Review: 'The Ayahuasca Sessions' by Rak Razam

Originally published in 2010 'The Ayahuasca Sessions – Conversations with Amazonian curanderos and Western shamans' is by Rak Razam. Razam is a journalist, author of 'Aya: A shamanic odyssey' and editor of 'The Journeybook: Travels on the Frontiers of Consciousness'. This book is a transcription of interviews he conducted with shamans, many of whom he talks about in his book Aya.

Rak Razam describes the rise of the hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca as one of a series of booms that have occurred in South America. Firstly rubber in the nineteenth century, then oil in the twentieth, and now ayahuasca. With ayahuasca tourism on the rise, the curanderos and curanderas, or to the Western mind 'shamans', are in high demand. In the past, South America was exploited for raw materials, its people treated as tools for this endeavour. Ayahuasca, however, is no simple raw material exported to fuel the West, and the shamans who wield the plants are not simply the West's tools. Rather, the shaman, the plants and the land are a potent trio, purporting to have the power to transform the West just as much as the dollar transforms their indigenous culture. Razam interviews a fascinating collection of individuals from this world, creating a window into this ever changing frontier...