For the record,

In the past I thought that surely at some point I would have to try the ayahuasca plant myself, but at some point the penny dropped for me regarding the strong idolatrous elements that traditionally accompany its use. First, the “spirituality” that the shamans cultivate is never connected to any kind of pure monotheism, but always to things like the “spirit of the world,” spirits attached to particular things within the world such as animals or symbolic representations, or just plain pantheism (which is idolatry par excellence—worship and spiritual attachment to the created thing instead of the Creator), and the like. None of these are meant to lead to the worship of God.

Second, notice what they engrave on their hands. The Holy One, blessed be He, says about the Jewish people, “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands” (Isaiah 49), and the prophet says that in the future, “This one will say, ‘I am the Lord’s,’ and that one will call himself by the name of Jacob, and that one will write on his hand, ‘The Lord’s’” etc. (ibid., 44). But in contrast:

“Then I saw its full size—it was a giant snake that filled the whole room and shone in every color. Later, when I searched online, I discovered that it was a rainbow boa, and I knew that it had given me its protection, forever. It told me that it wanted me to draw it on myself, so I got this tattoo.” (From the material brought in the third link above.)

The One who gives protection to His people is the Holy One, blessed be He, not snakes (or spirits that take form—or supposedly take form—in snakes). Shamans like talking with spirits, and many of those who experiment with this speak of experiencing conversations with the spirits of the dead, and the Torah warns against this:

“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to do according to the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you one who passes his son or daughter through fire, one who practices divination, an augur, an enchanter, a sorcerer, one who casts spells, one who consults a ghost or a familiar spirit, or one who inquires of the dead. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God is dispossessing them before you. You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God. For these nations, whom you are about to dispossess, listen to augurs and diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not given you so to do.” (Deuteronomy 18)

More power to you. Since the negative experience with the Tree of Knowledge was quite possibly an experience involving hallucinogenic plants (hence the talking snake), one can certainly read the narrator of the story as opposing this kind of idolatrous use. But one should not forget that the visions of the prophets also abound in vivid imagery drawn from objects in this world, and never in the form of abstract philosophical contemplation—so this requires a great deal of analysis. Someone who lives his life without experience in meditation and mind-altering drugs undoubtedly loses the ability to discuss this area, whose entire force lies in actual experience.

Read: the message of the story. (This comes from parallels to descriptions of the birth of religions as bound up with hallucinogenic drugs—thus in the Upanishads, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and in many ancient texts.) I do not mean that this is what actually happened in the Garden of Eden—which is interpreted as a parable—but only this: the imagery in the story may teach that the text did not entirely ignore the arsenal of images common in the ancient East, including those dealing with mind-altering plants. That is to say, whatever the lesson of the Tree of Knowledge may be, it is built on a parable that speaks about drugs.

Can these things really be compared?

The visions of the prophets come with clear knowledge of their divine source (not pagan/New Age nonsense), and from them rises a message with a sharp moral demand: “Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious house”—though they always leave room for hope and return to God. Within that framework it is impossible for subjugation of the soul to God to be replaced by a spirit embodied in a snake or any other spirit whatsoever (as in the quote above: “I knew that it had given me its protection, forever”).

Prophecy can certainly indicate abstract matters, as in the rebuke, “To whom then will you liken Me, that I should be equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these?” Isaiah says there throughout the chapter: do not enslave yourselves to symbols from within the world, because the cause of the world cannot be represented. The same applies to messages meant to be attached to the body, like the unity of God in the verse “Hear O Israel” in tefillin, as opposed to tattoos symbolizing subjugation to a snake, in the style of “It told me that it wanted me to draw it on myself, so I got this tattoo.” (Why do you think the commandment was stated: “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, nor incise any tattoo marks on yourselves”?) Speak with the guides themselves, the shamans, and they can tell you at length about covenants they made with figures from the spirit world and things of that sort. These are not people one ought to learn from.

The prophets of Israel would no doubt have spoken out against the visions of ayahuasca users as deceit and falsehood, in the vein of: “Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing,” etc. It cannot be that a person desecrates the Sabbath, lives a life of betrayal and promiscuity in the stumbling block of his sin, and still comes to seek God: “Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces—should I indeed let Myself be inquired of by them?” (Ezekiel 14). Prophecy has not returned in our day, and there is no prophet acting on God’s mission among the people. When it returns, we will apply the criterion of refutation from Deuteronomy 18 according to the commandment (Maimonides, Foundations of the Torah 10), just as in Moses’ first mission: “So that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”

Why assume that mind-altering substances are not real? Maybe what people see through them really is something real relating to higher spiritual worlds. Like visions.
And if so, your whole argument becomes very difficult.

The criticism I presented does not depend on the question of whether the visions represent real things or false ones. If they are real things, then the worship is not only present in the motivation; it also has an object in reality, and that is even more severe.