Notes From Exile: The Ayahuasca Chronicles, Pt. II

(Continued from Pt. I)

The second round of therapeutic vomiting in the jungle came courtesy of the “tobacco purge,” which is not as fun as it might sound and which takes like bong water (it being a concoction of equal parts water and tobacco stirred up really well). Its purpose was to cleanse the evil spirits and toxins and whatever else lies inside before the plant medicine can be introduced.

More vomiting ensued as I sat on a log in the middle of nowhere. The shaman and facilitator watched on in approval.

(Tangentially, later, upon first examination under the ayahuasca, the shaman reported that I had a “devil” in my head, which she later walked back as more mundane undesirable spirits and which she assured me had been cleansed.)

That evening came the first ayahuasca ceremony.

It went like this:

·       The shaman blessed a half-shot glass of ayahuasca and handed it to me

·       I drank it, which didn’t taste as bad as I had been led to believe. I expected more vomiting, but it never came

·       I sat in the dark for some time while the shaman sang her songs (called “icaros”)

·       Nothing happened

This nothingness disappointed, having heard epic tales of encounters with aliens and interdimensional elves.

The next day, I was assured that nothing happening the first go-round is par for the course, as the “medicine is getting to know you.”

The next night, the same routine went down in another ceremony, except that this time the shaman gave me a shot and a half. The results were intense.

There were no visions or anything so dramatic — I never ended up meeting aliens or interdimensional elves — but the feeling of insight, and the body high, were indescribable such that I won’t attempt to describe them.

Then the craziest damn thing happened:

The next day, I consulted with the shaman, as was standard operating procedure, regarding my experience. She told me that, during the ceremony, she saw a very particular thing of a personal nature — regarding my childhood and a relationship with a family member — a revelation which had come to me the night before under the influence in great detail and which I had never discussed with her prior, or anybody else there, or anyone else, period, for that matter.

It was at this point that my doubt that there is some kind of spiritual dimension to the plant medicine — they would never call it a drug and I won’t either — subsided entirely.

How could she have known so explicitly that which I had never shared with her and which I had just been contemplating, clear as day, the night before?

The question haunted me.

Was it a wild coincidence? Guesswork on her part? An elaborate ruse? Perhaps, but it seemed wildly unlikely.

Was the sensation of immense insight the placebo effect? Who knows?

The question certainly occurred to me, followed shortly by the rhetorical answer: “What difference, at this point does it make?” (Forgive the infamous Hillary Clinton quote.)

The placebo effect, the belief that the world is an entire coincidence, hardened skepticism — these are decidedly Western concepts and dispositions that I have come to reject through personal experience.

Are we in the Matrix? Maybe, but the steak tastes good.

I decided then not to analyze any further but to accept that there are things which I do not and maybe cannot understand.

Something happened in that jungle; I don’t know what — and that’s fine.

To be continued…

Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

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