In the past few decades, the shamanistic and religious use of visionary plants
 and fungi has been progressively more available to the Western seeker. Within this equation, we find phenomena such as the international expansion
 of the Brazilian ayahuasca churches, Westerners undertaking apprenticeship with indigenous or mestizo shamans 
in and outside their original countries, maestros traveling worldwide, and the emergence of a variety of ritual forms and understandings of these substances as they spread, including—I may venture— the therapeutic use of high doses of their active principles.

Since the offerings have grown along with the demand, we may expect an increase 
of people seeking or needing integration after rituals that do not hold, as part of their practice, a stable group of peers and/ or a deeper bonding with the guide, and where their participants tend to be left to their own resources shortly after the work is over. Even if full transformative experiences may occur, most often people need support and conscious intent in order to assimilate and express in actions the inner openings that these powerful experiences can catalyze. The fact is, the understanding of self and the cosmos may clash in the insights gained during ritual work, or, on the other side of the spectrum, the experience may end up stored as a curious story in the back of one’s mind.

Drawing from the knowledge of entheogenic traditions and research on the therapeutic use of psychedelics, we find that integration is not a mere result of how one deals with the experience afterwards, but that it is highly influenced by how one prepares for and faces it, as well as by one’s relationship to the given ritual setting, including the guide, the group, and the entheogen itself. In other words, one co-creates the impact that the experience will have in one’s life from the moment one says yes to its possibility. But there is more to this.

One of the biggest challenges when participating in practices nested in shamanic-oriented cultures is that,
 as Westerners, we miss much of the cosmological container they offer.
 Each phase, action, and ritual object is embedded in meaning. Whether simple or rich in complexity, this container offers a road map to those aiming to sink into the depths of the psyche and the mysteries of the unseen. As a neophyte from another culture and paradigmatic stance, one barely perceives this container, and even less can one make conscious use of it. It requires a great deal of openness, courage, and engagement with a particular entheogenic tradition to get the most out of what it presents to us.

The quest for integration has many layers: individual, social, cultural, paradigmatic. Certainly belonging to a culture that legitimates and supports the entheogenic ritual work makes integration smoother. It also allows us to better identify the pitfalls along the path, and the shadow aspects of the tradition. In the absence of such a culture, creating bridges that permit us to engage with the voices of our native elders may be a first sane step to undertake.

*This article is reposted from ERIE’s CIIS 2012 Cambio newsletter

Susana Bustos is an adjunct faculty member in the East-West Psychology program at CIIS, where she teaches Entheogenic Shamanism and the Research Colloquium. As a therapist, she has specialized in supporting the integration of experiences in non-ordinary states of consciousness. Presently, Bustos is conducting clinical work and research at Takiwasi, a Peruvian center devoted to the exploration of the crossroads between traditional Amazonian medicine and Western psychotherapy.