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Psychedelic Science 2023
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Plant Medicine
History and archeology of psilocybin mushrooms in Mesoamerica
Osiris Sinuhé González Romero
Plant Medicine
Mazatec Sacred Mushrooms & Psychedelic Capitalism
Nicholas Spiers
Plant Medicine
Baseline predictors of acute ayahuasca effects among people attending ceremonial retreats in Costa Rica: A preliminary analysis from a longitudinal study
Yitong Xin
Plant Medicine
Potentialities and Challenges of Ayahuasca in the Psychedelic Renaissance
Henrique Fernandes Antunes
Plant Medicine
A Huni Kuin perspective on the Globalization of Ayahuasca
Leopardo Yawa Bane
Plant Medicine
Dismantling the Myth of “Mother Ayahuasca”
Emily Sinclair
Plant Medicine
BioGnosis: Building Bridges: Connecting Science and Ancestral Wisdom
Dennis J McKenna
Plant Medicine
Assessing Syncretic Ayahuasca Practices Globally: Results from a multi-site cohort study of ayahuasca drinkers in non-tribal contexts
Saleena Subaiya
Plant Medicine
Buddhism and Plant medicine; An Acceleration of Insight and Healing
Spring Washam
Plant Medicine
Intercultural entheogenic medicine in the treatment of addictions and other mental health challenges
Anja Loizaga-Velder
Plant Medicine
Choreographing re-membrance: The Santo Daime bailado as danced epistemology
Ana Flecha
Plant Medicine
Ayahuasca-assisted addiction treatment in Peru: results, challenges, and promises from a multi-year, mixed-methods study at Takiwasi Center
Olivia Marcus
Plant Medicine
Investigating the health outcomes of ceremonial ayahuasca use in refugees and immigrants
Matthew X Lowe
Plant Medicine
Wonder and Healing at an Ayahuasca Healing Centre, Peru
Alex K Gearin
Plant Medicine
Sacred Plant Alliance: The Mission and Vision of a Self-Regulating Association of Psychedelic Churches
Robert Heffernan
,
Bob Otis
Plant Medicine
Peyote History and Politics in Mexico
Nidia A Olvera Hernández
Plant Medicine
Opening Address - Plant Medicine Thursday
Lorien Chaves
,
Alejandra Barabas
Plant Medicine
Comparative Conspirituality: A Decolonial Approach From the Global South
Speakers
Plant Medicine
Plant medicine and reciprocity
Joseph Mays
,
Marlena Robbins
Plant Medicine
Appropriation, appreciation, and right relationship
Sutton King
,
Claude Guislain
,
Sandor Iron Rope
Plant Medicine
Can modern psychedelic medicine take lessons from the plant medicine traditions?
Jerónimo Mazarrasa
Plant Medicine
Osiris Sinuhé González Romero
History and archeology of psilocybin mushrooms in Mesoamerica
This talk aims to show a brief overview of the archeological and historical evidence regarding the use of psilocybin mushrooms in Mesoamerica, especially among the Maya, Mixtecs, and Aztecs. This research includes the study of primary sources such as codices, ceramics, sculptures, lithic artifacts, and even colonial manuscripts in a chronological timeline to achieve a better understanding. The goal of this talk is not to provide a dogmatic truth due to the controversial character of the archeological records. Its purpose is to stimulate interpretations supported by scientific evidence and a humanistic approach. This interdisciplinary research requires the implementation of different methodologies such as iconography, historiography, and hermeneutics. This talk is part of broader research that aims to analyze, from a cross-cultural perspective, the ritual, therapeutic and philosophical uses of psychedelic mushrooms. Keywords: Psychedelic, Mushrooms, History, Archeology, Mesoamerica.
Plant Medicine
Nicholas Spiers
Mazatec Sacred Mushrooms & Psychedelic Capitalism
This presentation will compare and contrast conceptions of psilocybin mushrooms found in the research, cultures and burgeoning industries of the Global North, with those common to people in the Mazatec region of Southern Mexico, where this knowledge first arose. Despite this historical lineage, what sacred mushrooms are for many Mazatec people; what they’re called upon to do; and the worlds and world views underlying their power, often exist in opposition to the ways psilocybin proliferates in the capitalist dynamics of psychedelic industry. This talk will examine the ways the commercialization of the sacred is affecting Indigenous communities and Mazatec shamanism, and explore possible ways to redress the continuing legacies of colonialism and betrayal underpinning the psychedelic renaissance.
Plant Medicine
Yitong Xin
Baseline predictors of acute ayahuasca effects among people attending ceremonial retreats in Costa Rica: A preliminary analysis from a longitudinal study
Very little is known about baseline predictors of acute ayahuasca effects. This aim of this study is to explore demographic and psychological characteristics as predictors of acute spiritual, psychological, and physical effects of ayahuasca. Method: Data include baseline/pre-retreat (BL) and one-week post-retreat follow-up (T2) from an ongoing longitudinal prospective cohort study of people attending an ayahuasca retreat in Costa Rica (N=53; Mean age=40.15, SD=10.93; female=60.4%; White=86.8%). Descriptive analyses, Pearson correlations, and paired samples t-tests were conducted for this preliminary data analysis. Results: Identifying as non-Hispanic (r=.29; p=.034) and being employed full-time (r=-.28; p=.040) were correlated with higher ratings of acute emotional breakthrough. Next, having an intention that included treatment of a mental health condition was significantly correlated with higher levels of psychological insight (r=.34; p=.012) at T2, and those with an intention for having a spiritual experience at BL was significantly correlated with higher levels of mystical experience (r=.43; p=.001) and psychological insight (r=.52; p<.001) at T2. Third, higher levels of expecting improvements from the ayahuasca experience at BL, was positively correlated with acute mystical experience (r=.35; p=.010), psychological insight (r=.30; p=.031), and emotional breakthrough (r=.32; p=.018), and greater openness to experiences was positively correlated with intensity of mystical experience (r=.31; p=.023), and emotional breakthrough (r=.29; p=.036). Conclusions: These findings suggest several important baseline features which might predict the acute effects of ayahuasca in ceremonial retreat setting. Specifically, one’s intention for the experience, expectancy about drug effects, and level of openness to experience all emerged as significant predictors. Future research should explore the importance of these features in laboratory studies using rigorous controlled designs.
Plant Medicine
Henrique Fernandes Antunes
Potentialities and Challenges of Ayahuasca in the Psychedelic Renaissance
As ayahuasca goes mainstream, many dilemmas emerge, such as sexual abuse by some ayahuasqueros, the commodification of sacred plants, the sanitization of traditional practices, and the local impacts of ayahuasca tourism. Conversely, there are also legitimate claims, such as the Indigenous reciprocity initiative, the need for decolonial philanthropy, and the importance of religious freedom for ayahuasca. In light of this, this presentation will draw attention to ayahuasca’s history and sociocultural aspects and the importance of promoting critical thinking, cultural understanding, and legitimacy around the topic of sacred plants and cultural traditions. The goal is to present some of the main current perspectives on research, the recent controversies on the public debate, and more importantly, the challenges that Indigenous peoples, traditional populations, and religious groups face in the world ayahuasca diaspora.
Plant Medicine
Leopardo Yawa Bane
A Huni Kuin perspective on the Globalization of Ayahuasca
I am a representative of the Huni Kuin Indigenous people in the state of Acre. Traditional Brazilian communities have been using ayahuasca (Nixi Pae) as a medicinal plant for thousands of years. Since the creation myths, my people have been using ayahuasca that was received by the creator, Yuxibu. Today, the Huni Kuin continue to hold ceremonies with the sacred. Ayahuasca for my people brings an opening of knowledge, wisdom, and spirituality in our tradition and culture. Ayahuasca brings our consciousness, our awakening about the forest, about the world of cosmology, geometry, and of the Kene and Boa. This path we follow was taught by our grandfathers. The nature of Indigenous peoples is linked to mother earth, the forest, the animals, the creation between heaven and earth, the spirits and spirit world, and to the whole cosmology. Indigenous peoples were the first to use ayahuasca for spiritual purposes, for healing and connections to the forest and nature. However, it has been expanding outside of their villages. Among Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, there has been increasing interest in the culture, customs, and use of ayahuasca. More Indigenous people are traveling around the world, especially in Europe, where they teach about their culture, perform shamanic practices, and expand the use of ayahuasca to the West. A lot of shamanic groups, healers, and shamans have also appeared expanding this use of ayahuasca in the metropolis of big cities. There have been non-Indigenous people going to the villages and bringing Indigenous knowledge to cities in the form of shamanism or holistic and alternative therapies. I myself have been traveling the world for several years and feel privileged by the experiences I have had, which until recently would have been impossible. While expansion of ayahuasca and Indigenous culture is something that I support, there are still many concerns. My main worry is that my people and our culture will be forgotten as more Westerners are introduced to ayahuasca in foreign contexts, and that its original meaning and guardians may be lost. I believe that the problem with ayahuasca is a human rights issue. As an Indigenous representative from the Amazon forest, I want to present my views on the ongoing globalization of ayahuasca and how we might move forward together on this issue. This is all especially relevant after Bolsonaro’s administration which negatively impacted Indigenous peoples, reaffirming a colonial mindset that sees the Amazon forest as a resource to be explored. Indigenous peoples are aware and want a say in the politics of reform. In the case of ayahuasca, this is the main agenda in the discussion of the current drug policy reform.
Plant Medicine
Emily Sinclair
Dismantling the Myth of “Mother Ayahuasca”
Within Western circles the spirit of ayahuasca is referred to as “Mother Ayahuasca”, usually considered the benevolent healing spirit of the vine. Yet, this characterization of ayahuasca is a relatively recent phenomenon that has occurred through the commodification of ayahuasca as a purely healing substance and entity for the Western audience. Evidence from long-term research in Iquitos, Peru, the global epicenter of the commercial ayahuasca industry reveals that encounters with ‘Mother Ayahuasca’ within ceremonial spaces are rare. Perceptions of ayahuasca as a benevolent mother spirit are shaped and reinforced through socialization within touristic retreat settings and wider community contexts. The popularity of the figure of ‘Mother Ayahuasca’ among the western audience is associated with their spiritual, healing and ecological concerns including anti-religious tendencies and a widespread preference for earth based spiritual practice involving reverence for ‘Mother Earth’ and the ‘Divine Feminine’. The eco feminist and spiritual and counterculture movement ten to glorify “Mother Ayahuasca” and the feminine as a reaction against patriarchy. Yet, ayahuasqueros and apprentices largely view the ayahuasca spirit as capable of manifesting in male or female form, and furthermore, as being a shamanic ally within brujería (sorcery/witchcraft). As part of curandismo (healing) practices traditionally and to the present day, ayahuasca use involves contact with ‘dark’ and ‘light’. Yet the division between ‘dark’ and ‘light’ or brujería and medicina is not gendered within Amazonian ayahuasca shamanism. This presentation invites us to re-think our gender divisions and stereotypes and learn Amazonian perspectives that point to a more nuanced approach where male and female, and ‘dark’ and ‘light’ are dynamic, shifting dualities.
Plant Medicine
Dennis J McKenna
BioGnosis: Building Bridges: Connecting Science and Ancestral Wisdom
Dennis J. McKenna, Ph.D. has conducted research in ethnopharmacology for over 40 years. He is a founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute, and was a key investigator on the Hoasca Project, the first biomedical investigation of ayahuasca. He is the younger brother of Terence McKenna. From 2000 to 2017, he taught courses on Ethnopharmacology and Plants in Human affairs as an adjunct Assistant Professor in the Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota.
Plant Medicine
Saleena Subaiya
Assessing Syncretic Ayahuasca Practices Globally: Results from a multi-site cohort study of ayahuasca drinkers in non-tribal contexts
Ayahuasca is a psychoactive tea brewed from the Amazonian plants, Banisteriopsis caapi with either Psychotria viridis or Diplopterys cabrerana, with recent trials demonstrating promise in treating depression, managing grief, and improving overall well-being. In the last three decades, ritual ayahuasca use has expanded to most urban centers throughout the world, with hundreds of participants estimated to be taking ayahuasca every night in the United States for addressing anxiety and depression. More information is needed regarding the therapeutic impact of naturalistic ayahuasca use on behavioral health outcomes.
Plant Medicine
Spring Washam
Buddhism and Plant medicine; An Acceleration of Insight and Healing
In this groundbreaking talk, dharma, and meditation teacher Spring Washam will share her insights, wisdom, and stories through years of practice combining Ayahuasca with Buddhist based philosophy. From the jungles in Peru to the Himalayas her unique journey of fusing two powerful ancient traditions offers us a new pathway to accelerate our awakening process and help us to restore our basic sanity and innate goodness. She will share transformative heart practices, integrative tools, and skillful ways to walk the eight-fold, medicine path ethically.
Plant Medicine
Anja Loizaga-Velder
Intercultural entheogenic medicine in the treatment of addictions and other mental health challenges
The use of naturally occurring entheogens for cultural, religious, and therapeutic purposes is widely documented in traditional medicine practices of the Americas. Preliminary evidence suggests that the ritual use of such compounds in appropriately structured contexts, such as those offered in authentic Indigenous medicine practices and appropriately structured modern therapeutic adaptations, can provide beneficial effects for the treatment of substance use-related disorders, as well as various other psycho-emotional conditions. In an effort to making the benefits of entheogen assisted treatments more accessible for Indigenous communities, some of which have lost the access to these medicines, our team has supported Indigenous initiatives for the creation of a intercultural clinic in the Yaqui tribe in Sonora, Mexico, the Otomi tribe in the State of Mexico and the Bloodvein First Nations community in Manitoba Canada, where such entheogens of natural origin are applied in the context of traditional Indigenous medicine. These interventions are complemented by a multidisciplinary therapeutic program and community activities to treat substance use disorders and other mental health challenges. Using an observational study design the Entheogen Treatment Outcome Project (ENTOP) is in the process of community engagement, program implementation and evaluation of the effectiveness, safety and cultural implications of these applications. Preliminary results of this study will be presented, along with case studies and reflections of learnings from these pilot projects for further development of fields of intercultural medicine and psychedelic medicine.
Plant Medicine
Ana Flecha
Choreographing re-membrance: The Santo Daime bailado as danced epistemology
The ayahuasca religion Santo Daime was founded in the Brazilian Amazon forest in the 1930s and is now practiced in more than forty countries. Central to the Santo Daime practice is a dance called the bailado, an important aspect of Santo Daime's unique approach to engagement with a psychoactive medicine. Mobilizing an analysis of the Santo Daime bailado through the field of dance studies, I work with the theory that choreography both presents and influences socio-cultural and epistemological values of a given people, place or time. I theorize that Santo Daime practitioners re-member themselves through participation in the bailado, recalling identities associated with forests and oceans through dance. Through this kinesthetic identification with major bodies of the natural world, knowledge systems that value these living memories are mobilized, providing practitioners with opportunities to cultivate a personal-collective, ecologically oriented sense of self. I suggest that the Santo Daime bailado provides a subjectively different kind of opportunity for healing and learning than those experienced through clinical, therapeutic models, and that the field of psychedelic studies stands to benefit by not only including more diverse perspectives, but by engaging with more diverse knowledge systems within the field.
Plant Medicine
Olivia Marcus
Ayahuasca-assisted addiction treatment in Peru: results, challenges, and promises from a multi-year, mixed-methods study at Takiwasi Center
Ayahuasca, a traditional Amazonian medicine, has shown promise for the treatment of substance use and other mental disorders. Takiwasi Center is an accredited Peruvian therapeutic community (TC) offering an ayahuasca-assisted addiction treatment program combining elements of traditional Amazonian medicine (e.g., plant diets, purges), individual and group therapies, and Catholic-based ritual. The Ayahuasca Treatment Outcome Project is a longitudinal mixed-methods evaluation of outcomes among inpatients who attended this residential program. Participants completed semi-structured interviews and a battery of validated measures including two baseline-only measures that assessed mental health comorbidity and treatment motivation. Outcome measures included the ASI (V5), BAI, BDI, and the WHOQOL-BREF, among others. Structured interviews were conducted at intake, during program, discharge, and at 3, 6, 12, and 24 months post-discharge. Interviews included several semi-structured questions as well as Likert rating scales to assess perceived usefulness of different aspects of the program and overall satisfaction. In this talk we discuss outcomes at 12 and 24 month follow-up, with attention to the methodological challenges of conducting research on a complex psychedelic-assisted substance use health intervention. In addition to methodological concerns, we address and reflect on the complicated role of researchers and our relationships with the clinical institutions that we study.
Plant Medicine
Matthew X Lowe
Investigating the health outcomes of ceremonial ayahuasca use in refugees and immigrants
Refugees and immigrants experience complex stressors from the process of immigration that can have lasting and severe long-term mental health consequences. Ayahuasca is a natural plant-based psychoactive brew traditionally used in ceremonies throughout the Western Amazon basin. Experiences after ayahuasca ingestion are often likened to intense psychotherapy, leading ayahuasca to have strong potential as a treatment for trauma and related disorders. However, data on the health impact of naturalistic ceremonial ayahuasca use is limited. The current longitudinal study was conducted to gather prospective data on ceremonial ayahuasca use in a group of primarily female immigrants and refugees and to provide further insight into the patterns and outcomes surrounding that use. Our findings revealed ceremonial use of ayahuasca is associated with significant and persisting improvements in mental health, well-being, and psychological functioning, as well as notable positive behavioral changes lasting at least 3-4 months following ingestion.
Plant Medicine
Alex K Gearin
Wonder and Healing at an Ayahuasca Healing Centre, Peru
Ayahuasca is a wondrous thing. It is remarkable that a brew of plants can temporarily turn sounds into visions, give aromatic fumes the power to saturate the whole body, and open visionary worlds that illuminate with a vividness more pronounced than ordinary sight. I undertake an ethnographic study at an Shipibo led ayahuasca retreat center in Pucallpa, Peru, and examine how wonder relates to the practices of healing that take place at the retreat. I explore how wonder is an epistemic mood that emerges through an intercultural production of ontological crisis. While some types of wonder are seemingly crucial to the goals and procedures of healing and personal transformation, other latent sources of wonder do not arouse interest. The talk demonstrates how the constitution of wonder at the ayahuasca retreat perturbs ontological commitments while reinforcing existing social, economic, and ethical relations between global guests and Indigenous healers.
Plant Medicine
Robert Heffernan
,
Bob Otis
Sacred Plant Alliance: The Mission and Vision of a Self-Regulating Association of Psychedelic Churches
Since 2019, the Sacred Plant Alliance (SPA) has grown as a self-regulating organization and professional association of religious and spiritual practitioners dedicated to the advancement of the ceremonial use of psychedelic sacraments within the United States. Its mission is to facilitate the collaboration of spiritual communities across the United States in developing and upholding best standards of practice with these sacred medicines, and in advancing legal protections under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). SPA was originally incubated by Chacruna and in many ways has grown out of Chacruna’s efforts in community organizing and education around best practices. In this panel, representatives from SPA will discuss SPA’s vision as an alliance of churches invested in mutual support, accountability, and strengthening self-regulation in the larger plant medicine community.
Plant Medicine
Nidia A Olvera Hernández
Peyote History and Politics in Mexico
This presentation focuses on the uses, conceptions and policies of the plant Lophophora williamsii in México from a historical and anthropological perspective. We will move through the first prohibition of peyote in the Americas from 1620–in which the religious practices and rituals of the Indigenous population began to be considered as superstitions and associated with the demonic by the Inquisition–continuing with the mention of the first literary, traveler and anthropological writings that were interested in this psychoactive cactus. We will explore scientific studies produced in Mexico during the 19th and 20th centuries on peyote and its relationship with the history of peyote in other latitudes, in order to make visible the psychedelic studies of the historical knowledge that have been produced from the Global South. There will also be an analysis of the more recent anthropological representations on the ritual, legal, medicinal and religious practices of the Indigenous populations with this cactus. The presentation will conclude with a reflection about the current controversies surrounding including the legal status of peyote in Mexico, its prohibited status at the federal level and risk of extinction, which has led to resistance to the possibility of its regulation and conservation.
Plant Medicine
Lorien Chaves
,
Alejandra Barabas
Opening Address - Plant Medicine Thursday
Recent efforts to situate psychedelics in the current medical system have necessarily introduced mediating factors into the psychedelic experience. Another tradition of use exists, however, which seeks a direct relationship with plants and fungi themselves. What benefits, challenges, and mysteries emerge from this approach? Come learn from the explorers and wisdom keepers cultivating personal, non-mediated relationships with plant medicines.
Plant Medicine
Speakers
Comparative Conspirituality: A Decolonial Approach From the Global South
If you take a quick stroll through forums discussing spirituality on social media, you will come across “quantum trainers” and “holistic therapists” who warn of grand conspiracies that keep you asleep while offering you an awakening to reality. A flurry of virtual gurus sound the alarm about the Great Reset, the New World Order, the creation of viruses in laboratories, and the danger of 5G technology, while pointing the way out via reconnection with nature and spirituality, through strengthening “natural immunity,” tantra, sphincter sunbathing, psychedelics, and rituals from the far corners of the globe. The amalgamation of spiritualist practices with anti-scientific and extreme right-wing worldviews was defined by the term “conspirituality,” coined and discussed by authors from the Global North, and representing a very particular form of overlap of political cynicism and spiritual optimism. Although Eurocentric, the phenomenon of conspirituality also exists in Latin America. However, in these countries, it presents itself mainly as a phenomenon imported from the white West. This presentation will reflect on this phenomenon from a decolonial perspective coming from the Global South. It will try to identify the historical origins of conspirituality, the reasons why it has emerged today as a relevant actor in the Western psychedelic landscape, the differences and connections of its manifestation in the Global North and South, its relation to cultural appropriation and to the contemporary New Age market, and the role of internet social networks in the emergence and boosting of the phenomenon.
Plant Medicine
Joseph Mays
,
Marlena Robbins
Plant medicine and reciprocity
This panel will look at the use of “reciprocity” in response to the colonial structures of increasingly globalized plant medicine spaces. We will address issues surrounding disparate participation in the so-called “psychedelic renaissance” between communities in the Global North (GN) and Global South (GS), focusing on Indigenous peoples’ status in a psychedelic ecosystem consisting of diverse stakeholders with different ontological frameworks. The panelists will analyze political, economic, ecological and cultural relationships to gain a better understanding of what reciprocity means in the current context, taking a biocultural approach in the pursuit of effective advocacy and education. Partnerships between investors in the GN and GS communities often function to re-create and reinforce exploitative dynamics; we will discuss the causes and implications of impoverished economic settings where cultural resources are commodified, considering the inherent limitations of capitalist market-based models for access and benefit-sharing agreements, whether non-profit, corporate or non-governmental organizations. As psychedelic science grapples with the relational world of diverse beings Indigenous plant medicine refers to, we engage in a modest and mindful exercise to re-think and explore the possibilities of decolonization in the psychedelic space. With this insight, we will begin moving away from cynicism and helplessness towards embodying reciprocity in all our work.
Plant Medicine
Sutton King
,
Claude Guislain
,
Sandor Iron Rope
Appropriation, appreciation, and right relationship
Interest in traditional medicines continues to grow, with more and more outsiders seeking to engage with indigenous communities and their practices. However, these interactions often cause more harm than good, although rarely intended. How can people learn about and engage with traditional cultures from a place of respect and contribution?