In “Doctor Ayahuasca” Jan Kounen recounts his inner journey with sacred plants in the company of a shaman in the comic

Director Jan Kounen, director of the films “Dobermann” and “99 Francs”, has been conducting a spiritual quest in the Amazon with Shipibo healers for twenty-five years. In this comic, for which he signs the text and drawings, he recounts in great detail the journey of his consciousness during shamanic rituals and taking ayahuasca.

As a teenager, director Jan Kounen (Dobermann, 99 francs) dreamed less about cinema than about comics. He hoped that drawing would become his profession. At the same time, he began to be troubled by questions about the nature of reality. How the universe was born ? Who created it ? What happens after death ? Is there another reality than the one we know? ? Twenty years later, after he silenced his questions and successfully released the film Doberman (1997), he decided to move forward with his mystical quest by envisioning it as the subject of his next film.

Attracted to shamanism, he flew to Peru in 1999 and began experimenting with ceremonies and the use of the hallucinogenic Amazon plant, ayahuasca, with Shipibo Indian healers. Since then he has not stopped and has participated in hundreds of therapeutic sessions with indigenous people in Latin America. What does this practice bring him? “It harmonizes the creature that I am”summarizes. “DOC Ayahuasca allowed me to better manage the stress and toxic energy of city life and to put many things into perspective.”including the fear of death.

In France, let us remind you, the use of ayahuasca, which is considered a drug, is prohibited. In the Amazon, this mixture of sacred plants (which consists of the ayahuasca vine and chacruna) has always been a medicine for the soul and body. But if this practice is gaining more and more followers in the West, to the extent that it is becoming the subject of tourist itineraries, it is far from trivial and many precautions are needed to avoid sectarian excesses and dangerous practices.

Intimate immersion in his consciousness

While the Quai Branly museum offers an exhibition until May 2024 Shamanic visions, the art of ayahuasca in the Peruvian AmazonJan Kounen publishes a comic on this topic for the first time, Doctor Ayahuasca, some of which are visible in the exhibition. The director, who directed the film (blueberry) and published several books on this topic, offers comics like no other. A work with which he reconnects with his first love, drawing, daring formats and daring cutting, to better immerse us in his consciousness, during this intimate odyssey with plants sacred.

A journey dotted with traps and strong emotions, with its very highs and very lows, and above all his indescribable psychedelic visions, which he manages to restore with the splendor of details and colors. He first recalls the moment that changed his life, when after drinking a large dose of ayahuasca “wandered in limbo” then “currently found thrown into a cathedral woven from colorful anacondas and illuminated by light”. “A feeling of absolute unity flooded my body and my mind”he remembers.

But this is not a walk in the park, warns Jan Kounen, who does not hide that the initial journey can be traumatic and is not recommended for everyone. You have to have a strong heart to endure all that this shock treatment involves, aimed at clearing the mind and then bringing the body and spirit into harmony with nature. Already physically, with diets, food bans and others, as well as isolation in the jungle before ritual ceremonies. Then, you must be prepared to swallow, at night, in the hut, the blackish and bitter liquid that is the psychotropic drink of ayahuasca in order to experience modified states of consciousness, guided by the song of the shaman-healer. Generally, nausea and vomiting, especially strong, follow.

Witnessing the knowledge of indigenous peoples

However, it is in the psyche that the journey proves to be the most difficult, if Jan Kounen’s testimony is to be believed. The internal shocks are strong, to the extent that they shake the very foundations of identity. Ayahuasca acts as a revealer. “I thought I was a pretty good man… I fell from a height”he says evocatively “metaphysical vertigo”. “I am surprised and desperate to see such a petty and selfish animal as I have never seen before.” After a mental upheaval, grace can appear. “Joy open to the beauty of the world and connection with others as a superior, unique force, source.”