Indigenous use of ayahuasca, psilocybin, peyote for religious healing rituals | Roland Griffiths
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Many indigenous religious and cultural practices involve the use of hallucinogenic substances such as peyote, psilocybin, and ayahuasca. Use of these substances is often carried out in a highly controlled cultural context for religious or healing purposes or for divination and not casual use. The use is often accompanied by strong mystical experiences that have great significance to the user. In this clip, Dr. Roland Griffiths and Dr. Rhonda Patrick discuss the sociocultural aspects of hallucinogenic substance use.
Roland: Dimethyltryptamine, DMT, is a very short-acting classic hallucinogen of the serotonin type, and its phenomenology is distinct from Salvinorin.
Rhonda: Is its phenomenology similar to psilocybin, though?
Roland: Well, that gets complex because it's so short-acting that it's hard to compare. And DMT is also the active ingredient in Ayahuasca which is the brew that's consumed mostly in South America, and by some of these syncretic religions. And that's when the DMT is combined with an MAO inhibitor that slows down the metabolism in gut. And so it changes the duration of action and makes it more like psilocybin, and under those cases, those effects certainly looked more like psilocybin than just smoked DMT.
But direct comparative pharmacology studies haven't been done with any of these compounds. So we have yet to tease apart the real differences and similarities.
Rhonda: And there's a lot of the indigenous populations that use some of these hallucinogens like psilocybin, I think, too, because...
Roland: Oh sure. So psilocybin has been used for hundreds of years in Mexico, and Ayahuasca DMT in the form of snuffs or as this brew have been used for as far back as documentation allows in South America. Of course, we have peyote which is mescaline which is another serotonergic 2A agonist used by the American-Indian. There's evidence of probably almost 200 species of psilocybin mushrooms and those are used...have been used around the world. So there's plenty of indigenous use of these compounds.
Interestingly, for the most part, if a culture has historical use of these compounds, it's done in a highly controlled cultural context, in general, for religious or healing purposes or for divination, but they're not used casually.
Rhonda: Okay. So I guess people are obviously using it for other cultural reasons and have been doing so for quite a long time.
Roland: Yes. And it's very, very likely that the use has been enculturated in a context in which the meaningfulness of the emergent experiences has been thought to be a value to that culture.
Rhonda: It makes sense if you're having a mystical experience that's often, and hand in hand, goes with some sort of religious. Sometimes, a lot of people in religions have mystical experiences when they're...for whatever reason, they talk to some higher power that they believe in or something. So kind of all makes sense.
An entheogenic brew made out of Banisteriopsis caapi vine and the Psychotria viridis leaf. The brew is used as a traditional spiritual medicine in ceremonies among the indigenous peoples of Amazonia. People who have consumed ayahuasca report having spiritual revelations regarding their purpose on earth, the true nature of the universe as well as deep insight into how to be the best person they possibly can.
A powerful hallucinogenic substance that is widespread in nature. DMT is a derivative of tryptamine. It is structurally similar to serotonin and functions in much the same way as psilocybin drugs. Well-known for its relatively short duration of action, intense effects, and rapid onset, it is one of the major psychoactive compounds used in religious practices in South America for centuries and, more recently, as a recreational drug in the US and Europe.
The thousands of biochemical processes that run all of the various cellular processes that produce energy. Since energy generation is so fundamental to all other processes, in some cases the word metabolism may refer more broadly to the sum of all chemical reactions in the cell.
Peyote is a small, spineless cactus with psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline. Native North Americans are likely to have used peyote, often for spiritual purposes, for at least 5,500 years.
A naturally occurring psychedelic compound produced by more than 200 species of mushrooms. As a prodrug, psilocybin is quickly converted by the body to psilocin, which has mind-altering effects including euphoria, visual and mental hallucinations, changes in perception, a distorted sense of time, and spiritual experiences, and can include possible adverse reactions such as nausea and panic attacks.
Salvinorin A is the main active psychotropic molecule in Salvia divinorum, a Mexican plant which has a long history of use as an entheogen by indigenous Mazatec shamans. Salvinorin A can produce psychoactive experiences in humans with a typical duration of action being several minutes to an hour or so. It is structurally distinct from other naturally occurring hallucinogens, acting on the k-opioid receptor instead of the 5-HT2A (serotonin) receptor.
A small molecule that functions as both a neurotransmitter and a hormone. Serotonin is produced in the brain and gut and facilitates the bidirectional communication between the two. It regulates many physiological functions, including sleep, appetite, mood, thermoregulation, and others. Many antidepressants are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which work by preventing the reabsorption of serotonin, thereby increasing extracellular levels of the hormone.
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