The ayahuasca shamanic ritual has been adopted, adapted, and reinvented in urban and cosmopolitan contexts in different countries of the world, a process largely influenced by New Age-type beliefs and practices. One of the local versions of this phenomenon is known in Colombia as tomas de yaje, where nonindigenous, urban middle and upper classes seek traditional alterity and spiritual inspiration. The empirical research that gave rise to this article is mainly based on ethnographic observations and interviews, focusing on the ways in which this form of shamanism is interpreted and, more specifically, inquiring about the uses and meanings of the concept of spirituality in the narratives of the people who attend these ayahuasca rituals. The results are discussed in the light of theories on subjectivities and religiosities in modernity, a theoretical framework that contributes to a better understanding of the sociocultural foundations and the implications of this spiritualization of shamanism. The article concludes that the "subjective turn" of late modernity is a key factor in understanding the ritual's recent appraisal, paradoxically, as a vehicle for the diffusion of individualistic values.
