In A Perfect World

Experiential journalist Rak Razam interviews Hamilton Souther, one of the more prominent Western ayahuasca shamans and the founder of the Blue Morpho lodge outside Iquitos. Souther is also pioneering 'Cannabis Shamanism' using the songs and structure of his ayahuasca lineage with cannabis as the active sacrament. Cannabis has been revered as sacred by Hindus, Rastafarians and others, and with Souther's '420 Shamanism' movement there is the opportunity to resacralize the West's dominant recreational drug into something more, at the same time as marijuana legalisation sweeps America. If recreation and medical use of marijuana is becoming accepted, can spiritual use as well? Is this the start of a cannabis-shamanism revival, as the modality of shamanism itself crosses the tipping point into the mainstream? Souther shares his initiation story on the shamanic path, the difficulties of training as a Westerner and the secret bias towards many Westerners from local practitioners. How do we separate the indigenous wis