Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants (64 page)

Ayahuasca: The Conquest Is Not Over

Ayahuasca is a preparation of at least two plants: from the ayahuasca liana (
Banisteriopsis caapi
[Spruce ex Griseb.] Morton, syn.
Banisteria caapis
pruce) and the chacruna leaves (
Psychotria viridis
R. et P.). This drink represents the most significant shamanic medicine in the Amazons (Reichel-Dolmatoff, 1996). The actual active compound of the ayahuasca drink is
N,N
-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a substance that functions as a neurotransmitter. Because this substance is outlawed by the drug laws (Körner, 1994: 39),
every living person is illegal!

During archaeological digs in Ecuador finds have been made that have been entered into the literature as “witches’ jugs.” Even scientists have fallen for this. The objects are actually very simple, large ceramic vessels that were used for making ayahuasca and are attributed to the Milagro Quvedo culture (500 B.C.E.–1500 C.E.) (Andritzky, 1989: 179).

Ayahuasca was never persecuted by the Inquisition; it is likely that the drink was overlooked within the abundance of Indian preparations. The use of ayahuasca was only forbidden as “devil’s work” in the 1950s by a Swiss missionary (Andritzky, 1989: 133). The repression of the use of ayahuasca subsequently led to an uprooting and neglect of the culture.

The cultural inheritance of the Shipibo was also greatly destroyed by the modern missionaries. The Shipibo had a kind of writing that decoded and communicated certain experiences of the visionary world (ayahuasca patterns). “Earlier the designs were also drawn in books—presumably put together by the missionaries, the last of which was burned in 1978 by a man from Camito because it contained ‘things of the devil’” (Andritzky 1989: 190).

When the chemistry and the pharmacology of ayahuasca were established by Western scientists (Bo Holmstedt, Dennis McKenna, James Callaway, Jonathan Ott, and so on), the amazement was great. The Amazon Indians have developed their own chemical science, one that is highly effective.

The active psychedelic substance
N,N-
Dimethyltryptamine, known as DMT for short, not only is made in the human body but is also present in countless plants and animals that are taken in as food. However, DMT does not go to the brain; before it gets there it is broken down by the enzyme monoamine oxidase, MAO for short. If the MAO fallout is prevented, then the DMT is able to pass through the blood-brain barrier without restriction, where it can then bind to the corresponding receptors and send the nervous system into an extraordinary state. This nervous system effect is expressed as lavish and overwhelming visions—and this is exactly what happens when one drinks ayahuasca. The beta carbolines harmaline and harmine are contained in liana; these are the MAO inhibitors that prevent the fallout of the monoamine oxidase. In this way the DMT found in the drink can penetrate the brain unhindered; there it releases an effect that lasts approximately one and a half hours. Ayahuasca represents a brilliant example of the “chemical engineering” of consciousness.

“The drinking of ayahuasca is fought by the linguists of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, the missionaries of all persuasions, and the Peruvian government.”

—G
ERHARD
B
AER,
“E
INE
A
YAHUASCA–SITZUNG UNTER DEN
P
IRO
(O
STPERU
)” [AN A
YAHUASCA
S
ESSION AMONG THE P
IRO
(E
AST
P
ERU)], IN
SOCIÉTÉ SUISSE DES
AMÉRICANISTES,
1969

Now the American pharmaceutical companies want to have this for themselves. Patent number 5751 in the United States Marks and Patents Office, which was registered in June 1996 by the International Medicine Corporation (represented by Loren Miller), is rather perverse. In the patent the firm seeks to secure the chemical and pharmacological principles of ayahuasca as its trademark; in other words, it wants to monopolize the biochemistry of ayahuasca. If the patent is actually allowed, the native South Americans, the discoverers and guardians of the ayahuasca preparation, will be forbidden to cook their drink or it will only be permitted with a payment to the company as a licensing fee.

In an open letter to U.S. President Bill Clinton the chiefs of approximately four hundred Amazonian tribes protested this unsurpassed impudence. “To patent our medicine which we have inherited over many generations is an attack on the culture of our people and the entire humanity,” declared Valerio Grefa, the speaker of the confederation of the Indian organization of the Amazon basin.
¹²

Fortunately, the patent was rejected in 1999. But certainly the conquest is not over yet.

The “Drug” Business

“We exist in a world where the fear of illusion is real.”

—J
EFF
M
ARTIN AND
T
HE
T
EA
P
ARTY,
“T
EMPTATION
” (ON
T
RANSMISSION
, EMI R
ECORDS
, 1997)

The outstanding characteristic of the plants and substances that are banned by the drug laws is their powerful effectiveness. They are some of the best medicines ever discovered by humans. They are not inert junk, like the medicines that are shoved over the counter at the pharmacy for a lot of money. They are potent; in other words, they are effective. Opium is the best pain medication in the world. Hemp is probably the best antidepressive; coca is the only true tonic. But who makes money off healthy people—off the underlings who heal themselves with plants from their backyard or balcony gardens, the people who don’t want to sacrifice their hard-earned money to doctors and pharmacists? Ineffective medicine is a more certain source of income, as is medicine such as Valium or Rohypnol, all of which pass the test of culturally acceptable addictions. Those who look into the question of whom the drug laws benefit will not believe their eyes, for it is the same people who want to withhold the enjoyment of sacred plants. The state needs tax-paying idiots, not free spirits. That is why Prozac (fluoxetine)
¹³
is legal but cannabis is still forbidden.

While on Prozac it is possible—even when plagued by the most profound spiritual pain and suffering—to fulfill one’s role as a wheel in the business of the society, but cannabis encourages individual thinking. Yes, it is one’s own thoughts that are threatening. They place the state and Christian order of things into question, and they correct them. The ban on the sacred heathen plants is the attempt to produce a dumb people who pay their taxes without any back talk. After all, dumb wheels turn too. The question remains: How long will this go on?

Those who sell the word of God also sell placebo medications. The demonization of a plant by the rulers serves the medical incapacitation of the underlings. The war against nature continues, indeed has even been intensified. But one thing is certain: Humans can never win against nature. They will always be her underlings, because in the end they are a part of her. We disappear into never-never land when Gaia shrugs her shoulders.

According to the New Age occult conception of Diana and Lucifer, the god of light, they were sister and brother. They were deeply in love with each other and produced a daughter named Aradia, or Herodias. Aradia was trained by her mother to be the first witch and was outfitted with a social-critical-anarchic consciousness. One day the witch goddess spoke this to her daughter.

True it is indeed, that you belong to the immortal

But you were born so that you might become mortal

You must climb onto the earth

Be a teacher of the women and men

Whose wish it is to learn the arts of the witches in your school …

And you shall be the first among the witches;

And your name should be the first in the whole world;

And you should learn the art of poison-murder,

To poison those who think of themselves as greater men than others,

Yes, you should let them die in their palaces,

And the soul of the oppressor you should bind with your strength!”
(Leland, 1979: 15).

News Update: Hemp Seeds Outlawed!

The New Inquisition strikes again. While hemp flowers and magic mushrooms are increasingly sold over the counter in Switzerland, the Christian federal government of Germany saw to it that as of December 19, 1997, hemp seeds were on the list as one of the illegal substances; thus they were outlawed (tenth amendment of the drug laws, as of February 2, 1998). With this the regime under chancellor Gerhard Schröder was the first to achieve making illegal a substance that is proved to have no psychoactive or otherwise mind-altering activity. The reasoning for this ruling is as follows.

Therewith the widespread business of cannabis seeds procured by the individual for the planting of hemp for purposes of intoxication will be combated. Under the circumstances the seed is in particular determined for impermissible planting, when special seeds in counted amounts of kernels (for example 10 seed kernels for up to 150 DM), often in combination with lighting systems for the planting in living quarters and/or cellars with information about the tetrahydrocannibol (THC) contained in the harvested plant, is offered and therewith leads to a planting that is not allowed.

Once again candy-coated paragraphs can be used to push through a technical jurisdiction. No longer are products forbidden or regulated as drugs, but a hypothetically assumed intention that has neither occurred nor has in any way been performed is quoted as the basis for the seed prohibition. It heralds a kind of lawmaking that must eventually lead to a ban on the production and sale of kitchen knives because some crazy person might come up with the idea of cutting open the throat of one of the drug agents in the government. And so law succumbs more and more to regime-true ideology. Therewith the federal German government is moving closer to the conception of law in the Third Reich. It is high time for Germans to once again be ashamed to be German! The step to book burning is only a small one. Anyone who publishes a hemp-cultivating book would be better off tarred as a Roman. And the Inquisition says hello again.

Appendix

Plants Associated with Witches and Devils

(Following Ahrendt-Schulte, 1994; Aigremont, 1987; Arends, 1935; Carl, 1995; Gessmann, n.d.; Ludwig, 1982; Marzell, 1943–1977; Ott, 1996; Reinhard, 1993; Schoen, 1963, expanded)