That’s my whole argument about these so-called “shamans”. The only way I would feel even a little bit comfortable is if they were from an actual tribe in South America that had generations of history doing these kinds of ceremonies. Other than that, they are conmen.
I hear you, although I don't necessarily think they're
all conmen.
I never thought I could really commit myself to paying for a ceremony done up in Canada but I also realized that if people are doing this sort of work for a living, they still have to eat. I'd say offering therapeutic ceremony is a perfectly valid line of work, just as much as a therapist. The main difference being is that these people are subjecting themselves to 72+ hours of intensive, round-the-clock and highly unpredictable experiences with their clients during active trauma resolution.
72 hours of paid work at $10 an hour, which is far below minimum wage here, would only be $720. Retreats usually start at around $900, so that actually seems fair.
Granted it's still impossible to tell how 'authentic' a shaman is, or what that even really means. I've come into contact with a fellow and his wife. He does not identify as a shaman but as an
ayahuasquero, which I believe would be the proper term for someone who has been properly trained to administer ayahuasca ceremonies. The guy himself is from South America, his wife is Canadian. Their ceremonies seem very healing (the one I'm looking at now is actually bringing in a somatic therapist who works with addressing childhood trauma that can lead to addiction to help people clarify their intentions, set goals, and prepare the resolution process prior to the actual ceremony).
The price is $800. My first thought was, "fuck y'all, if you take ten clients then you're making $8,000 in a weekend." But then I remember that's kind of just how things work in our society. If someone hosts a seminar and charges 20 bucks a pop and 600 people show up, they're making $1,200 in an hour. People need to eat. If these people are offering intense psychedelic ceremonies on weekends then chances are they're not going to be able to just bounce back to a 9-5 office job the day after. It sort of becomes a lifestyle and they still need to pay for their homes, foods, retreat spaces, communications, transport, the medicine itself, and other such life expenses.
We seem to have this weird predisposition as a society that any services that are inherently 'good,' such as speaking at church, helping the homeless, administering ceremonies, should also be 'free.' I think this has to do with cognitive dissonance created by the idea that most of us have that 'money is the root of all evil.' Thus it's very hard to wrap the mind around the concept of someone performing a 'good' service and receiving 'evil' compensation for it.
And yet where do our tax dollars go? To fund multinational corporations that feed off the working class? To equip a corrupt police force to violently oppress minorities? To wreak havoc in the natural environment? Nobody bats an eye to that aside from the occasional grumbling about "those fuckers are spending MY tax money on THIS?" But mention that someone's charging for an ayahuasca ceremony and all hell will break loose.
But again this all goes back to the beginning: the reality is that a lot of these professed shamans are just psychonauts who went to South America, got high on a bunch of ayahuasca and decided to come home and cash in on it.
These are just thoughts that came to me this morning.
www.bluelight.org
