Human Psychopharmacology of Hoasca, A Plant Hallucinogen Used in Ritual Context in Brazil (original) (raw)

"Ayahuasca Use Throughout Time: A Literature Review"

University of Guelph Atrium, 2020

Ayahuasca is the most common term which refers to a plant based hallucinogenic beverage made with the jungle lianas Banisteriopsis Caapi (Schultes 1972:35; De Rios 1984:8). Through a review of this literature, my project evaluates how the changing geographic boundaries, cultural context and worldview of ayahuasca users alter the intention and meaning of ayahuasca usage. This paper provides a contextual overview of hallucinogenic plants in Central and South America, key themes in shamanism and Amazonian shamanism. Local Amazonian ayahuasca use in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, Brazilian ayahuasca religions, neo-shamanism and ayahuasca drug tourism literature is presented and analyzed drawing upon Van Gennep’s (1960) “Rites de Passage”, Victor Turner’s (1970) “Liminality”, Shaw and Stewart’s (2003) problematization of syncretism and Grimes’ (1992) characteristics of the reinvention of ritual. Literature regarding therapeutic/medicinal ayahuasca use and ayahuasca legality is also presented. I argue recent and contemporary ayahuasca use may utilize traditional elements of Amazonian shamanism, though depart from Indigenous cosmology as ideologies governing it’s use become syncretic, institutionalized and influenced by Western individualism.

A critical review of the literature on the diaspora of Brazilian ayahuasca religions

During its expansion from the Amazon jungle to Western societies, ayahuasca use has encountered different legal and cultural responses. Following on from the earlier edited collection, The Expanding World Ayahuasca Diaspora continues to explore how certain alternative global religious groups, shamanic tourism industries, and recreational drug milieus grounded in the consumption of the traditionally Amazonian psychoactive drink ayahuasca embody various challenges associated with modern societies. Each contributor explores the symbolic effects of a " bureaucratization of enchantment " in religious practice and the " sanitizing " of indigenous rituals for tourist markets. Chapters include ethnographic investigations of ritual practice, transnational religious ideology, the politics of healing, and the invention of tradition. Larger questions on the commodification of ayahuasca and the categories of sacred and profane are also addressed. Exploring classic and contemporary issues in social science and the humanities, this book provides rich material on the bourgeoning expansion of ayahuasca use around the globe. As such, it will appeal to students and academics in Clancy Cavnar has a doctorate in clinical psychology (PsyD) from John F. Kennedy University. She currently works at a dual-diagnosis residential drug treatment center in San Francisco and is a research associate of the Nucleus for Interdisciplinary Studies of Psychoactives (NEIP).