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Ayahuasca and the concept of reality

05 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment

by goamusic in Uncategorized Tags: ayahuasca, consciousness, native, nature, psy, psychedelics, shaman, shamanism, soul, spiritual

Ayahuasca, a psychotropic preparation created by upper Amazonian people since time immemorial, has been the subject of an increasing number of scientific and popular publications. Today, thousands of people from many countries and walks of life have had experience with it. Ayahuasca is the Quechua name, widely used in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, and to a lesser extend in Brazil, where it has been adopted by religious organizations that refer to the beverage either as Santo Daime or Vegetal. It is prepared by brewing the stem of Banisteriopsis caapi, a vine of the Malpighiaceae family, and the leaves of Psychotris viridis, in the Rubiaceae, locally known as chacruna or chacrona. In Colombia as well as areas of the Ecuadorean Amazon, Diplopterys cabrerana, a vine belonging also to the Malphighiaceae locally known as chagropanga, is added to B. caapi to prepare a beverage (as a cold infusion or as a brew) called yajé (also spelled yagé). Some indigenous groups make a drink of only B. caapi, in which case I propose to use just the term caapi. Banisteriopsis caapi contains two main alkaloids, harmine and tetrahydroharmine (some varities contain also traces of harmaline), while both Psychotria viridis and Diplopterys cabrerana contain the powerful visionary alkaloid dimethyltrytamine (DMT), which is not orally active when ingested alone due to oxidation by the enzyme MAO (monoamine oxidase) in the liver and gut wall. In the presence of harmine, a MAO inhibitor, DMT crosses the brain-blood barrier and attaches to 2A and 1A serotonin receptors in the CNS (central nervous system), causing dramatic perceptual, cognitive and mood changes. Ayahuasca (as well as yajé) is thus an invention of upper Amazonian indigenous groups, also famous by their discovery of the properties of other plants, such as those involved in the preparation of curare, a powerful muscular relaxant, various species of rubber essential to the automobile revolution, as well as the domestication of numerous plants, such as tobacco, and many species of palms. The Amazon area is gradually being recognized as a center of high culture previous to the European invasion that brought unimaginable destruction to the whole continent, with the disappearance within 150 years of around 95% of its population, mostly due to contagious diseases for which it had no natural defenses.

Ayahuasca (and yajé) is used within a shamanistic complex by numerous indigenous groups of the Upper Amazon with various purposes, such as divination, diagnosing illnesses, transformation into animals or more generally to get in touch with normally unseen realms subjacent to ordinary reality, including visits to the primordial time where humans and animals acquired their present shapes. The concept of reality among indigenous groups suggests a many-worlds interpretation of the real. Ayahuasca and other sacred plants facilitate access to these other realities. Its importance is reflected in the myths of origin. Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, who worked among Tukanoan indigenous groups of Colombia (also living on the Brazilian side of the border) collected a myth that I present here in a highly condensed form (Reichel-Dolmatoff (1975:134-136): The Sun Father is the Master of Yajé. He impregnated a woman who looked at Him through the eye. She gave birth to the Yajé vine in the form of a radiant child. When she entered the maloca or communal house she asked, “Who is the father of this child”. One after the other several men, the ancestors of the Tukano, said “I am his father”, the first cutting his umbilical cord, others grabbing him by his fingers, his arms and legs, tearing him into pieces, each getting his own kinds of yajé. With it they also got the rules by which to live, and other things with which to reciprocate: conversations, songs, food, and also evil things. They found their place, their way of life.

Among the Cashinahua and other Pano indigenous groups of Peru and Brazil (who call ayahuasca nixi pae) the origin of the vine is in the sub aquatic realm. According to Lagrou (2000:33) the ancestor named Yube enters the water world of his spiritual kin, the snakes, to marry the beautifully-painted snake woman whose vision had seduced him. He is initiated into taking ayahuasca but he fails to resist the fear induced by the visions. He cries out, offending his snake kin, owners of the brew, and escapes, only to be found and wounded by his angry kin a year later. Before he dies, he transmits to his people his knowledge of the brew’s preparation and its song.

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