Ayahuasca: Rituals, Potions and Visionary Art from the Amazon

I was listening to BBC Radio 2 several days ago. It was about 5.30pm, which means about six million listeners. The comedian Simon Amstell came on the air to discuss his new book Help. To my great surprise, he talked candidly about his journey to the Amazon to do a spiritual retreat that centred around ingesting the healing medicine ayahuasca. He discussed how through the rituals he experienced a feeling a deep connection with the universe, with the plant spirit that ayahuasca is said to channel, and how was given insights into how he unrepressed memories that had led to chronic depression. He described the retreat as a turning point in his life that healed his depression.

This review is not about Amstell's book, but I wanted to mention his conversation on Radio 2 because this was a clear sign for me that ayahuasca has irrefutably moved out of the fringes of culture towards the mainstream. This radical increase in popularity and acceptability holds much promise but also much risk, so a scholarly and informed take on ayahuasca is much needed. The book under review - Ayahuasca: Rituals, Potions, and Visionary Art of the Amazon – fills that need. It is a rich anthology about the history, botany, anthropology and psychology of ayahuasca.

Part 1 describes what ayahuasca is (a mix of ayahuasca liana combined with leaves from the Amazon that contain DMT), and discuss how it is turned into a drink including actual recipes. This part of the book also describes other sister medicines that work alongside ayahuasca as healing companions, including coca, tobacco (yes, tobacco is healing if not abused), and copal (incense).

Part 2 is an account of the visions within the ayahuasca journey, and the artistic depiction of ayahuasca experiences. The chapters in this part discuss the patterns, signs and signatures of these visions, including the meanings of zizags, spirals, circles, crosses, and animal symbolism. It then discusses ayahuasca music, including that used by shamans, but also rock and electronic music that is inspired by ayahuasca (although not mentioned in the book, I recommend the album Wake Up Now as a great example of ayahuasca-inspired folk music). Finally, ayahuasca-inspired art from the jungle to the contemporary West is described and discussed from the perspective of an anthropological lens.

In Part 3, the rituals of ayahuasca are described from a participatory standpoint, including the spiritual and religious contexts of these rituals. The medium of song is described as central to all such rituals. Music functions within the rituals as a kind of moving platform to transport the participant into other levels of reality. Shamanic rituals stemming from Peru, Brazil, Ecador and Columbia are described, including interviews with shamans who work within different traditions. I love this description of the spiritual practice of taking ayahuasca, being contrasted here with the quietening inner techniques of the east:

"The Amazonian technique to stop the babbling and chattering inner voice, to silence the never-ending commentator, is not to go more and more quiet. No, it is to throw oneself into a hurricane, into the dizzying vortex created by the ayahuasca effect. That all-encompassing experience shuts down the commentator as well, replacing it with another voice, the voice of ayahuasca, the voice of the jungle. Here, wisdom comes from outside…by drinking ayahuasca it is possible to cross the border between life and death, to meet the ancestors, to encounter the source of life." (p. 253)

The ayahuasca rituals of a number of South American churches are also described, including those of the Santo Daime church, which calls ayahuasca 'Daime'. Santo Daime has particular relevance for Europeans, as in the Netherlands ayahuasca is legal for religious purposes, which in turn means that ceremonies are usually anchored loosely in the Santo Daime tradition. It was through this Santo Daime styled Dutch tradition that I had my own experience of ayahuasca within a three-day workshop.

Westerners who have used ayahuasca are interviewed in the final section of the book, and the lurking pitfalls that sit in the interaction between Amazonian shamans and Western seekers are discussed. It describes the dangers of doing DIY ayahuasca ceremonies in the West without the shamanic holding space. To use my own metaphor on this matter, ayahuasca is like a rocket, and while it can help you to reach the stars or reach other planets, trying to launch a rocket in the wrong place and at the wrong time is highly unlikely to lead to good results. Certainly not in your back garden.

Despite the risks involved in working with ayahuasca, the three authors argue that it has universal significance for humankind, for, they argue, it reveals the true nature of reality to be far greater that which we experience in normal waking consciousness, and also it shows that death is not the end. It is an awakener.

This is a rich book, full of knowledge, deep understanding and wisdom from three authors who have endeavoured to make sense of ayahuasca from both the perspective of the indigenous tribes of the Amazon and also from Western spirituality. If you are one such Westerner feeling drawn by the call of mother ayahuasca, when you go, take a copy of this book with you.