In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with Joe Tafur. Joe Tafur is the author of Fellowship of the river, one of the best books about Ayahuasca.
We talk about how Ayhauasca works both from spiritual and medical perspective, about importance of healthy scepticism, differences between different types of Ayahuasca – Colombian Yage and Peruvian Ayahuasca, why healing is a state of receptivity, how science and spirituality are slowly merging.
Find more about Joe Tafur at http://www.drjoetafur.com
Transcript
Sam Believ (00:03.93)
Hi guys and welcome to ayah As always with you host Sam Believ. Today I’m going to interview Joe Tafour. Joe Tafour is an author. He wrote the book Fellowship of the River. Joe is a medical doctor, speaker and he’s also a curandero. So three different people recommended me to interview Joe and finally we made it happen. So I’m very excited. Joe, welcome to the podcast.
Joe Tafur (00:33.342)
Yeah, thanks for having me, Sam. Nice to be here.
Sam Believ (00:37.126)
Joe, so you in my opinion are a perfect person to bridge those two worlds, you know, modern medicine and shamanism, you know, Amazonian shamanism. But before we go into that, can you tell people how did you end up going from being a doctor to being a curandero?
Joe Tafur (00:59.102)
Yeah, I kind of was, I, in medical school, I got depressed, you know, and I was looking for help. And I was always interested in integrative medicine, alternative medicine. I wanted to be part of that eventually, but I was still, you know, had to go through the training and I ended up going to a peyote ceremony in Arizona.
here at this place called the Peyote Way, which is open to people to go and have an experience they call the Spirit Walk. And I had that experience and…
It was a big deal. You know, it really, really helped me. It really shifted things for me and very rapidly. And I just felt like, wow, that was amazing. This kind of plant spirit medicine approach and the ceremonial approach and the link to the kind of the nature and the ancestral traditions. And so I was very curious about that. And I stayed curious about that. And I returned to that ceremony a few times through the rest of my training. Not very many times, a few times over the course of the next few years.
And then my family is from Colombia. You know, my parents, all my family is Colombian. And I knew about Ayahuasca. I knew my family’s not from the jungle, but they knew about it. They heard about it. And I had family friends that were connected to it. And so I knew that existed. And I thought, wow, this is how peyote works for me. And this is what happens with that. I just had this growing curiosity, you know, to see what was that? What’s that like? And.
I knew I wanted to go try it one day. And so I had decided to do that and I waited. I waited till I was done with my training and I had more opportunity and I met somebody that at the time, I went the first time in 2007. And at that time, I don’t know from my family in Columbia, they were nervous about me as an American going into the Amazon there. It’s a little more trouble, a little more problems there. I didn’t have any contacts there personally.
Joe Tafur (03:03.626)
So I had an opportunity to go to Peru with Shopeebles in Peru through people that I knew. And I went and I entered ceremony there and I had a huge experience. You know, I had a very big experience and that made me more curious. And I saw what the kind of healing that was happening there at the center. And as a doctor, I was very impressed. And so I started going back, you know, I started going back and I said, hey, if you bring a group, you don’t have to pay, you know, why don’t you bring some people? So I started bringing groups.
and then eventually become friends with one of the healers, you know, Ricardo Maringo. And he says, Hey, I want to start my own center. You know, why don’t you, why don’t you join us? Why don’t you help us? And at that time I was very interested in doing that. And so I wasn’t necessarily thinking of going down the path of becoming ayahuasca or curandero. I kind of had enough of all my training, you know, with medical and everything. It was just like, okay, I don’t really want to go through anything more like that.
But then he kind of convinced me and as part of working there, I went through the training alongside him, you know, and I enjoyed it and I liked it. And I was very fascinated by it. So that’s how.
Sam Believ (04:18.854)
Well, as I listened to you, I realized we have some similarities. I also, my journey also started with depression and I never planned to start a retreat. It kind of happened to me as well. I guess that’s just how it works in this world. So you worked with Ayahuasca in Peru, right? But I think you did end up venturing to Colombia eventually.
Joe Tafur (04:44.83)
Yes, yeah, no, I’ve been working in Columbia as well and running retreats with my friend and colleague there, Sochi Pukuru and Sasai Ma. And so she trained in the Amazon, but she’s from Tolima, Columbia.
Sam Believ (05:00.842)
Yeah, because you’re from Colombia, but I am in Colombia. And for some reason I’ve wanna talk to the assume I know you. They’re like, oh, you must know Joe. You must know Joe. And this is why I’m interviewing. So my question is, a lot of people ask me, in Colombia, ayahuasca is called Jahe. It’s a very similar medicine, but there are very minor differences. Have you noticed personally,
Joe Tafur (05:11.234)
Yeah. Right.
Joe Tafur (05:19.383)
to be.
Sam Believ (05:28.546)
What is the biggest difference in your opinion between Colombian ayahuasca or Peruvian ayahuasca?
Joe Tafur (05:34.958)
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s…
Joe Tafur (05:39.89)
It’s basically the same plants, you know, so you’re talking about different plants in a different region. So that’s going to have a different energy a little bit, you know, being from a different place, just like the people from this place to that place, you know, they’re all humans, but they have a different flavor, you know, influenced by the land, the soil, the wind, the sun, you know, like the wine and everything else. So I think it’s
I think it’s more subtle in the sense that there’s some people that would really talk about the big difference or they’re very focused on the differences or they’re very focused on the substance. But I think that within Columbia, there’s going to be a wide range of Yahei, you know, from different practitioners from different preparations, very wide, you know, same as true in Peru.
And that being said, it’s still, yaje, it’s still ayahuasca made from the plant. So, you know, I think well-prepared, well, um, carried through. It can be helpful. You know, I don’t know. I don’t distinguish it so much. I think for me, sometimes they say they, it depends on you. It depends on who you talk to. Some Colombian yajasero will say, it’s not uncommon to hear that they say, Oh, the shipibos are adding a lot of chacruna.
They want more visions. They want it to be stronger like that. We prefer it more purgative, stronger than the ayahuasca vine. You know, you hear comments like that, but it depends. You know, I think it really depends. And some of those comments are not coming from like the most wide exposure. You know, they maybe, maybe they never even met a ship people person when they say things like that, you know.
Sam Believ (07:05.454)
Mm-hmm.
Sam Believ (07:19.926)
Mm-hmm.
Sam Believ (07:26.462)
Yeah, it’s interesting that people when they think about shamans or indigenous people, for some reason they think they’re completely saint and they have no emotions, but in reality I also notice they tend to be a little bit territorial about those things. They want to believe that their medicine is the best, which I think is just part of our human nature. What I’ve heard is that Peruvian ayahuasca lasts a little longer and Colombian ayahuasca
tends to be a little more intense, but less, a little less. So I’ve never tried proven that I was. Yeah.
Joe Tafur (08:02.042)
I heard the other way. I think that I was guy drink from, from my friend from, from Sochi and that she gets from Columbia and Amazon. I would say a lot of times it lasts longer, you know, than what I’m drinking in Peru. It depends. You know, I just thought it’s just, I just don’t think it’s, it’s not easy to generalize something like that.
Sam Believ (08:18.83)
Yeah.
Sam Believ (08:23.294)
interesting also that you use the wine analogy that’s the analogy I like to use I like to say it’s kind of like Cabernet and Sauvignon you know it’s still red wine but you know some people might say you know it’s disrespectful to compare those two things we have it the everything affects it the soil the weather so as a medical doctor you know you observe healing with ayahuasca and I know you work with other psychedelics you know what do you probably you’re one of the better
Joe Tafur (08:37.538)
That’s right.
Sam Believ (08:52.99)
What does that happen? How does ayahuasca healing work?
Joe Tafur (08:59.306)
Well, I think that it depends, you know, but one of the goals, what I say, that the spiritual healing that, you know, the tradition talks about is like an easier way for the Western person to see where that kind of, I don’t know, sometimes it makes more sense to them is, is emotional healing, you know, but there’s a big emotional processing shift that can happen for people.
So helping people. And then that emotional processing shift, there’s also other like Western concepts that people can relate to, like regulating your nervous system, you know, that the person is not as triggered or not as burdened by past conditioning. You know, things that condition them, traumas that condition them that.
Maybe they didn’t serve them to adjust, to adapt to certain kinds of things that they went through. And so then as they come into healthier circumstances or healthier environments, still that stuff from the past is still with them. So it’s like clearing and cleaning, you know, the energies of the past and opening yourself up to a more
a new opportunity, a chance to relearn some things that maybe you didn’t learn so well. It’s like a new opening, a new, there’s many aspects to it. It’s very complicated and the possibilities are very wide ranging. So there’s some stuff on your brain, there’s stuff in your body, there’s stuff in your emotional wellbeing, there’s part of it that is spiritual that a lot of people would…
think of in those terms or describe in those terms. So it depends, you know, it’s complicated.
Sam Believ (10:50.41)
It’s a big question, I understand that, but for example, medically speaking, most of the active molecules in ayahuasca, they’re out of your system within 12 hours, but sometimes the change stays for you for the lifetime. What do you think happens there?
Joe Tafur (11:09.546)
Well, something’s changing in your body. Something’s rearranging, something’s reorganizing. So you’re allowing an opening, you know, let’s say like a bigger neural plasticity, perhaps, an opening for your neural networks to reorganize or for different parts of your kind of wiring, your patterning within your physical body, within your being, that is going to be given the opportunity to kind of become plastic again.
You know, what was kind of settled and kind of stuck in a rut or in a routine in a set way gets an opportunity to reorganize. And so, you know, if the healing is good, if the transformation, if there’s a transformational healing, then there would be some kind of reorganization within the system, you know, even at the physical level.
Sam Believ (12:04.138)
It’s painfully difficult to describe Ayahuasca healing without using any spiritual terms or talking about spiritual side of it. Can you now explain it again but as a curandero?
Joe Tafur (12:19.934)
As a curandero, then you’re you know, the way I talk about it in the books and stuff is just, you know, and with the Western perspective is mixing the two is just, you know, there’s an emotional dimension to your well-being, you know, that has energetic implications. You know, there’s that’s a way to talk about it. That’s what we feel. That’s what we experience. And so there’s energy.
that we carry within us, you know, from trauma, from things that we’ve been through. And so releasing that energy is important. Cleaning and clearing that energy, processing that energy is important to help kind of remove blockages, you know, and the flow of being within ourselves. And in that same sense, that the spirit can help us to do that.
that the spirit, tuning to the spirit, connecting to the spirit can open us to a resource and that would help someone be able to work through in those processes, you know, for example, somebody working through.
traumas of their early childhood, you know, and being guided by ayahuasca to, you know, go through a healing around what happened to them as a child or go through a healing and how they relate to their parents, you know, like that, that context within the spiritual realm, how people would kind of say, Oh, that’s not real or, Oh, they just were there, you know, the challenge is their, their brain, but then emotionally it was real.
The person had a significant shift within them and a felt shift, an energetic shift that is very real to them. And even though there is a great mystery behind the way some of it happens, still the rubber hits the road at some point. So the mystery, nobody really understands the mystery completely. That’s why it’s a mystery. So we engage with the mystery. We work with the mystery. But we don’t have to be, it doesn’t have to be defined.
Joe Tafur (14:39.978)
you know, for us to be able to draw upon it to help. And so as a curandero, like then, you know, different traditions are different. Inga, I’m not familiar so much. And should people tradition? It’s with master plants, you know, that you train and you learn from the plants of the forest that they’re going to help guide the education around how to work with people in ceremony, how to help them.
you know, facilitate like healing within their energy being in their energy body, within their emotional body, within their emotional being. And so that is an intuitive process, you know, that’s guided through kind of traditional education that again, whether people believe it in or they don’t believe in it, it just doesn’t seem to matter, actually, you know. Um, and so there’s something there, there’s something mystical.
So the curandero side is open to the mysterious elements of the practice and of the healing.
Sam Believ (15:44.586)
I think there is room for healthy amount of skepticism because in this sort of new world of new age spirituality there’s a lot of things that I don’t think are real but working with the Alaska for several years especially observing you know thousands of people go through their process I definitely stretched my skepticism quite a bit and included terms now like energy
Sam Believ (16:14.48)
but five years ago or so, but nevertheless I do believe they’re true.
I think that it’s a complete picture with both spiritual and physical, energetical and physical and it’s hard to explain something with one side or another. It has to be a complete explanation. Same comes with the way plants themselves work on you. You know, part of Ayahuasca healing is physical purge and it can be explained. Another part is very spiritual. What are your thoughts on?
the effort by a medical establishment now to sort of separate those medicines, the spiritual part of it from the physical part of it and just kind of make a molecule that tries to fix you but take away the spiritual side of it.
Joe Tafur (17:05.066)
Yeah, I mean, it’s not a very impressive approach. You know, so like you said, you know, you came with your mentality and your ideas and your skepticism, which is good, you know, the wise skepticism. You want to be skeptical. It’s intelligent to be careful. But then you’re there and you observe and you get more involved and you see the results, you know, and you see the benefit of incorporating these other elements into what’s being done with those people, you know, at your center.
It’s not being done to, I don’t know, for the benefit of the healers, just to say, because they believe in it and they like to hear themselves talk about things like that. You know, they could they could be sure they can be extra superstitious. You can bring elements to it that maybe aren’t as crucial or important. But still, there’s you’re saying it yourself, like you’ve been there for a few years and you say, well, if you can’t leave this part completely out of it.
So then they of course come to the pic to the party the way you, you know, I mean, without just saying that’s how they’re showing up, you know, basically, you could say inexperienced. And so they come with their whatever mechanical model of the world and, you know, basically sometimes an arrogance, you know, with that energy and in general, a lot of times what you see and maybe you’ve seen this there at your center.
That that rigid kind of mental framework a lot of times is protecting, you know, kind of an emotional vulnerability, you know, to really explore like the spiritual dimension. There is a vulnerable part of yourself that you have to experience. You know, that’s true.
And so if the person is not ready to do that, and they don’t wanna do that, and they say, no, we don’t have to do that, you don’t have to do that, no, no. Sometimes it’s because they’re guarding that vulnerability. And so it just, in many cases, it’s a matter of time for them to be held in the right kind of way so that they can feel the safety.
Joe Tafur (19:28.726)
to explore that vulnerability and kind of come to that, oh wow, that’s actually part of this. So I mean, we have to have compassion for that perspective. I don’t know how threatening that perspective is, you know, to actual the practice, because so far all they have is like a lot of talk, you know, they don’t have anything to back up what they’re saying.
They’re just telling people, oh, shouldn’t it be like this? How come it’s not like this? We should be able to do it just with the molecules. Okay, you know, go ahead. Like, you know, what’s stopping you? And so I think that it kind of remains to be seen. And so I think there’s a little funky thing where there’s an arrogance in the air from that side that’s making it sound like it’s so convincing where they’re coming from. But I think if we really look at the evidence,
It’s like, okay, there’s room for healthy skepticism over what they’re saying. If we’re honestly skeptical, well, then we should be skeptical of that. Like, you, where is this that you’re talking about that you know how to do this? You know, are the people flying from all over the world to go out to the jungle, to, to meet you, to find, to, to receive from what you’re giving them? Or is it just like a laboratory idea on a white paper to raise investment?
Is that what it is? Because if it probably that’s what it is, because I don’t see all the people going to so far, it may become more. I’m open to the idea that it could be much more. But I think we should we can be skeptical that so far we’re still waiting to hear what they have to say.
Sam Believ (21:11.051)
I like something you said in the other podcast that they’ve tried it before to separate the medicine from the spirituality and what they ended up with was the antidepressants and we all know how it works or doesn’t work.
Joe Tafur (21:21.804)
Right.
Joe Tafur (21:25.298)
Right. Yeah. I mean, that’s and that’s what that’s like. And so why did they come up with antidepressants or what? Yeah, it’s a it’s a it’s a business concept. You know, they’re not it’s if you’re selling an idea business idea. Sure. You know, you want to talk it up and say, hey, I think we can do this. And I think we can do that. But. That may not be the case, you know, it might be a flop.
If it’s just a business idea, if it’s not rooted in actual practical experience with medicine and healing, then it might just be a flop, you know, like a new any other new business idea.
Sam Believ (22:02.242)
Yeah, it can actually can also be hurt for long term. Like some antidepressants unfortunately are. I mean, they’re a good tool for a lot of people in desperate situations, but they don’t seem to get rid of the core of the issue. Regarding.
Joe Tafur (22:19.402)
And they can do damage over time. Some of those medications, you know, really prolonged use, it can be damaging to the system.
Sam Believ (22:28.334)
So yeah, maybe they will figure out a way to put a shaman in the pill as well and you take a…
take two pills somehow. Yeah, it’s, you know, what you talk about skepticism and science, you know, science is observation, right? If you observe something and it keeps repeating, then you can create science, right? You do studies about it. So if you come to this world of ayahuasca and you observe people getting over depression over and over again, then you believing in it doesn’t mean you’re just believing it out of faith, you know, you actually have your own little science, you know, end of one and you know that it works or if it
Joe Tafur (22:36.098)
Sure.
Sam Believ (23:03.848)
It worked for me personally, so you get to believe in it. So I guess that’s just normal, right?
Joe Tafur (23:10.238)
observation. And so then you and then being down there and living there with those people, you realize, oh, well, they’re observing it too. Like, just because they’re not from my culture doesn’t mean that they’re idiots. You know, it’s like, guess what, they’re speaking from their observation. You know, they’re not just saying it trying to convince you to believe in whatever they’re talking about. You know, and so that, that skepticism is, is like can be
Sam Believ (23:25.262)
Mm-hmm.
Joe Tafur (23:36.102)
as part of the openness is like, okay, well, let’s listen to somebody, let’s get to know who we’re talking to, you know, before we just say, oh, they’re just savages, they don’t believe then we they don’t believe in, you know, the truth.
Sam Believ (23:49.846)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Speaking of science and spirituality, I think you spoke about it as well, where inevitably they meet each other. For example, when we go to quantum physics, can you talk a little bit about that?
Joe Tafur (24:09.322)
Yeah, I think that they’re just, it’s back to what we were saying about observation. That there’s an element of spiritual practice and that’s coming out of observation, thousands of years of observation. Sure, there are layers of ignorance that can be put on top of that, but some of it is actual study. People studying Hindu.
Joe Tafur (24:40.258)
Philosophers studying meditation, or people all over the world, their spiritual study observing, this is how what we see, this is what we think, this is how the world works. Like there’s that projection, sure there’s room for that projection, but there’s also the observation is still there. Similarly, the science is, yeah, it’s observing, it’s observing for sure, but then you see, you witnessed it yourself, how the prejudices.
that the politics that would govern even such a field where it’s always just simple observation, but it’s observation where we don’t allow those people’s observations to be part of the system, only these observations. And so then you see, oh, well, there’s some arbitrary distinctions here. So then science becomes a belief system at some point.
You know, obviously the evidence-based part of it is important and we’re all learning from that. There’s a universal knowledge growing from that investigation and that research, which is very powerful. And there’s a belief system, you know, where the person becomes a fundamentalist, where they start believing in parts of it without proof. You know, the guy tells you, oh, we can do this. Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out, you know.
There’s no proof, but he says, oh, well, because science is gonna figure it out. So then when you’re seeing somebody describe their faith to you, you know, like they feel their proof is that they believe in it. So then they criticize the other person for having faith, but at some point their knowledge does hit a leap of faith point that many of them take. I believe, you know, whatever, this is what happens to you when you die. I believe this, I believe that, I believe that.
that spiritual healing, that emotional healing that you’re doing in the Amazon is not useful. You know, that’s a belief. It’s not necessarily an evidence-based point of view. So there’s a lot of crossover, you know, there’s observation on both sides, there’s belief systems on both sides. So the skepticism is important on both sides, but also the honest observation and…
Joe Tafur (27:00.194)
So I think that.
Science is spirituality. One of the big differences, spirituality is kind of a more holistic perspective that doesn’t, that allows for there to be some kind of meaningfulness to things. Science can have that, but science, some people use science to try to say that there is no meaning. You know, they try to use the evidence to support that.
that there’s no purpose, there’s no meaning. It’s just empty, nihilistic. You know, the materialism that they focus on. So where is that coming from? What is that? We know there are some arbitrary observations there. We know there are some things that you’re not talking about. And so again, for me, in my experience, I do see that sometimes the overly rigid overly, you can have the new age, you can have people who are out ungrounded, unrealistic.
Sure, that exists, but then on the other side, you can have the closed, like hearted, and it’s a lie. It is a lie that it doesn’t bother them. It is a lie that it doesn’t affect their relationships, that it doesn’t impact the way they relate to their families, the way they relate to the world, to nature. Yes, it does affect those things. That is an observed fact.
Sam Believ (28:28.054)
Well, if you can choose what you believe, I think if you can believe that when you die, your soul gets, goes somewhere and your existence continues, or you can believe that when you die, you just lights off and you disappear, I think you should just choose, it’s better to choose to believe the first option because it’s more optimistic. I think it would affect the way you live your life as well. But what I was trying to say as well is,
cutting-edge science with all the numerous dimensions and parallel universes and string theories and quantum physics it doesn’t it doesn’t it’s not really that far from the from the spiritual way of thinking and you know believing in things that don’t seem to be real you know it’s they kind of start to come together when you
Look into that.
Joe Tafur (29:29.114)
No, that’s true. That’s true. There’s, you know, the science as if you follow the logic and the science all the way into the subatomic space, for example, you know, then you get into this quantum physics and you get into this mysterious reality, you know, that there’s possibilities and that things don’t…
that there’s dimensions like you mentioned beyond what we’re familiar with or what our senses are regularly attuned to. And so there’s just much more to the picture and that is clear from what the science is actually producing. And I guess that’s gonna take a stronger and stronger, make a stronger influence, I would imagine over time, some of the quantum physical properties of matter. One of the things I…
came across was that there’s a quantum entanglement, which is considered like kind of a weird, you know, property of matter, of light, of whatever, the universe, that, for example, certain subatomic particles and photons can be entangled with one another. And then that means that they’re going to be connected.
And so somehow the state of one will inform the state of the other. They could learn the state of one from the state of the other and that could happen across distances that would indicate that it’s happening instantaneous faster than the speed of light. That it’s transcended. That it’s as far as we know, it’s happening instantaneously across space time. That this is now something proven.
that this exists, that was the mathematics had indicated the possibility of that in Einstein’s time. And then in the last several decades, they discovered that this is a real phenomenon and now quantum entanglement and that those elements of the quantum physics are my understanding, I’m not an expert of this, but that they are utilized somehow in the functioning of quantum processors.
Joe Tafur (31:38.762)
and that the quantum processors are part of what is allowing the processing speeds to go into these new orders of magnitude that are allowing for things like artificial intelligence. Like that is maybe related to the quantum entanglement. You know, that the mysterious nature of matter, the mysterious nature of, I don’t know, this energy is currently being utilized.
in many different ways. And, you know, burning up, as it turns out, this artificial, whatever intelligence is gonna, you know, burning up a lot of energy. You know, it’s like, it’s not just nothing. It’s not just another computer program. It’s like, it’s burning up a lot of energy. It’s something very significant that they’re tapping into to try to make all this stuff happen.
Sam Believ (32:34.202)
Another quantum experiment, the double slit experiment is very, very famous, but where the presence or the absence of the observer defines whether what they shoot out becomes a particle or a wave, which kind of means, you know, spiritually speaking, your thought or your prayer can affect the nature of the matter, which is
also scientifically proven so it kind of explains to you know people pray for things or as they say now manifest and it can you can kind of try and see and trace it to some kind of science so yeah this is all very fascinating. Speaking of science have you come across any particular studies on ayahuasca that maybe you
Joe Tafur (33:16.235)
Yeah.
Sam Believ (33:28.578)
you love to share about or psychedelics in general? Any favorite studies?
Joe Tafur (33:33.19)
Yeah, when it comes to ayahuasca, I mean, there’s I think my I like the studies that are studying the traditional setting. So there’s some and they’re like including you’re in Colombia, you know, there’s some Inga, I can’t remember his name, but he speaks at a lot of the conferences. And there’s another lady to Kano from Brazil, and I was part of a panel and some of the Amazonians have asked that they don’t do clinical research on ayahuasca, you know,
that they feel like that will be a pathway toward commercializing it. That that will just simply try to make a product and forget about the tradition and forget about the people, forget about the people that taught them how to do it and the plans and everything. So they were asking people to not pursue that, you know? And so I respect that, I understand that. And so I like here in America, for example, our work with Iwaska is not being done through
clinical research, but through religious protection. They were saying, okay, we’re the spiritual practice of working with the medicine is what we wanna protect. That being said, there have been a few studies of ayahuasca within a shipibo context at the temple of the way of light. It’s, they published a couple of research studies. One of them was on grief, like the loss of a loved one, people coming for…
help with grief over someone in there, you know, a loved one that died. And they found significant results from there. Like it’s a 12 day program and they did one year followup and the, the state, you know, the, the shift stayed with the person and it wasn’t not like, like in a strong majority. So it was a significant, uh, um, study and it showed significant results. They subsequently were trying to explore like, okay, what about.
working with Westerners, which are people medicine, you know, how, how does that impact them? And they found, yes, it was very impactful. So around this cultural ideas or these cultural limitations, at least in that setting, they weren’t running into that, that wasn’t blocking what was happening with people. And they found that they had really significant shifts in people’s sense of personal well-being and spiritual well-being. You know, one of the things they mentioned in one of those studies that was very interesting was the.
Joe Tafur (36:00.938)
the idea of the presence of the healer. So then as we get into the tradition, we say, okay, the ayahuasca or the yajay or the molecules, that’s a component of what’s going on for people. But there’s the ceremony and the setting and the retreat and the community and all these other elements that are there. And then you have these advanced practitioners that are coming from traditions where they study how to work with the ceremony and…
They study in a multi-generational kind of wisdom practice, where you could imagine they could get very advanced knowledge about how to work with those settings. And so they could probably do things maybe that you never even heard of or saw before, like no one you know has any idea about what they’re doing. Just like if you took one of them and you brought them to, I don’t know where.
to Austria and said, hey, let’s make a violin today. Sit down, come on here, watch this guy, he’s making the violin, let’s do what he does. It’s like something like that. And so in that study, one of the results was they showed that something like 36% of the people that received the healing said that the healer was the most significant part of their journey more than the ayahuasca.
So I thought that was interesting. You know, when you see these multifactorial things, the other people say, oh, it’s just the molecule. But then meanwhile, the evidence is like, oh, you know, that’s not what we’re seeing here from the observation.
Sam Believ (37:39.946)
Yeah, I think the healer is a big part of it, but also the group. I’ve recently, I’ve been noticing that, you know, group and the support of people, especially if you create a container that of mutual support, the group tends to play a role, you know, almost similar on the, you know, importance to, to ayahuasca itself. I definitely can attest to that.
Joe Tafur (37:44.638)
Yeah, of course.
Sam Believ (38:07.158)
I like that you mentioned this violin analogy that brings me to one question that I wanted to ask you. You went and you worked with Chipibos and you trained to be a curandero. What are your thoughts on a lot of people that discovered ayahuasca and after a few ceremonies…
they start believing that you know maybe they might be a shaman or trying to get an express course on how to give ayahuasca. Obviously my opinion is that it’s possible but needs to be done respectfully and with a lot of time and this violin analogy that he uses is very beautiful you know you come if somebody from a jungle comes to austria and wants to make violin they will have to accept the reality that it’s difficult and you need to
train for years till you get a good violin but for some reason some people come and they think you know ayahuasca is just giving the cup and it’s very easy and they can do it basically starting tomorrow so what would you tell those people?
Joe Tafur (39:12.276)
Yeah, it’s like.
Joe Tafur (39:17.634)
You know, if they’re very serious about it, they would want to learn more. You know, I can understand there’s an enthusiasm and they want to participate and they want to get involved, but it’s not that serious, you know, to be honest. You know, it’s like if you go, if the shipibo goes to Austria and he says, yeah, you know, here, I can do it in a month.
And then it’s like, okay, now we take his violin and we take it to the symphony. You know, we say, okay, we’re going to have the violin solo play the violin from that person. And it’s like, so no one’s going to be surprised if it’s like, wow, there’s a lot of room for improvement there, you know? And so if you’re serious about it, if you want to just make a violin like that, and that’s, that’s how that’s, you know, they’re probably, I don’t think they’re ever going to let it in the symphony again, you know, when that one.
That’s okay, you know, but you can keep doing that. But if you want to take it further, sure, there’s a lot more to learn. You know, that’s number one. And so a lot of people aren’t very serious about it, you know, because to be serious about it is to be dedicated for years. Because like you said, that’s what it is to make the violin like that. It takes years. So they, you know, they’re kind of in a…
You could say it’s like a fad, you know, they’re just they’re interested. They’re it’s like they’re taken by it. They’re really interested, but to really evolve and become like a, um, the kind of practitioner that, that with the tradition or people would say, Oh, that’s, that person is well experienced. You know, they’re, they’re safe. They can handle a lot of different situations, not because they think they can, but because they already did it. You know, I’m a doctor. It’s like, they don’t let you out of medical school.
Because you think you can do that surgery or this surgery, you have to do it in front of somebody else, like many times before they like check the box. Okay. That’s how you learn in an apprenticeship. You know, that’s the traditional way that it’s like, you don’t get to do it because you think you can do it. You have to actually have somebody who knows how to do it and it knows how to do it means they did it before. Like they just did it last week in front of everyone.
Joe Tafur (41:36.222)
So then that’s like, it’s a known thing that they were able to help that person. And so they feel confident that they can help this person. They feel confident to see, to evaluate where are you at in your progress? You know, so I think it’s about patience. And I respect that the passion that people have for something like that. But if they’re really serious about it, then hey, they’d want to make a good violin. I would think.
And if they just want to like kind of check it out for a while and mess around and kind of live a lifestyle or maybe become the center of attention for a group of people, I don’t know all the different reasons that people might like rush into that kind of thing. Or maybe they really see a big need, you know, they could be from that place. They see this need is so intense. They want to help so bad. But all the more reason to be careful and to learn more.
and to study harder, to try to go. And so I think the patients, all the traditions teach that. So then why would you think that you’re the one? And so then we say, this is a Colombian, you know, Taita, he said, if the medicine is making you feel, so we know that the medicine can confuse people. We know that. We know that the medicine can fill people’s egos.
and kind of really strengthen their narcissism or just confusion. It happens. We see it. It happens. It’s common. So then how do you discern? How do you know? Like, hey, is it really telling me I’m the one? I’m the chosen one? And so it’s just like, well, he says, if the medicine is telling you that you’re more special than everybody else or that you’re
different from everybody else, then it’s not working. It should help you understand how you are integral to the whole. That’s the sign that you’re learning.
Sam Believ (43:49.998)
That’s very wise and the analogy I like to use is of course there can be a signal and desiring calling to be a shaman or a curandero or ayahuasca but some people confuse the invitation letter to the university with a diploma. And then yeah I do like I do come up with good analogies sometimes.
Joe Tafur (44:09.334)
Yeah, exactly. That’s a good one right there. I like that one.
Joe Tafur (44:17.176)
Yeah
Sam Believ (44:20.886)
What you said about violin, yeah, they can make a violin, but then at least even if it might ruin a concert, but it’s not going to ruin somebody’s life. And I see a shaman as a neurosurgeon for your soul. So if he’s a neurosurgeon for your soul, let’s say it takes 15 years to become a neurosurgeon and somebody can take a scalpel and they can mimic the work of a neurosurgeon, but it doesn’t mean they’re actually doing it well. So let’s move on from the topic. It’s a painful one.
Joe Tafur (44:30.22)
Right.
Joe Tafur (44:45.292)
Yeah.
Sam Believ (44:50.34)
so I guess I want to talk about it but let’s talk more about the healing. You talk about healing as a state of receptivity. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Joe Tafur (45:02.942)
Yeah, that was from a Colombian healer, Sochi Bucuru over there in Sasaima, not far from you. Sochi says that line, you know, that’s something that she maybe heard it from somewhere. I don’t know, but she says that she says, healing is a state of receptivity and healing is a state of consciousness. And so there’s this idea that you…
The reason to be open to the spirituality or the mystery or just those parts that we don’t completely understand but somehow are there, the quantum physics, whatever it is, is because there’s some kind of source there for us to draw from, you know, that there’s, the healing happens when the person is open.
to this kind of, you know, in the psychedelic research and the MDMA research in United States, they have come up with this idea of this innate healing intelligence that the therapist is trying to help the person.
come into their innate healing intelligence, that there’s something innate, that there’s something fundamental to be, that is nourishing and healing, that a big part of helping people is trying to help them get past.
all the conditioning or the ideas of all the reasons why they are not connected to that, that they’re not good enough to be part of that, that if there is something sacred or if there is something quantum physical about themselves, then helping them to open that in themselves, to open that connection, that connectedness.
Joe Tafur (47:10.782)
And so that state of receptivity is being able to be open without to receiving, you know, say like the blessing to receive yourself. And so then there’s another element that I’m just learning about now. It’s I don’t, I haven’t read that paper, but I heard about it that one of the new research kind of analyses of the MDMA research is saying that the one of the main
things that they observe is the self-compassion, that helping people find self-compassion. So there’s an acceptance in the receptivity of self, of the world, of being, that somehow puts you into a connection to an inspiring energy. There’s something to that. Here in Arizona, the Navajo, the Dine people, they say, walk in beauty.
If you walk in beauty, then in that kind of consciousness, and I think that there’s a lot of gurus and people that talk about the same kind of thing, that they’re trying to align their consciousness and their bodies to be able to receive the spiritual awareness that is a consciousness that reflects a healthy functioning of the body. You know, that.
The more harmonious it is with its environment, with its ecosystem, the more evidence that the biology that you see is more resilient.
So that resilience from that biology, where is that coming from? You say this mind state or this openness. So this idea is that maybe there is a metaphysical energy that you’re tuning into, that is not just a positive attitude, but more an alignment.
Sam Believ (49:18.986)
Yeah, that’s beautiful. Walk and beauty. That’s something I’ll try to do tomorrow when I’m walking. Joe, I know you’re writing a new book or maybe you’re finishing already. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?
Joe Tafur (49:24.407)
Thank you.
Joe Tafur (49:32.938)
Yeah, I’m trying to write a new book. I’m still writing it, but I’m towards the end, the last part. And it’s about kind of what I was just talking about in a way, but what it’s about is, uh, it’s about, um, how the psychedelic Renaissance and as a doctor in the research world, clinical world up here is reopening an interest in spirituality.
And similarly, the people that are through their search for healing, they go to the Amazon and go to these other cultures because of their suffering, you know, they go to seek healing. And that healing kind of turns them on to this spiritual dimension that, oh, wow, what I needed was somehow to reconnect to that. And when I allowed myself to reconnect to that, then, you know, my mental health started getting better.
And so this idea that the psychedelic Renaissance is reopening an interest in spirituality from a health driven perspective that is, that can be skeptical, that should be skeptical, that we embrace the skepticism of it. But as we embrace that skepticism, then we follow the research. You know, we follow the research and the research is showing that, yeah, helping people.
connect to meaning and purpose in their lives, and a sense of sacredness is making a big difference in their emotional health, in their physical health, and in their mental health, and that that’s what the traditions have taught. And so I use the last 30 years of the clinical research, the Renaissance and psychedelics as a framework of stories that I’ve…
touch on the research and the science and things that we just talked about, quantum physics, things that came up in the last 30 years, including the internet, you know, all these things that have been popping up in this very interesting times in which we live and showing just stories from my own spiritual path during that time that were like my, that made me kind of take more as I have another spiritual step.
Joe Tafur (51:53.418)
Like, oh, I was living this life and then this made me want to do that. And then this and then this and then eventually, you know, be part of a spiritual community in the United States that’s asking for legal protection for ayahuasca to honor the ancestral tradition. You know, because it’s this dignity that you’re talking about where the healer that you see that is doing so much good, but then.
they don’t realize he’s making a beautiful violin. They think it’s just whatever, stones and twigs. So they don’t see what it is. So as we see that again and honor that again, then we’re gonna learn about how we’ve disconnected from nature so dramatically, and how that’s connected to a disconnection from ourself.
And so as we bridge science and spirituality again, that personal healing has the opportunity to help open our healing in our relationship with the ecosystem. But we can’t discount the matters of the heart. We can’t discount the mystical or the quantum physical. We have to address it. Just because you don’t wanna talk about it doesn’t mean it’s gonna go away.
And if it’s making you sick to ignore it, then now it’s an economic problem. You know, if that, if that registers for people, you know, now you’re wasting your money.
So it’s exploring those topics, but it’s really a series of stories is the goal.
Sam Believ (53:34.35)
Yeah, it’s a.
Sam Believ (53:38.742)
It’s a great topic. I think about that a lot personally and I’ve been thinking about it just a few days ago. I think that for me personally I was never a spiritual person and I’m afraid to admit I am a spiritual person now and psychedelics brought me into it and made me also.
Joe Tafur (53:56.087)
Yeah, but we’re talking about universal spirituality. In other words, not the foolishness, but what you see, where the rubber hits the road. And so in the ancestor tradition, in the Inga, I’m sure, in the Shippewa, in the Navajo, in the Americas, and in many other parts of the world, spirituality and health are considered the same thing.
Sam Believ (54:02.713)
Yeah.
Sam Believ (54:24.302)
Yeah, because if you’re connected, as you say, and you have the connection to the source and your body is balanced, it will heal itself. And so I think about it a lot and like coming back into spiritual art and how psychedelics can help. Of course, I kind of look at it this way, you know, at Lawyra, our motto is connect, heal, grow, which kind of nicely describes it all. You connect.
then you heal and then you grow and the growth is also spiritual growth where you start to understand more and it takes a lifetime and you never you’re never over but i think that
I understand from seeing people, you know, there can be people that in our culture that the thing getting rich is what’s going to make them happier, fulfilled, or as they say here in Colombia, pleno, you know, you’re, you’re full, you don’t, you don’t need anything else and, and it doesn’t do it. So in the end, I think spirituality is inevitable. You have to go to spirituality because
Joe Tafur (55:17.655)
Uh-huh.
Right.
Sam Believ (55:28.126)
it is a final step and I realized that when I interviewed Kyle Buller, a co-host of Psychedelic Today a few weeks ago and he had the near-death experience and then after surviving he had psychedelic experience including ayahuasca experience and mushroom experience and he says it’s a very similar state of consciousness so inevitably maybe then when you die you will be spiritual anyway. So you go back to the spirit.
Joe Tafur (55:54.822)
Yeah, well that’s a lot of people.
Sam Believ (55:57.162)
whether you’re spiritual or not so it’s kind of like in reality everyone is spiritual because that’s what we are you know we have a soul and whether you accept it or not it’s kind of like um what’s the analogy you know well i’m probably gonna offend somebody with this one but if you’re uh let’s say if you’re
if you’re white and you say you’re Asian you can accept that but in reality you’re still white.
Joe Tafur (56:28.686)
Yeah, no, but it’s back to that. It’s this, like you said, like, there’s just, there’s a truth. There’s a denial. You know, if your system is built on a denial, that’s gonna cause a problem for you somewhere. You know, you’re gonna go and, you know, to the old Asian grandma and she’s gonna say, no, you’re white. You know, I don’t care what you tell me. You know, it’s gonna come up because there’s something there.
Sam Believ (56:51.194)
Mm hmm. Yeah. Like that. Like the naked king fairy tale, you know, the kid will say you’re naked because he doesn’t have that process built into him to lie. Joe, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It was a very interesting conversation. Where can people find more about you?
Joe Tafur (57:20.306)
Yeah, thanks for having me, Sam. Very nice to talk to you. People can find more about me on drjoetofor.com and also on modernspirit.org. That’s so they can find me there.
Sam Believ (57:34.938)
great and I wish you best of luck with your book and I want to say this right in beauty.
Joe Tafur (57:44.886)
Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Sam. Beautiful. I wish you all many blessings on your work down there. One day, maybe I’ll go to La Huayra.
Sam Believ (57:48.11)
Thank you, Joe.
Sam Believ (57:55.138)
Definitely come over.
Joe Tafur (57:56.851)
Okay, good.