Gives up life of luxury to pursue spiritual nirvana like drug.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTN, DC: Melvin Hartzog, a 36-year-old successful personal trainer, has abandoned his luxurious life in New York City, in order to become a shaman in Peru, reported the New York Post.
There, Hartzog, who was raised a Hindu, plans to specialize in ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic brew made from a South American vine that the Amazonians believe, when consumed, offers spiritual revelations.
“Nothing is like ayahuasca,” Hartzog told The Post. “It is incomparable.”
Ayahuasca is illegal in the United States and is categorized alongside heroin, but people who have consumed ayahuasca report having spiritual revelations regarding their purpose on earth, the true nature of the universe as well as deep insight into how to be the best person they possibly can, according to Peter Gorman, author of “Ayahuasca in My Blood: 25 Years of Medicine Dreaming .”
During his first experience with ayahuasca, Hartzog vacillated between major breakthroughs — once, he saw himself in a past life as a World War I soldier — and hours where he suffered from intense diarrhea, a common side effect of the drug.
“Ten hours of Ayahuasca is like 10 years of psychotherapy,” says Hartzog, who has now taken the so-called medicine 50 times across various trips to Peru over the past 15 months. He decided to move to Peru full time last month, after a three-month stint in the country, reported The Post.
“My apprenticeship will involve following very specific planned diets, abstaining from certain everyday practices like sex … going through the jungle to pick the plants and find out how they grow — it’s essentially like medicine-man school.”
Hartzog said his 31-year-old girlfriend, Cara, who has tried ayahuasca nearly 20 times and will also be working at the Way Inn as a retreat director, is fully onboard with the no-sex regimen: “We’ve been together for eight years, so we’re very committed to this path.”