Few sensory experiences can match the furor and exaltation of the ayahuasca ritual of western Amazonian shamanism: the existentially bitter taste of the brew, the giddy alternating waves of nausea and euphoria, the showers of rainbow-colored fractals, the ethereal resonance of the shaman’s ch...anting, a speechless sense of mystery and wonder, and most of all, the unshakeable sensation of being transported to a place beyond time, ordinary reason, and the laws of physics.G.H. Shepard Jr., “A Sensory Ecology of Medicinal Plant Therapy in Two Amazonian Societies. American Anthropologist Vol. 106, Issue 2 (2004).
Ayahusasca film sequence by G.H. Shepard in Alternate Realities Exhibition