This has been translated by Soli Villarroel. This has been shared to further the understanding of the harm and misuse of Ayahuasca. There is a requirement by all who takes part in its use to understand and identify the dangers and potential for harm, this is shared with the purpose to educate and help create a safer practice for all.

With the recent diffusion of Ayahuasca usage we have noted an alarming increase in the number of people with serious health problems resulting from their participation in various Ayahuasca rituals and those of the Santo Daime.

Some of the most widely spread phenomena we have noted are:

1) Lack of adequate preparation by those facilitating these ceremonies.

Ayahuasca is a medicine that has an ancestral tradition of many thousands of years and must be applied using proven techniques which have been in use for centuries. It is a medicine and, like all medicines, it must be administered in the proper quantities and dosage as indicated by a specialist. Used in large quantities Ayahuasca may resemble a type of poison with many negative effects on the participants.

In order to administer ayahuasca one must be prepared – firstly with one’s personal, internal process, as well as undergoing many years of study and training of shamanic techniques under the guidance of the Maestros of the Amazon.

The facilitator is a shaman – an energetic ‘physician’ whose obligation is to know how to identify the issues of all participants and give them adequate treatment. To have the good intention of helping others does not suffice.

The person who administers ayahuasca without adequate preparation will potentially assist 5 people meanwhile placing 30 others in danger – the costs are of no return, not to mention the karmic debt.

If a person facilitates ceremonies without adequate preparation, it is best to stop this practise and consider assisting people in other ways which are safer and of less risk. If one feels their true vocation is that of providing ayahuasca ceremonies, our doors are open to receive you and provide assistance to adequately prepare you.

2) The use of Ayahuasca exclusively for attaining expanded states of consciousness

Ayahuasca is a medicine, a remedy which acts upon the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and situational levels. Working solely on a spiritual level, attaining higher states of consciousness creates two principal and serious problems:

* An imbalance between earth-universe that may produce a sense of ‘flying’ within a person

A loss of connection with the everyday life and material existence, and a sense of limitless opening to the world of fantasies without the means or interest of truly realising or bringing anything into action.

This unbalanced state can also produce deficiencies of the first two chakras, which results in the amplification of fears, insecurities and sexual impotency for many.

*Reaching such higher states of consciousness, that is opening various superior chakras all at once, also leads to an opening of negative expressions associated with each chakra.

This is very dangerous, as higher states of consciousness and experiencing these negative expressions of one’s chakras should be a gradual, controlled process. Otherwise it may leave a person with potentially irreparable damage of the psyche.

In the various schools of mysticism throughout the world, this process takes years which allows the student to ‘digest’ various negative aspects of their personality calmly, at the appropriate time.

The negative expressions associated with such a process are principally:

Anorexia, pride, egotistic inflation and egotism, neurotic symptoms, victim mentality, resentment, choleric behaviour, shyness, low energy, grief, loneliness, abandonment, betrayal, addiction, psychosis, lies, gossip, narcissism, inadequacy, cynicism.

3) Dangers of acquiring entities/vampiric energies.

In working with and accessing spiritual dimensions, the person facilitating ceremony should be adequately prepared and qualified to protect and ward of entities of the many participants, including: the deceased, vampiric beings etc. that may reside there.

It is only within ceremonies conducted with a Maestro, in small groups, that one can be assured of safety from such dangers.

If these entities are incorporated within the body of a person (especially in the neck region) they can cause lack of energy, various illnesses and perturbations in life.

4) Ayahuasaca as an accelerator

Ayahuasca when used without suitable medicinal techniques, produces an effect of  a greater energy of acceleration. This is particularly dangerous when a person frequently participates in ceremonies where the facilitator fails to recognise this occurring or fails to assist in rectifying the results of such accelerated process. If a person has problems, ayahuasca may accelerate processes of emotional and mental disharmony, maximising the ego and arrogance and may take such cases to a profound level of desperation.

This effect is particularly noticeable with people who are users of addictive substances: marijuana, cigarettes where ayahuasca may act as an accelerator and push a person into the depths of such addictive behaviour and tendencies.

If a person seeks an increase in the energy of power, ayahuasca is not the preferred plant to use. There are many other plants which are much better suited for this purpose. The work with such plants should involve previous personal work involving deep process and impeccable health.

5) Ayahuasca as a vice

Many people look to ayahuasca as a means of healing their addiction to chemical drugs such as cocaine, crack etc.

The subject of addiction to drugs is a delicate and complex one. The causes of addiction are of psycho-emotional origin, where there are great perturbations of the person’s soul and dependency on the physical level.

This has to be treated by a specialist on a case by case basis. If not, one runs the risk of entering into an accelerated process which buries a person deeper into the addiction or worse, results in the person substituting one substance for another or with ayahuasca, believing they have resolved their problem but the addiction continues.

There are also many people whose vice it is to consume ayahuasca as an escapism for problems in everyday life, to be a part of a group with the same ideals or a group that forms part of a movement. Such people may believe they have resolved their problems however the issues that lead them to seek out ayahuasca remain unresolved. The entering into mysticism in and of itself can become a persons addiction or vice.

6) The assimilation of negative energies

In many cases during ayahuasca ceremonies conducted by a facilitator who is not adequately prepared, the participants energies are mixed and a person may begin to take on the negative energies of other participants.

This is considered highly dangerous for those who do not have any previous preparation and at the group level, the therapeutic benefits are none given that energies are merely passed on from one person to another.

We are willing and able to offer assistance in correcting these and other problems. Our doors are open to receive you.

Pio Vucetich

http://piovucetich.blogspot.com/