Source: What Is Ayahuasca Really? by Joseph P. Kaufmann
Clarifying Common Misconceptions and Sharing My Understanding
Ayahuasca as a Living Tradition
For the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon and the same is right for the Peganum Harmala users in the Far and Middle East, ayahuasca is not a “psychedelic” in the modern sense. It is a medicine, a plant teacher, and a sacred sacrament that has been used for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years within a highly developed cultural, ceremonial, and ethical framework.
Many tribes refer to ayahuasca as Grandmother or Mother, not as a metaphor, but as a recognition of its intelligence and authority. It is approached with great humility, reverence, and preparation. It is not taken casually, recreationally, or for entertainment. Traditionally, there are strict diets, sexual abstinence, prayer, and periods of isolation before and after ceremonies. The medicine is held within lineage, apprenticeship, and responsibility.
Within these cultures, ayahuasca has been used to heal physical illness, clear parasites, resolve emotional trauma, diagnose energetic imbalances, and receive knowledge about other plants. Many shamans say that ayahuasca is how they learned which plants treat which conditions—through direct, experiential communication rather than analytical study. In this way, ayahuasca has not only served as a powerful healing medicine, but has also been directly tied to the survival of peoples.
Especially Peganum harmala (Syrian Rue) is also a powerful antiparasitic. But even here, the physical cleansing was never separated from emotional, psychological, and spiritual purification.
The Discipline of Being With What Is
One of the most misunderstood aspects of ayahuasca is the emphasis on visions.
Many people aim to have big visions and meaningful experiences when they sit with ayahuasca, and while visions do occur (and can be quite profound) the Indigenous understanding is clear: the visions are not the point.
The deeper teaching of ayahuasca is learning how to remain present with intensity without reacting, resisting, or grasping. Fear, grief, nausea, discomfort, beauty, love, terror, joy—all can arise in the ayahuasca experience. The medicine teaches you how to stay present.
In this sense, ayahuasca is less about seeing something new and more about learning how to be with reality as it is, no matter what is, without the usual defenses of the ego. This capacity—to remain open, present, and non-reactive in the face of intensity—is profoundly healing.
Through this, one also begins to let go of all the conditioned defense mechanisms that the ego has created to shield one from the intensity of life. As these conditioned patterns are released, there is a great liberation of energy that can be profoundly healing.
It reminds me of a quote by Rumi: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” – which aligns exactly to what C.G. Jung means with shadow work. We all carry countless inner barriers—defenses (shadows) formed through fear, pain, and conditioning—that limit our capacity to meet life with an open heart. Through ayahuasca, and through the discipline of learning to be with what is, no matter what arises, the heart gradually expands its capacity to hold experience. In this openness, those inner barriers begin to soften and fall away. Words can hardly express how liberating it is to be in direct contact with life—present, aware, and embodied—rather than unconsciously driven by conditioned habits and emotional reactivity.
Ayahuasca’s Dream Language
The plant medicine can speak to us in the same way dreams do. What matters is not what you saw, but how you were with it, what it revealed about your inner world, and how it changes the way you relate to life afterward. The same vision can carry very different meanings for different people, or even for the same person at different times in their life.
This stands in contrast to how ayahuasca is often approached in modern contexts, where visions are frequently interpreted at face value or taken as literal revelations. Without an understanding of symbolic language, people can become confused, overwhelmed, or attached to dramatic imagery, mistaking the surface content of the experience for its deeper teaching.
Indigenous traditions emphasize discernment, patience, and humility in working with visions. The imagery is not the destination—it is an invitation. An invitation to listen more deeply, to feel more honestly, and to allow the medicine to reveal patterns, wounds, and truths that lie beneath ordinary awareness.
When approached this way, visions become less about spectacle and more about communication—a dialogue with the unconscious, with nature, and with life itself.
Healing at the Root
Many wisdom traditions hold that illness begins in the mind and emotions—through fear, unresolved trauma, disconnection, or imbalance. By bringing these layers into awareness and teaching a new way of relating to them, ayahuasca works at the root rather than the symptom.
This applies not only to psychological suffering, but to spiritual suffering as well—the deep sense of separation, meaninglessness, or loss of connection that underlies much of modern life.
When held properly, ayahuasca can open a space of profound remembrance: of our belonging, our interconnectedness, and our innate capacity for healing and love.
Ayahuasca in the Modern World
In recent decades, Western science has begun to study ayahuasca (especially Syrian Rue) more seriously. Research suggests potential benefits for conditions such as depression, PTSD, addiction, anxiety, and certain neurological and inflammatory conditions. Studies also show changes in brain networks associated with rigid thinking and self-referential rumination.
One of the most discussed findings is ayahuasca’s effect on the default mode network (DMN)—the network of brain regions associated with the sense of self (ego), narrative identity, and habitual thought patterns. When this network relaxes, people often report a sense of expanded awareness, emotional release, insight, and connection—to life, to others, to something greater than themselves.
This relaxation of rigid identity structures can allow access to deeply healing states of love, forgiveness, meaning, and spiritual connection—experiencing what many people describe as God, Source, Truth, or simply Love itself.
But there is often an overemphasis on visions, peak experiences, and dramatic storytelling. Symbolic imagery is taken literally. The discipline of preparation, humility, and integration is minimized. In some cases, ayahuasca is treated as a shortcut, a spiritual “hack,” or even as a guarantee of awakening.
Our perspective from Ayahuasca in Deutschland is clear: the medicine does not heal you by itself. It reveals what needs to be healed—and how you relate to what arises ultimately determines the outcome.
For this reason, it is essential to approach the medicine with care and to sit with facilitators who are well-trained, ethically grounded, and deeply respectful of the tradition. Proper screening, preparation, ceremonial structure, and post-ceremony integration are not optional—they are part of what makes the work safe and genuinely healing.
The Phases of the Ayahuasca Experience
I want to share about how the medicine works on the body, the mind, and the heart; what it teaches beyond visions; and how its real power unfolds not during the ceremony, but in how we live afterward.
That is where the story becomes personal—and where the real work begins.
It is often during this phase that purification occurs (la purga). This can take the form of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, shaking, crying, sweating, or emotional release — commonly referred to as “purging.” While this part of the experience is frequently feared—especially by those new to the medicine—it is traditionally understood as a cleansing process, not something gone wrong. But this is an essential part of the work: a clearing of physical, emotional, and energetic blockages that allows something new to emerge (I’ve also found that it feels very relieving to purge in the middle of an intense experience).
Following purification, many people enter a phase of clarity and receptivity. The body often feels lighter, the nausea subsides, and the mind becomes more spacious and centered. Like having to go through the purification in order to receive the blessing. In this state, insights can arise with remarkable clarity, accompanied by feelings of peace, love, gratitude, or deep understanding.
From there, the experience usually begins to gradually soften and fade. The intensity diminishes, visions become less vivid, and awareness slowly returns to a more ordinary state—though often with a lingering sense of openness and sensitivity. Even after the ceremony formally ends, the effects frequently continue into the night and can be felt well into the next day, sometimes longer.
It’s worth noting that purification does not always follow a fixed sequence. While it commonly occurs earlier in the ceremony, it can arise at any point, even later on, as the medicine continues to work.
During the experience itself, the healing can feel profound and unmistakable. Insights may appear obvious, life patterns suddenly clear, and long-held wounds momentarily resolved. And yet, as the days pass, the familiar sense of self begins to reassemble. The ego, habits, and conditioning gradually return. Something may have shifted, something may have been cleansed—but the feeling itself fades.
This is where ayahuasca reveals its deeper truth: the ceremony shows what is possible, but it does not live your life for you. The medicine offers insight, clarity, and opening. The real work is to embody those insights when the visions are gone, when the emotions settle, and when daily life resumes.
In this way, ayahuasca is not a substitute for inner work, and it is not the end of the path—it is an invitation. What we do with that invitation determines whether the experience becomes a passing peak or a lasting transformation.
So, What Is Ayahuasca Really?
Ayahuasca is not a shortcut to awakening, not a guaranteed healing, and not a visionary spectacle meant to be collected or displayed. At its essence, it is a powerful traditional medicine—one that works by revealing what is already present within us and teaching us how to relate to it more honestly.
Within its original Indigenous context, ayahuasca is held as a disciplined practice rooted in humility, preparation, and responsibility. It is used not to escape reality, but to meet it more fully. The visions, while sometimes striking, are not the point. They are a language—symbolic, psychological, and spiritual—through which deeper truths are communicated. What matters most is not what is seen, but how one learns to remain present with whatever arises.
Many modern misconceptions reduce ayahuasca to peak experiences, dramatic imagery, or a spiritual “hack.” When taken out of its cultural and ethical container, the medicine can be misunderstood, misused, or even cause harm.
While ayahuasca has intrinsic medicinal and therapeutic effects of its own, its primary function is to reveal what needs healing, and the depth and durability of that healing depend greatly on the care, integrity, and awareness with which the process is held—before, during, and especially after the ceremony.
At its best, ayahuasca opens a space of clarity, emotional release, and deep remembrance. It can loosen rigid patterns of identity, soften the heart, and reconnect us to life, to meaning, and to love. But its true power is not found in the ceremony itself—it is found in how we integrate what is revealed and how we live differently as a result.
To approach ayahuasca rightly is to approach it with respect: for the medicine and for the seriousness of the inner work it invites. When held in this way, ayahuasca is not something to chase, consume, or conquer. It is a profound teacher—one that awakens our potential, and asks for patience, humility, and a willingness to walk the path long after the visions fade.