I'm part of a church where we take ayahuasca a couple times a month while performing our rituals. Day to day is the usual self-awareness plus christian deal: meditation + attempting to do good, try not to be a dick to others etc.
Is there not physical damage to doing it that often ?
Ive done it twice in a row 3 years ago and it was fine but i was wondering that b.c. in the community i did that they were literally giving it to children starting 3 y.o.
I have been taking it for the past 7 years, sometimes a couple times a month, sometimes more, and have zero physical damage from it. It's pretty common in indigenous communities or other ayahuasca centers to give it to children, yeah. No records of anything bad happening to them. In the church I attend, there's people who have been taking it for the past 28 years with no issues at all.
This post should have an asterisk. It is not risk free, a primary concern being drug-to-drug interactions. That said, a lethal dose is 10-20x what is typically administered.
> Adverse health effects may occur from casual use of
ayahuasca, particularly when serotonergic substances are used in conjunction. [1]
The heightened sense of internal reality for DMT users is mostly due to its interaction with the visual cortex.
Adverse health effects happen with every substance if you take it while taking other, incompatible substances.
My comment meant if you take it as it is recommended and follow the instructions, it should do you no harm. Following its instructions means not taking it while on specific types of antidepressants & anxiolytics and from the pov of most churches/centers, not taking it recreatively and/or without guidance or anything outside a controlled, ceremonial setting.
Of course, if you take clonazepan with alcohol you may get high, but it's dangerous for you and in no way supported or incentivized by their respective companies. Just the same with ayahuasca. No need for no asterisk since the comment does not attempt to proselytize people into taking it, nor does it try to hide the infinite possible combinations of other substances with dmt/aya.
EDIT: There are some other (obvious) recommendations, which apply for hallucinogenic drugs too: don't take it if you're schizoid, for example.
The retreat I worked at drinks 4 times a week, every week all year. Often the shamans drink more. I don't believe it causes any damage (quite the opposite), however the diet that comes along with it (traditionally fish and plantains, and skipping dinner on ceremony nights) can be very depleting. Breaks with normal food (salt, oil, vitamins) are great especially for the long-term (e.g. apprentice) drinkers.
You need to be careful with Ayahuasca to not have MAOI in your diet or medicine. Things like fermented cheese, fish, wine for example can each be dangerous.
Disclaimer: I used Ayahuasca once. If you must use psychedelics, stick to LSD or amanita muscaria / psilos, they are much safer. Its ridiculous Ayahuasca is legally obtainable in The Netherlands, while LSD and psilos are not with the former easy to standardize and the latter being banned for safety reasons (17 y.o. French student committed suicide in Amsterdam after usage).
Twice, legally bought standardized in powdered form from an online smartshop. I found it less severe than psilos, more mellow, not very visual (but I had difficulty with getting visual hallucinations anyway). At one point I fell asleep and it reached the level of a waking dream. Woke up all sweaty. Back when I did it (around 2005-7), the smartshop had an OK website, and there was Erowid.
It's called Santo Daime, a syncretism between original indigenous beliefs with catholic christianity; though our views of being a Christian are very different from catholics or protestants though. From catholicism, mostly the non-vilification (praise in a non-idolatrous way) of the Virgin Mary and saints. There's also a mix of african religions which spread throughout Brazil and a bit of esoterism.
