This Is The Vigilante On Ayahuasca - The Weekend Vigilante April 11th, 2015

Hello from Anarchapulco,

Well, it’s been a few weeks since I dropped everything and flew to Monterrey, Mexico, to try Ayahuasca.  I’ve received dozens of messages asking me about the experience and I mostly wanted to take a few weeks to reflect on it before coming out with a comment on it.

As preface, and as I’ve said before, I like to try everything once.  I really dislike people who have never had a drink but hate alcohol.  Or who have never had a puff of marijuana but demand that people with guns, being paid with extorted money, go out and kidnap people caught with it.

For that reason I rarely comment on something I have no experience with.  When asked about Iran, as example, the first thing I will say is, “Well, I’ve never been there so I really don’t have much of value to say”.  Barack Hussein O’Bomber, on the other hand, has never been there either but he sometimes thinks about blowing it into oblivion with nukes… because… maybe, one day, they’ll have nukes.

And, as I have mentioned in past Weekend Vigilantes, my own personal journey down the rabbit hole of what is really going on in this world has led me down many paths in the economic, financial, political and monetary world that I never thought existed.  And my further questioning and searching has led me to search for answers outside of even the physical and mental.  What they call the spiritual.

That really is the ultimate question anyway.  Who/What are we?  And why are we even here?  And how?  That takes care of the who, what, where and why… as for the “when”, well, the more you think about it, time doesn’t really exist so that question is moot.  Like Einstein said, “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once”.  

In any case, I’m an explorer.  A truth seeker.  I want to know the answers to these questions and I have not been finding them.  And the more I searched the more the words “ayahuasca” and “san pedro” and “DMT” came up.

Having never tried them and having no noticable fear I hopped on a plane nearly immediately to the closest place I knew of where I could find an Ayahuasca ceremony in Monterrey, Mexico.

MY FIRST AYAHUASCA EXPERIENCE

Not many people I know, when having just gotten interested in a medicinal, psycho-active plant concoction that can apparently instantly change your life would wake up, hop on a plane, and do it with the intention of doing it and flying home the same day.

What can I say… I’m busy… plus once I discover something it encompasses all my thoughts to the point that I must almost immediately try it.

And that’s what I did.  I woke up at 6am in Acapulco, flew through Mexico City and then on to Monterrey.  The website said to show up at 5pm and I had arrived in Monterrey at 2pm.  So, I hit the Starbucks and watched a hockey game via wifi while sipping on one of those fruity teas and then took a taxi to the location.

It was a fairly non-descript house in a fairly non-descript part of town.  I showed up right on time, at 5pm, forgetting I was in Mexico, and no one was even there yet.  For a second I wondered if this was all just a hoax… but then I remembered I was in Mexico and I was a fool for showing up right when they said I should show up.

I waited for about an hour before a few people started to filter in.  The very first person who walked in said, “Hey, Jeff Berwick, you’re that internet libertarian guy!”

I corrected him, “Anarchist, but yes, nice to meet you” and we chatted.  It turns out that he and his libertarian friends are really into Ayahuasca and I’ve noticed that the liberty community has been really getting into this type of soul searching… it may be the next progression for truth seekers.

For the next two hours more and more people showed up and around 8pm finally it appeared like things were ready.  Having not eaten for the last 24 hours, as is suggested, each hour that went by was a little harder and my anticipation grew also.  I just wanted it to get started.

Finally the shaman, who seemed like a nice guy, described to about 40 of us the process and then said to make ourselves comfortable in one of the rooms.

It was a big house with a lot of empty rooms and I ended up in one room, on the floor with just a thin sleeping bag I had brought.  It was quite cold and rainy in Monterrey and the house didn’t have any heat… and my body is very acclimatized to hot, humid Acapulco weather so I was quite cold right off the bat… and the hard tile floor with my thin sleeping bag didn’t offer much in the way of comfort.

All of the people in the room with me were from Monterrey and many had done it before and they all traded stories on it and said they were nervous.  A few hadn’t and they all said they were nervous/scared.  

But it was now getting close to 10pm and we still hadn’t done anything and I didn’t feel nervous/scared… I just wanted to get the show on the road.  I actually had this thought in my head that the ceremony would begin at 5pm and would probably end around midnight and then I thought I’d go find a chill lounge in Monterrey, smoke a cigarette, have a glass of wine and ponder on my experience before heading to the airport and heading home on the next flight out.  But since it was already 10pm and we hadn’t even begun yet that wasn’t going to happen.

Finally, one by one people began to get called for the ayahuasca ceremony and I was finally called near 11pm.  Many people say the taste of ayahuasca is disgusting but after not having eaten anything for 24 hours I was glad to just eat/drink something.  Maybe for that reason I didn’t mind the taste at all.  It was definitely a flavor I had never tasted before.  Sort of like an earthy clay and a bit of a spicy taste to it.

I returned to my cold, uncomfortable room and began to meditate.  I was mostly relieved, after a long day of travel and waiting to finally have begun the process.

It was at least half an hour of not really feeling anything when I began to notice my face felt numb.  But that was about it for at least another 15 minutes.

The next thing I noticed was that I had forgotten why I was there.  I had come with the intention of experimentation and discovery and hopefully to feel/see something I had never felt before and see if it gave me any useful insights into life or myself.

I forgot all of that and I then felt like I wanted to lie down and as I did all kinds of geometric shapes began to form in everything and laser colored lights seemed to flow in and out of everything.  It was neat but certainly not life changing.  I then began testing it, which in hindsight was a mistake, but I like to test everything.  So, I’d look at something and it’d have all kinds of shapes and colors and then I would say to myself, “But, this is all just in my head, so can I turn it off?”

And, much to my surprise, yes, I could totally control it.  If I wanted it all to stop I’d just try to stop and it would stop.  I did this a number of times and then I got into a weird state of mind.

I said, to myself (or whoever/whatever else might be out there), “This is pretty lame.  I thought this was going to be a life changing educational experience!”

I then got deeper into that mindset for what felt like nearly 30 minutes, saying, “Is that all you’ve got, Ayahuasca?  You’re a fraud… I could have taken mushrooms or LSD if I wanted to see some shapes and colors that weren’t really there!”

The reason I say, in retrospect, it was a mistake to do this is because I should have just allowed myself to get into the experience.  Instead I got into this battle in my own head questioning everything about it.

That was when IT BEGAN.  And I don’t mean it began for me.  Puking, crying, wailing, jabbering, groans of angst all around me.

Everyone appeared to be deep into some sort of intense, almost traumatic experience (which is what I expected and wanted).  It was then that the colors and geometric shapes pretty much went away and while my body was so relaxed that I couldn’t really move I didn’t really feel anything, at all.  I was completely, soberly awake… listening to the house of horrors all around me.

I could feel many people in deep pain (emotionally) and them crying and wailing and, constantly, puking (that’s what all those buckets in the picture above were for).

I sat there, thinking as clearly as could be, that this is ridiculous.  I had left all the things I love (my wife, my family and my dogs) to come here to sit in a cold room full of puking and screaming people.  And, the worst thing about it is that I was pretty much paralyzed… I couldn’t get the energy to move but I was wide awake.

I then even got angrier at Ayahuasca and I called it a total fraud… and I was really irritated that I wasn’t puking and screaming.  I came up with really intricate concepts on how it is all a scam and how they just give people stuff that makes them puke and scream and they feel like they had an other-wordly experience.  I even began, inside my own head to call out Ayahuasca.  I said, “I know what you are doing!  It’s B.S.!” and this continued for a while.

Then things got really dark.  Not in terms of light but in terms of thought and the environment.  It had been what felt like an hour of being in hell and not being able to leave and then every sound I heard was all torturous.  I’d hear a dog bark outside but it’d sound, to me, like the dog was in horrible pain.  Everything around me seemed to be in horrible pain.  And, still, the constant puking and crying around me.

Some people then really began to freak out… some were walking around and some had to be nearly restrained by the shamans… and I was still just lying there on the floor, freezing cold and unable to move but totally aware of what was going on around me but wishing I wasn’t.

They, the shamans I think, began chanting/singing but to me it sounded like nails on a blackboard… for what seemed like hours.

I had a few insights during that time which told me that I needed to be with my family and they were the only thing that was important.  Now, if that came from my own brain or somehow was a message from “the universe” I don’t know.

Upon hearing this I became even more unhappy and sad and said, “Then why the hell am I here?  Did I just make a big mistake leaving everything I love just to have a horrible night in Monterrey?”

There was no answer.

I then got even more unhappy/angry and demanded that Ayahuasca show me something/anything.  I even said, in my own head, “Show me the worst!  I can take it!”… but mostly nothing happened.  Just another hour or so of puking and crying around me while I lied there freezing and uncomfortable.

Then, I began to just let everything go.  I felt exhausted after what seemed like about 5 hours of torture.

And then, finally, I had a bit of a vision.  A voice said, “You have to let others help you”.

I was sort of out of my head at that time so I didn’t question it.. it just seemed real like I was having a conversation with someone.  It was like a dream but I was wide awake and I couldn’t recognize it wasn’t a dream… it was just happening.

I responded, “I can’t.  I won’t.  I must always be the strongest to be there for everyone else.  I won’t accept help.  I am not weak.”

Gently it said, “Let others help you.”

And then I had a vision of me dying, right there in Monterrey.  The shamans were trying to give me water and I refused it saying I didn’t need it.  ”I can fight it on my own,” I said to them.  And, in my vision, I went into a seizure and died.

At that point I think I essentially fell asleep.

Then, at about 4am, all of a sudden, I woke up and felt totally normal and was wide awake.  I could hear one or two others packing up their stuff and leaving and so after a few minutes I did the same.

I packed up my stuff and walked through the dark house to the door, opened it and walked out into the cold evening.

It was a weird sensation because I felt totally at peace.  If you just dropped me in some random neighborhood in Monterrey at 4am I would be a bit agitated and irritated.  But, I felt like I just wanted to go for a walk but feeling as sober (or even more-so than normal) as could be.

I walked for quite a while through dark, quiet streets and then decided I should get a taxi but none could be found.  I turned on my Uber app and could see Uber cars all around but I had forgotten that my credit card I initially had for Uber had expired and therefore I couldn’t hail them.

Eventually I found a state permissioned and regulated taxi (which is always worse but in this instance was happily found) and went to the airport.  I found a flight out to Mexico City quite quickly and had the most calm trip home.  Normally in airports I feel irritated and want to have a drink to just calm me down from not wanting to be there but the entire way home I just felt at peace.

Upon arriving home I kissed my wife, kids and dogs with great happiness and my wife said, “So?  Did it fix you?”

I replied, “I’m not sure, let me think about it.”

It took a few more weeks of thinking about it for me to have decided that it was definitely a net positive in my life that I did it.  At least I now know what it is.  And, possibly, it gave me a few insights that I hadn’t quite solidified in my own mind… that my family is everything to me and that I should accept the help of others sometimes.

Now, after talking to a few people they said that the first experience can be quite a bit like mine.  If it is not in the right place that is comfortable and around people you trust it can be difficult.  And I totally recognize that now.  If/when I do it again it will be in a much more natural, calm, comfortable environment and preferably alongside my wife or with her, at least, nearby.

I’ve also been told by some people that San Pedro may be a better thing for me to do next as part of my journey.  Apparently, according to them, Ayahuasca is the “divine feminine” and San Pedro is the “divine masculine” and that I may not be ready for Mother Ayahuasca yet.

So, plans are being put in place for me to try San Pedro and I will go from there.

Until then, that was my first experience trying Ayahuasca and I hope it helps you with any insights/fears/information you had about it.

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