Ayahuasca History

Contenido propio

January 28, 2022

The relationship of human beings with plants capable of modifying the functions of the body or mind is millenary. Humanity has always developed a harmonious relationship with these plants and they have often influenced the human and cultural development of peoples and civilizations.

There is evidence of the use of at least one of the components of Ayahuasca, since Paleolithic times. It is difficult to conceive how these substances were first combined from among hundreds of thousands of plants in its ecosystem.

There are theories that say that it comes from the observation of the purging of some animals such as jaguars, and there are several traditions that suggest that it was the plant itself revealed to humans in dreams or visions.

Origin of the use of Ayahuasca

The use of ayahuasca originates from the Amazon basin in countries such as Colombia, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador. For centuries, indigenous Amazonian populations have used this botanical mixture in their rituals for healing, divination and for activities as diverse as witchcraft and even warfare.

It is known that at least one of the plants used in the preparation of ayahuasca was already in use millennia ago.

Ayahuasca has been used by native peoples of the Amazon in a traditional way and is still used today. Various ethnic groups such as the Shuar in Ecuador, the Shipibo-Conibo in Peru among others, continue to use ayahuasca, as well as many other plants, for healing, divinatory and medicinal purposes.

Ayahuasca plays an important role in the cosmovision of these cultures.

Extent of the use of ayahuasca

The widespread use of ayahuasca is not limited to the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, but can also be found in mestizo populations in rural and urban areas of countries such as Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil. In such places ayahuasca is used for healing purposes and other ritual activities where the boundaries of indigenous traditions are often blurred with elements of other cultures.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Brazilian mestizo individuals incorporated ayahuasca consumption into their religious practices, giving rise to the first "ayahuasca churches" that began to have a presence in the Brazilian urban centers of the states of Acre and Rondonia.

Today, Santo Daime, União do Vegetal and Barquinha are the most representative of the ayahuasca religions that first appeared in the Amazonian cities of Brazil and then spread throughout the planet. It was during the 50's when the knowledge about ayahuasca spread to the western world.

The publication of the book with the correspondence between William Buroughs and Allen Ginsberg called "The Yagé Letters", about their experiences with ayahuasca, as well as the investigations of the botanist Richard Evans Schultes were decisive in making the use of this concoction known to Western culture.

From then on, new contexts of ayahuasca consumption appeared, it began to be used in psychotherapy and in personal development movements. Today the use of ayahuasca has become globalized and is being increasingly integrated into contemporary contexts.

In Conscious Television we have traveled to the Amazon jungle to record our Ayahuasca Course, the medicine of the Soul, we will see its composition, preparation, ceremony and all the details of this ancestral ceremony.