“Here is a story. I am drinking ayahuasca. Suddenly I find myself standing in the entry hallway of a large house in the suburbs, facing the front door. The floor of the hallway is tiled, like many places in the ayahuasca world. There is a large staircase behind me, leading to the second floor; there are large ceramic pots on either side of the entrance way. I open the front door and look out at a typical suburban street—cars parked at the curb, traffic going by, a front lawn, trees along the curb. Standing at the door is a dark woman, perhaps in her forties, her raven hair piled on her head, thin and elegant, beautiful, dressed in a red shift with a black diamond pattern. She silently holds out her right hand to me. On her hand is a white cylinder, about three inches long, part of the stem of a plant, which she is offering to me.”

Extensively researched, wonderfully written, filled with anecdotes and stories from a wide variety of curanderos, healers and peoples, along with comprehensive global, cultural and anthropological connections, observations and explorations, Singing to the Plants is a wild ride out and across the jungles of mestizo shamanism, simultaneously walking straight-faced and practical through “the disorderly landscape of the soul.”

Above all, the book is highly clarifying and seriously comprehensive. In recent years, as awareness of and engagement with shamanism, Amazonian shamanism, ayahuasca and other sacred plants has grown, sweeping across internet forums, websites, television, mainstream news, legal battles and so forth, a great deal of information, and misinformation, has piled up. Thankfully, Beyer wields an astounding mental machete, cutting a clear path through the tangled forest of cultural assumptions, allowing the down-to-earth daily reality of life in Upper Amazon to shine through. With Singing to the Plants, one is able to obtain a clear view of the bigger picture of mestizo life and shamanism in the Upper Amazon. — a view that has, until now, remained largely clouded.

Beyer points out:

“There is today considerable interest in shamanism in general, and in Upper Amazonian shamanism in particular, especially its use of plant hallucinogens; yet there is currently no readily accessible text giving general consideration to the unique features of Amazonian shamanism and its relationship to shamanisms elsewhere in the world. Moreover, many key texts, such as Luis Eduardo Luna’s 1986 dissertation, are out of print and almost impossible to find; and many important studies are in foreign languages, especially French.

We now know much more about shamanism than when Mircea Eliade published his famous overview in 1951. There is now a wider range of excellent ethnographies, including many of Amazonian peoples; debates within the field have sharpened an awareness of many of the assumptions that underlay the fieldwork of many decades ago. Indeed, we now know, too, much more about ethnobotany, hallucinations, and the actions of such substances as dimethyltryptamine. It is time to try to put some of this together.”

Much is indeed brought together in Singing to the Plants. A key element of the book concerns the notion, mostly contemporary/Western, which regards shamans and shamanism as useful for “healing, personal growth, empowerment, community, compassion … shamanism as a set of techniques for self realization, alternative healing, personal fulfillment, and success.”

However, Beyer describes: “It is soul, not spirit, that is the true landscape of shamanism. Shamans deal with sickness, envy, malice, betrayal, loss, conflict, failure, bad luck, hatred, despair, and death—including their own. The purpose of the shaman is to dwell in the valley of the soul—to heal what has been broken in the body and the community.”

Relating a story about the curandera Maria Sabina, Beyer continues to clarify this point: “While Wasson was climbing the mountain of spirit, seeing Sabina as a saint-like figure, a spiritual psychopomp, “religion incarnate,” María Sabina dwelled steadfastly in the valley of soul, healing the sick, vomiting for them, expelling their sickness, living her own difficult and messy life…”

Perhaps seeking shamanism for “personal growth” need not be entirely dismissed; like plants, each person must grow. This is not a bad thing. However, the course this growth may take can invoke healing, or induce harm. Of utmost importance then, is to acquire and share knowledge regarding the territory. One will not last very long in the jungle without a guide, and Singing to the Plants is a magnificent guide. The book, and its wonderful cast of characters, curanderos, animals, plants, spirits and stories presents honest, accurate, respectful, levelheaded and, at times, outrageously marvelous descriptions of the environments and climates of mestizo shamanism in the Upper Amazon. Central to this are various sections concerning gardening, cuisine, music, house building, boats, soccer, yucca, and so forth, which serve to extend the cultural and shamanic landscape in broad and practical contexts.

Having followed Steve Beyer’s blog for some time, finding it an amazing resource of stories and information regarding the jungle, mestizo culture, plants, ayahuasca and so forth, I had caught wind of his forthcoming “ayahuasca book” and so offered to engage in interview. That was several months ago. What has since emerged, in my opinion, goes far beyond the category of “ayahuasca book”, far beyond a personal account, a dusty study or a focus on one plant. It is a biography of people, place and spirits. A well woven story that encompasses, explores, slices open and politely offers up the strange, joyous, interconnected, inter-dependent, liminal, geodesic, complex, simple, tragic, dangerous, difficult, disciplined, messy and majestic world that is the Upper Amazon.

The richness, the colorful stories, the attention to detail, the tales of sorcerers and healers, the bridging and celebration of the mundane and the magical makes Singing to the Plants something akin to a Pablo Amaringo painting; a multi-layered vision to dive into, marvel and learn from.

It is a great pleasure to go a little bit deeper into the forest with Steve Beyer; cut through the tangle, set up camp, a fire, a cup of tea, lay back, eyes closed, leaves rattle, wind stirs, the singing begins.

MORGAN: Steve, how have the plants changed you?

STEVE: Life has changed me, and the sacred plants have been part of that. Also important have been my experiences in the wilderness, my training in jungle survival, my vision fasts in the desert, my family, and the joys and sorrows of a lengthening life in the human world. I don’t know whether it was drinking ayahuasca, or the magical phlegm my maestro ayahuasquero don Roberto Acho Jurema planted in my chest, or the gentle example of my plant teacher, doña María Tuesta Flores, working in my visions and my dreams, but I have changed. Far from the Amazon I have found that my arrogance and rage have drained away, and my heart has slowly opened. Entering into right relationship with people and spirits has happened spontaneously and miraculously.

MORGAN: How did you first come to meet with don Roberto and doña María?

STEVE: I was introduced to them by Howard Lawler, my good friend of many years, and one of my elder brothers on the medicine path. Howard is a herpetologist by training; he first came to the Amazon to study reptiles, and, like many others, fell in love with the jungle. He has lived in Peru now for decades, and he is a profoundly knowledgeable student of both the Andean and Amazonian healing traditions. He introduced me not only to doña María and don Roberto but also to my teachers don Antonio Barrera and don Rómulo Magin.

MORGAN: In terms of the culture and shamanism in the Upper Amazon, what, if anything, do you feel has been lost?

STEVE: Indigenous people all over the world are now embedded in global modernity, whether anyone likes it or not. There is no turning back, no way to disengage from the modern world, nowhere for indigenous peoples to retreat. And I think it is fair to say that indigenous people are, generally, worse off in many ways since this change than they were before.

Still, there are aspects of modernity — modern dentistry, for example — which could be of benefit to the Amazonian peoples if they had access to them. Indeed, modern technologies have already been appropriated in the Amazon for resistance to oppression — using video as a tool for perpetuating and reaffirming cultural values, or Google Earth to identify river discoloration caused by illegal mining operations, or GPS mapping to determine traditional land boundaries.

So what has been lost, I think, is a kind of innocence — a sense that isolation in the jungle offers protection from the challenges of modernity. The mestizo and indigenous peoples of the Upper Amazon are now compelled to engage with the modern world, to deal with natural resource exploitation, cultural appropriation, the temptations of ayahuasca tourism, establishing their identity in the contemporary nation-state, and new and challenging concepts of sickness and healing. I have no idea how this will turn out.

MORGAN: In some of my own experiences and relationship with ayahuasca, speaking about itself, and perhaps also of life in general, it has said to me “there are no rules, only guides” What do you feel about this? How do you feel this relates to the disciplines of shamanism, La Dieta for example, to Amazonian and mestizo traditions and to the waves and criticisms regarding “contemporary/Western” ayahuasca engagement?

STEVE: I was often told in the Upper Amazon that the difference between being a healer and a sorcerer lies in the exercise of self-control. This means self-control during la dieta and during the period immediately following coronación, when the apprentice must learn to control the magic darts received from the teacher. People in the Upper Amazon consider the darts and other pathogenic objects in a shaman’s phlegm to be spirits – autonomous and alive, sometimes with their own needs and desires, including a desire to kill. The healer is able to control these dangerous substances only by discipline and self-denial.

One may take this as a metaphor, but I believe that it is profoundly true. Our egos are as tricky and autonomous as magic darts. Our envidia, our foolish willingness to destroy relationships of trust and confidence with others, seems to flair up at the slightest provocation. Whether it is called a rule or a guide, once again we see the centrality of right relationship in indigenous thought, and the necessity for care and self-control in how we treat our relationships with the spirits and each other.

MORGAN: Regarding contemporary/Western knowledge and use of ayahuasca, much is being discussed and debated, especially regarding ayahuasca tourism. There is the notion that no such thing as ayahuasca tourism actually exists, that to be a tourist one watches from the sidelines, but never really gets involved. However, people who go to the jungle to be in ceremony are out there vomiting and defecating like everyone else and often those who go to the jungle under the pretence of tourism, come away somehow different. Additionally, many people feel called in one way or another, to the jungle by the ayahuasca itself. What do you feel is going on here?

STEVE: The plants speak in many different ways, I think. Sometimes people have life-changing experiences in the first session. And sometimes the sacred plants work slowly and subtly, in plant time. Sometimes the effects of ceremony may not be felt for months, and then the effects may not be visionary, but rather in stirrings of intention, new ways of looking at the world, a greater openness to wonder.

I am concerned that telling people they will “come away somehow different” from drinking ayahuasca may lead to unrealistic expectations, and to self-blame when those expectations are unmet. As I said, I think that, for many people, sacred plant medicines work slowly, over time, and sometimes subtly, so that one day you realize, to your surprise, that the world seems different – more wonderful, more miraculous, and filled with the spirits. For me, that is the lesson of the ayahuasca vision – not necessarily the healing of our perhaps irremediably flawed selves, but rather a way to see through the world to the wonders that were there all along, and we could not see.

It is true that some people feel called to the jungle. But it has been my experience that many people dislike the jungle, its humidity, its insects, its often imaginary dangers; they are afraid of it, and seek to be insulated from contact with it. That is one reason I put sections on such things as house construction, gardening, hunting, fishing, folklore, and daily life in Singing to the Plants. I wanted to provide a resource for people to learn about the cultural context – including material culture – within which the healing practices of the curanderos are embedded. If someone is in a tourist lodge in the jungle eating plantains and fish, I would like there to be a way for that person to learn where those plantains and fish came from – that they did not magically appear, but are the result of labor, knowledge, and insightful ecological management.

MORGAN: Have you ever considered a new word, phrase or way to describe so-called ayahuasca tourism or the global/urban/Western knowledge and use of ayahuasca?

STEVE: I think the term ayahuasca tourism has become pretty well established, and fits in with the established term drug tourism for the phenomenon globally. I am not sure we need a euphemism, since a lot of people who try ayahuasca are, in fact, tourists, for whom drinking ayahuasca is part of the tour package, along with viewing the macaws at a clay lick. Even people who come to the jungle for the sole purpose of drinking ayahuasca are often spiritual tourists, checking off one more item on their life list of transformative experiences. People drink ayahuasca while disengaged from the lives, culture, and struggles of the communities in which the medicine is embedded. But, once you step foot on this path, the sacred makes demands on you – for attention, for respect, for open-heartedness and right relationship – and these demands cannot be denied.

MORGAN: What are your thoughts regarding individuals in places like Canada, Europe, the United States, Australia and so forth, who are brewing and drinking ayahuasca on their own, in their own homes, outside the Amazon?

STEVE: I do not think that there is just one form of shamanism, or just one kind of shamanist culture. Ayahuasca shamanism in the Upper Amazon, for example, has always been voraciously eclectic. A generation ago, indigenous shamans spoke of radio waves and submarines; now they speak of laser beams and intergalactic spaceships. In the same way, I think we are seeing a resurgence of animist and shamanist forms in the industrialized world, some of which may survive and many of which will be transient.

But I think people need to be cautious, for two reasons. First, of course, ayahuasca is, in most places, illegal. It contains dimethyltryptamine, which is a Schedule I controlled substance in the United States and, under the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, most other countries as well. Second, shamans in the Upper Amazon will tell you that embarking on this path alone, without the guidance and protection of an experienced shaman, is dangerous. The visionary world holds both allies and enemies, both meaning and peril. There should always be someone present who can call the protective spirits and sing the songs that guard the participants and guide their visions.

MORGAN: In what ways do you feel people can begin to reciprocate, share the process and build right relationship with these plants, peoples and the shamanism surrounding it?

STEVE: When foreigners come to the Amazon for healing, they often carry their own culturally embedded notions of the causes and resolution of suffering. Some shamans adopt the concepts and language of these clients, some for commercial reasons, some out of a genuine desire to communicate. Sadly, this process appears to be largely one way. I just do not see most foreigners adopting the complex, tragic, and ambivalent views on healing and sickness that lie at the roots of ayahuasca shamanism in the Upper Amazon.

I don’t think that we can view shamanism in the Upper Amazon through the lens of some popular construct of what shamanism is all about, as benevolent, nurturing, and safe. I do not think we should ignore the dark and deep aspects of this tradition, paint it in bright and soothing colors, and rob it of its richness and ambivalence.

All we can do, I think, is to ask ourselves how the sacred plants want us to live, how we can walk this medicine path in a sacred way, in right relationship.

MORGAN: Recently, I had a long conversation with the ayahuasca and the spirits and was told “don’t worry about ayahuasca” with a kind of nod and wink to the contemporary awareness and use of ayahuasca. This was accompanied by two things; an image of someone trying not to laugh, as though they know something you don’t, like a practical joke about to reach its punch line, and a vision of a “David and Goliath” scene. Except, behind the Goliath stood an immense, wild, interconnected entity of plants and spirits and energy. Considering this, and such things as Dennis McKenna’s message; “You monkeys only think you’re running things”, to what degree do you feel the plants and the spirits are the forces in charge (or forces to be reckoned with) on this planet?

STEVE: I personally am very micropolitical. In my own work as a peacemaker and community builder, I seek to institute change at the most local possible level, in schoolrooms, church basements, community clinics, and youth detention centers. So my thinking about plants and spirits is micropolitical as well. To me, Dennis’s message is a personal one, that has to do with giving up ego, control, and the delusion of power. The question that the plants have asked me is this: Are you willing to give up ego, hierarchy, power, dignity, self-importance, moral superiority? Are you willing to give up control, to hand yourself over to the process? Are you willing to see the world as miraculous and filled with spirits?

I think the plants love us. I have no idea why. We certainly have done nothing — at least recently – to deserve it. I think that they want us to be human beings again.

MORGAN: Ayahuasca is often about death, whether it be the healing of an illness, traveling to the land of the dead, “death as a doorway”, speaking with ancestors and so forth. Considering that we are living on, and struggling with, a planet that is regarded as being in its death throes; what role do you feel ayahuasca and the plants play in this respect? Have the plants suggested to you anything concerning the life, death or afterlife of the planet?

STEVE: The plants teach right relationship – with our bodies, our communities, our planet, and ourselves. My own focus has been on what Arthur Kleinman calls local moral worlds, resistance in microcontexts. I am interested in the healing of the suffering human person who seeks out the curandero for relief of pain, sickness, sorrow, bad luck. The lived experience of suffering – the misery that comes of poverty, inequality, and hopelessness – is, I think, both moral commentary and political performance. There is no doubt a need to think about the planet. But grand narratives about our global fate, in my opinion, too often disparage what Kleinman calls “the personal pains and distress that sick persons bring to shamans, which shamans try to cure.”

MORGAN: Singing to the Plants covers an astonishing amount of territory. At this point, now that the book is released, is there anything you feel you didn’t discuss, any avenue left unexplored, a story left untold, or something newly discovered you would have loved to include?

STEVE: Given the publishing schedule, it is impossible for the book to be entirely up-to-date on all the latest legal developments. And I have been thinking about similarities and differences among the sacred plants and fungi – peyote and ayahuasca and teonanácatl, for example – in their ceremonial contexts, and about the cognitive psychology of visionary experiences generally. If I were writing the book today, too, I would probably have a lot more to say about the way in which ayahuasca — or at least the idea of ayahuasca — is penetrating American popular culture. From time to time I write down my current thoughts in the Singing to the Plants blog.

MORGAN: Picture this: You’re walking through the deep jungle, all of a sudden you find all the ingredients you need to whip up some of your favorite jungle cuisine, what would you make?

STEVE: Wow. Well, we could begin with a nice palm heart salad. If we have a frying pan, let’s cook up an appetizer of suri, palmetto beetle grubs, along with some wild garlic. Then a fish course — paiche, the largest freshwater fish in the world, or the dorado catfish, prepared as a patarashca, wrapped in the large leaves of the bijao palm and placed on the hot coals of our fire. I am fond of the large rodents, so perhaps we could roast some agouti or capybara over the fire, and fry up some plantains in the fat left in the pan from the suri. On the other hand, you might prefer tapir or peccary or deer, or even turtle soup. Whichever we choose, we can garnish the dish with some sliced boiled panguana eggs. And for desert we can have just about any kind of tropical fruit imaginable. Then we can sit back with full bellies and tell stories all night.

Interview by Morgan Maher

Stephan Beyer holds a law degree and doctorates in both religious studies and psychology. He lived for a year and a half in a Tibetan monastery in the Himalayas, and has published three books on Buddhism and Tibetan language and religion. He has been a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the University of California–Berkeley, and Graduate Theological Union.

For twenty-five years, he was a lawyer and litigator at a major international law firm in Chicago. He has been a wilderness guide and a peacemaker and community builder. He studied wilderness survival among the indigenous peoples of North and South America, and sacred plant medicine with traditional herbalists in North America and curanderos in the Upper Amazon, where he received coronación by banco ayahuasquero don Roberto Acho Jurama.

He has worked with ayahuasca and other sacred plants in the Amazon, peyote in ceremonies of the Native American Church, and huachuma in Peruvian mesa rituals; and has undertaken numerous four-day and four-night solo vision fasts in Death Valley, the Pecos Wilderness, and the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico. He is a member of the Society of Shamanic Practitioners, American Herbalists Guild, Foundation for Shamanic Studies, Association for Transpersonal Psychology, and Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness. He has served as an editor of the Journal of Shamanic Practice and is a contributing editor of Ayahuasca.com

Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon, by Stephan Beyer, is published by the University of New Mexico Press and available via Amazon.com. Steve’s blog, and the website for the book, is at www.singingtotheplants.com.

In September 2008 Ecuador became the first country in the world to declare constitutional rights to nature, thus codifying a new system of environmental protection.

Reflecting the beliefs and traditions of the indigenous peoples of Ecuador, the constitution declares that nature “has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.” This right, the constitution states, “is independent of the obligation on natural and juridical persons or the State to indemnify the people that depend on the natural systems.”
The new constitution redefines people’s relationship with nature by asserting that nature is not just an object to be appropriated and exploited by people, but is rather a rights-bearing entity that should be treated with parity under the law.

Mari Margil, Associate Director of the Environmental Legal Defense Fund, worked closely over the past year with members of Ecuador’s constitutional assembly on drafting legally enforceable Rights of Nature, which mark a watershed in the trajectory of environmental law.

Ecuador’s leadership on this issue may have a global domino effect. Margil says that her organization is busy fielding calls from interested countries, such as Nepal, which is currently writing its first constitution.

For all of the hope and tangible progress the Rights of Nature articles in Ecuador’s constitution represent, however, there are shortcomings and contradictions with the laws and the political reality on the ground. A fundamental flaw in the constitution also exists due to Correa’s refusal to include a clause mandating free, prior, and informed consent by communities for development project that would affect their local ecosystems.

“I expect them [the multinational extractive industries] to fight it,” says Margil. “Their bread and butter is based on being able to treat countries and ecosystems like cheap hotels. Multinational corporations are dependent on ravaging the planet in order to increase their bottom line.”

The new Mining Law, introduced by Ecuador’s own President Rafael Correa and backed by Canadian companies, which hold the majority of mining concessions in Ecuador, is a testament to Margil’s forecast. The Mining Law would allow for large-scale, open pit metal mining in pristine Andean highlands and Amazon rainforest. Major nationwide demonstrations are being held in protest, with groups accusing Correa of inviting social and environmental disaster by selling out to mining interests.

Carlos Zorrilla, executive director of Defensa y Conservación Ecológica de Intag, who has been a tireless defender of the environment against transnational mining companies, says that while the new constitution looks good on paper, “in practice governments like Correa’s will argue that funding his political project, which will bring ‘well being and relieve poverty,’ overrules the rights of nature.”
Yet even as Ecuadoran President Correa embraces the extractive economic model of development, the inclusion of the rights of nature in a national constitution sets inspiring and revolutionary precedent. If history is any indicator, Ecuadorians will successfully fight for the Rights of Nature, with or without their president.

Update by Cyril Mychalejko

When Ecuadorians drafted and passed a new constitution, which gave nature inalienable rights, the US media largely ignored this historic development. In the case of the Los Angeles Times, one of the few mainstream outlets to cover the story, the newspaper’s editorial board trivialized the development (“Putting Nature in Ecuador’s Constitution,” September 2, 2008) by suggesting it sounded “like a stunt by the San Francisco City Council” and that it seemed “crazy.”

“As ecological systems around the world collapse, we need to fundamentally change our relationship with nature. This requires changes in both law and culture, and ultimately our behavior as part of nature,” said Mari Margil, Associate Director of the Defense Fund, who is disappointed in how the US media largely ignored the story.

In Ecuador, at the time of the constitutional vote, the optimism over how the “Rights of Nature” clauses would translate into policy was guarded.

“As exciting as these developments are, it was also inevitable that the people in power would, and will, find ways to circumvent, undermine, and ignore those rights,” said Carlos Zorrilla, executive director of Defensa y Conservación Ecológica de Intag.

According to Zorrilla, a major disappointment has been President Rafael Correa’s new mining law.

“The law takes rights-to-nature loopholes and widens them so that giant dirt movers could easily drive through them,” said Zorrilla, who has been working with communities of Ecuador’s Intag region to resist mining and promote sustainable development. “To mention a couple of examples, the law does not prohibit large-scale mining in habitats harboring endangered species, nor the dumping of heavy metals in rivers and streams.”

Indigenous leaders responded by filing a lawsuit before Ecuador’s Constitutional Court in March 2009, seeking to overturn the mining law, which they believe is unconstitutional. Article 1 of the “Rights of Nature” clauses states: “Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public organisms. The application and interpretation of these rights will follow the related principles established in the Constitution.”

Regardless of the ongoing struggles to ensure that the true meaning and scope of the constitution is upheld, Dr. Mario Melo, a lawyer specializing in Environmental Law and Human Rights and an advisor to Fundación Pachamama-Ecuador, believes that the nature clauses which reflect the traditions of indigenous peoples could offer a path to an ecologically sustainable future.

“I consider that the recognition of the ‘Rights to Nature’ as a progress on a global scale and one that deserves to be globally broadcast and commented on as a contribution from Ecuador towards the search of new ways of facing the environmental crisis due to climate change.”

The struggles of Ecuadorian social movements and the Ecuadorian government to uphold the “Rights of Nature” and to create a new development model that places human beings as interdependent parts of nature, rather than dominant exploiters of nature, is something we should continue to monitor and learn from.

Source:
Upside Down World, September 25, 2008
Title: “Ecuador’s Constitution Gives Rights to Nature”
Author: Cyril Mychalejko

Student Researcher: Chelsea Davis
Faculty Evaluator: Elaine Wellin, PhD
Sonoma State University

Publisher: Mercado de Letras, Campinas/SP, Brazil
Year: 2009
Format: 11,5 x 21 cm
Support: German Research Council (DFG) and the Collaborative Research Center “Ritual Dynamics” (http://www.ritualdynamik.de).
120 pp.
ISBN 978-85-7591-125-9
Price: U$ 16,00 (to be confirmed) + shipping fee

Summary:
This pocket book highlights the theme of music in the ayahuasca religions of Santo Daime (both the Cefluris and Alto Santo groups) and the União do Vegetal (UDV). Although most studies of the ayahuasca religions recognize the centrality of music in their rituals, the study of the music itself has generally been secondary to other themes, rather than the central focus that it is here. A rich cultural manifestation, ayahuasca music reveals multiple connections with Brazilian religiosity and with the musical expression of the Northeast and Amazonia, and has been one of the principal elements highlighted by recent efforts to designate ayahuasca as immaterial cultural heritage of the Brazilian nation. The book explores the key role that music plays in the everyday life of these religions, in the production of religious meanings, and in the construction of the bodies and the subjectivity of adepts. Through a description of each group’s musicality and a comparison among them, the authors seek to understand these groups’ ethos. This book represents an important contribution to an area of study that is still little explored in Brazil: the use of music in ritual and religious contexts.

Contact:
Mercado de Letras – Tel: 55 + 19 + 3241 7514
livros@mercado-de-letras.com.br
http://www.mercado-de-letras.com.br

Sweet, because as Pablo Amaringo came to this veil of tears, this veil of soulmaking, he bequeathed us a rich treasury of visions and encyclopaedic knowledge of the indigenous shamanic plant traditions of the Amazon. Although he has left us physically, his knowledge and skill as a seer and traveller into the spiritual realms of nature remain with humanity in the form of his art. His paintings are something to truly celebrate.

My hope is that the collectors and students of Pablo’s art will bring his work together to be photographed and archived, and that his friends and family can continue the work of decoding the rich plant mythologies and medicinal knowledge embedded in his work. May Pablo continue to inspire and change lives for generations to come.

- Daniel Mirante November 2009

Howard G. Charing & Peter Cloudsley interview the world famous visionary artist.

Pablo Amaringo is one of the world’s greatest visionary artists, and is renowned for his highly complex, colourful and intricate paintings of his visions from drinking the Ayahuasca brew.

He trained as a curandero in the Amazon, healing himself and others from the age of ten, but gave this up in 1977 to become a full-time painter and art teacher at his Usko-Ayar school. His book, Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman, co-authored with Luis Eduardo Luna, brought his work and the rich mythology of the Amazon to a wide audience in the West.

Pablo Amaringo was born Puerto Libertad, in the Peruvian Amazon. He was ten years old when he first took Ayahuasca—a visionary brew used in shamanism, to help him overcome a severe heart disease. The magical cure of this ailment via the healing plants led Pablo toward the life of a vegetalismo in which he worked for many years.

Howard and Peter met with Pablo at the school which he founded (Usko-Ayar school of painting) in Pucullpa where he lives and paints, and interviewed Pablo about his life as a shaman and artist.

What drew you to being a shaman?

It was a spiritual matter for me. I had thought that shamans deceived and lied to people, so I didn’t believe in them. I thought that Ayahuasca healed people because it was medicine, I didn’t believe in magic and spirits. No! Then in 1967 I saw a curandera3 miraculously heal my sister who had been in mortal agony with hepatitis, and could not either eat or speak, but with this single healing from the plants, she was cured in just two hours. That motivated me to start learning the science of vegetalismo

She was given Ayahuasca?

No, the Senora used the knowledge of Ayahuasca and chanted. That was during the day. That same night I drank and received the powers, but I didn’t know what I was being given. I saw many things. I sat like a king and watched! After that I dieted for five days, staying at home, without seeing many people.

After one month I began to feel what everybody else was feeling, it was a very strange thing! And I discovered I could sing the chants without even learning them. They came out beautifully and I wondered how it was possible that I knew them. I realised I had powers in me and I began to be a curandero when I cured a young man with a terrible headache, firstly I felt it and then he was better.

Is it an important part of the cure, to feel what the patient feels?

That was how the powers were given to me, but others say that when they take the Ayahuasca, they can see what the problem is with their patient. I didn’t even have to drink, I felt exactly where their pains were, and their emotions, everything.

What plant did you take on your diet?

Just Ayahuasca, but afterwards I took other plants at the same time as Ayahuasca, to learn more things.

Then you practiced as a curandero in Pucullpa?

Yes, and for many years I travelled to Madre de Dios, Cusco, Lima, Huanuco, Tingo Maria and Alto Ucayali. Wherever I went I cured people.

At that time Pucullpa was much smaller.

Yes, the houses were mostly wooden, with cultivation behind them, there were no high buildings. None of the streets had tarmac, they were of red mud, except for the one central Plaza. The road to Lima was terrible and it took a month or more to get there.

How do you communicate with plant spirits after you take them into you?

When you take any plant other than Ayahuasca, you connect through your dreams. Ajo sacha, Chric Sanango, Bobinsana etc. you learn while you are asleep. But with Ayahuasca no, you are conscious and awake. That is why it is the planta maestra – the eye through which you see the world, the universe. It is miraculous and sacred and you can learn from your studies far more with Ayahuasca than with other plants, but you must obey the ‘statutes’ of this plant, i.e. the rules. If you obey, no knowledge will be withheld from you.

My visions helped me understand the value of human beings, animals, the plants themselves, and many other things. The plants taught me the function they play in life, and the holistic meaning of all life. We all should give special attention and deference to Mother Nature. She deserves our love. And we should also show a healthy respect for her power!

How did you discover your gift of painting?

I used to make portraits and landscapes when I was 20 years old, but mostly using charcoal. But this didn’t earn me any money so I dedicated myself to other things, agriculture, raising animals and hairdressing, all kinds of things. I was working as secretary to the chief of customs here in the port of Pucullpa. One day my boss told me to paint two armchairs, and as I had never painted, I just slapped on the paint any old how, and it looked awful with lumps everywhere. But the boss didn’t reprimand me; he said how come you are good at everything except painting? I was a little hurt because he was always so impressed by everything I did. This made me think that if I was going to learn to paint, I would learn to do it well.

After three years working there I had a heart problem and returned to doing portraits in pencil beginning with my own portrait.

How did you begin painting visions?

Years passed and I used to say to my mother, when I am older I will paint several pictures of myself so that after I am dead people will know there has been a painter in the family! One day I was asked to accompany a foreign gentleman because I spoke a little English but I did not know that he was the biologist Denis McKenna. After some years he recommended me for a job in Sepagua but I was not able to take it up because my mother fell ill. So when he came back in 1985 I asked him if he would show my pictures in an exhibition he was organizing in Switzerland. They were small pictures, but later he returned with Luis Eduardo Luna who said how beautifully you paint Pablo. I can promote your work; do you want to be a world class painter?

I said no, I don’t want any of those things. I don’t know what a ‘world class’ painter is. I just want you to help me sell my pictures to make a little money. I was portraying the daily realities of people in the Amazon, how they sow and harvest, how they fish and celebrate their fiestas and so on. Luna said how is it I haven’t met you before now? Every year I have been coming for the last eight years, travelling up the Amazon through Brazil and Peru to Panama!

I asked him why he came. What was he looking for? We are interested in the magical plants of Peru from the coast, Sierra and Selva. I know what you are after, I said. I used to be a shaman ten years ago, what a shame you didn’t know me before, but now I have put all that behind me. I could have told you so much about what I had seen, I said. Then I started to think that I could paint for him all the things I had seen in my visions and all the things that were explained to me. But I had to do it in secret because even when people saw photos of what I painted, they said I had gone mad, that I was bedevilled and painting things of the demon!

They worried me with these remarks. I could never have had an exhibition here in Pucullpa. So Luna said paint for me then! And I made two pictures of visions for his next visit, and when he saw those pictures – one of which is in the Museum of Washington DC and the other in the University of Stockholm – they took hundreds of pictures of them. But I said he could take them away. And that’s what they did, wrapped up in a huge box. They sold them and sent me the money. After that they said we don’t want any more landscapes, only visions!

They studied them and said they found language and biology in the pictures so later I began to make explanations of them. But I could never show them to people here. That’s how it all started.

Are people still prejudiced here?

Yes, many are still. Once some religious people came and said that if the name of Jesus was spoken the paintings would explode. And they asked me to say Jesus. I said I can’t say that word, what for? They said to each other, he has got the devil in him, if he says Jesus, he will explode!

You have many amazing paintings here in your studio; can you tell us something about them?

The pictures are a means by which people can cross spiritual boundaries. Some people say they can only believe what they see, but there are thing which exist which cannot be seen. The pictures are for reminding people what we are and where we come from and where we are going. They are for people of any culture in the world although there is much that is taken from indigenous Amazonian culture. For example:

‘A Fines Espirituales’ (Spiritual Endeavour)

In this painting there are horses like humans, humans with tiger’s heads and a papagayo with a human body and so on. Looking at this painting, it reminds us of many of the Amazonian legends in which animals adopt human forms, does this painting relate to these stories?

That is correct, spirits cannot materialize easily, if they cannot take human form, they take animal form. They are made from the spirits of animals, but if they appear human, then they can reproduce with women in order that they can be incarnate in us. This is what you can discover through the visions of Ayahuasca and other plants like toé, chric sanango, ajo sacha etc. assuming you do the diet correctly, then the invisible world can become manifest to us. It is part of our mystic evolution. Everyone has a role to play inspiring, creating, evolving their minds to preserve the world. The spirits are working untiringly to protect Mother Nature – everything from the plants and animals to the circles of the planets.

You touch on an important point about protecting nature; there is an increasing amount of damage that people are causing to the natural world, what is your view why humans do so much damage?

It is our lack of ingenuity, and above all imagination. We think we are the only ones here on earth, unique! We should all work like scientists, teachers, composers so that we can fully and creatively engage in the world, so in that way the world continues. If we play a part in the functioning of the universe we will not die. When I am old and about to die and cannot see well enough to paint, I will be talking other things instead, but I can still paint now and I am 68.

The plants in the painting are ishanga, maromara, pinon blanco, pinon colorado and pinon negro, lengua de perro, verbena. The ethnic elements are Shipibo5, Conibo, Shetebo, Amahuaca, and you can see the spells and spaceships.

‘Hondas de la Ayahuasca’ (Ayahuasca waves)

Here is represented the different grades of shaman. A suniruma is the highest expert sitting here, with dominion of the sky, then banco puma or banco sumi who has dominion of the land, finally the muraya who has dominion over the water.

You can see waves just like the effects of Ayahuasca – the mareacion. It comes strongly and it seems as if it is passing and then another one comes, like waves from a stone in the water. This is the sachamama6 which comes in different colours in the mareacion and protects the vegetation. It is a semi-mythological animal because it actually exists, a huge serpent which lives on the land but doesn’t move, so plants grow on top of it. You can be chopping a path with your machete and strike it unknowingly, until blood appears! If it sees you, it draws you into its mouth with its power, you cannot escape. You can see here the seven rays of the rainbow which portray this power.

You can also see angel serpents or sarafs who protect the sachamama.

El Principio de la Vida. (The Principle or beginning of life)

This painting is about the mystical beginning of life which can be accessed through drinking Ayahuasca. The first cell which divided for the first time was with the help of extra-terrestrial beings, spirits, and angels which enlisted sub atomic particles. The cells have taken millions of years to develop and evolve, and after making cells they created marine animals, fish, and large snakes to live amongst the plants.

They made the plants grow and finally terrestrial animals, lions and tigers and large flying animals. These inventions gave them the practice they needed for creating more, four legged animals, and domestic animals.

Wild plants were made for changing the environment while domestic plants, especially flowers, are for altering the heart, mind and spirit of people. In your garden its best to grown domestic plants, to put on your table to make you happy and give you love. We don’t understand plants and we look down on them but they are our fuel, our medicine, they give us health and life. All this has taken many thousands of years of work by the spirits.

Before a person is born, while still in the womb, we recapitulate evolution and pass through a snake-like phase, at another phase you can see horns. At this stage we are like a book in which you can read everything that will happen in your life, how many years you will live and so on. I was very astonished when I saw these things. It is very emotional. There are things you don’t see but it is not because they don’t exist. We just need the potential to see, but if we could see everything we would go mad. So we must be trained to learn and survive the big shock. For this you need to diet7.

Elsewhere they are drinking Ayahuasca in colourful clothes coming from the wisdom they are getting. All this is according to the “book” we spoke about. Much depends of what the mother eats when she is pregnant – she should eat natural food so the child will be strong, otherwise they are weak.

Bottom right corner, is the beginning of the blood, the spark of life, the spirit which enters when the mother is asleep while pregnant. You can see the uterus there and the waves which give the child his emotions and characteristics. That’s why this is called the beginning of life: just like waves which go into a TV to make a picture. With this you can deal with all the problems of life. Tinguna is the first cells of life to be formed. People don’t understand these things yet.

‘Yacaruna Huasi’ (The yacaruna’s house.)

The yacaruna are people that live in under the river in tunnels which are pictured here, and they lead to another world as you see. They play musical instruments to enchant people at midnight when all is silent under the moonlight. You can see dolphins, manatee (sea-cow), electric eel and charapa mama which are marine turtles. Then there are muraya (Shipibo shamans), water dogs, water horses and fish which fly when it rains very hard and fall out of the sky.

Would you like to add anything more about the importance of plants?

For me personally, though, they mean even more than this. Plants—in the great living book of nature—have shown me how to study life as an artist and shaman. They can help all of us to know the art of healing and to discover our own creativity, because the beauty of nature moves people to show reverence, fascination, and respect for the extent to which the forests give shelter to our souls.

The consciousness of plants is a constant source of information for medicine, alimentation, and art, and an example of the intelligence and creative imagination of nature. Much of my education I owe to the intelligence of these great teachers. Thus I consider myself to be the “representative” of plants, and for this reason I assert that if they cut down the trees and burn what’s left of the rainforests, it is the same as burning a whole library of books without ever having read them.

People who are not so dedicated to the study and experience of plants may not think this knowledge is so important to their lives—but even they should be conscious of the nutritional, medicinal, and scientific value of the plants they rely on for life.

My most sublime desire, though, is that every human being should begin to put as much attention as he or she can into the knowledge of plants, because they are the greatest healers of all. And all human beings should also put effort into the preservation and conservation of the rainforest, and care for it and the ecosystem, because damage to these not only prejudices the flora and fauna but humanity itself.

Even in the Amazon these days, many see plants as only a resource for building houses and to finance large families. People who have farms and raise animals also clear the forest to produce foodstuffs. Mestizos8 and native Indians log the largest trees to sell to industrial sawmills for subsistence. They have never heard of the word ecology!

I, Pablo, say to everybody who lives in the Amazon and the other forests of the world, that they must love the plants of their land, and everything that is there!

This expression of love must be a sincere and altruistic interest in the lasting well-being of others. We are not here simply to exist, but to enjoy life together with plants, animals, and loved ones, and to delight in contemplation of the beauty of nature. A shaman has in his mind and heart the attitude of conserving nature because he knows that life is for enjoying the company of this world’s countless delights.

Authors Bio:

Howard G. Charing: has worked some of the most respected and extraordinary shamans & healers in the Andes, the Amazon Rainforest, and the Philippines. With Peter Cloudsley he organises specialist retreats to the Amazon Rainforest at the dedicated centre located in the Mishana nature reserve. He has also co-authored Plant Spirit Shamanism published by Destiny Books (USA)

Peter Cloudsley: Since 1980, Peter has been researching Peruvian fiesta music. He has built up a documented archive of traditional music and interviews, and has collected for the British Museum. Throughout this time he has travelled extensively in Latin America, especially Peru, studying the wealth of music and diversity of popular religions. Peter has taught courses at the City Lit and elsewhere (on music and popular culture in Latin America).

For more information about our Amazon and Andean work, contact Eagle’s Wing Centre for Contemporary Shamanism. www.shamanism.co.uk
Email: eagleswing@shamanism.co.uk

I invite you to join the newsletter of my site. From time to time I send some news about my writings and my activities, about the universe of ayahuasca and psychoactive substances in general, legislation on drugs, important cultural events and conferences etc. Usually I do not send too much messages, and they do not follow a regular calendar. I just news that I consider really relevant, some messages go in English and some in Portuguese.

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Best wishes,
Bia Labate
http://bialabate.net

Don Pablo Amaringo, one of the most significant artists of our age, shaman of the highest order, and teacher to many, died November 16th.

The world of art has lost a truly original visionary – a seer in all senses of the word. I think we all join together in wishing him a safe passage to the other side of the river… -Laurence Caruana

Many blessings, thoughts and love to those who knew him personally. His art will continue to inspire wonder in many generations to come.

Received 9 June 2006; accepted 1 November 2006. Available online 4 December 2006.

International Journal of Drug Policy 19 (2008) 297–303

Homepage (www.kentupper.com)

Abstract

Ayahuasca is a tea made from two plants native to the Amazon, Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis, which, respectively, contain the psychoactive chemicals harmala alkaloids and dimethyltryptamine. The tea has been used by indigenous peoples in countries such as Brazil, Ecuador and Peru for medicinal, spiritual and cultural purposes since pre-Columbian times. In the 20th century, ayahuasca spread beyond its native habitat and has been incorporated into syncretistic practices that are being adopted by non-indigenous peoples in modern Western contexts. Ayahuasca’s globalization in the past few decades has led to a number of legal cases which pit religious freedom against national drug control laws. This paper explores some of the philosophical and policy implications of contemporary ayahuasca use. It addresses the issue of the social construction of ayahuasca as a medicine, a sacrament and a “plant teacher.” Issues of harm reduction with respect to ayahuasca use are explored, but so too is the corollary notion of “benefit maximization.”

Keywords: Ayahuasca; Entheogen; Hallucinogen; Religious freedom; Benefit maximization

Introduction

In February 2006, the United States Supreme Court ruled that religious freedom may trump U.S. drug laws with respect to the ceremonial use of ayahuasca, a tea indigenous to the Amazon and long revered by its peoples (Hollman, 2006). The case of Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente União do Vegetal (UDV) addressed the question of whether ‘hoasca,’ which contains the Schedule I substance dimethyltryptamine, could legally be consumed as a sacrament by the Brazilian-based UDV church according to the provisions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Passed by Congress in 1993 in response to the question of whether the Native American Church had the freedom to use ceremonially the scheduled drug peyote, the RFRA established that the limits of drug laws in the United States were at the boundaries of religious liberty.

The U.S. ayahuasca case is just one of several similar ones in countries such as Australia, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. The issues raised by these court actions centre not only on religious freedom, but also on the substance in question: ayahuasca. Although somewhat obscure in pantheon of psychoactive substances, ayahuasca has begun to thrive beyond the Amazon. Practitioners, policy-makers and researchers face significant challenges in responding to psychoactive substance use that resists traditional conceptualizations and categorizations of illegal drug “abuse.” In this article, I briefly describe ayahuasca, its effects and its traditional and contemporary uses. I next explore some philosophical and policy issues raised by the “globalization” of ayahuasca, the burgeoning world-wide interest in and use of the tea. This discussion leads to a questioning of the deficit model of drug use implicit in the term “harm reduction” with respect to ayahuasca, which arguably warrants a re-framing such that policy discussions address the corollary concept of “benefit maximization.”

Ayahuasca and its effects

“Ayahuasca” is a word from the language of the Quechua people, a group indigenous to the Amazonian regions of Peru and Ecuador (Metzner, 1999). Translating as “vine of the soul,” ayahuasca refers both to Banisteriopsis caapi, a liana found in Western parts of the Amazon basin, and to a decoction prepared from B. caapi that typically contains other admixture plants. One of the most common admixtures to the ayahuasca tea is the leaf of Psychotria viridis, a plant from the coffee family. To avoid confusion, in this article the plant will be referred to by its botanical name, B. caapi, and the common tea preparation of the combination of B. caapi and P. viridis simply as ayahuasca.

The synergy between the respective psychoactive chemicals in B. caapi and in P. viridis is a remarkable pharmacokinetic interaction. The B. caapi vine contains harmala alkaloids, such as harmine and tetrahydroharmine, which are short-acting reversible monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors. MAO inhibitors are a pharmacological class of antidepressant chemicals that function by preventing the breakdown of the monoamine neurotransmitters in the brain (Julien, 1998). P. viridis contains dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, a potent hallucinogen which is active when taken parenterally, but not orally (Shulgin, 1976). This is because the gastrointestinal tract also contains the enzyme monoamine oxidase, which metabolizes orally ingested DMT long before it can reach the brain. However, when DMT is ingested in conjunction with an MAO inhibitor – as is the case with the ayahuasca tea – its immediate metabolism is delayed, thus enabling it to reach the brain (McKenna & Towers, 1984; Ott, 1999). From a biomedical perspective, then, ayahuasca’s unique effects are a function of the combination of DMT and the potentiating psychoactive harmala alkaloids ([Callaway et al., 1999] and [McKenna et al., 1984]). In contrast, the explanation of ayahuasca’s effects by Amazonian indigenous peoples reflects a paradigm involving spiritual domains and supernatural forces, an account corroborated if not validated by the phenomenology of the ayahuasca experience.

The extensive range of ayahuasca preparations in the pharmacopoeias of different indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon region indicates that its use long predates first contact with Europeans. The variety of names given to B. caapi, such as yagé, caapi, natem, oni, nishi, also suggests widespread historic use (Luna, 1986). However, the legacy of colonialism in South America, as with so many other parts of the world, has irredeemably impacted indigenous peoples and their traditions, including cosmologies in which ayahuasca has played a central role (Whitten, 1981). Colonial and religious authorities tended to condemn ayahuasca shamanism as diabolical and discouraged its practice ([Taussig, 1986] and [Vickers, 1981]). Nevertheless, the ritual use of ayahuasca among indigenous peoples of the Amazon continues to the present day, albeit with varying degrees of Christian syncretism through past and present influence of missionaries in the region (Luna, 1986). Likewise, cross-cultural transfer of ayahuasca healing knowledge among indigenous peoples and to non-indigenous people continues to occur ([Gray, 1997], [Luna, 2003] and [Pollock, 2004]); this includes mestizo vegetalistas who offer alternative health treatments to urban dwellers in countries such as Peru (Dobkin de Rios, 1973).

The specifics of traditional Amazonian ayahuasca practices – as with the name for the tea itself – vary across different cultural groups, but there are some common elements, most notably a ceremonial context for its consumption. Rituals are conducted by an experienced healer, or ayahuascero, who has undergone many years of training to become adept in administering the brew. Preparation for this role includes long periods of isolation, sexual abstinence and adherence to strict dietary taboos involving certain foods or meats. Some of these behavioural directives apply also to participants in the ritual who will drink, as they risk invoking untoward spiritual forces if these are violated. Rituals invariably incorporate chanting or singing of icaros – special songs through which healing, divination or connecting with spirits may be effected – and often include an accompanying use of other sacred plants, such as tobacco ([Demange, 2002] and [Luna, 1986]). In many respects, ayahuasca is a paradigmatic entheogen, or psychoactive substance used for spiritual purposes (Ruck, Bigwood, Staples, Ott, & Wasson, 1979; Tupper, 2002).

Ayahuasca’s psychoactive effects are qualitatively similar to those of other drugs from the same pharmacological class, such as LSD and psilocybin, yet they are also phenomenologically unique. The effects generally begin 30–40 min after ingestion, peak by about 2 h and have completely subsided by 6 h (Riba et al., 2003). Ayahuasca produces moderate cardiovascular stimulation, including moderate increases in heart rate and diastolic blood pressure (Riba et al., 2003). Users report sensations of visual or auditory stimulation, synaesthesia, psychological introspection and strong emotional feelings ranging from occasional sadness or fear to elation, illumination and gratitude (Shanon, 2002). The tea itself has a bitter taste and cannot be described as pleasant to drink. Emesis, or vomiting, is not uncommon during the ayahuasca experience, an effect which is generally regarded as a spiritual or physical cleanse.

The long-term effects of ayahuasca on regular drinkers have not yet been well studied by medical scientists, as the tea has remained relatively obscure until the last few decades of the 20th century. Preliminary small-scale investigation on members of Brazilian ayahuasca churches suggests that the tea is not physiologically or psychologically harmful when used in ceremonial contexts (Barbosa, Giglio, & Dalglarrondo, 2005; [Callaway et al., 1999] and [Grob et al., 1996]; Riba & Barbanoj, 2005). Shanon (2002) has analysed the phenomenology of the ayahuasca experience from the perspective of cognitive psychology, work that suggests many avenues of future psychological research. Evidence for ayahuasca dependence is lacking; indeed, some have suggested ceremonial ayahuasca use may have therapeutic applications as an adjunct to treatment for addictions ([Mabit, 2002], [McKenna, 2004] and [Winkelman, 2001]).

Contemporary ayahuasca uses

In addition to continued ayahuasca use among traditional indigenous and mestizo denizens of the Amazon, other types of ayahuasca practices have arisen in modern times. The inevitable mixing of indigenous and dominator cultures in South America over time has resulted in hybridities of ayahuasca use that continue to evolve through the forces of globalization. Brazil has been the source of several syncretistic religious movements that combine elements of indigenous ayahuasca use, African spiritualism and Christian liturgy. These include the Santo Daime, founded in the 1930s by Raimundo Irineu Serra; the União do Vegetal, founded in 1961 by José Gabriel da Costa; and the Barquinha, a group, which split from the Santo Daime in 1945 (MacRae, 2004). As with traditional indigenous ayahuasca practices, these modern groups incorporate a strong ritual context in their uses of ayahuasca. Towards the end of the 20th century, chapters of the Santo Daime and the União do Vegetal started to be established beyond Brazilian borders, in such countries as in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States.

The Santo Daime is both the oldest and the most internationally active of the syncretistic Brazilian ayahuasca churches. Its origins trace back to the 1920s, when its founder – a Brazilian rubber tapper named Raimundo Irineu Serra or Mestre Irineu – encountered the tea through contact with Amazonian indigenous peoples in remote forests of the Brazilian frontier state of Acre (Alverga, 1999). The Santo Daime remained obscure and geographically isolated in the rural Amazon for many decades. However, when Mestre Irineu died in 1971, the church split into several different factions, one of which – the Eclectic Center of the Universal Flowing Light, or CEFLURIS – has been central in the Santo Daime’s subsequent expansion (MacRae, 2004). From the 1970s, CEFLURIS has attracted middle-class Brazilians and international visitors to its rituals and established chapters in urban Brazilian centres and more recently overseas (MacRae, 1998). After a period of legal vicissitudes, in which the status of ayahuasca was uncertain, the Brazilian government in 1991 determined that the benefits of its ritual use outweighed any potential risks and recognized the rights to sacramental use of the tea by groups such as the Santo Daime and the UDV.

As a result of expansion into countries unprepared for the policy conundrums posed by non-indigenous entheogenic substance use, the Santo Daime and its adherents have faced legal action in several different countries in the past decade, including the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. In the Netherlands, as with the UDV case in the United States discussed above, the courts ruled in favour of religious freedom and the Santo Daime was granted the right to use its sacrament legally in Holland (Adelaars, 2001). In Canada, a chapter of the Santo Daime in the province of Quebec has applied for an exemption to the Canadian Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in hope of obviating a costly legal battle; the Canadian government is still considering the application (J.W. Rochester, personal communication, February 7, 2006). These cases epitomize the struggle between groups seeking the legitimation of the sacramental use of ayahuasca and governments in liberal democratic states endeavouring to uphold both religious freedom and punitive drug laws.

The forces of information and communications technology have also provided avenues for the expansion of use of ayahuasca-like preparations. A quick Internet search results in scores hits for websites selling live cuttings or dried samples of B. caapi, P. viridis and numerous other plants, such as Mimosa hostilis and Peganum harmala, that are botanical sources for dimethyltryptamine and harmala alkaloids. The Internet also abounds with information (and misinformation) about how to prepare ayahuasca-like brews and “trip reports” of first-hand accounts of experiences individuals have had with these ([Bogenschutz, 2000] and [Halpern and Pope, 2001]). Predictably, some amateur psychonauts or self-styled kitchen shamans have harmed themselves through experimenting with ayahuasca analogues in recreational contexts (Brush, Bird, & Boyer, 2003; Sklerov, Levine, Moore, King, & Fowler, 2005). However, it should be noted that reported adverse outcomes are extremely rare and have been sequelae to uncontrolled use of non-traditional preparations (Callaway et al., 2006).

Ayahuasca tourism has also become a cultural phenomenon in the Amazon at the turn of the 21st century. With growing awareness of ayahuasca in developed Northern countries has come the concomitant desire among some to seek “authentic” ayahuasca experiences in countries such as Peru, Ecuador and Brazil ([Dobkin de Rios, 1994] and [Winkelman, 2005]). The effects of ayahuasca tourism on both the local people and the economies of these regions are open to interpretation, but are significant and continuing to grow. Some indigenous healers in the Amazon have expressed concern about the ill-trained or manipulative locals who may exploit naïve or undiscerning travellers and potentially cause inadvertent harm through careless administration of ayahuasca (Dobkin de Rios, 2005).

The expansion of ayahuasca use can be expected to continue as public awareness of the tea grows and as it becomes further available both through commercial sales and through spiritual communities. Accounts of ayahuasca experiences and the tea’s purported spiritual and health benefits are beginning to appear in mainstream English news media stories ([Creedon, 2001], [Montgomery, 2001] and [Salak, 2006]). Some of the effects of ayahuasca – for example, its tendency to provoke vomiting and its sometimes heavy emotional and psychological effects – may discourage casual experimentation. However, its relative obscurity and lack of negative associations from the demonizing of such hallucinogens as LSD, psilocybin and peyote in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as growing interest in alternative medicines and therapeutic practices, may increase ayahuasca’s uptake among the general public. Thus, ayahuasca presents unexpected challenges to judicial systems and policy-makers, who struggle to balance tensions between criminal justice, public health and human rights interests.

Constructing ayahuasca—ontology

One of the conundrums ayahuasca presents for contemporary drug policy is ontological. Ontology is a branch of metaphysics that involves the philosophical analysis of existence and the categorization of reality. Modern drug laws and policies are ontologically predicated on a mechanistic view of the universe, as they are socio-political extensions of the modernist project of scientific materialism. According to this view, drugs and their effects can be wholly explained by the sciences of biochemistry and psychopharmacology. Reinarman and Levine (1997) identify this as pharmacological determinism, the belief that a drug’s effects are caused solely by its pharmacological properties, irrespective of psychological idiosyncrasies or social context. However, a constructivist perspective acknowledges that beyond this, drugs are powerful cultural constructs. The effects they produce on human consciousness and behaviour are functions not just of their biochemistry, but also of the rich symbolic and social meanings they are given.

From a constructivist perspective, drugs cannot be fully understood merely by analyzing their chemical structures and how these interact with neurophysiological systems. One needs to consider also the meanings underlying their growth, production, preparation, consumption and categorization, all of which can vary across cultures and over time. For example, the concept of “medicine” is a cultural construction that in contemporary Western societies is given meaning through the powerful institutions of medical practitioners and systems. Particular substances are deemed medicines not by any properties inherent in them, but by virtue of their being blessed as such by members of powerful professional classes (i.e. physicians and pharmacists). Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) had this blessing in the 1950s and early 1960s, when it was considered a promising psychiatric medication, but was quickly delegitimized when its non-medical use became headline news and the subject of moral panic ([Dyck, 2005], [Littlefield, 2002] and [Sessa, 2005]). Alcohol was also once deemed a medicine, whereas today in most societies it is a recreational (or sometimes ceremonial) substance, except in some Muslim states, where it is a dangerous prohibited drug ([Baashar, 1981] and [Heron, 2003]). Indeed, the common phrase “alcohol and drugs” betrays a lingering implicit ontological commitment to the notion that alcohol is something other than a drug.

Ayahuasca quintessentially defies the simplistic categorization of being merely a “drug”—or, in the terminology of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, a “drug of abuse.” Indeed, ayahuasca has been culturally constructed by its various users as a medicine, a sacrament and a “plant teacher.” In the Amazon, ayahuasca is considered a master plant, both a diagnostic tool and a force for healing ([Demange, 2002] and [Luna, 1984]). Along with tobacco, it is one of the most important substances in the pharmacopoeias of Amazonian folk healers (Bennett, 1992). Yet ayahuasca has also come to be culturally constructed as a sacrament by religions such as the Santo Daime and the UDV. For their adherents, the tea is considered a divine gift allowing contact with forces and energies from which humans are ordinarily cut off in our quotidian lives. And ayahuasca is quintessentially a “plant teacher,” a natural divinatory mechanism that can provide esoteric knowledge to adepts skilled in negotiating its remarkable effects. These conceptualizations pose a challenge to modern Western drug policies and laws, which are premised on a rationalist/positivist ontology that constructs psychoactive substances essentially as chemicals and their effects as simply mechanistic.

Ayahuasca, globalization and public policy

The policy implications of contemporary ayahuasca practices can be usefully explored by regarding them as a cultural manifestation of globalization. By the term globalization, I refer to the economic, political, technological and cultural transactions and integrations resulting from the increased ease of movement for people, goods and ideas at the turn of the 21st century. As Collier and Ong (2005) observe, “[g]lobal phenomena … have a distinctive capacity for decontextualization and recontextualization, abstractability and movement, across diverse social and cultural situation and spheres of life” (p. 11). Thomas (2005) cites the resurgence of religion – including the spread of new religious movements and cultural and religious pluralism – as one of the “megatrends” of the 21st century. In response, states and faith communities alike “are being forced more than ever before, to define, defend or redefine the social boundaries between the sacred and the profane in the face of modernization and globalization” (Thomas, 2005, p. 26). The evolving spiritual practices whose nexus is the ayahuasca tea exemplify well these trends and tensions of globalization.

Ayahuasca has begun its ascendancy into popular global consciousness at a time of unprecedented interpersonal and intercultural knowledge exchange. One issue this raises is that of cultural appropriation. I would be remiss not to acknowledge humbly that ayahuasca is an exemplar of indigenous knowledge, a shamanic technology or cognitive tool that has long been what may best be described as intellectual property of the native peoples of the Amazon. Accordingly, its commodification, commercialization and secularization are concerning trends. The issue of intellectual property came to public attention in the 1990s when representatives of Amazonian tribes formally protested against the U.S. patent office, which had naïvely granted a patent on ayahuasca to an American pharmaceutical entrepreneur—it was subsequently rescinded (Fecteau, 2001). However, dismissing the growth of interest in ayahuasca as merely appropriation is somewhat simplistic. The genesis of the Brazilian ayahuasca churches – which are in many respects primary drivers of ayahuasca’s globalization – was arguably a by-product of cross-cultural fertilization (MacRae, 2004). There is also reason to believe that, in the age of wikis, file-sharing and the open source movement, the concept of intellectual property is rapidly becoming a quaint anachronism, a development that concerns corporations and academics as much as it does indigenous peoples.

Curiously, in the 1960s, ayahuasca largely stayed off the Western cultural radar despite increased popular interest in visionary plants such as peyote and psilocybin mushrooms. Unlike only a few decades ago, however, the collective mindscape of the early 21st century is being expanded and shaped by revolutionary information and communications technologies (Friedman, 2005). Thus, insofar as ayahuasca is being variously and simultaneously culturally constructed in the (post)modern world, novel forces are at play. For example, authorities whose interests might be served by the dissemination of inaccurate or deprecatory representations of ayahuasca – as they have been countless times in the past for other illegal drugs – are hard-pressed to challenge the size and scope of factual information easily available to the lay public. The use of the Internet by ayahuasca aficionados allows for a diversity of thought and expression about the tea and its effects that poses significant challenges to policy-makers.

It is my contention that the policy issues presented by contemporary ayahuasca practices are not easily dealt with from the traditional framing of modern drug policies. Schön (1993) proposes that the framing of policy solutions for social issues is constrained by underlying, often implicit, “generative” metaphors. With respect to non-medical psychoactive substance use, two dominant constructions of the problem are identified by Marlatt (1996): drug use as a moral issue and drug use as a disease. The first constructs some drugs as intrinsically malevolent, imbuing them with agency and the power to override human free will. Implicit in this “malevolent agents” metaphor is the notion that people who use drugs are wicked and need to be punished; it is this generative metaphor that underpins the global regime of prohibition of (some) drugs. The second dominant metaphor constructs psychoactive substances as pathogens. This metaphor has become the predominant one in the field of public health, where it is prevalent in the discourses of treatment and prevention. With the “pathogens” metaphor, drug use is constructed as a disease against which youth need to be inoculated and for which people who use need to be treated.

The two dominant metaphors underlying current drug policies – “malevolent agents” and “pathogens” – are particularly unhelpful in framing policies with respect to entheogenic substance use. Ayahuasca’s long tradition of uses as a medicine, sacrament and plant teacher poses a challenge to such simplistic metaphorical categorizations. Rather, I submit that a shift to a generative metaphor of drugs as “tools” offers a much more nuanced way of conceiving of the risks and benefits posed by ayahuasca practices. Rather than essentializing psychoactive substances as inherently dangerous, to regard them as tools – ancient technologies for altering consciousness ([Eliade, 1964] and [Winkelman, 2000]) – allows for a realistic assessment of their potential benefits and harms according to who uses them, in what contexts and for what purposes. To be sure, as with the use of any tool, there are risks associated with ayahuasca use, especially for those who are not prepared for its effects or who treat it as a toy. However, both traditional and contemporary ceremonial ayahuasca practices suggest benefits that the tool metaphor better accounts for in terms of policy considerations.

The philosophy of harm reduction is also further illuminated by a shift to the generative metaphor of drugs as tools. To the extent that policy-makers or practitioners emphasize a behaviour’s potential risks, the harm reduction policy approach is justified. However, the tool metaphor for psychoactive substances warrants a corollary notion of “benefit maximization,” the other side of the harm reduction coin. Instead of approaching drug policy from a deficit perspective – implied by the “malevolent agents” and “pathogens” metaphors – the tool metaphor opens discursive avenues for realistic policy considerations of benefits as well as harms. Although harm reduction has been a valuable concept in challenging abstinence-based approaches to non-medical drug use and shifting policy to a more humane public health perspective, its limitations become apparent with the “drugs as tools” generative metaphor. Along these lines, the Health Officers Council of British Columbia (2005) has incorporated the concept of beneficial substance use in a recent policy discussion paper arguing for government regulation of currently illegal drugs; the paper explicitly makes reference to ceremonial use of ayahuasca (p. 5).

A traditional harm reduction approach to ayahuasca would emphasize similar general types of cautions as those for LSD, psilocybin or other psychedelic drugs. These include knowing and trusting the source of the substance, controlling set and setting (e.g. psychological preparation and physical surroundings), having a “sitter” who can be mindful of safety, not driving or engaging in other risky activities while under the influence, and discouraging use by individuals with underlying psychiatric disorders. It would also include specific cautions regarding diet and combining medications. The MAO-inhibitor effects of harmala alkaloids in the ayahuasca tea warrant dietary restrictions for foods containing the monoamine compound tyramine. Tyramine eaten in combination with MAO inhibitor drugs may result in hypertensive crisis. Likewise, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors can have potentially harmful interactions with MAO inhibitors, so people taking these kinds of medications are advised to avoid ayahuasca (Callaway & Grob, 1998). Interestingly, indigenous ayahuasca practices in the Amazon also universally incorporate strict dietary and behavioural protocols (Andritzky, 1989).

A benefit maximization approach to ayahuasca use, by contrast, would involve the creation of policies to provide legitimate access to ayahuasca in ceremonial settings. This process would include considering a variety of policy levers at the disposal of public health authorities to ensure the minimization of risk (Haden, 2004). Such an approach might begin with the formalization of the harm reduction protocols listed above. It might also include enacting provisions to ensure ayahuasceros or spiritual leaders are skilled and competent in leading rituals (either through self-regulation or certification), inspecting and licensing facilities or centres where ayahuasca ceremonies are conducted, and regulating production of the tea to ensure it conforms to specified purity or potency (as is currently done in some countries with other natural health products). A benefit maximization approach would certainly entail further research into both the short- and long-term effects of ayahuasca and the social practices in which it is used, which may in turn provide further policy direction.

Conclusion

The growing interest in and use of ayahuasca by modern non-indigenous peoples poses significant conceptual challenges regarding drugs and drug policies. Ayahuasca has a rich history of use as a medicine, sacrament and plant teacher, cultural constructions that do not readily fit contemporary drug policy frames. The globalization of ayahuasca in the latter part of the 20th and the early 21st centuries is a phenomenon that demands reconsideration of some of the metaphysical and sociological presuppositions of contemporary drug policies. Already several legal cases have opened the door to granting religious freedom to the ceremonial use of ayahuasca. Accordingly, policy-makers would be well advised to consider other policy tools than criminalization to balance the competing interests of criminal justice, public health and human rights. With respect to harm reduction theory, the contemporary uses of ayahuasca lend weight to the corollary notion of benefit maximization.

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More and more people are using or consider using ayahuasca tea as an alternative medicine for different therapeutic purposes: depression, Parkinson’s disease, ageing-related cognitive decline, etc.

Yet most of these actual or planned uses are relying on the rich pharmacodynamics of the caapi vine and don’t necessitate the preparation and use of a standard mix. Rather what is needed is a caapi tea specifically designed for these purposes.

During a fieldwork in Peruvian Upper Amazon, Partner and I have had the opportunity to learn the preparation and effects of a caapi-alone brew that appeared a well suited prototype for such a therapeutic tea.

I managed to reproduce it with ressources commonly available in a First World country (including the Preparation forum of this board). The following method gives a tea both of us found equivalent under all aspects to the original.

Material: 300 g of roughly pounded dried stems of Banisteriopsis caapi var. cielo purchased from Maya Ethnobotanicals were put in a 10 l chemicals-proof plastic bucket containing 6 l distilled/demineralized water to which 60 ml of organic apple cider vinegar were added. Proportions are thus 1:20 for dried plant material:water, 1:100 for vinegar:water.

Method: after having left soaking overnight, the whole stuff was poured out for cooking in two 3.5 l ceramic pots. After slow boiling during 4 h and infrequent stirring with a wooden spoon, preparation was poured back in the (rinsed) bucket, and the pots rinsed. Then, using a large cooking-glass jar (handled with heat-resistant gloves) and a permanent coffee filter put in a funnel, the liquid was separated from the plant material, filtered, and poured again in the ceramic pots.

Duration of the very slow boiling reduction step depends on the desired final volume/concentration. Here, to obtain the equivalent of the original tea, the final volume was set to 1.5 l, i.e. 1/4 of the initial volume of water. It took about 3 h, under constant supervision.

Once cooled, the liquid was filtered twice, in adding a paper coffee filter (bamboo paper for rapid filtering) to the permanent one: a first filtration in the glass jar (previously rinsed) and a second during final transfer into three 0.5 l plastic bottles (previously rinsed). Extra attention was devoted to fill up the bottles so that no air remained under the hermetic top. The rinsing (triple = lab standard) of all ustensils and containers (all reserved for this use) was effectuated with distilled water. Sanitized (bleach) rubber gloves were used for all manipulations implying immediate or delayed contact with the brew (especially during the final filtering and transfer step).

With these precautions, conservation at ambient temperature in the dark proved to be effective up to 6 months.

Depending on individual metabolism and purpose, such a caapi tea may be pharmacologically active with doses as low as 20 ml. It allows a convenient precise adjustment of the therapeutic dose and is a useful basis/prototype to evaluate the optimal concentration (reduction step duration) one wishes to obtain according to the preferred volume of intake (it smells and tastes better than concentrated standard mix).

N.B. Ideally this post should be in the Preparation forum. I just found more convenient to post it in the Science forum because I can pin it there, allowing thus easier access and reference to it.

^{v 1.0 – Jul 30, 2009}

^{Citation:   Labate BC, Meyer M & Anderson B. “Short Glossary of the Terms Used in the União do Vegetal.”. Jul 30 2009.}

Introduction
The União do Vegetal (UDV), or the “Union of the Vegetal”, is a religion of roughly 15,000 members who consume the psychoactive brew ayahuasca in their religious ceremonies. The UDV was founded in 1961 by José Gabriel da Costa in the Sunta Rubber Camp, located in the southern part of the state of Acre (Brazil). Soon after founding the UDV, José Gabriel da Costa moved to Porto Velho, the capital of the state of Rondônia, where he further developed the religion. In the 1970s, the UDV began to expand throughout Brazil, and then in the 1990s, the religion established centers of worship abroad. Outside of Brazil, the UDV currently holds ceremonies in the United States and Spain.

In order to help the English-speaking public understand some key elements of UDV cosmology, rituals and social organization, the authors have compiled a short glossary of native hermeneutic terms and Spiritualist idioms that commonly circulate within this particular religious universe. Out of respect for the UDV’s wishes for privacy, we have opted to exclude from the glossary all secret sayings and doctrinal teachings that are considered to be “reserved” for UDV members of advanced hierarchical standing. The terms included in this glossary are considered by the authors to be fundamental for understanding the basic religious activities and discourses of UDV members. Words not of English-language origin (such as those in Brazilian Portuguese) are written in italics.

Glossary
Abrir o Oratório (”To Open the Oratory”): The act of transitioning from a ceremony’s initial phase to the period of the ritual when UDV leaders preach and answer disciples’ doctrinal questions, and disciples can make chamadas with permission of the Mestre Dirigente (see Sessões).

Astral Superior (”Highest Astral Plane”): A cosmological level of the highest spiritual authority. Its importance is seen in the ritual celebration of the day of the Confirmação do Mestre no Astral Superior (”Confirmation of Mestre Gabriel in the Highest Astral Plane”). The Astral is also an important term used in another Brazilian ayahuasca religion, the Santo Daime.

Burracheira: the experience of being under the effect of Vegetal, of the força (”force”) and luz (”light”); burracheira is said by UDV members to mean força estranha (”strange force”) in Portuguese. Estar de burracheira, estar na força da burracheira, or estar no tempo de burracheira all mean being in the state in which one can feel the effects of the chá (”tea”); sentir a burracheira crescer (”to feel the burracheira growing”) means being aware of the intensification of the effects; serenar a burracheira (”the burracheira calms down”) means the effects are diminishing or softening; alto tempo de burracheira (”burracheira high time”) means a strong effect; temporal de burracheira (”burracheira storm”) a very strong effect; sombreado (”in the shade”) an incipient effect, prior to a full-on burracheira, or when the effects are wearing off (e.g., during the hours or day following a sessão. In a sessão, the burracheira is both ritually “called” (chamada) and “bid farewell” (despedida).

Caboclo (”Forest Peasant”): José Gabriel da Costa and the other initial members of the UDV were caboclos, mixed-race manual laborers who inhabit the frontier towns and wilderness of the Amazonian rainforest in the north of Brazil.

Caiano or Mestre Caiano (”Caiano or Master Caiano”): According to the UDV, Mestre Caiano was the first hoasqueiro, or first human being to “commune with the Vegetal”.

Caupuri: A variety of the vine Banisteriopsis caapi generally characterized by segments punctuated with knotty growths.

Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal – CEBUDV (”Union of the Vegetal Beneficent Spiritist Center” – CEBUDV): The official name of the UDV organization.

Chá (”Tea”): A synonym for Hoasca and Vegetal. It is often employed in the phrase comungar o chá (”to take communion [with] the tea”).

Chacrona: Among rubber tappers in Brazil’s northern region, in some Santo Daime groups, and above all in the UDV, the term refers to the shrub Psychotria viridis, whose leaves are used in making ayahuasca. In the Brazilian ayahuasca religions (UDV, Santo Daime, and Barquinha), chacrona is known as ayahuasca’s feminine principle. In the UDV, a chacronal is a place where chacrona grows, wild or cultivated. In Spanish, the plant is referred to as chacruna.

Chamada (from the verb chamar, “to call” or “to summon”): A performance genre in which a single member intones a chant a cappella. Chamadas are intended to channel the “force” of the burracheira by calling on divine entities and/or revealing certain aspects of nature’s mysteries.

Ciência (”Science”): The body of UDV spiritual and material knowledge; the “true knowledge”. This term is also commonly used by rubber tappers to refer to the arts of surviving in and understanding the rainforest; in some areas, rubber tappers refer to the art of making and using ayahuasca as a science (a ciência da ayahuasca).

Cientificação (”Scientification”): The process of “spiritual evolution” by which people attain salvation or purification.

Clandestino (”Clandestine”): A colloquial term predominantly used in some núcleos in the north of Brazil to refer to groups that declare themselves to be followers of Mestre Gabriel although they are not institutionally tied to the Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal (CEBUDV); these groups are also known as dissidências (”dissidents”). The term can also be applied to objects, e.g., uma fita clandestina (”a clandestine tape-recording”) or um vegetal clandestino (”a clandestine Vegetal“).

Corpo do Conselho or CDC (”Council Body”): A hierarchical class in the UDV composed of male and female Conselheiros (”Counselors”), helpers of the Mestres. Together with the Quadro de Mestres, the CDC makes up the leadership of each nucleus and pre-nucleus. The Counselors are responsible for advising and orienting the group’s disciples. Preferably, Counselors are married and exhibit exemplary behavior according to UDV moral standards.

Corpo Instrutivo (”Instructive Body”): A class in the UDV hierarchy composed of disciples who are in a position to receive the “instructions” of the UDV; these disciples have access to the UDV’s ensinos reservados or “reserved teachings” (which should not be revealed to anyone who has not reached this level). Disciples are convoked to the Corpo Instrutivo by the Representative Master according to his/her dedication to the group’s activities, his/her “evolution” in the ritual, and his/her “degree of memory” (see grau de memória). If, in the narrow sense, the Corpo Instrutivo refers to a position in the internal hierarchy that comes after the category of Sócio and before the category of Conselheiro, then in a wider sense, it refers to any disciple who has at least reached this hierarchical class (including Conselheiros and the Mestres).

Curiosidade (”Curiosity”): False knowledge, speculation, superficiality. The “curious” do not have true knowledge, although they may be seeking it.

Departamento (”Department”): A division of the UDV that is staffed by members on a volunteer basis and that takes care of specific institutional tasks. Such departments include the Departamento da Memória e Documentação (”Department of Memory and Documentation”), the internal record keepers of the UDV, the Departamento do Plantio (”Plantation Department”), the custodians of the plants used to make Hoasca, the Departamento Jurídico (”Legal Department”), the group that handles issues related to the legalization of Hoasca and the consolidation of the internal laws of the UDV, the Departamento da Beneficiência (”Charity Department”), the arm of the UDV that organizes its charitable activities, and the Departamento Médico-Científico (DEMEC – “Medical-Scientific Department”), the division that monitors health issues related to the consumption of Hoasca.

Distribuição do Vegetal (”Distribution of Vegetal”): The moment in which the participants of a sessão receive a cup of Vegetal. It is also the name given to a sessão held during a preparo. Distribuição Autorizada de Vegetal (”Authorized Distribution of Vegetal”) refers to a developing center of worship that has not yet reached the status of pre-núcleo or núcleo.

Doutrina (”Doctrine”): The spiritual teachings left by Mestre Garbriel to the irmandade (”brotherhood”).

Encante or Encanto (”Enchantment”): Enchanted beings or places that generally are not accessible in everyday life, but which are more commonly accessed in strong experiences of burracheira.

Evolução Espiritual (”Spiritual Evolution”): See Cientificação.

Força (”Force”): See Burracheira and Hoasca.

Grau (”Degree” or “Grade”): A determined level of spiritual evolution; the term represents the quality of something: the grau of a disciple in the internal hierarchy, the grau de memória (see below), the grau do Vegetal, vamos ver o grau do Vegetal means “let’s test the Vegetal” to find out quanta burracheira apresenta (”how much burracheira appears”). It can be said that with a given grau, a disciple is able to understand a certain dimension of the ensino (”teaching”); upon obtaining a higher grau, a new, more occult significance to the same teaching may be revealed in accordance with each disciple’s merit.

Grau de Memória (”Degree of Memory”): a.k.a. grau de evolução do espírito, grau de evolução espiritual, grau de conhecimento espiritual (”the degree of the evolution of one’s spirit”, or “the degree of spiritual evolution”, or “the degree of spiritual knowledge”), the grau de memória is a measure of the compreensão (”comprehension”) of each person during, and when not in, the burracheira. The grau de memória encompasses a series of dimensions that include the abilities to utilize the mistérios das palavras (”mysteries of words”), to speak adequately during a sessão, and to memorize the teachings of the União do Vegetal, such as the chamadas, the stories, Mestre Gabriel’s explanations, the history of the UDV, etc. Depending on the person’s grau de memória, he or she will hold a certain position in the hierarchy of the UDV.

Hoasca: The name given to ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi brewed with Psychotria viridis). The term bears close resemblance to the Quechua word for vine or rope, waska, which is generally recognized by scholars to refer to the Banisteriopsis species used in the preparation of ayahuasca. The portion of Hoasca that comes from B. caapi is said to “bring force” while the portion that comes from P. viridis is said to “bring light.”

Irmão (”Brother”): A term used internally to address fellow UDV members in a congenial, familiar fashion; it reflects the importance of family values within the religion. The collection of UDV members is the irmandade (”brotherhood”).

Linha (”Line” or “Thread”): A term used by UDV members and scholars to distinguish the branches of the Brazilian ayahuasca religions (especially the Santo Daime) from one another (e.g., “the line of Mestre Gabriel”). Generally speaking, each “line” has distinguishing features (such as differences in ritual practice and cosmology). The term also appears to connote a spiritual affiliation, invoking a kind of spiritual responsibility that belongs to the patron of the “line” and the filial obedience of those who carry it forth. The term is also very important in Umbanda, where it taxonomically distinguishes spiritual phalanxes and their jurisdictions.

Luz (”Light”): See Burracheira and Hoasca.

Mariri: The Banisteriopsis caapi vine. The UDV recognizes two kinds: the mariri Tucunacá and the mariri Caupuri. Mariri is the masculine principle, responsible for the force of the Vegetal.

Mensagem (”Message”): A term used to refer to a harvest of the mariri (Banisteriopsis caapi) vine from the forest. An amount of mariri that is sent from one núcleo to another is also referred to as a mensagem.

Mestre (”Master”): The highest position in the UDV hierarchy, a Mestre is responsible for the transmission of UDV teachings and the spiritual guidance of the disciples. Only men reach the class of Mestre (with the exception of Mestre Pequenina, Mestre Gabriel’s widow). There are several requirements for reaching this hierarchical class, including: memorizing the Story of Hoasca and successfully telling it during a session; being married; and meeting the UDV’s moral standards of excellence in family, social, and business life.

Mestre Gabriel (”Master Gabriel”): The honorific title of José Gabriel da Costa (1922–1971), originator of the União do Vegetal.

Miração: A noun used in the context of União do Vegetal, Santo Daime and Barquinha rituals to denote the state of consciousness associated with drinking ayahuasca, especially its visionary aspects. The term is often associated with the verb mirar, which has a range of meanings sharing reference to the visual faculty: to aim, to gaze or stare at, to catch sight of. However, in the context of the older practice of mestizo vegetalismo in Peru, the Spanish verb marear (meaning “to make dizzy” and derived, apparently, from mar, “sea”) is often used to describe the effects of ayahuasca and other psychoactive plant preparations. This verb yields a nominal form that also appears to be quite common: mareación. Given the influence of this mestizo tradition on Daime and Vegetal practice, it is possible that this Spanish term gave rise to a neologism in Portuguese based on a rather different portion of ayahuasca’s spectrum of effects.

Mistérios da Natureza (”Mysteries of Nature”): A highly valued category of spiritual knowledge that can be accessed through the correctly guided use of Hoasca.

Núcleo (”Nucleus”): A set of physical constructions (a plot of land, temple, preparo house and a lavatory) that serves a determined number of UDV disciples. There also exist pré-núcleos and distribuções — developing centers of worship that are lacking some physical infrastructure and usually have fewer members. All núcleos follow the same doctrinal and structural hierarchy and the same ritual calendar, and they function in accordance with the directives passed down from the Sede Geral, the UDV’s institutional headquarters located in Brasília (D.F.), Brazil’s capital.

Ogã: A term from the Afro-Brazilian universe. In the UDV, it means a person (normally a woman) who is responsible for coordinating the cleaning, maintenance and general organization of the núcleo. This job, as with most of the positions within the UDV, rotates among members.

Peia (”Beating”): A difficult experience of burracheira that might include vomiting, diarrhea or other unpleasant sensations; it is understood as a form of limpeza (”cleasing”) and ensinamento (”teaching”).

Pesquisar (”To Research”): The event of going into the forest to search for the mariri vine (Banisteriopsis caapi).

Plantio (”Plantation”): A general term, used in the UDV and Santo Daime, for the location where the plants that will be consumed in the religious rituals are grown. In the UDV, there is an equipe de plantio (”plantation team”), normally comprised of men, which cultivates this foliage, either on the land of the núcleo or on private lands donated by the members of the núcleo.

Preparo (”Preparation”): The name of the ritual for making Hoasca.

Quadro de Mestres (”Masters’ Board”): The group of all Mestres. There are six levels within the Quadro de Mestres, from lowest to highest: Mestre Assistente (”Assistant Master”) and Mestre Representante (”Representative Master”), both of which are authorities within their núcleo; Auxiliar do Mestre Central (”Assistant of the Central Master”); Mestre Central (”Central Master”); Assistente Geral (”General Assistant”) and Mestre Geral Representante (”General Representative Master”). All of these positions are occupied by Mestres who are elected for a three-year term, except for the position of Mestre Assistente, which is taken up by a new Mestre of the Unidade Administrativa (”Administrative Body”) once every two months.

Quadro de Sócios (”Associates’ Board”): The first hierarchical class or grade in the UDV. One may join this group by one’s own choice; the higher levels require that one be selected by the núcleo leadership. These members are allowed to attend sessões de escala (every two weeks), sessões de escala anual (special ceremonies on the yearly ritual calendar), and the sessões extras.

Região (”Region”): An administrative and geographic division of the UDV. There are currently 15 regiões (”regions”) in Brazil.

Reinado (”Kingdom”): A place where the mariri vine is found (planted or wild). Sometimes also used in Santo Daime.

Sacramento (”Sacrament”): A term used by the UDV and quite a few of the other Brazilian ayahuasca groups to refer to ayahuasca.

Salão do Vegetal (”Hall of Vegetal”): The physical space in which the sessões are held.

Sessões (”Sessions”): Religious ceremonies that revolve around the ritual imbibing of Vegetal. A sessão is run by the Mestre Dirigente, a disciple of high hierarchical status who is appointed on a per sessão basis.

Sessões de Adventícios (”Newcomer Sessions”): Ceremonies intended for people who are drinking Vegetal for the first time. In general, only a few occur per year, and an interview with the Mestre Representante of the núcleo is required before one can attend the first ceremony.

Sessões de Escala (”Scheduled Sessions”): Regular ceremonies of the União do Vegetal that are intended for all members. These ceremonies always take place on the first and third Saturday of the month. Sessões de escala anual are held on specified dates of the UDV’s yearly ritual calendar.

Sessões Extras (”Extra Sessions”): Sessões that are not de escala, are not on the calendar and are not instrutivas; they can be intended for some or all of the members of a núcleo and/or neighboring núcleos and their scheduling is up to the discretion of the individual núcleos‘ leadership.

Sessões Instrutivas (”Instructive Sessions”): Intended for members of the UDV’s Corpo Instrutivo in order to teach them the ensinos reservados (”reserved teachings”). These sessões are generally held at intervals of at least two months, on Sundays, and they begin at noon.

Símbolo da União – Luz Paz e Amor (”Symbol of the Union – Light, Peace and Love”): One of the principal spiritual references in the UDV.

Tucunacá: A variety of the liana Banisteriopsis caapi generally characterized (in comparison to the Caupuri variety) by an absence of knotty segmentation.

Uniforme (”Uniform”): Ritual vestments worn in the ceremonies. Men and women wear a green shirt and white shoes; women wear gold pants and men wear white pants. The Mestre Representante wears a blue shirt.

Vegetal: The name given to ayahuasca, along with Hoasca or chá.

Notes

1. ^{We would like to thank Christian Frenopoulo for his contributions to this text. We would also like to thank various members of the UDV for their support and guidance in the creation of this text.}
2. ^{Anthropologist and Researcher at NEIP – Interdisciplinary Group for Psychoactive Studies (www.neip.info). See also bialabate.net.}
3. ^{PhD Candidate in Cultural Anthropology, University of Virginia and Researcher at NEIP.}
4. ^{MD Candidate, Stanford University School of Medicine and Researcher at NEIP.}
5. ^{The word “Vegetal” in Portuguese can refer to either vegetation or to the brew Vegetal.}
6. ^{For more official information on the CEBUDV, see www.udv.org.br and CEBUDV, 1989.}
7. ^{See Pantoja Franco and Conceição 2004; Araújo 2004.}
8. ^{For a map of the regions and núcleos of the UDV, see http://www.udv.org.br/A+expansao+de+uma+obra+sagrada/A+sagrada+Uniao/111/}

^References

• ^{Andrade, Anfrânio Patrocínio de. 1995. O fenômeno do chá e a religiosidade cabocla: Um estudo centrado na União do Vegetal. Masters Thesis in Religious Studies. Unversidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro.}
• ^{Araújo, Maria Gabriela Jahnel de. 2004. Cipó e imaginário entre seringueiros do Alto Juruá. Revista de Estudos da Religião, 1:41-59.}
• ^{Brissac, Sérgio. 1999. A estrela do norte iluminando até o sul: Uma etnografia da União do Vegetal em contexto urbano. Masters Thesis in Social Anthropology. Universidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro.}
• ^{CEBUDV (Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal). 1989. Hoasca: Fundamentos e objectivos. Brasília: Sede Geral.}
• ^{CEBUDV (Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal) official website: www.udv.org.br}
• ^{Goulart, Sandra. 2004. Contrastes e continuidades em uma tradição amazônica: As religiões da ayahuasca. Doctoral Dissertation in Social Sciences. Universidade Estadual de Campinas.}
• ^{Henman, Anthony Richard. 1986. Uso del ayahuasca en un contexto autoritario: El caso de la União do Vegetal en Brasil. América Indígena, 66(1):219-34.}
• ^{Luna, Luis Eduardo. 1986. Vegetalismo: Shamanism among the mestizo population of the Peruvian Amazon. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International.}
• ^{Luna, Luis Eduardo. 1995. Ayahuasca em Cultos Urbanos Brasileiros. Estudo contrastivo de alguns aspectos do Centro Espírita e Obra de Caridade Príncipe Espadarte Reino da Paz (a Barquinha) e o Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal (UDV). Work presented in requirement of Adjunct Professorship in Anthropology, Department of Social Sciences, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis.}
• ^{Pantoja Franco, Mariana Ciavatta & Conceição, Osmildo Silva da. 2004. Breves revelações sobre a ayahuasca: O uso do chá entre os seringueiros do Alto Juruá. In Beatriz Labate & Wladimyr Sena Araújo (eds), O Uso Ritual da Ayahuasca. Campinas, Mercado de Letras (2nd Edition). Pp. 201-27.}

The argument raises a number of interesting questions, and is worth following.

Michael Winkelman

Winkelman’s position consists of two intertwined elements, one descriptive and one historical. The descriptive part begins from the concept that the human brain is modular — that it is a large collection of small modules that have evolved to perform specific functions. These modules can be quite specialized. Modules have been proposed for such functions as distinguishing living from nonliving things, identifying faces, understanding motives, throwing accurately, attaching emotions to faces, and recognizing causal relationships. Tools such as Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging may even be able to locate these modules in particular areas in the brain.

Winkelman maintains that shamanic techniques for inducing transpersonal consciousness override this modularity through what he calls integrative brain processes. In this integrative mode of consciousness, he says, ordinarily separate modules can interact, so that the brain processes information through several modules at once, in a way that is different from other states of consciousness. Synesthesia — seeing sounds or smelling colors, for example — is such a cross-modular experience, as is the uniquely human capacity for metaphor, mimesis, and symbolism. Winkelman sees such capacities as central to the role of the shaman.

There is much to be said for this last observation. Jerome Rothenberg, poet and pioneer of ethnopoetics, calls the shaman the protopoet. Poet Gary Snyder says that the shaman gives song to dreams, “speaks for wild animals, the spirits of plants, the spirits of mountains, of watersheds. He or she sings for them. They sing through him.” For these poets, the shaman is the healer who sings — the creator of metaphor, the shaper of symbols.

Winkelman’s view has started a trend toward speaking of the sacred plants — such as the ayahuasca drink, the peyote cactus, the teonanácatl mushroom — as psychointegrator plants. Such plants “enhance integration of information by eliciting cognitive capacities based in presentational symbolism, metaphor, analogy, and mimesis … representing preconscious and prelinguistic structures of the brain.” The shaman’s individual psychodynamics, Winkelman says, expressed symbolically in the language of myths and spirits, are restructured “at levels below conceptual and operational thought.”

This is also where the historical element comes in. Premodern humans, Winkelman says, had highly modular brains. It was shamanism that was the foundation for the development of “synthetic symbolic awareness” in early humans. “The integrative potentials of shamanism,” he writes, “help explain the rapid rise of culture in modern Homo sapiens sapiens and the origin of shamanistic and religious features … from the cross-modal analogic and psychophysiological integration processes from different innate modules.”

Homayun Sidky

Sidky doesn’t buy it. His critique has two prongs, both directed against Winkelman’s historical thesis. First, Sidky questions the assumption that shamanism — at least in any form recognizably similar to contemporary indigenous practice — was in fact a paleolithic phenomenon. This point has merit. As I have written before, historical materials on shamanism date back only as far as the sixteenth century. By the time the first European travelers brought home descriptions of Siberian shamanism, it had already been influenced by centuries of contact with Buddhism, Islam, and Russian Orthodox Christianity. We have no direct evidence of what any sort of indigenous spiritual practice might have been like before that time.

Second, the question of what caused the sudden emergence of behaviorally modern humans about 40,000 years ago is a highly contentious one, and a wide variety of mechanisms have been proposed, including the introgression of Neanderthal alleles into the human genome. Sidky questions whether the hypothesized integrative mode of consciousness would have been advantageous in the sense Winkelman intends. Winkelman says that “altering consciousness provides a variety of adaptive advantages through development of a more objective perception of the external world.” Sidky quotes Charles Tart as saying that altered states of consciousness are, just like ordinary consciousness, “mixtures of pluses and minuses, insights and delusions, genuine creativity and misleading imagination.” What would be the benefit of such a state of consciousness to a paleolithic human?

More interesting to me than where these two thinkers differ is where they seem to agree. Both agree that there is something we can call a shamanic state of consciousness, although they disagree about what it is. Winkelman claims it is a state in which normally discrete brain modules interact. Sidky maintains that there is no empirical justification for hypothesizing the existence of such a state. Rather, he says, the state is clearly one of dissociation — a state in which “the ordinary meta-awareness that gives us our sense of personal identity and agency, and which operates atop the brain’s cognitive hierarchey, is temporarily overtaken.” Such a state is in fact a state of increased modularity, “when parallel brain modules disengage from each other or from ordinary meta-awareness and operate independently.”

My first reaction to all this is that we seem to be theorizing far ahead of a sufficient factual basis. If cognition does work in a modular fashion, there is still little agreement about what those modules are, how many there may be, and how they might interact. There are numerous modular models of the mind, but their modules often do not correspond; one review of the literature came up with a total of fifty different modules that had been proposed in different studies. If there is little agreement about the modularity of the contemporary human brain, it is hard to see how we can reasonably discuss the modularity of paleolithic humans.

And there are continuing conceptual difficulties. If there is a speech processing module, are there submodules for semantic coding, phonemic processing, pitch recognition? Is the semantic coding module for speech reception the same as one for speech production? How do all these modules and submodules interact? For these and other reasons, modular models are currently being challenged by alternative models that are increasingly holistic and nonlocalized.

But my concern is deeper. Shamans are not states of consciousness. Shamans are people who have messy personal lives, an ambiguous social role, and the risky job of making sick people better. In fact, as I wrote here and here, I am not at all sure that there is such a thing as a discrete, unitary, contextless, disembodied shamanic state of consciousness at all. Perhaps what we should be talking about instead are the experiences of shamans in their global, postcolonial, historical, and ineluctably idiosyncratic cultural settings.

In the same way, we cannot simply assume that sacred plants all function in the same way, or produce the same experience, especially under their ceremonial conditions of use. Indeed, I think it is pretty clear that the effects of the ayahuasca drink, the peyote cactus, and the teonanácatl mushroom are phenomenologically distinct. What happens to the shamanic state of consciousness then?