This article analyzes the role of anthropology in legitimizing and regulating the use of ayahuasca, highlighting the relationship between traditional knowledge, science and public policy. Since the mid-20th century, the social sciences have been exploring the cultural and social dimensions of the use of psychoactive substances, including ayahuasca. In Brazil, anthropological production was...
Em fevereiro de 2023, a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) divulgou um documento para a equipe jurídica que representa a Church of the Eagle and the Condor (“CEC”). Essa divulgação ocorreu dois anos depois que a igreja, em conjunto com o Chacruna Institute, enviou duas solicitações baseadas na lei de liberdade de informação [Freedom Of Information Act] à DEA e ao Departamento de Justiça...
In dit artikel beschrijf ik de vorm en de praktijk van een bepaald ritueel, alsmede de gevolgen die het ritueel heeft voor de sociale betrekkingen tussen de deelnemers. Het gaat om een groepering in Alkmaar, die de zogenoemde Santo Daime religie aanhangt, een Ayahuasca Religie, afkomstig uit Brazilië. Ayahuasca is een psychoactief preparaat, dat ritueel wordt gebruikt om spirituele en sociale...
The Huni Kuin people, inhabiting the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and Peru, have mastered the use of ayahuasca, which serves as a conduit bridging different realms of existence. Grounded in an immersive personal experience of participating in an ayahuasca ceremony, this paper explores ayahuasca rituals in a Huni Kuin community in the Brazilian state of Acre, focusing on their healing purposes...
Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic substance currently being investigated for the treatment of mood, anxiety, and trauma-related disorders. Evidence from animal and human studies suggest that the effects of ayahuasca involve modulation of neural substrates relevant for emotional processing, especially in regions rich in serotonergic receptors. Moreover, preclinical studies also show that ayahuasca...
Brazilian Journal of Health ReviewDecember 3, 2024Francy Gizella Marroquin Rincon, Rhaiana de Fatima Vidal Gondim, Josana de Castro Peixoto
A ansiedade tem sido um dos principais probelmas de saúde mental na atualidade. Os transtornos de ansiedade afetam milhões de pessoas e que os tratamentos convencionais apresentam limitações, como efeitos colaterais e potenciais de dependência, este estudo busca explorar o potencial terapêutico da ayahuasca no tratamento de transtornos de ansiedade. O objetivo do estudo foi analisar e discutir...
Introducción: Actualmente, el incremento de alteraciones psicológicas como parte de la vida moderna y ha permeado en el actor social y ha propiciado la búsqueda de terapias psicológicas ancladas a la posmodernidad; lo cual ha llevado a la población urbana a recurrir a la experimentación de terapias alternativas, como el uso de sustancias para el proceso de sanación psicológica. El consumo de...
Gearin, an Australian medical anthropologist, specializes in the globalization of psychedelics and intercultural ethics in medical tourism. He earned his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Queensland in 2015 and has conducted fieldwork in Australia, Peru, and China. Global Ayahuasca represents a culmination of his ethnographic research, offering a comparative analysis of ayahuasca's...
This article traces the trajectories of psilocybin and ayahuasca in the context of the psychedelic renaissance. The bibliometric analysis reveals that academic publications on psilocybin fall primarily into the medical and scientific areas, whereas those devoted to ayahuasca derive mainly from humanities and social sciences. Second, the article argues that psilocybin and ayahuasca use is...
[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy on Jul 25 2024 (see record 2025-07042-001). In the original article, there was an error in the calculations that led to the overstatement of the symptom severity of the veteran sample. Specifically, sum scores for the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom...
Reports an error in "Ayahuasca in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder: Mixed-methods case series evaluation in military combat veterans" by Brandon Weiss, Lê-Anh L. Dinh-Williams, Nick Beller, Ian M. Raugh, Gregory P. Strauss and William K. Campbell (Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, Advanced Online Publication, Dec 07, 2023, np). In the original article,...
Although the tobacco plant has been employed as a medicinal and sacred herb by Indigenous cultures across the Americas, its usage drastically changed after the 15th-century colonial arrival; its large-scale commodification and global marketing once brought to Europe lead to hedonic and addictive uses harmful to health. As a consequence, tobacco smoking is now one of the largest public health...
Recent years have witnessed an unprecedented increase in the search for the use of psychedelics in improving physical and mental health. Anaesthesia has evolved since very early times, born from the need to eliminate pain and reduce suffering and there are reports of the use of anaesthetics to achieve mystical states since the nineteenth century. Nowadays, the renaissance of psychedelics in...
Emerging evidence indicates that ayahuasca consumption may have beneficial mental health effects. This study undertakes the largest analysis to date of associations between naturalistic ayahuasca use and current mental health status via an online cross-sectional survey. The sample included 7,576 participants (average age 41, 47% female) who had consumed ayahuasca in religious, traditional, or...
Ayahuasca is a botanical hallucinogen traditionally used for therapeutic and ritual purposes by indigenous groups from Northwestern Amazonian countries such as Brazil, Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador. Ayahuasca is made by the decoction of two plants, which are rich in the 5-HT1A/2A partial agonist dimethyltryptamine or DMT (from the leaves of the Psychotria viridis bush) and β-carbolines such as...
There is a growing hype regarding the efficacy of psychedelics to fundamentally change how we interact with the theme of death. The underlying evidence consists of anecdotal and self-report data collected in naturalistic and clinical settings suggesting that psychedelics inculcate more acceptance and less fear and anxiety of one’s mortality. However, given hundreds of empirical studies...
Abstract Ayahuasca is a psychedelic beverage from the Amazon rainforest, used in spiritual and religious settings for medical purposes. Since the 1990s onwards, several religious and neo‐shamanic groups have been using it in Uruguay within the psychospiritual networks. Some participants go to rituals of ayahuasca looking for therapeutic alternatives to certain ailments, such as substance use...
Psychoactive drugs are compounds that alter the function of the central nervous system, resulting in changes in perception, mood, cognition, and behavior. A subclass of psychoactive drugs, psychedelics, are hallucinogenic drugs that can trigger psychedelic experiences and possible changes in mental perception. The potential use of psychedelics as a therapeutic has led to an increase in clinical...
This study critically evaluates the complex inter space of spirituality, drugs, and tourism through tourists’ and shamans’ accounts of ayahuasca tourism in Iquitos, Peru. Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic beverage traditionally consumed for spiritual and health purposes. Using micro-ethnography, one of the researchers was immersed for one month in the tourism experience of ayahuasca. The findings...
Psychedelics have recently (re)emerged as therapeutics of high potential for multiple mental health conditions, including substance use disorders (SUDs). Despite early mid-20th century anecdotal reports and pilot studies demonstrating the possibility of these substances in efficaciously treating conditions such as alcohol and opioid use disorders, legal restrictions and social stigma have...