Episode #13

Laura Dawn: My name is Laura dawn, and you’re listening to episode number 13 of the Psychedelic Leadership podcast featuring my conversation with the founder of the Ayahuasca Foundation, Carlos Tanner.

The world is changing for sure. And that includes though, indigenous traditions. And so, the idea that, because a Westerner is going to further change this tradition, I don’t think it should be or fairly accepted that that might be some degradation of the tradition, or that might not be as good as the original. Because the fact of the matter is that the original is always been unchanged too. Well, I think that we kind of have a misunderstanding of what the word tradition means. 

And that misunderstanding could maybe be summed up with the idea that it’s doing things the way they’ve always been done. And that is not my experience. And it doesn’t fit with nature. And if we look at adaptation, the forest is never always the way it was. It’s never the way it was. It’s always growing. And it’s always changing. And it’s always adapting. And I think that traditions are doing the same thing. The way I look at it is essentially a consciousness enhancement tool. So, that when you ingest the medicine, and during the effect of the medicine, you are in the optimal environment, for the medicine to achieve its goals for the healing on the deepest level to take place.

Laura Dawn: I started this podcast so; I could have deep and meaningful conversations exactly like this one with Carlos Tanner. If you’ve been working with Ayahuasca, and feel the call towards facilitation, this is such a good episode to tune into. And as you’ll hear, we laugh and chuckle quite a bit throughout this conversation. And it’s just more laughing at the irony and the complexity and the nuance of the topics that we talk about. And I don’t want to live in a world where I feel afraid to voice my opinion or afraid to ask questions. And I certainly ask some of these taboo questions in this conversation with Carlos. And for some reason, I feel like within the plant medicine space, or the psychedelic space, that Ayahuasca, in particular, tends to be a topic where more people feel a little bit more uppity and defensive around. 

And in a way I get it. This is such an incredible, precious plant medicine. And people feel that very strongly and want to defend it. And I can understand that. And I also think there’s still a way we can learn to navigate these more nuanced and tricky conversations that are highly complex, particularly from a place of more open-mindedness and kindness. And so, we don’t always have to agree on these challenging topics. And I’ll just state that all of these conversations I have on this podcast are not about convincing anyone of anything. And Carlos said quite a several things, especially around the topic of tradition, and ancestral lineages that struck me. We traversed through some interesting territory here. And I appreciate and deeply resonate with his perspective on things. And if you notice, all roads tend to lead back to consciousness in this conversation and perception in terms of how that influences our experience of everything. 

And so, consciousness is a strong thread that weaves throughout this entire conversation. And I’m sure there are things that Carlos said that would deeply trigger some people and that’s okay. I’m personally here to learn and listen as well and contribute. And certainly, I don’t have all the answers. I have very few answers. But what I do have a lot of inquiry and curiosity, and when I dropped in with Carlos, we spoke for about two and a half hours. So, I had to cut quite a large section out but I will be having him on for part two. And so, you can find Carlos at ayahuascafoundation.org. And I’ll have all of his links in the show notes. And through the Ayahuasca Foundation. Carlos offers four-week and eight-week training programs in Peru of the Shipibo lineage and we talked about this as well and the nuance of this, of Westerners showing up and paying money to quote-unquote train as shamans. But we address this in this conversation. 

And so, before we dive in, I just want to mention that I’m now in the clubhouse. And I will be hosting weekly rooms, talking about all topics of psychedelic leadership, and I would love for you to join me in that conversation on that platform. And you can find me at livefreelaurad, both on clubhouse and Instagram. And I’ll keep you posted. I’m just finalizing the day and the time that the psychedelic leadership room is going to happen. And so, if you haven’t yet received my playlist for psychedelic journeys, there are four playlists that I share one of them being more of an Ayahuasca-oriented playlist. 

And you can access that in the show notes or on the freebies tab of my website livefreelaurad.com where you can also access my free eight-day micro-dosing course. And in this episode, I’ll be featuring a song that I just love called Rainbow Light by my dear sister that I also love and adore Tara Divina who is also legitimately one of the most badass Vedic astrologers that I know, amongst many other things. So, I’ll include her contact on this episode page again, on my website with a livefreelaurad.com Alright, without any further ado, here is my nuanced and fascinating conversation with the founder of the Ayahuasca Foundation, Carlos Tanner. Welcome, Carlos. Tanner, thank you so much for taking the time to hop on with me today. So, nice to see you. 

Carlos Tanner: I feel like we have been running in very similar circles for a while and it’s nice to finally see you virtually face to face on and on.

Laura Dawn: I’d love to start with just exploring a little bit of your background story. As we know so many people find themselves at the altar of Ayahuasca and other plant medicines because there’s a desire to find healing in their lives. I’ve heard you talk about your own story a little bit and your struggle with addiction. And it’s quite amazing that our suffering can be our greatest catalyst to our awakening. So, I’d love to invite you to just share a little bit about how you found yourself moving into your teacher’s home and apprenticing with him for four years and how that led you to start the Ayahuasca Foundation.

Carlos Tanner: Yes, sure. I mean, looking back, I have a much clearer understanding of what was going on. At the time, it seemed like addiction was the problem. But really, I was suffering from childhood trauma. And that expresses itself as depression. And the drug addiction was an attempt at self-medication, which I’m sure is the case for probably everyone that finds himself in a similar place. For me, that brought me to a very bizarre place, which was waking up in my car underwater, in the middle of the night, because I had blacked out behind the wheel of my car. Because I had been taking drugs and drinking and then driving. And that was one of the worst nights of my life that turned out to be one of the best nights of my life. 

Because at that point, I took my life seriously, it was life or death in a way in my mind as to which path, I wanted to take, moving forward from that point. And I decided I did not want to go the death route, which seemed inevitable, and made a declaration to do something drastic to save my life. I through synchronicity, at least how I perceive it. I got an email a few days later from a friend in Peru, she was traveling, decided to go to a Ketose ran into two people that talked about I Ayahuasca said the new accord on Darrow and that she could go with them to drink Ayahuasca and she thought of me. I’m not sure exactly why other than that I had talked with her about Ayahuasca a couple of years earlier. And she wrote to me and asked if I wanted to fly to Peru and drink Ayahuasca was there. 

And I took that to be a sign that this was the response from my declaration, my asking the universe for help. And this was the form it took to provide that help. And so, I flew down to Peru, knowing that this was the solution. And I stress the knowledge because it was already part of my mindset that this was going to work. I wasn’t going to give it a try. I had faith that it was the answer, even before I got on the plane, and I do feel that’s important. So, yeah, that led me to be invited by the Korumburra Don Juan, who I was drinking within the third ceremony to become his apprentice, and he told me it was my path to be a healer and that if I wanted to, I could live with him and he would teach me and I accepted his offer. And that was May of 2003. I did go home and tie up all the loose ends of my life and returned in January of 2004. I lived with him for four years. And at the end of that, I came up with the idea or rather felt was given the idea for the Ayahuasca Foundation, which officially became a nonprofit in 2009. So, we’ve now been operating for over 11 years, offering retreats and courses and I spent a crazy, wild ride.

Laura Dawn: If you feel inspired, I’d love to allow you to name your teachers and the lineages that they’re a part of, do you feel open to that?

Carlos Tanner: Sure. My first teacher is Don Juan Tengo [inaudible 10:51], and he was misty, so a very rare gem of a person. His grandmother, Peruvian grandfather, Italian, another grandmother, Indian, and another grandfather Chinese. A really special person combined with essentially rain forest medicine from Peru with Chinese or biology from Asia. And I lived with him for four years after that, I studied with two teachers that I should as well shout out with Dan Mucho and Daniela Thalia. And but I settled with Don Enrique Lopez, his wife, Tanya Bill [inaudible 11:30], and their brothers Don, Miguel Lopez, and Don Renault Lopez. So, that family, the Lopez family, and the Mucho family, and there should people and that is the special lineage within those two families, which is very unique to those two families, which is the Noi route tradition. And that’s a tradition that I work with.

Laura Dawn: So, you just alluded to this in your story, but I wanted to ask you about the role that consciousness plays in the healing process. I recently heard you speak on another podcast, and you said that psychedelics are a consciousness-enhancing experience, which makes sense to me. But what struck me was then you said that this is understood in the ancestral traditions, which is why they have the term tradition, which you said doesn’t refer to the medicine, it refers to the method of using the medicine. I wonder if you can explain that and just unpack that a little bit for us?

Carlos Tanner: Totally. I’m kind of baffled when I look at the way modern medical research is done. It’s no secret that the double-blind study is the gold standard for medical research. And why is that? Because it specifically removes consciousness, from the research. So, the data is without consciousness, because you purposely have the participant not know if they’re getting the placebo or the actual drug, and then to take that even another step for the person that’s giving them the drug don’t know if they’re giving the placebo and or the real drug? And why would they do that? Well, because that it’s recognized and well known that your consciousness will mess up the study. Why does it mess it up, because the study is already flawed, it’s based on the idea that a chemical reaction is a result? 

Whereas consciousness isn’t involved. But yet all of these placebo studies that are specific to the placebo effect have kind of proven that people that take a placebo can also achieve healing if they think they’re taking the medicine. And so right off the bat, we’re kind of operating in, I would say a flawed understanding of what medicine is or what healing is, which is the idea that there’s a chemical reaction that produces the healing, rather than acknowledging and including consciousness in that process, which is something that in the indigenous paradigm, or the indigenous perspective on healing is not the way they look at it. It is something that they would refer to as spirit, I’m going to choose consciousness because spirit and science in our culture, don’t go together, unfortunately. But consciousness is something that we can all build bridges on and a better understanding that I’d like to give is gardening. So, when you’re gardening, the seed that you plant is very important. 

You can’t grow a tomato plant from a different seed, and you must have the seed to grow the tomato plant. But there is a lot more going on than just having the seed, you don’t just put a seed on your table and a tomato plant grows from it. No, you have to put it in the soil. And the quality of the soil makes a huge difference, which is why there’s so much effort to fertilize your soil to make it the best quality, there’s a scientific process to understand all of the nutrients that you have in your soil that will give that seed the best opportunity, the optimal environment for it to grow. And then, of course, there are other factors, how much water it’s going to get, when it’s water, the quality of the water, how much sunlight, it’s going to get, all of these environmental elements, that surround the growth of the seed are more important to the outcome of how well that seed grows. And that, to me is a better way of understanding how medicine should be looked at. Yes, the medicine is a key component, but how the medicine is taken, really has more impact on its effectiveness than the substance itself. Does that make sense?

Laura Dawn: Yes, that makes total sense. And so, let’s talk about the power of ceremony and the role that ceremony plays within this gardening analogy.

Carlos Tanner: Right ceremony would be that fertile soil; ceremony is essentially the way I look at it is essentially a consciousness enhancement tool. So, that when you ingest the medicine and during the effect of the medicine, you are in the optimal environment, for the medicine to achieve its goals for the healing on the deepest level to take place. And so, part of that is the mechanics, you could say, of the ceremony where you want to be in darkness, you want to have the least number of distractions that might take you away from your interior process, which is the goal for why you’re ingesting the medicine. And so, if you’re seeing other people, or if you’re looking at other things, whatever they may be, they will take away your focus or your attention from looking in, which is where the healing is going to be taking place provided you can activate it. 

And so that activation of healing is the component of the ceremony. And so, everything that happens in the ceremony, from taking the cup and having your intention be put at the forefront of your consciousness. So, it’s the last thing that your mind says before the medicine enters. To me, that’s a very important element. Because if you’re thinking about who won the football game last weekend when you take the medicine, then I think that it would be a more challenging process to connect the medicine with the goal that you have for taking it. Whereas if the goal that you have for taking it is right on the tip of your tongue when that very same tongue touches the medicine, there’s an instantaneous mind-body connection, your consciousness communicating physiologically to your body, what the purpose of this medicine is. And I think that we could probably find great results even if we were to do that with pharmaceutical medication, the singing of the ceremony that takes things into a whole other realm. 

But even if you just look at it mechanically, the intention behind the singing, the fact that there is singing is an expression of gratitude and expression of directed intention, there is a healing purpose within the acts of the behavior within the ceremony. And so pretty much from beginning to end and way before the ceremony at the moment when you decide to attend the ceremony, a consciousness shift begins, and walking into the ceremony space enhances that consciousness shift, where you sit and the implements that you have with you affects that consciousness shifts the people that you’re with the person leading the ceremony, every single element influences your consciousness. And the way that ceremonies have been developed by indigenous communities is this real science of consciousness enhancement, in my opinion, to increase the outcome or the effectiveness of the medicine itself?

Laura Dawn: How do you feel trauma fits into this framework? And just given your experience being so immersed in shamanic cultures? What’s your take? And I know this would be an overgeneralization. But what’s your take on how these cultures tend to view and relate to this concept and this notion of trauma?

Carlos Tanner: Your question is interesting because their terminology doesn’t make sense in our terminology, the words don’t go together, they would focus on fear. And when we say trauma, fear is an inevitable element of it. But we don’t look at you got scared? That’s not what resonates with us when we say trauma. So, to me, there’s a level of interpretation. If they say, bad heirs, for example, you’re, what the hell does that mean? That’s a literal translation of an element that they would use to describe trauma you’re, what does that even mean? So, there’s a level of interpretation. And so, I’m going to take some liberties on my interpretation of what that means having spent the time that I have with them, but the way that I choose to describe it is in the field of consciousness. 

I look at consciousness as having three states of being, which I think could be related to these three states of being that we recognize in ourselves, being our minds, our emotions, and our bodies, the three states of beings that we recognize in the matter, which would be gas, liquid, and solid. And then the three states of matter that I identify in consciousness, which would be ideas, beliefs, and truths. And to me, what happens in trauma or a traumatic experience is that we essentially condense ideas, and solidify them as truths into our bodies. And those truths are formed in hypersensitive states that are usually the response to extreme fear. And because they are formed in fear, they’re usually guided by that fear. And oftentimes, those truths are detrimental to our self-perceptions. And our realities become infected by these detrimental truths. And so, we end up living our lives, infecting our responses to experiences and we infect our relationship dynamics because they have, we have a truth inside of us about who we are, that is inaccurate, and also detrimental to our health. 

And so, the healing of that truth or that trauma, which is essential, the healing or replacing of a detrimental truth with a beneficial truth involves replicating or overriding that hypersensitivity state. And that is done through the use of Ayahuasca and this tradition. And, but not as a result of fear, in a controlled and safe setting, which is the ceremony, and thus allowing us to attain the depth of consciousness where the truth resides, which would normally be unattainable because we don’t have the level of sensitivity that could reach it. And then to replace it with our maturity, our wisdom or understanding, not influenced by fear, and thus, we can take a detrimental truth about who we are, and replace it with a beneficial truth, the way that we should accurately perceive ourselves and essentially, resolve the trauma and remove the infection. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done afterward. Because your relationships and everything that’s happened in your life, don’t just instantly fix, but by cutting the source of the infection, then you can start the process to return to a state of balance within all those dynamics.

Laura Dawn: When I hear stories about shamans in the jungle, performing soul retrievals, for example, and just from this perspective of bridging this medicine from a shamanic cultural paradigm worldview to a Western one, I’m just so curious, your perspective on this, do you think that Westerners who aren’t born into that cultural perspective can learn those methods? And do you think it’s necessary that we need to learn shamanic practices that are immersed in a different cultural paradigm to effectively work with this medicine in a healing capacity?

Carlos Tanner: It’s a great point. And part of the one to just simply say yes, because I have friends of mine that have studied for over a decade, and I consider them to be the true maestro. But also, part of me needs to recognize the knowledge of that, that we’ll never be able to access the same paradigm that they have that they live in the indigenous paradigm or the ancestral paradigm. And so there will always be an adaptation, if a Westerner is going to learn an ancestral tradition or an indigenous tradition, there will always be an adaptation. And I think that if we can go back to the gardening metaphor, adaptation is essential. If we’re going to take that seed and plant it in a new environment, then there will inevitably be an adaptation, because of the influences of the new environment. It’s something that we’re all very well aware of with adaptations of plants, especially. And so, a new species, so to speak, of tradition, is being born, as Westerners do, study these traditions, and adapt them to their cultural paradigms or they’re the needs of the communities that they’re serving. And so, I think that ties in maybe to a deeper understanding of what it means to have a tradition, I have worked with the Lopez family, for example, for the last 11 years, and their tradition has changed significantly, just in 10 years.

Laura Dawn: That’s amazing to know that actually, that’s interesting.

Carlos Tanner: Well, I think that we kind of have a misunderstanding of what the word tradition means. And that and that misunderstanding could maybe be summed up with the idea that it’s doing things the way they’ve always been done. And that has not my experience, and it doesn’t fit with nature. And if we look at adaptation, the forest is never always the way it was. It’s never the way it was. It’s always growing. And it’s always changing. And it’s always adapting. And I think that traditions are doing the same thing. It’s just that the rate of change in the environment to adapt to has typically been quite slow. In the past, so if you went into the ancient past, the difference between the Shipibo tradition 500 years ago, compared to 100 years ago, might not be that different. 

But the difference between 100 years ago and 50 years ago, probably was more pronounced, even though the period is so much shorter. And then from 50 years ago, to now it might be accelerated five times as much if you could calculate that in some way. But the point is that life is changing, fast, we’re going through just in our lifetimes, from when you and I were kids to now, the world has changed a ton. I’m talking to you looking at a computer screen right now. And we’re fine without a delay, like crystal clear. So, that’s a very easy example of how much life has changed. I know when I first started living in Peru, to meet a Korean Darrow meant you hiked into the jungle somewhere. Now you can meet a Korean Darrow, on their freak in Facebook page.

Laura Dawn: Wearing Nike shoes, and totally, I was, look at that shaman wearing Nike. Okay.

Carlos Tanner: The world is changing for sure. And that includes, though, indigenous traditions. And so, the idea that, because a Westerner is going to further change this tradition, I don’t think it should be or fairly, accepted that that might be some degradation of the tradition, or that might, not be as good as the original. Because the fact of the matter is that the original is always been in change, too. It’s always adapting and finding the needs of the community at serving, and that will always be the case. But if we are to have Ayahuasca spread around the world, to deserts, and temperate forests, and to, all the locations just on that element, let alone all the cultural differences, then there has to be a big change in the adaptation of those. But I’m kind of getting around the question that I think you’re trying to answer. 

Laura Dawn: Well, it’s so nuanced and it’s so touchy, and especially, there is this social media reality with a lot of social justice warriors who are very adamant about, the cultural appropriation topic. And I think I generally hold a similar perspective as you that, this medicine has its consciousness, things are changing. We live in a time where rates of depression and suicide are through the roof. I’m kind of have the mindset of all hands-on deck right now, how do we find the most amount of healing? That’s possible. And yet there are a group of people that I think are very adamant about this needs to stay within the tradition, which I love that you spoke to that, I think we have a misunderstanding of what the word tradition means. 

And when you said, even in the last 10 11 years, the Lopez family has evolved and changed their tradition. That was just, the light bulb. And then what tradition are we talking about? Because when you look at Brazil, look at the diamond church. Now, we’re weaving Ayahuasca with a variety of religious practices with, African music. And I mean, there are all sorts of different ways that this medicine is weaving. I know a lot of people who hold space in a very Neo shamanic way, and it’s beautiful. And people receive a lot of healing in that way. And so maybe just speaking to this, how do we embody respect? How do we embody honor with the mindset that things are changing that we live in a drastically different world? It’s a huge can of worms.

Carlos Tanner: That’s for sure. It is crazy. Worms don’t go that far. You can catch them this is a can of snakes. But one way that I’ll try to tackle it right off the bat is, based on what I feel is a more accurate understanding of what tradition means. Would it be better to use the word science? Because in science, there is no desire to do things the way they were always done. It’s kind of the opposite, where you’re always striving to find the better way, the more accurate way. And that is, what tradition is always doing. And it seems kind of crazy to even imagine, what if you are a young, up and coming Korean Darrow, in the Shipibo tribe, and you have a ceremony, and afterward, you come out of it, and you’re like, you know what, I found a better way to do this, I found a better way to treat people that’s going to be more effective. And you think that person’s teacher, their grandfather is going to say, we’ve never done that before. We’re not going to do it now. 

Don’t go trying to change the culture, they’re going to be, good job, a great discovery. And that, to me sounds a lot more science. We applaud the discovery. And we’re happy to replace an outdated model or a model that is less effective with a new, more effective model. And that, to me, is what I see happening with the tradition. But if we use that word science, and then we get into a conversation about cultural appropriation, to me, just by replacing the word tradition with science, it’s kind of redefines the conversation, because I don’t hear anybody having a conversation about scientific appropriation. I’ve never heard someone say, well, that culture shouldn’t use the science of this culture. Science is kind of also inherently known to be for the good of humankind. It is willingly shared, regardless of race, color, ancestry, and gender, whatever separation you might come up with, it’s sciences universal. And I guess that is my perception of tradition. And you bring up a good point, too. 

It’s so hard for me to imagine that Ayahuasca cares at all, what color your skin is. It’s just impossible for me to imagine that a tree would see your spirit and be like, well, I think that even though your spirit is containing all the colors of the spectrum and beyond, your skin color has a pigment that I’m not as familiar with, so I’m going to share less it’s kind of a ridiculous concept. And maybe we have a lot to learn from that understanding or that conception of the ridiculousness of measuring people by the color of their skin. But it’s still a touchy situation because there is more to it than simply sharing. And even in science, it’s more complicated and there’s money. And there’s the way that you live. And so, there’s oppression, there are elements that are in humankind that are hard to see replicated in nature, there are parts of that in nature, I do feel like the tallest tree in the forest will get more sun, there are elements that you could say, relate somewhat to that, but not to the same degree that we have. And so, if I go to indigenous culture, and I take a piece of wisdom they have and go patent it, and start a company and make a billion dollars. Now, the cultural appropriation conversation becomes something that we all must discuss. And so, it is very complicated, and certainly very nuanced. But to get back to the original question, which is, can a Westerner learn a tradition formed an indigenous paradigm and be able to help their communities with it? I would say yes. 

Will they go to the same depth? I would lean towards no, but because they’re working in a different paradigm, it may not be important. But it also may be different. Because there is a reality that, and I’ve seen it, just from our programs, if someone doesn’t speak your language, and someone does, then you’re normally will gravitate towards the person that does because they can speak your language. And culture is kind of saying someone that can speak your language, if someone knows your culture, and is from your culture, they speak your language on a deeper level, they’re familiar with your, with your culture, and so they’re familiar with what you’re going through in a way that a person from another culture wouldn’t be able to. And so, in that sense, a local healer, if I’ll call them that, a person from your neck of the woods, may have an advantage in healing you or helping you to heal because they’re more familiar with the roots of your affliction. After all, they share the same soil whereas someone from another culture might not.

Laura Dawn: Yeah, because that it makes me zoom out around the narrative that it’s like frequency, where we’re higher frequency is better than lower frequency. So, there’s a narrative that, this is the way so this is the better way versus this way, which is subpar to this original way? Or is that just blasphemy to say?

Carlos Tanner: Well, that’s where I feel like I that all of those questions and all of the thoughts have led me I feel to take the perceptions that I do, which is to view everything through the frame of consciousness because I can settle it, I feel, there’s a particular person and that particular person gravitates towards someone from their culture, that particular person will receive more benefit by going to the healer from their neck of the woods. But not everyone shares that thought, some people take a feeling like you just kind of mentioned some people say, the real curanderos are in the Amazon rainforest, the real curanderos are Shipibo, the most powerful healers in the world are this in this place, and this type, and therefore, I need to go there. 

And if I’m with someone, however, I choose to categorize them, maybe it’s by the color of their skin, maybe it’s from their ancestry or whatever, then I’m not going to get as deep healing, well, then yes, you’re right, you will not get as DB healing, because you do not believe that you will be able to and I feel like consciousness is such so powerful that way. And I also feel like as the director of a Healing Center, it’s almost an unfair advantage, because we’re located in the Amazon rainforest, to do the healing process. You already have to on your own, every participant already develops this optimized belief system to get them there. So, that I don’t have to do that preparation for th