A Healer Speaks...

[Chan]

Very timely, given some recent threads about nomenclature and Vice.com itself:

We Asked a Veteran Peruvian Ayahuasca Shaman About Dumb Tourists

In the middle of the ayahuasca industry boom, we wanted to find out what life's been like for one of the local shamans using the mind-bending medicine to heal people.

www.vice.com

What can we learn from it? Not much, apart from he clearly knows a great Shipibo tailor, and maybe the spirits don't mind Vice quite so much as some Nexians (Sorry EG!)

 

[entheogenic-gnosis]

...typical vice media.

It's really not bad compared to some other reporting they have done, but it's really not in depth in any way either...

There's a great story there, yet they feel comfortable just skimming the surface...

Maybe I'm just a pretentious drug nerd...

I mean I think it's cool that some of these topics are being explored, but it seems like they had an opportunity to cover an amazing story, and just half-assed it, slapping on a title that grabs your interest, while the story never goes into any more depth than the title...that's what you get, the title stretched out into a "piece of reporting"

Was there anyone to train you?

No. Having a good maestro to direct you is important, but being a shaman also requires intuition and patience. You need to be able to get in touch with plants. It's something you have to learn yourself. It comes gradually. But if you don't have this within you, a maestro cannot help.-from the article

I liked the ayahuasquero's answer on this question though.

I actually wish the whole ayahuasca thing was still only the fascination of ethnobotanists, shamanologists, explorers and freaks.



-eg