Petaluma man's son died in Peru trying 'to further open his mind'
Published: Saturday, September 15, 2012 at 1:11 p.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, September 15, 2012 at 1:11 p.m.
Kyle Josef Nolan and his parents knew exactly why the 18-year-old
Sebastopol man traveled to a retreat center in the Peruvian jungle: to
participate in an “ayahuasca ritual,” ingesting a psychoactive
concoction used by Amazonian people for centuries and popular with
westerners, including the musician Sting.
But the 10-day program at
the Shimbre Shamanic Center went tragically wrong, and the operator, a
shaman named Jose Manuel Pineda Vargas, attempted to cover up Nolan's
death and lied to his mother when she first arrived in Peru, according
to Sean Nolan of Petaluma, Kyle's father.
Peruvian
National Police said they arrested Pineda, 58, who called himself
“Master Mancoluto,” and two men who allegedly helped bury Nolan's body
on the shamanic center's property outside the city of Puerto Maldonado
in southeastern Peru near the Bolivian border.
A YouTube video depicts Pineda leading authorities to the spot where Nolan's body was unearthed.
Ingeborg
Oswald of Sebastopol, Nolan's mother, and his sister, Marion Nolan,
were in Peru Friday waiting to bring Nolan's body home and also obtain
official reports on his death, Sean Nolan said.
“This
is what he wanted to do,” Sean Nolan said. “This was not to be a
vacation for him, but rather an experience to further open his mind.”
Nolan,
a 2011 graduate from Analy High School, had taken a year off from
school and worked odd jobs to save money for the trip to Peru and the
shamanic retreat, where ayahuasca is the “centerpiece” of a 10-day
program, Sean Nolan said.
“It does have inherent risks,” he said.
Sean
Nolan said he was concerned about his son's use of ayahuasca, a
psychoactive brew widely used by indigenous Amazonian people that
contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a psychedelic substance that is
illegal in the United States.
