September 1, 2016Benjamin K. de Loenen, Òscar Parés Franquero, And1 citation
Background: the broader drug policy context The legal status in which ayahuasca finds itself nowadays is not easy to comprehend, either for users, lawyers, authorities, or academics, and must be understood in the broader context of the international framework intended to control narcotics and psychotropics. The production, consumption, and trade of psychoactive substances has been a constant in...
This chapter considers the hazy status of ayahuasca in the English legal system through a consideration of relevant international provisions, domestic legislation, and case law, and focusing in particular on the prosecution of self-proclaimed shamanic practitioner Peter Aziz. The core ambiguity is that, while the psychoactive component of ayahuasca, N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), is scheduled as...
Anthropology of ConsciousnessSeptember 1, 2016Carlos Teodoro José Hugueney Irigaray, Pierre Girard, Maíra Irigaray et al.6 citations
Abstract The current environmental crisis can be approached, through many perspectives, as a civilizational crisis. Alternatives of human transcendence are identified in the Inca civilization to compensate for the malaise that characterizes the actual crisis. There is a multicultural dimension to the manifestations of Hoasca (or Ayahuasca ) occurring in Amazonian countries. As employed by the...
Introduction While the complexities of the global ayahuasca proliferation have drawn the attention of scholars in recent years, the cultural career of DMT (N,Ndimethyltryptamine) remains conspicuously under-researched. Most known for its role in the ayahuasca brew – where it is orally potentiated by beta-carboline harmala alkaloids contained in the liana Banisteriopsis caapi – the tryptamine...
Introduction This chapter investigates the practice of ayahuasca neoshamanism in Australia and the ways in which narrative accounts of ecstatic healing are inscribed with forms of "cultural critique" (Marcus & Fischer, 1986) against urbanization, materialism, environmental destruction, and consumer capitalism. The ecstatic healing practices are centered upon ritualized styles of consuming the...
This chapter examines issues surrounding the viability and desirability of recent entrepreneurs and entrepreneurships aiming to create effective measures of 'transparency' 'efficacy' and 'safety' with regards to the increasing participation in the ayahuasca sessions that take place in local and global settings. It raises critical questions about the methods through which such initiatives seek...
September 1, 2016Clancy Cavnar Beatriz Caiuby Labate2 citations
Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew that has been historically used by indigenous and mestizo Amazonians for shamanic purposes. It is typically constituted by boiling the vine Banisteriopsis caapi with the shrub Psychotria viridis – two plants that contain sets of chemicals that are a "match made in heaven."4 Many books and articles on the topic of ayahuasca begin with a similar opening statement,...
Since at least the early colonial period, ayahuasca has been crucial to social life for both mestizo and indigenous peoples throughout the western Peruvian Amazon. This psychoactive beverage, containing the ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) and usually other admixtures, especially chacruna (Psychotria viridis), is traditionally utilized by Amazonian peoples for curing numerous ailments,...
Introduction The field of ayahuasca studies has emerged as a thoroughly interdisciplinary academic pursuit in the early twenty-first century, with research occurring in areas such as ethnobotany, neuropsychology, psychiatry, religious studies, anthropology, and drug policy studies. In each of these domains, the object of research – ayahuasca – is represented through a variety of social...
Introduction The title of this chapter arises from a playful modification and subsequent fusion of Voltaire's famous aphorism ("If God did not exist, he would have to be invented") with Eric Hobsbawm's seminal insights into the "invention" of tradition within modern society. Provoked by an atheistic pamphlet then in circulation, the aphoristic response coined by Voltaire in 1768 embodies a...