As the ayahuasca tourism industry grows, so do accounts of abuse. rachmonroe reports
New York Magazine has launched a new investigative podcast series, Cover Story. The first season, “Power Trip,” is based on this Cut feature, which was originally published January 18, 2017. Listen to the trailer below, and follow the podcast to hear more about the truth behind the psychedelic renaissance.
The tourism is fueled by the personal testimonials of people who say the drug changed their lives — helping them to recover from trauma, quit drinking, or finally get over their childhood sexual abuse. “It’s been incredibly healing for me,” an American woman who went on an ayahuasca retreat last year told me. “It enables you to understand what can only be described in hymns or poems by Rumi. It was one of the crowning experiences of my life.
When Lily Kay Ross arrived in Ecuador in June 2012, she was planning to stay in the village for about ten weeks, working on a project for a nonprofit that equipped indigenous villages with media equipment and training. By that point, Ross had had a research interest in ayahuasca for four years, and she knew that the trip wasn’t entirely without risk. “It’s a lot of power in these people’s hands,” said Ross, whose research partly concerned itself with that power dynamic.
The rest of the day felt dreamlike and fuzzy. The shaman told her she wasn’t allowed to eat anything in preparation for the next ceremony. She called a friend back home and told him she and the shaman were in love. “I remember just listening to the words come out, totally numb, like my mouth wasn’t part of me, like my body was a machine and my mind wasn’t in control,” she said. That night, the shaman gave Ross ayahuasca.
Despite the advice to abstain from it, sex has become a common part of the ayahuasca experience. “Many young men and women show up at ceremonies in a highly open, receptive, compliant state,” wrote Chris Kilham, self-described ayahuasca thought leader, in The Ayahuasca Test Pilots Handbook, his 2014 guide for curious psychonauts. “They are open to experience, and some shamans want to be part of a more intimate experience than those who come to them might expect.
Supporters of ayahuasca’s healing effects are quick to point out that sexual misconduct isn’t an intrinsic part of the experience; it’s fueled more by the power imbalance between spiritual seekers and their guides than by any property of the drug itself. “I’ve taught yoga for 45 years. Yoga teachers can get laid any day of the week,” Kilham said, bringing up another potent student-teacher dynamic.
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