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007 - Listening to Ayahuasca

May 01, 2017, 48 min read

Program Notes

Guest speaker: Dr. Rachel Harris

Lorenzo, Bryan, Lex, Mateo, & Mike on the Blue Dot Tour stop in San Diego

We sit down with Dr. Rachel Harris who collected countless anecdotes of people’s work with ayahuasca and condensed them into the excellent book:
Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Anxiety.

If you enjoy the work of Psymposia, come join the Blue Dot Tour or consider supporting our Patreon.

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Transcript

00:00:00 ►

Greetings from Cyberdelic Space.

00:00:19 ►

This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in Psychedelic Salon 2.0.

00:00:24 ►

And today we’re going to be listening to an interview with Dr. Rachel Harris,

00:00:29 ►

the author of a recently published book about ayahuasca.

00:00:32 ►

And when I received my own copy of this book, the first thing that I noticed

00:00:36 ►

was the high praise that it received from Jim Fadiman, Jeremy Narby, and Diana Slattery,

00:00:42 ►

three people whose opinions I greatly value.

00:00:45 ►

I’m right now about halfway through this book myself, and so I know that you’re going to enjoy hearing more about it.

00:00:51 ►

Direct from the author herself in this interview with Symposia’s Lex Pelger.

00:00:57 ►

Hello, I’m Lex Pelger, host of Symposia, and this is the Psychedelic Salon 2.0.

00:01:02 ►

Symposia, and this is the Psychedelic Salon 2.0.

00:01:08 ►

Today, I’m coming to you from a little rest stop in the mountains of Oregon on the way to our Portland storytelling event tonight and microdose the lecture.

00:01:12 ►

So you’ll be hearing more stories next week, but this week, I’m very pleased to present

00:01:17 ►

an interview with Dr. Rachel Harris, who wrote the book, Listening to Ayahuasca, New Hope

00:01:22 ►

for Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Anxiety.

00:01:26 ►

What I think is beautiful about this book is that Dr. Harris collected the stories of people

00:01:31 ►

and then put that against the science of what we already know,

00:01:34 ►

but it’s the anecdotes that are so powerful here.

00:01:37 ►

And it’s such a good book that Jim Fadiman himself said,

00:01:41 ►

finally, finally, finally, a book about ayahuasca that I can recommend without reservation.

00:01:47 ►

After listening to Dr. Rachel Harris, you’ll see why.

00:01:53 ►

Hello, everybody out there.

00:01:56 ►

This is Lex Pelger, and I’m very happy to be here with Dr. Rachel Harris,

00:02:00 ►

who authored Listening to Ayahuasca,

00:02:02 ►

which is an excellent book for anybody who’s seeking to use

00:02:05 ►

this old plant medicine for medical or spiritual uses. Dr. Harris, thank you so much for joining us.

00:02:12 ►

Oh, I’m pleased to be here. Thank you.

00:02:14 ►

Now, tell me about your work before you got around to this book. How did this grow out of that?

00:02:22 ►

Well, I had done a research study on a study of ayahuasca use in North America,

00:02:30 ►

and it was a combination qualitative and quantitative study. But the stories,

00:02:37 ►

the quantitative information was overwhelming, and it led me to ask many other questions,

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And it led me to ask many other questions, mostly about how people were reporting amazing psychological healing.

00:02:54 ►

And I have both a research and a clinical background.

00:02:58 ►

So I wanted to know, how does this healing happen?

00:02:59 ►

How does this work?

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And then because I’ve been a therapist most of my life, my question is always, what happens after the ceremony?

00:03:12 ►

How are these revelations integrated into one’s life?

00:03:14 ►

How do they change your life?

00:03:16 ►

How do you behave differently?

00:03:18 ►

How do your relationships change?

00:03:28 ►

So my questions, I had the research study had 16, it was a 16 page questionnaire with many, many like 30 or 40 essay questions.

00:03:34 ►

And exactly. I mean, you’re never supposed to do this. No, you’re never supposed to do this in research.

00:03:49 ►

And people were thrilled to answer because they wanted to they wanted to they wanted someone to know about what they were experiencing and they wanted to talk about it and so there was i mean many people said it was helpful just to complete the questionnaire and think these things through and um so the the kind the the kind of summary of the categories that people reported

00:04:00 ►

changes were they felt better about themselves they They were less harsh, you know that inner critic

00:04:06 ►

That’s always criticizing it

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It was less harsh or they were they were able to be more objective about it not get caught in it their interpersonal

00:04:15 ►

Relationships improved they were more open they were more available

00:04:19 ►

They were more authentic in their relationships

00:04:23 ►

Many people reported stopping addictive behaviors.

00:04:27 ►

I stopped.

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I never wanted to touch alcohol again.

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I realized alcohol was a poison.

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Immediately, people reported that sort of thing.

00:04:36 ►

And their health behaviors improved.

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They lost weight.

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They ate better.

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They exercised more.

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This is not something psychotherapists are very good at

00:04:45 ►

getting people to do. And so that was amazing also. And so the kind of self-reports were exactly what

00:04:53 ►

any therapist would look for in a client to see improvement. Do they feel better about themselves?

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Are their relationships better? And also mood, is their mood better? Are they less anxious,

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less depressed? If they do happen to have difficult feelings, can they handle them better? And also mood. Is their mood better? Are they less anxious, less depressed? If they do

00:05:06 ►

happen to have difficult feelings, can they handle them better? And this was across the board what

00:05:12 ►

people were reporting. Wow, what a swath of help. That’s pretty amazing. It is pretty amazing. And

00:05:19 ►

how does it happen? I mean, there’s a lot of mystery. You’re probably going to ask me questions nobody has answers to. How does this happen? We really don’t know exactly.

00:05:29 ►

Yeah. Maybe a more answerable question is, what was your reaction from the journalists as you tried to publish this and from fellow workers in your field who might not have been exposed to this stuff was there resistance did they find this not believable no it got it got accepted right away in the journal of psychoactive

00:05:50 ►

drugs that was the right place for it um but but the the funny story from the research is you know

00:05:57 ►

as i was developing the project i was gathering my interpersonal resources and interviewing people and talking to people. And I talked with my old research mentor who had been retired for like 25 years or so.

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So and, you know, we talked about the research and he was interested as always and supportive and that sort of thing.

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And then I myself went into a ceremony.

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And in the ceremony, I hear the voice

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of Grandmother Ayahuasca. We can talk about what this means. I hear her voice and she says,

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involve Lee, my research mentor, in the research. And I’m like an idiot. And I sort of say that this

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is all not said out loud, but said in my head, I have already, I called him, I spoke

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to him, you know, like I’m a recalcitrant teenager. And she’s very, please don’t even ask about that.

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She’s very, she’s very patient with me and very clear. And she says involve him more. Now, Lee

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was retired, as I said, about 86, and had had a stellar career, a national

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career. He’s been given national awards by the American Psychological Association. And I call

00:07:14 ►

him up and I say, Lee, Grandmother Ayahuasca told me I should involve you more. So there’s a pause

00:07:20 ►

on the other end of the phone. And he says, okay.

00:07:25 ►

Wow.

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And by the time we were finished the study, I said to him, Lee, you know, there really should be a third author on this study.

00:07:34 ►

And he understood what I meant.

00:07:38 ►

Grandmother Ayahuasca gave us advice all through the study.

00:07:41 ►

She was really, she made a difference.

00:07:42 ►

Let’s just put it that way. She made a contribution.

00:07:43 ►

And had it been a person in this material world, we would have put her on as a third author. But we didn’t do that. I don’t think that would have been accepted in a journal.

00:08:04 ►

very interesting to hear this kind of language coming from a researcher. We might hear this kind of stuff from people who have been turned on for a long time. But I’d be curious how this

00:08:09 ►

goes over with some more conservative colleagues. Well, you have to understand I’m retired at this

00:08:15 ►

point. So I’m really free to be as wild as I want. Oh, you’re bulletproof. That’s wonderful.

00:08:20 ►

Exactly. And I think that was, you know, this was really a mission that I was given from Grandmother Ayahuasca.

00:08:27 ►

And I think only someone who’s, I was very close to retirement when I started the project, retired by the time it was published.

00:08:37 ►

I think it had to be done outside the academy and done privately and, you know, sort of on the down low.

00:08:45 ►

It was ayahuasca used in North America.

00:08:48 ►

I interviewed people in the underground.

00:08:52 ►

Wow.

00:08:53 ►

And before I ask you more about that part,

00:08:55 ►

I would be curious how your own journey started with Grandmother Ayahuasca.

00:09:00 ►

Well, you know, many people will tell a similar story

00:09:03 ►

and they’ll say they were called in one way or another.

00:09:06 ►

Some people report having dreams about grandmother ayahuasca or just feeling a very strong, intuitive pull.

00:09:13 ►

I had I had really never heard of this whole thing.

00:09:16 ►

And I was living in Princeton, New Jersey, and I it was February.

00:09:22 ►

I wanted a beach vacation.

00:09:22 ►

And it was February.

00:09:24 ►

I wanted a beach vacation.

00:09:28 ►

And so I signed up to go to a retreat center in Costa Rica. And like two days before I’m leaving, a representative from the retreat center calls me and says,

00:09:34 ►

are you going to participate in the ceremonies?

00:09:36 ►

And I say, what ceremonies?

00:09:40 ►

And that’s how I found myself with a group of people who had chosen to be there specifically for the ceremonies.

00:09:46 ►

And I said, I’m in.

00:09:49 ►

This is not what I recommend people to do, by the way.

00:09:53 ►

You know, I really tell people, you know, research and check it out and check with friends and really validate what you’re doing.

00:09:59 ►

But I honestly didn’t know any of that when I kind of just really fell into this.

00:10:04 ►

But it did happen to be a retreat center where there were authentic shaman there.

00:10:10 ►

That’s good. That’s good. So it felt very natural once the journey did start.

00:10:15 ►

I had had experience in my youth in the in the 60s. So that was helpful.

00:10:21 ►

OK, is that and that psychedelic experience?

00:10:24 ►

And I think that does allow people to have some navigation skills.

00:10:30 ►

That makes sense.

00:10:32 ►

Do you have people ask you about their fears because they might never have done any kind of strong trip before?

00:10:41 ►

Yes.

00:10:41 ►

You know, in the research I did, I had 81 subjects in the study.

00:10:46 ►

But I’ve interviewed 50 to 100 people.

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And, I mean, I’ve been interviewing people for the last decade.

00:10:53 ►

And many people I’ve been following for five to eight years.

00:10:58 ►

I mean, this is, you know, you can’t follow 50 people for eight years.

00:11:02 ►

But I’ve been following a lot of people. I just sent a book as a gift to a young man.

00:11:10 ►

I had he had filled out the questionnaire.

00:11:13 ►

I collected his data. Five years later, I called him up.

00:11:16 ►

I mean, I emailed him and asked if I could call him. And five years later, I interviewed him.

00:11:22 ►

You know, how has this changed? How do you look at it now?

00:11:26 ►

So this has been going on for a long time.

00:11:29 ►

So I’ve heard lots of different stories.

00:11:31 ►

And I think if people don’t have psychedelic experience, this is a very strong medicine.

00:11:38 ►

And, you know, it’s a big leap.

00:11:42 ►

Yeah, it surely is.

00:11:41 ►

You know, it’s a big leap.

00:11:44 ►

Yeah, it surely is.

00:11:51 ►

What’s your baseline recommendations for people when they come to you curious about starting this,

00:11:56 ►

both the risks and the ways to approach this medicine?

00:11:58 ►

Well, I’m extremely cautious.

00:11:59 ►

That’s good.

00:12:01 ►

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And, you know, I’m not referring people to tours or shamans.

00:12:06 ►

There’s no referral service here. I just really am extremely cautious because, first of all, we really never know what we’re drinking.

00:12:15 ►

How do we really vet a shaman? How do we know who we’re with or what the situation is really going to be like?

00:12:21 ►

And there are many risks. So and it’s not regulated at all

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so it’s it’s a very difficult process and and and to tell you the truth even people who have done

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everything i’ve said one one woman i’ve been following and she’s very sophisticated and

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experienced and she took a referral from very experienced people. And it turned out not

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to be a good referral. And, you know, I don’t know what to say about except to be very, very cautious.

00:12:53 ►

That makes sense. How did that go for you then finding research subjects about an underground

00:12:59 ►

activity here in the United States and North America?

00:13:03 ►

It was completely word of mouth.

00:13:05 ►

Wow.

00:13:07 ►

Yeah.

00:13:09 ►

What were the different ranges of ceremonies you saw going on in the

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underground up here?

00:13:16 ►

Well.

00:13:17 ►

Or heard about, I should say.

00:13:19 ►

Yeah.

00:13:19 ►

Yeah, thank you.

00:13:20 ►

It really covers the waterfront.

00:13:23 ►

I mean, the New Yorker magazine had, I don’t know if you saw that article. I think ayahuasca is the new kale or something like that.

00:13:31 ►

Yes. ceremony in Brooklyn next to a bar where they heard noise and music from the bar all through

00:13:45 ►

the night. And it was run by a yogi shaman person, I have no idea. And that that was not the optimum

00:13:54 ►

ceremonial experience. Let’s just put it that way. So because there are Brooklyn is tough. Well,

00:14:01 ►

I’m not going to go there. But there are authentic ceremonies being done, but you really have to wait and get the right connections. But because this is all underground, it’s very difficult.

00:14:24 ►

it’s being done and some people are so good at it and others, they’re not terrible and their medicine’s good. So a lot of healing gets done, but then for the hard cases and for the follow-up

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integration, it’s where people seem to feel a lack and a need. And that’s why I like so much

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about your book. It’s a focus, not on the snakes and the visions, but on the integration afterwards.

00:14:43 ►

How did you come around to that way of thinking about it?

00:14:47 ►

Well, that’s a standard therapy question.

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I mean, it’s really a traditional therapy question.

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If somebody has an insight in a therapy session, how does it then stabilize in them and generalize

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into their life?

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And so the same therapeutic question can be asked about an ayahuasca experience.

00:15:09 ►

And it was part of the challenge of the psychedelic use in the 60s,

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and there were lots of wonderful quotes.

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I think one of them was a spiritual experience does not make a spiritual life.

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And those of us who saw what happened in the 60s,

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you know, we saw that acted out live,

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and it was pretty devastating.

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We really had hopes that psychedelics

00:15:38 ►

would make a difference in the culture,

00:15:40 ►

and the problem was they made a difference

00:15:43 ►

in the wrong direction.

00:15:52 ►

So the question is, you know, who are you as a person, given your psychedelic experience?

00:16:02 ►

Yes, as my buddy around here, the anarchist Dimitri Mugianis always says, if you’re a sociopath, then psychedelics are going to make you a much better sociopath.

00:16:07 ►

Well, that’s sort of a terrifying but true quote.

00:16:08 ►

Thank you.

00:16:13 ►

Yeah, and I’m too liable to focus on the dark side just because I’m a professional devil’s advocate.

00:16:14 ►

That’s fine.

00:16:15 ►

I’ll go there.

00:16:16 ►

Yeah.

00:16:21 ►

But actually, first, I’d be curious to hear, I mean, what were the stories of healing that were really striking? After all your years of helping people with talk and seeing the pharmaceuticals work,

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what kind of stories really surprised you

00:16:28 ►

about what ayahuasca could do in the short term

00:16:30 ►

or working with her for a while?

00:16:32 ►

You know, people, they’re, I’m stuttering

00:16:37 ►

because this is difficult to talk about.

00:16:39 ►

I think what’s most dramatic and amazing

00:16:42 ►

are the, what I call a miracle cure.

00:17:02 ►

And I don’t know if you read, excuse me, in the intro to the book, I quote Kira Salak. She wrote, oh, what it’s to hell and back an article about a trip to an ayahuasca ceremony in Peru that was published in National Geographic Adventure.

00:17:05 ►

It’s a great story. And she basically says, I’ve suffered with very dark depression all my life, and it’s lifted completely.

00:17:14 ►

And then she has a 10-year follow-up on her website that says, I am still no longer depressed.

00:17:21 ►

So that, you know, we have no way to understand that.

00:17:27 ►

It’s way beyond what psychotherapy does. And it’s an incredible story. And I had someone I had seen in psychotherapy who basically

00:17:41 ►

just stopped drinking right away. And he was well on his way to being in terrible trouble as an alcoholic.

00:17:48 ►

He just stopped completely.

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And, you know, I’ve tracked him for a decade now.

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He’s not drinking.

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He doesn’t have an alcohol problem.

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And that was really, you know, coming out of the ceremony,

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I realized alcohol is a poison.

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I’m not touching it again

00:18:05 ►

wow so you know these I don’t know how else to call them except to say this is kind of a miracle

00:18:13 ►

cure and we don’t really have a way of understanding it they don’t even the people who report this some

00:18:18 ►

of them continue to drink ayahuasca for other reasons but but others don’t. That, you know, that’s it.

00:18:26 ►

Wow. They just, they just know. And some of the stories in here really can blow you away for PTSD,

00:18:33 ►

for anxiety, depression, addiction. You’ve just collected so many different tales where

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it’s a lot of hope for something that we’re having so much struggle with in this culture.

00:18:43 ►

It’s a lot of hope. And what I found was people wanted to talk to me.

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It was not, you know, I’ve done a lot of data collection in my time,

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and it’s usually like pulling teeth.

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People really wanted to talk to me,

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and they would fill out this extensive questionnaire

00:18:59 ►

and then write me a personal letter

00:19:01 ►

and send me their email and their telephone number. Call me anytime.

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And I did call people.

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I, you know, I did call people.

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They really wanted to talk.

00:19:11 ►

And what what many of these interviews turned out to be, they were practically therapy sessions.

00:19:18 ►

People, you know, were sharing their experiences and how it’s worked for them.

00:19:23 ►

But I guess, you know, I can’t stop myself,

00:19:25 ►

they were practically like therapy sessions, but they were very revealing.

00:19:31 ►

Wow. And people had a need to integrate more. And that’s sort of, that’s sort of what they

00:19:37 ►

were looking. So one woman, a young woman talked about how she encountered the feminine archetype in Grandmother Ayahuasca and what a difference this made.

00:19:49 ►

So, you know, how can I not ask the following question?

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How’s your relationship with your mother?

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I couldn’t stop myself.

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I’m sorry.

00:19:58 ►

And she burst out in tears.

00:20:01 ►

So that’s what the interviews were like and and had she not talked to me a therapist

00:20:07 ►

she would have continued to experience that ceremony as an encounter with a feminine archetype

00:20:16 ►

and never make the connection to her relationship to her mother and that’s where the clinical work was. She needed to do some work on her mother.

00:20:27 ►

That makes sense.

00:20:29 ►

And so if someone, you know, some people will understand that and make that leap, but many people will miss it.

00:20:36 ►

And then that’s a golden opportunity that’s lost.

00:20:40 ►

Yeah.

00:20:41 ►

Yeah.

00:20:42 ►

Now, how would you set up the world? How would you set up this country if there was going to be an integrated practice here with the kind of follow up you would like to see?

00:21:06 ►

of those golden hours and days and weeks after really any psychedelic experience and work with a therapist.

00:21:10 ►

So have the opportunity to have an ongoing relationship with a therapist

00:21:15 ►

who is experienced in these realms and knows how to work with these experiences.

00:21:21 ►

So that would be my first wish.

00:21:23 ►

This is like the three wishes from a genie.

00:21:26 ►

Another way to do it would be, there could be more needs to be done just in terms of integration

00:21:33 ►

after the ceremony, not just a sharing or talking stick circle, but really an opportunity to work

00:21:41 ►

on things. But that implies there’s a therapist there to manage that

00:21:45 ►

and it’s a relatively small group so like 8 to 12 which is the normal size of a therapy group

00:21:53 ►

that’s not the way ceremonies are done

00:21:56 ►

so um and even a group is not is not the same intensity as individual therapy.

00:22:08 ►

So, you know, you’re asking a therapist, what do I recommend?

00:22:11 ►

And a therapist will answer therapy.

00:22:13 ►

You know, it’s kind of a no-brainer.

00:22:15 ►

So the ideal would be an ongoing therapeutic relationship where, you know, there’s a process.

00:22:21 ►

If someone doesn’t experience a miracle cure, then they’re working with the medicine in an ongoing way.

00:22:28 ►

And wouldn’t it be wonderful for them to be in an ongoing relationship

00:22:33 ►

with a therapist who can follow their process and work with them?

00:22:38 ►

So for this woman I interviewed, which was a one-shot interview,

00:22:41 ►

if I were her therapist and following her, you know,

00:22:44 ►

maybe a few weeks later

00:22:46 ►

after another ceremony or after she’s had a heart-to-heart with her mother or whatever

00:22:52 ►

you know I could say how’s it going with your mom so that there’s continuity that there’s a

00:22:58 ►

process here of unfolding and working things through.

00:23:07 ►

Yeah, it is a big lack.

00:23:10 ►

And I really liked the one part you said about a native tribe that after someone went on a vision quest,

00:23:12 ►

they were treated for the next couple of days

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as a little bit in the other world

00:23:18 ►

and given a chance to reflect and just act differently

00:23:22 ►

because they had just been through something so transformative

00:23:25 ►

and they weren’t expected to be back at work two days later punching the clock.

00:23:30 ►

Yes, that’s a culture that supports journeys into altered states. And we don’t exactly do

00:23:37 ►

that in our culture. So I was consulted by a psychiatrist who was going to go to his first

00:23:43 ►

ceremony and he asked me for advice and we covered a lot of things.

00:23:47 ►

And one of the things I said was, don’t don’t go back in the office Monday morning.

00:23:52 ►

Don’t schedule, you know, six patients or however many he sees.

00:23:57 ►

Did he take my advice? No.

00:24:00 ►

So, you know, after the ceremony, we are at our most flexible.

00:24:05 ►

I mean, neurologically, there’s evidence for this from functional MRIs.

00:24:11 ►

You know, there’s rewiring happening,

00:24:14 ►

and the words that get used in the underground are recalibration, reset, reorganization.

00:24:20 ►

And so this psychiatrist walked back into a situation Monday morning where he needed to be his old self.

00:24:29 ►

So he lost, you know, the best opportunity.

00:24:33 ►

I’m really most interested in what happens after the ceremony.

00:24:38 ►

And that was the therapeutic opportunity that was lost.

00:24:41 ►

And the irony is that he himself was a therapist.

00:24:46 ►

Plumbers, toilets, always broken.

00:24:48 ►

Exactly. Thank you.

00:24:49 ►

Oh, man.

00:24:51 ►

Yes.

00:24:53 ►

And now, did you get to hear much about the native churches here in the States that have

00:24:59 ►

the legal right to use ayahuasca and how they set up their ceremonies?

00:25:03 ►

legal right to use ayahuasca and how they set up their ceremonies?

00:25:10 ►

Yeah, I’ve done a bunch of interviews and I’ve had some experiences in those situations as well. They’re quite different from the indigenous ceremonies.

00:25:15 ►

How so?

00:25:16 ►

And well, they’re a church for one thing. So these are the syncretic churches and they’re Christian.

00:25:27 ►

And they have a different cosmology and belief system. And the medicine is different. It’s

00:25:36 ►

highly refined. And they have the best system for producing consistent, I shouldn’t call it medicine I should call it a sacrament they have

00:25:48 ►

the best system for producing a purified sacrament and they use it as part of in a religious context

00:25:57 ►

and the UDV is very clear this is not for therapeutic reasons medical or psychological it’s a sacrament it’s religious

00:26:06 ►

and um that it’s because they are a church and and it’s true and it also protects their

00:26:13 ►

right to use it in the religious freedom act and and there are different you know churches

00:26:20 ►

are always changing nothing is static in this world. And there’s more and more, you know, some of the people leading some of the church structures are more open to therapy.

00:26:36 ►

This is in the Santo Daime Church.

00:26:37 ►

Some are more open to transformation than others.

00:26:43 ►

I did have an interview from one person, from very experienced person in a Dimey church,

00:26:49 ►

and she came to me with experience that she was very upset about. I don’t want to say exactly

00:26:55 ►

what it was, but she was extremely upset, and she hardly knew me, and she wanted to talk to me.

00:27:00 ►

And I sort of naively said to her, isn’t there somebody in the church you can talk to about this?

00:27:06 ►

And I was naive because the answer was no.

00:27:10 ►

And so that was that one church, the way it was set up.

00:27:15 ►

There was no one she could talk to.

00:27:19 ►

So it depends on the church.

00:27:22 ►

Yeah.

00:27:22 ►

Yeah.

00:27:23 ►

Again, I guess just find the place that feels right to you, which can be very hard and difficult.

00:27:29 ►

Yes, and if a person can’t find therapeutic support in the church, because that’s true of a lot of church organizations,

00:27:37 ►

whether they’re involved with this sacrament or not.

00:27:41 ►

I mean, even, you know, all the religious denominations, you don’t always find

00:27:45 ►

someone who would be help, a helpful counselor, then then you do need to take you do need to talk

00:27:52 ►

to a therapist about something that’s that upsetting. And so she found me but it she really

00:27:59 ►

needed a therapist to talk to, to really work through what her upsetting experience was indicating

00:28:05 ►

yeah how how do you recommend uh things for people have to deal with the shadow side who

00:28:15 ►

are going into this expecting a really beautiful experience and then they see hell and the holocaust

00:28:21 ►

and the dark side of themselves and come out of it and don’t know what to do.

00:28:26 ►

Right. That’s, that’s, that’s a process.

00:28:31 ►

There is no, Oh, do one, two, three. And you know,

00:28:35 ►

when people talk about integration, that that’s a, that’s a,

00:28:39 ►

an integration is often when people talk about integration,

00:28:42 ►

they often talk about take it easy for the next couple of days, do yoga, meditate, write in your journal, watch your dreams, eat healthy, continue on the diet.

00:28:53 ►

That’s not therapy.

00:28:56 ►

And it’s all good advice, and it’s not therapy. someone is really, as you might say, blown away by an experience of the shadow,

00:29:06 ►

the archetype shadow, their own personal shadow.

00:29:09 ►

That’s a process about how to move through a new relationship to that part of themselves.

00:29:18 ►

And that, you know, that’s, I mean, from a Jungian point of view,

00:29:22 ►

and I’m not a Jungian therapist, but, you know but this material sent me into a lot of Jungian writing.

00:29:29 ►

That’s a Jungian process that goes on for quite a while in analysis.

00:29:33 ►

So there is no easy answer, but the most superficial answer is this is very, very rich therapeutic territory,

00:29:46 ►

very rich therapeutic territory. And it’s really worth exploring and taking your time and entering into a process working with this material.

00:29:52 ►

That’s a beautiful description and a lot more grounded than you often hear.

00:29:56 ►

I mean, we can’t promise the moon, but if you want to put the time in and do the work,

00:30:00 ►

she’ll help you.

00:30:02 ►

Well, you know, I came out of Esalen Institute in the late 60s. I don’t know

00:30:06 ►

if you know Esalen. Yeah, okay. So I went right from, as we have said, we have the same alma mater.

00:30:13 ►

I went from Boston University, I graduated and went right into the Esalen residential program.

00:30:19 ►

Wow. Which back then was lasted for six months. And then I stayed on the staff for a couple of years.

00:30:26 ►

And then in the 90s, I went back and led workshops there for about a decade.

00:30:30 ►

So I had this background in body work and meditation and in watching people work on themselves.

00:30:39 ►

And that was before I went to graduate school.

00:30:42 ►

So then, you know, I had training and supervision

00:30:45 ►

and psychotherapy. And, and then I’ve been sitting and listening to people for 35 years.

00:30:52 ►

So I have, I have great respect for process and how long it takes and what work looks like.

00:31:00 ►

And, and my because I had that Esalen background, I tended to attract in my private practice people who were, you would say they’re well-functioning, but they wanted to work on unresolved issues or relationship problems so that their life could go better.

00:31:19 ►

And they were interested in the general kind of psycho-spiritual development.

00:31:23 ►

And, you know, I really have a great appreciation for what I call the basics.

00:31:29 ►

We have to work on our issues from our family of origin and the generations,

00:31:37 ►

you know, in our family, the traditions in our family and the patterns in our

00:31:42 ►

family that are transgenerational.

00:31:48 ►

in our family and the patterns in our family that are transgenerational. And this is what psychotherapy work looks like. And ayahuasca can help us immensely. I mean, I think it’s a rocket

00:31:55 ►

boost to psychotherapy. But, you know, the old spiritual bypass, that’s really no way to go.

00:32:03 ►

It’s not helpful.

00:32:09 ►

Yeah. Can you define spiritual bypass for people and how you see it manifest?

00:32:17 ►

Well, the young woman who had, she was really enamored with her encounter with a female archetype. But if she doesn’t do the work on her relationship with her mother, that’s a spiritual bypass.

00:32:26 ►

She’s shifted levels.

00:32:29 ►

It’s really old-fashioned psychological work that needs to be done on her family of origin,

00:32:34 ►

and yet she’s moved to an archetype, a feminine archetype,

00:32:38 ►

instead of working on the mother in her life, in her psyche.

00:32:44 ►

So that’s an example of a spiritual bypass.

00:32:48 ►

But the definition is that there’s a shift in levels,

00:32:51 ►

and it’s actually a defense mechanism to avoid the psychological work

00:32:56 ►

by shifting into a, you know,

00:32:59 ►

a spiritual bypass can happen in a lot of different religious traditions.

00:33:04 ►

I love everybody. I’m religious traditions. I love everybody.

00:33:05 ►

I’m never angry.

00:33:07 ►

I forgive everyone.

00:33:09 ►

Well, you know, some of those people are pretty angry.

00:33:15 ►

Yeah, I had an old wise woman once told me to know what someone isn’t,

00:33:18 ►

listen to what they say out loud about themselves.

00:33:21 ►

Oh, my goodness.

00:33:22 ►

I know.

00:33:23 ►

Well, since she said it, I’ve noticed it to be

00:33:25 ►

too true. It’s not even pleasant. And this is difficult work. It’s really, I mean, I understand

00:33:31 ►

why people don’t want to do it. It’s difficult work. But it’s been part of my whole life and

00:33:37 ►

my commitment in my own life. And so I had this foundation even before I moved into ayahuasca experiences and research.

00:33:48 ►

That makes sense. You can see that passion and that groundedness throughout the whole work. It’s

00:33:53 ►

really great that way. And it’s interesting how much we in the West like to focus on the mind

00:34:00 ►

and relationships and the healing that can be done there. And it’s why I really like your chapter on the indigenous use

00:34:07 ►

and talking about the subtle perceptual trainings

00:34:10 ►

that might have been called magic another time and spirit worlds

00:34:15 ►

and reach out these things that it’s very hard for the Western mind

00:34:18 ►

to even grasp exist.

00:34:21 ►

But once you start getting the medicine,

00:34:22 ►

there’s this stuff that’s very unexplainable.

00:34:29 ►

What was it like to try to explore that stuff and hear about it from people and then try to explain it to others who might be um turned off by that idea you know you know the the traditional

00:34:36 ►

way of developing a research questionnaire is you you you begin to interview people who know the territory. So the first person I interviewed started to talk to me about spirits.

00:34:51 ►

And I had had a couple years’ experience, but I really, I mean,

00:34:57 ►

I was basically blown away by this interview.

00:34:59 ►

I didn’t know if the guy was crazy.

00:35:02 ►

I really didn’t.

00:35:04 ►

But, you know, I interviewed him enough to know, no, this is a high functioning guy who changed his life after a couple of ceremonies and feels that he has healing spirits who help him in everything he does.

00:35:21 ►

And so, you know, I listened.

00:35:24 ►

I didn’t know what to do with it, but I listened.

00:35:27 ►

And I kept interviewing people. And I found a very intuitive female shaman, who basically said to me,

00:35:35 ►

you have to ask people about their relationship to the spirit of ayahuasca. And I just did it.

00:35:46 ►

spirit of ayahuasca and I just did it I just put it in the questionnaire how do you communicate with her you know what does what what does the relationship look like those kinds of questions

00:35:53 ►

and and what blew me away was 75 percent of 81 people said they wrote I have an ongoing

00:36:02 ►

relationship with the spirit of ayahuasca. She comes to me in dreams.

00:36:06 ►

I communicate with her intuitively.

00:36:08 ►

She’s a constant source of love and support in my life.

00:36:11 ►

She gives me guidance.

00:36:13 ►

I turn to her.

00:36:14 ►

I don’t know how to understand this.

00:36:19 ►

And I just, I mean, the funny thing is I just wrote up a description of a talk I’m going to give at MAPS on one of the presenters in the plant medicine track.

00:36:29 ►

And I talked about this data point because it is mind boggling.

00:36:34 ►

And I used the phrase grandmother ayahuasca instead of spirit of ayahuasca.

00:36:39 ►

And I was asked to take it out of the description of my talk.

00:36:44 ►

Oh, man. Which, of course, I did.

00:36:46 ►

But that’s that, you know, we are a Western culture.

00:36:50 ►

And so that’s the situation.

00:36:52 ►

But this is this is an amazing phenomenon that how can we understand it?

00:36:59 ►

So I went to people who I thought would know about this.

00:37:04 ►

And one was Houston Smith. I don’t know

00:37:07 ►

if you know that name. We’ll be featuring a talk about his legacy on our symposia stage,

00:37:12 ►

the MAPS conference. Right. So this is a family friend of mine. And so I was having breakfast

00:37:17 ►

with Houston and I asked him and he said, we don’t know. So, OK, well, and I asked Robert Foreman, you probably don’t know him because he’s a religion philosophy professor, but he’s written kind of, you know, major philosophy books about mystical experience.

00:37:35 ►

So I asked again breakfast.

00:37:37 ►

I guess I eat a lot of breakfast and a different breakfast on the other coast.

00:37:41 ►

You know, this is what I found.

00:37:44 ►

Who’s this grandmother ayahuasca? Who’s this Grandmother Ayahuasca?

00:37:46 ►

Who’s this spirit?

00:37:47 ►

He gave me the exact same answer.

00:37:49 ►

We don’t know.

00:37:51 ►

And that made me feel better because I didn’t know.

00:37:54 ►

So if these experts don’t know, you know, we live with the mystery.

00:37:59 ►

And I think we have to be awed by the mystery and respect the mystery.

00:38:04 ►

And therapeutically, I can say, people are reporting that their relationship with Grandmother Ayahuasca is enormously therapeutic.

00:38:13 ►

Wow. Wow.

00:38:15 ►

And are these often the kind of people that you wouldn’t suspect of having these kind of mystical leanings and experiences and shamanic processes?

00:38:24 ►

Well, just by the sheer percentage of them, it has to include those people, 75%.

00:38:29 ►

Yeah.

00:38:30 ►

Yeah.

00:38:31 ►

It’s very surprising and inexplicable.

00:38:36 ►

And then I also hear a voice.

00:38:38 ►

So how do I explain that?

00:38:40 ►

You know, I was raised to be an agnostic.

00:38:43 ►

How do I explain it?

00:38:44 ►

I don’t know.

00:38:46 ►

Yeah.

00:38:48 ►

As many peoples are on earth, there should be facets of God to talk to them.

00:38:54 ►

Well, I guess there are.

00:38:56 ►

And I’m not saying Grandmother Ayahuasca is a God.

00:39:00 ►

I’m not.

00:39:00 ►

I can’t go that far.

00:39:02 ►

I can’t go that far.

00:39:16 ►

But, you know, it’s very fascinating to hear a voice that is not my own inner voice, which I know pretty well, and I don’t happen to be schizophrenic.

00:39:26 ►

So I don’t know how to explain this voice, but I can tell you she gave me concrete advice on data interpretation on how we analyze the data which I then brought back to my co-author Lee who I was he’s more expert on the the statistical

00:39:36 ►

analysis than I am even though we both understood it and we talked about it we mulled it over and

00:39:42 ►

it made a difference in how we interpreted the findings.

00:39:45 ►

And that really was the major contribution that would have rightfully led Grandmother Ayahuasca to be the third author.

00:39:53 ►

I mean, when she influenced how we interpreted data, that’s pretty big.

00:39:58 ►

I know.

00:40:00 ►

Wow.

00:40:02 ►

Yeah.

00:40:03 ►

This is wonderful stuff. Thank you so much for sharing. It’s one to go this deep and talk to so many people. It seems to be done. But our best data is ourselves.

00:40:26 ►

Dosing mice doesn’t matter nearly as much as getting a story from a naive user who saw something they never expected to see.

00:40:33 ►

Well, the information is coming from the ground up, which is the same process with marijuana.

00:40:41 ►

And that’s led to a change in laws.

00:40:46 ►

with marijuana and that’s led to a change in laws. I mean, so many people were saying,

00:40:58 ►

this marijuana is helping my young child not have epileptic seizures. I mean, how can we ignore that?

00:41:06 ►

Pretty easily. That data has been out there since the 50s and the check did some studies on it it’s amazing what we can ignore it’s been a long time coming

00:41:09 ►

but there is movement

00:41:11 ►

and I’m hopeful

00:41:13 ►

for the next few decades

00:41:15 ►

that’s great to hear

00:41:17 ►

and speaking of other medicines

00:41:19 ►

what did people say about mixing

00:41:21 ►

different plant medicines

00:41:23 ►

and sacraments and things like that

00:41:24 ►

in their ceremonies I don’t say about mixing different plant medicines and sacraments and things like that in their ceremonies?

00:41:26 ►

I don’t know about mixing it in the ceremony itself.

00:41:29 ►

I mean, you know, when I say we don’t know what is in the brew, we don’t know if there’s datura mixed into the brew.

00:41:39 ►

And that’s very problematic.

00:41:43 ►

That’s a very difficult medicine and it’s led to abuse in the Amazon

00:41:49 ►

because people sort of lose consciousness and have trouble regaining clarity.

00:41:57 ►

So it’s sort of like a date rape drug.

00:41:59 ►

It’s been used in that sort of way.

00:42:01 ►

So that’s very difficult.

00:42:03 ►

And traditionally, I don’t know.

00:42:06 ►

I work with someone who’s very, very traditional.

00:42:11 ►

And so the medicine is a mix of the traditional two plants.

00:42:17 ►

So there are many iterations beginning to happen,

00:42:21 ►

and I don’t know a lot about them.

00:42:25 ►

What I do want to relate is the data that I collected was some people stopped using marijuana

00:42:32 ►

and other psychedelics, and other people felt that marijuana was an ally to ayahuasca.

00:42:40 ►

So the reports went in both directions.

00:42:43 ►

So the reports went in both directions.

00:42:47 ►

But I do want to caution from my own experience.

00:43:02 ►

After a ceremony, like almost a week later, like four days later, to be exact, if I’m remembering correctly, I took one toke of marijuana.

00:43:05 ►

And the whole ceremony came back,

00:43:09 ►

so much so that I couldn’t drive my own car home.

00:43:11 ►

I had friends who had to drive me home.

00:43:16 ►

So things happen that we can’t predict and maybe don’t understand.

00:43:25 ►

And I just want to say, you know, again, be careful and unexpected things can happen.

00:43:36 ►

So there’s one Western shaman described to me their ceremonial time, the time before and after the ceremony.

00:43:40 ►

That’s really ripe with magic, shall we say.

00:43:43 ►

And this is when unexpected things can happen.

00:43:47 ►

And that was one for me. it it uh i wasn’t prepared for it and and frankly it wasn’t all that helpful or fun either and it went on for hours

00:43:54 ►

right yeah it’s not a good time drug is it always no that that was an unusual situation. So it was not the helpful ceremonial experience. And it caught me by surprise.

00:44:11 ►

Yeah, it seems like it happens a lot. You go in expecting one thing and maybe some confidence that this time you’re going to get this from her and that’s one of the best ways to get your butt handed to you. Can happen. But that this happened four full days after a ceremony

00:44:26 ►

is what shocked me. Wow. With one small hit on a pipe, I think, or something.

00:44:35 ►

And that’s one question I’d love to hear. Is the most important harm reduction advice

00:44:42 ►

you like to offer to people who are considering this medicine? Well, I think, you know, there’s lots of advice about harm reduction,

00:44:54 ►

and I don’t really cover that in my book. That’s not the purpose of my book. But besides saying,

00:45:00 ►

be careful, be careful, be careful, what I want to emphasize is that um the the essence of

00:45:08 ►

harm reduction is never to leave anyone alone right it’s i mean that’s that’s what happens in

00:45:14 ►

in the harm reduction tents at the at the raves and the music festivals i will stay with you until

00:45:21 ►

you’re you feel completely finished, until you feel safe again.

00:45:26 ►

So that somebody always has somebody with them.

00:45:29 ►

And that’s the essence of what they do in the research studies, where they have two therapists in the room, a male and a female, sitting with the person who’s taking the psychedelic drug in a research setting.

00:45:44 ►

who’s taking the psychedelic drug in a research setting.

00:45:50 ►

So the essence of harm reduction is a safe person for support.

00:45:56 ►

And what happens often after ceremonies is people go home alone.

00:46:02 ►

And I interviewed one guy who, you know, he had carpooled with people.

00:46:03 ►

They dropped him off. He went went in his apartment and he called a

00:46:06 ►

taxi to take him to the emergency room he was having a panic attack and we we somehow have to

00:46:14 ►

be willing to build this into the structure of ceremonies that people are not left alone

00:46:21 ►

yeah that makes a lot of sense.

00:46:26 ►

It’s such tricky stuff because so much of what we’re trying to do here in North America is craft our own rituals, learn from the Amazon, but also adapt this medicine to this very heady Western mindset.

00:46:39 ►

And it can cause difficulties.

00:46:42 ►

it can cause difficulties.

00:46:46 ►

Well, I think we have to really consider this as the medicine does become integrated into Western culture.

00:46:51 ►

We have to think seriously about how do we take care of each other?

00:46:57 ►

And, you know, I don’t know how good we are at this,

00:47:01 ►

but that’s the question.

00:47:02 ►

That’s the challenge.

00:47:03 ►

How do we care for each other?

00:47:07 ►

And this is a subculture because the general culture is not doing it all that well.

00:47:12 ►

And I, you know, I always have hope that this, this counterculture, this underground,

00:47:18 ►

you know, people who are working in spiritual realms that we will care for each other.

00:47:23 ►

are working in spiritual realms that we will care for each other.

00:47:27 ►

That’s beautiful.

00:47:32 ►

In fact, it prompts me to, I just want to read the very last lines of your book because they’re so good before I let you go.

00:47:34 ►

You actually read the whole book.

00:47:36 ►

Yeah, it’s a great book.

00:47:40 ►

I’m very impressed with it.

00:47:41 ►

And I think it’s a great manual for anybody who wants to consider this work.

00:47:47 ►

And when you say at the end,

00:47:48 ►

I see her in multiple shades of green alive in the forest.

00:47:51 ►

She has given me a new way of perceiving reality as vibration,

00:47:55 ►

a new way of being in the world and the world being in me.

00:47:58 ►

As Robinson Jeffers wrote, I have fallen in love outward, and I am grateful.

00:48:03 ►

It’s really beautiful.

00:48:05 ►

Thank you.

00:48:06 ►

Yeah.

00:48:07 ►

So is there anything you’d like to say about upcoming stuff before we let you go?

00:48:13 ►

Well, you know, I’m going to be in Berkeley tonight.

00:48:15 ►

I don’t, you know, that’s already too late.

00:48:17 ►

I’m sure for this to go out, but I’ll be speaking.

00:48:20 ►

I’m a speaker at the MAPS conference in April in Oakland.

00:48:25 ►

It’s psychedelic science 2017. That sounds great. But I’m a speaker at the MAPS conference in April in Oakland.

00:48:27 ►

It’s Psychedelic Science 2017.

00:48:29 ►

That sounds great.

00:48:33 ►

We’ll be there, too, with our stage, and it’ll be great to meet you in person there.

00:48:33 ►

I look forward to hearing you speak. Yes, absolutely.

00:48:34 ►

I will come find you.

00:48:36 ►

That sounds great.

00:48:36 ►

Hopefully, I get one of your personal stories for our storytelling stage there.

00:48:40 ►

I’d love to.

00:48:41 ►

That would be fun.

00:48:42 ►

I’m sure that would be a great one.

00:48:43 ►

It would be fun.

00:48:45 ►

Dr. Well,

00:48:48 ►

Dr. Harris, thank you so much for your work, talking to all these people and then passing on to the rest of us. It’s beautiful and much appreciated. Thank you so much, Lex.

00:48:55 ►

If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider supporting us on Patreon. To say thank you,

00:49:00 ►

we have perks like hemp t-shirts, blotter art, tickets to our events, Palo Santo,

00:49:05 ►

and one of the new chapters from Anandamide, or The Cannabinoid,

00:49:10 ►

my graphic novel series about cannabis based on Moby Dick.

00:49:15 ►

A special thanks to Matt Payne, who engineered the sound,

00:49:18 ►

Joey Whipp and California Smile, who made the music,

00:49:21 ►

and to Brian Norman, who produced the show.

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