In the year that I worked in Belen, I spoke to many people about ayahuasca

and its effects. Listening to scores of informants talk about their experience

while taking the hallucinogen was very informative; but, after a couple of

months, this became somewhat repetitious. The same kinds of visions kept

occurring time after time, as former patients would describe jungle crea-

tures such as boa constrictors and viperous snakes that appeared before them

under ayahuasca. For the most part, after a certain confidence had been

established among informants, details of illnesses suffered and their

magical origin would be related as the reason for seeking a healer's help.

Under the effects of the drug, a screen full of visions would appear to the

person, often much more exciting than the occasional movie he might attend

in the city. Although some claimed not to have received any visions under

their particular ayahuasca experience, most did have things to relate.

Both river and jungle animals would fill the mind's eye. Many people would

claim to see the person or persons who were responsible for bewitching them.

Some would report a panorama of activity, in which a person would express

his innermost thoughts toward the patient, such as sexual desire, vengeance

or hate, and then proceed to manufacture some medicine to throw over their

threshold or perhaps slip unnoticed into a drink. Sometimes symbols would

be reported, rather than panoramic action. One woman spoke Of a church and

a white veil that she saw in a sort of staccato vision, which represented to her

how a rejected suitor wanted her to leave her husband and children to run off

and get married. At times, a person would report seeing someone sneak up to

their house at night to slip an evil potion across the threshold. At other times,

someone might appear in a vision laughing sardonically at the man or woman

whom they were causing to be bewitched. In other cases, a totally unknown man

or woman would appear before a person in an ayahuasca vision. However, in all

cases it was the job of the experienced ayahuasquero to interpret his patients'

visions so as to clarify the cause of their illness. Quite often, people would say

that their healer, while under the effects of the drug, would tell them he saw the

person responsible for their misfortune, but would not say who it was. It was

left for their own drug experience to bring forth this information. Through this

kind of suggestion, the patient would be brought to a pitch of expectation. It is

not difficult to imagine how affective need would be expressed by a particular

vision or illusion stimulated by the drug.

When an unknown person appears before a patient, it becomes the healer's

job to decide his identity. Many people, however, see members of their family

or else people with whom they may be having personal difficulties appear

before them, including neighbors, ex-spouses, in-laws, a rejected lover, and so

on. If only part of a person is seen in profile, or a turned back or shoulder view,

the healer once again is called upon to interpret this vision. The type of vision

that is reported by a person may at times depend upon the rhythm of the songs

the healer sings. A stacatto beat may bring forth many fleeting momentary

visions, while slower songs may be used for more prolonged visionary experi-

ences, such as the ones used to identify evildoers.

The many visions of snakes and boas reported by patients are used by

healers to effect cures. It is widely believed that a snake (called in Spanish,

culebra) is the mother spirit of the drug. Many herbs and medicines found in

nature are believed to have protective spirits which watch over their plant's

use and are jealous guardians. Such spirits on occasion must be propitiated

when their plant is cut down or removed by man from the jungle confines.

Some fishermen and hunters in Belen who regularly bring psychedelics back

from the heart of the jungle to supply some of the ayahuasca healers in Iquitos

leave offerings of tobacco and food under the tree when they cut off the woody

vine. People often talk about the spirits of these plants as jealous guardians who

must be given special attention. Ayahuasca is no exception here, and dietary

prescriptions stressed again and again are justified by the jealous nature of the

plant. It is for this reason that salt, sweets, and lard must be avoided by

ayahuasca users for at least a twenty-four hour period preceding and following

the use of the purge. At times, sexual abstinence may also be requested by the

healer.

The mother spirit of ayahuasca may transform herself into an animate

creature such as a princess, a queen, or any one of many different fantasy

forms. This is done to find out if the person who takes the purge is strong or

fearful. Strength is generally thought of in terms of self-domination, of not

losing control of oneself under the effects of ayahuasca, nor screaming in fear

as jungle creatures fill one's visions. For example, a commonly reported vision

is that a very large snake enters the circle around which a person is seated in

the jungle or else enters a room where fine is taking ayahuasca. If the patient

is not frightened by this creature, the snake begins to teach the person his song.

In a good session, a certain moment will arrive when everyone who is under

the effects of the drug begins to sing a series of songs at the same time as they

are visited by the snake in their visions. A frightening vision is often described

in which a boa enters the patient's mouth. Often identified as the Yacumama

of folklore, these boa constrictors in everyday jungle life are enough to cause

horror to the most stout-hearted person. Although poisonless, such a creature

measures over twenty-five feet long and one foot wide. Its force is prodigious,

and people say it can eat animals of great size. If a person is able to remain

cool and not panic, this is a sign that he will be cured. As the boa enters one's

body, it is a further omen to the man or woman with such expectations that

he will be protected by the ayahuasca spirit. As with don Federico, many

healers prepare their patients for the drug experience by discussing such

common visions. Expectation among the Cholos, at least, is great that such

snakes will appear before them.

In the West, when we read reports of hallucinogenic drug experiences (see,

for example, Ebin, 1961), we don't generally find similar kinds of visionary

experience reported as we do in the rain forest. Cultural expectations con-

nected with the use of a hallucinogen such as ayahuasca must be seen as the

explanation for the recurrence of the similarity in types of visions. Although

I spoke to many people who had never taken ayahuasca, most adults would

comment in great detail about points of information concerning the vine,

which could later be verified with healers or former patients. The presence of

beliefs and expectations of these people vis-a-vis the drug's action must be seen

as influencing the similarities reported in the actual drug experience.

This occurs not only among the urban poor, but with primitive use of

ayahuasca as well. One recent study of the use of the psychedelic vine among

the Cashinahua Indians of Peru by Kensinger (1970), found a certain fre-

quency of occurrence and a high degree of similarity in the content of particu-

lar hallucinations. Kensinger's informants reported brightly colored large

snakes, jaguars, and ocelots, spirits of ayahuasca, large trees often falling, lakes

often filled with anacondas and alligators, traders and their goods, and gar-

dens. All quite frequently were reported with a sense of motion. Certainly,

other factors of interest to most drug researchers enter the picture here, such

as the personality and past experience of the person taking the substance, the

setting in which the drug is taken, the dosage level and so on. However,

cultural variables must be stressed once again as a primary aspect of drug use.

When reports made my Europeans and Americans who have taken ayahuasca

are compared to jungle populations, some interesting contrasts emerge. The

following are some brief descriptions of experiences under ayahuasca that

Westerners, lacking a cultural tradition of drug use have described for aya-

huasca or its alkaloids. My own experience with the vine has been included

in these accounts.

Richard Spruce: A British botanist from Yorkshire, Spruce traveled

throughout the Amazon and its tributaries from 1849 to 1864. He made

extensive collections of South American flora and was the first modern inves-

tigator to identify ayahuasca in 1851, although his materials were published

posthumously. Actually, the geographer Villavicencio wrote of the vine in his

Geography ofEcuador, which appeared in 1858. Spruce observed the used of

the liana among the Tukanoan tribes of the Uaupes River in the Brazilian

Amazon. He wrote of the caapi-drinking ceremony as follows:

I had gone with the full intention of experimenting the caapi myself, but I had

scarcely dispatched one cup of the nauseous beverage, which is but half the dose,

when the ruler of the feast . . . came up with a woman bearing a large calabash of

caxiri (mandioca beer), of which I must needs take a copious draught, and as I know

the mode of its preparation, it was gulped down with secret loathing. Scarcely had

I accomplished this feat, when a large cigar 2 feet long and as thick as the wrist was

put lighted into my hand, and etiquette demanded that I should take a few whiffs

of it--I who had never in my life smoked a cigar or a pipe of tobacco. Above all

this, I must drink a large cup of palm wine, and it will readily be understood that

the effect of such a complex dose was a strong inclination to vomit, which was only

overcome by lying down in a hammock and drinking a cup of coffee. (Cited in

Schultes 1970, p. 26).

We can see from the above that Spruce did not describe very many details

of his own experience, except of course, some interesting side comments on his

disgust with native alcoholic intoxicants.

Michael J. Harner: An American anthropologist trained at the University

of California at Berkeley, Dr. Harner is now a professor of anthropology at

the New School for Social Research in New York. He went to study the Jivaro

Indians of the Ecuadorian Amazon in 1956-1957. During the first year that

Dr. Harner worked among the Jivaro, he didn't appreciate the psychological

impact of the natema or ayahuasca drink upon the native view of reality. The

drink itself has many names in different parts of the Amazon-called yage' or

yaje' in Colombia, ayahuasca in Peru and parts of Ecuador, and caapi in Brazil.

The Jivaro are among the best known Amazonian group to use this prepara-

tion in crossing over to the supernatural world at will to deal with the forces

they believe influence and even determine the events of waking life. In 1961

Dr. Harner returned to the Ecuadorian Amazon and was able to drink the

hallucinogenic brew in the course of fieldwork with another Upper Amazon

Basin tribe.

For several hours after drinking the brew, Harner found himself, although

awake, in a world literally beyond his wildest dreams. He met bird-headed

people as well as dragon-like creatures who explained that they were the true

gods of this world. He enlisted the services of other spirit helpers in attempting

to fly through the far reaches of the Galaxy. He found himself transported into

a trance where the supernatural seemed natural and realized that anthropolo-

gists, including himself, had profoundly underestimated the importance of the

drug in affecting native ideology. In 1964, Dr. Harner returned to the Jivaro

and studied the shamanistic use of the plant. An article he published in 1968

in Natural History reproduces drawings of one Jivaro shaman, who drew

figures of what he saw while under the influence of the powerful natema.

Snakes, devils of the Christian religion and jaguars were some of the things he

saw (1968: 28ff).

Chilean Psychiatric Patients: The Chilean psychiatrist, Claudio Naranjo,

administered one of the three major alkaloids of ayahuasca, called harmaline,

to a population of thirty volunteers in Santiago under controlled conditions.

The reactions of these persons are interesting to examine. Physical sensations

accompanied the drug experience, with a sense of numbness of the hands or

feet generally present. Distortions of body image were only rarely encountered,

while subjects indicated isolated physical symptoms such as pressure in the

head, discomfort in the chest or enhancement of sensations such as breathing

or blinking. Eighteen of the volunteers reported dizziness or general malaise,

which tended to appear or disappear throughout the session. As far as percep-

tion was concerned, rarely were distortions of forms, alterations in the sense

of depth or changes in the expression of faces part of the drug's effect. Naranjo

found that with harmaline, the environment remains essentially unchanged,

both in regard to its formal and aesthetic qualities. With eyes open, the most

often reported phenomenon was the superposition of images on surfaces such

as walls or ceiling. Or else imaginary scenes would be viewed simultaneously

along with an undistorted perception of surrounding objects. Such imagery,

however, was not usually taken to be "reality." Some people described light-

ning-like flashes.

When the subject's eyes were closed, colors were predominantly red-green

or blue-orange contrasts. Among his middle-class urban Chilean volunteers,

Naranjo reported the occurrence of certain themes such as felines, Negroes,

and flying. More than half the subjects reported buzzing sounds in their heads.

When he gave his patients mescaline at a later date and compared the two sets

of reports, he found that harmaline effected emotional activity less than mesca-

line. Thinking, too, was affected only in subtle ways, if at all. Naranjo found

visions his patients concerned with religious or philosophical problems under

harmaline's effects. The typical reaction could be said to be a closed-eye contem-

plation of vivid imagery without further effect than wonder and interest in its

significance. The psychiatrist concluded that this was quite in contrast to the

ecstatic heavens or dreadful hells of other hallucinogens. Interestingly enough,

although harmaline had a lesser effect on the intensity of feelings, it did cause

qualitative changes in emotions. In Naranjo's opinion, this may have ac-

counted for the pronounced amelioration of neurotic symptoms which eight

of the thirty subjects evidenced.

Desire to communicate was found to be slight under the effects of harma-

line. Other persons were felt to be part of the external world and such contact

was avoided. Some of Naranjo's subjects felt that certain scenes which they saw

had really happened, with their own disembodied presence bearing witness to

them in a different time and place. He saw this to match the experience

reported for South American shamans who take ayahuasca for purposes of

divination. In further animal experimentations Naranjo did with harmaline,

he found complex brain modification which permitted him to conclude that

the neurophysiological picture matches that of the traditional ayahuasca

dreaming often reported, in that the states he described involved lethargy,

immobility, closed eyes and generalized withdrawal from the environment. At

the same time there was an alertness to mental processes and an activation of

fantasy (Naranjo, 1967: 385).

Alien Ginsberg: The well-known poet Alien Ginsberg and the writer Wil-

liam S. Burroughs corresponded about the powerful psychedelic vine. Bur-

roughs' early letters to Ginsberg in 1951 described his picaresque search for

the mind-expanding drug, known in Colombia as yage. Some seven years later,

Ginsberg wrote to Burroughs about his own experience with ayahuasca in

Pucallpa, Peru. Excerpts from the following letter published in Yage' Letters,

is dated June 10, 1960:

... the first time, much stronger than the drink I had in Lima, Ayahuasca, can

be bottled and transported and stay strong, as long as it does not ferment--needs

well closed bottle. Drank a cup-slightly fermented also--lay back and after an

hour . . . began seeing or feeling what I thought was the Great Being, or some sense

of It, approaching my mind like a big wet vagina--lay back in that for a while--

only image I can come up with is of a big black hole of God--Nose through which I

peered into a mystery--and the black hole surrounded by all creation particularly

colored snakes--all real.

I felt somewhat like what this image represents, the sense of it so real.

The eye is imaginary image, to give life to the picture. Also a great feeling of

pleasantness in my body, no nausea. Lasted in different phases about 2 hours--the

effects wore off after 3-the phantasy itself lasted from 3/4 Of hour after I drink to

21 hours later more or less (Burroughs, 1963: 51).

Ginsberg also describes a second experience as follows:

... then lay down expecting God knows what other pleasant vision and then I

began to get high--and then the whole fucking Cosmos broke loose around me, I

think the strongest and worst I've ever had it nearly (I still reserve the Harlem

experiences, being Natural, in abeyance. The LSD was Perfection but didn't get me

so deep in nor so horribly in)--First I began to realize my worry about the mos-

quitoes or vomiting was silly as there was the great stake of life and Death--I felt

faced by Death, my skull in my beard on pallet and porch rolling back and forth

and settling finally as if in reproduction of the last physical move I make before

settling into real death--got nauseous, rushed out and began vomiting, all covered

with snakes, like a Snake Seraph, colored serpents in aureole all around my body,

I felt like a snake vomiting out the universe ... (p. 51-52).

Ginsberg's visions continued with spectral rays around the hut in which he was

taking ayahuasca. Although the crooning of the maestro was comforting, he

was frightened and lay there with waves of fear rolling over him. He resigned

himself to whatever fate was in store, after a thorough examination of his soul.

He feared he would go mad, he wrote, if he took yage again, although he had

plans to go upriver on a six-hour journey to take ayahuasca again with an

Indian group.

Richard Evans Schultes: An eminent American botanist and world author-

ity on narcotic and stimulating plants, Dr. Schultes is now director of the

Harvard Botanical Museum. He spent fourteen years from 1941 to 1954 living

with various Indian groups of the South American Amazon, and has identified

many little-known hallucinogenic plants. He became interested in Spruce's

work on South America and retraced most of his itinerary, re-collecting many

of the plants that Spruce originally found in that area. Schultes' list of publica-

tions is enormous: he has worked in areas from Mexico to Brazil. Editor of

the prestigious journal, Economic Botany, Dr. Schultes has spent much of his

botanical career in helping to clarify taxonomic problems connected with the

ayahuasca vine. Like other scientists in the field of botany, psychiatry and

medicine, Schultes prefers not to take anyone's word that a particular plant

can cause a particular effect. Whenever possible, he has taken preparations in

ritual settings along with his informants.

In discussing his own Banisteriopsis experience, he mentions that it is often

difficult to describe an ayahuasca intoxication since the effects of the alkaloid

harmine, apparently the prime psychoactive agent, does react variably from

one person to another. Moreover, methods of preparing the plant differ from

area to area and admixtures can alter the effects of the drink's principal

ingredient.

Dr. Schultes summarizes his own experiences as follows: "... The intoxica-

tion began with a feeling of giddiness and nervousness, soon followed by

nausea, occasional vomiting and profuse perspiration. Occasionally, the vision

was disturbed by flashes of light and upon closing the eyes, a bluish haze

sometimes appeared. A period of abnormal lassitude then set in during which

colors increased in intensity. Sooner or later a deep sleep interrupted by

dream-like sequence began. The only after-effect noticed was intestinal upset

and diarrhea on the following day" (1970: 28).

Marlene Dobkin de Rios: When I spent three months in 1967 studying

mescaline healing in the Peruvian coast, I observed several ritual sessions

where I was invited to drink the hallucinogenic potion. Yet, although it was

readily available to me, I must admit that I was frightened, in fact horrified

to imagine all the terrible things that self-knowledge might bring me. Sure as

I was that I was harboring all sorts of incurable neuroses within, I hesitated

and decided not to try the San Pedro brew. Many rationalizations sprung to

mind--time was short and I might have bad side-effects. What would I do if

the after effects were so severe that I couldn't continue my work? I felt alone,

and what would happen if my self-protective shield was knocked over? And

so, despite the kindly offers of my informants and the healers I visited, I

resolved not to try the mescaline cactus.

When I returned home and wrote up my field experiences about San Pedro

use, it seemed as though I had somehow missed the point. In October 1967,

I was invited to participate in a conference sponsored by the R. Bucke Society

in Montreal, Canada. Bucke was a Canadian psychiatrist who coined the term

cosmic consciousness. The society which bore his name was concerned with

religious and mystical states in which Bucke showed much interest, despite the

general disdain and scorn such matters still hold for many serious scientists.

At the meeting, after listening to various participants discuss some aspect

of the question, "Do Psychedelic Drugs have Religious Significance?" (see

Prince, 1969), I realized that the reality I reported on was quite a different one

than that of people who used such substances for mystical or religious pur-

poses. By the time I returned to Peru in June of 1968 to begin my ayahuasca

study, I sensed that if I were ever to go beyond the detachment that I had so

carefully cultivated, I would have to take ayahuasca myself.

Yet, as the months passed and opportunities presented themselves to try

ayahuasca, I still managed to avoid the experience. Finally, the time ap-

proached for me to leave Iquitos to participate in a symposium on "Hallucino-

gens and Shamanism," which was to be held at the American Anthropological

Association's annual meeting in Seattle, Washington. I knew that I would be

addressing a large group of my colleagues about a substance which in truth,

I had to admit I knew very little. Although I had been collecting data for

almost five months on ayahuasca, it was really just hearsay evidence. I often

had the smug feeling that I was the only sane person in an insane world.

Resolved then finally to take the purge, I decided first to take advantage of the

availability of a small dose of 100 micrograms of LSD, which my colleague

and I originally planned to give to the healers we worked with at the end of

our study. Unfortunately, this plan did not materialize, as legal production of

such substances was terminated. Nonetheless, I was able to take the LSD at

home under medical supervision, albeit in the comfort of my Iquitos house,

surrounded by the music I liked, with a friend as company and in the presence

of paintings, folk art, and flowers. Two weeks later I took an unknown dose

of ayahuasca mixed with chacruna (probably containing DMT) under the

supervision of don Antonio. My experience with LSD was simply one of the

most aesthetically rewarding experiences I have ever had in my life. Accom-

panied by eighteenth century harp music which seemed endless in its reception,

I could not really describe the aesthetic dimensions of the fast-moving

kaleideoscopic visions, although many medieval images probably invoked by

the quality of the music filled my vision. As the height of these pseudo-illusions

lessened, I found myself discussing who I was, what I was doing, what I

wanted from life, what life meant to me, and a series of questions that I hadn't

been concerned with since I was a teenager. I might point out that at the

beginning of the session, upon the advice of a friend, I decided to ponerme en

bianco--or simply, to flow with the force of the experience. From my readings

about drug experiments, I knew that a common feature of the "bad trip" was

the resistance that a person might offer in attempting to hold back or try to

control the drug's effects.

When I took ayahuasca, the previous LSD experience stood me in good

stead in that my book-learned expectations had been replaced by the real thing.

It was with enthusiastic expectation that I met don Antonio one Monday

night, along with my colleague, to take the ayahuasca brew that had been

prepared for me.

That evening in Belen, Antonio was even busier than usual, attending to the

many patients who came to him to be exorcised or treated for assorted ail-

ments. I sat patiently for over an hour, chatting with my colleague, Dr. Rios,

who had just returned from a brief trip to Lima. He was full of details about

the people we knew. Finally, Antonio led us through a maze of houses to a

distant reach of Venecia. where a friend of his allowed him to use his floating

balsa house for our session. Two other people were present, but I paid very

little attention to them in my nervousness.

We got comfortably seated on the floor of the house, and Antonio passed

the potion around. I noticed as I drank that Antonio, to be sure that the

"gringa" got her full share of visions, gave me a cup brim-full of the not so

pleasant-smelling liquid. Others who drank that night, in retrospect, seemed

to have been given a much smaller amount.

The following is an account of what happened.

About ten minutes later, feelings of strangeness came over my body and I

had difficulty in coordinating extremities. Quick-arriving visual forms and

movements hit before my eyes some twenty minutes after taking the drink, and

a certain amount of anxiety that was not difficult to handle was felt, especially

when Halloween-type demons in primary reds, greens and blues loomed large

and then receded before me. Very fast-moving imagery almost like Bosch's

paintings appeared, which at times were difficult to focus upon. At one point

after I touched the arm of my friend for reassurance, the primary colors

changed to flaming yellows and pinks, as a cornucopia full of warmth filled

the visions before my eyes and gave me a sort of peripheral vision extending

toward the person I had touched. Then in harmony with the healer's schacapa,

a series of leaf-faced visions appeared, while my eyes remained open. They

were followed by a full-length colored vision of a Peruvian woman, unknown

to me but sneering in my direction, which appeared before me. Then more

visions arrived, followed by heavy vomiting and diarrhea which lasted for

about three hours.

In New York, where I grew up, vomiting was hardly anything to celebrate,

and I remember my concern at the terrible noises I made with the "dry heaves"

that afflicted me. Yet, later on, when chatting with others, I realized that in

the rain forest, people periodically induced vomiting in their children so as to

purge them of the various parasitical illnesses which are rampant in the region.

My colleague told me later on that don Antonio in his subsequent healing

sessions would often refer to the gringa who had vomited heavily with aya-

huasca and the terrible noises she made. He even imitated me to the great

amusement of his audience.

Throughout the experience, any light was painful to my eyes. Time was

experienced as very slow-moving. After-effects included physical weakness for

a day or two, but a general sense of well-being and looseness in dealing with

others.

At this point, it might be interesting to examine some of my experiences

under ayahuasca, since my own lack of a cultural expectation toward the use

of such a substance gave me differing responses than those reported by the

informants with whom I worked, despite the fact that I had been collecting

data on informants' visions. No jungle creatures filled my vision, nor did I

experience the often-reported floating sensation. The visions I had contained

symbols of my own culture. The unknown woman who appeared to me in my

vision was dressed very much like the urban poor among whom I worked, but

she somehow looked more opulent and well-off than many of the near-starving

friends I had made in Belen. I remember my curiosity at her apparent dislike

of me and that she should behave in that manner, but I didn't pay much

attention to the vision nor did it change my mood at all. Later on, when telling

of my experiences to friends in Belen, some ventured that this woman who

appeared to me may have been responsible for a parasitic illness I developed

during the course of my work. I could see how people appearing before a sick

person might easily be linked to malice regardless of whether or not they are

known to the patient. Had I grown up in this society and received continual

conditioning toward a belief in magical source of sickness, it is quite probable

that I would have interpreted this vision as a revelation of who it was that

caused me to become ill.

When I took ayahuasca, I was unaware of the unwritten rule about not

touching another person. I was later told by the healer who guided my aya-

huasca session that I had received a double dose of the potion by touching

another person and magically had the experience of two doses. The vomiting

and diarrhea that afflicted me, thus, were my own fault for not following

precepts that were unknown to me. The Peruvian painter, Yando, whose arm

I touched during the session has prepared a series of drawings portraying the

visions he has had under the influence of ayahuasca. In addition, he has made

some ink drawings of the sessions, (see p. 70) which are difficult to photograph

because of the problem of pupilary dilation and painful light. That evening,

he had no visions from the purge.

The feelings of well-being that dodged my steps for several months after the

ayahuasca experience were one area, however, that did overlap with my infer-

mants reports. Many people agree that the ayahuasca experience stays with

them for a long time, relaxing them and making their dealings with others

somewhat more easy and fruitful.