The Consciousness Wars

In addition to Caapi and 1 or more of about 7 plants plants containing DMT and/or an MAO Inhibitor, the other plants are for specific healing powers or other types of qualities. In addition to tobacco, they could include, Ai curo, Aji, Amacisa, Angel's Trumpet, Ayahuma, Batsikawa, Cabalonga, Catahua, Cat's Claw, Chiricaspi, Cuchuracaspi, Cumala, Guatillo, Guayusa, Hiporuru, Kana, Kapok tree, Lupuna, Pfaffia, Pichana, Piri piri, Pulma, Rami, Remo Caspi, Sanango, sucuba, and Toe'.

Though in all fairness, it is probably very rare that all 28 to 36 plants would be used. But the natives have knowledge of all these and when and why to use them. Then there are analog versions of ayahuasca that use different ingredients in areas where caapi or the other 7 plants are unavailable.

The idea is that over a near inifinite period of time, a chimpanzee, or group of chimps are statistically bound to one day type out Hamlet, if only by pure accident (and this rules out all the versions that are almost typed out but contain a word or two here of jibberish).

The idea of indigenous people coming up with medicinal and edible plants is that given somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 years they would have tested enough plants that they would have gotten through enough deaths and mistakes to be able to pass down such knowledge.

But consider several problems here. A typical healer in the Amazon, for example, knows many hundreds, if not well over a thousand different cures. While some common herbal knowledge is shared, healers tend to keep most of it as esoteric knowledge passing it down only to an apprentice or successor later in his career. There are no written records. In many cultures it was common that if a healer begins failing in his/her cures, that he/she would be killed or kicked out of the tribe. This would make it unlikely that his mistakes would be passed on as knowledge of what not to do. Even more important is the fact that he would not even be able to make mistakes to begin with.

Consider for example the hypothetical case of a healer who brought back to his hut 5 or 6 different plants to test. Being that this would be esoteric knowledge, he wouldn't share knowledge of what he is doing. The next day he is found dead. So between the 5 or 6 new plants he brought back, and the many medicinal plants already existing in his collection, how would they know for sure what he consumed that killed him? Perhaps if he vomited up the contents of his stomach, they might have a clue, but what if it contained several plants, and what if it was not one plant, but the combination of plants that killed him. That is to say nothing about the loss of all of his other accumulated knowledge. But more likely, because he was revered as a master of plants, no one would believe that he had consumed a poison or a combination that had become poisonous---they would blame his death on something else. It just doesn't make sense that this would be the extremely inefficient route such knowledge would take.

Anyway, these are just some examples of why I find the proposition proposterous... That and the fact that ceremony provides a much more sure and method, because of the knowledge gained through it.

 

This is from Erowid

There are variations in different regions but there is not 28-36 plants used in a brew.

 

Like I said, the other ingredients have special purposes---Ai curo, for example, is for better singing. Clearly this would never be used in a Western setting or with Westerners travelling to South America to experience ayahuasca. Pfaffia is used for sexual weakness. Batsikawa on the other hand reduces visions, but is also cooling in nature. Pulma on the other hand, strengthens the visions. And sucuba and some of the other ingredients deal with 'magic arrows' which many Westerners would find overly superstitious or unecessary for the drug experience. But Rami, and Remo Caspi strengthen the ayahuasca, toe' strengthens the visions, Guayusa is for vomiting, and Kana sweetens the ayahuasca.

Each one has a special purpose and its true cultural setting among South American natives ayahuasca has many purposes that Westerners would have no interest or need for. I really like erowid, and think it is a great site---but I wouldn't use it as a source for anthropological studies or ethnobotany.

 

Erowid has been the best and most comprehensive site for psychoactive drugs I've come across. Here is It's information reinforced by the Santo Daime website, which is a religion that uses ayahuasca as a sacarament.

http://www.santodaime.org/site/site-antigo/archives/edward.htm

 

I do agree it is one of the best sites out there for psychoactive drugs. Neither quote actually states how many herbs are used but rather mention the two most common ingredients and then calls it a brew without referring to what it is brewed with. You first mentioned that there are at least 2 ingredients. I don't know if any native, or even one of the healers that allows westerners to South America to get high would prepare it with only 2 ingredients. But the two ingredients together make it psychoactive. The brew tends to contain more than 2 ingredients, and depending on its purpose, could contain quite a few different plants.

 

Sure if you want to add water and fire , then we got more than 2 ingredients. but we're still far off from 28 ingredients. Not to say that some aren't, but There has actually been some issues with ayahuasca when high doses of tobacco have been added and other admixtures.

 

Natives only used tobacco for treating poisoning.

One of my friends is an anthropologist who studied ayahuasca use among the Natives three decades or so ago. He was one of the sources for the book, Plants of the Gods. Today he is back in the Amazon living with a tribe studying something or other.

I'll take his word for the preparation of it.

 

Just in case you're not sure: I was aware you weren't serious about that stuff

 

I would agree with the right and left-brain perspectives. Logic has definitely denied a different style of looking at things for the past few centuries. One can't deny this, really..

 

Why can't one deny that?

What basis do we have to accept such a claim on?

 

Why can't one deny what? That there is a difference between how the right and left brain process info or that Logic has been more dominant in the past few centuries?

There just is a difference between the left and right brain and how they look at and process things. There may not be the stereotype of the personality traits that defines a person, but there definitely is a distinguishment between the two. And I think it's a bit obvious that the Left brain and the use of Logic has been the foundation for at least Western Society since the Scientific Revolution.

 

http://www.slideshare.net/ColMukteshwarPrasad/left-brain-vs-right-brain-39343840

 

hmm...well that's one theory. Here's another http://ucmas.ca/our-programs/whole-brain-development/left-brain-vs-right-brain/

http://www.livescience.com/32935-whats-the-difference-between-the-right-brain-and-and-left-brain.html

There's definitely a difference, right?

Also, research has been done on people that go through brain damage, and studies have shown that if one brain is operating and one isn't, the personalities of the person change, such as clothes preference.

 

Well your first link is a shallow over-view of the pop science based on the early experiments. The second link; 'page not found'

We now have lots of new data 1000's of brain scans that show no prevalence of one hemisphere over the other. It's one brain, with two hemispheres, not two brains.

It's also been shown that even after Hemispherectomy, one hemisphere can take over dutys with which it is not normally charged .

It's called Neuroplasticity

Wiki;
"Studies have found no significant long-term effects on memory, personality, or humor, and minimal changes in cognitive function overall.[5] For example, one case followed a patient who had completed college, attended graduate school and scored above average on intelligence tests after undergoing this procedure at age 5.5. This patient eventually developed "superior language and intellectual abilities" despite the removal of the left hemisphere, which contains the classical language zones"

 

Of course it's one brain with two hemispheres. But you disagree that certain sides have certain functions? Are you saying that the right brain doesn't have control over the left side of the body?

This isn't about whether the brain is interdependent or not. It definitely is. But certain areas have certain functions. I can agree with the "right-brained" vs. "left-brained" personalities being an overall generalization, though.

 

​http://www.livescience.com/32935-whats-the-difference-between-the-right-brain-and-left-brain.html

 

There we go. I got it.

Also, I'm not surprised that the brain helps out and fills in functions, but it's still going to do it slightly different. I have read research into this before.

 

Thank you for bringing this to light! This is something I meant to bring up earlier in the discussion but I feel like it deserved some supporting information, which I haven't really had much time to dig for. Neuroplasticity is one of the amazing features the brain exhibits and is particularly pronounced in youth, where things such as one hemisphere taking up some of the general functionality of the other is possible in certain instances of brain injury.

This information shows the flaws in the assertions such as the op article where if we were to take personality by brain hemisphere at face value, people having hemispherectomies would essentially be half brain dead.

 

I don't think that we're denying that the other side of the brain can come in to help out. But the original functions of both sides of the brain are different in fact.

 

No. Again, I was disputing your statement;

"I think it's a bit obvious that the Left brain and the use of Logic has been the foundation for at least Western Society since the Scientific Revolution."

I'm saying the left hemisphere has no more to do with the foundation of western society than the right.