‘As a young Christian, I took ayahuasca like Jada Pinkett Smith, and this was my experience’

Dissatisfied with church, our Woman Alive contributor started seeking answers in New Age practices, culminating in a two day ayahuasca ceremony. Instead of bringing peace, she felt oppressed by demons. Only Jesus gave her the answers she was looking for.

Jada Pinkett Smith’s positive experience with ayahuasca has been widely reported, and as a result others have been drawn to the drug. My own experience was very different, and terrifying. Here is my story.

As a young christian at university I was excited to grow in my faith and experience new things. I attended church and the christian union and developed some great christian friendships. However, I was carrying a lot of mental and emotional pain from past relationships and trauma. As a result, I became interested in wellbeing and mindfulness. They seemed to hold a lot of answers to my mental health problems and emotional pain. I wanted to feel alive and free from my pain to live life to its fullest. Church didn’t seem to address these things - so I began to look elsewhere.

I started going to yoga classes and got into various meditations to help calm my mind, trying to escape and heal my pain. I read books by authors such as Ekhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, and the Dalai Llama. I encountered this idea of the ‘ego’ and the ‘higher self’ and I began to be sucked into these ideas. I stopped going to so many christian events and started to isolate myself from people, especially christian friends. Then it slowly began…I began to pick apart christianity and church - why are so many christians so unhealthy? Why don’t churches talk about looking after our bodies and minds? Why are people performing in church so much?  Isn’t that ego driven? Is this all just a construct?