Ayahuasca and Spiritual Tourism Flourish in Bolivia

TripAdvisor ranks an Ayahuasca ceremony as one of the top ten things to do in La Paz. So it’s not surprising to learn that many people come to Bolivia seeking this spiritual experience, probably hard to come by in their home country. Joining a shaman to participate in this once-traditional ceremony has become a rite of passage for those seeking spiritual enlightenment while backpacking through Bolivia.

       The brew that is Ayahuasca is made of a plant that contains a psychedelic compound called Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT. This drink is serious business. After swallowing the pungent and bitter beverage, a process of ‘purging’ begins. The amount of vomiting that occurs is evidently a central part of the whole experience, as it symbolizes getting negative emotions and life experiences out of your body.

       Some describe the opportunity as life changing, some as miserable, and others report not feeling much of anything during their first ceremony. Many feel that the process helps them understand their purpose in life or gain insight into the workings of the world around them.

Various users claim that this ‘spirit vine’ has helped them overcome mental illness, handle previous trauma, move past alcoholism, and even treat cancer. However, people with severe mental illness are warned to take caution when using the drug. This is especially true for those who take prescription pills for mental health, as the combination of the drug and anti-depressants can have unintended negative consequences.

Given the popularity of Ayahuasca among Western travelers, and my lack of a desire to spend hours vomiting during a ceremony in the jungle, I decided to consult an expert about the topic.

Yumi, who also goes by the zen name Ryu Un, is a woman who performs Ayahuasca ceremonies and works with other traditional medicines. She isn’t officially considered a shaman, but she still performs individual ceremonies for people in and around La Paz.

Yumi’s first experience with Ayahuasca gave her “motivation to contemplate” various aspects of her life, she said. At the time, her father also became seriously ill, which is why she decided to devote her time to traditional medicine and healing.

The life-changing experiences of self-discovery many people have with Ayahuasca are in line with what Yumi tells me about the practice. The world Ayahuasca operates in “isn’t an external world, it’s an internal world,” she explains. The path of spiritual medicine is “a path of oneself.”

According to Yumi, the process of administering and taking Ayahuasca is “a real commitment.” The intensity of sessions with the hallucinogenic is seen by many as extremely cathartic, and a great way to expend one’s spiritual horizon.

Although Yumi offers ceremonies to Bolivians and foreigners alike, she prefers not to administer Ayahuasca to tourists looking for an easy trip or a high. It’s not that she judges people who seek the ceremony, but offering the treatment to random tourists just isn’t a part of her repertoire. In her opinion, the most valuable ceremonies are those in which the individual is committed to serious self-exploration.

Her work with plants and traditional healing practices requires “a lot of care and a lot of attention,” she says. Selecting and working with the plants is a serious but delicate process. It’s “like surgery,” Yumi adds, not of the body, but of the mind.

Everything seems to suggest that Westerners will continue to come to Bolivia to try a piece of spiritual tourism. But how many tourists will actually have a fruitful Ayahuasca experience? There are stories of negligence and unwanted sexual advances from shamans during the ceremony that shed light on a basic piece of advice: choose your shaman wisely.

Selecting who will give you a dose of the plant is not something to be taken lightly. According to Yumi, when shopping for an Ayahuasca shaman, people should ask: “Who are they? Where are you going with them, and from where? Is it a place that is sincere?”

Bolivians Between Spiritual Worlds

The largest indigenous groups in Bolivia are the Aymaras and Quechuas. The former are mostly found in the vast plains of the altiplano region on the west of Bolivia, while the latter are found in the east towards Santa Cruz. In both societies, religious beliefs revolve around the power of spirits that live in mountains and the sky, and natural forces such as lightning. Both indigenous groups often give offerings to the Pachamama, the goddess of nature, who has the power to make the soil fertile and ensure a good harvest, and her children, Inti, the sun god, and Killa, the moon goddess.

To learn more about Aymara traditions, I paid a visit to the Witches Market, the place to go if you want to buy materials for offerings to the gods. It is hidden behind the San Francisco church in central La Paz. There one can find shops full of colourful objects, talismans, coca leaves, and even llama fetuses and unto—animal fat statues.

Ada, a-14-year-old girl running her mother’s shop, said, “For me, this is just business, I have never done an offering to the Pachamama, but my parents and grandparents lived in the countryside and healed people with medicinal herbs. We sell everything here: mesas, crafts, herbs, medicine, llamas—everything.” When asked about her spiritual beliefs, she replied, “y family are Catholic, but they believe in the Pachamama and Inti as well as God. I believe more in God than the Pachamama, but I don’t go to church.”

Ada is an example of a growing population of Bolivians combining their Catholic beliefs with traditional practises and ceremonies. This trend is often attributed to the government and President Evo Morales, who is of Aymara origin. One big example of the government’s influence on spiritual culture came in 2009 with the declaration of the 21st of June, the Aymara New Year, as a national holiday.. Although it was  controversial, many people praise Evo Morales for empowering indigenous groups and ensuring that they are more accepted throughout the country. But as more people become involved in Aymaran traditions, the role of the Catholic Church, the most prominent religion in Bolivia, is changing. 

Catholicism was introduced during the colonial period and adopted by 80 percent of the population. Today, only 70 percent of Bolivians are baptised, and only 35 percent of these actively practise their religion. Although the Catholic Church has always worked with Andean traditions, there are beliefs within Andean folklore which go directly against Catholic doctrine. I spoke to Giovani Arana, who works in the pastoral care section of the Bolivian Catholic Church, about the connections, and the conflicts, between these Andean traditions and the Catholic Church in Bolivia.

“I often go to the altiplano areas to promote Catholicism, but I find introducing celibacy very difficult and it isn’t accepted,” said Arana.. “In their culture, a man cannot be in a position of power unless they are married; therefore Catholicism contradicts Andean belief.’

“It used to be the families and schools who educated people about the church,” Giovani continues. “But now the schools only teach ethics, and families let their children make their own choices. The government has moved against everything colonial, and that includes the church. The state is not secular, it is anti-Catholic.”

Giovani described the church’s work in promoting Catholic beliefs in more traditional societies as “ cultivating the Catholic tree. They assume the positive aspects and purify the negative ones.”For example, Catholics have a respect for all life, including animals and humans; therefore the church can’t accept animal sacrifice. However, the sacrificing of animals is very important in Andean tradition, especially in August, the month of Pachamama. At the Curva del Diablo, which is located along the motorway connecting La Paz and El Alto, animal sacrifices such as llamas, cats, and dogs are made to the Supay, the god of death and the underworld. Until 2009, there was a sacred stone at this location but the Catholic Church removed it to discourage the animal sacrifices.

But the content of many religious festivals now shows evidence of traditional beliefs, including the Gran Poder festival. This traditional Andean festival involves folkloric dances and singing, such as the Diablada (Devil’s Dance) and the Morenada (Dance of the Black Slave), but the participants also pay homage to El Señor del Gran Poder, Jesus Christ. When it began in the 1930s, Gran Poder was a simple candlelit procession performed by Aymaran migrants living in the market district, but it has now evolved into a major international street festival, famed for its exuberant parties, elaborate costumes, and enormous crowds. The growth of this festival is an example of the growing influence of the Aymara people and the improved attitude towards these traditions by the non-indigenous population of La Paz.

Back in the Witches Market with Ada, I asked her about young people becoming involved in Andean traditions. “Oh yes,” she replied. “We learn about the culture, language, and traditions in school. I’m learning about how they traded with goods instead of money at the moment.”

Some say that these changes in education-brought on by government policy initiated by President Evo Morales-are the driving force behind the developing relationship between the Catholic Church and indigenous traditions. They say there is more freedom to make your own choices about what you want to believe, who you want to worship, and how you want to show it, opening the door for those wanting to practice the spirituality of their ancestors alongside Catholic beliefs.

When I asked asked Ada if she thought more people were becoming involved in Aymaran culture, her answer turned to the changes that have occurred around her. “I’m not sure,”she said. “But thanks to Evo Morales, more people accept these kinds of things.”

She gestured around her shop. “He introduced Aymaran beliefs. Before him, we were prohibited to sell llama foetuses.”

“I am not very Catholic,” says Simeón Jaliri, secretary general of the Bolivian Workers Central (COB by it’s Spanish acronym), the largest labor federation in Bolivia. “We go to church, but it’s more about the ancestral traditions. Those of us from rural areas, fisherfolk, farmers, we have a more ancestral essence. Aside from the church, we will pray to the Pachamama, in order for it to give us what we produce.”

I am sitting with Jaliri in a busy café in downtown La Paz, eating empanadas and ice cream. Of all things, it was the pope that brought us together on a recent Wednesday afternoon.

This month, the Holy See will visit Bolivia for three days, arriving in El Alto on July 8 to spend just four hours in La Paz, meeting government leaders and briefly addressing the public, before boarding a plane and flying to Santa Cruz for two days of events, meetings, and public appearances. Perhaps the most important part of his visit will be his speech at the second meeting of the World Meeting of Popular Movements (WMPM), a gathering organized by the Vatican with the goal of bringing together representatives of marginalized sectors of global society, and to, as the Vatican itself says, “seek radical proposals to resolve the problems of the poor.”

At the first WMPM, held at the Vatican last October, Bolivian President Evo Morales was in attendance, less as a head of state and more as a former social movement leader who successfully empowered farmers, miners and a largely indigenous working class. It seems Bolivia’s government, and its civil society, is taking an active interest in the Catholic Church’s efforts to address the needs of the poor.

This is where Jaliri and his labor federation come in. With renewed focus at the Vatican on improving the lives of informal workers, peasants, indigenous groups, and urban squatters, what effect can the pope have to improve the lives of marginalized people across Bolivia? As invitees to the WMPM, COB members must certainly have expectations for papal visit—after all, its members are engaging with this far-reaching global effort coming from the Vatican.

“We are invited [to the meeting with the pope]. We will participate. We will be involved,” Jaliri says. “Many will want to go see the pope because of their religious convictions, as they are Catholic. Others may come just to see him. This will cause people to gather.”

The distinctions between these motivations are important. While the Catholic Church has played an historically strong role in shaping political and social systems in much of Latin America, its influence on daily life, some say, is waning. While many Bolivians do go to church, more and more are also going back to old traditions of the past, to Andean beliefs and practices that were largely forgotten until very recently. The influence of the pope’s visit here may be less a visit from a spiritual leader and more from a global celebrity.

Jaliri admits that the goals of the Vatican’s WMPM align with some of the goals of the COB and the nearly 80 organizations that fall under it. Carrying the banner of the ‘Three T’s’ in the pope’s native Spanish, Tierra, Techo, Trabajo (or ‘Land, Housing, Work’), the calls of the WMPM sound strikingly similar to even some of the more radical members of Bolivia’s labor movement.

But Jaliri is careful to make distinctions between the approach of the church and that of the social movements and of Bolivia’s socialist-leaning government. He believes making changes to defend the rights of workers, indigenous peoples, women, and the environment requires a model not based on spirituality and religious doctrine, but on concrete change. He states that achieving the goals of helping the poor and disenfranchised by way of religion and by programs of the government are in direct conflict. Bringing the church and socialism together, he believes, is problematic. “Catholicism is an imposition,” Jaliri says. “But on the other hand, socialism is not. It is about consensus.”

Jaliri adds by explaining the process Bolivian society has gone through to replace the one with the other: ‘Socialism has an ideology. Before, the ideology consisted of believing in the church. But not anymore. Now people are believing more again in Pachamama. So we have changed our beliefs.’

Jaliri tells me he does not have any specific goals regarding COB’s participation in the meeting in Santa Cruz; he will not be attending, he says. But at the same time, he understands why it may be important for members of his organization, and Bolivian social movements in general, to be there and hopefully engage the church in their struggles. Perhaps taking part in the pope’s visit can provide an open door to bring their concerns to a larger, global stage. And perhaps their stories can encourage the church to take an active political role, and not serve solely as spiritual support on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised.

“I don’t know if the pope is praying for us or not, or if he asks God to help us,” Jaliri says as he scoops his last pink bite of ice cream. “But I’ve never seen a Pope pray for something and actually achieve anything through that prayer.”