A first-person tale of the mind-bending, life-changing psychedelic ayahuasca, on a kaleidoscopic trip from New York to Peru to L.A.

I found ayahuasca (a South American plant-based hallucinogen) through a cult called the Santo Daime. I had never heard of it before, but a friend who was studying mediumship with the Santo Daime told me that they were using something as a sacramental release for suffering souls. At the time, he didn’t tell me it was ayahuasca. They call it Daime, and there were Santo Daime churches all over New York. He told me a little bit about the ceremony. He didn’t tell me that they sang to Jesus, because I grew up Jewish and he knew I wouldn’t go for that, but he did say that it was really an ecstatic, heart-opening experience. I’m into the opening of the heart in any way possible, so I decided to go.

He told me about a ceremony taking place in an abandoned church in Harlem. It was the wildest night, like a spirit showdown. Everyone was speaking in tongues and playing indigenous instruments—African voodoo–style music—and dancing around together; it was really rhythmic and beautiful. I had my first experience: I saw colorful strands coming out of my hands. I knew it was my karmic connection to all the suffering of the women in my family—I could see it go from one generation to another. A woman came over with a bunch of feathers and did a karmic healing on me; it was as if she knew exactly what I was going through. She cut all of the strings, and it was a very symbolic breaking away from that lineage of pain. I started going to Santo Daime ceremonies regularly. I would get so high and sing all night long and feel ecstatic, because it’s not like the jungly ayahuasca, it’s very watered-down, so you’re still present in this realm.

Then it started getting weird because they were trying to convince me to become a part of the cult. I met a guy at one of the ceremonies who also wasn’t part of the Santo Daime. I told him I’d had a vision of being with all these children: I had braids, and there were super-colorful textiles everywhere. He suggested that it was Peru, “where the medicine is from. You should probably check it out in a shamanic sense, because I feel like you’re telling me that you don’t connect with the Santo Daime religion,” he said. “Why don’t you just go do ayahuasca there?” It was the first time I knew what it was called.

I went to Peru, where I did a few ceremonies that were incredible, just me and a Peruvian shaman. But it can get really dark because a lot of the shamans out in the jungle were using it in a very different way, for black-magic spells. Now that there are a lot of Americans traveling to Peru, there are some people who think, Oh, I can put a feather on my head, and these Americans will come stay with me and pay for this healing. From my personal experience, ayahuasca’s so uplifting and it’s only shown me the light. I don’t understand how people are misusing it, but it’s happening.

When I came back from Peru, I never went back to the Daime because I had no reason to anymore. I’d heard that there were ayahuasca ceremonies happening around, and I heard about the shamans in upstate New York who I now work with in L.A. They’re safe, I trust them, I’ve known them for years, and they have a lot of integrity.