Ayahuasca And Psilocybin, 2nd Edition

By Michael Fanhofmann

Ayahuasca and psilocybin - essays on science, legislation, society, spirituality and psychedelic therapies - presents a summary of the latest scientific research on the ritualistic and responsible use of medicines such as Ayahuasca and Psilocybin. These medicines, which are part of the select group of classic serotonergic psychedelics, have great potential for therapeutic use (such as in the treatment of anxiety and depression), for improving social and family cohesion, and also for awakening the latent spirituality in every one. The book highlights the importance of serious and ethical ayahuasca traditions, which provide a safe and secure environment for practitioners to achieve their personal growth with these medicines.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clube de Autores
• Release date: Jan 29, 2023

Book preview

Ayahuasca and psilocybin

Essays on science, legislation, society, spirituality and psychedelic therapies

Michael Fanhofmann

Translated by Hugo Ramirez

2nd Edition

Rio de Janeiro

2023

Copyright © 2023 Michael Fanhofmann

Translation copyright © 2023 by Hugo Ramirez

All rights reserved.

2nd Edition

ISBN: 978-65-00-61658-3

Index card made by the author

To my wife, to my godmother, and to Babá.

Introduction

The first time I heard a first-person account from a Daime regular was in 2011. I was on vacation with my wife and I was talking to a very friendly and easygoing woman at an inn in Matutu. I would never have imagined that five years later I would be attending ayahuasca rituals myself. To tell you the truth, back then I didn’t even know that this Daime tea and ayahuasca were the same thing. I also had no idea that Daime was a Brazilian religion, arising from the visions received by a rubber tapper, and influenced by different religions and by indigenous tradition. I stored the conversation in the curiosities’ drawer, with a sort of anthropological interest that now also included the new information that this Daime seemed to generate easygoing people.

Could something have made me interested in ayahuasca earlier in life? Maybe an internet story, like so many today? No, nothing. I had no idea.

Only after being invited by a friend to go to an ayahuasca rite for the first time, already 35 years old, did I begin to pay attention to the subject. Every thing in its right time.

William Richards, psychologist and expert in psychedelic therapies since the 1960s [¹] and still active today, argues that the most adult members of society would benefit the most from exploring the expansion of consciousness with psychedelics. In fact, this is another piece of information that I didn’t have either: that ayahuasca/Daime could eventually change people’s lives for better, without them necessarily becoming religious fanatics.

I also didn’t know that the class of substances in question, psychedelics, had been studied with remarkable scientific results until a great wave of prejudice and vested interests practically banned all research and blocked the advancement of knowledge for decades.

I did not know that great thinkers, scientists and philosophers such as Aldous Huxley [²], Lynn Margulis (responsible for the theory that explains the origin of mitochondria), Kary Mullis (Nobel Prize in Chemistry), Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize in Physics), Michael Pollan [³], among others, had embarked on the investigation of the expansion of consciousness with psychedelics.

And above all, I would not imagine myself involved in some kind of spiritual experience, since until then I had never felt touched by any religion. It seems natural to me that intelligent people will, at some point in their lives, face existential questions. This sort of questioning can be very disturbing and difficult. Nowadays, I realize that a possible avenue for healthly pacifying this deadlock, that is, a way to obtain a serene connection with life even in the face of its obvious limitations, would be this ayahuasca-facilitated path.

In tandem with this beginning of my experience in ayahuasca rituals, the opportunity arose to take an online course in psychedelic science with neuroscientist Eduardo Schenberg. It was a very interesting course, which combined very technical explanations about the functioning of the brain with historical, anthropological and cultural aspects. Eduardo currently heads the Phaneros Institute, conducting research with patients with depression and whose body of researchers will probably be the first group of professionals with clinical experience in Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy (PAP) in Brazil. I owe much of this idea of bringing together essays and insights into the science behind ayahuasca to Eduardo Schenberg‘s outreach efforts. Despite being only an engineer, and not a neuroscientist like him, I hope I have been able to understand enough of the scientific research to be able to explain some of its main results without talking nonsense