27: Listening to Ayahuasca. A conversation with Rachel Harris.

In this episode of The Sacred Speaks, John Price speaks with Dr. Rachel Harris about her book, Listening To Ayahuasca, and other related topics. Following her early experience in meditation and body practices at Esalen and with Suzuki Roshi, Dr. Harris formalized her interest in research focusing on the various ways that we may treat human suffering and then she experienced Ayahuasca in the rainforests of Costa Rica. Following her personal experience, she wanted to research “religious experience” as it manifests within the various reports that people provide following their own Ayahuasca journey. She explains the design of her studies and explores aspects of the biology of psychedelics, in particular, a network of the brain called the Default Mode Network, a network of brain structures “quieted” during psychedelic experience and meditation. The DMN is the “generator of our ego” it maintains the constructed world and self. Not only does Dr. Harris speak to the western approach to both the research-based use of psychedelics and the recreational use, but she also speaks to the worldview of indigenous cultures and how this metaphysical view that sees the world as alive has influenced and conflicted with the typical western worldview. While grounding her work in the Ayahuasca, her research reaches far beyond the experiences of Psychonauts and into the minds and homes of each and every one of us who seeks to transform the daily and the mundane. Bio: Psychologist Rachel Harris, Ph.D. is the author of Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD and Anxiety. She was in private practice for thirty-five years working with people interested in psychospiritual development. During a decade working in research, Rachel received a National Institutes of Health New Investigator’s Award and published more than forty scientific studies in peer-reviewed journals. She has also consulted to Fortune 500 companies and the United Nations. Rachel was in the 1968 Esalen Residential Program, Big Sur, CA. This intensive six-month program focused on meditation and bodywork. In the early seventies, Rachel studied with Dorothy Nolte in the movement system, Structural Awareness, based on Dr. Ida Rolf’s Structural Integration (Rolfing). Rachel also co-edited the Journal of the American Dance Therapy Association for three years. Awareness of how people live and move in their bodies has always been an aspect of Rachel’s approach to psychotherapy. During the mid-eighties into the early aughts, Rachel led workshops at Omega Institute, NY and Esalen Institute, CA. She wrote Twenty Minute Retreats: Revive Your Spirit in Just Minutes a Day with Simple, Self-Led Practices (NY: Holt, 2000). This book describes many of the psychological, meditative and body awareness exercises she taught in her workshops. In 2005 Rachel traveled to a retreat center in Costa Rica and serendipitously found herself with the opportunity to drink ayahuasca with Ecuadorian shamans. The morning after her first ceremony, Rachel began asking questions about the therapeutic potential of this medicine. She conducted a three-year research project with Lee Gurel, Ph.D. that resulted in “A Study of Ayahuasca Use in North America,” published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs (Summer, 2012). Website: https://www.listeningtoayahuasca.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the week: Taylor Young https://www.dallasobserver.com/music/taylor-young-of-the-os-premieres-new-single-shine-on-me-11178400 https://www.instagram.com/tayloryoungmusic/ Music page: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/shine-on-me/1436712697?i=1436712972 Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks