Last Updated on October 6, 2022
Increasing numbers of people are turning to ayahuasca for spiritual insight, healing, experiences of non-ordinary reality, and more. Some even consider ayahuasca as the basis of their spiritual path. But is ayahuasca all good? Learning about ayahuasca online, in videos and documentaries, through books, and through the promotional materials of people offering ayahuasca ceremonies one rarely, if ever, sees mention of the many potential issues and down-falls of ayahuasca usage and ceremonies. I’ve had numerous people ask me for my opinion on Aya in recent years, and the feedback I receive is that I share a deeper, broader, and more helpful perspective than what they had heard previously.
Popular New Age teacher Stuart Wilde[1]Stuart (now deceased), following his many years of “disappearance” (after which he re-emerged and published God’s Gladiators in … Continue reading helped bring ayahuasca ceremony to the forefront of public attention in recent years. With the advent of his excellent book Supernatural, popular alternative archaeology researcher and author Graham Hancock has also increased awareness of ayahuasca. Perhaps the first person to originally turn a lot of Westerners on to ayahuasca (and one of its chemical components, DMT) in a significant way was the late Terence McKenna. I am familiar with the work of each of these three new-thought leaders—all of whom I admire for their contribution to the world—, and yet I’ve seen very little (if anything) from them about the potentially dark side of ayahuasca[2]Update (January 2015): I have since become aware that Graham Hancock has in fact shared openly about what I understand he also perceives to be a … Continue reading. Perhaps that means it doesn’t have one. Perhaps that means ayahuasca is all Light and Enlightening? I don’t mind being the one to say it is not. In this article I intend to help you understand why, and what to watch out for if you decide to venture into the medicine space of this sacred vine.
Before I go on I wish to make it clear I am not against the use of ayahuasca or any other genuine and traditional entheogenic plant for that matter. They all have their place in the Great Perfection of Life. The key is whether or not we know and appreciate how to approach the place in the right way, at the right time, and in the right frame-of-mind. Also, once in that place, do we know how to safely perceive what is unfolding? Do we know and appreciate the challenges these medicines may present us with? Both the light and the dark. Both are a challenge. So I am writing this article simply as a voice of reason to the bigger picture of what can happen to a person through partaking in ayahuasca. There is information abound on the Internet about the “positive” spin on ayahuasca, so I do not intend to focus on that. But not because I don’t feel it has potentially positive aspects to it. On the contrary, it as many.
Entities
The number one issue I see with people who have used ayahuasca—and numerous other mind-altering substances—is the infiltration of entities in their luminous energy field. In my experience I have met very few people who have used ayahuasca who don’t have entities attached to and/or influencing their luminous body. [3]What follows was updated in Feb 2015 for greater clarification >>I am not implying ayahuasca usage was the sole source, primary source, or even a source, of these entities. As mentioned below, a great many people are (usually unknowingly) contending with the effects of psychic intrusion and attachments even if they’ve never used psychoactive plants. However, it’s worth pointing out, there are a noteworthy number of situations where I have been aware that a significant degree of the psychic intrusion the people I have met[4]This includes the clients and students of people I am close to were experiencing was directly linked to their use of ayahuasca.
I will add that my partner for five years was a practitioner of shamanic energy medicine, and a woman with rather amazing spiritual sight—in my experience second only to my primary shamanic/spiritual teacher from Colombia, whose “sight” is so astounding it would be a complex matter to try and explain or elaborate on in this article. In her extensive and successful healing practice, and during our global travels, she would often identify people who had taken ayahuasca simply through observation of their luminous body. She would also quickly and accurately identify people who smoked cannabis in the same way. Typically, what she would first pick up on was the entities these people were linked to. With a little questioning, it would be confirmed they had used ayahuasca. Again, this does not logically mean or imply everyone who takes ayahuasca ends up with entities. My friend would see the entities, and track their source. Other common sources were sorcery, trauma, family ties, alcohol, etc.. Although, having said this, I should point out entity intrusion is not the only element playing into the “dark side” of ayahuasca. I will also add that the situation of entities is even more of an issue when it comes to people I have met (a great many) who habitually smoke cannabis. In my experience, and that of numerous seers (including the aforementioned) I have had the fortune of studying and living with, it’s a major entity attractor (not to mention a common cause of spiritual delusion). But I’ve written about that already and wish to stay focused on ayahuasca in this article[5]<< End of 02/2015 modifications to the text.
It’s an unfortunate fact that our “Western” cultures have lost the knowledge of entities and spiritual forces acting upon Man. I suspect Christianity had a big part to play in the loss of this knowledge. Orthodox Christianity somewhat summed up all forms of entities and inorganic beings into one super bad guy called “Satan” or “Lucifer”. In much the same way the many pagan and pre-Christian deities and Gods were conglomerated into one super good guy called “God”. It would be like removing all knowledge (including historical knowledge) of the many human cultures on Earth and lumping them all into one culture called Culture-X. What a loss of richness, understanding, and diversity such an act would represent. This is very much what has happened with our appreciation of entities, inorganic beings, and the vast array of other forces and phenomena.
Why is this important? Simply put, the vast majority of people I meet are affected by entities. In Ancient Hawaiian Huna (as I learnt it, which came from an old and rare lineage as opposed to the Huna that is popular today) these entities are call Malu. Malu basically translates to “life-taking spirits”. These are spirits or entities that devalue life, depreciate life, take from life. If you go into relationship with a Malu (whether you know it or not—usually not) it will have this effect on you also. It will detract from the flow and expression of Life within you, in your relationships, and in your world. Modern psychology might argue that these Malu are simply aspects of our own psyche. That’s possible, although it fails to adequately explain a few important things. But either way, they are detrimental to our well-being, and they have a very real impact on people.
One important aspect of Malu or entities is that once removed from a person’s field, very tangible changes are often experienced by that person, and by the people who know them. Remove an angry Malu and the host will often cease having anger issues. Remove a Malu with a propensity for alcohol, and the host is suddenly “cured” of their long-standing alcohol addiction. I could cite hundreds of real-life examples I have witnessed, but that will do for now. I trust it gives you a general picture of what we’re dealing with.
What I have found is that when people get “out-of-it” (to use a term commonly applied to someone who has taken drugs) the luminous body has, to an extent, been vacated by your spirit. That vacancy creates a vacuum of sorts. This “space” was intended to be occupied by sentient consciousness. If your sentient consciousness has checked out, something else is likely to check in. The problem is that this uninvited guest is likely to hang around even after your return.
A lack of awareness around entities and the ways in which they relate with and affect Man is one aspect of what makes drinking ayahuasca a potentially detrimental experience. It’s one aspect of what lurks in ayahuasca’s shadow. My previous partner (an exceptionally talented Shamanic Energy Healer, as mentioned above) has worked on significant numbers of clients who are dealing with the negative after-affects of their ayahuasca journeys. The #1 issue they face is entities in their luminous energy system. The consequences of such intrusions range widely. Insomnia, paranoia, emotional outburst, mood swings, depression, physical illness, suicidal thoughts and attempts, and more.
The entities a person carries can affect the people they are close to. Recently a dear student and friend of mine entered into a relationship with a man who takes ayahuasca as part of his spiritual path (through the Sante Diame Church). Before I met this fellow my Beloved and I were shown he had numerous shadows playing out within his persona, and a number of drug related entities affecting him on various levels. I only have to inwardly connect with this student and I see how entities are now affecting her as a consequence of her relationship. Simply put, she has been subtly hi-jacked. The photos I have seen of her since she started dating this man also indicate to me she has entities affecting her. Needless to say, since being with this man, her connection to my partner took a dramatic turn where it diminished to one of no contact, through a chain of events unconsciously instigated by her partner. Of course, over time things will all work out, but in the mean time I can only step back and let events unfold. This is one example, of many I could go into where entities get the better of people directly and indirectly through ayahuasca.
Perhaps the biggest challenge with entities or Malu is most people are unaware of them. When we are not conscious of Self as the inner Witness in consciousness, we identify with the objects of our perception, with the phenomenal world. Within the human psyche this is the phenomena of thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Entities can affect us on all those levels. Left to their own devices long enough, they can also affect us physically. Most of the people I’ve met who have come out of an ayahuasca ceremony with one or more newly acquired entities in their field are not at all aware of what they have picked up. At the most they may feel a little “off” but they put that down to being an aspect of their healing or adjustment process because of the “amazing ceremony” they just went through. In reality they have a hitch-hiker soon to become parasite.
Demonic forces
When I was in Northern Peru for 7 weeks, and working with ayahuasca, I met an interesting elderly man. He had spent many years travelling around South America documenting the use of ayahuasca. From what I recall he was making a documentary. It so happens this man is a seer. Although his background was in business, he happened to have clairvoyant sight. During a conversation with him he made the comment that he had met very few Ayahuasqueros who did not work with demons or demonic forces. He made this comment because he was pleased to say that the Ayahuasquero leading our ayahuasca ceremonies (in which this man joined in a couple of times) wasn’t working with demonic forces. He said this was rare, and something to be respected.
Why would an Ayahuasquero work with demonic forces? As far as I can imagine, it is for more power. If being able to heal gives you power and status in a society—just as being an MD gives people power and status in our society—there is always the temptation to use any means to increase one’s healing capacities. Just as many of our Western doctors fail to see the error in over-utilising pharmaceutical and invasive medical procedures, at the cost of ignoring natural alternatives, because it gives them a perceived level of power. The same thing can happen with traditional doctors, such as Ayahuasqueros. The difference is that now we are dealing with events and circumstance in other dimensions.
Needless to say, if demonic forces are an aspect of what the Ayahuasquero utilises to work with the medicine space brought into perception by the use of ayahuasca, there are going to be negative consequences. I’ll leave it at that. For now.
Implants, Psychic Darts, Packages, and Intrusive Energies
This is a big subject. I will only touch on it briefly. I’ll start with a story.
Those of us who are conscious in the metaphysical realms are able to learn how to engage in psychic warfare. The common name for this is Black Magic or Sorcery. One tool available to the sorcerer is the psychic dart or psychic poison arrows. These darts can be utilised to carry mal-intent, or to carry toxic energy into the target’s luminous energy field.
Another tool is the psychic package. I don’t know what it is officially called, but “psychic package” will do for now. I met another fellow in Northern Peru. He came to work with the Ayahuasquero I was working with there. He was a friend of the man I mentioned who was making the documentary on ayahuasca. They came together. This younger fellow, called Benjamin, had an interesting story. We’ll call the older man Juan to make this easier to follow. Ben was from a Catholic Christian background. He was having various troubles in his life. Odd and negative things would randomly happen to him. Juan, who is a seer, told Ben he was under psychic attack and being influenced by dark energies in the form of magic packages. Benjamin didn’t believe any of this and ignored Juan. But after some time Ben had experienced so many strange negative occurrences in his world he was willing to listen to Juan.
Juan told Ben to visit a Shaman in Lima (where they all lived) to remove the negative energies. The healer entered into a ceremony with Ben, and what Ben recounts is that 8 bundles fell out of the space around his body. Now it’s possible this healer had rigged the room in some way, in order to create the illusion these packages manifested from the air, and fell to the floor. But as far as Ben (who was highly sceptical about such things) could ascertain, right before his eyes they fell out from the space around his body. He opened one—and took photos, which I saw—and it had various items in it. Herbs, a little effigy of a man, some small stones, etc. The healer told Ben a sorcerer had placed these in his field. After this event Ben became interested in learning more about the traditional medicine practices of his country, and that’s what eventually led him to where we met.
Two-faced Ayahuasqueros
Whilst in Cuzco for a few weeks, I met a German woman who lived in Old Cuzco. She trained as a traditional psychotherapist in Germany. She also trained with the Q’ero people in the remote regions of the Andes. One of the reasons she was living in Cuzco was to help “Westerners” who were “damaged” or deranged by their ayahuasca experiences. She told me about “two-faced Shamans”. She said that many of the ayahuasca shamans are two-faced, meaning they have the face of the beneficent healer on the one side, and the face of malevolence on the other side.
She told me about a few of the many tactics they employ for their own gain. One was that of a dart of intent. She said it is not at all uncommon for many of the Ayahuasqueros to place a dart into the luminous body of someone they are leading in ceremony. The dart is placed with the intent to influence that person to go back to their home country and tell many people about the Ayahuasquero, even to organise groups to come and work with the Ayahuasquero. The Ayahuasquero does this for his own benefit, to get more paying “clients”. She told me many other stories about the shadow side of the ayahuasca trade in Peru. She said that of the hundreds of Ayahuasquero she has come into contact with, the vast majority are two-faced. That statement certainly seems to parallel Juan’s comment that most of the Ayahuasquero he has worked with in ceremony employ the assistance of demonic beings. I suspect the motivation for such things goes hand-in-hand.
The German doctor had many stories about people who were rather messed up, confused, deranged, and mentally unstable as a result of their work with ayahuasca. It reminded me of a girl from New York who stayed a few nights at the place where I was staying in the jungle. She did ceremony on two nights (days 1 and 3). After the 1st ceremony I could “see” she was rather disturbed. She did not, however, want to talk about it. After the ceremony on day 3 she was such a mess she ended her trip early and went immediately back to New York. She wouldn’t even talk with people. What I “saw” is that she discovered something grave about her past that deeply shocked her or brought the trauma to the surface. But she then had no way to deal with it.
Something else the German doctor said is that a key reason she returned to Peru was to help people have a more integrative experience of ayahuasca. She commented that the mind of the tradition Peruvian is very different from that of a European or “Western” person. For this reason she felt many of them were not equipped to handle the kind of experiences that may come up for a “Westerner”, and for this reason a person can end up leaving in a worse state than what they arrived in.
To Conclude
I have only briefly touched on each of the above subjects, hardly doing any of them justice. But I trust this is enough food for thought that people interested in exploring ayahuasca can at least be mindful of the bigger picture of what they might be getting themselves into. I could add that much of what I have written here about ayahuasca applies in more or less a similar way to other mind-altering substances, to what the main-stream paradigm refers to as drugs. Cannabis, DMT, LSD, Ecstasy, and alcohol. To name a few.
It is possible to go on a cosmic journey with ayahuasca in a clean way, but that’s not as common—or guaranteed—as many of those interested in ayahuasca might assume. Not as far as I can tell. From my perspective, a great many westerners simply don’t have the necessary skills of perception and inter-dimensional expertise to really navigate the spiritual realms cleanly and lucidly. Add to that the possibility many (perhaps the majority of) indigenous shamans don’t necessarily have the the moral foundation for them to do it cleanly either. These two things combined makes it all rather tricky territory to enter into and deal with. Just the other day I met a therapist from California who partook in two ayahuasca ceremonies whilst in Panama. He felt he got something from it—something worthwhile and positive—but he also picked up a significant amount of funk (to put it simply). Entities and dense energy. He could feel the impact of these entities, but wasn’t clear whether he was just tired, or emotionally out-of-sorts, or what.
I know ayahuasca can have some very positive benefits for people, most especially people who don’t otherwise have a deep spiritual experience of their own true nature. If a person does have that degree of self-realisation, ayahuasca would be of little use to them. For me it was a curiosity, something I’d been intrigued to experience for about 15 years before I eventually found myself in the jungles of Peru. Pretty much every time I drank ayahuasca during that jungle visit I ended up in the same “inner space”, which I am familiar with through spiritual practice and self-realisation. The Absolute Void from which all Forms of Life emerge and pass away. Be they physical forms, thought-forms, psychic forms, visions, etc..
I had the very visceral recognition everything—absolutely every-thing—is created through conceptualisation (for lack of a better word) in what might be loosely referred to as a vast cosmic mind. Every idea, belief, -ism, perception, experience, concept, etc., originates from the potent void of That Mind. It’s all dreamed up—so to speak—and the only Reality truly and ultimately worth knowing is the Knower. The Dreamer of the Dream. So what Mother Ayahuasca showed me was what I had previously seen, but it was now confirmed in a very powerful and all consuming way. “Jonathan” literally ceased to exist. He who sat at the Shaman’s feet and drank a very thick potent brew of vile tasty syrup vanished. That line of history was gone. What remained was just the witness, the Knower, the Dreamer… surrounded by complete darkness, with nothing around. Not a sinister shadowy kind of darkness, but a very potent and alive kind of darkness. What I might liken to the darkness inside a cosmic womb.
So from my own experience with ayahuasca, I walked away with that confirmation, and with some first hand experience of the world of ayahuasca, the culture from which it was born, a cross-section of people involved with it, etcetera. I feel that was, from a worldly perspective, the more important aspect of why I was drawn to work with ayahuasca. So that I could share with people certain perspectives on it, garnered from first-hand experience.
Post Script
A few days after writing the above article, I read this: American found dead after taking ayahuasca — it touches on the physical safety issues that may come into play during ayahuasca usage.
Public Reaction
(added in January 2015) This article is by far the most popular on my website. It has received the most comments by a long shot, and has resulted in my receiving a significant number of emails. The views expressed in those comments and emails have been very contrasting. If you feel moved to email me in order to defend your personal opinions on Ayahuasca, I ask you to please kindly refrain from doing so. Please feel free to post a comment instead, and please be aware I may choose not to invest energy in responding to your opinions. I simply have too many other things to focus on. If this is a topic of interest to you—whether you agree with my views, or not—I also ask that you please take the time to read Part Two and Part Three of this series on Ayahuasca.
Related articles (from off site)
Footnotes & References
There are several grammar and spelling errors in this otherwise very well written article. I am loving you to fix them so I can comfortably pass on article to friends. Thanks!
Thanks Aurora. I’ll set aside some time to edit it in the near future. Much to the discomfort of my editor (books) many of my articles are written quite quickly and don’t pass through an editing process.
Please feel free to point out the errors you have noticed. It will likely result in it being corrected sooner rather than later. :-)
With heart… Jonathan
Isn’t the beginning part of the entities part of this article from another article..?
https://veilofreality.com/2018/02/24/altered-states-entrapment-plant-medicine-manipulation/
Just found your article was actually being quoted in the article I first read on this topic. My apologies
Hi Kory. Well spotted. The Dark Side of Ayahuasca article was written in 2012, and has been surprisingly popular. It’s nice to see more people are now writing about this topic, and even quoting this article here and there, spreading this much need information further afield. Bernhard’s article is a particularly good one on this subject, in my opinion. I wish you all the best… Jonathan
A very interesting point of view, I have been always reticent on this, as I understand it doesn’t fit with my inner self. Now you give me several more reasons to not go there, even though I respect all the things and people involved with ayahuasca, the same way you state in the beginning of this great article…gonna go for the next, congrats and respect…
Totally agree. Also the use of the term ‘Infiltration’ is wrong for this subject matter. Would you go to a night club and expect it to be ‘Infiltrated’ with strangers? It’s part and parcel, surely.
If the likes of Mother Ayahuasca wasn’t there (and other entities), then you’d be having a psychedelic experience and nothing more? If this is what you want then psilocybin is required then surely?
Just my thoughts anyway. This isn’t something to be taken lightly, and I’m starting to think that maybe a lot of reviewers are treating this as the next hip thing to do on the weekend and write about (without understanding the true and very profound implications of this used correctly). I’ll save more extensive reviews for where warranted.
Just my humble thoughts.
Hi John,
“Would you go to a night club and expect it to be ‘Infiltrated’ with strangers?”
Actually, that statement is not too far from the truth. In my observation, that’s often exactly what happens, in ways to plentiful and complex to describe in this moment.
One dictionary definition of “infiltration” is, “the process of gradually permeating or becoming a part of something”. That’s exactly what happens to the luminous body. Entities and other-than-self energies gradually permeate or become a part of it. I suspect it may be worthwhile expanding your understanding of the term “infiltration”. Cheers.
I’m sure he got right on that
It is interesting, but I wonder if this whole discussion on good or evil isnt still into a dualistic perspective. My experience with substances/entheogens is that you receive from them what is necessary to you, what you deserve from, because those substances have their own will, as spiritual beings within them.
I can recognize that might have people working with evil and enphasis this side on their work, as shamans who would be into dark shamanism. Culturally , there are practices onto those realms, as shamans manipulate with life forces/energy… I think it is really important that people not only be careful when taking these substances, but mostly careful with the environment they go to. Also, that they are concious of themselves, selfknowledge is an importante matter to deal and experience entheogens.
Shamanistic experiences are always a way of showing your strength, putting it into challange, when you have to show how strong you are, how far you can go. But those substances, if they are spirits, they are caring and you receive what you need, what you deserve… For me, it is always healing, it has always to do with becoming a better being . So, it is very difficult for me to understand or conceive that when you are in contact with these substances you are exposed to evil spirits, or harmful ones. The substances themselves are protection!
Hello Silvia,
I am not sure I clearly understand the presuppositions behind your statement “… isn’t still into a dualistic perspective”. Obviously from the perspective of the lower realm in which our human perception is fixated, we are very much dealing with duality. I feel to also point out that I fail to see why the vast majority of people firmly settled into non-duality would feel the need or desire to go through the trouble of ingesting Ayahuasca. What could a dualistic plant spirit possibly have to offer them?
I most certainly appreciate you have your particular opinion and experience with the topic we’re discussing. However, as you have brought this into discussion with me I will reflect that I suspect you may be blind-sided. If The Mother (the Divine) has not sanctioned a person, personally, to break through the veils SHE has placed upon their consciousness at this time, and to manipulate a plant spirit to help in this act (for their own gain and agenda), what makes us think that plant spirit is necessarily protective? I’ve seen WAY too many people riddled with entities they picked up from Ayahuasca trips to believe that the substance was protecting them. From where I come from, you (when fully self-realised) are vastly more powerful than any plant, substance, or plant spirit. In reality, it is MAN who is here to protect the Earth and the many plants and substances it contains. We have this all back-to-front. It is only MAN’s failure to KNOW him or herself that he/she might feel the need to utilise the assistance of a lesser power than him/her self. All power is from The Mother / Creator, and where I come from The Mother has bestowed upon you and me far more than it bestows upon Ayahuasca. So (in most circumstances) I would say the very act of feeling the need to take Ayahuasca for spiritual help is an act of exposing ourself to something that is “evil”. Evil being that which is life-taking, which in itself is a relative term.
Of course there are levels of complexity and exception here which I don’t have the time or inclination to get into. Please excuse me for that.
I highly encourage you to first and foremost do all you can (WITHOUT the use of mind-altering substances) into full realisation of and alignment with your Divine purpose, and to then ask (with that purpose in mind) whether or not anywhere in your agreement with the Creator you were meant to be calling on a lesser spirit than your own for spiritual guidance and direction. Only you can answer that for yourself, and your state of spiritual realisation will of course determine how accurately you “see” the answer. I wish you all the highest of Grace in your endeavours.
With heart,
Jonathan
Jonathan,
I strongly agree with a friend who wrote this on a reply to your article that was posted in a closed group in Facebook:
“The ayahuasca reveals the dark side of each one. both light and darkness only exist within us. no use to drink ayahuasca trying to evaluate it, just to examine yourself. and those who do not know what is searching for, do not understand what finds.”
My comments on how these substances work (refering to entheogens in general!) were based on the knowledge of an indigenous people that I had conducted a research on their shamanism (as they recognize spirits on plants and animals that have will and healing purposes)…
Also, as you might be aware, today there are so many scientific research findings that shows how beneficial all these substances are… thus, my experiences have shown this too (am not blind-sided, as you suspected). I mentioned mostly the healing aspects of these substances, not the spiritual, as you focus…
Those substances are great paths for self-knowledge… as mentioned before, and most of all, everything is experienced subjectively, within yourself… Spirits belong to the social and cultural realms.
… amor e bondade sempre…
Well said! People´s mind make it evil!! The problem always in the mind..
Interesting to read this, Jonathan. Do you have any reflections on how to tell clear intentioned shamans from the others? Or even how to get rid of uninvited entities?
Thanks
John
Hi John,
A potential issue is that the act of seeking spiritual answers through the utilisation (some would say “manipulation”) of plant-spirits is already an indication that the seeker is blind-sided in some significant way(s), and that they are lacking certain faculties of perception that they in some way hope Ayahuasca will make up for. Either of these challenges may make it rather difficult to directly and clearly perceive how each Ayahuasca “shaman” is operating. Of course, a pure heart is also a good barometer of what’s what. Those who are pure of heart will likely “know” what is playing out. Word-of-mouth might also prove useful, so long as person behind the mouth has clear perception.
This is a good point. I am not sure there is a simple answer. As far as I can ascertain, the VAST MAJORITY of human beings are compromised by “entities”. This is essentially influence from psyche forces. A few people have asked me this question in the last few weeks, so I may spend some time writing up an article to address it. It might be a few months away, as I have numerous books to complete (hence the lack of new content on the site in recent months).
With heart…
Jonathan
Did you ever write an article about this Jonathan?
Where can I find a list of places that you recommend for Ayahuasca ceremonies?
Hello Calvenn, Whilst I appreciate you reaching out to ask this important question, it is not something I can answer for you. I don’t have such a list.
My follow-up article on The Dark Side of Ayahuasca will likely make my reason for this very clear. I’ll publish that shortly. Simply put, the circumstances under which I might 1) suggest that someone take Aya, and 2) with who and where, would be so specific to the person in question that it’s not something I could make any one-size-fits-all recommendations on. In most cases, my advice to people with a genuine desire for spiritual freedom and reunion with The Divine…. stay clear of it.
With heart…
Jonathan
Thank you Jonathan to write this article about Ayahuasca.
I have been to Peru in 2012 and I was in the Forest 10 days, to clean myself with a special diet in a beautiful place wich was recommended from friends that already have been there to study. Everything was perfect. I continue my journey and I went to Pisac and I falled into a Ceremony runned by two Vampires. All the people present were young boys and girls 19-20 years old not experienced, at the first time. I was the only one with some experience and knowledge about energy, entities etc. Let me say that, for me has been a very hard night and I am more than happy to share with you my experience.
Kind Regards,
Amiga
Wow, I was in that same place (at least I think) in Pisac, felt like they were trying to steal my energy – I had to leave during the ceremony!Just got my stuff and got the hell out of there! Creepy stuff…
Would you mind telling me the name of the shaman in pisac? I was just there and had a rather odd experience.
Yeah, his name was Diego Palma. What was your experience?
I had a ceremony with Diego in Pisac this summer, it was my first Aya experience and it was crazy. I had a really bad trip, lost any contact with reality, was blind, deaf, had no balance, no orientation could not talk. It actually got dangerous when after hours of suffering I wanted to go home and fell down stairs because I blacked out again and again. Now that I read “vampires” some of the facilitators actually felt like vampires. They did not get through to me, they did not understand in how bad of a state I was. I felt not taken care of. They were not able to help me ground myself. It was deeply psychotic. Luckily another participant connected with me and guided me into groundedness.
Oh my… I have been approached by friends ive gotten to know the past year, one of which has introduced me and numerous others to 25d… Repeatedly it has felt “too synthetic” and multiple people on these journeys in an increasing way have come off to me as vampires… Energy vampires I suppose, but numerous characteristics even seem like traditional vampires. Now they have been trying to get me to go to an ayahuasca ceremony soon, and I have been drawn to it for many years, and it seems to be “calling to me” this past year but now I’m feeling “they” are exposing themselves to me through these 25d journeys, and I am feeling more and more reluctant. I believe I’m now done with 25d and will turn down this ayahuasca trip which actually I’m being offered to be paid for, as long as I pay it off… But their language increasingly given themselves away, and I’ve struggled wondering if it’s just my Catholic childhood upbringing (not strict), my ancestral lineage or even deeper, or maybe just an ego trip of not wanting to let go fully…. But I feel, and theyve even used the language that is a RED flag to me, that they want to take my most sacred core, basically,while making it sound like just knowing myself more… And the psychic darts! I felt those sting me recently… This article and these comments help very much… Thank you…
Hi ..I attended a 10 day ayahuasca retreat in Pucallpa arriving home 2 weeks ago. I had a horrendous experience in which I spent a week in total anxiety. I am struggling to put into words the extent of what I experienced & I am hoping that at some point I will be in a place that I can express the true horror of what I went through. But until then I just wanted to say to you that I felt that I was in a contrived situation that which had been ‘set up’ please bare in mind I didn’t know any of the 5 people I shared ceremony with other than the ‘facilitator’ who I had met once. My reasons for going was for spiritual development & to discover & learn more about who I was & what was my true path. Please believe me when I tell you that what I learned was so scary & has totalled robbed me of my whole belief system. I am now at a loss as to where i go from here. I too experienced that the ceremonies were all based on not stealing your energy … but collecting it as it is food. It is ‘their’ source of food. I was shown how ‘our ‘ whole existence is staged … that it is all a hologram & that we are ‘living’ lives that deliberately create drama & trauma which is then collected to feed the hive. Those of us that are empaths are so for a reason. We relieve the negative emotions from others & obsorb these emotions as it’s our job. We are programmed to collect these energies & store it like a store house.
The ‘ayahuasca calling’ is ‘them’ calling you in to collect their feed from you. The purging taking place in ceremony is also a source of food. I witnessed ‘entities’ scurrying across the ceremony floor backwards & forwards as everyone took turns to purge. I had conversations with ‘them’ who told me “what’s your problem ? You want to rid yourself of the trauma & we want it so everyone wins’ . There was no empathy for the pain & terror created. I had 3 ceremonies that maintained this situation. Where they used me to feed off then another night I ‘birthed’ hundreds of passed over entities using me as a surrogate mother for these hideous beings. All the time I was in total awareness of everything happenjng & having no control…which created more trauma & terror for them to feed on. This was my true purpose this is who I am this is my true origin. Can you guess what question I asked as my intention that 22nd night.
I believe I now have a full understanding of mankinds true reality & purpose, our origins & how it all works & believe me it is not good. This is the story that tptb don’t want us to know. This is the truth unfortunately.
I have so much more to tell which was revealed by ayahuasca but that will take some time to put my thoughts & emotions together.
As for those who have fantastic ayahuasca experiences & feel lighter & feel you have been relieved of your past trauma & pain.. you were lucky enough to have been spared the true reality of how your trauma was being extracted from you & the purpose of why you experienced that trauma & pain in the first place. You have been indoctrinated into the system so that you go back & share what a wonderful experience you had so that you encourage more to come & be feeding fodder for our creators.
I had an almost identical aya trip 2 weeks ago and where I was being sucked into some vampiric force that was using everyone in the rooms energy… I realized what was going on and that I was trapped in a dark santaic ritual and tried to escape and only found relief when I locked myself in the bathroom and called my mother and sister to pray over me. That helped break the spell as everyone else seems to be in a trance. The picture in the article was the holographic face of the shaman facilitating the experience. It’s was equally profOund and frightening. I called on my guardian angel and used every strength of myself to fight the fight of my life to break free of the dark ententies that we’re attacking me all night – a long spiritual battle. I feel much better mentally now, but find myself drained of energy, and tired. My husband feels the same although he was
Completely under and I tried to form a protective shield around us in the beginning before they ripped me away from him. We both went to church for the first time in years the next day and got blessed by a priest as it was Easter weekend. In that dark night my only savior was the light of my angel.
I have since researched extensively to try and make some sense of it all. I would like some guidance on how to protect myself and cleanse myself of these ententies please.
With love,
Ana Catalina
Hi Sweeney Lynne, I am very interested in your story. What have your experiences revealed to you about the true nature of the purpose of humanity? Do you think your experiences show that our creators are some sort of vampire-extraterrestrials?
I had almost the same experience with you so if you want share some more of your discoveries…..is very important to me.
Unlocking the mysteries of life is the first step out of matrix.
In order to succeed that we must help each other.
I have seen this without Ayahuasca. I had psychopath experience and saw the entities. My understanding is it’s the innocence energy that’s the prize for them.
I’d be interested to hear more about your experience, if that’s ok?
Sharon
greetings Sweeny,please would you tell me more about your experience? i have not done ayahuasca but everything you’ve said rings true inside me…i have done my own personal researches and come to understand things without proper proof until now ,with what you’ve written here has more or less confirmed my suspicions…it would be good to hear more about your experience and also good to share it,should that be possible,in hopes to save.
thank you
yours truly
G
Before talking about my experience (which was almost exactly like yours), please don’t let this experience blur your path to a beautiful and happy life. Forget about all this side of the world, be naive in this respect, without giving your back to what you just learnt from this experience (enhanced perception)… also don’t ingest or let your food come in contact with anything unclean.
about my experience (I’ll try to be brief)
My experience took place in a Caribean islan, deep into the forest, at night, lasted about 7 hours (a lifetime if you ask me) after vomiting the first intake I felt relieved, but decided to go for it a second time, because, ha! I was there for the whoole experience (what a fool!).
I went to my sleeping bag and lay there till it makes an effect on me (and it did after 30 min or so), I remember I was experiencing an hallucination when I suddenly felt something was trying to gain access to what I think was my soul, I redundantly rejected and forced myself to open my eyes, I remember feeling my eyes very sensible and losing control of some motor skills.
At that precise moment I realized the chain of events that were unfolding, I felt something was draining my energy, I felt weak and felt my flesh was drunk of something difficult to describe with a particular smell all over my body. The best way to describe how it felt is imagining a rather advance case of Parkinson with no energy and feeling your body refusing and fighting that “thing” stealing it’s vital energy.
After that I successfully fought what I think was, a chain of psychological battles deviced to drain every bit of my spiritual energy, though, my poor body was the one who took a great hit. Please note that I was lucid the whole time, I didn’t let go my consciousness not even for a fraction of a second.
I successfully fought… but let me tell you, that they took a great deal of my energies, every little drop of anything that came out of my body was taken advantage of.
Jonathan,
Thank you so much for everything you have shared. I recently was involved in an Aya ceremony and I still don’t feel like myself. Feels more like a disconnection within, a glitch. My body doesn’t feel 100% as I knew it before the drink. I had a good experience but there was something about the shaman and the environment that seemed very sinister and disgusting to me. Every since I have been trying to cleanse my energy field of the dark residue of that experience that I feel is still with me. Do you have any suggestions please? The Light aspects were great but I feel something else as well. Thank you again for covering this in your article.
Hello Starhawk. I am sorry to hear about your predicament. It is a good thing you are re-searching this issue, and reaching out.
Your appreciation is received. You are most welcome.
In all likelihood you are quite right when you say you are not feeling “yourself”. The VAST majority of people who I know and have meet who have taken Aya were subsequently infiltrated by “dark forces” (to put it simply). Be that entities, reptilians, alien entities, Earth spirits, etc. People end up feeling this other forces, which are a contradiction their the SELF. I might add, it is often the influence of infiltration that moves a person to take Aya in the first place. So it’s not as simple as saying Aya caused the infiltration. Oftentimes the Aya was simply a catalyst employed by dark forces to open the host up even further to their influence and energy sucking.
The light aspects, great as they were, came with a high price. This price is rarely, if ever, talked about among the Aya-drinking-pot-smoking-crazed-and-dazed “spiritual seekers” I meet so often these days. The very fact it is almost never talked about indicates to me an element of concealment by dark-forces, and denial and blind-sided tendencies by those engaging in these ceremonies.
It is best if you email me, and we can discus what you can do to restore harmony in your luminous body. You should be able to send me a message via this web site.
With heart,
Jonathan
Jonathan. I went to an aye ceromony here in LA in a super crappy environment with a not so great shaman. I wasn’t called into it, my gf had the calling and I just went in support of her. I don’t do well with these kinds of substances – I don’t even drink coffee, so I ended up passing out and then going number 2 a lot. Mostly I don’t want any negative entities attaching themselves to me – sucking out my life force. If you know a method of extraction – please share. Navigating in this realm is hard enough, not having something attached. I used to have extremely pieceful sleeps, but now I find myself afraid to go to sleep sometimes, & I wasn’t afraid of anything before. What this substances does is give you a peak into a dimension that is correlated with this one – pealing back a layer of the onion exposing the reality where our thoughts go. The whole experience was kind of what NEO went through in the movie / the Matrix. I saw the geometric grid, no entities, but I def don’t know what I don’t know if you catch my drift.
Hi Jonathan,
Grace has just let me to your article on the Dark Side of Ayahuasca and I am responding to one of your last statements, “It is best if you email me, and we can discus what you can do to restore harmony in your luminous body.” I was in Peru about three or four years ago and worked with aya and Shipibo. I went to see John of God about a year and a half ago and it was more powerful and all about cleaning entities. Two weeks ago I ordered some strong aya herbs, chacruna, chaliponga, red and yellow caapi, Hawaiian Chacruna. I had three very very powerful experiences, the fist, immense evil, the second beauty and the third unimaginable beauty and, exactly as you described, we are all created by the dreamer as is everything, it was so strong and earth shatteringly beautiful. I was getting ready to drink more and then read your article. I need your help. I also have a plane ticket to go to India for three months in January for healing and am in a quandary about going back to see John of God instead or perhaps even somewhere else. I do feel tired and out of sorts too and have an issue with my left hip that’s been bothering me for years that I was originally going to India and the reason for going to Peru and Brazil but I don’t really know any great healers in India so it is a very uncertain thing. I really need your help and am extremely grateful, Thanks,
Dave
I just had a bit of a revelation. I spoke to a “healer” a few days ago who told me my
lower chakras are closed and I have some attachments (negative entities) that he can help me clean. Today I read an article about picking up negative attachments
when using Ayahuasca because it leaves you open and vulnerable. My friend just told me to remember that Ayahuasca is not the “way” neither good or bad but a tool and when you start making it your God or the “way” you get into trouble because you become attached to
it so that I am the attachment or have the addiction to the thing that leads you away from the “way”. So I can be either the one with the attachment attaching to me or I can be the attachment attaching to someone/thing else. The thing is to stay pure, cleansed physically, spiritually and emotionally. We all have the potential to be or be attacked by attachments. A co-dependent relationship is two people who are attachments. A drug addict is attaching to that drug and not getting nourished by the eternal source of all nourishment, the dreamer, God, spirit… Wow!
I went down to TierraVidaHealing in Peru this past July. It was the most spiritually cleansing life changing thing I’ve ever done. I was suicidal and miserable. The poison in my soul is gone. I still have to work on my “programs” …but the black hole is gone! I was there with 21 other people as well who ALL had life changing positive experiences!
Hi Jahn, Thanks for taking the time to share more intimately about your experience with Ayahuasca.
By addressing (what I refer to as) the dark side of ayahuasca I am not denying or negating what we might call the light side of ayahuasca. Rather, my intention is draw attention to the notion that there are in fact two sides to the activity of working with ayahuasca. In much of the literature (and videos, etc.) about contemporary ayahuasca usage, I see two predominant stances. The first, and most predominant, is the notion that it’s all good. Sure, the trip itself can at times be rather gruelling, but overall it’s presented as all positive; A wonderful, life-changing, and (at least for the most part) harmless activity.
The other stance I see is that of those who are outright against the use of any psychoactive substances, typically due religious and/or moralistic reasons. The people taking the second stance seem to rarely, if ever, have an comprehension of exactly why it might be advisable to exercise caution when taking ayahuasca. It appears to me such people are generally having some kind of knee-jerk reaction to ayahuasca (and all “drugs”) based on their own limited state of consciousness and social conditioning. Therefore their views are rarely seen as constructive for people who are into things like ayahuasca.
For these reasons I felt it was time someone spoke from experience (with plant medicines, and with spiritual realities in general) about the side of ayahuasca that is typically left hidden in the shadows. I have not bothered to go into the potentially positive aspects of ayahuasca in these articles because there is already plenty of people espousing its many potential benefits. However, they almost invariably fail to address the costs (except perhaps the financial costs of their particular dietas, retreats, etc.)
Everything, and every act, in this world comes for a price. The spiritual warrior has to weigh up the cost over the benefits. To only look at the possible benefits of an activity is to approach life in a blind-sided way. That is not something a spiritual warrior can afford to do (at least not on a Path of Freedom).
You are not the first person to react strongly to my drawing attention to the dark side of ayahuasca. In light of this, I’ll write another brief article sharing a little more about why ayahuasca can be of benefit to some people, despite the high (energetic) price.
Mate..I refuse to read your article until I find out if YOU yourself have had an Ayahuasca Ceremony. ?
Jahn, you are obviously under no obligation to read this article.
The passive-aggressive tone of your terse message has me feeling curious about what has been triggered in you by the name of this article.
For what it’s worth, I spent close to two months in the jungle preparing and working with ayahuasca. I spent time with Pablo Amaringo not long before he passed on; I worked closely with an ayahuasquero he recommended; and I spent time with numerous other people (Peruvian, English, and German) all with extensive experience working and living with Ayahuasca.
If you took the time to read the article rather than reacting to whatever the title invoked in you, your question would have been unnecessary (I share in the article that I’ve worked with Aya). In the future, I encourage you to simply ask what you’d like to know, without the confrontational undertones.
A lot of info John. We use Ayauasca in the Andean community pretty much once a year. I truly believe if you gonna make use of the Mother plant, then know who is facilitating it for you, the Shaman holding the energy is a big part of the outcome. Also having energy healers who can identify entities as they appear is very useful.
Thx for the artical though.
Hi Jonathan
This is a very sobering article on the subject, honest and devoid of the romanticism and mystique surrounding this plant and the experience it enables. Ultimately it is beyond description and essentially the key it provides to a very particular lock in the human brain makes one view its evoutionary existence as in alignment with the creative intelligence, but having said that i can appreciate what you are saying and where you are coming from, but in my experience with a Mushroom and some time late Aya ceremony with quite credible people, was that it opens up a collective consciousness between the members of the group in which we all share our “demons” and our “healing powers”. I felt the deep depression of one of the people in the circle some time before she actually erupted in tears, but i also realised that i could send her positive loving healing vibrations and i focussed myself on this. During th emushroom ceremony a fellow actually had psychosis and becamed aggressive and i felt moved to intervene and calm him down and bring him back into the space, and we did it as a group, as a collective mind (at least those who were able to work with that energy – rather than expel him we helped him). I think there are many reasons for the phenomena you explain, and it is ‘natural’ that modern curanderos are money conscious and try to maximise profits at risk to their charges/guests, and your interpretation may well be valid – but who is to say what these so called negative entities serve to regulate or balance in the grand scheme of things. I yield to those who ‘see’ more than i do, and have greater experience, but for me it has been a valuable experience and i am still working with what she has given me, and i still access sometimes that infinite expansive universal freedom from time to time, and it opens my heart and mind wide open, and makes me capable of such compassion as i have not much known… like the love i have for my daughter (well my daughter came first)… but anyways there have been other learning and healings too, i wont go into all of it, but i have become a better witness of myself and my ‘ego’ and that is priceless :)
Nice article and sensible arguments!
For myself spiritual evolution means also letting go of judgement about wrong or right, good or evil and rise above the fear.
The world is full of devlish, selfish, greedy energies that are trying to seduce us all of the time. Politics, marketing, education, everything is as an entity that influences and indoctrinates us. People that want to be free of the hazy veils of their education may indeed get interested in ceremonies with plants, ayahuasca, mushrooms, iboga… just to discover how they were programmed by their environment, their emotions, past, values of their parents, teachers, friends… Of course will they always return in a world where there are people that want to manipulate you, but your growing awereness is exactly what is needed to recognise these energies and tear away the veils. There is no safe world with no sucking entities that want your energy, your time, your money… So in the desire to be freed and do some aya ceremonies, you make this choice to change your life, your mind and world view. There is no risk of being seduced or trapped by entities because you are already a prisoner of manipulation and the risk you take is the risk of opening your eyes and being able to see, understand and change your chained way of living. To discover new challenges, dangers or entities after aya experiences proves something has changed, you have changed and learned you can take control of your life, your mind, anytime again and again… because this wheel of evolution, seduction, treason… and unveiling never ends. Don’t let the fear of new challenges hold you back from ayahuasca, because you are trapped already. Of course, a good shaman or teacher can save you a lot of time and misery in helping you to focus on the right intentions and helping you to understand what is happening to you, but you also have the right to take the long and solitary road… but in the end there is never a wrong or a right way…
Good article. Consider this, a knife can be used for good things or bad. Knives are used to cut food for eating and for killing. If you place a small child in front of some vegetables with a sharp knife without telling them how to use the knife or what to do with the vegetables it woul be no surprise if the child cut itself and ended up dieing. This is not to say that the knife or the food is bad. Someone is placed in circumstances where their familiarity with the elements in play is relative if not less than that of a child. I had been training and doing all my research before undertaking ayahuasca. My being was infiltrated many times and my primary work at one point during out 20 ceremonies was to learn how to deal with these situations to more effectively navigate these other realms in order to more capably receive healing, which I did. Everything and everyone has a ‘dark’ side. The greater the light cast the greater the shadows spread. There just needs to be more education and much more reverence and respect towards Ayahuasca. Hopefully the point of this article was not to diminish or in any way slam Ayahuasca for being what it is, but rather to give a look at the parts that usually get swept under the rug.
Hello Jonathan.
The idea of attached entities who suck energy from ourselfs Is an ancestral ideia wich Is knowen by some people and currents, like spiritism. My question Is, what if we are all, some more than others, vulnerable to the negative power of This entities in ordanary state? And Ayo experience put This evidence to our eyes. Wich make us more vulnerable for one side, and more powerful for The other side. Maybe Ayo Is an oportunity to see what usually happen and you dont see, to expand our perception and conscinous. Maybe, like i heard before, when i smoke a cigarrete i atract an entitie who Is attached to This behaviour. Maybe sometimes when i get angry, im influenced by a bad vibe of some kind of spirit. This ideia are not mine. But makes me Wonder if Ayo put you vulnerable or we Alredy are and dont (wanna) know, that way we feel more protect, What The eyes cant see, The heart dosent feel… I thougth very interisting The Work than The german girl was doing. The integrative Work of This experiences. I never did an Ayo cerimony, but i Alredy tried shanga, and i conected with a “darken than The dark” entitie, i didn’t feel he was dangerous, despite The fear i was able to feel. I feel he was curious and he wanted to know how vulnerable i was. In a matter of seconds i twist from The fear energy to The love One, and i felt completely open, witout anything to hide, witout resistance and he Simply went away. The Learning i took from This experience, Is that fear Is The primordial food you give to those entities. And if you respond with love, you are transforming a lot in many levels and improving your power and presence. Maybe we have to get courage to see, not ignore, to change The energy around us.
Im sorry for My bad english :)
Best wishes,
Vera
Hello Vera, Thank you for your well considered comment.
I’ve been deeply involved in training these past months, and not in a position to respond to comments. Your comment deserves a more comprehensive response than I can presently give it. This is just a quick note to let you know I intend to reply more fully in the next few weeks. With heart… Jonathan
Vera,
thank you so much for you comment. I read it at exactly the right time, this was like a missing piece in a puzzle. Of course!
Very Nice, Thanks!
Hi there,
This article has reached me at a crucial time. I will try to be brief and precise, but I need help. Last night I partook in a ayahuasca experience, my 7th overall with one other person and a curandero and his assistant. Everything seemed to go smoothly and as I started on my journey I was experiencing deep feelings of love and happiness as e the shaman was whistling his icaros, however when he stopped, I found my self confronting some deep dark entities that I wanted to expel out of me. It was extremely hard trying to get them out and I couldn’t, everything seemed dark and I had no idea where I was. I felt completely stuck and in hell. From the perspective of the other person who took it with me, he saw a spider web over my face with dark monkeys crawling over me In a molesting way and a big dark spider over me. After trying to expel them and failing, I came to a slight consciousness and my friend asked me if I knew where I was and what was happening, I said yes. Before the shaman came over to help, my friend explained that I had taken part in a ceremony I while back in the Colombian amazon with that had gone slightly wrong. The shaman hat I took it with led me through the jungle, a 1 hour walk to a little hut where we set up a ceremonial space under a roof. 3 hours into the ceremony, he woke me up from my trip and told me that we had to go back home because there were too many mosquitoes that had attacked him in his mosquito net. I was well under the influence by then and was no way fit to walk back, nonetheless we did. He failed to close the ceremony and thus left my body vacant for many entities to enter. While I was walking back these evil jungle entities must have occupied me. Luckily, the curandero last night noticed these entities and burned out most of them but they ares till there and I can feel them more than ever now. He told me that they were jungle entities that entered during my walk back in the jungle night. I feel worse than before the ceremony and only feel that it may get even worse. If there is any chance, I was wondering if you could send me the contact info for the shaman in Lima that helps to expel these dark entities, I am in dire need and would most appreciate it. Thank you for your expansive knowledge and interest in covering the other side of ayahuasca, of which I have the most respect for but am experiencing some of the adverse affects of it.
Thanks
Hello Wesley. Thank you for sharing. I shall reply to you in person, by email. With heart… Jonathan
I too would like to know of the shaman in Lima that is helping people integrate their Aya experiences and can ‘see’ and expel the dark entities that may have attached to a person without their knowledge. I have just reconnected with a man who did many Aya journeys and I feel intuitively that he has acquired some entities while engaging with Aya. I don’t feel I wish to be intimate with him as I live a clean life and am not interested in opening myself up to further attachments. This is a sincere request. Your article states what I have intuitively known as truth. Thank you for your courage in writing what is clearly against the grain. Much love, Anita Kulp
Jonathan:
Yes, there is a dark side to Aya. The problem is with the “brujo” shamans, who engage in spiritual warfare,flinging “virotes” (darts)at their victims and at each other. The game is acquiring personal power for evil purposes.
So,stay away from these people and their ceremonies. I’ve heard a few first-hand accounts myself. It is essential to work with respectable,honest and high integrity ayahuasqueros. The Aya spiritual medicine can open the doorways to rich spiritual experience, self-kowledge, deep healing and a fulfilling life. That is its true function. Trust the plant doctors.
The Aya medicine is not the evil, it is the set and setting that makes the difference. This is true of any psychedelic exploration.
So, pick your Shaman, ceremony and setting wisely…..that is my advice.
Don’t participate in a ceremony that doesn’t “feel right” to you. Learn to trust and listen to your gut instinct. Get recommendations from trustworthy sources.
The other dark side of Aya has to do with the risk of sexual abuse. These negative experiences,sadly,are being reported by women returning from Aya ceremonies in S. America and beyond. This is not a problem unique to Aya.
Shamans around the world can engage in this reprehensible behavior. This happened to one of our group members (female) with a Buryat Shaman in Siberia….so beware.
In conclusion,the Aya experience is richly transformative, however,it is not the medicine for everyone. Your soul will decide that for you.
The work of integration after the Aya experience is very important.
Safe journeys!
DrJuan
Hello DrJuan.
Thanks for sharing. Yes, I agree. Ayahuasca is not innately “evil”. There is a plethora of information being shared about the potential benefits of Aya. The intention of this article is to elucidate aspects of Aya usage that generally go unmentioned. The advice you have given to fellow readers is all sound advice, in my opinion.
Again, thank you. With heart… Jonathan
Thank you for your article. I was searching for it for about one year. I experienced aya with a very young inexperienced European guy who was in Peru for some time. The ceremony was a nightmare. I survived! This article for me is a confirmation of what I saw and understood. The plant opens the space and the rest is up to you and shaman who should keep the space clear. The problem is, when you don’t know what you’re dealing with and “shaman” is not a real one or doesn’t have a clear intention. I didn’t know and it cost me one year of a very bad mental and physical health. I wish I read it before. Blessings Urszula
I have removed so many dark entities from ‘tea’ ceremony particpants and sealed dimensional tears and openings, as you say, likewise with many other ‘medicines’, I am grateful someone else is corroborating this. This is a ‘medicine’ and is absolutely not the real deal – this is not authentic spiritual experience, it is hallucinatory. Blessings, Swan
Hi! Can you also do that long distance? I’m still having trouble with a few entities I picked up of the years in aya ceremonies…
Hey Swan,
Can you tell me how to get rid of negative entities? I have them them and they won’t leave me alone. Please let me know.You can Email em if you want.
This is a very enlightening article. I wrote a similar article on shamanportal.org , called “The Hidden Truth About Ayahuasca/DMT, and Psychedelic Drugs”. It is good to see there are others who understand the spiritual nature of chemical substances.
I wish you the best,
Peter
Hello Peter,
Thanks for sharing. I found and read your article just now, and it is likewise good to see someone else sharing on this important topic.
For interested readers, here is a link to Peter’s excellent article: http://www.shamanportal.org/article_details.php?id=961
With heart… Jonathan
P.S. I also suggest readers on this Dark Side article take a look at Peter’s web site. Especially the information here: http://www.entityattachment.com/2009/07/types-of-entity-attachments-and-entity.html
With this being my first exposure to Peter and his work, please do not consider my posting these links to his site as an endorsement of his healing work–as I have no experience with him or his work, beyond what I’ve read (today) on his web site.
Hi Jon,
What are your thoughts on this healer Peter Michael? He seems to know a lot about these things like demons, spirits, entities, etc. How would one gain this type of knowledge if it is unknown? How has he learned so much about something very few understand? Is he advanced in his spirituality or just making up this as he goes along? I am new to this world, so it is interesting how a person can know so much about something that is hard to know. Perhaps he is on a level very few are on, or simply another new age type who decided to make a website one day..
thanks for your help Jonathan
Hello Jeremy,
Thanks for your enquiry. I have no personal experience with Peter. I only became aware of his work and web sites after he posted the above comment on my site. I have since recommended people familiarise themselves with the information he shares regarding entities, etc. As to his healing work, I can not comment on it, as I have not investigated it in any way.
In terms of where he gets the information from, I am not sure it matters. This is not such a hard topic to come to understand. It’s just that most people would rather remain ignorant of such things, and this ignorance is supported by the modern technocratic/materialistic paradigm dominant in the world today.
What I can say is this: According to the Original Knowledge of the Mother, as I understand it, simply extracting entities (much like simply extracting a cancerous tumour) is rarely the recommended way to deal with such matters. Entities, demons, dark forces, etc., for the most part, only take up residence in the human luminous body when the soul is deficient. When that deficiency is remedied (by the incarnating presence of the Spirit/Consciousness) the dark-force, entity, etc., has no where to reside, and is naturally expelled. So the primary way to go about healing entity and possession issues is to guide the person into the empowering their spirit, which may include the recovery of soul fragments, etc. But just pulling out the entity will, in most cases, simply set up debt (karma) for the client and/or practitioner.
NB. For the sake of brevity, I have put the above into simple terms, and this only touches on the subject in a very cursory way.
With heart,
Jonathan
Hi there,
I wanted to say that this article is really well put and I respect your words so much that I would like to ask your opinion on something. I was recently in Peru doing an apprenticeship to a shaman. I strongly agree that their culture is much different and their intentions and beliefs are almost from another dimension. They often suck westerners into their beliefs about plant spirits, protection ect. I am an independent thinker that only believes what resonates with my heart. So here is what I feel like I learned at some point while doing 25 ceremonies. These entities that hang around us can be seen 2 ways. One is that they are damaging to us and the source of some misery. And another that they actually are strong catalysts that helps us grow and make us more aware. They are actually illusions, that is to say they are only as real as we let them be. Once we stop that addiction the entity has nothing to hold on to within our field. I noticed after my first ceremony ever that I had become very unbalanced and through seeking to balance myself I learned so much! I would have to say that it is fair to warn people that the ceremony/ experience does not quite end when the effects diminish. And because of how western psychology generally works I suppose you could say most people are getting more than they bargained for. I am curious to know if that aligns with what you are saying here or if you have anything you could say which would expand on what I have said.
Thank you,
Chase
Hello Chase,
I’ve not overlooked your question. Just been a little to busy to give it due attention. Will respond more fully soon.
wondering if you heard of these guys at blue morpho. i went in the summer of ’13 and think these guys are pretty authentic with good intentions.
there wasnt really a question i was asking…just thought they this group/organization was an exception and were responsible to their clients. coincidentally after i left this post i read your article on CI and Hamilton held very similar views with you in the about the last 10 min of the podcast. appreciate your work as always and take care.
Okay. Cool. Thanks for sharing Marvin. I didn’t listen to the whole Hamilton interview, so I’d not picked up on that.
I wish you all the best the Great Mother has to offer you. Be well.
Hello Marvin,
I just now took a look at some snippets from the video of M Hamilton. I’d not heard of him or Blue Morpho.
What is it you are looking to know?
Blessings,
Jonathan
Beautiful article. I have been suffering from entities every since I started drinking it, then I started drinking more trying to get rid of them. So far, I know of 2 people who were able to get stuff out of my system. But it’s been a hell of a ride and am still working to release more. Dangerous brew, am sending you an email to ask for info.
Thanks for writing this, you hit the nail on the head with it!
hello Johnathon, thank you for a very descriptive and factual article. I too work on a shamanic way, have been a seer and medium since a child and I would like to concur with your findings.
I have not had much experience with people who have had aya ceremonies but have been sought out to help with entity removal and soul retrieval (fragmentation of Soul energy) in people especially young males who have partaken in even the short term use of marijuana. I agree that the synthetic (from outside of oneself) or the forced awakening of spiritual gifts before time by using plant medicines for example can and does cause a number of negative issues.
I found that even well-known people who speak or write on the subject have been ‘altered’ in not so positive ways. Take Stuart Wilde for example. I loved his early work full of spirit and exploration that you could feel was of the Light. Then I read one of his books (tried to read it) a couple of years ago but it was from such a weird and almost unnatural place, I threw it in the bin. He certainly wasn’t channelling information from a place of unconditional love.
Once again thank you for brining the alternate and full view of the use of Ayahuasca to people’s attention. They then have a choice to go in blind or with their eyes open and be able to deal with the responsibilities and the consequences a journey of this nature entails.
Greetings Lisa. Thank you for sharing. Yes, I agree about your observations of possible issues with marijuana user. You may find my articles (also this one) on that topic interesting. I was familiar with Stuart Wilde since the early 1990’s, and I also found his work took a strange turn in his later years, in the few years leading up to his passing away, and starting around the time he returned from 10 years or so out of the public (after which he published God’s Gladiators).
I wish you all the best LIFE has to offer you at this potent time in Earth.
With heart… Jonathan
Hey Jonathan. I recently had my first ayahuasca experience and it left me very uncomfortable. I encountered a very evil entity that some might call “Satan”. This entity latched on to my being and forced me to experience him. Throughout the trip I attempted everything I could to shake him off. I was no match. I even looked for other entities or spirits to help. All the one’s that did try to help though were destroyed by the strength of this demon. My only choice left was to focus on my breath and ride out the trip until the effects diminished. The next night while i was trying to sleep I experienced an anxiety attack for the first time of my life. I had similar thought patterns that I had during my ayahuasca experience during this anxiety attack. I feel that this demonic entity is still latched onto me, watching me, waiting until my physical body dies so that it can have me. I don’t know what to do and need some help.
Greetings Ben. Thanks for sharing. Although, I am sorry to hear about your predicament. There is a link at the end of one of the Aya articles (Part 2, I think), to a guy who does entity extraction. I don’t know the guy, and have no experience with him, so whilst I don’t endorse his work, he may be a good place to start. So many people have shared similar stories with me (mostly by email, and all in response to these articles) that I will soon write an article with some guidance on this matter. I wish you all the best.
Hi Jonathan, We are happy if you would like to put our website up for anyone struggling with entities.
http://www.thesacredtree.com.au
Thanks Julie. I’ll leave your comment here, so people can find it, and link through to your site. Blessings.. J
Was the shaman named Joel? With the portal of light?
Hello Jonathan—
Thank you for the sobering article. Having done ayahuasca over 10 times in California ceremonies, I can attest to seeing dark entities entering people during the ceremonies. It was an eye-opening experience and one of my main reasons for stopping my use of ayahuasca. Originally, I attended the ceremonies out of an interest in further spiritual understanding, but came to realize the community was incapable of helping those who needed to integrate their experiences with ayahuasca into their real life. It made me feel like the experiences were grossly financially supporting the ‘shamans’ at the expense of people’s health. Again, thank you for your article. May I please have your email to talk further?
Thank you,
Zach
I think there are more risks than benefits using any drug for spiritual purposes . I shouldn’t fight terrorism with terrorism, I shouldn’t fight cancer with radiation because radiation causes cancer, I shouldn’t vote for the lesser of two evils because both are evil; likewise, I shouldn’t use drugs that diminishes my will over my mind, when I’m supposed to learn how to use my will to master my mind. The latter is achieved through a spiritual practice that requires will, effort, discipline and dedication. Shortcuts at the end are counterproductive. On entities, no entity can intrude a pure mind. Pure mind: a perfect balance between love, compassion and reasoning.
Hi Jonathane,
I just had my aya last night, and I felt like the demon came inside my body and take control…for a min
How can I get rid of that
Thanks
Ines
I literally had the same experience you’re not alone! Don’t think for a second that it has any power over you. The only way to give it power is to fear it.
how do i find out if I have entities in me, and if yes how do I get rid of them>
I feel very deprresed and down since long time
have beeen doing ayahuasca for years, I feel somehow its connected
If you haven’t already, change our diet and start working out daily, do what you love to do as often as you can, and pray! There’s an ocean of eternal omnipresent bliss that loves you. You’ve somehow managed to become disconnected. That demon you experienced was not real. It was manifested from your mind. All the pain and suffering you have experienced projected into a sinister entity that seemed to have power of you. You can relate that to your depression, which I’m sure has controlled your life in many ways. Turn around and face the sun and I promise it’s uphill from now on. Good luck!
Hi
Quite interesting article on Ayahuasca. I am a christian man 44yo; I have been suffering from problems related to anger, jealosy, and negative emotions in general; which greatly contributed to the end of my marriage.
I have had many prophetic dreams related to angels, wings, flying, fighting demons, etc
I have been thinking (ie exploring the idea at least) of taking part in some ayahusca ceremonies in either Peru or Costa Rica, where I am planning to go on vacation.
Can you recommend me a safe place (shaman) in either peru (iquitos) or Costa rica?
Do you “see” anything dark in my auric field?
Thank you very much
Hello Elio. Thanks for your message.
I am not in a position to recommend a “safe” way to get involved with Ayahuasca. From where I stand, it’s not necessary to use it, and, in all but a few exceptional situations, it is never 100% safe (not to the Spirit, at least). As you are a Christian, I must ask, did Christ recommend manipulating powerful plant spirits in order to regain full God consciousness? Obviously not. Unfortunately his methods were only loosely and sparsely conveyed in the Bible most Christians look to for answers pertaining to spiritual matters. There are, in my view, many amazing elements in the Bible (when read the correct way), but they are incomplete due to excessive human error, editing, and confusion.
I must say it is noble of you to be looking for ways to rectify the mistakes you made. Errors that cost you a marriage, and no doubt much more. It’s not easy to confess and accept such things. With that in mind, what I can recommend is that you investigate other ways of expelling the demons that manifest symptoms of anger, and other negative emotions. Those states don’t arise from your spirit. So from where? The Power that created us did in fact provide a legitimate and powerful and empowering way for Man to cast out his/her demons, issues, afflictions, etc., and in the process to fully incarnate his/her spirit. That’s precisely what the Christ was showing us, through his perfect example. Is it not?
Good luck… Jonathan
Be very careful with ayahuasca. I lived a traumatic experience with ayahuasca and peyote combined , the stupid shamans did a mixture and I was dumber by confiat my health to other people with absurd beliefs “that asked for permission with the totality of existence called God” so we could use these sustances together which is a great stupidity , I never recommend having this kind of experience because in some ways we are hopeful that something or someone solve our life because things get difficult and we feel that we are not able to resolve with our own power from the inside and intellect.
No need to take entheogens to be well mentally, spiritually or physically , what happens is that it is a business of so-called shamans and currently used for personal benefit and deceive people , it’s an easy way to get rich for them, there are very few who want to help , I almost died in the ceremony and one of them did not care , I had an extreme tachycardia and saw terrible things , demons , insects , crustaceans with many eyes and a gigantic bat in a frightening worlds so I tell you to stay away from such deception because they are putting in risk the most precious you have, right now we are in a world in which governs the dark, btw is not a good idea to open your perception ( third eye ) out of the matrix , it is as if you opened the door of your house to a group of criminals in your neighborhood who you dont know ,having knowledge that governs the evil in our times is the most absurd and stupid thing you can do with your integrity.
You are not important for the shamans, i don´t want to generalize but most of them in our times are charlatans who are not prepared to take care of you if something goes wrong, the only ones that can be prepared for that are the natives of the Amazon , or those with the lineage of being indigenous and have been prepared since childhood, ¡ even so is no guarantee !
Never believe in shamans born in the cities “well prepared ” for this practices, they are not of course , the do it 99% for business not for helping you, they dont care if you almost die, people does not care them and of course in these practices you can die, you can lose your mental health and many other issues.
I have to say that this website is telling the truth, ayahuasca is not just light and love or happiness, is truth that you see your self in many aspects but you see things and entities that does not come from you, the ayahuasca has become a business and all of these entheogens sustances because we are living very hard times and every one wants a magic solution to their problems or an easy way to solve it but to achieve mental clarity or enlightenment is very hard work as the Tibetan monks did without easy ways or shortcuts or sustances so i want to end this with a phrase that i think is true : “the fool search eternity, the wise lives in it”
I want to say that these practices do not guarantee a better life but guarantee a more dangerous one, so you decide.
The prooofs what you are able to do in life are not in the Hereafter are in this material world if want to call it as it, you dont need to take enteogens for realizing yourself as a great person, we are imitating our forefathers who played with fire and burned we should not make the same mistake, we should live the time that we have in front of us not in the past of these practices we know that God is inside us is just that we go far away from us when we dont know what to do in hard times, life is beautiful dont put it in risk with absurd practices ,we suffer because we do not accept our reality and we want to compose it drugging ourselves and we suffer even more, dont be nosy in planes of existence that do not belong to us, if we dont know how to move here unless there, We must stop being naive.
Hello John?
Do you have the identity of the German woman in Old Cuzco? I am doing research into ayahuasca and I think she would be integral to my research.
Hi Kamal. No, I don’t have any info for her. It was nearly 10 years ago.
I will be going to a aya ceramony also. I just want to do this once. I am intuitive and an energy worker. I do not have any memory of childhood.. I want to purge what I can, I am glad to read both sides. The setting of intentions is important. Like one person wrote, DO NOT ENTERTAIN believing in fear. I dont worry about anyone taking over my being. Do grounding work !!!! expect discomfort but also what I’ve read is more GAIN than lose, there is pain and a life review. I dont think it’s something to avoid at all costs, NOR is it a thing to make a habit out of, I’d like to connect with spirit. I’m already highly psychic. Very connected to the sedona Vortexes. Living very consciously . I think the risk v reward …….is worth a try. This is not for fun, matter of fact, no pain no gain. I will diet correctly the week before, I will write down what I expect and what I want to explore before. No one can invade or take power unless allowed. Fear takes away peoples power. Namaste and I hope everyone finds their right space in life and if you are in doubt, then dont do it, if you feel the desire and confident …. then by all means try it once, The stories of GREAT things far supercedes the bad that I’ve read here. So far 80 percent are happy they did it. Clean the slate. God Bless you all. Love and Light .xoox
Good luck Cheri. From my perspective, the view you share here (and that shared by numerous other commenters) comes across as a little naive and perhaps idealistic. I ofter hear people saying things like “Do not entertain fear” as if that’s going to somehow magically prevent them from being harmed in an otherwise harmful situation. It reminds me of when people say to me, “Oh, I can eat what I like… even if the food is loaded with chemicals, etc., I just bless it and it’s transformed,” etc. Whilst there is certainly merit to blessing the food we eat, it’s not a safe substitute for wise, intelligent discernment. When I ask the person if they will eat a delicious sandwich laced with cyanide, they never say yes. Which suggests they lack conviction in their ideal that just blessing otherwise crappy food is going to make it all good.
You say, “No one can invade or take power unless allowed.” Whilst, from one perspective this may be accurate, from another perspective I must ask.. . Are you 100% conscious of what it is you hold (energetically, within your psyche and luminous body) that might “allow” certain qualities of energies and forces, etc., to gain entry to you? If you were that fully conscious, why would you be wanting to take Ayahuasca? You’ve already confessed you don’t have any memory of your childhood. Why is that? How can you be certain you don’t hold imprints, impositions, negative links, mis-agreements, etc., from that period of your life, and which of those might make you susceptible to spiritual imposition whilst you are taking ayahuasca? Do you see what I am getting at?
By the way… I (and other seers I know) have met a great many people who naively believe (with great conviction) that they benefitted greatly from their experiences with ayahuasca, and yet are completely obviously to (or in denial of) the ways in which it negatively impacted them. It’s exceedingly complex (although not at all complicated) to explain, and not something I can go into here.
Again, good luck with your journey.
Cheri….You sound like me before I did ayahuasca. Unfortunately I didn’t hear about the negative side of ayahuasca such as these types of entities I experienced on most of my 5 ceremonies. But how I wished I had because I would not have gone through with it…that is if I had a choice which after my experiences I don’t believe we do. I too visited Sedona only last year believing I was developing my spiritual nature on my spiritual path ( I read this week when researching in the hoping of making sense of what was disclosed to me whilst in ceremonies…that Sedona is linked to repilians which just fits in rather nicely with my experiences. )
The only demons i was aware of linked to aya before my experiences were the ones inside that needed releasing not the ones awaiting your journey to start so they could feed from you as you purge. Please research more before you make your decision .
Dear Johnathan,
Thank you for such a great article. I have been on a handful of journeys, and agree with your view. Aya for me has been a double edged sword. I have experienced both the indescribable universal Love and Divine connection and the darkest of the dark experiences filled with terror and separation. A gift and a curse all in one. I have had first hand experience with entity possession and its destructive affects. Fortunately, I came into the works of a couple of dowsers by the name of Raymon Grace and Eugene Maurey and also exorcist by the name of Peter Michael. Through their bodies of work, I learned how to identify earthbound and dark force entity attachments and clear them from my field. What an amazing difference. I would like to post this article on my research page if you don’t mind.
God Bless,
Michael
Hi Michael. You’re welcome to post a link to the article, and to post a quote up to 150 words. It’s best not to duplicate entire articles as it can affect search engine ratings. Please send me a link to the page where you refer to the article, once it’s online. Regards… Jonathan
Thank you for your article Jonathan. Almost every single person I’ve talked to in the past years who were ‘tea’ ceremony participants had experiences of how the dark side of ayahuasca had touched them and decided not to use this ‘tea’ again.
About 7 years ago I met a woman who had traveled to South America to do ceremony with her shaman teacher. During the tea ceremony, her teacher was killed with all of the students watching and powerless to stop it.
The woman said that ‘black’ shamans had conspired to kill her ‘white’ shaman teacher, to feed on his energy. She also said that when she arrived back home in the United States, she went to healers who found that she had hundreds of ‘attaching’ parasitical entities and that it took about 3 years of intensive work to remove all of the entities – the source of the entities were the black shamans. The black shamans had ‘accessed’ the teacher, and through the teacher, had accessed the students with ‘attaching cords.’ When she explained this to me, I had the image of a ‘parasitical virus’ being passed among many people.
So many people are spiritual seekers and mostly unaware of the dark entities that are associated with this type of spiritual ‘shortcut.’ Thank you for your insight into this deep and layered subject.
Medicine or poison? The result lies with the dosage, timing and intent.
I just wanted to say a heartfelt thank you for taking the time to write this Jonathan. It has helped me a great deal actually. I have never done Ayahuasca, but began dating someone who holds ceremonies.
An entity was left in my space 3 weeks ago and attacked. It could not attach to me, but the attacks were really gruelling and affected me a lot. I luckily had someone I trusted to go to in order to help me. But the night terrors and what it did will stay with me a while.
I subsequently found out the last woman he was with committed suicide, and another was in ER, they could find nothing wrong and her healer extracted an entity from her. She slowly got better but is still not quite the same 3 months after.
I think we need to be really careful when we say to people ‘you choose to hand your power away’. When I let the man in question know what was happening, this is is what he told me to minimise and diminish this experience.
We all, as human beings have vulnerabilities, have work to do. Very few of us can claim to be entirely whole, without bullshitting. So how this kind of attack affects each individual should never be seen as ‘weakness’. These entities/energies can be very powerful.
My healer said to me that Ayahuasca in crass terms is an energy orgy, you can catch anything if the space is not held properly, and if you yourself are not right for that experience. She is a wonderful medicine, of this I have no doubt. But this Western cultural appropriation of it I feel is so dangerous and another part of the pushing outwards to bring something in to heal wounds. Rather than connecting just as us.
And that’s where we can often come unstuck with Aya. I myself haven’t done it. I have a really strong meditation practice that really blown my socks off haha so it is not for me personally. I don’t discourage it at all. We are all so unique. But I feel like with any substance, we need to have as much grounding and integration and self knowledge as possible, and a deep understanding of what is occurring in that space and who is holding it.
This man in question harbours this energy in his own self esteem wounds, and it is parasitic on him and on women, except it gives him a false sense of power whilst it bleeds women dry. This is very frightening. He’s a yoga teacher, around women that trust him and are open to him.
Usually our self esteem/other wounds lead us into crappy patterns that we run until we turn inwards and heal. And those wounds should not be judged, they need love of course. That’s what would have happened with this man, he has a great heart. But after spending 8 months in Peru, that wound is now inexorably linked with this dark energy. And I feel it has genuinely changed the course of his life. And of the women he runs this hit and run pattern with.
I haven’t ever encountered anything like this, had to learn fast what the hell was going on in order to help myself. I can only imagine how terrible it was for the women it attached to. So for anyone struggling with this, it is real, and you do deserve help. I worked with a great healer who I trust, Amy Farnsworth from Utah – if anyone is interested she has a website and works remotely. A great deal of kindness and integrity. And has seen a lot of damage from this work.
I had lessons from this. I take them with humility. But I really strongly agree with the importance of this article when we have more and more people in the US and Europe doing this as a Friday night ‘ceremony’ and having no idea what they are really doing.
Thank you Nadia for sharing so extensively about your experience. The points you have made here are very important, and go into aspects of this I didn’t take the time to elaborate on in the article. Particularly, that of how people who are affected by negative entities, demons, etc., can unwittingly have very profound negative effects on the people they get close to. Some of this is touched on in the Dark Side of Sex article I wrote. Obviously, these topics all overlap in numerous ways. I also know of a yoga teacher (and self-claimed “shaman”) who had something VERY similar play out, after spending many months in Peru working with Ayahuasca. Last time I saw him, his behaviour was that of a sexual and spiritual predator, which a great many young yoga-interested woman have suffered the effects of.
With heart… J
I had an experience in ceremony on the east coast in the US where I spent the evening psychically battling a dark shaman/black force who was simultaneously leading ceremony in Peru. I’d love to share this with you in greater detail if you are interested, as I would like to gain greater insight and clarity into these events as well as my place as a healer.
Thank you for this article.
I had the very same experience with a shaman named Pluma Bronco aka Jeff Jenkins in Sonoma County. Be warned this shaman is very dark and evil as can be!
I took ayuasca 8 times more or less by myself whitout a shaman; what I mean is I bought the plants and did by myself alone whitout cerimony.And at a small dosage.
I didnt had any self realization with it,instead,on the times I had too much IMAO in my system i felt myself tormented by negative thoughts that werent mine. I believe they could be from low entities ,I could see things from the astral healm,many of them scary entities.
What worries me is that some people believe those thoughts are good,they are ‘ego being killed’ and things like that.
But I also could feel the positive side of the experience,on the another day I was happy,light,relaxed. Because the plant cleaned me,it trulys clean,I could felt this very clearly.It cleans at the physical and spiritual,at a deep level.
But I dont think is 100% safe.
Specially at a high dosage as they usually take on those ceremonials.
Ayahuasca is NOT AT ALL SAFE for people doing what you did. Very Dangerous and uniformed. You cannot speak in an informed manner about this sacrament in the most minimal manner, including what is an appropriate serving. There is no universal “DOSAGE”. The authentic Vegetalista knows his medicine and what the INDIVIDUAL patient requires given his condition, and it varies from ceremony to ceremony. A statement like, “a high dosage as they usually take on those ceremonials.” is IGNORANT.
Can you please write back with your contact info Bohique Francis Ernesto! I need to speak with you..
Thank you for this article. I ended up in very deep waters after I consumed auahuasca 2 years ago. It took me 10 months to recover, and it entailed being be placed on an antipsychotic medicament.
I do not have any history of mental illness so it was shocking that I had a complete mental break after my second night of drinking. For months on end I was in a deep state of suffering. Feeling tortured and unable to function. I lost close to 30 pounds and my hair fell out. I’m lucky I didn’t take my own life- that’s how bad it was. Ayahuasca is not to be taken lightly. I’m okay now, but it has taken me almost two years to recover and I’m forever terrified of sinking back into that awful state again.
Thanks for sharing Renee. I am sorry you were faced with this deeply challenging and painful experience. Sadly, it’s not at all uncommon. The number of people who have emailed me (but not commented publicly on this article) with very similar stories is rather disheartening.
I wish you all the best in your journey to full recovery of consciousness and well-being. May it be a swift one.
Hi Jonathan – is there anyway you and i can discuss somethings? I would like to email you about this article. I have been thinking about going to Peru or my home country Panama for the experience. I had a partner who shared his experience and he also told me that in order to do this safely you have to be sure you are with good people. He explained the same thing you mentioned about the shaman transferring negative energy. He said his experience took place with a family in their home, Husband, wife and their children in Colombia up in the mountains. I have read all the comments here and I have so many more questions. – Moon
Hello Moon. I apologise for not responding to you back when you wrote in 2018. I recently discovered my site wasn’t sending me notifications for a few years! If you still have questions, and haven’t already been in touch with me directly, please use the contact page on the site to get in touch. Or use the “Contact Me” icon that’s now in the bottom right of each page. Regards, Jonathan
Thank you so much for writing this article. I felt called the the jungle about 12 years ago and it never ended up working out, things always came up that changed my plans. This happened 3 different times.
Then this past Fall, a friend told me about a place she did ceremony in Maui and I immediately felt called to that place. The energy of the Hawaiian islands have always felt strong, sacred, and safe for me. We ended up planning a trip to go there in the Spring (March 2018), and a few weeks before I was to depart on my trip I got news that this friend had taken her own life.
This news came to me the day I was packing for the trip.
I still went and I actually did ceremony by myself after I drank and both the person there and I had the psychic connection that told us I would be ok and best to be left alone for the experience. So after he sat with me for the first 40 min after drinking, he departed my room and I was alone to experience the most incredible journey of my life.
I did 3 ceremonies total on that trip and it was exactly the way that I needed to have the experience. I realized I could never be in a group and that the energy and entities that others bring or even the intention of a shaman was not what I was meant to experience.
I would love to explore this experience again in another year perhaps and I will certainly go into it alone once more as I was taught, and feel that we are all our own shamans.
I would be curious about your thoughts on doing Ayahuasca alone.
Note that if I needed anything I could call to this person and he would have come help me. I did not throw up, though I felt it was on the verge once at which time I asked the medicine to not come out that way…it immediately sent it out the other direction and granted me the energy and strength to make it to the toilet.
I had a counsel of guides (brilliant light beings) with me through my journeys and they were such gracious teachers and hosts to my ceremony.
I will be reading part 2 & 3 of your articles now after sharing my experience with you here.
With love and light,
Aimee
Hi Aimee, Thank you for your comment. I am sorry it’s taken me literally a couple of years to respond! For an extended period, I was not aware the email notifications from my site were not being generated.
If you still have questions, please feel free to send them to me, either here (if you don’t mind the answers being public), or via the Contact Form on my site.
Regards, Jonathan
I just had two seremonies, one and two days ago. What I experienced was extreme attack from demons. I felt I was spun into a demonic hell, where the other participants and shamans tried to take over and feast on my soul. I had the worst time in my life, fighting evil from all sides. I was barely able to keep my sanity and fight back by focusing on my breath. I asked for light to help me but found nothing. Then was again spun into the demonic reality of my fellow participants and shamans.
Each time I managed to focus on my breath and fight back I looked up and saw them all participating in this ritual to take over my soul; they were all looking at me and greedily ready to have a feast, smiling, laughing, chanting, speaking to make me go into their malevolent trance. But as I looked up and saw this they suddenly changed behaviour, as to pretend they were doing other things. This went on and on. I hoped I would be able to purge these evel demons out of me but they persisted. I was truly desperate about being woven into hell for eternal damnation. I felt extremely vulnerable, was consumed by fear and of fighting back. I had the same experience after several cups (took a break to get somewhat sober before trying again.
When debriefing and listening to other participants stories I feel they are in general good people, but I’m still afraid to go back.
The seremony has two more days. I am taking a break today, after a long walk in the mountains to get some space and perspective. I have been more or less sleepless the days before the seremony, quitting smoking hash about a week ago. I
am afraid I have been posessed by demons, or that they at least have tried to take possession.
I hope someone can help guide me. I truly want a more connected life, a life with more meaning and happiness but I am anxious of going back to the retreat for the last day, as what I experienced was a dark and evil sect.
I was also asked to write down my social security number and sign a contract stating this was part lf my shamanistic religion (which it isnt).
It is very difficult to get an accurate sense of what is taking place based upon what you shared, however there are a few tells that are RED FLAGS, in both YOU and those “Guiding”.
Firstly, if you only “Quitting smoking Hash about a week ago”, you WERE NOT PROPERLY PREPARED for ceremony; and sleeplessness is a very typical withdrawal reaction to Cannabis.
This begs the question, were you informed of the preparatory DIETA to be observed prior to an Ayahuasca ceremony, or not? If you were NOT, then this is an immediate RED FLAG. If you were and did not abide by them, then you are playing with forces and are responsible for the consequences.
Secondly, by your account, it appears you chose to drink more ayahuasca even after already facing what you describe as “them all participating in this ritual to take over my soul”… WHY?! If you are in such a state, why would you not first have a conversation with the Guide, explain what is going on in your experience, and then, after satisfaction one way or the other, then make an informed decision? IT MAKES NO SENSE.
You either have trust for the guides or you don’t. And if you do not, it is your responsibility to remove yourself from the situation. If you do, and see the guide as qualified and competent and deserving of your trust, then you must be authentic, and communicate that you require assistance with what is going on for you. YOU HAVE ENORMOUS RESPONSIBILITY in what you have experienced.
Third, it is very inappropriate to request your SSN, even if what they are essentially requesting is a liability release, or a type of informed consent that you are participating in a religious ceremony. If the document was phrased in a manner that was not in alignment with your conscience, YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE SIGNED IT.
As best as I can discern from your account is a person who did not speak up in an appropriate fashion nor conduct proper due diligence, did not hold the DIETA in advance of drinking Ayahuasca, appears to have an unhealthy relationship with Cannabis, appears by all accounts to have a possession, has serious issues with discernment, and for all the forgoing reasons ended up drinking Ayahuasca with folks unqualified to handle the seriousness of his case, and therefore could not adequately guide him – if the guide is even legitimate and not a charlatan.
I’m less likely to think that the person serving is a Sorcerer as sorcerers are more adept at hiding their true intentions.
But, again, very difficult to discern precisely with the little information you provided.
I sat with a shaman named Pluma Blonco and found him to be dark and very evil
If you refer to Puma Blanco in Iquitos, then yes, he is dark… his maestro is a sorcerer.
I could have written paragraph 4 of your Conclusion myself from just recounting my first ayahuasca experience. Recently I partook for a second time and experienced certain powers that, while great at the time, struck me as concerning given their implications. Thanks a lot for the thoughts and the article.
Hi Wes. Thanks for your comment. I apologise for the very late reply. I wasn’t receiving any notifications from my site for a long time (unbeknownst to me).
I wish you all the best … Jonathan
I think your wife perhaps has some biases she brings with her when she sees someone who indulges in Cannabis. Some people need this medicine for cancer and other issues.
We all see through our own filters and I often find that those proclaiming their power to others the most, and those using it the most, are often times overstating what they are capable of. Powers of sight such as your wife may possess are not some circus side show magic trick. They are to be respected not casually referenced and insensitive.
I believe many of the things you’ve said here. But you’ve obviously brought your own biases into it.
Hi Thomas.
Thanks for taking the time to share your views on this.
The observations of my past partner re cannabis users wasn’t unique to her. I observe it myself, as have many other seers, healers, psychics, shamans, etc., that I’ve come across over the years. Does that mean everyone who smokes cannabis has issues with entities? I couldn’t say. Nature rarely operates in absolutes. So I’d say what’s important is for anyone who uses cannabis to discern (and that may be hard to do, since I observe cannabis can cloud true spiritual discernment) what impact it is having on them, physical, emotionally, and spiritually.
“But you’ve obviously brought your own biases into it.” — Obviously, it could be argued that you’re doing just that, so it becomes a somewhat moot point. If something I’ve shared doesn’t add up for you, that’s okay with me. I will add that because something like cannabis can help people with cancer doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any energetic side-effects. Chemotherapy helps people with cancer too, but that has a lot of side-effects. Ayahuasca can help people with various health problems too, yet, as I’ve written extensively in this article, it can open up a whole other can of worms for people.
With heart,
Jonathan
Hi Jonathan,
Can you please tell me how I can contact the shaman in Lima who cured your friend Ben from negative entities? A family member did black magic on me and I want to get rid of it. Also can you share where I can find an ayahuasca shaman with good intentions that doesn’t practice black magic?
Hello Nina. It was around 15 years ago I was in Peru. I have no contact details for the people mentioned in this article. But there are plenty of healers that can work with such things, so I expect you’ll find what you need without having to go to Lima.
Blessings… J
Hi Michael. No, not as of yet. Regards … J
Well, I take it alone and it works for me. I trust no maestro/ maestra enough to take it with them. The difficulty is in protecting my space from entities entering me but i rather do it myself than risk a brujo doing work on me. Those who parrot like answers like ” you should not do alone!” ” You need maestro!” etc might be the case for them not for serious seekers with two eyes that see and ears that hear.
Curious as to what you do to protect yourself when taking Ayahuasca. Protect sounds almost irrational but you know what i mean