Ayahuasca: Fear and healing in the Amazon

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Psychedelic plants, the spiritual tourism backlash - and sexual abuse. Increasing numbers of tourists are travelling to the Peruvian Amazon to drink ayahuasca, a traditional plant medicine said to bring about a higher state of consciousness. Foreigners come looking for spiritual enlightenment or help with mental health problems like trauma, depression, and addiction. But not everyone is happy about Peru’s booming ayahuasca tourism industry. A group of indigenous healers are fighting back against what they see as the exploitation and appropriation of their cultural heritage by foreigners - who run most of the ayahuasca retreats popular with tourists. This coming together of cultures has thrown up another serious problem too: vulnerable women being sexually abused while under the influence of charismatic healers and this powerful psychedelic.

Reporter: Simon Maybin Producer: Josephine Casserly Editor: Bridget Harney

(Image: Forest canopy, Peru. Credit: Getty Creative)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this podcast. I'm the producer Josephine Casselli and this
0:05.2	edition is about a psychedelic plant medicine called Iowasca. I found out about this story
0:11.0	a few years ago when my friend came back from traveling in Peru
0:14.7	and told me that while she was there she was bombarded by people trying to sell her Iowasca.
0:19.7	So myself and presenter Simon Mabin started looking into what has become a huge tourist
0:25.7	industry there and what we found was really interesting and sometimes really dark.
0:31.2	I hope you enjoy listening and just a warning that this program
0:34.0	contains some strong language and also some content that you might find disturbing. The first time I drunk I felt weak and the first time I drunk I felt weak and the first thing I saw was a U.S. coming down.
0:55.0	Walter Lopez, a traditional indigenous healer,
0:59.0	remembers his first experience, age 14,
1:02.0	with a plant medicine called Iowasca.
1:05.0	They abducted me and they took me to their world of aliens.
1:10.0	They were talking different languages and it made me a little crazy almost and
1:16.8	there was a lot of information coming at me.
1:19.4	Ayahuasca, a powerful psychedelic made by brewing two local plants together has for centuries been part of the indigenous culture here in the Amazon.
1:28.0	I'm Simon Mabin and this is a assignment on the BBC World Service.
1:32.0	Walter in his late 30s with This is a assignment on the BBC World Service.
1:33.0	Walter in his late 30s with jet black hair
1:36.0	is from Peru's chapebo tribe.
1:39.0	That world was very hot. I felt like I was burning, but at the same time I felt like I was renewing myself.
1:49.0	Then my grandfather, who wasn't even alive at the time appeared and said to me what are you doing here?
1:56.0	And I said I don't know and he said you have to be here because all those languages that you are listening to you are going to learn.
	...

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