Ancient Songs and Green Magic

A Search for What Is Real in the Amazon Jungle of Peru

by David P. Crews___

Ayahuasca is a ropy vine whose name means "Vine of the Soul". In Columbia and Ecuador, it is called yaje. In Brazil, it is known as caapi, and indeed the scientific name is Banisteriopsis Caapi. This holistic plant medicine is made from boiling this vine along with at least one other important plant, usually the leaves of the chacruna plant. This complex combination releases the potency of the vine and the leaves once it is reduced down to a kind of tea and taken as a drink.

This substance has been used in this manner for literally thousands of years.
Many thousands of people take and use Ayahuasca on a regular basis today for many purposes.

The expert shaman who uses and guides others in the use of this amazing plant medicine is called an Ayahuascero.

It is difficult to speak of Ayahuasca without incurring profound misunderstandings and misinterpretation by any Western audience. We are products of our modern civilization , a wonderful culture of science and progress when aimed at the good and working for the betterment of humankind. However, many sacred things in our world have been destroyed, abused, and demonized by our reductionist / scientific society.

Almost all psychoactive substances have been specifically demonized and made illegal by our society. Worse, they have been summarily shoved into the same category as destructive substances, such as the abusive narcotics, with no proof they belong there. Consequently, we have been trained to think of them as "drugs" and attach all the negative things we've been taught about such drugs TO them. For most of us, our thinking about such things is reactionary.

In traditional cultures, however, such powerful mind-altering plant medicines are respected and used in a sacramental and carefully managed manner. They know that such energies must be used carefully and used for legitimate reasons - primarily to heal.
It is also worth remembering that a large percentage of our modern useful allopathic medicines or drugs have their source in the tropical forests. Poisons also do exist, of course, and such things are to be avoided or used properly through the wisdom of accumulated knowledge.

So, it is important that we understand what Ayahuasca is NOT.
Ayahuasca is not a drug. It is not addictive. It is not dangerous when used properly, basing such use on the vast and ancient experience of the shamanic society that uses it every day.

Ayahuasca is decidedly NOT a recreational substance. It is notoriously difficult and unpleasant to work with, very demanding, and is not predictable in its effects from one person to another, or from one session to another for the same person, a charactaristic that sets it apart from "recreational drugs" that are desired for their predictable effects.

Ayahuasca IS a very potent Plant Medicine and a Spiritual Teacher Plant.
It's effects are profound and mysterious, but are becoming more known and better documented in our times. It is used for many purposes, but in traditional societies it is used primarily in a healing mode for physical and psychological or spiritual illnesses.

It is very effective at treating and preventing addictions to drugs and alcohol, and it is used in a therapeutic way in many places for just this purpose, with excellent results.

Along with its many medicinal qualities, however, Ayahuasca is THE quintessential vision-producing plant. There are many terms used to describe "vision-producing," including "psychedelic" and "hallucination." These terms are almost all problematic due to their incorrectness and due to the unfortunate cultural attachments we have to them based on the way such things were presented and abused in the 1960's.

"Hallucination," in particular, implies that the visions one sees are fictions created by the brain and are therefore decidedly not real. Now, whether the visions are real or not is a crucial ontological question, but for most people, this term - hallucination - prejudges in the negative. I will simply say "Visions" and leave the judging out of the terminology.

My approach to encountering these visions is that of the Western scientist / philosopher. I desire to know if these things are real or not, and so I am conducting an experiment with the substance in question. As Carl Jung said, it must be experienced personally from within, in order to be able to assess it. As I describe the visions to you, I will simply describe them as they appear to be – that is, real. You may be skeptical of them, or you may wish to suspend your disbelief for a while and travel with me to see how it looks from the viewpoint of an active participant. In the final analysis, each person must decide for themselves,
or decide to remain undecided.

It is wise to understand what one is getting involved with when taking powerful medicines, so while we are speaking of the nature of Ayahuasca, let's take just a moment to talk about the fascinating chemistry of it.

The Ayahuasca vine is a woody vine that contains several potent psychoactive substances, namely: Harmine, Harmaline, and Tetrahydroharmine. None of these chemicals is vision-producing, but there are many benefits to the Ayahuasca vine alone and the shamans consider it to be the "power" in the brew. Ayahuasca is called the Mother of Plants and while other ingredients are somewhat changeable, the tea always contains Ayahuasca and it is always referred to by the name of the vine, not the other components.

The visions come from the admixture plants, usually the leaves of the chacruna plant – scientific name "psychotria virdis", (which tells you something). If the vine is the power, the shamans refer to these plants as the "light."

These plants contribute an important chemical called NN-Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT for short. DMT is one of the family of tryptamines that have a very similar physical form to Serotonin. It is believed that this is why they are so potent in the brain, since they lock into the same receptors as serotonin.

Pure DMT is the most potent vision-producing substance known to exist. It is far more powerful than LSD or any other tryptamine, natural or man-made (and LSD is an artificial, man-made chemical). It also has a very different effect from other substances, an effect that is enhanced and moderated properly in the matrix of Ayahuasca.

DMT is actually present in many plants, but is not normally active if ingested, due to enzymes in the stomach that break it down before it can get into the brain. If you just eat chacruna leaves, you won't see any visions at all.

The amazing fact is that out of all the billions of possible combinations of plant recipes in the jungle, the ancient tribal peoples discovered this combination. When Ayahuasca vine and the chacruna leaves are boiled together and one drinks the tea, the vine acts as an MAO inhibitor, essentially neutralizing the enzymes in the stomach that prevent the DMT from reaching the brain.

One of the few contraindications for medicines while working with Ayahuasca, is that a person cannot be taking any other MAO inhibitors like pharmaceutical anti-depressants, such as Prozac, to avoid a potential hypertensive crisis (because you doubled up).

This vine and leaf combination has been noted and described as one of the most astonishingly efficient chemical delivery systems known to exist - a combination that in no way should be obvious or discoverable by sheer experimentation.

If one asks the shamans how this came to be known, they have a simple if disturbing answer for us. They will tell you that the plants themselves told them how to do it.

By the way, DMT - dimethyltriptamine - is a Schedule 1 substance in the United States. It is completely illegal. However, DMT is also endogenous in humans. That means we produce it ourselves, naturally, in small amounts in our brains. So . . . everyone reading this page is technically a producer and distributor of a Federal, Schedule 1, illegal substance!!

One more by-the-way: There are two syncretic Christian churches based in Brazil – the Santo Daime, and Unio de Vegetal (literally: Union of the Vegetable) – that use Ayahuasca as their sacrament. These churches have been expanding and now have branches in Europe and in the United States. The UDV recently fought a battle in the U.S.Supreme Court to have the equivalent rights to use this sacrament as the Native American Church does to use peyote – and for the same rationale.
This last winter, they WON that case in the Supreme Court.

Working with Ayahuasca requires several things.

First, one must go on a particular diet before and after the work. Pork is avoided for two weeks. Several days prior to the sessions, one must refrain from salts, sugars, caffeine, and any fermented products like alcohol or even aged cheeses. This clears out the body system and prevents chemical or food imbalances or excesses from becoming the focus of the work that Ayahuasca does with you.

I mentioned that Ayahuasca is not a recreational substance. Ayahuasca is a powerful purgative. It makes most people vomit – sometimes quite forcefully.
It can also go the other way and become diarrhea. If one has a lot of junk in their body, the purging can be negative and difficult. Otherwise, the purge is a cleansing and healthful process that clears and repairs the digestive tract. It makes a good anti-parasitic medicine for this reason.

Sexual stimulation is also prohibited for several days before to after the sessions. Like any powerful energy source, the medicine is sensitive to energies we bring to it and any energies of a sexual nature or of, say, an antagonistic nature are likely to turn the session in that direction to the detriment of the healing and positive spiritual work we desire from it.

Ayahuasca is very unpleasant to take. The horrific taste of the tea is well known and well deserved. It is usually described as very bitter and nauseating. One hopes to simply get it down quickly and keep it in for at least a half-hour in order to let it have effect. Purge bowls are provided for each participant in the event you need to let go. Later in the session, most people do purge, as I mentioned, for healthy reasons. The sound of purging is part of what is expected during ceremony, and it can even be something of a group effect phenomenon. Such purges often mark a significant point of change in the visions process, as well.

Once ingested, the onset of the effects of the brew happen in about 30 to 40 minutes. The length of the session is between five and six hours. You WILL be under the visionary influence of the brew for that long, regardless of what happens.

The sessions are conducted at night – after darkness falls. This is to make the visions easier to experience and process. Candles are lit to start the ceremony. Then, after all have drunk the tea, the last candle goes out and the ceremony continues for the five or so hours in complete darkness in the room.

The visions, when they come, can be very fragile or extremely overpowering. They can tease you, teach you, astound you, make you laugh out loud, cause you great fear, or let you feel cosmic peace and joy. They can be complex patterns of lights and flowing, flying geometry with bright neon colors, or they can be scenes of ancient or alien lands and people, with truly astonishing detail, color, and versimilitude. They can be meetings with beings or animals that seem to inhabit another dimension, or they can take you to the palaces of the Gods.

You may descend into lower realms of great stress and fear. Many times, this hard trial is an essential part of the powerful psychological healing that is a strong component of Ayahuasca work, but such direct healing is not delivered gently.

You are likely to encounter several creatures common to Ayahuasca visions, such as large snakes, or jaguars, who may test you, help you . . .or devour you.
You may, if you are fortunate, even encounter the true Spirit of the Vine, called Madre Ayahuasca (Mother Ayahusca). She is almost always seen as female, but She takes many forms.

Ayahuasca is a communal activity. One does not take it while alone. Within the group setting, the ayahuascero shaman conducts the ceremonial and ritual activities and guides the energy of the sessions, up or down as needed, by singing special songs called "icaros."

These icaros are simple sounding and usually repetitive songs either whistled or sung in a mixture of Spanish and Quechua or other native languages. The icaros help to entrain us into the visionary space and they influence mood and pacing during the sessions. They act as a kind of communication with the spirit world, as well. The icaros are said to be given to the shaman by the plants he or she works with.

In many of the icaros he sang for us, Don Rober was often calling out to "Doctorcito" - the little doctors, or the little spirit beings who can come to help heal humans.

The atmosphere in the ceremony is one of serious attention and purpose and a respectfulness toward the plants and the people one is working with, but it is not one of solemn restrictions, or rigid formality. A sense of happy excitement and joy suffuses the group as we quietly approach what we know is an extraordinary and precious experience.

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