Abstract
The first part of my presentation will be devoted to a personal experience with ayahuasca in the Peruvian Amazon with the Shipibo tribe, where I spent a month in February 2017. At the time, I was conducting research for my dissertation in Peru, which was not directly related to this topic, but the stay in Peru, and above all the contacts in the local environment, enabled me to connect with the master shaman Antonio Birin Soi and realize the whole trip. I will describe several months of preparation, both mental and physical, and then the actual course of ceremonies and life in a small community on the Ucayalí River.
At the end of the presentation, I will briefly outline the comparison of this experience with several ceremonies in Europe that I attended in Germany, the Canary Islands and also in the Czech Republic. There are several different traditions - Colombian, Ecuadorian and Brazilian, which are diametrically different and draw elements from Santo Daime.
I will also focus on possible pitfalls related to attending ayahuasca ceremonies after one of the most prominent problems - commodification associated with the growing ayahuasca spiritual tourism.