Taken ritually, the ayahuasca or yaje tea is described as opening the
doors of communication between the mind and the astral, "a parallel
dimension that is inside of us and, at the same time, in the cosmos." In
this environment, thoughts are immediately perceived as real, and each
figure in the ayahuasca world is able to transform its character and
shape at will,just as theosophist and anthroposophist describe the astral
world. Participants in the yaje rituals can have visions offar away or de-
ceased friends or relatives, and they can experience visual insights into
their own past lives and psyches. Descriptions of shamanic voyages in-
clude "ascending to heaven to mingle with heavenly people, or con-
versely of celestial beings descending to the place of the ceremony."
Peter Gorman, a NewYork writer who hacked his way through the
Peruvian jungle for days to find the Matses Indians, has several times
taken the yaje. In an article for the magazine Shaman's Drum (Fall 1992)
he describes imbibing the substance in a hut in the Amazon forest to
experience two of its effects: astral vision and astral travel.
"The visions began soon after my stomach settled; my mind filled
with pictures of demons, skulls and hellish faces. Red serpents and
hordes of insects crawled across the sea of white corpses and body
parts. It was as though my mind was taking a tour of hell; a modern
Dante's Inzrno filled with images of famine and pestilence, Indian mas-
sacres, theVietnamese war, and NewYork City suffering."
Gorman explained that although he had learned from taking acid
and magic mushrooms during the 1960s "that there is a spirit in every-
thing-that ours is a mystical world," his drinking ayahuasca took him
several steps further, allowing him to become "viscerally involved with
these spirits."
The first such encounter was with a snake, the second with a large
bird. The snake was black, ringed with yellow, long and strong, and as
thick as his leg. "I watched it glide though the reeds. A drop of water
hit the river's surface, and I felt the ripples against my body-I realized
I was swimming with the snake. My body moved with powerful con-
tractions."
Viewing from the snake's point of view, Gorman says he saw a bright
green tree frog sitting on a branch near the water's surface. "Wethe
joyce
(Joyce)
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