Contents
For thousands of years, the Amazonian indigenous people have been using plant-based entheogenic Holy Medicine to cure physical, mental, and spiritual misalignment prepared from the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine as the main ingredient, and with various admixtures added for various purposes worldwide. Though the origin of Holy Medicine is still shrouded in mystery, the Holy Medicine of the Holy and Divine Mother Ayahuasca has slowly been introduced to the whole world and now the Holy Medicine has spread worldwide. Below are some of the most significant events which has helped introduced the Holy Medicine to the world, beyond the Amazonian indigenous communities:
1648 to 1768 – first written reports of the Holy Medicine by the Jesuit Missionaries
The earliest written account of the Holy Medicine has been a description by the Jesuit missionaries when historian Jose Chantre y Herrera compiled a report in the eighteenth century, based upon accounts from missionaries from 1648 – 1698, which included a description of a Sacred Ceremony where the Holy Medicine was consumed.
He reported that the Holy Medicine was being used by a Shaman in the Marañón region in Peru for summoning spirits. The shaman led a Sacred Ceremony, singing from a large communal hut and thereafter ‘consuming’ the Holy Medicine to invite the spirit’s presence. The Holy Medicine’s initial effects were described as including a rise in aggression, which would eventually subside and leave the shaman in a deep trance, during which it was believed his soul would depart from his body and the invited spirit would speak through him. After the whole ordeal ended, the Shaman would reveal what he had learned to others in the community.
Chantre y Herrera painted a very negative picture of the Holy Medicine. As Luna and White pointed out, the “object of his history was to present the Jesuit mission in the most heroic light”. Naturally, he described the indigenous people as liars, sorcerers etc.
In 1737, the second recorded report of the Holy Medicine was made by one of the Jesuit missionaries, priest Pablo Maroni, along the Napo River and its tributary the Aguarico River. He described “an intoxicating potion ingested for divinatory and other purposes and called Ayahuasca, which deprives one of his senses and, at times, of his life.” In 1755 Jesuit Franz Xavier Veigl, the head of a Jesuit mission to Quito ventured into the Amazon and traveled down the Napo River to Maynas, Peru, where the Napo meets the Amazon.
1879 to 1912- The Holy Medicine’s healing spread as the rubber boom decimated natives
The Rubber Boom, from 1879 to 1912, was in many ways an era of horror for indigenous Amazonian populations. But the use of Holy Medicine did not disappear when the indigenous communities and traditions were being stripped and transformed into labor for the global industry. In fact, it appears Holy Medicine and Shamanism spread during this period.
Indigenous groups were enslaved and moved around in great numbers. One of the most notable fortune-seekers was a Peruvian trader named Julio Cesar Arana. He acquired large areas of land in the Putumayo region of the Peruvian Amazon. But in order to accumulate the masses of wealth he wanted, he virtually enslaved a huge number of indigenous people and others to harvest the rubber. Julio’s brother, Lizardo, worked with Julio, bringing in from Barbados a large number of overseers to put the Indians to work. At this time, slavery had been abolished in the U.S., but it was still continuing in Amazonia. In areas where indigenous people were mostly wiped out, workers of African descendent were brought in. In the 1930s, in this cultural mixing pot of African, European, and Indigenous works, a new religion was born around the ‘consumption’ of the Holy Medicine, now known as Santo Daime.
During the Rubber Boom and the spread of disease, indigenous communities had to use their own remedies to try and recover and stay healthy. In many circumstances, the Sacred Ceremonies where the Holy Medicine was consumed and indigenous herbal practices were the only health care available, and the healers healing with the Holy Medicine had demand. Although tribal, the Sacred Ceremonies were disappearing, shamanism practiced as a detribalized individual profession and transmitted freely across ethnic lines appears to have spread during the Rubber Boom.
1903 to 1905- German explorer Theodor Koch-Grünberg records the Holy Medicine myths and beliefs
As a young doctor of philosophy, Theodor Koch-Grünberg was first sent to a charting expedition in the Brazilian Amazon in 1896. His exploration took him along the Rio Negro to the border of Venezuela, where he encountered and studied the indigenous community Banihua. Throughout his journey, he also had a chance to stay with, and document the rich lore of the Pemón (Arecuna) in the highlands of Mount Roraima in Venezuela, and the Tukanos of the Vaupés in Colombia.
He also discussed another ceremonial vessel from the Barasana mythology. According to legend, the Yuruparí trumpet, a sacred instrument used in local traditional healing ceremonies, came from the heavens filled with the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine – the main ingredient of the Holy Medicine.
Koch-Grünberg’s travel diaries inspired one of the main characters in the Oscar-nominated Colombian film “Embrace of the Serpent” (2015). His successor in this partly fictional Amazonian adventure is the great ethnobotanist, Richard Evans Schultes.
1905- The name for the active ingredient in the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine is suggested as “Telepathine”
In 1905, traveler Rafael Zerda Bayón named the still un-extracted active ingredient of the Holy Banisteriopsis Cappi Vine as “telepathine”. He suggested the name due to his characterization of Holy Medicine visions as telepathic, and publicized the name in newspaper articles he wrote in 1910, 1912, and 1915. Other names for the compound included ‘banisterine’ and ‘yagéine’. In 1923, Colombian chemist Guillermo Fischer Cárdenas used the name “telepathine” when he actually isolated the compound. In 1939, it was determined that telepathine, banisterine, and yagéine all referred to the same – i.e. harmine.
The name “harmine” has been used ever since for the active ingredient in the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine. We now know that harmine, along with the other harmala alkaloids, are monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), chemicals that inhibit MAO (an enzyme) that breaks down DMT in the body. It is the MAOIs that allow a DMT-containing plant-like Psychotria Viridis (chacruna) to be orally active when consumed.
But the notion of Holy Medicine’s telepathic nature did not end when harmine was found to be the same as telepathine. The writer William Burroughs revived the telepathy association at the end of his 1953 book “Junky,” where he noted that the Holy Medicine is supposed to increase telepathic sensitivity.”
1928- The Banisterine Experiments of pharmacologist Louis Lewin
German pharmacologist Louis Lewin, who devoted his career to exploring the pharmacological effects of psychoactive plants and drugs. Later he explored the properties of the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine and extracted an alkaloid that he called ‘banisterine’. Following experiments on animals and humans, he noted that ‘banisterine’ produced an initial stimulation of the nervous system, to be followed, especially at high doses, by a marked depression.
Lewin was later informed by the German chemists of the pharmaceutical company, Merck, that ‘banisterine’ was chemically identical to harmine, an alkaloid that had been isolated 87 years earlier from Peganum Harmala, or Syrian Rue. Initially, Lewin did not fully agree with this identification and agreed only on the related properties of these two compounds to increase motor excitability to convulsions.
1928 to 1931 – Clinical Trials with Harmine conducted on patients with Parkinson’s disease
One of the most intriguing and important molecules in the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine is undoubtedly harmine. Back in the 1840s, scientists discovered harmine in the Eurasian plant, Peganum Harmala (Syrian Rue). Then in the early twentieth century, they began to test its potential medicinal properties on Parkinson’s Disease. Having observed a general muscular excitation induced by harmine in preliminary studies, the German pharmacologist Louis Lewin decided to investigate the effects of harmine on human muscular rigidity.
At the Neukölln Hospital, he administered injections of harmala alkaloids, then called ‘banisterine’, at a dose of 0.025-0.075 grams to several patients, which greatly improved muscle rigidity. Ernst Rustige also experimented with 3-50 mg of subcutaneous harmine on 18 post-encephalitic Parkinsonian patients. The main result was an improvement involuntary movements in 13 patients, and the reduction in stiffness lasted on average six hours. These patients felt faster and freer and had also acquired greater mental clarity, according to the work of Rustige in 1929.
The enthusiasm for the harmal alkaloids, especially harmine, in the treatment of Parkinsonism vanished after the mid-1930s. They were again taken into consideration when towards the end of the 1950s their remarkable MAO-inhibitory properties were highlighted.
1930- The Santo Daime church founded by Mestre Irineu
Among the most popular movements involving with the Holy Medicine is the Santo Daime Church, which emerged initially in the Brazilian Amazon. On May 26, 1930, Mestre Irineu led the first “work” of his newly formed church entitled Centro de Iluminação Cristã Luz Universal, or CICLU. He discarded many existing esoteric teachings when constructing his new religious system. This included discarding the hierarchical rankings of the Círculo de Regeneração e Fé, various dogmas of Catholicism, and the spirit-possession practices of his own Afro-Brazilian heritage. In contrast, he adopted a simple cosmology of the Eternal Father, the Divine Mother, Jesus Christ the Redeemer, and a Doctrine revealed internally to each person.
1941 to 1953– Richard Evans Schultes documents the Holy Medicine Use among many Amazonian communities
Harvard professor Richard Evans Schultes decided to live in, and explore, the Amazons from 1941 to 1953, spending almost seventeen years there. He visited and participated in Sacred Ceremonies with a greater number of Holy Medicine-consuming indigenous groups, carefully observing and recording their preparation and consumption of the Holy Medicine.
Schultes was the first ethnobotanist to scientifically and taxonomically document the preparation and consumption of the Holy Medicine. He identified one of the main ingredients of the Holy Medicine brew as the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine, also known as “aya waska” in the Quechua language, which meant “Vine of the Soul” or “Vine of the Ancestors.” Although, he noted that the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine or a close relative was the one constant ingredient in the Holy Medicine, he documented many “amazingly diverse” admixtures and reported that Diplopterys Cabrerana (Chaliponga) and “several species of Psychotria — especially Psychotria Viridis (Chacruna), were “employed over a wide area by many tribes.”
Schultes recorded the use of over 2,000 medicinal plants in the Amazon and identified a total of over 24,000, about 300 of which were previously unknown to Western science. He was one of the first to alert the world about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and the disappearance of its native communities. Schultes received the highest achievement available in botany—the gold medal of the Linnean Society of London. Schultes helped bring the Holy Medicine to scientific attention, and is considered the “father of modern ethnobotany”. He also mentored other famous ethnobotanists, including writers Wade Davis and Mark Plotkin.
1957- The discovery of the chemical structure of the Holy Medicine
The Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine itself does not tend to generate the Psychedelic effects of DMT, LSD, Mescaline, Psilocybe mushrooms, and similar Psychedelic compounds. But this did not stop the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine from being revered across shamanic traditions as one of the main medicines and consciousness-altering tools, alongside toe and tobacco. In the Holy Medicine of Amazonian shamanism, DMT came from admixture from Plants, such as Psychotria Viridis (Chacruna), which was boiled with the main ingredient: the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine.
In the 1920s, the German pharmacologist Louis Lewin conducted experiments with harmala extracts taken from the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine. He named the extracts as ‘banisterine’. The chemical properties of the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine were fully discovered by 1957. Harmine, harmaline, and Tetrahydroharmine were isolated from the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine by researchers Hochstein and Paradies, setting a milestone in human understanding of the chemical structure of the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine.
By 1965, these compounds were firmly established as the active alkaloids of the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine and as well as related species like the Peganum Harmala (Syrian Rue). The molecule previously named “telepathine” also known as ‘banisterine’ and ‘Yageine’ was renamed to “harmine” after it was concluded that they had an identical molecular structure to the active compound of the Peganum Harmala, or Syrian Rue, which had already been known to the world already.
1961- The União do Vegetal Church is founded by Mestre Gabriel
One of the most renowned organisations associated with the Holy Medicine, to emerge in Brazil in the 20th century, is the União do Vegetal (UDV) church. On July 22, 1961, UDV was founded by Brazilian rubber tapper José Gabriel da Costa, known as Mestre Gabriel. The UDV paves a path of esotericism with a doctrine combining Christianity with reincarnation and the progress of the individual soul to increasingly higher spiritual levels.
Today, the UDV has around 27,000 adherents in more than two hundred congregations. Most of them are in Brazil, but UDV is also present in the United States, Canadá, Peru, Portugal, Spain, England, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, and Australia. The U.S. holds the biggest overseas congregation with some 600 hundred people distributed in 7 groups around the country.
The members of this religion refer to the Holy Medicine as “Hoasca” or “Vegetal”, both names related to the stories developed within UDV’s tradition. Along with Santo Daime and Barquinha, UDV is also considered by scholars to be a religion around the Holy Medicine of the Holy and Divine Mother Ayahuasca.
1963 – Beat generation authors William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg publish the Yage Letters
In 1963, Beat Generation authors William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg published The Yage Letters, a collection of their correspondence and some notes Burroughs kept of his experiences with the Holy Medicine. Most of the letters date back to 1953, when Burroughs set out on a seven-month-long expedition into the Amazon Rainforest. His mission was to find “Yage” or the Holy Medicine, or what was once called “telepathine” due to its alleged telepathic properties – a fabled mind-expanding medicine which local indigenous doctors used to locate lost objects and individuals.
1971– DMT is made illegal internationally following the Convention on Psychotropic Substances
On Feb 21, 1971, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances was passed by the United Nations. It required that all member states control a list of substances, among which is the famed Psychedelic molecule, DMT. Legal restrictions placed on these substances listed them as Schedule 1, reserved for drugs which pose a serious risk to public health and have no recognized therapeutic value. The Convention was passed largely due to the efforts of US President Richard Nixon, who had gotten the Controlled Substances Act passed in the U.S. the year before.
1972– Marlene Dobkin de Rios publishes the first major study of urban Holy Medicine and Shamanism
In 1972, the first major study of urban Holy Medicine shamanism, entitled Visionary Vine, was published by Marlene Dobkin de Rios, a medical anthropologist, and psychotherapist who studied the use of Psychoactive Plants by urban Peruvian shamans. She wrote numerous books and articles about the Holy Medicine, shamanic techniques of healing, and psychotherapy, and later studied the UDV (União do Vegetal) church.
This work also draws on the data she gathered during her field research in Peru and represents one of the earliest first-hand accounts on the Holy Medicine in the Amazons. It also offers fascinating and timeless insight into the ethnic backgrounds of the indigenous locals, the ancient history of the use of Psychoactive plants, and a discourse about the differing standpoints on using these substances for healing purposes in North and South America. This book helped spread the word on Plant Psychedelics and indigenous culture far and wide, establishing de Rios as an eminent researcher on the topic. It is used in undergraduate anthropology courses to this day.
1984 – Scientists confirm the MAOIs of the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine make DMT orally active
Today, it is well known that DMT is responsible for the profound Psychedelic effects attained from the Holy Medicine, it can only enter the bloodstream with the help of special molecules which are in the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine. Drinking the Holy Medicine without the DMT admixtures from Plant with DMT does not inspire vivid visions which many seekers desire.
In a landmark study conducted in 1984, ethno-pharmacologist Dennis McKenna and colleagues Towers and Abbott performed chemical analyses on samples of the Holy Medicine, showing for the first time the connected nature of DMT and the Holy Medicine. They found that DMT was orally active due to Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs) available from the Holy Medicine; more simply put, this meant that the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine made it possible for the Psychedelic properties in the Plant admixtures containing DMT, like the Chacruna, to enter the bloodstream and reach the brain after crossing the blood-brain barrier.
The 1990s– Terence McKenna helps popularize the Holy Medicine across the globe
In writings and talks, Terence McKenna, elder brother of ethno-pharmacologist Dennis McKenna, popularized the Holy Medicine particularly during the 1990s while maintaining a busy international speaking tour when not geeking out online in Hawaii, researching and exploring. He helped pioneer the idea that the Holy Medicine, as a combination of two Holy Plants, in which DMT is made orally active by combining it with an MAOI, and that visions were from DMT in the Holy Medicine.
This perspective on the Holy Medicine was widely adopted, and the idea spread that the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine has no psychoactive effects, and that it was a mystery how the indigenous people figured out how to use an MAOI to make DMT orally active, and that any combination of plants or chemicals that used an MAOI to make DMT orally active was equivalent to the Holy Medicine.
The psychedelic subculture embraced the Holy Medicine analogues, especially from Peganum Harmala with Mimosa Hostilis, and many refer the names referred to refer to the Holy and Divine Mother Ayahuasca to refer to the analogues, which today are better known as Pharmahuasca.
Terence McKenna became an internationally recognized speaker on topics related to the Holy Medicine and Psychedelics. With lyrical performances, he presented numerous lectures to large audiences at venues all across the Western world.
1996– Psychology study suggests long-term benefits of the Holy Medicine
Charles Grob, Dennis McKenna, and other researchers carried out a psychological study on the effects of the Holy Medicine. They recruited two groups of people from the city of Manaus, located in the Brazilian Amazon. The first group was made up of 15 long-term users of Holy Medicine from the União de Vegetal, a syncretic religious movement that was founded in 1961 in the Brazilian Amazon, whose members ritually consumed the Holy Medicine as a Religious Sacrament. The second group was made up of matched controls people from the same community with no prior experience of consuming the Holy Medicine. The researchers assessed the participants using psychiatric diagnostic interviews, personality surveys, and neuropsychological tasks.
The research represents one of the first scientific investigations of the Holy Medicine for medical applications. Since its publication, there have been many more, including neuroscientists studying the Holy Medicine induced visions and brain function, and psychiatrists analyzing more information about the positive long-term effects of the Holy Medicine on health. This burst of the research coincided with the global popularizing of the Holy Medicine in the 1990s, through the mesmerizing talks of Terence McKenna and by the publishing of illuminating books like the The Cosmic Serpent from anthropologist Jeremy Narby.
2000– DMT: The book “Spirit Molecule” is published which inspires a generation
Among its pages is a kaleidoscopic window onto hundreds of high-dose DMT experiences. It includes many stories and accounts of the bizarre and awe-inspiring worlds encountered by healthy volunteers who had just had the powerful substance injected into them. While it might sound like science fiction, this research project was welcomed by the University of New Mexico where Strassman led a government-approved and funded clinical study on the biological and psychological effects of DMT between 1990 and 1995.
Once he obtained approval and began the study, Strassman became the first researcher in the U.S. to legally administer a Psychedelic to human subjects in 20 years. This study has been hailed by some research enthusiasts as kicking off the “Psychedelic renaissance”, the period from the 90s up until now, which has involved a surge in Psychedelic research. This surge includes Psychedelic research projects at leading universities around the world, and also among passionate underground networks, such as the Entheogen Review, and the internet forum, DMT Nexus.
Strassman’s book on DMT molecule and DMT elves sparked a huge interest in the general public. Strassman’s study and book were turned into a documentary of the same name as the book. Released in 2010, the documentary featured interviews with the study participants and Strassman, as well as a number of high-profile Psychedelic researchers and writers, such as Erik Davis, Graham Hancock, Roland Griffiths, Daniel Pinchbeck, Ralph Metzner, David E. Nichols, and luminaries who contributed to popularising the Holy Medicine, such as Dennis McKenna who pioneered studies on the synergistic effects of DMT and the Holy Medicine, and the health effects of long term consuming of the Holy Medicine, and Jeremy Narby, whose book The Comic Serpent, helped popularize the Holy Medicine in the late 1990s.
2001– Santo Daime was given a religious exemption for the Holy Medicine consumption in the Netherlands
The Dutch court ruled in favor of the Santo Daime church on the basis of religious freedom. The Dutch court affirmed that the Holy Medicine was considered illegal due to containing DMT which was illegal. However, the court ruled that the Church of Santo Daime merited a religious exemption by law.
But the letter establishes that UN member countries, although required by treaty to outlaw DMT, were not required to include the Holy Medicine under the law against DMT. Although this was a huge step in the promotion of the Holy Medicine, it was up to each country to interpret the law against DMT and decide whether such would include the Holy Medicine; which meant the Holy Medicine was put in a legal grey-area in every country, until a specific law or court case clarified the status in a specific country.
2003– Pioneering Study examines the Holy Medicine Effects on the Body and Mind
The researchers discovered that the Holy Medicine produced perceptual distortions, elevated mood, and increased blood pressure when the heart was resting in between heartbeats, with insignificant changes in blood pressure during the heartbeat and heart rate. For the participants, subjective effects began around 30 to 45 minutes after ingesting the pills containing the Holy Medicine, peaking between 1.5 and 2 hours. This coincided with measurements showing when DMT was most concentrated in the blood, measured at 1.5 hours after ingestion. After 2 hours, the participants began to return to baseline, completely returning to baseline after 6 hours.
Based on the urine samples taken from the participants who had consumed the Holy Medicine, the researchers found that there were alterations there too. They noted increased amounts of metanephrine and normetanephrine, a chemical that is made during the production of the hormone noradrenaline, otherwise known as the fight-or-flight hormone. The authors of the study concluded that the production of noradrenaline partly helped to explain the rise in blood pressure, as noradrenaline is a vasoconstrictor (meaning it narrows the blood vessels).
2012 – The Holy Medicine visions activated the brain similar to normal vision, study finds
In 2012, Dr. Araújo and associates published research on the brain changes that occur when an individual is under the influence of the Holy Medicine. This team of researchers used fMRI to investigate brain activity changes showing the effects of Holy Medicine, and especially, to understand the Holy Medicine visions. The scientists recruited 10 individuals who had consumed the Holy Medicine frequently. The fMRI session consisted of three parts: in the first, subjects passively viewed images of people, animals, or trees. The second was an imagery task, where the research participants were asked to mentally recreate an image that had been shown to them by closing their eyes and imagining it. And third, the participants viewed a scrambled version of an image previously shown to them in the first part of the experiment. These tests were carried out, during the fMRI scan, in two sessions, one before the consuming of the Holy Medicine and the second was afterwards.
One important finding from the study was that all subjects reported being able to perform the imagery task better after consuming the Holy Medicine, strengthening the idea that imagined scenes became more vivid and detailed following the consumption of the Holy Medicine. Also, the brain changes in the visual cortex seen during the imagery task were very pronounced. A particularly fascinating finding was that, during the peak of the experience of the participants consuming the Holy Medicine, the visual cortex of the brain showed activity comparable to that of seeing with the eyes open.
Additionally, the researchers found activation in brain regions involved in different types of memory, contextual association processing, intentional imagination, and the processing of information from internal sources. The researchers found that the Holy Medicine engaged areas of the brain “necessary for the integration of separate visual elements into a whole scene”. The Holy Medicine, it turns out, was strongly altering relationships between different areas of the brain, which helped explain why participants were better at performing mental imagery related tasks.
According to the research, the primary visual cortex seems to be the initiator of these internal visions and leads the other cortical areas of memory, intention, and higher processing into activation. This study is important as it correlates specific changes in the brain with a highly subjective and personal, yet integral part of the experience provided by the Holy Medicine: the visions.
2014 – The first World Ayahuasca Conference in Ibiza, Spain
In September of 2014, around 700 people congregated on the island of Ibiza in the Mediterranean for the first-ever “World Ayahuasca Conference”. The event attracted scientists, healers, shamans, therapists, artists, policy-makers, and other professionals.
The event was organized by ICEERS (International Center for Entheogenic Education, Resource, and Service). The conference included talks on many topics, including self-regulation and legal systems, neuroscience and the brain, cultural history and change, sustainability, safety, and more.
2015 – The Holy Medicine is shown to impact the Brain same as Meditative practices
Neuroscientist Dr. Araujo and associates investigated the effect of Holy Medicine on the Default Mode Network (DMN), a set of regions in the brain which is active when a person is not engaged in solving a specific goal-oriented task. Higher DMN engagement had been connected in prior research with mental activity such as mind-wandering and meditation and is thought to be involved in thinking about ‘oneself’, or the past, and the future. The team of scientists used fMRI to scan the brains of 10 participants before and during their experience with the Holy Medicine and found significant decreases in the activity of the DMN while under the effect of the Holy Medicine. These results implied that the experiences from the Holy Medicine required some mental engagement from participants in the experiments or Sacred Ceremonies, who consumed the Holy Medicine – an amount of effort and concentration which helped them handle the experience from the Holy Medicine of the Holy and Divine Mother Ayahuasca.
The activity of the DMN is also known to decrease during meditation. Introspection and self-perception, which were found to be common to both the meditative states of the mind as well as the mental state after consumption of the Holy Medicine. The authors speculated that the Holy Medicine caused the decrease in DMN activity. Still, they acknowledge that connecting Psychedelic experiences to changes in brain activity is a complex task and that more research was needed.
2019 – The third World Ayahuasca Conference, in Girona, Spain
After two successful international conferences in 2014 (Spain) and 2016 (Brazil), the third global symposium on the Holy Medicine brought together 1,400 people from a wide range of cultural backgrounds, disciplines, and traditions to Girona, Spain.
The three-day-long “2019 World Ayahuasca Conference” featured presentations, discussions, an art exhibit, and declarations of the role of the Holy Medicine into the future. Presenters included dozens of indigenous healers from different Amazonian groups, and from across the globe: legal experts, musicians, philosophers, writers, psychotherapists, anthropologists, filmmakers, political scientists, historians, entrepreneurs, agronomists, nature conservationists, independent researchers.
Speakers also included notable pioneers of Psychedelic anthropology and medicine—Wade Davis and Claudio Naranjo, as well as other eminent experts, such as Luis Eduardo Luna, the anthropologist who first described the idea of “Plant Teachers”; Dennis McKenna who was a part of the groundbreaking MAOI study which learned how the Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine allowed DMT a passage through the gut into the blood; Jeremy Narby whose visionary book The Cosmic Serpent popularized The Holy Medicine of the Holy and Divine Mother Ayahuasca, since the late 1990s; plus Sir Ghillean Prance, Ede Frecska, Giorgio Samorini, and others.
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