Amped Status's List: Drugs

"Today’s meth is far more potent than earlier versions, but because it isn’t an opioid, many federal addiction treatment funds can’t be used to fight it."

"The societal costs associated with children’s exposure to opioids could total $400 billion by 2030, a new report from the United Hospital Fund estimates.

An estimated 2.2 million children across the United States have felt the impact of the opioid epidemic, exposures that could result in billions of dollars in health care costs and other ongoing expenses through adulthood, according to new research.

Children are most frequently affected through parents’ use of opioids, with 1.4 million children living with a parent with an opioid use disorder in 2017, according to a report released last month by the United Hospital Fund, a New York-based nonprofit. Additionally, about 325,000 children have been removed from their homes due to an opioid-related issue and another 170,000 children have used or abused opioids.

Individuals affected by the opioid crisis as children are more likely to incur higher expenses for things like healthcare or their own drug treatment, the report states. The societal costs associated with more than 2 million children being exposed to some aspects of opioids could total $180 billion, including long-term expenses that accrue through adulthood, the report said. Those projected costs include spending on the criminal justice system, drug and alcohol-related treatment and health care.

If current trends continue, the report estimates that the number of children who have an opioid use disorder or live with a parent with a disorder could reach 4.3 million by 2030. The cumulative lifetime costs of the “ripple effect” from additional spending could reach $400 billion, the report states.

Just as the opioid epidemic has taken a stronger hold in some states than others, children have not been evenly affected across the United States either.

West Virginia has long had the highest rate of fatal drug overdoses in the country. Not surprising, given the opioid epidemic’s outsize impact on the rural state, it also had the highest rate of impact among children. An estimated 22,000 children have been affected by the opioid epidemic in West Virginia, or 54 out of every 1,000 children in the state.

The opioid epidemic has already been blamed for an increasing number of children in the state’s foster care system, an amount that has doubled from 10 years ago. An estimated 6,900 children are in state care, and more than 80% are believed to have been impacted by the opioid epidemic.

Other states where the opioid epidemic’s impacts on children are being acutely felt include New Hampshire, Vermont, Kentucky, and Delaware, which each saw more than 40 children per 1,000 affected by opioids. The total projected societal costs in those five states could top $17 billion by 2030, according to the report.

Nationally, 28 out of 1,000 children felt the opioid crisis.

The report recommends several strategies for reducing some of the costs associated with the care of children affected by the opioid epidemic. Local leaders can work to coordinate responses among health care providers, law enforcement, child welfare agencies, and schools, “so families struggling with substance use disorder receive a ‘no-wrong-door’ approach to evidence-based services.” Further, leaders can create protocols to make sure children on the scene of parental overdoses or other traumatic events get assistance. Providing aid for foster parents or other caregivers to support children who are exposed to trauma through the opioid epidemic, and increasing the availability of family-based mental health services can also be beneficial, the report said.

"The human mind has an incredible capacity for adaptation and evolution. The new skills we can learn, the memories we can hold on to and let go, the trauma we can process and heal from… Sometimes it seems as if there’s no limit to our cognitive potential.

Research into psychedelics is confirming what we already thought was true; the psychedelic experience can catalyze profound personal transformation.

We can see signs of this transformation in the brain – the resetting of the Default Mode Network, and the growth of new neurons, are two examples.

Another scientific area that’s linked to transformative experiences is neuroplasticity. Interestingly, there’s some evidence that psychedelics could help to boost neuroplasticity in our brains, potentially helping us adapt and make positive changes in our lives.

What Is Neuroplasticity?
Neuroplasticity is the ability of neurons (brain cells) to change their characteristics during your life. This can be affected by inputs from your emotions, behaviors, experiences and even thoughts.

Neurons work by making connections with other neurons by transmitting an electrical or chemical signal. The location and strength of these connections can be linked to our cognition – the way we think. For example, in people suffering from depression or stress-related conditions, often they will have fewer connections, or fewer overall neurons, in specific parts of the brain."...

There’s also evidence that neuroplasticity could help treat depressive symptoms, or anxiety. People suffering from depression often have fewer cells in their hippocampus, alongside many other signs of reduced neuroplasticity (for a review, see Duman et al, 2016).

Boosting neuroplasticity could therefore potentially help fight depressive symptoms. We know that most common antidepressants increase neuroplasticity. Ketamine, a synthetic psychedelic that can increase neuroplasticity, has also been recently shown to have amazing antidepressant properties (Aleksandrova et al, 2017).

How Can You Boost Your Neuroplasticity?
Science is showing there are a number of lifestyle changes you can make to boost your neuroplasticity, and they probably won’t surprise you...

Exercising, especially in mid-to-late adulthood, has been shown to boost the levels of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) in the brain, which is known to be involved in neuroplasticity (Erickson et al, 2012). This study also found that exercise could improve memory function, possibly related to an increase in neuroplasticity in the hippocampus....

Meditation has been shown to have a large number of physical and emotional benefits, and now scientists are starting to think it might also be connected to neuroplasticity. Experienced meditators have been shown to have more neurons in certain parts of their brains, potentially related to better regulation of emotions (Vestergaard-Poulsen et al, 2009). This increase in the number of neurons can happen even after a few weeks of meditation practice, and occurs in important brain areas such as the hippocampus (Hölzel et al, 2011).

Several diet factors are also apparently important in neurogenesis. High-sugar, high-fat diets in rodents have been shown to negatively affect neurogenesis (Reichelt et al, 2019). More evidence in rodents shows that walnut- and blueberry-rich diets could both improve neuroplasticity in the hippocampus, and potentially improve memory (An et al, 2017; Carey et al, 2019)

Aside from diet, meditation, and exercise, there’s another way you can potentially boost your neuroplasticity… And all it could take is a guided psychedelic experience.

Could Psychedelics Affect Neuroplasticity?
There is a growing body of evidence that psychedelics have the capacity to boost neuroplasticity in the human brain.

One study, led by Calvin Ly at the University of California in 2018, showed that the psychedelics LSD and DMT could help rat neurons grow more branching connections; an important form of neuroplasticity.

In another, led by Briony Catlow at Johns Hopkins University in 2013, low doses of psilocybin (0.1mg/kg) slightly increased the number of new cells growing in the hippocampus of mice, while high doses (1mg/kg) greatly reduced neurogenesis. This shows how important psilocybin is in neuroplasticity, even if we don’t yet understand all the nuances.

Another recent study, led by Jose Morales-Garcia in Madrid in 2017, grew mouse brain cells in the lab. When the cells were grown with harmine, tetrahydroharmine (THH), and harmaline (three of the major components of the psychedelic brew ayahuasca), the cells grew bigger, and looked like healthier neurons.


Psychedelics Change The Organization Of The Brain
Finally, there is ample evidence that psychedelics can change the way the neurons of the brain make connections to each other.

Psilocybin has been shown to increase the amount of entropy in the brain (Tagliazucchi et al, 2014). In other words, psilocybin allows neurons to work through connections that it normally doesn’t use. The brain becomes more flexible, and more unique. We make associations we normally wouldn’t make, becoming more creative. We discover completely new ways of thinking about the world and ourselves....

Psilocybin has also been shown to have the power to “reset” the typical control structures of our brains. The DMN, or Default Mode Network, is a system in the brain that helps keep you focused on tasks. However, it can be overactive, especially in people with depression. Psilocybin has been shown to shut down the DMN, and “reset” it into a more healthy configuration (Carhart-Harris et al, 2017).

Ultimately, psychedelics like psilocybin clearly have wide-ranging and profound effects on the way our neurons communicate and grow.

Want To Transform Your Neuroplasticity?
This all adds up to one clear message: Neuroplasticity can improve your mind in several ways, and the psychedelic experience can boost your neuroplasticity.

The Synthesis retreat is designed to maximize the beneficial effects of the psychedelic experience, by providing an environment where you can explore your potential for change.

The number of heroin deaths rose 23% to 12,989, more than gun homicides

Fentanyl - a synthetic opiate - claimed 16,000 lives, equivalent to 44 per day

majority of those killed are ordinary people in smalltown America....

More than 50,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last year, the highest figure ever.

The tally has been pushed to new heights by soaring abuse of heroin and prescription painkillers, especially fentanyl.

Heroin deaths rose 23 per cent in a year, to 12,989, slightly higher than the number of gun homicides, according to government data released yesterday.

The total number of gun deaths - which included suicides and accidents - rose seven per cent to 36,252.

"Unsuccessfully treated posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a serious and life-threatening disorder. Two medications, paroxetine hydrochloride and sertraline hydrochloride, are approved treatments for PTSD by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Analyses of pharmacotherapies for PTSD found only small to moderate effects when compared with placebo. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) obtained Breakthrough Therapy Designation (BTD) from the FDA for 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted psychotherapy for treatment of PTSD on the basis of pooled analyses showing a large effect size for this treatment. This review covers data supporting BTD. In this treatment, MDMA is administered with psychotherapy in up to three monthly 8-h sessions. Participants are prepared for these sessions beforehand, and process material arising from the sessions in follow-up integrative psychotherapy sessions. Comparing data used for the approval of paroxetine and sertraline and pooled data from Phase 2 studies, MAPS demonstrated that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy constitutes a substantial improvement over available pharmacotherapies in terms of safety and efficacy. Studies of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy had lower dropout rates compared to sertraline and paroxetine trials. As MDMA is only administered under direct observation during a limited number of sessions, there is little chance of diversion, accidental or intentional overdose, or withdrawal symptoms upon discontinuation. BTD status has expedited the development of MAPS phase 3 trials occurring worldwide, leading up to a planned submission seeking FDA approval in 2021."

"What is the psychedelic experience? Aldous Huxley believed it was the fundamental craving of the human spirit. A desire to turn off the survival biased filter of perception just for a moment... and catch a glimpse beyond the bars of our cognitive prison.

The psychedelic experience does not require drugs. Religious history and spiritual traditions are built upon these sublime moments. Messiahs hear the voice of God after a 40 day fast. Holy men, having isolated themselves in a cave, suddenly emerge with visionary truth.

But to indulge in a 40 day fast to reach this heightened state is like burning your house down to bake a loaf of bread. One hour in a salt-water isolation tank quiets the noise of sensation until awareness becomes the mirror that reveals you to yourself. A single session of holotropic breathing restricts our mental chatter long enough to plunge you into the zero-state of visionary Inspiration. Then there are the earth movers... The plant medicines at the core of many religious sacraments, which according to Graham Hancock were integral to inspiring the earliest known art in caves throughout Europe.

These plants are technologies. In a recent placebo controlled study completed by Johns Hopkins university 18 healthy adults were given Psilocybin, the active ingredient in ‘magic’ mushrooms. Fourteen months after participating in the study, 94% of those who received the drug said the experiment was one of their top five most positive experiences; 40% said it was the single most meaningful experience of their life.

Ayahuasca, long called the Master Medicine by the healers of the rainforest, offers an experience with the most visually powerful and mysterious of all molecules endogenous to life, DiMethyltryptamine.

Iboga, the root of an African shrub, confronts you with the voice of your own inner truth for 24 waking hours and is being used to treat Heroin addiction with relapse rates reported at a shockingly low 7%.

Why doesn’t the world embrace these technologies? Terrence Mckenna has an answer, “It takes courage to take psychedelics – real courage. Your stomach clenches, your palms grow damp, because you realise this is real – this is going to work. Not in 12 years, not in 20 years, but in an hour!"

What can the Psychedelic Experience be?
The cloth that wipes clean our lens of perception,
The compass that points true north to our life’s calling,
The lantern in the catacombs of our subconscious,
The sword stroke that unfetters the muse,
The sunlight that dispels the shadows of our past
Or simply a respite of eternity, in the fast flowing river of time.

I’ve been to the other side, stared unflinching into the eyes of my eternal soul and seen a matrix of a thousand possible destinies. I’ve witnessed the span of our current universe contained in an unceasing heartbeat, each world a single bloodcell and each contraction a new existence for life itself. I’ve learned of humility on the back of a dragon, felt the terminal extreme of heaven and hell in the marrow of my bones, died and been reborn anew. What will your psychedelic experience be?

Courage to you all.

*Special thanks to Marija of Not This Body for making this vision come to life, Cory Allen for help with sound, to Jason Silva for inspiring the genre, and to all the teachers, shamans, and the spirit of the very plants themselves that have guided me along this path."

"Mitch Schultz, director of DMT: The Spirit Molecule, invites you to join this 45 minute excursion deep into the heart of the Peruvian rainforest to experience the magic of the 3000 year old plant medicine: Huachuma. Distilled in the lost tradition from the San Pedro cactus by the last master Huachumero, Don Howard Lawler, Huachuma was the sacrament that formed the foundation for pre-Incan civilization, the Chavin. Follow Aubrey Marcus (founder of Onnit) and a group of friends in this moving meditation that reveals the true transformative power of this sacred technology."

"You enter a lucid but dream-like state and your body feels numb. As the numbness grows, you feel like your soul is voyaging beyond your body as you experience extremes of joy and sorrow. As worldly objects glow with ethereal color, you perceive a significant underlying energy to all things, and the world and yourself in it seem to click together in one huge, expansive understanding.

This is typical of an experience with huachuma, a psychedelic substance extracted from the San Pedro cactus. While huachuma has been used by indigenous cultures of western South America for thousands of years — making it the oldest recorded psychedelic medicine — it hasn’t as enjoyed the popularity of the more famed psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin mushrooms. However, those that have experienced this powerful plant agree that it is strong medicine for whatever ails you."

"Huachuma, more commonly known as San Pedro in the western world or currently known as Echinopsis Pachanoi in the scientific literature, is a tall (up to 20 ft), light green, night blooming, nearly spineless, columnar cactus native to the Andes Mountains. In its native, habitat it grows at altitudes of 6,600 – 9,800 feet. This cactus is found in parts of Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina, but is also cultivated in neighboring countries and many other parts of the world. It is considered the most ancient and revered plant teachers amongst the shamans of Northern Peru.

In the U.S. it is legal to cultivate San Pedro for landscaping purposes, however, this is a psychotropic plant. Like other psychotropic cacti, it contains several psychoactive alkaloids the primary being 3,4,5,-Trimethoxybenzeneenthanamine or simply mescaline. Although the cactus is legal for home gardening extracting, the active constituents are illegal. Mescaline in all of its extracted forms is a Schedule 1 controlled substance. Check your local laws and use only when it is lawful to do so. Otherwise, you can travel to Peru to experience an authentic huachuma (San Pedro) ceremony.

The fact that San Pedro grows vigorously in the wild or cultivated in a home garden makes it a better choice for consumption over its slow growing and endangered cousin peyote. Like peyote, San Pedro cactus has a rich history of traditional shamanic use. Despite the two sharing mescaline as their primary active alkaloid, there are substantial differences between the other psychoactive compounds found in each of them. This results in the two having very different characteristics. When ingested, huachuma is usually described as the gentler of the two, but its effects can be felt a little bit longer than that of peyote. The effects of peyote can be felt about 10 to 12 hours while Huachuma can last between 12 to 14 hours or more depending on dosage.

San Pedro cactus has been used ceremoniously for around 3500 years by indigenous groups in Peru. The earliest known use comes from a stone carving which dates back around 1300BC. It very clearly depicts a Huachuma shaman holding a tall San Pedro cactus. The carving was found at the Jaguar temple at Chavín de Huantar in Northern Peru. This carving comes from the Chavín culture.

Another notable discovery made at the Chavín site by Peruvian archeologist Rosa Fung was cigar butts made from San Pedro cactus. This sacred cactus is seen later as a decorative motif on Peruvian ceramic traditions like the Salinar style of 400-200BC and the Nasca urns of c. 100 BC-AD 700.

Unsurprisingly, colonial oppression nearly led to the extinction of the sacred huachuma ceremonies, but as always, the tribes that used huachuma carried on in secret as directed by the plants themselves. Healing with huachuma is similar to healing with ayahuasca. It is usually facilitated by an indigenous shaman. Like ayahuasqueros, huachuma shamans utilize musical instruments such as shakers, flutes, drums and an indigenous version of a jaw harp that makes twangy or boingy sounds."

"During my time in the Amazon, I was treated with 3 different plant medicines. One of which is becoming increasingly well documented in western media: Ayahuasca. Less well known are the medicines Bobinsana and Huachuma. The latter was possibly the most transformative of all for me, however as it was the last medicine I was treated with, and I’m certain any changes were built upon foundations laid by the other plants.

It’s possible to find out more about Huachuma (or the ‘St. Pedro’ cactus as it has come to be known) through some simple online research. A lot more difficult is finding any reasonable description of what the medicine’s effects are like. I was surprised by this before taking it, but post-treatment I understood fully. It’s not something that can easily be put into words, as senses mix and thoughts collide. It is also said to be a unique experience for every individual, so all I can offer you is my human story in the ‘flow of consciousness’ style it was recorded.

Thanks to some good advice from a fellow traveller, I recorded audio notes the morning after each Huachuma Mesada (as the treatment is known). For this blog, I have added some further notes in italics to help make more sense of the adventure. The only important prior information required is that the medicine lasts around 12hrs, so we would be treated late morning then set about our carefully coordinated day. So in it’s own unique style, I give you: The Flow of Consciousness: Huachuma"

"We observed significant antidepressant effects of ayahuasca when compared with placebo at all-time points. MADRS scores were significantly lower in the ayahuasca group compared with placebo at D1 and D2 (p = 0.04), and at D7 (p < 0.0001). Between-group effect sizes increased from D1 to D7 (D1: Cohen's d = 0.84; D2: Cohen's d = 0.84; D7: Cohen's d = 1.49). Response rates were high for both groups at D1 and D2, and significantly higher in the ayahuasca group at D7 (64% v. 27%; p = 0.04). Remission rate showed a trend toward significance at D7 (36% v. 7%, p = 0.054).

Conclusions
To our knowledge, this is the first controlled trial to test a psychedelic substance in treatment-resistant depression. Overall, this study brings new evidence supporting the safety and therapeutic value of ayahuasca, dosed within an appropriate setting, to help treat depression."

"Crohn’s disease patients seeking hospitalization who use marijuana possess fewer disease-related complications as compared to matched controls, according to data published in the journal Digestive Diseases and Sciences.

A team of investigators from the John H. Stroger Hospital in Chicago, the SUNY Downstate Medical Centre in New York City, and the Digestive Disease Institute in Cleveland assessed the relationship between cannabis use and the prevalence of Crohn’s disease-related complications and clinical outcomes in a nationwide cohort of hospitalized patients.

Authors reported that patients with a history of cannabis use possessed fewer complications and experienced better clinical outcomes as compared to abstainers.

They concluded, “In summary, our study suggests that cannabis use may mitigate several of the well-described complications of Crohn’s disease among hospital inpatients and this could be due to an anti-inflammatory effect of cannabis and potential improvement in gastrointestinal mucosal healing.”

A prior observational study showed that cannabis use is associated with fewer incidences of Crohn’s disease hospitalizations, while a placebo-controlled trial reported that cannabis therapy was associated with greater rates of disease remission."

"Researchers from ICEERS found that ritualistic use of ayahuasca can be incorporated into western society with impressive benefits for public health.

The study, published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, measured the health of ayahuasca drinkers using similar methodology governments use to measure the overall public health of a community.

380 participants were surveyed face-to-face at locations in Spain where ritualistic ayahuasca ceremonies take place. Participants had engaged in anywhere from one to over 100 ceremonies prior to being questioned. They provided health indicators for factors such as positive perception of health, Body Mass Index, healthy lifestyle, and mental health. Results were then compared with the general Spanish population.

The study concluded that long-term ayahuasca use is connected to a healthier lifestyle and more health awareness.

The researchers found:

96.6% of ayahuasca drinkers stated that they had a positive perception of health
Participants who drank in 100 or more ceremonies scored highest in personal values measures
Ayahuasca drinkers had a lower BMI and less cases of high cholesterol and hypertension than the general population
Participants reported healthier lifestyles such as less sleep problems and better reading and eating habits
56% of the participants reported that ayahuasca allowed them to reduce their prescription drug use
The researchers wrote, “The main conclusion of this study is that a respectful and controlled use of hallucinogenic/psychedelic drugs taken in communitarian settings can be incorporated into modern society with benefits for public health. This new approach, based on the use of health indicators that were not used in previous ayahuasca studies, offers relevant information about the impact of long-term exposure to ayahuasca on public health.”"

"I have noticed that in general westerners are misinformed about the different types of Amazonian shamans.  This is especially true in regards to ayahuasca shamans.  It is unfortunate that this is the case because westerners who come to Peru to drink ayahuasca often do so with some expectations that may not be met if they drink with the wrong type of shaman.  In fact, in some situations, drinking with the wrong shaman can be dangerous.

This confusion is largely around the difference between “”ayahuasquero” and “curandero”.  For many westerners they are just looking for a shaman that works with ayahuasca and therefore end up drinking with an ayahuasquero.  After all, the name fits….right?  The answer is yes….and no.

An ayahuasquero is simply someone who has the ability to prepare the ayahuasca brew, set up the space for an ayahuasca ceremony, and conduct the ceremony.  Sounds good right?  Maybe…..

A major problem is that if there is healing to be done, it is largely out of the hands of the ayahuasquero shaman.  An ayahuasquero is generally not a healer, or they are a healer still in training. (Note: when I use the words “healer” or  “healing”, I am talking about healing on all levels- physical, mental, and energetic/spiritual as ayahuasca is a truly holistic medicine.)  Ayahuasqueros are relying on the medicine to provide the insights and healing.  Ayahuasqueros are not actively working with the guests energies or the medicine to maximize healing and insights.  They may notice that there is something “off” in the guest’s body or energetic body, but usually an ayahuasquero does not have the training to do anything about it.  In fact a good ayahuasquero that sees something is amiss in a guest will refer that guest to a curandero for actual healing.  Now, if you are considering drinking ayahuasca you may be thinking, “I don need any healing”.   This may be true….or not.

Sometimes people go to an ayahuasquero “just for the experience”, not for healing.  Then they go into ceremony to discover they have some very significant energies/spirits that they were unaware of and those energies need to be dealt with.  Again, if the ayahuasquero is of high integrity, he/she will refer the guest to a quality curandero.  There is a bit of a catch though.  If the energy that manifests is too powerful or overwhelming for the ayahuasquero it can be a problem.  I have heard stories of this happening.  An ayahuasquero comes across a very strong energy or spirit in a guest, they can’t deal with it, and they end up running scared out of the ceremony.  Not good for the guest in question nor the other guests in attendance.

To summarize, an ayahuascero is essentially that can run a ceremony.  They can cook the brew, set up the space, serve the ayahuasca, sing icarros, and run the ceremony.  They generally are NOT healers.

A curandero, as the name implies, cures people.  A curandero has a large toolbox to draw from as the training for a currandero is much more extensive and varied.

Curanderos do a large number of plant and tree bark dietas.  These dietas form a strong bond between the currandero and the plants dieted.  Those plants become allies, and the plants teach the curandero how to work with them during ceremony and in healing.  A curandero can call on one of his plant/tree allies to protect the guest, to bring in the medicine, and help cure a guest.

A curandero has learned to work with energies/spirits that may be in the guest.  If the spirit or energy is not useful or harmful, the curandero helps the patient learn to control that energy/spirit so that it does not cause further negative manifestations in ceremony nor in life.  It is also possible that an outside spirit may try to get into a guest during ceremony.  A curandero protects the guest from these outside spirits.  This skill of managing energies/spirits is particularly important in an ayahuasca ceremony as a person’s energies open up significantly in this space.

Finally, curranderos often have the ability to make remedies for various ailments like candida, arthritis, herpes, and in some cases cancer.  These plant remedies are administered alone or in conjunction with ayahuasca.  The idea behind the remedies is to cure the root cause of an illness vs. the western  model of just treating the symptoms.

As you can see there is a significant difference between an ayahuasquero and curandero.  Personally I think working with a currandero is a safer and better way to go.  A good curandero has much more training and a large toolbox to draw from.  Of course I am biased as the maestros I work with at La Familia Medicina  are all curanderos/ayahuasquero /vegetalistas/paleros.  Note: a curandero can also be an ayahuasquero, vegetalista,and/or palero, but not necessarily vise versa.

Below are som brief descriptions of some other types of Amazonian shamans:

Vegetalista-  a shaman that works with various plant medicines.  This can be done alone or in conjunction with ayahuasca.

Palero- a shaman that works with tree barks.  These tree barks are used in dietas alone (Puro Palo dietas), or with ayahuasca.  The trees are another source of remedies.

Tobaquero- a shaman that works with tobacco.  Tobacco is a strong medicine , a strong purgative that cleans the body out.  It can be drunk, snorted on its’ own or mixed with a brew such as ayahuasca.

Brujo/Bruja-  The literal translation for brujo is sorcerer and bruja is witch.  These people dwell on the darker side of shamanism in Peru and throughout Latin America.  A brujo is a shaman that does not necessarily act in a guests best interest, they act in their own interests.  A brujo is most interested in money and power.  There are more brujos than shamans in Peru because it is easier to become a brujo and oftentimes more profitable.  The lines between shaman and brujo can get blurry as many shamans become tempted by money and/or power.  Those shamans try to straddle both paths of love/light and power.  Unfortunately the path of power is quite seductive.

The above is by no means complete.  My main intention is to educate westerners about the difference between curranderos and ayahuasquero.  This is due to the significant and increasing interest in ayahuasca by westerners."

"Ayahuasca Visions

Excerpted from Visionary Vine: Hallucinogenic healing in the Peruvian Amazon, by Marlene Dobkin de Rios. 1972, Waveland Press

 

 

In the year that I worked in Belén, I spoke to many people about ayahuasca and its effects. Listening to scores of informants talk about their experience while taking the hallucinogen was very informative, but after a couple of months this became somewhat repetitious. The same kinds of visions kept occurring time after time, as former patients would describe jungle creatures such as boa constrictors and viperous snakes that appeared before them under ayahuasca. For the most part, after a certain confidence had been established among informants, details of illnesses suffered and their magical origin would be related as the reason for seeking a healer’s help.
Under the effects of the drug, a screen full of visions would appear to the person, often much more exciting than the occasional movie he might attend in the city. Although some claimed not to have received any visions under their particular ayahuasca experience, most did have things to relate. Both river and jungle animals would fill the mind’s eye. Many people would claim to see the person or persons who were responsible for bewitching them.
Some would report a panorama of activity, in which a person would express his innermost thoughts toward the patient, such as sexual desire, vengeance or hate, and then proceed to manufacture some medicine to throw over their threshold or perhaps slip unnoticed into a drink. Sometimes symbols would be reported, rather than panoramic action. One woman spoke of a church and a white veil that she saw in a sort of staccato vision, which represented to her how a rejected suitor wanted her to leave her husband and children to run off and get married. At times, a person would report seeing someone sneak up to their house at night to slip an evil potion across the threshold. At other times, someone might appear in a vision laughing sardonically at the man or woman whom they were causing to be bewitched. In other cases, a totally unknown man or woman would appear before a person in an ayahuasca vision. However, in all cases it was the job of the experienced ayahuasquero to interpret his patients’ visions so as to clarify the cause of their illness. Quite often, people would say that their healer, while under the effects of the drug, would tell them he saw the person responsible for their misfortune, but would not say who it was. It was left for their own drug experience to bring forth this information. Through this kind of suggestion, he patient would be brought to a pitch of expectation. It is not difficult to imagine how affective need would be expressed by a particular vision or illusion stimulated by the drug.

When an unknown person appears before a patient, it becomes the healer’s job to decide his identity. Many people, however, see members of their family or else people with whom they may be having personal difficulties appear before them, including neighbors, ex-spouses, in-laws, a rejected lover, and so on. If only part of a person is seen in profile, or a turned back or shoulder view, the healer once again is called upon to interpret this vision. The type of vision that is reported by a person may at times depend upon the rhythm of the songs the healer sings. A stacatto beat may bring forth many fleeting momentary visions, while slower songs may be used for more prolonged visionary experiences, such as the ones used to identify evildoers.

The many visions of snakes and boas reported by patients are used by healers to effect cures. It is widely believed that a snake (called in Spanish, culebra) is the mother spirit of the drug. Many herbs and medicines found in nature are believed to have protective spirits which watch over their plant’s use and are jealous guardians. Such spirits on occasion must be propitiated when their plant is cut down or removed by man from the jungle confines.

Some fishermen and hunters in Belén who regularly bring psychedelics back from the heart of the jungle to supply some of the ayahuasca healers in Iquitos leave offerings of tobacco and food under the tree when they cut off the woody vine. People often talk about the spirits of these plants as jealous guardians who must be given special attention. Ayahuasca is no exception here, and dietary prescriptions stressed again and again are justified by the jealous nature of the plant. It is for this reason that salt, sweets, and lard must be avoided by ayahuasca users for at least a twenty-four hour period preceding and following the use of the purge. At times, sexual abstinence may also be requested by the healer.

The mother spirit of ayahuasca may transform herself into an animate creature such as a princess, a queen, or any one of many different fantasy forms. This is done to find out if the person who takes the purge is strong or fearful. Strength is generally thought of in terms of self-domination, of not losing control of oneself under the effects of ayahuasca, nor screaming in fear as jungle creatures fill one’s visions. For example, a commonly reported vision is that a very large snake enters the circle around which a person is seated in the jungle or else enters a room where one is taking ayahuasca. If the patient is not frightened by this creature, the snake begins to teach the person his song.

In a good session, a certain moment will arrive when everyone who is under the effects of the drug begins to sing a series of songs at the same time as they are visited by the snake in their visions. A frightening vision is often described in which a boa enters the patient’s mouth. Often identified as the Yacumama of folklore, these boa constrictors in everyday jungle life are enough to cause horror to the most stout-hearted person. Although poisonless, such a creature measures over twenty-five feet long and one foot wide. Its force is prodigious, and people say it can eat animals of great size. If a person is able to remain cool and not panic, this is a sign that he will be cured. As the boa enters one’s body, it is a further omen to the man or woman with such expectations that he will be protected by the ayahuasca spirit. As with don Federico, many healers prepare their patients for the drug experience by discussing such common visions. Expectation among the Cholos, at least, is great that such snakes will appear before them.

In the West, when we read reports of hallucinogenic drug experiences, we don’t generally find similar kinds of visionary experience reported as we do in the rain forest. Cultural expectations connected with the use of a hallucinogen such as ayahuasca must be seen as the explanation for the recurrence of the similarity in types of visions. Although I spoke to many people who had never taken ayahuasca, most adults would comment in great detail about points of information concerning the vine, which could later be verified with healers or former patients. The presence of beliefs and expectations of these people vis-a-vis the drug’s action must be seen as influencing the similarities reported in the actual drug experience.

This occurs not only among the urban poor, but with primitive use of ayahuasca as well. One recent study of the use of the psychedelic vine among the Cashinahua Indians of Peru by Kensinger (1970), found a certain frequency of occurrence and a high degree of similarity in the content of particular hallucinations. Kensinger’s informants reported brightly colored large snakes, jaguars, and ocelots, spirits of ayahuasca, large trees often falling, lakes often filled with anacondas and alligators, traders and their goods, and gardens. All quite frequently were reported with a sense of motion. Certainly, other factors of interest to most drug researchers enter the picture here, such as the personality and past experience of the person taking the substance, the setting in which the drug is taken, the dosage level and so on. However, cultural variables must be stressed once again as a primary aspect of drug use.

When reports made my Europeans and Americans who have taken ayahuasca are compared to jungle populations, some interesting contrasts emerge. The following are some brief descriptions of experiences under ayahuasca tat Westerners, lacking a cultural tradition of drug use have described for ayahuasca or its alkaloids. My own experience with the vine has been included in these accounts.

Richard Spruce: A British botanist from Yorkshire, Spruce traveled throughout the Amazon and its tributaries from 1849 to 1864. He made extensive collections of South American flora and was the first modern investigator to identify ayahuasca in 1851, although his materials were published posthumously. Actually, the geographer Villavicencio wrote of the vine in his Geography of Ecuador, which appeared in 1858. Spruce observed the used of the liana among the Tukanoan tribes of the Uaupes River in the Brazilian Amazon. He wrote of the caapi-drinking ceremony as follows:

I had gone with the full intention of experimenting the caapi myself, but I had scarcely dispatched one cup of the nauseous beverage, which is but half the dose, when the ruler of the feast . . . came up with a woman bearing a large calabash of caxiri (mandioca beer), of which I must need take a copious draught, and as I know the mode of its preparation, it was gulped down with secret loathing. Scarcely had I accomplished this feat, when a large cigar 2 feet long and as thick as the wrist was put lighted into my hand, and etiquette demanded that I should take a few whiffs of it–I who had never in my life smoked a cigar or a pipe of tobacco. Above all this, I must drink a large cup of palm wine, and it will readily be understood that the effect of such a complex dose was a strong inclination to vomit, which was only overcome by lying down in a hammock and drinking a cup of coffee. (Cited in Schultes 1970, p. 26).

We can see from the above that Spruce did not describe very many details of his own experience, except of course, some interesting side comments on his disgust with native alcoholic intoxicants.

Michael J. Harner: An American anthropologist trained at the University of California at Berkeley, Dr. Harner is now a professor of anthropology at the New School for Social Research in New York. He went to study the Jivaro Indians of the Ecuadorian Amazon in 1956+1957. During the first year that Dr. Harner worked among the Jivaro, he didn’t appreciate the psychological impact of the natema or ayahuasca drink upon the native view of reality. The drink itself has many names in different parts of the Amazon-called yagé or yajé in Colombia, ayahuasca in Peru and parts of Ecuador, and caapi in Brazil. The Jivaro are among the best known Amazonian group to use this preparation in crossing over to the supernatural world at will to deal with the forces they believe influence and even determine the events of waking life. In 1961 Dr. Harner returned to the Ecuadorian Amazon and was able to drink the hallucinogenic brew in the course of fieldwork with another Upper Amazon Basin tribe.

For several hours after drinking the brew, Harner found himself, although awake, in a world literally beyond his wildest dreams. He met bird-headed people as well as dragon-like creatures who explained that they were the true gods of this world. He enlisted the services of other spirit helpers in attempting to fly through the far reaches of the Galaxy. He found himself transported into a trance where the supernatural seemed natural and realized that anthropologists, including himself, had profoundly underestimated the importance of the drug in affecting native ideology.

In 1964, Dr. Harner returned to the Jivaro and studied the shamanistic use of the plant. An article he published in 1968 in Natural History reproduces drawings of one Jivaro shaman, who drew figures of what he saw while under the influence of the powerful natema. Snakes, devils of the Christian religion and jaguars were some of the things he saw.

Chilean Psychiatric Patients: The Chilean psychiatrist, Claudio Naranjo, administered one of the three major alkaloids of ayahuasca, called harmaline, to a population of thirty volunteers in Santiago under controlled conditions. The reactions of these persons are interesting to examine. Physical sensations accompanied the drug experience, with a sense of numbness of the hands or feet generally present. Distortions of body image were only rarely encountered, while subjects indicated isolated physical symptoms such as pressure in the head, discomfort in the chest or enhancement of sensations such as breathing or blinking. Eighteen of the volunteers reported dizziness or general malaise, which tended to appear or disappear throughout the session.

As far as perception was concerned, rarely were distortions of forms, alterations in the sense of depth or changes in the expression of faces part of the drug’s effect. Naranjo found that with harmaline, the environment remains essentially unchanged, both in regard to its formal and aesthetic qualities. With eyes open, the most often reported phenomenon was the superposition of images on surfaces such as walls or ceiling. Or else imaginary scenes would be viewed simultaneously along with an undistorted perception of surrounding objects. Such imagery, however, was not usually taken to be “reality.” Some people described lightning-like flashes.

When the subject’s eyes were closed, colors were predominantly red-green or blue-orange contrasts. Among his middle-class urban Chilean volunteers, Naranjo reported the occurrence of certain themes such as felines, Negroes, and flying. More than half the subjects reported buzzing sounds in their heads.

When he gave his patients mescaline at a later date and compared the two sets of reports, he found that harmaline effected emotional activity less than mescaline. Thinking, too, was affected only in subtle ways, if at all. Naranjo found visions his patients concerned with religious or philosophical problems under harmaline’s effects. The typical reaction could be said to be a closed-eye contemplation of vivid imagery without further effect than wonder and interest in its significance. The psychiatrist concluded that this was quite in contrast to the ecstatic heavens or dreadful hells of other hallucinogens. Interestingly enough, although harmaline had a lesser effect on the intensity of feelings, it did cause qualitative changes in emotions. In Naranjo’s opinion, this may have accounted for the pronounced amelioration of neurotic symptoms which eight of the thirty subjects evidenced.

Desire to communicate was found to be slight under the effects of harmaline. Other persons were felt to be part of the external world and such contact was avoided. Some of Naranjo’s subjects felt that certain scenes which they saw had really happened, with their own disembodied presence bearing witness to them in a different time and place. He saw this to match the experience reported for South American shamans who take ayahuasca for purposes of divination. In further animal experimentations Naranjo did with harmaline, he found complex brain modification which permitted him to conclude that the neurophysiological picture matches that of the traditional ayahuasca dreaming often reported, in that the states he described involved lethargy, immobility, closed eyes and generalized withdrawal from the environment. At the same time there was an alertness to mental processes and an activation of fantasy.

Alien Ginsberg: The well-known poet Alien Ginsberg and the writer William S. Burroughs corresponded about the powerful psychedelic vine. Burroughs’ early letters to Ginsberg in 1951 described his picaresque search for the mind-expanding drug, known in Colombia as yagé. Some seven years later, Ginsberg wrote to Burroughs about his own experience with ayahuasca in Pucallpa, Peru. Excerpts from the following letter published in Yagé Letters, is dated June 10, 1960:

… the first time, much stronger than the drink I had in Lima, Ayahuasca, can be bottled and transported and stay strong, as long as it does not ferment–needs well closed bottle. Drank a cup-slightly fermented also–lay back and after an hour . . . began seeing or feeling what I thought was the Great Being, or some sense of It, approaching my mind like a big wet vagina–lay back in that for a while–only image I can come up with is of a big black hole of God-Nose through which I peered into a mystery–and the black hole surrounded by all creation particularly colored snakes–all real.
I felt somewhat like what this image represents, the sense of it so real. The eye is imaginary image, to give life to the picture. Also a great feeling of pleasantness in my body, no nausea. Lasted in different phases about 2 hours–the effects wore off after 3-the phantasy itself lasted from 3/4 of hour after I drink to 21 hours later more or less.

Ginsberg also describes a second experience as follows:

… then lay down expecting God knows what other pleasant vision and then I began to get high–and then the whole fucking Cosmos broke loose around me, I think the strongest and worst I’ve ever had it nearly (I still reserve the Harlem experiences, being Natural, in abeyance. The LSD was Perfection but didn’t get me so deep in nor so horribly in)–First I began to realize my worry about the mosquitoes or vomiting was silly as there was the great stake of life and Death–I felt faced by Death, my skull in my beard on pallet and porch rolling back and forth and settling finally as if in reproduction of the last physical move I make before settling into real death–got nauseous, rushed out and began vomiting, all covered with snakes, like a Snake Seraph, colored serpents in aureole all around my body, I felt like a snake vomiting out the universe …

Ginsberg’s visions continued with spectral rays around the hut in which he was taking ayahuasca. Although the crooning of the maestro was comforting, he was frightened and lay there with waves of fear rolling over him. He resigned himself to whatever fate was in store, after a thorough examination of his soul. He feared he would go mad, he wrote, if he took yagé again, although he had plans to go upriver on a six-hour journey to take ayahuasca again with an Indian group.

Richard Evans Schultes: An eminent American botanist and world authority on narcotic and stimulating plants, Dr. Schultes is now director of the Harvard Botanical Museum. He spent fourteen years from 1941 to 1954 living with various Indian groups of the South American Amazon, and has identified many little-known hallucinogenic plants. He became interested in Spruce’s work on South America and retraced most of his itinerary, re-collecting many of the plants that Spruce originally found in that area. Schultes’ list of publications is enormous: he has worked in areas from Mexico to Brazil. Editor of the prestigious journal, Economic Botany, Dr. Schultes has spent much of his botanical career in helping to clarify taxonomic problems connected with the ayahuasca vine. Like other scientists in the field of botany, psychiatry and medicine, Schultes prefers not to take anyone’s word that a particular plant can cause a particular effect. Whenever possible, he has taken preparations in ritual settings along with his informants.

In discussing his own Banisteriopsis experience, he mentions that it is often difficult to describe an ayahuasca intoxication since the effects of the alkaloid harmine, apparently the prime psychoactive agent, does react variably from one person to another. Moreover, methods of preparing the plant differ from area to area and admixtures can alter the effects of the drink’s principal ingredient.

Dr. Schultes summarizes his own experiences as follows:

“… The intoxication began with a feeling of giddiness and nervousness, soon followed by nausea, occasional vomiting and profuse perspiration. Occasionally, the vision was disturbed by flashes of light and upon closing the eyes, a bluish haze sometimes appeared. A period of abnormal lassitude then set in during which colors increased in intensity. Sooner or later a deep sleep interrupted by dream-like sequence began. The only after-effect noticed was intestinal upset and diarrhea on the following day”.

Marlene Dobkin de Rios: When I spent three months in 1967 studying mescaline healing in the Peruvian coast, I observed several ritual sessions where I was invited to drink the hallucinogenic potion. Yet, although it was readily available to me, I must admit that I was frightened, in fact horrified to imagine all the terrible things that self-knowledge might bring me. Sure as I was that I was harboring all sorts of incurable neuroses within, I hesitated and decided not to try the San Pedro brew. Many rationalizations sprung to mind–time was short and I might have bad side-effects. What would I do if the after effects were so severe that I couldn’t continue my work? I felt alone, and what would happen if my self-protective shield was knocked over? And so, despite the kindly offers of my informants and the healers I visited, I resolved not to try the mescaline cactus.

When I returned home and wrote up my field experiences about San Pedro use, it seemed as though I had somehow missed the point. In October 1967, I was invited to participate in a conference sponsored by the R. Bucke Society in Montreal, Canada. Bucke was a Canadian psychiatrist who coined the term cosmic consciousness. The society which bore his name was concerned with religious and mystical states in which Bucke showed much interest, despite the general disdain and scorn such matters still hold for many serious scientists.

At the meeting, after listening to various participants discuss some aspect of the question, “Do Psychedelic Drugs have Religious Significance?”, I realized that the reality I reported on was quite a different one than that of people who used such substances for mystical or religious purposes. By the time I returned to Peru in June of 1968 to begin my ayahuasca study, I sensed that if I were ever to go beyond the detachment that I had so carefully cultivated, I would have to take ayahuasca myself.

Yet, as the months passed and opportunities presented themselves to try ayahuasca, I still managed to avoid the experience. Finally, the time approached for me to leave Iquitos to participate in a symposium on “Hallucinogens and Shamanism” which was to be held at the American Anthropological Association’s annual meeting in Seattle, Washington. I knew that I would be addressing a large group of my colleagues about a substance which in truth, I had to admit I knew very little. Although I had been collecting data for almost five months on ayahuasca, it was really just hearsay evidence. I often had the smug feeling that I was the only sane person in an insane world.

Resolved thenfinally to take the purge, I decided first to take advantage of the availability of a small dose of 100 micrograms of LSD, which my colleague and I originally planned to give to the healers we worked with at the end of our study. Unfortunately, this plan did not materialize, as legal production of such substances was terminated. Nonetheless, I was able to take the LSD at home under medical supervision, albeit in the comfort of my Iquitos house, surrounded by the music I liked, with a friend as company and in the presence of paintings, folk art, and flowers. Two weeks later I took an unknown dose of ayahuasca mixed with chacruna (probably containing DMT) under the supervision of don Antonio. My experience with LSD was simply one of the most aesthetically rewarding experiences I have ever had in my life. Accompanied by eighteenth century harp music which seemed endless in its reception, I could not really describe the aesthetic dimensions of the fast-moving kaleideoscopic visions, although many medieval images probably invoked by the quality of the music filled my vision. As the height of these pseudo-illusions lessened, I found myself discussing who I was, what I was doing, what I wanted from life, what life meant to me, and a series of questions that I hadn’t been concerned with since I was a teenager. I might point out that at the beginning of the session, upon the advice of a friend, I decided to ponerme en bianco--or simply, to flow with the force of the experience. From my readings about drug experiments, I knew that a common feature of the “bad trip” was the resistance that a person might offer in attempting to hold back or try to control the drug’s effects.

When I took ayahuasca, the previous LSD experience stood me in good stead in that my book-learned expectations had been replaced by the real thing. It was with enthusiastic expectation that I met don Antonio one Monday night, along with my colleague, to take the ayahuasca brew that had been prepared for me.

That evening in Belén, Antonio was even busier than usual, attending to the many patients who came to him to be exorcised or treated for assorted ailments. I sat patiently for over an hour, chatting with my colleague, Dr. Rios, who had just returned from a brief trip to Lima. He was full of details about the people we knew. Finally, Antonio led us through a maze of houses to a distant reach of Venecia. where a friend of his allowed him to use his floating balsa house for our session. Two other people were present, but I paid very little attention to them in my nervousness. We got comfortably seated on the floor of the house, and Antonio passed the potion around. I noticed as I drank that Antonio, to be sure that the “gringa” got her full share of visions, gave me a cup brim-full of the not so pleasant-smelling liquid. Others who drank that night, in retrospect, seemed to have been given a much smaller amount.

The following is an account of what happened:

About ten minutes later, feelings of strangeness came over my body and I had difficulty in coordinating extremities. Quick-arriving visual forms and movements hit before my eyes some twenty minutes after taking the drink, and a certain amount of anxiety that was not difficult to handle was felt, especially when Halloween-type demons in primary reds, greens and blues loomed large and then receded before me. Very fast-moving imagery almost like Bosch’s paintings appeared, which at times were difficult to focus upon. At one point after I touched the arm of my friend for reassurance, the primary colors changed to flaming yellows and pinks, as a cornucopia full of warmth filled the visions before my eyes and gave me a sort of peripheral vision extending toward the person I had touched. Then in harmony with the healer’s schacapa, a series of leaf-faced visions appeared, while my eyes remained open. They were followed by a full-length colored vision of a Peruvian woman, unknown to me but sneering in my direction, which appeared before me. Then more visions arrived, followed by heavy vomiting and diarrhea which lasted for about three hours.

In New York, where I grew up, vomiting was hardly anything to celebrate, and I remember my concern at the terrible noises I made with the “dry heaves” that afflicted me. Yet, later on, when chatting with others, I realized that in the rain forest, people periodically induced vomiting in their children so as to purge them of the various parasitical illnesses which are rampant in the region.

My colleague told me later on that don Antonio in his subsequent healing sessions would often refer to the gringa who had vomited heavily with ayahuasca and the terrible noises she made. He even imitated me to the great amusement of his audience.

Throughout the experience, any light was painful to my eyes. Time was experienced as very slow-moving. After-effects included physical weakness for a day or two, but a general sense of well-being and looseness in dealing with others.

At this point, it might be interesting to examine some of my experiences under ayahuasca, since my own lack of a cultural expectation toward the use of such a substance gave me differing responses than those reported by the informants with whom I worked, despite the fact that I had been collecting data on informants’ visions. No jungle creatures filled my vision, nor did I experience the often-reported floating sensation. The visions I had contained symbols of my own culture. The unknown woman who appeared to me in my vision was dressed very much like the urban poor among whom I worked, but she somehow looked more opulent and well-off than many of the near-starving friends I had made in Belén. I remember my curiosity at her apparent dislike of me and that she should behave in that manner, but I didn’t pay much attention to the vision nor did it change my mood at all. Later on, when telling of my experiences to friends in Belén, some ventured that this woman who appeared to me may have been responsible for a parasitic illness I developed during the course of my work. I could see how people appearing before a sick person might easily be linked to malice regardless of whether or not they are known to the patient. Had I grown up in this society and received continual conditioning toward a belief in magical source of sickness, it is quite probable that I would have interpreted this vision as a revelation of who it was that caused me to become ill.

When I took ayahuasca, I was unaware of the unwritten rule about not touching another person. I was later told by the healer who guided my ayahuasca session that I had received a double dose of the potion by touching another person and magically had the experience of two doses. The vomiting and diarrhea that afflicted me, thus, were my own fault for not following precepts that were unknown to me. The Peruvian painter, Yando, whose arm I touched during the session has prepared a series of drawings portraying the visions he has had under the influence of ayahuasca. In addition, he has made some ink drawings of the sessions which are difficult to photograph because of the problem of pupilary dilation and painful light. That evening, he had no visions from the purge.

The feelings of well-being that dodged my steps for several months after the ayahuasca experience were one area, however, that did overlap with my informants’ reports. Many people agree that the ayahuasca experience stays with them for a long time, relaxing them and making their dealings with others somewhat more easy and fruitful.

about Icaros
including high-quality audio recordings of the magical healing melodies…
be sure to visit our
cyber-library
of Amazonian ethnobotanical and shamanic loreand follow these links
to other websites with information about Amazonian shamanism, ethnobotany, ayahuasca, plant healing, and related topics.
"

"Excerpted from Visionary Vine: Hallucinogenic healing in the Peruvian Amazon, by Marlene Dobkin de Rios. 1972, Waveland Press

 

 

Throughout the history of medicine we find that many cures have been effective despite the irrational concepts of disease that members of a society might hold.To the Western observer it might appear in fact that ayahuasca use is totally irrational in terms of the magical world view in which such healing occurs. After all, how can “spirits” of inanimate nature or the malice of people possibly make one ill, when microbes, viruses, organic malfunctions, and the like are the true offenders? Yet, to the Amazonian man or woman whose beliefs are thus oriented, ayahuasca can only be viewed as a valuable adjunct in reaffirming one’s own suspicions about illness and its etiology. Once the premises concerning the philosophy of causation are accepted, the system of healing itself has an inner rationale that is quite in accordance with a richly developed historical tradition.

 

Healing Techniques

The use of ayahuasca to heal does not include a well-defined sense of the hallucinogen as a curative agent, per se. Rather, the vine is seen to operate as a powerful means to a desired end. It gives the healer entry into the culturally important area of disease causality, enabling him to identify the nature of the illness from which a person is suffering, and then to deflect or neutralize the evil magic which is deemed responsible for illness. When we examine the successes attributed to the healer, we fine that in general terms a selection process is at work in which healers accept patients whom they feel they will have a good chance of reaching. Simple illnesses are rarely treated with the drug, but herbs, plants, and store-bought medicines are prescribed by the healer for these types of affliction.Nor are psychotic patients given ayahuasca.

Needless to say, drug healers do not accept all patients who come to them for help, nor are they able to cure everyone with an infusion of ayahuasca. But many of the patients who do find their way to the jungle sessions are precisely those whose anxieties, fears, projections of hostility and hatred toward others would in Western medicine be grist for psychiatric help. Drug healing in the Peruvian jungle in many ways represents a very old and honored tradition of dealing with psychological problems that predates Freudian analysis by centuries.

In addition to the use of the powerful vine, a healer will practice time-honored curing traditions, including whistling, singing, praying, and reciting orations, called icaros, which are believed to be preventative, to assure a patient that no evil will befall him from a friend’s betrayal or a spouse’s scorn. Acting as counters to evil magic, icaros may be used for diverse ends. A healer may also suck at afflicted regions of the body to extract thistles that have been magically placed there to cause illness, or else blow mapacho cigarette smoke over the body of the patient. Ayahuasqueros often make an immediate diagnosis by taking a patient’s pulse without the use of a clock or watch. They say that such activity tells them what type of illness the sick man or woman is suffering from and may be one way to determine the presence of deep anxiety stemming from belief in witchcraft. Healers often prescribe a drink of cane alcohol mixed with camphor, which acts to “pep-up” or stimulate and is often prescribed in daily dosages. It is a cerebral excitant (Lewin, 1964: 145) and can produce some mild euphoria. In addition, ayahuasqueros use varied techniques such as reassurance, important in many cases, to offer at least temporary help. On the negative side of the ledger, depending on the degree of anxiety, this kind of reassurance must be constantly repeated to be effective (Weiss and English, 1956:12). Suggestion and persuasion are also of great importance in order to convince a patient that the healer’s advice is good and that benefits will accrue to him, should he follow his advice (Ibid.: 154).

To return to an earlier point, ayahuasca is not the only hallucinogenic substance used in healing. Other plants such as a leaf called chacruna (B. rusbyana. believed to contain N-N-dimethyltryptamine) may be added to the preparation to increase the effects. Others may use a substance called toe’ (Datura suavoleons), which by itself is strong enough to alter states of consciousness. Not very much is known at present about the effects of mixing together various hallucinogenic substances, but different healers in the rain forest prefer those mixtures they know best from their apprenticeship days. At times a tobacco that has hallucinogenic effects and feelings of mareacion (dizziness) and probably containing Nicotiana tabacum may be used by a healer for particular cases. This latter substance grown in the rain forest is several times stronger in effect than similar species grown in North America (see Janiger and Dobkin de Rios, Md.).



Ayahuasca and the Non-Verbal

Very much a part of healing techniques is the use to which special songs or whistling incantations are put. Although some recent psychological studies of drug therapy have focused upon the importance of the non-verbal (see in particular Eisner, 1966), many drug-adjuncted therapeutic sessions in Western society are closely directed situations in which talking plays a most important role. Yet, as Eisner argues, during the most crucial moments of life words often interfere with the main flow of communication. In fact, much of the therapeutic interaction can and does take place at the non-verbal level (Ibid.: 542).

While verbal performance in Western society may be highly valued and rewarded, Peruvian rain forest residents are much less geared to verbal excesses. During many of the ayahuasca sessions, for example, patients are left to themselves to experience the effects of the drug with little if any verbal prodding on the part of the healer. Caldwell (1968) points at the similarity in some European clinics today where hallucinogens are incorporated into psychotherapy. When music is part of the drug experience, it is probable that the experience, per se, is a more integrative one. Music may actually potentiate the drug experience, removing it from the realm of the intellectual and into the area of pure feelings. Music, of course, can also help to manipulate mood. Both modern and traditional healers who use such auditory aids in many ways enrich the experience by presenting stimuli that can enter all channels of a person’s perception. The use of perfumed water (agua de florida), which is drunk by the patient during the ayahuasca session, is no doubt another way in which non-verbal olfactory aspects are capitalized upon.

Comments

Ayahuasca music is utilized only in drug ceremonies, and contrasts musicologically to the considerable corpus of music which falls within a secular category. This latter group comprises music played on happy occasions, such as religious festivals within the Roman Catholic Church, and melodies played during wakes. On the latter occasions, friends and relatives accompany the body of the deceased throughout an evening to dawn vigil. Such melodies are generally played with a drum (tambor), quena (wooden reedless flute found in the Andean highlands), and a four-string violin, probably of Spanish origin.

It is tempting to suggest a comparison between ayahuasca whistling incantations and such music as the Gregorian chants, at least insofar as basic function goes. Just as one can argue that Gregorian chants and ecclesiastical modes represent tonal relationships in which scales are structured so as to evoke a spiritual experience within the context of Christianity, so too might the ayahuasca music be viewed as an essential component of a non-ordinary reality sustained by the sensory overload inherent in drug-induced alteration in consciousness. Such music, of course, cannot be divorced from its social context. We should reflect, for a moment, on the nature of hallucinogenic experience, per se, and the quality of reality alteration for the individual. Such phenomena as the slowing down or changing of time perception (see Ludwig, 1969: 14) must be related to how music is perceived by the individual under the effects of the powerful alkaloids present in the ayahuasca potion. The number of metronomic markings in a given piece of music may not, indeed, be perceived as they would be in an ordinary state. In fact, during my own experience under ayahuasca, some interesting aspects of the relationship of the music and the content of my visions could be determined. Fast-moving visions and detailed panorama of primary colors and variegated forms, difficult to focus on, could be correlated with my perception of the speed of the healer’s music. When don Antonio slowed down his pace and a full-sized portrait of a woman appeared before me, I could, on later reflection, relate the vision’s appearance to the slowing down of the healer’s whistling incantations. Visions do change frequently from fast to slow, and seem to be controlled or evoked by the healer who is the creative force in deciding which melodies to call upon. When I was further into the drug experience and became nauseous and vomited, don Antonio reassured me that his continuing melodies would alleviate the nausea and cause it to pass away.

During ayahuasca sessions, both healer and patient take the drug together. Nonetheless, the healer is generally quite occupied in the performance of his ritual activities mentioned earlier and leaves his patients generally seated by themselves for major portions of the ceremony, only occasionally counseling or treating them directly. Healers state that certain melodies evoke certain types of visions. As I illustrated above, slower incantations may be responsible for the often-reported visions of men and women who are later identified as evil-doers. Perhaps, and one can only speculate here, faster incantations are crucial in the changeover from one reality to another. Such sensory overload has been frequently reported to produce anxiety in the individual, especially in initial drug-induced states. In Western society, LSD-like substances have been utilized in psychotherapy, often by Freudian-oriented analysts. Vomiting and nausea, which may occur in such cases, have occasionally been related to the inability of individuals to deal with anxiety generated by rapid access to unconscious realms. It may be that the role of such music as the whistling incantations during such anxiety states is to help carry the individual more easily into this second realm.

One additional facet of drug-induced experience that should be mentioned is the role that the guide or guru plays as an important other, toward whom the patient may turn in an anxious or highly suggestible state as the result of his alteration in consciousness. Masters and Houston (1966) discuss the vital place of the guru in guiding such sessions. It is possible that augmented suggestibility on the part of the patient encounters in the presence of the healer a creative source and origin of music which alleviates anxiety, tranquilizes, and causes a turning inward, by the musical evocation of particular visions.’

I might further speculate that fearful visions in an ayahuasca session could generally be attributed to the inadequate musical ability on the part of a particular healer.

Placebo Effects of the Ayahuasca Potion

When people who believe they have been bewitched visit a healer, they are frequently given a potion of ayahuasca to help them see who it is that has caused their illness. As with other hallucinogenic drugs, a non-ordinary state of reality fills the hours of drug experience and is one that is unlike any other than most men or women have ever had.

The possibility suggests itself that the plant operates merely as a placebo an inactive or inert drug given merely to produce a “satisfying” effect upon the patient. Is it possible that faith in the curative power of the drug itself is enough to cure? It think we have to dismiss this possibility, which may enter into a discussion of LSD therapy in the United States and Canada. There, insights into personal problems have often been examined by an analyst who guides the session. Ayahuasca is not used to obtain verbal insight, and external rather than internal forces are viewed as responsible for disease. Man is, in effect, absolved from any responsibility. Especially in cases of saladera and situations involving interpersonal stress, the impact of such external forces is most clearly seen. Moreover, little of the biochemical effects of ayahuasca’s healing properties are known. From my own personal experience, I would guess that strong hallucinogens like ayahuasca manage to relieve feelings of anxiety and tension which can build up to intolerable levels. Yet, although one would hesitate to call the purge a healing hallucinogen, it is possible that future evidence may point up more clearly the curative potential of the drug from a pharmacological point of view. Nonetheless, both healer and patient are crucially concerned with identifying the nature of the illness, which in psychosomatic disorders may be very generalized pains and aches throughout the body. When people known to the patient or even total strangers appear in his visions, a skilled healer will attribute his patient’s illness to such apparitions. Generalized, free-floating anxiety which immobilizes can then be changed into straightforward fear and placed squarely on the shoulders of the acknowledged evil person or spirit. A healer is especially successful in those cases when his patient believes him to be omnipotent and if an aura of personal success surrounds him. Thus, the healer may be able to relieve his patient’s symptoms quickly and dramatically, when the patient believes the healer is powerful enough to counteract the evil magic directed against himself.

People rarely focus upon ayahuasca by itself as a curative agent. The hallucinogen is a means toward an end–a way in which healing can begin. Special diets, rituals, orations, particular spells, and counter magic are the ways in which healing takes place. Reassurance, suggestion, counseling as well as other techniques to be discussed shortly are all part of the cure, but the drug’s role throughout is strongly diagnostic and revelatory.

The Omnipotence of the Healer

Attempts are made by the healer to radiate total control and mastery over the unknown, especially in the realm of illness. Although he may turn to magical means in his healing procedures, nonetheless he employs very definite pragmatic means such as modern medicines, herb baths, and teas as well as a host of plants whose effects he has studied. The role of ayahuasca is connected to the aura of omnipotence surrounding the healer. Certainly the purge is a powerful persuader in its own right. Yet, given the belief system existing in the jungle, what seems to be most important to his patients is the healer’s ability to deflect evil magic and neutralize its effect, or diagnose the sickness by means of the drug. Ayahuasca gives him entry into a world of magic by which he can effect his cures all that much more effectively. Even techniques such as his subtle reassurance, boasting in a generally non-boasting society, an all-knowing manner, subtle use of cues to let present and perspective patients know of his successes, his show of wealth, and his skills all enter into the picture. Two examples that illustrate healers’ techniques come to mind here. In one case connected with doña Teresa mentioned earlier, after she had taken ayahuasca and her hemorrhage stopped, she was able to move about and take on some of her daily household chores. The next time her healer stopped by to see how she was doing, he stayed only a short while, as he had to visit another patient who was really ill (the healer’s emphasis), and not nearly as well and thriving and about to recover as Teresa was. She repeated this conversation to several of her neighbors and family during the next few days and infact did feel much better, no doubt in part because of this reassurance and support that the healer provided her.

In another case, I was present at a preliminary interview in which a healer chatted with two girls who had love problems and were looking for his help to try to capture their boyfriends’ souls once and for all. Don Fernando, the healer, sat comfortably on a bench and talked about his many successes in healing. He boasted that in his home, an expensive fishing net costing well over $100 was sitting idle and rotting. Although he could make a good living at fishing, he was forced to give it up by the press of patients, he said, who came to him to be healed. Both girls were visibly impressed by his stated affluence and by his confident, assured manner, which indicated to them that he would and most definitely could help them in their love problems. The myth of the omnipotence of some healers has become so strong that tales of ayahuasca millionaires have grown up and become repeated with some frequency. Both Iquitos and Pucallpa are known for at least one such ayahuasca millionaire men who achieved fame in healing and who overnight built fine brick houses for themselves and their families. One famous healer in Pucallpa was imprisoned by the local police, finally to be released when a political demonstration followed in the wake of this incident. A spiritualist healer in Iquitos recounted the story of another colleague who had recently died. He had made his fortune in ayahuasca. Multiple property holdings and an affluent family attested to this healer’s success with the purge.

Peruvian medical writers, much closer in time and space to folk healing than their American counterparts, are quite aware of its influence on large segments of their society and at times become threatened by the apparent successes and popularity of drug healers. Many such writers, in fact, have labeled both drug-adjuncted and popular folk healing charlatanism. One writer makes a fine distinction between highland healers who work within the confines of their Indian peasant community and the so-called charlatans of other regions. Tricking patients while under the effects of drug used in healing has been another accusation that has been leveled. These aspects of folk healing are difficult to dismiss lightly. Collective belief in the efficacy of the drug, the suggestibility engendered by such drug use and the skill of the healer who effects cures to patients often suffering from psychosomatic or psychoneurotic illness must be taken into account. Whether these cures are temporary remissions are not important here. The first-rate empirical knowledge of many healers concerning the rich pharmacopoeia available to them is undeniable.

The ability of the healer, whose skills are well-touted, his firm and confident manner in dealing with his patients, his boasts of the healing he has and will achieve; in short, the potency of the suggestive phenomena at work cannot be ignored. Certainly artifice is employed in the curer’s art. One writer has maintained that “cultural symbols and values are the medium through which the individual patient approaches what is offered to him in a psychotherapy situation and that his response to the strategies of the therapist will be circumscribed by the meaning they have for him in terms of his general life view.” Healers do work within a belief system held by their patients and are able to manipulate the symbols shared by their patients in order to heal them that much more effectively.

For example, before allowing their patients to take the purge, many healers will undergo periods of up to a week of exorcising the evil believed to afflict such patients. This becomes a very necessary part of therapy because many people in this community operate in a confused social reality where magical beliefs function close to and at times in competition with scientific ones. The healer, in order to alleviate anxiety generated by emotionally precipitated illness, must retain his omnipotent stance. Should a patient be a doubting Thomas, something which is not at all unusual initially, the chances of the treatment being effective will be lessened. Using a series of exorcistic rituals which often include prescribing the tobacco mentioned earlier (which gives no visions but induces a feeling of non-ordinary reality), the healer can elaborate his treatment before the actual drug experience is undertaken. Prospective patients may then attend a few sessions in which others take ayahuasca in order to acquire an awareness or expectation of what people say happen to them under the drug.

To repeat an earlier point, the reappearance of certain elements in the drug experience by innumerable patients points to the important role that cultural expectations play. It is possible that the focus of the healer on a boa or another snake as the mother spirit of the vine which is beginning to heal or to anticipate healing by her appearance verifies and consolidates the magical learning that has taken place prior to the ayahuasca ingestion. Peoples’ expectations that they will, in fact, be visited by such a boa or snake, as well as their belief in the curative prediction of success anticipated by that snake’s appearance provides them with reassurance that healing is indeed occurring. In many ways, the omnipotence of the healer is increased by his symbolic presentations; his insistence upon the magical world of spirits or allies which he controls and that he can conjure up through his particular songs and incantations to appear before his patient. At sessions one often hears a healer advising his patient who is experiencing visions that the next song will cause a certain event to happen, or that a difficult moment will pass, with pleasant visions to follow. The healer in many ways is conditioning the patients. Given a widely-shared belief system among members of the community and those versed in esoteric healing lore, these remarks of the healer must be seen in terms of their full impact upon the patient. Called upon as a creative source to interpret the symbols that may visually appear to a patient under his care, the healer sees in his patient’s productions his own set of symbols, which he attributes to the magical causality of misfortune or disease.

This kind of occurrence, which Ehrenwald (1966), a medical historian, has called “doctrinal compliance”,is important to consider in this context. In an interesting book tracing the continuity between present day scientific therapy and primitive healing, he coins this term to explain the fact that in Western therapy, despite the particular school of allegiance to which a psychiatrist may subscribe, his patient ends up doing what his doctor wants him to. If, for example, a healer is a Freudian, his patients’ dreams tend to recreate early memories of childhood or family conflict. The patient in many ways complies with the therapist’s unconscious wishes and expectations in order to validate his analyst’s theories. Unlike the phenomenon of suggestion, which on the part of the therapist, at any rate, operates on a conscious level, doctrinal compliance seems to be an unconscious process, occurring in both magical and modern therapy procedures. This would seem to be the case in Peruvian healing with hallucinogens, since patients tend to see certain kinds of visions while under the effects of ayahuasca, after working with healers who share a common tradition of magical etiology.

Finally, Ludwig’s comments on suggestibility are applicable here (1969: 17). He maintains that sensory overload, inherent in an hallucinogenic experience, can cause a person to attend most specifically to a guide’s advice and counsel for reassurance in moments when he is in an altered state of consciousness.

The Healer as Moral Arbiter of the Society

If we look at the kinds of health and social problems that the ayahuasquero treats, it is evident that much of his role is that of moral arbiter of society. This is especially so in light of the philosophy of causation which attributes illness and bad fortune to witchcraft. Not only is the healer’s job to restore people to health, but he must take upon himself the omnipotent power and responsibility to punish evil doings. These healers who have made their moral commitment to paths of socially valued behavior often state they are deeply religious and will not perpetrate evil upon others. This contrasts, nonetheless, to their quickness to accept patients who believe they have been wronged. In the name of their patients, such men will not hesitate to punish others for their evil through the application of counter magic. Although witches maintain that ayahuasca can give a man unlimited sexual access to women, nonetheless another important function of ayahuasqueros is to use their powers when under the drug to bring recalcitrant spouses who have strayed back to their homes once again.

As Herskovitz pointed out long ago (1946), Western dualistic categories of good and evil often do not properly convey non-literate and folk beliefs concerning magic. For example, although most ayahuasqueros are called upon to heal patients who believe they have been bewitched, there is an element of true moral arbitration on the part of a healer who often uses counter-magic to return evil to its perpetrator in order to relieve symptoms of illness. Easy categorization of good and evil does not adequately deal with the subtleties of ayahuasca use among Peruvian mestizo populations in the rain forest region.

Ayahuasca Healing and Psychotherapy

Perhaps the term psychotherapy is inadequate to describe and categorize the type of drug healing which is the subject of this book. This term is generally used in psychology to delineate a relationship between doctor and patient in which words play a very prominent part in the healing process. Although a certain amount of verbal exchange between healer and patient in the form of counseling, advising, suggesting, and exhorting does occur in Iquitos, many of the drug sessions described earlier are extremely subjective activities. The man or woman who takes the potion is left much to himself during the major part of the experience. As pointed out earlier, drug-adjuncted therapy in Western medicine employs much more directed verbal therapy.

Psychotherapy is seen by some as a learning process where new attitudes, feelings and behavior enter into a person’s readaptation after he comes to a realization that his present way of life is distressing, ineffective, or damaging. Maladaptation marks the habits of a lifetime and must be changed in order for healing to occur. In considering the role that relearning plays in ayahuasca healing, we see that such therapy is of a short-term nature compared to the much longer periods of counseling involved in Western-type psychotherapy. Jungle patients may remain in treatment for only a week or two, with the longest periods of healing rarely running more than a few months in duration. The desire for the relief of symptoms seems to be the most pressing motivation for people to enter such sessions, accounting for the relatively short period of treatment time when compared to Euro-American psychological healing.

Another factor should be taken into consideration. During my fieldwork in Belén, I constantly listened to complaints of physical illness, anxiety, lack of appetite, and the like, complaints comparable to those reported by other investigators working among urban poor throughout Peru. High rates of psychosomatic complaints characterize the life of the destitute poor throughout much of South America and some research even sees such stress as necessary for effective modernization (see Kellert et at, 1967). When such daily stress and anxiety reaches intolerable levels, a person may look for help from a healer. Yet, we should keep in mind that the constant companion of many such people may be organic pain, discomfort, free-floating anxiety, general debility, and lack of energy coming from the many parasitical disorders with which they live. When such men and women finally find themselves in an ayahuasca session, they tend to look for relief ofimmediate problems. In speaking to both healers and patients, one rarely if ever hears these problems acknowledged to be personal maladjustment. Explaining illness as individual responsibility for misfortune or citing chance as a major factor does not occur. Rather, illness or misfortune is attributed to the evil of others; either malicious men and women who have brought magical harm, or else capricious, uncontrollable natural spirits that have punished a person who has violated a taboo.

Another important component of psychotherapy in Western medicine is the nature of the transference experience between a patient and his therapist, generally emerging after a reasonably long period of treatment. During this period, an emotional relationship to the therapist may be established, childhood memories may be recalled, abreaction of emotion may take place, and a new orientation for future living take place. As Freud wrote long ago, transference is usually described as the patient’s tendency to see in his analyst the reincarnation of some important figure out of his childhood past, with the patient transferring to him feelings and reactions that undoubtedly applied to his model. In this way, the analyst may become the target of the patient’s love or resentment which may have originally been directed to a parent.

In short-term ayahuasca healing, the mechanism of transference that is so important to theoretical conceptions of Western psychoanalysis is practically non-existent. It is quite true that healers tend to be older men or women who may have a relatively high status accorded them because of age, and who may serve as a parent-substitute. However, the short amount of time in which the patient is in treatment and the nature of the healing itself differ immensely from Western techniques we have been discussing.

As Kiev has pointed out (1968: 176), “the kind of illness that an individual has and how it may be treated is a function of his culture.” The culture-specific methods used to reduce anxiety that characterize universally valid strategies throughout the world are no doubt enhanced by the properties of the hallucinogen itself. Reactions to both good and bad experiences; namely a feeling of relaxation, well-being, and ease with others can only reflect to the healer’s benefit.

Ayahuasca is indeed a powerful hallucinogen that is used effectively in Peruvian rain forest healing. It has not been the purpose of this book to present statistics showing how many patients have been “cured” by this hallucinogen in emotional or psychological illness. Rather, it is hoped that the setting and background in which such healing takes place throws some light on the therapeutic potential of many different plant substances. In particular, the role of cultural variables such as beliefs, attitudes, and expectations in determining subjective experiences are important to stress. In some superficial ways, ayahuasca healing is comparable to Western techniques of psychotherapy, but such a comparison is doomed to an uncomfortable fit of theory with recalcitrant fact. The use of directed verbal interchange between therapist and patient in Euro-American society contrasts markedly with mechanisms of healing utilized in a society held together by a magical order of things.

Conclusions

We have looked at the plant hallucinogen, ayahuasca, as an example of man’s traditional use of such substances in the treatment of disease. As I pointed out at the beginning of this book, although it is convenient to separate out categories of drug use in which disease is viewed apart from supernatural concerns, it is important to reiterate here that ayahuasca healing in the Peruvian Amazon has very definite supernatural components of etiology, diagnosis, and cure as well as being viewed by healers and patients alike in terms of a philosophy of causation. The visions induced by the plant are interpreted by the ayahuasca healer to be the personal or spiritual force responsible for illness, a major concern prior to the effecting of any cure.

Although it is tempting to conclude that ayahuasca is functionally related to the social stresses and economic problems that beset members of the slum community and the jungle region today, one might hesitate to state that interpersonal strife is less now than it may have been or is presently among primitive populations in scattered rain forest villages.

Perhaps a more convincing argument is that throughout time this powerful hallucinogen has been used in similar ways. Anxiety and stress, both today and in the past, can reach intolerable levels, so that a drug healer receives a call to ameliorate acute symptoms. In such situations of distress, ayahuasca has received its most varied elaboration, entering into the realm of tenuous, uneasy interpersonal relations and acting as a restorer of equilibrium in difficult situations."

"Ayahuasca Healing Sessions

From Visionary Vine: Hallucinogenic Healing in the Peruvian Amazon

by Marlene Dobkin de Rios. Copyright 1972, Waveland Press, Inc.

Iquitos: The Search for a Healer

In Iquitos, when a poor person becomes ill and believes he is suffering from a disease caused by the malice of another, a visit to an ayahuasca healer may be suggested by a relative or friend. In Belén, Wils found that over 25% of the people he questioned preferred empiricos (folk healers) to doctors (1967: 131). My own impressions are that this is a conservative figure. Certainly, residents of Belén tend to seek assistance in times of crises rather than at the first sign of trouble or for preventative reasons.

The process of getting oneself healed may be a slow one if the sick person shops around for a healer who is reputed to have cured many people, who is wise in the use of the purge, and who knows which herbs will heal. Several people may be seen before the sick person set- ties upon a healer who can give some promise of being able to help him. The selection of a healer is matched by a similar sifting of patients, since the ayahuasquero, too, is careful to accept only those with whom he believes he may have some measure of success. A healer will refer patients to hospital or private medical facilities if he thinks the illness is a simple one which needs medication or X-rays.

He will often reject patients who are psychotic; whose disease is in effect a total flight from reality and who consequently may not be reachable under the effects of the drug. The healer will also accept some patients to whom he will not administer ayahuasca. Their illness may have been chronic in nature, leaving them weak after a period of long physical suffering. Vomiting and diarrhea, continually reported in the wake of the initial hallucinogenic experience, may be too much for such a person. In many cases, the healer himself will prescribe pharmaceutical medicines, which in most South American countries require no prescription and are available to anyone who can pay the price.

The process of referring patients to medical personnel in cases of simple organic disease has its counterpart in the frequent referrals of patients to the drug healers by medical doctors attached to the city hospital and in private practice. Formal psychiatric facilities in jungle cities are relatively rare, and university training in underdeveloped countries, as in the United States, generally prepares the doctor for a focus on organic rather than psychological illness. For these latter illnesses, the folk healer is probably better prepared, as his general expectations are that a patient will suffer from socially precipitated illnesses which have resulted from stress, conflicts, tensions and the like. To the healer, interpersonal referents are as important, if not more so, than organic symptoms.

Rarely does a sick person go to a healing session by himself. The drug’s effects are such that someone often must see him home afterwards. Weakness and debility generally follow the three of four hours of strong dizziness produced by the drink. Moreover, the presence of a loved one such as a spouse, parent, or brother may be necessary to reassure the patient when his visions fill with frightening and fearsome jungle beasts or monsters of his own imagination. Interestingly enough, feelings of camaraderie are often generated during the course of a drug session, even among men and women who may not be known to one another. On some occasions, however, groups of individuals may be attending several sessions together, if their illness requires several weeks or longer to heal. But generally, groups of total strangers sit around in a circle, taking ayahuasca along with the maestro, as he is called. If one were to visit such a group merely to observe, it would be difficult to know those present were strangers, since people seem to care so much about one another. By the time the full effects of the drug are experienced by participants, and especially if the experience is a good one with a well-prepared potion, the warmth, concern, friendship, and care radiating within the group stand out as an obvious characteristic of the session.

In fact, in Perú as Seguin points out (1970: 175), there are about 100 psychiatrists in practice, 90 of them in Lima, the capital. Of the total of 2010 psychiatric beds in the nation, 95% are in Lima. The rest of the country, which has 83.4% of the population of Perú, has only 93 psychiatric beds.

 

The Healing Sessions

Most drug healing in Iquitos today takes place in a jungle setting on the outskirts of the city. Several evenings a week, a healer and his assistants or wife assemble
a group of patients ranging from three or four in number to larger groups of twenty or thirty. About six or seven o’clock at night, a healer may leave his home with his bottled preparation in a small sack, along with his schacapa, a rattle made from tying together a bunch of dried leaves that is used to accompany songs and whistling. He will collect some of his patients as he goes toward the place that has been decided upon for the session. Many times, patients will meet at the healer’s home, as he may be busy there curing people during late afternoons. All of them may go by bus to the farthest point on the line, and then walk for an hour or two to their destination. Other times, they may take a motor-powered canoe or they may paddle for a few hours to some secluded place. Such settings are chosen because people who take ayahuasca, as with other hallucinogens, can be hypersensitive to sound. The frequent motorcycles that roam through the city can be disturbing to a patient if a session is held in a houseyard near a noisy city street.

As the city has grown, the jungle has receded further and further away, making transportation to it difficult. Today almost no virgin jungle is found less than half an hour away by motor boat. Healers say that the jungle is a better place to “work” not only because there is less noise, but also because the songs the ayahuasquero sings are penetrating and there is sometimes the fear that he may be reported to the police if overheard. Some city doctors are jealous of the success of their ayahuasca rivals and are reputed to be quick to make formal complaints. Interestingly enough, it is not against Peruvian law to take natural substances like ayahuasca to alter states of consciousness. It is against the law, however, to practice medicine without a license. City noises, too, can cause visions to disappear quickly, or become distorted, which could cause the patient to have a bad trip, especially in those cases where additional psychedelics such as Brugmansia suaveolens may make the drug experience difficult for the patient under the best of circumstances. Should time be lacking to reach a forest clearing, a closed balsa house in Belén can serve as the place where healing takes place. If it rains, a wall-less shelter in the open forest with a thatched roof, called a tambo, may be used.

Patients bring small gifts of mapacho cigarettes or perfumed water to the session. These gifts may be used by healer and patient alike. If love incantations are to be performed, a client may bring something with him which belongs to his beloved. Many carry plastic drop cloths to sit on since the jungle floor is damp and sessions may last until three or four in the morning. As the healer and his patients arrive at the chosen spot, a light banter often is heard. People settle down around a circle, something which many healers believe is necessary precaution to keep the evil spirits of the jungle or those sent by other jealous healers or witches at bay. At about 10 P.M., the healer will take out a communal cup in which the ayahuasca drink will be distributed. Reciting an oration and whistling a special spell as protection for each person who drinks, the healer passes the cup around the circle. The amount of the potion will be varied in accordance with many factors, including what the healer assessed the body weight and physical strength of the person taking the purge to be. This will be one determinant of whether a patient receives a little or a lot. Is it the first or seventh time the person has had ayahuasca? From what illness is he suffering? The optimal dose found by Rios Reategui seems to be 7 mg. per kilogram of body weight. My impression from the various sessions I attended is that the healer will give a larger dosage to a person whose complaint is psychosomatic illness with physical symptomatology but whose origin is believed by both to be due to some kind of magical harm.

Typically, the last one to drink is the healer. Some, in fact, prefer that no patient follow after him, so that those present can reach a climax in their visions as close together as possible. Needless to say, this enables the healer to be most effective in communicating with all his patients simultaneously. As long as half an hour may be necessary for the effects of ayahuasca to be felt, although reaching the height of visions may take longer for some individuals. People will sit around smoking and chatting. At times, someone may get up to vomit or defecate off to the side. The sounds made are not hidden from those present, and the healer may use the opportunity to talk to the rest of the group about what is happening. He may stress how effective the purge is and how important it is that each person try to keep it down in their stomachs for a long as possible, so that their visions will be both good and strong. If a patient has had no effects from the drug (which does happen on occasion), another portion may be meted out by the healer. Rarely, it may take as many as six or seven consecutive drinks until someone’s visions begin.

In these instances, the fault may be with the healer, especially if he does not have his own fields to cultivate the vine. Thus, he may have to pay others to bring him ayahuasca for preparation and he may not be sure about the potency of the various ayahuasca species that are available in the region. The plant he receives may be dried out, or too small a quantity for everyone who plans to take a share.

With the growth of the city in recent years, it has become more and more difficult to obtain the quantity of ayahuasca that was formerly possible. The price of the vine has risen, and although some healers try to maintain their own psychedelic gardens, others must make frequent trips back and forth from their farms in order to bring the materials back to the city. Others pay people to travel to outlying hamlets for the liana, and such healers must have cash on hand to pay for their cuttings. Ayahuasca in the vicinity of Iquitos has long since been drunk up.

Healers use a good deal of Quechua (the highland language of the Andean region) in their songs during the ceremony. Whistling, too, often is part of the session and is interspersed throughout the evening’s activities. As the hours pass, the healer moves around the circle contacting each person in turn, accompanied by his ever-present schacapa rattle which gives forth a rustling, rattling noise. During the curing ceremony, the healer will blow mapacho cigarette smoke over the body of a sick person, and if his patient is suffering pain in a particular part of his body, the healer will suck the dolorous area, often bringing forth a spine or thistle which those present believe was magically introduced by an enemy or evil spirit. Throughout the session, each patient receives counseling and is ritually exorcised by the healer.

Finally, at two or three in the morning, after some four or five hours of strong drug intoxication, the patient either returns to his home, or elects to spend the night in a nearby tambo. Dietary prescriptions are an integral part of ayahuasca healing because of a belief that the vine possesses a jealous guardian spirit. To propitiate this spirit, patients refrain from eating salt, lard, or sweets for at least twenty four hours preceding and following the use of the purge. In addition, special diets may be prescribed by healers for particular patients, or sexual abstinence prior to a session may be demanded.

 

Description of a Session

One interesting session took place near the edge of the city, close by one of the small river inlets leading to the Amazon. Don Luis, the healer, four of his patients, two assistants, and I met at the healer’s house in Venecia. We walked several miles past open countryside to a clearing where we spread our plastic mats on the ground in a circle. Luis, whom I had met in Belén, was born in a small hamlet a few hours by boat from Iquitos. The fifth son of a small farmer, he left home when he was eighteen to serve in the army. Sent to a distant outpost near the Colombian border for two years, he eventually decided to live in Iquitos, where he was apprenticed to a carpenter. A distant uncle of his was an ayahuasquero and through his influence, Luis became interested in healing with the plant. For several years he worked with his relative, learning the ayahuasca songs and taking the potion at frequent intervals to assist his uncle in treating patients. Each August, he and his teacher would go by boat to an uninhabited part of the rain forest, where they would literally renew themselves and learn from the drug, as well as to strengthen themselves against the dangerous envy of witches. Such malice was thought to be an ever present threat to their healing successes. In these retreats, Luis experimented with various combi ations of drug plants which his uncle taught him to prepare. He also spoke at great length with his teacher about the patients he had treated, their symptoms, and the remedies he prepared for them.

One day, while under the effects of ayahuasca, Luis had a vision which indicated to him that he was now ready to take patients on his own. Although he still practiced his trade of carpentry in Iquitos, he spent many hours receiving and treating patients, both at home and in drug sessions that he usually held two or three times a week, depending on the number of patients he thought should take the drug. After I was introduced to Luis and visited him several times in his home, watching him treat patients who came for counseling and exorcism of evil spirits, I was invited to attend an ayahuasca session. Twice the session had to be postponed because rain was imminent, apparently something which happened with regularity to healing sessions in Iquitos. That Tuesday night, however, the skies seemed reasonably clear and we reached our destination some three of four miles outside of Iquitos with little difficulty. I walked alongside two young women, one of whom was a patient. Her sister was there to see her home later that night. When we spread our mats in a circle, the atmosphere was informal. Several people smoked cigarettes throughout the session.

Luis whistled some special incantations over the cup he used to distribute the potion and in turn handed it to each man and woman. As usual, although the rest of the group were unknown to one another, they wished the person taking the purge good health as it was drunk. The amount of the drink was varied by the maestro for each person, and he was the last to drink. Some twenty-five minutes passed while Luis waited for the effects of ayahuasca to be felt. Chatting with each person in turn, he walked around the circle to talk to patients and to ask them if they were feeling any dizziness. He continued to whistle and moved his foot steadily to keep pace with the music. At times, he shook his schacapa. At this point in the session, after an hour or so of observing and listening, I felt a state of ease and tranquility even though I had not taken ayahuasca. The quality of the singing was quite soothing in its effects. As in many sessions I attended that year, several people were afflicted with heavy vomiting, a common side effect of the potion, although they didn’t seem visibly upset by this. The healer continued whistling and singing, occasionally counseling patients and remarking, “Joven (young man), you’ve had this sickness a long time, I will cure you,” etc.

My sense of well-being lasted for about an hour and a half until it began to rain. Then we took shelter under a nearby tambo. By the time we were resettled under the shelter, most of the people who had taken ayahuasca that night were at the height of their visions. The general mood of the group was easygoing and friendly, which contrasted enormously to the formal treatment one person accorded another at the beginning of the evening, when strangers who were known only to the healer met for the first time.

At this point, one man began to cry and said to no one in particular that his chest was full of tears. Another man patted his back to console him, advising him not to cry for any woman. During this period which lasted for about an hour, the healer counseled each patient openly in front of the rest. One older woman, doña Manuela, complained that she felt she was dying. Don Luis listened to her, but did not reply. This feeling of death and rebirth occurs frequently in sessions and is related no doubt to the feelings of loss of self at the height of entering an altered state of consciousness see Ludwig, 1969: 16).

The healer went on to speak to me about an older man who was at the session but who was not taking ayahuasca. This patient, he said, had cancer and was told at the city hospital that they could do nothing for him. Nonetheless, Luis was certain he would be able to cure him by means of a special diet which he was prescribing. He spoke about another patient who had suffered thesame illness and was now cured. The healer was full of boasts about the people he had helped. At the same time, he deprecated the performance of other healers who he said were jealous of his success and who did not know how to heal. “They only know how to whistle and suck at affected parts f the body,” he said. Although Luis did not use the latter technique in healing, it is found quite commonly among all types of regional healers; a patient for example, who might have a pain in a particular part of the body would stretch out so the healer could such at the effected area, often removing a thorn or worm which he would claim he extracted from the painful area. I observed this procedure several times during both ayahuasca and non-ayahuasca sessions and was on occasion permitted to examine the slimy creature that was extracted from the healer’s mouth before he spit it out with vehemence. Many among the urban poor maintain the traditional Indian belief that such thorns and worms are sent to their patient as part of magical harm introduced into their body by a malign spirit to cause illness. The only radical cure for such an illness is to suck out this chonta. That a healer might introduce a foreign object into his mouth secretly before beginning the sucking procedure doesn’t seem to occur to many patients.

At this particular session, Luis had two assistants with him. A woman doña Manuela mentioned earlier once had her child cured by Luis a long time ago. She often returns to drink ayahuasca and to sing the healing songs along with him. Another man, Eduardo, who also felt gratitude toward Luis for curing a relative, frequently worked with him. In the past, he had been apprenticed to another healer, but claimed that his original teacher was jealous of his visions. That man’s envy inhibited Eduardo’s ayahuasca visions, so that he felt he had no choice but to terminate his training. He is now working with Luis, whom he believes to be a morally superior person and more effective curer. The session ended about 2 A.M., and the patients began their long walk home. I accompanied the two girls to their home, but found the ayahuasca patient very uncommunicative about her experience. She never came to Luis’ session again. Many of the other patients had to cover distances of five or six miles, although a few who felt weakened by the purge slept at the tambo. At dawn, when they felt stronger, they made the journey back.

be sure to visit our
cyber-library
of Amazonian ethnobotanical and shamanic loreand follow these

links

to other websites with information about Amazonian shamanism, ethnobotany, ayahuasca, plant healing, and related topics."

"In most countries outside of South America, if you want to drink Ayahuasca, you must pay quite a lot of money to a facilitator/curandero, and then drink in potentially a troublesome group, squished in with a lot of random people. And that is not to say that this experience may not be very well worth the money, it is just that many people may want to go deeper themselves, without the potential distractions and costs.

But there are some who say that you should never drink alone, except only under the auspices of a shaman who has trained for 12 or more years in a South American tradition. I strongly disagree with this, and believe that the only way we are going to catalyze a new culture of plant medicine work in the west, is that people do drink alone to go deeper with the plants and themselves. This is in fact the purest way to drink ayahuasca, and a very effective way to understand these plants, the state of “things” and also oneself.

Nobody is saying that first time ayahuasca drinkers should drink alone or that drinking alone is the way to go if you are a first timer. I had a sitter for my first time and my 2nd time as well, and believe it should be a matter of course in your first few times that someone is there for you, simply to make sure you are safe. I know a guy who ended up needing to talk to his neighbour, (who he had never connected with before) and he felt like calling the ambulance. There is a story on the internet of a man, who after drinking ayahuasca by himself at home, came to consciousness driving their car at high speed at the edge of his city having no recollection of the previous night. And then there are other quite common stories of people who drink by themselves who end up calling the paramedics because they start freaking out. Perhaps after 2-3 times you will be able to drink without a sitter, but that is up to the individual to ascertain.

A major disadvantage in these ayahuasca groups in the west is that they are EXPENSIVE. To actually accumulate decent experience when you are paying for it, is going to cost you a lot of money that may be simply unaffordable to many people. If you are really serious about this, unless you want to go to The Amazon, perhaps you are going to want to go a bit deeper by yourself.



In many respects, the group is a bit of a distraction. People can make noises and the energies and personalities in any given group can be quite distracting. Depending on who and where you drink with, you may be forced to sing songs, sit up all night next to a roaring firing getting burnt to a crisp, your “shaman” shouting at you if you don’t sit up straight or they may sing all night some raspy repetitive songs which are supposed to guide you. You may also find yourself in a group where the “shaman” is there to heal you too, some may be ok with this, but others may not want that kind of interference in their process from a person, only to have an experience and healing with the plants.

When drinking by yourself is where you are really going to be able to focus internally and truly go within, undistracted by a “ceremony”. And besides, the deepest work is quite individual in the first place, it doesn’t matter that all these other people are around you and you do not need them around you in order to go deep into your experience.

My belief is that it is by going into the space, that you are going to learn, and often you are only going to learn by your own mistakes and where you may even get singed. And that is not a bad thing to learn from your mistakes and experience all kind of potential darknesses and issues. This is all part of it too, in life as well of course. If you are unprepared to meet “the wilds”, then maybe you should not drink ayahuasca at all. Or maybe you should only drink only pissweak ayahuasca with a shaman who claims to keep you protected from “the wilds”.

The deal with ayahuasca if you drink a non-pissweak dose, is that it tends to show people their shadow, to reveal the darkness, and to propel people deep into potentially very chaotic and crazy mental and emotional states. Therefore with ayahuasca, it is necessary is to face the darkness and demons, whether within or without, and there is often lot there to be faced. Why should we need someone else to protect us from our own darkness and demons? A lot of people want to coddled form their own negativity (or the negativity of the world), but I’d say one of the primary purposes of ayahuasca is for you to see your own negativity so you can realize it and work through it, so that you can be sober and consider how best to act in the world. That is often really hard work and nobody can do it for you. Only in this raw space are people going to realise what egotistical arseholes they are being in their life, something I find to be a common revelation, the ayahuasca itself working through people’s denial and barriers to realizing their own errant behavior.

So much of how people take ayahuasca in the modern day is just feeding “spiritual bypassing”, which is bypassing that deep investigation which clearly bears the most fruit. And to do that, I believe you need space and not all the obscuring and often quite external factors of “ceremony” and “tradition”, which can often act to block out the personal revelations. Yet, the truth is very confronting, and for many just being aware of their real position within the matrix may be extremely confronting in and of itself.

When drinking with yourself, there is nobody and nothing there to obscure you from yourself, there is only you. There is little chance to practice too much ceremony or tradition, as this only becomes most apparent when there are a group of people are witnessing that. I also highly recommend low dose mushrooms in the float tank, in that case, there is only you. In such a situation, where is the possibility for ceremony or “tradition”? or even technique? You take the low dose of mushrooms, get in the tank, stay as still as you can, and actively surrender into yourself. And so to bypass all this structure and tradition, there is an easy way, just drink by yourself, maybe with some music playing, or just in silence.

Not everyone who does this work is lucky/unfortunate enough to have a “master” to guide them in the process. Actually, only very few people I’ve found ever find such a fabled “master ayahuascaro” in the first instance. It is also true that many, if not most of the “masters” are self taught or learnt from a teacher who was self taught and/or taught by the plants and spirits, not some tradition passed on from father to son for many generations, like a lot of people mistakenly believe.



One thing I am having to continually point out to people, which is that there is no singular South American “tradition” in South America. You have many indigenous tribes, whose ways are quite relaxed and down to earth when it comes to taking ayahuasca. They generally just drink the medicine and typically don’t make such a structure around it. But westerners have these ideas of a singular shamanic craft which exists throughout the Amazon. The closest that comes to this, is a largely Peruvian mestizo model, which is a newish model designed to suit a post-conquered, mixed race Amazonian peoples, often with elements of christianity, witchcraft and sorcery typically taken out for the tourists.

One other thing I like to keep reminding people of, is that Terence McKenna and Jonathon Ott when they went to Iquitos in the early 1980’s were not able to find psychoactive ayahuasca. Strongly visual ayahuasca is just not a tradition, except for the shamans who largely use the ayahuasca to psychically fight each other. The form of mestizo shamanism whereby ayahuasca is given to gringos at a high DMT dose is largely only a new tradition which has existed for a few decades. I personally don’t see this tradition as necessarily being most suited to helping westerners perform the healing and deep work they clearly need to do with the medicine.

Perhaps the real meat of mestizo shamanism, is to learn and listen and work with the plants, through singing icaros. I myself do not sing icaros, although there are several styles of singing and vocal techniques that come through me at times. I find icaros too distracting, and I don’t think are the best aural soundtrack to deep self inquiry.

Western people have this idea that compels them, the “mystique of shamanism”, a great illusion, like a mirage, the reality of it which never truly seems to come into view. But shamanism in its essence, is actually very simple, it is the communication with spirits, good and bad, and that is what people who have worked past their own shit will start doing naturally after perhaps a few dozen sessions.

My view is that the primary teacher is the plants, and the spirits we can meet in the space, who we can look to as teachers and healers. The primary wisdom and learning really is inbuilt into the medicine itself. It doesn’t come from “the master ayahuascaro” in his powerpoint slides, youtube videos or even in his songs, or in any kind of transmission. People are so desiring a human father figure, teacher, like they would have been seeking a guru in the 1960’s and 1970’s, when the fact of the matter is that most of these gurus were fake and scamsters. The same is unfortunately true in the amazon today.

To my mind Ayahuasca is very powerful as a healer of the human body and psyche, and that is its niche. But also, Syrian rue and a DMT containing plant admixture will often give people what they are looking for in terms of visions and insight just as much as ayahuasca, if not moreso. Terence McKenna never recommended to people that they take ayahuasca, he recommended 5+ dried grams alone in a dark room. And to myself and many other people who are deep into psychedelics, mushrooms are just as much a valid medium as ayahausca. The visions, experiences, wisdom and communications, are just as potent and meaningful than with ayahuasca. It is just that the mushrooms do not have so much of an obvious tradition in any culture, and that may be because the mushrooms do not easily lend themselves to forms of structure and control.

Every individual who drinks ayahuasca has a different intention of course, some individuals will be absorbing the lessons from the plants and other beings showing them the nature of the universe and their own patterns and psychology. And this requires just as much work in the days and weeks after drinking ayahuasca, by looking and inquiring into what is not working, and letting it go. Ayahuasca is in some sense, a medicine of letting go of what is not working. It will show you what is not working, and you will feel and experience that, and have the potential to purge out of you, rather than hold onto it.

Left to their own processes, and assuming the individual has some sort of connection to their own wisdom, the wisdom of the plants or other beings, then learning can proceed. Perhaps human beings are too addicted to being taught something by other human beings. Many people want to learn a “craft”, and Peruvian mestizo shamanism appears to be some sort of default to many westerners.

Yet, after a time working with the medicine you start to carry out a spiritual sort of work, effectively a kind of shamanism if you like, whereby you are called to communicate with different beings and spirits, and that is literally the dictionary definition of shaman. There are many beings and contexts in the spiritual worlds, and through communication and work with these spirits, presumably the physical 3D world is effected.

Another issue with drinking under the auspices of a shaman or facilitator, is that you are often placed under their guidance. In that case, you may not even begin to get a chance to find your own guidance and develop your own way. You will likely remain under their “protection” and “guidance” and you may never really get a chance to grow beyond that. This often becomes a relationship of power, and many “curanderos” may want you to remain under them, and be dependent on them. Certainly it isn’t good for business if a whole bunch of people decide that brewing ayahuasca is easy, and that they prefer to drink alone. And that is not to say, that simply drinking with their preferred maestro is not right for them, or may not be the most beneficial way of drinking ayahuasca for them.

But if you are drinking in the west, it is not uncommon to pay $150-400 a night, and so to actually have the money to get proficient then costs quite a lot of money. I would say it takes at least 10 to a few dozen sessions to work through the most obvious crap on your plate and only then do you have some space to go forward and truly learn.

Drinking with a facilitator as long term model, that you will be able to do for decades, may not be sustainable for many. Tim Ferris in his recent book “Tools of Titans” writes of people drinking in small groups of 3-4 people every 3 months for psychic and emotional health. And realistically, a group of friends can organise to meet to share a brew. Indeed, I’ve noticed this sort of model is increasingly popular, and that more and more people are drinking alone or with a few friends. Not that this it is without its perils of course.

For people who are starting out brewing, going to drink with someone with many years of brewing experience, should result in a superior drink. It is similar to wanting to eat out at a restaurant, rather than cook yourself. You want to experience new flavors and dimensions in food, that you may not have the time, skill or inclination to forage for and put into the food you are cooking. Another reason to drink with other people in a group, is to participate in the community and culture of this gathering form, and to share and connect with others on a similar wavelength. One strange thing I have been hearing recently is of groups where people are not even allowed to communicate or talk to other participants in the group, when I have found a big part of the group experience is the communion and communication between participants which for many people is a highlight.

A big impediment for many when it comes to brewing for themselves, is obtaining the plant materials in the first place. In Europe it should not be a major problem ordering plants from the internet, and North America may not present too much difficulty in obtaining the plants either as the vine grows in Hawaii and Florida for example, with online companies which cater to Americans.

However, in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, countries in Asia and the rest of the world, obtaining ingredients may be a bit trickier. It is also possible to order various plants from overseas vendors who carefully disguise the plant products which will clear customs in most countries no problems.

In Australia, there are acacia species which contain DMT which are very viable DMT containing admixtures. However, most people do not know how to find and harvest these plants and the learning curve of identification and correct harvesting is quite steep. If you live on the east coast, the situation is quite tricky, with no common species being a reliable and sustainable source which everyone can easily access. If you live in Western Australia, the quite common Acacia Acuminata will be your go to. I recently had occasion to drive from Kalgoorlie to Perth and the narrow phyllode variant and also broad phyllode variant were pretty much lining the side of the road over the 600 kilometer stretch. The phyllodes or leaves from this species are I believe the most sustainable source in Australia. I have been trying to encourage some individuals to start an online business selling these phyllodes, as possession of acacia phyllodes is legal within Australia as far as I understand.

People are often scared to brew themselves for legal reasons. I would suggest such people are better off not brewing, until they work through their fear and paranoia. Law enforcement in Australia does not appear to have any priority whatsoever to charge people for brewing up an acacia tea in their own home, and since when was the last time Mr Plod came into your kitchen and asked what is that tea you are cooking on your stovetop? When was the last time you heard someone being arrested for ayahuasca? Maybe in Scandinavia the situation is somewhat different, but even there, police are not actively going out of their way to bust down people’s doors for brewing ayahuasca.

In terms of actually making the tea, it is not even worthwhile me giving instructions here. This is an art that you must learn that takes time. People who are really serious about this will make sure to read what they need to know. I know a woman who spent 100 hours reading everything she could before even making her first tea and was largely successful in her first few attempts. It is not hard to find information about how to make the tea on the internet and as usual, the human mind tries to make things more complicated than they really are.

On the ayahuasca.com forums, it has been generally recommended that people drink the vine by itself, without any DMT containing admixture, and only then proceeding to brew up with the DMT containing plants. Taking a high vine, and low DMT dosage, is very effective medicine, not taken so much for the visions.

At the end of the day, the issue is not about whether people drink ayahuasca alone, but whether people can safely take psychedelics alone. Actually, not THAT many people will be inclined to do this, but pretty much all of those who decide to, are capable and have initiative. I would suggest that ayahuasca, especially Banisteriopsis Caapi and Psychotria Viridis are just one part of a healthy diet of psychoactive plants. I myself like to regularly utilise cactus, mushrooms and various DMT sources, for their different teachings and perspectives on reality.

Taking psychedelics alone can be very tricky, it is not easy to do and presents many dramatic internal and external states. We can be exposed to much data and obstructions, malevolence, all of which must be worked through. Yet, with persistence, what is presented can be worked through, and in working through all this data, the individual learns and hopefully better understands themselves and the world around them, so that they can hopefully become truly effective human beings."