The Impact of Ayahuasca on American Writers

Written by FIORELLA TERRAZAS ESPINOZA

William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg traveled to Peru to try the mythical drink.

Burroughs and Ginsberg are perhaps the greatest writers in America. With an adventurous heart and extreme curiosity, these two geniuses surrounded Peru around 1960 and had a relationship of epistolary and poetic friendship, thanks to the wonderful ayahuasca plant. These great poets were glimpsing a different literary future in their lives. A whole new change for your inner light after trying the plant.

These letters were compiled and published in Anagrama for the Spanish-speaking public that follows the “Beatniks” movement that precedes many historical milestones in American literature (where Burroughs and Ginsberg belong), with texts that deeply penetrated the spirits of young New Yorkers.

These geniuses evoked in their letters the trips towards true introspection that ayahuasca means and generated changes in the art, from the publication of the letters to the paradigm shift of their philosophical thought.

In 2008, the Peruvian government recognized ayahuasca as “one of the basic pillars of the identity of the Amazonian peoples.” For better or for worse, but above all for the better, it can be said that the plant does the job of teacher that answers the secret questions that live in you. That is why ayahuasca constitutes a door to a spiritual world that must be understood as such.

The book “Letters from Ayahuasca” indicates that the hallucinogenic plant in question is used by healers in the Amazon to search for souls as lost toys. Virtues of sharpening the imagination and telepathic powers are also attributed to it.

Our wonderful Peruvian plant encouraged the literary work of both writers, in their letters, both authors share their experiences with the hallucinogenic plant in detail. Burroughs shares with Ginsberg anecdotes, stories, and certain concepts that he would later use in his writing. The volume ends with a long letter from Ginsberg, in which he recounts to Burroughs the experiments he himself also carried out with ayahuasca.

Therefore, it can be inferred that the experience with ayahuasca influenced his literary work by inspiring them to create characters and situations related to the visions and sensations experienced during the trip.

“The letters of ayahuasca” are divided into three parts in search of ayahuasca in 1953, seven years later, 1960 and conclusions. In the first part are the letters that Burroughs sent to Ginsberg during his search for ayahuasca, beginning the letters in Panama, dwelling broadly on a series of letters in Colombia, and ending his letters in Peru. The roles swap in the second part of the book. It is Ginsberg who writes to Burroughs, although he only talks about his stay in Peru and his experience. And finally, in the conclusions, it is Ginsberg who clarifies the details of the work a bit.

Allen Ginsberg also indicated that he shared visions with the people who also drank ayahuasca with him, he says that they saw a great being or a primary soul, answers suddenly came to him to existential doubts that existed only in the depths of his heart. they shared the sensation and vision of a snake, this is how the writer perceived a kind of transfiguration, and presentiment about the visions that came later, next to a guide or teacher who helped him in the ceremony, as he indicates, an officiating spirit local. Heeding every sound of the song he sang to heal his soul. The moment the dose wears off he felt a moment of total peace and comfort.

Ayahuasca is prepared from a liana, called “Ayahuasca”, and the leaves of a bush known as chacruna, and contains a psychedelic component similar to that of magic mushrooms. If only the leaves are used, the active principles of the liana keep it in the body until it exerts its visionary influence, it is not a source of fun. But a moment of great respect.

The populations of America used the plant to deepen their relationship with nature, a relationship that has been mitigated by technological advances and many other variants that help human beings cope with life and their material problems. Depression, some personality disorders or addictions are among the conditions that, according to observational studies, the substance can alleviate.

The psychedelic renaissance is going to revive, around ayahuasca more than with other substances, a conflict between the ancestral uses of some plants and the uses of modern science, since interest in this plant is awakening from the point of view of western medicine.

People who take ayahuasca in shamanic uses seek a mystical experience, but with a therapeutic effect that treats depression or addictions, to a lesser extent.

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