If youre in the amazon area you will actually hear lots of these storys , its not uncommon.

Fortunately that is a minority opinion.

Shamanic practices world wide need to be protected, preserved and shared. the practices need to be taught. Through the teachings bring on new aprentices and new shaman.

its unfortunate that every group has its 2%. Ending aya tourism is a knee jerk reaction that is not good. Many travel a long ways to attend these ceremonies to return to their communities and share the knowlege they have learned.

There is always going to be some bad apples.

Another way to mention my opinion is looking at places that have been ruined by tourism over time: Such as Goa and gokarna in India, Koh phangan in Thailand, most Parvati valley villages.

And these have been messed up for fact, compared to what they were.

Therefore when I say that shamans shouldn't be made tourist destinations, it's easy to see from these places what the tourist flood can do a peaceful and "soulful" place.

By what I understand, the guy was quite experienced, had made his own brew with no shaman present and as he purged he also gasped at the same time and sucked vomit into his lungs resulting in asphixiation (sp?). Must have been a rough ride.
Some folks seem to be making judgements and jumping to conclusions on some pretty sketchy info. heck, he's probably a decent guy and deserves our prayers for a full recovery.

Yep...aspiration followed by an aspiration pneumonia would fit the time-line. This quite plausible occurrence would manifest (over hours or a day or two following the seemingly trivial aspiration) as a rapidly growing hypoxia leading ultimately to a coma if untreated or under-treated.

N.B.

I wonder why there is such anger directed towards the nexus...and lots of false accusations being made.

I wish the guy all the best now we know the cause.

That link is showing all the information we need, thank you for showing this to us Dagger.


A few interesting quotes that will show what is really happening (I hope you agree with this shoemaker):






I am not sure if you read this thread regularly shoemaker but if you do, then please know that we all here at the DMT-Nexus hope the best for Jacek. At times it's hard to get the real story behind the headlines and when speculation gets in the way the story has the tendency to derail into something bad.

In the mean time, is there anything we as the community can do? In the first post it was mentioned that finance was maybe a problem? I think that if needed some donations aren't a bad thing? I think it doesn't need explaining why it is important for Jacek to get well soon.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

EDIT: I've send shoemaker a PM at the Ayahuasca Forum to notify him of this post.

Looking at the thread at AF it isn't really anger towards the DMT-Nexus that I see, but more the lack of response in general to the situation of Jacek that makes shoemaker angry. And together with the wild speculation in this thread before the post that Dagger made I think he actually has a point.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

Thanks for the link that brings a bit more information towards the whole case. Corpus callosum or others with medical knowledge, could you please give us your words on how can breathing vomit end up inducing coma? Lack of oxygen to the brain for too long? Or is there some other mechanism that could account for it?

In any case lets hope he can come out of this safely!

if donations would help I'd def. be up for it, even if I can only make a small contribution. Otherwise I certainly send my best wishes to the struggling spirit.

I think speculations are normal, if you don't have all the info like shoemaker. But now that we have, the topic can grow into more constructive patterns. I did not even know anyone had more information about that guy leave alone having ways of helping him. People on here have donated in the past and i myself believe that this kind of support net is crucial if you take into account that virtually everyone else is against the kind of work we do.

I didn't know either obliguhl, that anyone had first hand information and ways to help him. I'm glad we have a good source now. And so true with your last line.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

I don't agree with the statement that taking ayahuasca is by definition dangerous to do by yourself.

I know a man who accidentally got a piece of food in his lungs because he had to sneeze while he was eating.
That doesn't make eating by yourself a dangerous thing either.

I can understand the emotions of the guy posting this, but most people here where just responding to a headline in some swedish paper, thinking this was another example of ayahuasca getting bad press like in the british 'ayahuasca-bust' article.

Both in having deep and profound spiritual experiences and in how society does not always accept the use of these sacraments, DMT and ayahuasca users are pretty much in the same boat and the notion of a sort of divide between people on the ayahuasca forum and the DMT forum doesn't seem constructive at all to me.

Everybody here including me, hopes that this guy will be alright soon and we all wish the best to the ones close to him.

I also think i can speak for everybody here if i say that we're deeply sorry if this thread was percieved as hurting for, and not doing justice to jacek and his loved ones.

Shoemaker or others, if you are reading this: i sincerely mean this.

If there is a plan for donations, then you can also count me in btw.

Exactly. For me it has been a matter of defending ayahuasca against the tabloid press. It was certainly not my intent, to be "heartless". But if you read a news headline you can be almost certain that you don't know anything besides that something propably has happened to someone.

I also researched the rape case. It seems like the person in question never drank ayahuasca but got some kind of date rape drug instead. As horrible as it is, i despise the press for the constant slander of these beautiful allies.

A date-rape drug that would be confused with ayahuasca, used in south-america. The odds are high that it was datura/brugmansia.

It's often used in south american countries for those kind of purposes.
And though it is sometimes used in small quantities as an admixture in ayahuasca, it is absolutely a totally different kind of drug then ayahuasca, as people on the nexus know.

It's like comparing LSD to strychnine...oh wait, that's also one of those urban legends that keeps perpetuating itself endlessly.

Im not privy to the ayahuascaforum but from whats been posted about the details of the guy aspirating during a purge, his coma would be probably due to a number of known contributing factors.

It also depends on his pre-exisiting state of health.

Acid in vomit going into the lungs causes a chemical pneumonitis which is ideal brewing ground for the usual bugs down there to proliferate, plus others which were in the gastric contents and back of throat/nose.Depending on how fit the lungs were this could cause problems within an hour to upto 2-3 days-ish.

The dehydration from heavy purges in a tropical climate could result in a degree of renal impairment which can debilitate further.

As the lungs fill with pus and the chemically damaged lung is also looking in bad shape its more likely to allow bugs in this muck and bits of lung tissue to enter the blood stream causing a bacteremia and potentially effects on blood clotting and many other organs .Without treatment and in the presence of marked dehydration then the ultimate result can be multi-organ failiure, as the lungs and kidneys together are vital for getting enough O2 in and waste out/pH normal that if both are not well, the condition can progress fast.

So a combination of hypoxia, a degree of renal failiure and a marked fever due to brewing septicemia is enough to put you into a coma.There are other complications that septicemia, hypoxia and acidosis can produce on many organs as well including the brain.A vital part of his correct management would definitely include cranial imaging should it be available.


If the real sequence of postulated events is anywhere, it will be in his notes, synthesised in the history, the exam and test findings.I wish him a full and speedy recovery.

Glad we could clear this stuff up, i´m pissed of that the news use these unusual but bad examples of ayahuasca experiences to slander this holy medicine...

Also read a story about some people in sweden getting "poisoned" by shrooms, i guess getting a bad trip= poisoned around here since they didnt mention anything about them getting sick...

I think all of this is a reaction aginast psychedelic drugs in general since they are getting more popular and losing some of the bad rep they have gotten, so they try to relabel them as bad again.

Misinformation/disinformation in the media is a real problem, as is the focus on rare mishaps with psychedelic drugs. Unfortunately there seems to be some willful ignorance about psychedelics in the medical establishment.
Just the other day, a friend who works in a psychiatric wing of a hospital told me that a patient had come in with what the people in charge where listing as an "LSD overdose". No tests had been done and apparently they hadn't even listened to the patient. He had taken LSA + something that a friend had extracted. He also tested positive for amphetamines. I imagine LSA plus amphetamines might cause some negative reactions. The doctors still insisted it was an LSD overdose after they learned this information. Said the patient was lying because he didn't want to admit he had taken an LSD overdose. Ridiculous.
There's always someone somewhere with an agenda to demonize use of any substance that isn't alcohol, nicotine, caffeine or a profitable pharmaceutical. I hope ayahuasca/dmt aren't firmly in the crosshairs.

I sincerely hope Jacek recovers from this horrific accident and gets to enjoy plenty more ayahuasca journeys.

Also i really hope that the society could find something else to blame and point their finger at.