a curious invitation last tuesday society
a curious invitation robert carlyles house last tuesday society national trust londonDanny Diskin on the Church of Ayahuasca
painting of an ayahuasca halucinagenic trip

 


THE CHURCH OF AYAHUASCA
with Danny Diskin

Tuesday 21st October 2014
Doors open at 6:30 pm, Talk commences at 7:00 pm

Ayahuasca, a South American plant-based drink containing the psychoactive compound DMT, has long been venerated by the native peoples of South America for its divinatory and healing properties. Denounced by early Spanish missionaries as a work of the devil this drug allows users to supposedly commune directly with plant and animal spirits and, by purging negative energy, it can induce a spiritual awakening or rebirth. However it must be administered by a true shaman. Disreputable brujos in Peru have been known to induce tourists to take the drug with the sinister intent of stealing their life energy.

Danny Diskin combines the roles of scientist, teacher, ethnographic researcher and psychonaut and is a member of the Ayahuasca church of Santo Daime. Ayahuasca has been declared illegal in many territories. Would you take it? Should we not be sovereign over our own bodies? Danny discusses his own visionary experiences in Brazil and the UK.



Tickets £20 including a glass of prosecco. Please click here to buy.

2014 DATES AT THE CAFE ROYAL

16th September 2014
How to Live Forever with Dr Aubrey De Grey


21st October 2014
The Church of Ayahuasca with Danny Diskin


27th November 2014
The SAS and Disaster Medicine with Richard Villar


3rd December 2014
Ziggy Stardust's Last Supper with Geoffrey Marsh


In 1863, a French wine merchant called Daniel Nicholas Thévenon and his wife arrived in England in a bid to escape the clutches of creditors in Paris. So began a story that grew out of bankruptcy and culminated in the creation of Regent Street’s Café Royal: a truly remarkable and original establishment with what was considered at one point to have the greatest wine cellar in the world and was reputed for its excellent hospitality, dining and entertainment. 

Frequented by writers and artists such as Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley, the conversations, inspirations and discussions at ‘The Café’ were profound. Arthur Conan Doyle, H G Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling, W B Yeats, Walter Sickert and James McNeill Whistler were all patrons. Distinguished figures such as Winston Churchill, Augustus John, D H Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Noël Coward, Jacob Epstein and Graham Greene were also often seen.