THE SECRET LIFE of PLANTS It, They Felt They Were Receiving Impor- Tant Information Directly from the Plants the Green-Juice Generation Finds Its Drug of Choice

vines growing in the jungle. Taken to- DEPT. OF PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY gether, the drugs produced hallucinations that the brothers called “vegetable television.” When they watched THE SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS it, they felt they were receiving important information directly from the plants The green-juice generation finds its drug of choice. of the Amazon. The McKennas were sure they were BY ARIEL LEVY on to something revelatory, something that would change the course of human history. “I and my companions have been selected to understand and trigger the gestalt wave of understanding that will be the hyperspacial zeitgeist,” Dennis wrote in his journal. Their work was not always easy. During one ses- sion, the brothers experienced a ﬂash of mutual telepathy, but then Dennis hurled his glasses and all his clothes into the jungle and, for several days, lost touch with “consensus reality.” It was a small price to pay. The “plant teachers” seemed to have given them “access to a vast database,” Dennis wrote, “the mystical library of all human and cosmic knowledge.” If these sound like the joys and haz- ards of a bygone era, then you don’t know any ayahuasca users—yet. In the decades since the McKennas’ odyssey, the drug—or “medicine,” as many devotees insist that it be called—has become in- creasingly popular in the United States, to the point where it’s a “trendy thing right now,” as Marc Maron said recently to Susan Sarandon, on his “WTF” pod- cast, before they discussed what she’d learned from her latest ayahuasca expe- Ayahuasca, used for centuries in South American jungles, is booming in the U.S. rience. (“I kind of got, You should just keep your heart open all the time,” she he day after Apollo 14 landed and we had decided to put all of our said. “Because the whole point is to be T on the moon, Dennis and Terence chips on the psychedelic experience.” open to the divine in every person in McKenna began a trek through the Am- They started hiking near the border the world.”) azon with four friends who considered of Peru. As Dennis wrote, in his mem- The self-help guru Tim Ferriss told themselves, as Terence wrote in his book oir “The Brotherhood of the Scream- me that the drug is everywhere in San “True Hallucinations,” “refugees from a ing Abyss,” they arrived four days later Francisco, where he lives. “Ayahuasca society that we thought was poisoned in La Chorrera, Colombia, “in our long is like having a cup of coffee here,” he by its own self-hatred and inner con- hair, beards, bells, and beads,” accompa- said. “I have to avoid people at parties tradictions.” They had come to South nied by a “menagerie of sickly dogs, cats, because I don’t want to listen to their America, the land of yagé, also known monkeys, and birds” accumulated along latest three-hour saga of kaleidoscopic as ayahuasca: an intensely hallucino- the way. (The local Witoto people were colors.” genic potion made from boiling woody cautiously amused.) There, on the banks Leanna Standish, a researcher at the Banisteriopsis caapi vines with the glossy of the Igara Paraná River, the travellers University of Washington School of leaves of the chacruna bush. The broth- found themselves in a psychedelic par- Medicine, estimated that “on any given ers, then in their early twenties, were adise. There were cattle pastures dotted night in Manhattan, there are a hun- grieving the recent death of their mother, with Psilocybe cubensis—magic mush- dred ayahuasca ‘circles’ going on.” The and they were hungry for answers about rooms—sprouting on dung piles; there main psychoactive substance in aya- the mysteries of the cosmos: “We had were hammocks to lounge in while you huasca has been illegal since it was listed sorted through the ideological options, tripped; there were Banisteriopsis caapi in the 1970 Controlled Substances Act,

30 THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 12, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY BJØRN LIE but Standish, who is the medical direc- land. They planted it in the forest, and tor of the Bastyr Integrative Oncology it happened to like the forest—a lot. So Research Center, recently applied for now it’s all over the place.” permission from the F.D.A. to do a Terence McKenna died in 2000, af- Phase I clinical trial of the drug—which ter becoming a psychedelic folk hero she believes could be used in treatments for popularizing magic mushrooms in for cancer and Parkinson’s disease. “I am books, lectures, and instructional cas- very interested in bringing this ancient sette tapes. Dennis McKenna went on medicine from the Amazon Basin into to get a doctorate in botany and is now the light of science,” Standish said. She a professor at the University of Minne- is convinced that “it’s going to change sota. When we spoke, he was on a book the face of Western medicine.” For now, tour in Hawaii. He had been hearing though, she describes ayahuasca use as about ayahuasca use in a town on the a “vast, unregulated global experiment.” Big Island called Puna, where people Most people who take ayahuasca in call themselves “punatics.” “Everybody the United States do so in small “cere- is making ayahuasca, taking ayahuasca,” monies,” led by an individual who may he said. “It’s like the Wild West.” call himself a shaman, an ayahuasquero, a curandero, a vegetalista, or just a healer. f cocaine expressed and amplified This person may have come from gen- I the speedy, greedy ethos of the nine- erations of Shipibo or Quechua sha- teen-eighties, ayahuasca reflects our pres- mans in Peru, or he may just be some- ent moment—what we might call the one with access to ayahuasca. (Under- Age of Kale. It is a time characterized by qualified shamans are referred to as wellness cravings, when many Ameri- “yogahuascas.”) Ayahuasca was used for cans are eager for things like mindful- centuries by indigenous Amazonians, ness, detoxification, and organic pro- who believed that it enabled their holy duce, and we are willing to suffer for our men to treat physical and mental ail- soulfulness. ments and to receive messages from Ayahuasca, like kale, is no joy ride. ancestors and gods. Jesse Jarnow, the The majority of users vomit—or, as they author of “Heads: A Biography of Psy- prefer to say, “purge.” And that’s the chedelic America,” told me, “It’s a bit easy part. “Ayahuasca takes you to the less of a to-do in many of its traditional swampland of your soul,” my friend uses—more about healing specific mal- Tony, a photographer in his late fifties, adies and illnesses than about address- told me. Then he said that he wanted ing spiritual crises.” Now, though, aya- to do it again. huasca is used as a sacrament in syncretic “I came home reeking of vomit and churches like the Santo Daime and the sage and looking like I’d come from União do Vegetal (“union of the plant”), hell,” Vaughn Bergen, a twenty-seven- both of which have developed a pres- year-old who works at an art gallery in ence in the United States. The entire Chelsea, said of one ayahuasca trip. “Ev- flock partakes, and the group trip is a eryone was trying to talk me out of doing kind of congregational service. it again. My girlfriend at the time was, The first American to study aya- like, ‘Is this some kind of sick game?’ huasca was the Harvard biologist Rich- I was, like, ‘No. I’m growing.’ ” His next ard Evans Schultes, who pioneered the experience was blissful: “I got trans- field of ethnobotany (and co-authored ported to a higher dimension, where I “Plants of the Gods,” with Albert Hof- lived the whole ceremony as my higher mann, the Swiss scientist who discov- self. Anything I thought came to be.” ered LSD). In 1976, a graduate student Bergen allows that, of the nine ceremo- of Schultes’s brought a collection of the nies he’s attended, eight have been “un- plants back from his field research to a pleasant experiences.” But he intends to greenhouse at the University of Hawaii— continue using ayahuasca for the rest of where Dennis McKenna happened to his life. He believes that it will heal not be pursuing a master’s degree. Thanks only him but civilization at large. to McKenna, some B. caapi cuttings “es- The process of making ayahuasca is caped captivity,” he told me. “I took beyond artisanal: it is nearly Druidical. them over to the Big Island, where my “We pick the chacruna leaf at sunrise brother and his wife had purchased some in this very specific way: you say a prayer

THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 12, 2016 31 and just pick the lower ones from each ing early trip that he described as “the “In Silicon Valley, where everyone suffers tree,” a lithe ayahuasquera in her early most painful experience I’ve ever had from neo-mania,” Ferriss continued, forties—British accent, long blond hair, by a factor of a thousand. I felt like I “having interactions with songs and rit- a background in Reiki—told me about was being torn apart and killed a thou- uals that have remained, in some cases, her harvests, in Hawaii. “You clean the sand times a second for two hours.” unchanged for hundreds or thousands vine with wooden spoons, meticulously, This was followed by hours of grand- of years is very appealing.” all the mulch away from the roots— mal seizures; Ferriss had rug burns Ayahuasca isn’t the only time- honored they look so beautiful, like a human on his face the next day. “I thought I method of ritual self-mortification, of heart— and you pound these beautiful had completely fried my motherboard,” course; pilgrims seeking an encounter pieces of vine with wooden mallets until he continued. “I remember saying, ‘I with the divine have a long history of it’s fibre,” she said. “Then it’s this amaz- will never do this again.’ ” But in the fasting, hair shirts, and flagellation. But ing, sophisticated process of one pot here next few months he realized that in the United States most ayahuasca users and one pot there, and you’re stirring something astounding had happened are seeking a post-religious kind of spir- and you’re singing songs.” to him. “Ninety per cent of the anger itualism—or, perhaps, pre-religious, a She and her boyfriend serve the aya- I had held on to for decades, since I pagan worship of nature. The Scottish huasca—“divine consciousness in liq- was a kid, was just gone. Absent.” writer and ayahuasca devotee Graham uid form”—at ceremonies in New York, Ayahuasca enthusiasts frequently use Hancock told me that people from all Cape Town, Las Vegas, Bali. They the language of technology, which may over the world report similar encounters showed me pictures of themselves har- have entered the plant-medicine lexi- with the “spirit of the plant”: “She some- vesting plants in a verdant Hawaiian con because so many people in Silicon times appears as a jungle cat, sometimes jungle, looking radiantly happy. I asked Valley are devotees. “Indigenous proph- as a huge serpent.” Many speak about if they made a living this way. “We man- esies point to an imminent polar rever- ayahuasca as though it were an actual fe- ifest abundance wherever we go,” she sal that will wipe our hard drives clean,” male being: Grandmother. told me. Her boyfriend added, “Con- Daniel Pinchbeck wrote in his explo- “Grandmother may not always give sciousness is its own economy.” ration of ayahuasca, technology, and you what you want, but she’ll give you Like juicing—another Kale Age Mayan millennialism, “2012: The Re- what you need,” an ayahuasquera who method of expedient renewal—aya- turn of Quetzalcoatl.” In an industry calls herself Little Owl said, a few huasca is appreciated for its efficiency. devoted to synthetic products, people months ago, at an informational meet- Enthusiasts often say that each trip is are drawn to this natural drug, with its ing in a loft in Chinatown. Two dozen like ten years of therapy or meditation. ancient lineage and ritualized use: tra- people of diverse ages and ethnicities Ferriss, the author of such “life-hack- ditionally, shamans purify the setting by sat on yoga mats eating a potluck veg- ing” manuals as “The 4-Hour Work- smoking tobacco, playing ceremonial etarian meal and watching a blurry week” and “The 4-Hour Body,” told instruments, and chanting icaros—songs documentary about ayahuasca. On the me, “It’s mind-boggling how much it that they say come to them from the screen, a young man recounted a mis- can do in one or two nights.” He uses plants, the way Pentecostals are moved erable stomach ailment that no West- ayahuasca regularly, despite a harrow- by the Holy Spirit to speak in tongues. ern doctor could heal. After years of tor- ment, he took ayahuasca during a trip to Peru and visualized himself journey- ing into his own body and removing a terrifying squid from his intestines. The next day, his pain was gone, and it never came back. After the movie, Little Owl, a fifty- two-year-old of Taiwanese descent with black bangs nearly to her eyebrows, an- swered questions. “Do your conscious and subconscious work on different fre- quencies?” a young woman in a tank top wanted to know. “And, if so, which one will Grandmother tap in to?” Little Owl said that Grandmother would address your entire being. A friend of hers, a young African-American man in a knit orange cap who said that he taught mindfulness for a living, was standing by, and Little Owl asked if he had anything to add. “The medicine is like shin- ing a light on whatever conflict needs “Don’t you think it’s time we gave her the back-to-school talk?” to be resolved,” he said. A Caucasian guy in his late twenties asked if there was anyone who shouldn’t take the medicine; he was deciding which friends he should bring to the next ceremony. Little Owl, who has a background in acupuncture, replied that every participant would fill out a de- tailed health form, and that people who have such conditions as high blood pressure or who are on antidepressants should not take ayahuasca. An older man with silver hair and a booming voice spoke next: “Do you have doctors or anyone on hand who under- stands what’s happening on a pharmacological level if something goes wrong?” There was a tense silence, and then Little Owl replied, “We are healing on a vibrational level.”

plant is constantly interacting A with its ecosystem: attracting in- sects it needs for pollination, discour- aging hungry herbivores, warning other plants that it competes with for nutri- ents in the soil. It communicates using “messenger molecules,” which allow for semiosis (signalling) and symbiosis (interspecies coöperation), helping the spe- cies to improve its circumstances as the process of evolution unfolds. Some of the most important messenger molecules in the plant kingdom are called amines, and are typically derived from amino acids. The human brain, too, is a kind of complex ecosystem, coördinated by messenger molecules of its own: neurotransmitters, which govern everything from the simple mechanism of pupils dilating in dim light to the un- fathomable complexity of consciousness. The neurotransmitters that mediate emotion, awareness, and the creation of meaning are amines—such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine— which evolved from the same molec- ular antecedents as many plant-messenger molecules. The main psychoactive substance in ayahuasca—N, N-dimethyltryptamine, or DMT—is an amine found in chacruna leaves. Ingested on its own, it has no effect on humans, because it is rap- idly degraded by an enzyme in the gut, monoamine oxidase. B. caapi vines, however, happen to contain potent monoamine-oxidase inhibitors (MAOI). Some ayahuasca enthusiasts maintain that the

THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 12, 2016 33 synergy was discovered thousands of network is disrupted, and maybe things tioned, “You have to take it with a years ago, when the spirit of the plants that were mucking up the works are left facilitator who has some knowledge, led indigenous people to brew the two behind when everything comes back experience, and ethics.” In unregulated together; others think that one day some- together.” ceremonies, several women have been one happened to drop a chacruna leaf In the early nineties, McKenna, molested, and at times people have into his B. caapi tea, a psychedelic ver- Charles Grob, a professor of psychiatry turned violent. Last year, during a cer- sion of “There’s chocolate in my pea- and pediatrics at Harbor-U.C.L.A. emony at an ayahuasca center in Iqui- nut butter.” However the combination Medical Center, and James Callaway, a tos, Peru, a young British man started came about, it allows DMT access to pharmaceutical chemist, conducted a brandishing a kitchen knife and yelling; the human brain: when a person drinks study in Manaus, Brazil, that investi- a Canadian man who was also on aya- ayahuasca, a plant-messenger mole- gated the effects of ayahuasca on long- huasca wrestled it from him and stabbed cule targets the neurons that mediate term users. Fifteen men who had taken him to death. consciousness, facilitating what devo- part in bimonthly ceremonies for at least Grob speculated that the shaman tees describe as a kind of interspecies a decade were compared with a con- in that case had spiked the ayahuasca. communication. trol group of people with similar back- Often, when things go wrong, it is af- If the plant really is talking to the grounds. The researchers drew blood ter a plant called datura is added to person, many people hear the same from the subjects and assessed the white the pharmacological mix. “Maybe fa- thing: we are all one. Some believe that blood cells, which are powerful indica- cilitators think, Oh, Americans will the plants delivering this message are tors of the condition of the central ner- get more bang for their buck,” Grob serving their own interests, because if vous system. (McKenna told me, “In said. He also wondered if the knife- humans think we are one with every- psychopharmacology, we say, ‘If it’s going wielding British man had been suffer- thing we might be less prone to trash on in the platelets, it’s probably going ing a psychotic break: like many hal- the natural world. In this interpretation, on in the brain.’ ”) They found that the lucinogens, ayahuasca is thought to B. caapi and chacruna are the spokes- serotonin reuptake transporters—the have the potential to trigger initial ep- plants for the entire vegetable kingdom. targets that many contemporary anti- isodes in people who are predisposed But this sensation of harmony and depressants work on—were elevated to them. interconnection with the universe— among habitual ayahuasca drinkers. Problems can also arise if someone what Freud described as the “oceanic “We thought, What does this mean?” takes ayahuasca—with its potent feeling”—is also a desirable high, as well McKenna said. They couldn’t find MAOI—on top of selective serotonin as a goal of many spiritual practices. any research on people with abnormally reuptake inhibitors, a common class Since 2014, Draulio de Araujo, a re- high levels of the transporters, but there of antidepressants. The simultaneous searcher at the Brain Institute, in Natal, was an extensive body of literature on blocking of serotonin uptake and sero- Brazil, has been investigating the effects low levels: the condition is common tonin degradation encourages enormous of ayahuasca on a group of eighty peo- among those with intractable depres- amounts of the neurotransmitter to flood ple, half of whom suffer from severe de- sion, and in people who suffer from the synapses. The outcome can be di- pression. “If one word comes up, it is Type 2 alcoholism, which is associated sastrous: a condition called serotonin ‘tranquillity,’ ” he said. “A lot of our in- with bouts of violent behavior. “We syndrome, which starts with shivering, dividuals, whether they are depressed thought, Holy shit! Is it possible that diarrhea, hyperthermia, and palpitations or not, have a sense of peace the ayahuasca actually re- and can progress to muscular rigidity, after the experience.” verses these deficits over convulsions, and even death. “I get calls Having studied fMRIs the long term?” McKenna from family members or friends of peo- and EEGs of subjects on pointed out that no other ple who seem to be in a persistent state ayahuasca, Araujo thinks known drug has this effect. of confusion,” Grob said. He had just that the brain’s “default-mode “There’s only one other in- received a desperate e-mail from the network”—the system that stance of a factor that affects mother of a young woman who had be- burbles with thought, mull- this upregulation—and that’s come disoriented in the midst of a cer- ing the past and the future, aging.” He wondered if aya- emony. “She ran off from where she while your mind isn’t fo- huasca is imparting some- was, and when she was found she was cussed on a task—is tempo- thing to its drinkers that having breathing difficulties and is now rarily relieved of its duties. Meanwhile, we associate with maturity: wisdom. having what appears to be a P.T.S.D. the thalamus, which is involved in aware- Charles Grob told me, “Some of these reaction.” ness, is activated. The change in the guys were leading disreputable lives and These cases are rare, but profoundly brain, he notes, is similar to the one that they became radically transformed— upsetting trips are common. People on results from years of meditation. responsible pillars of their community.” ayahuasca regularly report experienc- Dennis McKenna told me, “In sha- But, he noted, the men were taking aya- ing their own death; one man told manism, the classic theme is death and huasca as part of a religious ceremony: Araujo that he had a terrifying visual- rebirth—you are reborn in a new configu- their church, União do Vegetal, is cen- ization of being trapped in a coffin. ration. The neuroscientific interpreta- tered on integrating the ayahuasca ex- “There are some people who are get- tion is exactly the same: the default-mode perience into everyday life. Grob cau- ting damaged from it because they’re

34 THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 12, 2016 not using it the right way,” Dennis Mc- Kenna warned. “It’s a psychotherapeu- tic process: if they don’t integrate the stuff that comes up, it can be very trau- matic. That’s the whole thing with ayahuasca—or any psychedelic, really. Set and setting is all- important: they’ve been telling us this since Leary! It’s not to be treated lightly.”

illiamsburg was throbbing with W sound on the warm June eve- ning when I went to an ayahuasca ceremony led by Little Owl. It was held in a windowless yoga studio next to a thumping dance club, and in the ante- chamber—a makeshift gym where we were told to leave our bags, amid worn wrestling mats and free weights—you could hear the sounds of drunk people in nearby McCarren Park, mixing with techno beats from next door. The “I’ll see your two and raise you three.” studio’s bathroom shared a locked door with the club, and patrons kept hurling themselves against it, trying to •• get in. But inside the studio it was surpris- “This will be much more peaceful, on a steady dieta of tar, bile, and fer- ingly quiet. There were trees and vines vibrationally.” mented wood pulp. But I forced it painted on the walls, and about twenty Little Owl had set up a perch for down, and I was stoked. I was going women had set themselves up on yoga herself at the back wall, surrounded by to visit the swampland of my soul, make mats in a tight circle, some of them with bird feathers, crystals, flutes, drums, and peace with death, and become one with significant piles of pillows and sleeping wooden rattles, bottles of potions, and the universe. bags. Everyone was wearing white, which a pack of baby wipes. She explained Soon thereafter, the woman on my is what you’re supposed to do at an aya- that her helper, a young Asian-Amer- left began to moan. To my right, the huasca ceremony, except for a young ican woman she referred to as “our helper woman next to Molly had started retch- woman who had on wild jungle-printed angel,” would collect our cell phones ing, and the woman beyond her was pants. My grooviest friend, Siobhan, a and distribute buckets for the purge: crying—softly at first, and then in full- British painter, had agreed to come— smiling orange plastic jack-o’-lanterns, throated, passionate sobs. Little Owl, “Is it crazy I’m spending money on white like the ones that kids use for trick-or- meanwhile, was chanting and sometimes pants right now?” she had texted me, treating. One at a time, we went into playing her instruments. earlier that day—and we grinned at each the front room to be smudged with sage I felt a tingling in my hands not un- other from across the room. We had on the wrestling mats by a woman in like the early-morning symptoms of my carefully followed the dieta that Little her sixties with the silver hair and carpal-tunnel syndrome. I focussed on Owl, like most ayahuasqueros, recom- beatific smile of a Latina Mrs. Claus. my breath, as everyone I’d interviewed mends for the week before a ceremony: When she finished waving her smok- had said to do, and then, for fun, I started no meat, no salt or sugar, no coffee, no ing sage at me and said, “I hope you thinking about the people I love, ar- booze. Siobhan and I were both pleased have a beautiful journey,” I was so moved ranging them first alphabetically and that at the very least this experience by her radiant good will that I nearly then hierarchically, as the people around would be slimming. burst into tears. me puked and wailed in the dark and The woman to my right, a twenty- Once we were all smudged and back Little Owl sang and played her little five-year-old African-American I’ll call in our circle, Little Owl dimmed the flute. Molly, had put a little grouping of crys- lights. “You are the real shaman,” she It seemed as though hardly any time tals on the edge of her mat. It was her said. “I am just your servant.” had passed when she announced that first ceremony, she said, and she had When it was my turn to drink the anyone who wasn’t feeling the medicine chosen this one because it was exclu- little Dixie cup of muck she presented, yet should drink again. My second Dixie sively female. The young woman next I was stunned that divine conscious- cup was even worse than the first, be- to Molly told us that she had done aya- ness—or really anything—could smell cause I knew what to expect: I barely huasca in Peru. “With men around, the quite so foul: as if it had already been made it back to my jack-o’-lantern in energy gets really erratic,” she said. vomited up, by someone who’d been time to throw up. As I was wiping my

THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 12, 2016 35 mouth on a tissue, the girl across the on the mats, trying to focus on our thing abruptly seemed hilarious, fasci- room whose wild printed pants I had breath. nating, perfect. I thought of my grand- noticed started hollering, “I love you!” But more women came out of the mother—Tanya Levin, not ayahuasca— Some of us giggled a little. She kept at ceremony. “I miss my sister; I don’t like who had recently done some hallu - it, with growing intensity: “I love you this,” said one, who had clearly been cinating herself when she took too much so much! It feels so good!” The helper crying, a lot. An older woman with long heart medication and saw bugs every- angel went over to calm her, and those gray hair seemed panicked, but soon where laughing at her, and it didn’t seem of us who still had our wits about us started laughing uncontrollably. “I used like such a tragedy that I wasn’t having said “Sh-h,” soothingly and then, as the to live on the houseboats in San Fran- any visions. Maybe the ayahuasca was screaming got louder, resentfully. All cisco in the sixties,” she told us. “But all working: maybe this was the experience of a sudden, she was on her feet, flail- we did was grass.” I was meant to have. ing. “I’ve eaten so many animals!” she “Maybe not so much talking,” Sio- “Help,” I heard Molly, the young screamed. “And I loved them all!” b han said. woman to my right, squeak. It was the flailing that got to me. I “Let’s all sit down,” I said, in an ag- “You need help getting to the bath- thought of the girl whose parents had gressively serene voice that I realized I room?” I whispered. Some people had called Charles Grob and the Canadian was borrowing from my mother, who is been stumbling when they tried to get kid who stabbed his associate in Iqui- a shiatsu masseuse. “Let’s all have a nice up and walk. tos. Any second now, I would be de- trip now.” “No, I just need . . . some assistance,” scending into the pit of my being, see- Then the helper angel came out and she said, her voice shaking with barely ing serpents, experiencing my own death asked us not to talk. “She’s shushing contained desperation. Helper Angel or birth—or something—and I did not us?” Siobhan whispered, as Crazypants was still busy with Pants on the other necessarily want that to happen in a kept yelling and the club music ham- side of the room. So I held Molly’s hand. windowless vomitorium while a mil- mered away. I told her that she wasn’t going crazy, lennial in crazy pants had her first psy- “Listen,” I said, in my peaceful, bossy that we were just on drugs, and that ev- chotic episode. Her yelling was getting voice. “I think that girl is having a psy- erything was going to be fine. “Please weirder: “I want to eat sex!” I got up and chotic episode and it’s time to call 911.” don’t leave me,” she said, and started to went into the front room with the wres- “Not necessarily,” Helper Angel said. sob. I told her to sit up and focus on her tling mats, where I tried to think peace- This happened from time to time, she breath. Little Owl was drumming now, ful thoughts and take deep, cleansing explained: the young woman with the and chanting, “You are the shaman in breaths. pants was just having a “strong reaction your life,” in a vaguely Native Ameri- Siobhan came out a minute later. to the medicine.” I asked how she could can way. “Bloody hell!” she said. She did not look tell it wasn’t something requiring im- “Please say more words,” Molly entirely O.K. mediate medical intervention, and the whispered. “All the animals!” Crazypants yelled angel replied, “Intuition.” I did, and Molly seemed to calm in the other room. And what did I know? I’d never done down, and pretty soon I was thinking “Let’s focus on our breath,” I told ayahuasca, or even seen anyone else that I was indeed the shaman in my life, Siobhan, as the club music pounded who was on it. She did this all the time! and a downright decent one at that. It next door. It was getting very crowded on the was at that moment that Molly leaned “We’re supposed to be doing this in wrestling mats and the music was so forward and let loose the Victoria Falls the flipping jungle,” she said, sitting loud next door and the woman who’d of vomit. She missed her jack-o’-lantern down next to me on the wrestling mat. lived on the houseboats was talking entirely and made our little corner of I thought about mosquitoes and Iqui- about Haight-Ashbury and cackling. the room into a puke lagoon. tos and felt that, actually, it was proba- Siobhan and I went back to our spots Just as when you stub your toe and bly for the best that we weren’t. in the ceremony. there is an anticipatory moment before Another woman came out of the cer- The smell inside the yoga studio was you actually feel the pain, I waited to feel emony. “I’m not fucking feeling any- not great. But Pants Girl was yelling the rage and disgust that experience told thing!” she said. She had pink hair and only intermittently now, and Little Owl me would be my natural response to an- a nose ring and looked like a ratty Uma was strumming a guitar and singing her other person barfing all over me. But it Thurman. “This is fucked!” version of “Let It Be”: “When I find never came. I thought of something Den- “I want to feel the animals!” the girl myself in times of trouble / Mother Aya nis McKenna wrote in his diary in 1967, screamed. comes to me.” about the effect that DMT was having “Those are some bad vibes in there,” It occurred to me that this wasn’t on him. “I have tried to be more aware Pink Uma said. “I’m very sensitive to working—that nothing was working, of beauty,” he wrote. “I have enjoyed the vibrations.” and now I would have to find another world more and hated myself less.” I sat “You don’t exactly have to be a tun- hippie to give me this disgusting drug there in Molly’s upchuck, listening to ing fork,” I told her. all over again. And then maybe my Little Owl’s singing, punctuated by the “Sex and meat and love are one!” default- mode network shut down for a occasional shriek of “No more animals!” I demanded that we get in a positive second, or maybe I had a surge of sero- And I felt content and vaguely delighted space—quickly. We all sat cross-legged tonin, but for whatever reason the whole and temporarily free. 

36 THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 12, 2016