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When his Spare memoir bombshell was released in the UK this week, Prince Harry revealed in interviews that he had dabbled in psychedelics while dealing with the death of his mother, Princess Diana.
The 38-year-old Duke of Sussex told 60 Minutes interviewer Anderson Cooper that substances like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms were like “medicine” after Diana was killed in a car crash in 1997.
But ayahuasca, a South American psychoactive drink consumed according to shamanic practices, can cause hallucinations, anxiety and intense nausea. Earlier this year, a coroner warned of the potentially deadly consequences of shamanic “healing” rituals after hearing how a young artist, 32-year-old Katie Hyatt, suffered a mental breakdown and took her own life when her parents said in the investigation that they believed she had consumed. ayahuasca.
Harry told Cooper that he wouldn’t recommend that people take the substances ‘recreationally’, but added: ‘But doing it with the right people if you’re going through a great deal of loss or pain or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine.’
Ayahuasca, a drink native to South American countries, is made by boiling vine stems together with leaves from a chacruna bush and has hallucinogenic properties.
The drink, which is illegal in the UK, is made by boiling vine stems together with leaves from a chacruna shrub, both native to the Amazon region.
The psychedelic concoction contains the compound N,N-Dymethyltriptamine (DMT), which is one of the world’s most powerful known hallucinogens.
Like drugs like LSD and psilocybin, DMT has been shown to increase connectivity between different brain networks and enhance synaptic plasticity.
The Duke of Sussex spoke to 60 Minutes interviewer Anderson Cooper about his experiences drinking ayahuasca and taking other psychoactive drugs.
The powerful psychedelic combination affects the central nervous system and leads the user to feel a different and powerful psychedelic concoction that affects the central nervous system, leading to a different state of consciousness.
In addition to hallucinations, people who have tried the drink have reported out-of-body experiences and feelings of euphoria.
Speaking about his experience with the psychedelic, Harry said: ‘For me, they wiped the windscreen, the windscreen, the misery of loss. They took away this idea that I had in my head that… I needed to cry to show my mother that she missed me. [my mother]. When in reality, all he wanted was for me to be happy.
Prince Harry’s account of his use of the drug is not uncommon, with addicts and people who have experienced trauma in their lives also claiming the hallucinogen helped them, but doctors have raised concerns about his use of the drug.
Last year, actor Will Smith revealed during an interview with Oprah Winfrey that he drank the concoction more than 12 times during a retreat in Peru, while having marital problems with his wife Jada.
Mike Tyson said ayahuasca and other psychedelics saved his life, while Hunter Biden said deep travel helped him sober up.
However, while ayahuasca’s properties in relation to trauma healing are now being studied, medical professionals have raised concerns about its safety.
Last week, an inquest heard how a young artist took her own life after drinking the hallucinogenic ‘tea’ at a retreat in Malvern, Worcestershire.
According to emails sent to Miss Hyatt and seen by the Daily Mail, the retreat would feature wachuma, described as a ‘teacher plant’ that allows participants to ‘dive deep into ourselves’.
In addition to wachuma, which is made from a ‘sacred’ cactus and contains an illegal hallucinogenic mescaline, Miss Hyatt’s parents told the inquest they believe she also ingested ayahuasca, another Class A drug, at the retreat.
Now Miss Hyatt’s parents want to warn other people drawn to alternative medicine to avoid mind-altering drinks.
“These are not innocent drugs, they need to be used in the context of carefully controlled trials,” said his father, Ray, a retired hospital consultant.
Frankly, the kind of advice you got from the retreat organizers when you realized you were deteriorating was useless.
“We don’t want anyone else’s health to deteriorate like Kate did.”
Many doctors are concerned that the rise in popularity of hallucinogens is causing vulnerable people to take them without proper preparation and psychological support.
The effects of ayahuasca can be classified into three stages.
First, users have a feeling of increased relaxation. They will feel sleepy and start yawning a lot.
The second stage is purging, where users will vomit repeatedly. This is believed to have a cleansing effect on the body.
The third stage is an altered state of consciousness, during which users may have hallucinations in which they see vivid, lucid beings, commonly ‘clockwork elves’. Some people see and have conversations with people from their past.
This week, a British couple was arrested in Murcia, Spain, accused of organizing unlicensed shamanic healing sessions using ayahuasca and other psychedelics.
Spanish police said the couple, aged 47 and 52, were offering their online services and accommodation for up to 16 people at a time, and arrested them after disrupting a “healing session” for seven people of different nationalities.
A spokesperson for the Civil Guard in Murcia has confirmed: ‘The Civil Guard, in the framework of an operation called Kambo, has arrested two people who were recruiting clients for supposed shamanic healing sessions.
“They are a 47-year-old British man and a 52-year-old woman.
“A series of harmful substances have been seized that were being administered without any sanitary control to Spaniards and people from other European countries.
‘The British couple offered their services online with promotional material advertising their rural property as a self-help group-oriented healing home and things like addiction detox.
“They had no license or authorization. Despite this, they were charging people £40 a night for minimum stays of three nights, with group deals of £450 a day for 16 people.
In May last year, Spanish police raided a luxury villa on the Costa del Sol after a British tourist claimed he had been offered ayahuasca when he complained about his accommodation.
The tourist told detectives that he was invited to “chill out” by drinking the hallucinogenic concoction after discovering that he was expected to share a room with strangers.
Police discovered that an illegal party with 40 people was taking place at the villa in the luxury Marbella resort when they went to investigate.