4DQSAR
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2025
- Messages
- 1,473

‘People pay to be told lies’: the rise and fall of the world’s first ayahuasca multinational
The long read: Alberto Varela claimed he wanted to use sacred plant medicine to free people’s minds. But as the organisation grew, his followers discovered a darker reality
Every time I read these stories, it's worse. Shulgin realized that back when MDMA was legal in some nations, certain individuals were charging vast prices for their 'magic drink' AKA MDMA dissolved in orange juice,
Twenty five years ago a friend went to an early version of the above scam artist's rituals. They ate some roots (MAOIs of some sort) and then a tea containing DMT. My friend noted two things - their wasn't enough DMT for a full experience and the bloke shaking a branch at him and invoking spells was plain ANNOYING. I'm sure he paid only a fration of the prices charged deccades later and he went home afterwards which got him an 'annoyed' shake of the stick because he wasn't submitting to what was so evidently bad acting.
Now I'm reading of kids going to Central and South America to sample the even more risky combinations in places so remote that should a medical emergency arise, there is no hope of aid.
I'm told some are even being offered delirients such as scolopamine which makes them easy marks for anyone looking for an easy rip off.