Cactus of Mystery

by Ross Heaven

  SAN PEDRO AND OTHER TEACHERS

  I cannot say that San Pedro alone is capable of enhancing our perceptions in this way. Many of the observations above are consistent with those that arise from ayahuasca, for example. As Benny Shanon remarks in The Antipodes of the Mind, “Universally, Ayahuasca makes people reflect about their lives and leads them to what they feel is an enhanced psychological understanding of themselves.” It enables them to “gain deeper understanding.” Reality, too, is often “conceived as constituted by one, non-material substance which is identified as Cosmic Consciousness.” This is accompanied by a sense of “a force that is the ground of all Being and that gives nourishment and sustenance to everything. Often this force is characterized as embodying love.” It is what I have described here as God.

  What seems to distinguish San Pedro from ayahuasca, however, is its immediacy and presence. Many of my participants who have experienced both plants remarked, for example, that San Pedro does not take us “out of ourselves” as ayahuasca does. Rather, it is as if the plant possesses the body itself and compels us to see the world “through the eyes of San Pedro,” in one participant’s words.

  In doing so it also removes us from our “heads” and the confusions of the rational and analytical mind, so we are more of the moment and in our bodies as well as present in the landscape we are a part of. What it reveals to us from this vantage point is the power and beauty of the world, the majesty of life, the soul connections between us, and the knowledge that we are a part of God and a vibrant, living nature.

  THE SHAMAN’S VIEW

  I have put these observations to La Gringa and asked her to comment. “San Pedro achieves healings like these because it is a master teacher,” she said.

  It helps us grow, learn, and awaken and it assists us in reaching higher states of consciousness. Through it we learn the truth of life and reality: that our health and our sense of purpose and balance is simply a choice we make, that we have a destiny and are more powerful than we think. San Pedro also reconnects us to the Earth and helps us realize that there is no separation between us—you, me, the soil, the sky. We are one. It’s one thing to read that of course but to actually experience it is the most beautiful gift we can receive.

  And so San Pedro teaches us to live in harmony and that compassion and understanding are the qualities of all true human beings. Through this it shows us how to love, respect, and honor all things. It shows us too that we are children of light—precious and special—and to see that light within us. Each person’s experience of San Pedro is unique, as we are all unique, and drinking it is therefore a personal journey of healing and your discovery of yourself and the universe. But there is one thing that is always true: The day you meet San Pedro is one you will never forget. It will change your life forever . . . and always for the better.

  But does San Pedro really change lives “forever” and if so is it “always” for the better?

  Rick Strassman, in his studies of DMT (the active ingredient of ayahuasca),3 was eventually disillusioned at the potential for this “spirit molecule” to create lasting and positive changes. “As the years passed,” he writes:

  I began feeling a peculiar anxiety about listening to volunteers’ accounts of their first high-dose DMT session. It was as if I didn’t want to hear them. These psychotherapeutic, near-death and mystical sessions repeatedly reminded me of their ineffectiveness in effecting any real change. I wanted to say “That’s very interesting, but now what? To what purpose?”

  His conclusion was “the deep and undeniable realization that DMT was not inherently therapeutic.”

  We might, I suppose, expect a similar outcome with San Pedro, that those who have gone through a “life-changing experience” would, over time, settle back into the routines of the mundane world and make few if any real advances in their lives. This does not seem to be the case, however. Rather, as the accounts of my participants (most provided weeks or even years after their San Pedro experience) tended to show, the spiritual effects of San Pedro remain with them and almost compel them to take action so that they put their realizations to use.

  Some of the participants I am still in touch with today (now sometimes three years or more after their ceremonies) have, relatively speaking (that is, relative to the changes that most of us make) often made extraordinary advances in their lives. They tell me that they have left unsatisfactory relationships, moved house or country, given up unfulfilling jobs, changed careers or returned to college, patched up their differences with parents and lovers, and much more, all of it, they insist, as a result of what San Pedro has shown them. Some have also returned with me to Peru so they can repeat their experience and “top up” on healing or renew their intent to become different people. They have come to regard San Pedro as their “spiritual teacher.”

  Of those who drank with me back in 2008 in fact, and whose accounts I featured in my first book, five have relocated, five have given up their jobs and are now working or training as healers, two have written books on plant medicines and healing, and a further two have set up healing centers of their own. These are not insignificant developments, and all of them show a commitment to a new future that stems from their work with San Pedro.

  Simon is himself an example of this. Having drunk San Pedro and received insights about his life and where it was failing him, he gave up his job, moved country, retrained in environmental sciences, and has also begun an apprenticeship with a curandero with the intention of becoming a shaman himself. As I mentioned at the start of this chapter, he has also produced a book of his own on San Pedro, ayahuasca, and healing. On the face of this at least La Gringa may be correct when she says that San Pedro can change lives.

  9

  San Pedro and the Cure of Addiction

  Tracie Thornberry

  The future has several names. For the weak it is the impossible. For the fainthearted it is the unknown. For the thoughtful and valiant it is the ideal.

  VICTOR HUGO

  I wake up every morning with the same two words on my mind: “Thank you.” At night before I sleep my prayer is, “Thank you.” They are heartfelt and directed at this miraculous world we share.

  I haven’t always felt this way, and I still have days that don’t go right, where I feel at odds with the world and the lesson is not getting through—but not often. Life for me now is nothing like it used to be, and this is due in large part to my introduction to the plant medicines of Peru.

  I had a traumatic childhood, which led to a thirty-year relationship with drugs and alcohol. I have used just about everything, but my substance of choice was heroin. I used it on and off from the age of sixteen until my last dabble at the age of thirty-five. Every time I gave up heroin I did so using alcohol, and I continued to be an addict for another ten years.

  I seesawed between alcohol and other drugs, always feeling quite proud of myself when I wasn’t putting a needle in my arm and was letting the alcohol take up the slack instead. I always had a job, went to university as a mature student, earned a degree, and had successful relationships with good, sober men. So what was my problem? Why was I using drugs at all?

  It took me years to realize that I even had a problem, and more years before I could feel my own emptiness. Then it dawned on me that I had nothing going on inside. Somewhere in the trauma of my childhood I had chosen not to feel, and in that choosing I had lost touch with myself. I mistook the highs and lows of addiction, the flush of infatuation, the pride of the pay packet, and the thrill of anything fast or dangerous as true feeling and emotion. I jumped out of a plane once and felt so high that I had to have several “bucket bongs” just to come down. Another time I bungee jumped in an attempt to cure a mind-splitting hangover. I was what therapists call a “high-functioning addict.”

  I’ve also had two successful seven-year relationships. One ended because of my heroin use and the last because of alcohol. I did a lot of running away.

  I took a job in the Middle East once
in a vain attempt to curb my drinking. I didn’t drink as often but every time I did I drank alcoholically. When my contract there finished I thought I might try a “normal life” back home in Australia. I fell in love, moved in with him, and managed to drink his entire wine collection before we decided that our relationship wasn’t working. I lost a job for the first time. My boss recognized my condition as he had a mother who was an alcoholic and he suggested I get help. I was devastated; no one had ever accused me of being an alcoholic before, so in fine addict style I ran away again.

  I took another job in South Korea after checking whether Koreans drink. They do and it’s okay for women. I thought if I stopped trying to limit myself I would eventually have enough, so now I tried a different tactic: moved there and threw myself into being an alcoholic with gusto.

  I stayed in Korea for three years and in that time I was hospitalized twice, drunk and delusional, and was put into a mental institution where no one spoke English. It was terrifying. Some of the women there had been totally abandoned by their families and left alone for fifteen or twenty years. This was probably my lowest point, but I still had a few years of drinking to do before seeking help. I was scared of myself and for myself.

  Then I got a phone call from home to tell me that my mother was sick and to ask if I could return to Australia straight away. My mother’s illness turned out to be my salvation.

  My mother lived on an idyllic South Pacific island called Norfolk. It is an external territory of Australia and duty free, which means cheaper alcohol and cigarettes than the mainland. I could easily maintain my addiction while caring for my mother.

  I nursed her for six months and she recovered well enough to go back to work in her shop. I worked there part-time for her too and did some casual work in a restaurant. I felt safer being back on Norfolk even though I continued to drink and my behavior was sometimes questioned by my boss. But I no longer denied my alcoholism. This was me, like it or not.

  I was forty-two, though, and it felt wrong to be living with my mother. I was seeing a man at the time, and we decided to get married. I was lucky. I married Tom, one of the most honest, decent, sober men I have ever met.

  He cared deeply for me. I would often wake up in our bed with no idea how I got there and no car in the garage. Tom would come home from work and tell me that I had passed out somewhere and someone had rung him to pick me up. I was a pass-out drunk and would black out anywhere but Tom was never angry. He was just concerned that I might lose consciousness while I was driving and hurt myself or someone else. He would beg me, “Please don’t drink too much today,” but it was like asking a duck not to quack. We spent two and a half years like this. It’s a small island; I was a drunk and everyone knew it.

  Then one day I woke up and actually woke up. I realized that this was IT, my life, forever. I went straight to my doctor and asked for help. I’d been to NA (Narcotics Anonymous) many years earlier and I’d spent time in drug programs and even a rebirthing retreat, but I’d never been in a rehabilitation program, which is what my doctor suggested.

  I looked at the options and chose a three-month program focusing on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). I wanted no part in a religion-based program as I had a problem with the concept of God. I thought, “Look at me, look at this sad world, how can there be a God?”

  I completed the three-month program and came back to the island. I joined Alcoholics Anonymous and received support from many people. I found a stress-free job and promised my new boss I wouldn’t drink. I lasted almost three months before I went back on that, and it was hard. I always wanted to drink and it was through sheer willpower that I lasted that long.

  There had to be another way. I went back to the doctor and asked for the longest, hardest, most successful rehabilitation program available. He told me that the success rate was the same for all of them . . . 30 percent.

  With a heavy heart I opted for the longest and toughest, the Salvation Army Bridge Program, which lasted ten months.

  The Bridge Program has been running for about ten years and is one of the most successful rehabilitation programs in Australia. It, too, boasts a 30 percent success rate. Its rules are simple: for the first month there is no contact with friends or family and while I was free to leave the program at any time, if I left three times I wouldn’t be allowed to return.

  I started the treatment with nine other women. After one month we were down to seven, after three months we were down to five, and by the end of the sixth month there were just three of us.

  It felt good to be in the magic 30 percent but I also knew that if I went back out into the world I would drink again. Our days were filled with group meetings, counseling sessions, and AA meetings, and the three of us attended lectures about Jesus on Thursday nights. The latter was voluntary but it got us out of rehab for a night and they supplied a baked dinner.

  The Jesus lectures culminated in a weekend retreat where a major from the Salvation Army conducted spiritual healings. I believe now that despite my skepticism my addiction was lifted by God on that weekend.

  Something changed in me when the major called in the spirit of Christ to heal me. I started crying and was so embarrassed by my tears that afterward I slunk back to my seat. No blinding flash, no hallelujahs, nothing—but a few days later my world changed.

  My mother was sick again. She was flown to Sydney for an operation and I was given time to be with her. Every day I went to the hospital and every night I went back to rehab. Mum improved enough to travel back to the island and recuperate in peace. I didn’t go with her. She died in the hospital one week later.

  Again I was given time out of rehab to arrange the funeral. It was my first time home in seven months. The manager of the rehab called me into her office and told me that no matter what I did when I went home I was to come back and finish the program. She gave me a green light to do whatever I wanted, including drink, as long as I returned. My roommates were so envious! Of course we all knew that I’d be getting drunk and passing out.

  And so I went home, worried about how I’d cope with the grief and the stress and whether I’d start drinking again—but nothing happened. I was calm. I buried my mother with dignity and had no desire to drink.

  The desire to drink was gone, just like that. I was amazed. I stayed home for two weeks then went back to rehab to finish the program, feeling humbled and very grateful. I stayed for another three months and then graduated along with my roommates Rachael and Kim. We were the magic 30 percenters.

  A common saying in AA and in rehab is that an addict has only three choices in the long run: death, institutionalization, or sobriety. Rachael, Kim, and I were the lucky ones who had made it and we were going to live free.

  We had been through ten hard months together and we vowed to keep in touch. I went back to the island and my stoic husband; Kim went back to her family and her job; Rachael lived briefly with her mother and then found her own place. For a while we were happy.

  Then within two months Rachael was dead. Cause: alcohol. She was a beautiful, lively, funny thirty-five-year-old and one of my main inspirations now for seeking an alternative treatment for addiction. Kim is thankfully still alive but hospitalized for alcohol-related issues. She tells me she has good days and bad. So much for the magic 30 percent.

  Back home on Norfolk Island I made contact with a counselor, Kathryn, attended a weekly AA meeting, and resumed my job. I was again supported by the community and my fabulous employer, Margarita, who encouraged me to practice vipassana meditation and gave me time off to attend ten-day silent retreats. I began a course in drug and alcohol counseling with Kathryn as my supervisor and was sponsored by the local hospital. I studied and worked for the next two years researching different rehabilitation programs worldwide but no matter where I looked I could not find anything better than the 30 percent success rate that I already knew and had experienced using standard Western methods.

  I knew from experience that intelligence, support, friends
, and money should be but were not the answers, and had hardly any bearing at all on who got clean and who kept drinking or using drugs. So what was it? In my search for a cure I knew I was missing something and failing all of those things that I now knew I could rule out, I suspected that it must have something to do with “spirit,” so I looked for an answer there.

  I came across an article about the Takiwasi Centre in Peru. This is an addictions healing center claiming a 75 percent success rate and it caught my attention immediately. I looked at their program and the only significant difference I could see between their model and the Western therapeutic model was the use of plant medicines. They used tobacco as a purgative and a plant I had never heard of—ayahuasca.

  I was so excited by the prospect of a greater success rate that I began looking for a way to get to Peru and experience the plant firsthand. I found Ross Heaven’s website (www.thefourgates.org) and read about his Magical Earth program,*28 a journey he leads to the Amazon to work with the shamans there and with the medicine of ayahuasca. It sounded perfect for me. The group was not too big and the event looked safe and professional. All I had to do was buy my ticket to Peru and meet the group in Iquitos. I told Kathryn about it and she asked if she could come with me. Perfect. She had over twenty years drug counseling experience and would be a great research assistant.

  We came to Iquitos and met the group, a fantastic selection of people from six different countries all on personal healing journeys. My introduction to plant medicines could not have been better. We did seven ayahuasca ceremonies in Iquitos and then traveled to Cusco for two ceremonies with wachuma, better known as San Pedro.

  I could see immediately what was missing in the Western rehabilitation model: the connection to spirit, which both plants gave. Ayahuasca helped me find myself; San Pedro completed the process by reconnecting me with the world.