Rebekah Senanayake
PhD (C), MSc, BSc (First-class Honours)
Anthropologist & Cultural Psychologist
Founder and Lead Researcher, Inner Visions
Fellow International, The Explorers ClubAt age ten, I heard about the Amazon rainforest for the first time. Bright eyed and brimming with childlike curiosity, I dreamed of the rich greens of the jungle, the wildlife, the winding rivers, the flora and fauna, and I knew that someday I wanted to visit the heart of the Earth. Little did I know that the plants were summoning me by planting the seeds in my young mind. This inception was something I would only come to understand ten years later, when I visited the jungle for the first time. What began as a child’s dream turned into a decade-long immersion in Amazonian traditional knowledge, intensive and rigorous rituals with the great masters of the jungle and some of the strongest psychoactive plants known to human-kind over 27 months of intensive field experience.
Over the years, I have learned the foundations of the Amazonian traditional knowledge system starting with tobacco, ayahuasca, and the other master plants of the jungle. Through participation in numerous ceremonies, I have observed and practiced how the ritual technologies of sound (icaros) and spatial construction merge together to create secure ritual containers within which profound plant intelligence can be accessed through an altered state of consciousness.
As my apprenticeship deepened, I started to do more rigorous dieta protocols. During these periods I ate no salt, no sugar, no spices, no oils, no alcohol, remained in isolation, and adhered to behaviour protocols whilst consuming some of the strongest plants of the Amazon morning and night. Living without electricity, running water, or walls, there was just a mosquito net between myself and the jungle. In many ways, I realised that my life had been preparation for this moment as I had begun wilderness survival training from age 14 – applying many of these skills to my life in the rainforest. With the plants roaring through my body, the jungle started to speak to me with that same curiosity that inspired the child many years ago.
In 2019, I was invited to pursue a formal apprenticeship with a leading maestro in the Upper Amazon, and in doing so became his first female student. The desire to apprentice neither came from the maestro nor myself. In a shared vision, we both saw me pursuing a more serious path with the plants. By him inviting me to break the rules and become his first female student, and me accepting, we both listened to a call that came from outside the humans – the plants had made their choice and we were mere actors in their plan.
With Sri Lankan origins, but Western education, I am constantly reflecting on how these two worlds work. Being an outsider from the West has allowed me to critically observe dominant Western assumptions, and my Sri Lankan roots have given me the spiritual container within which the depth and complexities of these practices can process. Because of my cultural background, I did not enter the Amazon with a top-down rationalist approach, rather I sought to understand this world from the bottom up – and to learn from the expert ritual practitioners and plants who held the keys to the jungle. My presence in the jungle brought one ancient culture into conversation with another.
My apprenticeship aligned with undertaking more advanced study at university. I recently defended my PhD dissertation on interspecies communication in Amazonian traditional knowledge (100,000 words). I have a Master of Science in Cross-cultural Psychology where I researched ego-dissolution and classical psychedelics. I also have a Bachelor of Science with First-Class Honours.
From the plants and intensive ritual practices, I have learned that excellence is not just held in one domain. Rather, it is a way of being that we are invited to step into – with the correct tools, expertise, and guidance. Integrating these lessons from the plants has resulted in becoming an ultra-endurance athlete training for Ironman distances, an advanced weightlifter, and 400 hours in sensory deprivation tanks. I have spent years deliberately training my body and mind for extreme environments to learn grit and resilience required to push the boundaries of consciousness to reach the next horizon. I have been recognised as a Fellow International of The Explorers Club – a legacy home to the exploration giants making the impossible possible, for my contributions to scientific discovery.
Aside from my time in the Amazon rainforest, I have spent extensive time near the Himalayas in India – learning yogic philosophy, ritual practices, and meditation, from the great saddhus and babas. These practices strongly influence my navigation of altered states of consciousness, and the work I produce today.
For those called to this work, I offer: research, strategy, and ceremony.