‘People pay to be told lies’: the rise and fall of the world’s first ayahuasca multinational

‘People pay to be told lies’: the rise and fall of the world’s first ayahuasca multinational

Alberto Varela claimed he wanted to use sacred plant medicine to free people’s minds. But as the organisation grew, his followers discovered a darker realityThe first time Dalia* took ayahuasca nothing happened. The second time it changed her life. It was 2017, and she had joined a dozen strangers in a chalet outside Barcelona. Everyone was searching for something. For many it was a way out of misery: an escape from years of addiction, or a last…