Amazonian Ceremonies with the Vine of the Soul

by Miguel Kavlin

In the Peruvian Amazon some very ancient beliefs and practices have been maintained in spite of 200 years of colonialism and cruel attacks on native cultures by missionaries, rubber barons and others.

These beliefs and practices center around the use of a very powerful sacrament called Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is a climbing vine (Banisteriosis Caapi) which twines itself around rainforest trees. It’s name means "Vine of the Dead" or "Vine of the Soul" in the Quechua language, the language of the Incas.

Combined with the leaves from the Chacruna bush (Psychotria Viridis), Ayahuasca becomes a very powerful and effective brew to help people in general, and shamans in particular, enter the ‘real’ world of Spirits, dispelling the illusions and cleansing the pollution incurred in this ‘unreal’ world of every-day life.

To people in the Amazon basin, all life is determined by countless spirits and beings who live ‘on the other side’. It therefore becomes essential for survival to be able to enter that world and interact with spirits in order to secure well-being for oneself and one’s family.

There is no ‘natural’ death for them, as all illness comes either from the witchcraft of a bewitching shaman, from the curse of a dead person, or from the bewitchment caused by upset spirits of trees, rivers, whirlwinds, etc.

All beings have this capacity to help or harm, from worms to jaguars, from stones to trees, all have their spirit owners who can in turn impart protection and knowledge to individuals or, on the contrary, inflict harm and illness.

Therefore, each individual in their society tries to muster as many allies as possible to bolster his and his family’s ‘immunity’. One does this through special one to twelve month diets/retreats where an individual seeking the help of a particular spirit imbues the plant, or eats the object, which is the abode of the spirits he seeks. Then one abstains from all sexual contact and food containing any taste whatsoever (sweet, salty, sour, hot or astringent). Ideally, this time is spent in solitude, interned in the forest, alone, or with a companion undergoing the same process.

The other way to obtain the spirits’ protection is through the Ayahuasca brew, which in its visions, and with the shaman’s help, can impart that sacred knowledge directly on the individual. In their visions, different people see different Beings who come and teach them different things, and whom there-after lodge in that person’s body, becoming a spirit-helper and protector.

Ayahuasca sessions vary immensely from shaman to shaman, but generally speaking one can say that they all have two major characteristics: they teach about life and about death.

An Ayahuasca session teaches about death in that it purifies us of all the things we hold inside our bodies and that we have come to believe are essential to our being, when in reality they are foreign and harmful. Thus, in letting go of them, a person faces the unknown and sometimes feels like s/he is literally dying. Also, it feels like dying because one has to let go of the control which, specially for us in the West, holds us prisoners to our fears.

This death process in the ceremony usually leads-up to, and is sometimes resolved through vomiting and/or shitting; literally our body is being cleansed of physical and spiritual impurities.

On the other hand, Ayahuasca teaches us about life, and it can sometimes offer the participant the most amazing embodied visions where most precious knowledge is imparted, and most miraculous healings happen. This doesn’t happen every-time, as one often needs to undergo many stages of purification before such a blessing is forthcoming. But Ayahuasca defies all such logic, and it can sometimes impart an incredible blessing on a first-time participant, and then make him/her undergo the most excruciating purification for the next twenty sessions.

Most important to the process of imbuing Ayahuasca is the shaman, for it is his/her charge to keep the space safe from all possible attacks and incursions by harmful forces, for whenever good medicine is taking place, evil forces will seek to counteract it.

The shaman, through his power songs, sacred musical instruments, and ubiquitous jungle-tobacco blowing and sucking, keeps everything safe, and cures the patients under his care, helping them rid-themselves of their ailments.

The shaman is aided in this by all his many spirit helpers (which can number in the hundreds), as well as by the spirits of ancient and powerful shamans (some of them from across geographical and cultural boundaries, such as an Indian Guru or a Tibetan Lama, or even a famous European healer like Paracelsus).

To Ayahuasca practitioners in the Amazon basin, both native and mestizo alike, Ayahuasca is all things: church, doctor, university, judge, and mother/father. Shamans, crafts-people, hunters and many others are taught secrets of their trade while in Ayahuasca-induced visions.

Many westerners have also been exposed to, and have participated in, Ayahuasca rituals with various shamans. many have been cured of seemingly incurable diseases, and many have been inspired in amazing ways to fulfill their life-purpose.

Thus, through Ayahuasca sessions and special diets, one can begin to align oneself with, and maneuver among, the sacred forces that determine our lives, and develop intuition and creativity to delve into every-day life with better insight and capability, maintaining well-being in one’s life, and helping others as well.

Ceremonial House at Don Augustin's Camp