Stepping Into the Fire - An Ayahuasca Documentary

January 11, 2012 12:23 AM

Stepping Into the Fire is a documentary about transformation, healing and the Amazons....Ayahuasca, shamanism, human future and a long lost science from ancient civilizations.

Stepping Into the Fire is the cinematic release that reaches into the ash of the bare bones of existence and asks the question “is humanity born to die, or is humanity born to live?” The film follows the true story of three successful individuals brought together by an ancestral medicine from South America that has become legendary for its miraculous and profound effects.

posted by GrooveJedi (101 comments total)

Ayahuasca was recently covered in a VF article. Website of the "Gringo Shaman" mentioned in the article.
posted by arcticseal at 12:33 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]

"reaches into the ash of the bare bones of existence"


...What?
posted by Nomiconic at 12:49 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]

"energetic healing properties"?
posted by Zarkonnen at 1:06 AM on January 11

Don't knock it 'till you try it.
posted by troll at 1:29 AM on January 11

Religion is the degenerate form of sincere narrations of experiences with these and other psychedelics.

It's not about selling you energetic healing. It is about taking a look at the very source of it all and making your own mind about it.

Don't knock it.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 1:45 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]

Snake oil.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:50 AM on January 11

Snake oil.

Doesn't do squat. Might make you feel a bit nauseous, but you won't feel see God or anything.
posted by louche mustachio at 1:54 AM on January 11

Plus snake oil attracts honey badgers, and you do NOT want that. If they know you've got snake oil, they will disembowel you, eat your eyes, and steal your credit cards to buy porn.
posted by louche mustachio at 1:56 AM on January 11 [6 favorites]

Having tried Ayahuasca & Pharmahuasca, Snake oil (or brew) is pretty apt, though absolutely not in the way you meant it.

An incredible substance. Coming from someone who would generally consider themselves a materialist reductionist, there is something to it that this documentary is trying to capture, even if it leans heavy on the woo.
posted by Never Better at 1:58 AM on January 11

For those of you who haven't tried ayahuasca, yet have the gall to dismiss it out of hand, shame on you.

That said, I loathe documentaries such as this which new-age-ify the true value these plants can give to people and to the scientific community. DMT's role in the human body is not entirely understood (it's theorised to be produced by the Pineal Gland, (Dr. Rick Strassman, et al)) but it's effects were remarkably similar in all the subjects who underwent Strassman's experiments in the 90's.

Ayahuasca is a very powerful healing tool. If part of that healing comes from ritual intent and/or placebo, so be it, but I can personally attest to it's life changing, life affirming qualities. One doesn't have to take all the new-age hoo-hoo that comes with it, but this is a very very powerful concoction. It's not just one plant, but two and sometimes several - one contains DMT, 5-MeO-DMT and NN-DMT, the other contains a series of MAOI's such as harmaline, Harmine and Tetra-Harmine that allow the DMT to be orally active - pretty amazing considering it was invented by 'savages' in the jungle as many as 3000 years ago (old gourds have been found to have traces of ayahuasca brews)
posted by rattleandhum at 2:08 AM on January 11 [7 favorites]

According to their blog this film was accepted for the Spirit Enlightened! Film Festival in 2010 (they were the first runner up.)

You can watch the whole film here.
posted by louche mustachio at 2:09 AM on January 11 [6 favorites]

Starting at about 15:10, he attempts to simulate his journey via effects. I can't judge how successful it is, as I don't have direct experience with ayahuasca (though I have had it described to me.) I generally find that attempts to represent these experiences are not terribly accurate - it would take a particular kind of genius to do that sort of thing well. But visually interesting nonetheless.
posted by louche mustachio at 2:35 AM on January 11

Its like you're a dog. You've been a dog all your life, and that is just fine. It's cool being a dog.

One day you eat something and you become human. Holy shit, look at all this thinking and walking on two legs. Ah, look at all the other dogs, how I love them. They must try this sometime.

And then it passes, and you are back to explaining to your dog friends what it is like to be human. With barks.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 2:46 AM on January 11 [28 favorites]

Is this the same drug William Hurt experimented with in Altered States? If so, where do I sign up?
posted by Maaik at 3:47 AM on January 11

Gabor Mate is using ayahuasca to treat addiction as seen in this documentary called "Jungle Presciption". I work in the DTES and being able to help hardcore addiction with this plant substance would a godsend.

You can be told you are deserving of happiness a million times; my understanding is that ayahuasca can make you actually feel this is a truth that cannot be taken away from you. That is a world-changer in a place where the hole inside eats people alive.
posted by moneyjane at 4:08 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]

ahem...Jungle Prescription, even...
posted by moneyjane at 4:10 AM on January 11

It has always bothered me how sometimes people take psychedelic experiences, which are as unstructured and direct as it is possible for a thing to be, and impose more or less ridiculous belief systems on top of them. It seems like an attempt to regain control, to build a set of rules that once again places themselves near the center of everything in a universe that operates in the way they prescribe.

I've avoided ayuhuasca ceremonies for this reason. They always seemed like a weird ego trip for everyone involved.
posted by Ictus at 4:25 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]

think Terrence McKenna has done some of the best writing and speaking about Ayuhuasca in the English language, followed closely by Johonthan Ott, and then William Burroughs in the Yage Letters (although he was poorly informed his account of his experiences were clear and meticulous).
posted by clarknova at 5:19 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]

+1 for the use of Futura, but not much else.
posted by odinsdream at 5:27 AM on January 11

Stepping Into the Fire is the cinematic release that reaches into the ash of the bare bones of existence

Is this a press release?
posted by Forktine at 6:09 AM on January 11

> Is this the same drug William Hurt experimented with in Altered States?

If I recall right that was peyote. Not exactly the same. There are hundreds of these compounds that very few credentialed medical researchers are willing to touch since around 1970. You can get the best information (some of the information is horrible) at erowid.

erowid is likely blocked at your workplace.
posted by bukvich at 6:13 AM on January 11

Snake oil.

Oh, it's definitely psycho-active. It's one of the most potent hallucinogens in existence. And any drug like that depends to work as an anti-depressant.
posted by empath at 6:31 AM on January 11

(tends to work).. i was going to say 'depends on the seratonin system' or something like that, at first...
posted by empath at 6:34 AM on January 11

I've never done ayahuasca, but psilocybin mushrooms were, for me, a profoundly life-changing experience. Such a pity that our society largely refuses to explore the benefits of drugs as though they're all the same thing-- I've never done cocaine, but from the way it's described I can't imagine anything that's farther from, for instance, marijuana or shrooms. Yet we lump them together as though they're all cut from the same cloth.
posted by WidgetAlley at 7:39 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]

Speaking of the important of ritual in the context of psychedelics, it is important to mention Alejandro Jodorowsky's Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy here.

For anyone unfamiliar, Mr. Jodorowsky's films are a few of the most psychedelic pieces of cinema produced to date.
posted by solipse at 7:59 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]

It seems like an attempt to regain control, to build a set of rules that once again places themselves near the center of everything in a universe that operates in the way they prescribe.

I've avoided ayuhuasca ceremonies for this reason. They always seemed like a weird ego trip for everyone involved.

I'm not that familiar with ayahuasca ceremonies. But it seems like tripping has an innate ritualistic sense to it, and the formation of a ceremony around it seems like a natural thing. I don't think it's so much about imposing a belief system around it, but keeping it from spiraling into something that's spiritually useless. and isn't the point to get rid of ego? it's hard to imagine someone having an ego trip while they're filling their brain with DMT
posted by girih knot at 8:12 AM on January 11

Dunning–Kruger effect.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 8:38 AM on January 11

I've done a lot of 5MEO, and I'm interested in Ayahyasca, but I don't have any interest in experiencing it through someone else's cultural context. Every opportunity I've had to do it would have involved sitting in a room and listening to a someone singing jungle songs or something like that. And I'm just not interested. If I'm going to trip, I want to *explore*. I want to philosophize. I want to play my goddamn drum. I'm not interested in experiencing someone else's trip, no matter how ancient or compelling.
posted by Afroblanco at 9:19 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]

Ritual in the context of hallucinogens is definitely a matter of control, but it's there because it works. Even "recreational" users of these kinds of drugs build basic rituals (have a sitter, be in a positive space/outdoors, pick out some good records ahead of time, stock the fridge for 12 hrs later, etc). It's not on the same scale as an ayahuasca ceremony but the function is similar - minimizing fear and anxiety to allow for good times to occur.
posted by mek at 9:28 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]

Elaborate rituals are also a symbol that this is not something to take lightly.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 10:00 AM on January 11

Ritual is definitely about "framing" an experience. The record shows that early psychedelic experiments that took place in religious contexts (Easter Sunday) definitely changed the tenor of the experience, and lots of ritual and preparation that takes place around mystical experiences, drug-induced or otherwise, is used to put whatever will happen in context of the culture or belief system that's encouraging it, and determine its relationship to the everyday lived world. If you disagree with the frame, it might be best to rewrite or rethink the frame in advance, rather than do without it. Taking psychedelics outside of a carefully thought-through frame gives you more options for disregarding it, regarding it as mental illness, a mere "trippy" party experience, or the like.
posted by LucretiusJones at 10:26 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]

Our in other words, to be experienced as a religious experience, it has to be treated as a religious experience.

Doesn't sound like there's much room for those people who regard spirituality as a mix of misfiring neurons and confirmation bias.
posted by happyroach at 11:29 AM on January 11

pretty amazing considering it was invented by 'savages' in the jungle as many as 3000 years ago

Is such a thing even possible?
posted by Hoopo at 11:30 AM on January 11

My metaphor for DMT is that it's like rebooting into a completely new OS, one dedicated to its own particular purpose, (like the Electric Sheep screensaver?).

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has experience with DMT (salts, smoked) and with Ayahuasca. My understanding is that Ayahuasca lasts longer - does it get as intense as DMT can (ie soul shreddingly intense) ?
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 11:45 AM on January 11

Doesn't sound like there's much room for those people who regard spirituality as a mix of misfiring neurons and confirmation bias.

I can definitely assure you that going into a psychedelic experience hoping to have your current mindset and assumptions vindicated is not only extremely unlikely, but a waste of time, effort, and drugs.
posted by mek at 11:55 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]

Extremely unlikely to go well, that is.
posted by mek at 11:56 AM on January 11

In related news, the DEA has spearheaded several new bills and reschedulings in the past year, including the Combating Designer Drugs Act of 2011. In terms of the DMT tryptamines, there's one week left until 5-MeO-DMT is effectively placed in Schedule I. But I think previous to that, they also put it in an emergency scheduling earlier in the year.

It's powerful stuff, not to be taken lightly. Not that it should be illegal, but sitters and some sort of preparation are a good thing.
posted by formless at 12:17 PM on January 11

DMT elves want the elites to kill us all
posted by homunculus at 12:46 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]

Erk, that's January 19, 2011, not January 19, 2012 for the scheduling. Embarrasing.

Calendars? Where we're going we don't need calendars.
posted by formless at 12:48 PM on January 11

Doesn't sound like there's much room for those people who regard spirituality as a mix of misfiring neurons and confirmation bias.

And yet, atheists have written extensively about spiritual experience, drug induced and otherwise.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:56 PM on January 11

Dunning–Kruger effect.

People who claim to believe in evidence-based treatment for things like addiction should not brush this sort of thing aside lightly, given that there's evidence of its efficacy as a treatment.

For those of you who haven't tried ayahuasca, yet have the gall to dismiss it out of hand, shame on you.

You don't need to have tried it to think there might be something to it. There seems to be, by which I mean "we have evidence that there is", a broad group of people for whom a single, supervised psychotropic experience has long-lasting positive effects. Compared to other treatment options this is incredibly compelling on a cost basis alone, but virtually all the people who would benefit from this will never have that treatment available to them because of our insane drug laws.

I'm about as straight-laced and middle-aged as they get, I say I don't do drugs even though I drink and occasionally smoke, but I won't just brush this idea off. Casually dismissing this stuff just because you know some hippie you find unsavory or you've seen a crackhead downtown is 100% anti-intellectual bullshit.
posted by mhoye at 1:12 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]

girih knot: In my experience psychedelics don't need any help to be profound. We have a predilection towards prediction and control and ritual lets us scratch that itch where it would otherwise be impossible. As does signing on with a guru.

As for the ego thing, Master Mancoluto is one of the film's central characters and describes himself on his website as "a first level shaman since his childhood and extremely distinguished in the knowledge of superior metaphysics and in the development of the seven senses. His teachings are further than human reasoning and much profounder than any philosophy." I don't get how somebody can trip and end up there except as a defense mechanism.
posted by Ictus at 1:24 PM on January 11

I'm a moderate fan of better living through chemistry but deeply skeptical of claims for the Acid Test to be the spiritual experience or the root of human civilization/consciousness.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 2:11 PM on January 11

I recently had a 3 night ceremony with Ayahuasca in the United States (which prompted this post). First off, Ayahuasca is not a drug. It is a sacred plant medicine and is extremely healing. Anyone who wants to classify it as snake oil or just another psychadelic is dead wrong. In just 3 nights, I was able to work through some serious issues mainly regarding the death of my girlfriend 3 years ago as well as a host of other personal issues that had kept me depressed for the last 5-10 years of my life. I learned the sacredness of life, humanity, the elements and the universe in just 3 short nights. I also learned about my attachment issues, my ego and really learned to forgive myself, surrender myself to life and begin a new spiritual path that begins with loving myself and the world around me. I can honestly say it was the equivalent of 10 or 20 years of therapy for me and the most amazing and beautiful experience of my entire life. This medicine works but you MUST have a Shaman in order to guide the experience otherwise it's completely pointless. Anyone who wants to just write this off as some mystical fantasy ... go right ahead. More power to you. If anyone is interested in reading about my full experience, please feel free to send me a message and I'll link you to my blog. (not sure if that's allowed on here, so my apologies in advance).
posted by GrooveJedi at 5:07 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]

From what I have read, the traditional Amazonian Ayahuasca brew is a bewildering concoction of rather complex drugs or entheogens interacting with each other. Your experience might vary...
posted by ovvl at 5:24 PM on January 11

Okay, I received word from a member that it's okay to post a link to my blog in the comments section. For those of you who are interested in reading a detailed account of my journey, here you go.

http://infinitetangents.wordpress.com/
posted by GrooveJedi at 6:32 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]

Interesting reading, thank you.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:58 PM on January 11

Wow, epic blog post! I'm going to enjoy reading it.
posted by troll at 7:23 PM on January 11

GrooveJedi, I don't mean to trivialize your experience -- because what you experienced was real -- but from experience I can tell you that insight is cheap. If you can learn from your insight and make a real change in your life, well, that's something. But that speaks more to your own discipline than any plant medicine or whatever it is you want to call it.
posted by Afroblanco at 10:52 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]

I agree with you. Ayahuasca will not solve your problems. What it can do is help you get through deep rooted issues, but it's up to the individual to do the real work. The plant medicine can unlock the door but you have to open it and walk through. This is what has happened for me. Ayahuasca helped me face my shadows and gave me enough healing so that I could find the strength to begin a new path in life. What this new path includes is sobriety, exercise, yoga, meditation, a healthy diet and positive energy. I am now living with life again but without these things, I am certain I would revert back to the old patterns and get lost in the daily grind again. But I am moving forward and my path has definitely shifted. Meditation is key for me but I can tell you with complete honesty that it would have taken years and years of therapy to get to where I am today and Ayahuasca helped me reach this point in 3 nights.
posted by GrooveJedi at 11:23 PM on January 11 [4 favorites]

Wow. That's really cool. I wish you nothing but the best.
posted by Afroblanco at 12:09 AM on January 12

I'm a moderate fan of better living through chemistry but deeply skeptical of claims for the Acid Test to be the spiritual experience or the root of human civilization/consciousness.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 11:11 PM

Either acid and its relatives are the root of spiritual experience, or in alternative you have to accept a coincidence that the word "astronomical" doesn't even begin to describe.

Just let it go.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 8:07 AM on January 12

Either acid and its relatives are the root of spiritual experience, or in alternative you have to accept a coincidence that the word "astronomical" doesn't even begin to describe.

People throughout history report spiritual experiences from a huge variety of practices, from psychedelics, to meditation, to fasting, to a good fist up the ass, to just spontaneous experience. For myself, She (for lack of a better pronoun) has never spoken to me while I was under the influence.

My objection starts when advocates of psychedelic spirituality go beyond saying, "this is a good path" to saying "this is the only path." I'll grant that there's a bit of defensiveness on both sides there, but the result is that we can't really learn from each other.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:53 AM on January 12

I recently had a 3 night ceremony with Ayahuasca in the United States (which prompted this post). First off, Ayahuasca is not a drug. It is a sacred plant medicine and is extremely healing.

I'm not denigrating your experience at all, but it's a drug just like MDMA and LSD, and people can have amazingly powerful and healing experiences with all of them all the same.
posted by empath at 9:26 AM on January 12

From what I have read, the traditional Amazonian Ayahuasca brew is a bewildering concoction of rather complex drugs or entheogens interacting with each other. Your experience might vary...

It's actually pretty simple, but very clever and hard work to make. It's an admixture of two plants: one containing an MAOi, the other DMT. The MAOi stops the gut from breaking down DMT before it can cross the blood-brain barrier, allowing it to become psychoactive. On it's own the DMT containing plant has no effect. You could eat a pound of it and notice nothing.

It's an interesting mystery: how did peope with what ammounts to stone-age technology invent a pharmacological recipie that is non-obvious and labor intensive? It's not a discovery you could make accidentally.
posted by clarknova at 9:52 AM on January 12

It's not a discovery you could make accidentally.

Oh come on. People eat a bunch of stuff, some of whom experience some effect. The effect is further studied by adjusting combinations of foods noting whether the effect is enhanced or reduced. This doesn't require some kind of advanced understanding of pharmacology.
posted by odinsdream at 10:10 AM on January 12

In fact, going back a subject:

And then it passes, and you are back to explaining to your dog friends what it is like to be human. With barks.

A painful aspect of trying to have discussions about spirituality the tendency to assume you're the only human in a room of dogs.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 10:11 AM on January 12

Oh come on. People eat a bunch of stuff, some of whom experience some effect. The effect is further studied by adjusting combinations of foods noting whether the effect is enhanced or reduced. This doesn't require some kind of advanced understanding of pharmacology.

The DMT-containing plant, Psychotria viridis, is a broad-leafed shrub with no food value, and as I just said, has no effect when eaten on its own. Apparently it has another use: as an eye drop for headaches, but that's also not food related, and administering the eye drops after drinking the vine-sap reduction wouldn't give you the Ayahuasca effect either. This kind of thing suggests that there is or was a pre-industrial pharmacological experimentation system, highly sophisticated, about which we know nothing.

You image of people just randomly shoving things in thier mouths is a little offensive. Maybe you think indigenous amazonians are monkeys or something? I hope that wasn't your association.
posted by clarknova at 10:59 AM on January 12 [2 favorites]

I'm not denigrating your experience at all, but it's a drug just like MDMA and LSD, and people can have amazingly powerful and healing experiences with all of them all the same.

I'm sorry, but you're just wrong about this. I've experimented with MDMA plenty and although I've never tried LSD, I have tried Mushrooms and many other drugs. Ayahuasca is not even close to any of these. It is a truly spiritual medicine, NOT a drug. Ayahuasca requires the guide of a Shaman in order to connect to a place of higher consciousness. The Shaman understands and communicates with the spirit world. It's not something that's in the realm of understanding unless you have the experience yourself. Also, there are no after effects or hangover type of feeling with Ayahuasca, where as these other synthesized drugs will leave you feeling like death for several days afterwards. Those drugs you mentioned are synthesized and there are chemicals involved. The closest thing to ayahuasca would be peyote. MDMA and LSD are not even in the same league.
posted by GrooveJedi at 1:32 PM on January 12

There are no chemicals in Ayahuasca?
posted by empath at 1:55 PM on January 12

MDMA is synthesized from sassafras oil, btw. LSD is synthesized from ergot. Both natural sources, as if that matters (it doesn't).
posted by empath at 1:56 PM on January 12

On it's own the DMT containing plant has no effect.

Unless you smoke it.


You image of people just randomly shoving things in thier mouths is a little offensive. Maybe you think indigenous amazonians are monkeys or something? I hope that wasn't your association.

I guess you didn't hang out with my friends in high school, but I would not be surprised at anybody eating or smoking anything to see if it gets you high.
posted by empath at 1:57 PM on January 12

I think you're getting lost in semantics. That Ayahuasca is in fact a chemical doesn't per se equivocate it with LSD or MDMA. A category does not an experience make. GrooveJedi's point, however he chooses to put it, is that the Ayahuasca experience is qualitatively transcendental and superior to that of other psychoactive chemicals. Reducing all drugs to the categorical of "chemical" isn't making a useful distinction. You might as well compare acetaminophen to alcohol on the basis that both are chemicals processed by the liver. Doing so would be missing the trees for the forest, to turn a phrase.
posted by troll at 4:41 PM on January 12

I just re-read my comment, and I misused the word 'equivocate.' I meant to say "That Ayahuasca is in fact a chemical doesn't per se make it equivalent with LSD or MDMA."
posted by troll at 7:01 PM on January 12

You image of people just randomly shoving things in thier mouths is a little offensive. Maybe you think indigenous amazonians are monkeys or something? I hope that wasn't your association.

No, that's a ridiculous reading of my comment.
posted by odinsdream at 7:19 PM on January 12

I just re-read my comment, and I misused the word 'equivocate.' I meant to say "That Ayahuasca is in fact a chemical doesn't per se make it equivalent with LSD or MDMA."

Thanks for clarifying. Makes more sense now. I am a personal believer that this medicine is going to change the world. It's already starting, I can see it in my community and it will spread quickly. I look forward to working with the medicine some more in Peru in a few months. I highly recommend this medicine to anyone and everyone far and wide who is not satisfied with their life's circumstances or needs some healing from past issues or trauma. Like I mentioned before, the real work is up to all of us but this medicine is a shortcut and a fastrack to realigning us physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually to make it easy to begin to make those changes. In the end, I believe that we all create our own realities and tools such as meditation are powerful in helping us manifest our destinies. Ayahuasca can show us the way, but it's all up to us. Cheers.
posted by GrooveJedi at 12:31 AM on January 13

I think you're getting lost in semantics.

I'm not the one getting lost in semantics. DMT is a drug just like every other medicine is a drug. Calling it medicine doesn't change the fact that it's a psychoactive substance that works like every other psychoactive substance and doesn't give it magical 'healing' properties. It's not magic, it's chemistry.
posted by empath at 1:10 AM on January 13

Calling it medicine doesn't change the fact that it's a psychoactive substance that works like every other psychoactive substance and doesn't give it magical 'healing' properties. It's not magic, it's chemistry.

Well, obviously it doesn't work "like every other psychoactive substance," in that while these drugs all have a commonality in that they have a narcotic effect, their medical applications vary wildly. While MDMA is very effective in treating PTSD and related anxiety conditions, marijuana has proved very useful in treating chronic pain, ayahuasca in treating chronic addiction and serious mental trauma.... lumping all these drugs together as "psychoactive" is technically correct but as functionally useless as current drug policies which determine them all to be as dangerous and addctive as "party drugs" like cocaine and alcohol.

If there is one thing the medical literature is absolutely clear on, it's that the legal "psychoactive substances" alcohol and tobacco both cause incredible amounts of human suffering, while many much more illegal hallucinogenic drugs have incredible untapped potential as medicines. This potential is being ignored due to irrational anti-drug policies which are blind to the significant differences in narcotics and their differing uses and applications. Yes, "they're all chemicals," but all medicines are. And plenty of medicines are also psychoactive, including but not exclusively: every single medicine used to treat mental illness, by definition.
posted by mek at 1:36 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Mek. I agree with 100% of what you said. I'm a huge fan of MDMA and LSD, etc. I just think calling Ayuahasca some new magical thing is absurd. It's the same kind of thing. They all have their uses.
posted by empath at 6:28 AM on January 13

To clarify: I was arguing specifically against putting DMT into a different category from LSD, MDMA, Mushrooms, etc. They're all very similar. If you think one is medicine, they they are all medicines. If you think one is a drug, then they are all drugs. If you think one is 'just chemicals', then they are all just chemicals, etc...
posted by empath at 6:30 AM on January 13

spoken like someone who has never tried Ayahuasca. I am telling you, there is a huge difference between even DMT and Ayahuasca.
posted by GrooveJedi at 7:34 AM on January 13

I say the same shit about people that haven't tried LSD. I get that you had a really great trip, I really do. I'm glad that it helped you. MDMA worked miracles for me, personally. I wish everyone would do it. But it's not magic.
posted by empath at 7:35 AM on January 13

Arf! Arf! whIINE [pisses on tire]
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:11 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

You're the only person using the term 'magic' in this thread, empath. We understand that Ayahuasca is a chemical, but that's really beside the point. Chemistry is not at issue here. Experience is at issue. I'm sure you'd agree that despite their chemical natures, caffeine is experientially dissimilar to cocaine, right? They're both stimulants, yet reside in different leagues of high. Positively associating the two would be analogous to describing Ayahuasca as, in your words, "a psychoactive substance that works like every other psychoactive substance." Well, yes, and—emphatically—no.
posted by troll at 9:06 AM on January 13

You're the only person using the term 'magic' in this thread, empath.

Re-read this woo-woo description of it again, please:

I recently had a 3 night ceremony with Ayahuasca in the United States (which prompted this post). First off, Ayahuasca is not a drug. It is a sacred plant medicine and is extremely healing. Anyone who wants to classify it as snake oil or just another psychadelic is dead wrong. In just 3 nights, I was able to work through some serious issues mainly regarding the death of my girlfriend 3 years ago as well as a host of other personal issues that had kept me depressed for the last 5-10 years of my life. I learned the sacredness of life, humanity, the elements and the universe in just 3 short nights. I also learned about my attachment issues, my ego and really learned to forgive myself, surrender myself to life and begin a new spiritual path that begins with loving myself and the world around me. I can honestly say it was the equivalent of 10 or 20 years of therapy for me and the most amazing and beautiful experience of my entire life. This medicine works but you MUST have a Shaman in order to guide the experience otherwise it's completely pointless. Anyone who wants to just write this off as some mystical fantasy ... go right ahead. More

I'm objecting to this description of it.
posted by empath at 9:08 AM on January 13

(not the subjective effects -- i believe it helped him work through stuff. I'm objecting to 'sacred plant medicine' and 'you must have a shaman', etc.. ). It's a drug like any other and it works via chemistry like every other drug. It's not a 'sacred plant medicine', whatever the fuck that means.
posted by empath at 9:09 AM on January 13

And when i say it's a 'drug like any other', I don't mean it's exactly the same as aspirin. That would be stupid. I realize that, for example, tylenol and ketamine are different drugs, with dramatically different effects, obviously, but they all work through chemistry. And there's not some magical 'healing' property that 'medicines' possess, but 'drugs' don't.
posted by empath at 9:14 AM on January 13

Ok, I see what you're saying. As a physicalist, I completely agree with your central point. Any action on or of consciousness is the result of natural, physical processes. Sorry for the misunderstanding on my part.

But I don't think the above terminology is necessarily problematic to that worldview. From a practical standpoint, a 'shaman' is just a very skilled sitter. Thinking of the drug as a 'sacred plant medicine' might be useful for psychological ingestion of the trip. These terms may not be true in the strictest sense, but neither is consciousness in true accordance with reality. We have feeble, emotional minds, and a judicious lie may help more than hurt.
posted by troll at 9:30 AM on January 13

(not the subjective effects -- i believe it helped him work through stuff. I'm objecting to 'sacred plant medicine' and 'you must have a shaman', etc.. ). It's a drug like any other and it works via chemistry like every other drug. It's not a 'sacred plant medicine', whatever the fuck that means.

Go sit with a Shaman for a night and drink a few cups. Then come back to this thread and give us a report. Until then, you sound like you are a movie critic, writing a review about a movie that you haven't even bothered to watch. With respect.
posted by GrooveJedi at 11:15 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Look. I've done mushrooms, I've done LSD. I know that it's impossible to describe the subjective effects of psychedelics in any meaningful way. There's no way I could possibly understand what you were feeling and perceiving. That much I totally get. But the objective mechanism for the effect is entirely different than the subjective experience. Do you understand that?
posted by empath at 11:18 AM on January 13

I'm referring mostly to the experience. Do you understand that?
posted by GrooveJedi at 11:21 AM on January 13

This is what you're not understanding. I've done mushrooms, MDMA, Ketamine and an entire host of other substances. Ayahuasca is not the same, not even close. Don't make me eat LSD just to prove you wrong. ;)
posted by GrooveJedi at 11:22 AM on January 13

When you say it's 'not a drug', what exactly do you mean? What do you think a drug is? What do you think medicine is? What do you think differentiates a medicine from a drug? What do you mean when you say it's 'sacred'?
posted by empath at 11:23 AM on January 13

I'm not sure I can explain. Drink a few cups and you'll know the difference. :)
posted by GrooveJedi at 11:41 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

It's a drug like any other and it works via chemistry like every other drug.

Again, no. These drugs are not of the "take a pill" variety - it's not like you can just medicate with MDMA, LSD, or ayahuasca and expect to have a beneficial result. These drugs only work as medicine in very specific contexts: eg. the MDMA PTSD trials utilize the empathogenic effect of the drug to radically enhance the effectiveness of more traditional trauma therapy. Nobody is advocating dropping E on a saturday night and dancing to trance music as a magical cure for PTSD; by limiting your description of the drug to its chemical constituents, you are ignoring a significant portion of the therapy. Same goes for ayahuasca.

This conception of medicine as being reducible entirely to chemical interactions is... problematic. I mean if you are a materialist it's tautologically true for you, but it proves somewhat difficult to describe psychotherapy, realizations, insights, self-reflection, etc in terms of chemical interactions.
posted by mek at 1:03 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

This conception of medicine as being reducible entirely to chemical interactions is... problematic. I mean if you are a materialist it's tautologically true for you, but it proves somewhat difficult to describe psychotherapy, realizations, insights, self-reflection, etc in terms of chemical interactions.

But the effect that DMT (and LSD and MDMAand prozac, etc) has on your brain is due to chemical interactions. It is not a sacrament. It is not magic. There is no 'healing' property to it that other drugs lack. It is a chemical that changes the way your brain operates. Whether you also take it with therapy or not is kind of irrelevant to the fact of whether it is a drug. If you hurt yourself, you don't just take a muscle relaxer. You take a muscle relaxer and go through physical therapy. That doesn't make the muscle relaxer 'not a drug', because you're doing it in conjunction with physical therapy. And it doesn't make DMT 'not a drug', if you take it in conjunction with talk therapy.

It is a drug that works like all other drugs, through chemistry.
posted by empath at 1:10 PM on January 13

I mean if you are a materialist it's tautologically true for you, but it proves somewhat difficult to describe psychotherapy, realizations, insights, self-reflection, etc in terms of chemical interactions.

Which is why most materialists don't describe those things in terms of chemical interactions.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:11 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

It is a drug that works like all other drugs, through chemistry.

Wrong. That's why we have Shamans. Do you think they're all just putting on a show?
posted by GrooveJedi at 1:16 PM on January 13

Whether you also take it with therapy or not is kind of irrelevant to the fact of whether it is a drug.

But it has everything to do with whether or not it is a medicine! If the associated therapy is essential to the drug's functioning as a medicine (or "sacred healing plant"), including that in your description of ayahuasca is essential. The medicine is not the drug's chemical interactions with your brain, alone, it is the whole experience placed in context. I don't see why you are taking issue with this rather simple point to go on a materialist tirade.
posted by mek at 1:22 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

... materialist tirade.

What does this have to do with, well, anything?
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:33 PM on January 13

Well, you said it already:

most materialists don't describe those things in terms of chemical interactions.

So to bring it back to empath's comments: yes, all these drugs are medicines. But that's not a very useful description. Some medicines are safe to use over the counter, some are toxic in small doses, some are extremely powerful and debilitating narcotics which need to be administered by professionals in a highly controlled environment. A reductive definition is not only not useful, it is potentially life-threatening, in that it ignores these huge differences.
posted by mek at 4:13 PM on January 14

Well, you said it already:

Yes, and I'm questioning as to why you're repeatedly trying to frame this into a pissing match about materialism.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:55 PM on January 14

Sorry, I didn't mean you to get hung up on that terminology; I'm sorry if it pressed some buttons.. Commenters came into the thread dismissing people's subjective experience as claims of "magic" and started substituting language that was very clearly aligned with an ideology of scientific materialism: "just chemicals," "misfiring neurons," etc. I find these types of statements both offensive in that they dismiss real individuals' perspectives, and ineffective as a means of dialogue, insofar that they reduce real and meaningful phenomena to physical events dissociated from their context.

Yes, an ayahuasca experience is a series of neurons misfiring in reaction to an injested chemical. Similarly, your comments are a series of letters being presented by neurons firing in reaction to photons hitting your retina. These statements are accurate, but they're also, at a very fundamental level, stupid. We have much better ways of discussing the topic.
posted by mek at 12:11 AM on January 15

I wasn't at all arguing against his subjective experience. He experienced what he did. I'm arguing about artificial distinctions between DMT and other psychedelics that really aren't there.
posted by empath at 12:33 AM on January 15

And I'm pretty sure I argued that many of those distinctions are valid and useful. At least, that was my opinion and goal.
posted by mek at 12:44 AM on January 15

What exactly do you think DMT does if it's fundamentally different from LSD and MDMA and other psychedelics?
posted by empath at 1:05 AM on January 15

Go sit with a Shaman, drink a few cups and find out. I guarantee you, you will not feel the same afterwards. :)
posted by GrooveJedi at 1:54 AM on January 15

What exactly do you think DMT does if it's fundamentally different from LSD and MDMA and other psychedelics?

I wouldn't call MDMA a psychedelic. It triggers a massive release of serotonin along with other neurotransmitters and you get high off your own supply, so to speak. In any case, DMT does nothing fundamentally different i.e. it doesn't act through supernatural means. Aside from Ayahuasca, I've experienced every drug under discussion here. Smoked DMT is a realm apart from LSD or mushrooms, so I can only imagine the prolonged intensity imparted by the MAOi component of the jungle brew.

We're talking about feeling, emotion, insight, effect on thought—which is the entire point of a psychedelic. It makes no sense to talk about physicalism in this context because it adds no value to the trip. In my opinion, DMT is no more magical (and holy fuck is it magical) than it tricks your brain into thinking it is. It's a constructed illusion that follows physical rules but the illusion itself follows no rules, or at least none that are practically reductive because we can't deconstruct a thought into its neural pathway. So people interpret their experience with the only tool they have: spirituality. You don't have to believe in a spiritual reality to be spiritual cf. Carl Sagan. So that's from where this terminology springs. Again, "magic" and "medicine" aren't necessarily declarative descriptions; they're just substitutions.

Anyway, I watched the Stepping Into the Fire and I was deeply impressed by the brew's transformative effect. This is a drug that provides concentrated perspective in a short window, and to most people that's magic in a bottle. Watch the documentary.
posted by troll at 3:46 AM on January 15 [1 favorite]

mek: Yes, and I find your statements about "scientific materialism" to be just as dismissive and reductionist.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 10:20 AM on January 15

My statements were only reflecting on particular rhetoric in this thread... sorry if you took them as rejecting science entirely or something equally radical.
posted by mek at 1:44 PM on January 15

It's a constructed illusion that follows physical rules but the illusion itself follows no rules, or at least none that are practically reductive because we can't deconstruct a thought into its neural pathway.

My thought on this is similar; really, the physiological effects of the drug are secondary: what's important is that the physiological effects enable a certain type of mental experience, and the memory of that experience recontextualizes later experiences of everyday thoughts and actions, resulting in a change in behaviour. The self-realization which can occur on a drug trip is only useful if you can later recall that experience and use it to frame and comprehend further experiences on an ongoing basis. If I took your memory of your ayahuasca trip away, it seems probable that you would revert to your original behaviour. It's not at all like other medicines in that respect; it's more like a surgery, as it is an intervention, the goal of which is to permanently alters the operation of an organ. Of course that gives it some terrible bedfellows, such as lobotomies and ECT - but it is absolutely this serious, not something that should be casually undertaken (as MDMA so often is).
posted by mek at 12:54 AM on January 16