Hi everyone

First Nexus post!!! I have wanted to write something mildly interesting for such a long time but until now I had nothing to say that would interest any of you in the slightest I am sure!!

Anyway:

I recently ran into an old friend of mine. This friend went to Peru with a big group of her friends to do Ayahuasca sometime last year, and one of them allegedly came back with a negative entity attached to her which ultimately destroyed her life.

That's the short story. In fact, while on retreat in the jungle, the person in question had decided she wanted to rent a small bungalow not far from where the ayahuasca ceremony was taking place. At one point, she decided to go back to the said bungalow because she wasn't feeling well and sometime after, the shaman and one of her friends came to get her and bring her back to the ceremony because the shaman apparently saw negative entities in the vicinity of where she was staying and told her she would be much safer if she came back to the hut, or whatever you call it. Things started to go wrong the next day. She refused to do anymore ceremonies, packed her stuff and left one morning without even telling anyone she was leaving (I am paraphrasing here, this was the impression my friend gave me!)

Since that event, she has quit her job, gone into a massive depression, broken up with her fiancé, started drinking a lot, stopped answering calls from her friends and family and not leaving the house at all. She is convinced that it's because a negative energy followed her out of the jungle and is possessing her soul, something like that. Apparently this is most unusual behaviour for her, she has no history of depression, drug abuse or mental illness. Quite the opposite in fact.

I was skeptical to be honest. I thought perhaps she probably had underlying mental issues, something like than, but by pure coincidence I recently started reading The Cosmic Serpent, and now I am not so sure.

What are your thoughts please?

Welcome to the nexus FragBabyZ.

Nobody realy knows the answer to this question.

But the fact that she believes she is being plagued by an entity or a negative energy, matters an awfull lot. Even the most sceptic minds would have to admit that just telling someone in such a situation that it's all just in their head is a pretty useless thing to do.

I'm thinking of a line from that inception movie:

"an idea is like a virus, resilient, highly contagious. And even the smallest seed of an idea can grow. It can grow to define you or destroy you".

This is definately true in my view. Buddhists would maybe say that we don't posses our ideas, but that our ideas posses us.
But i think everybody has probably experienced this at least once: an idea that you just can't get rid of, and that in some way has a power over you that you feel it shouldn't have. Like people who're afraid of swimming pools after having seen jaws for instance.

The application of occams razor, wich ofcourse is not proof of anything by any means, would suggest that the mere existance of the idea of evil spirits should be enough to realy mess up someone's life quite a bit, and thus that actual evil entities are not at all required to get yourself in a situation like that of your friend.

I unfortunately don't have any usefull advice for your friend beyond the common sense ones like not drinking that much or getting some good sleep. There could be so many underlying causes that haven't been adressed, like traumatic experiences, burnout, a psychotic break, OCD, etc. And i'm not a doctor, so i'm not gonna diagnose anyone.

Just try to be a good friend is probably the best advice i'm able to give you here.

It is usually rule that you should stay in the ceremonial space until the ceremony is over, because you are very open and there are lots of complex spiritual processes taking place and the energy of the ceremonial space helps you safely go through this.

Maybe this should be handled the way it started, by consulting an Ayahuasca curandero (or even the same shaman if possible) and if they recommend attend another ceremony.

Meanwhile, if there is anything to help her with stopping the drinking and anchoring to everyday healthy things, that sure would help to stabilize the situation.

A classic approach would be along Tomtegubbe's: get in again, deeper again, to let it explode totally by profoundly crossing duality borders. The entity and it's shenanigans becoming meaningless from that perspective along with the rest. A cosmic joke remaining, can't stop laughing result.

Would it work? Nobody can say. Could become an even bigger problem if the stalemate ain't shattered.

Loving this one!!

She probably should've stayed in the ceremony. Those are set up as processes and she left in the middle of it. It's understandable, but likely her downfall.

To reinforce Dr, no one knows really.

Myself as an example, I'm highly skeptical, even of my own experiences. That said, I feel that I've inherited a handful of entities from hyperspace that are in touch amd contact eith me even when I'm not on DMT. They're supportive, jestery, encouraging, etc. Now, does this mean that they are objectively different from me, say, in the same way you are? Possibly. Could it be a function of my own mind giving me this experience? Possibly. Could it be a mix of the two? Possibly.

It comes back to what Dr said; if we believe it, then at the very least it becomes phenomenalogically real, which is what subjectively matters at the end of the day.

I'd encourage some exercises in critical thought to help with reinterpretation and perspective along with helping them get back to better habits.

I am curious, what was your friend's reason or intent for doing aya?

One love

I doubt it, because, if entities are real in the first place (externally, at least) then they are probably always in the real world - just not perceivable in our sober perception of it.

But, real or not, it's possible to bring back the 'energy' of an entity as I see it. An entity that left a strong impression on the person will probably leave the person feeling as though their presence might still be there and influencing them - in the same way that murderers or those accidentally responsible for the death of someone might feel that their ghost is haunting them. That strong impression combined with our deeply rooted notion of the supernatural and possession could make one feel as though they have truly been possessed by an entity they encountered in the experience.

Others did a great recap.

I'm gonna carefully answer because my skeptical thinking already caused some conflicting responses here...

The idea of enteties didn't come from nowhere, often times when hallucinogens (not strictly psychedelics only) are involved there comes a strong sense of something external.

It might be that the brain manifests feelings of impending doom as a presence.

I don't believe in entities personally, but I felt something similar to that first hand myself. Sometimes in dreams as well, and it can feel real... sometimes predicting events that have not yet happened.

What happened to your friend seems more in the lines of experiencing a break. The Shaman picked up on that and has seen that if he doesn't prevent it, it might go the wrong direction.

And it did...

It's sad to hear that it happened this way, because it was actually preventable.

It started with an insecurity, and some cognitive dissonance and produced a chain reaction that resulted in various outcomes.

It doesn't sound like underlying mental illness as well, it is a crisis.

Crises can be treated, but the damage done is sometimes permanent.

It might take a while, but don't give up on her. Sometimes it takes years for people to get back on their feet, but with the right support a positive transformation is possible.

Good luck, sincerely.

I think yes!

I 100% agree with what dragonrider said:




What I would like to contribute is that "the important part of the journey begins when we return to our body"

That is, the interpretation we give to what we have lived is crucial in how we integrate the experience. I've had trips that I can describe as "very rough", where what surrounded me were shapes that I call "the tar". Dark and unpleasant shapes, bubbling, suffocating me, in my case they appeared to me as if I had to see them, to understand something. My interpretation was that these "entities" were operating in me, they were parts of myself, that they were harming me, that were harming others. Parts that I needed to see and understand in order to remove them from my system. So that later in my day-to-day life, I could recognize them and try not to let them dominate my life.

Here inside we are legion and they say that "we are not the voices that listen, but the entity that listens to them". In psychedelic experiences "we see things about ourselves" But then we are the ones who must put in the effort every day to fix ourselves.

On the other hand, I have seen people who, after an experience, leave their partner, leave their job, start doing things they had forgotten they liked. I didn't have to do or say anything, they would start fixing themselves, "I didn't remember I was so strong, why am I so scared of losing X?"


And I've also come across cases where these experiences not only didn't help them, but fell deeper into their pathology. I thought I could help everyone with DMT, but there are cases where a specialized, multidisciplinary group should take over. I'm talking about psychedelic therapy supervised by a team of therapists.

LSD Psychotherapy by Stanislav Grof is a fantastic book, I'm sure there must be such therapies today. Maybe there are psychotherapy groups with psychedelics in the area where you live. In my opinion, I think that a rational approach can be beneficial, because in traditional rituals they tend to "condition" people, interpreting for them what they have seen, with things such as "evil spirits are chasing you", "you have seen the pacha mama", etc. Denying the possibility that it is the same person who gives them interpretation.

I hope your friend finds a way to get through it. Remember that we can't help anyone, we can only give them options and accompany them in the decisions they make, even if they are not what we expect.