Is the globalization of ayahuasca hurting tradition and taking ayahuasca further away from its Indigenous roots? Or is it spreading its culture to the people who need it most?

In this episode, David interviews Glauber Assis, Ph.D.: research associate at the Interdisciplinary Group for Psychoactive Studies, director of the Psychedelic Parenthood community, Vital instructor, and leader of Jornadas de Kura, a plant medicine center in Brazil.

He talks about growing up in Brazil in the shadows of colonialism, and how he felt his early experiences with ayahuasca and the Santo Daime church decolonized his mind, changing his relationship with himself and his family, and eventually leading him to start his own church: Céu da Divina Estrela. He believes that to truly know ourselves, we need to experience other cultures, and to truly see the commonalities between each other, we need to recognize just how different we all are. He feels that true growth is not found in the substance or experience, but in the relationships we have with others, and our ability to change.

He discusses:

• How ayahuasca becoming a global phenomenon is revitalizing traditions that may have otherwise been lost
• His first travels to the U.S. and why we need to stop romanticizing other cultures
• The power of live music in a ceremonial group setting
• The birth of his third child in a car, and what psychedelic parenthood really means
• The importance of understanding multiple different frameworks and being able to use them together

and more! 

Bonus: This episode features the first live performance in PT podcast history – a song Assis wrote in the Santo Daime tradition.

Links

YouTube: Ayahuasca Traditions Abroad: Forest Medicine in the International Diaspora, with Dr. Glauber Loures de Assis

Maps.org: Psychedelic Parenthood: A New Ancestral Way of Raising a Family

Chacruna.net: Glauber Loures de Assis, Ph.D.

Aapaonline.org: Remembering Bruno Latour and His Contributions to Philosophy