AYAHUASCA AND BUFO ALVARIUS: WONDERFUL EXPERIENCES IN HEALING AND EXPANSION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
With 12 hours in between sessions, they are an ideal complement to each other. A powerful combination backed by the testimonies of thousands of people.
After the publication of an article in ICEERS’ website on the dangers of combining ayahuasca with Bufo Alvarious, I would like to clarify some points and offer more information on the topics discussed. For this, all the information we share is empirical, grounded on our EXPERIENCE WITH THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. Even though to this date, no scientific studies exist, it is backed by the power of reality.
Ever since we started using ayahuasca combined with Bufo Alvarius, we recognized the need to wait a minimum of 12 hours between sessions with each NATURAL MEDICINE. Giving space to the substance or shamanic medicine seems obvious and fundamental for our work. Each element has its own power and healing energy, and requires an exclusive space.
Our practice, our way of using these two shamanic medicines (ayahuasca and Bufo Alvarius), has been 100% effective. It is the case in hundreds of people who expressed that they tried Ayahuasca or Bufo Alvarius separately in the past, but that they realized how powerful they were after combining them in one of our retreats for inner evolution. They agreed that both medicines complement and strengthen each other. The key in this combination is not to use them together, but to wait for 12 hours between sessions.
Given that we hold more than 50 retreats each month all around the world, with more that 10,000 participants a year, we can maintain this because we see it with our own eyes.
Scientific “opinions” (that are not the same as scientific studies) should be respected, but we should also be very aware and guard against unfounded fears. Frequently, scientists (or pseudo-scientists) exercise PREVENTIVE FEAR and provide us with partial information, or information that has not been verified in real cases or backed by experiences and testimonies of people that have experienced it.
In the end, we are confronted with a clear fact: scientific theory and empirical practice must harmonize in order to avoid the stupidity and partiality of rationalizations or the triviality of empirical data alone. Stop being absolutists. People expect equilibrium and integration. Common sense and intelligence applied to their health and well-being.
Alberto José Varela
UNFORGIVING LETTER FROM A READER ABOUT THE ICEERS’ ARTICLE ON AYAHUASCA AND BUFO ALVARIUS
Hello, the ICEERS’ article lacks any logic or scientific grounds. It is mere speculation based on two isolated cases, the circumstances of which are unknown. It does not even constitute scientific opinion, but only pure speculation.
Even if one accepts at face value the facts pertaining to these two deaths (something that should be confirmed in the Medical Department), there is no possible deduction to be made from them:
1.- In the first case, 5-MeO-DMT was said to be found in the body of the individual who apparently participated in a session with ayahuasca before dying. This does not indicate that the death was caused by the combination of these two substances. It may have been the result of 5-MeO-DMT combining with any other thing the individual may have ingested, or simply the result of something else entirely. If that was the case, we would have observed many others affected as a result of our practices. When someone dies from a heart attack while watching a football match, no one considers blaming the football match. Likewise, no one blames the mercury found in the dead bodies of people living in the Mediterranean coast, which is a highly toxic substance present in most of them. This reasoning is a fallacy, something like saying that if an individual cannot fit through the same door other 99 crossed, it must be because the door is small and thus we should make it bigger. However, the reality is probably something quite different: maybe that person is obese or paralyzed, or he/she has a trauma that prevents them from going through doors. Still, the first conclusion is incorrect (and that is the case for the former reasoning: one in thousands and thousands “apparently” ingested 5-MeO-DMT after taking Ayahuasca and was found dead. Conclusion: the cause of death was the combination of both substances.) I myself, in two separate occasions, and many others have taken 5-MeO-DMT after Ayahuasca with less than 24 hours in between. What privilege do we enjoy that the deceased did not?
2.- The second case concerns someone who combined 5-MeO-DMT with harmaline (not ayahuasca, even though harmaline is one of its components) and died. They arrived to the conclusion that this person died as a consequence of that combination. Well, that is like saying that if someone dies after a Tchaikovsky concert, it was probably caused by the music (and again, we enjoy the curious privilege of being able to listen to Tchaikovsky and not die, but adore it.)
In none of these situations the dose ingested or inhaled is specified, and this is key because, as it is common knowledge, a bottle of gin ingested all at once can cause death, for example. No details about the health of these individuals are provided either. Did they suffer from any severe heart disease? Maybe type C cirrhosis?
I guess that both bodies had to undergo autopsies. What were the results? Who carried them out? Let’s keep in mind that the “scientist” in Trump’s administration appear to maintain (at least in Trump’s statements) that climate change is an invention by the Chinese to keep USA from growing economically. In any case, they deny climate change is happening. In the same vein, it would be quite interesting to know who finances ICEERS.
Nothing is said about 5-MeO-DMT having been inhaled or ingested orally, neither, even when they themselves affirm that the two mechanism are widely different and, specifically, that ingesting it orally is dangerous. Ignorant and ill-informed, they deduce that inhaling 5-MeO-DMT before or after ingesting ayahuasca (and without waiting a minimum of 24 hours) is potentially dangerous. This would be like affirming that consuming citrus can produce visions or altered states of consciousness because of the DMT they contain, only because inhaling DMT effectively produces such consequences.
The logical scientific reasoning behind affirming that A is the cause of B implies that every time A occurs, B also occurs; and when A does not occur, in the same circumstances as the previous experiment, B does not occur. Evidently, this is not the reasoning used in the report.
It is curious that when discussing drugs that are not commercially exploited by major producers, a criterion of excessive caution is applied. Conversely, when talking about those that enrich these producers, its use and abuse is even recommended (as it is the case with antibiotics in Spain.) One must remember that LSD was prohibited “because” an individual jumped off a window after ingesting it, without ever considering if he/she was depressed or suicidal. A lot of people die (or worse, murder others) after ingesting high doses of alcohol and yet no one even thinks about prohibiting alcohol. Deaths caused by continuous consumption of aspirin have been recorded, and yet a campaign was necessary to keep doctors from recommending its use (some still do). Such campaign was even orchestrated by pharmaceutical companies themselves, but curiously after Bayer’s patent over the aspirin expired.
This criterion of excessive caution must be applied restrictively when not based on scientific facts but in mere suspicion, and even more when applied to the consumption of substances which have proven benefits or that are under investigation in the laboratories of our universities and hospitals. Nobody would recommend anyone to stop consuming vegetables because of the fact that water might be contaminated, and not even when some case of typhus or cholera may occur as a result of this contamination.
The ICEERS’ article lacks any logic or scientific grounds. It is mere speculation based on two isolated cases, the circumstances of which are unknown.
ANONYMOUS
Ayahuasca International holds Inner Evolution retreats with therapeutic use of Ayahuasca in several countries in Europe. For bookings or to request any further information write to [email protected]