What is Ayahuasca? An Honest Introduction

By Maja Krauss and Tayta Yachak Wilka Willak, co-founders of Kinti Yaya – Ayahuasca Retreat and Andean Healing Institute Ecuador

Quick answer: Ayahuasca is a sacred plant medicine from the Amazon basin, brewed from the Ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) and the leaves of the chakruna plant. Indigenous peoples have used it for healing and guidance for a very long time, and some elders now share it with people from around the world. Research shows measurable effects on brain networks, mood and inflammation, but the studies are small. Drinking Ayahuasca is not a cure-all and not safe for everyone, and it belongs in the hands of experienced guides after careful screening.

If you ask the question “What is Ayahuasca?”, the answer will vary widely, depending on whether you ask a Yachak (traditional Kichwa Shaman) or a Western-trained therapist. This article aims to fill you in on both perspectives. At Kinti Yaya, an indigenous-led Ayahuasca retreat center in the Andes near Quito, Ecuador, we stand in both worlds. Ceremonies are led by Tayta Willak, a Kichwa Yachak and indigenous lineage holder. Science-backed integration methods and psychedelic facilitation practices are shared by Maja Krauss, M.Sc. Nature Therapist from Europe. We take the questions of science as seriously as the teachings of our elders.

What is Ayahuasca made of, and what does the name mean?

Ayahuasca is a brew of the Ayahuasca vine and the leaves of chakruna (Psychotria viridis). The name is Quechua / Kichwa: aya means soul or spirit, and huasca means cord.

Deep in the Amazon jungle you will meet a vine shaped like an umbilical cord. In the Kichwa tradition, it is the cord that connects us to the mystery of life. To produce the medicine, the Ayahuasca vine is slowly simmered with the chakruna leaves. The Ayahuasca vine and the chakruna leaf are seen and understood as two beings and two energies who unite in one medicine. Some communities use another plant in place of chakruna, and small extra ingredients can be added depending on the therapeutic reason.

A chemist looks into the same pot and finds DMT in the leaves and harmine in the vine, and is able to explain to you that the harmine lets DMT work when it is swallowed (pharmacology review, PMC). The chemistry of both plants individually would not be absorbed by a human body the same way.

Same pot, two ways of telling what is inside.

Where does Ayahuasca come from, and how old is it?

Ayahuasca comes from the Amazon basin and has been used for a very long time, though researchers disagree about how long. Estimates of how many Indigenous peoples use it range from more than 70 (pharmacology review) to about 160 (Chacruna), depending on how groups are counted. There is no single way of working with it.

In the jungle, the medicine served healing and also hunting and communication with nature on very practical levels. In our Kichwa / Inka lineage’s telling, the Inka used Ayahuasca to build a better society. The individual healing and guidance was seen as a foundation for a harmonious, balanced and strong society.

Archaeologists have been following the vine’s trail into the Andean mountains. Hair from Nazca people who lived between 100 BCE and 450 CE contained harmine and harmaline, probably from a vine that does not grow in southern Peru (Socha and colleagues, 2022). A 1,000-year-old ritual bundle from the Bolivian Andes held harmine and DMT (Miller and colleagues, PNAS 2019). The traces suggest the vine travelled from the Amazon into the Andes roughly 2,000 years ago, and the age of the brew itself stays open. How this history connects to Willak’s own Kichwa lineage lives in the memory of the elders, which archaeology has not yet traced. Both the elders’ memory and the archaeologists’ evidence invite humility here.

Why do Indigenous elders share Ayahuasca with outsiders?

Traditionally in most indigenous communities the medicine was only drunk by the shamans to see and heal their patients, and the patients did not drink themselves. One of the first documented Westerners to take part in an Ayahuasca ceremony was the botanist Richard Spruce, around 1852. Over the following decades many shamans in different communities had the same dream: There is a need for the medicine in the world. To help the people of today, the medicine has to be shared with the patient as well.

Anthropologists brought the medicine to Western attention, and ceremonies with Westerners opened up more and more over time: first with individual travelers since the 1950s, and more widely since the 1980s. About twenty years ago, Tayta Yachak Alberto Taxo, Willak’s main teacher next to his family, authorized Willak to open the medicine to people outside his Indigenous community. Yachak Taxo says:

“We live in times where modern society is like a thick cap of pavement on top of the little seed of life force of everybody. We need to share our heavy machinery of Ayahuasca and Awa Coya (Huachuma / San Pedro) with the North, to help them crack this pavement open.”

While some indigenous communities prefer to treasure and protect the medicine inside their communities, other communities now open the medicine to help reconcile people with Pachamama.

What does Ayahuasca do to the brain?

Brain imaging shows that Ayahuasca quiets the default mode network, and early findings hint at effects on neuroplasticity and cognitive flexibility. Most of this evidence is still preliminary.

Willak’s teaching describes Ayahuasca as a potent energy that breaks down mind structures that seem fixed and reveals the truth. Because of that potency, it matters to know how to manage it.

The default mode network is the part of the brain that is busy when the mind wanders and circles around the self. A 2015 fMRI study in PLOS ONE found reduced activity across most of it, and a placebo-controlled study of 43 healthy volunteers found lower connectivity in its posterior hub one day later (Pasquini and colleagues, 2020).

Something else shifts in the days afterwards. In 48 people tested before and within 24 hours after Ayahuasca, mindfulness and cognitive flexibility scores rose (Murphy-Beiner and Soar, 2020), although that study had no placebo group. The vine’s alkaloids also stimulated the growth of new neurons in cell cultures from adult mouse brains (Morales-García and colleagues, 2017). Human studies so far rely on indirect markers such as blood BDNF (systematic review, Molecular Medicine), so nobody can yet say that Ayahuasca builds new neurons in a person.

We do not claim that a brain network and a cap of pavement are the same thing. We say they rhyme, and that both pictures point to something fixed that loosens and to a seed that needs care afterwards.

Can Ayahuasca heal, and what does research say?

Research suggests possible benefits for depression, inflammation, anxiety and addiction, but studies are quite young and we would never promise definite healing.

In the Kichwa tradition, healing means returning to balance. Ayahuasca often leads people to meet death and rebirth. When we face our death, we see how we have lived, and we can be reborn and do things differently. Ayahuasca gifts us a new beginning. She is our grandmother, one of the oldest teachers and guides, and the tradition says her spirit is already in everybody. A spark is enough to reconnect.

Research looks at the same territory with different tools:

• Depression: In a randomized trial in Psychological Medicine, 35 people with treatment-resistant depression received one dose. After seven days, 64% of the Ayahuasca group had responded, compared with 27% on placebo. Remission was 36% versus 7%, a gap that just missed statistical significance. The study was small and short, and the placebo group improved noticeably.
• Inflammation: In the same trial, C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation, fell after Ayahuasca but not after placebo, and larger drops went with milder symptoms (Galvão-Coelho and colleagues, 2020).
• Anxiety and addiction: A 2016 review of clinical trials concluded that Ayahuasca, psilocybin and LSD may help with dependence, anxiety and mood disorders, especially in treatment-resistant patients.
• Parasites: In laboratory dishes, harmine and related alkaloids acted against Leishmania parasites (Di Giorgio and colleagues, 2004). While until now no study shows that Ayahuasca treats parasitic infection in people, in Willak’s tradition it is also used as an antiparasitic medicine.

Ayahuasca is not a replacement for medical or psychiatric care.

What are the most common misunderstandings about Ayahuasca?

The biggest misunderstandings are that it is just a drug, that it cures everything in one night, and that more is better.

“It is just a drug.” Ayahuasca is a strong medicine that can open up other realities and states of mind. Other substances also open other realities, which is why people connect them. The difference lies in how it is used and in the relationship with the plant. The chemistry is powerful and so is the spirit, which is why guidance matters. Many substances can be used as a drug or as a medicine, and what matters is how, why and with whom they are used. Psychedelics are considered to have low addictive potential (cardiovascular review, PMC), and Ecuador’s constitution even protects the ancestral medicine and traditional practices of Indigenous peoples (Article 57, PMC).

“It cures anything and lets me talk to God.” Ayahuasca opens a process. The medicine amplifies what is there, so meditation, time outdoors and attention to your dreams help you understand what you see. Without them, it can repeat the echo of your trauma and your ego. There can be amazing encounters with spirit, but there is no guarantee for anything. We know that the medicine guides, strengthens and supports you on your path, but we can not tell exactly where this path will lead you. Next to the work with the medicine in ceremony itself the preparation and integration are two main pillars that decide how much positive impact the medicine will have on your life.

“More is better.” A doctor gives medicine in small amounts over time and (hopefully) won’t give you medicine that you don’t need. Ayahuasca and her power might help you understand your patterns in one ceremony. On the other hand you can have drunk the medicine hundreds of times, but did not change the way you live, behave and think afterwards. Without guidance and the work afterwards, you go in circles, while good use expands like a spiral. 

Who should not drink Ayahuasca?

Care belongs to the tradition and to the science alike. People with a personal or family history of psychosis or non-psychotic mania, people on serotonergic medication such as SSRIs, and people with heart conditions should not drink Ayahuasca without medical clearance and a personal consultation with Tayta Willak and Maja Krauss, and sometimes should not drink it at all.

A systematic review by dos Santos and colleagues found psychotic episodes rare, more likely in predisposed people and less likely when psychiatric screening happens first. Serotonin syndrome is described in isolated reports involving prescription serotonergic drugs (case report and review, PMC), and psychedelics can raise heart rate and blood pressure (cardiovascular review, PMC). Never stop psychiatric medication on your own to attend a ceremony. Speak with your doctor first. At Kinti Yaya we take screening seriously, and we will tell you honestly if Ayahuasca is not right for you.

Frequently asked questions

Is Ayahuasca a drug?
Ayahuasca is a plant medicine with psychoactive compounds, mainly DMT and the MAO-inhibiting alkaloids of the vine. Indigenous traditions set it apart from other substances through the relationship with the plant and through guidance by an experienced elder. Used without preparation, screening and guidance, it can harm people.

Does Ayahuasca cure depression?
No one can promise that and we see depression as a complex multi-layer imbalance. Next to drinking the medicine, the crucial part is the integration of the experience after the ceremony. One small randomized trial of 35 people with treatment-resistant depression found that a single dose reduced symptoms more than placebo after seven days, but the study was small, short and had a high placebo response. Ayahuasca is not a replacement for medical or psychiatric care.

What does Ayahuasca do to the brain?
Brain imaging studies show reduced activity in the default mode network, a network linked to self-referential thinking, during and after Ayahuasca. Early findings also hint at effects on neuroplasticity and cognitive flexibility, but the human evidence is still preliminary.

Is Ayahuasca from the Amazon or the Andes?
The Ayahuasca vine and the traditions around the brew come from the Amazon basin. Traces of the vine’s alkaloids in Andean burials show that it also travelled into the Andes roughly 2,000 years ago. Kinti Yaya is located in the Andes near Quito, and its ceremonies are led by a Kichwa Yachak.

Can I drink Ayahuasca alone?
No. The medicine needs a safe atmosphere and someone who knows how to manage it. Ayahuasca amplifies what is already in us, and an experienced guide and medical screening reduce the risks.

Who should not drink Ayahuasca?
People with a personal or family history of psychosis or non-psychotic mania, people who take serotonergic medication such as SSRIs, and people with heart conditions should not drink Ayahuasca without medical clearance, and often should not drink it at all. Never stop psychiatric medication on your own to attend a ceremony. Talk to your doctor first.

Where to go from here

At Kinti Yaya we hold both, traditions and indigenous wisdom as well as science and psycological apporaches. We walk with the medicine in the Andean way, with open eyes for what research finds. If Ayahuasca is calling you, start with preparation: read about safety and screening at Kinti Yaya and write to us with your questions. If you work with people professionally as a therapist, coach or healer: We offer a one year intensive mentorship, called The Rooted Healer. Reach out, if you want more infos on the program. 

Now we invite you to trust. The medicine will be there when you are ready.