Body of U.S. teen found at Peru ayahuasca retreat

[Seth Ananda]

So people literally believe that they 'fly' when it fact they don't. People believe that they have contacted a spirit or influenced, as you say, the weather for instance, but they haven't.

To me it seems like Taomeow was saying that Aya taught her to work with weather {after drinking it} but that she was not on Aya when she used her 'Aya knowledge' to diffuse the Hurricane.

 

This obviously negates your 'wise words', as if she was not under the influence, you cant claim she was delusional when she used her weather Magick.

[Seth Ananda]

Well on the one hand he may have died from ayahuasca use. On the other hand he may have received a bad mix from a shaman who was guessing. On the other hand he may have not mentioned other conditions eg taking other drugs or medical problems at the same time. On the other hand it may have been completely unrelated and they found his body or something.. On the other hand a newspaper who was itself scared of these things printed a story about it.

 

Actually my cousins boyfriend worked for a newspaper and he told me it was extremely biased how he would be forced to write bad things about muslims or people who dont work etc.

Exactly! This is what I have been trying to say in this thread.

Sure there have been some deaths, {an absolutely miniscule and insignificant proportion compared to hundreds of other substances} related to the use of Aya, but so far there is not a shred of evidence to say Aya herself is directly responsible.

 

This does not stop those of a black and white mind set jumping to immediate conclusions without proper evidence.

The proving must be detailed mrtiger, not based on a newspaper article. It must rule out pharmaceutical complications, and dodgy brews with other, sometimes deadly substances in them...

 

In my book, Aya is Innocent until proven guilty!

[et-thoughts]

To me it seems like Taomeow was saying that Aya taught her to work with weather {after drinking it} but that she was not on Aya when she used her 'Aya knowledge' to diffuse the Hurricane.

 

This obviously negates your 'wise words', as if she was not under the influence, you cant claim she was delusional when she used her weather Magick.

 

Seth Ananda,

 

I think flowing hands was negating the notion that one can work with weather (and other stuff)... it seems to me flowing hands was pushing the idea and belief that 'they' just think they have done what they thought they did ... but its a common fact they can't do that... rather than realize that they did do what they thought they did...

 

If someone wants to believe they can't do something even though it is possible to do... what can we do? Playing with the weather involves taking on full responsibly for what one does and causes... the ramifications can extend quite a bit... and what for? Better to just desire and pray for the wether to be the wether that should be... Oh and be aware that some are pushing the idea that desires and prayers have no influence on events as a way to disempower individuals and keep them from intervening ... fortunately one right thought can bind and correct infinite wrong ones... its a common fact you can do what you can do regardless of the fact some claim you can't do it... or will do all in their power to keep you from doing it... fortunately you can do what you can do and none have the power to keep you from doing what you where meant to do.... just do it...

 

Soon everyone will realize that they did do what they thought they did...

[et-thoughts]

In my book, Aya is Innocent until proven guilty!

 

In my book, aya is aya... proven innocent, proven guilty, does not change what aya be... aya be aya...

I mention this because regardless of assuming innocence or guiltiness one be assuming stuff... rather than just embracing what be... the truth of the matter...

 

Besides sometimes its impossible to prove the innocence or guiltiness of someone... again that dose not change their innocence or guiltiness... what they be be what they be regardless of proving it or not... I mention this to keep us focused on the matter at hand...

[Seth Ananda]

Seth Ananda,

 

I think flowing hands was negating the notion that one can work with weather (and other stuff)... it seems to me flowing hands was pushing the idea and belief that 'they' just think they have done what they thought they did ... but its a common fact they can't do that... rather than realize that they did do what they thought they did...

 

Groan... Re read his post. He is specifically referring to people on substances thinking stuff can happen that is not happening. It cant be more clear.

Putting a drug in the mix is only going to make the situation even worse. So people literally believe that they 'fly' when it fact they don't. People believe that they have contacted a spirit or influenced, as you say, the weather for instance, but they haven't. But their minds, like in certain mental illnesses, make them beleive that they have seen those things and done them. In the tradition that I follow which stretches some many thousands of years, we have never used drugs. So when the spirit comes it enters us physically and moves us about so we have no mental games in which to play with ourselves and we are assured that what is happening is real.

 

And can we stay on thread people. this thread has nothing to do with the Illumanati, or with how much better one person thinks his tradition is than everyone elses, {which topic wise is so old its utterly boring}

[Birch]

I was thinking about this today (although I'm frequently told that 'thinking' is not something to do (to excess, and uselessly, I agree BTW, but hey.)

 

I was thinking about the idea that one's relationship with substances, is, well, a relationship. In the meeting of enthogens and the person eating them, can it be said that whatever happens as a result is 'done' to the person by the plant (or drug)? Is it the person, themselves 'doing' whatever happens? It reminded me of where to draw lines between 'subject' and 'object'. It reminded me of some practices where taking (subjective) responsibility for ALL of one's states is prescribed (and I question the resultant 'enlightenment' of such a stance/practice). And it reminded me of my understanding of myself "inside but simultaneously looking out at a material (dead) universe" and my understanding of myself "inside and simultaneously looking out at a living universe".

 

 

And it reminded me of many headlines read in the '90's "Teen dies at rave from Ecstasy". Seems nobody's taking it any more.

[Seth Ananda]

In my book, aya is aya... proven innocent, proven guilty, does not change what aya be... aya be aya...

I mention this because regardless of assuming innocence or guiltiness one be assuming stuff... rather than just embracing what be... the truth of the matter...

 

Besides sometimes its impossible to prove the innocence or guiltiness of someone... again that dose not change their innocence or guiltiness... what they be be what they be regardless of proving it or not... I mention this to keep us focused on the matter at hand...

Can you just stop rambling your stupid pop psychology. No one asked you to play the teacher or to enlighten us with your 'wisdom'...

 

If aya can 'kill' people, people need to know, but when allegations are made, all the facts need to be presented.

 

And if "everything be what everything be" supposedly makes facts irrelevant, then why don't you go and eat some cyanide and show us all how developed you are in mastery of your philosophy. It should make a very short discussion.

[et-thoughts]

Groan... Re read his post. He is specifically referring to people on substances thinking stuff can happen that is not happening. It cant be more clear. [/font][/color]

 

Yes his posts does refer to ' to people on substances thinking stuff can happen that is not happening' and I am referring to the fact that individuals can and do happen to influence, the weather ... though some claim that stuff is not happening...

[et-thoughts]

Can you just stop rambling your stupid pop psychology. No one asked you to play the teacher or to enlighten us with your 'wisdom'...

 

If aya can 'kill' people, people need to know, but when allegations are made, all the facts need to be presented.

 

And if "everything be what everything be" supposedly makes facts irrelevant, then why don't you go and eat some cyanide and show us all how developed you are in mastery of your philosophy. It should make a very short discussion.

 

Tell you what you stop your ramblings and I will consider it..

"when allegations are made, all the facts need to be presented..."

(even though some ask others not to point out certain facts least the facts expose the truth)

"everything be what everything be" facts are facts, and some of them can be quite relevant facts.

Now to me its evidently false that ("everything be what everything be" supposedly makes facts irrelevant) thus what follows the then comment should simply be ignored. Yes it makes a very short discussion...

 

Now lets focus on wether 'the death was caused by aya'... or was it just made to look that way...

[konchog uma]

this thread is a circus

 

thank you taomeow for pointing out that ayahuasca is not a drug. Will you all please quit calling it one? It is a plant, and a very wise and powerful one at that.

 

No deaths have ever been reported to my knowledge from the plant alone, but there are contraindications that may result in death when the plant is improperly combined with something else. In this case the onus is on the person taking the drug to know whether they should take it or not. The cause of death in this story wasn't even conclusive, he might have just died cause it was his time.

 

Taking ayahuasca in an unsafe way is like fooling around with a chainsaw or riding a motorcycle without a helmet, but taking it in a safe way has never killed anyone to my knowledge.

 

Newspapers sensationalize everything, they don't draw the line at drugs.. if the story comes from MSN its skewed and untrue by degrees. Same with every major media outlet, they are all owned by the same people, and those people, unlike ayahuasca, don't want anyone to wake up to their true potential. Sloppy shamanism is something that big media swarms around like hungry dogs around a raw steak, i have seen this sort of "drug" (lol) reporting so many times it doesn't even phase me anymore. Stop reading the major media outlets if you want to learn the truth about anything. Just don't expect it there.

 

and stop calling ayahuasca a drug

[Taomeow]

I was thinking about the idea that one's relationship with substances, is, well, a relationship.

 

That's exactly right. It's like a mother-child or teacher-student or magician-apprentice relationship in the case of ayahuasca, to the power of having a relationship with not just a mother but Mother of the Universe, not just a teacher but Teacher of All That Is, not just a magician but Magical Change Herself. And you still enter in this relationship as you, and that's why no two such relationships are alike. I've read and had orally related to me many experiences of others having had this relationship. The only ones that resembled mine at all were from some indigenous people, I had nothing at all happen that paralleled anything any Westerner ever got out of the encounter. But that's not because I'm special I don't think -- yet it has everything to do with who I am, with my values, with what I had shaped myself into by my own effort prior to the experience, and with what I was ready to accept (and also what I was ready to reject, lose, devalue...)

 

She took me where she doesn't take people who haven't had a long stretch of development in that particular direction that I happen to have had. They would make no heads or tails of it. At one point she wanted to push me beyond where I had the breadth of consciousness to go and I begged her to stop. (And that's why when She asked how far I wanted to expand my consciousness -- to the end of galaxy, to the end of the multiverse? -- I said, no no no no no, to the edges of the rain forest, and let's stop there. She agreed grudgingly, like a teacher who defers to a not-too-ambitious student. But I knew what I was doing. I didn't want to get overwhelmed. I wanted to be tested at 75% of capacity, and She tried to take me to 100% again and again, and every time I asked her to stop. 75% is from my taoist training. I was who I was when I was with Her, She didn't cancel who I am... except to 75% of my capacity to be non-me. ) And because I chose the rain forest, She said, well, what can we do here since you don't want to go farther? How about I teach you to turn the rain on and off, and the wind? You know, there's this hurricane coming, you'll be there when it comes, you could use the controls then if you learn well. And She turned the rain and wind on and off and patiently taught me how to do it for four hours. And it was better than anything that ever happened to me before or after in my entire life to date. The rain and the wind were real. The next day (the lesson was taking place between 4 and 8 am) the little river where the shaman has his home swelled up and flooded out of its banks and whoever wanted to get anywhere had to wear thigh-high rubber boots, which were also real, and mighty dirty.

 

Was I under the "influence" two years later when I used the technique? I hadn't had as much as a beer in the interim. The only substance in my system was a cup of tea. And the knowledge was still there. It's like riding a bicycle... But have you noticed I am not asserting I did it? All I'm asserting is I followed instructions and what was supposed to happen happened but I have no proof it happened because I was following instructions?.. I'm not ambitious at all as a weather shaman, I don't need to prove not just to others but even to myself that I can do it. There's no other way to tell the story than the way I told it: how it actually happened. "Making sense" of it I leave to others, and believing it's all nonsense, to still others.

[eye_of_the_storm]

Thank you Taomeow for sharing your experiences

 

Beautiful

 

[et-thoughts]

That's exactly right. It's like a mother-child or teacher-student or magician-apprentice relationship in the case of ayahuasca, to the power of having a relationship with not just a mother but Mother of the Universe, not just a teacher but Teacher of All That Is, not just a magician but Magical Change Herself. And you still enter in this relationship as you, and that's why no two such relationships are alike. I've read and had orally related to me many experiences of others having had this relationship. The only ones that resembled mine at all were from some indigenous people, I had nothing at all happen that paralleled anything any Westerner ever got out of the encounter. But that's not because I'm special I don't think -- yet it has everything to do with who I am, with my values, with what I had shaped myself into by my own effort prior to the experience, and with what I was ready to accept (and also what I was ready to reject, lose, devalue...)

 

She took me where she doesn't take people who haven't had a long stretch of development in that particular direction that I happen to have had. They would make no heads or tails of it. At one point she wanted to push me beyond where I had the breadth of consciousness to go and I begged her to stop. (And that's why when She asked how far I wanted to expand my consciousness -- to the end of galaxy, to the end of the multiverse? -- I said, no no no no no, to the edges of the rain forest, and let's stop there. She agreed grudgingly, like a teacher who defers to a not-too-ambitious student. But I knew what I was doing. I didn't want to get overwhelmed. I wanted to be tested at 75% of capacity, and She tried to take me to 100% again and again, and every time I asked her to stop. 75% is from my taoist training. I was who I was when I was with Her, She didn't cancel who I am... except to 75% of my capacity to be non-me. ) And because I chose the rain forest, She said, well, what can we do here since you don't want to go farther? How about I teach you to turn the rain on and off, and the wind? You know, there's this hurricane coming, you'll be there when it comes, you could use the controls then if you learn well. And She turned the rain and wind on and off and patiently taught me how to do it for four hours. And it was better than anything that ever happened to me before or after in my entire life to date. The rain and the wind were real. The next day (the lesson was taking place between 4 and 8 am) the little river where the shaman has his home swelled up and flooded out of its banks and whoever wanted to get anywhere had to wear thigh-high rubber boots, which were also real, and mighty dirty.

 

Was I under the "influence" two years later when I used the technique? I hadn't had as much as a beer in the interim. The only substance in my system was a cup of tea. And the knowledge was still there. It's like riding a bicycle... But have you noticed I am not asserting I did it? All I'm asserting is I followed instructions and what was supposed to happen happened but I have no proof it happened because I was following instructions?.. I'm not ambitious at all as a weather shaman, I don't need to prove not just to others but even to myself that I can do it. There's no other way to tell the story than the way I told it: how it actually happened. "Making sense" of it I leave to others, and believing it's all nonsense, to still others.

 

Actually some like to play in the rain and dance and sing and make clouds come and go... does one force another in a relationship...? na each willingly participates... and dances and sings and make clouds come and go..

[C T]

this thread is a circus

 

stop calling ayahuasca a drug

It may not be a drug... but its certainly a substance yes?

 

As with any mind/body altering substance, can anyone here say for certain the final depth and final width of one's venture into these forms of 'alteration'? If not, how are conclusions drawn?

 

There are approximately 30 million folks in the Amazonian region... does anyone here know the statistics of safe vs abusive usage of the various plants/shrooms/roots/herbs there?

 

As Seth says, facts are vital.

[Taomeow]

It may not be a drug... but its certainly a substance yes?

 

As with any mind/body altering substance, can anyone here say for certain the final depth and final width of one's venture into these forms of 'alteration'? If not, how are conclusions drawn?

 

There are approximately 30 million folks in the Amazonian region... does anyone here know the statistics of safe vs abusive usage of the various plants/shrooms/roots/herbs there?

 

As Seth says, facts are vital.

 

People who would abuse a substance there go for alcohol or man-made lab-created addictive drugs, same as here. Much worse than here in fact because the majority of the population is desperately poor, trapped in dead end social and economic situations, and stripped of all hope for a better future. So substances that cater to despair and reinforce one's bonding with it by giving a brief relief and then bringing it on with an even greater ferocity, demanding a repeat and an increase of the dose, abound at the urban scene.

 

Whereas plants/roots/shrooms/herbs in question are impossible to abuse. They are not addictive. They do not form psychological or physical dependency. They are not fun to take and neither promise nor deliver any easy and carefree times upon ingestion, and in fact often give a horrible time to the body and the psyche. Ayahuasca causes out of this world diarrhea and nausea in most people and tastes worse than your worst nightmare. It taps into emotions no one seeks for recreational purposes such as absolute and ultimate terror, unbearable compassion, self-demolishing humility, and a profound sense of inadequacy of one's life, on top of "shamanic death" episodes that subjectively can last an eternity, and on and on.

 

The reason for repeat intake, which in most cases requires a lot of courage, is a realization, post factum, of the regained or improved physical, mental, emotional, or social health; deeply satisfying cognitive breakthroughs whose ecstatic value is in direct proportion to how many "damned" questions that may have pestered one all her life suddenly get answered, and how many unsolvable problems simply dissolve into nothing. Then there's an influx of creative inspiration, an improvement or a disentaglement of difficult relationships in the family, and so on -- and in some cases, an opening up of a spiritual path that leads one toward some traditional shamanic activities, notably healing. There's no reasons for taking these plants that even remotely resemble the reasons addictive substances are taken by people who abuse them.

[Jetsun]

Ayahuasca is far too frightening to be severely abused in a recreational way, and its far too messy, nobody I know enjoys being locked in a state of terror while uncontrollably shitting yourself.

Edited September 17, 2012 by Jetsun

[flowing hands]

I have no idea what drugs can or cannot do to the mind to fool it, I've never taken a drug in my life. I was talking about a sacred plant. An entheogen. Which is a creation of nature and predates human life, human mind, and everything the human mind is capable of thinking up by hundreds of millions of years. The human mind was designed with receptors for the keys contained in this sacred plant. It has no such receptors for drugs. Drugs break stuff when they jam their distorted man-made molecules into the brain and damage and fool the mind. Sacred plants open doors that they have the keys for and expand one's humanity, one's natural birthright human abilities. E.g., ayahuasca has a compound which was later renamed harmine but the first researchers of this alkaloid called it telepathin. Guess why. Because She either initiates or, more likely, restores the lost ability to communicate mind to mind in humans, and between humans and other life forms on this planet and beyond. No drug can do that. Drugs are not part of nature. Mind to mind communications are. Our species has lost this normal natural ability, but nature has keys to restore it. Just one example.

 

To discuss what someone else has experienced or not -- you of all people should know better?.. Haven't you been told that it's all in your mind without any substances involved, drugs or entheogens? You didn't seem to like it unless I misunderstood your reactions. Me, I don't particularly care, the only thing someone else telling me what I experienced or not does is proves to me that they are talking outta their non-experience.

 

Don't get me wrong and words are very easily misinterpreted and I'm not telling you or anyone else what they experience is real to them or not. I am not citing what I said directly at you personally, I am talking about the difference between using drugs and the mind and spirit communication and non drug use and the minds ability to fool even the most experienced practitioners in these matters. This is why we always start with physical communication first, there is no mind, drug or anything else that can be so very easily misleading. Many people go to the Temples and beg the Immortals to draw the Holy Water and never succeed, even though they go there many times. Very few are successful. The successful ones know then that the Immortal has come to them and will teach them to whatever extent they feel they should. The other way is very dodgy; you go off to some shaman who gives you a drug and tells you that you will see visions and meet people from the spirit world. Which of the two do you think is an assured and real experience? How much has it cost you also? You go to the source (Temple) and it costs you nothing, but if you are successful you will have achieved something real. The other way you've paid a few hundred dollars and got a bad head and lots of other things the next day and it was all in your mind. Sacred knowledge is in all living and non living things, we all contain the very spark from the very beginning of all things, no one life form is more sacred than any other. To say that some are more sacred is to show complete lack of understanding and realization.

 

All drugs come from plants or mineral substances even if they are synthesized and altered. All plants are sacred, all life is sacred, when humans begin to fully realize this the world may come back to balance.

 

To experience the sacred or to receive sacred teachings one does not need to take a plant or synthesized drug. Going back to the weather, it is under its own control and will only be altered by the intervention of Immortals, no other person can alter the weather without their consent. I have altered the weather before, but it was the Immortals who did this. We come back then to the idea of wu wei. of active non interference. The world is ruled by taking no action, by leaving things to follow their natural path whether that leads to perceived disaster or not. This is why the Immortals leave the world to take its course and many say if there was a God then this or that would never happen. That's because they don't understand about the nature of life. The Immortals have power to change and prevent many disasters, but they don't because they would then be interfering with the path of nature, whether this is human made or nature made.

Edited September 17, 2012 by flowing hands

[Jeff]

The Immortals have power to change and prevent many disasters, but they don't because they would then be interfering with the path of nature, whether this is human made or nature made.

 

Do immortals have "free will" to do as they wish? Or, does their power come from being with the "flow" of Tao?

 

[shanlung]

 

What concerns me is something different.

 

Namely - the the closed mindset of many of the people who have commented on this post.

 

 

 

Why do I feel your implication that you and you only possess an open and fair mind in contrast to all the rest?

 

Opps! I guessed that put me into the ranks of closed mindsets.

 

Do those close minds besieged you in your life too?

[flowing hands]

Do immortals have "free will" to do as they wish? Or, does their power come from being with the "flow" of Tao?

 

 

Yes they certainly do have free will, but of course they are 'enlightened' they understand the nature of all things so they don't interfere and as you say follow the flow.

[C T]

To experience the sacred one does not need to take a plant or synthesized drug.

 

Oftentimes i get a 'high' heart-bliss just by watching a video, or hear something inspiring... like this, for example:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCHS6geSs-k

Edited September 17, 2012 by C T

[et-thoughts]

'flowing hands' Indeed lets be cautious of ' the minds ability to fool even the most experienced practitioners in these matters."

The sage knows when to act and acts and knows when not to intervene and does not intervene... evidently to alter something one requires consent ... or hold the right to alter it! Well actually it could also result from brute force imposition... though this generally results in others intervening... you are right only by the intervention of Immortals, are some actions possible...

[billb]

The story is not sensationalized at all and definitely newsworthy. It says he "drank extracts of psycodelics". It never says he died from ayahuasca. It never says he died from drinking the brew he drank. It just reported the facts. The shaman that the boy visited and paid money to admitted to burying him after the boy was missing and tried to cover this whole mess up. Hopefully there will be an autopsy and the cause will probably not be ayahuasca in my opinion. If my brother went to visit a shaman for help and died and then the shaman tried to bury him in the bushes and cover it up so he could continue his website/business I would feel disgusted and insulted if I told the media and they decided that this is not a story that should be told.