Ayahuasca

Chacruna

Ayahuasca
(Banisteriopsis caapi – Psychotria viridis)

We believe that we have to tell about the Ayahuasca that we are under the obligation to mention that this Sacred Beverage has been used during thousands of years by our ancestors and that our Incan forefathers knew its use as a tool for mankind´s inner and spiritual development.

AYAHUASKA is a word in the RUNASIMI or Quechua; a language used in Incan times and the literal translation of that word is: “Death´s Rope”, although its true connotation is of spiritual origin and could be interpreted as: “Channel to the Invisible World”.

After Manco Inca´s 50 years of war and resistance during the 16^th century, part of the Incas went to the jungle. Since then and for a long time, the use of the Ayahuaska was limited to the Amazonian world, where the beverage had already been used for thousands of years by different ethnic groups existing in that region.

During centuries, the use of Ayahuaska remained almost unknown in the rest of the world, ´till the Amazonian region was colonized by the “mestizos” (crossbreeds) and even more so when the rubber rush came along, followed by gold and crude oil hunters and this is how villages of settlers started to take shape and they learned about the medicine through natives.

During the 20^th century, the use of the Ayahuaska has been adopted in a variety of cultural assimilations and therefore, in new ways of consuming it.

The Occidental culture had its first encounters with Ayahuaska half way through the 19^th century, thanks to the Ecuadorian Manuel Villavicencio and the British Richard Spruce and it is by the mid 20^th century that the beverage´s main alkaloids were isolated and it is only recently, after the 60´s, that Occidentals started to use the ayahuasca as a tool for the exploration of consciousness. Since then, its use is ever broader and even is the object of several scientific studies. Psychiatrists have experimented with Ayahuaska in a variety of treatments, such as in therapy for the rehabilitation of drug addicts, for example.

The Ayahuaska is a medicine that works on different levels: It is a purge that cleanses the body from its toxins. It also frees the mind from different psychological traumas and is a tool to work on mankind´s inner development. Diets are very important in the use of Ayahuaska and during ceremonies, is indispensable the presence of a Master Healer who knows how to use the “icaros” or Sacred Healing Chants to which he has access through the use of the Master Plant.

Since ancestral times, the Ayahuaska´s preparation has been essentially performed with two plants: The Ayahuaska vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) and the Chakruna (Psychotria viridis). In accordance with present scientific studies, the altered states of consciousness the Ayahuasca leads us to, are due to the interaction of two substances contained in the plants which the medicine is being prepared with; one is harmalina which is found in the vine and the dimetiltriptamina or DMT that is found in the Chakruna. There are detailed references on scientific studies in Jonathan Ott´s book: Pharmacoteon. These studies have shown as a result the apparition of the Ana-Huaska (analogue to Ayahuaska), which is the mixture of several plants which, on one hand, contain harmalina and on the other, DMT; although it is important to indicate that the mere ingestion of the solution obtained by the plant mixture is not sufficient to achieve healing results and that the participation of a Healer is necessary, as the knowledge he or she has of the use of the Master Plant, is fundamental, along with the optimum direction of a ceremony, due to the ritual´s therapeutic importance.

The Ayahuasca is an ancestral medicine which, in some occasions, has the faculty of connecting some human beings with powers of the Spiritual Collective Consciousness, giving them access to primordial images or archetypes which influence humanity´s most ancient, general and deep thoughts, as they are as much related with feelings as with thoughts. Furthermore, they possess something like their own independent life, as would that sort of partial soul that is described in all philosophical and Gnostic systems based on the perception of Higher Consciousness as the Source of Knowledge, as in Rudolf Steiner´s Anthroposophic Science of the Spirit, the representation of Angels, Archangels, Thrones and Dominations in Saint Paul´s writings, of the Archons in ancient Greece and Realms of Light for the Gnostics, as well as of the Celestial Hierarchy in Dionisio Aeropagita, etc. All of these proceed from the perception of the relative independence of the Archetypes and dominating beings who evolve in Superior Realms and influence mankind´s Spiritual Collective Consciousness.

According to Carl Gustav Jung´s definition, the collective unconscious mind or Collective Spiritual Consciousness is the powerful spiritual heirloom of humanity´s development that is born again and again in each individual´s cerebral structure. Appreciating the unconscious psyche and valuing it to the point of judging it as worthy of being a source of knowledge, is definitely not as illusory as the Occidental rationalism pretends it to be, as it tends to suppose that all knowledge comes from outside. But today, we know for sure that the unconscious mind possesses contents that, if we could make them conscious, would represent an immense increase in knowledge. If we consider that the ancient cultures and even the most primitive among them used dreams and visions as sources of knowledge, we then understand why the ancient conception attributed Superior and even Divine Knowledge to the Soul. In fact, the unconscious mind disposes of subliminal perceptions whose range and extension reach wonders. In their primitive state, dreams and visions, within the adequate recognition of that state of fact, are contemplated as sources of important information. Since the remotest times, powerful cultures arose on that psychological basis, like the Indian (from India) and Chinese which philosophically and practically elaborated the path of inner knowledge, down to its most minor details. This is why the Ayahuasca, as it has the power of giving access to these dominating faculties of the collective unconscious mind, can be considered as a most important tool for self-knowledge and as an option for humanity´s spiritual development.