Shamans of the Amazon

Eight years ago, I was drawn to the mysterious Amazon and made a documentary about a tribe

defending their ancestral territory against oil companies.

Enticed by the mystery of ancient knowledge, I'm returning eight years later with my new

family to meet some of the keepers of the knowledge, the medicine men, the tribal shamans.

I'd heard about a sacred vine called ayahuasca, which enabled the shaman to have visions of

the future and communicate with the spirit world and the natural kingdom.

I knew that historically, altered states of consciousness have been an integral part of

many cultures, and in tribal societies, these states have often been induced by taking hallucinogenic

plants, with the shaman acting as the scapegoat.

I was curious as to why the United Nations had outlawed ayahuasca, and I wanted to experience

the ayahuasca ritual and gain insights into the shaman's world.

My journey would lead me head on into the global war on drugs.

Every society chooses a small number of substances, no matter how toxic, and enshrines them in

its cultural values, then demonizes all other substances.

And then persecutes and launches witch hunts against those users.

I am thrust into life-threatening situations between worlds of opposing value, and I experience

realities I never even dreamed of.

Ecuador lies on the equator, on the western side of the Amazon basin.

We touch down in the capital, Quito, which is nestled amongst volcanoes high in the Andes

Mountains.

This trip into the Amazon was set to be more than a journey.

It's been more challenging than my last.

This time, I had Jasmine, my one-year-old daughter, and my wife, Willow, who was six

months pregnant, traveling with me.

I've always believed that the Amazon is the wildest place on earth, and I had to see

it for myself.

Half of Ecuador's population is indigenous, and there are 12 distinct language groups,

as well as some uncontacted tribes.

With its diverse climates ranging from snow-capped mountains to lowland Amazon rainforest, Ecuador

is one of the most biologically and culturally diverse countries on earth.

Ecuador has a long history of hallucinogenic plant use, with the San Pedro mescaline cactus

in the mountains, and the ayahuasca brew in the Amazon.

That the road leading down to the Amazon was perilous, and a year before, a bus went off

the edge, killing everyone on board.

Eight years earlier, while filming the Wurundjeri Indians cutting a demarcation line around

their territory, I met Flavio.

Flavio is a shaman and a warrior, fighting hard to preserve his land and way of life

from the oil companies, the colonists, and the encroaching outside world.

But now they are destroying my life, my people, and my future generation.

The trees, the leaves, all of it.

I don't want anything else.

.

warrior and an ayahuasquero shaman. They've organized workshops on their community where

the local shamans share their culture and knowledge with the youth. Rafael is determined

to pass on his ancestors' culture, knowledge and land to his children. The shamans are

the spiritual guides and the medicine men of the tribe who have vast knowledge of the

jungle plants and their medicinal uses.

¿Por qué es ayahuasca importante para usted?

Ayahuasca es de nuestros abuelos cuando ellos tomaban para tener visión espiritual de la

selva, del río, también de la lluvia, de los cerros. Este contiene de que este es bueno

para salud de un shamanismo, control del shamanismo.

Y tener más energía para el shaman y para controlar toda la selva. Entonces la boa

es un shaman, el tigre es un shaman, espiritualmente. Todo animal contiene a este espíritu de ayahuasca.

Este vamos a llevar un poco para entrecambiar el visión porque este es otro ayahuasca y

también este es otro.

¿Este ya es?

Espiritualmente, suelo conecta con ayahuasca, con otra ayahuasca. Entonces por eso hace

una visión más fuerte. Sin esto no tienes visión, no le ves bien. Pero con este ya

tienes visión. Puedes mirar. O bueno, así, espiritual, selva, la medicina de montaña.

Ah, diferente.

¿Este puede tomar también?

No, no, ya está.

No, o sea, puede tomar también. El que, seguía tomando.

No.

Este no es difícil tomar. Solo yacha sino también cualquiera puede tomar.

Se pone estas hojas primero para que este vaya adentro.

Este es yaje, hoja de yaje. Este ahí. Y esto es ayahuasca.

No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

is also an ayahuasquero shaman who paints the visions he's had during ayahuasca rituals this

painting represents the two plants necessary in preparing the ayahuasca brew out of the ayahuasca

vine comes a black snake with the yellow aura there is another snake called the chacruna snake

which penetrates the ayahuasca snake producing the visionary effects of these two magic plants

in this vision a defeated king from a remote tribe in peru rises from his grave to tell his

shocked wife that he has grown a vine from his hair which is to be called ayahuasca meaning

vine of the dead he said you must mix this vine with the chacruna plant which will allow you to

see sound to have visions and develop your psychic abilities and acquire deep knowledge from past

cultures in scientific terms the ayahuasca brew consists of two major

active ingredients beta carboline from the ayahuasca vine and the extremely powerful

dimethyltryptamine or dmt from the psychotria or chacruna plants normally dmt is destroyed

in the gut but you take it in combo with beta carboline and then it's active this was discovered

by amazonian indians millennia ago and not discovered by western science till 1956

you

during my research for this journey i met author and ethnobotanist terence mckenna terence was so

inspired by his spiritual adventures with these amazon shamans over the last 30 years he wrote

several books on his experiences and philosophies he became a world-renowned speaker advocate and

expert on plant-based hallucinogens and shamanic rituals shamanism is about going into the realms

of death transcending the body

transcending space and time what the psychedelics do is they dissolve boundaries they dissolve the

illusion of separateness raphael invited us to an overnight ayahuasca ritual at a sacred site

in his ancestral territory deep in the headwaters of the amazon willow didn't want to drink ayahuasca

because of her pregnancy but she still wanted to come for the adventure the wildness the sense of

mystery and the power of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit

and intrigue was enough to capture me it was a journey into myself to discover my personal

boundaries i had no idea of the extent of the challenges that lay before me i felt enormously

protective

serbian

Tigre muy grande!

Tigre embarazada!

We just saw a jaguar prince

and apparently it swims in the river and eats children

It's probably in the jungle

with a baby

It's been a three and a half hour walk through mud

and I'm seven months pregnant

and I've still got three and a half hours to walk

We've been told to be very careful of snakes

because there's apparently a lot of them around here

and they were going to build a plastic house

but we asked them to build a house out of mambil

and so it looks like we're going to have a tradition

made in a very very short time

I felt how my modern lifestyle

had allowed a sort of separation to develop

between myself and nature

Through their actions

I could see how these forest Indians

were still directly connected

with the natural environment

I felt like I had journeyed back in time

I felt privileged

to be able to participate

in this ancient ritual

The young people who don't know

didn't go to school

they didn't learn at school

They were given advice

They were given to drink ayahuasca

always

It's not a drug

it's to know the vision

I knew that drinking ayahuasca

could be a very intense experience

that it tasted foul

and often it made you vomit

I was feeling apprehensive

about how it would affect me

Millions of people take ayahuasca

in the Amazon

It is the largest psychedelic religion on earth

The waking world and the world of the dream

become one

So then it becomes the function of the shaman

the gadfly

the go-between

to carry information back and forth

between these worlds

Everything feels like the whole forest

and everything

I'm seeing iridescent rainbow spiral

feels like I'm being bombarded

by some sort of ancient knowledge

universal consciousness

that I don't understand

Sometimes when you don't see

they kill another person

and you see which person

was killed

So we know

spiritually

The shamans

between the yachaks

they fought a lot

when they had

a friendship

when a son was killed

by another yachak

and the father

killed him too

so they have enemies

so

those are the ones

who put the arrow

pay the other

so that's the arrow

The arrows can go

very far

They are spiritual minds

that walk

between the spirits

of

different kinds

of spirits

in the forest

insects

toads

snakes

toads

toads toads

toads

indigenous cosmology, amalulla, amakilla, amashua, not to steal, not to lie, not to be lazy,

to live taking care of nature, always, us and our children, ayahuasca teaches us to love

nature, but to see the spirituality of the earth, to see the Pachamama and the space.

In many countries around the world, people are now running their own unique style of

ayahuasca rituals to open a doorway into this shamanic world.

What you see I think is the morphogenetic field, the invisible world that holds everything

together.

You don't have to spend 20 years around the ashram.

Ayahuasca to me is a very, very feminine spirit, it's a feminine experience.

It's an experience of let go, of surrender, of nurturing, of love, of light, of the heart.

It's a holographic library, it speaks to you in visions, it communicates through pictures.

And also you're very sensitive to sound in ayahuasca, sound can influence wherever you

go.

You use sound as a navigator also, you use your intent and you use sound.

Ayahuasca can be seen as a doorway, a link between the dimensions, it can give you all

kinds of, let's say, shamanic information, it can give you a look into the animal world,

the spirit world, the world of insects, the world of plants, the world of minerals, the

galactic world, the cosmic perspective.

And ayahuasca is like a different world.

It's a different world.

And at the very beginning of all this, there is a deep immersion into that kind of experiential

understanding of unity.

And this unity is liberating.

It's a transforming experience.

Ayahuasca teaches that we are it.

We are nature.

We are not separate from it.

.

to live longer.

Yesterday we drank ayahuasca.

In that I saw a very deep vision.

A tree was transformed into a vein.

But in the middle, this big tree had teeth

and it was smiling.

And after smiling, it blew a strong hurricane-like wind

to the south and to the north.

That meant that this jungle was still full of spirit.

All of this belonged to our grandparents.

When the colonization came,

the government forced people to be retired

because of their jobs.

Yes.

In the past, all of this belonged to the indigenous people.

The Amazon Indians have lost more than their claim to ancestral lands.

Military-backed oil companies have pushed roads through their territory

and their land is being invaded by colonists and outsiders.

Their culture is undergoing massive upheavals

and the people look to their shamans for vision and guidance

in these rapidly changing times.

I don't want oil because it's polluting the Amazon.

That's why we don't want it.

We saw that this mountain was full of birds and monkeys.

Now we only see houses and cars.

That's why the indigenous people don't need oil.

It destroys all the rivers and all the fish.

That's why we're here,

to defend our Ecuadorian Amazon

so that our children and future generations can live better.

As threats to the Amazon people change with the times,

the shamans use ayahuasca to gain insights and strategies

to fight new enemies.

That's why we're here in the jungle,

drinking ayahuasca,

to see more visions,

to get more spirit,

to be able to fight and defend territories against oil companies.

Grandparents drank it for war,

to see where the enemy was.

And they killed each other among peoples.

To a psychological war,

they also drank it.

For a psychological war.

Now, we don't want to make a war for violence,

drinking ayahuasca.

We want to see the government,

if they're lying to us

or if they're telling us the truth.

We're at the blockade now.

There's a lot of military going through here.

And the indigenous people are being held off by the military.

I can die against the oil companies.

I will give my life for my territory.

My territory,

what my grandfather left me as a legacy,

I will never surrender.

When we get angry,

we get angry and no one stops us.

And no one will stop us,

not even the military,

not even the missionaries,

not even the government.

We will die together,

the nature.

Why do you want to kill me?

Because you wanted to kill me.

Why?

Because I was attached to Tri Petrol,

to ARCO,

that brother who works with oil companies.

That's why they want to kill me.

Yes.

They want to see me dead

so that they can easily bring oil companies.

Son of a bitch!

Yes?

Give me the gun

or give me the arrow right now, damn it!

We're going to drink ayahuasca

to have a vision,

to get to know

bad spirits,

to get to know the family,

how the family is doing,

to take care of them a lot,

now that the company is here.

So we're going to control

how long we're going to be well

and how long we're not going to be well.

I'm convinced that in its native setting

ayahuasca is a telepathic drug.

I mean, small groups of tribal people

are taking this thing and making group decisions

based on group hallucinations,

based on

the collective database of the tribal group.

They're seeing the information

from a higher dimensional space.

On this ayahuasca journey

I was given deeper insights into the shaman's world

and their intimate relationship with nature.

I saw how the shamans,

through their visions,

were able to communicate with the planet

as if it were a conscious living entity.

Spiritually,

the sangai was the eye,

the eye of the Amazon.

It's a volcano

that maintains the entire Amazon.

It's in danger

in case they take out the oil

and reactivate the sangai.

In 1971,

largely in response to the popularisation of psychedelics

in the United States in the 60s,

such as LSD, magic mushrooms and marijuana,

the United Nations drafted

the Narcotics Convention,

which was signed by all of its members

prohibiting hallucinogenic plants and chemicals.

Without any real scientific research,

DMT and other hallucinogens

were placed in the Schedule I category

along with heroin and cocaine.

Dealers in these substances

face between seven years and life in prison

and in some countries even death.

Except in Brazil and Peru,

ayahuasca rituals are now banned

in every United Nations country on Earth.

In Brazil, 80 years ago,

an Amazonian shaman introduced rubber-tapper

Raimando Sierra to ayahuasca.

Raimando became a shamanic healer

and later established the Santa Dami religion,

which is an unusual combination

of Christianity, ayahuasca rituals and nature worship.

Today, the Santa Dami Church

has over 15,000 members in Brazil

and many centers around the world.

The Netherlands is a signatory

to the Narcotics Convention

and in October 1999,

the government raided a Santa Dami service

with 70 people in the congregation

and arrested the two spiritual leaders.

I went to the Netherlands to meet Brazilian

Yatra Silveira de Barbosa,

who established a number of Santa Dami centers in Europe.

In my country,

it is legal.

Ayahuasca in South America

is being taken in the same way,

a ritualistic way,

for healing,

for spirituality,

back to 500 years before Christ,

that we know as a fact.

I cannot understand

this way of thinking.

You're going to jail for seven years

or 15 years

because you are running a ritual.

It's just too much.

So this is going to be our first ritual

with our doors closed.

So there is a risk

that the police might come here.

The doors downstairs are totally locked.

It's like you put the lights on.

Everything that's in the darkness

will show up

and you can work with that.

So actually makes you closer to yourself.

It brings you in contact

with God within you.

It brings you back into your heart space.

It's impossible to use as a recreational.

First because you throw up like crazy.

You know what I mean?

You don't really enjoy every moment.

It's not something that you take

and you go to a party

because when you drink ayahuasca,

you really come in touch

with your inner most

and it's not all the time flowers.

There is a lot of thorns.

We've been healing people

of physical diseases

like cancer,

psychosomatic diseases,

depressions,

drug addiction,

heroin,

cocaine.

I've been addicted to cocaine and heroin

since I was 16

and went through many,

many different treatment programs

and none of them worked.

Basically,

it just helped me go inside myself

and look at why I was using.

People need to know about it

and it needs to be legal.

It needs to be able to go on

and happen

because without it,

I would be dead right now

and I know many, many more people

would be dead right now.

We understand the problem

and it's not the case

to send people to jail

but to send people into treatment.

The Narcotics Convention

also banned virtually

all scientific research

into psychedelics

and their possible

clinical applications.

Before the ban,

some psychologists

such as author

Stanislav Grof

were using psychedelics

as a therapeutic tool

accessing deeper levels

of consciousness

to unlock traumas

with very positive results.

I think it's a great tragedy

of 20th century science

that the original excitement

about exploring consciousness

and mental illness

generated by the discovery of LSD

gave way to establishment paranoia

and repression of drug-using populations.

Drugs might actually cause people

to wake up to some of the abuses

and scams that were being run

by late modernism and capitalism.

We are supposed to live

in an environment

with a narrow canyon of consciousness

walled in between a wake and a sleep.

This is the dump square in Amsterdam

the site of many protests

and the protest behind me

is one to try and get

ayahuasca legalized.

As we enter the new millennium

we shouldn't have to be dealing with

religious and spiritual persecution.

It's something we should have left behind

in the dark ages

but unfortunately

the dark ages are still with us

so we have to make a stand.

We have fundamental law

and we have also

the European Convention on Human Rights

which says that people have

liberty to have freedom of religion.

And we have seen this also

in the United States

where they gave the freedom

to the Native American church

to use the peyote cactus.

In my country, in Brazil

we had the same thing happened

in a case that lasted for eight years

but not a case as the police

the investigators were scientists

anthropologists, doctors

and after eight years

we won the jury by unanimity

so they took ayahuasca

out of the open law

and we want to have the same here

because we really have the right

to have our own religion.

There's a lot of international pressure

on the Dutch government

to conform in the drug policy

with the other European countries

and the United States.

The big war on drugs.

Due to the war on drugs

in America alone

there are currently

three quarters of a million people

spending around five million years

behind bars

costing over 60 billion US dollars.

America spends more on its prisons

than it does on its schools.

The so-called war on drugs

which is really a war against

other people's values.

It's a continuation

of cultural genocide

and all the other efforts

made by the phenomenal success

of capitalism

to shove its agenda

down other people's throats.

People's minds

like their bodies

must be a domain

free from government control.

It is a civil war

and a civil rights issue.

This psychedelic dimension

is part of the human birthright.

No plant should be illegal.

These things should not even

be talked about as drugs.

The big drug and biotech companies

have been sending their bio-pirates

to the Amazon for years

to steal and patent

shamanic medicinal knowledge.

And in 1988

a variety of ayahuasca was patented.

The patent was challenged

by a coalition of Amazon tribes.

The Supreme Court ruled

that you can't patent a plant,

that a plant is not an invention.

One of the active ingredients

in the ayahuasca brew, DMT,

is found in many species of plants

throughout the world.

In the Amazon,

shamans have used DMT

in their snuff rituals

for thousands of years.

The shamans derive the DMT

from the hakula beans

and the verola tree

and absorb it through

the nasal passages.

The snuff is used

to induce a trance,

to see visions,

to communicate with the spirit world

and drive away evil spirits.

There is an ancient Amazon legend

about DMT

which says

in the beginning

the sun created various beings

to serve as intermediaries

between him and earth

and created the DMT snuff powder

so that man could contact

these supernatural beings.

The national symbol of Australia

is the wattle.

It's an acacia.

The acacia ecology of Australia

is jammed with DMT.

And then of course the question was

well do the aboriginals

know about this?

Ask Paul Dillon

from the Australian National Drug

and Alcohol Research Centre

about the dangers of DMT

and other hallucinogens.

We did a call out to DMT users

asking them for their experiences.

Interestingly,

every single caller we had

emphasised that it was a drug

that they were not going to use again.

They found it very intense,

quite unpleasant

and they really weren't prepared

for the experience at all.

The most harmful drugs in society

are definitely

the legal ones.

Alcohol and tobacco.

Tobacco kills almost

20,000 Australians every year

and alcohol is up around 4,000.

And the hallucinogen drugs,

none to my knowledge.

But I suppose they're drugs

that we do need to know more about.

We need to know about

the psychological effects.

I think more research needs to be done.

The only legal scientific research

into psychedelics and DMT

since the narcotics convention

was conducted by psychologist

Dr. Rick Straussman

in New Mexico in 1990.

He concludes,

amongst other things,

that DMT is naturally released

from the pineal gland

during birth, death

and other naturally occurring psychedelic states.

The strongest drugs

are the ones most like

ordinary brain chemistry.

The most extreme case being DMT.

DMT only lasts

seven to ten minutes.

And yet it's the most profound

dislocation of reality

that you can undergo.

A lot about psychedelics

before I encountered DMT

and it showed me

that I knew virtually nothing.

And I took four

very large inhalations.

My impression was of

falling forward

through some kind of

that was fluctuating space.

It was filled with beings.

Entities of some sort.

Creatures made of light.

And they were jumping

in and out of my chest.

And I thought I must have died.

It meant this couldn't happen

to somebody

and come back.

You cannot go further than this

into the bardo

and return.

The shaman is someone

who has seen the beginning

and the end.

It's the most challenging,

enlightening,

astonishing,

terrifying,

joyous,

strange thing in the world.

I don't mean to scare anyone off,

but these are bizarre dimensions

of extraordinary power and beauty.

People should be very careful.

The shaman offers an immense

example of courage.

While I was making this film,

Terence was diagnosed

with terminal cancer.

I asked if he had one message to share

from all his experiences,

what would it be?

Sheer curiosity

is the thing that I've always

let carry me along.

And I have no regrets

about any of this.

I think it's worth the life

to put these issues

in front of people.

Willow was now nearly

eight months pregnant

and suffering from dizzy spells

and headaches.

So we searched out a shaman

named Enrique

who lived by the Amazon River,

who we heard used ayahuasca,

mainly as a tool to heal people.

Enrique and his family

have established

an indigenous foundation

to help preserve

his ancestral territory.

Part of the finances needed

to run the foundation

he gets from offering

ayahuasca rituals

for eco-tourists.

Doctor Ecuador,

Blanco,

here in Puyo,

they already know the shaman.

That's why when they can't

get an injection

on the shaman,

they just go

and clean it up.

The bark

for when they have

the flu.

The flu.

To do that,

you have to absorb it.

You know all the bad stuff.

Yes, yes.

It's better.

Yes.

Against the snake,

the potato

is scraped,

with warm water,

it's taken.

When the snake bites,

it's taken.

This is ayahuasca?

Yes, ayahuasca.

Yes.

All the time

in Ecuador,

it's legal

to heal.

But another person

in particular,

as a hobby,

that's not.

Because it's a thing

that has to be done

as a ritual

and all

through a shaman.

Yes, it's not legal.

Other gringos

take ayahuasca

in other countries.

It's good or bad?

It's good.

People want to know

that

Usually the shaman

and the patient

drink ayahuasca.

When that happens, he takes it out.

Then the sick will heal.

Before, there were no doctors or pharmacies, nothing.

This Amazon didn't know anyone.

Only with this ayahuasca, the shaman continued to heal.

I want to learn shamanism when you are a young man.

And there was just that shaman who healed me.

At the age of 12, he stung me with a snake.

So there I, until now powerful,

I learned.

The shaman told me that my power wants this young man.

For a year I was on a diet.

I only crushed bananas.

When he is drugged with this liquid,

he is directly talking to the spirit.

And through this intermediate of the spirit,

the shaman has the power.

But in the water too.

I have entered like an anaconda.

Also, I have looked like a shaman.

A great one.

In anaconda, I made a wheel.

I was there, sitting.

Another shaman wants to do harm.

They...

Over here...

Over here too.

They are guardians.

I felt that when these shamanic planets

were used with correct preparation,

guidance and ritual,

they could be powerful tools for healing

and personal transformation.

Without light, I can look.

This is without light.

I can look at who you are.

But with light I can't.

I didn't take any ayahuasca,

but I had a healing from him.

I've been having a lot of movement

and a lot of pain

and a lot of faintness.

And he said that I need lots of minerals and vitamins.

I wanted to see if this baby is a boy or a girl.

And he says it's definitely a boy.

With an ayahuasca,

when I was looking at you,

I saw in this,

in your body,

in this.

In your central column.

In the nerves too.

Parasites.

After returning to Australia,

we all became quite sick.

We tested positive for amoebas and parasites.

I also spent four days in hospital,

unable to walk due to a problem in my spine.

Oh yeah, and we did have a baby boy.

We named him Shaman.

In Ecuador, thousands of people were evacuated

as a number of volcanoes began to violently erupt.

At that time,

when the first eruption of Pichincha,

or Pichincha,

I was drinking ayahuasca with some Quito people.

We were talking in vision

when this volcano is sacred.

When the oilfields are bothering,

it's...

It's...

It's angry

because these oilfields are

blowing up the soil inside.

So the volcano is angry

because they are not treating nature well.

I don't want them to come and destroy me.

People from the United States,

for sucking the blood

of our ancestors,

the black gold,

that is created with the technology of tips,

made by the smart people.

No.

Here we are, the smart people,

the ones who defend the lung of the world,

the jungle,

the pure air,

the pure water.

What it brings is an empathy

to the destruction of the planet.

You know, the cutting of a rainforest

is suddenly no longer completely abstract.

It's actually something you can feel and relate to.

And all political change begins

with a change of feeling and value.

We have become a toxic force

in planetary biology.

There is going to have to be

a radical transformation.

Human future will be designed

on how conscious

we are able to make ourselves.

If we can change our minds,

we can take hold of this process

and halt it.

And I call on all the yachaks,

all the shamans of the world,

to unite,

to spread in the world

and say,

no destruir la naturaleza,

no destruir las raíces de los árboles.

My journey into this mysterious world

of the shamans of the Amazon

lasted three years.

I'm left wondering

whose interests are really being served

by keeping illegal these shamanic plants

that can help you connect with yourself

and the natural world.

And how is it that humanity

is allowing such unprepared,

unprecedented destruction of nature?

Meeting the shamans

and taking ayahuasca

opened me to a world

I never imagined.

A world that challenged

my current concepts of reality

and made me question my life's purpose

and my relationship with everything.

Materialism is ending our world.

Our world is the spirit

of the trees,

of the magical leaves.