Respecting Tradition

Many Westerners have been misinformed about the different types of Peruvian Amazonian healers, but especially ayahuasca healers. The confusion often centers on the difference between an ayahuasquero and a curandero.

An ayahuasquero is someone who has the ability to prepare and cook ayahuasca. Usually, they are not healers. It must be understood that if ayahuasqueros hold ceremonies, then any healing and insights emerge solely from the medicine. Ayahuasqueros normally cannot directly work on guests’ energies or manage the medicine to maximize healing. In fact, an ayahuasquero of integrity who sees any serious issues (such as heavy energy or negative spirit) will refer that guest to a curandero for actual healing.

A word of caution: People in the Amazon will sometimes go to an ayahuasquero for the purge, but not for deeper healing of more serious issues. If an ayahuasquero runs a ceremony without a curandero present, they run the risk of being overwhelmed if they encounter powerful negative energies. This can become a serious problem in ceremony and potentially put guests in danger.

However, some ayahuasqueros are also curanderos.

A curandero is a healer. Medico is Spanish for doctor and is a common term used among indigenous and mestizo people in the Peruvian Amazon for a curandero: one who works with plants and plant spirits. Many curanderos will work with ayahuasca, although not all (especially vegetalistas, who are akin to herbalists).

Most curanderos train through a system of (traditional) medical education, essentially given to them by the plant spirits through many plant dietas over many years. This medical education – sometimes referred to as a form of ‘divine science’ – takes numerous years to learn and then to practice effectively. The plant dietas fill the curandero with energy medicine from the different plants and trees they diet; they effectively build a ‘toolbox’ and ‘energetic pharmacy’ that can be used in ceremony.

In Shipibo, a curandero is called an Onanya – one who has knowledge. In order to become a true Onanya, the apprenticeship is around 10 years. True curanderos must be able to face the darkest energies and spirits when working on patients. For this reason, the training is extremely hard and riddled with many obstacles and tests. It is common for only about 20 per cent of apprentices to graduate. The plant spirits will stretch the apprentice curanderos way beyond the limits of the most unbearable discomforts, so they can overcome and experience their deepest fears (up to the illusion of death – the so-called shamanic death, not the ‘ego deaths’ common to the early healing stages).

Church Groups

Outside of traditional indigenous and mestizo healing practices, other ways of working with the medicine have evolved, particularly in Brazil, where groups such as Santo Diame and UDV offer a religious approach that syncretizes Christian beliefs with the use of ayahuasca as a sacrament. These churches are, by and large, focused on religious activity and are not working to offer the same level of healing that traditional medicine can. For example, in the US, the Santo Diame church makes it very clear that they do not offer healing and that they are not a healthcare system. They work with ayahuasca as a sacrament, not as a healthcare system or medicine.

Modern / Western Approach

There are also Western shamanic practitioners who serve ayahuasca, hold ceremony and work with sound (including instruments, throat singing, ‘high vibration music’). Provided these ceremonies are held by well-intentioned facilitators operating with total honesty, integrity and sufficient safety protocols, then positive and heart-opening experiences can be facilitated. It is also important that they do not falsely claim to be healers or shamans if they have not been genuinely trained over sufficient duration and depth in the Amazon. However, these types of ceremonies will not reach the depths of healing that a fully trained curandero from the Amazon with many years of dietas will be able to achieve.

Psychotherapeutic Approach

There is now more and more need to integrate Western psychotherapeutic approaches when working with Westerners. Traditional Amazonian healers are able to work on the energetic issues of Western patients but are often not able to deal with the processing and integration that comes during and after the healing work. Psycho-emotional development techniques are necessary especially with more severe cases of emotional trauma. We greatly respect the work of people such as Luis Eduardo Luna and Gabor Mate, despite not offering a purely traditional approach. The Temple is working towards providing the ultimate approach when working with Westerners: a combination of both traditional medicine and advanced psychotherapy techniques.

One of the greatest challenges of the movement of ayahuasca culture to the West is the transfer of a tradition rooted in shamanic communities to ones with vastly different psychological and cultural values. We passionately believe that education is needed to truly understand, represent and practice traditional Amazonian medicine. As the use of ayahuasca increases, there are both positive and negative consequences.

There is a growing number of people in the West who offer ayahuasca ceremonies yet have only spent very limited time (weeks to months) in the Amazon but return claiming to have been trained by Amazonian healers.

There are many people holding ceremonies who have no real understanding of how to work with ayahuasca, how to safely hold space and how to support others who are drinking ayahuasca, especially when the experience becomes more challenging. This ultimately threatens the good work of true Amazonian healers (and genuine Western apprentices and curanderos) who train over extensive periods to master their healing skills.

A Western facilitator’s position of power in combination with the medicine can create many challenges. The ceremony leader sits in the center of power. With devoted participants who see the brew as a means of connecting with the Divine, this can lead to participants idealizing the ceremony leader. There is a risk of ‘ayahuasca cults’ forming if the leaders are not psychologically and emotionally balanced.

The Temple is concerned about the number of ceremonies being held by Western facilitators with no training and questionable motivations. In the last few years here in the Amazon, there have been a number of extremely unfortunate and unnecessary deaths of people who had ‘taken’ ayahuasca with ill-intentioned and untrained ceremony leaders. They were not curanderos. We do not wish to see this become a growing issue either inside or outside South America (noting that in most countries the use of ayahuasca is currently illegal).

The Temple is deeply committed to developing more awareness among the general public and the academic and medical communities about the efficacy and often profound benefits of ayahuasca healing, when practiced appropriately and respectfully. We feel that it is essential to present ayahuasca healing work with absolute sincerity, professionalism and integrity. At its best, working with ayahuasca is a ‘professional’ system of ‘spirit-assisted’ healthcare.