Ayahuasca
Global History, Pharmacology, and Modern Practice
The vine, the brew, and the ceremony that carried it around the world.
Prepublication edition v0.31 · EPUB · 822 sources
Downloads need a free invitation code during the prepublication period. Request one.
About this volume
A brew of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine and, most often, the leaves of Psychotria viridis, ayahuasca pairs a fragile visionary molecule with the vine’s own chemistry so that the experience can unfold over hours rather than minutes. The volume follows it from the Amazonian lineages that developed the brew through the Brazilian churches that carried it into cities, to the retreat circuit that now spans the globe.
Alongside the history runs the science: how the brew works in the brain, what the clinical trials on depression actually found, what a ceremony asks of the people who hold it, and where the law stands country by country. The closing chapters take up the harder questions of stewardship, reciprocity, and what the brew’s globalization owes the communities it came from.
Synthesized from 822 sources, including the peer-reviewed pharmacology, the neuroimaging literature, the global ayahuasca survey, multi-decade ethnography, and the regulatory record.
Inside the book
- IOrigins · Chapters 1 to 3The substance and its first uses, the lineages that carried it, and the ethics of writing about it at all.
- IIMechanism · Chapters 4 to 6The molecule, receptors, and dose; the brain under the influence; what doesn’t mix.
- IIIExperience · Chapters 7 to 9The arc of an experience, what it is like inside, and when it turns difficult.
- IVMedicine · Chapters 10 and 11The clinical evidence, indication by indication, read closely and without inflation.
- VPractice · Chapters 12 to 15Ceremony, clinic, and solo practice; set and setting; harm reduction; integration.
- VILandscape · Chapters 16 and 17Legal status, the regulatory moment, and the questions still open.