1

Adam Oliver Brown, a Canadian biologist, visits Takiwasi, where founder and director Dr. Jacques Mabit takes him on a tour of the center. The following chapter is a translation of the conversation they had in French, while walking the center’s grounds.

ABOUT TAKIWASI

MABIT:  Takiwasi opened in 1992 with the goal of treating drug addicts. We try to be like a bridge between Western science and knowledge, and traditional indigenous Amazonian medicine. We apply what we learn to a very concrete problem: drug addicts, which are difficult cases, for which the results with conventional Western techniques have been very poor and limited, as we know.

[They enter the compound]

MABIT: We will first go to the isolation cabin, which is the house where patients first stay upon their arrival. They stay there for one week, in a sort of “decompression” from the life they have been living as addicts. This isolation period will enable them to settle down, get to know the atmosphere, meet the people a little bit, get acclimatized before being integrated into the main group of patients. Otherwise, if they join the other patients too quickly there can be conflicts; the presence of the drugs is still very strong in the newcomers, they still have habits…

BROWN:  I see, so this process is as much for the newcomers as for the patients already here.

MABIT:  Exactly, that’s the isolation cabin. The patient will stay here for eight days, usually alone, though sometimes other newcomers might arrive at the same time.

Some of the purge plants that we use can reduce the withdrawal syndrome very quickly, so in this cabin they begin taking purging plants to cleanse themselves. This is one of the biggest problems with drug addiction, as you know: that when an addict suddenly stops using drugs, which is what the patients are doing here, they suffer physical and psychological withdrawal reactions: anxiety, diarrhea, etc. The purge plants we use ease the withdrawal syndrome. You see results very quickly. In two, three days you can reduce the withdrawal syndrome to the minimum.

So, as soon as they arrive here, they stop the drugs. We do not administer any additional medicines: only for emergencies, or for patients that are under both addicted to drugs and taking prescription medicines. For them it would be too much to stop everything – drugs and prescription medicines – at the same time. Otherwise newcomers generally stop everything as soon as they enter Takiwasi.

BROWN:  And this is where they spend time doing this.

MABIT:  They stay here, yes. During this time they also meet the psychologist who will accompany them through their entire treatment.

[Points to a small cabin outside]

There is also a small sauna cabin, it is really simple, we use it with plants as well as just the steam.

BROWN:  Oh really? Is it part of the treatment or…?

MABIT:  It is part of the treatment. The objective is to detoxify newcomers in all possible ways. By using purge plants, through laxatives, taking infusions, plants that help to sleep, and also they go to the sauna twice a day if necessary. It allows them to get through this withdrawal period as best as possible. But it is always a little difficult, no matter what.

BROWN:  Yes, so you try to make it as agreeable as possible.

MABIT:  The least hard possible, yes. But as soon as the patients start taking plants, there is a reconnection, especially with Yawar Panga which is a very strong purgative plant. After the Yawar Panga they will feel very tired, physically, so at night they will sleep without any additional drugs or medicines. Also their dreams will start returning, and this is important: patients can feel that they are reconnecting with their inner world, whereas when they use drugs, most of the time there are no dreams, or people do not recall their dreams. So there is a kind of immediate lived experience, that shows them the plants are working. This fortifies their motivation, and strengthens their desire to stay in treatment.

PREPARATION

[They walk to the back of the property, where ayahuasca is prepared.]

MABIT:  This is the place where we cook the ayahuasca. All the plants we use are prepared in this area. It is a controlled environment, in order to be sure of the quality of the preparations.

BROWN:  It is very open – is this part of the preparation atmosphere, the preparation environment?

MABIT:  Yes. As you can see, it’s a simple place, everything is very simple and rustic. This is also part of the center’s values: that everything remains simple, at the level of earth, in direct contact with nature. We refuse the non-essential things. This is a restricted area of the center, it is isolated, no strangers and no patients can come here. It is also far away from cooking smells, from strong chemical smells, from noises… The plants have to be cooked in serenity.

BROWN:  The plants come from the area around here too?

MABIT:  Most of the plants here come from around here too, or from the botanical reserve we have deep in the jungle. Some plants need to be purchased, because we can’t find them here or in the jungle anymore.

BROWN:  And this open fire?

MABIT:  We use it to cook the plants. Ayahuasca has to be cooked for twelve hours. It takes a long time. So we have to do this in an isolated place, taking care that there are no disturbances, approaching the process with a lot of precaution.

BROWN:  You’re saying that the atmosphere surrounding the ayahuasca preparation is important? What do you mean?

MABIT:  Every energetic disturbance can interfere with the preparation; it is not only a pharmacological problem. It is a co-synergetic problem. Patients charged with bad energies, because they have used drugs recently, for example, are not allowed nearby. We ban the use of strong perfumes. We pay attention to those kinds of details.

BROWN:  Do you consider these factors as a form of contamination?

MABIT:  Yes. It has importance on the energetic level. This is not simply about the pharmacology, there is something else that intervenes. So if the ayahuasca is not well prepared, or has been disturbed, we can sense it during the session. We can really experience it. I say it belongs to the energetic dimension, because I don’t have other words to describe it, let’s say the subtle dimension of things…

BROWN:  Have you had bad experiences?

MABIT:  Yes, yes. And we can even see where it comes from, during the session.

BROWN:  Interesting. I look forward to being able to completely understand this notion.

MALOKA

[They arrive at a thatched-roof building.]

BROWN:  And what do we have here?

MABIT:  This is what we call the maloka, where ayahuasca sessions happen with the patients, once a week.

BROWN:  Maloka?

MABIT:  Maloka is the name that some indigenous Amazonians gave to their common houses, still today. In the Indian tribes, the “common houses” are places where people live in community. This is not exactly like those malokas, this is more in the modern style, but we have taken the traditional maloka as an inspiration, for example keeping the oval form. This is where we will do most of the ayahuasca sessions. In this place hundreds, even thousands of ayahuasca sessions have taken place.

BROWN:  OK, so there is a high level of experience in there.

MABIT:  As you can see, it is surrounded by nature.

BROWN:  Yes, the place is very nice. Do you consider the atmosphere, the environment, as part of the whole process? I can imagine that it helps…

MABIT:  Yes. The context helps, things like the fact that this building is open, and there are no walls. You can see nature all around. So patients don’t have the sensation of being imprisoned: they can easily go out, there is no lock. It is not a jail. It has to be voluntary. Also, we are trying to recreate a rustic atmosphere, simple, very close to the earth, to maintain contact with natural elements.

BROWN:  Well, it is very beautiful, this construction.

MABIT:  During the ayahuasca sessions people sit in a semicircle on the floor. Again, it is done in a very simple way, on cushions, or with their back leaning directly on the wall, and just some mats on the ground. This is a sacred place, a place that we respect. We try to avoid any profane actions here.

BROWN:  In order not to disturb…

MABIT:  Yes, also to respect the place, because important things happen here, and recognizing boundaries is very important, especially for drug addicts. It’s important to consciously recognize different types of spaces, and the boundaries of territories. Often with addicts, there are problems with this, not only regarding spatial and physical limits and territories, but also the limits between people. And this is also a way to learn respect: to learn how to have limits and respect boundaries.

BROWN:  As you are explaining these notions, I am starting to feel that there is a real holistic approach to all healing here.

MABIT:  There are many things we don’t tell the patients. We don’t explain the theory to them they way I just did to you. Instead we have them live these things. Live the notion of a territory, of a space that must be respected, or of a boundary that can’t be crossed. By living these things, they will discover the concepts underneath.

Often it happens that patients don’t really understand some of the rules we give them. They think it’s all nonsense, a little bit arbitrary. Yet, they have to respect the rule. As time passes, they realize that it all made sense. It’s important not to tell them everything, so they can discover it for themselves – because the same thing will happen in real life. You have to discover things for yourself.

BROWN: Yes, exactly.

[They walk behind the maloka]

CAVE OF THE VIRGIN

MABIT:  So, after new patients have spent time in the isolation cabin, before they join the rest of the patients, they pass through this place. We call it the Cave of the Virgin, although as you can see it’s not really a cave, it’s a sculpture. It comes from the vision of one patient, who during an ayahuasca session, saw that he had to carve a space in this very hard rock, to place a statue of the Virgin inside. This patient had spent a lot of time in prison, he had made himself a metal ring in jail. In his ayahuasca vision he saw that after he built this sculpture, he had to leave that ring here. So there’s a lot of symbolism. It is a concrete thing, but also …there is a symbolic part to it: the patient, this hardened ex-convict, had to dig into his heart, which was really hard, like the rock, to carve a place where the feminine, the sensitive in him, could exist, come back to life.

The space has gone on to become symbolic for all our patients. The work we do at Takiwasi is officially non-denominational. There is always a transcendental dimension, and most of the staff is Catholic, but our patients can come from any religious background, or have no religion at all. Most of the patients coming from Perú and South America have a Christian or Catholic background. So for them, the Virgin is something they have references for. But this place is used whether the patients are believers or not. It is the space that is important: the statue itself is not just the Virgin, it’s a representation, a symbolic figure that represents protection and care. Created by an ex-patient, a person who also came here to heal.

So new patients, at the end of the three to four weeks they spend in isolation, before joining the other patients, they come here and take a formal pledge, a commitment, to give up drugs, to finish treatment and to fight for life, for life in general.

BROWN:  So it is very analogical. Are you explaining this, or…?

MABIT:  Yes, in this case we explain it. Because for religious figures such as this one, it’s important that people understand. Not all patients are religious, sometimes they are even in conflict with it or opposed to religion, so it has to be explained that this is, not necessarily the virgin, but a representation of whatever is most sacred for them.

BROWN:  No one can force them.

MABIT:  Exactly. All spiritual things have to be voluntary. It can never be an imposition. It has to be a personal decision.

BROWN:  It has to be a liberation.

MABIT:  Yes. The aim of the commitment ritual is to reinforce the patient’s motivation. To give things a structure, and for patients to see where they’re going, beyond the detoxification. Giving up drugs is not a sufficient motivation. Patients must go deeper: why are they giving up drugs? What was preventing them from giving them up before? What led them to drugs? And what would enable them to direct themselves to the future, to projects, to objectives, to an ideal, to realizations, etc. It is fundamental to have a life project, a direction. Statistically, the results are completely different when patients are heading in a certain direction, because then they do not only leave the past behind them, but literally move away from it.

BROWN:  You have to have a direction …

MABIT:  If you don’t have a goal, a project, a dream, a vocation, a call…there is no motor, there is no reason really, no meaning to life.

BROWN:  So we can feel that there’s a need for something, but we don’t know what. Is that what you’re saying?

MABIT:  Yes.

BROWN:  Give ourselves a kind of a goal to reach.

MABIT:  Yes, except that we do not believe we are giving it to ourselves, we are merely discovering it…

BROWN:  You are helping us discover…

MABIT:  Everyone has to discover by themselves, it is a revelation.

BROWN:  It’s personal.

MABIT:  Yes.

BROWN:  Ok, so where are we going now?

MABIT:  Well we are going to see where the patients live.

THE BARRACKS

MABIT:  So we’re going to see where the patients live, their residence. They will be here for nine months. This is more or less the length of the treatment, nine months. Like a pregnancy, the time it takes to be born.

BROWN:  Symbolism again. [Laughs]

MABIT:  Yes, but not one we chose arbitrarily. The treatment needs at least nine months, between nine months and a year, maximum twelve months. It’s not exact… not mathematical. But it is, more or less, the length of a pregnancy, a gestation. We expect that there is no abortion during the…

BROWN:  Ah yes! [Laughs]

MABIT:  So the patients live in community. In the therapeutic protocol at Takiwasi, there are three pillars. First there are the plants, which make this center somehow original; but this is only one pillar of the process. Second, the accompaniment of a psychotherapist, workshops, one-on-one interviews, all the tools used in modern therapy. The third pillar is community living. These three things interact with each other. When people live very close together, there will always be frictions, incidents, and conflicts. These become source material that we work on with the plants, and the psychotherapy. We look at what each incident indicates about the patient, their personality, or their process, and this goes back to how we apply it with community living. It becomes a feedback cycle: community, plants and therapy.

BROWN:  I see they even sleep in the same room – is this also part of the treatment?

MABIT:  This is fundamental: fifteen persons maximum. Fifteen patients is already a lot to handle, when you work with difficult and complicated cases.

BROWN:  Are you limited because of the number of beds, or…?

MABIT:  No, there’s no limitation other than the limits of our ability to take care of them effectively. For example, in the plant sessions, the ayahuasca sessions or in the purge sessions we can’t have more than fifteen people, because the sessions require a level of accompaniment, of proximity to each patient, which cannot be done in large numbers. Also, the way we work involves individual one-to-one relationships, in daily life. We live very closely with each patient. This is a very involved work, all day (and some nights!), Saturdays and Sundays… It’s different than a clinic where people come to do a psychological consultation now and then. We practice accompaniment through proximity. It’s not the type of work that can be done on a massive scale.

[They arrive at the building]

MABIT:  So here is the cuadra (barracks) where the patients live, eat, etc. They’re responsible for the maintenance of their habitat, all the cleaning, the cooking… They are building a life here, where they will put into practice the insights from the plants, along with what they learn in psychotherapy. All their discoveries about themselves, everything will be applied here: it needs to be “landed”, lived, put into practice in day-to-day life.

BROWN:  So you impose responsibility on others too?

MABIT:  Yes, there is a rotation for all responsibilities.

BROWN:  And it is about living in society too, I imagine.

MABIT:  Living in society, learning limits, respecting schedules and timetables, learning to accept and relate to others, respecting the space of others, and also learning solidarity, doing work together. These things, these structures, are often missing in the lives of people with drug addiction problems: the basic structures of everyday life in society, this is the place where things really settle. Interestingly, we see that with the plants and our other treatments, patients actually open up very quickly. Patients are much more open to each other, and to everything in general – they’re more accepting of therapy, whatever type of therapy it happens to be. Visiting psychotherapists are often very surprised to see the way our patients, and other people taking the plants, enter into therapeutic dynamics much faster than normal. There is a kind of opening.

BROWN:  And I imagine there is also a kind of reassurance for them, that they are not alone in all these processes?

MABIT:  Yes, of course, they share friendships, they support one another, and there is solidarity. Because it is a difficult process, the treatment is difficult. It is not … it’s not Club Med. [Laughs]

BROWN:  Of course.

PURGE SESSION

[As they pass by the small maloka next to the barracks, they hear chanting coming from the inside.]

BROWN:  What’s happening here, we can hear chants?

MABIT:  It’s a purga, a session of purgative plants. One of the “classic” activities at Takiwasi. [Laughs] In order to cleanse themselves, the patients regularly purge with plants that enable them to prepare, before taking ayahuasca. The purga is a traditional form of detoxification. Patients cleanse not just the drugs they took in their past, but more broadly, everything toxic they have ingested or swallowed, from bad food to negative emotions.

The chants are present because this is not just about taking a plant and vomiting. There is an activation happening through these shamanic chants, they activate the effects of the plants. I think when you take ayahuasca you will see for yourself the importance of the chants during the session. They modify or modulate the psychological and physical effects of the plants. For example, for patients who are tense, there are specific chants to calm them. For patients who have a blockage, some chants can help to unblock it. At Takiwasi all these activities are ritualized, in order to allow the plants to act not just pharmacologically but also emotionally, physically, energetically. This is really what curanderos (shamans) teach us.

Takiwasi in Quechua means “the house that sings” or “the enchanted house.” It is the place where there are chants.

Right now the healer is going to invoke the Yawar Panga plant. The chant calls the Yawar Panga to heal and treat these people, so it’s an invocation of the plant’s spirits.

BROWN:  And where do these chants come from?

MABIT:  All these chants or ikaros were originally received by curanderos through dreams, visions or during the ayahuasca sessions. The curanderos say the spirits of the plants taught them these songs. Then they taught us the songs during the training we did with them. So the chants are not an aesthetic creation; they come to us, they are inspired.

BROWN:  The chant has a function.

MABIT:  Yes, it has a very precise direction, a very specific indication that tells us what it is for, how it will be used, under which conditions.

BROWN:  OK. It is quite beautiful, either way.

MABIT:  The ikaros often sound repetitive when we listen to them from the outside. But their role is not an aesthetic one at all. In fact, some healers’ chants are not really beautiful: from the outside they can feel very monotonous. However, under the effects of the plants, we perceive things differently. The rhythms change, the perception, the vibrations change. It’s not very important to know the meaning of the lyrics, when there are lyrics; it is essentially a vibratory phenomenon.

BROWN:  Ok. And we … I think we start to hear the effects.

MABIT:  Yes, the patients are vomiting now. It’s the classic background soundtrack you’ll hear around Takiwasi. [Laughs] Sometimes it’s “The house that sings”, sometimes “The house that purges.” [Laughs]

BROWN:  At least it is not “the house that vomits”. [Laughs]

MABIT:  This purge takes place twice a week.

Next we will see some of the plants that we use.

[They enter the botanical garden]

YAWAR PANGA

MABIT:  This is the plant I was telling you about: Yawar Panga . It is the number one purge here in Takiwasi. Yawar Panga travels through the blood, so it acts everywhere. But more specifically, it acts on the ribcage, the abdomen and the diaphragm. It operates between what comes from the lower powers, what comes from the earth, the guts, and what comes from the head and heart, the world of inspiration. So it acts on the relationship between the spiritual plane and the earth plane. It is a plant that is will enable people to be more themselves. It is a grounding plant, a plant of incarnation, which enables patients to come down to earth and to acknowledge, “I am here. I exist. I have substance. I have a body”. It helps us come back to ourselves, our physical presence. For the drug addicts, it is really important to leave a imaginary world, the world of dreams and drugs, to return to the here and now, the world of incarnation.

As you can see, it is a vine. “Panga” means leaf and “Yawar” means “blood” in Quechua, so blood leaf, because it is a plant that has, here…

BROWN:  Oh yes. The color of the sap is remarkable, it’s red!

MABIT:  It has a reddish sap, blood color… and as you can see, the leaf itself is heart-shaped. In fact, this plant will detoxify the blood. It’s very powerful, but can also be dangerous. It could be toxic if we don’t take the right dosage, so there is a dosage to respect. We give them a small cup of this plant, to which we add a water injection. They have to drink between five and six liters of water. This helps them vomit the plant out of their stomach.

This is the plant we use for patients who have just arrived. The physical detox can go very deep: people may have important bile vomiting when they come from very difficult lives, which is often the case for our patients. But right after it’s done, there is gratification; the patient will feel the positive effect of the plants, starting the next day. This gives patients a strong conviction that plants work, that they are efficient. Everybody vomits with this plant, even the most intoxicated or the toughest persons. Sometimes patients arrive thinking that plants are a kind of soft medicine, like drinking carrot juice – it’s going to be smooth. Suddenly they realize that plants are more powerful than the drugs they were taking! They realize that what is living is stronger than what is dead. Then there is a sort of immediate realization, “Oh! It’s really strong,” and an immediate benefit as well. In spite of being a very difficult process, it considerably reduces the symptoms of withdrawal. The morning after taking this plant, patients are exhausted; they sleep, and the next day they wake up and find they can think more clearly, they no longer have the anxiety of drug withdrawal. We then give them the plant a second time, and after this people generally feel quite calm.

BROWN:  You have to feel bad before being able to feel better.

MABIT:  Exactly, you have to go down before going up, this is a spiritual rule. You have to work and even suffer a little bit at first, the treatment with plants is a difficult one, it requires willpower and effort.

BROWN:  Are these plants specifically from this region, or can we find them everywhere?

MABIT:  This is a plant that people do not know so much about; only a few curanderos use it. The curandero who taught it to us hadn’t used it to treat drug addictions, but we tried. I do try all new plants on myself first. When I experienced the effect it had on me, I realized it was indeed a very powerful plant! [Laughs] It’s important to know how to handle the dosage. It produces a physical cleaning, a strong detoxification from the drugs, the medicines – there is also a simultaneous psychological cleansing effect. There is an opening, and then comes relaxation, dreams come back… people come back to life, a little bit.

BROWN:  Coming out of the clouds of drugs a little?

MABIT:  Yes. Indeed, exactly this. It is a plant of earth, of earth energy, that is to say, relating to the body. When we are a little bit outside ourselves, it brings us back down to earth.

BROWN:  But it’s a vine, and grows in the direction of the sky.

MABIT:  Yes, but in order to grow, it needs support, it can’t grow upwards by itself. It is a plant of the earth that needs to be supported, just like ayahuasca.

BROWN:  It doesn’t work by itself, is that what you mean?

MABIT:  It means that these plants, these vines, are plants of the earth, so in order to get their psychological and spiritual benefits, they need to be supported. The ayahuasca vine has to be combined with the Chacruna , and with other admixture plants, so it can have an efficient effect.

Symbolically, it will act as in Paracelsus’s Doctrine of Signatures[1]. Which is important for curanderos, traditional healers, too. The symbolic interpretation of the forms of plants, the plant’s shape, tells us something about their function. This is a very ancient idea we are rediscovering. It gives extremely precise indications; it is not only something folkloric.

BROWN:  So according to this idea, but contrary to what I am seeing, there are lots of epiphytes in this region, plants that do not root in the earth. Would these plants have a different effect?

MABIT:  Yes, parasite plants, for example, would help to heal wounds, they would be able to help with everything related to the immune system, because they can adapt to foreign bodies. So they have a very strong capacity to adapt. Parasite plants are always related to the immune system, reconstructions, so for example we use some plants, like the Suelda con Suelda , for fractures; to heal more easily.

BROWN:  OK. This is remarkable: so not only is it called “blood leaf”, but it has an effect on the blood when we take it.

MABIT:  Yes, its name is not a coincidence. We often find an explanation contained in a plant’s names, and indication of their efficiency. Yawar Panga in another language is called Wankawi Sacha . Wankawi , is a bird. Sacha means “the vegetal equivalent”. So “the vegetal equivalent of the Wankawi .” And the Wankawi is a bird that carried a special function: hunting snakes.

BROWN:  Ah!

MABIT:  Snakes represent toxicity: knowledge, learning, but also drugs and toxicity. So that is the snake, and this is the bird that can dominate that snake. It represents the spirits, the forces of the air, the spiritual power of the air, which dominate the toxic power of the lower world. It is symbolic.

In another language, they call it Machakuy Waska . Machakuy is a venomous snake, so this plant is a toxic plant, just like a toxic snake. But it also useful, if used well. Waska , like in ayahuasca, means the liana , the vine, used to dominate the snake, to dominate the toxicity, and to open ourselves to the spiritual world.

So through the name of the plants, we can already see what’s at stake, in terms of physical, psychological and spiritual effects.

BROWN:  What it represented for the people using it.

MABIT:  Yes.

BROWN:  Ok. Very good. But given that there are so many thousands of plants in this region, how did people know about these ones that can be used?

MABIT:  Well, the curanderos say that the plants themselves called them. So it was not a random search, done by trial and error. They say they really learnt in their dreams – so the spirits and the world of dreams were manifesting themselves, and this still happens nowadays. Some patients here come into consultation and say “I have dreamt of such-and-such plant.”

BROWN:  Yes. So that indicates something.

MABIT:  And sometimes they don’t know the plant. We have to search for it, and some descriptions are extremely precise. This is always very surprising – but it happens even today. People living in the world of plants feel and perceive it, there is a sort of connection.

BROWN:  So do you think many uses of plants still remain to be discovered?

MABIT:  Probably.

CHIRIC SANANGO

BROWN:  What is this?

MABIT:  This, Chiric Sanango , is a very important plant in the Amazon, and it is a plant teacher that we use during dietas . “Chiric ” means cold in Quechua, it’s like the shivering and the chattering of the teeth, tchktchktchktchk.

BROWN:  Is it onomatopoeia?

MABIT:  Yes. This plant is precisely applied to relieve the cold, although at the physical level what it does is produce cold. When patients take this plant under the conditions of the dieta , they will feel cold, an inner coldness, with insensitivities, like an anesthesia, or the lips or finger falling asleep […] It feels like freezing. After our body processes the plant, then the warmth will return.

Traditionally this plant was used for people who suffer from rheumatism, for afflictions associated with cold and humidity. It’s a very interesting plant in that aspect, but what interests us here at Takiwasi is the psychological usage, that is to say, the effects the plant will have over what you could consider the “emotional cold”. So people who have difficulties expressing and receiving affection, also known as emotional warmth. People who, when they face difficulties or problems, cut themselves off from the outside world, forswear reality, become introverted, shy, withdrawn. People who have difficulty being open, and who have a hard time taking risks, daring. This plant will help them open themselves. And in my experience it works, even if we don’t give a person any indication, we don’t tell the person what the plant does, but when they take it in dieta the person automatically will open himself.

BROWN:  What kind of preparation is it? Is it the leaves you use?

MABIT:  We use the root, we grate it, and then we use it either as an extract, or by cooking it, by decoction. The decoction preparation is much more powerful. It’s a very powerful plant, but if not well used, it can lead to delirium. It has a very, very powerful active principle.

BROWN:  It’ s possible to get bad effects, if it’s not used properly?

MABIT:  Yes, it’s a very effective plant, but also an effective way to get into trouble if we don’t respect it…

BROWN:  This is also often true for medicine, isn’t it? This issue of the dosage.

MABIT:  Yes, there are indications and contraindications, and there are precise rules. If you respect the rules, there is no problem. But if you don’t respect the rules… for example for this plant, some of the rules are: It must be taken for two or three days in a row. It must be taken in isolation. Once under the effects, one must avoid smelling strong perfumes… otherwise there will be an adverse reaction, ranging from headaches to delirium. It is unbearable, it drives people crazy.

BROWN:  Does it give a more sensitive olfaction sense?

MABIT:  There is a psychological sensitivity. The perfumes go directly through the olfactory nerve, which is not really a nerve, and this directly impacts the brain at the limbic bridge. So it will impact the mood – that’s why smells are a very powerful path to modify the patient’s mood, especially if they are on a dieta where there is hypersensitivity. It’s like if you sit in a plane, or on a train, next to a person wearing very strong perfume – it bothers you, gives you headache. Multiply this effect by fifty or a hundred times, and you can see what might happen if you take this plant and you don’t follow the rules…

BROWN:  It doesn’t sound very pleasant.

MABIT:  No.

BROWN:  Could we suppose that it acts through the vomeronasal organ?

MABIT:  Probably.

BROWN:  So we can reach areas of the brain that are more emotion-oriented, right?

MABIT:  Yes. These are things that ought to be further researched, there is a great need for research, but indeed the vomer most probably has a role to play, such as it does for the perception of period odors.

BROWN:  Yes, that’s what I thought. […] Interesting.

MABIT:  As I’m not a botanist, I don’t know the details, but we often see this plant in gardens, because it’s very beautiful, decorative, and most people don’t know its therapeutic use.

BROWN:  Probably the same is true with a lot of plants you know, there are uses we ignore, we may find them in gardens.

MABIT:  Exactly, and there are still plants whose uses have yet to be discovered. We can see that certain plants are used and known in this area, but not in other regions. So the knowledge is a little fragmented and split.

BROWN:  And in the framework of preserving our biodiversity, the issue is to make sure the resources are always here, for the day we discover something important?

MABIT:  Yes, because there is a very impressive traditional knowledge that needs to be decodified, since it uses a metaphorical language, often analogical. The healers use images in their speech. For example, they’ll say: this plant is the plant of cold. […] We need to understand and interpret what that means. It’s cold, not only physical cold, but also psychological cold.

BROWN:  You are interpreting for us.

MABIT:  Yes, b ecause they are not formulating these things in words: they just know them. They don’t need to say them. In my experience what the curanderos are verbally communicating is not much. Only 10% of what I learned from my indigenous teachers was transmitted through words. The rest, they showed to me, or shared with me while I was living with them.

BROWN:  And did you need to discover by yourself?

MABIT:  Yes, and through the altered states of consciousness, because then we can hear and see them.

BROWN:  The plants, you mean?

MABIT:  The healers too. Sometimes people drinking ayahuasca also see certain healers, and receive indications from them.

COCA

BROWN:  What’s next?

MABIT:  This is a particular plant teacher many people have heard about it: it is the Coca plant.

BROWN:  But Coca is used to produce cocaine, which leads to so many social problems – you also call it a plant teacher?

MABIT:  Exactly. This is the main confusion, confusing the plants with their extracted active principles. These are two different things, with two different effects. When we talk about coca , we’re not talking about cocaine. There is indeed some cocaine in each leaf, but when it isn’t unnaturally concentrated, the quantities are so small there is no addiction effect.

It’s the manipulation, the concentration of the active principles, the lack of ritual, the lack of a clear intention, that creates addictive states from this concentrated, extracted substance, modified in an inadequate context. It’s important to distinguish the plant from the concentrated extracts. Coca is a central plant in both Amazonian and Andean traditional medicine. The entire Andean culture is structured around coca. Traditionally it’s consumed in different ways, especially through mastication – although what we call coca chewing it is not really mastication. Coca has a very important function in traditional medicine, because it’s a universal plant that can be associated with any other medicinal plant. It doesn’t have a contraindication regarding the association with other plants, as long as we take the plant naturally.

BROWN:  Which means to chew it?

MABIT:  Which means to chew it, or to take it in extract, in juice, in cooked form, the way we use it at Takiwasi. When we talk about plants traditionally, we often talk about their masculine and feminine functions, that is to say how they stimulate some functions of the right brain, or some functions of the left brain. We see how, in particular, they stimulate psychological and behavioral functions associated with the masculine or feminine. We’re not referring to men and women.

BROWN:  Understood.

MABIT:  So this plant, coca, is one of the rare plants that is masculine and feminine at the same time, simultaneously, and in a balanced way. It is a feminine plant, it is “mama Coca”, as we say; it’s also a masculine plant because it’s a plant of construction, of elaboration. The whole of Machu Pichu, all the Inca ruins, all the Inca civilization: behind all this was coca. So this plant has very powerful roots: it shows a digging in, a force that comes from the earth. So the plant is used for earth rituals, for example the tributes that Andean peoples do to Mother Earth or pachamama .

But it’s also a plant of light, a plant that preserves in light, a plant that is enlightening. So when we take this plant, for example as a raw extract, the coca leaf, people re-focus. They refocus psychologically, emotionally, and physically. People regain their center, their axis; and this extraordinary function is not affected by any danger of toxicity. It is a plant that is absolutely inoffensive when consumed in its natural form. We can take several liters of it: no toxicity.

All these psychoactive plants functioned as medicines, up to the point when unfortunately they were manipulated, modified by a Western society that has de-ritualized their use, and modified and profaned their spiritual or energetic dimension.

BROWN:  So what are the effects for users in that case?

MABIT:  The effect is the contrary effect. Instead of being a plant that helps re-focus, cocaine puts things out of focus, de-focuses. Cocaine, as we know in medicine, is an anesthetic. Coca, as a plant, is a tonic: a bracing, stimulating plant that directs and focuses us. However, when we extract the active principles to make cocaine, crack, or free base cocaine – all diverted forms, or as I call them, profaned forms of this plant – then we have intoxicative and addictive effects. So with the cocaine, the coca paste, or free base cocaine, we feel speed, we become completely stoned, moronic…and there are extremely dangerous and toxic psychological effects, including an addiction effect.

The addiction is not linked to the plant; the addiction is linked to the bad use of the plant. We should always keep that in mind. It’s difficult for Western people to understand that Coca is a medicinal plant, but its misappropriation turns it into a drug. We could say the same thing about tobacco. Tobacco is the Amazonian medicinal plant par excellence, a medicinal plant that we Westerners also use in poor conditions, wrong quantities, without any preparation, without any guide, with inadequate ingestion routes, etc. – turning it into a toxic drug.

BROWN:  It’s a paradox.

MABIT:  A striking paradox, yes. We should always keep in mind that the work we do at Takiwasi is not only about the pharmacological effects of the plants. We understand there is an additional dimension, call it the energetic dimension, which is activated by the ritual work, and which acts on the patient psychologically and spiritually.

This dimension is still mostly alien to the Western vision, which is rational and doesn’t comprehend this, excludes it from its perception. At Takiwasi we reintroduce this notion, even to Westerners who have no education in terms of symbolic work. We’ve found it’s still effective, because it’s part of human nature.

It is the entire context of use, the form, all environments, but also the inner intentions of the people taking the plants, that will make a medicine or a drug out of the same substance. The substance itself is neutral.

BROWN:  The context is very important, then.

MABIT:  The external context is important, as is the intention, the inner state. We could say the same thing about all psychoactive plants, not only Amazonian, but from around the world: cannabis, opium poppy, peyote… All these psychoactive plants can and have traditionally been used, not only in medical and spiritual contexts, but in the elaboration of entire civilizations. Unfortunately, we, the people from the West, have desecrated these uses, by making consumer products out of them. This leads to a kind of quest for an altered state of consciousness that is no more than an unrestrained consumption of pleasure, and not the search for respectful sense of transcendence. That’s the desecration of the plant I was referring to, and the reason I used the word “profaned”: we disrespect the transcendental aspects of the plant, instead becoming simple consumers at the store of the spiritual. This hurts us a lot.

BROWN:  So you see that as a lack of respect? Ignorance?

MABIT:  Yes, it’s a lack of respect, brought on by ignorance, of course. I think it’s time we began to listen to traditional medicine, and to what some healers have been telling us for a long time: “You’re profaning this plant,” or “You have no idea what sacred is, what transcendence is. You are trampling on these things, and look how you ended up.”

BROWN:  We can see the result.

MABIT:  Exactly. Drug addiction is clear and striking evidence of the problem we have now, in a society that loses its core meanings.

BROWN:  It’s a very interesting story. When you talk about this union, or balance between the feminine and masculine sphere, I don’t know if we can talk about, like hermaphrodite? or if this is a bad terminology? [Jacques laughs] But when we use this kind of balance in a bad way, are we directed to one direction or the other? Or is it just chaos, in all senses?

MABIT:  Oh, I think it’s chaos. The psychoactive plants, the sacred plants, teach us. They are teaching plants. If we use them well, they teach us good things, the important things in life. If we use them badly, they teach us as well, but they teach bad things. Everyone knows that a person addicted to cocaine, for example, becomes extremely intelligent when it comes to finding cocaine. The person will find ways, by any means necessary – to stock up, to trick people, manipulate, lie, rob, etc. The person is being taught, but they are being taught bad things.

BROWN:  Yes, it’s unbalanced. I think this can be applied to most things we learn in life. We can either welcome them and use them for the good, or allow them them to hurt us.

MABIT:  They can become completely destructive, because there is an opposition; they are used in the opposite direction. It’s like when we use a knife and grab it by the blade: there’s a risk we may cut ourselves. The knife is not responsible; it is we who aren’t holding the knife on the right side.

BROWN:  That’s a good explanation.

MABIT:  So, when we take plants inadequately, we see the exact opposite effect – just as if we grabbed a knife by the blade. We need to re-learn how to cut correctly, to hold the knife on the right side.

BROWN:  We have things to learn.

MABIT:  Yes, traditional doctors have a lot of things to teach us about very simple things that we tend to forget. We built Takiwasi around this basic notion.

BROWN:  Hm. Yes, a very interesting approach.

[They continue walking]

CHAPEL

MABIT:  We will go to the chapel. It’s also part of the geographical layout here at Takiwasi. As I was saying, there is no religious obligation at Takiwasi; what there was, from the patients themselves, was a request for a meditation space, a place for silence and prayers. This is the place we built. It’s always open. People can always come here when they want to.

In a cultural context like ours, in Peru, the spiritual representations are usually Christian, even if the construction of this chapel is based on Polynesian constructions.

BROWN:  Oh yeah, that’s it.

MABIT:  It is a bit of my roots. I was born in Polynesia. There’s an sculpture at the top of the roof. An arrow, just like in kanak constructions, with the four elements: earth, water, fire and air. And at the center is the heart of the human being. So the heart is what links the elements belonging to the sky, and those from the earth. Man creates the junction between earth and sky.

BROWN:  Excellent, and in fact the same symbol appears on the building construction.

MABIT:  Exactly, in various places, yes. So it’s a reminder of a symbolism found in all cultures, that has diverse forms, but whose meaning is always the same. So it’s a chapel, simultaneously Catholic and not really Catholic. [Laughs]

BROWN:  It allows everyone to be at ease, and to find what they are looking for.

MABIT:  Exactly, it enables each of us to be in a place of silence, of meditation, because that is what bounds all traditions, all religions: silence. There is no doubt or conflict there.

BROWN:  These roof constructions are very beautiful. Is it a local style?

MABIT:  Yes. All the construction is made of wood. Here again, we wanted rustic things, close to the earth, with some sensitivity …

BROWN:  Some kind of serenity, it seems.

MABIT:  It’s a place where anyone can come, sit on the cushions, meditate, pray, be in silence, think. There are also religious ceremonies, attended by a priest. Because what we do is supported by the local church.

[Points to painting]

Saint Raphael, the angel of medicine, God’s medicine. This is what Raphael means.

BROWN:  Ok. So it’s good to have it around here, then. [Laughs]

MABIT:  Here it’s Saint Michael, symbol of the struggle against darkness. This Virgin is the Virgin of the Door, from the Andean village Otuzco. The one who protects houses, and people passing from one place to another. So it makes this place…

BROWN:  Again, a lot of symbolism. It allows people to go through these steps…

MABIT:  Exactly, to pass, to cross the threshold, to go from one place to another.

BROWN:  There is the aroma of serenity in here.

MABIT:  Aroma of wood, of calmness, yes. Spaces have memory too. The more ayahuasca sessions take place in the maloka, the more it gets charged by those forces. The more the people come to pray here, the more the place is enriched.

BROWN:  It contributes as we go, along the way.

MABIT:  Yes, yes. So places can also be energetically charged, and people can feel it.

It’s a peaceful and calm place.

[They remain in silence]

[1] Paracelsus (1493–1541) developed the concept, states that herbs resembling various parts of the body can be used by herbalists to treat ailments of those body parts.