Works by
Rak Razam
(Writer)

• The Ayahuasca Sessions: Conversations with Amazonian curanderos and Western shamans (October 2009 release)
  South America has seen booms before. First came the rubber tappers, stripping the jungle for the turn of the 19th century’s demand for production. Next came the oil boom, to fuel the 20th century’s insatiable need for growth. In the 21st century the jungle is giving the West something else it needs – ayahuasca, the ‘vine of the soul’, and the demand is rising worldwide.
  
  Ayahuasca is a plant medicine that has been used by indigenous people for millennia to heal, cleanse and purify the spirit, connecting it to the web of life. The men and women who safeguard the knowledge of the vine and of the spirits are the curanderos and curanderas (from the Spanish ‘to heal’) – or as the West would call them, shamans. Their role has been that of healer, priest and traveler between worlds, acting as intermediaries between the spiritual dimension and this world on behalf of their patients. Yet the demands of the profession and the rise of Western materialism throughout South America have seen a fall in prestige – and customers – for the curanderos. The profession, usually hereditary, was in danger of extinction before an unprecedented wave of Westerners started coming in search of ayahuasca and the healing it could provide.
  
  Over the last 15 years or so a new gringo trail, this one a journey of the soul, has been blossoming in the jungles of South America, often concentrated around the Peruvian jungle city of Iquitos. Seekers and thrillseekers alike have been coming from the West for a direct experience of the greater reality ayahuasca connects to.
  
  Extracts from the interviews in this book have appeared in Australian Penthouse, High Times and Filmmaker magazine online. They are the result of two months traveling Peru talking and drinking ayahuasca with the native curanderos, the Western shamans and the seekers or ‘ayahuasqueros’ – those who drink ayahuasca, themselves. This book engages in dialogue the shamans and the tourists for an overview of this fast-growing global subculture, letting them speak in their own words their own experiences.
  
  (This is a companion volume to Aya: a Shamanic Odyssey.)

• Aya: a Shamanic Odyssey (May 1, 2009) with Oli Dunlop/ Vance Gellert (Cover Art)
  The vine has spread her tendrils across the world and a genuine archaic revival was underway. My bags were packed, South America beckoned and the ancient mysteries of the rainforest awaited. I wanted in on it...
  
  When experiential journalist Rak Razam sets out to document the booming business of Amazonian shamanism in the 21st century, he quickly finds himself caught up in a culture clash between the old world and the new. Braving a gringo trail of the soul, he discovers a movement of seekers coming from the West to experience the multi-dimensional reality shamanism connects one to. Central to this is ayahuasca the vine of souls, a South American hallucinogenic plant that has been used by Amazonian people for millennia to heal, cleanse and purify the spirit, connecting it to the web of life.
  
  As Razam trains with indigenous curanderos he lyrically documents his experiences and burgeoning relationship with the plant world. And the more he drinks this potent jungle medicine the deeper it leads him, from the wet jungles where the ayahuasca vine grows, to the middle of the Amazon and on into the raging heart of consciousness itself...
  
  Razam has a hip, breakneck style of reporting delicately threaded with deep insights and understandings of the indigenous view of reality. His journalistic eye for detail captures a unique spiritual adventure that echoes the archetypal Western quest, propelling you on a cosmological travel memoir that is at turns beautiful, terrifying, mind-blowing and ultimately, cathartic. Part journalistic account, part adventure, Aya is ultimately a love song to something intimately familiar to the human spirit.

See also:

• The Journeybook: Travels on the frontiers of consciousness (January 2009)
  The Journeybook is an essential map of hyperspace for the contemporary psychonaut and the uninitiated alike. Travel through time and space and partake of mushrooms at Harvard, hemp in Nimbin, DMT in the Amazon and anti-depressents in the suburbs of the West, to name but a few of the experiences which await you. Dance at Dionysian festivals, meet alchemists in the laboratories of Switzerland, trippers in the corporate highrises of Brisvegas, and journey to the edge of the universe within our anthology's pages...
  
  The Journeybook is a collection of tales of altered states, essays, history and manifesto for psychedelic culture in the 21st century. It covers the modern usage of sacramental plants and offers insights into traditional and contemporary shamanism, as well as analysis of the current state of global psychedelic culture and its place in a sustainable future.
  
  It features interviews with Daniel Pinchbeck, Dennis McKenna, Terence McKenna (previously unpublished), as well as articles by Brummbaer, Dave Cauldwell, Des Tramacchi, Erik Davis, Graham St John, Rak Razam, Tim Boucher, Tim Parish, and others. An 18x 20 cm art book edition with over 250 pages, it is fully illustrated with over 50 pages of colour paintings, photography and digital graphics from the Undergrowth art collective, including new works by regular Undergrowth contributors Ahimsa, Gerhard Hillmann, Izwoz, Oliver Dunlop, Rak Razam, Tim Parish, and others.
  
  The Journeybook is an essential handbook for those interested in the subject of consciousness, spirituality and understanding the rich pharmacopia of thought that exists beyond the confines of mainstream cosmology.
  
  Click here to purchase this book from Undergrowth Inc.