“Leanna Standish, a researcher at the University of Washington School of Medicine, estimated that “on any given night in Manhattan, there are a hundred ayahuasca ‘circles’ going on.” The self-help guru Tim Ferriss told me that the drug is everywhere in San Francisco, where he lives. “Ayahuasca is like having a cup of coffee here,”…
A systematic review of human studies assessing psychiatric symptoms, neuropsychological functioning, and neuroimaging. Acute AYA administration was well tolerated, increased introspection and positive mood, altered visual perceptions, activated frontal and paralimbic regions and decreased default mode network activity. It also improved planning and inhibitory control and impaired working memory, and showed anti-depressive and anti-addictive potentials.…
“It reminds me of how they sell cocaine and marijuana in Amsterdam,” one local said. “Here, it’s shamans and ayahuasca.” No one monitors the medicine men, their claims, or their credentials. With money rolling in and lodges popping up across Peru’s sprawling Amazon, a new breed of shaman has emerged – and not all of…
“As Ayahuasca has become more and more popular with foreign tourists—and at the same time, less and less popular with the Indians themselves—we have found that pseudo-shamans have sprung up everywhere to cater for the demand.” While some argue that the commercialization of ayahuasca has bastardized the ritual, others claim that it’s brought much needed…
“We are considered the trash of Brazil, but this place accepts us,” said Darci Altair Santos da Silva, 43, a construction worker serving a 13-year sentence for sexual abuse of a child under 14. “I know what I did was very cruel. The tea helped me reflect on this fact, on the possibility that one…
“Looking back on my first ceremony, I realize that I had absolutely no idea what I was stepping into. I had to learn many lessons the hard way”. This article is about some of these hard-earned lessons of my experience with visionary plant medicine (VPM), a term I will use to describe the virtually endless…
“The sacramental use ofayahuasca is on the cusp of becoming a permanent part of the colorful religious landscape of northern New Mexico”. After years of litigation, it now seems likely that União do Vegetal (UDV)–or more formally, O Centro Espirita Beneficente União do Vegetal–will build a temple in Arroyo Hondo, just outside Santa Fe. UDV…
Neuropsychological investigation have found that long-term ayahuasca users had better performance than control subjects on tests of frontal function and on the WHO-UCLA auditory verbal learning test. Since the 1980s, churches in which ayahuasca is prepared and consumed have been spreading to urban centers initially in South America and then in North America and in…
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