Ayahuasca, as it is commonly known, is an ancient indigenous medicine of the Amazon, obtained mainly from the infusion of two plants: a vine called Banisteriopsis Caapi and a leaf, Psychotria Viridis. Used by many Amazonian peoples, it has several names. Ayahuasca is originally a Quechua word, “aya” means dead person, soul, spirit, and “waska” means rope, liana, cipó. Thus ayahuasca can be translated as the “vine of the souls”, due to its mystical property of opening the world of the spirits, or providing visions that transcend death. It has several other names, such as Nixi Pae (strong vine) for the Huni Kuin, Uni for the Yawanawá, Kamarampi for the Ashaninka, Caapi for the Tukano, a total of at least 42 known indigenous names.

Scientific studies on ayahuasca began in 1851, when a young botanist named Richard Spruce, conducting his studies in the Amazon, was invited by the indigenous Tukano group to participate in a ritual with a drink they called Caapi. The Caapi was made in the form of a wine, which Spruce drank in a small glass that eventually provoked in him many visions. This drink today is known worldwide as Ayahuasca. The preparation varies considerably according to the culture, but usually consists in the maceration of the Banisteriopsis Caapi vine, which is then infused with the Viridis Psychotria leaf, in a process that may take up to 15 hours of cooking time.

The use of this drink is part of the Pan-American indigenous traditions of using sacred plants, within the context of shamanism, which extends from northern Canada to southern Argentina. “Shamanism” being the set of techniques for producing states of trance or ecstasy, within which it is common for the shaman to travel to the spiritual world. Through contact with the Amazon rainforest’s immense biodiversity, great systems of knowledge focused on healing and spirituality were born, with emphasis on the use of medicinal plants. The indigenous peoples of the Amazon have been able to extract their source of physical and mental health from the vast plant universe that surrounds them.

From the 1960s onwards, ethnobotanical researchers began to draw attention to the fact that some psychoactive substances, previously considered as drugs, had a unique feature: their effects pointed to a spiritual use. They define these substances “entheogens”. This word is a neologism coined by Gordon-Wasson, Jonathan Ott, Weston La Barre and others, to define psychoactive plants, meaning “that births God within”, due to their sacramental and religious use by native Americans. Another suitable term is proposed by Luis Eduardo Luna (1986), “master plants”, that is, plant teachers. This concept is widespread, mainly in the shamanic context of the Amazon. The natives consider certain plants as the source of their knowledge and cosmological, mythological and therapeutic power. In general the ayahuasqueiros conceive a continuity, a mystical solidarity between the plants and the men. This thought is based in part on the idea that knowledge does not begin within man, but within the plant nature that surrounds him. Among the Huni Kuin it is interesting to note that they also call the ayahuasca Huni Pae, and the word Huni can mean people, human being, somehow pointing to this inseparability between the plant universe of nature and humanity.

Modern medicine is proving what indigenous peoples already knew for millennia: the enormous potential of ayahuasca for the treatment of numerous diseases. Today, thanks to new and surprising research technologies, science has proven its therapeutic potential in the treatment of diseases such as depression, as well as alcohol and drug addiction. Research also points to its efficacy against Alzheimer’s disease, through its power of neuronal regeneration, as demonstrated in the recent research developed by UFRJ, led by Steven Rehen and the D ‘OR Research Institute. This discovery was absolutely unbelievable until very recently. Another important study published in the scientific journal Nature seems to show that chemical compounds present in ayahuasca can help patients suffering from diabetes. From this angle, we may think that the indigenous peoples of the Amazon were far ahead in their biomedical research.

Ayahuasca is not addictive, does not cause physical or psychological dependence, nor hallucinations in the psychiatric sense, as a state of mental imbalance, rupture with reality, absence of the time-space reference and impairment of the capacities of perception, comprehension and communication. None of these characteristics can be found in the effect of Ayahuasca. Its effects from the point of view of psychology are stupendous: ayahuasca acts as a facilitator of processes of self-knowledge, broadening the perception of oneness, as well as empathy and love, as well as understanding deeper levels of the psyche.

To talk about the ayahuasca experience is to talk about a transformation of the perception of life. You will see life from other points of view. Thoughts and affections that once were invisible to us, become visible during an ayahuasca ritual, thanks to the phenomena of the visions. Something so intimate that it reminds one of a dream. The powerful visions provoked by ayahuasca cannot be easily put into words, like a dream that has its latency as a limit for all its language. However, for the person who experiences these visions, they seem to say a lot. As if the person enters an unprecedented world, populated by spiritual beings, fantastic landscapes, light.