by Alexa Erickson, Collective Evolution
In recent years, the hallucinogenic drug ayahuasca has become increasingly popular in the United States, so much so that it’s become a trendy thing. But centuries ago, shamans in the Amazon rainforest began using the medicinal brew as a means for guiding people through visual and auditory hallucinations.
Ayahuasca refers both to the Amazonian healing ceremony as well as the sacred beverage that is drank during it. The brew is touted both for its ability to provide mental clarity as well as expel liquids and solids from the body, allowing for detoxification.
Shamans in the Amazon rainforest have found the medicine to heal the body, mind, and spirit, prescribing a ceremony to treat people of numerous ailments. Steeped in intriguing history, it’s also part of a current boom of Westerners looking to try out its psychedelic properties as a means for ridding themselves of the burden of limiting beliefs, freeing themselves of the past, and resolving negative energy stored from troubled times in their lives.