Christian Rätsch – Ayahuasca / "shamanism" tourist

[BrandemeerHG]

Christian Rätsch – Herbalist, Psychonaut and Friend(?) of Lacandon

Hello People

Yet another guy from Germany's big esoteric and New-Age community is the well known psychonaut and herbalist Christian Rätsch. He wrote a popular book about psychoactive herbs and mushrooms, he is present at goa partys and other events where young people seeking for drug experiences.

In his biography he claimed to have lived 3 Years in a Lacandon Native Community in Chiapas Mexico. They taught him shamanism and spells: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_R%C3%A4tsch

He wrote a book about this: https://www.amazon.de/Vom-Forscher-auszog-Zaubern-lernen/dp/3440112403/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=C2G5JKBV6S2HZB1QGAAJ

An article about some of his Lacandon experiences in german: http://www.christian-raetsch.de/Artikel/Artikel/Partnerschaft-im-Regenwald.html

English Translation: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.christian-raetsch.de%2FArtikel%2FArtikel%2FPartnerschaft-im-Regenwald.html&edit-text=

And a book about "Indian Healing Herbs": https://www.amazon.de/Indianische-Heilkr%C3%A4uter-Tradition-Anwendung-Pflanzenlexikon/dp/3424009210

He is selling Rituals: http://www.christian-raetsch.de/

About Drug Experiences (English Subtitles can be activated): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx6vTH4EeZc (He said that he lived some months in a Native Community in this Video 4:10)

On a Goa Party: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOLa0cU_5dU

In German Government TV ZDF to promote legalisation of all kind of drugs (German only) (19:25): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHKc7L3v4O4

He also promotes the idea of Shamanism as root of European cultures in this video (German only): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTejPvoGrfg

He says that he and his girlfriend are working since 30 years together with Shamans in Nepal, Shamanism was present in European Stone Age, Germanic and Celtic Tribes. He says that Ayahuasca can bring somebody healing visions, everybody can make shamanic experiences, but that makes nobody shaman.

Any information, if he ever had been in a  Lacandon Native Community?

[Defend the Sacred]

I know there's a language barrier here, but please don't just post statements like, "They taught him shamanism and spells" about Indigenous people unless you know for a fact, from those exact Indigenous people, that these statements are true. Because they are almost always lies.

Please don't say these spiritual tourists are "friends" of the cultures they exploit, even with a question mark.

Every single person you've asked us about so far has been some kind of grotesque, grandiose confabulator when it comes to these claims, making outrageous exaggerations and mistranslations/misinterpretations at best, or, in most cases, totally offensive and blatant fabrications about Indigenous people.

Spiritual tourism is very common with these frauds. They exploit people. It's ugly. They hop a plane and take some drugs and take a photo with a random brown person then they say whatever they want. And no, Celtic Shamanism didn't and doesn't exist. There were and are spiritual traditions but it's not like the Harner shameon stuff that these people sell. It's what white appropriators of Native ways say when they know nothing about Celtic cultures, either, and they're hoping the other white people are as ignorant about those ways as they are about Natives.

Like we've said in other threads - it doesn't matter if he met someone, or if he stalked some people in a community, or even if he paid for some drug trips. That doesn't mean anything. Natives don't exist to give white exploiters cultural or ceremonial secrets. Drug tourism is very popular and, sadly, some people who desperately need (or just want) the money have fallen into providing that for the tourists. That's why the medicines are endangered and the traditional people are desperately worried what is going to happen to their ways due to this exploitation. It's horrible. See all the threads we have on this. What's different about this guy?

[Defend the Sacred]

I changed the title of the thread. It was "Christian Rätsch – Herbalist, Psychonaut and Friend(?) of Lacandon"

[Sparks]

There are some mentions of Christian Rätsch already in this forum, e.g. this, some four years ago:

Dr. Christian Rätsch calls himself an ,,ethno-botanist", he is an anthropologist who went to Latin America and got into contact with – errm: substances. He propagates all kinds of drugs and comes across as having had one kick too many from at least one of those drugs... - cf: http://www.christian-raetsch.de/fotos/fotoarchiv-christian-raetsch_files/page12-1000-full.html , http://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/ratsch_christian/ , or here giving a lecture on ,,The correct dose": http://vimeo.com/9742405  .

[Sparks]

There is a lengthy discussion (30 replies so far) of Christian Rätsch in this German SMF forum:

https://forum.psiram.com/index.php?topic=14935.30 [Christian Rätsch]

One criticism against Rätsch there is that he cooperates with quack herbalist Wolf Dieter Storl. I found this mentioned in the NAFPS topic Wolf Dieter Storl - German newager, exploiter of dead Cheyenne people, herbalist:

He is also a Friend of Christian Rätsch, who is "flirting" with Ayahuasca Ceremonies:

http://www.christian-raetsch.de/Artikel/Artikel/Ayahuasca.html

Translated in English: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.christian-raetsch.de%2FArtikel%2FArtikel%2FAyahuasca.html

Rätsch seems to be in Connection with Other people:

http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=574.msg2715#msg2715

http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=2496.msg35360#msg35360

Picture with Wolf Dieter Storl: http://www.christian-raetsch.de/feedback-zu-seminaren/  Picture: Windischgarsten, 20.-24. Juli 2016

The relevant content of that second link to NAFPS is quoted in my previous post here.