Plant medicine – is it necessary?

The short answer is no. I’ve been asked about this countless times. I don’t endorse or use plant medicine in my shamanic practice.

I do not use plant medicine in my work at all. I have never been interested in doing plant medicine and have never felt called to.

As a shamanic practitioner, I choose to work completely sober and rely only on my own consciousness to activate shamanic experiences and access the shamanic realm. Keep reading to find out WHY I practice and teach shamanism sober and with sovereignty.

A Quick Disclaimer

Many people that have had great experiences with Ayahuasca, psilocybin, Kambo, etc. Unfortunately Iplenty have had bad or even disastrous experiences and as popular as plant medicine has become, the risks aren’t talked about enough.

There are a few important reasons why I do not use them in shamanic journeys, endorse them in my shamanic practice or recommend them to my apprentice-shamans and clients.

Underestimated Risks

First of all, it’s my opinion that most people gravely underestimate the spirit world and its ability to affect us. It can hurt is if we lose our sovereignty and control and don’t now how to operate the shamanic realm.

This is what it comes down to: using plant medicine is like opening your crown chakra with a crank. You are taking the lid off of what separates you from the spirit world very fast.

While yes, this can bring insight and definitely an unforgettable experience whether bad or good, it also opens you up to a lot of spiritual junk. The opening you create allows any kind of spirit to come and attach to you. Which they do.

As a shamanic practitioner who works in sobriety, I see a lot of clients who come to me hoping to undo damage they have endured during ayahuasca ceremonies and other plant medicine ceremonies. This damage is more common than you would expect. These experiences can cause people to become very destabilized over time. Personally, I would never practice something you cannot do without risk. This is one of the main reasons I do not recommend plant medicine.

Consciousness and Magic

As a shamanic practitioner, I am all about control and sovereignty. Through my shamanic journeys I empower my clients to help themselves and the Shamanic Academy is all about empowering you to integrate these practices into your life in the most sustainable and effective way. Teach a man how to fish, you get the idea. This is important to me and so necessary, especially when you are working with spirit.

One main reason I feel I have not been drawn to plant medicines is because of the fact that I have very intense spiritual experiences sober.

I totally get that this may not be the case for you yet, so it can be tempting to kickstart it. You can indeed have life changing shamanic experiences without taking plant medicine and you can have these experiences consistently, when you know how to go about it and have a mentor to guide you.

I believe that in nature, Source gives us everything we need. I believe that these plant medicine are here for certain people to experience and can absolutely bring incredible healing. However, what I do feel is the most urgent and necessary for our spiritual journeys is that people become actually awakened and remain very independent and sovereign in that process. I’m also grateful that nothing can discount my experiences, because they’re not artificially induced by anything and solely come from my relationship with spirit.

Wholeness and Integration

Another common pattern I see with the frequency of use of plant medicine. In my opinion a spiritual journey is not something you go in and out of whenever is convenient for you. Many people take this approach without lasting changes for the long term.

To me, this type of separation doesn’t exist at all. The spirit, angelic, or shamanic realm, is superimposed on our daily reality. It’s like a layer that exists on top of this 3D, earthly realm. These two worlds are constantly overlapping and communicating. Everything that is manifested in the physical is first manifested in shamanic or spiritual realm.

So, it is an incredibly powerful, potent realm to work in. This is why you need to know how to work with it in order for it to actually work in a successful and safe way. Instead, what I often see from these plant medicine ceremonies and experiences is that people go through them without doing the work necessary and actually become more imbalanced from that type of exposure.

The whole point for us to come onto this earth is to change our karma. We are here to integrate our lessons and do the necessary work. In this process, we balance ourselves, restore our wholeness, and align and activate our chakras. Enlightening or enlightened experiences are a byproduct of that process, which is a sovereign process.

As a beautiful side effect of this work, we activate our higher chakras and start to have magical experiences, spiritual experiences, telepathic gifts, or paranormal activity. These are symptoms of ascension. And for me, having these experiences in shamanic journeys without being completely sober, would really devalue them.

In my shamanic practice I see a lot of risks in outsourcing that work to someone else, or something else – a foreign substance and introducing chemicals in the body. The way I work with clients is to empower them to do this work themselves. Every person already has their own chemicals in their body to allow for these experiences in a sober state that you ideally don’t interfere with as they recalibrate themselves.

Something I see with my Apprentices is that when they start to do shamanic work, it integrates with every part of their life. Everything is brought in alignment for them to do this work.

In 5 months their ascension process is already incredibly accelerated, because they are integrating and shifting blocks, trauma, that may have been there for decades. As a side effect of that healing, you will become more whole and feel blissful. Your gifts become more activated, and you come into a deeper integrity and truth within yourself and with all life around you. This wholeness that is then inherently created is what allows you to tap into other things, other beings, and other realms because you know that you are already, on a level, at one with them.

The way that I teach as a shamanic practitioner is sovereign and safe, because you learn how to control what comes in and how to have very strong boundaries and clarity. You work with the divine only.

The Main Dangers of Plant Medicines

In the Shamanic realm, every type of spirit coexists.

Your guides and God are completely sovereign and they respond to sovereignty in people. They do not respond to the energy of wanting quick fixes. However, in this same shamanic realm, there are also a lot of darker spirits with bad intentions, spirits that are lost, and also many that are neutral in vibration.

Of course, there are a lot of spirits in the shamanic realm that have good intentions. But many are lost and looking for hosts so they can come into the physical realm. Darker spirits want to expand their dominion and need life force to do so.

So, people that become too open too quickly, those who are naïve or gullible, and especially those people looking for spiritual power are excellent targets for entity attachments. This is especially true for people that just open the door, or have opened doorways through plant medicine ceremonies, misuse of alcohol, sex, drugs or through occult practices. Those open doorways are what allow these types of spirits to come through.

You shouldn’t want that type of spiritual junk attached to you, or if you’re unlucky a powerful darker spirit. Why take the chance? To me, it’s not worth the risk, and this is why I would never use plant medicine myself. Some people never recover from the experience and there is a growing concern for permanent damage done by ayahuasca and other plant medicine ceremonies. The risk is simply too high. And in my opinion, the same to an extent goes for drugs and alcohol, which also create open doorways to the spirit realm (think of the word spirits and the word alcohol, derived from the word demon or spirit in Arabic).

Commitment vs Instant Gratification

I’m not downplaying the intensity of these experiences. People tend to get very attached to these substances and not everyone looks for a quick fix – I’m not demonizing or generalising here. It can be very hard work undergoing a plant medicine ceremony. But even though people like to say these substances are not addictive, they 100% are. Any activity can become an addiction depending on how we attach to it, especially when spirits are involved. I have seen this in my shamanic practice too many times. In my opinion, the most important healing work – integration – needs to be done consciously and in a sovereign way.

We live in a consumerist society that is all about instant gratification. We want an awakening, we want an incredible magical experience, and we want it right now! People don’t even realize how incredibly dangerous and disruptive this attitude can be. People also don’t realize that you don’t need any type of substance to have those experiences, whether it is a magical healing event, a past life regression, spiritual warfare, a visitation, or a vision. All of those things really can and do happen sober. And the best part is, you can learn how to live a life like that every day.

My Final Thoughts

These plant medicine ceremonies and experiences are not a sustainable, daily way of life. My invitation, is to do the real work and commit. Bring your life into alignment and do the actual work, instead of reaching out to something external and limited, like the time-based experience of plant medicine.

When you are doing the actual work and actually committing, the gain that you have from just that conscious development will help you and serve you in every other area of your life as it integrates with and uplifts everything. For me, this is the only way. Everything, all the power, medicine, all the miracles, are already inside of you. That magic is already there, waiting to be activated.

Share your thoughts by hitting reply!