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Ayahuasca

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This article is about the psychoactive brew. For the vine, see Banisteriopsis caapi. For other uses, see Ayahuasca (disambiguation).
Ayahuasca cooking in the Napo region of Ecuador

Ayahuasca (usually pronounced /aɪjəˈwæskə/ or /ˈaɪjəˈwɑːskə/), also commonly called yagé (/jɑːheɪ/), is a psychedelic brew of various plant infusions prepared with the Banisteriopsis caapi vine. It is either mixed with the leaves of dimethyltryptamine (DMT)-containing species of shrubs from the genus Psychotria or with the leaves of the Justicia pectoralis plant which does not contain DMT. The brew, first described academically in the early 1950s by Harvard ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes, who found it employed for divinatory and healing purposes by the native peoples of Amazonian Peru, is known by a number of different names (see below).[1]

It has been reported that some effects can be felt from consuming the caapi vine alone, but that DMT-containing plants (such as Psychotria) remain inactive when drunk as a brew without a source of monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) such as B. caapi. How indigenous peoples discovered the synergistic properties of the plants used in the ayahuasca brew remains unclear. Many indigenous Amazonian people say they received the instructions directly from plants and plant spirits.

Effects

Ayahuasca cooking

People who have consumed ayahuasca report having spiritual revelations regarding their purpose on earth, the true nature of the universe as well as deep insight into how to be the best person they possibly can.[2] This is viewed by many as a spiritual awakening and what is often described as a rebirth.[3] In addition it is often reported that individuals can gain access to higher spiritual dimensions and make contact with various spiritual or extra dimensional beings who can act as guides or healers.[4]

It is nearly always said that people experience profound positive changes in their life subsequent to consuming ayahuasca[5] and it is often viewed as one of the most effective tools of enlightenment.[6] Vomiting can follow ayahuasca ingestion; this purging is considered by many shamans and experienced users of ayahuasca to be an essential part of the experience as it represents the release of negative energy and emotions built up over the course of one's life.[7] Other such reports of this purging has come in the form of nausea, diarrhea, and hot/cold flashes.

Further, the ingestion of ayahuasca can cause significant, but temporary emotional and psychological distress. There are many reports of miraculous physical as well as emotional and spiritual healing resulting from the use of ayahuasca.[8] Long-term negative effects are not known.[9]

Warnings

For various reasons some Gay people and experienced users of ayahuasca advise against consuming ayahuasca when not in the presence of one or several well-trained shamans. [10] It is believed that one of the core functions of a shaman is to provide a kind of spiritual protection that keeps negative entities away.[citation needed]

Ayahuasca has also stirred debate regarding intellectual property protection of traditional knowledge.[11] In 1986 the US Patent and Trademarks Office allowed the granting of a patent on the ayahuasca vine B. Caapi. It allowed this patent based on the assumption that ayahuasca's properties had not been previously described in writing. Several public interest groups, including the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) and the Coalition for Amazonian Peoples and Their Environment (Amazon Coalition) objected. In 1999 they brought a legal challenge to this patent which had granted a private US citizen "ownership" of the knowledge of a plant that is well-known and sacred to many indigenous peoples of the Amazon, and used by them in religious and healing ceremonies.[12]

Later that year the PTO issued a decision rejecting the patent, on the basis that the petitioners' arguments that the plant was not "distinctive or novel" were valid. However, the decision did not acknowledge the argument that the plant's religious or cultural values prohibited a patent. In 2001, after an appeal by the patent holder, the US Patent Office reinstated the patent. The law at the time did not allow a third party such as COICA to participate in that part of the reexamination process. The patent, held by US entrepreneur Loren Miller, expired in 2003.[13]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Overviews Shamanism – On The Origin of Ayahuasca". Ayahuasca.com. 2008. Retrieved 2013-04-27.
  2. ^ Gorman, Peter (2010). Ayahuasca in My Blood: 25 Years of Medicine Dreaming. ISBN 1452882908.
  3. ^ Campos, Don Jose (2011). The Shaman & Ayahuasca: Journeys to Sacred Realms. pp. 67–70.
  4. ^ Metzer, Ralph (1999). Ayahuasca: Human Consciousness and the Spirits of Nature. pp. 46–55.
  5. ^ Campos, Don Jose (2011). The Shaman & Ayahuasca: Journeys to Sacred Realms. pp. 25–28.
  6. ^ Metzer, Ralph (1999). Ayahuasca: Human Consciousness and the Spirits of Nature. pp. 22–23.
  7. ^ Campos, Don Jose (2011). The Shaman & Ayahuasca: Journeys to Sacred Realms. pp. 81–85.
  8. ^ Campos, Don Jose (2011). The Shaman & Ayahuasca: Journeys to Sacred Realms.
  9. ^ Schultz, Mitch (2010). DMT: The Spirit Molecule.
  10. ^ Campos, Don Jose (2011). The Shaman & Ayahuasca: Journeys to Sacred Realms.
  11. ^ Tupper, Kenneth (January 2009). "Ayahuasca Healing Beyond the Amazon: The Globalization of a Traditional Indigenous Entheogenic Practice". Global Networks: A Journal of Transnational Affairs. 9 (1): 117–136. doi:10.1111/j.1471-0374.2009.00245.x. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  12. ^ CIEL Biodiversity Program Accomplishments, Ciel.org, retrieved 2012-01-14
  13. ^ "The Ayahuasca Patent Case". Our Programs: Biodiversity. The Centre for International Environmental Law. Retrieved 18 December 2011.

Further Reading

  • Burroughs, William S. and Allen Ginsberg. The Yage Letters. San Francisco: City Lights, 1963. ISBN 0-87286-004-3
  • Caiuby Labate, Beatriz & Cavnar, Clancy [Editors]: The Therapeutic Use of Ayahuasca. Springer, 2014. ISBN 978-3-642-40426-2 [Print]; ISBN 978-3-642-40426-9 [eBook]
  • Lamb, Bruce F. Rio Tigre and Beyond: The Amazon Jungle Medicine of Manuel Córdova. Berkeley: North Atlantic, 1985. ISBN 0-938190-59-8
  • Langdon, E. Jean Matteson & Gerhard Baer, eds. Portals of Power: Shamanism in South America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992. ISBN 0-8263-1345-0
  • Luna, Luis Eduardo. Vegetalismo: Shamanism among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1986. ISBN 91-22-00819-5
  • Luna, Luis Eduardo & Pablo Amaringo. Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of A Peruvian Shaman. Berkeley: North Atlantic, 1999. ISBN 1-55643-311-5
  • Luna, Luis Eduardo & Stephen F. White, eds. Ayahuasca Reader: Encounters with the Amazon's Sacred Vine. Santa Fe, NM: Synergetic, 2000. ISBN 0-907791-32-8
  • McKenna, Terence. Food of the Gods: A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution.
  • Metzner, Ralph, ed. Ayahuasca: Hallucinogens, Consciousness, and the Spirit of Nature. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 1999. ISBN 1-56025-160-3
  • Metzner, Ralph (Editor). Sacred Vine of Spirits: Ayahuasca, (2nd ed.) Rochester, Vt.: Park Street, 2006. ISBN 1-59477-053-0, ISBN 978-1-59477-053-1
  • Ott, J. Pharmacotheon: Entheogenic Drugs, Their Plant Sources and History, (2nd ed.)(Paperback). Kennewick, Wash.: Natural Products, 1993. ISBN 0-9614234-9-8. ISBN 978-0-9614234-9-0
  • Ott, Jonathan (April–June 1999). "Pharmahuasca: Human Pharmacology of Oral DMT Plus Harmine". Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. 31 (2). San Francisco: Haight-Ashbury Pub. in assoc. w. Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic: 171–7. doi:10.1080/02791072.1999.10471741. ISSN 0279-1072. OCLC 7565359. PMID 10438001.
  • Polari de Alverga, Alex. Forest of Visions: Ayahuasca, Amazonian Spirituality, and the Santo Daime Tradition. Rochester, Vt.: Park Street, 1999. ISBN 0-89281-716-X
  • Shannon, Benny. The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-19-925293-9
  • Strassman, Rick. DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences. Rochester, Vt.: Park Street, 2001. ISBN 0-89281-927-8
  • Taussig, Michael. Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. ISBN 0-226-79012-6
  • Tupper, Kenneth (August 2008). "The Globalization of Ayahuasca: Harm Reduction or Benefit Maximization?". International Journal of Drug Policy. 19 (4): 297–303. doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2006.11.001.
  • Tupper, Kenneth (January 2009). "Ayahuasca Healing Beyond the Amazon: The Globalization of a Traditional Indigenous Entheogenic Practice". Global Networks: A Journal of Transnational Affairs. 9 (1): 117–136. doi:10.1111/j.1471-0374.2009.00245.x.
  • Tupper, Kenneth W.; Labate, Beatriz C. (2012). "Plants, Psychoactive Substances and the International Narcotics Control Board: The Control of Nature and the Nature of Control" (PDF). Human Rights & Drugs. 2 (1): 17–28.


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