Current understanding of the preparation and use of yopo, a hallucinogenic snuff made from the ground seeds of the Anadenanthera peregrina tree, has departed little from the accounts of scientists and travelers made over a century ago. Schultes and others have made refinements to these early accounts. While several scholars have drawn attention to the fact that little ethnographic work has been...
A phenomenon remarkably like the near-death experience has been uncovered in Tibetan culture, aside from the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead (Thurman, 1994). Anthropologists have gathered accounts of contemporary and historical cases of remarkable people called delogs. Seemingly dead for several hours or days, these people revive spontaneously and tell detailed accounts of otherworldly...
Summarized are psychonautic bioassays (human self-experiments) of pharmañopo--crystalline bufotenine (5-HO-DMT; 5-hydroxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine; dimethylserotonine), at times combined with harmaline or harmine-via intranasal, sublingual, intrarectal, pulmonary (inhaled vapor) and oral routes. This is done by way of pharmacological modeling of diverse South American shamanic inebriants,...
Summarized are psychonautic bioassays (human self-experiments) of pharmepéna--crystalline 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT; O-Me-bufotenine), at times combined with crystalline beta-carbolines (harmaline or harmine). These substances were administered via intranasal, sublingual and oral routes, by way of pharmacological modeling of diverse South American shamanic inebriants...
El presente artículo describe dos elementos del chamanismo Ese Eja. El primero está asociado al eyámilukwa, identificado por los Ese Eja como el curandero tradicional. Un segundo complejo de prácticas chamánicas se basa en el empleo del alucinógeno vegetal ayahuasca. Introducido a comienzos de siglo, el ayahuasca está estrechamente asociado al contacto con mestizos y otras etnias amazónicas,...
This article delves into the sphere of research that analyses the close relationshipbetween Health and Culture; between belief systems and traditional therapeutic practices inthe case of shamanism. This research is in the field of anthropologic investigation with focuson indigenous people health, seeking to better understand the complex integration betweenthe cosmological system and the...
What is Ecstasy? Defined by the New Webster's Dictionary as a state of intense overpowering emotion, a condition of exultation or mental rapture induced by beauty, music, artistic creation or the contemplation of the divine, ecstasy derives etymologically from the ancient Greek ekstasis, which means flight of the soul from the body. The anthropologist, Mircea Eliade, who explored the roots of...
In anthropology, archaeology and popular culture, Shamanism may be one of the most used, abused and misunderstood terms, to date. Researchers are increasingly recognizing the socio‐political roles of altered states of consciousness and shamanism in past and present societies, yet the rise of Neo‐shamanism and its implications for academics and their subjects of study are consistently neglected....
The present paper is basically a theoretical analysis of the shamanic cure, which proposes communication as the basis of the healing process. This process is described as a communicative act focusing on the interpretation of symbolic elements. The context is the social dimension in which the process is inscribed, the linguistic mode employed, and the type of relationship established between the...
This paper challenges the preeminence of the Self-Other binary in contemporary social theory. The opposition not only pervades the field of cultural studies, it also dominates disciplines such as historiography and anthropology and the burgeoning work on ethnicity. Spirit possession, however, suggests an alternative paradigm for redefining the self and the other, inter-ethnic relations, and...