"Indigenous and Religious Uses of Ayahuasca and Protocols for Study"
About the lecture:
For thousands of years, indigenous religions throughout the Amazon basin have used psychoactive substances that alter the state of consciousness. The word ayahuasca comes from the Quechua language and is often translated as “vine of the soul” or “vine of the dead” because of the belief that when consumed, it provides access to invisible worlds. Different from other psychoactive plants also regarded as sacred by indigenous peoples such as peyote or psilocybin, ayahuasca is not consumed as a single plant, but as a concoction that combines the vine Banisteriopsis caapi with any of more than 90 other plants. In recent decades, the brew has also attracted the interest of biomedical researchers in Brazil and far beyond, with particular interest regarding its healing properties. This attention began to recognize what indigenous people have proclaimed for centuries: the vine has curative power. However, the indigenous and religious ceremonies involving ayahuasca challenges the idea of the power of the isolated molecule DMT, since the setting of consumption seems to affect the results.
This lecture will discuss the indigenous and religious use of ayahuasca for healing, especially in the Church of Santo Daime, a Brazilian religion that emerged in the early 20th century and fused Catholicism with indigenous and African traditions. Remarks will focus on how ritual healing happens, the ritualistic preparation of the brew, the role of music, visionary and auditory experiences, and the communal setting. Of special interest to researchers today is the challenge of operationalizing research on the potential benefits of ayahuasca. Scientific protocol presumes the priority of laboratory conditions for the study of the drug, meaning that its use is isolated from the lived setting of religious practice. Are there disjunctures between religious practice and scientific inquiry that need to be addressed?