Hi Nexians!

I would like to know your opinions on a topic that I've been thinking about a lot lately, that is, whether taking Ayahuasca in one's own home is as good as taking it in the traditional setting, a retreat in the Amazon jungle.

Now, many people will say that it's dangerous to take ayahuasca outside of the traditional setting, however, I've seen from the opinions of a few people on this site, that some of you may disagree.

What is your feeling on this issue? Feel free to share your opinions, thoughts and comments!

i hope i can provide more details later since i am planning my first ayahuasca session in february.
but for me personally i do not like the idea of a traditional retreat. tripping in a room full of other people is something very difficult for me as i like to be in control of all the set and setting aspects.
Also i read a lot recently about the shamans making a show out of themselfs instead of guiding the trip.

so for me - so far - i prefer tripping at home

I know that I have probably made my opinion on this subject clear in other threads but...

For me, at home is far superior and I also find pharmahuasca to be just as valuable but cleaner. I have sensitivity to tannins. I have much more control over set and setting.
Some of the practices for ayahuasca ceremonies in the jungle may be neutral or even beneficial to others. I find most of them to be annoyances that have a tendency to steer my trip into some dark places.

* lack of emergency medical services
* the wide use of tobacco during ceremonies
* I find the Icaros (singing) an annoying distraction. To me, it sounds like a syncopated version of speaking in tongues.
* lack of climate control (especially while I'm overheating)
* listening to people all around me purging is a distraction and makes me more nauseous
* too much new age BS
* too much dogma
* the unwillingness to treat or even recognize medical conditions with real medicine.

I could go on and on with more bullet points, but I'll stop there.

this is basically the list why i decided against a local retreat and decided to do it myself

First of all, thanks for the replies guys!



I've seen those threads, and you have indeed made your opinions on this subject very clear.

Your perspective on this issue, and that of jiva as well as reading about other people's bad experiences with ayahuasca in the jungle have made me reconsider my feelings on this issue. Jiva, you made some very good points about not being able to fully control the setting with ayahuasca in the jungle, and what you said makes a lot of sense.

The mainstream view amongst psychedelic advocates is that the traditional setting is the only correct setting for ayahuasca, and I've even heard people warning against using ayahuasca at home.

I also hear people say that you need to drink ayahuasca with a shaman because they "protect the space" and keep negative energies from harming you while your psyche is open and vulnerable due to the ayahuasca. What do you guys think of this?

I think if you're going to do it at home it's best to have a trip sitter your first couple times. Start off with a small dose and work your way up as the night goes on. If everything goes ok I would say you're probably good to go. I probably wouldn't do it if your living in a apartment or have a nosey neighbor. It's probably best to leave your phone in your car until the trip is over haha. I would have a couple Xanax on hand just in case things go wrong. This is just my personal opinion .........

ROFLMAO

This guy would probably say something similar if he were pedaling ayahuasca.

I should also qualify this with; If you are inclined to believe such statements then it may hold some truth for you. I just have disgust toward this cultish sort of religious exclusivity.

Personally I don't think anyone can truly master that realm. I believe that there's more fake shamans in the world than real ones. At the end of the day it comes down to set and setting. just my opinion...

There seems to be little that is traditional about ayahuasca retreats, so the question I would ask is why do you want to go to South America and participate in an ayahuasca ceremony of whatever sort?
-Do you want to go somewhere exotic and do something novel and have a (hopefully!) amazing holiday and learn about yourself and feel healed?
Then yes, if you can afford it, go to the Amazon, but don't forget to pack all your common sense and caution and prudence.
-Are you seeking treatment for something serious, a physical ailment or psychological problem such as addiction or PTSD?
Then no, seek out someone who can facilitate this in a more clinical setting, or organise it yourself with a friend, or someone who has done this themselves, or even with a stranger, but in an environment where you can get home, or get help in ways you are accustomed to should things go pear-shaped.

As for my opinions on Amazonian shamanism, it seems to me from what I have read that if you take away the ayahuasca, the psychedelic element of the experience, what you are left with is something that is almost indistinguishable from the traditions of folk-medicine and sorcery/witchcraft once common across Europe, and that are still to be found in parts of Southern and Eastern Europe.
I respect herbalism, and I respect the curative properties of the psychedelic experience, but for the rest of it, there are many reasons our ancestors turned our backs on it 100, or 200 years ago, and that it is ineffectual mumbo-jumbo is an important one, perhaps the main one.

Ayahuasca can be just as effective without the hocus pocus.

I would hope the "mainstream", if there is such a thing, would refer to the last 70 years of clinical research into constructive psychedelic use rather than the last 10 years of ayahuasca faddism when it comes to setting.

Reading this thread, I feel blessed to be among such an experienced folk, who clearly know all ins and outs of indigenous SA ayahuasca, who are also experienced in home drinking, so they can afford black-white. Cheers to that, who needs grey anyway?

Fair enough, but what part of indigenous Amazonian traditional medicine involves group ayahuasca consumption by foreigners who aren't sick?

Times are different now so I'll say it's better to do it home than in the jungle. The reasons why are pretty obvious, and have been pointed out already.

If you already drink ayahuasca, be sure some kind of purge will happen and at that point you don't want to puke your guts out and shit yourself in the jungle and then stumble in your own dirt. You also don't want be faced with the cold, rain and potential insects crawling on your skin in that vulnerable state.

If you're one of the individuals that are lucky and don't puke and have diarrhea, you're still going to feel bad. In my experience there's always some shivers involved, runny nose and eyes, sweat, nausea, alleviated heart rate with your ordination quite off. Let's take out the tripping part out of it, would you go outside if you felt that bad? I don't think so, you would most likely wrap yourself up in a blanked, sip some herbal tea, lay down and ride it out.

I've never personally went to the jungle and drank it, but I have been in nature and while the view is magnificent I wouldn't say it's worth it going through so much trouble and so far away from everything you might need like a bathroom just to please your eyes.

Some might argue that the psychedelic experience on it's own is never about being easy, and while I tend to agree I don't think you should be making it harder for you than it already is. That's just asking to mess yourself up, and catch a flu in the process. The trip is going to end at some point and than you'll be faced with dragging yourself home god knows in what state. Better have everything you need handy.

What do you want?

Do you want to travel to foreign lands to make some new experiences away from the safety net of your familiar surroundings, or do you just want to talk with a relatively small number of people and let them talk you out of doing what you might want to do?

The decision is yours, and in reality you might find that you were overly obsessing on negative thoughts and thinking about something that isn't based upon real life actual experience.

I've a very good source (someone who lives there partly and involved in traditional ayahuasca for many decades) how a part of Peru is like, and it's not cool and worsen. No way I dispute that, nobody did.
But this person I know is ready/able to perform the utmost traditional aya you can possibly think of, and present that to a group of people (locals and foreigners), both in Peru and in several other countries over the globe. If you call that non traditional then I do not know anymore what traditional means as this person is the ultimate traditionalist I can possibly think of, he is a flagship and carrier of traditional Peruvian ayahuasca, one of the most amazing icaro singers on earth. He is an exception to the rule, agreed, but if I know one, there can be easily more. Maybe we just don't know. It is to mention and honor these people that I took a stance against black-white generalizations. I hope you now get a better idea where I was coming from.

Yes and no.

In my (very imperfect but not entirely uninformed) understanding ayahuasca was taken, in therapeutic context, by the medicine man and -sometimes- also by the person who was -sick-.

One medicine man, one patient, perhaps some concerned relatives.

Is your source presenting ayahuasca to groups of locals and foreigners in this way?

I have also read of certain indigenous groups taking ayahuasca in groups recreationally, with singing but otherwise without ceremony. Maybe this is what your source does?

Also, does your source speak any of the languages of the ayahuasca using Amazonian peoples?
Spanish or I guess Portuguese would be appropriate for the Mestizo traditions, which are of course entirely complete and valid in their own right, but if one were to style oneself as a gung-ho traditionalist, I'd expect them to have gone to the length of learning the language of one of the Amerindian cultures in which ayahuasca use originates, or at least had likely pre-colombian traditions of use.

Language is kind of the litmus test for how deep a person who claims to have gone deep actually went.

Sorry if this sounds adversarial. I just find the ayahuasca tourism thing very weird, and it's my opinion that without the psychedelic element most people who are interested in ayahuasca would have zero interest in Amazonian folk medicine, shamanism and herbalism, just like they have zero interest in the scores of existing herbal and/or shamanic folkways and traditions that do not involve a psychedelic experience…

He does both at request and not making ethnic differences if a local or foreigners are involved, I guess he sees 'people'. His knowledge of the local language(s) is fluent as he lives there for a few months per year on his very own legs. He also brews for SD locally and abroad. He has a good knowledge of amazonian plants as medication for this is an imperative part of the shamanic path that he follows.

He makes no problem if a person is not drinking in the ceremony, as if for him that's not much different. I know because I've asked him for my GF and noticed others too.

But are we not a little searching for straws? "Indigenous" does not even exist as tribes all do things differently, how could one ever comply with such an elusive definition?

Maybe I just have to ask for your believing. This one person is a solo bird mainly, who get contracted for private or organizations (groups). In this way he does not represent the typical ayahuasca retreats. If the focus of this thread is about ayahuasca resorts then he falls out of the scope I guess. But I could not let the occasion pass to mention there are still traditional points of light nonetheless. That's all actually. Perhaps I got a little defensive to correct a potential generalization.

Ayahuasqueros are people just like us. They are not above us, nor are we above them, though we can learn alot from them.

Of course they have generations upon generations of traditional usage of these plants spread throughout pockets of the amazon. They've learned valuable 'tricks of the trade' and developed methods for navigating, but digging a bit within the literature you can read on these things [icaros's, dieta, methods of acoustical/rhythmic driving, etc].

I can say without any sort of doubt that preparing a brew and setting up the context and intent for ingesting the brew can easily be done within the proper setting [if you have the means and knowledge available to safely and responsibly do so]. You most certainly do not have to travel all the way to another country to drink. The several experiences I've had with various brews have been nothing short of extraordinary and reality-shattering.

I think self empowerment is important with these things, and self empowerment 'can' be a beautiful thing. Though with that said - we're all different, and while some have the means to ingest powerful brews within their residence - some don't quite have that luxury, so there's that to consider. Some feel that paying X amount of money and traveling to another country to drink with an ayahuasquero is the only way - which is fine too - if that's what they feel personally should be done.

At the end of the day it's your call as a free-thinking and able human being to choose which route you go.