Schedule I drug in the US, Class A drug in the UK, stupèfiant in France

August 3, 2015 9:44 PM

There isn’t much magic left in the world today, which might explain the widening appeal of ayahuasca—the plant has made Joe Rogan’s “Scholar List” and apparently changed Sting’s life and saved Lindsay Lohan. But not everyone can come to the Amazon. Some believers think the solution is to bring the plant, and the ceremony, to the rest of the world. Tanner’s Ayahuasca Foundation, in conjunction with a Shipibo medicine man named Don Enrique, is training curanderos from all over the world how to lead ceremonies back home. So let’s talk briefly about things as they are in the real world. And then we too will cross over.

Kirk Salak: Hell and Back

I will never forget what it was like. The overwhelming misery. The certainty of never-ending suffering. No one to help you, no way to escape. Everywhere I looked: darkness so thick that the idea of light seemed inconceivable. Suddenly, I found myself swirling down a tunnel of fire, wailing figures calling out to me in agony, begging me to save them. Others tried to terrorize me. “You will never leave here,” they said. “Never. Never.”

I found myself laughing at them. “I’m not scared of you,” I said.

But the darkness became even thicker; the emotional charge of suffering nearly unbearable. I felt as if I would burst from heartbreak—everywhere, I felt the agony of humankind, its tragedies, its hatreds, its sorrows.

I reached the bottom of the tunnel and saw three thrones in a black chamber. Three shadowy figures sat in the chairs; in the middle was what I took to be the devil himself.

“The darkness will never end,” he said. “It will never end. You can never escape this place.”

“I can,” I replied. All at once, I willed myself to rise. I sailed up through the tunnel of fire, higher and higher until I broke through to a white light. All darkness immediately vanished. My body felt light, at peace. I floated among a beautiful spread of colors and patterns. Slowly my ayahuasca vision faded. I returned to my body, to where I lay in the hut, insects calling from the jungle.

“Welcome back,” the shaman said.

The next morning, I discovered the impossible: The severe depression that had ruled my life since childhood had miraculously vanished.

Ayahuasca Psychedelic Tested for Depression. Medicinal Uses for Psychedelic Drugs
Your Laws On RFRA

Ayahuasca in illustrious publications such as Vanity Fair, Harper's Magazine(previously), Marie Claire, Men's Journal and Elle

previously: Michael Pollan in the latest New Yorker about the mainstreaming of research on psychedelic treatment for depression, anxiety, and addiction.

posted by the man of twists and turns (16 comments total)

If ayahuasca taught me one valuable lesson, it's that many kinds of intense misery can be relieved by crawling in under a big eiderdown and just waiting.
posted by flabdablet at 1:14 AM on August 4, 2015 [11 favorites]

Meet the vine Banisteriopsis Caapi and the relative of the coffee plant, Psychotria Viridis . Articles dealing with the two classical ingredients of the ayahuasca brew. I wonder how long ago - and by what route - somebody hit on the idea of combining these particular plants together?
posted by rongorongo at 1:49 AM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Once many years ago after taking a drink that was concocted for me out of shrooms and San Pedro cactus and some other ingredients that may have been only for flavor or might have also been psychoactive, I had a long talk with the Great White Light Of The Universe that was deeply life-changing. I'd done a lot of LSD and mushrooms and even did a peyote dreamwalk ceremony previous to that, but up until that point I'd only ever really had fun and had never had anything deeply profound on a soul level happen while tripping before.

Part of me would welcome the ayahuasca experience, but another part of me wonders if I haven't already had what was required. I'd certainly want to be in the hands of someone who was well versed in how to guide those trips, because it sounds like it's one hell of an experience.
posted by hippybear at 2:31 AM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Dunno... sometimes, it's possible to be too liberated.
posted by markkraft at 5:18 AM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

If only a trip started with the correct intention could solve all one's inner problems. I swear to god, shrooms left me with permanent anxiety that can only be relieved by powerful anxiolytics. Actually, it's most likely a coincidence, but they definitely didn't help anything other than making time pass more entertainingly on a couple of evenings.
posted by wierdo at 5:21 AM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Joe Rogan’s “Scholar List”

Wow, Joe Rogan's scholar list!
posted by Sangermaine at 6:13 AM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'm more interested in learning more about Joe Rogan's "Scholar List" than ayahuasca at this point.
posted by charles148 at 7:12 AM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Joe Rogan, the MMA announcer and gross standup comic? Eww, way to totally kill my interest in this mind-expanding shamanic experience.

What's next, Glenn Beck on the benefits of yoga?
posted by jayder at 8:50 AM on August 4, 2015

I'd rather go for a supervised injection of pure DMT.
posted by juiceCake at 9:17 AM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have a friend who disappeared into a Peruvian ayahuasca retreat, spent 3 months there, had some run ins with some dodgy sounding shamans, took *a lot* of ayahuasca and has recently returned to the UK talking about aliens and how she's had babies with them.

It sounds like a rather interesting experience none the less. I suppose that when you experience something that intense it's quite easy to ascribe spiritual meaning to it.
posted by leo_r at 10:32 AM on August 4, 2015

There is often a really fine and difficult to discern line between okay and profoundly fucking not okay wrt hallucinogen usage and I don't truly know how far I was from that line when I decided NEVER AGAIN, but I know I was on the same side of the line that living the rest of my life free from amazonian alien babies is on.

I think I probably don't have any questions anymore that need to be answered by this. I think that's okay.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:59 AM on August 4, 2015

Amateur, culturally-appropriating "shamans" administering powerful, disassociating hallucinogens to self-selected troubled people? What could go wrong?
posted by thelonius at 12:51 PM on August 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

Meet the vine Banisteriopsis Caapi and the relative of the coffee plant, Psychotria Viridis . Articles dealing with the two classical ingredients of the ayahuasca brew. I wonder how long ago - and by what route - somebody hit on the idea of combining these particular plants together?

The vine told them to do it man said a white hippie, to me, in all seriousness.
posted by atoxyl at 3:30 PM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Amateur, culturally-appropriating "shamans" administering powerful, disassociating hallucinogens to self-selected troubled people? What could go wrong?

Yea, really. The entire Ayahuasca tourism industry grosses me out to the max. It's a combo of all the worst things about affluent white people traveling to poor countries to feel "cultured", and stoner white dude with dreadlocks culture.

I, for one, have had a lifetimes worth of listening to those kinds of dudes and college freshmen talk about this stuff, and think they sound like terrence mckenna describing self transforming machine elves and how their mind was bloooowwwwnnn maaaaan.

Not that i'm saying that's what this is, but it's irreparably associated with that for me.
posted by emptythought at 4:49 PM on August 4, 2015

I actually know someone who does this, or something similar, and she's sincere and means well and I'm sure she helps some people, but I'd be scared shitless giving this stuff out: there's no way this is going to be a beneficial thing with a happy ending on the other side of the indescribable traumatic abyss, for everyone who tries it.
posted by thelonius at 5:04 PM on August 4, 2015

The vine told them to do it man said a white hippie, to me, in all seriousness.

What is odd is that the hallucinogen that makes ayahuasca work is the DMT in the chacruna plant. Taking this by itself will not work because we have MAO (monoamine oxidase) enzymes floating around in our system which break down the DMT before it gets to our central nervous system and sends us on a trip. However the banisteriopsis caapi vine contains harmaline which is an MAO inhibitor. Take either of the plants that comprise ayahuasca separately and nothing (much) will happen. The plants also grow in different parts of the Amazon basin - and neither appears to have much in the way of an alternative use apart from in this combination.

The popular origin stories for ayahuasca are that it was a gift from a god handed to shaman. If you are skeptical about that this then we have to consider the process whereby medicine men and women gradually acquired knowledge of medicinal uses for the thousands of plant species in the Amazon. To come up with ayahuasca we would have to assume that they tried out not only single plants but likely combinations of different plants - and probably that they were aware of the principle of combining hallucinogen and inhibitor. Also that knowledge and stocks of plants were shared amongst geographically separate tribes.

That is a pretty amazing piece of cultural information. And all this was many, many years pre-hippy!

Amateur, culturally-appropriating "shamans" administering powerful, disassociating hallucinogens to self-selected troubled people? What could go wrong?

Remember that we have also culturally appropriated tobacco, the coca plant and chocolate - all of which were once associated with religious or shamanic use only. Let's just agree that the results have been mixed.
posted by rongorongo at 1:17 AM on August 5, 2015 [1 favorite]