Summary
➡ The speaker discusses the differences between DMT and Ayahuasca, two powerful psychedelics. They argue that while DMT can provide a quick, intense experience, Ayahuasca offers a deeper, more transformative journey that can lead to personal healing. They caution against using these substances without proper respect and intention, comparing it to a toddler stepping onto a highway. They also express concern about the Western tendency to simplify and exploit indigenous practices, potentially leading to misuse and harm.
➡ The text discusses a podcast that features stories of people overcoming addictions and PTSD, often through the use of ayahuasca. The host, Thomas, invites a guest named Brian to participate in an ayahuasca session and later appear on the podcast. The text also mentions a product called Conspiracy Cards from Paranoid American, a set of over 200 cards featuring conspiracy theorists and other esoteric secrets. Lastly, it includes a rap verse that seems to discuss the struggles and criticisms faced by the rapper.
➡ The text discusses the mainstreaming of ayahuasca, a sacred ritual, and the importance of respecting its traditional use. The author runs a retreat center where they combine Western and indigenous practices, with an indigenous shaman preparing the medicine. They caution against Westerners claiming to be shamans after a single experience and emphasize the need to respect the knowledge of those who have practiced for generations. The author also warns of the dangers of improper use of ayahuasca, such as mixing it with antidepressants, and the importance of professional guidance for Westerners seeking the experience.
➡ Ayahuasca, a traditional spiritual medicine, is safe when prepared and consumed properly. However, there are risks, such as shamans taking advantage of participants. It’s important to choose a reputable retreat and facilitator who has personally tested the medicine. Shamans don’t need to live primitively to be effective, and using modern technology doesn’t make them less spiritual. Respect for the medicine is crucial, and it’s not habit-forming as it can give unpleasant experiences if misused. The plant seems to have a self-regulating aspect, similar to Salvia divinorum. There are different beliefs about the spiritual entities encountered during the experience.
➡ The text discusses experiences with DMT and Ayahuasca, substances known for inducing spiritual and hallucinogenic experiences. The author emphasizes focusing on the healing aspects of these experiences rather than the visions or entities encountered. They also discuss the importance of respecting the cultural and ceremonial aspects of using these substances, suggesting that without this respect, the experience can feel empty and directionless. Lastly, they mention that these substances are often used for healing or personal growth, helping with issues like depression, anxiety, and addiction, but caution against their use in cases of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
➡ Ayahuasca, a traditional medicinal brew, has been reported to help people with various issues, from addiction to mental health problems. However, it’s not a magic cure-all; it shows you your problems and how to fix them, but you still need to put in the work. People with certain health conditions, like schizophrenia or severe heart issues, are advised not to use it. The brew is also not recommended for those who just want to party or have no intention of personal growth. It’s important to approach ayahuasca with respect and a clear intention for healing or self-improvement.
➡ In some traditions, children as young as six start consuming small amounts of ayahuasca, a traditional spiritual medicine, if they wish to become shamans. They gradually increase their intake over the years. For adults who discover ayahuasca later in life and wish to become shamans, there is a pathway that involves regular consumption over a period of about 10 years, along with learning from an experienced shaman. However, becoming a shaman is a challenging task and should not be taken lightly.
➡ The text discusses a retreat where people can experience ayahuasca, a traditional spiritual medicine. The retreat offers both group and private sessions, with group sessions being more fun and healing. The retreat includes various activities such as workshops, yoga, meditation, and bonding sessions. The ayahuasca experience is carefully guided and includes music, rituals, and sharing circles. The retreat also offers a day off for relaxation and integration, and some people choose to extend their stay to further enjoy the community and nature.
➡ The podcast host discusses Ayahuasca, a traditional spiritual medicine, and its potential benefits for mental health. They suggest that pharmaceutical companies may not want Ayahuasca to become mainstream due to its potential to disrupt the antidepressant market. The host also discusses the growing popularity of Ayahuasca and other psychedelics, and the resistance they face, possibly due to fears of societal change. They end by discussing the possibility that the 1960s psychedelic revolution was orchestrated by the government.
➡ The text discusses the use and societal perception of psychedelics, particularly ayahuasca. It highlights how these substances have been used for centuries without causing societal issues when used in a controlled manner. The speaker also shares his skepticism towards various conspiracy theories and emphasizes the importance of respecting the role of shamans in indigenous cultures. He invites those interested in ayahuasca to learn more through his podcast and retreats.
Transcript
Join us as we navigate these intricate landscapes, decoding the hidden scripts of our society and challenging the accepted perceptions of reality. Folks, I’ve got a big problem on my hands. There’s a company called Paranoid American making all these funny memes and comics. Now, I’m a fair guy. I believe in free speech as long as it doesn’t cross the line. And if these AI generated memes dare to make fun of me, they’re crossing the line. This is your expedition into the realm of the extraordinary, the secret, the shrouded. Come with us as we sift through the world’s grand mysteries, question the standardized narratives, and brave the cryptic labyrinth of the concealed truth.
So strap yourselves in, broaden your horizons, and steal yourselves for a voyage into the enigmatic heart of the Paranoid American podcast. Where each story, every image, every revelation brings us one step closer to the elusive truth. Welcome to another episode of Paranoid American Podcast. Today we got someone with a cool name and even cooler job. His name is Sam Believe and he runs an Ayahuasca retreat. And he’s going to convince me and hopefully everyone else listening, that it’s something worth looking into a little bit deeper. So we’re going to do that today. Sam, welcome to the show and go ahead and introduce yourself and tell people where they can find you, your website, social media, all that stuff right now.
Thank you for having me on so you can find me. Or if you Google Ayahuasca in Colombia, you’ll probably find our website. It’s ayahuascolombia.com but the retreat name is Lawyer. Or check out our podcast, which is Ayahuasca Podcast. You can find it everywhere you listen to podcasts or just go to Ayahuasca Podcast dot Com. Yeah, that’s a little, that’s a little bit about the links and about myself. My name is Sam, I live in, I’m originally from Latvia. That’s in northeast Europe. I’ve been living in Colombia for eight years. I’ve been working with ayahuasca personally for about four and a half years and I’ve been running Levira together with my wife for the last three years and never planned to start an Iowa screw treat.
It kind of happened. But now we are arguably biggest and best ayahuasca retreat in Colombia and we’re the best rated ayahuasca retreat in South America according to Google reviews. So that’s my claim to fame. I’m also the host of ayahuasca podcast. So I love talking about, about, I love to talk about everything ayahuasca related, especially for, to introduce first timers to it because there’s a lot of misconceptions, a lot of weirdness in the space. But I kind of try and explain how it can be done properly actually how you can benefit a lot from it. So that’s, that’s me.
I’m excited about that. And you, you have a qualifier, the best in South America. Well, I’m assuming that there’s not a lot of great ayahuasca retreats in North America or Canada, right? Or I mean is it even legal to do ayahuasca retreats like a formal business in like, like federally in either of those countries? So here in Colombia it is legal when you have a indigenous shaman that has his permits from his indigenous council. The reason I say in South America is because in Central America there are some retreats that have more five star views than us.
And obviously in U. S You can’t really do ayahuasca. You kind of can. There are some churches, but I’m not really kind of competing with churches, I’m only competing with other retreats. So I mean in my mind I’m not competing with anyone. But it’s, you gotta. For people, for people who don’t know us, you kind of need to explain that. You know, I’m not just any kind of guy that talks about ayahuasca. So I know for a few, a few, few good things about it. So yeah, legality is, is tricky. But here it is legal and like, let’s just say that you’ve got a tight job in the US Like a strict job and you go and do one of these retreats and then you go back home and they pop you for like a drug Test or something? Is that a concern that people ever have going to one of these foreign retreat? Is there a cool down period, like are you supposed to wait a week before you go back home or what? Not with ayahuasca.
DMT is not on any panel for testing because it happens naturally in your body. So there’s no way, there’s no way anyone can prove you had ayahuasca, even if you. For example, here at Lawyera, we also have, we’re also an echo hotel and co living, co working. So if, unless somebody like takes a photo of you drinking a cup and having ayahuasca come into your mouth, even then it’s like arguably like what is it that you’re drinking? So it’s not really an issue. But we do with Horsemen. So we have some head of surgery departments, you know, we, when people ask, we don’t take photos of them, we don’t share them on social media.
But generally issues with somebody being fired or. Because there’s no way to prove it unless you tell them you’re breaking up a little bit. But just to finish your thought, you said that there’s really no way for anyone to be able to tell if you’ve taken ayahuasca unless you tell them directly. Right. So even if, if you were to do a whole bunch of ayahuasca, the levels of DMT wouldn’t matter because they don’t test for it on most panels anyways. Yeah, you don’t test for DMT because it happens naturally in our body. Like body secretes DMT when you sleep, for example, you get DMT when you get born, when you die, when you are giving birth.
My wife has recently been giving birth to my youngest daughter and she said she had the full fledged ayahuasca experience on and then in the hospital. So you cannot test. I mean, probably there are ways, but not. No panel has DMT on it. So I’m gonna have to ask you some questions from my own frame of reference because I’m not an ayahuasca expert. I’ve never actually done like a proper ayahuasca retreat. I’ve allegedly had DMT maybe in a fictional Minecraft universe. But when I, when I did that, it was basically one of my buddies in college had ordered some mimosa bark or something off the Internet.
Like it was just done according to some PDF file that he found. Right. And it, and it worked. But I guess one of the things that comes up the most often is that that’s this weird synthetic kind of artificial approach to it, where you’re isolating just this one DMT versus what sometime gets kind of advertised and sold as like a more natural approach. You’ve got other elements that get added into it. The set, the setting, having a professional shaman with some sort of experience. Like what’s the actual difference between those two experiences? Someone that like their buddy just got a bunch of pool cleaner supplies and some bark off the Internet versus flying to South America or Central America or wherever and having like a full on experience.
The best analogy I came up with is you, you can eat a pizza, like a full pizza with you know, 10 different ingredients, or you can eat cheese and then you say, well I kind of ate cheese so I kind of know what pizza is all about. So DMT is only one of the tens, if not hundreds of other ingredients in ayahuasca. And that’s not taking out the tradition, the ceremony, the facilitation, the integration. So it’s kind of like, yeah, it’s, you know, as DMT is to ayahuasca what potatoes are to vodka. You know, there is a connection, you can make one out of another, but it’s, it’s honestly very remote.
Ayahuasca experience can be DMT like at periods, but it’s also much longer and you can have a full fledged process where you can actually get the healing in case of dmt. I mean, you see some stuff, but that’s about it with ayahuasca. I don’t, I never met anyone who smoked DMT and like quit and like healed their depression. However, it happens very commonly with ayahuasca. So I don’t like that approach. I don’t like the simplifying thousand year old tradition and kind of just taking out one ingredient out of it and kind of even, I mean, even comparing them together is really kind of almost offensive.
I mean, I’m not indigenous so I’m not going to get offended, but I know that I remember before I tried ayahuasca was like this ayahuasca thing. It’s like I’m really curious about it, but I don’t really want to vomit and maybe I’ll just do dmt. It’s like I remember thinking it, so it’s, it’s a pretty common way of thinking, but it’s, it’s not the same thing altogether. And the DMT is not going to heal you. Ayahuasca can actually change your life. I mean, DMT maybe, perhaps, but I don’t, I don’t hurt, I don’t I don’t hear any stories like that.
Have you ended up doing isolated DMT because you said you were thinking about it first or did you just not do it and went right to ayahuasca? No, I didn’t do it. I went straight to ayahuasca. I got lucky that way. And what I learned after doing it is not only purging that I was so afraid of. Not only, it’s not, not just this gnarly side effect, it’s actually one of the core ways ayahuasca heals you. Because somehow ayahuasca can take stuff stored in your body physically, emotions, even like psycho spiritually, and then kind of condense it into a ball in your stomach and then you purge it and next day people tell me, I feel 10 kilos lighter, 15 kilos lighter, 20 kilos lighter, you name it, it just does something to you.
So it’s when you do other psychedelics, like mushrooms for example, you will then miss that purge because you get emotions come up and then they settle back down again. You, you don’t have that moment of when you’re actually releasing it. I know it sounds really weird for somebody who never experienced anything like that. And I don’t wanna, I know how spiritually you want to go, but I tried to keep it reasonable, so. But what I can tell you. Unreasonable. We’ll definitely get unreasonable soon. Yeah, well, I guess on that, that same note, using your analogy of maybe ayahuasca is a full pizza with all the ingredients and it leaves you filled and nourished versus a block of cheese, right? But even someone that maybe has eaten pizza and appreciates pizza, you still might not discount going and snacking on a piece of cheese every once in a while.
So, so in that case too, if you’ve done ayahuasca, is there anything detrimental, is there a reason why you wouldn’t go and supplement that once in a while with like a quick DMT vape pen versus like okay, let me go ahead and fast and purge and go through this 24 hour experience versus let me go check out DMT land for 15 minutes like while I’ve got a break from work meetings. No, I, I say if you’re into that stuff and other psychedelics, I don’t hate on them. I personally love working with mushrooms as well and San Pedro.
I tried a few others, kind of lesser knowns, but definitely you can do it. But then just make sure you kind of clear on what, what you’re getting out of it. So if somebody just smokes DMT to like to do what? To kind of just have a different experience with ayahuasca. I mean, there’s sacredness to ayahuasca. It’s like you come in and you do it and there’s a process and you get so much out of it. And I just don’t like the fact that you just, I mean, I’m saying like if you smoke dmt, then at least you know, make yourself some fire and collect with some friends and make it ceremonial and maybe smudge space with some sage or kapal or you know, make an altar set an intention.
I think just try and make it intentionally that. Because when you work, when you work with psychedelics and you enter those spirit realms, they, they don’t care if you know or you don’t know. Like not, not everything there is good. So you don’t have a shaman, you don’t have any protection. You’re just kind of like toddler stepping into on the highway. It’s like, yeah, it’s interesting and confusing, but there are certain risks. So it’s like if you want to work with psychedelics, whichever psychedelics, new one or old ones, just make sure you do it properly. Well, you make a good statement, you ask a great question, even if it was rhetorical, but why would anyone want to do that versus this other experience? And I guess from my, my understanding of DMT in America, like specifically through kind of like the illegal black market underground, right, because there was never necessarily in the 60s, 70s, 80s, any spiritual or official way to kind of do this.
There weren’t really many churches set up, so a lot of people were introduced in the 70s and 80s through the same kind of like high times magazines and stoner culture. And in fact they used to call DMT the businessman’s high because it literally meant that it was an alternative to all the other drugs that people might be smoking in the 70s, where you could step out from work, like I mentioned, have a 15 minute experience and then go back into a meeting an hour later and no one is necessarily the wiser. While that might not be the case with marijuana or mushrooms or almost anything else that you could sort of list out there so that I’m not, I’m not making a defense of that, I’m just noting that that was the introduction of DMT to America the same way that psilocybin mushrooms were introduced as magic mushrooms in, in Life magazine to the general public before anyone had a chance to explain any culture or background or ceremonial purposes.
That’s how it was Sold businessman’s high magic mushrooms. And that kind of creates its own culture which feels totally isolated from this more ceremonial approach. So I guess that’s, it’s a completely different mind state. The thing, the thing about DMT is what I would want people to do is try and do it properly, with some intention and then just kind of listen. And a lot of times people tell me that they did DMT and then tell them actually go do ayahuasca. So that’s, that’s what I like about dmt. There are risks that here the main issue is I’m going to tell you a few stories.
So number one, chocolate. So Cacao is this amazing medicine that opens your heart and has been used traditionally by indigenous people for millennia. It’s a ceremonial thing you do and it like connects you with your heart. You feel so much love, it bonds you. Westerners come in, they mix it with some milk and sugar and now it gives you diabetes. Coca, cocoa, amazing plant you, you put in your cheek or you do it as, as a mamba, and it gives you energy and steady energy, much better than coffee even. And you go and you do work and you build Machu Picchu or whatever.
Westerners come in, synthesize cocaine out of it. Now it kills people. You know, and I. There’s many stories like this. Tobacco, an amazing medicine, so many ceremonial use cases. It connects you to your ancestors. Like you’re stressed, it gives you answers. Amazing tool. And then Western scam, you know, grind it, finally add some chemicals to it, put into a cigarette, now gives you lung cancer and, and dmt. I don’t want to say anything bad about dmt because honestly, I don’t know everything, but it’s, it can be that for ayahuasca, it’s like, you’re not going to abuse ayahuasca.
You’re not gonna smoke ayahuasca on your, you know, drink ayahuasca on your break. As you said, businessman high. So. But you can abuse DMT like people abuse dmt. I’ve never met anyone abusing ayahuasca. So why I personally prefer only sticking to psychedelic traditions that are like thousand plus years old is because you know that not only was good for those people, but it was good for them for many generations. No, you don’t see an addict under the bridge drinking ayahuasca, otherwise you wouldn’t be an addict. So it’s like, why do we always feel this need to simplify? It’s like removing a tree from its roots.
Like both the roots and A tree die. I just think there’s a risk in that. And I, I don’t want to promote that behavior. However, if you work with ayahuasca and you’re a psychonaut and you have a really intentional journey and you need DMT to do some spiritual exploration, well, go for it. But, like, what is that desire to do everything quicker and remove tradition out of everything? It only, it feels nice at first because, oh, like, look at me, I, I made it simpler and I don’t need to purge. But in reality, like, do you really know what you’re doing and is it going to benefit you in the long run? And I mean, to counter some of that just as like a silver lining aspect that, that aspect of Westerners coming in and exploiting and saying, like, oh, we’ve simplified it, we’ve made it more convenient.
Without that dynamic, do you think your chance in Latvia of even having considered ayahuasca to begin with would have been reduced if it hadn’t been for that sort of proliferation of making these sacred rituals more mainstream to the rest of the world? But ayahuasca is becoming mainstream not because Westerners came and kind of took it. What happened about ayahuasca was here 500 years ago when Westerners were here, but it was not going mainstream is because we kind of ready now. And a lot of shamans say that they got message from the medicines themselves to get out of the jungle and go to the city because the world is sick and they need to heal it, otherwise we’ll destroy ourselves.
So that’s the version I’ve seen. And of course we don’t. Like, I have a retreat center and I bring people here and we use Western modalities for integration and group therapy and things like that. So trying to combine best of both worlds, but at the same time, I have an indigenous shaman who lives in the jungle where he grows his own medicine with his tribe and he cooks it and brings it here. So of course we’re trying to bridge both worlds and there’s nothing wrong about it, but, like, do it in such a way that you, you retain the tradition at least, you know, respect people that have been doing it for thousand, thousands of years because they might know something you don’t know.
So I’m not a shaman, I’m not claiming to be one. And I have an indigenous guy that comes from lineage, many generations of shamans passing that tradition. And I think that’s, of course I’m biased because that’s my business, and I do it according to My belief system. But I think that’s a good way to do it. If somebody does the same thing and they’re, you know, we had people that come here and drink ayahuasca once, and they. They claim they’re shaman three months from then. And I don’t like that. I don’t like that either. I think you just got to respect.
You just got to respect other people’s knowledge. What is it in Westerners that we can assume that we know better? And look at, yeah, we have technology, but look at. How can I swear on your podcast? Yeah, absolutely. Look at how fucked up we are. Look at us. Look at Western Europe. We’re fucked up. Why do we assume we know better than others? And I’m just saying there is this perfect world where we can mutually respect each other and take and receive, but find, you know, you know, this nationality or this people figured out the best how to do this.
Let’s respect their tradition. We might use it, obviously, respectfully, but we’re not going to go and try and, like, meddle with it because, like, as I listed you with those examples, every time we tried, it ended up in some form of a disaster. Well, and I, I guess you, you make a lot of good points that I wanted. I want to talk back on. So one of that is about the. The traditions on, like, going back thousands of years in these certain areas and cultures. Right. Some of that, I’m just. I’m just asking questions because I’m.
I’m a complete bumpkin on this, but some of that almost seems that the plant happens to grow in that region, and there’s only going to be a handful of cultures in that region. So is that the plant picking? Who gets to discover it and who gets to define the culture and the ceremony around it versus what if ayahuasca didn’t grow in a tropical climate, it grew in Canada or it grew in Eastern Europe somewhere. Right. Doesn’t that would be a completely different culture and likely that those ceremonies would differ? Or is there something inherent in the plant itself that, like, it tells you what its ceremony needs to be, regardless of what, you know, geographic nature that it came up in? Well, I think the plant was growing there thousands of, if not million years before people even came there.
But it’s a good question. The. That’s. That’s what shamans say. The plant tells them what to do. The plant tells them, you know, take me, mix me with this other plant, and then you’ll get a better version of me. That’s. That’s what shamans tell me. And, but does it mean that if, if ayahuasca grew in us and then, you know, settlers came, does it mean, would the plant ever tell me, like, go and like synthesize DMT out of me? I, I don’t know. Or, or would people be traveling to Michigan and then the Michigan shamans are like, you have to drink some Mountain Dew, like as you’re ingesting this.
That’s how we’ve always done it. And you just have to play. I know. It’s just a thought experiment rather than something that has a defin. Definite answer. It’s the good, the good food for your thought experiment is that there’s at least 50 different ayahuasca traditions that differ quite a lot from one each other. So there is a discrepancy. There is a variety. However, there are also similarities. It’s like you don’t see people drink ayahuasca and go to work. You know, like there’s a. There’s always like. If I would sum it up, there’s. The similarities are it’s, it’s mostly a group work.
You always have a shaman, it’s done in a sacred space and there is reverence, but they can be dressed in different things and they can be music or they can be no music and there can be fire or they can be no fire. There are differences, but some similarities persist. So if, if a Michigan shamanism school wants to work with ayahuasca, well, at least respect the, the common patterns and then add the mountain brew at some other ritual. And I mean, you’re founder, CEO of a, of a large retreat, the highest rated South America ayahuasca retreat.
So even if you’re not a shaman and you might not have like thousand year old ancient knowledge, you do have a really good understanding of the type of people that are coming to these retreats and what they’re coming for and the process they’re going through. So from, from your vantage point, isn’t it mostly westerners that are coming here for tourism to do this, or is it mostly locals in Colombia? I mean, we work specifically with westerners. My, my job is kind of to bridge those two worlds in, in the most reasonable matter. Because Colombians don’t need to come to our retreat because they can, you know, they can just go to some.
Their friend tells them, oh, such and such shaman is visiting the city, they just grab a mattress and a pillow and they go and kind of lie on the floor. Trip on iOS can come back. But westerners Cannot do that. We, they need to have a schedule. They need to come. They need somebody to organize, transport for them, somebody to give them instructions on how to work with the medicines. It’s much more professional experience. We do have some Colombians, of course, the ones that I kind of want to maybe let’s say next level experience with more, more additions.
Because it’s not just ayahuasca, it’s also the, all of the training and the courses we provide to make sure people know how to navigate their psychedelic experience. Because like I went to some of those Colombian style ceremonies, you just come, come over and they just give you a cup, you drink it and then it’s like you’re on your own. You know, it’s kind of, it’s not, it’s not what a Western or whatever accept. And then also the comforts and everything. But for somebody who wants to, they can just come, come to the jungle directly and on their own risk.
Try and find the shaman that’s a real shaman because there’s, there’s not going to be any Google reviews for you to guide yourself. You might have an indigenous guy that just put some beads on it, has no idea what he’s doing. And this is where all the horror stories originate. Because ayahuasca has, you know, you hear so many good things, but you also hear those kind of crazy stories. And this is normally how it happens. Somebody trying to cut corners. Can you tell me the craziest horror story that you’ve heard? I mean, the worst things I’ve heard is people dying.
Because number one, there was no, for example, you cannot mix ayahuasca with antidepressants. And nobody knows anything or nobody says anything. Like in case of, somebody signs up for our retreat, they complete a questionnaire form and we say, you know, oh, you gotta quit this such and such time in advance, otherwise it’s not gonna be good. And then when they come, they need to sign a wa, remind them over and over again. So it never happens. But if, let’s say somebody’s in the jungle and they oh, I have ayahuasca, sure, give me $100 and I’ll give you ayahuasca.
And then they drink it and then they, they end up dying because this interaction can cause something’s called serotonin syndrome and give you a heart attack. That would be the worst thing to happen. Or people not knowing what dosages of medicine to work with. Or, you know, there are spiritual risks associated. So somebody going crazy. But at the same time, if you do it right. If you have a real shaman, if you have real ayahuasca, pure ayahuasca with no additives, if you do it properly and do the preparation right, is extremely safe. I drink it, My, My wife drinks it.
And we host 700 people a year and everyone leaves here better than before. So I’m just saying that there are risks and there are crazy stories and other stuff that keep. Keeps happening over and over is like sexual abuse. You know, like women. Women come to the jungle setting and there’s some shaman that thinks they’re pretty, and then they, when they’re under the influence, they. They sexually abuse them. So that’s, that’s another reason to go to a more reputable place. So when like you have to interact with actual shaman for your sourcing and I assume for any other number of reasons, what would you do to interview a shaman to make sure that they didn’t just put some beads on and they’re acting the part? I just interviewing would not be enough.
Like in my case, I. I met my shaman in the jungle. I saw his. I saw his family, I saw his ayahuasca plantation. I drank his medicine before I even years before I even offered to any of my visitors. So, you know, a good facilitator or a good retreat organizer tests on himself, kind of like a scientist. So I felt better and I felt trusting to offer it to other people. If I didn’t like it myself, I would. Or maybe if it hurt me, then I wouldn’t, wouldn’t invite other people to participate. Would it disqualify someone from being a reputable shaman to live in the city? Like, do they have to live in the jungle and they have to live in.
I, for lack of a better word, like primitive means. I mean like no running water, electricity, or not wearing sneakers or having a PlayStation or is. Is that at all? No, those. I’ve worked with both kinds and I see. I see no difference. I think as long as they go. Go to jungle at least couple times a year to reconnect and to cook their own medicine there, there can be good. And I. My current shaman, he uses WhatsApp and he actually, he used to travel here every time, 26 hours from the jungle, do the retreat and come back.
But he has a family. It’s really hard on him. So he ended up staying in a nearby town and now he only travels once every few months. But it didn’t make him any worse of a shaman. On opposed to that. He now has more time to rest and he’s actually, you know, much happier and much more productive and much more able to serve. So the reality is your spiritual energy is not going to diminish if you, I don’t know, eat a McDonald’s burger. It’s, it’s kind of, it’s kind of. Once again, that’s a western fantasy. Like some retreats, they really promote like vegan diet.
But in reality, one of the main uses of ayahuasca in the beginning was people. The, the hunters would drink it so it reveals hunting grass for them to then go hunt animals and eat them. It’s that, that’s another kind of negative when people start mixing Eastern tradition, Western tradition, and kind of trying to claim what is, what is the right way to do it without really consulting the original people. Because, like, when I went to jungle, they gave me meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So, yeah, it’s. Using Internet or playing a PlayStation game is not gonna make you not spiritual.
It’s, it’s other things. Like how do you behave with people? How are you in a ceremony? Are you, are you actually a kind of person that tries to help people? Or are you just feeding your ego to be like, look at me, I’ve healed you. You know, that’s, that’s ma. That matters way more. Would it, would it be taboo if you went to an ayahuasca retreat and then, you know, during the ceremony or after it starts kicking in for everyone and then you just pull out like a Game Boy or you just start scrolling through Tick Tock and say like, this is how I want to experience my DMT trip.
Or like, would you, what is that frowned upon? Would someone stop you from doing it? Would it offend people? And they’d be like, don’t come back? No, I mean, we, we do have rules in the ceremony. You can’t bring your phone, you can’t bring any digital devices because number one, it will distract you from your own process. It’ll distract other people. You’re obviously not respecting the medicine. If you behave that way, most likely just gonna get a bad trip. You don’t, you don’t with Ayahuasca will show you it’s a, you know, it’s a grandmother spirit, but it’s a tough love kind of grandmother would be like, what are you, what are you, what are you here for? You know, it’s, and it’s just gonna roll you around a little bit.
So you gotta, you gotta have some respect for the, for the medicine. So one of the first things you’re mentioning too is that it, it doesn’t necessarily become habit forming or it’s, it’s not easy to abuse because it just kicks your ass left and right or, or that it’s maybe not as receptive to you because there’s almost like. And we’ll get into the spiritual aspect pretty quick but, but there’s almost like a spiritual force field or guardians at the gate that are like, this guy’s not serious. You know, we’re just going to spin him around a little bit and send him back on his way.
I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you a personal story. So there was a period of time when I was really seeking that healing and growth through ayahuasca. And I was just going often not because I enjoyed it or like I was addicted, just because I was, I wanted to speed up my growth journey. And one of the times I came back to Ayahuasca like three days after I just drank it and it, it clearly asked me like, oh, you’re back so soon, like, what about the homework I gave you? Like what about the other stuff we talked about? You didn’t do anything about it.
And it gave me a terrible trip, like a really bad trip. So it’s, if it tells you to do something, you, you want to do something. So it’s, it’s not a problem to come back a month later and drink it. But it’s like at least give some thought and don’t just be kind of scrolling through the information it provides you. Otherwise it might get a little offended and roll you around in the dirt a little bit. But generally if you. The way we create a container, it includes guidance on how to treat it properly. So bad trips are not that common when you are in a good safe set and setting and people around you are kind and you feel comfortable and safe.
So hope that answers your question. Well, there’s another plant that has a very similar sort of MO to it where Salvia divinerum is kind of this self regulating plant. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Salvia divineum or used it or have any opinions on it. I’ve heard something. It’s something you smoke, right? But I don’t know anything else smoke or sublingual. They make tinctures, but one of the traditional is that they would just take the fresh leaves, almost like coca. You would just put it inside your mouth and let it seep in through your mucous membrane.
And that’s how a lot of people did it traditionally for long, long periods of time. But the same, the same guy that discovered, well, discovered and brought to the western world magic mushrooms, Gordon Wasson. He also discovered salvia divinum and brought that to the West. But that one didn’t necessarily catch on because it has that same dynamic where you do it and then you do it a day later and there’s almost someone waiting for you, being like, what are you doing back here? Like I told, I told you, you are not ready to come through this door.
And it just has, you have a less than pleasant experience versus like a huge kind of breakthrough to it. So I was just curious, if you haven’t heard of that, I would love for you to just look into that more because it’s, it has the only other plant that I’ve heard of that has that kind of self regulating aspect to it, which to me is fascinating. So, so I guess let’s go into that a little bit more in depth because that’s my best frame of reference is like entities. And I’ll hear a lot of people, especially on podcasts, always talk about DMT entities.
And there’s a few different impressions of it. One of them is that they are these spirits that are either inside the plant itself that you’re kind of inviting into your body, or you’re using that to access their world. And then there’s also a more like Christianized version where they’re demons and, and that the entities are acting like they’re helpful, you know, shaman spirits, but really there’s some sort of biblical dark entities that are trying to snatch little pieces of your soul. Have you come across any of these theories? You have any opinions on any of these? I mean, I’ve interacted with DMT entities and all kinds of entities.
And like recently I had a chat with this Egyptian God and angels and you name it, it’s like I’ve never seen the same thing twice. However, I honestly, I think, I think it’s less about analyzing what, what your experience was like and what you’ve seen and more like what had, what have it done for you. For example, if you go to a surgery, you’re not gonna be like super overly analyzing how your incision was made and how the surgeon was cutting out your appendix. You only care about how you feel afterwards. So we, I think we also over focus on that side of things.
So we, I tried to focus on healing more than, than visions and connections, but it’s there, it’s a part of work with Ayahuasca where you will encounter entities and you will have chats with Plant spirits and gods, but it’s, it’s different for everyone. So I’ve. As opposed to DMT where you kind of smoke it and see the same thing over and over again with ayahuasca, you don’t really see same thing twice. I’ve never experienced, I mean, I experienced some realms that are similar several times in the row like this, you know, jestery Legoland kind of realm and the slithery snaky pattern kind of realm.
And you know, some people report very Egyptian like experiences. So there are some patterns, but it’s more diverse than that. I did have like once entities that were kind of like, they were small and they were like tapping me with it with their fingers and felt like they were trying to like help me or they’re really like happy to see me, but I don’t take much meaning out of that. So I’m not an expert on entities. Well, let’s say that you do all of the regular preparation correctly. You set in setting and you fast and you make sure you’re not on like, there’s no real health issues concerned.
Is there ever a risk of mentally having like, you encounter these entities and you fight them or you insult them, or you do some other egregious act in this DMT realm, is there any danger from that or is it all just experiences that you’re going through? I don’t know. When you have a shaman, generally he protects you from interacting with anything negative. He kind of allows all the bad things to come out and allows good things to come in, but just doesn’t let bad things to come in. So there’s there should. You should not interact with anything.
If done properly, you shouldn’t interact with anything super dark that like latches on to you. If you don’t have a shaman and you’re on your own, probably you can find something to hurt yourself and then, then you will eventually have to find a shaman to try and remove it because, mind that we, we have no idea what we’re talking about and, and they’ve been working with it for thousands of years. But as in like talking to an entity and offending it. In my experience, entities are not that easily offended or they’re. It’s not like a Christian model where it’s like the God kind of hates you for some reason or like loves you but punishes you all the time.
I don’t think it kind of applies to the DMT realm things. But once again, I’m telling you I’m not, I’m not an expert. I tried to focus on healing people’s depression and anxiety and like suicidal ideation. I, I try to almost avoid going too spiritual because I think if I ever do, I will distract myself from actually running, running a business that saves people’s lives. You’re not wrong. You’re definitely not wrong because it’s a whole rabbit hole. So I’ve got one last question that’s a little bit more like geared toward that whole spiritual aspect. But you mentioned a few times about like respect for the culture and the ceremonies almost at your own peril, not just for the sake of offending people, but that if you don’t respect it, then something bad might happen to you.
Like what part of the respect is that? Like I’m, I’m imagining sort of a, an interesting scenario here, right? So if the rest of America or the rest of the world gets severed from Central and South America or ayahuasca somehow is eradicated because you know, some new political wave comes through and they say we’re just going to get rid of all psychedelics and they stomp it all out and someone finds it 100 years later and they don’t have the thousands of years of training or shaman rituals or anything, it’s just, hey, here’s a plan. And I wonder what would happen if we process this and somehow they come back to ayahuasca again? How? What is that experience versus this thousand year old traditional experience? Assuming that they go through the same prod, they figure out how to boil it and mix it with the same plants, but all the culture and all the shamans that are sitting over you and helping guide you, all that’s removed and we have to build that back up from scratch.
Like what do you think the difference between those two experiences will be? Well, you don’t have to even go that far. You know, in UK in like Celtic traditions they work with mushrooms for example, and now the mushrooms still grow there, but you can take them and you can trip on them, but there is no tradition. So it feels how it feels. It feels empty and directionless and a little confusing. However, I think if people, somebody does it and they do it intentionally long enough, and then maybe pass the tradition to their children, eventually they will rebuild or create a similar tradition or because the plant or the fungus themselves will eventually teach them and show them how it wants to be interacted with.
When it comes to ayahuasca, that’s a tricky one because not only they would need to find a ayahuasca vine, but then they would need to find the DMT shrub. And those are like 11 out of hundred thousands of different species in Amazon. So how would they do it? I don’t know how they did it previously. We still don’t know. It’s like. It’s like accidentally assembling a attack helicopter in your sand pit. It’s like, it seems simple when you know it, but if you don’t know it, the chances are very low. So we still don’t know. It’s like, you know, if you look at those ancient pyramids and how amazing they were built, and then on top of them, you see less advanced stuff.
I think that long time ago there was a more advanced civilization, and somehow they figured out how to. How to work with this medicine properly. And then the civilization got destroyed, but the recipe somehow survived. That’s. That would be the most reasonable explanation. Because, like, if you go to Machu Picchu, for example, or Sacsay Woman, another megalithic site nearby, you see those stones side of the size of the bus, like 20,000 tones, perfectly polished and aligned to one another. And then on top of that, you see Inca constructions that are, like, very rough and rudimentary. So somehow it seemed that the progress there went in reverse, and we’re still not at that level.
They were, at least when it comes to building stone stuff or coming up with amazing biological technologies like ayahuasca. Oh, so you mentioned some of the different types of people that come through. Like people that have suicidal ideations, people that probably. I’ll make some assumptions here. You can correct me. People that are addicted to other drugs, that are trying to get off those depression. Just people that are at, I guess, extreme milestones in their life and they’re trying to get over it. Like, what are. What are the most common reasons that someone would show up? Is it.
Is it all someone trying to get over a problem or. They’re mostly people that are just there to experience something new or what. So it’s either healing or growth mostly. So some people just want to maybe find a better path in life or figure out their relationship or find, you know, what their purpose is. And. But there’s even, even for them, for those people, there’s a lot of healing to be done before they start working on that. But healing was a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety, suicidal ideations, alcoholism, drug addictions, eating disorders, all of the.
All of the kind of most common issues that, you know, they say when it comes to mental health, psychedelics are good for all the mental health that are described by too strict Of a pattern. So it’s like repeating patterns, for example, conditions that define too much order in the brain. Repeating pattern. So all of those that I described have that tendency. But you wouldn’t count ayahuasca if you have schizophrenia or bipolar, because it’s. It’s the opposite. It will push you even. Even more towards the chaos side of things. But, yeah, I’ve many of the stories of people coming to ayahuasca just out of curiosity, and then they come back home and they’re like, message me.
It’s like, it’s been a few months, and I haven’t been drinking. I just don’t feel like it. Or, you know, one that came three. Three days ago, a message that a girl, she was anorexic, and she said, I gained 10 kilos. Or, you know, I have hundreds of testimonials from different people dealing with different issues. But I also don’t want to put people under the assumption that they’re gonna just come and drink ayahuasca once, and it will magically take all the. All their problems away. What it does is it will show you what your problem is.
It will show you how to fix it, and it’ll give you homework, and you will need to integrate. You’ll need to change some things about your life. It’s not. It’s rarely just magically fixes everything for you, although it does sometimes happen. So there is work that needs to be done in the integration side of things. Are there any reasons that you would turn someone away? Not just suggest, but, like, we. Like, I won’t help you. You can’t come. If they said that, like, hey, I’m schizophrenic, but I’ve tried everything else, and I’m. And I want to see if this will help.
Would you just say, like, sorry, that that’s not safe, or if someone showed up and said, I just want to come to party. I heard you guys throw a great party. And I don’t really care about exploration or learning or growth. I just want to, you know, feel inebriated. Are any of those reasons something you’d say? You know, find someone else, or do you kind of have a slot for everybody? Yeah, if somebody has schizophrenia, that’s a hard. No, just. Sorry. You know, find. Do something else. If somebody has, like, very bad heart issues or blood pressure issues, like something where ayahuasca can increase it a little bit more, just enough to hurt you, we would say maybe consider microdosing or doing something else.
So not completely closing the doors. But we might tell them, yeah, instead of coming for one week, come for one month and we’ll work with smaller doses and we can do it sometimes. And then carefully monitoring their blood pressure. For example, if somebody comes and they say it’s just out of curiosity, I don’t really have an intention, we tell them, well, figure out at least one intention because you might need it in the ceremony. When things go difficult, you might need to know and have that guiding light as to why are you here. Because if it feels, if you feel really lost and you’re like, what the hell have I done? It’s very different to like, yeah, it feels rough, but I’m really here to heal something.
And you have that intention that carries you through. But in that case, we still tell them, yeah, stay. Because a lot of people come for shorter retreats. Like our shortest retreat is four days and it’s two ceremonies. So it’s kind of like a long weekend. And they come, a lot of them come to just check it off their list because they’ve heard about it and it’s interesting. And then in their process the medicine shows them like, oh, you know, there’s actually this and there’s that and then they come back for longer to work on it and then actually start a pretty great healing journey.
So once again ayahuasca self guiding. That way you can get somebody who doesn’t believe in anything as long as they drink ayahuasca, eventually it will like pop the lid off and show them that there’s more to life than just being born, eating, procreating and dying. So personal healing and growth and like some of the more, I guess, intent based reasons. I’ve got a personal experience on this too. And you were mentioning Sexy Woman and, and Machu Picchu and the, the stone walls and Cusco and stuff. I, I went there for a whole different trip and as I was there, there were.
The streets of Cusco were lined with these Ayahuasca retreat shaman available now with blinking neon signs and coupons and discounts and everything. So there’s definitely like this huge push to get people to just jump in. I, I assume that some of those might be a little bit risky where you don’t really know what you’re getting into if you just walk into a shop on the side of the street because the light was on. But also I’ve run into people that, that were basically on big sales conferences, right. So they would go around a whole company. One of them in particular, they, they sell these like forty thousand dollar Beds made out of horse hair for ultra luxury sort of, you know, situations.
And they were going to psychological training seminars and they were doing all these sort of different seminars all over the world. And one of them that was on their list is they all went to this ayahuasca retreat. But the, the ultimate goal for this whole group of people was to become better salesmen. Like, the whole reason that they were going around and doing all these conventions was how can we more better sell these forty thousand dollar horse hair beds? So if, if someone were to approach you, like, hey, I’ve got A company of 20 salesmen here, they sell high end in luxury beds and we want to do an ayahuasca retreat, what will this do for us? Like, is that an acceptable reason to go? And what would you, what would you say is the, like, the benefit to having your salesman take an ayahuasca retreat? And this isn’t a hypothetical, like, I actually met a company that did this.
Yeah. As a business owner, I wouldn’t turn, turn away 20 perfectly good customers, right? Be like, I don’t like your horse hair bad because I’m not an expert in beds. They might be a spiritual experience in themselves just to have a horse hair bed. But so then what would, I wouldn’t tell them, like, oh, you know, the, the ayahuasca will make you a better salesman. But what I could tell them is like, yeah, it’s gonna make you a better person and make you more relatable and maybe when you go on your sales calls, you’ll be able to listen better.
Or maybe we’ll just tell you to quit that job entirely. So, but I would still let them do it because then they would probably go in a totally different direction that what than what they expected. Right. So even if someone seems like they don’t know what their intent is or have the wrong intent, I guess then you just inherently trust ayahuasca to point them in the right direction or respond to them accordingly. And that you don’t necessarily have to intervene between those unless you see a health or a mental risk of some kind. That’s obvious, like schizophrenia or SSRIs or something.
Unless there is a risk. But also not just ayahuasca. Mind that we, we create a healing container. So we, we put you on a process and set you in a certain direction that will affect the way you think altogether. So sometimes we might have a group of 20 people and 15 of them are seriously set on healing and five are just like playing around and they, by the end of the week. They, they’re all in the same, they’re all going in the same direction. Like the container also guides what is the outcome you’re looking for. So there’s a lot of guidance.
It’s not just like, oh, here, here’s your ayahuasca. And you figure out yourself. No, we guide you to how to do it better. Obviously, based on the tradition and based on our observations and our learnings, what works best. Are there age limits to this upper lower? Like if someone brought their 12 year old and they were like, he needs to be fixed. How old are you? I’m, I’m in my 40s. How old are you precisely? Can you say 41? So the limit is 40 then? Well, what about the younger age limit though? Like if someone. I’m just kidding.
It was, it was my, it was my Eastern European human. There is no real limit. Everyone but you. I get it. We, the oldest person we had was 76. I think we had 10 plus people. 70 plus, you got to be careful because they’re failing over time. What? In one group there was a bunch of 70 year olds over time. You’ve encountered 70 over the years and the youngest is probably 18. Like we would, I mean, you could go younger. It’s, it’s not really that illegal. But you know, in the jungle, they drink it since the moment they’re born.
Literally. Sometimes you have ayahuasca before you even have milk. They put some ayahuasca on the nipple and then they pack the baby so she, she or he has ayahuasca first and then milk. I, I assume that that would be considered micro dosing ayahuasca at some level. If you’re just kind of coating your nipple in it first. What, what age, I mean, or would you be giving 3 year old? Not you in particular. I mean, in the typical traditions of, you know, shaman use of ayahuasca, is it typical to give it to a five year old and have a five year old go on a full journey and come back and be a changed person? Or is there like a certain, like age in which it’s more encouraged versus discouraged? I think they work with a little bit of ayahuasca up till about six years old, just small amounts for like protection or just general feel good.
But then when they reach six years old, if they want to train to be a shaman, then they start drinking regularly and, and start to grow larger quantities. I mean, work with larger quantities. And that’s part like, for example, my shaman, he started at 6 and he was drinking three times a week for 10 years and then he kind of graduated as a shaman and started, started serving the medicine. So. But that’s just one tradition. Honestly, there’s so many. And I know in some places they, they do it communally and they just take AASA and they just hang out and they like play football.
That’s a, that’s a really weird one. But I’ve heard about that as well. Well, what about. Again, this is theoretical. I promise you. This is not on my mind. But let’s say I’m 41. Let’s say I just discovered ayahuasca for the first time because I was living under a rock or whatever. I came from like Mormonism and I didn’t know there was an outside world. We get lots of Mormons. A lot of Mormons. Well, actually is, are they. Do you know the difference between like a Jack Mormon and like a regular Mormon? Like Mormons that drink soda and smoke cigarettes? No.
Most of them are ex Mormons and they come to kind of heal, heal the trauma of being of growing up in a cult and all the shame they were exposed to. Literally. Last group we had two Mormons. Ex Mormons. I mean. Okay, well, let’s, let’s say that you have an ex Mormon that comes, they’re in their 40s and they say, oh my God, this, this changes everything. This is exactly what I was looking for. How do I become a shaman? Is, is that closed off to them because they didn’t get raised in the culture or they didn’t start doing it when they were 6 years old, or is there a pathway for a 40 year old Mormon white guy from Utah to actually become a legitimate ayahuasca shaman? Asking for a friend.
Right. Right. Well, I gotta, I have to leave Mormonism first before I do this. Yeah, the, my first question would be like, why, why do you want to be. I’ll stand in. Because they want to help spread it to other Mormons that otherwise would never find out that this exists. There is, there is a really mostly ask yourself why? Because maybe it’s, it’s an ego thing. But no, there is a path you can start. If like medicine shows you that you, you have that gift to be a shaman, you can just start drinking it. But if you drink it regularly for like 10 years and some shaman tells you like you’re ready, then you’ll become a giver of the medicine.
Not necessarily a shaman, but like a first stage is you just drink a lot of medicine. Second stage you start to do Service, like working in the ceremony, helping out, or like volunteering at an ayahuasca retreat. And then you’re learning from a shaman. Third stages, you can become a giver and then the last stage, you can become a shaman. So I would say the earliest, if you go really hard and you’re really prudent and you really dedicate your life to it because you will need to like do just that. Pretty much the earliest you can serve medicine is maybe five years and then become a shaman, maybe 10 years.
That’s according to tradition we work with and what I’ve heard about. And there’s actually one guy, he, he’s from Mexico and he, he had this huge aluminum like doors and windows company in Mexico and he just got rid of it, gifted his house away and now he works with Mashaman and he trains how to become a shaman. He’s been with him for like three years, but drinking all, drinking ayahuasca every day or like every second day and just going deep. But it’s like, I don’t, I don’t know why he does it. To me it seems a very difficult job.
It’s like being a shaman is extremely, extremely difficult. It’s like, it seems simple because they do it so easily. But in reality to do it right is like, I like to call shamans like neurosurgeon for the soul. And I mean if you do it for, if you do, if you want to spread the word about the medicine, well, maybe there are other ways to do it. But if you’re really called to be a shaman, it is possible. Just make sure you don’t go and find a one month course on Facebook that gives you a shaman’s diploma.
Because that’s, that’s. Once again, that’s where the horror stories come from. Because shaman that has no idea what he’s doing can also hurt a person. It’s an interesting analogy because it would almost be creepy if someone said, oh, I do like neurosurgery because my instruments told me to like or like when I’m in there, I just, something tells me that this is what I need to be doing is, is affixing people’s nerve system. But with ayahuasca, I guess that you could legitimately get that message from the plant itself or from the experience. And it says, hey, Stell your aluminum siding company and become a shaman.
Don’t ask questions, just do it. Versus I guess neurosurgeons tend to do it for money. I mean, is being a, an ayahuasca shaman a lucrative career? Or is it like, yeah, what, what kind of income would you be making as an ayahuasca shaman? I mean, if you are lucky and you end up working with, with the retreat that gets a lot of people and they pay you well, you like? I’m pretty sure my shamanism, 1% of earners in Colombia, that’s, that’s for sure. He has a good. But I think most of them are not really that, that rich.
You, you wouldn’t do it for money, I believe. What, what kind of. I mean, I don’t know how much you can share on your pricing. And I realize we’re recording this at a moment in time and things change if someone’s listening to this years later, whatever, things can change. But right now, what, what kind of pricing would someone be looking at if they were in the US and all they have is a passport. They’re like, I’ve never left the country. I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do once I get to Colombia, or how to get around anywhere.
So they need the full door to door service where they take an Uber to the airport and then just let Jesus take the wheel and then assume they get back home after a four day retreat or whatever. Like what, what are they looking at? Are they looking at thousands? Tens of thousands? Like what kind of pricing? So we’re actually very affordable. And not because we wouldn’t like to charge more or because we, we’re not as good as other retreats. We’re actually pretty good. But I think we’re about three, four times cheaper than an average option. Just because I kind of decided to do so because I want more people to experience that healing.
But we, the four day retreat starts with 495 US. So basically that includes two ceremonies. Pick up from the nearest city, which is Medellin. Food, stay, ayahuasca, everything, the whole thing. So what you would need to spend money on top of that would be a flight to Medellin and probably a shuttle from Medellin to the city, which is not that expensive. So depending on where you live, the price might differ. But for people that are first timers, I would say come for at least one week because ayahuasca is not immediate. It’s like first day will kind of scan you and look at you and massage you a little bit, maybe purge some things out.
And then second night you will start connecting. Third night you will start to like, you start to get those breakthrough experiences where you understand or learn things. And that’s where kind of your life starts to change. So come for at least one week. And one week retreat is 795. So let’s say if you live in Miami or something nearby, maybe 300 more for tickets and then like a thousand dollar for one week including like we have good food and it’s, it’s really beautiful here. It’s kind of like even, even without ayahuasca, it would be a good experience.
But there’s ayahuasca on top of that. So most retreats are like 3, 3002, 500 for a week. The most expensive one is 7000. We had 10, 10 plus people that went to that retreat specifically and said not only we were 10 times cheaper, but we’re all 10 times better. But once again, nobody can really prove it. Yeah, if someone shows up, do you have like a white glove? I mean you just mentioned the most expensive one is that, do they get like special treatment or do you just throw anyone that shows up in together in one session, like if someone doesn’t pre book it and say I just want, you know, 10 people in this private sort of thing.
But if I were to just show up solo or with a friend, are we together with eight other strangers and is there like a bonding that takes place during that? Yeah, people, I think working in the group is much more fun and much, there’s, there’s a healing that comes from the group itself. It’s beautiful. But if somebody wants to do a private retreat, we do it also. But it’s, it’s more expensive and less fun in my opinion. But normally there are set dates. So we have one four day retreat, two one week retreats and then you can combine together.
So you have 11 day retreats or 18 day retreats. So whatever, depending on what you book and what dates you choose, there will be group of strangers. So if I were to show up with a friend, two of us show up and we’re there for the one week retreat, what would, what’s like the full experience? We show up and we’re already prepped. We fasted, we’ve done all the waivers and everything. Do we start, is there a meet and greet? Like you know, at what point are we drinking the ayahuasca and how does that, the rest of that experience go? You keep mentioning fasting.
You don’t need to fast before ayahuasca. I don’t know where this comes from. Yeah, you only need to be you. Like if the ceremony is at night, you, you eat lunch, but you don’t eat Dinner. You don’t need to fast for, like, days. And the diet, like, diet is not really that difficult either. So, I mean, before you even show up, we will send you all the instructions so you will know how to prepare yourself. So that’s. That’s the first. When you come to Medellin, you arrive on your flight, and depending on what time it comes, you might spend the night somewhere or you just come in the morning.
The pickup is at 2pm we have this bus that collects you all, and you come together all in the same bus. So you come here to the finca, and you. We. We receive you, settle you in the rooms straight away, like, depending on what you booked. And then we collect you all in the Maloka, which is our ceremony space. It’s kind of like a big, beautiful wooden structure with, like, a palm roof. And then we. We have this presentation where we present our team. We show you and kind of tell you basic rules. And then there’s the shaman, or tita, as they call it here in Colombia.
He talks, I translate. And we start talking to you about what’s going to happen, what we’re going to do. And then there’s a first word, circle, where everyone gets to know each other, the group. Then you come for dinner. After dinner, we have a bonfire circle. You continue learning about. There’s a ceremony workshop, so learning all the rules, structure of the retreat. And then we rest. Next day, we have breakfast. After breakfast, we have a second word, circle. We go deeper. Everyone shares for, like, five minutes. People start, you know, dropping their masks, crying a little bit here and there.
People start to bond. Then we do a navigating your psychedelic experience workshop. Then you have lunch. Then at 3, you rest a bit. At 3pm, you have yoga, if you want to. Not mandatory. Then 5, 15, we go to Maloka. Start with meditation, breathing exercises, and then everyone’s ready. Shaman comes, makes his ritual, sings his chants to the medicine, gets it ready. You know, they smudge the space with smoke. And then he starts calling everyone, one by one. He looks at you, depending on what he sees, pours you the cup, gives it to you. You drink it, go back to your mattress or sit in the chair by the fire.
And he does it to all the group. And the music starts playing. He plays, you know, ceremonial music, flutes. At first, it’s like a very quiet guitar music. And then up, he plays flutes. There’s a smaller guitarist called Charango. It’s like a. It’s like a full band, but it’s not like strong music. Straight away it slowly, slowly builds up in intensity. And there’s a second cup two hours later. And then there’s if in some shorter retreats, we even give a third cup. And then you have your process. And after you kind of come back and you’re back to normal, you go back to your room, you rest, you wake up.
Breakfast, 8am, 9am word circle. We start sharing what happened, what have you seen? And that’s kind of rinse, repeat for three, three nights. Then on Friday, there’s a day off. So you just rest. We have a pool. There’s a lot of nature around. You can just chill, integrate. We give you journals, you journal. Then there is a day ceremony on the Saturday. So you wake up in the morning, ayahuasca for breakfast. First thing, really beautiful, because now you can see everything. It’s a really beautiful area. And you kind of connect with the gratitude for the nature Pachamama.
There’s a beautiful mountain right in front of us and butterflies and, you know, birds and stuff like that. So it’s a. It’s a kind of the culminating experience of, like, connection. And then in the evening, we have the word circle. Next morning, we wake up, you pay your store bill. We have a little store here. You, if you bought something, have breakfast and then the bus comes and takes you back to Medellin. Then you grab a taxi to the airport and head back home. Or some people prefer to stay. We have. We have a ability for people to stay for like a week more and just kind of integrate being in nature.
We kind of slowly are building community. So it’s like, come for ayahuasca, stay for the community, because people miss it. I think big part of the healing comes group. We’re so disconnected now and everyone is so fake. So we can’t connect it being fake to each other. There is no real ability for them to bond. And that’s why a lot of people sometimes stay and they just hang out or afterwards travel together. So as. Yeah, that’s. I guess that’s a structure when you’re doing. And I’m glad you answered that at such length because you answered a couple of the other questions that I had.
One of those questions was, is this typically a nighttime only experience? But you said that you’ve got an entire day planned where ayahuasca is for breakfast. It lets you enjoy the rest of nature. You mentioned that there is a mountain there. You also mentioned separately that you’ve got a pool. Is the pool in the mountain off limits while someone is on ayahuasca? Or are there options if someone wants to go and explore nature and climb a mountain? Is that even feasible to do on ayahuasca? No, not an ayahuasca. During your ayahuasca experience, you’re in a ceremony space, the pool.
You can use it anytime when you’re not in ayahuasca. So I’m actually, I’m gonna turn my camera and show you a little bit. Oh, please, can refocus. I don’t know if you can see it, but there’s a pool and there’s some cabins and. Oh, it’s beautiful. There’s an eating space. There’s a valley on that side. You can’t see the mountain, but from my office. But it’s. It’s a little kind of overcast today, but you can kind of imagine the. The kind of environment. There is a hammock room and there’s some people getting a massage. I believe so.
Yeah. That’s honestly beautiful out there because it, it gives a completely. Because, I mean, I’ve grown up in cities my whole life. So even if. If you were to go out into nature and do ayahuasca without leaving, you know, the city, you’re still going to see all the regular pollution and light pollution and modern technology and everything. So how, how important is that aspect of ayahuasca retreat? To be out in nature and to see greenery and mountains versus, I guess, just being in a room with like a TV on or something? Yeah, set and setting really matters when it comes to work with the plant medicines.
All right, well, I want to start wrapping up a little bit. I’ve got one little segment where I’m just going to ask you a whole bunch of random questions that won’t necessarily all be about ayahuasca. It’s just a thing that we do here. But I first want to ask you, is there anything that I should have asked that would have led to another interesting point about ayahuasca or anything else that. That you want to mention to viewers or anyone that might be interested in. Hasn’t considered it until right now. I mean, I can talk about ayahuasca for days.
There’s many things. But I think you did a pretty good job in like, explaining to your listeners on, like, what it is and what it is not. So if, if they want to learn more about ayahuasca, I have like 60 podcast episodes on, like, very different minute aspects of it. So. But yeah, I think you did a good job. Right. Yeah. And I guess it’s. It would Be hard to try and compete with 60 episodes from ayahuasca podcast.com in a one hour interview. So if you do want to get way in more depth, then check out your podcast.
And honestly, there is one thing, there is one thing that I expected you to ask me as a paranoid American and you’re, you’re like sort of conspiracy theory logo. Is that why does Big Pharma doesn’t want Ayahuasca to go mainstream? Oh yeah, please tell me. I mean the, the reason that we got so many people that come work with Ayahuasca once and then then their depression goes away, of course, with them doing the work and other healing things and Big Pharma doesn’t want it. And I think like recently they had an Instagram account of like 4,500 followers and they disabled it and they said I was promoting drugs.
So in my Facebook group I also had like close to 5,000 people got disabled because like, you know, why is that illegal? Like, it makes no sense. But I think there is definitely some, a bit of a interest from people with a lot of money for it not to go mainstream because like antidepressants, like a trillion dollar business. And instead of that you can do, instead of drinking it every day, you can do ayahuasca once a year and have better results and better quality of life without the side effect. So that’s why they don’t like us when, because I’m, I’ll make an assumption here, but that Ayahuasca would attempt to try and treat the underlying issues or reframe your mind or change your thinking patterns, make the site or like all of the, the symptoms kind of go away or at least be reduced.
Whereas western medicine, talking about the pharm, you know, the pharmaceutical industry and Rockefeller medicine system, that’s mainly centered around treating the symptoms and not addressing the underlying issues as often. The best chance you’ve got it. Addressing underlying issues in Western medicine is psychotherapy essentially, but it’s very rarely paired up with psychedelics except for very, very recently, like maybe the 2000s and beyond. Specifically there were. They started treating military vets that had ptsd and they started with mushrooms. And I think even MDMA kind of got thrown into the mix. But it’s only been over the last two or three decades that psychedelics have even been considered as a legitimate medical use specifically for people getting over things that western medicine hasn’t been able to solve.
And they can pump you full of as many SSRIs as they can invent as fast as possible. And the second you come off of them you’re either going to have a really horrible dip or everything’s going to revert back to maybe pre SSRI. Because the SSRIs again were just chemically treating the symptoms that you’re going through and not changing your thinking patterns. So that’s one of the aspects I think too. But I also want to point out there’s maybe a sad inversion of this where the westerners that go to these retreats, kind of part of your business plan too, right.
Is, but that you kind of cater to this thinking within western medical system like the Rockefeller medical system where they show up and say where are your degrees? Where’s my itinerary? Exactly what time will we be starting so I can set my alarm and schedule my posts and all this stuff. So part like even if it, if they’re removing their environment, they bring a little bit of that environment with them, I assume even just like the thinking and the mentality. Definitely a bit of it. But maybe in the beginning, in the end it’s, it’s a different conversation.
But we do have a doctor at the retreat so I can show them some diplomas but in the end of the day doctor is there for different reasons. So yeah, that’s, there’s definitely some resistance and I think it’s only as the ayahuasca is getting more popular and other psychedelics, I think the resistance is only going to increase because not only from the healing point of view, from the control of the population point of view, you don’t want an entire population of free thinkers that actually can see through your. And ayahuasca does that for you as well.
So if you are, if you want, if you wanna, if you don’t wanna stop believing in like political systems or all this weird manipulations, don’t come to drink. Ayahuasca will open your eyes. And, and not just not wanting people to be free thinking, but there’s something that the state would be terrified at considering that their aluminum distributor supplier is no longer distributing aluminum for their war machine. Because this guy went into Guyahuasca and sold everything and now he’s just a full time shaman. That’s the last thing they want to do is to hear that all of their US like you know, aerospace engineers and all of the people that are working for the state are like, oh no, I don’t, I don’t need to do any of these roles anymore.
I don’t need to be employed and, and feed this like industry. I think that might Be just as terrifying to the state as free thinking. And maybe it’s the same thing, terrifying for everyone. I wouldn’t want everyone to quit their job and for society to collapse. And it’s not really that common. Like, this guy is unique on his path and he did now go back to Mexico to work a little bit on his business because he’s. Whoever he left it to take care of. They were doing a really bad job, almost bankrupted him. But so business is still there.
Sometimes mostly people just change direction. But if you’re, let’s say if you’re working in a military industrial complex and then you kind of, you might get a realization that, oh my God, I’m killing innocent people. Maybe then you will not want to work there anymore. Or maybe one of the main realizations that come is like, we’re all connected, we’re all part of the same family. It’s like to hurt another human being is to hurt yourself. Like, what are you going to do then? If you’re a military guy? It’s a little tricky, but it will change the society.
But of course, hopefully gradually, because I wouldn’t want it to all happen in one day. But yeah, there’s, there’s definitely resistance. This is why psychedelic renaissance kind of got delayed. It was, it was supposed to happen like 50 years ago, but they also did some things wrong. When, you know, Timothy O’Leary and all those guys, they kind of went too fast and too crazy. I think there is a way we can change our society gradually, kind of reasonably, without scaring anyone or without like collapsing the economy. Well, actually, my last question before I get into this, this quick segment before we wrap up, but that’s actually a great note of that Timothy Leary and all those others, like the psychedelic revolution of I guess the 60s, 70s in North America, that there’s speculation, especially in the world of conspiracy theories, that that was orchestrated and planned, that they, that the government in particular, instead of just saying they, that maybe CIA in particular had this interest in controlling the release and doing it in a very specific way versus someone just let the cat out of the bag and it got popular.
Do you have any thoughts of your own on this? Do you think that the, the psychedelic revolution of the 60s in America was fabricated or created by the military industrial complex? Well, they. It is proven that CIA was adding it into the water, so they definitely did something. But honestly, I don’t know. If I knew, I probably wouldn’t tell because I still want to live. But no, I don’t know anything about it. And they were definitely meddling with it. But that entirety of it was orchestrated. I think that would be hard to believe, but that some part of it might have been orchestrated.
Probably that sounds entirely possible. The example that I mentioned earlier, when we first started talking, was the magic mushrooms article that came out and I think a 1957 article of life magazine. And the reason that it was on the COVID of Life magazine saying magic mushrooms is because the owner of Life magazine was a guy named Henry Luce, who was himself in the Skull and Bones secret society, which is like the most conspiratorial. I don’t know how familiar you are with all the specific societies in the States, but this is like one of the big ones.
He was also in something called the Century Club, which was an elite club of like New York socialites. But that without him introducing it in that way, it might, it could potentially have still just been this lesser known thing that, you know, only a small group of people in the world are even aware of. So I guess some of the speculation around that is that he wasn’t just an enthusiast that was trying to be altruistic for the nation and, you know, spread this information, but that if this was going to get out, that they would have the, the capability to decide how it got out and who would be able to write about it, who would take it.
And you notice a lot of the psychedelics end up in all these violent crime episodes in the 60s and 70s. And some of that gets pointed to. See, we as a society can’t handle psychedelics. We have to ban all of them, otherwise society completely fails. Whereas you’ve successfully pointed out there’s plenty of other examples that have been using psychedelics for thousands of years without all of those same societal issues. Yeah, but they also, you know, did it in a more controlled way. And I, I don’t know the exact history of how psychedelics were popularized, but I know that it will happen inevitably.
The question is when? You cannot keep it in because anyone who ever tries ayahuasca will now forever tell everyone else about ayahuasca because it, it’s, it’s just a. Can be one of the most meaningful experiences in, in your entire life. So I don’t know how long they could keep the cat into, in the, in the bag. So. But I think the way it happens, the way it should happen, it will happen. If now is the time. It’s the time. All right, well, let’s get into this final segment and here’s where some of the conspiracy and other stuff will End up coming up.
So I’ll, I’ll play a little intro and then I’ll explain what the rules are. Hey, conspiracy buffs. I double dare you to take some pcp. The paranormal conspiracy probe. On your mark, Marks. Get set and go. Okay, these are the rules. I’m just going to mention a statement and then you’re going to tell me on a scale of 1 to 10, how much value you give that statement, how, how verifiable it is. Right. So for example, the one that I like to start out with is Bigfoot. If you’ve heard the concept of Bigfoot and Sasquatch and Yeti, how, how accurate do you think that a Bigfoot has ever actually existed on a scale from 1 to 10? 0.
I don’t believe in that. What about flat earth? 0. I’m, I used to work on ships. We would circumnavigate the globe. So how. You ever heard of chemtrails? Yeah, I’ve heard about it. I don’t know. 50, 50 DMT entities are like actual entities. So let me give a qualifier on that. If you go in the DMT entity or an I, maybe this is different than ayahuasca. I actually don’t know if there’s. If the DMT entity would be the same as an ayahuasca entity. But how, how accurate is it that that’s an actual entity and not just the fabrication in your mind, something coming from within you? 7 out of 10.
How the pharmaceutical industry, how would you rate them on being capable of rolling out psychedelics for like common use to actually solve problems? Like just their capability of doing that at all. Their capability? 10 out of 10 there that, that it will result in something good. 0 out of 10. They’ll probably ruin, ruin it somehow. How about aliens? 7 out of 10? Well, demons. Biblical demons. I don’t believe in anything biblical, to be honestly. Zero. Angels. Well if. Let’s remove the word biblical from it. But like the, even like the ancient Greek concept of a demon or like we have spirits and like I’ve interacted with angel like kind of beings, but not like biblical, but you know, more like friendly monster kind of types.
Yeah, I guess the word, the biblical demon is to more specify a negative entity, like almost something that just by interacting with it can cause you some sort of tangible harm. Negative entities exist. Okay, so. So if we remove the biblical demon qualifier but like a, like a nefarious evil entity. 7 out of 10. 10 out of 10. 9 out of 10. How about 9? 11 was an inside job 100% as an engineer. The kerosene cannot melt steel beams. I’m sorry. I want to go through a couple other common ones too, that come up in the 911 as well.
What about like Oklahoma City? Are you familiar with any of these? No idea. Okay, it’s fair, fair point. Because this gets a little bit deeper into like American specific history. So I also want to just ask you to give a pitch to someone that is anti drug. Let’s say there’s a Mormon listening. I guarantee you there’s a Mormon listening right now. It’s like, I would never do any of this. That’s crazy. Like, what would be a pitch to step outside? Whatever is telling you that this is crazy, don’t do it. It’s an illegal drug. The. You know, I could go to prison for this.
And all of the baggage. Even if they were to leave the country and it wouldn’t be legal, but that baggage is still on their head. Like, what’s the pitch in order to open your mind to it? No pitch. If they listen to this episode, the seeds were planted. When it’s the time comes, they will. That was will call them. So no, no, no pitch needed. Okay, fair point. Yeah. If you sat through the rest of this episode, then maybe you’ve already made up your mind. If you have made up your mind, I’d love to to hear it in the comments.
And there will be a moment where you get desperate enough and you’ll be like, what else can help me? And you’ll be like, oh, I remember this one thing. And then you’ll come over and say, hi, tell me you came from par American podcast. And is there a story behind your company name? Laryra Lera is a shamanic tool. What you see in my T shirt, the logo, it looks like a leaf of some kind. That’s. That’s the thing. It’s a tool. The shaman. The shaman uses it for cleanses. And then the other meaning is air and wind in Kichwa languages.
I almost like. I mean, I know you might hate this idea of just like westernizing and commodifying, but like a little shaman pack that has a little awaira on it and like little beaded necklace. Just send them home. Be like, you can be a shaman now too. I wouldn’t do that. But you can buy some beads and stuff like that if you want to. Just keep them as memories or even wear them. They look cool. But don’t. Don’t claim you’re a shaman. It’s like wearing A stethoscope doesn’t make you a doctor, right? Well, yeah. What kind of qualifications would you have in order to prove your shaman? Or is it like.
And you were saying that you go around and you interview someone and you went into his house and you saw his field and everything. But is, is that the best way that anyone can decide if a shaman is legit? I mean, I’m assuming there’s not like a central shaman registry where they issue out certificates and like you can look up their, their ratings or something in a centralized database. Not yet. There is no registry. But like here in Colombia, for example, they have a special card and it’s issued from their indigenous authority. So the indigenous council of a specific tribe has shamans and then they kind of have to bring up the newer shamans and kind of give them license.
So there is a way, There is some paperwork, I guess that exists, but not everywhere in Colombia for sure. Colombia is one of the sort of more organized when it comes to ayahuasca. It’s not sold here in the market. When you go to the areas where it’s served, you’re not going to see neon signs and stuff like that. They still respect it enough to not do it. All right, well, Sam, believe you run the most successful, highest rated ayahuasca retreat in South America. You’ve got ayahuasca podcast.com, it’s got 60 plus episodes. So it seems like you are the guy to talk to if anyone’s got a question or thought or anything about ayahuasca.
So. And I appreciate you spending over an hour with me. Let me ask a bunch of maybe silly sort of hypothetical questions. I really do appreciate it. Tell people again where they can find you and how they can support you. If you Google ayahuasca in Colombia, you’ll probably find us. We should be somewhere there on top. The website’s still is IowaScancolombia.com but also you can go to lawyera.com l a w a y r a dot com, go to ayahuasca podcast dot com or find ayahuasca podcast anywhere you’re looking for podcasts. So if you’re kind of ready to come, if you want, if you wanted to do ayahuasca but you couldn’t find a place that is accessible, affordable and authentic, well, you found us now, so come over.
You’re not going to regret it. Check the Google reviews, check the video testimonials on our Instagram lawyer Underscore retreat. We have like 200 videos of different People after, you know, they did the retreat and if you’re not ready or you just kind of like curious, then just listen to some podcast episodes. I have episodes on people quitting weed, people quitting alcohol, people overcoming PTSD than all the people that wrote books about ayahuasca. PhDs experts like. It’s a very complete one and I still release one episode a week and then for you and unfortunately I forgot your name.
You just call me Paranoid. My name’s Thomas. It’s not a secret. Okay, Paranoid Thomas. When you come and drink ayahuasca then with lawyer so we can. I can then interview you for my podcast and while I’m on ayahuasca and no after afterwards probably. But that’s an interesting idea. While in ayahuasca, so. And then. Yeah. So stay tuned. Maybe you’ll see Brian Thomas on. On my podcast as well someday. I’d love to, man. I’m. I’m all for it. So I appreciate you coming on again. And if anyone out there is trying to sell those horsehair beds, I recommend you check out Sambal Eve.
Even if he won’t say, I’ll say. You’ll become a better horse hair mattress salesman. Paranoid American guarantees it. Look, you’re going to have to move fast. Conspiracy cards from Paranoid American are here. One flip, two get a few these packs facts flip it up what’s next move fake reflex big foot in the woods stay lying that’s facts MK ultra no cap every y’all 51 is a trap what’s that they hide the truth Conspiracy cause flipping what’s the deal? Conspiracy cause with that paranoid sale I can unfriend truth in these stack stack flip one flip to get a few that’s right Conspiracy cards from Paranoid American.
A set of over 200 cards featuring legendary conspiracy theorists, cult leaders, esoteric secrets and more. For more details visit conspiracy cards.com today. Yo I scribble my life away dripping the right to page Will it enlighten give you the flight my plane paper the highs ablaze somewhat of an amazing feel when it’s real, the real you will engage it your favorite of course the lord of en arrangement I gave you the proper results to hit the pavement if they get emotional hey maybe your language the game how they playing it? Well without Lakers Vader whatever the course they are the shapeshift snakes get you decapitated met is the apex execution of flame you out Nuclear bomb distributed at war rather gruesome for eyes to see max them out then I light my trees blow it off in the face.
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