Ayahuasca - Plant Of The Gods

From the richness of associated mythology, the utilization of Ayahuasca, pronunced EYE-a-was-ca, for visionary experiences appears to be primeval. Pre-Colombian rock drawings are like up to date ayahuasqueros pantings, which are alleged to represent vage visions. earliest known record of the practices associated with this botanical wasn't set down until the middle of the 19th century.

Harmaline and other harmala alkaloids appear throughout the plant world and are the principle psychoactive ingredient in the'magical' libation yage, recounted YAH-hey. These substances are also present in cigarettes and even in the human pineal gland.

Although these three-ringed compounds are widespread in the plant kingdom, their use as an entheogen is understood in only two particular, geographically separate practices. First is the scraping of the bark of Banisteriopsis vines to make a drink in the Amazon, and 2nd, digestion of the seeds of Syrians. The Amazonian practices are better documented and colorfully illustrated the purgative, healing, visible, telepathic, sexual, inventive, non secular and healing potentials in entheogens.

Several early explorers of northwestern South America referred to ayahuasca, yage and caapi, citing a forest liana but offering small detail. In the early twentieth Century, it was learned that the use of Banisteriopsis vines for healing, initiatory and shamanic rites extended to Peru and Bolivia.

Thanks to the substantial interest in the psychedelic experience the advent of LSD caused reports about ayahuasca that ordinarily would've been prohibited to the technical literature received reasonably wide circulation. There has been dialogue about ayahuasca, which spread the word about the vine and its use for divinatory and prophetic purposes.

Many analysts went to South America looking for ayahuasqueros, expecting to have a private ayahuasca experience. Some recounted an ayahuasca-psilocybe experience that lasted purportedly for a month in the jungle. Their engaging hopeful testimonials called attention to ayahuasca while considering topics of mind-body interactions.

Maybe the best wide-ranging investigation of the various states of ayahuasca experience comes out of a professor of Psychology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Bernard Shamon. He tried the experience himself many times and interviewed locals, city folks, shamans and travellers. Shamon lays out what he suspects is a structure that can be applied to the experience and which he also feels can be applied to other entheogenic use.

Psychedelic Ayahuasca Tourism

Many groups offer journeys to the Amazon with the idea of travellers taking ayahuasca under their auspices. Ayahuasca SpiritQuest, as an example, publicizes "transformative workshop retreats exploring the essence of normal shamanic Ayahuasca healing practices and ethnobotany in the center of the Peruvian Amazon."