Psychedelia, page 91
At the opposite end of the cultural spectrum, the Australian anthropologist Michael Taussig presents a secularized milieu of ayahuasca-drinking that is as far removed from text-book shamanism as what Schultes saw with the Kofán. Taussig spent decades among Colombian indians and mestizos, and with an obvious non-structuralist intent, he presents the people and their stories while making it clear that none of it can be fully understood by an outsider. From the psychedelic perspective, the most interesting parts of Taussig's complex Shamanism, Colonialism and The Wild Man (1987) are the mestizo curing sessions. Little of ancient ritual and sacred tradition is left in these accounts, often taking place in poor peasant communities far from the rainforest. Here, the ayahuasca healing rite lies closer to the work of Catholic priests visiting the slums. The yagé healing has become crude folklore, side by side with local Christian saints and sympathetic magic.
The cases of Schultes and Taussig should not be overstated. Between these extremes one will find a number of credible anthropological studies that describe individual cases of classic ayahuasca shamanism similar to the typical picture presented in Western contexts. Clearly, there is a preference among the modern public for the ritual sacredness of these text-book cases, as found with the early writings of Michael Harner as an example. What this very divergent picture of Amazonian plant drug use shows is not necessarily a paradigmatic confusion within ethnology, but an even wider net of confusion that has hovered over the world of ayahuasca. In recent decades, Western understanding of the true depth of Amazonia's socio-cultural immersion in the use of entheogens has matured, shedding inaccurate notions of 'primitive' rituals involving 'narcotic' drugs. The emergence of the new scientific discipline of ethnobotany (see Chapter III) was a necessary response from Western scholarship in the face of an increasingly bewildering picture of ancient Amerindian tribes and their close symbiotic relationship with psychedelic plants.
5
As existing psychological, religious and anthropological models have proven insufficient to map out the higher states of consciousness made visible by psychedelic drugs, the need for a line of research closer to the objectivity of hard science has become increasingly obvious. Such a theory would, in its most utopian format, facilitate a translatory matrix between the phenomenological observations from Innerspace and a hardwired model of what the Buddhists call mindstream – the totality of each individual's mental activity at any given point. No such model exists today, for the simple b ut troubling reason that no model whatsoever of how consciousness works exists today, let alone one that could explain where the 9-foot grasshoppers and otherworldly palaces of the psychedelic trip come from.
A scientific approach along these lines has been suggested by the American anthropologist Michael Winkelman in Shamanism: A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing (2010). Taking shamanistic studies as a focal point, Winkelman agrees to the need for a formalized consciousness research that is rooted in phenomenological observation of higher states, along with a corresponding neuro-scientific modeling. The problems of past research into altered and spiritual states and the various biases towards religious or psychological explanations are clearly perceived by Winkelman, in much the same way as in the present work. Winkelman discusses entheogenic drugs as 'psychointegrators', but his general approach is neo-shamanistic rather than psychedelic, emphasizing the experiences and actions of the shaman-visionary more than their specific causes, such as ayahuasca or trance-state drumming. In this sense, the model becomes a study of extraordinarily gifted individuals rather than a generalized charting of the spiritual and creative potential of psychedelic drugs. The shamanic activity discussed in this chapter is obviously a useful entry point, due to its strong cultural foundation and the shaman's skills as a technician of consciousness. On the other hand, one might argue that the shaman, in the classic tribal incarnation, is simply one type of master navigator in the realms of Innerspace, and that a creative visionary like William Blake, or a spiritual prodigy like Ramakrishna, or any truly seasoned psychedelicist, will have amassed a comparable amount of experience from exceptional mind states. In the formal mapping out of Innerspace, there is no need to limit the empirical base to anthropology's favorite shamans. Nevertheless, Winkelman's neurophenomenological approach to exceptional mind states is attractive, and will be discussed more in detail below.
A small but definite step towards a clearer view of psychedelic Innerspace was taken by the South American anthropologist Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, who lived among the Tukano tribe where he observed both classic ayahuasca shamanism and a wide public use of the brew during village celebrations. Reichel-Dolmatoff's study The Shaman And The Jaguar (1975) is one of the more valuable documents in the field as it puts the psychedelic drug use at the center of its explorations, rather than treating it as a marginal anomaly. Unfortunately, the author takes a somewhat condescending view of the tribal culture typical of older anthropologists, a bias which clearly affects his interpretation of their ayahuasca mythology. After an illuminating analysis which reveals how the abstract symbol library of the Tukanos can be traced back to general phosphenic effects in the human eye under intoxication (or other special circumstances), Reichel-Dolmatoff convincingly identifies the emergence of a second stage in the psychedelic journey at the point where these abstract geometrical shapes are replaced by representational elements such as people, animals and buildings.9 After having been put in a highly active mode by the initial form hallucinations, the consciousness of the ayahuasca drinker interprets and projects subjective material into the visionary space, and so the second phase of private psychological revelation begins, very much in line with the general psychedelic process model shown in Chapter IX.
However, Reichel-Dolmatoff finds little reason to assign any value to these figurative visions, and goes so far as to dismiss them as fantasies typical of an excitable 'primitive' people. Thus, his theory fails to take into account the third and fourth realms of The Psychedelic Experience altogether, and despite a wealth of testimony from both native and Western sources to their importance, the higher, impersonal Innerspace domains of entities and transcendence are unaccounted for. Judging by his trip transcription in The Shaman And The Jaguar, Reichel- Dolmatoff's own ayahuasca session never ascended beyond the initial stage of geometric hallucinations, a lack of experience which surely contributed to his narrow approach to the phenomena. It is possible, or perhaps even likely, that the anthropologist was given the weak form of ayahuasca, containing either only the Caapi vine and its faintly hallucinogenic alkaloids, or a mixed brew with very modest DMT content. In favor of this speaks also the curious attention the geometrical hallucinations are given by the author and his native informants, who generously contribute to his semiotic analysis of the triangles and wavy lines they transfer from the initial phosphenic light show to preserve on pottery, clothes, murals and such. It appears that Reichel- Dolmatoff, like other field researchers before him, may have been given only limited insight into the ayahuasca universe of the Tukano.
In Antipodes Of The Mind, Benny Shanon discusses Reichel-Dolmatoff's 'hybrid' theory in a manner that seems to support it, even if Shanon rightly takes exception to the anthropologist's disdainful attitude towards the 'fantasies' of inner visions. By limiting his focus to the earliest and least important phase of the ayahuasca inebriation, Reichel-Dolmatoff came up with two vital contributions to the ontological discussion of entheogenic trips. The observation that the lights, colors and shapes of the initial stage can be mapped directly against phosphenic-optical forms identified by Western lab research offers a valuable adjunct to the classic mescaline form constants identified by Heinrich Kl'ver, which were later proven to be purely intra-ocular 'noise' (see Chapter VIII). In the case of ayahuasca, these small dots of light are a traditional signal that the effect of the drug is being felt. In other words, the abstract geometrical CEV hallucinations that mark the beginning of any psychedelic journey, whether mescaline, LSD, Psilocybin or DMT/ayahuasca, is fully explicable by biological factors in the brain's visual apparatus. Reichel-Dolmatoff's second proposition, that the activated consciousness begins to fill these moving forms with iconic content of private meaning, is reasonable but somewhat simplistic; a later chapter will examine the events related to this intensification of the trip and the recurring visual archetypes in both shamanic and psychedelic contexts.
In addition to his criticism of Reichel-Dolmatoff's dated perception of the Tukano people, Shanon suggests that the transitions between levels are not always this orderly and that the trips cannot be uniformly predicted this way. In a seeming contradiction, he then states that 'The differentiation of stages in the course of ayahuasca sessions is common throughout all indigenous Amazonian cultures that use the brew' (Shanon, op.cit, p289). As reported above, there is broad support, both aboriginally and scholarly, for the perception of ayahuasca culture as a school in which one gradually processes towards higher levels of insight. A shaman of the Yebamasa tribe described the ayahuasca journey as a progress through three stages. There is a first level of bright colors and geometric designs, a second level of persons, plants and animals, and finally a third stage of true visions, where one sees the heroes, gods and demons of mythical history. According to the shaman, the third stage of ayahuasca also lets one travel across the universe and reveals the secrets of the world. Dividing this third stage along the line implicit in the description yields a 4-level model which agrees perfectly with the general psychedelic experience model presented in this book. In contrast to the large attention Reichel-Dolmatoff gave to the initial phase of the journey, the Yebamasa shaman stated that 'if you are still only seeing geometrical designs, you are still very much behind'.10
While the terminology differs, the progressive levels correspond to the stages of an LSD or mescaline trip, but due to the shorter duration of an ayahuasca trip (3-4 hours), the gradual ascent is more likely to be distributed across a series of sessions than a single night, unless the psychedelicist arrives sufficiently pure in mind and body. The present author finds the leveled transition model well in accordance with anecdotal ayahuasca material from private sources:
Nothing happened for at least half an hour, only the darkness of closed eye-lids. Then the visions began, they came in waves. At first there was the colored shapes you get on acid or mushrooms, but they didn't linger very long before the first vision sequence came on, clear as a movie before my inner eye. As each sequence came to an end, there would be a rapid display of geometrical forms, like an interruption. It felt almost like someone reshuffling a deck of cards, or a projectionist switching movie reels' and in a few seconds, a new picture would emerge, beginning a new vision sequence. These geometrical intermissions recurred throughout the ayahuasca trip, and after each break came an otra pinta [another picture], like the mestizos say.
(Trip Journal, unpublished manuscript by Patrick Lundborg, 2009)
Circumstantial objections aside, the biological-psychological hybrid model of Reichel-Dolmatoff offers a good explanatory pattern for the first two stages of any psychedelic trip, and more so if one adds a spiritual-visionary capacity to account for the third and fourth stages.
6
As Reichel-Dolmatoff found, aboriginal knowledge is of immediate value in the analysis of the initial stages of a psychedelic journey. Not only were his Tukano informants able to reproduce and organize the various form symbols that their culture had derived from the ayahuasca tradition, but they were able to assign different grades of inebriation to the seemingly plain geometrical figures. A certain group of symbols would come from visualizations after four cups of ayahuasca, another set would be seen when one had drunk six cups, and so forth. In view of such precise expertise, it is natural to hope for a corresponding level of detailed accounts from the higher planes of the tribe's Otherworld. However, as one studies reports from field researchers who have managed to gain enough trust for the elders to share the tribal mythology and spirit world, a more complex situation emerges. The creation story and other central myths of the people may be linked to the shamanic realm to a very large or very little degree, and the natives do not necessarily make distinctions between what has been handed down since immemorial times, and what has been inserted from spiritual experiences of ayahuasca, or dreams, or vision quests. Conversely, the origin stories of ayahuasca are usually interwoven with yet other animistic or archetypal elements.
As noted above, the shaman's training usually consists of extreme exposure to the psychedelic drug of choice among the tribe, in order for him to master the spirit world and become an efficient healer and seer. Hypothetically, this Otherworld practice is an area within indigenous shamanism where one might find a descriptive, cartographic language of great use. One can indeed run across detailed shamanic trip reports that appear to have a map-like quality, yet it is vital to remember that the shaman novice is expected to re-live or expand upon the fundamental mythology of the tribe and to absorb the teachings of his elders. The cultural background will color his narrative to a great extent, in much the same way that the visions of a Catholic saint will be colored by Christian iconography. The mythical heritage, preserved via oral tradition as these are non- literate people, does not necessarily differ in tone or structure between an ayahuasca tribe and a tribe that does not use entheogens. A telling example of the latter can be found in Johannes Wilbert's study of the Warao (in Furst, 1973), whose shamanic activity is based on the regional 'strong tobacco', rather than a hallucinogen. Wilbert managed to capture one of the most detailed accounts of an Amazonian tribal cosmology in existence, and beyond the expected differences in content, the formal characteristics of the Warao spiritual universe appear very similar to the drug-using tribes.
Furthermore, in Amazonian initiation rites using psycho-active drugs, the subject has a powerful incentive to receive the 'right' visions and to affirm the cosmology of the tribe, or else his initiation is a failure and must be re-done. Properly, the subject is to recount his dreams and visions before the elders with as little beforehand knowledge as possible; thereby his ability to adjust his answers to meet tribal expectations are reduced, and the value of the rite is not debased. However, the teacher-student relationship in the shamanic training will to some degree be a preparation to pass the initiation rites, and the special circumstances of a shamanic lineage in a small and isolated tribe is likely to foster a supportive, guiding attitude. In some aboriginal societies where use of deliriant drugs like Datura dominate the spiritual quests, the bursts of involuntary physical action, impaired perception, comatose sleep and amnesia may dictate the way the examination proceeds, putting emphasis on the adept's strength to withhold mind presence under such extreme circumstances rather than the content of visions.
The Innerspace journeys of the ayahuasca shaman have been rendered with great skill by the celebrated visionary painter Pablo Amaringo, who in Ayahuasca Visions also offers verbal commentary upon the scenes depicted in his paintings. These comments are useful from an artistic perspective, but also as preserved documents of a rare and inaccessible tradition. Howev er, as one might expect from a gifted visual artist, the explications do not go far beyond the images they reference, and the student may again find it difficult to disentangle Amaringo's personal image repository from the general cosmology of his line of ayahuasqueros. His most striking psychedelic elements usually come in the depiction of a transformed, hallucinatory rainforest, where human forms emerge out of tree trunks or appear as half-hidden parts of a jungle canopy. These trippy images are better discussed with his paintings on hand, and in the current context his achievements will serve to highlight the need for a similarly gifted writer to emerge, sharing Amaringo's formal experience as an ayahuasca shaman and his sharp visual memory; admittedly this seems unlikely.
Albert Hofmann, when commenting upon the Psychedelic Experience book by Leary et al, agreed on the great need for techniques on how to master the psychedelic journey. However, Dr Hofmann felt that the hallucinogen student of the West should build upon the mystical tradition of the West, with names like Meister Eckhart and Swedenborg, rather than a culturally remote society like Buddhist Tibet.11 A similar argument could be made with reference to the shamanic plant drug cultures of the Americas. The knowledge and experience of native ayahuasqueros is of vital use for those setting out to explore the tryptamine realm, but after the early guidance and initiation, the Westerner will soon face the choice of either probing further into the entheogenic space on his own, or to adopt the entire shamanic system of the present tribe. Cultural and mythological elements influence local spiritual traditions to such an extent that a visiting hallucinogen student will find it difficult to extract and translate comprehensive methods for navigating the tricky waters of Innerspace. Although a shared ur-shamanism of Eurasian origin may form the bottom layer of cultural sediment in both Europe and America, the historical contexts for spiritual activity have diverged so far that any genuine understanding would require a reprogramming as fundamental as that of a Westerner entering a Theravadan monastery. It is worth observing that the indigenous Amazon tribes that use psychedelic drugs are not necessarily different from other neolithic and paleolithic tribes in the region. There are strong patriarchal traditions in tribes like the Witoto and Yanomami, the latter whom engage in physical machismo rituals connected to snuffing DMT type entheogens, sometimes to the extent that there are deaths. The Jivaro (Shuar) were feared as headhunters and fierce warriors in the Western mind long before it emerged that they use ayahuasca.
Over the millennia, the Amerindians have successfully preserved their shamanistic cultures, in some cases upgrading the psycho-active plants, but otherwise undisturbed in their domicile. The Old World inhabitants, conversely, have been subject to constant pressures and change, to which they responded by adopting religious systems and socio-cultural models that were poorly suited for the old folk beliefs, as Weston La Barre observed12. With Western progress, the direct link to nature of the ancient pagan-pastoral world was lost and the old ways were first abandoned, then tabooed, and finally forgotten. During the Christian era the ancient European tradition of spiritual plant medicine was deliberately distorted into unwholesome folklore; so much so that even anthropo- logists failed to understand the proper history and ritualized drug use of the local archaic cultures. The plant drug cults never disappeared completely, and were to some degree actively maintained by the witches and healing 'wise-women' who lived on the fringe of the villages, representing a living link to the ancient mysteries of the surrounding forest. The witch tradition appears as a European form of shamanism, and it forms a vital part of an alternative Western culture that reaches back to the time when a ritualized vegetation ceremony turned into the celebration of individual spiritual revelation.
