Ayahuasca: Nature's Greatest Gift (2014)

• 93%
• 2014
• Documentary
• Seti Gershberg

Ayahausca Nature's Greatest Gift is a feature length film with a runtime of 1 hour 5 minutes. The film is a comprehensive look at the socio-cultural realities surrounding the burgeoning popularity of the Amazonian sacred, medicinal and hallucinogenic brew called ayahausca. The film has 30 subtopics that answer questions about the tea including its history, usage, rituals, physical and supernatural experience, shaman, songs, special diet and preparation and thoroughly delves into it's potential therapeutic value in terms of personal healing and integration into western medicinal modalities. Particular emphasis is placed on the healing benefits of ayahuasca as it relates to overcoming fears, phobias, depression, anxiety as well as its successful, but controversial use in treating PTSD, alcoholism and drug addiction. Other topics include the realities of the booming ayahuasca tourism industry and associated dangers of its charlatans and the general dangers found in travel to third world countries to work with shaman in often times remote and hard to get to regions. Myth is stripped from new age illusions through a realistic, educational and explanatory telling of the facts and understandings via the voices of several Peruvian mestizo shaman and experts in the field including Ethnopharmacologist Dr. Dennis McKenna and Dr. Steven Beyer author of Singing to the Plants: A Guide to mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon.