tejido de relaciones

Permítase conectarse con la Madre Tierra y sienta/vea/escuche/huela/sueñe/comparta los sabores/sensaciones/colores/sonidos de la esencia de la sanación personal.

Volver a Tierra -The Healing Ride – es un viaje al interior del individuo para la conexión con lo sagrado facilitado por una gran familia de caminantes de la palabra y guardianes de la tradición que conducen un preciso y certero recorrido, guiado e interpretado por bioregiones de Abya Yala … la tierra en Florecimineto. (América Latina)

Il Giorno del Ringraziamento (Thanksgiving Day) è una festa osservata negli Stati uniti e in Canada: si celebra il quarto giovedì di Novembre, in segno di gratitudine per la fine della stagione del raccolto.

Risalente al 1623, e istituita dai Padri Pellegrini (quelli sbarcati in America a bordo della Mayflower, per intenderci), la festa si estese, anche grazie a George Washington, in tutti gli Stati e a metà del XIX° secolo era già unanimemente riconosciuta. Con il tempo la festa acquistò anche una certa sfumatura di patriottismo.

In occasione dell’annuale ricorrenza, che scade giovedì prossimo, qui su Bizzarro Bazar pubblichiamo un testo di  William S. Burroughs dedicato al Ringraziamento, cogliendo l’occasione per introdurre i suoi lettori alla forza dissacrante di un genio letterario senza pari.

Inizialmente associato alla beat generation di Kerouac, Ginsberg & soci, Burroughs ha in seguito intrapreso una ricerca artistica che ha influenzato tutta la seconda metà del ‘900, e che continua ad ispirare le avanguardie moderne. E’ difficile illustrare quanto importante sia stato il suo peso nei diversi campi artistici: le sue tecniche e i suoi temi si ritrovano nella letteratura, nella musica, nell’arte figurativa, nella body art, nel cinema.

Esploratore della coscienza e del perturbante, psiconauta per antonomasia, cultore di visioni macabre ed estreme ed artefice di un umorismo al vetriolo, il vecchio zio Bill ha praticamente scardinato ogni classico assunto culturale.

Angoscia del Controllo, distruzione dell’identità, algebra del bisogno, scarafaggi e Disinfestatori, “scimmie” sulla schiena, millepiedi allucinogeni, morbide macchine del sogno, esseri mutanti dalle forme imprecise, tossicomani e omosessuali, il cut-up come metodo non-logico per sottrarsi alla dipendenza del pensiero.

Questi, a grandi linee, i temi ossessivamente ripetuti da William S. Burroughs lungo tutta la sua carriera di romanziere e saggista, a partire da quando nel 1959 venne pubblicato Il Pasto Nudo, a tutt’oggi considerato il suo capolavoro, e grossi intellettuali e letterati americani si mossero per difendere il romanzo dalle accuse di oscenità e immoralità.

La sua vita stessa assomiglia ad un’opera d’arte. In tempi non sospetti (anni ‘40-’50) ha provato tutte le droghe esistenti, è stato eroinomane per sedici anni, ha ucciso sua moglie (sposata con l’unico scopo di darle cittadinanza americana) con un colpo di pistola mentre strafatti giocavano a inscenare la sfida di Guglielmo Tell. E’ stato omosessuale e tossicodipendente, ha elaborato la teoria secondo cui il linguaggio sarebbe un virus letale, ha cercato di sbriciolare i limiti del dicibile mediante diverse tecniche quali il cut-up, ha confuso il confine fra narrativa e pornografia, ha intrapreso avventurosi viaggi per provare droghe sconosciute come lo yage (la liana magica degli sciamani dell’Amazzonia), ha rivoluzionato ed esploso la forma del romanzo, ha creato dipinti sparando a dei barattoli di colore… ha lottato per tutta la vita contro il concetto di “controllo”, cercando di liberare la letteratura e la mente dagli insidiosi vincoli del condizionamento. In breve, un autore irrinunciabile.

Per ritornare al Giorno del Ringraziamento, vi proponiamo qui il testo e la traduzione di una preghiera (tutt’altro che patriottica, come vedrete) scritta da Burroughs nel 1986.  Più in sotto, troverete il video in cui William Burroughs recita il testo, per la regia di Gus Van Sant.

A THANKSGIVING PRAYER

by William S. Burroughs

Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts.

Thanks for a continent to despoil and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin leaving the carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream, To vulgarize and to falsify until the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin’ lawmen, feelin’ their notches.

For decent church-goin’ women, with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces.

Thanks for “Kill a Queer for Christ” stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where nobody’s allowed to mind the own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the memories– all right let’s see your arms!

You always were a headache and you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

UNA PREGHIERA PER IL GIORNO DEL RINGRAZIAMENTO

di William S. Burroughs

Grazie per il tacchino selvatico e i piccioni di passaggio, destinati ad essere cagati fuori attraverso budella del tutto Americane.

Grazie per un continente da rovinare e avvelenare.

Grazie per gli Indiani per fornire un minimo di sfida e pericolo.

Grazie per le vaste mandrie di bisonti da uccidere e spellare lasciando le carcasse a imputridire.

Grazie delle taglie sui lupi e sui coyote.

Grazie per il sogno Americano, Volgarizzare e Falsificare finché le nude menzogne non risplendano.

Grazie per il Ku Klux Klan.

Per gli uomini della legge ammazzanegri, che contano le tacche.

Per le decenti donne di chiesa, con le loro malvagie, contrite, amare, cattive facce.

Grazie per gli adesivi “Uccidi una Checca per Cristo”.

Grazie per l’AIDS da laboratorio.

Grazie per il Proibizionismo e la guerra contro le droghe.

Grazie per un paese dove a nessuno è permesso farsi gli affari suoi.

Grazie per una nazione di senzapalle.

Sì, grazie per tutti i ricordi ― va bene, ora vediamo le tue braccia!

Sei sempre stato un mal di testa e sei sempre stato una noia.

Grazie per l’ultimo e massimo tradimento dell’ultimo e massimo tra i sogni umani.

O estudante Fernando Henrique Queiroz Tavares 19a de Gestão Ambiental da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Goiás morreu na manhã de Domingo quando participava de um ritual realizado com o “propósito de promover o crescimento espiritual, o encontro com Deus e a melhoria do ser humano.”

Chamado “Ritual de Encantamento dos Sonhos” é o nome dado ao Ritual. Realizado pela Instituição de Xamanismo Céu de Krishina, em uma chácara em Senador Canedo.

 Durante o evento, além de assistir à palestra, ouvir músicas e permanecer próximos a uma fogueira, os participantes, tomaram a bebida indígena conhecida como ayahuasca ou santo daime, preparada a partir da associação do cipó jagube com o arbusto shacronam. O estudante era portador da síndrome de Marfan, doença congênita caracterizada por membros anormalmente longos, que afeta outras estruturas do corpo, incluindo o esqueleto, olhos, pulmões, o coração e os vasos sanguíneos.

A família do jovem registrou a ocorrência da morte súbita no 14º Distrito Policial (DP), em Senador Canedo, mas a princípio não associa a morte repentina à bebida servida no ritual. A família sabia da possibilidade de o filho apresentar rompimento da aorta e ter morte súbita, pois foi orientada  pelos médicos . Ela, contudo, não quis dar mais declarações.

Há 3 anos Fernando Henrique começou a participar dos ritos. O coordenador da Instituição Xamãnica Céu da Fraternidade Universal, localizada em Goiânia, Marcelo Henrique Ribeiro Borges, diz que quando se ingressou na entidade Fernando Henrique, ainda adolescente, era dependente químico. “Ele conseguiu abandonar as drogas e tinha muita satisfação em participar dos encontros.” Nestes quase quatro anos, conforme disse, Fernando Henrique participou de ritos na capital, em outras cidades do interior e na matriz da instituição, em Pariquera Açu (SP). Em todas elas, conforme Marcelo Borges, o rapaz teria tomado a ayahauasca. Por volta das 2 horas de domingo, servido para cada visitante dois copos com a bebida, de 50 mililitros cada. Cerca de uma hora e meia depois, foi oferecido o terceiro cálice. Fernando Henrique, começou a passar mal por volta das 4h30. Ele reclamou de cansaço e fraqueza e respirava com dificuldade. O jovem dormiu por cerca de uma hora e acordou por volta das 6h30, sem apresentar sinais. Meia hora depois, desfaleceu nos braços do coordenador. O rapaz foi levado para o pronto-socorro de Senador Canedo, onde foi constatada a morte.

Termo de origem Inca, a Ayahuasca é uma bebida sagrada utilizada em rituais de algumas religiões e seitas, como o Santo Daime. Também chamada de Caapi, Yagé, Vegetal, Daime, Hoasca, o nome Ayahuasca significa “vinho das almas”.

Há muitas gerações, os Pajés da Amazônia vem utilizando essa bebida para a cura, o encontro direto com espíritos, prever o futuro e mergulhar em seu universo interior e atingir o transe místico. Atualmente, as organizações que se servem da Ayahuasca em sua ritualística são a U.D.V. (União do Vegetal) e o Santo Daime.

Efeitos do Santo Daime

O biomédico toxicologista Romário Gonçalves Vaz explica que o chá do Santo Daime, a ayahuasca, pode provocar alteração do funcionamento da mente, causando alucinações e o desencadeamento de vômitos e diarreias. “O indivíduo fica desidratado, o que pode resultar em baixa da frequência cardíaca”, relata. De acordo com Romário, como as substâncias contidas no chá agem no sistema nervoso central, a pessoa que o bebe pode ter crises de pânico e consequentemente aumento da frequência cardíaca, sensação de medo e perda de controle, ou desencadear quadros psicóticos em pessoas portadoras de doenças psiquiátricas como transtorno bipolar e esquizofrenia. Não há um tratamento específico para quem sofre efeitos adversos ao tomar o chá. “O tratamento é sintomático, ou seja, se a pessoa teve um aumento da frequência cardíaca será tratada com um medicamento para esse sintoma e por aí vai”, afirma.

Fonte de pesquisa: http://hugolapa.wordpress.com/

globo.com

Esley Zambel * Pesquisando mais sobre o Santo Daime

Wie, hier stehts noch nicht? Ok. Yage wollen ihre Discographie auf Doppel-LP heraus bringen. Altin Village weiß dazu:

Since people keep asking when Yage’s – Some Time of a Time 2×12″ will be released: We are in the process of getting all songs re-mastered! There’s still plenty of work ahead but be prepared for a fancy present under your X-mas tree.

Na dann, Vorfreude!

eriik

myspace.com/yage5
altinvillage.de

Just a bit of a filler post at the moment.. I was pretty busy of late with college exams and all that but I’m all done now and can start ripping and uploading much more. I can now work more and afford more tunes! Anyway, here are a few out of print screamo 7inches to keep all of you going..

VA-The_Emo_Armageddon-7inch-2005-rH

http://www.mediafire.com/?49imwmxmyme

Neil_Perry-Picture_Disc-7inch-2002-rH
http://www.mediafire.com/?z4wtt2ynzmj

VA-La_Quiete-Catena_Collapse-7_Inch-Split-2003-gF
http://www.mediafire.com/?syzlzxxtuyj

VA-Raein-Funeral_Diner-7_Inch-Split-2004-gF
http://www.mediafire.com/?8bn3xdxmck2

VA-La_Quiete-The_Apoplexy_Twist_Orchestra-7_Inch-Split-2003-gF
http://www.mediafire.com/?nxlg1rtybpd

Yage-Untitled-VLS-2002-iTS
http://www.mediafire.com/?ei22yj0jqzd

VA-Phoenix_Bodies-Raein-7_Inch-Split-2004-gF
http://www.mediafire.com/?zl1lymtyytz

http://rapidshare.com/files/233162596/Yage-The_Woodlands_of_Old.part1.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/233041490/Yage-The_Woodlands_of_Old.part2.rar.html

Teneís aqui muchos libros informativos e información escrita sobre el ayahuasca en español y inglés.

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Libros en Español

Schultes, Hofmann – Plantas de los dioses (201 p.)

Clara Vision – Chamanismo y Ayahuasca (328 p.)

El Hablador (96 p.)

Los Muertos alados de Fredonia End (150 p.)

El Almuerzo desnudo (130 p.)

Psicomagia (204 p.)

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Ariculos en Español

Aplicaciones del uso de ayahuasca en la psicoterapia occidental (16 p.)

Ayahuasca y Autoconocimiento (3 p.)

El Peyote y la Ayahuasca en las nuevas Religiones mistéricas (27 p.)

La Génesis de la Religión y la Culura a través de las Drogas visionarias (28 p.)

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Books in English

Psychedelic Shamanism (265 p.)

Encyclopedia of Mind Enhancing Foods, Drugs and Nutritional Substances (55 p.)

Terence McKenna- Food of the Gods (139 p.)

Jim Dekorne – Psychedelic Shamanism (165 p.)

Ayahuasca Visions (132 p.)

The psylocybin Solution (210 p.)

Encyclopedia of Mind enhancing Foods, Drugs and nutritional Substances (55 p.)

Soul (423 p.)

Sacred Vine of Spirits: Ayahuasca (272 p.)

Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman (160 p.)

The Yage Letters (72 p.)

Ayahuasca – The Visionary and Healing Powers of the Vine of the Soul (240 p.)

The Antipodes of the Mind – Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience (496 p.)

Forest of Visions – Ayahuasca, Amazonian Spirituality, and the Santo Daime Tradition (288 p.)

Ayahuasca Reader – Encounters with the Amazon’s Sacred Vine (288 p.)

Heavenly Highs – Ayahuasca, Kava-Kava, Dmt, and other Plants of the Gods (144 p.)

Ayahuasca and Shamanism – Michael Taussig interviewed by Peter Lamborn Wilson (24 p.)

A hallucinogenic Tea, laced with Controversy – Ayahuasca in the Amazon and the United States (168 p.)

Ayahuasca – Hallucinogens, Consciousness and the Spirit of Nature (240 p.)

Yaje, the new Purgatory – Encounters with Ayahuasca (688 p.)

The Jaguar that roams the Mind: An Amazonian Plant Spirit Odyssey (296 p.)

Dance of the four Winds – Secrets of the Inca medicine Wheel (288 p.)

Amazon Magic – The Life Story of Ayahuasquero & Shaman Don Agustin Rivas Vasquez (230 p.)

Kidnapped in the Amazon Jungle (168 p.)

The Psychotropic Mind – The World according to Ayahuasca and Iboga (192 p.)

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Aricles in English

Through the Shaman´s Doorway (Yoga)

The deified Heart (Anthropologica)

Increased frontal and paralimbic Activation following Ayahuasca, the pan-amazonian Inebriant (6 p.)

Ayahuasca Cookbook (5 p.)

An open Egg Initiative (Maps)

Getting your Hands dirty (Sub Rosa)

]]> http://ayahuascavision.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/ayahuasca/ Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:02:14 +0000 ayahuascavision http://ayahuascavision.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/ayahuasca/

Hay aqui unos documentales sobre el ayahuasca para entenderlo mejor. Es muy importante saber que historia tiene y de donde viene antes de tomarlo.

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Docus in English

To the end of the earth – Jungle Trip Ayahuasca (49:22)

Extreme celebrity detox (23:53)

Horizon: Psychedelic Science by Bill Eagles (47:49)

Shamans of the Amazon (52:17)

Dieta at Sachavacay Preserve (23:47)

The Man who drank the Universe (34:17)

Psychonauts (hungarian with english subs) (41:00)

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Lectures & Interviews in English

Stanley Krippner – Shamanism, dreams and drugs (1:30:06)

Stanley Krippner – Spiritual Dimensions of the Ayahuasca Experience (57:06)

Jerónimo M. Muñoz – Ayahuasca and the gringos (46:24)

Evolver: Asanas and Ayahuasca (55:45)

Terence McKenna – Psychedelic Society (47:07)

Bridging Heaven & Earth (58:55)

Google LDN! (29:30)

The 2012 Enigma by David Wilcock (1:35:47)

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Documentales en Español

Santo Daime – La Religion del Ayahuasca (45:51)

En Busca del Misterio – La Soga del Muerto (28:42)

Jardines de Dios (54:01)

O Santo Daime – Le Don sacre (1:36:58)

La Dieta iniciatica de Don Guilliermo (30:35)

Por el Río Tigre – Pelicula de Base del Pueblo (44:20)

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Conferencias y entrevistas en Español

El Contexto en los Estados modificados de Conciencia (1:29:02)

El Sendero de las Plantas maestras (1:52:34)

El Chaman y el Yage (20:40)

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Do you remember when you were like thirteen or fourteen and you read that bit in Naked Lunch about the supposed mind-expanding properties of nutmeg? Nutmeg! Like your mom baked with! Like, readily-available, no questions asked! And then you took it, just like Burroughs indicated, and it made your stomach hurt and gave you a headache (just like he said it would). And nothing else happened. No visions, no enlightenment, nada. Do you remember that? Oh, wait…that wasn’t you? That was someone else? Sorry…

From “Afterthoughts on a Deposition,” an index to Naked Lunch:

Convicts and sailors sometimes have recourse to nutmeg. About a tablespoon is swallowed with water. Results are vaguely similar to marijuana with side effects of headache and nausea. Death would probably supervene before addiction before addiction if such addiction is possible. I have only taken nutmeg once.

There you go, kids. Knock yourselves out. Actually, don’t. Just rent Altered States instead.

Burroughs, of course, was far more interested in yagé, or ayahuasca, a psychoactive preparation of a South American vine. At the end of his spare, funny, first novel Junky, Burroughs writes:

I decided to go down to Colombia and score for yage. … My wife and I are separated. I am ready to move on south and look for the uncut kick that opens out instead of narrowing down like junk.

Kick is seeing things from a special angle. Kick is momentary freedom from the claims of aging, cautious nagging, frightened flesh. Maybe I will find in yage what I was looking for in junk and weed and coke. Yage may be the final fix.

I’ve read Junky a few times and it seems that these lines are strangely half-hopeful and also deeply ironic. Burroughs’s stand-in, narrator William Lee doesn’t get what the writer William Burroughs seems to realize: there is no permanent solution, no “final fix.” Still, Burroughs sure did have some wacky adventures looking for it. Check out this clip from a documentary, apparently called Ayahuasca, narrated by Burroughs (if anyone out there knows anything about this movie, please let us know):

Tuesday November 25, 2008

An 18 hour bus ride is enough to make any man want to chain smoke or kill himself. I decided on the former and thought I was quite clever by killing two birds with one stone. At times of extreme boredom or stress, or maybe just for the pleasure of the Nicotine buzz I’m not sure why everyone doesn’t smoke, but I can understand why they spend so much time trying to stop kids from trying a cigarette. They are addicting, and I have become addicted by choice, when they are of use, and they have their uses. But enough about my most recently acquired drug habit. Smoking is of course filthy, but also (contrary to what non-smokers will tell you) very cool. With a sad goodbye to Valeria and Marco, armed with a pack of Lucky Strikes to combat our soon to be shrinking stomachs due to the absence of Abuelita’s delicious cooking we boarded the coach for what would have normally been a 12 hour ride placing us in Popayan at 6am but, due to one of many frequent landslides we were being rerouted on the 18+ hour tour!

I can’t say enough about the lack of respect for human life that every bus driver in Colombia seems to have in spades. I often catch myself wondering which side of the road they legally drive on down here, or maybe conventionally is a more appropriate word. Blind corner? Two long trucks already taking it? Let’s pass anyway we’ve got momentum on our side and as we all know busses are all about low gear ratios not high rpm.

To exacerbate the situation as we career like a bunch of escaped convicts along what I’m sure is the world’s windiest road if that exists in the Guinness World book of records, there are people walking along the shoulder in the dark with none of the reflective clothing my mom would have made me wear if I was riding my bike at dusk or night. On a particularly hairy corner that we took at 79km’h instead of the recommended 30, I saw, quite clearly, the face of a young boy about 18-24 inches away from my window as our headlights shone on his face, which was a picture of indifferent tranquility. I surmised that he was blissfully ignorant of the dangers, mentally unstable, or suicidal. Then I saw a whole family walking down the road with little niños and I realized that the Colombians are just nuts.

In between my attempted murder by intervals of freezing and thawing via a rough AC operator, I was forced to make two trips to the WC. They were remarkably reminiscent of the last time I peed on every surface within 180 degrees of my perilous position and yet somehow my jeans emerged unscathed. Four sleeping pills, half a pack of smokes, several bottles of water, the most delicious bowl of soup ever and we arrived in Popayan blinking like a couple of nocturnal koalas aroused in the noon-day sun.

A brief assault on Popayan on foot, combined with the lingering effects of the sleeping agents we consumed with gusto on the bus left me with cloudy vision and Barnes fiending for a coffee like Iron Paws for a Trits™. A brief aside:

I have a friend named; well let’s call him Umberto, who, like Barnes and me, is a major fat kid. He might even take the cake (pun intended) when it comes to this category. The main differentiating factor of all fat kids is not the amount they can eat, but their behaviour induced by extreme hunger (By extreme hunger I do not meal the sort of hunger, naturally, that people who are really starving for nutrients feel. Rather, I am referring to the desire to eat that is so strong is drowns out all other senses and rationalism that said individual might otherwise have had). I have seen this friend smash plates, sweep glasses off tables, shout loudly in public places, push old ladies and shove small children out of the way in a fit of FKI (Fat Kidding It). I’ve seen him shake ex-NFL players named Slade like they were a doll named Suzy, I’ve witness him scream for all to hear: “I AM THE HUNGRIEST MAN IN THIS RESTAURANT” when his food wasn’t served first. I once watched him snap a door off its hinges because, in his fit of blind rage, he deduced that there was someone eating more than their share of a can of Pringles on the other side. This man is the kind of man who would fight a bull bare handed while wearing red, a mother bear trying to protect her cubs, or Chuck Norris if it meant even a chance at enjoying a Trits™ (the world’s most delicious ice cream sandwich made with a succulent bed of soft serve vanilla ice cream super cooled into a solid puck gently being caressed on either side by graham wafer cookies and topped with a drizzling of high quality – probably Swiss – chocolate fudge), ice cold Cola, or a triple stack of Pringles.
While I would go so far as to call this person my best friend and often my better half, I have watched first had as a fit of FKI overcame him and the food lust filled his eyes. At the time I believe I had foolishly won a best-of-seven series (you understand) game of rock/paper/scissors for the remaining share of Pringles. One can never be sure when the food-lust will overcome a true Fat Kid but these are the risks we all assume when we decide to befriend such a person; or perhaps it is fate that brought the two of us together many years ago, we may never know. Nevertheless, in the blink of an eye, this usually well tempered and gentle individual turned on me with all the vehemence usually reserved for arch enemies (such as Eduardo) and all left me only one option: to flee (with my recently won Pringles, of course). It was a full 3 days that I roamed the streets and slept for an hour at a time where I could before I felt it was safe to return to the embrace of our friendship. Lesson learned, like I said we all take risks in this life, all we can do it mitigate them as well as we can and take what comes head on like a man – even if that means fleeing like a scrawny street dog (named Fleabag) after losing a scrap.

So you can see we needed to find a cafe before Barnes went ape on some poor villager…

Popayan is a university town. It follows that there are a lot of young people around at all times which gives the city a lively feel. There are also lots of people everywhere so I have thoroughly enjoyed people watching as people watch Barnes. According to the local old man on the corner near our apartment, the last time Popayan enjoyed the presence of a 6’3” blonde gringo with a ponytail was just before the heavy rains came in June of 1991. So it’s understandable that everyone gawks, hell I can’t blame them. I often find myself staring at the pony tail that my compañero has recently decided to wear full time. It is more or less the same look I often find him directing towards my gregariously hairy upper lip – a smile playing across his features and a cheeky wink or blink (depending on the amount of sunlight) waiting just off stage in his eyes. Intimate moment, ahem.

Delayed by yet another Tierra del Romba (landslide) we are holed up in some cafe on the whitewashed streets of Popayan’s colonial district people watching, getting high on sugar and caffeine, passing time telling and re-telling stories back and forth like kids on a teeter-totter, and grooving to Eyna and other such lounge artists while dreaming of our next near death experience that will commence at 1am and the possibility of finding a mountain Sherpa in Ecuador with whom to drink Yagé and enter the Andean jungle for three or four wild yet nondescript days.

She had many names, which was quite proper for somebody who had lived so long and moved on so often, but we will call her Mab for that is her name now in this particular time and age, Mab the bitch witch everyone loved to hate, the bitch witch everyone depended on for their sad secrets.

See Mab in the forest, in her shack. The shack is overgrown, wrought with morning glories and yagé, the twining vines of introspection, and a musk of cinnamon and jasmine and vanilla suffuses the wet air. Honeybees bumble about those flowers and parcel dizzying properties to their hives. Dilapidation reigns in the warped beams and crooked flue and the flapping eaves, but this is a ramshackle farce, for entering the house finds oneself in a cozy space, hearth warm in the winter, cool as stone in the hottest summer.

A cast iron pan hangs above the cast iron stove. Stainless steel kettle. Embroidered rug. A hempen hammock dangling from the rafters. Various herbs drying in bunches on the walls. Glass bottles of all sizes and colors on shelves along one wall, also hung on hooks and roped to the rafters. Mab herself is seated in a burnished rocking chair sipping tea from a finely rolled spliff. Through the artful smoke rings that litter her atmosphere, her hair is brown shot with gray, and she moves with slow lithe grace. She puts down the smoldering roach and putters about her abode. Now, Mab needs to go to the market.

As soon as she left her door she affected a humpbacked gait, held a cackle at the ready in her throat, and for measure, gave her eyes a good roll. It was a ways before she entered the perimeter of the town, marked by the rough translation of rutted dried mud to a relatively smooth pane of dusty road. She rolled her eyes at the beastly children who ran up to her to throw rocks and sometimes eggs. When Mab passed storefronts, the townspeople’s chatter ceased to stony silence, starting up when she was well behind them. Nevertheless, she had hawk ears and heard their prejudices from afar. The General Store lay ahead.

Cruel children hid and sniggered from the shadows of alleys, rags of light moving across their faces. She slipped into the stuffy heat of the General Store and ordered flour, eggs, nails, and dried fish strips. She paid, cackling and rolling her eyes, reveled in the alarm flashing under the shopkeeper’s bushy brows. That one, he had hives whenever he glimpsed women’s underclothings. He came to her one blustery night bloated with hives on his hives. He couldn’t see through one eye and his words were slurred. Apparently he had deviated with his proper and prim route and passed by the whorehouse. She had him kill a toad and smear its innards on his badonkadonk. It must have worked. The Madame was now part owner of his General Store.

The folk of this town feared her but that never stopped them from going up to Mab in the deep of night to knock tentatively at her splintery door, secrets of pains and curses heavy in their mouth spilling like blood from a pig’s slit neck. The cobbler beating at his leather averted his gaze, him she helped rid with a powder the sores inside his underwear. She cackled and rolled her eyes at him, saw he had blushed. The piemaker flashed her lashes with demure shame. Her husband was frigid so Mab showed her how to rub the button special to make her gush. She had concocted a bullshit potion for the Mayor’s wife who wanted to curse her husband for running around with his filly; it was bullshit in more ways than one for the mayor’s wife’s ill wishes were all it took for the filly to fall off her horse and break her back. It was sublime pleasure watching the high off noble borne quaff rancid steaming crap and daintily dabbing the corners of her lips with a kerchief, utterly trusting Mab. She had cackled high and long.

Mab walked through town without much trouble but for the infernal children. She shot a dart from her sleeve, small as a rose’s thorn, and it caught a red-haired brat in the neck. He slapped at it, probably thinking it was a skeeter. She cackled at them and they scattered like pestilent rats. The boy would have interesting dreams tonight. His mother would be stunned at the aftermath and burn the shamed boy’s sheets.

Mab had a bag stashed away with her essentials. If worse came to shove, as it often did with a constellation of burning torches in the night, she would small rose thorns dipped in quick acting hallucinogenics inside her sleeve spray, disappear in a swirl of purpleblack smoke and leave the cottage a night bloom of flame at her back. Once she had made the Slavs think her house run away on feet of chicken.

She cackled all the way to her rickety cabin.

Hallucinogens, also called psychedelics or entheogens, have been used since prehistoric times in the practice of healing and divination (Stuart, R 2004). Ayahuasca is a powerful plant hallucinogen employed by indigenous societies of the western Amazon basin. The concoction is considered to be the most potent and widely used of all shamanic hallucinogens. Over the last several years ayahuasca has begun to attract increasing interest from a wide variety of disciplines within the modern scientific community.

In its traditional context, Ayahuasca is perceived as a magical intoxicant of divine origin, which facilitates release of the soul from its corporeal confinement, allowing it to wander free and return to the body at will, carrying with it information of vital import (Shultes and Hofmann 1992). Utilized and administered by local shaman or curanderos (Ayahuasceros and Vegtalistas) in the diagnosis and curing of patients, among other applications, ayahuasca enables the experienced practitioner to see the inner constituents of his patients body and soul. The brew acts as an access point for the shaman into the divine world of creation where intelligent beings guide him, passing knowledge and information. When curing a sick patient the shaman performs an ayahuasca ceremony, or a series of them, to discern, through hallucinatory diagnosis, which plant will act as a suitable treatment (Shannon, Metzner 1999).

Traditionally, ayahuasca hasn’t served solely for medical purposes but utilized in a broad range of possible scenarios. However, increasing popularity of ayahuasca use in urban environments, spawned by the newly emerging ‘ayahuasca tourism’, and the foreigner’s search for self-actualization, has contributed to a narrowing of that scope (Dobkin de Rios 1994).

The various uses of ayahuasca by non-urban native American Amazonian cultures include: to obtain divine guidance and to communicate with the spirits that animate plants; to achieve trance states; to train prospective shaman; to induce dreams so as to divine the future; for prophesy; as a telepathic agent; to cure illness through psychic or physical means; as a preventive agent against the malice of other people; as a diagnostic tool where the visions are used to prescribe remedies for illness; to identify an evil doer or agent responsible for illness; and to achieve ecstasy in the service of health and political acumen (Siskind 1973).

One shaman from the el Valle de Sibundoy (Colombia) states, “Yage (ayahuasca) is a force that has power, will and knowledge; with it we can reach the stars, enter the spirit of other people, know their desire to do good or bad; we can foresee the future of ours and others’ lives, see illnesses and cure them, and with it we can travel to heaven or hell.” Richard Evan Schultes, the father of western ethnobotany, offers similar emphasis to the omniscience of the sacred brew: “Ayahuasca truly enters into every aspect of living. It reaches into prenatal life, influences life after death, operates during earthly existence, plays roles not only in health and sickness, but in relations between individuals, villages and tribes, in peace and war, at home and in travel, in hunting and in agriculture. In fact, one can hardly name any aspect of living or dying, wakefulness or sleep, where caapi hallucinogens do not play a vital, nay, overwhelming, role” (Schultes).

There is increasing evidence suggesting that ayahuasca can be utilized in a wide variety of medicinal application. As I will discuss further, neurologist Kurt Beringr explored the effects of banisterine, also known as telepathine (in reference to the legendary properties of the jungle vine) in the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease. Administering the drug to fifteen patients with postencephalitic Parkinsonism, Beringer reported the dramatic improvement of the classic symptoms of rigidity and akinesia (Beringer 1928, Metzner). Dennis McKenna concludes that, “a considerable body of anecdotal evidence, coupled with a long history of ethnomedical use, indicates that ayahuasca may be useful for the treatment of abuse disorders, such as alcoholism and substance abuse, as well as for physical maladies such as cancer” (McKenna).

Although the hallucinatory knowledge of indigenous people has been empirically confirmed by science and used by the pharmaceutical industry in the synthetic production of medicine, its origins cannot be discussed scientifically because to do so would be to contradict the foundations of western knowledge (Narby ). Science does not have the capacity to further the study of Ayahuasa because it has built itself upon a founding declaration, which dismisses and denounces the existence of realities or intelligence beyond that which we can perceive here, in our physical, material reality. Science has exhausted the external examination of the people and culture surrounding the central phenomenon but can tell us nothing about the super-conscious, trans-dimensional, spiritual experiences induced by the sacred brew. What is the most effective way to further our understanding of ayahuasca’s function within western Amazonian societies? A logical place to start would be within ayahuasca’s culture of origin, through their lense of perception. Non-scientific ideologies, practices, theories, traditions can reveal some of the major shortcomings of science, but only they are given a fair chance to compete.

The modern Western world is not yet in a position from which it can begin to develop theories concerning what Ayahuasca “does”, or how and in what ways it “affects the brain”. To determine ayahuasca’s potential value, not merely as a medicine, but as a source of vital knowledge concerning the nature of reality, it is crucial to move beyond the boundaries of conventional models of study in order to incorporate the lessons learned past cultures into our way of thinking and understanding (Dobkin de Rios & Grob 2005). Not until a direct and extensive connection is established between an outside researcher and the ayahuasca experience itself will any understanding develop regarding the reality of ayahuasca. Not until  outside researchers establishes longitudinal collaborative apprenticeships with experienced ayahuasceros and vegetalistas will they begin to understand the hallucinatory-based epistemology as interpreted within its cultural, religious and ideological context of origin. Experienced ayahuasceros must interact in these study not as subjects, or “problems”, to be studied, but as a source of highly evolved perspective through which the more central phenomenon can be better understood. Until methods are conceived of through which this subjective and cross-cultural experiential conception of the ayahuasca phenomenon can be extended and expanded upon, western understanding will not evolve any further, remaining on the surface – self-righteous, ignorant and confused.

The key is devising a method of inquiry that will prove logistically sound, morally and ethically balanced and complete in design; a method in which modern science is not in the drivers seat, asking questions, choosing areas of exploration, fabricating conclusions.

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Ayahuasca is regarded by western anthropologists as the most potent and widely used of all shamanic hallucinogens and is rapidly developing a name and reputation for itself amongst inquisitive members of the western world. My concern is that this reputation is growing increasingly phenomenological and bastardized due to lack of clarity and information.

Due to its widespread usage across the western Amazon, including the Peruvian, Colombian and Ecuadorian parts of the basin, it is likely that ayahuasca has hundreds of names. A few more common names include: caapi, natema, mihi, kahi, pinde, dapa and hosca. The word Ayahuasca comes from Incan Quechua. “Aya” means “soul”, “dead people” or “spirits.” “Huasca” means vine. Thus, Ayahuasca can be translated as vine of the dead, vine of the soul, or vine of the spirits. Today, the use of ayahuasca in its traditional context is diminishing due to the systematic slaughter of the Amazon forest and those societies dwelling within it. Notwithstanding, there are an estimated seventy-two ayahuasca using cultures in existence today (Narby, Metzner). As traditional usage declines and indigenous people are forced to move out of their forest environs, mestizo ayahuasceros, spurred on by an emerging ayahuasca tourism, are proliferating across Amazonian urban landscapes.

The origins of Ayahuasca remain vague through the eyes of the scientific world. The earliest artifacts thought to represent symbology pertaining to ayahuasca date back 4-5 thousand years, however legend has it that ayahuasca has been used since the beginnings of mankind. To the societies in which Ayahuasca plays a central role, the origins and history of Ayahuasca use are not at all obscure. Although many separate, individual Amazonian societies possess their own explanation of its beginnings and its role in the lives of their ancestors, it is significant to note that each oral tradition includes numerous corresponding details and follows relatively the same course of events. In the Vapues region of the Colombian Amazon the Tukano believe that the first people came from the sky in a serpent canoe. Father Sun had promised them a magical drink that would connect them with the radiant powers of the heavens. As the legend tells it: while the men were in the “House of the Waters,” attempting to make this drink, the first woman went into the forest to give birth. She came back with a boy radiating golden light, whose body she rubbed with leaves. This luminous boy-child was the vine, and each of the men cut off a piece of this living being, which became his piece of the vine lineage. Similarly, a Densana version of the tale also speaks of a serpent canoe, which, in this version, was sent by the sun but came from the Milky Way, bringing a man, a woman and three plants for the people – cassava, coca and caapi. The examples of ayahuasca mythology are numerous and very similar and to explore each of them would be beyond the scope of this paper. – Nearly all stories relaying the origins of Ayahuasca communicate that the vine given to the people as a gift from a some superdivine cosmic power and that its purpose was/is to provided humans with the rules of how to live and how to speak, art, religion and culture (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1972, Metzner, Grob). Amongst curanderos (curers) there exist a few important delineations. Curandero can apply to all who cure, including Vegetalistas, Shaman and Ayahuasceros. The term Shaman, although widely used as a local term interchangeable with curandero, finds its roots in the Siberian Tungus language. Narby (2001) defines “Shamanism” as a variety of “defocalization” techniques: controlled dreams, prolonged fasting, isolation in wilderness, ingestion of hallucinogenic plants, hypnosis based on a repetitive drumbeat, near-death experience, or a combination of the above.

There is an important distinction to be made between “Vegtalista” and “Ayahuascero”. Vegetalistia almost always pertains to the indigenous shamans of the Upper Amazon working in a purely traditional context who, working with a variety of plants, derive their healing skills and powers from plant teachers. Their medical knowledge is derived from the plants themselves, the Vegetalista mediates the transmission of information. You can only become a good Vegetalista by keeping a strict diet for years, then you become one that knows the science of the muraya, of the sumi, and of the banco, which are the three highest degrees in the traditional Vegetalista medicine of the Amazon.

“Ayahuascero” is a term normally applying to a curandero who works mainly through the ayahuasca medium. Although a Vegetalista can be considered an Ayahuascero, and Ayahuascero isn’t always a Vegetalista (Metzner 1999, Shanon 2001). In the contemporary societal context Ayahuasca has been described as “an experience that binds the tribe in their philosophy and mutual interdependence to survive and thrive in an eternally challenging environment” (Stuart, R 2004).

In addition to the widespread use of ayahuasca in indigenous tribes of the western Amazon, it is also used in the context of organized religion, or syncretic ayahuasca churches, whose members consume the brew as sacrament. Santo Daime, Uniao do Vegetal, and Barquinha are the three largest churches today. Apart from indigenous populations it is estimated that there exist some 15,000 monthly consumers of ayahuasca working outside the traditional context (Shanon, Grunwell). The intentional focus in these groups is not so much on healing and visioning, but on group worship and celebration with singing and prayer. Instead of a shaman or healer, there are priests and officiants (Metzner 1999). As Grob and McKenna report in their research with the long-term ayahuasca users of the Uniao do Vegetal (UDV), there is a marked reduction in the incidence of alcoholism and drug addiction (Metzner 1999).

The ayahuasca brew, or tea, consists of two plant species – a large jungle liana, also called ayahuasca, Banesteriopsis caapi, and a leaf most commonly known as chacruna, or Psychotria viridis. In addition to being the common name for one of the essential ingredients, “Ayahuasca” also refers to the combination of these two ingredients.

Ayahuasca and its analogues exists apart from all other ethnobotanical hallucinogens in that it contains, and functions by way of, the only known psychotropic molecule produced naturally in the human body by the human brain: DMT or dimethyltriptamine. Tests searching for DMT in other living beings have found it virtually everywhere they’ve looked, throughout the plant and animal kingdoms (Strassman). Recent studies have been conducted testing neurological and psychological effects of ayahuasca on the human brain. From these findings new words, such as entheogen and nootropic, have been invented in order to describe its classifications and effects. “Nootropic” is a term used to describe a ‘cognition enhancer.’ “Entheogen” specifies a psychotropic molecule that ‘connects to the sacred from within’. In the case of ayahuasca that nootropic entheogen is DMT. It is believed that di-methyl-triptamine is produced in the penal gland, a tiny organ situated in the middle of the human brain (Strassman 2001, Metzner 1999). Strassman notes: “The pineal gland is unique in its solitary status within the brain. All other brain sites are paired, meaning that they have left and right counterparts; for example, there are left and right frontal lobes and left and right temporal lobes. As the only unpaired organ deep within the brain, the pineal gland remained an anatomical curiosity for nearly two thousand years. No one in the West had any idea what its function was.” It is currently understood that brain releases hallucinogenic amounts of DMT only three times in the course of a human life. The first occurs 49 days after conception, at the same time the first noticeable signs of gender become apparent the fetus is considered to become a sentient being. Then DMT is released again during birth, and at death.

When orally ingested (as opposed to smoked or injected) DMT is instantly inactivated, destroyed by a gastral enzyme called monoamine oxidase. Thus the role of harmine and harmaline alkaloids, present in Banesteriopsis caapi, become significant. Harmine and harmaline are the two main alkaloids present in Banesteriopsis caapi and, possessing specific chemical properties, act as a monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which prevent the monoamine oxidase, present in our stomachs, from blocking orally ingested DMT, thus allowing it to cross the blood brain barrier as a potent hallucinogen (Metzner 1999, Shanon 2001). The late 20th century father of ethnobotany, Richard Evan Shultes, had this to remark about such a phenomenon: “One wonders how peoples in primitive societies, with no knowledge of chemistry or physiology, ever hit upon a solution to the activation an alkaloid by a monomine oxidase inhibitor. Pure experimentation? Perhaps not. The examples are too numerous” (Hancock 2005).

Considering that the Amazon rainforest is the largest wilderness area on earth, estimated to contain over 80,000 known plant species and most likely tens of thousands more either undiscovered or destroyed, it seems unlikely that a process of trial and error, however long, would lead forest dwelling peoples to discover the specific combination of two plants that produces such an incredibly rare effect.

What pervades Ayahuasca induced experiences are visions and transformation of/into non-human elements of the natural world and visions of human cultures and their expressions – cities, palaces and temples, artifacts and works of art, royalty and religious figures, rites and rituals (Shanon 2001). As Shanon writes from his research: “By and large, the ideas of a non-personal nature reported by my informants pertain to these main topical clusters: ontology and the structure and meaning of reality, nature and the phenomenon of knowledge, consciousness and the mind, ides pertaining to human history and its meaning, the divine and the relationship between god and both humankind and the world, ethical values and proper human conduct, and, last but not least, Ayahuasca and the very experience it induces” (Shanon 2001).

Western science believes that hallucinations cannot be the source of “real” knowledge. Furthermore it is relatively clear that western science regards any knowledge derived outside of its narrow constructs to be illegitimate. Hallucinations are deemed to be mere reactions in our brains caused by psychotropic molecules which result in illusory visions. Modern human beings are considered to be the only “intelligent” life. The human species are the only living species (plant or animal) able to communicate in complex ways through abstract symbols, pictures and text. Plants cannot relay information to one another in the form of mental images. In the case of plant hallucinogens, western science considers the brain to be the source of the images produced, which are triggered by hallucinogenic molecules contained within the psychoactive plants. The problem then is this: Amazonian indigenous peoples claim to have gained their vast pharmacopeoa of medicinal plant knowledge through the teachings of ayahuasca (hallucinatory) and various other psychotropic plants concoctions. The hallucinatory knowledge of indigenous people has been confirmed by science and used by the pharmaceutical industry in the synthetic production of medicine, but its origins cannot be discussed scientifically because to do so would be to contradict the central axioms of western knowledge (Narby 1998). Ask any indigenous curandero and they will claim that all they know was taught to them by “plant teachers”, primarily accessed through the ingestion of ayahuasca. For the Yagua contact with the spirits of the plants by ingesting them is considered “the only path to knowledge” (Harner). How then are we to proceed in the bridging of two such diametrically opposed perspectives?

Luckily there are those who have begun to detect faults and indeed, craters, in the teachings of science. There are gifted and imaginative investigators amongst us who have begun to pursue the decompartmentalization of the scientific world and a revival of our current, abhorrently narrow, understanding of nonscientific ways (Two Questions).

Dennis McKenna has carried out some very interesting research and experimentation with Ayahuasca in The Hoasca Project, considered to be one of the most comprehensive multifaceted investigations of the chemistry, psychological effects, and psychopharmacology of a psychedelic drug to be carried out this century (McKenna 1999). The study measured and characterized both acute and long-term effects of regular ingestion of ayahuasca tea; extensive psychological evaluations and in-depth, structured, psychiatric interviews were conducted with all volunteers. Key findings were that “long-time members of the UDV commonly underwent experiences that changed their lives and behavior in positive and profound ways; and that there was a persistent elevation in serotonin uptake receptors in platelets, which may reflect long-term adaptive changes in brain function.” The study established that the regular use of ayahuasca within the ritual context is safe and without adverse long-term toxicity, and, moreover, apparently has lasting, positive influences on physical and mental health, significantly improving the interpersonal, work and family interactions of the subjects involved (Metzner; McKenna).

Comparing Mckenna’s results with those derived by Strassman I’ve detected significant differences. DMT plays the starring role in both sets of research but Strassman tests with synthetic DMT administered intravenously in a controlled lab setting, producing very different results (both short and long-term) that those derived through McKenna’s study, which is conducted in a more traditional, ceremonial setting. His findings show that the Ayahuasca users exhibited considerable differences than the non-users in the results of his Tri-dimensional Personality Questionnaire and the WHO-UCLA Auditory Verbal Learning Test. Ayahuasca users were found to have “greater stoic rigidity versus exploratory excitability, greater regimentation versus disorderliness and a trend towards greater reflection verses impulsivity.” In addition the subjects participating in the Ayahuasca ritual showed “significantly greater confidence versus fear of uncertainty and trends toward greater gregariousness versus shyness and greater optimism versus anticipatory worry” when compared with the control group. Many women drink ayahuasca through lactation and pregnancy and, “children of the UDV are baptized with a tiny spoonful of hoasca, although they are usually not exposed to pharmacologically active amounts until at least age thirteen.” McKenna also states that many women claim that ayahuasca has benefits in managing their pregnancy, and assisting in birth, “many will take hoasca during labor to facilitate the process” (McKenna; Callaway; Grob 1998). It is also noted that many of the older members of the Ayahuasca church, who are now well into their 80’s, have used Ayahuasca regularly since their early teens and show remarkable mental acuity, physical vigor and lack of disease. Prior to beginning work with Ayahuasca, one of McKenna’s subjects had diagnosis of alcohol and misuse disorders, two had past major depressive disorders, four had past histories of drug misuse, eleven were addicted to tobacco and three had past phobic anxiety disorders. “Five of the subjects with a history of alcohol abuse had histories of violent behavior associated with binge drinking. All of these pathological diagnoses had remitted following entry into the UDV” (McKenna). Interestingly it is not common in such countries as Peru and Colombia for allopathic physicians to refer their patients to an ayahuascero when they are unable to diagnose a given illness or find a cure for a diagnosis (Dobkin de Rios, 1992). Grob, who has collaborated with McKenna also believes that the sustained effect on mood resulting from ayahuasca use makes it a good candidate for treating addictions as well as alleviating depression (Grob 2002).

Among a growing body of anecdotal accounts verifying the successful application of plant hallucinogens as medical treatment. Topping (2002), a medical professor, shares his own story of metastatic colon and liver cancer in remission. Topping was diagnosed at an otherwise healthy period in his life. Avoiding the prescribed surgery because he wanted to “experiment with natural healing”. At first Topping followed a naturopathic regimen but eventually had to take the surgery when, after four and a half months, the cancer persisted. Unfortunately, a bit later he was diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer. Upon doing a bit a research Topping found this passage in the “bible” of oncology, Cancer: Principals and Practices of Oncology, by Vincent T. DeVita, Jr. (1989): “ The spread of malignant cells from a primary tumor to the liver and their growth therein carry a grave prognosis for the patient. While these metastatic liver tumors may be the first evidence of the progression of a patient’s cancer, and often – especially in colorectal cancer – are the only tumors detected, they almost always signal widespread dissemination of the malignancy. Despite improvements in early detection of liver metastases, new drug development, improved surgical techniques for resection, and innovative targeted therapies, most patients will not survive.” (p. 2201). What to do? Eventually Topping found ayahuasca. Two weeks and a few ayahuasca sessions later Topping returned to the oncologist who surprised him with the news that his CEA count was below normal! When his astonished doctor asked him what he had been doing, he asked his doctor if he had heard of ayahuasca. Upon explaining that is was an Amazonian shamanic hallucinogen the doctor  gave response typical of the view of western allopathic medicine. As he continued his “friendship” with ayahuasca, Topping heard more and more accounts describing cured cancers through guided ayahuasca use, stating: “Some of these accounts have been reported to me by work of mouth, others in literature. There are too many reports to dismiss them all as merely chance” (Topping). Years later Topping is still a strong ayahuasca advocate, and after much experience and investigation states that he does not believe “that ayahuasca contains chemicals that destroy cancer cells like the chemotherapies to. This is not the way it works. Rather, ayahuasca serves to restore normal, healthy alignment of cells while it seeks out and purges the aberrant ones that it finds while making its way throughout the body” (Topping; Grob 2002).

Narby (1998) draws correspondences between Amazonian shamans and molecular biology, both of which disciplines agree that there is “a hidden unity under the surface of life’s diversity and that both associate this unity with the double helix shape (two entwined serpents, a twisted ladder, two vines wrapped around each other)” Narby 1998). Both Amazonian shamans and molecular biologists believe that one must deal on this level in order to heal. Molecular biologists use a microscope, shamans use Ayahuasca, both serves as lenses to perceive an unseen reality which can be understood with sufficient training, and can serve as a source of answers and guidance to a vast array of queries. Narby generalizes one of his central theories as follows: “What if DNA, stimulated by dimethyltriptamine, activates not only its emission of photons (which inundate our consciousness in the form of hallucinations); but also its capacity to pick up the photons emitted by the global network of DNA based life?” (Narby 1998).

Narby looks even further for parallels between molecular biology and universal themes in shamanic practices, maintaining a focus on Amazonian ayahuasca using cultures. What he finds is a fascinating correlation both within shamanic cultures and across indigenous/modern constructs of knowledge. He explains the fascinating account of his experience with ayahuasca and how it led him to believe that Peruvian shaman are actually bringing their degree of perception down to the molecular level.  Through a process of ‘defocalizing’, one can realize that that scientists, who invent cures on the molecular level, are essentially doing what shamans claim to do, only describing such processes and results using different culturally generated metaphors, shamans and molecular biologist are explaining the same reality from different perspectives derived by different means from different levels of consciousness. Each of these perspectives encodes its understanding of the same information in their own respective symbolism or metaphor.

Shanon (1998, 2001) interprets a different, more quantifiable, side of the ayahuasca phenomenon, which he defines as pertaining to the “micro-level of the content analysis of visions” (1998). The populations examined differ in ethnicity, socio-cultural background, and past experience with Ayahuasca. The “informants” reported the content of their visions, which were analyzed for ‘novelties, reoccurrences and commonalities’ (1998). Based on the assumption that “all things in the world can be categorized” (1998), Shanon categorizes his findings, data are coded in terms of 213 elementary codification labels. Additionally the elementary content items were further categorized into 27 semantic clusters including: personal and autobiographical material, royalty and religious figures, mammals, birds, reptiles, sea creatures, insects, non-naturalistic animals, creatures and beings (neither human beings nor animals), landscapes, forests and gardens, cities, palaces and temples, objects of art and magic, household objects, vehicles of transportation (including spaceships), symbols and scripts, scenes and images pertaining to ancient civilizations, historical figures and scenes, mythological figures and scenes, celestial and planetary scenes, heavenly scenes, scenes of creation and evolution, divine and semi-divine beings, encounters with the Divine, scenes of supreme light, and death (Shanon 2001). Such a level of specificity proved sufficient enough that all data reported by informants could be placed into one of the categories (Shannon 2001). Shanon concludes from his analyses that main content categories appear high in most every data set and that based on cross-culture observations, visions have nothing to do with the subject’s individual life history (Shanon 2001). Specific descriptions given by different informants are strikingly similar, which are manifested in reports of experiences offered by unrelated persons, who come from different places, with varied personal and socio-economic background. One of the more specific patters was that of naturalistic visions such as serpents, felines, and birds. Interestingly, such visions are experienced not only by those informants living in a jungle environment but by foreign subjects who come from urban environments, who, in many cases, have never before experienced a rainforest environment but see and learn extremely detailed information of the rainforest (Shanon 1998, 2001). Shanon did not find in his data that white people saw things that locals did not, or that locals saw things that whites did not. There was some level of variance in their visions, which pertained to richness and detail, which Shanon attributes to the fact that many of the indigenous informants had more extensive experience consuming the brew (Shanon 2001).

I have reviewed work contributed by McKenna, Shanon, and Narby and Topping (among other refs.), each of which helps evolve important areas of the overall problem. McKenna has verified through experimentation the compelling rehabilitative and developmental (social, mental and physical) results of prolonged, guided ayahuasca use in human volunteers. Jeremy Narby points out and discusses some limitations and internal contradictions in the scientific model through an exploration of the hallucinatory knowledge of Amazonian ethnomedicine, emphasizing the importance in furthering investigation into the methods by which such knowledge is actually “learned”. Shanon proves through data obtained from a large sample of informants that people, regardless of religion, color of skin or amount of money in the bank, experience uncanny similarities in the content and theme of their ayahuasca induced visions.

It has been established that the ayahuasca phenomenon contains many potentially profound implications, many important questions have been addressed yet many things are still lacking, such as an answer to these questions: If indeed ayahuasca does “work”, how does it work? If it is true that all humans encounter the same reality through guided ayahuasca visions, how can that be interpreted? What does that imply? And, last but not least: from the extensive list of traditional utilization and application of ayahuasca “curing illnesses” was only one of many, what else is ayahuasca capable of?

Yage – 3-17 October 1984 [2000]

Queda poca duda de que la alemana es una de las escenas mas potentes sino la que más entre lo que a griterío se refiere dentro de Europa. En ella nos encontramos con dos vertientes, primeramente a un grupo de fanáticos de Orchid o Kaospilot… hablamos de Tristan Tzara, Louise Cyphre o Zann. Y en el otro lado la versión mas tradicional y melancólica, con raíces en el emo de los 90s de Portraits of Past, Indian Summer o incluso Envy.

De esta segunda corriente que incluye a bandas como Escapado, June Paik, Danse Macabre o Andorra-Atkins (ex Kill Kim Novak)… Yage son los principales culpables; desgraciadamente hay muy poca información de esta gran banda ya que siguiendo una ejemplar filosofía diy nunca se interesó en publicitarse con otro medio que no fuera su música. Cuando menos sabemos que este quinteto es producto de la bonita ciudad alemana de Colonia y aunque formados a finales de siglo pasado su actividad terminó hace escasamente 4 años.

Dentro de su legado considero a 3-17 October 1984 como el LP clave dentro de esa escena emo/scremo alemana aunque posteriormente editarían por Ebullition el aclamadísimo Anders Leben? donde Yage se vuelven más progresivos y experimentales. Vamos, que si quisiera haber subido el mejor trabajo de Yage probablemente hubiera optado por el Anders Leben?, pero mi intención era subir el LP que representa más fielmente al screamo alemán… y ese es 3-17 October 1984.

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]]> http://theboardbitch.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/idjuts-surround-us/ Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:42:39 +0000 theboardbitch http://theboardbitch.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/idjuts-surround-us/ http://emotionalbreakdown.wordpress.com/2008/05/17/yage-anders-leben/ Sat, 17 May 2008 12:13:47 +0000 matteo http://emotionalbreakdown.wordpress.com/2008/05/17/yage-anders-leben/

Mit Kartoffen! e altre due cazzate sono le uniche parole di tedesco che riesco a dire. Però se dobbiamo parlare di screamo tedesco (dare troppa gloria ai francesi dopo un pò stufa) un nome su tutti pende dalle labbra: Yage. Formatisi negli anni d’oro del genere, più precisamente il ‘98, questi ragazzi (ed una donzella) hanno concepito alcuni dei più bei dischi di sempre, che senza alcun dubbio ora scorrono nelle vene dei vari La Quiete, Raein, Daitro e così via. La formula in fondo non é poi così complessa, ma la componente emotiva sbaraglia qualsiasi concorrenza: ovvio che non sono stati i fondatori del genere, ma a volte inventare qualcosa non basta, bisogna perfezionarlo. Sentendo Anders Leben?! (oppure per i più avidi mettete le mani sulla mega-raccoltona And Nobody Told Me About Life In General) si urla, si piange, si tirano piatti e chi più ne ha più ne metta. Il loro nome sta per una potente bevanda allucinogena, perfetto per un gruppo che se non conoscete diventerà subito la vostra favourite drug.

Indulge Yourself:

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Matteo