Nathan A. Thompson - True Secrets of Psychedelics: Are They Everything They’re Cracked Up to Be?

On the heals of the Sam Harris article on hallucinogens I posted earlier today, here is a similar article from Salon. This article, however, focuses on psychedelics as a vehicle to open us up to the spiritual. But once we get a taste, the recommendation is to take up a practice that can provide continuous spiritual openness, not just for a few hours, until the drug wears off. In many ways, this too is what Sam Harris was suggesting.

True secrets of psychedelics: Are they everything they’re cracked up to be?

Mind-altering drugs can open us up to the amazing possibilities of the universe — but true self-discovery is harder

Sunday, Jun 8, 2014 | Nathan A. Thompson


A still from the movie "Enter the Void" of a DMT hallucination. (Credit: IFC Films)
The cactus skin arrived in the mail in a packet marked “for botanical examination only.” We whizzed it up in a blender. Two truant teenagers in an empty kitchen. We tried mixing the resulting green powder with water and drinking it. The taste was so foul it was all we could do to stop ourselves vomiting. In the end we mixed it with Cherry Coke to ameliorate the flavor and then we drank it all up.

The skin contained a naturally occurring psychedelic drug called mescaline. Soon, everything seemed to vibrate. It was as if the walls, windows, even the chairs were humming a low, beautiful melody. Then I noticed that we were speaking in colors. My friend’s words were blue swirls and mine were green. Our conversation curled and twisted in front of my eyes like smoke in a vacuum chamber. Later I held a glass of water, gazing at it for what seemed like an immensely long time, its utility swallowed up in its beauty and it seemed that the whole Earth existed within that glass and the thought occurred to me: “I’m in the presence of God.”

Ten years later I was staying in a tiny monastery deep in a Thai forest. I had been living and meditating there for close to a month. My mind was still — still in the way a tuning fork rests after being struck for a long time. I sat outside watching the fading light graze the trees, feeling egoless and empty of thought. Butterflies erupted from the green foliage in a movement that seemed so excessively beautiful I was thunderstruck and as I looked, I thought: “Damn, this is exactly like mescaline.”

It’s not just me who has made the link between psychedelic drugs and meditation. Indeed, the link between psychedelics and spiritual experience was the first line of inquiry Timothy Leary and his cohorts pursued in their 1960s Harvard experiments. In the 1990s, Dr. Rick Strassman ran a series of experiments using a powerful psychedelic known as DMT, and he too noticed the similarity: “[The effect of] DMT has a similarity with experiences that are possible with a lot of meditation,” he said.

Scientists are currently conducting separate studies on psychedelics and meditation — both are being trialed to treat the same conditions. A review study by the Journal of the American Medical Association, released in March this year, found that meditation may be as effective as medication in treating conditions such as depression and anxiety. Hot on the heels of this study was the Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Study at NYU’s Bluestone Center for Clinical Research, which found that Psilocybin (the active drug in “magic mushrooms”) was effective in treating anxiety and depression in terminal cancer patients. There are now dozens of studies that document how both meditation and psychedelics can treat depression, addiction, anxiety and PTSD.

So if psychedelics produce similar effects to long periods of meditation and other austere religious practices, could we have stumbled upon what Strassman calls “the spirit molecule”? Are psychedelics an alternative to spiritual practices?

Hardly, say the Buddhists. The second noble truth of the Buddha is that “the origin of suffering is the attachment to desire.” Psychedelics are by their nature an experience, a strange and beautiful one but often elusive. This creates a craving to have the experience again. It is this craving that is the Buddhist definition of discontent. Rather than freeing the mind from attachment, psychedelics create more.

Perhaps the gold standard to measure whether psychedelics are a good substitute for meditation is to see whether fundamental changes in character occur. A meditation instructor once told me: “When I took LSD in the ’60s, it was profound, but it didn’t help me develop the character to live from that truth day by day – without grounding in morality and mindfulness it was merely a flash of insight.”

Richard Alpert, who was one of the first psychologists to study LSD, and later became the spiritual teacher Ram Dass, has a similar view, “I see them [psychedelics] as a door opener and a catalyst and a facilitator; I don’t see them as a full path.” Alpert also describes what his Indian guru told him after trying LSD himself: “Your drug is useful. It would allow you to come in and have the darshan [vision] of Christ, but you can only stay for two hours and then you’ve got to leave. It would be better to become Christ than visit him, but your medicine won’t do that, because it’s not the true samadhi [enlightenment].”

But psychedelics are a catalyst for change, according to writer Graham Hancock. According to Hancock, the means you use to gain insight (whether they are psychedelics or meditation) are the least important aspect; “what matters is what you do with visionary experiences once you have had them, how you integrate them into your life, what lessons you learn from them and how you act on those lessons.” Indeed, according to follow-up studies from the scientific literature, the effect of the psychedelic experience does seem to sustain a positive change without the need to repeat it. Researchers at New York University reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry that their subjects reported a significant improvement in mood and outlook after six months.

This may be true of those individuals who have taken medical-grade psychedelics in a clinical setting, but what of the thousands of people who are doing so haphazardly, procuring them from the black market? Personally, I had a hard time integrating my visionary experiences with my real life. I was sometimes confused and frightened by what I saw. It was a relief then to find the well-trodden Buddhist path. Indeed, most mystical traditions have detailed maps covering the kind of mental and metaphysical spaces you pass through on the way to God. Buddhism has the “Jhanas,” yoga has stages of “Samhadi” and Sufism has “four stages”. These maps allow a teacher to help you process what comes up in your spiritual practice. Strict morality is always a prerequisite to walk such paths or they won’t teach you. These kind of healthy boundaries are what is lacking when you take psychedelics.

But supposing you don’t have the time to pursue rigorous meditation? Why spend years and (some would say) lifetimes rotting our butts on the meditation cushion when we can take the red pill and get it all at once?

I heard Zen priest Kokyo Henkel describe it this way: Imagine spiritual development is a mountain. Psychedelics will take you on a helicopter ride to the top, you will see tumbling clouds and vast craggy distances but when the ride is over you are back where you started. Meditation is a way to climb the mountain, slowly, sometimes painfully, but when you reach the summit it is completely different from the summit-top you saw on your helicopter ride, because the journey has transformed you.

Perhaps this is idealistic, and I certainly wouldn’t deny anyone the use of psychedelics for medical reasons or for spiritual advancement, if done so with wisdom and respect. Indeed, given the dire state of the biosphere and the ecological crisis, perhaps the human race is out of time to meditate ourselves into the enlightened consciousness needed to instigate change. Given that psychedelics tend to assure people of the fact that we are part of nature and connected to every person, plant and animal on Earth, perhaps we should be using them to create happier, more responsible citizens now.

Meditation and yoga have a long history of creating such people, and both have the advantage of being legal and safe as any intense religious activity can be. The immediacy of the psychedelic experience and its profound effects make these substances deserving of interest and study but we can’t yet say they are a viable alternative to the tried and tested spiritual paths.

When I look back on that mescaline-laced afternoon when I was a teenager, I remember a life-altering experience, something the mystics would call an “awakening.” But it was meditation that allowed me to begin to awaken permanently. Alan Watts summed it up when he said:

“The psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. If you get the message, hang up the phone.”

Read more from Nathan A. Thompson.

Yeah, you read that headline correctly. While ayahuasca is known primarily as a vision-producing entheogen (DMT is the primary active ingredient, when combined with harmaline), it has already shown remarkable power in helping people break deadly addictions (see here, here, and here for starters).

One of the people at the forefront of research into the medicinal uses of ayahuasca as has been Dr. Gabor Mate - in this 2013 article he talks about his work with these plants. Among the diseases he has been researching is cancer - and now there is additional and independent support for the evidence that ayahuasca can be a powerful cancer treatment.

Here is the abstract - the whole article is freely available online.

Ayahuasca and cancer treatment

Eduardo E Schenberg [1, 2]

1. Departamento de Psiquiatria, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
2. Instituto Plantando Consciencia, São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

Objectives: Comprehensively review the evidence regarding the use of ayahuasca, an Amerindian medicine traditionally used to treat many different illnesses and diseases, to treat some types of cancer.

Methods: An in-depth review of the literature was conducted using PubMed, books, institutional magazines, conferences and online texts in nonprofessional sources regarding the biomedical knowledge about ayahuasca in general with a specific focus in its possible relations to the treatment of cancer.

Results: At least nine case reports regarding the use of ayahuasca in the treatment of prostate, brain, ovarian, uterine, stomach, breast, and colon cancers were found. Several of these were considered improvements, one case was considered worse, and one case was rated as difficult to evaluate. A theoretical model is presented which explains these effects at the cellular, molecular, and psychosocial levels. Particular attention is given to ayahuasca’s pharmacological effects through the activity of N,N-dimethyltryptamine at intracellular sigma-1 receptors. The effects of other components of ayahuasca, such as harmine, tetrahydroharmine, and harmaline, are also considered.

Conclusion: The proposed model, based on the molecular and cellular biology of ayahuasca’s known active components and the available clinical reports, suggests that these accounts may have consistent biological underpinnings. Further study of ayahuasca’s possible antitumor effects is important because cancer patients continue to seek out this traditional medicine. Consequently, based on the social and anthropological observations of the use of this brew, suggestions are provided for further research into the safety and efficacy of ayahuasca as a possible medicinal aid in the treatment of cancer.

You can read the whole research article linked to above, or you can be satisfied with this summary written by Eric W. Dolan at Psy Post.

Psychedelic drug ayahuasca could help in battle against cancer, researcher says

By Eric W. Dolan on January 26, 2014

A powerful psychedelic brew consumed by shamans deep in the Amazon could help in the fight against cancer and should be researched, according to a Brazilian scientist.

Ayahuasca — meaning the “vine of the souls” – is traditionally prepared using the Banisteriopsis caapi vine and Psychotria viridis leaves, though other combinations of plants are sometimes used. Psychotria viridis contains N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) in the leaves, while Banisteriopsis caapi contains beta-carbolines such as harmine and harmaline.

For centuries, the psychedelic brew has been used in shamanistic healing rituals. A Natural Geographic reporter who participated in an ayahuasca ritual described the experience as “terrifying—but enlightening.”

Eduardo E. Schenberg of the Federal University of Sao Paulo thinks some of the healing powers attributed to ayahuasca deserve scientific attention, particularly when it comes to cancer.

“There is enough available evidence that ayahuasca’s active principles, especially DMT and harmine, have positive effects in some cell cultures used to study cancer, and in biochemical processes important in cancer treatment, both in vitro and in vivo,” he wrote in an article published in SAGE Open Medicine. ”Therefore, the few available reports of people benefiting from ayahuasca in their cancer treatment experiences should be taken seriously, and the hypothesis presented here, fully testable by rigorous scientific experimentation, helps to understand the available cases and pave the way for new experiments.”

Rumors of ayahuasca helping people with cancer are common, according to Schenberg, and there are at least nine case reports of cancer patients using ayahuasca during their treatment. Of these nine reports, three showed improvements after consuming the psychedelic brew.

Rumors and less than a dozen case reports are hardly substantial evidence. But the physiological effects of the drug suggests there might be some truth behind them, Schenberg said.

DMT produces a powerful psychedelic experience by binding to serotonin receptors in the brain. More importantly, for Schenberg, the drug also binds to the sigma 1 receptor, which is found throughout the body and is involved in many cellular functions. The sigma 1 receptor appears to be implicated in the death signalling of cancer cells.

In addition, harmine has been shown to induce the death of some cancer cells and inhibit the proliferation of human carcinoma cells.

Other physiological factors suggest the combination of DMT and harmine could have medically-important antitumor effects, though more research is need.

“In summary, it is hypothesized that the combined actions of β-carbolines and DMT present in ayahuasca may diminish tumor blood supply, activate apoptotic pathways, diminish cell proliferation, and change the energetic metabolic imbalance of cancer cells, which is known as the Warburg effect,” Schenberg wrote. ”Therefore, ayahuasca may act on cancer hallmarks such as angiogenesis, apoptosis, and cell metabolism. ”

DMT is currently prohibited as a Schedule I drug by the U.S. Controlled Substances Act and the international Convention on Psychotropic Substances. The drug is relatively unknown compared to other illicit substances like cannabis, but researchers have found that DMT appears to be increasing in popularity.

“If ayahuasca is scientifically proven to have the healing potentials long recorded by anthropologists, explorers, and ethnobotanists, outlawing ayahuasca or its medical use and denying people adequate access to its curative effects could be perceived as an infringement on human rights, a serious issue that demands careful and thorough discussion,” Schenberg wrote.

– –

Photo credit: Periodismo Itinerante (Creative Commons-licensed)

The Dark Side of Ayahuasca (Men's Journal)

In the March issue of Men's Journal, there are two interesting articles about the rising interest in Ayahuasca, both in the U.S. and as tourist trips to the Amazon. The first article, the one in the title, deals with the increasing corruption in the organized trips to Peru and other destinations. There have been rapes and assaults, and there are also "shamans," using that term lightly here, who are using powerful plants in their brews that are not appropriate for novices and not healthy in general. There have been deaths.

The second article looks at the popularity of Ayahuasca ceremonies in the U.S., with people such as Sting, Tori Amos, and Oliver Stone known to use it. Whenever something becomes big business, corruption is close behind.

The Dark Side of Ayahuasca

By Kelly Hearn Mar 2013

Every day, hundreds of tourists arrive in Iquitos, Peru, seeking spiritual catharsis or just to trip their heads off. But increasingly often their trip becomes a nightmare, and some of them don't go home at all.

Joshua Paul

Kyle Nolan spent the summer of 2011 talking up a documentary called 'Stepping Into the Fire,' about the mind-expanding potential of ayahuasca. The film tells the story of a hard-driving derivatives trader and ex-Marine named Roberto Velez, who, in his words, turned his back on the "greed, power, and vice" of Wall Street after taking ayahuasca with a Peruvian shaman. The film is a slick promotion for the hallucinogenic tea that's widely embraced as a spirit cure, and for the Shimbre Shamanic Center, the ayahuasca lodge Velez built for his guru, a potbellied medicine man called Master Mancoluto. The film's message is that we Westerners have lost our way and that the ayahuasca brew (which is illegal in the United States because it contains the psychedelic compound DMT) can set us straight.

Last August, 18-year-old Nolan left his California home and boarded a plane to the Amazon for a 10-day, $1,200 stay at Shimbre in Peru's Amazon basin with Mancoluto – who is pitched in Shimbre's promotional materials as a man to help ayahuasca recruits "open their minds to deeper realities, develop their intuitive capabilities, and unlock untapped potential." But when Nolan – who was neither "flaky" nor "unreliable," says his father, Sean – didn't show up on his return flight home, his mother, Ingeborg Oswald, and his triplet sister, Marion, went to Peru to find him. Initially, Mancoluto, whose real name is José Pineda Vargas, told them Kyle had packed his bags and walked off without a word. The shaman even joined Oswald on television pleading for help in finding her son, but the police in Peru remained suspicious. Under pressure, Mancoluto admitted that Nolan had died after an ayahuasca session and that his body had been buried at the edge of the property. The official cause of death has not yet been determined.

Pilgrims like Nolan are flocking to the Amazon in search of ayahuasca, either to expand their spiritual horizons or to cure alcoholism, depression, and even cancer, but what many of them find is a nightmare. Still, the airport in Iquitos is buzzing with ayahuasca tourism. Vans from shamanic lodges pick up psychedelic pilgrims from around the world, while taxi drivers peddle access to Indian medicine men. "It reminds me of how they sell cocaine and marijuana in Amsterdam," one local said. "Here, it's shamans and ayahuasca."

Devotees talk about ayahuasca's cathartic and life-changing power, but there is a dark side to the tourism boom as well. With money rolling in and lodges popping up across Peru's sprawling Amazon, a new breed of shaman has emerged – and not all of them can be trusted with the powerful drug. Deaths like Nolan's are uncommon, but reports of molestation, rape, and negligence at the hands of predatory and inept shamans are not. In the past few years alone, a young German woman was allegedly raped and beaten by two men who had administered ayahuasca to her, two French citizens died while staying at ayahuasca lodges, and stories persist about unwanted sexual advances and people losing their marbles after being given overly potent doses. The age of ayahuasca as purely a medicinal, consciousness-raising pursuit seems like a quaint and distant past.A powerful psychedelic, DMT is a natural compound found throughout the plant kingdom and in mammals (including humans). Scientists don't know why it's so prevalent in the world, but studies suggest a role in natural dreaming. DMT doesn't work if swallowed alone, thanks to an enzyme in the gastrointestinal system that breaks it down. In a feat of prehistoric chemistry, Amazonian shamans fixed that by boiling two plants together – the ayahuasca vine and a DMT-containing shrub called chacruna – which shuts down the enzyme and allows the DMT to slip through the gut into the bloodstream.

Ayahuasca almost always induces vomiting before the hallucinogenic odyssey begins. It can be both horrifying and strangely blissful. One devotee described an ayahuasca trip as "psychotherapy on steroids." But for all the root's spiritual and therapeutic benefits, the ayahuasca boom is as wild and unmanageable as the jungle itself. One unofficial stat floating around Iquitos says the number of arriving pilgrims has grown fivefold in two years. Roger Rumrrill, a journalist who has written 25 books on the Amazon region, including several on shamanism, told me there's "a corresponding boom in charlatans – in fake shamans, who are targeting foreigners."

Few experts blame the concoction itself. Alan Shoemaker, who organizes an annual shamanism conference in Iquitos, says, "Ayahuasca is one of the sacred power plants and is completely nonaddictive, has been used for literally thousands of years for healing and divination purposes . . . and dying from overdose is virtually impossible."

Still, no one monitors the medicine men, their claims, or their credentials. No one is making sure they screen patients for, say, heart problems, although ayahuasca is known to boost pulse rates and blood pressure. (When French citizen Celine René Margarite Briset died from a heart attack after taking ayahuasca in the Amazonian city of Yurimaguas in 2011, it was reported she had a preexisting heart condition.) And though many prospective ayahuasca-takers – people likely to have been prescribed antidepressants – struggle with addiction and depression, few shamans know or care to ask about antidepressants like Prozac, which can be deadly when mixed with ayahuasca. Reports suggested that a clash of meds killed 39-year-old Frenchman Fabrice Champion, who died a few months after Briset in an Iquitos-based lodge called Espiritu de Anaconda (which had already experienced one death and has since changed its name to Anaconda Cosmica). No one has been charged in either case.

Nor is anyone monitoring the growing number of lodges offering to train foreigners to make and serve the potentially deadly brew. Rumrrill scoffs at the idea. "People study for years to become a shaman," he said. "You can't become one in a few weeks....It's a public health threat." Disciples of ayahuasca insist that a shaman's job is to control the movements of evil spirits in and out of the passengers, which in layman's terms means keeping people from losing their shit. An Argentine tourist at the same lodge where Briset died reportedly stabbed himself in the chest after drinking too much of the tea. I met a passenger whose face was covered in thick scabs I assumed were symptoms of an illness for which he was being treated. It turns out he'd scraped the skin off himself during an understatedly "rough night with the medicine." Because of ayahuasca's power to plow through the psyche, many lodges screen patients for bipolar disorders or schizophrenia. But one local tour guide told me about a seeker who failed to disclose that he was schizophrenic. He drank ayahuasca and was later arrested – naked and crazed – in a public plaza. Critics worry that apprentice programs are churning out ayahuasqueros who are incapable of handling such cases.

Common are stories of female tourists who, under ayahuasca's stupor, have faced sexual predators posing as healers. A nurse from Seattle says she booked a stay at a lodge run by a gringo shaman two hours outside Iquitos. When she slipped into ayahuasca's trademark "state of hyper-suggestibility," things got weird. "He placed his hands on my breast and groin and was talking a lot of shit to me," she recalls. "I couldn't talk. I was very weak." She said she couldn't confront the shaman. During the next session, he became verbally abusive. Fearing he might hurt her, she snuck off to the river, a tributary of the Amazon, late that night and swam away. She was lucky. In 2010, a 23-year-old German woman traveled to a tiny village called Barrio Florida for three nights of ayahuasca ceremonies. She ended up raped and brutally beaten by a "shaman" and his accomplice, who were both arrested. Last November, a Slovakian woman filed charges against a shaman, claiming she'd been raped during a ceremony at a lodge in Peru.

Even more troubling than ayahuasca is toé, a "witchcraft plant" that's a member of the nightshade family. Also called Brugmansia, or angel's trumpet, toé is known for its hallucinogenic powers. Skilled shamans use it in tiny amounts, but around Iquitos, people say irresponsible shamans dose foreigners with it to give them the Disneyland light shows they've come to expect. But there are downsides, to say the least. "Toé," warns one reputable Iquitos lodge, "is potentially very dangerous, and excessive use can cause permanent mental impairment. Deaths are not uncommon from miscalculated dosages." I heard horror stories. One ayahuasca tourist said, "Toé is a heavy, dark plant that's associated with witchcraft for a reason: You can't say no. Toé makes you go crazy. Some master shamans use it in small quantities, but it takes years to work with the plants. There's nothing good to come out of it."

Another visitor, an engineer from Washington, D.C., blames toé for his recent ayahuasca misadventure. He learned about ayahuasca on the internet and booked a multinight stay at one of the region's most popular lodges. By the second night, he felt something was amiss. "When the shaman passed me the cup that night, he said, 'We're going to put you back together.' I knew something was wrong. It was unbelievably strong." The man says it hit him like a wave. "All around me, people started moaning. Then the yells and screaming started. Soon, I realized that medics were coming in and out of the hut, attending to people, trying to calm them down." He angrily told me he was sure, based on hearing the bad trips of others who'd been given the substance, they had given him toé. "Ayahuasca," he says, "should come with a warning label."

Kyle's father, Sean, suspects toé may have played a part in his son's death, but he says he's still raising the money he needs to get a California coroner to release the autopsy report. Mancoluto couldn't be reached for comment, but his former benefactor, the securities trader Roberto Velez, now regrets his involvement with Mancoluto. "The man was evil and dangerous," he says, "and the whole world needs to know so that no one ever seeks him again." Some of Mancoluto's former patients believe his brews included toé and have taken to the internet, claiming his practices were haphazard. (He allegedly sat in a tower overseeing his patients telepathically as they staggered through the forest.) One blog reports seeing a client "wandering out of the jungle, onto the road, talking to people who weren't there, waving down cars, smoking imaginary cigarettes, and his eyes actually changed color, all of which indicated a high quantity of Brugmansia in Mancoluto's brew."

Shoemaker says that even though the majority of ayahuasca trips are positive and safe, things have gotten out of hand. "Misdosing with toé doesn't make you a witch," he says. "It makes you a criminal." Velez, whose inspirational ayahuasca story was the focus of the film that sparked Kyle Nolan's interest, is no longer an advocate. "It's of life-and-death importance," he warns, "that people don't get involved with shamans they don't know. I don't know if anyone should trust a stranger with their soul."

* * * * * 

Here is the sidebar piece on Ayahuasca use in the U.S.

Ayahuasca at Home: An American Experience

By Alexander Zaitchik Mar 2013

A subculture of ayahuasca enthusiasts are bringing herbal "trips" to a city near you.

Terpsichore

Until recently, Americans wanting to test the curative and visionary powers of ayahuasca had to venture into the jungles of South America. But over the past decade, the shamans leading the ceremonies have begun to follow the visitors back north to conduct ceremonies in the States. Ayahuasca has developed into a full-fledged, increasingly trendy subculture in the U.S. On any given weekend, dozens of ceremonies take place across the country. "Drinkers" span a wide social spectrum, from pop stars and film directors – Sting, Tori Amos, and Oliver Stone are known to use it – who fly in their own shamans for lavish monthly ceremonies in West Hollywood, to the 20-something waitresses and teachers I sat with recently in a small Brooklyn yoga studio. "It is fascinating that this new, fairly extensive scene has grown so fast and continues to fly under the radar," says an observer. "It's still growing. I keep waiting for the law-enforcement hammer to come down."

U.S. law classifies any substance containing DMT as Schedule-I, meaning it has the potential to harm and offers no medical benefit. Since almost all the shamans brew at home, they must smuggle the finished concoction into the country, thereby facing the same risk as if they were carrying heroin. A highly regarded shaman who splits his time between running a retreat in Ecuador and conducting ceremonies abroad explained that Latin American security officials understand that ayahuasca is a medicine, not a drug, and rarely flag it. He says they also rely on UPS. "Most law-enforcement agencies have better things to do," he says, "than hinder peaceful users of medicine." In 2010, however, the well-known Colombian shaman Juan Agreda Chindoy was arrested on arrival in Houston when jars of viscous fluid in his luggage tested positive for DMT. The charges were later dropped – with a diplomatic assist from the Colombian embassy – but Chindoy faced up to 20 years in prison.

For drinkers, the legal risk is negligible: There is not a single instance of an ayahuasca ceremony being raided stateside. The cost of a single nighttime ceremony ranges from $150 to $300 per person, with an average sitting consisting of 10 to 12 drinkers. Weekend "packages" easily cost $1,000 or more, depending on the setting. Of late, something of an ayahuasca star system has developed, with some respected shamans in high demand in certain cities or circles. Some of these new globe-trotting shamans maintain the traditional trappings of the ceremony – chanting, blowing smoke, shaking leaves – while others have reinvented the ceremony as a New Age therapy. Until recently, most shamans operating in the U.S. issued general pre-ceremony warnings that adhered to the so-called Roller Coaster Rule: Those who would not ride a roller coaster (people with heart conditions, pregnant women) should not drink ayahuasca. Lately, the warnings have grown more specific, and the list of disqualifying conditions has grown. An email I received recently from a shaman touring the U.S. barred from participation anyone with a recent history of using or having "antidepressants, anxiety medications, painkillers, or anything similar; heart or liver dysfunction; drug or alcohol abuse." This shaman, who wished not to be identified, has an excellent reputation in Peru and in the U.S. He possesses all the qualities a prospective seeker should look for: He's native to the Amazon, claims to control his brewing process from start to finish, and is conservative when doling out portions to beginners.

The growing number of fly-by-night shamans and outright frauds has made screening essential. Websites like ayahuasca.com, realitysandwich.com, and evolver.net offer easy entry points to the would-be novitiate interested in locating ceremonies and sharing experiences. Despite its growth, it's unlikely the scene will ever gain the profile or popularity of so-called classic psychedelics, like LSD and mushrooms. Which is probably just as well: Ayahuasca's intensity places a serious limitation on its growth potential. It is the opposite of a party drug, a viscerally intense, multihour journey and ordeal in which, veterans say, "you earn what you learn." In a relatively short amount of time, it can help you identify and address the root causes of physical and psycho-spiritual ailments, but the visions are terrifying as well as sublime — and the confrontation with them is emotionally, spiritually, and physically demanding. The vine of souls, as ayahuasca is known, is not for everyone.