This review article draws the attention to the many species of plants possessing activity on the central nervous system (CNS). In fact, they cover the whole spectrum of central activity such as psychoanaleptic, psycholeptic and psychodysleptic effects, and several of these plants are currently used in therapeutics to treat human ailments. Among the psychoanaleptic (stimulant) plants, those...
INTRODUCTION: A wide range of fungi and medicinal herbs, rich in hallucinogenic substances and widely used for mystic and medicinal purposes, can give rise to neurotoxic symptoms. DEVELOPMENT: We review the toxic syndromes that can arise from the ingestion of hallucinogenic fungi, cacti and plants, together with descriptions of cases of acute poisoning resulting from the use of medicinal herbs...
Abstract My study of Ayahuasca is based both on my personal experiences with the brew and on data I have gathered from other people. In this chapter I present information pertaining to the data and the procedures of their collection and analysis. Subsequently, the general orientation of my work is defined and the overall structure of this book is drawn.
Abstract In the previous chapter I analysed the contents of Ayahuasca visions in terms of the specific items that appear in them. In doing this, I have followed what is standardly done in the anthropological literature when the issue of content is addressed. In general, what are noted are the types of things that drinkers see under the intoxication. Such an analysis pertains to the micro-level,...
Abstract Our charting of the phenomenology of the Ayahuasca experience is now complete. First- and second-order, dynamical, and contextual questions have been examined. I turn now to the theoretical cognitive-psychological level Taking a broad, unified perspective, I shall attempt to make sense of the special state of consciousness that Ayahuasca induces. What happens to the mind under the...
Abstract While all the effects of Ayahuasca are extraordinary and all may leave a deep mark on those that experience them, in many respects the visual effects are the most salient. This, Jet me emphasize, by no means implies that a session in which a drinker has not experienced such effects cannot be a meaningful and/or powerful one. Yet, I would say that the primary language in which Ayahuasca...
Abstract As summarized at the end of the previous chapter, in our discussion of temporality, meaning featured centrally. Meaning is also associated with other facets of the Ayahuasca experience that we have discussed. At the very outset of the phenomenological survey presented in this book, the overall enhanced meaningfulness induced by Ayahuasca was highlighted. As noted in Ch. 4, the general...
Abstract I now turn from the structural phenomenological questions of the first order to those of the second order. Whereas the former deal with the characterization of the different types that may be defined in the phenomenology of the Ayahuasca experience, the latter deal with the relationships that may hold between tokens of these types.
Abstract There must be a fourth state beyond the waking, dreaming and dreamless states in which the absolute oneness of Brahman-Atman is what should be known. Ayahuasca is an agent that induces an altered state of consciousness; as such, it does precisely that-it modifies people’s state of consciousness. In this chapter (and in Chs. 14 and 16) I examine these modifications and the effects...