While I’m not a huge believer in spiritual rituals and such being able to heal serious ailments I do believe that plants in faraway places like the amazon rain forest undoubtedly contain the chemical properties to cure certain illnesses. As much as doctors, scientists, and researchers know about the human body all of it is still a mystery. The United States preaches staying away from carbs and we have an obesity problem while in Italy they consume pasta by the boatload and are a generally trim people. At the end of the day, who really knows? One thing I do know is that if I had a life threatening illness I would want to be cared for in the United States. I feel our grasp on pharmaceuticals is exceptional and the advancements we make on a daily basis are incredible. On the flip side of that, we haven’t cured a major illness since typhoid and Polio, diseases which most of you have never even heard of so there is room for improvement. As much medicine as we do have, people are still dying at an alarming rate from Cancer, HIV, you name it. It’s no surprise that a person in a desperate medical situation would look elsewhere for a cure when all else fails here in the good old U.S.A. While I wouldn’t recommend heading to Mexico to get discounted Xanax for your “anxiety” problems, if I was plagued by cancer or the like and all my options had been exhausted, I would go where the plants are. Documentarian Christian Moran, an Ohio native who spent a year at Ohio State University before leaving for L.A. to attend film school headed to the Peruvian jungles of the amazon rain forest to further research their forms of medicine which have been known to cure any number of illnesses, from physiological to psychological. In his documentary, aptly titled Ayahuasca Diary he documents the treatment of sick patients with the Ayahuasca plant also known as “the vine of the soul”. It should be noted that Ayahuasca is one of the most powerful hallucinogens in existence. Christian has found people with serious ailments who are at their wits end having tried every remedy under the sun including a 57 year old woman with rheumatoid arthritis who had already tried acupuncture and a doctor in Tijuana to no avail. He also spoke with a man who had prostate cancer and had done clinical trials with little success. This man, however, had heard of Ayahuasca. They all go to Peru to seek treatment including a girl who is traumatized by the suicide of a friend. What we see next is very intense. All the patients are put on strict diets and at specific ceremonies they “drink”, meaning they consume Ayahuasca which immediately makes them throw up. They also experience heavy hallucinations. These hallucinations are supposedly used by the practitioner to determine what is truly ailing the person, though Ayahuasca does heal physically as well serving as a strong laxative and cleanser of toxins from the body. Some results were a little lackluster and others were amazing but I’m not going to give that away. Ayahuasca Diary is a must see documentary that was made possible by the talented Christian Moran. You can watch the documentary and others for free at http://www.christianmoran.com/ including clips of the follow-up to the Ayahuasca Diary. Christian Moran is truly a talented documentarian able to capture real feelings from real people on camera, a rare talent to have.
