Two weeks in, just getting cooked in the melting pot.

I’ve been in Pisac for a little over two weeks now. It’s been a whirlwind, more happening, more intensely, and… more magical than I could have imagined. I came here with trepidation, a bit of anxiety, nervousness about getting here, being a stranger in a strange place, not knowing anyone and diving into unfamiliar, deep inner psychological/spiritual work.

The tradition I’m working with, a combination of esoteric Cristo-Hermitic shamanism, mixed with indigenous psychedelic plant medicine. We’re using a potent brew of plants that induce a deep visionary state intended to help practitioners connect with the unconscious mind and the “spirit world”, called Daime.

Now that’s a mouthful, and for most late twentieth, early twenty-first century “westerners”, like myself, there’s a tendency to think of this as a bunch of crazy hocus pocus. Or worse yet, for those who have some remaining rooting in traditional Judeo-Christian mythology and theology, it might be viewed as dangerous, heretical, or even sinful and evil. So, you can only imagine my coming here has been an exercise in dealing with a lot of uncertainty, fear, and pushing a lot of personal boundaries into new territory. I honestly had very little idea of what I was getting myself into, but that’s a good thing, because I’m convinced the work I’m doing is important and has purpose.

My teacher Andrew, is Canadian, from Ontario, Yale educated, a mystic, shamanic practitioner, and a leader of a small Santo Daime community here. He has done monumental work studying the esoteric, entheogenic (psychedelic) origins of religion and spirituality going back through western European culture, all the way back to ancient cultures, the Greeks, Mesopotamians, Persians,  the Egyptians, and even as he claims, back to Atlantean times. Because this is so outside of traditional historical orthodoxy, I hesitate to write of it as if were a foregone conclusion but he makes a very compelling case. All the while, we’re mixing in and including shamanism, ceremony and deep mysticism. And woa! This is intellectually a huge stretch by any measure and then, throw in regular ceremonies using the Daime, (thus far I’ve sat in five ceremonies since I’ve been here), while incorporating and studying shamanic techniques, I’m in a crash course of global spiritual evolution.

Santo Daime is a tradition that originated in Brazil, founded by an Afro-Brazian decedent of Slaves, in the early 20 century. In academic circles it’s classified as a Syncretic religious tradition, meaning it’s the blending of two or more separate religious traditions, into something new and unique. Santo Daime is a combination of traditional Latin American Catholicism, African indigenous spirituality, and native amazonian indigenous spiritual practice which includes the ritual use of a VERY POWERFUL mixture of plants that induced these deep altered states. Most native Amazonians call this brew Ayahuasca but in the Santo Daime church, it is simply referred to as the Daime.  The world Daime is the Portuguese verb for “give me”. This is spoken as a prayer to God, “give me strength, give me courage, give me discipline, give me faith”.  And in this tradition, it is the Daime, the “medicine” that is a vehicle to higher states of consciousness, and a bridge into the realms of the sprit world. And Yes, that’s a lot to take in. For many people it might sound straight-up crazy. I was told by someone I know before I arrived here, to be careful, that shit is crazy! It’s definitely not for the timid.

But let’s take it even one step further. Here in Pisac, Peru there is a much broader syncretic phenom happening. Not only are there traditions of the “Western Lineage” combining with native south American indigenous cultures, but now the traditions of the Vedic (yoga and Buddhism) being folded into the melting pot. People are coming here from all over the world to study and learn of various combinations and permutations of spiritual, religious, and psychological schools, practices and traditions. It’s truly an international mystery school here.

A couple days after my arrival here two weeks ago, I attended a workshop on the ancient Vedic scripture, the Bhagavad Gita. This is one of the most important, seminal works of the “Hindu, Vedic/yogic traditions, first written sometime in between the 5th and 1st Century BCE. The class was taught by a young Israeli, a Jew, who is now a Yogi, living Pisac Peru, living in an Ayahuasca retreat center. This is what I mean by the syncretic spiritual phenomenon happening here. Since then, I’ve attended workshops on Buddhist plant medicine, Ayurveda, Christo Hermetic Shamanism, done Yoga classes, all in the midst of the traditional South American Andean culture of this colonial town that dates to the Inca period.

My teacher, Andrew’s body of work is simply phenomenal, from an historical theory, academic and intellectual point of view. It’s dense, unique, controversial, not for the faint of heart or the dogmatic and ridged. It requires one to consider many big ideas, that fall way outside of the mainstream of current thinking and the academic status quo, with a critical mind but also with the ability to try difficult ideas on for size and work with them, even if one is not convinced they are correct. But, more importantly the work that he is doing in the realms of actual ritual, spiritual and shamanic journeying is beyond anything that I’ve ever experienced.

What I’m beginning to realize is that the intellect and language creates a framework, an intellectual skeleton so to speak but it’s our actual experience that fills in the flesh, gives it life and creates our living reality.

I’ve found that what I’m learning here is a whole new way of approaching and understanding our reality, from the perspective of our own personal historical narrative, and how these fits into our understanding of our place in the world. When we are born into this reality, our mind begins to start building a map of our experiences, through our sense and then through our interpretation of events in our lives, through this filter.  But this map is also formed by what we are “taught”, by our parents, our teacher, our society. We are taught what to “believe” what not to believe, how to behave according to certain rules, and there is a narrative that informs all of this. This narrative framework creates limits to our thinking, pathways, siderails, boundaries, and foregone conclusions that become automatic and sub-conscious. It’s easy to become complacent, and hypnotized by our own beliefs, to simply believe something because it’s what we’ve always believed without ever examining it, questioning our assumptions and knowledge against something different or new.

This is what’s going on here in Peru, people are trying many different new ideas on for size. Some of them fly in the face of convention, and yet because someone else is bold enough to propose a new idea, we can examine it, try it on and use our discernment to decide for ourselves if we believe it and then test it against our experience of reality…