Some years ago a few of my good friends got into Ayahuasca. If you are planning to try, have tried or are an advocate – I highly recommend watching this short netflix (un)well episode about both the benefits and risks involved.
When people all around me started getting into Ayahuasca, I knew it wasn’t for me. Amongst my circle of friends it was being touted as the super “non-addictive medicine” that’s safe for everyone to use. I felt this was misleading and potentially negligent, especially when expressed by people who have influence over others. I tried to challenge them to be safe and transparent about the potential harmful consequences.
There are many practices/substances that can be potentially safe in the right setting, supervision and administered to the right person – but can also be equally disastrous. As we know one person’s medicine can be another’s poison. Penicillin can save lives but for someone like me who is allergic, it can kill.
Any psychedelic substance or drug (this goes for pharmaceuticals as well) can have very harmful effects and there is no way of assuring something is safe for all. Ayahuasca is no exception. It can induce psychosis and create a lethal cocktail for people with certain pre-existing mental and health conditions and for those who are already taking certain types of prescription medications.
Watching this episode from the Netflix doco (un)well affirmed my intuition about the potential dangers. There are many practices which are taken out of the context of their traditional setting, altered from their original format and abused which can lead to needless harm.
Interestingly , according to this doco Ayahuasca was traditionally only for the shamans use. The medicine women/men would enter into altered states of consciousness and then sing songs / incantations to help heal their patients. But the foreigners who came weren’t happy with just being sung to 🤷and wanted to take the drink themselves…I’d be quite happy just being sung to but I have a strong bias to the healing power of sound !!!😀
<removed from original post> – I removed a paragraph of my own experiences and views. Sharing an opinion on fb without a deeper two way discussion around things can lead to polarity and unneeded divisiveness. Which was not my intention.
I hope this post is useful and that watching this short doco can help bring more awareness and care around the use and propagation of psychedelics and most importantly prevent someone who is susceptible to the dangers from taking a path that could cause them unnecessary harm.
With love
Edo Khan
🙏🏻❤️
Further Reading:
https://www.insider.com/netflix-unwell-looks-at-trends-like-fasting-tantric-sex-ayahuasca-2020-8
https://slate.com/culture/2020/08/unwell-netflix-wellness-docuseries-review.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ayahuasca/comments/iauzyy/has_anyone_watched_netflixs_unwell_episode_about/
