Review: 'Fishers of Men' by Adam Elenbaas

Originally published in 2010, the autobiographical 'Fishers of Men: The Gospel of an Ayahuasca Vision Quest' by Adam Elenbaas tells the story the author’s journey of coming to terms with his self, against the backdrop of shamanic, ayahuasca exploration. Elenbaas has graduate training in creative writing and is a case manager and activity therapist for adult schizophrenics. He is also one of the founding writers/contributing editors of RealitySandwich.com.

The autobiographical drug story has well-established roots in the English writing tradition; beginning with Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822) by Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859). However, whereas for de Quincey the advent of opium was framed in a pathological discourse, which is to say his life was ailed by opium as part of his "daily diet", for Elenbaas the very reverse is the case. This isn't to say that pathology has been discarded from the drug text but only that it has been reterriorialized; rather ayahuasca, in combination with the shaman, is a curative, purging agent unlike the opiate addiction models. It is everyday life, with both its mental stresses and repressive strata, that is today the pathology of the individual in the drug text.