Ayahuasca Medicine: The Shamanic World of Amazonian Sacred Plant Healing

This is a good read for anyone considering a trip to Iquitos, and/or a relationship with ayahuasca. It is somewhat autobiographical and full of interesting anecdotes sprinkled with insightful safety tips and other advice based on hard lessons learned through personal experience. With a Foreword by Peter Gorman, this book is complete.An easy read and a real page turner. It has a beginning, middle, and an end. No fluff. No fill. No droning on and on about things we don't care about. It's just right.Alan Shoemaker is candid in his approach and speaks with authority. Clearly, he has walked the walk and there is much we can learn from his experiences.A few lines that caught my eye...pg12. "A quick glance through the book showed that his roots were also firmly entrenched in Krishna consciousness, of which he was a devotee."pg13. "You can feel the psychotropic medicine moving through your body, lingering in areas that need attention, activating the immune system to rectify the problem, he explained."pg23. " For example, I refuse to mention the name of...the _____, and I hesitate to say it here for you now, just to underscore my point, because I believe to do so feeds that energy, it gives it live." (thanks Alan, me too)pg77. " The languages that come with an icaro can be incredibly complicated and can contain more than one tongue"pg81. "The only other accoutrement was a white towel that he placed around his shoulders. Before he began the ceremony he placed it over his head with only his face exposed, which gave him a saintlike appearance."pg97. (on spirits) "Some may also desire to use your body."pg97. "This is why you shouldn't fall asleep during any ritual."pg100. "A spirit that will perform something for you that is unethical or immoral, is evil."Pg102 " ...you must diet for a minimum of a week, following the same prescription of no salt, oil, sugar, o sex."Thanks again Alan for taking the time to write out your story and share it with the rest of us. I am sure this was no easy task. Writing books is hard work. I liked this book and rank it among the best aya books right up there with "Aya in my Blood", Gorman, and Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss",D. McKenna.

A piece of art! Alan Shoemaker's experiences are an extraordinary example of the difficulties that people that are on the path of Curanderismo need to experience,although he being a "gringo" ,as he tells the population calls the U.S. visitor or any stranger over there on the Ecuador or Peru, makes it more interesting and more difficult, because the mental programing society have from since childhood to dismiss all those ideas as fairytales or just folklore. The reality we see is that it really works, there are cases of cures of nearly mortal diseasses, and of different other cases of what we are said to think as not real in our modern world,they are real...it means that there exist with the natural medicine of their ancestral tradition of healing with those plants as it needs to be( as others traditions have their traditional medicines made without any toxic chemichals that cure one thing & then destroys another thing on our inmune system as the "modern" medicines tend to work)as another factor that helps to first cure our spiritual self or energetic bodies, to then cure our physical body...making it a type of holistic path.And utilizing the guide of the spiritual realm? It looks as it is true. That as a friend told me once long time ago "the spiritual realm is more real than this physical or 3 dimesional one that we live in". REALLY A MARVELOUS READ.

Writing a memoir gives you the chance to get the big view. Like hiking in the mountains you go up high and see your life as a speck on the earth. If there is a shadow that stalks you, put it on a tiny rock in the view from this mountaintop and shout, "Vaya!" like Alan Shoemaker does in a ceremony in this book, with a stiff wave of your hand, and walk away. This book quietly shows the reader how to walk forward enriched by the clarity of ceremony."Ayahuasca Medicine" is a short read full of wisdom born of experience. If you want insight into the world of ayahuasca, read the writing of this man, a true pioneer and psychedelic cowboy in the frontier town of Iquitos. Like any ceremony, Alan's stories make a lasting impression. There are few white men with 25 years of ceremonial experience in the Upper Amazon. Bend your ear and listen. The view is great from here.

Ein äußerst interessantes Buch, aus meiner Sicht absolut lesenswert.

Ayahuasca Medicine was for me the right book in the right moment. I’ve read it few weeks after Rak Razam's “Aya Awakenings” and Peter Gorman's “Ayahuasca in My Blood” (which I both recommend) and now the puzzle is complete.Alan Shoemaker adventurous life is a source of inspiration and the reading has seduced me to the point that convinced me to take the courage in both hands and organize a trip to Iquitos. The author is one of the guys responsible of the rise of the shamanic tourism. This phenomenon raises questions of doubt (as pointed out by Gorman in his preface to the book) but I think the benefits, ie the possibility of individual and collective healing, outweigh the risks.Throughout the book there are also many useful tips for those who decide to try this sacred medicine also in different contexts from the Amazon rainforest.I particularly enjoyed the "radicalism" of the author who prefers to avoid delving into neurochemical and psychological explanations of the effects of the medicine and goes straight to the point: ayahuasca certainly has to do with the body and the psyche, but above all it has to do with the Spirit and the spirit world.

Having decided to plan a visit to Peru some time in 2014 i decided to do my research into the world of Ayahuasca before my trip. I had many doubts and worries about this as I had heard different tales of good and bad Curenderos.The book gives a good insight into this world and answered many of the questions I had in my mind about what to expect.I found the whole story of how the writer through many synchronicities ended up in Iquitos in Peru but before this he trained first in Equador with San Perdro plant before continuing his journey into Peru.A recent experience with a plant, left me wondering how the mind can be used for the healing our own body and his story answered part of the question.This book has made me more eager to discover more about Ayahuasca and the traditions of the Curenderos.I highly recommend this book to those who have an interest in this subject.

I got to know Alan in Iquitos and bought his book afterwards.I think he is a very interesting person and so is his book.