{"id":6313,"date":"2014-03-07T10:32:23","date_gmt":"2014-03-07T17:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6313"},"modified":"2014-03-28T13:00:18","modified_gmt":"2014-03-28T19:00:18","slug":"ayahuasca-tourism-and-pagan-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6313","title":{"rendered":"Ayahuasca Tourism and Pagan Holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kira Salak, a writer for National Geographic<\/em>, has a good article published on her ayahuasca pilgrimage to Peru.<\/a><\/p>\n

But she can’t call it a that. It was “a lark,” at least the first time:<\/p>\n

And then there is me, who a year ago came to Peru on a lark to take the “sacred spirit medicine,” ayahuasca, and get worked over by shamans. Little suspecting that I’d emerge from it feeling as if a waterlogged wool coat had been removed from my shoulders\u2014literally feeling the burden of depression lifted\u2014and thinking that there must be something to this crazy shamanism after all.<\/p>\n

And so I am back again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have read a lot of put-downs of this sort of journey. The term “ayahuasca tourism” is tossed around, along with the presumption that any such experience cannot possibly be “authentic,” whatever that<\/em> means.<\/p>\n

Such an attitude may suit neo-puritans, but it is profoundly un-Pagan.<\/p>\n

In the collection Anthropological Research on Contemporary Tourism <\/em><\/a> (thanks to Amy W. for the citation), Nelson Graburn offers a “Working\/Traveling Matrix,”<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Stay\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Travel<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Voluntary<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “Doing Nothing” at home\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tourism and\/or recreation<\/p>\n

Compulsory\/Serious\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Work, incl. school & housework \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Occupations requiring travel<\/p>\n

What I see in this is the attitude that if you are not getting paid to travel, it’s not real, and that if it is not work<\/em>, it is not serious travel.<\/p>\n

Think of those times when you have met someone \u2014 or maybe said about yourself \u2014 who claimed to be a “traveler” but not a “tourist.”<\/p>\n

Imagine someone leaning against a wall two thousand years ago outside the sacred precinct of Delphi, sneering, “Look at that \u2014 another bunch of rich oracle tourists.” (Well, there were the Cynics.) But a scholar of religious tourism in ancient Greece writes,<\/a><\/p>\n

Many tourism scholars however have begun to recognize that the differences between what is a tourist and what is a pilgrim is not as large as was once thought. These scholars have coined a new term, the religious tourist, to describe those travelers who seem to bridge the gap between the traditional definition of a pilgrim and the traditional definition of a tourist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe a contemporary writer has to describe her trip as “a lark” in order to distance herself from the fact that it might be a pilgrimage, leading some of her readers to dismiss her as a “religious wacko.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kira Salak, a writer for National Geographic, has a good article published on her ayahuasca pilgrimage to Peru. But she can’t call it a that. It was “a lark,” at least the first time: And then there is me, who a year ago came to Peru on a lark to take the “sacred spirit medicine,” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,233,158],"class_list":["post-6313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-entheogens","tag-pilgrimage","tag-tourism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1DP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4315,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4315","url_meta":{"origin":6313,"position":0},"title":"The Ayahuasca Jungle Village","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A visit to an intentional community devoted to Santo Daime, more often known as the entheogenic drug ayahuasca, complete with authoritarian spiritual leader and chorus of virgins.","rel":"","context":"In \"Brazil\"","block_context":{"text":"Brazil","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=brazil"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":980,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=980","url_meta":{"origin":6313,"position":1},"title":"The Ayahuasca Diaries","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Two articles on the entheogenic drink ayahuasca, one from National Geographic and one from The Los Angeles Times.The second site requires registration: BugMeNot can give you a password.It's definitely your old-school entheogen:The concoction itself is said to taste so vile that most people fight their gag reflex to swallow it.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"curanderismo\"","block_context":{"text":"curanderismo","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=curanderismo"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":620,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=620","url_meta":{"origin":6313,"position":2},"title":"Supremes uphold entheogenic churchEarlier post\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Supremes uphold entheogenic churchEarlier post here.The Supreme Court has upheld the right of followers of Uniao do Vegetal (UDV), a religion born in Brazil that uses ayahuasca as its sacrament, to use ayahuasca in the United States. The feds argued that preventing use of a \"controlled substance\" was more important\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":552,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=552","url_meta":{"origin":6313,"position":3},"title":"First peyote, now ayahuascaIt took\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 2, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"First peyote, now ayahuascaIt took decades of legal struggle for the Native American Church to receive a highly qualified exemption to federal drug law that permitted its members to use the entheogen peyote during the church's meetings.Now the Supreme Court is hearing argument in another case involving religion and an\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1033,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1033","url_meta":{"origin":6313,"position":4},"title":"Travel, Tourism, Pilgrimage","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Blogging will be sporadic, or maybe nonexistent, for the next week as I head for the Mysterious East (Virginia) for M.'s family reunion. I do want to make a little bit of a pilgrimage along the way, and if it happens, I'll blog it.Right now, I am obsessed with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"travel\"","block_context":{"text":"travel","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8765,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8765","url_meta":{"origin":6313,"position":5},"title":"Christians Attacking Pagan Temples \u2014\u00a0Now It’s Brazil","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 22, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Reading Galina Krasskova's blog a few days ago, I was surprised to see the headlines \"One can always expect a monotheist to behave according to type,\" and \"A Candomble priest martyred for\u00a0Jesus.\"((Shouldn't that read, \"Martyred by Followers of Jesus\"? But the text clarifies it: \"\u00c1lisson stood fast in devotion to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Brazil\"","block_context":{"text":"Brazil","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=brazil"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Pombagira_Rainha.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6313"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6358,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6313\/revisions\/6358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}