50 maps bulletin • volume xxi number 1

“Why do You Keep Drinking Over and Over Again?” By Adam Elenbaas

I traveled to the Amazon to drink ayahuasca. After my FIVE years ago first three ceremonies drinking “the medicine,” my life was irreversibly 5changed. I would never be the same person again. In what was no more than eighteen hours spent in ceremonies during my first trip to Iquitos, Peru, I managed to purge a host of toxic energies from my body and mind. These crossed energies included: alcohol abuse, sexual addiction, opiate dependency, religious confusion, and panic attacks. Although my troubles were, in a sense, “instantly cured” by the medicine, I continued to drink ayahuasca in many more ceremonies. Five years and 80 some ayahuasca Adam Elenbaas ceremonies later, having published my first book (a memoir that nar- [email protected] www.fishersofmenbook.com rates my ayahuasca journeys), and feeling in the best shape of my life, I have learned how to answer the questions: “Why do you keep doing this? What more healing could you possibly need?” In what was The first answer I like to give to those questions, most of which come no more than from incredibly smart and sensitive people, is this: “Those are really great questions. Those are questions I’ve thought about in and outside of aya- eighteen hours spent in huasca ceremonies.” The reason it’s important to give this first response is ceremonies during my first that too often devotees of any religious lifestyle feel offended when people ask questions of their tradition. I’ve learned to appreciate people who trip to Iquitos... question the authenticity of any spiritual tradition. After all, it was the I managed to purge a same essential questioning that led me out of the Christian right and into an exploration of mystical religious experiences, and eventually ayahuas- host of toxic energies ca, in the first place. Also, we all know that religious folks often marginal- from my body ize or exclude other ideas or groups of people. But, by the same token, if skepticism is a regimented way of being or thinking or interacting with and mind. people, if cynicism toward religion itself becomes too constant, then it also becomes abstract, dogmatic, impersonal, and ultimately pathological. This leads me to how I answer these questions: Ayahuasca is not just a medicine and shamans are not just healers. Therefore, you shouldn’t think of ayahuasca as a ‘cure all,’ something you only need to drink a few times and you are cured. maps bulletin • volume xxi number 1 51

It is true that shamans throughout visiting was featured very favorably in a shaman did a lot of talking. Speaking history have been largely respected for major American magazine. Rumor had it more directly to the egos of the guests their ability to diagnose and cure com- that one of the shamans at the lodge had in the mesa, he would explain spiritual plex ailments in human beings, ecosys- been let go for drinking beer. He was let concepts, recommend lifestyle changes, tems, animals, and other dimensions of go by the American owner of the lodge and inspire individual growth and re- reality. In this sense shamans are often (an alcoholic before “the medicine”) on sponsibility. “This is YOUR night. These called things like “curanderos,” or “pal- the grounds that American guests strug- are YOUR demons. UNDERSTANDING leros” or “ayahuasqueros.” Plant doctors. gling with alcohol addiction, people who flows from the heart. If you connect to Ayahuasca doctors. Healers. Shamans are had come to purge their addiction, would your heart, you can understand ALL like extra-dimensional practitioners of find this hypocrisy incredibly offensive. LEVELS of complexity as the same. We consciousness, and most usually people Guests could have a “bad” experience. are all ONE!” One shaman did the magic, going to the Amazon to drink ayahuaca, The point here is simple. In the West, for while the other magically explained the for example, are seeking “healing” or many people, a lifestyle of moderation magic, like verbal tai-chi. Both shamans “clarity” or “transformation,” (all things and substance use is not possible. were healing in their own ways. shamans are experts at providing). How- It is my opinion that this is because However, as I watched the camp grow ever, factors exist today that are radically the lifestyle and culture of the West, par- exponentially, and as things like the fir- challenging the traditional patient-doctor ticularly America, is not a moderate place ing (and eventual rehiring) of the local shamanic paradigmn (how traditional to begin with. The demons of addiction Iquitos shaman for drinking beer took is the patient-doctor relationship in the are in many ways perhaps stronger and place, the shamanic one/two combo, at Amazon, despite the local use of the word different beasts than the “addiction” spir- least to me, lost its luster. I would hear “medicine,” anyway?) its of the jungle. At this particular lodge contradictory things during ceremony, The largest factor is the culture of it was explicitly stated that the master like, “You people CAN’T do this on your the West: the globalized, internet-ready, shamans of the lodge (one an Iquitos OWN. You can’t become a shaman just urban or sub-urbanite. Only, I’m not ...the world needs healing, because you take some psychedelics at talking about ayahuasca or ecotourism. home or have one good ceremony in the I’ve never criticized anyone for wanting and we can pray for jungle. It takes YEARS of training to be- to make a trip to the Amazon to drink come an ayahuasca healer like us.” Then, ayahuasca. That being said, I am noticing and assist that healing maybe an hour later I would hear some- a very real way in which the dialogue thing like, “ALL OF US, every last one of between the culture of the West and the by coming together and us, are shamans. This is YOUR ayahuasca shamanic traditions of the jungle are practice time.” Eventually I realized that rapidly evolving the entheogenic/cer- doing this work the synthesis of these two shamans was emonial shamanic paradigm itself. The not as clear as I had thought it was, and average ayahuasca pilgrim today comes as a team. certainly not as clear as it was being packed with baggage that is perhaps advertised. more uniquely complex than people liv- At this particular lodge something ing in the jungle. interesting was happening. An attempt to Despite the fact that ayahuasca blend traditional, patient to practitioner pilgrims are dealing with issues that ayahuasca with something shamans might be used to (greed, power, like a personal religious practice (like fear, arrogance, etc.)º shamans are not daily meditation or yoga) was taking always aware of the myriad ways in local, and the other the American owner place. The only problem was that the which these issues weave themselves into who trained under the Iquitos local) were shamans were not clearly articulating modern religious confusion, generational special specifically because they could a vision of the synthesis. It was hard to and family karma, technology, economic address both the timeless maladies of tell when to think of the shamans as my enmeshing, relationships, and a more the human and the more complex healers and when to the think of them overt, daily recognition of a “global” issues of the modern psyche (a Peruvian/ like simple teachers inspiring my person- drama that is streaming in the Western American one, two punch). al mastery of the ayahuasca experience. news every day. Although shamans have At first it was definitely a unique The fact that the popularity of the lodge incredible visionary abilities, the remote- synthesis. During ceremonies I noticed was growing, its prices increasing, and a ness of their location within space and two different styles. Mostly silence cult-like following of the shamans them- time makes the interactions with modern from the local, whose icaros and healing selves becoming obvious (reminiscent of ayahuasca pilgrims (who are living in a techniques were deeply archetypal and guru worship) was reason enough for me kind of hyper shamanic container every tended to cut to the core of whatever to leave the lodge during the middle of single day) more dynamic, where tradi- issue(s) were present. Be it greed or my fifth visit. tional experiences between natives and power-lust or arrogance or fear or pain Growing up Protestant Christian, my shamans had perhaps been more linear, or suffering, or the question “why?” the frustration with this inconsistency in- hierarchical or static. local shaman had a way of showing me voked memories of having studied Martin The best example of this from my the timelessness of a core “poison” behind Luther and his protestant complaints, own journey came from my third year all of the particulars. It was like Greek the theses he nailed to the doors of the of ayahuasca work. The lodge I had been mythology. Simultaneously, the American Catholic Church. The figure of the shep- 52 maps bulletin • volume xxi number 1

pard pastor emerged during the Reforma- and doing this work as a team. The sec- groups, like the Temple of the Way of tion as a religious leader “of the people ond answer the Daime church provided Light, Infinite Light, The Sacred College, and for the people.” The question had me with is that the personal faith journey and others are beginning to function in naturally arisen within me, “Is this place is a daily walk. The old saying, “If you got exactly the way I’m describing, without about medicine and healing sickness, or is the message, then hang up the phone,” using Christian or religious symbolism this a Universalist religious group? If it’s does not apply to drinking ayahuasca. (like the Daime and UDV do). I spoke both, then how does it coexist without There is no ultimate message or ultimate with Daniel Pinchbeck at JivaMukti yoga these contradictions from the shamans’ “healing” at the core of the ayahuasca studio in Manhattan this past summer, egos? What does a collective shamanic experience, like a holy grail of cosmic and he mentioned that the Sequoia in Ec- container end up looking like if there is realization or awakening. Instead, there uador also practice communal ayahuasca no central master or healer?” is a unique opportunity to open the mind ceremonies at certain times of the year. My feeling now is that it’s important and body to a powerful level of love and At the end of the day, my point that people drinking ayahuasca to be- truth. Drinking ayahuasca on a semi-reg- remains the same. Not everybody is an come clear within themselves about how ular basis makes ayahuasca different than ayahuasca tourist. Not every shaman is they answer these questions. The truth a tourist experience, different than a a doctor, and ayahuasca is not simply a is that people use ayahuasca to heal and “cure-all medicine” or a vacation from our cure-all. Once this is realized the premise transform, and shamans help with that. modern demons. It’s more than just re- of the questions, “Why keep on doing Then, as people deepen their relation- charging your battery while dipping into this? Aren’t you healed?” are exposed. ship to these ceremonies, the experience the jungles of the numinous. It becomes More and more ayahuasca is evolving to becomes a meditation practice, a series about simple things. How did I treat my be a spiritual discipline, as common and of yoga asanas, a prayer life, a ritual, and dog and my wife and my family this effective as yoga or meditation. Dare I a lifelong study of conscious evolution. past month? If I didn’t do so well, maybe say that ayahuasca for many people these Along that path, should extreme difficul- tonight I will have some hard work to do, days is sort of like going to the spiri- ty arise, shamanic expertise can still be maybe even some purging. If I completed tual gym to get an extreme existential found from a shaman, and sometimes it my homework, then maybe tonight I will workout? To me, that doesn’t cheapen can be found within yourself, or perhaps learn something new or be given a new or degrade anything (but I love a good from another ceremonial group member. vision, a new inspiration, something to workout!). There is always room to learn My own involvement with ayahuaca contribute. For these reasons I believe and grow, and I don’t think it hurts to recently shifted to a collective model thousands of people are not just mak- face ourselves on a more regular (and less with the Santo Daime. I feel that the ing one trip to the Amazon to drink and vocational or vacational) basis. Daime is a great example (of many great be cured, but many trips and an entire In my book, Fishers of Men: The Gospel examples) that are beginning to practice “movement” is happening. of an Ayahuasca Vision Quest, I wrote a lot ayahuasca medicine with clear intentions Again, I am not suggesting that aya- about my Christian upbringing and how surrounding the religious and regular huasca religions like the Santo Daime or it was unraveled so beautifully for me disciplined use of ayahuasca. The group the UDV are the best traditions out there. during ceremonies. One of the first truths itself, singing songs together in a circle, A great deal of traditional shamanic I learned that changed my life was this: all facing inward toward the altar, acts life is already eternal, and there is no as the shaman. Ritual procedures are put prayer you can say or belief you can hold in place to ensure group and individual that will make or break that truth. That safety. Elder members of the church is the gospel. That is the “good news.” (or Godfathers and Godmothers) act as How you deal with the unchangeable, shamanic healers when necessary, and unavoidable good news of redemption, of otherwise the focus of the group becomes the fact that you cannot truly die, ever, is the silent but mutual supporting of one what dictates whether your experiences another throughout a series of personal will be heavenly or hellish. and collective healings and pas- Month by month, and year by year, I sages that take place during the ceremony still have problems making my life and (called a “work”). the lives of others unnecessarily hellish, Although the Christian symbol- and I see the same problem in the world I ism and some of the language of the live in. I believe things can get better for songs may not resonate with everyone, all of us. Maybe it’s that I’m just 29 years and I’m certainly not prescribing the old, and maybe I’m completely deluded Santo Daime religion as the pinnacle of and making no real contributions of posi- ayahuasca traditions, a few things about tive change in our world yet. But after the Daime are relevant when trying to five years and 80 ceremonies, despite all answer the questions, “Why do you keep the inconsistencies and hypocrisies of doing this? Aren’t you healed already?” myself or any shaman or shamanic para- The first answer that the Daime digm, of any lodge or ayahuaca religion church provided me is that the world in particular, this is why I keep drinking needs healing, and we can pray for and ayahuasca and asking for more love in assist that healing by coming together my heart. •