It’s all you! Australian ayahuasca drinking, spiritual development, and immunitary individualism

Abstract

Ayahuasca, a psychoactive plant decoction, has spread from indigenous communities in South America to urban areas in the Americas, Europe, and Australia where it is used in neoshamanic rituals. This paper draws on ethnography of Australian ayahuasca ceremonies to examine the ways that individualism shapes the structure of ayahuasca rituals, the interpretation of visionary experiences, and notions of spiritual development. I show how the metaphors that Australian drinkers involved in this study use to understand their ayahuasca experiences and spiritual development reflect a form of immunitary individualism, which is premised on the negation of difference and relationality. Secular disenchantment and a culture of narcissism may drive people to seek ayahuasca, but transcendence is interpreted in terms of an expansive, non-relational self. In this sense, neoshamanic ayahuasca culture may be an escape from and reproduction of the culture of narcissism associated with the malaise of modernity.

Psychedelic Communitas: Intersubjective Experience During Psychedelic Group Sessions Predicts Enduring Changes in Psychological Wellbeing and Social Connectedness

“…Even though the present results suggest positive prosocial effects of collective psychedelic use, qualitative studies have found a tendency, in neoshamanic settings of ayahuasca use (Gearin, 2015b;Gearin, 2016a;Rodd, 2018), for individualistic and narcissistic cultural priors to be reproduced in ideas of self-actualization and -development, which are similarly defining for New Age culture (Graf, 1986;Farias and Lalljee, 2008;Lahood, 2010;Masters, 2010) as they are for neoliberalist-entrepreneurial constructions of selfhood (Adams et al, 2019). In order for psychedelics to produce the healthy paradigm shift in psychiatry that some have predicted (Nichols et al, 2017;Schenberg, 2018), it may thus be necessary to question some of the fundamental cultural assumptions from, and into which psychedelic therapies are emerging-so that psychedelic treatments may not merely remain a "chemical holiday [.…”

European social anthropology in 2018: an increasingly recursive public

“…Yet one must be wary of investing too much in a vague critique of the liberal/Christian/modern individualist subject. As Rodd () notes in a study of how white, Australian neo‐shamanic ayahuasca‐drinkers process their experiences, the ‘expansive, non‐relational self’ (‘it's all you’) becomes a metaphor for transcendence that, ironically, reproduces the very modern narcissism and disenchantment that it seeks to overcome (2018: 325). To avoid methodological solipsism, it seems essential to pay attention to how persons are actually made.…”

Relational Processes in Ayahuasca Groups of Palestinians and Israelis

“…Concerns with the over-emphasis of inner-spirituality are described extensively in new-age research ( Heelas, 2009 ; Simchai, 2009 ). In short, while new-age culture sees itself as a counter-culture, it can actually reinforce dominant cultural trends of individualism, something which has been observed in some neoshamanic ayahuasca circles as well ( Gearin, 2015 ; Rodd, 2018 ; Apud, 2020a ). For example, some Australian ayahuasca practitioners believe that “The primacy of the individual is reflected in the idea that social transformation is only possible after the individual transforms their consciousness” ( Rodd, 2018 ).…”

“…The facilitators blend indigenous practices with some forms of Western therapeutic practices, new-age , religious elements, and other spiritual traditions and practices based on their own identity, or local to their countries. In many cases, people tend to return to the same group, and communities are formed around these ayahuasca ceremonies ( Hanegraaff, 2011 ; Rodd, 2018 ). While these groups often evolve into communities, the language they use and intentions for taking ayahuasca are still centered on therapeutic ends and personal processes ( Gearin, 2015 ; Rodd, 2018 ).…”

“…In many cases, people tend to return to the same group, and communities are formed around these ayahuasca ceremonies ( Hanegraaff, 2011 ; Rodd, 2018 ). While these groups often evolve into communities, the language they use and intentions for taking ayahuasca are still centered on therapeutic ends and personal processes ( Gearin, 2015 ; Rodd, 2018 ). The interviewees in this study belong to these local neoshamanic groups – mixing a number of traditions within their practice.…”