Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon (46 page)

Ayahuasca is thus often described as like "a portal to other worlds which
exist alongside our own."" This sense of being in an explorable space not infrequently prompts comparisons to tourism; as Pablo Amaringo says, "I was like a tourist, always asking the spirits what is this and that, asking them to
take me from one place to another, demanding explanations for everything. 1152

This sense of the reality of the ayahuasca experience is even encoded linguistically. In the Shipibo language, every declarative sentence has a mandatory marker for evidentiality. The direct evidential marker -ra indicates that the
speaker makes the assertion from personal knowledge, and the reportative
marker -ronki indicates that the speaker makes the assertion on the basis of
information received from another. Accounts of dreams are regularly marked
with -ronki; but, strikingly, accounts by shamans of what they have seen in an
ayahuasca vision are regularly marked with -ra.53 As linguist Pilar Valenzuela
writes, "While ayahuasca visions are part of reality, dreams are not, and this
distinction is encoded in the system."54

Elves and Spirits

Many reports of DIM use have in common what psychopharmacologist Daniel Perrine calls "a fairly bizarre claim" to be communicating with discarnate
entities, usually referred to as elves, a term apparently first popularized by
the prolific psychonaut Terence McKenna-specifically, "self-transforming
machine elves," "tryptamine Munchkins," "hyperdimensional machine-elf
entities."55 In contrast to other psychedelics, McKenna says, DIM uniquely
opened "an unanticipated dimension that involved contact with an alien intelligence.... Organized entelechies presented themselves in the psychedelic
experience with information that seemed not to be drawn from the personal
history of the individual or even from the collective human experience.i56 And
he writes: "But in the Amazon and other places where plant hallucinogens are
understood and used, you are conveyed into worlds that are appallingly different from ordinary reality. Their vividness cannot be stressed enough. They
are more real than real ... and you realize that you are not looking in on the
Other; the Other is looking in on you."57 Note again the sense of being in a
foreign land described by Pablo Amaringo. Poet Dale Pendell writes that, for
McKenna, "DIM opened the door to an entirely new dimension of reality, a
dimension wholly Other.... The entities Terence encountered were alien. Like
any good explorer, he tried to interact with them, to listen to what they had to
say and to come back with a report.i58

Sometimes this sense of presence is diffuse-dark-robed and faceless
beings gathered to support me in my nausea; tall thin dark-skinned men in
white shirts and white pants with black suspenders flitted on unknown errands among the participants at a ceremony. Poet Allen Ginsberg, drinking yage in Pucallpa, writes of the whole hut seeming "rayed with spectral presences."59 Writing ofayahuasca use on the Bajo Urubamba, anthropologist
Peter Gow speaks of shamans seeing "a forest tree as a house full of people. "10
Piro shaman don Mauricio Roberto Fasabi calls these ayahuasca people. "They
come when you drink ayahuasca," he says. "They join in, their songs are very
beautiful!"6' And sometimes the sense of presence is specific. Shuar shaman
Alejandro Tsakimp reports that, when drinking ayahuasca, a "precious little
woman, just lovely, kept appearing before me. Even now the woman is in the
habit of appearing to me-very lovely and wearing different robes.""

Spirit Experiences

The presence of organized intelligent entelechies-what Peter Meyer calls discarnate entities-is a significant feature of ayahuasca experiences and perhaps
the feature most important for understanding how ayahuasca brings about
contact with plant and animal spirits.63 Here are some examples:

Example 6. I am drinking ayahuasca with don Winister Magin, a
young shaman who is the son of don Romulo Magin. His ayahuasca is
made with sameruca; I find the visions dark, obscure. I walk to the edge
of the clearing in front of his tambo in order to vomit. There at the edge
of the jungle is a group of tall, dark figures, shapeless, faces hidden, as
if dressed in the hooded robes of monks. But I know somehow that they
are persons-other-than-human persons, surely-and that they are benevolent, gathered to help me.

Example 7. I am drinking ayahuasca with don Antonio Barrera in a
crowded tambo, filled with people who have come to be healed. It is
almost pitch black, and people are sitting quietly, while don Antonio
calls them up for healing, one by one, singing his icaros in the dark. I
am bored; nothing seems to be happening except my being sick. Then
I realize that, around the edges of the tambo, there are a number of tall
young men, thin, with dark hair and skin, wearing white shirts and
white pants with black suspenders. They move quickly, gracefully, and
quietly around the crowd. They seem busy, helpful.

Example 8. I am sitting with my head down, my elbows on my knees,
unhappy because nothing much is happening, apart from vomiting. I
am drinking ayahuasca with don Antonio, and he has decided that my
visions are being blocked by an envious brujo, who does not want gringos learning any secrets. He decides, too, that I need to drink more
ayahuasca, a prospect I find disheartening, but I manage to get down another cupful without vomiting it back up right away. So I am just
generally miserable, when I feel someone rubbing my head. I look up,
and standing in front of me is a beautiful dark young Amazonian girl,
wearing shorts and a white T-shirt, with long dark straight hair hanging down her back, and looking down at me with an absolutely radiant smile. My eyes are open; there is not a doubt in my mind that she is
real. She is solid, three-dimensional, present. I can even sense the slight
increase in air pressure one feels when close to a solid object. She is
bathed in a brilliant light; I can see every detail of her features. She has
one of the most joyous smiles I have ever seen. I stare at her for a while,
basking in that smile; then I blink my eyes and she is gone.

Example g. I am drinking ayahuasca with dona Maria and don Roberto. Then I am walking down a street in an urban setting, with no one
around, near a vacant lot. I come upon a vendor with a wooden carttwo large wheels behind, two small wheels in front, a handle to push it
with-who has necklaces for sale, hanging from wooden pegs, of the
inexpensive sort that are tossed to the crowd at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I buy one and see a small girl, maybe five or six years old, standing on the sidewalk. She is blond, muy gringa, dressed in a pale blue
satin party dress, as if she is on her way to a birthday party. In fact, she is
wearing a crown on her head, which looks like a cardboard crown covered with gold foil, which I take to be a sort of party costume. I hand her
the necklace as a gift, and she stands there very still, like a statue, holding the rosary-that is how I think of it now-raised in her right hand,
the golden crown on her head, covered in light on the broken sidewalk.

Example io. I am drinking ayahuasca with don Romulo and his son,
don Winister. They are both singing icaros at the same time, but different ones, producing a decidedly eerie effect. Suddenly in front of me
I see a beautiful green woman, lying back on a couch or bed; her arms
and fingers are long; her body is covered in some kind of gauzy material. The moment is intense, erotically charged; I lean forward and kiss
her. Whoa! says my rational mind. Is this all right? Are you allowed to
have sex with plant spirits? The embrace is arousing; I wonder what my
wife would say. The woman fades away, leaving me with a feeling of relief and disappointment.

Example ii. I am drinking ayahuasca with dona Maria and don Roberto. I see don Roberto dressed in his work clothes-white undershirt,
dark pants, rubber boots. For some reason, his name in this vision is don Rosario. He is in front of a small tiled fountain that looks like a
shrine; water comes out of the top and gathers in a pool at the bottom.
He is kneeling on one knee before the fountain, reaching down into the
pool, picking up drops ofwaterwith his thumb and two fingers, putting
the water into his mouth.

Example 12. I am drinking ayahuasca with dona Maria and don Roberto. I find myself standing in the entry hallway ofa large house in the suburbs. I open the front door and look out at a typical suburban streetcars parked at the curb, traffic going by, a front lawn, trees along the
curb. Standing at the door is a dark woman, perhaps in her forties, her
raven hair piled on her head, thin and elegant, beautiful, dressed in a
red shift with a black diamond pattern. She silently holds out her right
hand to me. On her hand is a white cylinder, about three inches long,
which she is offering to me. I do not know what the white substance is.

I discussed both the young blond girl and the dark native woman with
dona Maria and don Roberto. They immediately and unhesitatingly identified
the first as ayahuasca and the second as maricahua, whom they call toe negro, the black datura. Maricahua is ingested by splitting the stem and eating
a piece of the white inner pith about three inches long; they told me that the
figure in the vision was handing me just such a piece of maricahua stem. As
for my vision of don Roberto, dona Maria just nodded and said, "He is your
maestro ayahuasquero, your ayahuasca teacher."

The Peter Meyer Reports

Peter Meyer calls such experiences "contact with discarnate entities" and has
collected accounts from users of DIM. Here are some examples:

"I continued to fly on, over a ravine, leading up to a mountainside, and
eventually saw a campfire. As I approached this, cautiously, I saw that
on the other side of the fire was a human figure wearing a sombrero,
whom I intuitively knew to be don Juan. He invited me to come closer,
and spoke to me.1164

"I found myself once again in the company of the `elves,' as the focus of
their attention and ministrations, but they appeared much less colorful
and altogether preoccupied with the task at hand. ie5

"It was as if there were alien beings there waiting for me, and I recall that
they spoke to me as if they had been awaiting my arrival, but I cannot
remember exactly what was said. "66

"I seemed to be aware of the presence of other beings in the same space,
but had only fleeting glimpses of them, as if they were shy about appearing to me. 1167

"I seemed to be falling away, spiraling into some large, black void, after
which I seemed to be in a bright, open space in the presence of two
other beings. Their forms were not very clear, but they seemed to be
like children, as if we were together in a playground.""

"The elves were telling me (or I was understanding them to say) that I had
seen them before, in early childhood. "19

"[The elves] peer toward me, watching, eyes bright and watching in small
faces, then small hands to pull themselves, slowly, from behind and
into view; they are small white-blond imp-kids, very old in bright,
mostly red, togs and caps; candy-store, shiny, teasing and inquisitive,
very solemn and somewhat pleased."7°

The RickStrassman Reports

In iggo, for the first time in almost twenty years, the FDA cautiously allowed
researchers to study the effects of psychotropic substances on human beings.71 Psychopharmacologist Rick Strassman at the University of New Mexico received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for research
on DIM with human volunteers, of whom there were eventually eleven, all experienced hallucinogen users. Strassman administered DIM intravenously in
doses ranging from 3.5 to 28 mg-approximately o.o5 to 0.4 mg/kg. Intravenous instead of intramuscular administration was used after one participant
in the preliminary testing, who was familiar with smoked DIM, complained
that intramuscular injection did not match the rush of smoked street drug.72

Especially notable for our purposes were the reports of specific visual
images-"a fantastic bird," "a tree of life and knowledge," "a ballroom with
crystal chandeliers." There were "tunnels," "stairways," "ducts," and "a spinning golden disc." Participants became aware of and interacted with both
human and nonhuman entities, including spiders, mantises, and reptiles, as
well as elves, alien beings, and "a little round creature with one big eye and
one small eye. "73 Usually there was little difference between what participants
saw with their eyes opened or closed, though opening the eyes often caused
the visions to overlay objects in the room.74 For most participants reasoning
and thinking were unaffected.75

Strassman points to the "impressive" number of volunteers-at least
half-who perceived human and alien figures who in turn seemed to be aware
of and interacted with the volunteers.76 "When reviewing my bedside notes," he writes, "I continually feel surprise in seeing how many of our volunteers
`made contact' with `them,' or other beings."77 Research subjects used expressions like entities, beings, aliens, guides, and helpers to describe them; they
appeared as clowns, reptiles, mantises, bees, spiders, cacti-and elves.78 One
volunteer reported: "That was real strange. There were lots of elves. They were
prankish, ornery, maybe four of them appeared at the side of a stretch of interstate highway I travel regularly.... They were about my height. They held
up placards, showing me these incredibly beautiful, complex, swirling geometric scenes in them. "79 There were many references to communication with
these beings, some successful and some not. One volunteer reported: "There
was an initial sense of panic. Then the most beautiful colors coalesced into
beings. There were lots of beings. They were talking to me but they weren't
making a sound. It was more as if they were blessing me, the spirits of life
were blessing me. They were saying that life was good.i80 And again: "They
were reptilian and humanoid, trying to make me understand, not with words,
but with gestures";" "They were communicating in words";" "It was nonverbal communication";83 "It was about to say something to me or me to it, but
we couldn't quite connect. 1114