What’s the biggest danger looming over ayahuasca? In 2018, in the wake of the tragic murder of the maestra Olivia Arévalo at the hands of an ayahuasca tourist, the healers of the Shipibo-Konibo ethnic group founded ASOMASHK, an association that brings together more than 150 traditional healers who work in all areas of traditional medicine of this Amazonian ethnicity, including ayahuasqueros and vegetalistas, but also bone setters and midwives.
Walter López has served as president of the association since its founding, and when we had the opportunity to interview him in Pucallpa (Peru) last January, he had just been re-elected to the position for another five years.
In this interview, this ancestral healer with 30 years of experience outlines the opportunities and risks that the expansion of ayahuasca in the world entails. He warns about the “recreational use” of the sacramental brew and explains the ASOMASHK project to scientifically legitimize ayahuasca so that it stops being considered an “alternative medicine” and is recognized as an “integrative medicine.”
This is a small excerpt from the interview that will be screened during Fuertedélica on November 22nd, an advance of the third part of the documentary series ‘Voces de la ayahuasca’, promoted by Plantaforma.
“The popularity of ayahuasca brings a danger: the misuse of this medicine”
“Ayahuasca, or the ayahuasca, has become popular, it has become known… it’s more famous than any other ‘artist’, let’s say. Ayahuasca has expanded to Latin America, Europe, Asia… who knows. But with this popularity also comes a danger because we are misusing it, because one doesn’t know what benefits it can bring, but ayahuasca can also bring harm.
We say in our message: ayahuasca can be such good medicine or it can also do great harm to human health if we misuse it. And now we are misusing it, perhaps taking advantage of its popularity, we are reaching out to people in the wrong way or people who are desperate due to illness or need a solution, and they fall into the hands of people who are not at all prepared for ayahuasca. These people worsen their health instead of improving it. More and more people are arriving in this region when they are already in a very serious problem, and we ask them why, and they say, ‘Because we had ayahuasca in such and such a center, in such and such a country, but it went very badly. I went on such a deep journey but didn’t return, and that drives me crazy because I don’t feel like I have a life.'”
“I’ve seen parties in Europe where ayahuasca is served as just another drug”
“We use ayahuasca at a time of healing, of treatment, to help improve that person’s health. Not because I like to have a drink and relax and hallucinate. I saw in Europe a psychedelic party where alcohol and drugs were present, and ayahuasca was being served as just another drug. Many people have started taking it at those parties.
What we do is a healing ritual, where only the master drinks down there, and the patient only receives the healing chants, and then he recommends what plants are needed for their treatment, whether it be the root, the bark, the leaves, or the flowers.”
“I spent 15 years getting to know myself before serving the first cup of ayahuasca”
“I didn’t become an ancestral healer because I wanted to. I was born with it because my great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, grandparents, and uncles were great healers. I was born into that lineage. I spent 15 years preparing myself, 15 years understanding, first with myself, who am I? Understanding what these plants are, how I can be connected with their spirit, with the properties of these plants to be able to use them, and what respect I can offer them. After 15 years, I could finally offer at least one dose of ayahuasca to a person.
What worries me, and worries everyone, and much more as an organization, is that there are Western people, white people, they may be European or Spanish-speaking, who are not Indigenous or native Indians who come and after one or two months go back to their country saying, ‘I am already authorized to serve ayahuasca.’ How can you say after one or two months you can know this if you have barely tasted ayahuasca but don’t know its dimensions, how it works, how it functions? In one or two months you don’t even know the depth of its effect. This isn’t done in a month or two, neither in a year or two; you have to prepare. And that’s where the mistake is, and many people I’ve seen receive a message and say, ‘I received this message,’ but that’s hallucinating, that’s why ayahuasca is still considered a hallucinogenic plant by many, but not by us.”
“We first need to know what our patients bring with them”
“Perhaps that person is very intoxicated, addicted to alcohol or synthetic drugs. You give them ayahuasca, and instead of improving, you’re going to make them worse, and there can be a clash or overdose, not from the ayahuasca but because of what’s already in their body, and it can be fatal. So the true healer or the true ancestral doctor must know how to do their work like any doctor in their field: analyze, deepen, give a diagnosis, and see the whole process.”
“We are all people, but not all of us are human beings”
“If your environment is full of concrete, you’ve never felt what nature is, you’ve only felt human creation, but you’ve never felt divine creation. Why do you think our history tells us that Indians were gatherers of nature? Nature gave us everything: the fruits, the fish, the animals… hunters, fishers, gatherers… We have that awareness, and I wonder if the people who come from far away from the Amazon have that same awareness. They don’t. They may have studied ecology and all that theoretically, but practically, there’s a coldness, an emptiness. So, that leads us to commit certain follies. But if we can gain that awareness, reach the Amazon, and feel everything that the Indigenous peoples feel, we will be returning to being human. We are all people, but few of us are human beings because being human means having feelings, a heart, love, peace, and tranquility.”
“Ayahuasca has expanded, but not entirely: we still keep many secrets under our arms”
“For many, ayahuasca is our life, it is our knowledge, it is our advice, it is our school. Therefore, knowing that this medicine is your life, you must protect it. You can’t leave your house wide open. You have to take care of it. We see ayahuasca as our house, and therefore, we must protect it, care for it, keep it under secrets. Ayahuasca has expanded, the knowledge has expanded, but not entirely. We still keep many secrets under our arms.
As my grandfather used to say, when you work with medicine in secret, it has an effect, and you can’t reveal everything about it. People can reach a certain level, but never reach its full essence. So, that’s why we must protect it territorially within the nation, because thanks to these medicines, we are what we are: a resilient people, a people with strength and intelligence. Ayahuasca is a very intelligent, very wise plant, which can teach you many interesting things, but it can also show you very ugly things, depending on what kind of person you are. As my grandfather said, ‘If you are a person of bad character, selfish, jealous, negative, never take ayahuasca. If you are a person who likes to help, who has a big, open heart, then do it, because ayahuasca will open many things for you, because ayahuasca knows that you will help many people.'”
“There is a danger looming over ayahuasca: spiritual appropriation”
“There is a danger we are facing these days: spiritual appropriation. That is a danger; many people want to appropriate our spirituality: ‘I was authorized by the Shipibo, I also sing in Shipibo… I can tell you, speaking incorrectly, using words that are not appropriate, but posting on social networks… what a shame.
That’s why I say, you can’t sing to ayahuasca anywhere or at any time of day. It has its moment, it has its space, the moment when you sing to ayahuasca.”
“We want to prove to the WHO that ayahuasca is not an alternative medicine but an integrative medicine”
“We are working with the IMC fund, which is a fund for the conservation of Indigenous medicine, and with ICEERS. There is a very large team where there will be scientists, doctors, anthropologists, biologists, pharmacologists, and also ancestral healers who specialize in different problems: ayahuasqueros, suction healers, bone setters, vegetalistas, to work together and know what processes are involved in a treatment with these plants and to demonstrate to the World Health Organization and the entire global health system that our medicine is not just an alternative medicine but an integrative medicine in this whole process of evolution.”
Don’t miss the interview with Walter López at Fuertedélica. Buy your ticket in our website.
