The joys and pains of visionary medicine: Why the ceremony of life comes before the ayahuasca ceremony
“Looking back on my first ceremony, I realize that I had absolutely no idea what I was stepping into. I had to learn many lessons the hard way”.
This article is about some of these hard-earned lessons of my experience with visionary plant medicine (VPM), a term I will use to describe the virtually endless array of vision-inducing healing plants that includes, amongst others, ayahuasca, peyote, iboga, san pedro, and psilocybin (“magic”) mushrooms. The tendency in the West is to approach VPM with the belief that good intentions are enough to guarantee good results. Often ignored is the fact that VPM has its own rules and without an understanding of these rules, the journey is fraught with peril and danger. Of course, all spiritual traditions, whether they are local or foreign, have their own unique learning curves. VPM is unique in its speed and intensity. In the space of a few hours, we experience emotions, dimensions, and beings that we didn’t even know existed. We understand the innate perfection of the universe and the indestructible clarity of the awake state of mind. We weep, we chuckle, we smile.
Original Article (High Existence):
The joys and pains of visionary medicine: Why the ceremony of life comes before the ayahuasca ceremony
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