THE AMAZON TEA PARTY
WIE Issue 33
June-August 2006

Original Link

In February, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided to allow a small religious sect originating in Brazil to import “hallucinogenic tea” in spite of legal prohibitions and against government objections. The contraband in question? Ayahuasca, a sacred drink said to have magical properties that has been central to the spiritual life of Amazon Indians for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Few Westerners know more about ayahuasca than Dr. Benny Shanon, professor of cognitive psychology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A confirmed atheist, he took part in an ayahuasca ceremony in 1991 in a remote area of Brazil in order to satisfy “the curiosity of a tourist.” But that one sip changed his life. Since then, he has partaken of this sacred libation not twelve, not twenty-four, but 144 times. “I could not refer to myself as an atheist anymore,” Shanon says, explaining that his life has since been infused with a deep sense of gratitude and humility. “I was touched by the domain of the sacred, or the divine. As Westerners, we tend to see consciousness as something individual -- my consciousness, your consciousness. But with ayahuasca, I experienced a profound shift of perspective in which my sense of self expanded to include the entire community. In that expanded identity, my ‘I’ as an individuated entity was merely a part of the periphery.”

Shanon’s book "The Antipodes of the Mind" is considered to be the definitive work on the phenomenology of ayahuasca experiences -- the first scientific treatment of the subject written by someone with extensive firsthand experience of the brew. But before you pack your bags to go to the Amazon to try it yourself, a word of caution: not all encounters with the drug are as idyllic as Shanon’s have been. Spiritual teacher Robert Augustus Masters, for example, drank a pungent cupful that “shook [him] like a rag doll in the jaws of a rabid monster.” Read the full account of his experience in his book "Darkness Shining Wild" and you may think twice before you go anywhere near the stuff.

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For more information about Robert Augustus Masters, including an audio account of his hellish experience with Ayahuasca, visit NHNE's "All Things Integral" Forum:

Robert Augustus Masters on Integral Naked