13 Lessons From 5 Ayahuasca Ceremonies

If you’ve read my Ayahuasca Expeditions #1 and #2, you know about the origin of my relationship with plant medicines, how I came to ayahuasca, and the magic I experienced throughout the five ceremonies across ten days in the jungle.

Now, I want to summarize the entire experience into small, bite-sized lessons. 

Here are my X biggest takeaways:

1) Ayahuasca is like perceiving reality from the inside out.

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life, and you will call it fate.” ~ Carl Jung

In our normal waking state of consciousness, our conscious mind runs the show, and our subconscious mind runs in the background. In my experience with ayahuasca, She flips consciousness so that the subconscious mind dominates perception. She allows you to perceive yourself and reality with your subconscious mind in the foreground and your conscious mind in the background. Instead of your awareness being directed at the external world, it turns completely inwards. It’s like you’re untangling your psyche and your nervous system from the inside out.

Any incongruency between the subconscious mind, conscious mind, and an ideal (God) is experienced as immense suffering in the nervous system. This is why the experience can be so challenging.

2) Ayahuasca is an absolute truth detector

Ayahuasca will test your alignment in work, in love, in life, and with God. Each place not in integrity, you will feel and see clearly. When you sit with ayahuasca 5 times for 4-6 hours, you have nowhere to hide.

I saw all my insecurities, fears, vices, addictions, incongruencies, and behaviors that pull me away from service, mission, and God so clearly. The areas I was living out of alignment hurt. The areas I was living in alignment felt peaceful.

I believe that someone like Jesus or Buddha, who is living in complete harmony with subconscious motives, conscious intentions, service to others, and a connection to God, would drink the medicine and experience little to no effects. They’ve reached the pinnacle of inner work and enlightenment. There is nothing to recorrect, analyze, or fix. 

Knowing that the Christ Consciousness and Buddha Nature are within all of us makes me excited to continue doing the inner work and awaken fully to my true Nature, and then test my integrity and realization with ayahuasca. 

3) The medicine is you

Ayahuasca allows you to see things both within yourself and in reality in a way you usually wouldn’t be able to see in your normal state of consciousness. But it is not ayahuasca that gives you insights, changes your life, or fixes your problems. She simply allows you to see a new doorway or path, but you still need to walk through it.

The medicine is not doing anything for you. Rather, it helps bring answers and insights that are already buried deep in your consciousness up to the surface so you can work with them, play with them, and integrate them into normal life post-journey. The answers always have been, and always will be, within you. Ayahuasca can just help you find them.

4) They call ayahuasca a rite of passage for a reason.

I didn’t understand what “doing the work” was until I took this trip. It was the most challenging 10 days of my life but also the most beautiful and expansive. The moment I proclaimed, “I will never do this again. I’m leaving and going home,” was the most important moment for me to stay and choose to go into the medicine again, and again, and again. 

I understand why the indigenous tribes of South America, those who have preserved ancient traditions for thousands of years, have their youth sit with the medicine for the first time at 16 years old. It is a training in being an integrated, emotionally healthy, and spiritually connected human. The truth is, we have nearly forgotten who we are as a species and where we come from, and ayahuasca can help us remember. There is immense wisdom in these ancient traditions.

If we had a similar rite of passage in America and across the world, maybe we wouldn’t be raping and pillaging the earth, collectively numbing ourselves with various addictions, cheap dopamine sources, and mindless forms of entertainment, and have an army of humans completely disconnected from their bodies, their feelings, and their nature. 

5) All coping mechanisms, escape devices, and entertainment are tools to avoid feeling and take us away from The Presence of God.

Before I went into the jungle, I was vaping, drinking three cups of coffee a day, playing video games, and watching tons of NFL football. I reached a point of “spirituality” where I no longer labeled these things as good or bad. I saw everything as neutral and a manifestation of God, but this was me bypassing the fact I was still attached to these things. Deep down, I knew my highest self did not need these vices. But another part of me couldn’t see the issue with them. I never gave them up because I didn’t have a strong enough “why.” I realized that “why” in the jungle.

By stepping away from excessive, compulsive use of these mechanisms and sitting with myself in nature for 10 days, I tapped into unprecedented levels of intuition, spiritual sight, and God Consciousness that had been lying dormant my entire life, suppressed under a mountain of stimulation and pleasure.

Even on the days when I wasn’t drinking the medicine, I entered a permanent psychedelic state of consciousness that only deepened the longer I stayed in the jungle. This was enhanced with the “dieta” of no salt, sugar, spice, technology, or stimulation of any kind (other than the occasional book or audiobook).

I began communicating with the entire jungle. I could command a group of butterflies to sit with my hand and mind. I communicated telepathically one night while meditating with the Shahman across the forest. I met my guardian angel and spirit animal. Beautiful butterflies came to sit on my feet and legs. I spent hours talking to the frogs, the birds, and the plants. I realized they were talking to me, and I could talk to them because they are expressions of God, and I, too, am an expression of God. Beyond the seeming duality, God was actually talking to itself.

This expanded consciousness and connection to intuition has continued even after I’ve left the jungle and returned to city life in Austin, Texas. Now, the train horns, police sirens, and gusts of wind in the city are God talking to me, just as the birds and the frogs were communicating with me in the forest.

I understand this will lose most people who operate solely from their rational minds and left brains, those who label themselves as “practical,” “realistic, or “down to earth.” But those with minds and hearts open enough to trust and believe will read these words and feel they are true. ​​

“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe.” ~ Jesus Christ

6) When you starve your mind of stimulation and your body of pleasure, the desires of your heart and spirit shine forth.

Around day four, I had an intense desire to run around my tambo on all fours like a monkey. On day seven, I tried to climb a tree. On day nine, I sat on my rock in the river and howled at the top of my lungs. In the absence of numbing devices and distractions that make us forget about our true nature, a deeper, more primal part of us emerges. This is what I experienced.

These more primal parts of my spirit that shone forth revealed a deep, buried desire within my heart. I began running around the jungle, throwing rocks, and playing imaginary quarterback. I then had a dream that felt like a whisper from God that showed me I wanted to play football again. Not just for fun at a park with some friends, but for real, on a college team, as a quarterback. 

Right now, I’m in the process of applying to D3 schools and talking with coaches to find a spot to play one or two more years. I received an offer to play quarterback at a D3 school in Illinois, the same day I began two new projects; quarterbacking cohort launches for Nick Sweeney and Danny Miranda’s Alignment Academy cohort and Joe Phair’s Modern Man Rebirth cohort.

II am leaning towards continuing to travel for the next 6 months and reevaluating this desire around spring or summertime. But I’ve come to realize that when you’re playing on the edge of reality, your plans iterate until you have no plan at all. You become so immersed in the present moment and so open to life that you become as light as a feather being blown by the winds of life, and as malleable as a particle of water floating through a stream. One moment, you think you're headed in one direction, and the next, a gust of the wind of Life blows you somewhere completely new. To the conditioned mind, who needs control and a plan, this is a recipe for anxiety. But to the one who has let go of his mind, he welcomes the gusts of wind and trusts that God will blow him in whichever direction is necessary for his highest growth, the highest good, and for fulfilling his soul’s destiny.

That being said, I am open to life and listening. I am aware the desire to play QB is there. I am also becoming increasingly aware of a desire to be in the sun and heal my entire body, mind, and spirit for the next six months. Maybe both realities exist. Maybe neither. All I can do is stay open to the here and now and trust that there is a divine plan that I cannot currently see.

7) In our rawest form, we are all monkeys in the jungle.

I learned more about human nature and my nature in those 10 days than in my entire 23 years of life. 

I felt the entire range of human emotionality - power, greed, shame, intense fear, pain, grief, sadness, despair, bliss, ecstasy, joy, heartbreak, love, strength, and courage - both in myself and everyone around me. I felt power dynamics. I felt the rawness and realness of being a living organism living on the earth. Beneath our job titles, our clothes, our devices, our cars, our homes, and the comforts of society, at our base, most primordial form, we are still monkeys in the jungle. We’ve just developed the ability with our intellects to construct our own artificial jungles, ie. cities, gyms, parks, and homes.

The comforts of society are layers of protection from facing the realness of our humanity. Our physical bodies will decay and die. Disease and sickness are an inescapable part of life. Everyone we know and love will face the limits of mortality too. We’ve created a society of pleasure and comfort to avoid confronting these truths. But it is only by sinking into the realization of our finite, mortal, and brutal lives and fully accepting and loving all of our humanity that we can experience love, beauty, and connection to God and realize our true nature as that of immaterial, eternal Spirit.

8) The blend of the 3D material world and the 4D spiritual world is what makes humanity unique.

I read this quote from a book called St. Francis by Nikos Kazantzakis, and it hit me square in the chest.

It’s worth rereading a few times to grasp what he’s saying here:

“Saint Francis is the model of the dutiful man, the man who by means of ceaseless, supremely cruel struggle succeeds in fulfilling our highest obligation, something higher even than morality or truth or beauty: the obligation to transubstantiate the matter which God entrusted to us, and turn it into spirit.”

On one plane, we operate in the 3D world. We are incredibly intelligent ape-like primates who eat, shit, run, play, build, create, and sleep. On another, we have a connection to the 4D spirit realm. We have the rare gift of being aware of our awareness. We are the only species that is conscious of its consciousness. We often are not aware of this, but we choose to come into this 3D realm from the spirit realms to work out our negative karma so that we can transcend this reality and live on as eternal spirits with no need for physical bodies.

The connection to the higher plane 4D world is what makes us ask questions about what happens after death, if our soul comes back in a new form, and drives us to find a connection with God. From the perspective of the animals who only live in the 3D plane, they don’t realize they are God manifesting into form. For most humans who never awaken to spiritual reality, they too fail to realize they are Sons and Daughters of God. But those with faith, open minds, open hearts, and immense determination will awaken to the realization that they are more than their 3D physical bodies and minds; they are the Spirit that lies within. This is why Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”

This ability to know we are more is what separates us from the animals of the earth. We had to “fall” from the Garden of Eden (i.e., the Kingdom of Heaven) to become conscious of our consciousness so that we could awaken and remember our true nature as not only one with the earth but also of something more, a higher plane of reality.

This game of first forgetting so that we can remember is what Alan Watts refers to as the game of cosmic hide and seek in his book “The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are,” which is about how we are expressions of God or the universe remembering itself, and the entire dance of reality is so that God can remember through us.

Ayahuasca helped me feel and understand my infinite, 4D nature in a way I’d never seen it before in normal states of consciousness or on other psychedelics. She showed me past lives, reincarnation, and the infinite now, or the Kingdom of Heaven. I feel I am now fully seeing and believing there is something more to this world than I once thought to be true. And the funny thing is, my “success” in the 3D material world, in business, fitness, and relationships, is accelerating at an unprecedented rate because I have one foot in the non-linear, non-rational 4D world and another in this linear, rational 3D world. 

I realized fully throughout these journeys I am the Spirit that existed before the organism society called “Jack Moses” came into the world. Before Jack Moses existed, I Am. Whether or not I am to return to this human form again depends on whether I can shed the generational and societal karma, the entities and dark forces, and the programming and conditioning I’ve accumulated in this lifetime. 

You also have this same challenge. This is the real reason why we incarnate on this earth. Not for money, security, or status. But to awaken to Who We Really Are. This is the game of being human, fulfilling the obligation to “transubstantiate the matter which God entrusted to us and turn it into Spirit,” as Nikos Kazantzakis so beautifully said.

9) If we do not collectively wake up to our true nature, we will destroy ourselves and the planet

We are on the brink of extinction. I saw it clearly. Wars. Nuclear bombs. Deforestation. Pollution. Unconscious Capitalism. Greed. Manipulation. All are byproducts of the human ego, the fundamental misconception that we are separate from each other and nature and that we must fight, claw, and compete to claim what’s “ours.” 

I saw that the human ego is an untamed fungus that has run rampant across the earth and is putting the human species and planet Earth at risk of extinction. This ego is not to be killed off. However, it is to be transcended to a higher level of realization, that yes, we can appear in separate bodies, have unique personalities, and hold different desires, but above that plane, we are all One species, One humanity, and One consciousness made in God’s image. From this place of realization, the idea of fighting each other in wars and politics and destroying the earth seems insane and is insane because we are actually destroying ourselves. There is no other. All separation is an illusion created by, guess who, the ego.

But I also realized that from the perspective of the universe and in the divine order of the Tao, everything is unfolding exactly as it is meant to. We were meant to drive ourselves to the brink of extinction in order to collectively awaken to the fact we are all one. However, even though everything is unfolding perfectly, that doesn’t mean we don’t have to change something collectively. And collective change begins on the level of the individual.

Before you read on, think about these questions:

• What is your purpose beyond yourself?

• How do you desire to serve humanity and the planet?

I believe it is my soul’s mission to awaken as many people to their true nature as possible and live a life aligned with a higher purpose and the greater good. This mission is why I’m writing newsletters like this.

10) The spirit of the plants, animals, and forest is incredibly generous and wants us to heal

I believe plant medicines, specifically ayahuasca, have the potential to bring about a widespread awakening in humanity's consciousness and save the planet. The spirits within these plants are trying to save us and help us remember where we came from and who we were “before the fall.” They are all called plant “medicines” because first, they can help heal us from the neuroses of our normal lives and our humanity, and on a grander level, heal us from our fundamental misconception that we are separate from nature.

I believe if everyone went into the jungle and sat with themselves with no phone or internet for 3 months, we would save the planet.

11) The answer is always love, courage, faith, trust, and presence

During much of my time in the five ceremonies, I was doing deep, inner cleansing work. Every negative emotion you can imagine came up - Sadness, grief, despair, desire, lust, shame, guilt, anxiety, stress, worry, confusion, apathy, lethargy, avoidance, and many more. In my second ceremony, I was at the gates of terror, death, and hell. Most of the time, I prayed for it to be over.

But what I began to learn is that all of the spiritual teachers and mystics were right. Love, truth, beauty, courage, and faith are always the answers.

Ayahuasca takes you to the depths of darkness to find that part within yourself (your spirit) that chooses love, faith, and courage despite the darkness. That is how we transform darkness into light.  

12) As you embody more Light, more darkness will reveal itself to you.

As we got collectively lighter as a group, more darkness began to appear in our presence to see our light.

Poisonous frogs. Slithering lizards. Giant bugs. Huge fungi would form in less than a day around the maloca. A 5-pound poisonous frog hopped into the maloca just as we were about to begin our 3rd ceremony. After the 4th ceremony, when Taylin, Dale, and I stayed up until 5 AM hanging out in the maloca, I went pee in the forest and felt immense dark energy beginning to gravitate towards me. Around my little house, lizards, giant insects, small green frogs, and iguanas seemed to gravitate towards my space the lighter I got over the course of the 10 days. It peaked when I saw that 4-foot-long dragon staring at me.

But it was by staring into this darkness and asking God for guidance that I met my guardian angel and first knew that I was divinely protected. I also began to see into the darkness within myself, the darkness I’d been avoiding and spiritually bypassing with notions of “love and light.” I began to realize the darkness was not to be feared but rather loved and transmuted into light through this unconditional love.

"We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are." ~ Sirius Black ~ Harry Potter and The Order of the Pheonix

13) Guardian Angles, Spirit Animals, and Magic Are All Real

Here’s where the esoteric mysticism peaks. I would have never been able to plan I would write these words nor even conceive of these topics before I experienced them firsthand. Up until these experiences, I still considered myself quite down to earth. But now, my perspective has changed, and my consciousness has expanded. I cannot see the world the same. 

Telepathy. Communication with plants. The 3rd eye and spiritual sight. The 4th dimension. Reincarnation. Past lives. Angels. Guardian angels. Spirit animals. I experienced it all to be very, very real.

It feels now like I walk through the city of Austin, Texas, like Neo in the Matrix, knowing there is more to this reality than what appears on the surface. But as my eyes have opened, more awakened beings appear in my field than ever before. This city is buzzing with awakened or awakening beings. Magic has been happening here every day since I’ve returned. I’ll be writing another letter on this in a few weeks (;

Here’s what you can take away from this section:

You chose to be here. You are an important part of the human race. Your life matters. Angels and spirits circulate around your field at all times. You are divinely protected. 

This will not make sense to your rational mind. This is where faith comes in. If you’re curious to learn more about these spirit and angelic realms, I’d recommend the audiobook “Bringers of the Dawn” by Barbara Marciniakm or the book “The Golden Future” by Diana Cooper.

Coming Back To Earth

I told you these letters would move from practical to mystical, and did they ever.

We just went from baseline logistics to my history with plant medicine into incredibly abstract, mystical concepts. If you read until the end, I applaud your courage and open-mindedness. You may think I’m a bit crazy, but that’s okay. Like I said, it is my soul’s mission to open your mind and help you realize the world we live in is not what it seems to be.

This letter was a portal into a different plane of consciousness itself. It’s almost as if I am attempting to transfer my experience in the jungle into your consciousness through the written word. But I cannot actually articulate the depth of what I experienced. I can point to things with language, but experience transcends language. Remember that you cannot taste the food by looking at the menu (;

Now, let’s land this rocket ship and come back to the 3D world while still maintaining awareness of all the 4D metaphysical things I just told you about.

Integration

Psychedelics without integration are merely an incredibly deceiving form of mental masturbation and escapism. 

In other words, if you do not do the work to integrate what you learned back into normal life, you merely paid for an extravagant experience. What’s worse is you are shown all you could be if you were living in alignment with your highest self, and if you return to normal life and decide not to live up to that realization, you will have to deal with the hurt of seeing your potential and never actualizing it. 

With all of this in mind, integration is a great priority for me coming out of this journey. Here are four things I’m thinking about:

1) Prioritization of Sensitivity

Now that I’ve come back into normal society, I’ve noticed how it’s so much easier to numb out my sensitivity.

Screens, music, AirPods, fast food, too much coffee, too much work, and surface-level conversations all desensitize me if I’m not mindful of them. Now, I won’t become a philosopher in a cave or a wandering ascetic. I’m meant to be in the world. But I need to ensure I’m carving out time for solitude daily and keeping sensitivity to the present moment as the priority, which means less coffee, less psychedelic-trance music, fewer video games, and less NFL football. It doesn’t mean I renounce these things. But it means I am incredibly mindful of each moment.

What’s been interesting to observe in myself is that there has been little to no desire for any of these numbing or escape devices since I’ve been back. I tried watching one 10-minute NFL highlight video and could barely get through it. I’m enjoying pursuing my mission, my work, my curiosity, presence, and connection with God too much at this moment. I’m setting the intention to keep it this way.

2) Listening For The Birds

Similar to how the final scene of Polar Express says, “Always hear the bell ring,” my personal philosophy post retreat is “Always hear the birds sing.” To me, this signifies a connection to God, self, presence, intuition, and living in harmony with the universe.

I’ve also been noticing God speaks to us in different ways in cities than He does in the jungle. At first, I thought these signs would be limited to nature. But as I’ve integrated back into the city life, I notice even the concrete jungle speaks to us too. The train horn. The song you hear at a restaurant. A stranger’s conversation at a cafe. A sign you read on the street. They are always all speaking to us if we have the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and the faith to never stop hearing the bell ring. 

By the way, that scene in Polar Express makes us cry for a reason, and it has little to do with Santa.

Rather, there is a deeper knowingness within all of us that longs for childlike wonder and awe and connection with the Divine. The bell ringing represents the light of God, Truth, and Divinity within us that we instinctively never want to lose. This is why we cry.

Now I’m getting incredibly emotional writing this!

3) Task Orientation and Devotion

“You have a Hanuman Circuit in your chart. This means you can accomplish the impossible through task orientation and devotion.”

A Vedic astrologer told me this before I went down to Peru, and it has stayed top of mind since. Daily practices, daily progress, and devoted work is the guiding philosophy of my life, in this moment.

Ever since I’ve been back, my morning routine has consisted of concentration meditation, taking “A Course In Miracles,” reading Tarot, studying the Tao Te Ching, and filling out a 3,6,9 manifestation journal before heading to a coffee shop to write, build, and create business opportunities. I’ve been up around 6 every day, ready to embrace the day because I feel so inspired to be back in Austin and pursuing my life’s work.

I’ve also been working out 1-2 times a day, running and throwing at the football field, sauna and cold plunging, getting sun, eating intuitively and clean, and sleeping 7 ish hours a night. I feel vital and healthy. 

I haven’t been perfect with my disciplines, nor do I expect to be, but wow, it feels good to be back in the disciplined warrior mindset that I so much loved and forgot about over the summer while traveling!

Each day, one step, one moment at a time, I am aiming at a higher purpose and a lofty mission. And each moment, it comes back to this brief sentence:

Task orientation and devotion.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins from beneath your feet.” ~ Lao Tzu

4) Seasons Of Life - Zooming Out Like Never Before

“You’re going to be busier than ever before, but once you commit to it, you’re going to love it.” ~ The Vedic Astrologer Michael Nourse

Now that I’m back in Austin, Texas, I am as busy as ever. Hanging out with friends. Writing at coffee shops. Making business deals. Helping people launch cohorts. Building my own. Eating clean. Doing tons of yoga, sauna, ice baths, and meditation. Training for a possible return to football.

I am running my first men’s retreat with Cameron Hogan here in Austin from November 21-24. There will be no plant medicine, just a group of like-minded men seeking to unlock their purpose, step into their power, and actualize their potential. I am so excited to step into this next layer of my purpose myself.

Post retreat, I’m heading back to Illinois for Thanksgiving. I don’t know where I’ll be yet for December, and I’mn giving up trying to plan it. I’m quantum leaping too fast to know. and likely the month of December.

But I am resting easy with whatever transpires in the short term because I am clear on what I am meant to do in the long term. I am meant to be a vessel to bring forth a collective awakening of human consciousness. Everything I do is a stepping stone towards that mission. Over the course of my life, it’ll appear on the surface like I’m playing football, building businesses, and writing and creating online, but the guiding philosophy will always be underlying it. Remember this email in 30 years from 2024 when I was 23, and we’ll see if it holds true (;

Thank You

Two years ago, I started this newsletter writing about personal development and health, and now it’s gone to the depths of mysticism, spirituality, and magic. But if the newsletter is just an extension of me, then this evolution reflects the evolution I’ve experienced in my consciousness.

Writing this letter was a journey in and of itself. I’ve contemplated whether I should share all I am sharing. But I continue to return to what I believe to be why I am on this planet. To spread love, magic, and the word of God to as many people as possible through my writing and speaking. If I didn’t share all I experienced, I wouldn’t feel I’m living in truth.

I’ve accepted that some will call all of this craziness and lunacy. I’ve accepted this will repel many but intrigue some. So to those truly curious, with open minds and open hearts, who desire to explore the depths of reality, God, and the Universe,  and who still hear the bell of Life ring, thank you so much for reading.

“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” ~ Jesus, John 4:48

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