Ayahuasca & It's Mechanisms of Healing

Taken from _Visionary Vine: Hallucinogenic healing in the Peruvian Amazon_
by Marlene Dobkin de Rios. 1972, Waveland Press



Throughout the history of medicine we find that
many cures have been effective despite the irrational
concepts of disease that members of a society might
hold. To the Western observer it might appear in fact
that ayahuasca use is totally irrational in terms of the
magical world view in which such healing occurs. After
all, how can "spirits" of inanimate nature or the malice
of people possibly make one ill, when microbes, viruses,
organic malfunctions, and the like are the true offend-
ers? Yet, to the Amazonian man or woman whose be-
liefs are thus oriented, ayahuasca can only be viewed as
a valuable adjunct in reaffirming one's own suspicions
about illness and its etiology. Once the premises con-
cerning the philosophy of causation are accepted, the
system of healing itself has an inner rationale that is
quite in accordance with a richly developed historical
tradition.


Healing Techniques

The use of ayahuasca to heal does not include a
well-defined sense of the hallucinogen as a curative
agent, per se. Rather, the vine is seen to operate as a
powerful means to a desired end--it gives the healer
entry into the culturally important area of disease caus-
ality, enabling him to identify the nature of the illness
from which a person is suffering, and then to deflect or
neutralize the evil magic which is deemed responsible
for illness. When we examine the successes attributed
to the healer, we fine that in general terms a selection process is at work in
which healers accept patients whom they feel they will have a good chance of
reaching. Simple illnesses are rarely treated with the drug, but herbs, plants,
and store-bought medicines are prescribed by the healer for these types of
affliction. Nor are psychotic patients given ayahuasca.
Needless to say, drug healers do not accept all patients who come to them
for help, nor are they able to cure everyone with an infusion of ayahuasca. But
many of the patients who do find their way to the jungle sessions are precisely
those whose anxieties, fears, projections of hostility and hatred toward others
would in Western medicine be grist for psychiatric help. Drug healing in the
Peruvian jungle in many ways represents a very old and honored tradition of
dealing with psychological problems that predates Freudian analysis by centu-
ries.
In addition to the use of the powerful vine, a healer will practice time-
honored curing traditions, including whistling, singing, praying, and reciting
orations, called icaros, which are believed to be preventative, to assure a
patient that no evil will befall him from a friend's betrayal or a spouse's scorn.
Acting as counters to evil magic, icaros may be used for diverse ends. A healer
may also suck at afflicted regions of the body to extract thistles that have been
magically placed there to cause illness, or else blow mapacho cigarette smoke
over the body of the patient.
Ayahuasqueros often make an immediate diagnosis by taking a patient's
pulse without the use of a clock or watch. They say that such activity tells them
what type of illness the sick man or woman is suffering from and may be one
way to determine the presence of deep anxiety stemming from belief in witch-
craft. Healers often prescribe a drink of cane alcohol mixed with camphor,
which acts to "pep-up" or stimulate and is often prescribed in daily dosages.
It is a cerebral excitant (Lewin, 1964: 145) and can produce some mild eu-
phoria. In addition, ayahuasqueros use varied techniques such as reassurance,
important in many cases, to offer at least temporary help. On the negative side
of the ledger, depending on the degree of anxiety, this kind of reassurance must
be constantly repeated to be effective (Weiss and English, 1956: 12). Suggestion
and persuasion are also of great importance in order to convince a patient that
the healer's advice is good and that benefits will accrue to him, should he
follow his advice (Ibid.: 154).
To return to an earlier point, ayahuasca is not the only hallucinogenic
substance used in healing. Other plants such as a leaf called chacruna (B.
rusbyana. believed to contain N-N-dimethyltryptamine) may be added to the
preparation to increase the effects. Others may use a substance called toe'
(Datura suavoleons), which by itself is strong enough to alter states of con-
sciousness. Not very much is known at present about the effects of mixing
together various hallucinogenic substances, but different healers in the rain
forest prefer those mixtures they know best from their apprenticeship days. At
times a tobacco that has hallucinogenic effects and feelings of mareacion
(dizziness) and probably containing Nicotiana tabacum may be used by a
healer for particular cases. This latter substance grown in the rain forest is
several times stronger in effect than similar species grown in North America
(see Janiger and Dobkin de Rios, Md.).


Ayahuasca and the Non-Verbal

Very much a part of healing techniques is the use to which special songs
or whistling incantations are put. Although some recent psychological studies
of drug therapy have focused upon the importance of the non-verbal (see in
particular Eisner, 1966), many drug-adjuncted therapeutic sessions in Western
society are closely directed situations in which talking plays a most important
role. Yet, as Eisner argues, during the most crucial moments of life words often
interfere with the main flow of communication. In fact, much of the therapeu-
tic interaction can and does take place at the non-verbal level (Ibid.: 542).
While verbal performance in Western society may be highly valued and re-
warded, Peruvian rain forest residents are much less geared to verbal excesses.
During many of the ayahuasca sessions, for example, patients are left to
themselves to experience the effects of the drug with little if any verbal prod-
ding on the part of the healer. Caldwell (1968) points at the similarity in some
European clinics today where hallucinogens are incorporated into psychother-
apy. When music is part of the drug experience, it is probable that the experi-
ence, per se, is a more integrative one. Music may actually potentiate the drug
experience, removing it from the realm of the intellectual and into the area of
pure feelings. Music, of course, can also help to manipulate mood. Both
modern and traditional healers who use such auditory aids in many ways enrich
the experience by presenting stimuli that can enter all channels of a person's
perception. The use of perfumed water (agua florida), which is drunk by the
patient during the ayahuasca session, is no doubt another way in which non-
verbal olfactory aspects are capitalized upon.


Comments

Ayahuasca music is utilized only in drug ceremonies, and contrasts musico-
logically to the considerable corpus of music which falls within a secular
category. This latter group comprises music played on happy occasions, such
as religious festivals within the Roman Catholic Church, and melodies played
during wakes. On the latter occasions, friends and relatives accompany the
body of the deceased throughout an evening to dawn vigil. Such melodies are
generally played with a drum (tambor), quena (wooden reedless flute found
in the Andean highlands), and a four-string violin, probably of Spanish origin.
It is tempting to suggest a comparison between ayahuasca whistling incan-
tations and such music as the Gregorian chants, at least insofar as basic
function goes. Just as one can argue that Gregorian chants and ecclesiastical
modes represent tonal relationships in which scales are structured so as to
evoke a spiritual experience within the context of Christianity, so too might
the ayahuasca music be viewed as an essential component of a non-ordinary
reality sustained by the sensory overload inherent in drug-induced alteration
in consciousness. Such music, of course, cannot be divorced from its social
context. We should reflect, for a moment, on the nature of hallucinogenic
experience, per se, and the quality of reality alteration for the individual. Such
phenomena as the slowing down or changing of time perception (see Ludwig,
1969: 14) must be related to how music is perceived by the individual under
the effects of the powerful alkaloids present in the ayahuasca potion. The
number of metronomic markings in a given piece of music may not, indeed,
be perceived as they would be in an ordinary state. In fact, during my own
experience under ayahuasca, some interesting aspects of the relationship of the
music and the content of my visions could be determined. Fast-moving visions
and detailed panorama of primary colors and variegated forms, difficult to
focus on, could be correlated with my perception of the speed of the healer's
music. When don Antonio slowed down his pace and a full-sized portrait of
a woman appeared before me, I could, on later reflection, relate the vision's
appearance to the slowing down of the healer's whistling incantations. Visions
do change frequently from fast to slow, and seem to be controlled or evoked
by the healer who is the creative force in deciding which melodies to call upon.
When I was further into the drug experience and became nauseous and vom-
ited, don Antonio reassured me that his continuing melodies would alleviate
the nausea and cause it to pass away.
During ayahuasca sessions, both healer and patient take the drug together.
Nonetheless, the healer is generally quite occupied in the performance of his
ritual activities mentioned earlier and leaves his patients generally seated by
themselves for major portions of the ceremony, only occasionally counseling
or treating them directly. Healers state that certain melodies evoke certain
types of visions. As I illustrated above, slower incantations may be responsible
for the often-reported visions of men and women who are later identified as
evil-doers. Perhaps, and one can only speculate here, faster incantations are
crucial in the changeover from one reality to another. Such sensory overload
has been frequently reported to produce anxiety in the individual, especially
in initial drug-induced states. In Western society, LSD-like substances have
been utilized in psychotherapy, often by Freudian-oriented analysts. Vomiting
and nausea, which may occur in such cases, have occasionally been related to
the inability of individuals to deal with anxiety generated by rapid access to
unconscious realms. It may be that the role of such music as the whistling
incantations during such anxiety states is to help carry the individual more
easily into this second realm.
One additional facet of drug-induced experience that should be mentioned
is the role that the guide or guru plays as an important other, toward whom
the patient may turn in an anxious or highly suggestible state as the result of
his alteration in consciousness. Masters and Houston (1966) discuss the vital
place of the guru in guiding such sessions. It is possible that augmented
suggestibility on the part of the patient encounters in the presence of the healer
a creative source and origin of music which alleviates anxiety, tranquilizes, and
causes a turning inward, by the musical evocation of particular visions.'
I might further speculate that fearful visions in an ayahuasca session could
generally be attributed to the inadequate musical ability on the part of a
particular healer.


Placebo Effects of the Ayahuasca Potion

When people who believe they have been bewitched visit a healer, they are
frequently given a potion of ayahuasca to help them see who it is that has
caused their illness. As with other hallucinogenic drugs, a non-ordinary state
of reality fills the hours of drug experience and is one that is unlike any other
than most men or women have ever had.
The possibility suggests itself that the plant operates merely as a placebo
an inactive or inert drug given merely to produce a "satisfying" effect upon
the patient. Is it possible that faith in the curative power of the drug itself is
enough to cure? It think we have to dismiss this possibility, which may enter
into a discussion of LSD therapy in the United States and Canada. There,
insights into personal problems have often been examined by an analyst who
guides the session.' Ayahuasca is not used to obtain verbal insight, and external
rather than internal forces are viewed as responsible for disease. Man is, in
effect, absolved from any responsibility. Especially in cases of saladera and
situations involving interpersonal stress, the impact of such external forces is
most clearly seen. Moreover, little of the biochemical effects of ayahuasca's
healing properties are known. From my own personal experience, I would
guess that strong hallucinogens like ayahuasca manage to relieve feelings of
anxiety and tension which can build up to intolerable levels. Yet, although one

'See Katz (1971) for a transcription of an ayahuasca musical session and discussion.
'See Caldwell (1966), Abramson (1967)



would hesitate to call the purge a healing hallucinogen, it is possible that future
evidence may point up more clearly the curative potential of the drug from a
pharmacological point of view.
Nonetheless, both healer and patient are crucially concerned with identify-
ing the nature of the illness, which in psychosomatic disorders may be very
generalized pains and aches throughout the body. When people known to the
patient or even total strangers appear in his visions, a skilled healer will
attribute his patient's illness to such apparitions. Generalized, free-floating
anxiety which immobilizes can then be changed into straightforward fear and
placed squarely on the shoulders of the acknowledged evil person or spirit. A
healer is especially successful in those cases when his patient believes him to
be imnipotent and if an aura of personal success surrounds him. Thus, the
healer may be able to relieve his patient's symptoms quickly and dramatically,
when the patient believes the healer is powerful enough to counteract the evil
magic directed against himself.
People rarely focus upon ayahuasca by itself as a curative agent. The
hallucinogen is a means toward an end--a way in which healing can begin.
Special diets, rituals, orations, particular spells, and counter magic are the
ways in which healing takes place. Reassurance, suggestion, counseling as well
as other techniques to be discussed shortly are all part of the cure, but the
drug's role throughout is strongly diagnostic and revelatory.


The Omnipotence of the Healer

Attempts are made by the healer to radiate total control and mastery over
the unknown, especially in the realm of illness. Although he may turn to
magical means in his healing procedures, nonetheless he employs very definite
pragmatic means such as modern medicines, herb baths, and teas as well as
a host of plants whose effects he has studied. The role of ayahuasca is con-
nected to the aura of omnipotence surrounding the healer. Certainly the purge
is a powerful persuader in its own right. Yet, given the belief system existing
in the jungle, what seems to be most important to his patients is the healer's
ability to deflect evil magic and neutralize its effect, or diagnose the sickness
by means of the drug. Ayahuasca gives him entry into a world of magic by
which he can effect his cures all that much more effectively. Even techniques
such as his subtle reassurance, boasting in a generally non-boasting society, an
all-knowing manner, subtle use of cues to let present and perspective patients
know of his successes, his show of wealth, and his skills all enter into the
picture. Two examples that illustrate healers' techniques come to mind here.
In one case connected with dona Teresa mentioned earlier, after she had taken
ayahuasca and her hemorrhage stopped, she was able to move about and take
on some of her daily household chores. The next time her healer stopped by
to see how she was doing, he stayed only a short while, as he had to visit
another patient who was really ill (the healer's emphasis), and not nearly as
well and thriving and about to recover as Teresa was. She repeated this
conversation to several of her neighbors and family during the next few days
and in fact did feel much better, no doubt in part because of this reassurance
and support that the healer provided her.
In another case, I was present at a preliminary interview in which a healer
chatted with two girls who had love problems and were looking for his help
to try to capture their boyfriends' souls once and for all. Don Fernando, the
healer, sat comfortably on a bench and talked about his many successes in
healing. He boasted that in his home, an expensive fishing net costing well over
$100 was sitting idle and rotting. Although he could make a good living at
fishing, he was forced to give it up by the press of patients, he said, who came
to him to be healed. Both girls were visibly impressed by his stated affluence
and by his confident, assured manner, which indicated to them that he would
and most definitely could help them in their love problems.
The myth of the omnipotence of some healers has become so strong that
tales of ayahuasca millionaires have grown up and become repeated with some
frequency. Both Iquitos and Pucallpa are known for at least one such aya-
huasca millionaire men who achieved fame in healing and who overnight
built fine brick houses for themselves and their families. One famous healer in
Pucallpa was imprisoned by the local police, finally to be released when a
political demonstration followed in the wake of this incident. A spiritualist
healer in Iquitos recounted the story of another colleague who had recently
died. He had made his fortune in ayahuasca. Multiple property holdings and
an affluent family attested to this healer's success with the purge.
Peruvian medical writers, much closer in time and space to folk healing
than their American counterparts, are quite aware of its influence on large
segments of their society and at times become threatened by the apparent
successes and popularity of drug healers. Many such writers, in fact, have
labeled both drug-adjuncted and popular folk healing charlatanism. One
writer makes a fine distinction between highland healers who work within the
confines of their Indian peasant community and the so-called charlatans of
other regions. Tricking patients while under the effects of drug used in healing
has been another accusation that has been leveled. These aspects of folk healing
are difficult to dismiss lightly. Collective belief in the efficacy of the drug, the
suggestibility engendered by such drug use and the skill of the healer who
effects cures to patients often suffering from psychosomatic or psychoneurotic
illness must be taken into account. Whether these cures are temporary remis-
sions are not important here. The first-rate empirical knowledge of many
healers concerning the rich pharmacopoeia available to them is undeniable.


The ability of the healer, whose skills are well-touted, his firm and confident
manner in dealing with his patients, his boasts of the healing he has and will
achieve--in short, the potency of the suggestive phenomena at work cannot
be ignored. Certainly artifice is employed in the curer's art. One writer has
maintained that "cultural symbols and values are the medium through which
the individual patient approaches what is offered to him in a psychotherapy
situation and that his response to the strategies of the therapist will be circum-
scribed by the meaning they have for him in terms of his general life view."
Healers do work within a belief system held by their patients and are able to
manipulate the symbols shared by their patients in order to heal them that
much more effectively.
For example, before allowing their patients to take the purge, many healers
will undergo periods of up to a week of exorcising the evil believed to afflict
such patients. This becomes a very necessary part of therapy because many
people in this community operate in a confused social reality where magical
beliefs function close to and at times in competition with scientific ones. The
healer, in order to alleviate anxiety generated by emotionally precipitated
illness, must retain his omnipotent stance. Should a patient be a doubting
Thomas, something which is not at all unusual initially, the chances of the
treatment being effective will be lessened. Using a series of exorcistic rituals
which often include prescribing the tobacco mentioned earlier (which gives no
visions but induces a feeling of non-ordinary reality), the healer can elaborate
his treatment before the actual drug experience is undertaken. Prospective
patients may then attend a few sessions in which others take ayahuasca in
order to acquire an awareness or expectation of what people say happen to
them under the drug.
To repeat an earlier point, the reappearance of certain elements in the drug
experience by innumerable patients points to the important role that cultural
expectations play. It is possible that the focus of the healer on a boa or another
snake as the mother spirit of the vine which is beginning to heal or to anticipate
healing by her appearance verifies and consolidates the magical learning that
has taken place prior to the ayahuasca ingestion. Peoples' expectations that
they will, in fact, be visited by such a boa or snake, as well as their belief in
the curative prediction of success anticipated by that snake's appearance pro-
vides them with reassurance that healing is indeed occurring. In many ways,
the omnipotence of the healer is increased by his symbolic presentations--his
insistence upon the magical world of spirits or allies which he controls and that
he can conjure up through his particular songs and incantations to appear
before his patient. At sessions one often hears a healer advising his patient who
is experiencing visions that the next song will cause a certain event to happen,
or that a difficult moment will pass, with pleasant visions to follow. The healer
in many ways is conditioning the patients. Given a widely-shared belief system
among members of the community and those versed in esoteric healing lore,
these remarks of the healer must be seen in terms of their full impact upon the
patient. Called upon as a creative source to interpret the symbols that may
visually appear to a patient under his care, the healer sees in his patient's
productions his own set of symbols, which he attributes to the magical causal-
ity of misfortune or disease.
This kind of occurrence, which Ehrenwald (1966), a medical historian, has
called "doctrinal compliance," is important to consider in this context. In an
interesting book tracing the continuity between present day scientific therapy
and primitive healing, he coins this term to explain the fact that in Western
therapy, despite the particular school of allegiance to which a psychiatrist may
subscribe, his patient ends up doing what his doctor wants him to. If, for
example, a healer is a Freudian, his patients' dreams tend to recreate early
memories of childhood or family conflict. The patient in many ways complies
with the therapist's unconscious wishes and expectations in order to validate
his analyst's theories. Unlike the phenomenon of suggestion, which on the part
of the therapist, at any rate, operates on a conscious level, doctrinal compliance
seems to be an unconscious process, occurring in both magical and modern
therapy procedures. This would seem to be the case in Peruvian healing with
hallucinogens, since patients tend to see certain kinds of visions while under
the effects of ayahuasca, after working with healers who share a common
tradition of magical etiology.
Finally, Ludwig's comments on suggestibility are applicable here (1969:
17). He maintains that sensory overload, inherent in an hallucinogenic experi-
ence, can cause a person to attend most specifically to a guide's advice and
counsel for reassurance in moments when he is in an altered state of conscious-
ness.

The Healer as Moral Arbiter of the Society

If we look at the kinds of health and social problems that the ayahuasquero
treats, it is evident that much of his role is that of moral arbiter of society. This
is especially so in light of the philosophy of causation which attributes illness
and bad fortune to witchcraft. Not only is the healer's job to restore people
to health, but he must take upon himself the omnipotent power and responsi-
bility to punish evil doings. These healers who have made their moral commit-
ment to paths of socially valued behavior often state they are deeply religious
and will not perpetrate evil upon others. This contrasts, nonetheless, to their
quickness to accept patients who believe they have been wronged. In the name
of their patients, such men will not hesitate to punish others for their evil
through the application of counter-magic. Although witches maintain that
ayahuasca can give a man unlimited sexual access to women, nonetheless
another important function of ayahuasqueros is to use their powers when
under the drug to bring recalcitrant spouses who have strayed back to their
homes once again.
As Herskovitz pointed out long ago (1946), Western dualistic categories of
good and evil often do not properly convey non-literate and folk beliefs con-
cerning magic. For example, although most ayahuasqueros are called upon to
heal patients who believe they have been bewitched, there is an element of true
moral arbitration on the part of a healer who often uses counter magic to
return evil to its perpetrator in order to relieve symptoms of illness. Easy
categorization of good and evil does not adequately deal with the subtleties of
ayahuasca use among Peruvian Mestizo populations in the rain forest region.


Ayahuasca Healing and Psychotherapy

Perhaps the term psychotherapy is inadequate to describe and categorize
the type of drug healing which is the subject of this book. This term is generally
used in psychology to delineate a relationship between doctor and patient in
which words play a very prominent part in the healing process. Although a
certain amount of verbal exchange between healer and patient in the form of
counseling, advising, suggesting, and exhorting does occur in Iquitos, many of
the drug sessions described earlier are extremely subjective activities. The man
or woman who takes the potion is left much to himself during the major part
of the experience. As pointed out earlier, drug-adjuncted therapy in Western
medicine employs much more directed verbal therapy.
Psychotherapy is seen by some as a learning process where new attitudes,
feelings and behavior enter into a person's readaptation after he comes to a
realization that his present way of life is distressing, ineffective, or damaging.
Maladaptation marks the habits of a lifetime and must be changed in order
for healing to occur. In considering the role that relearning plays in ayahuasca
healing, we see that such therapy is of a short-term nature compared to the
much longer periods of counseling involved in Western-type psychotherapy.
Jungle patients may remain in treatment for only a week or two, with the
longest periods of healing rarely running more than a few months in duration.
The desire for the relief of symptoms seems to be the most pressing motivation
for people to enter such sessions, accounting for the relatively short period of
treatment time when compared to Euro-American psychological healing. An-
other factor should be taken into consideration. During my fieldwork in Belen,
I constantly listened to complaints of physical illness, anxiety, lack of appetite,
and the like, complaints comparable to those reported by other investigators
working among urban poor throughout Peru. High rates of psychosomatic
complaints characterize the life of the destitute poor throughout much of
South America and some research even sees such stress as necessary for
effective modernization (see Kellert et at, 1967). When such daily stress and
anxiety reaches intolerable levels, a person may look for help from a healer.
Yet, we should keep in mind that the constant companion of many such people
may be organic pain, discomfort, free-floating anxiety, general debility, and
lack of energy coming from the many parasitical disorders with which they
live. When such men and women finally find themselves in an ayahuasca
session, they tend to look for relief of immediate problems. In speaking to both
healers and patients, one rarely if ever hears these problems acknowledged to
be personal maladjustment. Explaining illness as individual responsibility for
misfortune or citing chance as a major factor does not occur. Rather, illness
or misfortune is attributed to the evil of others--either malicious men and
women who have brought magical harm, or else capricious, uncontrollable
natural spirits that have punished a person who has violated a taboo.
Another important component of psychotherapy in Western medicine is the
nature of the transference experience between a patient and his therapist,
generally emerging after a reasonably long period of treatment. During this
period, an emotional relationship to the therapist may be established, child-
hood memories may be recalled, abreaction of emotion may take place, and
a new orientation for future living take place. As Freud wrote long ago,
transference is usually described as the patient's tendency to see in his analyst
the reincarnation of some important figure out of his childhood past, with the
patient transferring to him feelings and reactions that undoubtedly applied to
his model. In this way, the analyst may become the target of the patient's love
or resentment which may have originally been directed to a parent.
In short-term ayahuasca healing, the mechanism of transference that is so
important to theoretical conceptions of Western psychoanalysis is practically
non-existent. It is quite true that healers tend to be older men or women who
may have a relatively high status accorded them because of age, and who may
serve as a parent-substitute. However, the short amount of time in which the
patient is in treatment and the nature of the healing itself differ immensely
from Western techniques we have been discussing.
As Kiev has pointed out (1968: 176), "the kind of illness that an individual
has and how it may be treated is a function of his culture." The culture-specific
methods used to reduce anxiety that characterize universally valid strategies
throughout the world are no doubt enhanced by the properties of the hal-
lucinogen itself. Reactions to both good and bad experiences--namely a feeling
of relaxation, well-being, and ease with others can only reflect to the healer's
benefit.

Ayahuasca is indeed a powerful hallucinogen that is used effectively in
Peruvian rain forest healing. It has not been the purpose of this book to present
statistics showing how many patients have been "cured" by this hallucinogen
in emotional or psychological illness. Rather, it is hoped that the setting and
background in which such healing takes place throws some light on the thera-
peutic potential of many different plant substances. In particular, the role of
cultural variables such as beliefs, attitudes, and expectations in determining
subjective experiences are important to stress. In some superficial ways, aya-
huasca healing is comparable to Western techniques of psychotherapy, but
such a comparison is doomed to an uncomfortable fit of theory with recalci-
trant fact. The use of directed verbal interchange between therapist and patient
in Euro-American society contrasts markedly with mechanisms of healing
utilized in a society held together by a magical order of things.


Conclusions

We have looked at the plant hallucinogen, ayahuasca, as an example of
man's traditional use of such substances in the treatment of disease. As I
pointed out at the beginning of this book, although it is convenient to separate
out categories of drug use in which disease is viewed apart from supernatural
concerns, it is important to reiterate here that ayahuasca healing in the
Peruvian Amazon has very definite supernatural components of etiology, diag-
nosis, and cure as well as being viewed by healers and patients alike in terms
of a philosophy of causation. The visions induced by the plant are interpreted
by the ayahuasca healer to be the personal or spiritual force responsible for
illness, a major concern prior to the effecting of any cure.
Although it is tempting to conclude that ayahuasca is functionally related
to the social stresses and economic problems that beset members of the slum
community and the jungle region today, one might hesitate to state that
interpersonal strife is less now than it may have been or is presently among
primitive populations in scattered rain forest villages. Perhaps a more convinc-
ing argument is that throughout time this powerful hallucinogen has been used
in similar ways. Anxiety and stress, both today and in the past, can reach
intolerable levels, so that a drug healer receives a call to ameliorate acute
symptoms. In such situations of distress, ayahuasca has received its most
varied elaboration-entering into the realm of tenuous, uneasy interpersonal
relations and acting as a restorer of equilibrium in difficult situations.



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