Practices in search of legitimacy. The contemporary use of ayahuasca, between religious and therapeutic vindications

This commentary (2018) recounts the history of the Takiwasi center and how its rituals around ayahuasca use have moved from shamanism to incorporate more Catholic elements.

Abstract

“In recent decades, the growing interest of Westerners in the psychotropic brew ayahuasca and the participation in exotic rituals has led to the multiplication of “shamanic centers” in the Peruvian Amazon. Among these, Takiwasi is a therapeutic community that welcomes hundreds of national and foreign clients every year. This institution, created by a French physician in 1992, was originally intended to propose a therapeutic alternative for the treatment of addiction, characterized by the use of tools of Peruvian mestizo shamanism, biomedicine and clinical psychology. The diachronic evolution of the institution is however marked by the growing use of elements of the Catholic tradition. In this article, I will examine the hypothesis that these transformations can be interpreted as the effects of the globalization of the use of ayahuasca and its legal and political consequences. Thus, the case of Takiwasi underlines the role played by religious traditions and the medical field in the construction, legitimization and maintenance of new and hybrid practices that are multiplying around the use of ayahuasca.“

Author: David Dupuis

Summary

ABSTRACT

The growing interest of Westerners in ayahuasca has led to the creation of many shamanic centers in the Peruvian Amazon. These centers use elements of the Catholic tradition, but have been transformed by the globalization of the use of ayahuasca.

This is a translation of an article initially published in Spanish in Salud Colectiva

This article was translated by Laura Antonella del Veccio and Daiana Carrarini and reviewed by Hannah Thayer and Julia Roncoroni. It was approved by the article author(s).

INTRODUCTION

Westerners have been moving toward the Peruvian Amazon since the 1990s, attracted by the mythical image of the shaman figure and the “primary” jungle. Shamanic centers have emerged on the edge of the cities of the Peruvian Amazonia that offer ritual activities presented as inspired by the “traditional Amazonian medicine”.

The Takiwasi therapeutic community was founded by Jacques Mabit in 1992 and offers services to foreign travelers in the Peruvian Amazon. It uses native plants for its therapeutic mechanism.

Takiwasi was originally aimed at providing a therapeutic alternative to drug addiction through the combination of biomedicine and “traditional Amazonian medicine”, but has since evolved into something else.

I have shown in other writings(3) that the transformations of Takiwasi are rooted in the ritual experience of the officiants and in the operations of socialization of the hallucinations induced by ayahuasca.

METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS

To explain the aforementioned points, I will focus on the analysis of public communications of the institution and on the data collected during an ethnographic fieldwork conducted during an 18-month period divided into three research stays, between 2008 and 2013.

In 2011, I attended four seminars with between 15 and 20 participants, and conducted individual interviews with around thirty participants.

The eight-month final visit was in 2013, during which I attended three new seminars and conducted weekly interviews with two drug-addicted patients who were hospitalized for six months. This research study was complemented with a comparative study.

The foundation of a center for the rehabilitation of drug addictions and research studies on traditional medicines: the history of Takiwasi

The history of Takiwasi is rooted in that of its founders, including Jacques Mabit and interviews with different actors involved in the history of the institution.

After completing his PhD in Medicine at the Université de Nantes, Jacques Mabit joined short missions in different French non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including missions in Peru, where he met José Campos, a Peruvian native of Cajamarca, who introduced him to medicinal plants, ritual songs (icaros), and techniques such as the soplada. Jacques Mabit and José Campos met Roni Yon, a Peruvian, and Dionsio Santos, a Franco-Spanish, who had met Don Solón Tello Lozano, a mestizo healer, who introduced them to vegetalismo and the use of medicinal plants.

Jacques Mabit founded a non-profit association Takiwasi in 1992 to treat drug addiction by mobilizing local resources. The center opened in September and quickly received the authorization from the Peruvian State to function as a center for the treatment of addictions.

Takiwasi was established as a research center on traditional Amazonian medicine and its use in the treatment of addictions.

Private donors, the French government, the European Community and the United Nations contributed to the construction of infrastructure and the remuneration of some employees. Jacques Mabit is now in charge of the management of Takiwasi.

Jacques Mabit is the main authority of Takiwasi, and he approves all important decisions regarding the activities of the institution. Other people have the right to officiate during the rituals offered by Takiwasi, such as Rosa Giove and Jaime Torrès.

Takiwasi is a clinic that permanently receives fifteen patients and residents, and that advertises the treatment of more than five hundred drug addicts. The treatment consists of a nine-month process, and the patients perform different tasks and attend workshops.

The Takiwasi institution aims to promote the legitimacy of “traditional medicine” in Peru by promoting the declaration of ayahuasca as part of the national cultural heritage.

Takiwasi has organized several international meetings to certify the results of the methods of “traditional Amazonian medicine” in the treatment of addictions and psychopathologies.

Etiological and therapeutic theory of addiction

The main actors of Takiwasi published several articles in which they formulated an original theory of addiction. According to this theory, addiction is the result of a spiritual aspiration achieved through self-initiation that, lacking a social structure, would produce a “counter-initiation” and lead to self-destruction.

The term transpersonal psychology dominates the psychotherapeutic paradigm in Takiwasi, and refers to experiences, processes and events that transcend the common sense of identity.

Ayahuasca is used in psychotherapy as a catalytic drug, which facilitates verbal associations, mental images, abreaction, childhood regressions. The ritual of ayahuasca is articulated with spaces of reflection, such as individual interviews or discussion groups, in order to clarify the participant’s ritual experience.

The ritual techniques used in ayahuasca use function as a symbolic containment mechanism that helps participants better understand themselves as psychological subjects.

During our conversations with Takiwasi psychotherapists, they emphasized that the use of ayahuasca would be a valuable therapeutic tool because it would reveal transpersonal elements related to the transgenerational, perinatal, and spiritual beings.

Emergence of a transnational religious movement?: the influence of Western contemporary religiosity

The psychopathology theory of Takiwasi reveals the influence of Jung’s theories and the psychotherapy movements that developed in the context of counterculture and the emergence of the New Age.

The institution of Takiwasi has been the subject of several publications, including academic research articles, radio or audiovisual documentaries, and conferences. These documents generate a sort of myth around the figure of Jacques Mabit.

Jacques Mabit had a crisis in 1984, went to India to meet Mother Teresa and had a near-death experience, which forced him to return to Peru to be treated by healers.

Jacques Mabit believed that working with addicts was difficult, but in 1989 a new vision reminded him of his mission.

Jacques Mabit’s bibliography evokes the inner journey of the New Age, and his charismatic authority gives Takiwasi a power of attraction that Del Bosque links to prophetic charisma.

The Catholic shift of the institution

In 2004, twenty Peruvian and French participants attended a series of lectures in Takiwasi about the encounter between Christianity and shamanism. The participants denounced the tendency toward spiritual syncretism and spiritualities of a New Age type, and aligned the Takiwasi practices with the Church doctrine.

The Takiwasi team formulated an original body of cosmological and etiological representations that differs from Peruvian folk medicine and shamanic tourism. This theory focuses on the concept of infestation, which is understood as the result of taboo transgressions, contact with places or persons, or transmission through paternity.

Jacques Mabit requested the Moyobamba bishop to consecrate the Takiwasi chapel, and in 1990 a mission was entrusted to father Christian Alejandria to provide pastoral care to Takiwasi’s personnel and patients. Several Catholic sites of worship were built in Takiwasi lands during the following years.

The religious dimension of an institution that promotes the encounter between Western medicine and traditional Amazonian medicine is questioned. Former clients spread in France several practices inspired in the Takiwasi’s mechanism.

Takiwasi is a therapeutic-religious transnational movement in process of creation that is organized around a central actor (Jacques Mabit), who assumes a ritual position of authority and travels around the world to promote the activities of the institution.

The Takiwasi institution does not present itself as a religious movement, but as a clinic specialized in the treatment of addictions.

Strategies of legitimation in a context of stigmatization?

The desire to adjust the ritual practices of Takiwasi to the Catholic doctrine emerged after Jacques Mabit and some members of the French associations linked to Takiwasi were prosecuted for “fraudulent abuse of weakness” and violation of the narcotic control act. In January 2004, Jacques Mabit and psychotherapists were prosecuted for fraudulent abuse of weakness. The accusation was reclassified as fraud and abuse of a suggestion state.

The media mobilization against Takiwasi led to the mention of Takiwasi in two reports by the MIVILUDES, which denounced the methods for client selection and the use of “hard” drugs that imply “manipulation risks”. The accusations made in 2005 against ayahuasca have resulted in its inclusion in the French list of prohibited drugs. The associations Liberté du Santo Daime and Takiwasi filed an appeal against this decision, but it was rejected in 2007.

Takiwasi’s resistance to being publicly featured as a religious group can be explained by its ritual activities being compared to the Catholic church.

The Takiwasi case offers an original example of the legitimation strategies mobilized by the groups using ayahuasca in response to the policy implemented by the governments of most of the countries affected by the development of these groups.

These groups are mainly differentiated from two other religious movements, Santo Daime and Unio do Vegetal, which both place the use of ayahuasca at the center of their cults.

In 2006, the Supreme Court of the USA decriminalized the use of ayahuasca in the strict context of a religious practice, and in the same year, ayahuasca was decriminalized in Brazil in the context of strict religious use.

The specific context of France seems to discourage the use of sectarian strategies, so Takiwasi has evoked the tradition of an ancient and renowned religion to protect itself from charges of sectarian abuse. However, it is still very cautious in its public communications regarding the status conferred to Catholicism.

Several Santo Daime groups have participated in scientific studies to establish the long-term safety of ayahuasca in mental health and to establish its beneficial effect on various pathologies.

CONCLUSION

The diachronic evolution of Takiwasi shows that the picture in which the practices offered by the institution are presented and thought has undergone a deep transformation. This transformation can be explained by social factors such as neoshamanism, accusations of “sectarian abuse” and prohibition of ayahuasca by French authorities.

The continuous need to summon authorities established for the legitimation of ayahuasca practices is highlighted by the fact that the medical authority has a monopoly over body care legitimacy in secularized societies, and the religious authority also seeks to be acknowledged and valued.

Takiwasi is a case study of ayahuasca use in western and postcolonial societies. The religious and therapeutic perspectives mobilized by the first scholars of shamanism still prevail.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article is based on an ethnographic research study conducted in Peruvian High-Amazonian region between 2009 and 2013 as part of my doctoral research study.