Ayahuasca being brewed in Iquitos, Peru. Photo via Flickr user Paul Hessell
Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic drink originally used by Indigenous tribes in South America, and it was previously little-known amongst most of the world. But the elixir has gained attention in the past several years as urbanites increasingly travel to the Amazon in an attempt to become “enlightened” or healed of medical ailments. Drinking the DMT-containing brew that makes you trip absolute balls doesn’t go well for everyone—in fact, crying, vomiting, and diarrhea are some of the most common unfavorable side effects. If you’ve ever tripped your face off, you’ll know that even the slightest confrontation in this type of mindset can be detrimental to your sanity, but tripping on ayahuasca is a complete new level—you can easily lose sense of reality. For one Canadian man from Winnipeg, his intended path to enlightenment earlier this year in the Peruvian jungle ended up with him killing another man.
In his first interview since he returned home to Manitoba in December, 29-year-old Joshua Andrew Freeman Stevens detailed to CTV News his version of how events of the ceremony went down. Stevens was at Phoenix Ayahuasca, a retreat near Iquitos, Peru, when he stabbed Unais Gomes, a 26-year-old British man whom he considered a “lifelong friend.”
Videos by VICE
According to Stevens, who was taking part in an ayahuasca ceremony in hopes of healing a skin condition, the stabbing was done in self-defense. Stevens said that after twice the regular dose of ayahuasca, Gomes started shouting at “the top of his lungs.” When Stevens approached him, he began yelling, “You are Yahweh, you are Yahweh, and it’s time to get your demons out, brother! It’s time to get your demons out!” (Yahweh is a god from the ancient kingdoms of Samaria and Judah, now modern-day Israel, by the way.)
Following this, according to Stevens, Gomes started attacking him. In an attempt to get help, he ran to the kitchen, where Gomes followed and found a knife. After Gomes broke this knife on a table as he continued to attack, Stevens went for a big steel pot and broke it hitting Gomes in the side.
Gomes then allegedly found a butcher’s knife, but Stevens managed to get it away from him. Then, Gomes changed the target of his attack to the retreat’s workers. “What I said to myself was if he gets this knife back, he’s either going to kill me or the other two men here,” Stevens said. “And that’s when I made the decision to stab him.”
Stevens was arrested by Peruvian police and held for 24 hours but was released, and returned to Winnipeg. However, he may have to go back to Peru if authorities deem it necessary for the case to go to trial.
It’s not the first time a Western tourist has died while on an ayahuasca retreat. In 2014, a 19-year-old student from Bristol, UK named Henry Miller died from drinking what was supposed to be regular ayahuasca, which was actually spiked with the extremely strong hallucinogen toé, at a Colombian retreat.
Follow Allison Elkin on Twitter.
