WEBVTT - Bia Labate on Ayahuasca 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:07.720 Hi, I'm Ethan Edelman and this is Psychoactive, a production 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:11.600 of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:15.040 show where we talk about all things drugs. But any 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.760 views expressed here do not represent those of I Heart Media, 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:23.480 Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heed, as 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:26.400 an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:30.720 even represent my own. And nothing contained in this show 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.680 should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:46.159 any type of drugs. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. Today's show is 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.320 about i ahuasca and needed to do this one for 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.400 quite a while. And there's a whole wide world of 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:55.240 experts to call on in this area these days because 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.160 iahuanska has become such a thing. You know, a psycholic 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.360 plan medicine from South America prim early Amazon area. But 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:04.360 today I have one of the world's great experts on 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.520 this who has been a scholar and an activist for 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:12.440 twenty years. Her name is Billibate. She's Brazilian. She's an 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:16.600 anthropologist PhD. Anthropology. Grew up in Brazil, but she's also 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.800 taught in Mexico and currently lives in the United States. Now, 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:23.639 she's worked with Rick Dobbin's organization MAPS as the public 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:28.000 Education and Culture specialist. She's been affiliated with other academic institutions, 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:29.920 but her main gig for US four or five years 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:34.479 is she founded and directs an organization called Chakruna, which 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.880 is really one of the outstanding organizations working on ayahuasca 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.200 and other plant medicines in the world. So be a 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.880 thanks so much for joining me on Psychoactive. Thank you 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:47.600 for having me Ethan, who have been following your work 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:49.880 for a long time. It's an honor to be here 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:52.200 with you today. I trying to think back. I think 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.760 we first met. Maybe it was in Sal Paulo, Brazil, 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:58.080 fifteen years ago. I think I was given a talk 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:00.320 at the law school down there and you end up 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:03.120 coming to lunch with me and the professors or whatever. 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:05.160 And then since that time, I've seen you a Drug 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:07.360 Policy Alliance events, I've seen you all over the place, 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:11.040 and really just recently earlier this summer, we crossed past 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:15.000 in Mexico City at the conference of the Alcohol and 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.320 Drug Historian Society, which is fascinating, and you were one 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.359 of the keynote speakers there. So you know, your reputation 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.600 just keeps growing, and I have tremendous admiration for the 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:27.160 work that you're doing. So let's dive into this. I mean, 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:30.560 the first question I gotta ask you is why have 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:34.280 you How did you land up on devoting really, I 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.840 guess all of your adult life so far to ayahuasca 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.320 and plan medicine. Thank you for the common Actually I 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:43.600 met you in the United States. I remember well distinctively 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.359 because you were the first person that I came up 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.639 with a little brochure and caught your attention when you 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.360 were super busy running the dp A conference in two 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.200 thousand and seven, and I wrote a little project and 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:56.800 I said that I had a dream to have a 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:00.120 nonprofit in the United States. And you sat down and 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.119 you looked at it with like cybor guys, and three 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:08.320 seconds read everything and gave me like five words of advice, 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:12.560 tapped my shoulder, said good luck, and said some positive 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.799 things and ran off to the next business meeting with 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:18.000 all the in your glory in your times in the 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.480 dp A running the whole show. And so it's so 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:23.320 great for me. This is two thousand and seven, and 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.240 then cut to two thousand and twenty two, and I 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:28.920 do have a nonprofit in the United States, and I 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:32.400 did receive your encouragement, and it does feel like a 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:34.760 dream come true for me. So that means I get 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:36.520 to feel a little bit proud of what you're doing. 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:38.600 I didn't even realize that part of it, but that's 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.200 pretty cool. So yes, so tell it gold back. You should. 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.600 You should definitely feel proud. And you know, I've been 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:47.680 realizing that how influential those conferences were for me. And 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:50.040 it was at that conference that I also met Rick 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.480 Doblin and started to volunteer for MAPS, which I did 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.600 for ten years. And the d p A definitely helped 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.680 a lot of young scholars and activists in Latin America 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.000 do this bridge with the United States because we're kind 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.160 of isolated, you know, in Mexico, Brazil, it's hard to 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:09.600 come to the English speaking world, and that conference really 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:11.880 played a role for a lot of us to get 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:16.240 to know contexts and explore connections. I started this work 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.599 really out of personal interest, basically because I took sacred 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:24.800 plants and you you said hallucinogens were not antie that term, 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:27.640 but we kind of preferred to use sacred plants or 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:32.320 plant medicines or psychedelic plant medicines or sacred medicines medicines. 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:35.400 The idea of hallucinogen gives a bit the impression that 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.080 it's some kind of fake. Yeah, I'm sorry, I really 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:39.800 said I see as it working out of mouth. I 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:41.520 really got that popped out from an old part of 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.200 my brain. Like hallucinogens, there's not really the term of 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:46.719 art now. It is psychedelics or plant medicines or those 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:50.320 two in combinations. Sorry about that, no problem, I mean 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:52.440 they are just words after all. But we're like, yeah, 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:54.479 we have a lot of respect for these plants that 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:57.160 are very influential, so we use other terms. But I 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:01.480 had personal experiences that were pretty influential in my early twenties. 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:05.320 I tried mushrooms in Mexico and peyote, and also tried 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:08.560 L S D. And when I was twenty five or 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:13.240 twenty six, tried aahuaska in Brazil and it was I 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:15.640 think a lot of us have this feeling that it's 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:19.000 like arriving home somehow, that you just get in touch 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:23.479 with this reality that feels so incredibly familiar and so 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:27.720 sacred and so profound and so inspiring, and that gives 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:30.800 you a kind of sense of comfort of belonging to 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:34.200 something bigger than yourself, and to kind of fitting into 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.479 this magic and mystery that is being alive and the 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:41.200 gratitude of having a body, having a spirit, having a soul, 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:44.960 and being here in this journey of so much uncertainty 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:49.039 towards what there is after us and just somehow gives 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:53.560 this profound feeling of some kind of existential belonging. And 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.760 so for me it has been really a personal journey 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:01.080 that then inspired my intellectual curiosity as a kind of 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:06.120 organic move that departs from this personal interests. Well, so 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.719 let me ask you this, and let's just go backward 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:11.560 for those in our audience who really don't know much 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.840 about Ayahuaska. I mean I introduced it by saying it 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.479 is this plant medicine, the psychedelic that comes from the 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:23.000 Amazonian region, which presumably means parts of Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:24.920 and I guess it maybe borders a little bit. It 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.520 must be little parts of Venezuela or Bolivia where you 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.200 can also probably find it. But just say a little 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.200 more about you know, what do we know about its history? 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.000 I mean, do we know if the use goes back 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.640 hundreds of years or thousands of years. I mean, I 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:39.920 think Westerners only became aware of it in the mid 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:44.040 nineteenth century. But what's known from historians and others and 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:47.240 anthropologists when they look back at the history of this. Yeah, 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:52.040 So ayahuasca is a combination normally of two plants, although 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:55.560 there is a variation of different admixtures plants that you 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:59.400 can add to ayahuasca. Normally, it's the combination what a 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:03.080 lot of people know of bunny steadiopsiska coppy, so that's 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:07.080 the vine and Cicotira viddis that is the leaf or 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.559 a shrub that you use the leaf. So traditionally for 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.920 Amazonian indigenous people, the vine is kind of the base 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.600 of ayahuaska. And then you can add different admixture plants. 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:24.720 So Cicotia is chakurna. That's why we named our nonprofit 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.000 after Ayawuaska. It's a tribute to Ayahuaska, which is our 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:32.320 plant teacher. And it's used across different countries of the Amazon, 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.400 and I think you have named all of them correctly 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:40.280 by different indigenous people. It's not very clear when it's 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.560 used started, and there is a lot of controversy around that. 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.560 I mean traditionally people were saying that this was used 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:50.000 for thousands of years, of five thousand years, and then 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:54.040 this information has been disputed. Then there is some more 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:59.120 recent archaeological evidence. But anyhow, it's not exactly known, and 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:03.200 there isn't a day that people across the border identify. 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:05.800 So one way to name let me ask you this. 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:07.760 You know, when I think about like you can see 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:10.320 you know, there's a little statuette of people with the 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:12.760 bulge of the coca leaf in their cheek going back 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.920 thousands of years, right, or you have archaeologists who find 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.600 cannabis in people's bodies or their pouches that are dug up. 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:21.440 You know, there are thousands of years old. There was 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.680 a news article not long ago about evidence of ayahuasca 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:27.880 and also I think coca being found in the bodies 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.680 of children who have been sacrificed in inca ceremonies. Um, 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:34.240 I don't know, five hundred years or so something like that. 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:36.240 But so far as we know, is that the oldest 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.760 archaeological evidence that we have of the use. Yeah, as 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:42.520 I said, it's kind of disputed. We have published an 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.440 article in our site by Georgio Sammarini talking about the 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.080 fake news of the antiquity of ayahuasca. It's not as clear. 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:56.160 For example, some pedro or peyote have more clear archaeological evidence. 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:59.440 A lot of these materials in the Amazon are not 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:03.840 really easy to track personally. I have chosen to use 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:08.360 the expression it has been used since immemorial times, and 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:12.840 I guess it's not really you know, relevant, exactly how 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.679 long it has been used. The fact is that it's 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:20.240 spread throughout the America's and it's considered a sacred plant 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.479 for different indigenous groups. I think in the mid eighties 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.640 there was an author that calculated that over seventy indigenous 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:32.760 groups used diahuasca. More recently, we published in our article 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.600 that an indigenous activist of Brazil mentioned there's a hundred 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:41.040 sixty groups, although that's also hard to classify exactly how many, 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:45.840 because the way that colonizers identified indigenous people and divided 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:50.199 them into different ethnic groups does not really match necessarily 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:53.760 the way these groups classify themselves, and they have also 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:57.600 changed names through history. So it's such a huge universe, 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:01.200 which plants, which groups for how long. All of this 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:05.640 is part of the incredible richness of the Ayahuasca culture. 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.560 What makes I think also the Aouaska a little different 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:12.480 from say peyote or philosophic mushrooms and things like that, 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:17.199 is that it requires putting together two distinct plants, right, 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:18.960 and there is now you just take the one or 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.440 take the other. If somebody had to figure out one 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:23.600 way or another, you had to combine these things in 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:28.480 order to unleash it's kind of special property. Is that right? Yes? Correct? 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:31.360 And that's also part of the fascination of Ayahuaska. Can 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.040 you imagine the millions of plants that exist on the 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:37.760 Amazon forest, and if this was done by error and trial, 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:42.080 how many attempts would there be to actually find this combination? 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:45.480 And considering one of the plants is not really active 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:49.800 orally by itself. When you ask indigenous people, how do 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.240 you know this? And how did you find this out? 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:54.720 And you know the answer they give, Right, do you 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:58.160 even know what is it? The plants taught me? I 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:00.800 thought you're gonna say that, right, that the plan spoke 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:03.360 to them. It raises the question whether or not, I mean, 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:05.439 we there's no way to know. I guess whether it 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.400 is the properties of the merger of these two plants 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.880 was first discovered by one tribe and then spread from there, 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.280 or whether it was sort of coincidentally discovered in different 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.199 parts of the Amazon over years by groups having nothing 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:20.880 to do with the other. Do we have any idea 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:24.360 which was true? Yeah, there's also controversies about that. I mean, 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.560 I have published several books on Ihuaska, and we have 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:30.080 done that as well, like published or an article and 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.120 then later on some other person say something else, and 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:35.920 you also published that article. So it looks like it 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.440 came from the Columbian Amazon. But there's also a kind 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.920 of lack of clarity exactly where did it originate from. 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:47.280 And there's also some people trying to do some DNA 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:51.960 work to sort of pursue different vines. Also, something interesting 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:56.080 to consider, if you consider there's this whole boom and 0:11:56.160 --> 0:12:00.320 this whole trendness around Ahuaska, is that there's actually not 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:04.520 a lot of botanical work done around the plant species itself. 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.600 They were identified, as you said, and I think it 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:11.600 was eighteen fifty nine or something. I look at eighteen 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:16.000 fifty one the Victorian naturalist Richard Spruce. That's by Spruce, 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:20.120 the first of the Westerners to uh come across this. Yes, 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:24.840 he identified the vine. More recently, some researchers in Brazil 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:29.360 have suggested that we need to reclassify the plant, that 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.000 there are also other species and variations. So there's also 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.000 that kind of depth to it, like if you go 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.600 to indigenous people and you're try to ask them, you know, 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.439 what is this vine or how many vines do you recognize? 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:46.400 And they'll tell you they'll recognize six or eight or 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.880 ten or fifteen or sixteen types. You know, this is 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.640 the red monkey one, this is the parrot one, this 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:56.560 is different names. And then you bring a botanist and 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:00.679 show it to them. They don't recognize necessarily the different fronts. 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:04.840 And so there is a challenge of like ethno medicine, 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:09.720 to identify exactly which types of vine. And there has 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:13.600 been a lot of exploration around different users and the 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.880 practice expanding a lot, but not so much on the 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.320 plants itself. So there's a lot of rich areas for 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:24.120 study and for inquiry, and there's it's a vibrant field 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.640 of study. And actually people are starting to do these 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.160 kinds of studies more and more. Now. When you say 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:31.400 the vine, I mean first I looked at photographs it 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.280 is it almost looks like a snake winding itself around 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:36.640 a tree from some of the photos I saw. But 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.720 when you say the vine, that's one of the two ingredients. 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.880 And is that the part that contains the drug d MT, 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.000 which I guess is the key psychoactive ingredient, or is 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.200 that the other one. No, that's the other one, that's 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:55.079 the sequatria or another admixture plants. Also, our western explanation 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:58.000 puts a kind of centrality into the d m T, 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:02.920 which is the visionary element, and it's only active orally 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.360 with the combination of the vine, the better carbulence. But 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:11.360 this doesn't also match indigenous explanations smoothly because traditionally the 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.640 base of ayahuasca is the vine. The vine is also 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:18.200 called ayahuasca, and so the preparation of ayahuaska and other 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:21.520 admixture plants is called ahuasca, and just the vine is 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.720 also called ayahuasca, and you add different admixtures, and for 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:28.680 us there has been a lot of emphasis on the 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:32.880 d MT, but the tradition is normally the base, the 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:36.680 central element is the vine. And there's also people that 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:41.560 have cooked just the vine itself and reported psychoactive effects, 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.400 which doesn't make a lot of sense. According to our theories. 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:49.080 So there's a lot of, you know, interesting and fascinating things. It's, 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.960 as they say, a science, the science of indigenous people, 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:57.640 a diahuasca diaouaska science. It's a study, it's a universe. 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.800 So basically, when I mean, I've done this a few times. 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:04.160 But when we drink that tea, the ayahuasca tea, which 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:06.600 I guess is the way it's typically consumed, Nobody's going 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:08.560 to drink that just for the taste. I mean, it's 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:11.400 oftentimes quite unappealing, at least I find it that way. 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:13.520 Maybe some people grow to like it. But it contains 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.600 these two basic ingredients. But obviously every concoction varies depending 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.480 upon the particular recipe, depending upon where it comes from. 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.480 So you're gonna have the core elements there, but it's 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:28.120 gonna vary quite a lot depending upon which reason of 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.920 the amazon is coming from. About how people are putting 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:33.200 it in. I imagine that different people who cook this 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.080 up put in different other little additional ingredients for one 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:37.800 reason or another. I mean, is that right. It's just 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:41.400 there's like no limit to the types of ayahuasca flavors 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:45.240 and taste, all sort of embellishing around that core mixture 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:48.040 of the two ingredients. Yes, true, as it seems to 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.080 have also been drinking some ayahuasca for a while, so 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.240 as you know, that taste can be pretty challenging and 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:58.240 it's part of like the personality, so to speak of ayahuaska. 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:01.320 It's part of the ayahuasca experience. And to feel that 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.440 taste that is this like kind of feels like visceral, 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:10.120 deep penetration of odors and textures that is part of 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:13.040 the kingdom of nature that we are normally not aware of. 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:15.600 It's hard to describe, but I have a lot of 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:18.680 respect for the taste of ahuaska. In Brazil, there's one 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.600 of the Ahuaska religions that they drink awaska then they 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:24.600 eat like a gum on top or some kind of 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:29.080 maybe orange or something to take off the taste. Different 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.680 people do that mint or whatever. I think it's part 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.080 of the experience and we should feel it and just 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.480 taste it and sit with it. And what you said 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:41.320 is correct depending on the soil, depending on the edge 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.000 of the ahuaska plant. And also there are rituals to 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.320 cook it, and there's different beliefs around it. The time 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.640 the proper time of harvesting, the proper time of cooking, 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:55.040 the proper time of planting, and different regions have different flavors. 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:58.240 One thing that is interesting is that it grows very 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:02.240 fast in Hawaii. In Hawaii, there's a whole culture of 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.840 growing ayahuasca. In the United States, of course, it's not 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:10.000 entirely above board, let's say. And then the ahuaska from 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.600 Hawaii is known to have kind of a sweeter taste. 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:17.360 And in the beginning, some people, at least in Brazil 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.240 and the Santa Dami religion, they were kind of a 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:24.080 little bit prejudiced against the Daimi or Ahuaska from Hawaii. 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.560 But with time it grew popularity and people learned to 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:31.920 appreciate more. And that's also this is interesting. So that's 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:35.000 more like the topics that I understand more is the 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:39.119 culture around it, and you know, people's beliefs, and that's 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.400 kind of thing that caught my attention for years. Uh huh. 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:44.600 So let me ask you this. We've done a lot 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:48.120 of episodes in Psycholo had Paul Stamit's talking about mushrooms 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.920 and all cyber mushrooms, and Mike Ja talking about peyote 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.000 and san pedro mescaline, and Michael Pollen was on and 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:56.919 you know, can't we tell the whole range. This is 0:17:56.920 --> 0:17:59.520 the first one Aowaska. But I remember years ago one 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:01.960 of the other early researchers, going back to the eighties 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:04.119 or nineties in this field, I think it was it 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:06.560 was Charlie Grove, professor at U c l A. And 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:09.000 I think it was him who said that many people 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:14.480 regard ayahuasca as the queen of all the psychedelic plant medicines. 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:16.479 And I don't know if you would agree or use 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:20.199 that terminology, but there's a sense of ayahuaska having a 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:24.879 certain specialness that maybe from people outside I mean obviously 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:27.439 people Native American Church, you know, for them, peyote is 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:29.639 their sacrament, and we have that sort of thing. But 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.480 there's a kind of something special about ayahuaska that some 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:36.960 people sometimes see as transcending even the other plant medicines. 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:39.920 What do you think, Well, I'm kind of biased because, 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:43.920 as you said, you know, dedicated years of my life 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.639 to this subject. I drank ourawatska, and long story short, 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:51.000 I got completely fascinated and I thought that was it, 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:54.320 and I was kind of obsessed for twenty years. And 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:58.760 you had already done other substances, but tried other psychedelics. Yes, 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:01.359 it was it, you know, I thought that was it, 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:06.119 and I got really dedicated and I just wanted to 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:08.359 drink it and talk about it and think about it 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:12.399 and talk to people. And naturally I became an anthropologist 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.880 study in Ahuaska because I was so interested and I 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:18.600 just decided that I wanted to go to the Amazon 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:22.320 and visit the sources and go directly to the fields. 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.119 And for me it has been like my main ally 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:28.000 and friend. But I think that's you know, we have 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:30.920 to be careful with those kinds of things because there 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.240 isn't such a thing. You know, this is the one 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:37.119 or the best. I mean, this is the one for me, 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:39.480 or this is the one that now serves me better. 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:41.600 And this is a friend, this is an ally, this 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.160 is a teacher, this is a kindred spirit that I 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:50.200 am aligned with. And for different people, they have different tastes. 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.560 I'd like to think, and this is also your influence 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:58.280 that there is some analogy between drugs and foods, and 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:02.680 so different people have different needs and different tastes and 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:07.080 different body complexions and they are kind of from different groups. 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.199 So some people you go on a restaurant together and 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:12.679 each person who is going to have a certain combination 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.879 of foods on their plate, and that is the expression 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.240 of their being through the food. The same happens with drugs. 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:22.960 Each person is going to have some kind of better 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:27.480 familiarity or friendship with certain kind of substances. So there's 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:30.320 people that just don't want I was and don't like 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.480 I was, or drink awaska once and feel that was 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.080 it and they never want to go again. There's other 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:38.880 people that don't want to drink at all, and then 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:40.760 there's some of us that drink it and you know, 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:43.520 never get tired of drinking it and start to walk 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:48.080 this path of following the teachings of ayahuasca. And so 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.520 I do think it's a very powerful and magnificent and 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:55.240 impressive substance. And I like to think that it has 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:59.960 some spiritual power, but I would be reluctant to say 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:02.600 that it's the queen of all substances. For one thing, 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:08.879 Tobacco in Amazonian shamanism is a very pervasive and strong substance. 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:12.760 Tobacco is used across the Americas in different countries and 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:16.960 accompanies Ahuaska or just by itself, So tobacco in many 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:19.200 ways it is predominant, but used in a way I 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.560 should be clear for audience that is essentially psychedelic taking 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.439 in a very potent form. That's not like people smoking 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:30.359 cigarettes arts. No, it's not cigarettes. It's the the plant itself. 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:33.720 And it's been used on multiple ways as well. You 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.600 can have paste, or you can have enemas, or you 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:41.360 can smoke it inhale it through different combinations with different plants. 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:45.320 So tobacco is very varied and also has different meanings. 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:48.280 It can be used in rituals but also kind of 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.960 as a social lubricant. So there's many different plants. And 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:56.080 also I don't use the word psychedelic exactly, but psychoactive 0:21:56.359 --> 0:21:59.159 for sure. This is also part of the challenge, like 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.119 the very catagor gtories that we have to describe the 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:08.120 substances don't necessarily mirror traditional indigenous ways of describing them 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:11.040 because we kind of tend to separate them into these 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:15.199 boxes like is this medical or is this recreational? Is 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:21.040 this sacred? Is this profane? Is this nutrition? Is this identity? 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:25.480 We separate the uses of substances in two different categories 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.560 and different schedules of drugs, and that's not how traditionally 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:34.800 shamanism operates, and there's a lot of blurrening of categories 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:40.959 between what is healing or sociality, or identity or medicine, 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:44.840 and these things get mixed together, and so it's hard 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:48.680 to express and talk about those things in our terms. 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:51.680 And I have been interested in trying to find out 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:55.840 there's other classifications of substances, which I think teach us 0:22:56.000 --> 0:23:00.480 also about how to think reality. They teach us how 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:03.800 to think our own categories and our own paradigms. And 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:06.639