Will the Real Ayahuasca Tourists Please Stand Up?
Having drunk in nearly 25 Ayahuasca ceremonies with four different shamans from three different countries on two different continents, I still do not feel capable of defining exactly what makes an Ayahuasca ceremony “medicinal” or “authentic.” But I’m also convinced that I’ve never met an official “Ayahuasca tourist.” To me, the conversation about Ayahuasca tourism is usually a cloaked conversation about what constitutes a reverent psychedelic experience verses a recreational one. It’s an important conversation. Psychedelics have always been profoundly enlightening for me and hardly ever what I would call “fun.” Though I’ve had my share of psychedelic giggles, for the most part my “trips” have been sobering, painful and transformational. I remember the first night I ever tried a psychedelic. At the time I was addicted to morphine and methadone, was a habitual drinker and was living a sexually promiscuous lifestyle. One evening a friend brought mescalin for us to try at my apartment in
