Ayahuasca, a beverage brewed from the roots of an Amazonian plant and consumed under the guidance of a shaman, reportedly provides mind-opening experiences and relief from symptoms of stress, depression and other afflictions. Ayahuasca has long been used in healing rituals in the Amazon region of Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, and Brazil.

Recently the Guardian carried an article about the use of ayahuasca by members of several Indie groups such as the Klaxons. Then the Washington Post described a healing tour company that connects Westerners to ayahuasca sessions.

To learn more: Marlene Dobkin de Rios is the main cultural anthro expert on ayahuasca. In the 1970s, she published several scholarly articles and an ethnography about its ritual healing use, Visionary Vine: Hallucinogenic Healing in the Peruvian Amazon. More recently, with Roger Rumrill, she published A Hallucinogenic Tea, Laced with Controversy: Ayahuasca in the Amazon and the United States which provides important updates.

Here are other anthropological sources on ayahuasca, healing, and ritual (with apologies, as they are not open access):

Arévalo Valera, Guillermo. 1986. Ayahuasca y El Curandero Shipibo-Conibo Del Ucayali (Perú). América Indígena 46(1):p.147-161.

Baer, G., and W. W. Snell. 1974. An Ayahuasca Ceremony among the Matsigenka (Eastern Peru). Zeitschrift Fur Ethnologie V 99(1/2):63-80.

Balzer, Carsten. 2005. Ayahuasca Rituals in Germany: The First Steps of the Brazilian Santo Daime Religion in Europe. Curare 28(1):53-66, 119.

Benjamin, Craig. 2000. Trademark on Traditional Knowledge: Slim Ayahuasca Win. Native Americas 17(1):30-33.

Callaway, J. C. 1995. Pharmahuasca and Contemporary Ethnopharmacology. Curare 18(2):395-398.

Desmarchelier, C., A. Gurni, G. Ciccia, and A. M. Giuletti. 1996. Ritual and Medicinal Plants of the Ese’Ejas of the Amazonian Rainforest (Madre De Dios, Perú). Journal of Ethnopharmacology 52(1):45-51.

Dobkin de Rios, Marlene. A Note on the use of Ayahuasca among Urban Mestizo Populations in the Peruvian Amazon. American Anthropologist 72(6):1419-1422.
Continue reading “Hallucinogenic healing” →