OPEN Foundation

Anthropology

Mystical mobilities and entheogenic Latin America

September 14, 2017 / Anthropology, Ayahuasca, Cacti / Mescaline, Indigenous use, Mushrooms / Psilocybin, Mystical experiences, Papers, Publications, Religious studies, Spirituality / By /

Abstract

In this paper, I seek to explore the concept of mystical mobility as a way of addressing travelling and thus using mobility resources that go beyond the transport agenda. I propose to address innovative paths and research questions by discussing alternative cultural geographies in order to seriously reconsider the concept of mobility in a broad sense. The work aims to introduce the notion of ‘mystical mobility’ and its relationship with entheogens (i.e. psychoactive substances) as a new component of mobility studies, also considering how physical and mystical trips are (or are not) combined.
Giucci, G. (2017). Mystical mobilities and entheogenic Latin America. The Journal of Transport History, 0022526617731482.
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Psychedelic pleasures: An affective understanding of the joys of tripping

September 13, 2017 / Anthropology, LSD, Mushrooms / Psilocybin, Other subjects, Papers, Philosophy, Psychology, Publications / By /

Abstract

BACKGROUND:
This paper considers the pleasures of psychedelic drugs and proposes a Deleuzian understanding of drugged pleasures as affects. In spite of a large body of work on psychedelics, not least on their therapeutic potentials, the literature is almost completely devoid of discussions of the recreational practices and pleasures of entheogenic drugs. Yet, most people do not use psychedelics because of their curative powers, but because they are fun and enjoyable ways to alter the experience of reality.
METHODS:
In the analytical part of the paper, I examine 100 trip reports from an internet forum in order to explore the pleasures of tripping.
RESULTS:
The analyses map out how drugs such as LSD and mushrooms – in combination with contextual factors such as other people, music and nature – give rise to a set of affective modifications of the drug user’s capacities to feel, sense and act.
CONCLUSION:
In conclusion it is argued that taking seriously the large group of recreational users of hallucinogens is important not only because it broadens our understanding of how entheogenic drugs work in different bodies and settings, but also because it may enable a more productive and harm reductive transmission of knowledge between the scientific and recreational psychedelic communities.
Bøhling, F. (2017). Psychedelic pleasures: An affective understanding of the joys of tripping. International Journal of Drug Policy, 49, 133-143. 10.1016/j.drugpo.2017.07.017
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Psychoactive substances as a last resort—a qualitative study of self-treatment of migraine and cluster headaches

September 5, 2017 / Anthropology, Cluster headache, LSD, Mushrooms / Psilocybin, Papers, Psychology / By / , ,

Abstract

Background

Treatment resistant cluster headache and migraine patients are exploring alternative treatments online. The aim of this study was to improve comprehension regarding the use of non-established or alternative pharmacological treatments used by sufferers of cluster headaches and migraines.

Methods

A qualitative thematic analysis of the users’ own accounts presented in online forum discussions were conducted. The forum boards https://shroomery.org/, http://bluelight.org, and https://clusterbusters.org/ met the inclusion criteria and were used for the study.

Results

The analysis resulted in six themes: a desperate need for effective treatments; the role of the forum—finding alternative treatments and community support; alternative treatment substances; dosage and regimens; effects and treatment results; and adverse effects. The results provide an insight into why, how, and by which substances and methods sufferers seek relief from cluster headache and migraines.

Conclusions

These patients are in a desperate and vulnerable situation, and illicit psychoactive substances are often considered a last resort. There appeared to be little or no interest in psychoactive effects per se as these were rather tolerated or avoided by using sub-psychoactive doses. Primarily, psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide, and related psychedelic tryptamines were reportedly effective for both prophylactic and acute treatment of cluster headache and migraines. Treatment results with cannabis were more unpredictable. No severe adverse events were reported, but it was observed how desperation sometimes spurred risky behavior when obtaining and testing various treatment alternatives. The forum discourse mainly revolved around maximizing treatment results and minimizing potential harms.

Andersson, M., Persson, M., & Kjellgren, A. (2017). Psychoactive substances as a last resort—a qualitative study of self-treatment of migraine and cluster headaches. Harm Reduction Journal, 14(1), 60. 10.1186/s12954-017-0186-6

The 2017 Ayahuasca Technical Report

July 26, 2017 / Addiction, Anthropology, Anxiety disorders / PTSD, Ayahuasca, Consciousness, Ethnobotany, Indigenous use, Medicine, Neuroscience, Other subjects, Papers, Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychopharmacology, Publications, Spirituality / By

ICEERS has just released the 2017 edition of the Ayahuasca Technical Report. Signed by ten of the world’s leading ayahuasca researchers, this report is an important document that summarizes the most relevant scientific findings from the past few decades, as well as key information about the history, legality, pharmacology, and potential therapeutic or adverse effects of ayahuasca. Our intention with this report is to provide objective and up-to-date information to policy makers, judges, lawyers and other officials in charge of developing policies, programs, legislation or involved in legal cases relating to ayahuasca.
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From rau to sacred plants: Transfigurations of shamanic agency among the Siona Indians of Colombia

July 18, 2017 / Anthropology, Mystical experiences, Papers, Religious studies / By /

Abstract

Translations of the native notion of shamanic agency of the Siona Indians of Colombia is explored throughout different historical and social contexts. The polysemic concept rau is central to the shaman’s capacity for establishing relations of exchange and negotiation with humans and non-humans. As the embodiment of his power, it fits within a semantic field that conveys the waxing and waning of life cycles. Sharing a series of qualities with the Melanesian concept of mana, rau should be understood as a social phenomenon whose use and meaning has transfigured through time and space. However, unlike the globalization of new mana, the important notion of Siona shamanic agency has been substituted by representations of the ritual substance of yajé as key symbol for power and knowledge as Siona rituals have been revitalized in their dialogue with the ethnic identity movement and the neo-shamanic network that associates sacred plants with primordial knowledge and agency.
Langdon, E. J. (2017). From rau to sacred plants: Transfigurations of shamanic agency among the Siona Indians of Colombia. Social Compass, 64(3), 343-359. 10.1177/0037768617713654
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The State of the Arts of the Study of Indigenous Religious Traditions in South America

May 16, 2017 / Anthropology, Ayahuasca, Ethnobotany, Indigenous use, Mystical experiences, Papers, Religious studies / By /

Abstract

This article reviews the principal tendencies in the contemporary studies of indigenous South American religious traditions. It divides the field into studies of socioreligious formations (particularistic and universalistic formations, more specifically) and studies of cosmologies or worldviews (so-called perspectivism). It then discusses two recent, pioneering biographies of South American shamans which, more than any other in the field, offer original approaches to understanding shamanic historical consciousness, cosmopolitics, the constant struggles of shamanic spirits to sustain the cosmos against sorcery spirits that threaten to undermine the cosmic order.

Wright, R. M. (2017). The State of the Arts of the Study of Indigenous Religious Traditions in South America. International Journal of Latin American Religions, 1-15. 10.1007/s41603-017-0002-9
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Shaping Strong People: Napo Runa Therapeutic Narratives of Medicinal Plant Use

December 31, 2016 / Anthropology, Ethnobotany, Indigenous use, Other substances, Papers, Publications, Sociology / By /

Abstract

Indigenous people living in contemporary Upper Amazonia marshal their ethnomedical knowledge and praxis to greet pressing challenges and to derive meaning from phenomena operating at wider scales of influence. In this chapter, I provide ethnographic examples of how Napo Runa deploy subaltern therapeutic narratives about medicinal plant use that contest violence they experience in their everyday lives and that reaffirm the purpose and consequences of social circulation of medicinal plants. These therapeutic narratives situate bodies in contexts of lived experience by drawing on historical, social–political, and environmental realties of the people crafting them. Here, ethnomedical knowledge is leveraged to contend with transnational processes that have direct and dangerous impacts on individual bodies. This work seeks not only to document how Napo Runa use plants to promote health and well-being but also to demonstrate that how they talk about their plant use illustrates their resistance to everyday forms of violence.

Bridges, N. C. (2016). Shaping Strong People: Napo Runa Therapeutic Narratives of Medicinal Plant Use. In Plants and Health (pp. 93-116). Springer International Publishing. 10.1007/978-3-319-48088-6_4

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How Religion, Race, and the Weedy Agency of Plants Shape Amazonian Home Gardens

December 4, 2016 / Anthropology, Ayahuasca, Ethnobotany, Indigenous use, Papers, Publications, Religious studies / By /

Abstract

Across Brazilian Amazonia, it is common to find rural households that keep plants with magico-medicinal properties in their home gardens. Despite widespread occurrence of such plants, some Amazonians—especially in Evangelical communities—openly criticize their use as incongruent with Christian belief and practice. In this article, I offer ethnographic observations that indicate divergent attitudes toward magico-medicinal plants between Evangelical Christians and Amazonian folk Catholics, the latter of whom borrow heavily from Afro-Brazilian and indigenous religions. I contend that Evangelicals’ attempts to establish distance from such plants is due in part to histories of ethnic and racial marginalization that are indexed in their use. Still, many magico-medicinal plants are weedy species that actively colonize areas occupied by humans, thus openly defying Evangelical attempts to evade them. In this manner, magico-medicinal plants are not just subject to human agencies, but are arguably agents in their own right.

Kawa, N. C. (2016). How Religion, Race, and the Weedy Agency of Plants Shape Amazonian Home Gardens. Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment, 38(2), 84-93. 10.1111/cuag.12073
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Medicine, religion and ayahuasca in Catalonia. Considering ayahuasca networks from a medical anthropology perspective

October 18, 2016 / Anthropology, Ayahuasca, Indigenous use, Medicine, Papers, Publications / By / ,

Abstract

Ayahuasca is a psychoactive beverage from the Amazon, traditionally used by indigenous and mestizo populations in the region. Widespread international use of the beverage began in the 1990s in both secular contexts and religious/spiritual networks. This article offers an analysis of these networks as health care systems in general and for the case of Spain and specifically Catalonia, describing the emergence and characteristics of their groups, and the therapeutic itineraries of some participants. The medical anthropology perspective we take enables us to reflect on the relationship between medicine and religion, and problematize the tensions between medicalization and medical pluralism. Closely linked to the process of medicalization, we also analyze prohibitionist drug policies and their tensions and conflicts with the use of ayahuasca in ritual and ‘health care’ contexts. The paper ends with a reflection on the problem of ayahuasca as ‘medicine’, since the connection between religion and medicine is a very difficult one to separate.

Apud, I., & Romaní, O. (2017). Medicine, religion and ayahuasca in Catalonia. Considering ayahuasca networks from a medical anthropology perspective. International Journal of Drug Policy, 39, 28-36. 10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.07.011
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Ayahuasca and Sumak Kawsay: Challenges to the Implementation of the Principle of “Buen Vivir,” Religious Freedom, and Cultural Heritage Protection

September 15, 2016 / Anthropology, Ayahuasca, Ethnobotany, Indigenous use, Other subjects, Papers, Publications / By / , , ,

Abstract

The current environmental crisis can be approached, through many perspectives, as a civilizational crisis. Alternatives of human transcendence are identified in the Inca civilization to compensate for the malaise that characterizes the actual crisis. There is a multicultural dimension to the manifestations of Hoasca (or Ayahuasca) occurring in Amazonian countries. As employed by the Beneficent Spiritist Center União do Vegetal (UDV) in a religious context, it can contribute to the reconstruction of buen vivir (or in Quechua, sumak kawsay, meaning complete wellness), which served as the principle of the civilizations that preceded the colonization of the Americas by Europeans. Today, the State openly confronts the manifestation of the constitutional principles of buen vivir, religious freedom, and the protection of this cultural heritage. Here, the implications of the civilizational crisis and ways of overcoming it are approached from the standpoint of deep ecology, but the implications also reflect the doctrinal vision of the UDV to which the authors are affiliated.

Irigaray, C. T. J., Girard, P., Irigaray, M., & Silva, C. J. (2016). Ayahuasca and Sumak Kawsay: Challenges to the Implementation of the Principle of “Buen Vivir,” Religious Freedom, and Cultural Heritage Protection. Anthropology of Consciousness, 27(2), 204-225. 10.1111/anoc.12057
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7 May - Psychedelics, Nature & Mental Health with Sam Gandy

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