Takiwasi – Roaming the Mind

January 23, 2023June 24, 2023

We Are Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made on

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth;
And ere a man hath power to say “Behold!”
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.

As I gradually accustomed myself to seeing through the worldview of the pre-Colombian peoples of the Amazon and Andes, I began to perceive the lineaments of archaeological sites in ways I previously hadn’t been able to. At Ollantaytambo, for example, after ascending to the Sun Temple I found that the features of the severely defaced jaguars carved upon the Wall of the Six Monoliths were far clearer, lying just beneath the scars left by Spanish vandals.

This sudden seeing of what has long lain in plain sight is hardly a new experience. Yet, the revelation of the deep past is a cat and mouse game, our unseen inheritance a plaything in the hands of the industrial forces unleashed upon Peru.

This fact was driven home to me some time after my return from the ancient temple complex of Chavín when, in the darkness of the wee hours of the morning, I walked out of Takiwasi after an ayahuasca ceremony. Continue reading “We Are Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made on”

October 25, 2019October 28, 2019

The “Shamanic” Invasion — On the Encounter between Amazonian Shamans and Western Apprentices

This from Jacques Mabit, the founder of Takiwasi and a pioneer among those Westerners who have apprenticed in the ayahuasca tradition. Mabit is unique in that he has lived in South America for decades and so is deeply informed of the inside workings of the world of Amazonian vegetalismo. Noteworthy here is his discussion of the “well-developed art of seduction” that we Westerners are virtually defenseless before, which have led to virtual cults surrounding certain Shipibo shamans. Western apprentices of these Shipibo shamans now utilize the same “darts” to seduce their followers here in the West.

In the small haven of the High Peruvian Amazon where I have lived for almost 20 years, I am seeing a growing wave of Westerners eager to approach the practices of traditional Amazonian medicine. Having myself been one of the initiators of this movement, I cannot help but oscillate between satisfaction and fear in the face of this enthusiasm for what is now known as “shamanism”; a very inappropriate term from an anthropological perspective. The progressive realization that Westerners have of the serious deficiency of sacredness in their everyday lives, and the audacity of some, take them to the other side of the world in search of a renewal of their spirituality that seems to bring hope. At the same time, the Westerners’ capacity to transform everything they touch into a commercial product, including spirituality, has something terrifying to it. We are currently witnessing a massive landing of people from countries in the North of the world coming to the most isolated corners of the forests, mountains and deserts of Peru, and to many other places, to discover the “shaman” that is still “pure”, and who can reconcile them with themselves. It is here that things get complicated in a particular way, after the movement began in the opposite direction with the shifting of “shamans” to Europe, and white people presenting themselves as initiated and capable of substituting indigenous teachers.

When a Westerner and an Amazonian or Mestizo shaman meet, it is not just two people coming face to face, it is two cultures discovering each other, and finally, confronting each other. Continue reading “The “Shamanic” Invasion — On the Encounter between Amazonian Shamans and Western Apprentices”

April 3, 2017January 3, 2018

Shamanic Archaeology at Chavín de Huántar

My first visit to Takiwasi, the center for the treatment of addiction that utilizes the methods of Amazonian shamanism along with Western psychotherapy, and its host town, Tarapoto, was many years ago, in a quieter age.

My partner at the time, a therapist, had arrived long before me, and developed a strong affinity with the work of the center – its compassionate approach to treating addicts, its commitment to the study of the native, traditional medicine of the rainforest, and the unique character of its founders, the doctors Jacques Mabit and Rosa Giove. When I had joined her there, she was working as a therapist in the ample, tree shaded grounds of the center, doing her dissertation research, and soaking up the accumulated knowledge of traditional plant medicines and shamanic techniques utilized at Takiwasi to heal. Continue reading “Shamanic Archaeology at Chavín de Huántar”

January 21, 2014March 12, 2015

The Siren’s Rapturous Song: A Video on Shamanism and the Healing of Addiction

Awareness of the remarkable efficacy of psychoactive plant medicines to heal addiction is growing. These presentations by Robert Tindall and Susana Bustos, sponsored by City Lights Books, were inspired in part by the authors’ work at Takiwasi, a center for the treatment of addiction in Tarapoto, Peru which utilizes the traditional medicine of the rainforest, including ayahuasca, with a high degree of success.

These videos interweave two perspectives on the spiritual nature of addiction: An exploration of addiction versus shamanic initiation in the light of ancient Western texts, and a report on research into the shamanic treatments of addiction just conducted at Takiwasi, focusing especially on the lesser known vegetalista practice of the plant diet.

Part One is Robert’s talk on addiction versus initiation in the light of the ancient Greek and Celtic traditions.

Part Two is Susana’s talk on the vegetalista practice of plant dieta and its unique efficacy in the treatment of addiction.

With gratitude to Emerald Tablet, upon whose premises these talks were given on December 19th, 2013; to Vincent Tamer who captured them on video; and to Peter Maravelis at City Lights Books.

November 2, 2012September 7, 2018

Tarapoto Mestizo Blues

Our first visit to Takiwasi, the center for the treatment of addiction that utilizes the methods of Amazonian shamanism along with Western psychotherapy, and its host town, Tarapoto, was many years ago, in a quieter age.

Susana had arrived long before me, and developed a strong affinity with the work of the center – its compassionate approach to treating addicts, its commitment to the study of the native, traditional medicine of the rainforest, and the unique character of its founders, the doctors Jacques Mabit and Rosa Giove. When I had joined her there some years after her first visit, she was working as a therapist in the ample, tree shaded grounds of the center, doing her dissertation research, and soaking up the accumulated knowledge of traditional plant medicines and shamanic techniques utilized at Takiwasi to heal.

Back then, we rented a rustic, but very cargado (i.e., spirit-filled), house, around the corner from Takiwasi for a hundred bucks a month, and slept on borrowed mattresses, cooked on a borrowed stovetop, and invested in a few pots and spoons. We were on pilgrimage, then. When we left the center to continue on to Mayantuyacu, we simply put all our accumulated possessions in the back of a pickup truck and drove into the entrance at Takiwasi, where we gave them away to the staff.

Yet even then, Tarapoto could be loud. Even very loud, both with the chainsaw grind of the constant motorcars (rickshaws drawn by motorcycles) and the blasting of the rhythms of Peruvian dance music late into the night.

Peruvians, like aggressive teenagers, seemed to live by the motto, “I make noise, therefore, I am.” But no taste for silence appeared to develop in them with age (We have observed this conditioning to extreme noise begins very early in this culture, and have the theory Peruvians in the jungle towns are, if not physically, psychologically deaf.).

Yet all these factors, and a hundred other details which we had thought we knew about the mestizo (“mixed blood,” i.e. European/indigenous) culture of Tarapoto, were sadly out of date upon our arrival. On the economic front alone, the Peruvian economy had gone through a boom since our last stay in 2004. Prices are far higher, and the dollar now trades for substantially less.

I had also not fully factored in our own change in status. By virtue of arriving with a three year old girl with the intention of staying in one place for an extended time – involving schooling, decent housing, local community and friends, language issues, reckoning with local diseases such as parasites, etc. – we were no longer pilgrims, skimming lightly over the landscape. We had become immigrants, putting down roots. Continue reading “Tarapoto Mestizo Blues”

August 23, 2010August 27, 2010

Shamanic Song in the Treatment of Addiction

Our society is well aware of the addictive siren song of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and chemically-degraded tobacco, all derived from originally sacred, healing plants. Yet little is known of the power of psychoactive plants to heal addiction, especially as mediated by shamanic song. We would like to share with you how one Westerner, a French doctor named Jacques Mabit who trained in the Amazonian tradition of vegetalismo, uses icaros, songs that embody and transmit the healing power of plants, to guide his patients into realms of healing and self exploration.

The House that Sings:
The Therapeutic Use of Icaros at Takiwasi by Susana Bustos, Ph.D.

This article originally appeared in Shaman’s Drum, Number 73, 2006.