Sedan, France 2007

I felt honoured to be invited by these people I just met, and to accompany them with their other guests. Pablo Amaringo was one of them, and he's a familiar name once you start to research ayahuasca. He has been a shaman, curandero, plant healer, ayahuasquero and tabaquero for many years in Peru, and after giving up his career as a shaman he became a visionary painter.

Together with Luis Eduardo Luna he created a book, Ayahuasca Visions, in which he presents his paintings. The paintings are showing Pablo's visions, and he also writes what every painting is about, and what everything means. All of his paintings are extremely spiritual, showing various entities, extraterrestrial landscapes, and energetic phenomena such as astral bodies.

The most sensitive and careful version of myself was lured out of my urban shell by the presence of this extra-ordinary man. He knew I came all the way from Amsterdam to see him and Jan Kounen. At some point during the first evening we happened to be together in the living room and started a conversation.

Suprised to hear him talk English, Pablo said to me: "You know, ayahuasca is very, very good."

I smiled, and thought to myself "Haha... this guy is so honest!"

He continued: "I was very sick. Did you read my book?"

Izmar: "Yes, parts of it. You healed yourself with ayahuasca, right?"

Pablo: "Yes. I was very sick, in my heart, and nobody could help me. I tried everything. They said there was nothing they could do. Then I took ayahuasca, and I was cured."

Somehow when (former) shamans speak like that, I think that westerners should learn to be satisfied with such simplicity, such directness. For many people the first impulse is to ridicule or disbelieve. The same for me... I have witnessed the extreme healing potential of psychedelic plants and man-created molecules many times myself, but that doesn't keep me from feeling awkard when a man like Pablo tells me his story. But I know he's telling me the truth, because I've experienced less critical versions of healing and major leaps in personal growth myself, during similar psychedelic experiences.

In ayahuasca visions, and in Pablo's paintings, there's a relatively large amount of snakes, dragons and other reptillian creatures. This is a scientific fact, as established by the largest ayahuasca research project conducted by Benny Shanon, as described in his book "Antipodes of the mind". There are other cultures, cults and circles of interest in which spiritual entities in the shape of reptillian creatures play an important role. Besides the ayahuasqueros, there are the priests of various African voodoo traditions who have told about spiritual reptillian entities playing an important role in the creation of mankind and other plant and animal species.

A relatively new strain of discussion is a substrain in the jungle of conspiracy theories. A guy I discovered only recently, who's been saying and writing some pretty interesting stuff, is David Icke. One thing he picked up on is the many reports of people that came to him asking if he knew something about shapeshifting people - people taking on the form of a reptillian creature. It is definitely reminiscent of the shamanic shapeshifting, such as described in the semi-fictional novels of Carlos Castaneda. However, David Icke claimed to have been approached by at least 15 people within a year, talking about real, physical transformations, such as attaining a snake skin, reptillian fingers, eyelids, pupils, etc., also in public places.

Nevertheless, when you read a bit about these subjects, the similarities are tickling the brain to do more research. That's why I was curious to ask Pablo specifically about the reptillians. Here's roughly what I knew about them before talking to Pablo.

Apparently in the conspiracy discussions, most talk about reptillians places them exclusively in a negative position, being the driving force behind the approaching new world order. Everybody's going to get chipped, there will be cameras everywhere, authorities are saving everything everyone thinks and does to huge digital storage media, people who don't comply are going to get tortured in the concentration camps some sources claim to be building, and it's the 4th-dimensional reptillian creatures who take human blood during rituals such as the ones in Bohemian Grove to be able to physically manifest themselves as 3rd-dimensional human beings.

Another detailed train of thought I studied in the light of extra-dimensional reptillians, is the one as proposed by Jeremy Narby in "The Cosmic Serpent". You should take the effort of reading this book rather than remembering what I write about it here. A short, crude description is that snakes, serpents and dragons are common in many major creation myths: Amazonian shamans, Hindus, African voodoo, etc. For these people the myths are not just some fantastic story with a moral - no, they are really meant to tell what happened, to future generations and such. And another thing various cultures have been aware of for as long as 40.000 years ago, is the physical appearance of chromosomes and DNA, and the similarities a DNA helix shares with a snake. Moreover, many individual Latin American tribes are known to explain the creation of man and other species in similar ways, involving a huge snake that came to earth with the first people on it.

So basically I'm curious how all these reptillians are related, because in my mind it is obvious that they are, but I'm not at the point where I can say how. That's why I checked with Pablo what he could say about these creatures:

Izmar: "There are many people nowadays who believe that there are humans on earth that are being guided by some form of reptillian spirits, or energy, and that this is a bad energy. It is causing war, disease, financial disasters, etc. Do you know anything about this?"

Pablo: "Yes. In the jungle, every animal has a spirit, and a mission. The snakes and alligators are very old and know many things. They blow a mist into the jungle. They can teach human beings how to live, how to survive, with no clothes, no warmth, etc. "

Izmar: "Yes, so what do you know about their spirits, or how they would cause bad things to happen?"

Pablo: "A long time ago they wanted to share their knowledge with human beings, but we didn't want it. Now we are destroying nature, we are destroying the forest. This is because we didn't want to learn from them how to live in nature, so now they are taking all the good energy to their own world. That is what really happens when people are destroying the forest or killing animals, it's these creatures moving the energy from this world to theirs."

Izmar: "So actually we made them sad, or angry, because we didn't want to learn from them?"

Pablo: "Yes. You know, when an ayahuasquero takes ayahuasca and needs to know how to heal somebody, he is always being helped by these creatures. They watch over the shaman, and tell him what to do."

Izmar: "Are you saying that in essence they are good?"

Pablo: "Yes, they help us to heal people."

On another occasion, Pablo started telling me about his early life.

Pablo: "I was very, very poor... I had such a bad life. We had no money, no food, nothing. Later I lived in the jungle for six years. That's where I learned about ayahuasca and healed myself."

Izmar: "What can you tell about icaros?"

Pablo: "Well, when you drink ayahuasca, icaros can be really strong. Icaros are from the mind, or soul. They have nothing to do with understanding."

Pablo starts singing an icaro, kind of drawing the melody on the table with the tip of his finger.

Pablo: "That's the icaro of the moon. It is very, very strong!" and he smiles and points up, indicating it will make you travel through space, straight to the moon.

Pablo: "It's not in a straight line, it's in a spiral. All things go in spirals, also when you travel from the earth to the moon."

I think Pablo is pointing out a spiralling movement on many levels, also ones that I don't know of and/or comprehend, but also he's implying that when you want to travel from the earth to the moon, you can't go in a straight line, because of their constant movements along their orbits.

Izmar: "Did you also drink ayahuasca made from only Banisteriopsis caapi?"

Pablo: "Yes, then you get b/w visuals. When you add Psychotria viridis you can see colours."

Izmar: "Hmm... not many shamans get visuals when they drink only caapi."

Pablo: "That's true, but the visuals you get when drinking only the vine are b/w."

Sometimes people are saying bad things about smoking DMT, visionary molecule in Psychotria viridis, as opposed to drinking ayahuasca. I've heard several variations on this theme, my own one being that it lasts only a short while and it's bad for your lungs, and the force of it might stir up or confuse the spirit world. Nevertheless, I cherish the deep belief that a short DMT experience can hold many truths and transformative insights. It can be worth the physical hassle, although sensitivity or allergic reactions to DMT vary from person to person. Other people have said about smoking DMT as opposed to drinking ayahuasca that it is simply not as good or healing, not being very specific about how and why.

When speaking with (mostly Dutch) ayahuasqueros, people who regularly drink ayahuasca, I could never help feeling that some of them place themselves on some kind of pedestal, because they have so much experience with drinking the brew. And basically what they seem to radiate, perhaps only in my mind, is that all the visions and wisdom you copiously receive from DMT or other psychedelics, are never going to be 'worth as much' as what you can accomplish with or gain from drinking ayahuasca for many years. I can understand how somebody who's spend so much time in the spirit worlds isn't necessarily interested to hear long, extensive reports from people who've taken ayahuasca once or twice. Nevertheless, when you mention something really big and transformative you experienced during DMT, it seems like it was never really mentioned. To me it's like the reaction of the ayahuasquero in question goes a bit deeper than what happens when you're taking too much time telling stories about your experiences.

Fortunately, Pablo gave me a new way to look at this.

Izmar: "Do you know jurema, or Mimosa hostilis? It is being smoked in a concentrated form in the Netherlands."

Pablo: "No. How long does the effect last?"

Izmar: "10 to 15 minutes. It's like chacruna."

Pablo: "Yes, I have smoked chacruna. Chacruna is different, it comes from heaven."

Izmar: "Do you mean like Diplopterys cabrerana?"

Pablo: "Exactly!"

Izmar: "Jurema is also from heaven then."

Pablo: "I don't know, because I don't know the plant."

Izmar: "I know. In the Netherlands it is sometimes extracted and smoked. You get the most amazing, strongest visions, just like ayahuasca, but within 30 seconds. And it lasts very short. Let me describe a vision I had."

And I go on to describe the vision that my song "The Empty Vision" is about. I also explain how this 10 minute experience has transformed me, and how it has given me insight into my own heart on a very deep and strong level, through the vision of 7 spirits made of light dancing in front of me and explaining things.

Izmar: "Nevertheless, I meet people who drink ayahuasca and know about smoking the extract, but say it's not good. What do you think? Do you think these short, strong experiences are not good? Are they confusing or bad in another way?"

Pablo: "People say this because they don't want you to learn," and he smiles.

Izmar: "You have to be joking... That's it? I mean, you really don't think it's bad to have these really really strong short experiences?"

I was making sure to stress the fast coming up, short duration and high intensity of the experience, since Latin American shamans are typically only familiar with either the long-lasting, strong effects of drinking the brew, or the weak short-lasting effects of smoking the chacruna leaf. They have no ways to make the concentrated form we make in western countries, so they have no ways to smoke any kind of plant-derived material and get the intensity of visions that we can get.

Pablo: "Yes, people are like that, you know... They don't want you to learn. I am never like that... Never... Are you an artist?"

Izmar: "I'm a musician, a composer. I like to imagine spirits like the ones from my visions to be dancing to the music I'm writing."

Pablo: "They really are dancing when you compose! You know, you should learn about icaros. Icaros can really help you with your music, they will help you to make better music."

I decided to play him my song, "The Empty Vision", which is quite an energetic, fast-paced song. I'm not sure if it would disturb his peace, so I checked in advance if he didn't mind to hear fast, energetic music. I gave him my ipod and headphones, and he seemed to be enjoying himself. Sometimes he was kind of gazing through half-closed eyes, looking like he was listening attentively. Then when the beat started coming in, he started moving and smiling, like a 2 year old kid! I didn't really know what to make of it - I'm used to reactions like "Cool music!" or "Not really my kind of style...". This was something in between, coming from a Shipibo former-shaman-visionary-painter.

Pablo: "Nice rhythm...!! Nice... This is good for dancing..."

And he started laughing - he was really enjoying himself and started moving to my tune a bit more.

Izmar: "And the melody?"

Pablo: "Yes... it's nice... This is good music!"

And when the song ended he was smiling like he had had the greatest time ever and he started moving around and getting involved with other things in the livingroom without saying another word. I was left kind of baffled and happy...