Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic plant mixture used in a ceremonial context throughout western Amazonia, and its use has expanded globally in recent decades. As part of this expansion, ayahuasca has become popular among westerners who travel to the Peruvian Amazon in increasing numbers to experience its reportedly healing and transformative effects. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in and around the area of Iquitos, Peru, the epicenter of ayahuasca tourism, this paper focuses on some of the problematic aspects of western engagement with indigenous spiritual traditions. This engagement is usually based on idealized and romanticized notions of indigenous shamanism and an inability to digest its less palatable aspects, such as sorcery. Through ethnographic examples and ethnohistorical evidence, I show that the romanticization indigenous peoples is not benign. In fact, this one‐sided romantic image hides the complexity of indigenous peoples’ situations by erasing the injustices that they have experienced and continue to experience. I propose a more holistic approach to ayahuasca shamanism that views indigenous peoples not living in a fictitious harmony with nature but as people embedded in larger struggles and facing important challenges not the least of which is the recent commercialization of indigenous spirituality.
This paper reflects on potential contributions from anthropology to the field of “psychedelic science.” Although the discipline’s beginnings went hand in hand with colonialism, it has made significant contributions to the understanding of Indigenous knowledge systems. Furthermore, recent calls to decolonize our theoretical frameworks and methodology, notably the “ontological turn,” open up the space for engaging meaningfully with Indigenous worldviews. At this critical juncture of the “psychedelic renaissance,” it is important to reflect on whether the current model is satisfactory and on ways to decolonize psychedelic science. What we need is a shift in paradigm, one that will acknowledge the validity of Indigenous worldviews as equal partners to scientific inquiry. Acknowledging the contributions of Indigenous knowledges to psychedelic science is necessary and needs to go hand in hand with attempts to revise biomedical models to be more inclusive in substantial ways. The paper does not argue for the abandonment of the scientific paradigm, rather for the abandonment of its privileged position. Decolonizing psychedelic science will require allowing multiple perspectives to coexist and contribute equally to our efforts going forward.
a b s t r a c tHealing is an essential aspect of Amazonian mestizo shamanism. Not only is it one of the most commonly quoted motives for Westerners for participating in ayahuasca ceremonies, but most elements of an ayahuasca ceremony are aimed to heal and protect. This article is purely ethnographic, and its purpose is to provide insight into the ways healing is conceived by both ayahuasqueros and Western participants in the context of shamanic tourism in Iquitos, Peru. I show that illness is perceived to have physical, psychological, and spiritual dimensions, and healing is a complex process that takes place in and outside of ceremony. I show that a multitude of elements in a ceremony converge to address all three dimensions of illness, one of the most important ones being the element of personal crisis. Often present in healing narratives, the element of crisis becomes the catalyst for positive transformation, including physical, psychological, and spiritual healing. Rather than being seen as a singular event, healing in this context is seen as a process, in which the patient carries the responsibility for their own healing. k e y w o r d s : healing, ritual, shamanism, ayahuasca, Amazonia & i n t r o d u c t i o n Ayahuasca is above all, a medicine-the great medicine -Schultes and Hofmann (1992:122) Ayahuasca no es droga. Ayahuasca es medicina.
This article examines the phenomenon of shamanic tourism, which began in Amazonia in the 1980s. The author has researched the phenomenon since the early 2000swhile it was still at its infancy-in Iquitos, Peru, which is today considered the mecca of shamanic tourism. Contemporary Amazonian shamanism emerged as a response to the violent and disruptive process of the rubber boom; however, in the context of tourism, it is viewed as the healing force for bodily and mental ailments that stem from what is perceived as the West's spiritual impoverishment. The article reviews the phenomenon of shamanic tourism and the challenges it presents in the 21st century, situating it within larger scholarly conversations on ethnic tourism and cultural appropriation. Finally, potential avenues for future research are presented. [Amazonia, ayahuasca, shamanic tourism, shamanism] R e s u m e n Este artículo examina el fenómeno del turismo chamánico, que comenzó en la Amazonía en la década de 1980. He investigado el fenómeno desde principios de la década de 2000-cuando todavía estaba en su infancia-en Iquitos, Perú, hoy considerado la meca del turismo chamánico. Aunque el chamanismo amazónico contemporáneo surgió como una respuesta al proceso violento y disruptivo del auge del caucho, en el contexto del turismo, es visto como la fuerza curativa para las dolencias corporales y mentales que se derivan de lo que se percibe como el empobrecimiento espiritual del Occidente. El artículo revisa el fenómeno del turismo chamánico y los desafíos que presenta en el siglo XXI situándolo dentro de conversaciones académicas sobre turismo
Drawing from data collected during fieldwork from Westerners participating in ayahuasca ceremonies in the Peruvian Amazon, I discuss the ways they make contact with spirits. I particularly focus on the issue of sorcery, illustrating differences in the ways it is perceived by Westerners and Peruvians. I argue that although it is possible that both populations have the same or very similar experiences with ayahuasca, their subjective interpretations and metanarratives are quite different because of the very different cultural paradigms to which they have been exposed. In the Amazonian cultural framework, local ayahuasca users tend to interpret any negative or dark experiences during ceremonies as attacks, by malevolent shamans, hired by other members of their community. The more individualistic Western cultural framework leads Westerners to interpret these experiences as part of their own psychic processes. I found, however, this pattern to be challenged, in that Western shamanic apprentices have integrated the concepts of sorcery and shamanic warfare into their worldview. I discovered that, in many ways, a shamanic apprenticeship for a Westerner involves a radical shift in interpretations of shamanic experience. Certain personal experiences during my fieldwork, which I discuss in this article, challenged my own faith in the dominant anthropological paradigm-that shamanic experiences are culturally defined-as well as my largely secular worldview. [Keywords: shamanism, sorcery, ayahuasca, Amazonia, subjectivity]a nhu_1066 192..203 This article focuses on several experiences from my fieldwork in Iquitos, Peru, with Westerners participating in ayahuasca ceremonies, while engaging in a phenomenon I call "shamanic tourism." The pursuit and participation of Westerners in healing ceremonies, during which the Amazonian hallucinogen ayahuasca is ingested, is a relatively recent development. The increasing interest in ayahuasca shamanism in the West has caused a booming industry and an increase in the number of shamans and healing centers in several Latin American locations, Iquitos being one of the most important ones in the Peruvian Amazon. This phenomenon was the focus of my dissertation research in which I concentrated on the motivations of the Westerners as well as the ways they conceptualized and integrated their experiences in their lives. In this article I choose to focus on sorcery because it has been particularly challenging for me to understand; indeed, no amount of graduate seminars could have prepared me for my experiences with the topic. Some of these experiences challenged my faith in the dominant anthropological paradigm-that shamanic experiences were culturally shaped-as well as my own secular worldview.
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