Well, Ayahuasca (with DMT as the active ingredient) retreats seem more and more common and are for some reasons tolerated more and more in europe. Technically it is illegal, but I can still book them online.
But I won't, as I don't trust the competence of the average new age "shaman".
Ayahuasca trips seem to be like edging with poison. But maybe the documentary I saw was biased.
Seems like it.
I did it one time and there was no vomitting and feeling great the day after.
But that maybe was, because the plant that was used was apparently not so strong. So yes, it is from natural plants, that can have very different concentrations. I suppose this is what the documentary means with life threatening poisening? Getting a plant that had a unusual high concentration?
But I never heard of those horror stories from people who do it regulary. (Vomitting is quite normal, though) Otherwise I have limited knowledge in that area, but I do know with mushrooms for example, you can use different ones of the same species to mix them to average out concentration differences. I assume the same can be done with Ayuahasca. But like I said, I would not recommend the commercial retreats anyway.
(I did it when I was invited into a ceremony in a remote place by people who were not frauds)
Also the vast majority of people are done purging within a few hours...not "days"
(Source: work at retreat center and have drank hundreds of times)
No, not much. But plenty of new age shamans, who are spiritual, because they flew into the Amazonas once.
"My perspective is that the substance you drink is only one part of it"
Definitely. When I did it with brasilian Santo Deime folks, I was part of the whole ceremony, including cooking it traditionally for a long, long time and preparing mentally for it. Something like this I would like to do again at some point.