Will Smith Drank Ayahuasca 14 Times for a “First Tiny Taste of Freedom”
The actor speaks out about his journeys with plant medicine in his new memoir
More and more celebrities are stepping out of the psychedelic closet.
Seth Rogan spoke about how magic mushrooms helped him “make real-life decisions”. Kristen Bell used them to treat her depression. Sting reported that the meaning of the world cracked open when he drank peyote. Lamar Odom produced an entire documentary about healing his addiction with iboga. Mike Tyson credits a 5-meo-DMT journey for his return to boxing.
The list is rapidly expanding.
Will Smith is the latest ambassador for psychedelic medicine.
In a GQ interview in September, he first teased his experience with the psychedelic brew ayahuasca. Now, his recently published memoir co-written by Mark Manson dives in deeper. Smith shares his truth and talks about how the psychedelic brew has helped him navigate his marital crisis.
Will Smith Embarked On A Self-Discovery Journey After His Temporary Split from Wife Jada
The pair had split up in 2011 after a big fight following Jada’s 40th birthday.
Will had organized a 3-day birthday extravaganza. It included a lavish dinner, a documentary about his wife’s family, custom portraits, and a live Mary J. Blige performance.
But Jada wasn’t having it.
She told Will that the party was “the most disgusting display of ego I have ever seen in my life”. She asked him to cancel all remaining plans.
When the couple agreed that they needed time apart, Will Smith went on a solo spiritual journey.
He went to Trinidad and spent 14 days in solitude in a house in Utah. He consulted with relationship and tantra expert Michaela Boehm.
He also traveled to Peru to drink Ayahuasca. Which he subsequently did 14 times over the following two years.
Ayahuasca Helped Will Smith Purge “a Lifetime of Insecurities, Self-doubt, and Inadequacies”
A lesson in surrender
It was Will Smith’s practice of surrender, a key theme in his book, which led him to Ayahuasca.
As he reflects in his book:
“Surrender transformed from a weakness word to an infinite power concept. I had had a bias toward action — thrusting, pushing, striving, struggling, doing — and I began to realize that their opposites were equally as powerful — inaction, receptiveness, acceptance, non-resistance, being. Stopping was equally as powerful as going; resting was equally as powerful as training; silence was equally as powerful as talking. Letting go was equally as powerful as grasping. ‘Surrender’ to me no longer meant defeat — it was now an equally powerful tool of manifestation.”
Surrender is also a common theme in psychedelic journeys. So when a friend suggested he drink the psychedelic brew, Will took the plunge.
In one of his first journeys, he experienced “his first tiny taste of freedom”. He writes, “in my fifty-plus years on this planet, this is the unparalleled greatest feeling I’ve ever had.”
“Mother Ayahuasca” teaches self-love
During 8 of his 14 journeys, Will describes connecting with “Mother Ayahuasca”, the feminine presence commonly experienced by journeyers:
“She is everything: lover, teacher, mother, protector, guide. She is all I’ve ever dreamed of, and everything I’ve ever wanted. I can tell she knows everything I need to know and how to get everywhere I want to go. She is my goal, my solution, my answer. She is the top of the mountain, and the sky beyond.”
When he asks Mother Ayahuasca where he was, she laughed and told him, “This is not a place, silly. It’s you.” “Wait a minute. All this is me? I’m this beautiful?”, he asked. “Of course you are.”
I had a strikingly similar conversation with Ayahuasca once. I asked her if I deserved all this beauty and love. “Of course, you do. All of you”, she responded.
Will concluded his encounters with Ayahuasca with a life-changing insight:
“If I’m this beautiful, I don’t need #1 movies to feel good about myself. If I’m this beautiful, I don’t need hit records to feel worthy of love. If I’m this beautiful, I don’t need Jada or anyone else to validate me.”
Learning to listen
In another journey, the medicine instructed Will to stop talking for hours on end. She was referring to his incessant inner chatter. A condition we’re all familiar with.
When it finally ceased, it was euphoric. “Mother let me bathe in the peace of my inner quietude for about 40 minutes. Then, without words, she conveyed why I needed to stop talking”, he writes.
From that experience, Smith took away another critical lesson:
“Minimizing my talking became my practice for maximizing my awareness. I had always seen the world as my battlefield; I now understood that the true combat zone was my mind.”
Not all of Will’s journeys were as pleasant, however. He acknowledges that “three of the times that she did not appear were among the most hellish psychological experiences I’ve ever endured.”
Anyone who has ever journeyed with Ayahuasca can relate. The medicine can be beautiful, but it can also be forceful and violent. She once put me into a six-hour death loop.
Why Celebrities Speaking Out About Their Psychedelic Healing Is So Critical
Psychedelics are a unique modality to experience a universal spiritual truth that’s hard to conceptualize for humans. In philosopher Alan Watts’ words, “you are the universe experiencing itself.”
No amount of contemplation can lead you to this truth because it has to be experienced. Psychedelics aren’t the only way to experience it, but they’re the most effective and fastest way. They’re the rocketship to unity consciousness.
Most will never experience it, however, because they still believe psychedelics are dangerous, addictive drugs. The aftermath of Nixon‘s War on Drugs propaganda is long-lasting and only slowly chipping away.
What will convince the masses won’t be another clinical study but deeply personal stories, such as the Will Smith’s. That’s why intimate accounts of the journey inward like his are massively helpful to the psychedelic movement.
The actor writes that he “struggled with the decision of whether to even share his journey with ayahuasca in this book “.
Luckily, he decided to do so “because it’s the truth of his experience.”
May we all find our truth and have the courage to speak openly about it.
Whether you’re a world star and Oscar-nominee or just another regular person whose life was transformed by psychedelic medicine.
Ready to transform your well-being, explore consciousness and infuse meaning into your life? Join The Journey, a free weekly newsletter for psychonauts traveling inward through intentional psychedelic journeys.
