Ayahuasquero arriving

[sbarret77]

Hi Jamie!


- I have not read any successful experiments about jurema by itself, with no additional MAOis - can you point me to some resources? I would love to learn more about that. The info that I had comes from people trying to not having syrian rue at hand and brewing only Mimosa (and not achieving any level of psychoactivity from it), but I not read about the pure cold water yet. Also, let me know if you have any more info on the fermented honey recipe, it's quite scarce. In portuguese it's called "jurema hidromel" - veueka, which is not the same as Ajuca

- Ajuca is known as the traditional Jurema wine before the African traditions being blended in. Information here is a maze; I've read places where they say it's "Jurema and a vine prepared together" - the plot thickens, a vine is a great indicative of MAOi, but then there's no further information on this anywhere.

- I've found a reference (the website is down, not sure if coming up) that describes an indian (jes and kariris tribes) preparation of pure jurema roots crushed with water until it becomes a frothy red liquid. Cold preparation, basically. So, if it is active as you mentioned here, bingo - there was an active indigenous preparation.

- The information about passiflora being terribly toxic at MAOi levels comes from a guy that was active online in Brazilian forums and that wrote a "kind-of-a-book", his name is Clovis L.R., and he brewed the wild passion flower vines and roots (it's not the same as the standard passiflora, it is said to be way stronger) and told the experience was terrible. Anyway, I'm linking the book because there's an email contact in case anyone is interested to dig more info out of it. Also, I found a couple of references for the wild passion flower toxicity ("Ragonese A. e Milano V., 1984; Pronczuc J. et al., 1988") but couldn't find the papers themselves.

- if you put "jurema catimbo" on youtube will find a couple o videos on it - problem it's all portuguese. This link for example will show the amount they drink it. This is the religious tradition where a "master" from it affirmed to me that the brew had not ayahuasca-like effects but the trance was induced by chants like other African traditions (candomble)

- I know verrucosa (Branca), but in all Jurema culture I've never heard of it being used - only hostilis (Jurema Preta)


As I mentioned, this is a hot topic because the information is so spread and there are too many anecdotal info, too little scientific ones. Thanks for sharing!

 

[endlessness]

The chemical responsible for jurema being active orally is Yuremamine:

Isolation and characterization of yuremamine, a new phytoindole - PubMed

Yuremamine was isolated and characterized from the stem bark of Mimosa tenuiflora. This plant is still used by indigenous peoples in North-eastern Brazil to make yurema, a psychoactive beverage that is used for medico-religious purpose ( jurema preta or vinho da jurema, in Portuguese). The...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

It is a very sensitive substance that breaks down with heat and acidic conditions so you CANNOT brew it to have effects, it only works with a cold water infusion. There have been successful reports around the net, personally I never tried it myself.

Ill get back to this but I gotta go now.. Thanks for the information you posted

 

[sbarret77]

I have a question for you- I see a lot of talk about entities and whatnot in this forum. Even a classification system for such entities. Have you had a chance to look this over? I'm just curious how it all seems from your background, and what you have been taught about the beings you encounter in this space.

Hi!

I have not read what people say about this here yet, and is unlikely that I do to avoid influencing my own experiences with preconceived notions (i.e. I'll see self transforming machine whatever at some point)

I have personal opinions about this, but I can share the approach the traditions I took part have.

So, according to UDV there are "forces" that can be conjured, or repelled during a ayahuasca session; they work invoking these forces using their icaros (called chamadas).

The important thing is to distinguish an entity as a thing like you and me (with the idea of a separated ego, for example) from the approach of a "force". These are not "beings" (note that being has the separated ego idea on it - an "individual" thing), so many people can establish a connection with this kind of force at once. The rituals are at the same time on different locations in the whole country, and it's more or less synchronized when some of these forces are invoked.

A force for example, is understood to be the founder of the tradition (they are a re-incarnation based belief), and now he is invoked to be the force that presents the guiding steps inside the ayahuasca realm. There's another icaro, for example, that invokes "the doctor of the ayahuasca" - it invokes a healing force inside the effect of the brew.

What happens when these things are invoked? In my case, you feel things. Some people experience very specific visions, but the effects vary according to the beholder.
So, the traditional entity meeting "I met a woman that showed me this thing" comes as a vision, a translation of a force being called, being this force pretty much shapeless (shapeless in my understanding, since the vision varies according to ones culture, aesthetics, and other visual cultural components)

So, in my personal opinion, entities can be culture-based translations of things that are happening beyond a visual or cognizable level - and that's the reason that visions relate to the language and culture of the person experiencing them - or they can simply be constructions of the unconscious mind (fantasies). Both cases can happen.

This is a complex discussion where it's really hard to please all the crowds - personal beliefs that were set in stone by very deep experiences won't be changed by internet chatting, but anyway, this is the simplest way I can explain my understanding of it. For example, my own experience goes totally against Jeremy Narby line of thought (from Cosmic Serpent), and I'm not a huge fan of Terence Mckenna as well (but I'm a fan of his "more conservative" brother)

 

[sbarret77]

It is a very sensitive substance that breaks down with heat and acidic conditions so you CANNOT brew it to have effects

That's awesome! The dots connect now; people don't achieve the effects even with the tradition jurema wine because of the brewing, while a couple of tribes did the cold brewing. Makes perfect sense! I'll have to add this cold brew to my list now

Thanks for sharing!

 

[endlessness]

Sorry just fixed the typo in my above post, I had written "yuremamine" twice instead of Jurema.

Regarding passiflora, I dont think we can generalize that passiflora is toxic or bad based on the experience of that one person. There are many different species and varieties of passiflora with different phytochemical profile, some may be more or less toxic or beneficial. Better be prudent if experimenting something new, thats for sure. Here's an excellent thread on this:

Passifloras of Interest..(& MAOI plant Flavonoids) - Collaborative Research Project - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

 

[jamie]

I have been drinking brews lately that have a base of rue, and then banisteriopsis muricata and passiflora caerulea as admixtures..with a very very small ammount of chaliponga and then mimosa as the main DMT admixture.

I think the passionflower really brings something special out but I cant really be sure what it is yet..I have only drunk this brew a few times. I drank a rather large dose last night and the visions are really beauitful and very jungly/earthy but still spacy and cosmic..

I am unsure of the species of passiflora that was used with cold water jurema brews but I can imagine if it is similar to caerulea that it adds something to it.

Some amazonian ayahuasqueros add passiflora involucrata to ayahuasca as admixture. They call chontay-huasca..nen talks about it in his passiflora thread. They say it adds color to the visions. They use the roots I think.

 

[sbarret77]

Endlessness

I wholeheartedly agree - it must be clear that is is all anecdotal information. The problem in the subject is that there's no better info available - sometimes one has to pick between no information or anecdotal one. To make matters worse, in the passionflora example, I could never pinpoint the exact wild passionflora species (there are over 400), and different sources affirm different things. Toxicity, if any, would be certainly related to cyanogenic glycosides versus harmala levels in a determinate part of the plant.
In the example, the root was used - and, to add a another twist to the maze, glycoside low level intoxication and a good harmala beating have kind-of similar effects (nausea, dizziness, vomiting, etc).

So, anyway, it's always good to keep in mind that a single swallow doesn't make a summer.

Jamie

Great info on the chontay-huasca! I'll look into it. thanks!

 

[AluminumFoilRobots]

Hey sbarrett77! Glad to have a person with lots of traditional ayahuasca experience on here... I had the pleasure of spending about a month at a farm with a "carioca" who had been in one of the churches for a while and we had some very interesting conversations and I actually introduced her to my personal love - Harmala with Jurema.

Have you ever drank Jurema with caapi? I know that it is a non-traditional admixture but you are trying new things! I really have to recommend it... my 2 experiences with that mixture were really amazing... the caapi added some interesting components to what I now know to be the Jurema/Harmala effects... particularly how the visuals were very snakey or viney and seemed to be clearly in three dimensions and to be made of long strings of morphing symbols. This was different than Harmala and any DMT admixture. But Harmala is really quite lovely as well... a little more sleepy and perhaps more body-centered, but of course I don't have much experience with caapi. But I really love harmala!

I think you would like Jurema as an admixture to caapi... just don't go too high on the dose, as you say you don't like chacruna-heavy brews.

Anyway, welcome and I look forward to communicating with you!

 

[genre]

A human body has little goodies that tear molecules apart. There are only so many little goodies to go around. So you eat your magic plants with your favorite monoamine. Eventually, the tiny little monoamine oxidase babies are all too busy, and they can't tear up all your favorite monoamine. And then it gets into your brain.

 

[AluminumFoilRobots]

Is that a fact? Here's the real question regarding that: If all of your MAO is busy metabolizing a bunch of other psychedelics, would you really want to add DMT?

Have you tried this technique?

 

[sbarret77]

Hi Aluminum!


I have very little experience with Jurema (only DMT extraction, not the plant itself), and I plan to explore it more next year (already have too much in my plate scheduled for this one, hehe). Thanks for the welcome!

 

[nen888]

..yeah, quite an intro..

re: Afro-Brazillian use of 'jurema', i have a friend who works with a sub-group of Umbando..he tells me that he has extensively drank (in ceremony/private ritual) an 'ayahuasca'-type brew in which instead of chacruna, what is called a mimosa is added..the actual ritual seems very similar to Haitian voudoo 'bizango' ceremonies i have seen..
i believe that, at least within a small sub-section of the part-african community, pyschoactive use of mimosa is known (though this may be only a few hundred years old)..
..also, Jonathan Ott believes the mexican vs brazillian M. hostilis are two different species..

re: passiflora species, sbarrett77 you wrote:

Toxicity, if any, would be certainly related to cyanogenic glycosides versus harmala levels in a determinate part of the plant.
In the example, the root was used - and, to add a another twist to the maze, glycoside low level intoxication and a good harmala beating have kind-of similar effects (nausea, dizziness, vomiting, etc).

..except that boiling the plant in water, or drying, will remove/destroy any glycosides [see Passiflora thread here]..and, from limited experience, species which may contain mainly Harman as the betacarboline seem to be more potent/demanding of diet than harmine etc. based plants..
.

 

[PrimaUrsus]

Sure, there's no topic I like to talk more than this one

I'm happy people seem to be interested in caapi lately; I've been "preaching" for some time that the approach some people have where "caapi is just for inhibiting MAO, nothing else" is very, very, misguided. I've found people that affirmed there was no difference between having caapi or mocroblemide, and my personal experience always told a very different story.

Anyway, to discuss this subject I like to use a metaphor to food or drink, in order to gain a better perspective. I have the habit with my wife of cooking a recipe of flounder with creamed vegetables and white wine that is delicious. One day, we couldn't found flounder being sold, so we bought a similar fish. The texture was different, and the consistency was different, but we went ahead anyways "with all the spices and marinating, it will be just the same". Long story short, the taste was very different, and the recipe didn't work at all. If we look it from the outside we we're having fish, white fish fillet, with a fixed set of spices and side dishes, everything else was the same, the fish was almost the same, and nothing really tasted good.

Ok, back to the subject.
Just like a particular fish has taste signatures and very particular taste and texture characteritics, I find that the contents of a ayahuasca brew do have these too. Once you start noticing this particularities, the ayahuasca universe expands incredibily with the number of variables; was that caapi native or planted? Forest or drier ambient? Less than 7 years old or more? Were the thin branches or roots used? Was it scrubed to remove the lichens on its peel? Was it fresh, juicy or drier?

These are some variables only inside one variety of caapi; we have multiple varieties, then multiples varieties of chacruna, then multiple varieties of preparations (and even addictives in some cases). Using some combinatory math, the number of variables mixed result in a very, very large array of final characteristics to the brew.

Then some people argue: it's just a MAOI and DMT. This is all crap, nothing of this matters... It's true - in the end, the basic effect is that. But remember the food metaphor - just one ingredient tweak and the difference from a nice romantic dinner to a frustrating one was evident.

So, based on my personal experience, I have the belief that even small things count - and the caapi variety is not even a small thing, but a big one.

Both in Brazil and Peru/Colombia/Bolivia, there's one kind of caapi that is the most common - Tucunaca, or Ourinhos. In Peru there's a subdivision of Tucunaca in two kinds - but I could never find anyone that could explain to me where the differences are - one is the plain yellow, the other is the sky one, "cielo". I can't confirm this Peru part of the story, since I never got deep into it. Anyway, these both are one in Brazil, Tucunaca.

When people omit the kind of caapi they're using, I just assume it's this one.

How can you recognize it?

First of all, using other brews as a standard, Tucunaca is the smooth one. It goes easy on the body. It is considered, in association to be a "forgiver", or to "let you get away to pay for your sin later when you are stronger" in a Christian view. Objectively, it won't make you shake your body or lose your breath - it goes easy on the body.

For me, the best brews are with seasoned, old, native Tucunaca - because it is at the same time strong and smooth; the effect is very centered, very guided, very clear. This is a signature of a high quality tucunaca.

The second most common in Brazil is Caupuri, or the one with the big nodes. Some traditions prefer to use this one - it's stronger, very harsh, in a Christian view "You own, you pay now" - it's a "karma burner". An average caupuri brew will take your breath away (like if you're about to give birth to sextuplets), and you will shake your body worse than any parkinson disease sufferer. It takes you to far away places, shows you a lot, but it has its price.

On some traditions they say that God made Caupuri because Tucunaca was too soft with mankind... so go figure.

In the Brazilian traditions the caapi always represent the male, the guiding force, where the chacruna is the female, the shining light.

My experience, though, falls short on other strains - they are way more unusual than people think. I've emailed a friend who lives near Pucallpa, in the Brazil/Peru border, and the shamans there never heard of these other caapi species that are being discussed around (muricata, alicia anisopetala...) even Chaliponga is very rare, people heard of it but nobody uses it for real other than selling it on the internet.

What is common: a great array of snuffs (99% are not dmt based), Sananga (the eyedrops), Kambo, Ayahuasca with Tucunaca and Caupuri, and the Cabocla variety of Chacruna (there are others, but not used a lot as well). There are some main medicinal plants that are also used, and in combination with ayahuasca the most common in Brazil is Joao Brandinho (a Piper sp. plant). Very few shamans use Toe in Brazil, it's very rare, and a con artist is known for selling Toe laced ayahuasca to make people think "his ayahuasca is stronger".

when I first began brewing the sacred drink it was almost impossible for me to ingest more than 1/3 of a dose. But what I had found from experimentation is that a 3 wash of just pure b caapi, I used brown, was actually very pallateable, and so I started just using this alone. I cannot do anything more than make an educated guess but I would make a 3 wash brew with 110 grams of b caapi, which is actually about 3 times the amount used in a dose of most ahi recipes.

the resulting experiances were not hallucinogenic per say, but very psychodelic. I felt a very mello mally experiance. The reduction of social inhabitions, a feeling of floating a few inches above the ground, an altered state where I was more kind, nurturing and compassionate, as well as a feeling of spiritual wholeness and harmony. I have plans to do a larger scale isolation, and keep the isolation for use in a daily herbal tea regimen. It would seem that these properties are conducive to anti-depression and anxiety. Have you had similar experiance with just the caapi? And does anyone know if there are longterm side effects to daily use. I really feel akin to the caapi spirit, I was also wondering if there are any diets, or matra's or rituals associated with creating a deeper and more personal connection with this plant teacher.

 

[ObsidianKnife]

It (tucunaca) is considered, in association to be a "forgiver", or to "let you get away to pay for your sin later when you are stronger" in a Christian view. Objectively, it won't make you shake your body or lose your breath - it goes easy on the body.
Caupuri - some traditions prefer to use this one - it's stronger, very harsh, in a Christian view "You own, you pay now" - it's a "karma burner". An average caupuri brew will take your breath away, and you will shake your body. It takes you to far away places, shows you a lot, but it has its price.
In the Brazilian traditions the caapi always represent the male, the guiding force, where the chacruna is the female, the shining light.

Welcome.
I like what you have to say, especially above.
If it wasn't for what I call my 'final analysis' 2 years ago - which was the strongest + longest acting entheogenic experience I have ever had, I would not have made a pact with myself to forgo some bad habits that were attracting negative energies into my life, and which was actually intrinsically changing me for the worse without me realising it, which the experience highlighted.
In Love + Light

 

[DeDao]

Wonder if he is still active..

 

[Julz]

I keep wondering the same thing...

 

[hostilis]

Welcome to the Nexus.
I think your knowledge with be very hand and I think you will enjoy this great site.

 

[deadhor5]

Welcome! Have you ever had ayahuasca with datura, or brugmansia in it? also known as hells bells, toe, angels trumpets, etc.? Do you know anything about why it is used so frequently by many shamans? what are your thoughts/opinions on this plant?

 

[cyb]

Have you ever had ayahuasca with datura, or brugmansia in it? also known as hells bells, toe, angels trumpets, etc.?

Stay well away deadhor5...it's poison...:thumb_up:

[YOUTUBE]

 

[deadhor5]

Have you ever had ayahuasca with datura, or brugmansia in it? also known as hells bells, toe, angels trumpets, etc.?

Stay well away deadhor5...it's poison...:thumb_up:

[YOUTUBE]

Haha i am well aware its poison! Im planning to study ethnobotany as a career path, i dont know what it is about this plant that terrifies me so, even getting to close to a datura flower makes me paranoid and anxious.... but it intrigues me because the indigenous people in my area treated datura as their main sacred plant, everyone in the tribe did it, and somewhat regularly. Im wondering what it is that it brings to ayahuasca that has caused it to spread so much and become so popular down south.