Mana
December 1, 2013
Marcelo S. Mercante
30 citations
Ayahuasca is a psychoactive beverage used by various Indigenous groups throughout the Amazon, as well as by mestizo shamans (called "vegetalistas") and by religions and independent groups in Brazil. Since the 1990s this beverage has been employed in treating addiction. There are currently some centers spread across South America that carry out this type of treatment. The author conducted fieldwork in four of them, one in Peru and three in Brazil. This article provides a brief ethnographic description of these centers and offers some considerations on the role of the experience during the tea's effect in the recovery from addiction, as well as the possibility that this type of treatment is not merely a substitution therapy.
CAMPOS - Revista de Antropologia Social
December 31, 2005
Marcelo S. Mercante
23 citations
A review of Beatriz Caiuby Labate's 2004 book, which examines how the traditional Amazonian psychoactive brew ayahuasca has been adapted and re-signified within urban settings. The book explores the sociocultural dynamics involved in the transformation of ayahuasca use from indigenous and rural contexts to contemporary urban centers, focusing on the reinvention of rituals, the emergence of new religious and therapeutic practices, and the negotiation of legality and legitimacy. Labate analyzes the interplay between tradition and modernity, highlighting how urban ayahuasca use reflects broader cultural and spiritual shifts in society.
Revista de Antropologia
September 27, 2017
Marcelo S. Mercante
6 citations
In a therapeutic community in the Peruvian Amazon called Takiwasi, plants, especially ayahuasca, are central to treating substance dependence. The community believes that plants possess agency and a spiritual action beyond their chemical properties, which is considered more important than their pharmacological effects. To explain this spiritual power and agency, the author draws on Benjamin's concept of "language" and Viveiros de Castro's notions of "spirit," "image," and "imagination." Ayahuasca, a psychoactive beverage traditionally used by Indigenous peoples across the Amazon and by three Brazilian Christian-based religions, is the main tool in Takiwasi's recovery process.
Ponto Urbe
December 1, 2009
Marcelo S. Mercante
6 citations
In Brazil, ayahuasca is used as a tool to help overcome drug addiction and alcoholism. Five institutions currently employ this approach. The Ablusa organization, led by psychiatrist Wilson Gonzaga, holds ayahuasca sessions (called "Vegetal") for homeless people in São Paulo, aiming to restore human dignity. A key aspect is the role of "mirações" (spontaneous mental images experienced during ritual ayahuasca use) in the recovery process from chemical dependency and alcoholism.
Revista Eletrônica Informação e Cognição (Cessada)
December 31, 1969
Marcelo S. Mercante
4 citations
After ritual ingestion of Ayahuasca, people experience spontaneous mental imagery called mirações, which are understood not as hallucinations but as a genuine mode of perception in a non-physical yet objective spiritual space. This space is shared by ceremony participants, is multidimensional, and contains the physical and psychological levels of existence. Mirações connect different entities—body, thoughts, feelings, culture, mind, soul—within consciousness. Exploring this spiritual space during the ceremony is regarded as a process of spiritual development.
Ponto Urbe
December 1, 2011
Katerina Volcov, Henrique Antunes, Roberta Costa et al.
1 citation
Common questions about ayahuasca's role in treating drug addiction are raised, such as whether one substance can cure addiction to another, if ayahuasca itself is a drug, and whether users can become addicted to it. The text reports on the I Encontro 'Ayahuasca e o Tratamento da Dependência,' a conference held from September 12 to 14, 2011, at the Geography Amphitheater of the university, which addressed these and related issues. The gathering explored the potential of ayahuasca as a treatment for substance dependence, reflecting on its therapeutic mechanisms and societal perceptions.
Revista de Antropologia da UFSCar
December 1, 2009
Marcelo S. Mercante
1 citation
This article presents the cultural and symbolic universe of Barquinha, a Brazilian ayahuasca religion located in Rio Branco (Acre), which performs, among other types of rituals, "cure" works. The central focus of the investigation is the role of visions obtained through the ritual use of ayahuasca in processes of awareness in situations of illness. These visions are known by Barquinha's attendees as "mirações." The mirações would make conscious many of the extra-material dimensions of the ritual, as well as assist in the processes of subjective and physical transformation of the participants.