I would like to hear your take on DMT and shamans.

I had this thought when reading and thinking about all of these DMT experiences we are all having. They seem like we are fumbling around in this hyperspace place having breakthroughs galore. But from what I hear they are very random and some make sense and others dont, some are fast hyper speed and hard to take in all of the information.
What my thought on it was that maybe, just maybe we are missguided and just shooting in to random places without any direction. That might be where the Shaman comes in to place, I mean like a real shaman, not just some sitter. The shaman calls to the spirits and sets you up for a trip to where you are to go, then you are sent there. Maybe having a perpose, meaning and a direction.

Is having a shaman more powerful and meaningful? Safer and giving a true way to travel and come back changed? Instead of just randomly teleporting around and getting glimpses of wierdness, love, fear, loss, difficulty understanding.

If anyone has a take on this. This could be DMT taken any way. But with a shaman or without.

Thanks guys!

I think about this sometimes as well. Here's my take on it: Shaman's don't use DMT on its own, and they certainly don't smoke it. This is a Gringo thing. We are always bound to try and take things from other cultures, refine them and put our own stamp on it - but that doesn't quite work in this case IMO. Smoked DMT on its own is just too fast and bewildering to get any real, deep work done.

So how do Shaman's direct and encourage a certain type of experience and how can we learn from that? Well, they NEVER ingest DMT without an MAOI - notably mama Aya.

So it seems logical to me that step 1 is to get some harmalas in on the action. When I first started doing this I was dazzled at how much more personal and intimate my journeys felt. This may be subjective (I know Global would dispute this ) but I think that a lot of the extra magic comes from this side of things.

And what else might a Shaman do? It seems like step 2 would be creating a sacred space for your ceremony - traditionally this is a medicine and a sacrament, and so should be treated as such. Intentions, prayer directed at both yourself and the medicine (I often state my intentions, and say a word of prayer while holding the loaded GVG) and possibly some other rituals such as burning of sage (to ward off negative energies) could (should?) also be employed. We are delving into a sea of consciousness here, so preparing your psyche for the road ahead seems like the most logical thing to do. Practicing meditation and dream recollection are also practices that spring to mind as helpful in these ventures as well...

Then of course step 3 would be to practice and see which ROAs work best for you, and also which approaches in step 2 you might want to focus on more. Also figuring out which doses are useful for what - say 10-15mg for enhanced meditation and introspection, 20-30 for a fully immersive experience, 40-50 for a potential life changer etc.

All these things can help direct an experience and create a good mind set for travelling, how ever none of this can replace a lifetime of experience, ancestral training, cultural framework, adherance to the dieta, knowledge of Icaros, other admixtures - and being able to dedicate all their time to this practise. Sure we can make inroads into this, but it just aint the same thing.

Having said this, i have never met, or been guided by a Shaman, but from all accounts they REALLY know how to work the medecine - and this is something that deeply fascinates me.

Good subject - from my reading and my own experiences in North and South America, I have the perception that the shaman's role in his/her society is very practical: to keep a link to the "spirit world" for use in times of practical need - when someone is ill, either concretely (cancer, etc) or abstractly ("mal aire", when the tribe is hungry and needs to find food, or other times of practical need.

I see nothing wrong with wanting to have powerful experiences without having a concrete or practical, "real-world" intent, but also think that spice or other psychedelic use has a "negative return" attached to it: the more time one spends using the items without advancing concretely in the "real-world", the less interesting experiences they'll provide. If one devotes time and energy to personal or professional/tribal development in the "real world", and then uses the materials as a tool for evolving or reflecting this real-world development, the return will be much greater. Does this make sense?

I believe it depends on the shaman

Altough I couldn't ask for anything to add to my experiences.

I agree with purges that caapi is very important

This is hilarious because I was in fact, disputing this in my head as I was reading your post, up until I got to this part

The point I try to make is that I am in full agreement that harmalas add the Titanic's worth of extra magic to the experience. Without harmalas, I probably would never have had any of my godhead experiences, and they've really opened me up and shown me incredible things. Having said that, vaping DMT by itself results in a very "pure" experience, and sometimes the purity of which is palpable. For example, 4/5 times that I've made contact with the godhead was with harmalas. I had begun to think that access to that particular experience itself was restricted by harmalas (unattainable without), and then one day, I was caught up in a relatively boring "low-level" loop which god knows how ended up flourishing into a full on contact with the godhead. This experience was very special to me because it had this pure aspect of DMT that I don't really know how to explain other than using the word 'pure'. I've searched my vocabulary, and can find no other real way to describe it. Harmalas sort of blow up the visions in size for me, while DMT by itself has a bit more condensed and "packed" visions. Harmalas also definitely can add different flavors to the emotional content as well.

It really boils down to a matter of preference. Personally, I like to have the best of both worlds, so on Mondays I vape DMT by itself, and on Wednesday's I vape harmine followed by vaping DMT.

Whenever I mix harmalas into my dmt experience, I ritualize it up just a bit. Nothing too formal or pre-planned, but I create sacred space. Essentially just keeping calm, positive attitude all day leading up to the event, no death metal, no junk food, burn some white sage, re-arrange the furniture into "temple setting" and we're good.


If I did this 3 nights in a row, once a month forever, and started a liniage that did the same, we would surely develop our own tradition, something that felt less " just randomly teleporting around and getting glimpses of wierdness".



And this is why I also like straight dmt--it's nice to not always have to plan it out beforehand. This is my approach, feels right to me.

He he! I KNEW you wouldn't be able to resist

I don't think having a shaman present is necessary as shamanry is eveloving with the changing times. Normally we think of shamans from the rainforest or in the form of a medicine man but not necessary so now in this time of age. You now have groups of people in the city and other locations that you ordinarily wouldn't consider as traditional shamans with abilities equal if not moreso. I have always been skeptical of relying on trusting a person enough to partake on something so intimate, you really need to trust that person as just as much damage can be done if the right intentions are not there, as we are all human and the variable of not having the most pure intentions is definitely a concern.
I kinda feel the same goes with DMT as the molecule and its route of administrations are evolving as well. Maybe if there was a way to refine dmt into a smokable form it very well would have been developed and documented, instead the hallucinogenic snuffs such as yopo were the closest thing to an 'extract' of dmt.

Well..I think many people here are already shamans. I really do believe this. We are doing the same thing as any other culture does. I dont buy the idea that western people cannot have their own type of shamanism..

That said..I do agree with you in some ways..and this is in part how I feel about vaping DMT..sometimes I could navigate it etc..but often times it is just like a psychedelic blizzard that you cant do anything about but sit there in awe and watch it pass you by, or drown you like a tsunami.

Ayahuasca is just very different, as are other oral tryptamines like pislocybin. These allow me to interact more with the space and have real interaction with the spirits etc..

With ayahuasc I have also spirit allies that consistantly come to me to guide me and teach me etc..this might sound weird and loopy to some people but that really is how it is for me. These same spirits show up consistantly in my ayahuasca journies.

I think if people took the time to study other shamanic traditions and cultivate personal relationships with these plants and spirits, by both the nature of the dialogue they hold and maybe growing the plants at home as well..as opposed to just psychedelic experimentation. Not that experimentation is bad, just that there is a difference.

Sure, when people are extracting DMT from some foregin plant and then just blasting their heads off they are bound to get lost at times. People in the amazon I am sure feel the same way at times. Everyone starts at the beginning regulardless of where they origionate..maybe this is what seperates a future shaman from everyone else..that they are willing to get lost no matter the price so they can learn to hold their own in that space..I dunno..I get as lost as anyone else there often.

I think at the end of the day any shaman worth their weight will tell you that the true shamans are the plants. Without them there would be none of this...and well without the nervous system of the individual partaking there would be none of this either..

"I think about this sometimes as well. Here's my take on it: Shaman's don't use DMT on its own, and they certainly don't smoke it. This is a Gringo thing"

Well I have heard stories of some curranderos who actaully do love smoking DMT and think it is great. I doubt they would ever put away the ayahuasca for a pipe of DMT though.

DMT has also been rarely smoked and snuffed extensivly in amazonia for a long long time. I think some tribes did occasionally smoke virola calophyla resins.

This very subject has been at the forefront of my mind as well. It was nice to see somenone else dealing with it. I myself would love to have several ayah experiences under the guidance of a master but I also know that its not practical at this time for me to do it. They don't grow on trees around here and the retreats are currently out of my reach from a financial standpoint. I also know that ayah found me, I didn't find it, which inherantly gives me a sense of peace that it will show me what I need to see. I am totally not interested in "just" seeing all of the wierd stuff especially when I hear others mention entities. I have only had one breakthrough out of 3 attempts but I know why at least. It was my doing, the invitation was there. I may not be experienced yet enough to help here but at least you are not alone. And I agree in a sense, that we could all be somewhat shaman but I also know that the next big event on this earth to unfold will not identify us with any one particular group but rather unite all of us into one name and universal conciousness. Who knows what it will be called. Who cares really I just surrender to the experience and don't complain, and relax in knowing that it found me for a reason which I know will show itself with or without the presence of a Shaman.

I believe the crucial part of shaman's "session" is the ayahuasca songs or chanting.

Does anyone else think this way?

And where can I learn it?

just start vocalizing man, its amazing and can just flow right through you

I've given pure DMT to a shaman before and he loved it! He said he had the continuation of a vision he had when he was 13 years old. He asked me for more to take to his 90+ year old father, the main village shaman.. In the end I only had a couple of doses left which I gave to him but I think he used it in another ritual before he could take to his father back in his village. Anyways goes to show that this idea shamans dont find value in pure DMT is not really true at least in some cases.

Nice It's cool that you got a chance to do that end.

Peace

Macre

Shocking, he didn't even save his dad a servin

Shocking indeed!