Six months ago, I sat outside, on a wooden deck in the mountains, across from a white dude with a man bun. “Do you actually think this can fix me?” I asked him. The man went by “Kapétt,” a name he picked up while studying indigenous culture in a Peruvian forest, though his legal name was John Thomas Caldwell III, and he was raised in Greenwich, Connecticut.
I felt this article was a fantastic depiction of what is or possibly is on the other side. I could not stop reading. I could also relate completely as someone who has attended an ayahuasca ceremony. Much of this is exactly how I felt. It was great reading from someone who could articulate it so well. I admire your writing ability to transport the reader with joy, humor and a down right great perspective. Looking forward to reading more from you. What an experience! Thank you for sharing.
This was such a good article! Also I cannot stop laughing at “In some other alternative reality, right there at that moment, I punched him in the face.” So so good.
As much as I too hate the cultish vibe these things put out, I healed a bout of vertigo in a yoga class so..... it works?
I really enjoyed this. So Much. The clarity of the experience (at least what you shared of it, Its possible there were many other aspects you weren't invested in sharing), was interesting, uplifting and transportive. There was a zen in what you wrote, a few small stokes, painting a brilliant and arresting picture of an experience so few have had. As a serial cult joiner (thanks, I'm all better now, just ask me) I can't recognize any real cultishness here, (other than the slope of proffered groupthink buzz words normalizing and familiarity), seeds for their future perhaps . . . I noticed you didn't appear to be say (did I miss it?) whether you would be doing it again (open to it, or outright planning?). I have to say this sounds like a really wonderful experience, and outcome, I'd love to experience it, for my own confrontation of my various "opportunities for growth" that have not, as yet, been fixed. Alas, while cult free of the immensely valuable 12 step programs (I still practice the principles), my 37 years of drug and alcohol abstinence cautions me, if not outright forbids me, from - having - taking, enjoining? such an experience. I do agree that psychedelics seem to be a worthwhile field for real peer reviewed study, the prospects seem quite bright. I'm glad you got value from them (it?) and didn't rule out their possible benefits. I really look forward to more of your writing, it has an ease and warmth rare and wonderful. Thank you.
I am impressed. I don't think Ive met anyone who knows as much about this subject as you do. You are truly well informed and very intelligent. You wrote something that people could understand and made the subject intriguing for everyone. Really, great blog you have got here.
Love your calm chill expressive voice. I did San Pedro a number of times before the pandemic. It helped me through a disastrous period of stress I doubted I could get through. I got through it. I had a problem with my ears. Turns out I had some Q-Tip cotton needing removal. I have the two wads over on my people and event poster, reminding me how uncomfortable I was until I figured it out and got help. I hear from dead relatives but it is all loving. Grandma Hershey, who was kind of a bitch in real life, came to me in a dream and I saw her with a tea business of her own, happy and completely approved of by those in her business community. So many of our ancestors didn't have the choices we have now. BTW, once they are over there, they aren't complaining anymore, and certainly not judging us either. I also have an old yoga teacher of mine, in her 80s now, who had a spell of vertigo no doctor could help her with. She figured out the solution. I can gladly ask her what that solution was. I loved how you realized how much of the problem is how much we focus on the problem. Stress is a beast. A real one.
I was 17 when I was "placed" in a "home" for boys. Cult? well somewhat cult like, or sure. I was there for 16 months, max population at a given time was 18 - usual - was around 10-13. we were sort of on perpetual lockdown. (Couldn't leave, etc) It was a behavioral therapy place akin to Second Genesis, if you know of that. (Lots of "verbal haircuts", - emotional "tear you down to build you back up" approaches. (the place, beneath surface , it was quite . . the picture of "masculine toxicity" - and I bought into that deeply). I got out of there a few months before I turned 19. There was a Religious aspect residents were not obligated participate, I was of the few that did. It consisted of a past residents mother, who basically would visit attendees - and do a "Sunday school" type of curriculum once a week. as a part of that, I took a baptism in my desire to "change" / be "better". approx 4 months after I "got out" I returned to drug use again, and very soon after that I lost my job, dropped out my first year of college (after less than 2 months) Kickedout my house, and was homeless, but selling drugs. after about 9 months of that, I connected, by happen stance wit ha friend from the Boys home, and got back "on the clean & Sober wagon". I relapsed just 1 time, a moon into it, on my birthday, in June, 1985, and have been sober to this day. the other cults along the way - less cultish, but still, alternative - in addition to the 12 step programs (AA, NA) after a few years I began to hang out with "Neo-Pagans" who believed themselves to be "Witches" , a number of years (15?) later I joined a working coven of similar, but much more serious types, who were vastly more organized, and stayed with that for more than a decade. it was very . . . unhealthy for al the reasons cults are, and disbanded not long after I left ( not because of me - the leader was found to be imbibing some pretty serious drugs, and his life spiraled out of control, wrecking the whole thing. After that I began a journey towards atheism. I'm am convinced there is absolutely no god, and doing my best to make sense of the world without dogmatic obligations, and trying met to fill the gaps in what I don't know with nonsense, but to accept it, and the infinitesimal place humanity, and myself occupy in the universe. It's quite satisfying, and humbling. but it was a very long journey to get here.
I felt this article was a fantastic depiction of what is or possibly is on the other side. I could not stop reading. I could also relate completely as someone who has attended an ayahuasca ceremony. Much of this is exactly how I felt. It was great reading from someone who could articulate it so well. I admire your writing ability to transport the reader with joy, humor and a down right great perspective. Looking forward to reading more from you. What an experience! Thank you for sharing.
Great article! Can you share where you had this experience and the cost? Im interested in doing this myself.
This was such a good article! Also I cannot stop laughing at “In some other alternative reality, right there at that moment, I punched him in the face.” So so good.
As much as I too hate the cultish vibe these things put out, I healed a bout of vertigo in a yoga class so..... it works?
I really enjoyed this. So Much. The clarity of the experience (at least what you shared of it, Its possible there were many other aspects you weren't invested in sharing), was interesting, uplifting and transportive. There was a zen in what you wrote, a few small stokes, painting a brilliant and arresting picture of an experience so few have had. As a serial cult joiner (thanks, I'm all better now, just ask me) I can't recognize any real cultishness here, (other than the slope of proffered groupthink buzz words normalizing and familiarity), seeds for their future perhaps . . . I noticed you didn't appear to be say (did I miss it?) whether you would be doing it again (open to it, or outright planning?). I have to say this sounds like a really wonderful experience, and outcome, I'd love to experience it, for my own confrontation of my various "opportunities for growth" that have not, as yet, been fixed. Alas, while cult free of the immensely valuable 12 step programs (I still practice the principles), my 37 years of drug and alcohol abstinence cautions me, if not outright forbids me, from - having - taking, enjoining? such an experience. I do agree that psychedelics seem to be a worthwhile field for real peer reviewed study, the prospects seem quite bright. I'm glad you got value from them (it?) and didn't rule out their possible benefits. I really look forward to more of your writing, it has an ease and warmth rare and wonderful. Thank you.
I am impressed. I don't think Ive met anyone who knows as much about this subject as you do. You are truly well informed and very intelligent. You wrote something that people could understand and made the subject intriguing for everyone. Really, great blog you have got here.
https://kechyelathrive.com
Love your calm chill expressive voice. I did San Pedro a number of times before the pandemic. It helped me through a disastrous period of stress I doubted I could get through. I got through it. I had a problem with my ears. Turns out I had some Q-Tip cotton needing removal. I have the two wads over on my people and event poster, reminding me how uncomfortable I was until I figured it out and got help. I hear from dead relatives but it is all loving. Grandma Hershey, who was kind of a bitch in real life, came to me in a dream and I saw her with a tea business of her own, happy and completely approved of by those in her business community. So many of our ancestors didn't have the choices we have now. BTW, once they are over there, they aren't complaining anymore, and certainly not judging us either. I also have an old yoga teacher of mine, in her 80s now, who had a spell of vertigo no doctor could help her with. She figured out the solution. I can gladly ask her what that solution was. I loved how you realized how much of the problem is how much we focus on the problem. Stress is a beast. A real one.
Cults:
I was 17 when I was "placed" in a "home" for boys. Cult? well somewhat cult like, or sure. I was there for 16 months, max population at a given time was 18 - usual - was around 10-13. we were sort of on perpetual lockdown. (Couldn't leave, etc) It was a behavioral therapy place akin to Second Genesis, if you know of that. (Lots of "verbal haircuts", - emotional "tear you down to build you back up" approaches. (the place, beneath surface , it was quite . . the picture of "masculine toxicity" - and I bought into that deeply). I got out of there a few months before I turned 19. There was a Religious aspect residents were not obligated participate, I was of the few that did. It consisted of a past residents mother, who basically would visit attendees - and do a "Sunday school" type of curriculum once a week. as a part of that, I took a baptism in my desire to "change" / be "better". approx 4 months after I "got out" I returned to drug use again, and very soon after that I lost my job, dropped out my first year of college (after less than 2 months) Kickedout my house, and was homeless, but selling drugs. after about 9 months of that, I connected, by happen stance wit ha friend from the Boys home, and got back "on the clean & Sober wagon". I relapsed just 1 time, a moon into it, on my birthday, in June, 1985, and have been sober to this day. the other cults along the way - less cultish, but still, alternative - in addition to the 12 step programs (AA, NA) after a few years I began to hang out with "Neo-Pagans" who believed themselves to be "Witches" , a number of years (15?) later I joined a working coven of similar, but much more serious types, who were vastly more organized, and stayed with that for more than a decade. it was very . . . unhealthy for al the reasons cults are, and disbanded not long after I left ( not because of me - the leader was found to be imbibing some pretty serious drugs, and his life spiraled out of control, wrecking the whole thing. After that I began a journey towards atheism. I'm am convinced there is absolutely no god, and doing my best to make sense of the world without dogmatic obligations, and trying met to fill the gaps in what I don't know with nonsense, but to accept it, and the infinitesimal place humanity, and myself occupy in the universe. It's quite satisfying, and humbling. but it was a very long journey to get here.