Wetting your pants with 50 backpackers in the Peruvian jungle while dead relatives reveal the big bang of the soul? No thanks. Nevertheless, Michael Rechsteiner felt that an ayahuasca retreat was the most promising path to healing in the midst of his heartache. Hidden in the mountains of Andalusia is a noble finca, which he entered together with nine other travelers and ventured on a trip after which nothing was the same again.
Extra! “Man is left by wife and can’t deal with it at all. In other news: Roses are red and water is wet.” So much for the initial situation, which couldn’t be more ordinary. But this time something is different. I cured my first heartbreak by letting “Razorblade Suitcase” by the band Bush wail in my Discman for a month. After that it was good again. Because life was still ahead of you. A quarter of a century later, there’s not quite as much life ahead of you. And the singer from Bush has recently started serving duck confit in his online cooking show instead of smearing balm on my soul. The romantic heart is like the athletic knee. The older it gets, the longer it takes to absorb the shocks. At 15, heartbreak is a sprint. At 40, it becomes a marathon. And like a marathon runner who has a few important appointments later in the day, I look for shortcuts. Or at least for a route where the road isn’t quite so unforgiving.
They say men will do anything except go to therapy. I, on the other hand, did everything that my therapist didn’t explicitly advise me not to do. But whether it was hugging trees in Zurich or group sex in Barcelona, after two years I’m still sitting on the yellow armchair in my psychologist’s office and running my marathon in circles. Until a friend tells me about her last weekend: After a cup of ayahuasca in the Canary Islands, everything, everything suddenly became clear to her. She is now emigrating back to Germany. She says. And – a week later – she does. I think: if coping with grief were bodybuilding, then ayahuasca seems like injecting anabolic steroids in a self-tanning booth.
Short history and chemistry lesson
Like so much of what I think, this is nonsense. But it’s also a temptation that more and more people are following. Including guys I’d hate to sit next to on a plane. While ayahuasca was long the whispered secret of neo-hippies in the North West, Silicon Valley’s tech bros and biohackers have recently acquired a taste for it. For a weekend in the Brazilian jungle, they swap Patagonia vests for shell necklaces and hope that the mystical trip to their spiritual roots will reveal the cash flow forecasts for Q3. In South America in particular, the cradle of ayahuasca, demand from the affluent target group has given rise to a boutique industry of luxury retreats. Retreat Guru, the Airbnb for psychonautic globetrotters, currently lists over 1,100 mind-expanding vacation camps from Canada to Cambodia.
In the past, the colonizers wanted gold and silver from the indigenous people. Today, they want to be hugged by them when the hallucinations start kicking in. We have turned nature’s resources into Labubus and social community into the For-You-Page on Instagram. Happens to the best of us, it can happen. But while some of us ask ChatGPT if we can go to the toilet, others long for the opposite: a return to the human source of existence, a dip in the primordial soup of the universe. And nothing is more primordial than a tar-black concoction that, according to archaeological findings, humans have been choking down for over 2,000 years.
Ayahuasca is obtained by boiling two plants. The leaves of Psychotria viridis contain DMT, the strongest hallucinogen known in the world to date. Administered on its own, it only remains in the body for a few minutes before it opens all the floodgates to get rid of it as quickly as possible. The liana Banisteriopsis caapi contains harman alkaloids that block this process, allowing the DMT to unfold its effects unhindered. Long before Jesus turned water into wine, shamans in the Amazon transformed this mixture into a ceremonial drink. In their culture, ayahuasca was not just a drink, but a medicine. Not just medicine, but a loving mother. A mother who calls you to her when you need it most. And then shows you answers to questions that have been gnawing at your soul at night like wild beasts.
The fool on the hill
Mother is calling me. Not my biological one. She would reach for the fire extinguisher if I were even in the same room as a hash cigarette. Mama Aya requests my presence in Spain. There, in the hinterland between Cádiz and Málaga, a three-storey finca is hidden away between golden-yellow hills and green-grey fauna. With its white façade, it lies like a pearl in the landscape. Two swimming pools, indoor and outdoor. The tasteful interior looks like it was plucked from the pages of an issue of Architectural Digest. For two nights, I lie down there with nine other lost people in Aya’s lap. (On Retreat Guru, she also calls out from places where I would be swatting away mosquitoes on camp beds with up to 100 strangers in a jungle camp. But I can only faintly hear this voice and therefore decide to travel to the Andalusian villa).
In 1951, writer William S. Burroughs was unhappily in love with a sailor. He hoped that a joint ayahuasca trip would ignite the spark of their relationship. The two men spent weeks traveling through Panama and Ecuador in search of the potion, which was practically unknown outside Latin America at the time. “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” crosses “Indiana Jones” crosses “Call Me by Your Name”. If you want to know how the story ends, read Burroughs’ novella “Queer”. (Spoiler: not good.) It’s all much easier now. Registration for the retreat begins with an online form. It’s like ordering a scented candle on duftkerzen.com. The second step is crucial for participation. For this, I provide information about any medical or mental conditions that might disqualify me from taking part. I also write a short essay about my reasons and hopes for the expedition. And then, six weeks before the doors of the finca open for me, I get to know my hosts.
“In the past, the colonizers wanted gold and silver from the indigenous people. Today, they want to be hugged by them when the hallucinations start to kick in.”
Two friendly faces beam at me in the video chat window. Sara and Richard are young, in love and have been navigating ayahuasca retreats as a couple for years. Originally from England, Sara’s father is from Peru. In court, they obtained a ruling that the ceremonial consumption of ayahuasca is not illegal in the province of Cádiz. (Spain’s Supreme Court in Madrid has since confirmed this ruling. But more on the complicated legal situation later). So the chances of the journey to my innermost self ending on a prison cot in Ronda are practically nil. But what awaits me instead? The first card in the tarot is “The Fool”. It symbolizes setting off on unknown adventures with euphoric naivety. In most depictions, the Fool strides towards a precipice, his head stretched carelessly towards the sky. This is also how I embark on this journey. Beforehand, I only inform myself about the upcoming process through a field report like this one and a half-hour documentary by Deutsche Welle on YouTube. If you dig too deep down the rabbit hole, you will come across the skeletons of horror stories; trips that end in lasting psychosis. Retreats that turn out to be cults. But I am the perfect fool. And stick my head carelessly towards the video chat window. Sara and Richard tell me that everyone reacts differently to ayahuasca – and that every trip is completely different from the last. Nevertheless, you can prepare yourself to create good physical and mental conditions. I am given a list of things to avoid until the retreat. No alcohol. No meat. No fish. No dairy products. No caffeine. No sugar. No sex. As little screen time as possible. As much time as possible in nature. Over the next few weeks, I realize that my body is obviously more upset about the lack of coffee than coitus. I pack my weekender, unkissed and sugared out. Next stop: Spain. Next but one stop: enlightenment, somehow.
White Lotus & other plants
Two black SUVs pick up the participants at the airport. It feels like the first ten minutes of “White Lotus” when the assholes are driven to their luxury resort. Except that the excursion lasts 90 minutes and no one looks like an asshole at first, second or third glance. No one says a word during the ride. The radio plays soothing classical music. We bump deeper and deeper into the wild nature and because the hits by Mozart and Bach have long since run out, the German national anthem is now playing. The human cargo is still silent. It seems as if we have arrived on the roof of the world when the car finally parks. Sara and Richard are already waiting with open arms. At their side are Sara’s father Tomás and three other facilitators, who babysit us during the psychonautical states. Also present: Terry, a certified emotional support dog and very best boy. We carry our frugal luggage into the lavish finca. “Just like in the brochure!” tourists would praise as they stand up to the German national anthem. Light floods in through huge windows. The herb garden smells of spring. We move into our accommodation. I could have moved into a single room for an extra charge. But somehow it’s also about feeling closer to the universe and everything in it. So why not a temporary roommate? Mine is called Kristian. He’s in his early 20s, comes from Sweden and finds it difficult to open up to people and make friends. By the end of this weekend, he will have made a dozen new ones.
The ten participants have traveled from four continents. Morgan is from the USA and used to be a successful professional skier. She is now a model and NGOt for a better world. She speaks like a Buddha with her own ASMR podcast and is the only one in the group besides Lloyd to have experience with ayahuasca. Lloyd is English, sells houses and has the chemical formula of DMT tattooed on his forearm. He looks like someone you would want at your side in a street fight between hooligans. Clint is the oldest in the group and has flown in from Australia. He looks like Larry David, but exudes the aura of Alain Delon. His daughter Pom has arrived with him. It’s only on the second day that I realize she’s not Clint’s trophy girlfriend. Sven used to host parties in Berlin before the Covid pandemic. Now he’s ashamed because he works for Tesla. After the retreat, he will hike the Camino de Santiago back to Germany and hand in his notice on the way. We all sit in the main hall to get to know each other. There are ten mattresses on the floor. For the next two nights, they will be our spaceships into the unknown. Those who venture on the trip do so for different reasons. A young participant from Gibraltar has to end her singing career due to an illness in her breathing potion. She hopes that this weekend will give her a hopeful outlook for the future. An older Swiss woman, on the other hand, is hoping to heal family wounds from the past. And Larry David: Swagger Edition simply hopes to experience a few more exciting things before it’s too late. Some are already crying. Many are nervous. Outside, the sun is setting, which means: here we go.
Cosmic parking garages
We all dress completely in white for the ceremony. There are esoteric reasons for this (purity, togetherness, etc.), but also practical ones: if you drift off for a walk in the dark, the facilitators will be able to spot you more quickly. Nevertheless, the dress code seems a little uncomfortable for most participants. The most common side effects of an ayahuasca trip are vomiting and diarrhea, also known as purging. There are esoteric reasons for this (spiritual cleansing of body and mind etc.), but also practical ones (the serotonin in the gastrointestinal tract goes haywire). And although everyone seems reluctant to step into the deepest abysses of their soul, no one wants to look like they fell into a mud puddle at a Mykonos foam party afterwards. There are now red plastic buckets next to our mattresses. Sara and Richard sit at the head of the rows of beds and warn us: No matter what happens in the coming hours, no matter where we stumble in the coming hours – the red plastic bucket will not leave our side. When we reach the other end of the night, we’ll know why.
“The path to enlightenment began with a brown brew from the rainforest. For us, it ends in the Whatsapp group chat ‘Aya Spain’.”
We kneel on the edge of the mat. Those who wish are blown rapé into their nostrils with a bamboo cane. Rapé is a type of snuff from the Amazon. It is said to clear the mind and calm thoughts before the ayahuasca. It feels like a burning locomotive is racing down my airways. A fire is blazing in the fireplace next to us, the only source of light in the room. Two female facilitators with feathers in their hair whirl in circles like dervishes and emit clouds of glowing bundles of incense. Substance consumption with a show element. The sacred seriousness of the situation slowly dawns on me. Sara and Richard invite the guests to join them in turn. Morgan and Lloyd get the cocktail as if it were a smoothie from the juice bar. Others are reluctant to get off the mattress. As I sit opposite Tomás and receive a small polystyrene cup from him, I feel like I’m on the highest point of a rollercoaster. In those short breaths before the car hurtles into the abyss. The brew is black and heavy and tastes as if a dead tree has been left to rot in the sun. An aroma you won’t forget until the day you die.
I lie down – and wait. After 20 to 60 minutes, the effect should kick in. We listen to Richard’s Spotify playlist of ethnic deep cuts. Sara starts to chirp and sings mantras in a bell-like voice that could fill a stadium elsewhere. The atmosphere is relaxed. Still. After half an hour, I hear the first people whimpering. Sven is the first to reach for the bucket and throw up. Next to me, Pom is shouting “Fucks” and “Fuckings”, “Assholes” and “Shitheads” non-stop in silent fervor. Visions slowly form before my eyes. But it’s not a green primeval mother spreading her arms. Or the lost love that drove me here in the first place. It’s parking lots and empty underground garages. Serenity overcomes me as my consciousness seems to detach itself from my body. Beyond time and space, my soul goes for a walk and marvels in amusement at the chaos that has now broken out in the main hall. Lloyd vomits into the bucket with the force and volume of a T-Rex roaring in your face. A Scandinavian stands up next to me and tries to stroll across the room. He collapses after the first few steps and is caught by the facilitator. Terry quickly wags to his aid. Everything is fine. Or not. People swear. People howl. People laugh. People scream. Sara sings. As dusk falls outside, the commotion subsides as slowly as it had risen. Some remain lying down. I get up. I hand myself over gracefully into a toilet bowl and look in the mirror at a complete stranger.
The morning after
The guests poke at their breakfast in silence. No one has slept for more than two hours. Most of them seem shaken. Only when the group sits down in a circle after the meal and reviews their experiences do some of them find words again. Even our cool Uncle Clint seems shaken up when he talks about seeing his dead brother again. I, on the other hand, feel great. Not because the heartache has fizzled out. It’s because I’m suddenly no longer afraid of dying. I talk about my underground garages and speculate that they symbolize our temporary parking space in this life before the energy or whatever is released again after death and sets off on even bigger, more amazing journeys. Those present are polite enough to praise my “Metaphysics for Dummies” as a profound breakthrough.
The rest of the afternoon is at leisure. Most of them wander around the pool area lost like the ghosts of dead hippies. Lloyd is on the phone to his family. Today is his birthday. As the sun slowly disappears behind the brown hills, the white figures come out of their rooms again. Richard presses play on Spotify and the polystyrene cups are passed around for the second time. Don’t forget: Everyone reacts differently to ayahuasca – and every trip is completely different again. The universe no longer wants to give me empty parking spaces, the giggles of the immortal soul fail to materialize. My body suddenly becomes heavy. The grief is almost unbearable. I bury my face in the pillow and whimper for six, seven, eight hours until dawn. When I get up, I have relived the best and worst moments of the lost relationship. At breakneck speed, ten times as intense. It even made me want to vomit.
Ascension to the group chat
Ayahuasca is also described as a cable car to the summit of knowledge. A shortcut that you take light-footedly instead of toiling for years on the steep slopes through therapy and meditation. That is true. A little bit. The cable car cabin does take you up faster. But it’s made entirely of glass and the floor crunches under your feet. A storm will come up and shake the cabin like a child on ten sugar cubes with a snow globe. And sometimes, perhaps, the tightrope can snap. A survey on ayahuasca consumption scientifically evaluated in 2022 revealed that of the 10,836 people who took part, 2.3 percent needed medical help afterwards and 12 percent had to seek professional treatment in order to psychologically process the experience. Anyone who stumbles into a retreat in a mentally critical state as if it were a roadside lemonade stand may not be in for a rude awakening, but a long nightmare. Also because there are more charlatans than shamans in this world. A few weeks after ayahuasca was declared not illegal in Spain – but not explicitly legal either – the police raided a retreat in Alicante, where safety and hygiene standards were allegedly being disregarded. Despite the ruling, the handling of DMT in Spain remains in a state of legal limbo. In Switzerland, Austria and Germany, the substance is currently officially banned. Nevertheless, Styrofoam cup seminars are sprouting up in the shadows there too, and are rarely legally prosecuted.
It’s the morning before departure. Nobody needs a doctor. No emergency psychologist needs to be flown in by helicopter. There are no police sirens to be heard. The participants chat animatedly about their second trip. Pom thought he was in a pastel-colored Disneyland all night long. The Scandinavian who collapsed during the first ritual was able to say a peaceful farewell to a deceased family friend. Sara and Richard remind us that the integration phase is about to begin. In the coming weeks, we will reflect on our experiences, discuss them with family and friends, continue the diet we started before the retreat for as long as possible and stay in contact with our new friends. The path to enlightenment began with a brown brew from the rainforest. It ends for us in the Whatsapp group chat “Aya Spain”.
The last card in the tarot is “The World”. It symbolizes the completion of a journey. Starting out as a fool, we mastered the challenges despite all the resistance. With luck. With diligence. Or with a jungle drink that turns our brain like a Rubik’s cube. In the coming months, panic attacks will no longer take my breath away when the inevitability of my own mortality suddenly overwhelms me again. And I will actually succeed in entering a life after love without heartache and finding love after life again. Extrablatt: “Man with midlife crisis books ‘Eat, Pray, Love & Vomit’ on the internet and now believes the universe has kissed him on the forehead.” Maybe so. The black SUVs to the airport are waiting outside the finca. Ten fools cling to their wheeled suitcases and are hurled back into the world in one go: “It’s pretty fucked up what’s happening in Gaza right now, isn’t it?” Clint says casually and says goodbye to Marbella with Pom.
AYAHUASCA
Imagine a yoga retreat. Now replace yoga with the strongest hallucinogenic drug in the world. For thousands of years, ayahuasca has enjoyed a reputation in South America as a mystical potion that is said to bring not only intense nausea but also spiritual insight. In the meantime, the ritual administration has found its way out of the jungle and into boutique retreats that attract people from all over the world. In many places in a legal gray area, Spain is currently the European stronghold of such offers.
Speaking of substances: Author Helge Timmerberg is happy to tell you a bit about cannabis.
