Hyperbolic: Divining1 Ayahuasca

2014

Ayahuasca is a mixture of a least two psychoactive South American plants: the liana ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi) which gives its name to the beverage; and the leaves of chacruna (Psychotria viridis). The ayahuasca beverage constitutes a unique preparation because of its pharmacological action in which the beta-carboline alkaloids of Banisteriopsis caapi, playing the role of MAO inhibitors, enable the visionary effects of the tryptamine alkaloids found in Psychotria viridis. This specific symbiotic action, which modern science identified just a few decades ago, has been empirically known for at least 3000 years by the Indigenous groups of the western Amazon, according to archaeological evidence (Naranjo P., 1983). This simple fact deserves our attention because it reveals the extraordinary investigative potential of these ethnic groups, based on the compilation of information from the subjective perspective, which challenges our conventional western approach that tends towards ex...

2014

The International journal on drug policy, 2012

Current Drug Abuse Reviews, 2015

This article offers critical sociological and philosophical reflections on ayahuasca and other psychedelics as objects of research in medicine, health and human sciences. It situates 21 st century scientific inquiry on ayahuasca in the broader context of how early modern European social trends and intellectual pursuits translated into new forms of empiricism and experimental philosophy, but later evolved into a form of dogmatism that convenienced the political suppression of academic inquiry into psychedelics. Applying ideas from the field of science and technology studies, we consider how ayahuasca's myriad ontological representations in the 21 st century -for example, plant teacher, traditional medicine, religious sacrament, material commodity, cognitive tool, illicit drug -influence our understanding of it as an object of inquiry. We then explore epistemological issues related to ayahuasca studies, including how the indigenous and mestizo concept of "plant teacher" or the more instrumental notion of psychedelics as "cognitive tools" may impact understanding of knowledge. This leads to questions about whether scientists engaged in ayahuasca research should be expected to have personal experiences with the brew, and how these may be perceived to help or hinder the objectivity of their pursuits. We conclude with some brief reflections on the politics of psychedelic research and impediments to academic knowledge production in the field of psychedelic studies.

Time and Mind, 2011

The World Ayahuasca Diaspora: Reinventions and controversies, 2017

The genie is out of the bottle, tweeting about the next shamanic bodywork leader- ship seminar, and the bottle; well, check and see if it isn’t in the back of your fridge by the vegan TV dinner. Who would have ever imagined that ayahuasca, the enigmatic jungle potion William S. Burroughs once referred to as “the secret” (Burroughs & Ginsberg, 2006 [1963]) and whose very botanical identity was a matter of debate through the mid-twentieth century (Schultes, 1957) would, within a matter of decades, become a household (or at least, yoga-mat) word; the subject of hundreds of sci- enti c, anthropological, and medical studies; a magnet for international tourism; the motor behind a global religious diaspora; and the victorious plaintiff in absen- tia of an historic Supreme Court case? The rhyme “herbal brew”/“bamboo” in Paul Simon’s 1990 ayahuasca-inspired song “Spirit Voices” already rings of kitsch, but there is still something, if not fresh, then at least compelling about Sting (2005, p. 18), in his biography Broken Music, revealing that “ayahuasca has brought me close to something, something fearful and profound and deadly serious.” But by the time Lindsay Lohan concedes to a reality TV host in April of 2015 that ayahuasca helped her “let go of past things . . . it was intense” (Morris, 2014), Burroughs’s “final fix” has finally entered the realm of cliché. How did this happen? What is the special appeal of this bitter Amazonian brew in the post-post-modern global village toolbox of self-realization? How has it fared in the bustling marketplace of New Age spiritual entrepreneurism and on the battleground of the War on Drugs? And what does it all mean for the multiple, religiously and socially diverse, communities and individuals who consume aya- huasca, as well as various ayahuasca-like analogs, around the world?

ayahuasca produce the widely reported benefits? To answer this question I will draw from neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, religion, and my own research. Recent neuroscience evidence and theory offer exciting new insights into the specific brain processes that possibly occur, and this may lead to enhanced applications in psychotherapy, creative activity, and spiritual development. I will present my own model of the nature and function of spontaneous imagery narratives; this model incorporates both previous and new views, and uses imagery from a variety of religious traditions to depict the creative psychophysiological and spiritual processes involved. One new hypothesis that ayahuasca research clearly supports is an ancient idea placed in a new content: that creative human activities are a blending of deliberative thought processes and spontaneous experiencing. To begin the discussion, I will first very briefly summarize the anthropological ayahuasca literature, relying on anthropologist Michael Harner's review of reports gathered from indigenous informants. 6 Harner reports that across indigenous Amazonian peoples, the common visionary themes that emerged during ayahuasca use were of geometric designs, one's own death, constantly changing shapes, jaguars, snakes, birds, entity encounters, distant cities, divination, and descriptions of the shamanic journey. Harner relates a quote from the anthropologist Milciades Chaves that recounts the ayahuasca journey experience of a Siona Indian from eastern Colombia ( yagé is the Siona name for ayahuasca): But then an aging woman came to wrap me in a great cloth, gave me to suckle at her breast, and then off I flew, very far, and suddenly I found myself in a completely illumined place, very clear, where everything was placid and serene. There, where the yagé people live, like us, but better, is where one ends up [i.e., on a yagé trip]. 7 The Chilean psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo administered ayahuasca to thirty-five nonindigenous volunteers from Santiago, Chile, to examine how their visions compared to those in ayahuasca reports from the indigenous respondents. Naranjo reports that the common visionary themes were of a geometric grid with a central focus, a rotating vision with a central focus, book chi stafford.indb 154 12/28/10 1:18 PM uncorrected proofs for review only A Y A H U A S C A S H A M A N I C V I S I O N S || 155

University of Guelph Atrium, 2020

Ayahuasca is the most common term which refers to a plant based hallucinogenic beverage made with the jungle lianas Banisteriopsis Caapi (Schultes 1972:35; De Rios 1984:8). Through a review of this literature, my project evaluates how the changing geographic boundaries, cultural context and worldview of ayahuasca users alter the intention and meaning of ayahuasca usage. This paper provides a contextual overview of hallucinogenic plants in Central and South America, key themes in shamanism and Amazonian shamanism. Local Amazonian ayahuasca use in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, Brazilian ayahuasca religions, neo-shamanism and ayahuasca drug tourism literature is presented and analyzed drawing upon Van Gennep’s (1960) “Rites de Passage”, Victor Turner’s (1970) “Liminality”, Shaw and Stewart’s (2003) problematization of syncretism and Grimes’ (1992) characteristics of the reinvention of ritual. Literature regarding therapeutic/medicinal ayahuasca use and ayahuasca legality is also presented. I argue recent and contemporary ayahuasca use may utilize traditional elements of Amazonian shamanism, though depart from Indigenous cosmology as ideologies governing it’s use become syncretic, institutionalized and influenced by Western individualism.