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Others is steeped in traditions that pay tribute to the plants of the forest and a spirit being called mother ayahuasca. >> thank you for all the plants in the world who give us life, who teach us, who heal us. for without them nothing and no one would live. >> everybody is supposed to have an intention before they go through with this ceremony. do you have one? >> i was thinking about just focusing on my own healing, kind of letting the wisdom of the plant and ron and you know, kind of let that procession happen in this ceremony. >> in careful measures, ron doles out shots of his potent tea, ...

Collapse. though i'd been forewarned, these intense reactions are still disconcerting. [ chanting ] but this is just the beginning. the gringo shaman steps up the healing, blowing smoke onto seekers like stan to drive off negative spirits. these are native traditions repackaged by ron to give his guests an authentic ayahuasca experience. you know when everyone around you is intoxicated or drunk and you're the only one not under the influence? that's kind of how it feels to be in that room. there are people in there who are having extremely intense experiences. and then there's stan who has bee...

But in most cases the cause of death remains unconfirmed. for old pros like ron, these tragedies forecast a troubling trend. >> given the explosion of ayahuasca tourism and the amount of money people are making, do you think there will be more deaths? >> i hate to say it, yes, there probably will be. it's in the cards. [ rooster crowing ] >> but such warnings aren't enough to stop another group of americans who've been to hell and back and are ready to try anything. they're veterans of war who've just arrived at this jungle retreat called phoenix ayahuasca. these vets suffer from profound ptsd...

Anti-depressants. that's the real danger. >> tens of thousands of people use ayahuasca worldwide today. and the ranks of the newly converted now appears to include stan, who's just done a daytime dose of ron's mighty brew. >> how are you doing? >> just out here in the jungle, wrestling with my demons. >> it's probably about as good a place as any to wrestle with them. and a good place to leave them. >> mm-hmm. >> want a little smoke blown on you? >> sure. >> a journey of change. a modern pilgrimage. call it what you like, americans are traveling to the amazon, hoping to expand their minds and ...

And he's seeking it from this man. ron wheelock. aka the gringo shaman. he's a former mechanic and pot dealer from kansas who spent two decades in peru cooking up psychedelic teas in his role as shaman, or traditional healer. i meet up with stan and ron at el pugero as the gringo shaman breaks down the plant mix used in his ayahuasca brew, acclaimed as the most powerful in the region. >> these are the leaves of the huambisa, the chalipanga that contain five emdnt. this is chacruna. this contains mdent. and these are from the chirifanango. >> for millennia, native shamans in the amazon have tap...