like it jumped from tribe to tribe, it jumps from person to person. Indeed, it didn't jump from tribe to tribe. It jumped from person to person, always. It was just people from other tribes.

This phenomenon has never stopped happening since the day it was invented and he continues to help. 

Giancarlo

Yes. And what do you see in terms of the Western use of ayahuasca? What are typical misuse? Can you just comment on how the Western shamen or the neoshamen have been integrating this medicine with the west and what you think about it?

Jerónimo

So we have a culture of practice that is very ingrained in the culture. So it's like indigenous people have had a direct relationship with traditional dress for hundreds, if not thousands of years, The brew has an absolute key pivotal role in their culture. And there is an entire set of practices, songs, teachings, lessons that are built with it and how to work with it.

This is something that is hard for us to relate to, because we don't have many of these things that go back. We have a lot of cultural practices that we're very good at, for example, legal litigation. You know, this is like, you know, highly specialized, very complex. Not everybody can do it, only a few people in our culture are the experts in these. It is incredibly complex. It takes years of study and mastery to be able to do this now. And we can imagine that it would not be easier for somebody from outside our culture, for somebody from a very remote village in a very remote culture to actually get good at legal litigation, the way we're good at legal litigation or the way a person who was born into a family of lawyers would be good at it and not only a family of lawyers, a family where your grandfather was a lawyer and your father was a lawyer and your great-grandfather was a lawyer and this is in the bloodline of the family.

And this is something you've heard about, right? This is sort of what happens. What happens is that we have highly evolved cultural practices and I'm being light about it. Like I'm talking about, you know, they're sort of energetic, spiritual work that happens with ayahuasca and comparing it to sort of the intellectual work of litigation and it's not that it's much, much more complex. It's not just a set of knowledge but anyway. Let's just imagine for the metaphor that this is similar. Now we have people that travel to the Amazon. They become fascinated with these very complex and very involved traditions where your grandfather, great-grandfather, the father, the son, everybody has been practicing these. And they want to learn. They want to do it too. So the question is how much can these people really learn? And are they aware of how much they're learning and how much they're not learning. And the answer is, of course they can learn a limited amount, first of all, they're not indigenous. They were not born there. They are lacking the cultural context. And very often they're also lacking that even the language, many of these people don't even speak Spanish nevermind the indigenous language, just the halfway through language, which is Spanish, but of course they're going back to their country and in their country, nobody has ever seen.

So it might be that if you were studying litigation, you would not get very far in the country of origin of litigation as a litigator. But if you go back to your country of origin, where nobody has heard of litigation, well then, you might be the people that know the most about litigation in the entire neighborhood or your entire city.

This is what happens, with that said, there are people who have put tremendous effort and people have learned a lot and there's very, very good non-indigenous people that are doing this. I will keep perhaps another example, in Spain we have our traditional culture that has flamenco music and bullfighting.

This was also passed from father to son and entire generations, and that sort of the origin and the ties to the gypsy people and gypsy culture and all of these, with all of these being absolutely true. You know, some people have come from Japan and they've moved to Spain in their mid twenties and they spent 8, 10, 12, 20 years. And, they are amazing flamenco musicians and some of them are even bullfighters, I'm not saying it can't be done. It can be done and he's done often or relatively often. But it's useful to understand how difficult it is to do it right, because if we don't, I think we risk being deeply disrespectful, to their traditions and to the cultures of origin.

Giancarlo

So this is very interesting. And so if I may, I just want to add a little bit, the difference between a ceremony where the guide or the facilitator serves the medicine and then puts on a playlist and the ceremony where there is a driver, if you want. My personal experience is that when Sharman drinks with you, he goes to the same place / or similar place. And then can take you on this ride when, when there is no driver, the bus can be a little bit all over the place. So this is something which is very important in terms of understanding how critical the experience of the Sharman. 

What about the importance of intention and integration? Can you comment a little bit on these two topics? 

Jerónimo

On the first part of the question about the guide. I recently heard something that I think is useful as a sort of tool to understand this. And it was about the difference between guiding sessions and sitting, or holding space. One thing is to share some plant hallucinogens with another person and sit with them to accompany them through the experience and help out if they have some sort of problem.

And that's sort of at a lower level in terms of the work that is being done is just the work of accompanying and holding. And this is I think the work that most of our therapists and a lot of Western people are comfortable doing. That's what they want to do. They want to sit for other people.

And then I would say the work that comes from the tradition, sort of shamanic Amazonian stuff is not that sitting stuff is guiding. So that means that one is not just able to sort of sit them, hold the space and accompany the person and help out if there's something wrong. But that one is theoretically able to direct what is happening during the sessions. Through the songs, through the energetic work, through shamanic practices, but one is actually conducting, giving shape, modulating, the night, and the experience of everybody who participates. And this is a higher level. This is the higher level. This is, I would say, perhaps this is the difference between knowing a lot of our music and being able to listen to music and being able to separate, you know, good, good guitarist from a bad guitarist, and being able to play music and be a good guitarist, right.

Then both, both persons are engaged with music, but persons have a deep appreciation for it. Both people have a deep understanding of it, but one person can go one step higher.

Giancarlo

And what about the intention and the integration?

Jerónimo

For the second part that has to do with the work of the guide, then comes the work of the participant because the participant is not a sort of passive subject that is just going to take/ingest a psychoactive plant, the preparation in this case, and then something's going to happen to them. That's not, that's not it. This is, this is again, I would say the difference between, I don't know, it's a difference between masturbation and making love and both things involve the same physical mechanisms, but there is much more going on, it's a different type of participation and some parts are not fully under your control when you're making love and that's, what's good about it. The ayahuasca is going to provide people, most people with a very powerful, usually deeply meaningful experience for some people is some of the most powerful, meaningful things that will happen to them in their lives.

So love making can also be like this. So the question is, how are you going to wrap this experience to maximize this? You know, again, like in lovemaking, you know, love making can be something completely shallow. You know as sort of sexual and two people can use each other to have sex or a deep contact between two people. And if you're going to have a deep contact, it seems like a lot of other things would have to be right. It had to be the right person. You had to be in the right environment. You're not going to, maybe you can do this in the bathtub of a club. But usually it tends to happen in another environment altogether with certain preparation, certain things that happen before, certain things that happened during, and certain things that happen after.

So when people talk about intention and integration, what they're talking about is what place are you going to give in your life to the very strong experience that you're going to have? So that you not only have a strong experience, but you create a container that makes it as deep, as profound, as good as possible.

Now this has to do with the fact that human beings, we are not just, we're not robots, right? So for example, if I made you a gift and I just gave it to you.  Say I'm giving you, I don't know a watch and I just give it to you. And I throw it on the table. It's not the same if I take the watch and I make a really nice box and a nice wrapper and very nice paper and it folds and it opens, and it has a letter with a beautiful message.

The watch is exactly the same. The gift is exactly the same. Theoretically, if we were robots, it would make no difference if I throw the watch down or if I put it in a wrapper, but because we're robots, this wrapper actually makes a big difference for the gift, right? It's not just the gift itself, right? It's not just the watch that is how it came to you. It's who gives it to you, in what circumstances. All of these are not the same that I give you a watch that your father gives you the same watch. But it's a watch that he's had for 40 years, it's the same watch, but its not the same. Right? All of these outs apply for ayahuasca.

So one needs to wrap the experience, respect it, and experience what it is. But there's a lot of work that needs to happen around it to make it really sort of powerful. And this includes, for example, setting up an intention. So thinking about what you want ayahuasca to teach you to show you, what you want to think about, what you want to work on, so why are you drinking ayahuasca? This seems like, who cares, this is deeply important. And then just as important, what are you going to do with what just happened to you? That's the integration. I think in our culture, we're very good at having the experience, the watch, and not so good at everything else we're very good at buying watches, but not so good about making really meaningful gifts.

Giancarlo

So. I'd love you to talk a little bit more about the integration. I mean, the intention, I think the metaphor of lovemaking and the present is very self-explanatory. So it has to do with open heart and respect and a true desire to commune with the divine, with other people, with yourself.

In terms of integration, how can we tell our listeners a little bit more? How to go about it?

Jerónimo

Integration has to do with, how do you make sense of what happened to you? Because you're going to drink ayahuasca, and a number of things are going to happen to you. Some of them are going to be easy to understand, for example, you're going to realize that you should tell such and such a person that you're sorry about one time you hurt them. 

Or that these things for example, are very frequent, or you're going to realize that such and such a person was actually very important in your life. And you're very grateful than it's been a long time since you thought about them, or you're going to think about a recent disagreement or argument. Or you are going to realize how much you truly love your children. And these things are somewhat easy to interpret, the message is clear, but then sometimes in ayahuasca, other things happen that are not so easy to interpret. People have visions, and these visions can get quite elaborate, but hard to understand. People will see a tiger, or people will see a treasure, but people will see a bunch of horses running across a field. And what does this mean? Why did I see that?

Some people will sometimes recover memories of things that happened in their childhood? Is this a real memory? Is it not? What does this mean? That's integration. So integration is how do you work with all of the material that emerged during the session in a way that is constructive and meaningful?

Because, like I say, sometimes the messages from ayahuasca are pretty obvious and clear and direct, but sometimes they're not. So the danger, if one doesn't do the integration work, is that one remains, it's like having an interesting experience, like seeing that really crazy movie, or like, bumping into the street into an interesting but wacky person who tells you some things about yourself and some gives you some strange advice and then walks away.

Now this could be a life-changing event, or it could be just something funny that happened to you. It depends on how you work with it. This is the novelty, the other side of the wrapper. Right. I'll give an example, there are a lot of misunderstandings that happen with people, especially at the beginning, in terms of what happens to them, for example, people will have a terrible experience sometimes, it's not very common, but it happens. People said sometimes they drink ayahuasca and they have a miserable experience, there's a million ways in which it can be miserable. It can be very painful. People can be sick. People can have very scary or disagreeable visions. People can have a really very, very difficult time and night. And they're really dying for the experience to be over. And when it's over, they never want to drink ayahuasca again. 

This I would say is a failure of integration. Why? Because if you do proper integration work and you begin to dig with the help of a person this, usually integration means integrator is usually a psychologist or a psychologist that has training in helping people integrate, or a person who's not a psychologist, but has experience in this.

If you begin to dig about the negative feelings that you were having, or even their negative and scary visions that you were seeing, one after some work will realize that actually these things are not sort of random. They are related to you, to that person's life, to that person's experience or to that person's situation. So something was being put in front of this person. It was very unpleasant because it was a very unpleasant thing, but that doesn't mean that he was a mistake, something that shouldn't have happened, or that has no meaning. Without integration, usually what happens is that the person says, I hate ayahuasca and I never want to drink again. 

With integration, usually the person comes to realize that what happened to them, it was a sort of pointer, a sort of finger pointing, to an area of their life that was troubled and that needed attention. So in that sense, you know, one can think about ayahuasca as a sort of microscope. A microscope makes very small things very big. Now this is useful because it allows you to discover, for example, the effect of bacteria and viruses, which you normally can't see, but they have a big effect, but it also sort of, it tends to exaggerate things. So if you look at a flea on the microscope, it looks like a horrible monster. But it is just a flea, it does look like that, but it's just so ayahuasca in general tends to exaggerate things, the good and the bad. And this is useful because it lets you see small things that you wouldn't normally notice. It is dangerous because you can end up thinking that what you saw as big is actually big in real life.

Giancarlo

Yeah, absolutely. That's very clear. I was thinking that one of my teachers once said that, ayahuasca can give you a glimpse of your subconscious and the subconscious doesn't speak English or Spanish or Italian. It speaks in shape and color and mood. And so maybe sometimes, you need the help of an expert of the psyche, and maybe an expert of the Western psyche will have a better insight in understanding the nature of your subconscious.

And that's how I was thinking. Maybe that can be an advantage of a neoshaman or maybe of a collaboration between an indigenous shaman and a psychologist. And I know that there are now centers that are using shaman for the practice and then psychologist for the integration. Very good. 

So let's attack the third part of this talk about the future of ayahuasca. We mentioned in the introduction, this is pretty much your career now, to try to figure out a way of integrating this compound. Why don't you tell us a little bit, I know you have this metaphor of the lighthouse. So this idea that you want to look maybe 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 years in the future, and tell us what would you like to see in terms of ayahuasca in the west?

Jerónimo

And the work that I've been doing for the past few years at ICEERS, revolves around ceremonial plant use, around the future of ceremonial plant use outside of the countries of origin. Lets slowly unpack that, because it's quite a sentence, I think most of your followers of your podcast will know we're currently in the midst of what is called a psychedelic Renaissance, which basically revolves around the medicalisation of certain psychedelic compounds and MAPS is doing work on Compass and other places. And it could be that very soon in the future, many of these substances will be prescription drugs. That will be prescribed by a psychiatrist, administered by health professionals. And probably, hopefully covered by insurance, by medical insurance. 

This is a fantastic development. I applaud it wholeheartedly. But it comes with certain limits, the first limit of course, is that in order to have a prescription drug, you need to have a diagnosis and an application for it. So in order to get, for example, in the near future, in order to get psilocybin, or in order to get an MDMA, you need to have PTSD or you need to have depression. And then you can, you can have off-label uses, but basically doctors deal with diseases. Diseases are diagnosed, whether they're diagnosed, there's a disease where there's a disease, there's a drug that you can use against it.

So while we're building the possibility of legally applying psychedelics for people with different illnesses, different diagnoses. I think this is fantastic. And I, again, applaud it. I am a little bit concerned or worried, or I notice however that the vast majority of the use of plant medicines, which is what I know and have the vast majority of people using plant medicines nowadays, do not have what would qualify as a medical diagnosis and maybe they want, they never will. That means that they are automatically ruled out of this system. Right. So what I see, not under hospitals, but in the real world, is that the large majority of people that are using these plants, not just here, but also in the traditional world, they had something, they had the need for these plants, but it was closer to what it would be called some sort of either, sort of life transition or life crisis, but not a medical condition. I'm interested in keeping the door open for nonmedical uses of these plants. I think this is going to be the second wave and the most interesting one after the medical uses and I’m also interested in the model that comes from indigenous groups, which is not a therapist gives somebody, a pill, lays them down on a couch, puts a mask and headphones and sits with them through the experience. 50:00

And then after the experience is over, they talk about it. They have a conversation about it. This is their, this is the Western model. The traditional model is quite different. It's a group of people getting together, to take at the same time while being guided by a person who is a sort of expert in modulating what happens during the experience. I'm working with this group. Most of them don't have a medical condition; they're using these for other things. So I think there is a very, I think they're very complimentary. These two uses one is more medical and individual, and the other one has more to do with personal growth and then tends to happen in groups, in communities of practice, in a group of people that gather around a person who serves, and these people even if they develop relationships there, they become friends. This is another paradigm. It's another way of thinking of things. We believe that cancer is an individual thing. If you get diagnosed with cancer, it's not part of it that you're gonna spend a lot of time with other cancer patients and you'd become friends with them and their practice, and yet this is sort of what comes from the traditional way.

And I think it is very, very useful. It's something that is more integrated into society. It's not a medical practice. It has to do with one Confan elder who told me how to live. He said ayahuasca teaches yage they call it, teaches human beings how to live.

This is not medicine. This is life. Part of the work I do is to try to imagine how to live part and ceremonial part and group part and nonmedical part of the use of these plants find a place in our society. I'm very clear of how the medical compounds are going to find a place in our society, and not very clear how this other part is going to and I think he would be sad if it doesn't find a place in our society, because I find it some of the most powerful and useful and interesting part of these plants. So my work, and the work I do revolves around sort of trying to investigate research and imagine a future for these plans. So what would need to happen?

What would we like this to be like? What would we like? The Western neo shamans of the future to be like? For myself, I would like in visiting indigenous shamans. What would that look like? Would they need a special license? Would they have to get registered with some health authority? Would it not be a health authority? Would this happen with some sort of University? There is a lot of it we need to imagine. And that's the part of life as is, how are these things going to be integrated because what I've seen, when I look for example, ayahuasca is one like I said that it expands. 

It's reached us, Like it reaches all the others. It's been expanding for hundreds of years and it will continue to expand. And that once it has expanded, it eventually becomes settled in the culture. And it becomes a very important part of the culture. And this you can see in all of the indigenous groups, you can see in the ayahuasca churches, in people that have had hundreds of years of relationship with these substances. They take a very important place in the culture in a very useful place. So how is that going to be for us? Because I believe that these will keep expanding and that, tens and hundreds of years from now, it will still be in the culture. So how would we like that to be, and that involves a lot of thinking.

Because it presents us with quite an interesting talent, not just in terms of law and regulation, but also in culture, in how we imagine these things. So that the work that I do in one part, the sort of regulatory science fiction it has to do with imagining why we need to change in our societies for these things to be approved. And people could use these in a legal and safe way. And then when we think of how to work that backwards, and then the other thing has to do with something that is closer to union making. So what needs to change in the people that are already practicing this in our societies in order to be accepted like another profession.

So I look at the way other new professions came into the culture, for example, acupuncturists, which once upon a time were outside of our medical culture, and now they're accepted, or for example, coaches when they originally appeared it wasn't very clear. Here's a group of people that are listening and advising, but they're not psychologists and they're not mental health professionals yet. There's some overlap with the work that mental health professionals do. So how does that work happen? When coaching was something completely new that a strange group of people were doing, and nobody knew how it fit to the place where we are now, where it's the sort of established profession within our culture.

And I'm trying to imagine how this could play out or how we would like this to play out for people using plants ceremonially outside of the countries of origin. I hope that made sense. 

Giancarlo

Yeah. Yeah. That makes total sense. And I think that I totally agree that medicalization is now happening. The next important application will be the art of living, which is also called the ontological approach, this idea of understanding our own purpose and mission in life. And so there's going to be a situation where the typical midlife crisis, where someone is a bit lost in terms of what his mission is and why his marriage is not working and why the kids are angry with them or something.

And so the way I see it is like the example of the coaching, you can either get a coach, which is going to be a licensed psychotherapist who can come home with the medicine and do private sittings, or you're going to have, maybe local clinics. 

Jerónimo

Or collaborations between the two. I think the ability to guide the session, which sometimes involves things like being able to sing well, and the ability to help people integrate what happened are two different skill sets. Maybe in the future, one person will be able to do both things. For the present in our societies, outside of the countries of origin it seems wise to have a collaboration, a collaboration between the people who are skilled at handling the session, handling the night and the people who are skilled at helping people integrate them and helping people prepare afterwards. Now there's for sure going to be in the future, some sort of psychedelic clinic staff with psychiatrists and people administering these substances for medical uses.

I would like to imagine that there will be something that is more like a retreat center, more like a place of rest. For people who are undergoing life crisis or who need a break, or who are not doing well, or who need to think about stuff or process or whatever can go. And people who are experts at administering these and usually doing more ceremonial work. People can just take the time there to sort of sort these things out, these things that are not actually medical diagnosis, but they are something else for which actually psychedelics are incredibly useful.

I actually questioned if psychedelics are not more useful for people with non medical diagnosis and it might be that actually giving psychedelics (in some cases) to people with medical diagnosis is very powerful, but it can also be very dangerous, because it's very powerful.

What we do know is that moderately healthy people, mentally healthy without a medical diagnosis, undergoing some sort of personal crisis, generally speaking, greatly benefit from the use of these plants. I would like to imagine a place speaking about the future or the Lighthouse, a place outside every city in the world where people who are undergoing some sort of life crisis know that they can go and take a few days off and get help with these substances and these plants by people that know how to work with it.

This also means in a sense, there's a whole other issue there with money, and how to make it work economically. That is very important because what we're talking about behind that is access. It could also be that this is some sort of prevention medicine instead of intervention.

And that is much much more worthwhile, much, much better to take psychedelics before you're depressed and that's where they would help the most. As opposed to once you're depressed when they can help a lot, but any doctor will tell you, it's much better to prevent than to cure.

And most people arrive at the doctor's office too late when the problems are very advanced and it's much, much more difficult if people had only gone earlier and done their checkups and kept a healthy lifestyle. The medical intervention needed, would have been much smaller, much less intrusive.

Giancarlo

Very good. This is very clear. So what advice do you have for two kinds of people; for people that listen to this and are intrigued and want to try this experience, would you still recommend them? I mean, they can't do it legally in Europe. Is there any somewhat legal facility in Europe for Europeans that want to try that or you recommend to fly to the jungle.

Jerónimo

First of all, I wouldn't recommend this to anybody. I think it's a very dangerous thing. The same way that I wouldn't recommend climbing the Himalaya might be a life-changing experience, but I wouldn't go out telling everybody they should climb the Himalaya. I absolutely encourage people who are called to climb the Himalayas.To try, to thoughtfully prepare and train and research and go for it. And this is another aspect where I have some issues with a sort of medicalization of psychedelics, because I don't think this is something you can prescribe, in terms of you can take a person who doesn't know what this experience is and say, as a doctor, I think you should have this experience. This is not like an antibiotic. If things go wrong or the night gets difficult, you're going to get very, very angry with the doctor. So it's very important that you have total buy-in, it's very important that you want to try that for example, in the ayahuasca churches where they have a lot of experience with these sorts of things, what do you do with the neighbors who don't drink ayahuasca? They have a double policy, one is that the temple is open to anybody who wants to come. So if you would like to drink ayahuasca at one of the churches, you literally just have to show up on the door and say, I would like to participate. And within know certain logical constraints, obligated by the doctrine to let you in, to invite you in and to share with you.

On the other hand, it is not allowed to invite your neighbors. That doesn't mean you cannot tell your neighbors. I drink ayahuasca and it's done me good. You can. What you can not say is I drink ayahuasca. It's done me good and I think you should try it. When you say that you are overstepping your boundaries, you cannot recommend people a life changing experience. People have to want to have a life changing experience. So that's the first step. So for people who do, are called to climb the Himalayas, everybody else don't worry if you're not called for this, if you're scared of it, if it sounds like too much is absolutely fine, it's not an obligation. People don't need to do this. It's not absolutely, the main contraindication for drinking ayahuasca is not wanting to drink ayahuasca. if you don't want to drink ayahuasca, you absolutely shouldn't. Absolutely shouldn't. It's really bad idea to drink ayahuasca when you don't, it's like a kiss or like sex, if you want to be kissed is going to be fantastic. If you don't want to be kissed, it is going to be intrusive, disgusting, sloppy. 

Giancarlo

But there's also something to be said that you only grow out of your comfort zone. I'm not encouraging, I'm not encouraging people. I totally agree with Jerónimo that it's an intense experience and you have to do your research, but I don't know almost anybody who regrets having drank.

Jerónimo

Yeah. But again that's because also the people who regret to drink, they disappear and they never drink again. And then they don't tell exactly. So again, that's what I said about calling. I think you can be afraid. You can have doubts but you know if you're called to it or not, it's something that you have to check with yourself.

It's that simple. It's really that simple. If you are not called to it, you know, and if you're called to it you know, even if you have certain misgivings or you're thinking well, yes, but not yet. Okay. Not yet.

Giancarlo

If I may, for people that are listening now, this conversation, do you want to do it? You don't want to do it? What I would suggest is. Watch a bunch of documentaries on mangu.tv There is ‘Neurons to Nirvana’, there is a new one called 'The Song That Calls You Home’ (I’m sorry if I misspelled this title) ‘Shock to Awe’ in the drug section, there's a bunch of documentaries. And then Jerónimo what book would you recommend that someone would prefer to read instead of watch?

Jerónimo

All of Jeremy Narby's books are very good and very interesting. His last one is called I think ‘Plant Teachers: Ayahuasca, Tobacco, and the Pursuit of Knowledge’ is a very, very interesting, it's a little book it's not very long, and it's a very, very interesting, and I think there's a lot of future in it, collaboration between an indigenous shaman, so the indigenous perspective and the Western scientific perspective and he does a beautiful job putting both forms of knowledge together. I think that's a very good starting point. 

Giancarlo

Very good. This is very, very useful information. Last question for those that want to help the legalization, what would you recommend they can donate to ICEERS? Yes please donate to ICEERS, we are a small NGO, like all NGOs, we are always struggling for funds, like all NGOs.

We could always do more work if we had more donations. So if you are listening to this and these plants have been helpful to you, in your own life, in your own path, and you would like to give back, or you would like to ensure, or you would like to help ensure that the promise that these plants hold is upheld and protected, we would gladly take the donations to keep doing the work that we're doing.

Giancarlo

Yes. It's ICEERS.org. Also, they have a defense fund to help people with legal cases around the use of this ayahuasca. People can Google ‘Jerónimo ayahuasca’ and find a lot of talks and videos from different psychedelic conferences which Jerónimo has been invited to. Is it okay if we share your personal email, if someone has a burning desire to reach out to you?

Jerónimo

Yes, it's very easy. It's just Jeró[email protected]

Giancarlo

I really want to thank Jerónimo because I asked him to stay within an hour and I know he's such an intellectual and he really wants to give justice to every topic. So I really violated him a little bit, but I promise we'll have him back to expand on these fascinating topics.

Thank you very much for coming. 

Jerónimo

Thank you, thank you for having me Giancarlo. It's been a pleasure.