Original subtitles

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

>> Deep in the heart of the Amazon,

out of generations of indigenous people,

from mysterious origins, birthed from a specific combination

of plants comes a visionary experience,

an ancient healing tradition, modern controversy and massive

interest from younger generations all surrounding

a sacred brew called Ayahuasca, a beverage that contains DMT.

DMT is a tryptamine that even our brain produces,

but the chacruna leaves contain much more.

Left alone, this molecule will be metabolized

before having any effect.

So the sacred vine is added to protect its entry

through the body, into the brain, and into our experience.

From scientists to shamans, many theories

abound regarding the strange effects of Ayahuasca,

and yet it still is not fully understood.

>> So Ayahuasca is--

it's a whole bunch of things.

But you know, on the nuts and bolts level, it's a beverage.

It's made from two plants, at least one of which

contains dimethyltryptamine.

At the cultural level, it's much broader than that.

These are essentially shamanic practices,

and Ayahuasca is at the center of that kind

of traditional medicine, you know,

which is really a mind body kind of medicine.

>> This mind-body medicine has been used for so long

in a region devoid of literature that the true beginnings

of Ayahuasca are left to oral traditions and myth.

There are only a few cultural artifacts

that have survived this hot and wet climate

before being completely decomposed

and recycled back into nature.

And the mystery of how the indigenous discovered these two

ingredients among countless other species

has baffled the world.

>> Why do these few plants, out of a half a million

in the world, have these unearthly effects on the mind

and sometimes on the body, that they think can transport him

to outer realms of space?

And they believe in these plants there is a resident spirit.

>> Ayahuasca was the only psychedelic session where I had

a sense of a personal therapist, kind of like a spiritual guide

of some sort, which I didn't see,

but it was a very clear sense of energetic presence

and telepathic communication guiding me in a very specific

way through my sessions, what I should look at, what I should

work on.

And if I didn't do it, it sort of

returned and was sort of putting some pressure on me to do it,

you know.

It had an intention for me, what I should do,

what I should become in that session.

>> The indigenous of the Amazon refer to it as Mother

Ayahuasca, known by some to be the divine feminine principle

and the first woman of creation.

The Ayahuasqueros, or healers, say

it is her that we commune with for guidance

before, during, and after drinking Ayahuasca.

It is she that allows us access to all that we've forgotten

in this life and all others.

However, in the initial ceremonies

where people are introduced to this resident spirit,

it can be painful and quite confrontational

because so much of our trauma is unknown to us,

and therefore we rarely acknowledge our baggage

as a part of us.

>> So, what Ayahuasca does is she goes through the physical

and energetic body--

and emotional bodies-- that are totally interconnected.

And she's going through and our traumas

are held in the tissues.

And so, she's going and ripping out that stuff.

And so, it hurts, whether it be physical, through nauseousness.

Or even actual pain, or sometimes we

have that stuff in our thought processes, our patterns.

And so, we're holding onto this stuff,

and Ayahuasca is opening, opening, opening

and pulling that stuff out.

>> Everyone's experiences are different in personal ways.

Not everyone experiences pain.

Some are left in ecstasy.

But no two ceremonies are identical.

Some describe the evolution of ceremonies

as the medicine speaking a story of our blind spots

and ailments.

Although traditionally the main purpose of Ayahuasca

has been for healing, it's typically

the visionary quality that initially attracts newcomers.

They come with curiosity, expectation, ambition,

and a drive to become enlightened,

a mystic, a spiritual savant.

But if you listen to those who have

spent many years with the medicine,

or even just a few weeks in a traditional setting,

you'll learn that the path to heaven

often comes through the belly of a personal hell.

The wake-up call happens when those

who want to merge with pure divinity

are faced with their fears of death.

In Ayahuasca culture, facing mortality

is a prerequisite to evolving on the path of spirituality.

The vine itself is called the vine of souls

or the vine of the dead.

And even though these difficult encounters are well-known,

there are still thousands of people journeying to the Amazon

with the desire to peek behind the veil,

to receive the overflowing gifts of life

and uncover these painful yet fruitful mysteries of death.

Getting into the heart of the Amazon

requires much time, money, and determination just

to get through the hustle and bustle,

only to arrive on a long boat ride to your final destination.

Once the boat departs and you're finally

miles from modern civilization, the jungle begins to speak.

The volume of the jungle seems deafening and ominous,

overpowering at times.

The anticipation of the coming ceremony

puts the nerves on alert.

And so begins the real work.

The curandero, or healer, will seek the purest leaves,

the wisest vines, pound them, pray over them, and add them

to the pot, light the fire, and begin

the alchemical distillation.

The ceremonial maloka is prepared

for the evening, beds, blankets, buckets, and the altar.

When the night hits, the jungle shifts

its song and the ceremony begins.

The maestro blows the protective smoke of mapacho tobacco

over those about to drink, and then he pours the brew.

Each individual accepts their share, sits and drinks.

The first thing one might notice is the taste.

A confusing mix of bitter, sour, sweet, and the unknown

fills the taste buds and lingers.

Once the medicine becomes noticeable,

it can be felt in the stomach and in the tissues,

in the bones, and deep down in the psyche.

As the minutes pass, the medicine

spreads out and tracks a path through every layer

of the body, mind, and beyond, until at last, hours later,

the peak is upon us.

The peak usually lasts roughly for an hour or two,

but it is also known to come in waves.

The pulse of Ayahuasca is slightly

different for every person and even changes

from ceremony to ceremony.

Visions begin swirling and pulsing in front, behind,

and everywhere around us.

Time and space may dissolve, and the visions

become the only reality.

And it is at this point the creatures of the jungle appear.

>> I have seen and experienced a lot of identification with

animals, but there seems to be preponderance of certain

animals like Jaguar and Anacondas.

>> They may be entirely animal, they may be entirely human.

But sometimes you get these therianthropes.

Again and again they crop up in visionary experience.

I've had such visions myself under the influence

of Ayahuasca.

So, it doesn't surprise me that ancient people

had those visions as well.

The shamans are drinking Ayahuasca to enter a deeply

altered state of consciousness.

And a great many of those shamans

paint their visions today.

>> Are people under these states experiencing the same visions

that our ancestors saw in each corner of the globe?

How would it be possible that humans

are connecting to ancestral visions

through a plant combination?

>> Various aspects of the visual cortex are stimulated

by the presence of psychedelics.

So, the fact that we have visions we can easily explain.

The content of the visions, what it is we see,

presents some much more significant challenges.

How is it that the brain gets access to information

that people often claim has nothing at all to do with what

they've experienced before?

Well, perhaps some of this can be understood

as the stimulation of what's been called archetypes,

archetypal structures.

>> Archetypes are common types of people or forms that seem

to emerge from mythology and visionary imagery,

from cultures separated by time and space with no known contact

or communication.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung

wrote extensively about these visions

from patients in psych wards who spoke

of seeing imagery that is nearly identical to mythological

figures that at the time were not even

translated into English yet.

If these archetypal forms are not

withered by the passing of time, is there

a reason for their arrival in our visions?

Some believe these are messages for our personal advancement

by showing us who and what we truly

are, not the individual body or identity we inhabit,

but all the events that have unfolded

since the origin of life and beyond.

>> I think what happens with plant medicine is that plant

medicine helps you get yourself out of your own body and look

at yourself.

There's your birth, but then there's

your mom's birth, you grandmother's birth,

the birth of a nation, the birth of humanity,

the birth of the universe.

It's like this longer life, kind of very much like quilting,

where in the quilt you might be just one stitch,

but you're one stitch of this big, beautiful quilt,

this big, beautiful pattern that, for us, would

be a story or the history, if you want to call it that.

>> Whatever the source, these visions are almost always

outside the realm of anything we've ever experienced in this

waking life.

They tell stories, reveal hidden truths,

conjure emotions, and even lead the mind into realms unknown.

Many who try to explain these visions by conventional means

come up short of legitimate answers.

Some say the visions are alive.

In combination with these visions

comes the strange bodily sensations

and the physiological effects of the beta carbolines

in the vine.

The common result of this is what

some call la purga, the purge.

The need to throw up is why there are typically

buckets set out next to the beds in the ceremonial maloka.

And the belief of many indigenous

is that purging is the physical outlet for an energetic release

and surrender.

>> With the purging, some people might say, well,

why are you going to put yourself through that?

But it's actually part of the process of not only detoxing,

but also healing.

I think it depends on where you're at with the medicine.

I think in the beginning, a lot of the purging

has to do with physical stuff that's in your body,

because when you come out of ceremony,

you really recognize how your diet affects you, be it

the water or lack of water you drink,

or the type of food, how healthy or unhealthy it is.

Once the physical part kind of passes--

or I don't want to call it the next level, but maybe

a deeper level--

it becomes more of an emotional purge,

where sometimes you will realize that if you

go into the storyline, and if the storyline

is a negative storyline, that's when

the purging, like the feeling of purging, starts.

Then after a while, you start realizing that your habits kind

of recreate it again.

And then the next ceremony comes and you're still

getting it out.

And then you're just kind of repeating that cycle.

So, you get to a point that all of a sudden the purge

is the acknowledgment of there's something there

that you need to work with.

>> Working with discomfort, the trauma and unknown aspects

of the psyche is not a modern Western approach,

where most medicines dull pain, mask symptoms,

and require no work after being taken.

Ayahuasca, on the other hand, is impossible to take and forget

about, and requires the courage, strength, patience,

and understanding to face the darkest aspects of us

that we've forgotten.

>> We want to develop.

We want to know ourselves.

And it helps to surrender to yourself, in fact,

because what Ayahuasca is, it is a jungle medicine that

opens up your own subconscious.

So, if you see beauty, then you deserve

to feel that before you can, maybe,

be confronted with your behavior that is not always beautiful.

When you see darkness, it may indicate

that there is some shadow energy in you that

needs to be digested.

>> The strange ability for Ayahuasca to introduce you

to your own shadow in a detached and unique way is why

the indigenous have used it as a form of mind body medicine

for millennia.

Some of the most profound revelations under the medicine

often come once the purging is over,

once the difficulty and discomfort

subsides and the medicine begins the softer

part of the journey, in which the shattered

pieces of the story we've told ourselves

begins to reassemble into a more humbling, more

real, and holistic narrative.

The ceremony concludes, the morning

comes, a recommended period of silence to reflect.

And then the group comes together

and the sharing begins.

>> The sharing after your ceremony is integrating

the whole experience.

After Ayahuasca ceremony, you don't just

continue in daily life.

You're changed.

There is this neuroplasticity in the mind that

makes you change after every experience,

and this is a major experience.

>> Part of the Ayahuasca in the West, you know,

as well as when you do these ceremonies together,

you hear other people's pain.

You hear their purging and you hear their connection,

and you feel interconnected.

And you come out and you're very bonded.

There's been some-- one test I know

that Dennis McKenna and Charles Grubb and others

did a few decades ago now with Hoasca Project looking

at one of the Ayahuasca churches in South America.

And it wasn't just that the Ayahuasca was increasing

the serotonin in the brain, which it was,

on a neurochemical level, and they felt more integrated

and more connected because their community were all

doing Ayahuasca together.

What Ayahuasca can really do, they

say it can be like 10 years of therapy

in one night, because when you're in therapy in the west,

you're talking and you're engaging the intellect.

But Ayahuasca makes permeable your unconscious.

It opens the heart more.

And it becomes very visible.

Anything you've been holding in your energetic field, anything

emotionally or you've suppressed can come up.

And it comes up in a way that you're not attached to it,

so you can entertain it and go through this psychotherapy sort

of experience.

And then you can let go of it.

>> Another South American Ayahuasca study was conducted

by Terence's brother Dennis to evaluate the therapeutic value

of this plant mixture in a modern context.

And we found in our Ayahuasca study in Brazil

that long-term users of Ayahuasca

had an upregulation of the serotonin transporter.

When we got into it, it turns out

that deficits in those transporters

are linked to all kinds of pathologies, alcoholism,

suicidal ideation, intractable depression, all of the things,

in fact, that Ayahuasca is good for treating.

So, that can't be coincidence.

You know, it looks like Ayahuasca can actually

reverse these deficits over time and really

not just control the symptoms, but actually

repair the brain at some fundamental level.

So that's a remarkable thing.

>> Family physician and Ayahuasca researcher Dr.

Joe Tafur has been looking at epidemics across the US

as having a common origin.

>> Whether it's anxiety or PTSD or addiction or depression,

or even psychosomatic things like migraine,

they have problems in their emotional processing,

and that the psychedelics and plant medicines are

an interesting way to approach such problems.

>> I've suffered from pretty severe childhood trauma

and carried around this trauma with me for years,

not really recognizing what was going on.

It wasn't until I was in my really late 40s

that I really recognized this.

And I had a series of Ayahuasca experiences

that really took me into it, really made me face the trauma.

And one of the primary symptoms of the trauma

was fear, you know, that I had this kind

of continuous anxiety, this running fear with me for years.

The Ayahuasca spirit just literally talked to me

and said to me, hey, you know, you have a problem with this?

Hey, let's work this out.

Hey, come on.

I'm going to teach you.

I'm taking you to warrior school.

We're going to get rid of those fears,

and for the next four hours confronted me with just fear

after fear, all my deepest fears.

>> We have evolved out of tune.

There's an enzyme problem that has

caused us to fail to suppress the ego,

and then this creates a spectrum of cultural effects

that drives us all nuts.

And so, they have a kind of psycholytic therapy

to correct that.

And isn't it interesting that the fix turns out

to be not a drug, but a shifting of the ratios

of neurotransmitters already present in the organism?

>> The tuning and harmony of neurotransmitters cause

for the inner atmosphere of the body to become suitable

for physical and psychological relaxation and rewiring

of thought patterns.

However, the strongest and most lasting effects

neurologically happen in the gut.

The enteric nervous system has about 100 million neurons,

similar to what dogs have in their brain.

This neurology is in communication

with the microbiome, or colonies of bacteria

in the gut that are integral to our health and even

our impulses.

It is believed by Ayahuasca shamans that the real medicine

is not the brew itself.

>> And in the jungle, if you talk to the maestros and they

say, oh, you want to study the medicine?

Dieta, dieta, dieta.

They don't say Ayahuasca, Ayahuasca, Ayahuasca.

>> What they say, if you really get down with them,

is that the diet is everything, and that you're a tourist

and you're here for a few weeks, and yes,

we'll give you Ayahuasca.

But what this is really about is controlling diet

over a period of months, even years,

and taking a regular regimen of this stuff

and transforming yourself into some kind of other person.

>> In the Shipibo tradition, a diet, a dieta,

is to go through this kind of restrictive phase with

your food, you know, no salt, no sugar, no dairy, no hot spicy,

no greasy, no oily, no red meat, no pork,

in some cases no chicken.

It's this kind of purification, this period of sacrifice.

And then while you're doing that,

you're taking this other plant that most likely is not

psychoactive at all in any measurable form.

But you take it every day or in some kind of format.

And so you're connecting to the spirit of that plant

through the diet.

>> The indigenous believe that it is this other tea of dieted

plants that adds another layer of intelligence and guidance

to the ceremonial healing journey.

A deeply revealing truth can be seen

in the importance of a dieta.

Most every health concern in the modern world

that is preventable due to lifestyle

comes down to what we feed our bodies.

Ayahuasca has gained a lot of popularity

as a healing medicine, which it surely is,

but only when taken in conjunction

with a plant-based diet and listening for the messages

that the plants impart.

The more one listens, the more it

is evident that these plants actually

have their own language and are attempting to teach and prepare

the body and mind for Ayahuasca.

But the indigenous as well as Westerners

who've devoted their lives to this culture

and medicine believe these master plants

don't speak in a dry language, but rather

in a way that sings to our higher faculties of perception.

The songs that are sung are called icaros

and have particular meaning to the healers of the Amazon.

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

>> That seems like crazy, you know, hard to believe.

But the idea is that you're dieting

these plants, these master plans, that

are going to teach you how to do this healing work,

and also facilitate your own personal healing

through the process, and that that's

going to be where you learn how to sing these songs from.

Like I said, hard to believe.

I wouldn't believe it if somebody told me that,

but that was my personal experience.

>> Maestro Gume was born and raised in the Ayahuasca healing

traditions and relates his family's process of introducing

him to the plants.

>> [NON-ENGLISH]

>> By modern reductionist beliefs,

it would sound crazy that these plants are wise teachers that

gift healing songs to the students or shamans.

Several origin myths of Ayahuasca

claim that these plants are the ones that

instructed the humans on how to make the brew,

and they did so not through human language,

but through song.

The imagery in several Ayahuasca cultures

actually illustrate the visual appearance

of the songs themselves, and it is

said that the songs of the master plants

are sung during ceremony to guide Ayahuasca

into the psychological root of the illness.

>> Well, we know that music entrains the brain in certain

ways and so do the psychedelics.

So, music can be used to augment the effects

of the psychedelics.

And this was well recognized by the shamans.

They often viewed it as the spirits are

being called in by the music.

>> These people have some kind of authenticity that you can

absolutely feel.

It's in the voice.

I met many Ayahuasqueros and the good ones

all had this voice thing going on,

that they could cast their voice way back in their throat,

and they kind of purr.

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

>> The indigenous of the Amazon, as well as many other shamanic

traditions from around the world,

believe the only medicine is truth and authenticity.

Whether that comes through a shaman's

particular vocal vibration, a movement

of energy through dance, a cleansing

of the body through diet, or even

the mind-opening properties of psychedelic plants, truth

and authenticity is a state of being

that a human can surrender to or continue to defend against.

But if one is open to acknowledging

their blind spots, a new state of being unfolds.

>> It's a flowing with the energy of life.

And I think that's why people have so much synchronicity

after they have experienced Ayahuasca

or have experienced these kinds of medicines.

You start to run into events in your life.

And it seems like you just surrender to the flow,

and it takes you exactly where you need to go.

>> And this is why Ayahuasca has not simply remained

in the jungle, but has spread across the world,

and also why the culture stays traditional in some regions yet

evolves and updates in others.

The UDV and Santo Daime churches have

been established for semi-traditional and even

syncretic uses of Ayahuasca.

Even the Native American church that

originally protected peyote use has now included Ayahuasca.

Some say that Ayahuasca is growing beyond the jungle,

first through awareness and now being

grown in many different locations,

causing not only the medicine to spread,

but the cultural mindset of being one singular

species on a turbulent and rapidly changing planet.

>> Very often I'm surprised how common it is for people to come

to South America, for example, take Ayahuasca,

and they come back with this really broadened perspective

about how we fit into nature.

As global culture rediscovers these ancient medicines,

we're also rediscovering the traditions

behind them, which is a good thing because they

do have traditions.

And that's something that, as a society, we lacked, I think,

when in the 60s we didn't really understand that.

Now we do.

So, we're adapting shamanism to our own purposes

and developing variations of shamanism that may not

be traditional, but they're more appropriate for who

we are at this time.

>> Perhaps looking at the world in new ways,

relating to all nature as if it's an extension of ourselves

is the real medicine for the people,

not just through the visionary features of Ayahuasca,

but also through the master plants of the jungle that

the shamans diet to teach them the mysteries.

Perhaps the jungle really does speak or sing

the messages of Gaia that must be heard sooner or later.

And all those singing and living that message

are embodying the medicine, the truth and authenticity

that the world needs most, stepping aside from dogmas

and experiencing real moments of connection,

real compassion for others, lucid reflection

upon global issues, and inspiration

for future endeavors through visions of animal

guides, spirits, and entities.

This path is not for the tourist, not for the curious.

This path is for those who have accepted and committed

themselves to the health of all beings and the whole planet.

Up next, we explore the unique and lightning fast phenomena

of the DMT experience and the strange inhabited feeling

of the space.