Science and the Ayahuasca

Review of The antipodes of the mind: Charting the phenomenology of the Ayahuasca experience.

“And lastly, before leaving the village, I drank one cup alone. I was sitting on a balcony overlooking a garden. As the brew was having its effect, I started to sing. What poured out of my mouth was a biblical text — the beginning of the book of Genesis. I chanted, in Hebrew, the creation of the world. And as I did so, the world was being created in front of my eyes: there was water, and then land surfaced, and trees came out of the earth and flowered, and then the world was populated with birds. I stopped there, before the creation of animals.” (p. 7)

It didn’t start in the Sixties. While many people think of drug experiences as something that blossomed a How should we understand the person’s experience of the drugs effect? few decades ago in the West, in fact native peoples in many parts of the world have been “turning on, tuning in, and dropping out” for millennia. In the Vedas it was called soma, in early Europe it was mead and mushrooms, in the Middle East hashish, in the upper Amazon Ayahuasca. William James used nitrous oxide; Aldous Huxley psylocybin.

Scientists have never quite known how to deal with mind-altering drugs. Yes, they have spectacular effects, often related to basic brain molecules. Marijuana led to anandamide, one of the fundamental neurotransmitters. Cocaine acts like a neuropeptide, and morphine mimics the endorphins, which give feelings of comfort and pleasure. LSD is a close molecular neighbor of serotonin, the neurochemical of dreams.

But how to understand what is most important to the person taking a drug, their own experience? It is fantastically complicated, difficult to verify, variable between subjects, and liable to change from moment to moment even in one user’s experience.

Then there are ethical and legal questions. Freud as a young doctor was a pioneer in cocaine studies, and was roundly criticized for giving the drug too freely. He used it himself and gave it to friends. All drugs are dangerous in overdose, and it is often difficult to find out what is an overdose without years of research, costing millions of dollars. For plant-based drugs like Ayahuasca (ai-a-h-wa-ska), the active ingredients are often unknown. Supplies may be unreliable, effects may change from sample to sample, drug interactions can occur, and some people may have special vulnerabilities. It is well-established that expectations and context can profoundly shape the experience people have with drugs. And is it ethical to give an unknown drug to people who cannot give informed consent, because no one knows what may happen?

Given these formidable obstacles, Benny Shanon has done as good a job in studying Ayahuasca as I can imagine. Shanon is a cognitive psychologist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and deeply interested in human consciousness. “Professionally,” he writes, “what drew me first and foremost to the mystery of Ayahuasca was reading that with this brew many people see snakes and jaguars. As a cognitive psychologist, I was baffled: How could it be that different people see the same things in their visions? … Snakes and jaguars seem to be just too specific to define cognitive universals.” (p. 7)

“Ayahuasca,” he begins, “is a psychoactive brew consumed throughout the entire upper Amazon region. The term is a Quechua compound meaning ‘vine of the (dead) spirits.’ … Typically, Ayahuasca induces powerful visions as well as hallucinations … personal insights, intellectual ideations, affective reactions, and profound spiritual and mystical experiences. … Those who consume it may feel that … the mysteries and ultimate truths of the universe are being revealed to them. All this is often coupled with what drinkers describe as an encounter with the Divine.” (p. 13)

On the negative side, people who take the brew commonly feel sick, throw up, and fear they are going mad or dying. The bravery of its users is remarkable. Yet Shanon has taken it more than a hundred times, The mysteries and ultimate truths of the universe are being revealed mostly in the company of indigenous people familiar with the Ayahuasca as part of ceremonial cults. These have probably existed for many centuries. Shanon has conducted many interviews with experienced users and some novices. His book provides a unique mix of participant-observer notes, facts about the anthropology, botany and chemistry of Ayahuasca, and most of all, a very extensive cognitive taxonomy of the experiences drinkers commonly report.

“My own belief,” writes Shanon “is that there is no alternative to studying phenomenology from within. The experiences that Ayahuasca induces are extraordinary in the full sense of the term, and many are ineffable. There is no way to really appreciate what they are without experiencing them firsthand. After all, would anyone venture to study music without actually experiencing how music sounds?” (p. 32)

This is cognitive psychology as systematic phenomenology. It is unusual, and yet, Shanon’s example of music seems compelling. Who could possibly understand music without experiencing it? It makes sense to combine all our sources, public and personal, to try to learn more about human consciousness.

(It is interesting that philosophical phenomenology does not do any of this exploration of consciousness; it is clearly an unfilled niche.)

Ayahuasca is actually a mixture of two plants. The active ingredients are believed to be the alkaloid DMT — a potent hallucinogen — and MAO inhibitors including harmine. The interaction between the two keeps the hallucinogen from being degraded by body enzymes. Consuming either one alone results in little or no effect.

In its indigenous setting Ayahuasca is considered to be an entire education, according to Shanon. A single experience only begins the path. Some of this attitude has spread around the world, and commercial “Ayahuasca tours” are now available. Shanon has mixed feelings about such metaphysical tourism, believing that the native culture is important in shaping the experience and keeping it safe.

Which brings us back to Shanon’s original question. It would be odd indeed if a chemical induced specific It would be odd indeed if a chemical induced specific cultural visions cultural visions — images of jaguars, snakes, and cheetahs. Such specificity is not known for any other brain chemical. Yet Shanon suggests that Ayahuasca may indeed be a gateway to Meso-American imagery.

In Shanon’s very first Ayahuasca experience:

“Along with the other men, I drank and went along pounding (twigs of wood). All of a sudden, the forest was aflame. I closed my eyes, I opened them — and it was just the same: fire all around. From the fire emerged dragons. They were terrifying, with glaring eyes, erupting tongues, shining teeth, and triangular protrusions on their backs. … Then something else happened — the twigs I was pounding turned into snakes. The experience was horrendous. … now the pounding became an act of killing. …” (pp. 6-7)

Users sometimes find themselves transformed into an animal: an eagle, condor, or jaguar. Anyone familiar Ayahuasca really a carrier of specific animal images? We must be skeptical. with native American art and lore will instantly recognize these images. The idea of animal transformation may be part of shamanic teaching in many parts of the world. It is even common in the contemporary Latin American literary school called magical realism.

But is Ayahuasca really a carrier of specific animal images? We must be skeptical. Ayahuasca users do not seem to report animals they do not know, like camels. Benny Shanon himself must have known about the sculpture and folk art of Central America before he had his first animal vision. Mayan and Incan art is full of snakes, jaguars and eagles.

To test the hypothesis one would have to conduct an Ayahuasca experiment in, say, Norway. If Scandinavians without any experience of Native American art see jaguars and snakes in their Ayahuasca visions, it would be spectacular indeed. Since there is no ethical way to conduct such an experiment, we will not know the answer for some time.

© 2003 BJ Baars

References

1. Benny Shanon (2002) The antipodes of the mind: Charting the phenomenology of the Ayahuasca experience. London: Oxford University Press.