Healing Childhood Trauma With Ayahuasca | Carlos Tanner ~ ATTMind 129

Hello everyone, welcome back to Adventures of the Mind. This episode is brought to you by Deep Sky Coffee, locally roasted in Tampa, Florida. If you use the promo code Jesso, you get 10% off your order and you give 5% to psychedelic research. Head to jamescubyjesso.com forward slash coffee to check it out. Welcome everyone. This is Adventures of the Mind.

A podcast exploring topics related or relevant to psychedelic culture medicine research with an ongoing frame of curiosity that asks what does it mean to live a psychedelic life, to be psychedelically informed with the way that we manage ourselves in the world and then additionally like how do we take what happens with our psychedelic experiences and put it into the real life practicalities of the ordinary day to day and all the relationships so and throughout the mix.

And this episode is discussing a topic that is highly relevant to topics together as the same topic both of which are highly relevant to the content, curation or direction of the show. One of which being childhood trauma as childhood trauma plays a pretty significant role in how we experience ourselves and how we engage the world and all the relationships sewn throughout.

And the other topic being ayahuasca which is clearly psychedelic and the topic being how to heal childhood trauma with ayahuasca which is I mean pretty straightforward you could see how that is relevant to the show. The guest we have to talk about this is Carlos Tanner. Carlos is from the United States and has degrees in both art and philosophy. He moved to a Kitos in 2004 and lived with his first teacher for four years before creating the ayahuasca foundation in 2008.

He led every retreat and course until 2012 when he hired two assistant healers to accommodate the opening of the Inken Kenna School. In 2013 he stepped back from leading the programs to dictate more time to the administration of the retreats and courses and to raise his daughter. He currently manages the ayahuasca foundation website, handles the bookings and client communications and organizes the various aspects of each program like management and maintenance.

Recently he has become a voice for the ayahuasca movement and works to spread awareness about the healing potential of plant medicine. So as you just heard me say, Carlos is on the show to talk about healing childhood trauma with ayahuasca, how that happens and what it takes and then what to do with those healing experiences afterwards. This has turned out to be a pretty in-depth conversation.

We had been gearing up to go for about an hour and we ended up going in the actual recording of the conversation over two. So it's a pretty substantial investigation into his work running a retreat center where he has seen and hosted thousands of people over the years explicitly focusing on healing and healing with ayahuasca. A quick note about this is that, well, I actually recorded this like a year ago.

It was recorded a long time ago and it just for whatever reason just didn't fall into the pipeline in a way that had it come out until now. And here we are. So he's talking a little bit about the research that was happening with the associated research center that he helped build. And since then, the research has continued.

So what is present in the ayahuasca foundations sort of like research tab as he mentions at the end of the episode is much more substantial now than it was when he referred to it being kind of meager at the end of the episode. So that's a point to consider. It's been long since sitting in the pile and I'm really happy to bring it up now and bring it out now. So hopefully you're going to enjoy it.

I suspect you will because if you tuned in knowing that it was about childhood trauma and healing with ayahuasca, you are absolutely going to get exactly what you expect to hear or what you're interested in hearing. I don't know if it's going to be what you expect. You'll have to let me know on the subreddit. Big thanks to my patrons on Patreon who make this podcast possible, especially the people whose names are listed on the screen here on YouTube or in the show notes to this episode.

Those people have been giving substantially and some of which for quite a long time. So big thank you to them and to thank you to my patrons in general as your voluntary contribution to the financial integrity of the show allows me to put forth the attentional bandwidth needed to sustain the larger matrix of efforts that hold the show together. So basically you patrons make the show possible for everyone. So thank you very, very much. Becoming a patron is easy.

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Please enjoy this episode with Carlos Tanner of the Iowaska Foundation here on adventures through the mine episode 129. Carlos Tanner, welcome to adventures through the mine. Thanks James. This is great to be here.

So I'm going to talk today about healing childhood trauma with Iowaska and you're going to offer us some of your well-earned perspectives on what this isn't how this works and talk a little bit about the medical research or scientific research that's been happening at the center you work with. But before we get into that, it probably makes sense to for the listeners to contextualize where you're coming from.

So in a general overview of what is your involvement with Iowaska, how did you get into it and where are you now? Sure. My first encounter with Iowaska was in 2003. I was suffering from depression that had turned into addiction and really got to a very low point like the rock bottom point of my life and my intuition led me to the Amazon Rainforest really through a synchronicity event where someone off-friend of mine who was in Ikea dos Peru emailed me right at that, right at the right time.

And I said, this is a sign I'm going to do this. And June of 2003, I went down to Ikea dos Peru, drank Iowaska for the first time. I only drank five times over the course of three weeks. But in those five ceremonies, I had the most profound transformation of my life, was healed of the roots of my affliction, which turned out to be childhood trauma, which I didn't even know was there. I had buried it like so many people I think have.

And during that time also, the corandero invited me to be his student. He recognized me as special capacity for that path and asked if I would like to live with him and be his apprentice. So in 2004, in January, I moved to Ikea dos Peru. My experience has confirmed like his invitation and the reality that this felt like the true path for me in my life.

And so I lived with him from 2004 till 2008, essentially doing like a four-year apprenticeship with him at the end of which I came up with the idea for the Iowaska Foundation, which would be a place that offered healing programs and also training to share like all the things that I had learned as an apprentice with people that felt a similar call to study.

But yet they wouldn't, I could take away like all of the kind of confusion and mistakes that I had made over the course of my apprenticeship and present material in a more westernized format. And so we've been doing that for the last 11 years as the Iowaska Foundation. And we, in 2017, opened a research center.

And magically the right people showed up for that as well, which was Simon Ruffel and Nigel Nettspan who managed to get a grant from the National Health Services of the UK to fund research at our center, which took place last year. And that research focused specifically on healing childhood trauma as well as depression and anxiety. And so it's just been an crazy incredible journey as it's all like unfolded with the most incredible people coming through.

But now I actually am not in the Amazon, although that my background might suggest something different. I'm in Massachusetts right now. My wife and I decided to move here last year because we have a five year old daughter. So I commute now back to the back and forth of the Amazon to manage the Iowaska Foundation.

So my next trip back will be in about six weeks, a little less than that to start phase two of the research at the new research center as well as to start an eight week initiation course and to do a retreat. I'll be participating in a full retreat in April. Interesting. So I'd love to get the sort of what the preliminary results are. Phase one, phase two. So you've completed phase one.

I want to get a sense of what the, I guess what were the scientists, the researchers going in looking for and what did they find, but I don't want to do that yet. I kind of want to get a sense when we were talking in our like prep interview, we were talking about childhood trauma and your thoughts around how Iowaska explicitly can heal childhood trauma. And so where is a good entry point there into this discussion? Because there's more than just Iowaska can heal childhood trauma.

There's important factors for context and engagement that make the difference between whether or not it's going to be effective or not. So where's a good entry point here into the conversation around childhood trauma and the role Iowaska can play in healing it? Sure. Well, I, first of all, I am not a doctor. You know, I don't come from medical background. My language that I use is probably not going to be like medically, whatever acceptable perhaps.

But I just have a layman's point of view, but I have been able to witness over 1,000 people come through our centers and to be able to observe those healing processes and my own personal process, but also to speak with them specifically about their processes. And so first of all, like the way that I think that the way to start would be to talk about what is childhood trauma. I think that almost everyone of us has some form of childhood trauma, but what do we mean when we say that?

You know, what does that actually mean? And to me, it means that at some point and usually with a specific event that created a particular decision, but the event was surrounded or took place in a heightened state of awareness. And that heightened state of awareness on a mental, on an emotional and on a physical level, like all of our senses, our capacities were in a heightened awareness state.

We made a decision that was inaccurate and detrimental to our self-perception and to our health essentially. Basically that statement could be summed up by saying something like, it's my fault or I don't deserve whatever. I don't deserve love. I don't deserve a good life. I don't deserve success because I have made a decision that I'm not worthy. And so the making of that decision in that hyper-sensitive state sinks that decision. Deep into our literal bodies.

It sinks a truth in our self-understanding, deep inside us. And because of the hypersensitivity, our normal waking life can't access it because we're not normally hypersensitive. And in the case of a trauma, that hypersensitivity is created typically by extreme emotionally terror or fear, deep sadness, anger, all of these negative emotions, extreme emotions and environments. In childhood trauma, you're not the one that's creating the fear.

But the fear is being produced by an environmental factor. And so that can be like getting attacked by a dog. That's like a trauma and probably a lot of people have had that trauma where they were attacked by a dog when they were small. It didn't mean that they even got mulled or something. But it was enough of a hypersensitive state that now seeing a dog creates this trigger and they can't shake it.

They can't get rid of it because it was driven so deep inside them because of that hypersensitive state. And there's obviously a wide spectrum of trauma. So now going forward, if I can, how wide is ayahuasca work? What's so great about ayahuasca or other psychedelics? But specifically, ayahuasca is what I have the most experience with. Ayahuasca creates a hypersensitive state. That's exactly what it does. It is designed to do that.

It creates a hypersensitive awareness on a mental level, an emotional level, and a physical level. So essentially, you are able to replicate or surpass the hypersensitivity state that you experienced during the trauma except that it is not created through negative emotion. It's actually created through positive intention where you are not terrorized. You are not angry, you are not overwhelmed with negative emotion during the process.

You might be overwhelmed in a certain way, but you are overwhelmed through conscious intention. You are choosing to go into the hypersensitive state by going into the ceremony and accepting the cup. You are capable of using your will within that space as opposed to being out of control in the determinations you are making or interpretations that you are making as a child.

So because of that, but more so because you are matching or surpassing the hypersensitivity state that the trauma was created in, you are actually able to reach the depth of where that decision, that misinterpretation that became a personal truth in your life resides, which is usually in your body. And then you are able to release it. You are able to transform it back into the realm of belief or idea.

Lift it out of your body back into your emotional body or back into your mental body where it evaporates, where it is easy to let go of it. And so modern or Western therapy doesn't replicate, doesn't match those hypersensitivity states. Typically, when you are trying to deal with childhood trauma in a therapeutic setting in the Western world, you are like comfortably laying on a couch. You are not hypersensitive at all. If anything, you are almost like dulled.

And so in the process of psychoanalysis, perhaps you are raising the emotional levels by going into that depth, but you are not combining it with the physical hypersensitivity and the mental hypersensitivity. You are not creating the entire hypersensitivity awareness that was created or was experienced during the trauma. But psychedelics do. And ayahuasca specifically, it creates this extremely hypersensitivity state.

And that is why it is such a powerful medicine, but especially when you are trying to release detrimental personal truths that are buried deep inside you. And then you can replace them too, because in that hypersensitivity state that you created a detrimental truth, that same state makes it possible to create a positive, beneficial truth. And so you can then take a truth. You can release a truth that says, it's my fault and I don't deserve this and replace it with I am a complete being.

I am a divine being. I am healed. You know, I have love. I love myself. And those truths are obviously the truths that lend themselves to physiological responses towards healthy behavior. So there's a couple of questions that are emerging there for me. One of which is a question around the relational context that gives rise to trauma or healing. And another of which is this accessing whatever the, how did you describe it? That sort of like core moment where this belief was seated in the body.

And what that's like. So when I think about the relational element, I'm thinking about how sure lots of people get attacked by dogs, not everyone becomes traumatized by it though. And that the difference there might be something akin to whether or not, you know, the child that was attacked by the dog or whatever happened had a safe context to enter back into to be supported in discharging all the feelings around that.

And so they can, they can then lean into the impression of I was attacked by a dog. And also I'm safe and I'm loved with their parents or whatever. And so it doesn't get sort of locked into this particular thing. And then we carry it for the rest of our lives, this fear or whatever. And that this releasing of these emotions in a safe context is an important aspect for the kid of not entering into trauma. Same for a car accident.

I mean, I think Gabor Montes says, you know, car accidents aren't necessarily traumatic because if they were, everyone who had a car accident would have trauma, but that's not necessarily the case. It's not the event itself, but it's how that event is managed afterwards. And whether or not there's an opportunity to clear the emotional overwhelm that was present at the actual event in a context of of safety to some degree that or of caring that allows those emotions to discharge.

And like you had said, like that old impression, the dog will attack me or I'm worthless, can be updated with a new impression like, oh, sometimes dogs attack. That's very different than dogs will attack me, right? Or I was in a car accident rather than the impression of like, I'm not safe, period. So where is in the context of healing childhood trauma with ayahuasca, where does this relational element come in? Like what is its role if you see it to have a role at all?

And additionally inside of that relational element, what does it look like to move these old trauma impressions from the body out? Because I mean, what comes to mind is sort of like my own experiences and many other people reporting like, oh, yeah, they had some great healing and a vast majority of it was them in pain, like in pain, in worthlessness on the edge of their life, dying whatever they could be in very, very dark places or the course of it and somehow that's their healing.

So I mean, this is very much like a fishy kind of question. Like it's fishing very directly for an answer. So I want you to, you know, like go against what I'm saying if it doesn't align with what you're talking about here. But there's the general question. That's the terrain, you know, like relational context and like the feeling of these feelings. Like if you could go into that.

Sure, well, I mean, I think that unfortunately consciousness is so far beyond our ability to understand it and because we have to use it to try to understand it, you know, we do the best that we can. My language would say interpretation where you're saying like relational context, of course, like relational context is a way of describing how we put our thoughts together, like how we relate. And so to me, that's like going to essentially have a very strong influence on our interpretation.

Like the way that we interpret our experiences is vastly determined by our relational context if not exclusively, you know, and so I still, you know, I still say like the misinterpretation. Hopefully you have an inaccurate interpretation and that seems to be like what you're describing, like the people that don't get traumatized because they have an accurate interpretation.

But when you do have a misinterpretation, then you usually result in having a trauma, like or at least you describe that misinterpretation as a trauma and it's a misinterpretation that sinks down to that level. To me, more importantly is to understand and it's an opinion I have, you know, I again, like I don't have any data to support that the hypersensitive state that where traumas are created in is even viable.

It's just an observation of people talking about their traumas and having my own personal experience. And you know, if we gave two examples of being in a car accident and being attacked by a dog, if you just imagine those two things, you can say like, oh, yeah, you'd probably be pretty like in a hypersensitive state at that time. And again, it's my theory that it requires a equal or surpassing hypersensitivity state to access them.

And so the relational context to me is definitely important, but once the trauma is created, then you just are going to have to deal with it. You know, you're going to have to like try your best to replace that misinterpretation with an accurate interpretation. And I feel like when you achieve a hypersensitive state like within ayahuasca ceremonies, it's almost like you've started scuba diving, you know, like you've gone down to a particular depth.

And because you are now at that depth, you are seeing all of the creatures that live at that particular depth, but if you were to stay at the surface, you could never see those creatures because you just can't get deep enough. You can't see deep enough to know that they exist. In this case, those creatures are the experiences that we had in hypersensitive states.

And so when you take ayahuasca and you have like a powerful ceremony because it's not guaranteed that that's going to happen, you get down to this hypersensitivity. And then all of the experiences that you had in those hypersensitive states are now like available. They're like, you know, they're swimming around you now. And so it's very, it's much more easy to experience them again. You're going to kind of see them again, watch these scenes play out.

And clearly, if those were very difficult times, if those were hypersensitivity states, created by negative emotions or harmful environments, then it's going to be a challenge. It's going to be a painful process. It's going to be a process that is not enjoyable in the throws of it while you're having it.

But people say it's healing because they're able to, one, like in my case, remember them because sometimes, I think oftentimes, like the traumas that are deepest in our lives aren't so accessible. We're not like, oh yeah, I totally remember that. Because if they were, they would be messing with our daily day to day life. We would be like so infected by them. So we almost have to like just bury them. Just get rid of them because I can't deal with it.

And so now, like you're having to deal with it. And that's such a common description of how people talk about ayahuasca. Like well, you've got to face, you know, you've got to face your whatever it is, your darkness, you've got to face your shadow, you've got to face your fears, you've got to face whatever it is. And I think that's, I mean, I think that's not for nothing. People have that description for a reason. And so it definitely can be like a very troubling experience.

It definitely can be where you're reliving the scenes that were so detrimental to your self-perception that literally like cracked your soul and let your love pour out the side. And it's the reason why you're been unfulfilled for so many years. That's not going to be fun to watch. That's not going to be fun to feel again.

But because you're there in a mature mind, you know, you're not a child anymore, you do have the ability to analyze your own consciousness, your own thoughts, your own experiences. And you do have the ability to maturely make an accurate interpretation of those experiences. You can then change the past in a way because by reinterpreting more accurately your experiences from the past, then the meaning of those experiences can drastically be redefined.

And then all of the detrimental belief systems that were built upon that detrimental truth or that wrong truth crumble, you know. And the trouble is that that's not the end of the show. That's not the end of the healing. That's just step one of the healing, the infection of the trauma, you know, is all pervading in your life. And the rest of the world doesn't get healed when you reinterpret a truth to be more accurate and beneficial for yourself. Your relationships are still tainted.

You know, everything around you is still tainted. And so the real healing starts with that step one, which is obviously essential, but then it takes oftentimes a long time to recalibrate the dynamics of those relationships, you know, and heal all of the secondary effects of the detrimental trauma. So there's, that's great. I want to go into integration because that's what you're pointing to in that last statement feel like you're really pointing to the necessity of integration.

I mean, I sometimes use a language of like, you know, making the mistake of believing that simply because you had a healing experience, you are now healed, you know, that it doesn't require actionable effort afterwards to sort of carry that into the rest of your life. And I also want to go into preparation as well.

You have a fairly extensive sense of how to prepare oneself to have a healing experience with ayahuasca, but there's still two pieces here that I feel like I would like to hear your thoughts or clarifications on. And it goes back into relational context and into sort of going down to that sort of like subterranean, the deep sea depths and seeing the weird angler fishes and all the rest like roaming around in there, which is that I'm totally on board with you about

this sense of, as an I understand and agree, this sense of being able to go back into the past and be immersed in it while also holding this, like holding the adult mind's capacity to orient oneself differently, your language, like changing the interpretation to a more accurate truth or something. And yet, thinking about ayahuasca bringing this hyper-sensitive state, well, let me find the language here.

Listening it makes it seem as though this is an independent individual experience that by taking the ayahuasca, that is what's going to happen.

And I could say, if I'm not considering relational context, that this is just a personal experience that I'm having, where I'm changing my own interpretations by nature of the ayahuasca doing this thing for me, which I don't in any way assume that that's what you're claiming, because I have a greater understanding of your thoughts or of ceremony and all the rest.

But I'm curious now, because when we're in a place of really being in the trauma, it's not like we always have, oh yeah, this is just an experience. There's very much at times, in my experience with ayahuasca, that this isn't just an experience I'm having again, I'm really grappling with like, I actually am feeling all of these things right now as if they're true right now, rather than just being in that sort of like met a mind of experiencing it.

And those are the times where the only thing that gets me through it is to be able to trust in something that's beyond my immediate interpretations, and that trusting is a relational trusting towards the integrity of the people running the ceremony, to the music, to, I mean for some people, you know, for myself, to the ayahuasca itself. And so then it becomes a relational context.

So I'm curious then if you can maybe talk a little bit about the importance of a relational context, which is, I mean, you use your own language here obviously, which is, you know, like ceremony and the relationships that exist within ceremony to bring about this kind of healing. Because otherwise, I mean, I could drink ayahuasca and go right back into my childhood trauma and be absolutely flocked as a consequence of it because I wasn't in the right environment.

So if you could talk a little bit about environment and relational context, again, I'm using my languages because that's where I got, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah, totally. I appreciate you bringing that up. I admit that like I, I have a very kind of narrow experience channel because I've only, I lived in the Amazon rainforest for 16 years, but I only went to ceremonies led by indigenous healers in the Amazon rainforest. That's my ayahuasca, you know.

So when I say ayahuasca, like I'm talking about going to a ceremony led by a indigenous healer in the Amazon rainforest, I've only drank ayahuasca four times anywhere else outside of the Amazon rainforest. You know, I've drank ayahuasca like 700 times in the Amazon rainforest and four outside of that. And it, it's so like difficult for me to even imagine that someone might just drink ayahuasca.

So when I'm saying like ayahuasca, I'm actually referring to this, this really well-defined science of plant medicine where ayahuasca is a central part of that science or that tradition, if you want to call it that. So I appreciate like being reminded that that's not the case now.

You know, we live in a pretty different world now where you could probably just, wherever you are, go to an ayahuasca ceremony or just buy a bottle of ayahuasca or just read the instruction or whatever, you know, it's a different world from where I've been living for the last 16 years. And so I really appreciate that because I think it's just incredibly different, incredibly important I want to say.

But at the same time, like I'm open to the idea that there are certain individuals that could just drink ayahuasca, you know, because of the way that they've been developed in their own abilities or consciousness or however, you know, I don't want to discount that. I don't want a lot of people to be like commenting saying that I'm saying you shouldn't drink ayahuasca by yourself. But I do feel like the influence of the ceremony is tremendous.

And the level of trust that you have is absolutely tremendous.

You describe something that so many people that have come through our center describe where because they felt that they could trust the people that were running the ceremony, they were able to like keep going, you know, instead of like resisting, instead of like running away from whatever it was that was essentially the opportunity for tremendous transformation that level of trust allowed them to move forward into a real challenging time.

But yet one that would ultimately have the greatest outcome for them. And so it is incredibly important to me. And that is what I call inner environment. You know, I think you're calling it relational context. For me, I call it inner environment, I guess maybe just because of plants. You know, like soil. So we've got like our soil and we want to plant the seed into that soil. And you want to have the best soil possible because the seed will grow only in the best soil.

So that the ayahuasca is like the seed that you're planting. But you need to nourish your soil. You can't just like toss it on concrete. And that to me is the purpose of the ceremony. But it's really the purpose of the entire science. The science surrounding the use of plant medicine and the rituals surrounding the use of plant medicine start way before you ingest the substance.

You know, the process, the healing mechanism start to become activated far before the cup touches your lips, at least from my perception and the way that I've observed the ceremonies and the way that we run the programs. I actually think that people, they're healing retreats. Like we run retreats at the ayahuasca foundation and people's retreats start when they click the button to register because there is this act of activation. It's like I'm starting this now. I'm making a commitment.

And the commitment starts this chain reaction of physiological responses where you're literally like telling yourself, like, hey, I'm going to do this. You know, I'm going to go where I was too scared to go. And so all of these things, that kind of little doors start getting unlocked. You know, all of the physiological responses of preparations start to begin at that time.

And the more trust that you have, the more positive your attitude is, the more faith that you have, you know, however you want to describe it, all of those are like nourishing your inner environment. So all of these attitudes that you have, all of your beliefs that you have, when I would, I used to pick up every single participant at the airport and we used to drive from the airport to the hotel where we would gather the whole group before we'd head out to our retreat center.

And that drive is about 20 minutes in a kitos. And in those 20 minutes, obviously, I would speak to them. And there were these really key markers that would send messages to me about the level of nourishment in their inner environment that had been achieved. And that was almost an identical correlation to the outcome, the level of healing that they would achieve in there at the end of the retreat.

And that's how I came to look more at the inner environment and also look to find ways to cultivate the inner environment. And one of the greatest messages, the greatest markers was the phrase, whatever it takes. If someone would just throw out whatever it takes when I would be talking about that it might not be so easy, it's probably not going to be that fun. I hope you didn't think this was a vacation.

And their response is, hey, whatever it takes, I'm in this, I'm committed, whatever it takes, I'm going to do it. And that's not just about healing. That's just life in general, I feel. But it's a great way to kind of sum up how people's inner environments relate so directly to the outcome that they achieve. And someone is ready to do whatever it takes. Then they're clearly like paving the way, they're opening the doors to go the furthest in the process.

And so how do you get someone to get to that point? And Iowaska has so much going for it because it has ancestral lineage that goes back before history. You can't find the beginning of it, and because it's such an intact ancestral tradition, indigenous tradition, because it works with plants, because these are beings that are hundreds of millions of years old, these trees, these plants, and all of those factors already tend for most people to lend themselves towards trust.

We look at a forest and we say that is perfect, that's exactly how it should be. That's life right there, that's gorgeous. Some people might not think that. But most people tend to think that nature has got it pretty done well. They figured it out, nature's got it going. And that's a big plus. And then there's a perception and idea about indigenous people and that they lived in harmony with nature and that they connected with their environment in such a way that they never destroyed it.

And those are also these components. And those have been kind of increasing, I think, in recent decades where we honor indigenous wisdom, there's the term indigenous wisdom that might not have existed just a couple generations ago. That might not have been a thing that Westerners would have said. But savage a couple generations ago. Exactly, right. So now we're not looking at people as primitive.

We're actually looking at indigenous people as, we're the primitive ones on a certain level and they're the ones that can help us to civilize our spirits or our souls. And so all of those things are already working to nourish that inner environment or to create an optimal relational context. And so then when you take the ayahuasca, already you've got those at play. Already you know to trust the process. That's another great one. Trust the process.

When someone's like, well, I started to feel really scared and I just remember to trust the process. You're like, great. Awesome. Because when you trust the process, physiological responses back off. You don't have like, oh, I started to get really scared. But then I trust the process. And there's a literal physiological retreat of the normal like response to fear. And then there are specific rituals within the practice. You know, ceremonies are held in Malokas. Maloka is a ceremony space.

So right when you walk into a ceremony space, it's almost like walking in for some people walking into their church. Like something changes just by the nature of the building because there's purpose infused in the construction. You know, the building is made for a purpose and you know what that purpose is. And so just by entering it, you don't joke around as much. You're not acting as goofy. All of a sudden like a shift starts to happen in the way that you compose yourself.

You know, you start taking things maybe not seriously, but certainly more solemnly. Like more, they're important just by walking into the space. But then there's a very common ritual which is to stage your intentions. So when you receive the cup of ayahuasca, you stage your intentions. Whether you do that out loud or just in your mind, there is this purposeful focus. You know, what are you achieving by stating your intention?

Well, you're definitely focusing exactly why this substance is going into your body. And you're doing it right at the moment where the substance goes into your body. So even if you were to deny the communication elements, the spiritual communication elements, which I'm a huge believer in, but I understand that that's a kind of a far out concept for a lot of people if they aren't familiar with the indigenous practice, just on a physiological

explanation, focusing your intentions so that when a new experience, a new substance comes into your body, you have love for it, appreciation for it, gratitude for it, then that's going to have a big impact on how your body receives it and how what it does with that substance that you've ingested. And so then you turn out all the lights. You can't see. So you're not going to be distracted. The outside world is certainly not what deserves your attention at that time, even if you wanted to.

You can't really pay too much attention to it. And so that brings yourself inward. All of these things and the songs, the songs that are sung, I mean, of course there is the purpose within the indigenous culture of the direct communication with the plant spirits, which I definitely believe in. But even if you take that away, the songs are constantly this reminder of the focus. They're intimately connected to the experience.

Ayahuasca, ecaros, they're like one and the same, ceremony, the medicine, they're one and the same. And so all of it is constantly like keeping you more and more focused on the goal at hand. And then even the hypersensitivity becomes enhanced. Obviously the hypersensitivity will be enhanced by darkness. If you just went into a pitch black room, you become more hypersensitivity.

So there's like physical elements, mental elements, emotional elements, all combining to essentially enhance the effect of the medicine. So it's far more than just the medicine. And that's definitely what you're pointing at. And I agree with it 100%. Unfortunately, because my whole world is, if I say Ayahuasca, like obviously, I mean Amazon Rainforest, Maloga, indigenous Guaranteiro, ecaros, ceremony, all of that is just because that's the only way I've ever done it.

So I appreciate the reminder, but definitely like all of that is, I think actually more important than the medicine that you take. So I love your concept of the inner environment. I love the metaphor, like the seed metaphor, the soil metaphor. I think that's great. I think I want to clarify for myself that I don't actually see inner environment and relational context as being the same. I actually see your inner environment and I'm like, yeah, that makes sense.

And then relational context is different. But they're infused. If you think of it or not infused, like interrelated. Like my inner environment is a system. And then my outer environment is also a system. And then there's a system of those two systems interacting with each other. So the Maloga, the intentions of the group, the relationships you have, the sort of influence that the way other people are showing up to the experience has on your own, on how you build your inner environment.

So the entire outside world, the entire world around you, and what the context of the people and the relationships, the traditions over time in the moment, but also over time, over generations, but also over the course of your knowing the people, their time there, everything that's happening outside of you is the relational context that you have. So what is your relationship to those people? What is those people's relationships to each other, to the medicine, to ceremony?

What is the relationship to the ceremony, to the larger tradition of ayahuasca? How does your understanding of that? How do you relate to your understanding of that? How do you relate to authority? How do you relate to all these things? And that is the relational context. It's both inner and outer, sort of undivided.

It's like the intersection points of the inner outer is the relational context, which then I'm hearing you say is what helps to infuse this inner environment in a way that allows for more effective healing work to be done.

Because without those things, without the ceremony or like Indigenous shaman, or of somebody at the front of the room with integrity and experience and skill, that the chances of you being able to go into that place to build an inner environment is going to be less because it's like the variables in the relational context aren't fine tuned to invite that into the inner environment. Yeah, I totally see what you're saying. I mean, I definitely would say that they're very tightly connected.

Obviously, the way I'm going to relate to anything is going to be absolutely determined by how I am. So my inner environment will have the most profound influence on the way that I relate. Obviously, if I don't trust anyone, then I'm going to relate with people in a very different way than if I do trust everyone.

And so that's why I guess I focus more on the inner environment because I think that the way that we relate to the world around us is the product of the way that we have nourished or the way that we've constructed our inner environment. But yeah, totally. I mean, I'm not sure where you draw the line, especially in the relation. And the relation. If my relationship more about the other person or is it about me, I'm not sure. But I totally understand. I can definitely relate to that. There you go.

We're in it. So let's talk a little bit about, I want to get into integration afterwards. But in so far as childhood trauma, okay, childhood trauma could be anything from what do we say to a dog attack to profound sexual abuse to, I mean, people might not think of this as trauma, but it's quite traumatizing for a child, the early death of a parent, or the death of a parent early in the child's life, for example, what is ayahuasca in your experience good for helping with?

Where does it succeed, like exceed or not exceed? Where is it great and where is it not so great? Is there certain things that's like ayahuasca might not be the thing for you or there are certain things that's like, oh, yeah, like, oh, early separation from the mother. Oh, yeah, ayahuasca is Dutch covered there. So are there certain things that you're like ayahuasca is really great at this kind of thing or there are other things that's like, maybe ayahuasca is not a great choice for this?

And if just talking about childhood trauma, I really wouldn't look at it that way. You know, ayahuasca obviously is not, ayahuasca doesn't really do it, you know, like it's not like you just take it and then all of a sudden all this stuff happens. You are the one that's essentially doing it, but because ayahuasca and the ceremony and the tradition are creating this environment, which I am referring to as a hypersensitism state, then in within the hypersensitive state, what can you achieve?

And my personal feeling really is that because of the hypersensitive state, you're just able to achieve so much. Now I definitely acknowledge that there is, I would say, a very profound spectrum, like a very large spectrum of trauma. You know, there's some very extreme trauma and there's what would probably could be called like mild trauma.

Although to a person, I'm not sure if that spectrum, you know, that's a spectrum looking at the population, but on an individual level, you have your personal spectrum, which is essentially the worst trauma you've experienced and the least trauma you've experienced, you know, and that worst will always be the bottom of your spectrum, you know, each individual person has their personal spectrum and everyone has a worst. And so the worst on a personal level is always just the worst.

It doesn't, it, do you know what I'm saying? It's like it takes like looking at the vast population to then say, oh, well, that person's worst seems like worse than this person's worst, but you don't experience it that way. You don't feel it that way because you've never experienced worse than you're worst. And I'm sorry for saying that word over again, but I think you know what I'm talking about, right?

And so to me, like entering into the hypersensitive state and then what you can do with it, just there's just so much more potential than without having the hypersensitive state. And by that, I don't, you know, of course, I mean like the entirety of the tradition because it's not just the hypersensitive state.

The hypersensitive states are why you have traumas, so it's not like just having a hypersensitive state works, but it is the feature of the ayahuasca that I look at the most, I credit the most with gaining access to the damaging truths produced by traumas and the ability for us to replace them. Does that make sense? Yeah, it doesn't make sense. It reminds me of Victor Frankl, man, search for meaning. He says his metaphor is something like it's like smoke in a room.

I think he's explicitly used the word trauma and it's like for each person, it's like smoke in the room. For everybody, it's like something different is burning in there, but nonetheless the room is filling up with smoke and it clouds your vision. So or clouds your ability to see clearly or breathe fresh air or whatever the extension of the metaphor.

So I'm not sure how to broach this particular subject, but we're talking about, again, I'm leaning into relational context here, maybe the boundaries by which we each define the self are located at different distances from the individual person here, but the

context that you're talking about, like the, which is a Shopeebo, I understand, like Shopeebo ceremony with a shaman of good integrity over generations and it's formed around a Western, I mean for you, maybe not, but like for the people who are coming to your center formed around this sort of like translation into a, into the language of a Western thing. So people can understand, I'm here to heal trauma and all the rest.

The shaman's understand that they've got their own thing going on with their own stuff that people do or do not need to understand in order to receive a healing, but to sort of contextualize in this way for people to heal.

And you've, you've referred to spirits and then you've said, you know, I believe that but also you don't, one does not need to believe that to get the positive benefit out of the ayahuasca, one does not need to believe their in relationship with an intelligent plant spirit that's healing them in order to receive some sort of healing experience. So then in that understanding of childhood trauma and healing it, where do these things fit in?

In the sense of where does, where does plant spirits come in and in particular, where does the, where does the belief of benevolent entities come into this? And also, where does the tradition of I think what's like magic darks, darks or darks sorcery come into your understanding of the healing power of ayahuasca? Oh, well, just that little question. So yeah. Well, I'll try to take those a couple one at a time.

You know, I've been talking about ayahuasca for a long time in my life and obviously I've run up against some resistance, the greatest resistance being the acceptance of spirits. If I say something to the nature of, and that's when I met the spirit of this plant, you know, that's a sentence that I recognize that a lot of people, it does not register. And unfortunately, it might discredit their respect for me. You know, they might just say, well, you, yeah, you just lost me there.

And now you're just off the deep end or something you're talking about, like having plants come and speak to you. You're in a fantasy world now. Yeah, right. You're hallucinating, you know? And so for that reason, I have found that I prefer to not use those terms just because I feel like there's a way to describe them with a general acceptance.

Now in the right, with the right people, obviously when I talk to the coroned arrows that I work with, I don't say consciousness once, you know, because that's a term that they don't even relate to. You know, so, but I've found that I've kind of replaced spirit with consciousness because consciousness is not a crazy term.

You know, everyone accepts, yep, I'm a conscious being, consciousness exists, you know, and so it's quite simple for me to still get the point across, but using terms that people might actually stay with me on, you know, and follow me and listen to me. And so for that reason, I'm not so concerned about how you describe it. Like I've had experiences that for me were impossible for me to interpret them in a different way, personally.

But someone else might have had those exact same experiences and say that I was hallucinating or that my consciousness created it or whatever it is, you know, I'm not, I don't even care. You know, did you get healed?

You know, if the way that you describe it is that you had a hallucination or that your consciousness reached a depth that you normally couldn't or that you interacted directly with a benevolent being that guided you towards this healing practice, like all of that is irrelevant because it's simply a description and the what is relevant is the actual outcome, you know, the effect.

And so for that reason, like I speak in that way, you know, I can't just jump in here for a second, just for a point of clarification.

It's irrelevant, personally, in some sense, like everybody can interpret it differently their experience, but it is relevant in the sense that how, like the interpretations that are drawn because you talked about interpretations being in, how the interpretations are drawn and what the personal meaning of those interpretations are is important for the individual healing experience.

But objectively, if you believe it was a hallucination or you believe you actually interacted with a benevolent plant spirit, if it feels on a deep meaning level that what you've done is now reinterpreted old experiences that leads to a long-term process of healing and wellness and all the rest, then that's what matters more so than what the story is. Am I understanding that correctly? Yes, completely. Yeah. Now I agree. Like, and you know, it's obviously complexity.

Do I think that spirits are with me all the time? Yes. And by thinking that spirits or really, I mean, I, thinking doesn't even sound right. Like I know that spirits are with me all the time. I know that spirits are guiding my life. And so what is the impact of that knowledge on the way that I choose to live my life? Well, it has a tremendous impact.

If I was to think that it was a just hallucination, I might, I don't think that I would be able to carry that same impact into my day-to-day life, into the future of my path forward. You know, so I do think that it makes a difference. But at the same time, you could make it work. You know, people can make whatever they need to do to make it work. You can't convince yourself to believe something that you don't feel is true, you know? And so I guess that's where we're all at.

And that's kind of tying into the ayahuasca experience. So how does that like, how does that relate? Like how does thinking about spirit and looking at believing in benevolent beings? That would be it, you know? Like if you believe in benevolent beings, and you are extending this trust beyond yourself, like a hallucination, if you think that it was a hallucination, then it's just yours, and you can still kind of feel like you're alone in the world, you're just an individual on the planet.

But once benevolent beings become part of your reality, the framework of your reality, now you begin to have that kind of interconnectedness. Now you begin to have a synchronicity. Now you begin to feel like there is something being open for you. Opportunities are being created for you.

There's a reason that you know that you will meet the right person that you need, which is a literal explanation of how the research center happened for me, where I got an email offering a grant to build a research center. I accepted it. I started to build a research center. People constantly asked me, what are you going to be doing in the research center? I said, I don't know, I'm not a researcher, but I know that this happened for a reason.

And so I'm sure that by the time I've finished building it, the right people will have arrived. And they did. And you know, you could say that's a coincidence, but there's a bunch of ways of looking at it. The way that I look at it is that it was part of a plan, that benevolent beings or the spirits of plants quite literally created this plan, that they've, they've, have me, you know, as someone that believes in them. So they have put forth this plan for me.

And I think that by believing that, it does lend itself to becoming the reality. You know, and I think that if you talk to anyone, whatever their success story is, you're never going to get to a point where they're like, yeah, I knew I could never do it. You know, that's not a common phrase. They're like, I just kept thinking that I'm going to do it. They just kept believing that they would do it, whatever that is. Now when it comes to the darts, when it comes to the dark energy and the...

No, let's, let's, let's pause your second here. Maybe I, there was a bunch in that. So if I'm missing something, go ahead. No, totally.

I just want to just comment on something here, which was just like pointing out again somewhat with a, with like a mischievous satisfaction in myself, how you are now also talking about shifting the relational context in which you exist, which changes your inner sense of reality and the inner sense of capacity because now of believing in the benevolent spirits and, and all the rest. So I'm like, him, I might not like, yeah, relational context, you're coming in again, positive.

But also to just leaning into you talking about the positive impact of this, shifting in belief about the nature of reality. But also again, that isn't necessary to believe that as true in order to have experiences with ayahuasca that lead to healing childhood trauma.

Precisely. Because I, I just want to make that really clear for listeners who are like, because I have a lot of listeners who are much more maybe on board like if we were to make a divide between like, I don't know, like 100%, it's totally real to 100%, it's totally psychosis that they're like, and I'm sort of like in the middle slightly towards not so sure if they're real.

There's a lot, I think that there's a lot of people that I'm listen, that listen, that aren't really on board with this spirit thing. And then there are a lot of people who really are. So I just kind of want to like clarify that particular piece essentially. Yeah. No, I think that you've definitely hit it on the head. I don't, like I, we're getting into the depths here. I'm kind of opening up in a way that I don't normally open up, you know, to the average person.

I kind of stay in a consciousness lane because I feel like it is just the most widely accepted. But if you want to know my personal truth, which I'm now sharing, like it's deeper or different, I guess, than the consciousness lane. And the direct experience that I had, which is a short story, my very second ceremony, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked over to see what it was.

My eyes were open, but in an ayahuasca ceremony, it was the hand of a man standing next to me and looking down at me very kindly with an expression of kindness, except that he wasn't a man like we would know, you know, he was made of light, like he was a spirit, but I felt his hand on my shoulder, which is why I looked over in the first place. And my eyes are open. He was so like, so real.

Right at that moment, my friend and the ceremony called over to me, Carlos, I'm looking over at you right now and it looks like there's a man standing next to you. And I was like, yeah, I know. I'm looking at that. Yeah. And I said, but it's okay. He's a good guy. Like I could just tell the same way you can tell when you meet someone that they're a good person. And she was like, are you sure? Because it's freaking me out. And I said, no, no, it's okay. It's he's a good guy.

And you know, instantly I was like, okay, well she can see him. I'm looking at him. She's looking at him. We're both looking at him. I can feel him touching me. So I put my hand out and shook his hand. I introduced myself. He introduced himself. And then we spoke. That moment for me, that's all I needed. That was my second ceremony, which I think was important.

Maybe if it had happened like in my hundredth ceremony or something, I would have had built up like my own ideas, but it was the second ceremony. So I was like, holy shit. This is real. Not just that he was like some dude either. He was a very close person in my childhood who had committed suicide six months earlier. I hadn't seen him in ten years. I hadn't talked to him in ten years. I hadn't been in touch with him in ten years. He was my godmother's son. He was ten years older than me.

And so when I was six, he was sixteen. We would, I would stay over at his house and wake up early. We'd collect worms. He would take me fishing. He was like a mentor in my life. But because of the age gap, he went off to college and whatever. Our lives went in completely different directions. He ended up living on the west coast. He was in the military like, whatever. I didn't ever talk to him again. I didn't talk to him for ten years. And now here he was. And yet he had died.

And so maybe you can imagine my mind was blown. But it had a very specific impact on my belief system. At that point, I believed in spirit. So that's why I believed that. That's why I have that way. Everyone would. You can think UFOs aren't real. And then one lands in your backyard. And now you think they're real. So I get it. It does make a difference, I think. It does have an impact. But at the same time, being different doesn't mean that you can't achieve your goals.

Just having a different interpretation doesn't mean that you can't achieve your goals. And I certainly agree that people can be healed without ever believing in plants. For sure. I also want to lean into saying that there's. But one thing, there's multiple things. Oh my God, here we go. One thing is that I think it's important for me recognizing that simply the fact that you believe it. And even for myself, I've had similar-ish experiences.

And I'm closer on, I'm much actually closer maybe to saying like, yep, I believe that these things are real. And I believe does not actually mean that they are real by any means. Like that, like me experiencing it subjectively, even if it, I'm like 100% convinced and a couple other people are in on it, doesn't necessarily mean that it's real, even if it's there. You know, and I think there's something there that I want to be cautious about, a type of thinking that's usually not intentional.

And often comes out with atheists, which is this sort of like, yeah, I respect that other people have religious beliefs and they can have their beliefs. And I respect that. But actually on an internal thing, what's being said is, yeah, I can respect that other people are wrong. Because people can be wrong and I'm right.

And I think I want to be clear that on some level, it's like for the people listening that there isn't a tone of, yeah, yeah, some people can believe what's not true, which is that spirit that aren't real. And that's fine. But the fact that we, I mean, for myself, I'm still very agnostic about it. Yes, I believe that they're probably real, but I also recognize that I don't actually know.

And I might not ever know beyond that degree of, until like a bunch of people can all come around and all see and meet this spirit in some way. And I get like 20 or 30 people describing the same experience in different contexts or something. How do I, how does it become objectively real? And I kind of want to make sure that there isn't a perceived sense of that superiority tone in the discussion. Yeah, I appreciate that. I don't know either.

You know, I think that's kind of the common ground that none of us know. I definitely feel like the way that I have tried to maybe universalize it, which again, is just going to be like another opinion. You know, it's just going to be another perspective, but I just believe that everything is consciousness. You know, I don't think that there is such a thing as something not being consciousness.

So my definition of consciousness is the universe, the energy that all carries consciousness in it, every molecule, every cell, every whatever you want to quantify it, every quark, every electron, it's made of consciousness. That's my personal perception. So if there are spirits, they're made of consciousness. My thoughts are made of consciousness. My dreams are made of consciousness. The chair is made of consciousness. Trees are made of consciousness. Everything is just made of consciousness.

And for me, that helps me to kind of like universalize everything. But again, that's like another, you know, I don't believe that everything is consciousness. Well, you're wrong. So in the end, we all have our own perspectives from our perspective. We're always going to be 100% accurate. You know, the way that I look at something, I will always be able to see it accurately. But no one will know. No, since you are accurately seeing what you're seeing.

Like, yes, what I believe is 100% correctly what I believe, which doesn't necessarily suggest that it's real.

Although I can respect and appreciate that there are likely people out there who do not go through the, might be a compensational mental gymnastics to make up for a deeply ungrounded and disoriented sense of place and reality as a consequence of generations of immigration and displacement from peoples and stories all the rest in the modern world that we put this benevolence sort of like a shroud on and we call it, we call it understanding that we might not believe that it's real.

It might not be real. You know, personal belief stuff that some people are actually like, nope, I am deeply connected with what is real and what is not and this is real and that is not. And I can, I can, I can, I can see and respect that and not from a superiority place, from a place of like, yep, there's a good chance that I'm fundamentally wrong about all of this too.

And, okay, and some people don't have that sense of needing to balance the, balance the angles and they might be more correct than I am. I don't know. Well, that's what it is. We'll never know, I guess. To me, I guess I would want to measure it more by the outcome. You know, like if this is, this is the truth, then how's your life, you know? If that's your truth, are you, do you not think your life could get any better?

How you just 100% satisfied, you're completely fulfilled, then awesome, then keep that truth, right? You know, a wide change, a system that seems to have the best outcome possible. And if you're not, then maybe there's some wiggle room in there to make some changes in the way you look at the world that might result in being more fulfilled or satisfied with who you are and the life you're living. Sure. And that, I mean, that comment goes well beyond discussion of whether or not spirits are real.

I mean, that's like, that's very much looking at like how, how rigid is your perception of reality and perception of, perception of yourself? And I think the, the softening of that rigidity is, is essential for any type of healing or transformation process.

Another thing I want to point at, I thought was interesting, was this correlation between connecting with somebody who from your childhood wasn't an anchoring or an orienting point for good relationship and good life, who, who you say committed suicide was that correct? Yes. Who committed suicide?

Which I assume was wrapped up in a lot of depression and other types of suffering to get to that place, to show up in your second ceremony when you were down in Peru doing the ceremonies because if I remember correctly, you were really depressed.

And did you say in the beginning that you were like on the edge of your life or something like that, I don't remember exactly, but it was a very serious place that you were at with your mental health that brought you to Peru and in your second ceremony of a connection

with this person who was somebody who had this role in your childhood, who also was somebody who just killed himself, who is now showing up bringing you an experience that would, you know, a perspective maybe that would help inform the transformation of your life out of a trajectory that might have brought you into the same decisions that he made. Totally. I mean, I have to do it. I've thought about it a lot. Of course, I've looked at it from a lot of different angles.

I think that we're always going to fall back on whatever our relational context or inner environment, however you want to describe it, but we're always going to just, whether we can change it or not, we're kind of set up a particular way. Like I'm going to have an experience. I'm just going to interpret it the way that I do. I can always play around and analyze the interpretation, but there's always going to be kind of like what feels the most, you know?

I can think about it a hundred different ways and I can be like, maybe it could have been right on, but this is really what it felt like, you know? What was interesting to me was that, you know, my godmother and my mother were best friends. That's why that was my godmother. And so when he died, my mother told me, you know, she said, so I was living in Peru. I'm sorry, I wasn't living in Peru.

I was living in Massachusetts, but I wasn't like just living my regular life and my mom said, hey, you know, your godmother's son died. He committed suicide last week. And I was like, oh man, you know, that sucks. But I had no, you know, it had been a decade since I talked to him, seeing him or anything. I knew nothing about him. And what I knew that had happened, you know? My mom told me like, hey, he died. But I didn't think about it.

Honestly, I mean, no offense to him, but I didn't even think about it for an hour. Like I talked to my mom on the phone and she told me he died. And I was like, that sucks. And how's my godmother doing? And they're going out for the funeral. And, okay, well shit, that sucks. And then my life went on, you know? So that was super surprising to me when here he is, like in my life again.

I couldn't like connect it to, I would have had to enter into like the incredible complexities of subconscious to like figure out that somehow I conjured it, you know? But that was part of my analysis, you know, part of the whatever. I still don't know what happened. But I know that it was a central feature in my decision to move to Peru and live with an indigenous corndaro. So yeah, I have no idea what happened, but it was the most important part of my process to change my life completely.

Wow. Great. All right, so let's get back in trajectory here. I got two more, sorry, three more things I want to talk with you about. One of which is to follow up with this magic darts and dark sorcery discussion because it's not all, it's not all light and love in the ayahuasca world, even in the traditional Chappibo world. And then I want to get into integration and then I want to hear about the results from these scientific studies.

So if you can jump back on to whatever train you're on there when you're going into the magic darts and dark sorcery, I'd appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah, we just had that conversation about spirits being real. Now we're going to jump into magic darts. So this is going to be fun. So yeah, I wish I could just like I have gone so far, bounced around like with the whole concept of Brujo Rio, which could be defined as witchcraft or specifically like the magic darts.

I definitely know people that like talk about magic darts. It seems like they're like obsessed with it. Both indigenous people and like Westerners and you know, I my first teacher definitely like was talk a lot about like black magic and you know, pretty much everyone, every indigenous corndaro I've ever talked to like talks about it in some level, you know, as a part of their reality. And I've never really like settled with it.

Like I've never I've there was a point where I definitely like believed in it. But then I think I got to the point where I was definitely recognizing that my belief in it was like tainting my life. Like I would like something bad would happen and I'd be like, oh, black magic, you know, like, right. I was like, I was like, dude, come on, man. Like you might have you might have like eaten some bad food and now you're like thinking that spells are being cast upon you like chill, you know.

So I think that I probably because I started not knowing anything and was just like, you know, taking in all the information that I could as an apprentice or a student of corndaro ismo, I accepted it. You know, it became like a part of my reality simply because that was the body of knowledge that I was trying to learn. But then through my own experience as I just started to not resonate with it, you know, I just started to feel like, yeah, I don't think I'm going to go this way, you know.

But I feel like there is still this opportunity. Like I feel like within the belief, which I would I guess say my personal view is that that's why it exists is there is this opportunity. So say like something is wrong in your life, but you can't put your finger on it. You know, something's just wrong. And now you define it as black magic, but you have this mechanism, this treatment protocol that will remove the black magic. And so what are the implications of that?

You know, like what is the implicate because I've been there. Like I there was a point, you know, where I certainly believed in black magic and there was a point where I was having black magic done to me. But then that was followed by a point where, you know, that coincided with first my teacher recognizing that I was having black magic done to me and then that I needed to do this. And so I did this kind of series of baths.

And then he worked on me like in ceremonies, like singing songs where he would sit right in front of me and and and then no black magic. And not only that, but I felt like I was now protected from black magic. And so what did that do? You know, like what did that do for my life where I was like, aha, now I'm protected from black magic and the black magic is gone. Blue skies from now on, you know, like so I can't not acknowledge that there is still some of that element to us.

You know, like if there's a part of you that you can't really figure out what the matter, what what the problem is by identifying it and by putting kind of like a face to it, you could say. And that's how I, because I'm going to like go there and and and you didn't talk about it, but I think it fits is demons in my head right now. So yeah, please go there. Yeah. So so so a demon like what's a demon?

Well, I don't know, but if I feel like something is wrong and I can't say what it is by putting this face on it literally like saying, oh, it's a demon. Now I have the chance to actually interact with it. I have the chance to enter into some consciousness conversation with this demon of relationship precisely. And and and I can also like make peace with it. I can destroy it.

I can like send it away like we can have an interaction that can end with a resolution where the result is me being better than I was before, healed or you know, not feeling this way, not suffering, not feeling whatever, you know, like just better. And and so if I take something wrong and I and I create a name for it that has a solution process, you know, that has the opportunity for solution or resolution in it.

Am I like working with my own consciousness to essentially empower myself to achieve that resolution? And I guess that's how I look at it now. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, I'm wondering how that fits inside of because you have this, you've expressed this this firm belief in positive and being a right having spirits in your life, positive spirits.

And yet you have, it seemed like maybe you're just giving a, I don't know if you were just giving a language for the consciousness channel or if that's actually what you believe, but then you have this softer belief around demons is, am I am I interpreting that correctly? Like yes, 100% of benevolent spirits exist. Well, demons might just be this other thing and blah, blah, blah, because like if benevolent spirits exist, would it not suggest that the demons do exist as well?

Well, I don't, I mean, I might have said benevolent. I might not have either. I personally don't think that spirits have like an agenda that for good or bad, like good and bad to me is just, we made that stuff up. It changes what's good now might be bad later. You know, I don't really look at it like that. I do feel that there is what could be called benevolent would be this natural, I believe in a natural divine motivating principle for balance and harmony.

And to me that is exemplified by the fact that if I like cut myself, it will heal. It is not that there is no obstacles for that principle to achieve its goal. If you cut down a forest, it will grow back. You know, if there are all these examples, animals that like get a broken leg or whatever and then it heals, it might not heal exactly right, but like there is a healing happens. You know, it just always will happen. A tree, the branch gets hit by lightning or something, it heals it.

However it does, you know, there is always going to be this process towards healing. And so if that is benevolent, then okay, you know, I don't know if I would call that benevolent to me, but benevolent kind of suggests that there was like a moral decision and they were like, I choose good over evil, you know. And so for that reason, I have more trouble believing in the demon because the demon to me would be this attempt to create disbalance, disharmony.

And yeah, maybe the lightning that hit the tree was the demon, I guess, you know. Or the termites eating it, for example. Yeah, right, sure. Mosquitoes, but bringing diseases, sure. Like all of that, yeah, I can see that.

I guess for me, I would still like step back from that and say, oh, yes, but like the planetary effect of the organism of the planet stays in balance, even if like disease comes in or even if the branch gets broken, like the branch breaks and light comes through the canopy and more plants grow. You know, like there's always this way to kind of, for me, look at it as balance, like harmony. It's always moving towards maintenance of balance and harmony.

And so for me, demons don't really fit into that unless they are working like as agents of change, you know, like that the demons are actually like doing good, but they're misunderstood. Which just, yeah, maybe that I probably lean towards that. And demons are just misunderstood. That's all. Sorry. Yeah, that's okay. That's interesting. I mean, this conversation has definitely gone into sort of like much more hypothetical direction, maybe then either husband tend to know I like it.

I don't really go this way with the podcast super often. Let's start to like try, I'm going to try to like trajectory back down into like interviewer mode here and ask specifically something that came up earlier that I forgot about, which is, okay, so before we get into integration and then the results of the study, you suggested that, you know, ayahuasca hyper suggest suggestive, suggestive, suggestive ability to have sensitivity and you can heal these traumas and blah, blah, blah.

What about when that trauma is was the events required to activate what is now a psychiatric issue such as bipolar disorder, for example, or other things that could, I mean, certain models would look back on and be like, okay, well, yeah, it was actually early childhood trauma or trauma on some level that activated this situation, but now this person is in this neurophysiological disposition. Where does that come into play?

Do you screen to people for things like bipolar disorder or whatever other sort of like, sort of like no fly zone conditions might be because of a psychiatric issue? And how does that relate to childhood trauma? Can somebody who has childhood trauma and they also have bipolar disorder? Is there a capacity to heal the bipolar or heal whatever the psychiatric neurophysiological issue is now by resolving those inter-experiences?

Or is there a line there where some people, it's like, well, you probably, the intensity of ayahuasca likely isn't the best solution for your healing process? Yeah, I mean, yes. The answer is yes, we do screen people. I will say that it is very rare that we turn someone away, but we have turned a few people away. And psychotic behavior would definitely be the most important marker of whether or not we think someone should proceed with ayahuasca treatment.

But I'm not a big fan of having it be in your family. I know that's like part of some people's screening processes. I don't think that if you had a family member that suffered a psychotic break that disqualifies you from having the receiving ayahuasca treatment. And bipolar is not a marker that would disqualify someone at our center from receiving treatment.

In fact, we've had a number of people that claim healings from using ayahuasca that they now say they are healed from bipolar diagnoses, at least. Obviously, all of the mental conditions, issues, psychological issues are very subjectively determined, which is a challenge for sure. And there's no blood test for bipolar. It's not like you can just say, oh, we found bipolar. It's right by your liver and it's growing. It's a subjective determination.

And there's obviously a spectrum within it as well. There is someone Benjamin Mudge, I think, his name is. He's been working specifically looking at bipolar, just bipolar with ayahuasca treatment. He might be a better person to talk to about that. But getting to the point of it, it's very confusing, I think, to, I would say that trauma is at the root of every condition, to be honest.

In some level of trauma, whether it's childhood trauma or later on in life trauma, but I would look to trauma across the board for physical, emotional and mental and spiritual issues. And I do feel like ayahuasca is at the top of the list for how best to achieve optimal results with treatment. But of course, when I say ayahuasca, I don't just mean the substance and I mean the entire practice of it. I look, I'm very, very positive about what's been happening with psilocybin research.

And I'm hoping that there can be a lot of cross-collaboration because the trouble that I see with psilocybin is that they don't have the benefit of having such a powerful tradition behind it. So the way it is employed and used is still kind of like in a pioneering stage, but I think that we could learn a lot from looking at the way that the traditions of ayahuasca have been developed to guide the development of the psilocybin-convencest therapy movement, I guess you could say.

But I think that psilocybin may be like the more globally accepted psychedelic therapy treatment, also just because of the sustainability of it. You could in a year, you could grow enough mushrooms for the entire population of the planet. Right.

So this brings another question, I keep saying that we're going somewhere else, but I am curious like since you've got such a long immersion in translating your, you have a long history and good experience translating your deep immersion in Shapiro ayahuasca traditions into

helping Western people heal childhood trauma and better their lives to ask you about these things because you have a unique perspective that might not be that of a medical professional, but it's of somebody who's been like deep in the work and watching it unfold in a positive way. So you have essentially all this clinical experience without being a clinician. And given that ayahuasca, you know, we've talked about it bringing about strange and interesting experiences.

It can manifest in really grand experiences that are far beyond the individual self, which might include connections with people who have died or people you've never met or what is often called ancestors, right? Or like the people from which we have come.

And I'm curious now, especially recognizing the last, whatever amount of years, the, you know, the, the acknowledgement of the impact of epigenetic changes, producing negative outcome in people's psychological history or psychological dispositions in adulthood, linking to this idea of intergenerational trauma factors or inherited family trauma, depending on the angle of approach that you're looking at it from.

What role do you see in ayahuasca here to connect with this ancestor healing or inherit inherited family trauma? Where does that come into play? Does it come into play? Is that, is it all still about the individual and the long run? I don't, I don't know. I don't really know where you are in that. So it's sort of a broad question, but I'm curious to your impact or your, sorry, your input. Um, yeah. I mean, it's such an interesting topic for sure.

And epigenetics is part of the research that's been done last year and will be greatly expanded in our phase two research this year. But even before that, really thanks to Bruce Lipton's book, Biology of Belief, that's how I was introduced to epigenetics. And he discussed Robin will, is it Robin or Robert Williams, psych, K technique. And, and so three of our facilitators got training in the psych, K technique.

And we started like using epigenetic reprogramming methods in our pro, in our retreats and courses. And they were incredibly valuable like that the synergistic connection between creating, you know, going into the hypersensitive state of ayahuasca and working with purposeful intention driven epigenetic changing, um, seemed to be a, a fantastic marriage.

So, I, my perception of like the ancestral, uh, passing on of trauma is still like within the same, uh, the same language, I guess, of understanding. Like I, I feel like a, a detrimental truth was created in that detrimental truth essentially got passed on as a truth. And the way that we pass on our culture is essentially that we pass on a collection of truths that I, I, creates the paradigm of reality that we live in.

Um, and so if that paradigm of reality is based on traumatic truths or, you know, inaccurate interpretations, then they will also be passed on as truths, even if the person did not experience any hypersensitivity, um, you know, to create that personal truth in their own way. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. And so by working with ayahuasca, like, it, those can be like revealed and, and certainly replaced.

Um, I, I think that it's a little bit different of a process than dealing with, well, I think it's a very different process than dealing with your own personal traumas. Um, the hypersensitivity state is going to give you that access. But in, in my experience, like, ancestral trauma, it wasn't something that could be, um, it wasn't something that could be directed the way that your personal trauma can be, um, well, because it's not your life, you know, so it's almost, um, I, my guess would

be that it's something that, that would be hit or miss, like it would, it might take a, it might happen the first ceremony and it might not happen for five years or it might never happen, you know, um, it's not the same as having, like, a concerted and conscious intention for your personal healing because you are still working within your own experiences and your own memories of those experiences and interpretations. But I definitely believe in, in ancestral healing.

Um, but my, my, my belief in what it means to have ancestral healing take place is still the same in, in the sense that you're replacing detrimental truths with ones that bring about more benefit in your life and then you'll pass on those beneficial truths to your future generations, which I think is a great idea.

Yeah. So, um, let's get into integration here, um, as we're, we're drawing the, drawing the, it's funny at the beginning before we started, we're talking about, you're like, oh, how long are we going? And then I said, somewhere, somewhere between sound bites and three hour podcast, but not in either direction. Coming up on two hours, actually, so that's fun. Um, let's get into integration.

Um, and to whatever detail you feel is necessary, but sort of like a broad stroke of what it is and why it's necessary, specifically with ayahuasca. Um, and of course, it's going to be different for whether or not you had a healing with spirits or what, or someone was like, oh, I was healed by angels or someone who's like, I sorted out my, my great, great, grandfathers, guilt over burning the house down. I mean, it's going to be, it's going to be different for each different person.

Um, but my specific questions are around generally why integration and what it looks like, but specifically what it looks like coming back from Peru because we leave a relational context, we leave a life that is formed around and influencing a certain inner environment that we're holding. And then we completely leave that life and have an experience somewhere radically different. And in that place, we experience something incredible and positive.

And then we leave it behind physically, we leave it behind completely, right? To go back to the place that we just were ultimately unchanged the environment, the place unchanged by what we went through. Here are the different part now. Okay. So what does integration look like in that context? Right. I mean, there's two parts that one, um, it, the liberating quality of leaving your entire life really lends itself to the transformation.

I think quite obviously, you know, if you have no one know you, you know, you go to a place where not a single person knows you, they don't know who you were last week. They have no idea about who you were. So they're never going to project on you, uh, an identity based on the way that you used to be. And that itself is just tremendously liberating and enabling a transformation to take place.

So much of us like we, we might have had these experiences where you're like, I'm going to be a different person tomorrow. You know, I'm going to be the person I want to be. And then you're like, Hey, friend, hey, family, hey, strangers. And they're all like, dude, I know who you are. You're not this, you know, quit, quit playing games, bro. Like you're, you're the, the you that you've always been. You're like crap. Mm-hmm.

But that doesn't happen on, on a retreat or in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. And so, you know, there's just so much potential for you to explore and kind of determine who the you that you want to be is, especially when it's a healthier you. But yeah, totally, then you go back and you're back in the environment that most likely was a big part of why you went to the Amazon in the first place. So that's the real challenge. The easy part is really the healing, I think.

You know, you might have been hard that night, but like, and when you look at the whole span of the healing process, that's kind of the easy part when you compare it to the challenges ahead. When you have to go back and face all of those relationships that are probably tainted by the infections of your traumas or, you know, however you want to describe it, that the shit you have to deal with basically when you get home. And so, what does integration look like?

Well, I want to go what should it look like? Because it can look like a lot of different stuff. The worst case scenario, what it shouldn't look like is that you go home and you change nothing. You know, you go home and your body is like, hey, dude, I'm so glad you're back. Let's go do some cocaine to celebrate. And you're like, yeah, man, sounds great. Let's do that. I used to do that. So, and then, you know, within a day, it's over.

Like, you just like reverted back to all of your, your old patterns instantly. That's not how integration should go. In fact, that is not integration. That's whatever the opposite of integration is. Degration. I don't know. I think this integration would be the opposite. But yeah, I hear what you're saying. What would be integration is that you essentially want to hold on to your experience. And so, there are methods that help you to hold on to your experience.

And one of them would be to certainly not just try to preach to the world, but just kind of stay in your lane, you know, like just do the things that you want to do. Have a practice. That to me is the most important. And it doesn't, it's not that important what that practice is.

Although I do think that like retreats that offer meditation or that offer yoga or that offer, you know, some sort of practice that can be continued when you go home are helpful because you can create a connection between like say you meditated every day during an ayahuasca retreat. Now you go home and you sit down to meditate. Well, now you're not just meditating. You're also maintaining the reality of the healing that you experience is always going to like be a reminder of what happens.

So it's going to help to focus that. So having some sort of discipline or practice or even if it's just, it doesn't have to be something that you did during the retreat. It can be something that you're just going to start where you decide that every morning you're going to wake up and make a particular juice, you know, like you're going to, now every day I'm going to make a ginger beetroot elixir juice or something. And when you're making it, you know, it also like reconnects you.

You're making it because you made that decision during this retreat as the result of this process that was a transformation for you. So you're connecting it, you know. And so if you can have a few of those, that's awesome because you're going to be able to keep that practice in. So I think a great one is to have it be something that you do like as part of a ritual before you go to bed and perhaps part of a ritual when you do, when you wake up. Those would be the like kind of key points, I think.

So when you wake up, make a particular kind of tea, do up, you know, maybe do some yoga or do a meditation or do. Even if it's like, have a plant, like buy a plant and take care of that plant. But all of it is kind of tied to this intention. So you're like, hey, I'm coming back home now and I'm going to buy this plant. Whatever it is, it doesn't even matter what the plant is, but hopefully the plant has some semblance of meaning as well, you know, to deepen that connection.

You're going to buy a San Pedro cactus or you're going to buy a flower that, you know, you can buy a Bergmancia or something that they sell here that they also have down there. And you're going to take care of it, you know. And so as you're like taking care of this plant each day, you water it each day, you like, look at it, you check it out. It's again, like connecting you to this change that you know happened.

And so all of those to me and being in spending time in nature for sure, you know, like go for if you put more hikes in or if you have a garden to tend or even if you just have a backyard and you want to hang out, like go like connect with those plants again, just go and be with the nature. Because all of that like can help to keep you in that space that you were in when you made those realizations and they can all keep real. It's something that we do in our programs.

We take pictures of people like throughout the process. At the end you get a USB stick that has those pictures. And sometimes if you're like having a tough day, you can just go home and like look through those pictures again, remember like, oh yeah, that did happen, you know, I remember. And we also make audio recordings of all the Iowaska ceremonies that you attend during the program. So you get that on your USB stick too.

So you go home, you had a tough day, you're feeling maybe weak or something, you know, put some headphones on. Listen to one of the ceremonies, maybe there was one ceremony where you really had the biggest transformation during your time and you know, listen to that ceremony again. Try to like remember it, stay in tune with it because it takes the most courage to repair the way that you relate to your environment at home. Then it does, you know, to make those transformations during the retreat.

The biggest thing for me I would say is the relationships themselves. I think that a lot of times people, myself included, you know, you like realize what you've had with your relationships with your mom, your dad, your brothers, your sisters, your friends, your partners, you're like everyone. You know, during a transformative healing process, you're like, oh my God, you know, like I have our relationships are messed up.

And maybe that's because of my trauma, you like acknowledge the part that you feel like you want to fix and you want to like go home and fix everyone, you know, and that's going to have, it could be very, very troubling. You know, to come home and you want to fix your partner, you want to fix your husband or your wife or you want to fix your mom. Because you had all these insights, you know, like, oh, I was my personal traumas and I released them now, you've got to release yours.

Yeah, that's probably not going to go over very well. So to me, one of the things is like just be you, you know, just be you and take control of your responsibility, which you know, your ability to respond. And so like if your spouse is coming at you with their typical like critique or whatever it was that was troubling in your relationship, you can respond differently now, you know, and keep practicing that.

And the way that you modify your own responses will inevitably seep into the way that they modify their behavior as well. But you can't just like want to make the change because they're not drinking ayahuasca, they're not entering into hypersensitivity states. They're not, you know, like, so it all, all you can do is change your, your own responsibility or your own, your own ability to respond.

And by taking control of that, you, those changes like start to seep in accepting the fact that relationships can't be solved overnight, you know, this is going to take a long time, but you're committed to it is a big part of the integration process as well.

Like, I think it's natural that you want to just come home and fix the world, you know, but unfortunately when you hit those walls where you don't see it fixing it at all, it can really hurt you because you've only been fixed for like a week, you know, so, so you really want to just focus on just take some simple practices, keep building up this habit as that healthy habit continues.

It maintains and strengthens the healthy habits that you also are in your perceptions and your interpretations and your responses to your experiences. Yeah, I have this sense of the metaphor of like setting a bone or something like the bone is set, but it's not like you can go running yet. And also another sort of like hurrah for relational context coming in for me there. So so closing out, why don't you give us the heads up like what happened with this research?

What were you looking for and what were the results? Yeah, well, first of all, I should pretext. I built the center like I just kind of like the way I look at it, I just followed the directions. You know, somebody contacted me said, we'll give you the money to build a research center. If you will do it, I said, I will do it. They gave me the money. I built the research center in the mean in the middle of that process. A psychiatrist named Simon Ruffle came and did a retreat.

He started to talk to me about how great it would be to do research. I said, well, I'm building a research center and he said, okay, awesome. Let me see what I can do. He collaborated with his a psychologist named Nigel Netspan. Shout out to both Simon and Nigel who are amazing people because they then put the grant proposal together for the NHS. They're both doctors for the National Health Services of the UK and they got the grant to do the research. So it's not so much me.

I hosted the research. I provided the coronary and all the staffing and all the participants to the research project. But they're the ones that are actually doing the research and they were joined by WIFUN saying shout out to WIFUN also who did a lot of the data analysis. And so this is their research. But of course, I feel very close with them. They're very good friends of mine and we talk a lot about the research. And I have a couple of slides of the research that they were able to provide.

So this is just like a simple example of their study on depression. I'm right here. You can see that the markings that they have, I'm not totally familiar with, but there was a scale of 15 rating prior to retreat, which then was reduced dramatically. And then after six months, an even further dramatic reduction within global distress, which is like a secondary function of depression, but more like external, maybe in the relational context.

There was a similar drop, although it did have a slight uptick when six months later after they returned home, which I think is understandable. Similar with their two anxiety studies, dramatic drops. And then six months later, there was still a slight increase. What was very interesting was the results. The studies were done on all of our programs. So we have one week, two week, three week, and four week programs. And they just did the studies regardless.

Like if you were in a one week program, they did the measurement before and then after and then six months later. And if you did a four week program, they did the same thing. And they were almost identical, which I thought was really interesting. Like it didn't seem to make that much of a difference if you stayed for one week or if you stayed for four weeks. And they admitted that they were using a very general depression measurement schedule, like evaluation.

But I think that was the most surprising part of it for me was that within eight days, people could still have an incredible transformation in their lives. That was just looking at depression, though. And that made me feel really good, actually, because it would have kind of sucked, I guess, if we had a program that didn't provide that opportunity for transformation. Whereas the two week, three week, and then on to the four week are designed more for the treatment of physical conditions.

You know, the treatment expands. So but what was promising and somewhat surprising was just in terms of depression and anxiety, it took a very short amount of time, like just one week to achieve dramatic results. Wow, that's, that is, that's cool. That's good to know. Yeah. So I, for a second there, I like my response to that was, I feel like my response to that was really lame, actually. It's very exciting, it's very exciting research that that's turning out. What is, what is the next step?

So your phase one was just looking generally like, okay, you're rating for depression, people come in, they, they get a score, how high is your depression? This high. You leave, how high is your depression? This high, lower. Sometime later, how high is your depression? Now, oh, still less but getting wrong. Okay. So that, that seems to be the, the essence of the, of the phase one. What is phase two research that you're moving into now? What is being looked at there?

And yeah, so basically what, what's being looked at in phase two? Like how is it, how is it complimenting on what was achieved in phase one? Essentially, it's, it's the same. You know, that, it's not like we're going to stop doing that, but the evaluations, the may, I should say like that simplified, yes, that's what's happening. You know, it's quite a lengthy process for me. Of course, yes. Those evaluation, it wasn't just like on a scale of zero to 100, rate your depression.

Depression to happy. I feel, I feel, smiley emoji today. Yeah. Yeah. That's a five smiley face. No, it was, it was quite a complex and obviously, you know, because it's the NHS, it was, had to go through a very lengthy approval process to have that evaluation just be even approved as a medical measurement system. And that's where we are right now, where we're waiting for the approval for the phase two evaluation system.

But that, that system will, well, the epigenetic part of that, there were two markers that were being looked at, which were specific to depression and anxiety. But now that will be expanded, I think, to like 27 markers, because other institutions have come on board. And because we still have, I should, I should mention there were saliva samples taken before, after and follow up to measure the epigenetics.

And so because we still have those samples, it's actually quite easy to go back and just analyze looking for more of the genetic markers, which that will happen. And then phase two will begin to look at a lot more genetic markers. So autism spectrum will be looked at some of PTSD, like some of the other elements that correlate to the same concepts psychological and psychiatric issues.

But then there will be like some physical, I guess they're also psychological, but chronic pain will be a measurement now. So the same idea where people will give a measurement of the level of pain that they experience. And then before and after, of course, pain, you know, is something of a psychological issue as well, our determination about how much pain we're in.

And I think that's about it in terms of the expansion, but it's essentially taking that study and expanding it to look at more aspects of psychology and then entering into the chronic pain. You could say maybe it's starting to enter into the physical. Well, that's exciting. Do you have a sense of when that research is going to be available? So it's only just starting soon. Do you have a sense of what the timeline will be and when people might be able to hear about the results?

Yeah. Phase one is essentially finished because we've made changes to the evaluations now. So there's a clear distinction between the two studies. So phase one is complete. There won't be any more data added. It's all been analyzed and correlated and sent out to the journals for publishing. So essentially, we're just waiting for those journals to make a decision that's kind of like a back and forth with how the results are being interpreted or presented.

But hopefully before April, there will be at least 10 journals publishing varying results or different categories within those results. And then April will start phase two. And almost like I like the plan is phase two will just be ongoing. Of course, unless we decide to change the evaluations again. And so most likely, there'll be a point where at maybe like 100 participants, they'll decide to release the results. But then it will just continue.

Obviously, the more and more participants in the study, you have the better the results. So my guess would be that by the end of this year, those results will start to come in. But with the six month follow ups, it will probably, it probably won't be until the end of 2021 that the published results actually come out. Great. Well, I'm glad that you're doing this work.

I think it's important for the scientific paradigm to be tracking the legitimacy of the claims of healing that ayahuasca often comes with. And also, I'm personally very, very curious about how like what is discovered with the epigenetic changes because that stuff is really interesting for me. To close us off, Carlos, why don't you let us know how people can follow more about what you're doing possibly they'd like to get involved with this research?

What are the relevant links and social media access points for you? Right. Well, I'm the program director of the ayahuasca foundation. So you can visit our website ayahuascafoundation.org or look for us ayahuasca foundation retreats on Facebook or ayahuasca foundation on Instagram ayahuasca found on Twitter.

If you visit our website, there is a research tab and that tab admittedly is not as extensive as I wanted to be, but we're kind of waiting for the results of the phase one research to be published so that we can expand out that section. But there's a contact us form and that contact us goes not only to me, but also to Nigel and Simon and YPhone directly.

So if there are potential researchers or people with ideas about research out there that want to contact the lead researchers on our research projects, they can do that very easily through the research tab of our website. And as soon as we have the published results, we'll certainly be like presenting them on the website and thinking them through our social media as well.

And yeah, also if you want to find out information about the retreats and the courses that we offer, you can check out the website ayahuascafoundation.org. Great. Carlos, Tanner, thanks for being on the show. Thanks so much. It was really fun talking to you about this stuff. And cut. Okay, that concludes our episode. Today, thank you so much for tuning in.

Thank you for following up on this episode by checking out the research that has been achieved or done through the Ayahuasca Foundations Research Center. Like he had mentioned, the research tab at the ayahuascafoundation.com is where you'll find that. And since this episode was recorded quite a while ago, the page that you will find there is more substantial than he described it as previously when you just heard him describe it. So check that out.

Links to that are in the show notes of this episode as well as links to where you can find the ayahuasca foundation on social media. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a like, share, subscribe to the show, all the social media involvement stuff that you are familiar with. Do that to stay up to date. As some of you know, I'm involved less and less on social media. I do engage in discussion on the subreddit around these episodes when that discussion comes up.

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