AYAHUASCA PANTHEIST SOCIETY
General Strategy of Functioning:
We provide a calm and relaxed environment – quality time and space for everyone to express themselves in an orderly, smooth way. We seek to deepen friendship and union among those taking part; we also seek to stimulate intuition, reason, good sense, tolerance and creativity among our participants.
In the Ayahuasca Pantheist Society, ceremonies are administered by one or more guide – the guide it is also called “facilitator”. The role of the guide is to be understood as that of the one who assists, serving the needs of the ceremony, he is the one who help – he is at the service of the participants and to those who are interested in training to take on that role. During the ceremonies, the participants are – preferably – seated in a circle. A guide (or facilitator) and some assistants are chosen to open and conduct the activities, which take place in a certain order and using a previously defined and agreed ritual, in order to allow better integration and participation. Some ancestral practices, used by indigenous peoples, have been incorporated to enrich our work.
We have designed various types of ceremony:
REGULAR CEREMONIES: here, we dedicate space both to contemplation – in search of illuminating and integrative experiences – and meditation and reflection. The subjects most likely to be addressed are: the essence of indigenous spirituality; reflections on the structure and meaning of reality; thoughts about the nature and the phenomenon of life; understanding about human situations and the meaning of life; exchanging ideas about the nature of knowledge, perception, the mind, consciousness, evolution and others.
ANNUAL CEREMONIES: these are generally in order to celebrate certain specifics occasions, using appropriate symbolic contexts. They take place at certain times of year like the summer and winner solstices, and at the equinoxes.
CREATIVE CEREMONIES: these are meant to make the most of the effects of Ayahuasca, in terms of intuition, ideas, mystical experiences, the expansion of imagination (the ability to see previously unknown images), creative integration of different abilities, an increase in sensitivity – and to test new ways of using Ayahuasca, including while appreciating or watching artistic events.
We may consider all the ceremonies as a form of “healing”, since “cure” is a creative process towards a better state of physical, mental, spiritual and emotional well-being.
By sanctifying nature, pantheism in general, and the Ayahuasca Pantheist Society in particular, try to rectify certain important conceptual divisions: between the sacred and the world, between religion and science, making possible three new tendencies towards unification, creativity and ethics.
UNIFICATION: by intuitive, direct recognition (mystical “religare”) of our unity with the Universe and all beings.
CREATIVITY: through our absolute, immediate identification and integration with the divine, creative Universe.
ETHICS: by our understanding that we are simply part of nature, and not its centre or objective.