Greenwood Publishing Group Inc. eBooks
January 1, 2008
Marlene Dobkin de Rios, Roger Rumrrill
19 citations
Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic tea made from a vine native to the Amazonian rainforest, has been used as a religious sacrament for centuries across several South American cultures. Spiritual leaders and shamans consider it enlightening and healing. The book explores the history, realm, and debates around ayahuasca, which some view as a sacrament and others as a scourge. It covers its movement into the United States, leading to legal battles and rulings from the United Nations, and the rise of drug tourism to South America, where charlatans put tourists at risk. Opponents fight its use while scientists investigate its potential healing properties for physical and mental health. The book includes text from the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances and interviews with Amazonian shamans.
American Anthropologist
December 1, 1970
Marlene Dobkin de Rios
17 citations
Among mestizo folk healers in the Peruvian Amazon, the effects of the psychedelic vine ayahuasca are shaped by cultural expectations and beliefs about illness. The subjective personal experience of the drug is influenced by cultural factors, which strongly determine the content of hallucinations.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
June 1, 2005
Marlene Dobkin de Rios, Charles S. Grob
5 citations
In a November 2004 telephone interview, Jeffrey Bronfman, representative mestre for the União do Vegetal Church in the United States, discusses the church's legal battle after U.S. authorities seized a large quantity of ayahuasca tea intended for sacramental use. The case, which the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear, pits the church's claim to religious freedom against federal drug laws that classify ayahuasca as a scheduled substance. Bronfman describes the church's efforts to seek remediation through the courts on this freedom of religion issue.
European Psychiatry
January 1, 2010
Evelyn Doering-Silveira, Enrique Lopez, Charles S. Grob et al.
Adolescents who consume ayahuasca in a religious ritual setting perform well on neuropsychological tests, but not as well as non-using peers on complex tasks that require more cognitive functions. The study compared 40 ayahuasca-using adolescents with 40 matched controls. Both groups performed well overall, but controls outperformed users on the more demanding tests. The authors suggest ayahuasca may have subtle effects on cognition observable only during highly demanding tasks, while noting that other variables could have influenced the results.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
April 1, 1993
Marlene Dobkin de Rios, Charles S. Grob
This work reviews the book 'Vine of the Soul: Medicine Men, Their Plants and Rituals in the Colombian Amazonia,' which examines the traditional use of psychoactive plants, particularly ayahuasca, by indigenous medicine men in the Colombian Amazon. The book documents the cultural, ritual, and medicinal contexts of these practices, emphasizing the role of plant-based knowledge in indigenous healing and spiritual traditions. The review highlights the book's contribution to ethnobotany and the understanding of Amazonian shamanism, noting its detailed descriptions of rituals and the relationship between plants and healers.