Ciencias Sociales y Religión
July 1, 2018
María Soledad Del Rio
3 citations
The paper examines how ayahuasca ceremonies have been adopted by a community and therapeutic center in Buenos Aires that emphasizes the healing and psychotherapeutic effects of the brew. Using Pablo Semán's concept of the "psychologization of religion," the author adapts it to "psychologization of spirituality," since the group does not define itself as religious but shows concern for spirituality. These healing effects arise not from mere beliefs or representations but from direct experience in encounters between humans and the ayahuasca plant. Drawing on native theories and the author's fieldwork, the analysis shows how the human-nonhuman relationship constructs a way of thinking about the self through the native category of "feeling."
Ciencias Sociales y Religión
July 1, 2010
Jéssica Greganich
2 citations
Healing in the Brazilian ayahuasca religion Santo Daime, specifically within the CEFLURIS lineage, is analyzed through the embodiment paradigm proposed by Thomas Csordas. Religious experience serves as a privileged lens for examining the relationship between corporeality and meaning. An ethnographic description and case study of the "spiritual healing" system at the "Céu de São Miguel" church in Picada Verão, near Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, shows that this healing is grounded in reincarnation and the ritual consumption of ayahuasca.
Ciencias Sociales y Religión
December 19, 2023
Igor Fernandes Antunes, Paulo Santos de Almeida
1 citation
The article analyzes the institutionalization of ayahuasca use in Brazil through a combination of bibliographic analysis and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in three ayahuasca centers in the North, Southeast, and South regions. It examines elements related to the consolidation of these groups, including their cultural practices and associated stigmas, and compares how academic literature describes these data with current observations in the studied groups. The paper also addresses public policies regulating ayahuasca use across drug, cultural, and environmental domains, highlighting the complexity of the legitimation process of this phenomenon in the country.
Ciencias Sociales y Religión
December 19, 2023
Henrique Fernandes Antunes
1 citation
The article examines the prohibition of ayahuasca in France, drawing on academic literature, government documents, court decisions, international treaties, pharmacological reports, and interviews with key actors. It describes how ayahuasca arrived in France and the arrest of the Santo Daime group, then analyzes early pharmacological reports, legal proceedings, and the French government's 2005 decision to ban ayahuasca. The text discusses the consequences of that ban for ayahuasca use in France and critiques the legal classification of ayahuasca as a narcotic and the stigmatization of ayahuasca groups. It argues that France's position is not arbitrary but reflects the country's stance on sects and sectarian movements.
Ciencias Sociales y Religión
December 19, 2023
L. Serrano, Osiris Sinuhé González Romero, Leticia Romero-Bautista
1 citation
Over the past two decades, research has explored the therapeutic effects of psilocybin on the human body and mind. This article argues that science and spirituality are not mutually exclusive, critically examining conceptual frameworks such as psychedelics, hallucinogens, entheogens, and neurotropics, as well as the role of psychoactive compounds in evolution, specifically psilocybin-containing mushrooms. Based on a bibliographic analysis, it investigates the role of Psilocybe spp. mushrooms in human evolution and offers a critical analysis of their cultural uses.
Ciencias Sociales y Religión
December 19, 2023
Vinícius Maurício de Lima
1 citation
Historically, Brazilian news media associated ayahuasca with hallucination, drugs, and madness, but recent coverage increasingly highlights its therapeutic potential, reflecting a transformation in the brew's social meanings. Analyzing reports from national and Amazon-region Brazilian press from the 1960s to 2020, the study finds changes in narratives and grammars that have recently legitimized ayahuasca compared to earlier decades. Drawing on Latour's framework, the press acts as a key actor in a sociotechnical network, shaping public discourse through associations and controversies around ayahuasca and mental disorders.
Ciencias Sociales y Religión
December 19, 2023
Karla Ivonne Moreno Constantino, Olga Olivas
1 citation
Women in Tijuana experience healing, spirituality, and well-being through ritual ayahuasca consumption, which has been reterritorialized into local alternative therapy circuits and participants' therapeutic-spiritual assemblages. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at a therapeutic care center, the article describes the ayahuasca ritual and, through two paradigmatic cases, analyzes how participants experience well-being and healing in ceremonies, referring to ayahuasca as a medicine that allows them to heal with love. The study examines embodiment processes in the ritual context to discuss how women configure self-knowledge, well-being, and healing.
Ciencias Sociales y Religión
December 19, 2023
Juan Scuro
1 citation
A review of research on addictions focuses on Latin American literature, where addictions are approached from theoretical-methodological perspectives including social sciences of religion, drug ethnographies, and medical anthropology. It delves into two treatment models for addictions: the neo-Pentecostal and the neo-shamanic. These models are part of a broad care system where religious-spiritual dimensions are explicitly present. The review outlines their main characteristics based on the literature and offers a perspective from Uruguay. The study of the overlaps and convergences of religion and health in the case of addictions is a fertile field for developing theoretical and analytical perspectives, and debates on secularism and secularization find a particular empirical basis here.