ABSTRACT This report presents the personal experiences of three individuals who ingested iboga or ibogaine in different contexts and for different reasons. Narrative analysis reveals a connection with previously identified phenomenological categories of experience, however demonstrating a wide variability. Most notably, each of these interviewees reported a distinct impression of transpersonal...
Abstract Research on psychedelic‐assisted psychotherapy has shown that music affects therapeutic outcomes at a fundamental level. The development of such therapies calls for research on the use of music with consciousness‐altering substances, especially in contexts informed by their traditional use. Informed by ethnographic reports, our project answers this call, investigating the phenomenology...
Abstract This paper argues for reorienting our investigation of the psychedelic zeitgeist towards the longitudinal history of psychedelia with a committed attention to its relationship to colonialism. It demonstrates that clinical psychedelic medicine appears to sustain the reproduction of modern colonial whiteness in line with Elizabeth Povinelli’s theorization of late liberalism. It also...
AbstractFor the Mexican Otomi of the Sierra Norte de Puebla, Santa Rosa is a sacred plant used by the shaman to heal people and sing in rituals called costumbres. It is also an Antigua, a sacred deity who maintains a constant dialogue with ritual specialists. In the Otomi discourse and its worldview of Santa Rosa, as well as in its ritual process, it is eaten, not smoked. Although it is...
AbstractIn this paper, we describe the spiritual and kinship alliances between heads of an urban Santo Daime church from Rio de Janeiro and some leaders of the Yawanawá people from the Amazonian region. We suggest that these alliances involve exchanges and dialogical relationships that hold different meanings for the diverse social actors that take part in them. Further, we argue that...
AbstractThis article proposes an exposition and analysis of perceptions intrinsic to rituals carried out with the use of the jurema plant, especially when mixed with Syrian rue (juremahuasca) in contexts of contemporary esoteric re‐actualizations in Brazil. These rituals are conducted by people who look at jurema as a spiritual path, once acquainted with its psychedelic properties. We highlight...
AbstractThe “plant turn” in anthropology, while controversial, has led to a renewed focus on how humans relate to different species of plants. In this article, I aim to contribute to our knowledge of human‐plant relationships by analyzing how historical actors used sacred plants in past ritual settings. I study criminal and civil cases involving shamans in late colonial Ecuador, with a focus on...
AbstractThe use of perfumes, incense, colognes, and plant and flower essences in Amazonian healing practices is a hallmark feature of vegetalismo, a form of healing in Peru’s Amazonian regions. Sprayed, smoked, rubbed on bodies, and poured in medicinal baths, these odorous tools are vital allies to the curandero for cleansing bodies and spaces, for protection, or to add potency to medicinal...
Psychedelic or ecodelic medicines (e.g., psilocybin, ayahuasca, iboga) for the care and treatment of addiction, post‐traumatic stress disorder, cancer, cluster headaches, anxiety, and depression have surged to the forefront of discussions about mental health in the US, leading to the emergence of well‐capitalized biotech companies offering multimillion‐dollar IPOs. Venture capital website...
ABSTRACT In the past decade, the consumption of psilocybin mushrooms has become a popular therapeutic tool for people looking to deal with mental and emotional health issues. The emerging interest in psilocybin therapy in the global north has led to the development of retreat centers in locations where psilocybin is legal or unregulated. Drawing on ethnographic research at a psilocybin retreat...
ABSTRACT The "people of knowledge" of traditional Mazatec medicine have preserved until today the ritual use of psilocybin mushrooms as part of their health care systems. The renewed interest in the effect of psilocybin on human consciousness for both therapeutic and recreational purposes usually obviates the historical and cultural background of indigenous peoples, as well as the legitimation...
Abstract We present the set and setting of the velada , the Mazatec ritual of divination and healing. We highlight the subjective experiences of individuals who consumed sacred mushrooms and interpret them from their cultural and community contexts, but also from findings derived from experimental and neuroscientific research. We understand that the experiences connected to sacred mushrooms can...
Abstract This article addresses the sacredness of Ayahuasca from the perspective of the global shamanic vocation. If encounters with Ayahuasca are said to revitalize forms of sacredness in contemporary societies, this is perhaps clearest in cases where individuals understand themselves to be called to lead ceremonies. Recognizing the global scale of Ayahuasca shamanism, we compare facilitators...
Abstract The Western world is experiencing a resurgence of interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, most of which are derived from plants or fungi with a history of Indigenous ceremonial use. Recent research has revealed that psychedelic compounds have the potential to address treatment‐resistant depression and anxiety, as well as post‐traumatic stress disorder and addictions....
ABSTRACT This research qualitatively investigated four treatments for addiction in Brazil that use ibogaine as the main tool in the process. Ibogaine is a substance derived from an African plant, Tabernanthe iboga, traditionally used in its region of origin and which leads to intense sensations during its acute effects and also different experiences of oneself and the surrounding world in the...
AbstractIt has long been argued that one of the main appeals of contemporary Euro‐American shamanism lies in its ability to reenchant the world in the disenchanted present. As observed during field research among shamans in the Czech Republic and based on an analysis of their techniques and discourse, the source of this reenchantment lies in journeys to non‐ordinary reality, internally...
AbstractThe narrative template is the form into which consciousness populates its memories and assembles a coherent self. A specific brain circuit exists to create and comprehend story. This circuit generates simulations or small stories, mostly about the important people in our lives and about ourselves. A salience network helps us switch between story brain and central‐executive function or...
AbstractThis paper explores Henri Bergson’s understanding of time in relation to the experience of the sensory deprivation tank. In this exploration, the tank is presented as a time machine: a machine that separates time from space and takes the floater into an experience of what Bergson describes as pure time. At the same time, the tank acts as a kind of phenomenological epoché that, through...
This editorial discusses the function of COVID as what the Indigenous scholar and psychologist, Eduardo Duran, describes as a ?great teacher.? The author engages with the opportunities of learning that the COVID-19 pandemic has provided, especially in the realm of anthropological studies of consciousness. The author encourages both scholars and practitioners to use the current pandemic as an...
AbstractThe founding of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness (SAC) can only be understood within the cultural context of its heritage. This paper is an historical narrative tracing the intellectual lineage of the SAC. The immediate causes were a series of symposia in 1974, including several on the challenge to anthropology represented by Carlos Castaneda, who attacked the way a...
AbstractAnthropological theories about the techniques broadly labeled magic and related practices as sorcery, witchcraft, divination, and ritual curing are in need of reformulation. Theoretical considerations of these phenomena within anthropology have neglected to consider the basic assumptions of magical belief, instead departing from Western cultural assumptions that beliefs about magic are...
AbstractTaijiquan is a Chinese martial art currently passed on in its various forms worldwide. The following text draws a map of bodies, places, and entities that compose the act of becoming a Taijiquan practitioner in the Czech Republic. The purpose of this study is to create a space for a discussion between the research of martial arts and the anthropology of consciousness by illustrating the...
Abstract Existing research demonstrates a positive connection between psychedelics and increased nature relatedness. Enhanced affective ties toward nature are widely framed as being built into the pharmakon itself, and the relevance of experiences remains little understood. This paper turns to neoshamanic ayahuasca ceremonies in Europe, exploring the way specialists and attendants refer to...
This paper explores a Rastafari perspective on consciousness development and relates this to developmental stage theories of consciousness evolution from the psychology of religion. The empirical material is from fieldwork on an online Rastafari community with global reach but run by a group based in Trinidad. The people on this particular forum align with the “ spiritual, but not religious ”...
Abstract In this article, I discuss how ritual is framed in the context of ayahuasca tourism, using ethnographic data collected in and around Iquitos, Peru. Alluding to a lack of socially sanctioned spaces for altered states of consciousness (ASCs) in western cultures, contemporary seekers flock to the Amazon to participate in ayahuasca ceremonies for an array of reasons, including healing and...