‘Whatever you want to believe’: kaleidoscopic individualism and ayahuasca healing in Australia

Abstract

Over the last fifteen years the use of the indigenous Amazonian psychoactive beverage ayahuasca has been reimagined in alternative healing circles of Western countries. This paper explores the practice of ayahuasca neoshamanism in Australia and examines ways in which acts of vomiting and ecstatic trance-visions involve heightened affective states and moral projects of healing. Aspects of everyday life are purged, rearticulated, and reconstituted in rituals where codes of conduct and discursive exchange encourage practices of personal evaluation and reflexivity that appear to index ideologies of individualism. Through exploring social and discursive prohibitions and forms of sensory organisation, the practice of drinking ayahuasca in Australia is shown to be constituted by ritual conventions that define the individual as autonomous and responsible in relation to ecstatic trance and articulations of wellbeing.

The potential synergistic effects between psychedelic administration and nature contact for the improvement of mental health

“…The capacity of psychedelics and nature contact to increase a sense of connectedness is notable, as a sense of ‘disconnection’, alienation or isolation has been implicated with a broad range of mental illnesses including eating disorders ( Huemer et al, 2011 ), bipolar personality disorder ( Kverme et al, 2019 ), PTSD ( McDermott et al, 2012 ) and depression ( Karp, 2017 ; Sorajjakool et al, 2008 ; Watts et al, 2017 ). Interestingly, feelings of disconnection from nature and other humans are not uncommon insights described by psychedelic users (St John, 2018 ), and this disconnection is frequently viewed as a source of health and societal problems, with these substances perceived to partly facilitate healing by amending this disconnection ( Fotiou, 2012 ; Gearin, 2015 , 2017 ; Schmid, 2013 ; St John, 2018 ; Watts et al, 2017 ; Winkelman, 2013 ). Connectedness is considered a key predictor and mediator of well-being ( Capaldi et al, 2015 ; Cervinka et al, 2012 ; Lee et al, 2008 ; Saeri et al, 2018 ; Zelenski and Nisbet, 2014 ), in addition to a factor linked to recovery of mental health, including recovery from depression and addiction ( Drake and Whitley, 2014 ; Leamy et al, 2011 ).…”

Ayahuasca: Uses, Phytochemical and Biological Activities

“…In synthesis, the pharmacologists said that the ayahuasca is for the trance or “conscience expansion,” while the tradition said that are “visionary substances” [69]. From this last perspective, an individual may encounter “intelligent spirit beings,” as well as visions and journeys; from biomedicine view, these visions are merely labeled as hallucinations [110]. Thus, the use of ayahuasca is interpreted according to worldview [69].…”

It’s all you! Australian ayahuasca drinking, spiritual development, and immunitary individualism

“…‘Holding space’ is a critical responsibility of the facilitators of ayahuasca ceremonies. Facilitators ‘hold space’ for the other participants to have ‘more or less private introspective experiences’ (Gearin 2015:445; Gearin, 2016: 5). According to one ayahuasca drinker:I think that what holding space is on a psychic level, an energetic level, to use that problematic word, is maintaining a certain kind of environment which is… the term I want to use, and I might need to explain is clean, a clean space.…”

“…Just your strong presence – strong position, and when I looked over at you I felt supported. Before last night I thought ‘How am I going to sit upright all night?’Gearin (2016) uses the term ‘the politics of holding space’ to refer to the way that prescriptions against social interaction during ceremony allow multiple individuals to pursue their unfettered introspective self-discovery in the context of a room full of periodically moaning and vomiting people. Ceremonial space is reserved, during the time of intoxication, for private experience.…”

“…While Gearin (2016) sees an emphasis placed upon ‘individualised authority over the interpretation and meaning of personal revelations’ during the ‘sharing’ round of the ceremony, I witnessed a fair degree of homogeneity in the way people constructed narratives of their experiences, and in the way meaning was derived from those experiences. Perhaps this homogeneity owes in part to a process identified by Becker (1953) in relation to marijuana smokers.…”