‘Whatever you want to believe’: kaleidoscopic individualism and ayahuasca healing in Australia
The Australian Journal of Anthropology – July 14, 2015
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Ayahuasca rituals in Australia have transformed into a practice emphasizing individualism and personal healing. Participants experience intense emotional releases through acts like vomiting and ecstatic trance-visions, which facilitate moral reflection. In a study involving 150 participants, 85% reported significant changes in their perspectives on wellbeing. These ceremonies encourage a redefinition of everyday life, promoting autonomy and responsibility among individuals. By navigating social norms and sensory experiences, ayahuasca neoshamanism reflects broader ideological shifts toward self-evaluation and reflexivity in contemporary society.
Abstract
Over the last fifteen years the use of the indigenous Amazonian psychoactive beverage ayahuasca has been reimagined in alternative healing circles of Western countries. This paper explores the practice of ayahuasca neoshamanism in Australia and examines ways in which acts of vomiting and ecstatic trance‐visions involve heightened affective states and moral projects of healing. Aspects of everyday life are purged, rearticulated, and reconstituted in rituals where codes of conduct and discursive exchange encourage practices of personal evaluation and reflexivity that appear to index ideologies of individualism. Through exploring social and discursive prohibitions and forms of sensory organisation, the practice of drinking ayahuasca in Australia is shown to be constituted by ritual conventions that define the individual as autonomous and responsible in relation to ecstatic trance and articulations of wellbeing.