‘Whatever you want to believe’: kaleidoscopic individualism and ayahuasca healing in Australia
The Australian Journal of Anthropology July 14, 2015 DOI: 10.1111/taja.12143 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Ethnography Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Participants in ayahuasca neoshamanic rituals in Australia |
| Intervention | Ayahuasca |
| Topics | Ayahuasca |
| Keywords | Trance Vision Ideology Indigenous Individualism Aesthetics Reflexivity Everyday life Politics |
| Citations | 23 |
| Key findings | Ayahuasca neoshamanic practice in Australia is constituted by ritual conventions that define the individual as autonomous and responsible in relation to ecstatic trance and wellbeing. |
Abstract
Over the last fifteen years the use of the indigenous Amazonian psychoactive beverage ayahuasca has been reimagined in alternative healing circles of Western countries. This paper explores the practice of ayahuasca neoshamanism in Australia and examines ways in which acts of vomiting and ecstatic trance‐visions involve heightened affective states and moral projects of healing. Aspects of everyday life are purged, rearticulated, and reconstituted in rituals where codes of conduct and discursive exchange encourage practices of personal evaluation and reflexivity that appear to index ideologies of individualism. Through exploring social and discursive prohibitions and forms of sensory organisation, the practice of drinking ayahuasca in Australia is shown to be constituted by ritual conventions that define the individual as autonomous and responsible in relation to ecstatic trance and articulations of wellbeing.