Banisteriopsis caapi Anhang

Vergleich: Siehe: Malpighiales + Kletterpflanzen

[Kees Dam]

In the Amazonian area of South America the Indians have a drug which they believe can free the soul from the prison of the body. This drug enables the soul to wander freely and also to return to the body. Such an unbound soul frees the owner of trivial reality and lifts him to another reality in which he can communicate with his ancestors.

This drug is called "Ayahuasca" - the vine of the soul. A climbing vine that grows along the along the surface of the trees, winding itself up and around, clinging to the trees, on its way to the roof of the jungle.

The Indians prepare it by scraping the fresh bark of the Banisteriopsis, boil this for a few hours till a very bitter, syrupy juice is left. Often other plants like the Psychotropia viridis or carthaginensis are added to reinforce the hallucinogenic effect.

In shamanistic rituals this viscid syrup is drunk. The first effects are nausea, dizziness and vomiting and then a euphoric or very aggressive state comes on. Hallucinations of fatal attacks by snakes or jaguars follow. They humiliate him because he is just a human being. The Tukano Indians (they use the ayahuasca the most) often have nightmares

of being in the jaws of enormous jaguars or of being strangled by enormous snakes.

A shaman can use the drug to make a diagnosis, to acquire knowledge on medicinal plants, healing, good places to fish, places in the jungle where the fruits are ripe to pick, on how to prevent threatening disasters or to predict the future. The people who use it say they can see all the gods, the first humans and the first animals and they get an understanding of the social order and hierarchy. The myth of creation is vividly seen again by the user and the identity of the group is reconfirmed. The first human being was accompanied by three plants according to a Tukano myth: the yuca, the coca and the yajé (ayahuasca). The yuca gives the maniok-root, the most important food. Coca is chewed and gives energy and vitality. The use of yajé centers in the spiritual life and healing of the Tukanos.

After taking ayahuasca the voice of the shaman of the Campa Indians is getting thin and sounds as if from a distance, his lower jaw starts to tremble which is the sign that the good spirits arrived and sing and dance for him. The voice of the shaman is only the echo of their singing. While singing the soul of the shaman can freely go from the body.

With the Tukano Indians the user of ayahuasca feels himself drawn by a strong wind. The Zaparo's from Ecuador feel themselves lifted in the air.

The effects of ayahuasca without additives is initially perspiration, nervousness, nausea then a certain agreeable drowsiness followed by colour impressions, first white then a misty blue getting stronger, then one falls asleep with dreams and a feeling of fever. A disagreeable diarrhoea can last till a long time after. The Banisteriopsis caapi is in itself

a sedating plant and often "stimulating" and psycho-active plants are added to the ayahuasca mix.

The ayahuasca or Yajé (as named by the Tukano indians) is prepared in the yajé pot. The round-bellied Yajé pot symbolises the vagina and womb, the ayahuasca stands for

the male phallus and sperms. Preparing the yajé and drinking from the yajé pot is the sexual act, the unification of male and female. Women are not allowed to take part in

the drinking of the yajé.

A part of the ayahuasca ritual is self-chastising; young men whip themselves on the lower limbs and ankles. The whiplashes sound like pistol shots. In no time the young men are covered all over with bloody streaks. The tukano's believe that in the beginning of Tukano history the people had very hard times, rivers full of horrible snakes and dangerous fishes, there were man-eating spirits and full of fear the Tukano's received the principles of their culture.

Under these Tukano's lived a woman, the first woman created, who "drowned" men in visions. The Tukano's believe that a man "drowns" during coition, an equivalent of getting visions or hallucinations. This first woman noticed that she was pregnant. The Sun-father made her pregnant through her eye. She gave birth to a child, that became

the Caapi, the drug-plant. The child was born during a flash of light. The woman - Yajé - cut the umbilical cord and rubbed the child with magic plants and shaped the body. The caapi-child grew till it was an old man constantly busy defending his hallucinogenic powers. The men of the Tukano's received their sperm a from this old aged child,

the owner of caapi and the owner of the act of coition. For the Indians the hallucinogenic experience is in fact a sexual experience - to make this perfect, to sublimate this

from an erotic to a mystic experience, to return to the womb, that is the goal reached by a few but strived for by all.

Also the colors of the ayahuasca experience have a symbolic meaning: yellow or broken white stand for sperm, the fertilisation by the sun; red is the colour of the womb,

of fire or heat and symbolises female fertility. Blue is the smoke of tobacco symbolising thought.

The English botanist Spruce is the first who collected Caapi to send it to England for research in 1851. He describes a ayahuasca ritual: "After taking some of the drug in

less thanminutes the effects show. The Indian is getting pale as a corpse, trembles over his whole body and he looks as if he is seeing something horrible. All of a sudden the effects turn into the opposite: he starts to sweat and he seems to get an attack of rage, grabs a weapon that is nearest to him.... and runs to the door while giving enormous blows to the ground and doorpost, screaming: "This will I do to my enemy ....(name) if this was him". After about ten minutes the Indian has calmed down again and looks exhausted".

Only in 1969 the material that was collected by Spruce in 1861 has been chemically analysed.

Themes of Ayahuasca

Light, bright, flying, sudden/fast -

Heavy, grey, dark, (pressed) down, slow

- The moment I took the sniff it went around in my head. Very sudden I got a vision of a seagull in a clear sky, a big flying bird like an albatros, not moving the wings only keeping them out. Very symmetric in front of my eyes also a smell of seagrass for a while (pr 10- med.)

- I was startled by a bright yellow light, I had to open my eyes during meditation

- A sudden light came from the right side

- *......I was aware that everything was dark now. Suddenly I didn't believe them, I turned away and out of the corner of my left eye came a flash of light like an electric cord sparking. This happened again and I knew something was wrong...... (pr 12)

- I felt my occiput/vertex shaped pointed upwards which was followed by yellow, light flash, like a shock, I had to open my eyes (pr 8 - med)

- Feeling of being accelerated forward/upward

- I felt a lightheartedness in the room and in me at the time the remedy was passed around, then a feeling of heaviness low in the abdomen below the navel - an awareness of that area; later after putting the remedy down a heavy feeling in mind and body (pr 3- med)

- *....Very light bright surroundings, I think I was looking at snow, then I noticed a shadow ...(pr 12 -dr.)

- It started with a light feeling then came red flames or glittering red and white (maybe blood). It was not frightening. Then it turned into a grey fog or cloud. With the redness there was a feeling of being straight (physical). With the grey cloud there came a very heavy sensation starting from the throat down which I could not resist. Steadily and slowly it kind of squeezed me towards the floor (like a grey plastic)..........

It all made the impression of a slow motion movie. It was very difficult to get out of the meditation (pr 6- med)

- When I knew I was lost, the darkness came again and everything was black (pr 12 -dr.)

- Sensation of being smaller

- Heaviness in both lungs as if fluid was in it; had to remind myself to breathe

- Heavy and weak feeling in the heart region

- Very heavy, like walking in dark mud

- Dark islands, dark water

- A friend of mine said: "You have such a heavy energy, I don't want to be near you" (pr 6)

- My body is heavy, feeling as if drugged, everything is an effort physically and mentally (pr 3)

Clairvoyance - future - new age - spirituality

- *.........The person who is going to do the proving is blond with a beard (just as it turned out to be although I have never seen him before.....) (pr 11, dream two nights before the proving)

- I knew something would happen to a participant (who was too reckless in cycling) and something did happen and now I am angry at myself that I didn't warn her enough

(pr 18)

- Dream "Noah's Ark" about forming a new society in the future and the preparation for it by going through the dark states of the unconscious (pr 24)

- I see that my chakras turn to the right (pr 4)

- (I went to bed with the question if proving the Wailing Wall was a right thing to do) *..........They ask me about the future and this is what I said: "There is no future and there is no past. The snake bites its own tail. When you look at a football pitch, you do not ask: Is the left side the past and the right side the future? It is all one - there will be an "almost" end of the world. For every million killed, only one person will be left but the walls will be left standing. Whether you do a proving or not will make no difference because this is inevitable. Everything is pre-written. History has been decided upon already. It is programmed in our genes. There is no beginning and no end. Love that comes from the heart is human love. Universal love is something else..." (which I felt in the dream but forgot shortly after waking).

- * I am in a town after a revolution. The town is all destroyed and I have to take care of the children, mine and my brother's. Someone I care for (I don't know whom) is held hostage at the top of the highest building in town, a skyscraper, which now serves as the headquarter of the revolutionaries. I go there with the children. I have to go up the tower without us being seen or killed, but at each floor there is a guard, each one a champion in a different martial art. At each floor I fight him, get killed as well as the children but wake up with the children at the next floor up, get up, fight the guard, get killed, wake up one floor higher and so on. I try different tactics on the guards, as I am learning from my past mistakes (to hide, to confront head on, different strategies) but the guard always has a different way, masters a different martial art so that he always gets me in the end. But as I go on, I become less and less afraid (I know I'm going to come back to life), more and more calm, more and more detached and feel more and more power within myself.

- * I dream of a great fire at the center of the earth, like a big furnace with people shovelling coal into it. Nearby some people kneel and bend down, praying to and adoring the fire.

- * A civil war scene - a tank in the streets explodes as people look on. I am afraid that pieces will land on my head. Further in the mess and disorder that ensues, an old man near a cart tells me that people and objects all have a different "frequency". He explains that certain people, nations and things vibrate according to frequency number 1, the most special. He says there are seven different frequencies and that elements at each frequency level attract one and other. Example, a gypsy and a guitar, both number 1 frequency, attract each other. Thus, he says, can desire be understood as an attraction between elements of similar frequencies. (pr 11)

Entangled, strangled, suffocated, trapped, cannot get out, cannot pass certain point

- Heavy feeling, as if being encased in armor; thought patterns couldn't form, were stopped or empty. Dark, slow and sluggish, trapped, couldn't get beyond the wall

(pr 12 -med)

- Pressure between eyebrows and as if shutters from the sides and in front (med)

- Coma like sleep

- Time stopped in a way (med.)

- Feeling in throat: sticky and slow, no reaction could be made; extending to chest, difficulty to breathe - "slow motion movie" (pr 6- med)

- Observation: very depressed after falling from bike, asking why this happened, there must be some explanation - could not get out of this (pr 19)

- On going to bed as if a rope around my legs above the ankles (pr 19)

- I feel myself being pulled strongly by somebody and I shriek: Noooo....... And then the shriek ceases suddenly. (pr 23)

- * I am torn in myself between two men. One reliable, intelligent and sane and the other, absent, unfaithful, liar and extremely attractive. So much so that whenever I

see him I cannot resist him (he looks like Warren Beaty the actor). And I wonder every time when I am not with him why do I go back each time? Why can't I just stop?

He is like an irresistable drug. (pr 11)

- * ........then I started to run but knew I could not get away. When I knew I was lost, the darkness came again and everything was black.. (pr 12)

- * I am walking in busy street and I see from far somebody that I don't want to meet. She is a friend of mine from 30 years ago, a very intense person whom I like but cannot really be with for long times because she is too intense and loquacious. I try to avoid her by going into a tunnel where the train pass. I run all the way through the tunnel to the other side of it. But she has seen me and runs after me and finally gets to me to talk. I feel trapped because I cannot tell her the truth about not wanting to be with her. (pr 23)

- I feel suffocated with my roommate, I feel more distant and roommate is very clingy (after talking about it >).

- *..........I am strangled by something. I see myself in the dream, my neck is bloody, a kind of weal and I cannot utter any sound. I have a lot of grief but I cannot express it (because it is physically impossible) (pr 20)

- Main theme of dreams: getting into something and not being able to get out (pr 1)

- Several provers noticed a reduction in their cigarette craving (also a form of entanglement)

Grief, forsaken, alone

- * In South Africa, I belong to a big family who are in vine-culture. The father, the true head of the family, died. As one of his daughters I have to hold a speech during the funeral. But I can not utter a word; I am strangled by something. I see myself in the dream, my neck is bloody, a kind of weal and I cannot utter any sound. I have a lot of grief but I cannot express it (because it is physically impossible). The other members of the family blame me for not doing my duty as a daughter. Later in the dream I am back in the place where I am born. I am sitting on a bench in the center of the village and I am looking for familiar faces to tell that I am in mourning. There is nobody. (pr 20)

- In the afternoon I went cycling with other. I was the last one. A couple ahead of me said that we were cycling in pairs. I thought: "But not me, I am alone, I am the only one who is alone". I saw the others ahead of me a lot further than they were in reality (pr 6).

- While riding on the bike with the group I felt very lonely. On one hand I was sad that I felt lonely while I was among friends. On the other hand I wanted to be left alone and I rode ahead to be on my own. (pr 16)

- A friend of mine said: "You have such a heavy energy around you, I don't want to be near you". I felt no offence or grief, I took it as a matter of fact that I am supposed

to be alone (fatalistic) (pr 6)

- I get a pressing pain in the chest, I feel dizzy and very nauseous, I think I have to vomit. I have to get out of the class and walk around and I feel a lot of grief in my chest with the feeling that if I let this out I can't stop crying. Somebody talks to me and this helps me to "stay here", also feeling my feet on the ground helps. But there is still a lot of dizziness and pain in the chest as if from a suppressed cry. I know I couldn't stop crying if I start, I have to walk or talk to others, I feel alone in this dream state, I need caressing, would like to be in somebody's arms and just cry (also writing this down helps). (pr 6)

- I see a face like a mask. A deep furrow has been cut into the face under each eye down to the chin. Tears and blood runs down from them and make a puddle of blood in

the form of a heart. (pr 23 -med)

- There isn't a feeling of integration with the group anymore (as I experienced the first two days of the proving) (pr 21)

- I don't feel any connection to any of these people at the seminar (pr 3)

Persecuted, escape, war, police, raid

- I am escaping something, I feel very exhausted, I have run from along way. Heart beats heavily. Sensation of heaviness everywhere. When I look over my right shoulder to see who or what chases me, I fear to fall to the left. (pr 19 -med)

- In the night I dream that there is a soldier hunting for me and I just have to run. I am bored and frustrated in all of that running alone (pr 6).

- * Very light bright surroundings, I think I was looking at snow, then I noticed a shadow I had to investigate. When I went to see what was happening everything was blocked off and I asked why, what is the problem? People like guards said to me: "There is no problem, we are just testing something". I was aware that everything was dark now. Suddenly I didn't believe them, I turned away and out of the corner of my left eye came a flash of light like an electric cord sparking. This happened again and I knew something was wrong. The guards felt my unease. I felt unsafe and knew I must run from here but I had also to pretend that everything was OK. Then I started to run but knew I could not get away. When I knew I was lost, the darkness came again and everything was black. I woke up very frightened and felt an urgent need to lock the door even though I knew it was locked. The fear disappeared quickly. (pr 12)

- I see the Chinese woman who took care of me in my childhood, running with me in her arms and shrieking, she runs to a hole in the ground and jumps into it (I am a few months old), aeroplanes pass and drop bombs around us. (pr 23)

- *.............He is about to pass the remedy when suddenly from another seminar a person comes who rushes to the people in the back row and tells them not to do this proving and that the organisers cannot be trusted. People start getting agitated, get up on the tables and start throwing stones at the person directing the proving until it all becomes a riot (à la Paris, may '68). People overturn cars, throw Molotov cocktails, bombs, stones. Smoke, screams, explosions.........(pr 6)

- * My husband is pursued by? and I am very worried about him. I decide to hide him in the metro behind a rack full of coats. The metro will leave any minute but before that somebody in uniform comes to look for suspects in each wagon. In the end the doors are closed but the train doesn't leave. My husband is trapped and I am afraid he will suffocate. I see that the uniformed man leaves to look for something else and I quickly get my husband out of the train. Now he goes to organise people for a revolt instead of hiding. I feel terrified. (pr 23)

- * Dead bodies or pieces of bodies which I placed on black? (no fear in me), just organising the results of the war (pr 26)

- *.........All our baby clothes as well as my own children's were there, as well as a few other torture instruments (not in reality) such as belts to tie us down to our chairs.......

(pr 11)

- * I had a fear that somebody was coming through the door, but the fear was not reachable in a way. It had nothing to do with reality, aware that this fear had nothing to do with my feelings (pr 27)

- * Me, my husband and another couple have murdered a man (who deserved it), all of the time we spent trying to get rid of the body by putting it into a car, driving the car and trying to find a way to get rid of it as well as escaping the police. (pr 11)

- * A civil war scene - a tank in the streets explodes as people look on. I am afraid that pieces will land on my head. Further in the mess and disorder that ensues,.......(pr 11)

Synchronicities (striking events that happened to participants during the proving and fit remarkably into themes of the remedy being proved)

- Sleepless untila.m.; working on cases in my sleep; a.m. loud noises in the street, police cars; 4.45 a.m. Police raid house opposite, shouting, hammering on door, lights flashing. They break down the door. Lots of noise. I am not frightened but I can't sleep (5-6-'98) (pr 9)

- During the closing lecture of the seminar (and proving) a lot of jetfighters passed by and we heard the noises of machine-guns. We all had the feeling: "They are coming...

(the Russians?)". It turned out to be an air-show on the beech of Scheveningen with fireworks.

Rage, anger, irritability

- I noticed while meditating that I was kind of protecting my laptop-computer (in front of me) then I realised there was an outrageous explosion of rage coming up wanting

to smash my computer (pr 7 med)

- I was very irritated and annoyed by "stupid" remarks in the group (in relation to dream provings) (pr 24)

- First I noticed that I got clumsy, dropped things, bumped my hands against things (not at all my style), there was a kind of paralysed feeling in my right arm and hand.

Then a rage came up and I wanted to smash the kitchen oor with my right foot and wanted to throw things (pr 1)

- On a polite question the answering was abrupt and harsch, irritated: "No!!". (pr 1)

- Seeing myself as ayear old child running down the street to get to the toilet in time and not making with it. My mother reprimanded me. Now I feel very angry because I didn't deserve it. I have always thought that my mother was right and that I was the one to blame. (pr 9 -med: curative)

- Observation: cycled very fast, something of aggression in the speed (pr 19)

- On waking I was very angry at something that happened two days ago (pr 16)

- * I see my sister walking with a puppy. She orders the puppy: "Stand!!" but he is running around. She is angry and frustrated. (pr 16)

Throat

- (during meditation: image) I see an elephant coming from the circus, I can see into his throat, an enormous throat. I can see a long way into it, see the walls and the mucous membrane, no feelings with it (pr 5 - med)

- I had the sensation of having an enormous throat, could look into it and see the laryngeal rings (pr 9 -med)

- Neck felt long (pr 6 -med)

- Stitching pain in the right side of the throat

- Pain and swollen feeling in the throat, "sticky and slow"; no reaction could be made, extending to chest (pr 6 -med)

- Constricting sensation around throat

- Saw a cavernous mouth with teeth, tongue then dark, slow and sluggish; trapped couldn't get beyond the wall (pr 12- med)

- Small green alligator in my house as the only survivor of more wildlife fauna that was send to my home (?). It was too small to really get frightened but I still had the feeling to stay alert. Once he opened his mouth right in front of me and I could see into his stomach. In there I saw another tiny alligator ready to come out through the mouth (pr l3 - dr)

Numb, deaf (dead), indifference - no feelings

- After the tingling, a feeling as if whole right scalp and face were almost numb, a sensation of not feeling things so much (the same kind of numbness I have felt after circulation has been cut off and is returning (pr- med)

- Aware of the silence in the room, noticing the very small sounds, and then thinking there were no sounds at all (pr-med)

- Numbness in my fingers lasting for 10 minutes andhours later tingling lasting aroundminutes (pr 2)

- Colourful visions of cheap jewelry, toys, carnival, circus but no feelings, cannot get into lower part of my body (pr 5 -med)

- There was no sensation/awareness/reaction in the lower part of my body (below hips) (pr-med)

- A friend said that I had a heavy energy and that she didn't want to be near me. I felt no offence or grief, I took it as a matter of fact that I'm supposed to be alone (fatalist). (pr 6)

- Not alive, heavy deadness, no life (pr 12 -med)

- Felt a real indifference to work on the live case, this is very unusual for me. Immediately after the live case I felt "fired up" and enthusiastic but somehow in the afternoon this feeling was replaced by indifference which was quite strong. I did feel a general indifference as well but not as strong (pr 14)

- Yesterday completely indifferent to note-taking, I usually take notes very conscientiously. Yesterday I thought this is all in the books. I am too heavy to concentrate to write all this (pr 3)

- Indifference to outside, timelessness, soundless, no thoughts (pr 25 - med)

- Did not go to evening class - no guilt (usually I would give myself a hard time about it), did little work on the cases, it does not matter to me (usually very conscientious) (prin tired state)

- I was the observer of everything, viewing from the left side or from behind (pr 9 - med)

- It is unusual for me to have dreams where I am more the observer than a participant (pr 16)

Confusion, concentration difficult, mistakes, loosing way

- Had a problem concentrating this afternoon, head heavy, eyelids heavy, would like to lie down (pr 3)

- Omitting letters at the beginning of words this morning (pr 3)

- Disoriented, making mistakes in speaking and writing; saying death instead of birth, my husband's wife instead of my father's wife, eggplant instead of watermelon (pr 21)

- Disoriented, not clear where I was (after waking from a nap) (pr 16)

- Stoned feeling, sleepy (pr 21)

- Next day: feeling unconcentrated, confused, mistakes in writing, not able to listen and write at the same time as usual. Feeling of not having my normal head (pr 23)

- Confusion/Disorientation: mistook the doors several times in my apartment; don't know where I am walking on the street, on the pavement? On the street? (pr 11)

- My own name I did not recognise when I was called (pr 11)

- Everything seemed unreal, like a drug; people seem like aliens (pr 11)

- Feel disjointed, disconnected (lasted all night, same feeling as after taking Opium) (pr 9)

Split: right/left - up/down

- Had a feeling during the meditation that the two sides of my body, especially from hips upwards were not even: a split between right and left side.

There was no reaction/sensation/awareness in lower part of body (below hips) (pr 3- med)

- Could not get into the lower part of my body, only in the upper part (pr 5 -med)

- Tight, pressing (constricting band-like) around the lower ribcage; need to inhale deeply (pr 10 med)

- Observation by participant of prover 19: split in head and body. Mentally euphoric, talking on numerology etc and physically heavy way of walking, had to pull her legs

after her, unhappy body language.

- I am relaxed, my head is going more and more up and bending backward a little, I realised my chakras are turning to the right side (clockwise), I am happy, then I hear

a noise from my abdomen. What a reality, paradise and bowels, two parts of mine. I hear a lot of other bowel sounds in the room now (pr 25)

Mother(ing) , caring, anxiety about others, guilt

- * I was divorced and ex-husband came with a legal document to sue me. Very unpleasant, I thought it was all settled. No particular feelings except that I wanted to have access to the small children, that I could look after them (In real life I am divorced and around this I have a great deal of anger going nowhere) (pr 3)

- During headache thoughts of all kinds of cares about people (pr 18)

- I knew something would happen to a participant (who was too reckless in cycling) and something did happen and now I am angry at myself that I didn't warn her enough/ didn't take care of her enough (pr18)

Worried and fantasised husband had a car-accident (after phoning him and he was not there). At night I dreamt my husband died in an accident (pr 22)

- * I am in a wagon with four people including my older sister (who is now a Zen Roshi). She is holding two oil-lamps, one of which is resting with a sharp edge on my leg. She does not seem to be concerned. Someone comments about it and I move my leg so that the lamp falls off the wagon (intentionally). I have the feeling she was not concerned about me so I was not concerned for her lamp. Immediately I feel remorse for being so selfish and mean, I apologise (pr 24)

-* I dreamt that I was in Holland, sitting outdoors in a restaurant with friends. The menu's were in dutch only and I was upset about it a little. A boy of about 1came from

a nearby building and gave milk in a bowl to a yellow labrador dog. He left and a few minutes later the boy's mother came downstairs. She did not know the dog was fed.

She went to give him milk and the dog acted so excited, as if he was not already fed at all. I thought what a deceitful, cunning dog, cheating the owner like that. (pr 16)

- * An old man and his wife are preparing to eat a steak in the street in front of my house. The steak is being prepared in an aluminium dish and I see a big hole in one of the dishes and all the juice is dripping out on the floor and on the gas stove. I think about how I could help them (they don't realise there is a problem). I go in the house to look

for something to close the hole. I finally take a plate and I go out and I find them sitting together on the street eating with their fingers a piece of completely overdone steak. They look very happy. I feel I came too late, feel guilty. (pr 23)

- *..People overturn cars, throw Molotov cocktails, bombs, stones. Smoke, screams, explosions. I am carrying people, adult people like babies (legs crossed around my waist and their heads on my shoulders) into the building for rescue. I carry men and women and they are not too heavy, just like small children......The feeling in the dream was

of great responsibility, alarm and power (pr 11)

- * I went back to the house of my childhood along with my brother. The basement of the house was a museum to our childhood. All objects and clothes had been preserved there intact, neatly folded, hanging or exposed. We went through it remembering each artifact. All our baby clothes as well as my own children's were there, as well as a few other torture instruments (not in reality) such as belts to tie us down to our chairs. I told him to take all the baby clothes and to take it home to use for his own children.

My mother and grandmother were there (dead in reality) and were both getting married tomen. My mother was marrying Charles de Gaulle (!). I was very happy for her.

I saw how we were now (my brother and I) taking care of our own parents. How the roles were reversed. But all was much better now. (pr 11)

- * I am huge, like a giant, naked from the waist up. Two rows of people are standing lined up in front of me: one of men and one of women. One by one they come up to my enormous breasts and suck them briefly then they leave and then the next one comes etc Feeling: power, protection (desire to protect), mother or feminine power, like a goddess (pr 11).

Synchronicity: in the newspaper (De Volkskrant) of the last seminar day there was an article "Gek uit de baarmoeder" (Crazy out of the womb) in which was related that mothers who were pregnant during the German invasion in 1940 had a bigger chance to get a child that would develop schizophrenia later in life.

Womb - umbilical cord

* I was on a boat with an enormous cargo-hold. The boat was emptied, loads of sacks on cables. In my dream I think: this boat is as the body of a woman, the cargo-hold

is her belly, as big as a cathedral. All those sacks that had to be hoisted out are hanging on umbilical cords (pr 20)

Meditation: I had the feeling that I was bended (in the form of a little shrimp), there was a bubbly, tingling sensation in my whole body. Before my eyes I saw a warm, bright orange/rose hue as if sunlight through curtains. I had the feeling of rocking to and fro as if I was in a big fish-bowl. I felt tears running over my cheeks. I wasn't sad but it was a kind of memory of something that will never come back (pr 20 -med).

- I find myself in the uterus of my son's wife and I can see her daughter, a beautiful girl (pr 23)

- Cutting, burning pain across navel extending to whole abdomen

Laughing, giggling, mocking

- Laughing, joking, silly (pr 15)

- Lots of crazy laughter and giggling (pr 16)

- Hilarity and laughing a lot (pr 3)

- Easily giggling (pr 21)

- Constant desire to laugh; an uncontrollable laughter to tears. It is triggered by the fact that people seem funny, a little alien, everything they do seems funny and provokes laughter and mocking. Also a contageous laughing - just to hear someone laugh can send me into hysterical laughing fits (pr 11)

-During the day and evening: irrepressible laughing, off and on all evening with the ability to turn everything into extremely funny descriptions - mocking (pr 23)

Out of proportion: huge, giant (animals/sex organs) - small, diminished, far, distant

- A twelve foot penis that could be admired (pr 7)

- A big white flamengo (larger than normal) with black "fingers" on the edge of the wings. Heavy flying. (pr 19)

- As if my two front top teeth were longer and touched my lower teeth first, like a chipmonth/beaver (pr. 24)

- * I was standing at the remnants of something that had been mine: my house and my vegetable garden. Now there was only a heap of peels and skins and from the house some remainders of paint, wood and stone. I was surprised that this was all that remained (pr 20 -dr)

- Sensation of being smaller

- *.....(in bed) I turn to the wall and look out of the window, there is a huge purple snake there wrapped in two clumps on the tree branches. I feel a fear and note that the window is closed. I see the head of the snake and we look at each other. Then a strong wind causes the snake to fall of the branches. I step to the window and watch him fall. I am amazed that I am high above the ground, like in a skyscraper whereas I felt that I was in a downstairs bedroom. The tree too was enormous and the snake looked like it was falling down a chute. Suddenly it shot to the left and wrapped safely around some branches. I thought this is a powerful or magical snake. (pr 22)

- I saw the others ahead of me a lot further than they were in reality (pr 6)

(Other) Animals

- A snail without a shell (pr 18 -med)

- Big brown bear comes out of my centre and walks away. It has a little bright bird on top of its head. Heart beats strongly (pr 19 -med)

- A big white flamingo (larger than normally) with black "fingers" on the edge of the wings. Heavy flying.

In later scene it stands near a fresh cool clean water stream in the desert, now it turns into a human male dressed in light blue almost white dress. He walks the stream downwards away from me (pr 19 -med )

- Small green alligator in my house as the only survivor of more wildlife fauna that was send to my home (?). It was too small to really get frightened but I still had a creepy feeling and stayed alert. Once he opened his mouth right in front of me and I could see into his stomach. In there I saw another tiny alligator ready to come out through the mouth (pr l3 - dr)

- Chewing like a camel (from side to side) when waking up from a nap (pr 11)

Sand, Dessert, Camel

- Meditation: aware of hard and different surfaces under feet like sand, brick........Later more sand as I moved out into the dessert on a camel (pr 9)

- * my genitals covered with sand.... (pr 24)

- Chewing like a camel (from side to side) when waking up from a nap (pr 11)

- * In the navajo dessert.......(pr 11)

Sex

- A twelve foot penis that could be admired (pr 7)

- * I am in a house and a woman wants to sleep with me; she is quite straightforward about it but I have course sand all over my genitals from lying in it. I am not interested, not aroused (pr 24)

- * Invited to have sex with a man, lying on his back, I can only see the legs with the knees raised and a limp penis. I feel a desire and then the dream fades.........I come back

in the dream with an unpleasant feeling and the realisation that my husband has had sex with me while I was asleep. I am angry and express this to him. I turn to the wall and look out of the window, there is a huge purple snake there wrapped in two clumps on the tree branches. I feel a fear and note that the window is closed. I see the head of the snake and we look at each other. Then a strong wind causes the snake to fall of the branches. I step to the window and watch him fall. I am amazed that I am high above the ground, like in a skyscraper whereas I felt that I was in a downstairs bedroom. The tree too was enormous and the snake looked like it was falling down a chute. Suddenly it shot to the left and wrapped safely around some branches. I thought this is a powerful or magical snake. (When it landed in lower branches it was still in two clumps, never stretched out while falling. I think it resembles an image of the female organs - ovaries and falopian tubes) (pr 22)

Physicals

Head - Vertigo

- Tingling vertex, as if under scalp (pr 17)

- Right sided headache with an uncomfortable pressure in right ear; pain was just above the forehead on the right side, after waking from a nap (pr 16)

- Drawing pain right side of neck extending into occiput (pr 5 -med)

- Congestion of blood to the head, fullness (pr 15 - med)

- Aggravation of headache with a lot of caring thoughts (pr 18)

- Pain, soreness and bruised feeling in neck and upper back (pr 11)

- Heaviness of head and upper back (pr 11)

- Head, as if empty and full of air. As if my head/skull stopped above my eyes or was a shell with wind inside; also as if cotton in head (pr 11)

- Head feels congested and full (pr 11)

- I woke up in the morning and before opening my eyes I turned from lying on my left side to my right side. I became very dizzy with my eyes still closed. (pr 16)

- On waking my head was buzzing, especially at the top and I felt slightly nauseous (pr 11)

- Vertigo, falling to the right

- Loss of balance in the car when making a turn

- Dizziness and nauseous feeling (3x)

Face - Eye - Ear - Nose - Mouth - Teeth

- Heat in face (pr 16)

- Sparkling dots before eyes (when focussing nearby while looking in the bright sky), then black wisps like smoke wisps with a small dark centre spot (pr 3)

- Eyes are burning as if extremely tired (pr 11)

- Ears and nose stopped (pr 11)

- Ringing right ear (have a chronic ringing in left ear, now it seemed to include right ear as well) (pr 17)

- Noises in right ear

- Sudden loss of hearing for a few seconds as if cotton in my ears; also buzzing (high pitched) in ears (pr 11)

In the upper teeth strange feeling as if growing forward (pr 9).

- Sneezing in morning 10 a.m. - noon (pr 9)

- Coryza for an hour around 9.30 p.m. (pr 23)

- Tootache in upper right side, slightly stabbing with pain in right cheekbone (pr 9).

- Chewing like a camel (from side to side) when waking up from a nap (pr 9)

- Tingling or twitching under the skin below the left eye (like and insect or hair) (pr 15 - med)

- Red slightly painful eruption on right upper lip edge (pr 3)

- Tender swollen hard gland 1-1.5 cm size under the angle of the left lower jaw (after one day already less swollen and sore) (pr 3)

Throat

- Dry, raw sensation in tonsil area (pr 22)

- Stitching in right throat, burning right ear, middle of right breast area burning stitching

- I had a pain in the throat with a swollen feeling: "sticky and slow"; no reaction could be made. This feeling extended to the chest, I had a difficulty to breathe.

My neck felt long and my mouth was opened firmly. (pr 6 - med)

- Burning constriction in throat (pr 27)

- Slightly constricted, fauces sore, fromp.m. until retiring on two consecutive days, no difficulty in swallowing (pr 9)

Stomach - Abdomen

- I feel very dizzy and very nauseous, I think I have to vomit. I have to get out of the class and walk around and I feel a lot of grief in my chest with the feeling that

if I let this out I can't stop crying (pr 6)

- Nausea and fainting sensation from severe pain (knee) (pr 16)

- Desire to eat solid food (meat) not a sushi (pr 3)

- Loss of all appetite (pr 9)

- Appetite for breakfast usually don't eat before noon (pr 15)

- No interest in food (in sleepy, tired state) (pr 3)

- Abdomen sensitive to belt (pr 17)

- Constipation (pr 11)

- Cramps on abdomen, severe from 22.30 continuing all night, could not sleep. (pr 26)

- Burning, cutting pain across navel and whole abdomen (pr 26)

- vomiting in evening, diarrhea next morning (pr 26)

- sick and sleepy whole day, could not stand up, talking difficult, could not eat or drink anything (pr 26)

- Pains in the abdomen across at umbilicus level, sharp pains, wanted to lie very still, icy cold feet, warm face, no sweat , wanted to be covered; diarrhoea, running like

tap liquid, yellow pasty colour, pouring out, not explosive, smelled sweetish; vomiting started later; no energy to get out of bed or go to toilet, ended up in vomiting

yellow bile, perspired in the face during vomiting - couldn't stop thinking about food - preferred to lie on right side, knees drawn up; no thirst, dry mouth

(food-poisoning?) (pr 3)

Chest - Heart - Back

- Pain as if a lump in the right breast, holding the breast > (pr)

- Pain in chest area towards left breast (pr 2)

- Fullness in the centre of chest (pr 15 - med)

- I get a pressing pain in the chest (parasternal left) (pr 6)

- Heavy, quick pulse, hammering; 90 beats per min (pr 10)

- Discomfort under right scapula (pr 9)

- Heart pounding, went after ten minutes

- Copious perspiration trunk at night (pr 13)

- Palpitation (pr 27)

- Heart pounding, went after 10 minutes (pr 9)

Extremities - skin

- Pain ankle/shinbone

- Pain in left knee, started in both knees and then remained in the left. When the pain becomes severe there is nausea and fainting sensation and I am on the verge of tears.

(pr 16)

- Heat and heaviness in elbows and lower arms, extending to wrists, left side< (pr 15 - med)

- Itching legs, hollow of the left knee, left upper calf and the inner side of both ankles, left upper thigh on the inner side, have to scratch but no relief; < on going to bed,

> cold application (pr 3)

- Itching in small spots, right thigh and index finger, no eruption (pr 9)

- Woke up in middle of the night (a.m.) with painful cramps in calves - it came and went suddenly; next morning calves still feel achy and tight.

- Cramp in right calve in the night, coming up slowly (pr 13)

- Restless feet (pr 13, 19)

- Discoloration, purple, of toes when standing

- Paralytic feeling in right hand, incoordinated, dropping things; extending to shoulder

- Unbearable twitchings of the muscles in the whole right leg, < on top of the foot, only after going to bed; as if the whole leg would go into a cramp. Spasms < when leg cold. (pr 9)

Bladder - Genitalia

- Frequent urination (pr 3)

- Feeling of full bladder (pr 21)

- Small cyst-like eruption perineum left side (pr 22)

- Pain in left ovary, started around 1 p.m., in waves, drawing, pulling pain, rubbing> (pr 16)

- Metrorrhagia during coition (dd arg-n); about five painless contractions, with gushing of bright red blood; stopped spontaneously and did not recur. (pr 9)

Sleep

- Difficulties falling asleep, unrefreshed in the morning (pr 6)

- Woke at 4.30 and was sleepless afterwards (very unusual) (pr 24)

- Couldn't sleep well at night. No dreams, difficult to fall asleep and unrefreshed in the morning.(pr 6)

- Comatose sleep (pr 11)

- Very deep sleep, not pleasant, as if lost time

- Sleepless untila.m. - working on cases in my sleep (pr 9)

- Sleep, very light, wakinga.m.- 3.30 and 5 a.m.; thinking in sleep, aware of all the noises in sleep, awoken by wind in sleep - fear of wind (pr 9)

- Sleepy in daytime, sleepless at night (pr 9)

- Brain waking up p.m. onwards (pr 9)

- Saw sheep in a boxkite - flying! I thought I was awake until I realised sheep weren't really in the room. Dream state all night but sleepless. Was kept awake by every noise (cats, people, talking) (pr 9)

- Very heavy sleep with unremembered dreams (unusual for me) - sleepy during day (pr21)

- Hard to wake up in the morning but after I get out of bed I feel awake (pr 21)

Generals

- Feeling very tired around 11 a.m. (pr 11)

- Shaking from fatigue morning after sleepless night (pr 9)

- Tired in spite of 11 hours sleep, had to drag myself out of bed, felt that I could stay in bed, dozing and drifting all day (pr 3)

Fatigue, extreme tiredness, I walk home in a daze, as if in a dream (pr 11)

Sensations heightened: the heat of the sun was burning and the cool of the shade freezing (pr 16)

- All my body muscles are tense (pr 23)

Curative symptoms

- This morning when I awoke, I had a sense of freedom and the words I used myself was: "Like a bird that has just been let out of a cage". I felt great.

I have a few personal issues that I have been trying to resolve and this morning I felt that I was on my way to resolve these issues, whereas in the past I've gone round

in circles. A very positive effect! I have not found the resolution but feel that it is close and I am heading in the right direction (pr 14)

- Seeing myself as ayear old child running down the street to get to the toilet in time and not making with it. My mother reprimanded me. Now I feel very angry because

I didn't deserve it. I have always thought that my mother was right and that I was the one to blame.

- Complete and utter impulsiveness. Felt free of every constraint, totally centered, very sexual and sensual. A madness in paradise. It seems a self-satisfied, contained,

whole state achieved by impulse, breaking down of barriers and the recognition of my own needs and getting them met. (pr 9 -med)

- Instead of anticipating anxiously my trip to Germany after this, I am not worrying. I think it will take care of itself. I am surprised how well I am coping with the seminar. Usually I would be feeling more sorry for myself. Now I feel confident and that things do not matter, that I can deal with it all. OK not to hand in an analysis of the life-case. Usually I would have felt very guilty not to do it. (pr 3)

- Felt emotionally detached in a good way, more centered within myself, I definitely feel this is from the remedy (pr 17)

- During the discussion and evaluation of the remedy-proving symptoms I had the feeling that I didn't want to be there, not wanting to listen to all this stuff, couldn't really hear what was being said and didn't want to. After hearing the dream of the giant woman with the enormous breasts and men and women coming up to suck them, I felt very much better. I could hear again and was interested in what was going on. My clarity and well being all seemed much better, like a weight having been lifted. (pr 12)

My mother and grandmother were there (dead in reality) and were both getting married tomen. My mother was marrying Charles de Gaulle (!). I was very happy for her.

I saw how we were now (my brother and I) taking care of our own parents. How the roles were reversed. But all was much better now.

Feelings: a good dream, sensation of closing a circle. A feeling of forgiveness for past offences. Acceptance. Adulthood. (pr 11)

- Reduction in cigarette craving (several provers)

Picture of Ayahuasca (provisional concept)

The climbing vine with the form of a thick rope, cable is reminisent of the umbilical cord, the connection with the mother. What can go wrong with an umbilical cord, what

can be the original trauma of Ayahuasca? That you get entangled in the umbilical cord, entangled in your mother or your mother's energy. You get stuck in it and it pulls you down, HEAVY feeling. There is no escape, it sticks to you and paralyses.

A concrete and physical expression of this is the actual entanglement of the umbilical cord round the neck of the newborn. But the real pathology starts on the emotional level, the emotional entanglement with the mother that can last a lifetime and that is dragging us down and preventing becoming ourselves. It can be a grief or a guilt that the mother passes on to the unborn during pregnancy, the mother can reject the child. The trauma of ayahuasca will probably be in pregnancy, the time of oceanic/cosmic feelings, the time of functioning of the umbilical cord (symbiosis) on one hand but also the time that the unborn can be loaded with the heavy, grey, dark, black negative energy of a suppressed/not dealt with emotion of the mother, no escape possible.

The only escape possible is getting out of that body, getting lighter, higher. Excarnate, spirit leaving the body (already in pregnancy or a very late incarnation then) - the only communication (lifeline) between body and spirit in this state is the "golden cord" (another analogon of the vine) expressing itself in ayahuasca in the form of flashes of bright light, electric sparks.

So there are two opposite forces in Ayahuasca, one heavy, grey, dark, slow one dragging down eliciting the other (the escape): light, bright, fast, sudden, upward (to the head and beyond). The head goes upward, the body drags down, so the neck gets elongated.

Ayahuasca in potency can give us the strength to go down into the grey, dark, shadow, to feel it, bring it into consciousness and deal with it.

The disentanglement of yourself from the energy of your mother is hindered and paralysed by guilt. Guilt of letting your mother down/alone. (Mother can be projected on everybody you have some kind of relationship with). To cut this umbilical cord, to free yourself a lot of energy is needed, an enormous anger/fury. Guilt robs you from your anger/strength. But when the cord is cut then you have to feel you are alone, you have to do it yourself now, you are responsible for yourself and all that has happened to you. You can see the situation now as it really is and how it was in the past. Feeling the pain of those moments that she was not there for you, when you needed her most. So the healthy anger (freeing yourself out of symbiosis) is often followed by a deep grief/hurt feeling and realising how things really were.

In the Ayahuasca disease-picture the anger/fury is to ward off the pain of the disentanglement of the symbiotic relation. It can be directed at the own body/person, or very often at objects.

Mothering and caring is often one of the most subtle forms of entanglement (and not only in the Ayahuasca picture) often resulting in guilt complexes of the persons being (s)mothered. In every mothering there is a conditional and an unconditional part, also these are entangled, making it very difficult to deal with.

A return to the womb, the time of functional symbiosis, oceanic/cosmic feelings, return to paradise that was the ultimate goal the Indians tried to reach by means of Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca in potency can make you aware that this is an illusion, in this life on earth you are able to do it on your own. The symbiotic relation that you had with your mother shifts to mother earth who has two enormous breasts with enough milk for you as long as you are patient, confident and wait for your turn.

SANTO DAIME

Proving leader: Kees Dam Van Walbeeckstr. 85-3 1058 CM Amsterdam

In the beginning of the thirties Raimundo Irineu Serra, a black rubber tapper, was initiated by the Indians in the use of the consciousness expanding ayahuasca, a mixture of the climbing vine Banisteriopsis caapi and the leaves of the Psychoria viridis. After a fast for several days in which he drank only the ayahuasca, he had a vision of a divine female figure (Holy Mary or a Goddess of the rainforest) who told him to found a spiritual community. Central in the rituals of this community should be the drinking of the ayahuasca, from now on called the "Daime" (litteral translation: give me). Mapia, deep in the rainforest of Brazil, is the center of the Santo Daime movement.

The working of Daime (From an interview with Alex Polari de Alverga, a Daime disciple)

" Daime is a sacrament, a vehicle for the Force - the Divine Being - that is present in the rainforest and all creation. This eucharist of nature, the vine and the leaf, let us partake of the nature of God. The Santo Daime Doctrine evolved directly out of communion with this living sacrament. The effects of the Daime may vary from person to person, and they often relate to the level on one's apprentice-ship with Daime. It is common for initiates to have visions of animals such as snakes and leopards, similar to those experienced in indigenous psychotropic traditions. Participants may also have visions of friends and relatives, or experience visual insights into past lives and into their psyches. It is unfortunate that ethno-biologists and chemists usually classify the Santo Daime components and other sacred plants as hallucinogens, meaning they produce visions that have nothing to do with reality. For those of us in the Santo Daime Doctrine, the visions of the Daime are much truer guides to reality than is an orthodox materialistic or scientific perspective of the world. In fact the visions we experience in ritual works are remarkably similar to visions and ecstatic states described by saints of many religions.

Daime opens the doors of communication between the mind and the astral, a parallel dimension that is inside of us and, at the same time, in the cosmos. Once we experience the irreputable sensation of the universe within us, the only path possible is to pleasurably surrender to the knowledge that we are the universe - both the whole and the part. This idea that the entire universe communicates with the interior of our bodies and minds has been part ot esoteric religious traditions for thousands of years.....

...In most other spiritual practices, when initiates have questions about a meditation technique or a philosophical issue, they generally consult their teacher or spiritual superior first. In contrast, Santo Daime initiates usually work directly on their problems through the knowledge given them by the Daime in the visions (miraçoes)....

The initiates of the Santo Daime Doctrine

....People usually become initiates when, after participating in a number of Daime works, they feel and know that their spiritual quest is with Daime. Officially they become initiates when the Padrinho pins stars to their uniforms on their initiation day. However, most persons speak of receiving their stars from the Daime during a vision, long before the official initiation. One person may have seen a star coming from the astral plane; others may have felt invisible stars being imprinted over their heart chakras, opening that energy center to a new experience of love. When you become an initiate, you affirm that the Daime is your sacrament, guide and Master; that this teacher has helped you get in touch with your true self, your divine light. You are celebrating that union within yourself, but you're also taking on a new challenge of joining the wheel of brotherhood. As an initiate, you're responsible not only for yourself but also for a family of spiritual seekers whose objective is creation of a holy life in a context of a community. You become your own flamekeeper because only you can master the fire within. Only you can cast away your old identity - the crusts of ego, personality, psychic imbalances and spiritual obstacles - that once served as a protective shell for differentiating yourself from the external world. Only you can nourish a new identity that honors your true mission, skills and talents and puts them to use for the community........

The all-night ceremonies of the Santo Daime Doctrine

.... For the most part, the official all-night "works" (ceremonies) follow the calandar of the catholic church. Commemoration of a sacred day begins on the eve of that date and continues until the following morning. The ceremony begins at sunset, and after the rosary is recited, the Daime is served for the first time (two lines are formed, one of women and one of men, and the firsts of the two lines come to the table where the Daime is served, drink the Daime from a glass, the glass is refilled and then the next man and woman come up etc.)

Thereafter, it is served at two- or three hour intervals throughout the night, with each participant drinking a dose each time. The Blessing of the Ritual Site is read and the hymnal correspondent to the date is begun. Because of the effects of Daime can be diverse, the hymnals with their ritual songs and dances provide parameters or guides for

the internal voyage that the Daime permits. Thus the hymnal influences the objective of the work, the path the work takes and the energy created. During the first part of the ritual, the hymnal is sung accompanied only by the rhythm of maracas (shakers). About midway through the hymnal, there is a break in the ritual, after which other instruments - guitar, accordion, bandolin, banjo, flute - may accompany the hymns. Throughout the ritual, people dance as they sing. Six "wings" - three of men and three of women - form a human star of David around the sixpointed star table at the center of the church. Each wing is composed of rows of participants lined up according to height. As each hymn is sung, the dancers move in a rhythmic right to left pattern, using simple synchronised steps. This dancing plays a very important role in forming a strong spiritual current among the participants. It's almost as if they're preparing bread dough - the energy is stretched and kneaded until it is ready. Sometimes people have been dancing around the Star of David condensing and expanding the energy for a while, the energy gets so thick it can be seen. From time to time during this working of the energy, the Force reaches an apex as our individual currents synchronize. At these moments, each one of us can telepathically sense our role in the creation of this incredible energetic field. At the same time, we can feel a very intense harmony within the field resulting from the union of all those minds working towards the same spiritual objective. During these moments of harmony, individual visions (miraçoes) take place with great frequency and strength.

Healing functions of the ritual and the role of the hymns

The true purpose of the ritual is twofold. There is the creation of ecstatic energy that I've been talking about, but the rituals are called "works" for a reason. Initiates know that when they enter a work they have a responsibility to work on themselves, to evolve into more perfect beings, and to merge with God. Daime obliges us to look at ourselves, especially at aspects we don't want to see. Sometimes seeing ourselves as we really are, can be painful, and the pain is usually proportional to our resistance to the Master who wants to show us ourselves. When we try to hide some error or blame from ourselves in the presence of Daime, it only makes matters worse. However, it is also said that the Daime is generous and shows us exactly what we're ready to see.

In the Daime community, we talk about people going through difficult "passagens" (passages) during the progression of a work. This term, borrowed from Amazonian pilots and navigators, refers to a difficult stretch of a ship's course. Our passagens are typically experienced as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, overall bad feelings, or even intense depression and anxiety. These passagens are key points in the learning process; vomiting, for example, helps one to release the past.

The hymns play an important healing role during these difficult passagens. Each hymn refers to principles and teachings of the Doctrine, as well as to its evolution.

....Inevitably, the hymn being played at that moment is a torch of light that helps us resolve an enigma or overcome a difficult problem. ...... The hymns provide a frame

of reference for what happens during the use of Daime, as well as a method for witnessing spiritual truths.

Therapeutic properties of Daime

As Richard E. Schultes and Albert Hoffmann state "Ayahuasca is above all a medicine - the great medicine". Yet although much has been written about the therapeutic use

of ayahuasca by Indians, relatively little has been published about its use in the Santo Daime community. As one professional therapist - a "fardado" (disciple of Daime) - observed: "The Daime accelerates processes in the psyche and dissolves even the most chronic emotional shells that hinder an individual's capacity to see, feel, and be with

his or her true self. In somatic disturbances, the Daime serves as a rebalancer of the somatic functions."

In the Santo Daime Doctrine we define the concept of healing in the broadest way possible, as the natural process people undergo in the search for our true self, our oneness with God. The Daime helps us arrive at the perception we need for our own healing processes to evolve.

Anger

- * A heavy quarrel with my mother; I had to buy a carpet for her bedroom but when I came back she hadn't prepared the room yet. I really yelled at her and threw all the things from the room on the balcony. I blamed my mother for never doing anything to help and never asking someone to help her. (il)

- * My ex-husband bought a new house and wants me to come and live with him there again. But also his girlfriend is going to live there. I scolded and cursed him and

his girlfriend. (il)

- The urge to throw the phone through the window after running for it when it rang but stopped ringing when I got there. (hw)

Cornered, stuck, pressed

-* A friend is sitting at a table opposite me, he is full enthusiasm telling me about homeopathy etc - in his enthusiasm he presses the table towards me so I get stuck between the wall behind and the table. He doesn't notice, he is so busy with his thing. (yl)

- * somebody is pressed to death in a crowd (yl)

Out of proportion

- My right lower limb feels bigger and also the grains of the medicine seem bigger than in reality (hw)

- Sensation as if my thumbs are enlarged (kd)

Sex

- * With my husband I walk through the red light district in Amsterdam and when I look to my left I see a big film screen of which the upper part is covered, only the lower half is visible and there I see a horrible pornomovie: a dog with a big human penis which is sucked by a man. (vk)

- * A man is sitting on his knees with a very big penis in erection; very exuberant oral sexual satisfaction (yl)

Physicals

Head - Vertigo

- Awoke at night with heavy pain in occiput, next morning pain in the middle and vertex of the head with photophobia. (il)

- Dizziness and photophobia at 15.00 hrs (il)

- Pain in the whole of the head with heavy pressure on the temples, after one hour lightheaded and hangover feeling. (il)

- Pressure on the temples and tired at 14.30 hrs, slept for one and a half hour and awoke with a stitching feeling in the occiput staying the rest of the day (il)

- Dizziness and exhaustion (il)

- Awoke at 4.00 hrs with an aching, heavy pain in the left half of my face and head with many thoughts in my head about the things I still had to do - very irritated about it, it was all too much, it was in my way, restless. (kn)

Face - eye - ear- mouth - teeth - throat

- Abscess around right lower tooth << (vk)

- Constricted sensation throat, as if something is pressed inward in middle of larynx (kd)

- Itching, burning behind right ear, later scaly eruption (yl)

Stomach - Abdomen

- A sudden nausea this morning while riding in the car, > fresh air, eating (kn)

Skin

- Scabs/spots on the back of my head with an irresistible desire to scratch them (old symptom) (kn)

Chest -lungs

- A dry cough, even lightly asthmatic because of just cut grass (kn)

Extremities

- Stitching in right shoulder (hw)

Sleep

- I literally fell asleep like a log, coma-like (yl)

[Charles Wansbrough]

stored in the synaptic vesicles. The concentration of serotonin is 50x higher in the pineal than in other parts of the brain. Normally serotonin like other neurotransmitters is inactivated by an enzyme called Monoamine Oxidase (MAO).

If this pathway is blocked and serotonin builds up in the pineal, other enzymes may convert the latter to 5 methoxy N,N dimethyltryptamine(S MeDMT) a hallucinogen

similar to DMT, another drug used by Amazonian Indians when making up their potent brew for shamanistic purposes. Furthermore Harmala alkaloids (to which species Ayahuasca belongs) are potent serotonin antagonists, MAO inhibitors and hallucinogens. According to one authority comparison of the chemical structures of various hallucinogens and the structures of neurotransmitters such as serotonin show incredibly close similarities indicating why they should have such a potent effect on the mental and emotional states of individuals.

The Thesis of S. Roney Douglas's book rests on the following hypothesis, regarding the secretion (by the pineal gland) of another type of compound called Beta carbolines. These substances are chemically very similar to the Harmala alkaloids which are potent hallucinogens. This is the linchpin of her entire hypothesis since she argues that this potent compound secreted by the pineal might be responsible for altering the state of our consciousness to a state of enhanced psychic awareness.

Evidence for this assertion can be found from a number of sources. W.B. Quay in his textbook on pineal chemistry says that the gland can do this and synthesise it possibly from serotonin or melatonin. Furthermore in 198SZ. Langer et al, found that particular Beta carboline (6-methoxytetrahydrobetacarboline )6 MeOTHBC for short otherwise called (Pinoline ) was present in the pineal gland. They suggested that it works by preventing the breakdown of serotonin and inhibiting certain enzymes leading to a build

Up of these neurotransmitters in the synapses which may be one reason for a hallucinogenic effect. Other functions of the Beta carbolines are effects on the temperature regulation, analgesic effects, but the most interesting compound is the one that has a structure similar to Harmaline (this chemical has been isolated from Ayahuasca as the

main substance responsible for its hallucinogenic effects) used by the Shamans. The hormonal effects of this Beta carboline are only beginning to be deduced by the medical profession and await much further research.

Other possible biochemical causes of hallucinatory states are supposed to exist. One, suggests that there may be faulty metabolism of protein compounds in the body, notably in the functioning of the thyroid gland. Another suggests that all hallucinations occur as a defect in the chemistry of the system that converts impulses from instinctual to conscious thought, and that adrenaline may be responsible for this breakdown. Nevertheless the most intriguing by far is that associated with the pineal gland since it has been assumed in many mystical traditions as the centre of psychic activity.

(Dreams and Dreaming Norman MacKenzie)

Biological Clock:

Since during the hours of 7p a high degree of psychic activity is said to take place, it is of significance that pineal activity not only regulates the daily rhythm of sleeping

and waking but that its electrical activity seems to increase at night.

[Charles Wansbrough]

It was discovered in 1950's that there are two kinds of sleep. One corresponds to a highly active brain characterised by rapid eye movements and known as REM sleep, and concerns dream activity. The other phase shows less brain activity and eye movements are slow or absent and is known as Non REM sleep. Sleep recordings reveal that REM and NREM sleep are organised in cycles. In adults REM sleep occurs about every one to one and half hours throughout the night so that dreams occur- 4x a night Furthermore J.C. Callaway in an interesting medical hypothesis on a proposed mechanism for visions in sleep has indicated that the periodic REM sleep is due to the interaction between Pinoline (the betacarboline similar to ayahuasca) and serotonin. Moreover this Beta carboline is functional in inducing REM sleep, lucid dreaming, and other naturally occurring states such as deep meditation. He proposes that, with the onset of darkness melatonin is produced which induces drowsiness which when produced in sufficient concentrations triggers the production of Pinoline which again triggers dreaming because of its own inherent hallucinogenic effect.

This then begins to build up which inhibits an enzyme, leading to the build up of serotonin this inhibits dreaming and the brain shifts into the next phase of NREM sleep.

This cycle recurs throughout the night. In brief, REM sleep, NREM sleep and wakefulness constitute the three modes in which humans and mammals exit.

AYAHUASCA (= Banisteriopsis Caapi)

Having given a brief discussion on the pineal gland, 1 will now turn my attention to this remedy.

This is a vine like shrub with oval leaves and red and yellow flowers and is indigenous to the Amazon Basin of South America. All of the Indian tribes in this area use this

vine in order to induce visions for a variety of psychic purposes. The Indian tribe Amahuaca call this plant “Vine from which the vision is extracted” and in Quichua it means "Spirit of the Dead". Some anthropologists analysed the drink prepared by two tribes from Ayahuasca and found it to contain harmine, harmaline, tetrahydroharmine, harmol etc. These are all known as harmala alkaloids and are psycho active.

Further studies concluded that the most psycho active ingredients were harmaline and d tetrahydroharmine both of which are similar to the Beta carbolines secreted by the pineal gland. The vine is usually mixed with other plants such as Psychotria viridis (cawa). The resulting potion is considered essential to trigger the full shamanistic effects.

Tribal Uses; Contemporary anthropologists regard the Shaman's role as a psychotherapeutic. C. Levi Strauss puts forward the theory that the shaman goes further than mimicking the state of his patient (the simillimum) but actually relives it in all its full blown vividness identifying with each and every part of this patient's state.

In psychoanalytic this behaviour is called “abreaction” , and is defined as a decisive moment in treatment when the patient intensively relives the initial situation from which

the disturbance stems before overcoming it. People of more primitive societies believe the shaman is capable of contacting and intersecting with the invisible world of spirits around them.

Different tribes with dissimilar attitudes towards reality may still use this vine to access the invisible world of spirits.

The Jivaro Indians for example regard normal waking life as simply an illusion while the forces that determine events are supernatural and can only be seen and manipulated

by the use of hallucinogens. Ill health is believed to be the result of witchcraft and such a view of reality demand a specialist that can cross into another reality.

Another tribe The Sharanahua have created a symbiotic relationship between shaman and patient that is verging on the homoeopathic. Both patient and shaman communicate via a symbolic system validated by myth. The shaman seeks the cause of illness by means of a vision from the vine, and then sings curing songs which are specially chosen based on symptoms and dreams of the patient. Both shaman and patient are bound by limits of the curing song and the former is able to tune in to the feelings of the patient.

It is as though the shaman's rapport was so far reaching in his visionary state that he is able to restate the patients dream and thereby create a healing situation.

Comparison with our own Hallucinogens;

All the most important group of psychotropic plants found in Europe belong to the order Solanaceae.x and are found in our materia medica. They are Bell., Stram., Hyos. and Mand. (mentioned briefly in Boericke). They all contain various amounts of atropine, hyoscyamine and scopolamine the active hallucinogenic ingredients.

All these plants were featured in traditional European witchcraft. Most of our knowledge on this sad part of history and of the numerous burning of women is derived from the numerous well-documented trials perpetrated in the name of the Church by the Inquisition. But while the specific nature of the plants used by the witches was not addressed the possession of oils and ointments

was ground for accusation. The actual ingredients and uses of their potions have been gleaned from scientists and philosophers working in natural magic at that time.

According to reports, the witches made up concoctions of the above psychotropic drugs with a fatty substance (called Flying Oyle ) and then would anoint an object like a broom or rub the mixture directly onto their skin. Observers say that the witches were convinced they were flying. But what is pharmacologically interesting is the fact that most of the above psychotropic drugs can be absorbed directly through the skin and cause such hallucinogenic experiences.

According to Harner, an authority on shamanism, these European drugs were so powerful that they could cause coma, amnesia, derangement or death and the after effects would last for up to 36 hours. Under such drugs it was virtually impossible to control one's mind or body making them useless for daily witchcraft practise This fact alone he thinks prevented witches from practising proper shamanism since the latter tends to maintain a sense of the ordinary while travelling to the liminal levels. It also meant that such witches had to divide their time into real gatherings and trance meetings. This alone makes such remedies powerful as we well know from the materia medica but they

are totally different in their effects to the psychotropic drug Ayahuasca which appears to have just sufficient force not to totally override the mind and therefore by using it one might elicit important information. It is also of interest to note that the Jivaro Indians sometimes use stramonium, but only to access other states; but never to be used

when practising as a healing shaman since they regard such a drug as far too strong.

Psychological Aspects of Ayahuasca;

A number of prominent anthropologists have written about the effects of this drug on a group and the common themes that arise after taking it.

Claudio Naranjo has conducted experimental and clinical work using this drug in his psychotherapeutic practise, in the same way that doctors used LSD on patients in the 1960's. In a paper he wrote he compares Ayahuasca with mescaline and LSD and concludes that the effects are very different.

In the case of Ayahuasca it induces a sleep like trance and the person under its influence wants to keep his eyes closed, since the external world is of little interest and that

this state of reverie is more like a state of alertness since EEG recordings show a disappearance of alpha waves when the patient's eyes are closed.

He then goes onto to describe the themes and general contents of the state produced by this drug. He used a group of 35 people and found that only in two cases no hallucinations occurred.

But significantly in most cases the reverie produced went along with or was followed by an unusual intensity and insight about metaphysical or personal problems.

In two cases I have treated with this remedy its effects produced extraordinary insights into either a personal or a metaphysical problem.

I have chosen to summarize some of the recurrent themes that arise out of taking this drug, as noted by a number of different anthropologists.

The Themes were as follows

1. The soul is believed to separate from the physical body and make a trip, normally with the sensation of flight and rapid movement. 8 people in a group of 35, experienced visions or feelings of their own death. It is a process of becoming dissociated and leaving one's body. There seem to be regular occurrences of flying at high speed, or even weightlessness, some have described it as “having wings”.

2. Visions of crocodiles, reptiles in general, snakes in particular tigers, leopards, and cats. They all seem to imply danger and a relation with the dynamic aspects of rage and movement.

3. Another important theme which is difficult to fully classify is that of the mythic or religious theme which seems to surface in many individuals who take this drug. In one group 18 out of 35 (volunteers from Chile not natives) came face to face with religious themes, 5 with the devil,with angels, andhad a vision of Christ and the others were various religious visions.

4. Sensations of seeing distant people or places and interpreted as clairvoyance

5. Divinatory experiences, for example seeing the enactment of a crime committed in the past, or unsolved mysteries that at times the individual is able to access because of

his state. In conclusion this drug can be taken by the shaman and in a state of controlled trance use its potential to be able to access states otherwise closed off to our normal everyday experience. It has a quality of essentially playing out mythic and archetypal themes in a state that does not quite overwhelm the recipient but enables him to connect with deeper issues that were waiting to be released in his subconscious.

A quote from Claudia Naranjo:

"The beauty of fluid fire, the graceful tiger, or the subtle and wise reptile, these seem most expressive for the synthetic experience of accepting life as a whole, or, better, accepting existence as a whole, life and death included; needless to say the experience is essentially religious, and it could even be suspected that every myth presents us

one particular aspect of the same experience".

MEDITATIVE PROVING OF AYAHUASCA:

For the protocol on this type of proving see Berlin Wall in this journal, and for a fuller discussion of the novelty of this methodology, see Chalcancite, A Proving, in the first volume of this journal. The following proving was done by a group of thirteen homoeopaths in a state of meditation, after taking one dose of the remedy.

This remedy is a material of extreme power inherently dual in the effects it can have on the consciousness of an individual. It is a remedy of contrasts, the white side very much overshadowed by the dark side, and can take an individual from the depth of despair to the heights of bliss. Its contrasting nature will be very much dependent on

the individual using it. Historically it has been used in S. American Shaman practises so as to enable the practitioner of this art to move into another dimension of time and space. But because of its ability to change the very inner depths of an individual it must be used with extreme caution and only by those that have been taught the way.

It can be used for the purposes of spiritual purification in so far as it cleanses and purifies the aura and the chakras. It opens the heart centre and once awake there is no

turning back. It enables the spiritually blind to open their heart and mind towards greater things.

It helps us to work from our heart centre and as the heart centre begins to open and develop you will begin to recognise your own truth. It enhances spiritual awareness especially intuition which is awakened in the heart centre and links the heart centre with the higher levels of consciousness and healing. Due to its inherent power it has the ability to change one's karma and bring one to a state of equilibrium and to reawaken our lost consciousness.

This remedy opens a gateway for those who can hear. The remedy is about opening the heart and following your path with your heart and about connecting the heart with the higher mind, allowing the intuitive side of the mind to function. It is about absent healing, about gentleness and it is about fun. It is about awakening the child in each one of us and having fun, playing in the water again and trusting and behaving towards each other with impeccability.

If the energy and powers given by this remedy are abused in any way i.e. using it in a wrong way or for material gain or to increase their own ego the energy will turn against them and they will be destroyed and this is a warning and must be heeded. It is contra indicated for those using recreational drugs or spiritual practitioners who use drugs to enhance their awareness since the vine may misguide the individual.

Its strength can heal the mind and bring back sanity to a deranged individual.

On a deeper karmic level it releases souls from ancestral bondage, and breaks magic spells and releases suicides cases.

It has a potent effect on the miasmatic layers of a person and may clear two to three miasms at the same time as well as clearing deep rooted fears and phobias stemming from past lives

It is a Life/death remedy. It may be used in exercises/healing/spiritual cleansing ceremonies. It will show you the dark aspects of your soul that are holding up your progression and will make you face your fears. There are extremes of light and dark and deep sadness and great joy.

It is associated with black magic and blackness but the very darkness can be transformative creating a complete turn about from black to white magic.

It makes you retain your individuality and be proud of it.

NB It is an important symptom that on being given to the initiate who is aware and wants to move onwards to show them where lies their biggest weakness, weak link biggest fault weakest chakra or weak aura and it will show the way and provide a crisis to help show the way forward. Our biggest fears are our stumbling blocks and that which angers us is our main stumbling block.

AURIC LEVEL:

Due to the power of this remedy and its ability to plummet the depths of despair or stretch out towards the greatest spiritual heights we find that all through the proving different provers seem to be affected in either way. It seems to have its effects mainly on the heart centre as well as the solar plexus chakra.

Solar Plexus chakra:

One prover had her solar plexus chakra very badly affected creating much fear and despondency around this centre.

But in other cases it affected this centre positively and gave much courage and fearlessness.

Even giving one feelings of enormous power to do with no limitations and opening up the heart chakra. As if one were

linking from the deepest depths to the greatest spiritual heights possible.

Heart Chakra:

It can affect the heart chakra both in a negative or positive way.

In one prover her words were Overpowering pain coming from the heart. Such a deep grief. More than I have ever had. So much grief, so much pain, such a deep grief beyond anything I have ever had.

Another prover became incredibly peaceful and calm .

Another prover experienced enormous anguish and a thick black crust around heart.

Another prover, "Overwhelming sadness and grief Incredible pain around the heart. Grief you bring with you from the beginning of time.

MIASMS:

As a result of the profound power of this remedy it is associated with the deepest core of syphilis ancient syphilis and comes from the very blackest depth of this disease. And with this corrosive activity comes fear. Fear because the vine has been used for ritual purposes connected with death, execution and burial as well as medicinal purposes.

MENTALS:

It is a remedy for self hatred where the heart is emotionally scarred and one has nothing to offer except one's own torment.

Those who hold on to life with uncomfortable tenacity when everything dictates that they should not be living any more.

For people who are expected to loose their faith and expected to lose their hope. Their love is in abeyance. For those who have a fear of disease, fear of cancer. For those who lose so much of their life through chemotherapy. It keeps changing its shape. One moment bloated, flat and doughy, the next thing, wizened, threadlike. Situations which are constantly inconsistent.

For children who have the umbilicus around their necks. And for people who will not let go. All those patients who despite everything won't let go, with stupidity.

Perhaps we think of them as having made a choice to remain in that state but it is just as much stupidity and fear.

There was a lack of concentration. A memory loss for recent things and almost a childish, childlike attitude not confined to children alone. Sense of vertigo with tendency to fall backwards but with all of these symptoms centred around the lack of nourishment. Sense of weakness, a clinging on all levels to the present for survival but also clinging on to the past, and To observe the child, there was no fear, just a childlike acceptance and an understanding of their suffering.

LUNGS:

A lot to do with wastage of soft tissue and right lung especially. Emphysema and Collapsed lung.

ABDOMEN:

One of the main areas that this remedy can treat are troubles with absorption, assimilation and elimination. There can be a great weakness from malnutrition caused by faulty assimilation. Cases of multiallergy which absorb food badly and seem to be depleted

MALE Organs:

It is a male remedy. It is good for sexual abuse and it needs to be looked at in more detail because there are many more instances today where this remedy could be used.

EXTREMITIES:

Lot to do with shrivelling and muscle wastage, gaunt, fleshless people. This is one of those remedies for scarred tissue. As a consequence of poor assimilation the tendons,

the elasticity of the muscles and the porosity of the bones, leading to a tendency to dislocation and crumbling joints, are affected

CLINICAL APPLICATIONS:

Necrotic activity, gangrenous infections, covered in sores, oedematous processes.

Ailments with necrosis, gangrene, blackness, wasting, ME, polio, shaking palsy, Aids, cancer of various forms and I get the feeling if it were physically possible to insert

this remedy into a female like radiotherapy is inserted in cancer of female organs, within a month they can be cured.

It is a remedy which could be useful in autism.

SHORT CLASSICAL PROVING OF AYAHUASCA

Initially started with 10 provers but two never took the remedy, so the results below are based on 8 provers. Each prover was given an unlabelled phial of 12 tablets medicated with Ayahuasca 30c, to be taken for 12 days, one dose to be taken at night daily. Each prover was numbered, 4 women and 5 men participated in the proving.

GENERALITIES:

TIREDNESS/ EXHAUSTION /MEMORY

Afternoon feeling low shaky and tired very noticeable have not felt this bad for months.

Feeling very hung over, groggy, and tired, and had some white wine but felt awful on it

Feeling extremely tired and very oversensitive and would love to sleep for a day or month.

Feelings of complete exhaustion whilst taking the remedy esp. during the day, felt weak with tiredness often.

Stopped remedy feeling less tired but by evening utter exhaustion and very hungry tired and felt awful and went to bed

feeling awful and awoke feeling tired. the only other symptom that I day felt was extreme tiredness and sleepy.

Had great difficulty waking up and getting out of bed.

Physically felt sleepy as if had become a dormouse from Alice and Wonderland.

Emotionally felt pretty numb in a contented way because I felt so tired.

Concentration difficult and difficulty thinking much.

Feeling so incredibly tired that I feel like jelly and continuously dropping off to sleep and could not wake up in morning.

This extreme tiredness and fractured sleep must be the remedy and can not continue to work so decided to stop taking remedy.

Emotionally feel tired and drained and feeling I am fighting for energy with desperation.

Mentally felt terribly irritable.

Physically woke up with whole body achingly tired and continued like this all day.

No physical energy just felt to lie on couch staring vacantly into space. head felt detached from body.

Detachment and then moments of sadness but unable to cry.

Today was very vague just drifting around doing very little trying to replenish my energy.

Energy still low like a mental bum out.

Very tired and sensitive.

Emotionally ok but very tired.

1 was feeling very well not tired in fact while doing my gym felt very energetic that week and overdid it so that by the end of the following week my muscles were very sore and could barely go up or down the stairs.

Felt frustrated because could not remember my dreams, surprised since I am aware of them, and have a sense of being forgetful.

I forgot to go modelling, shock horror, I have NEVER done that before, so phoned and apologised, and said I would turn up tonight, again forgot, freak and phone my supervisor in hysterics and say ' am out of control'.

DISORIENTATION /'SPACED OUT'

Also felt dysfunctional. could not recall arrangements. Also unable to work out my priorities during the day.

Feelings of disorientation, feelings of being wiped out and had to keep lying down all the time.

The last few days of the proving whilst during earlier part felt my feelings more intensely now I have started to feel utterly detached both from my feelings and my body. I felt I was on a drug.

A sense of unreality that is in fact more real as there is a deepening of the senses shattering everyday illusions lot of time have been feeling very out of it and uncomfortable in body.

Head felt detached from body.

Still feeling very detached from myself, observing myself doing jobs or talking, it feels like a split in a part of me very similar to taking L.S.D.

Still dream and finding it hard to make decisions, went to a party for Guy Fawkes night and felt very detached from it all. Energy still poor.

Feelings of disorientation, of being wiped out and had to keep lying down all the time.

Today felt was totally on drugs, like a zombie, comatose, wanting to sleep all day, can not get on with things, more comatose than can ever remember, brain and body weak, did absolutely sweet FA.

Last day of remedy, I can take no more I feel overwhelmed by my disorientation, I even forgot how to use a can opener today.

CLARITY

Days of good perception with patients feels that have complete understanding of the subject and again great clarity with patients. With patients it's almost effortless working out their case. Ideas and thoughts flow easily into each other.

Taught at college and again felt very clear about subject matter, unusually clear though I think I came across quite vague.

Telepathic thoughts of Pauline fellow prover, not exact but feel connected. Telepathic ideas. Great clarity of thought, see how my life is connecting into the world.

This is difficult to explain, just a great sense of being connected or part of the whole.

A sense I felt more integrity that had owned a part of myself which has been suppressed for a long time the artist within me.

All in all at the moment I feel very well. I feel very settled purposeful but I think it was happening before the remedy.

HEIGHTENED PERCEPTION/ SENSITIVITY/ SENSE OF ONENESS

In morning sensation of light around head and within it, very pleasant. Sensation of light around the head expanding and expanding.

Infinite expansion and feeling very close to huge life force and God.

Marvellous walk in rain wonderful colours.

Very aware of colours and energy and want to sleep or be outside with autumn colours.

Felt extreme joy with beautiful sunset.

Breath taking sunset felt I was it felt part of it. Very sensitive.

When closing eyes seeing more psychedelic patterns and expansive forms of energy and a sense of deepening

spiritually very aware of whole earth less stuck in London consciousness like a deeper sense of connectiveness.

Patients own intuitive feelings of remedy the pineal gland makes strong bridge with Pituitary accessing higher and higher realms into the physical body and physical world."

Sense of synchronicity about remedy prover has reading aboriginal myths and legends and dream time seems to connect up with all the feelings about this remedy.

In a crowd of people at firework party the energy and configurations more important than physical bodies.

Immediately I stopped the remedy my energy returned. Felt wonderful and focused. Felt a rush of creative energy and knew that had to paint and Sculpture and that had

to explore my creative side of my nature which had up to now not been expressed. Felt as if I were on a mild acid trip. All the colours esp. the reds were intensely beautiful

to me. I felt I wanted to paint and film them. I found the world absolutely ecstatic and beautiful. I felt absolutely ecstatic and full of energy.

Also felt telepathic I knew who was on the phone before picking it up and everything connected.

Sense of colour being composed of light and that everything was light vibrating at different speeds. Everything felt connected.

I feel that a totally new direction has opened up to me and it is connected to my eyes and the visual capacity to do with perception. It is as if my eyes suddenly woke up.

My eyes have woken up and I feel now more in the world instead of being separated from it. I am looking in a different way maybe my receptivity has increased.

I feel that the remedy enabled me to contact the wishes of my being and showed me that all boundaries are fictitious and illusionary. There are no divisions in the world of beingness and there are no man made divisions.

I felt very purposeful almost as if some issue had been solved.

Made some changes in my life that have been productive.

GRIEF /INTENSE SADNESS

Feeling very upset and shaky grief regarding an old friend rejection which I had thought I had dealt with.

Feeling despondent hopeless and missing friends and wanting to be alone

Emotionally and mentally feel rather numb and bemused.

Been weeping a lot more again recently, yesterday at therapist about what to do with my life, esp. after listening to the record by the Cult's Black Angel about waiting too long and felt as if thousands of years of grief went by.

Crying deeply and briefly over the same record again quite suddenly.

Awoke this morning very depressed. Alone and nothing to look forward to talking to a friend about future. Ended up weeping for a long time as if in a state of total impotence.

Around the full moon lost control of my emotions. had been trying to sand my bathroom floor and I could not decided how to varnish it. This sent me into complete despair as felt that my life could not go on until I had finished the floor. I felt absolute despair and a sense of stuckness and powerlessness. ended up sobbing and sobbing.

Very emotional feeling rejected and excluded and lonely and yet detached wanting to remove myself from people.

Phoned friend for dinner but latter uncommitted and felt myself go into depression over my mother abandoning me because she was depressed.

Emotional outpouring again watching film about dolphins.

Interview about work very sensitive was shown around house and in one room felt unbearable and felt intense sadness and despair and the man showing her said that many groups had been held in this room.

Since stopped has noticed very sensitive to atmospheres and people in general.

Especially sensitivity in heart area, Pain in centre of heart or chest around sadness very intense.

Two days after stopping remedy felt so tense I got quite worried. Felt tension in heart and navel area and even felt suicidal (which is unusual for me).

MOOD SWINGS

Everything is so acute and changeable, deep anxiety at being abandoned after my party, but changed quickly and became very content.

My energy all over the place, not uncontained but very changeable. Felt grief then rage. Feel quite happy again then feel angry and could pick up a gun and then calm again. How could this be two opposing forces, states occurring at the same time, At any rate am oscillating in quick succession? Aware of all the polarities .

My energies are changing all the time, not sure where I am.

More up and down than has been for along time and heightened senses.

More feelings of negativity and increased sense of joy.

It was a very intense and changeable time during and after remedy proving.

Changing all the time from depression to getting back to domestic chores so fast.

I can take the emotional swings and feelings of being like a child in one state and changing completely to another has been rich and feeling much more focused than usual

but now remedy is rendering me comatose.

SEXUAL ENERGY

Sex desire up or may be more aware of it, More aware of feeling frustrated as no partner.

Rampant sexuality, got the hots for everyone but none to be with. Its never really satisfying to satisfy yourself, and am pretty sure am ovulating.

At the same time I had massively high sexual energy leading to a lot of masturbation. Over the weeks of the proving felt attracted sexually to different men and had primeval feelings of wanting to be taken by them. Lots of very primitive and sexual thoughts and fantasies.

My sexual energy has calmed down. It now feels more connected to my creative energy as if the creative and the sexual are actually one energy. It had felt like a problem before a split off part of me that threatened to run riot. I feel I have befriended my sexual energy I have accepted that it is part of my own creative energy and is not to be feared and suppressed.

Feelings of intense sexual jealousy.

Recently experience a complete drop in sexual energy, no interest or sexual thoughts. This has been so through the whole proving so far.

Sexual energy returning. Now have strong sexual urges. It has changed quite drastically. (5 days into proving).

CRAVING FOR STIMULANTS

Craving tea, coffee, and wine (thinks because so tired).

Would like coffee and tea by lunchtime but avoiding wine till evening.

Day Energy a little low, plus craving alcohol and got a little drunk again. This is unusual for me to have so much alcohol in such a short space of time.

Had a strong craving for alcohol or getting out of it and got a little bit pissed at a party. Energy again quite low.

SLEEP/ SENSE OF DREAMS

Feel like would like to sleep and dream for a week.

Woken by child felt I wanted to dream for ever.

Many dreams, continuous all night but hard to recall.

Intense dreams felt safe and happy in dreams. A lot of action and activity in dream.

Incredibly powerful dreams all night.

I fell asleep but was very alert during my sleep so felt as if I wanted to dream and the dreams were there but I was too alert to do so. This feeling last all through the week during taking the remedy.

Felt very peaceful in dreams but less when awake. Dreams are epic ones continuous very active remembers them but hard to remember in morning although remember to remember in dream (lucid dreaming).

Dreams have quality of timelessness and cover many years like a whole life review.

DREAMS MAIN THEMES

1. Trying to resolve incomplete situations

Keep dreaming about people in past any incompletion coming up.

Dream: about two friends who I was very close to but do not see much now when I speak to the man I tell him I am upset but he does not respond one of the friends book is rewritten and loads of success and fame. - - - -

Dream: about marriage. - - - -

Dream: of ex boyfriend. (whom in reality I have not seen foryears after the end of a very intense and destructive relationship), he collects me by car and takes me back to his home. We sleep in the same bed and do not have sex but there is a sense of peace and reconciliation between us. - - - -

Dream: muddle and confused about thwarted plans and reflecting actual events. - - - -

Dream: that grandfather who died a month ago was still alive and had in fact started to walk again having being bed ridden for over a year, the fact that he could walk again had nothing to do with the fact that he would live longer and he was going to die on Novwhich happened. The family all knew but he did not and various people were betting on his death. am trying to get to some destination on a train . I have to keep changing trains and make connections. - - - -

Dream: was measured in height 5 foot 6 or 7, was pleased but though was wearing high heels but man said had grown. - - - -

Dream: intense about healing situations. - - - -

Dream: of searching for some people and found them in a sort of church, was not sure whether I was welcome until I met the head priest, who okayed me. was now welcome but looking for fault and felt terrible element of control and deceit in organisation, wanted to belong but could not. (prover used to belong to a religious organisation). - - - -

Dream: my dad was having a baby with a friend of mine, and realize that this may be next best thing to me having one, genetic line will be continued and it is too late for me.

I feel certain I have lost my man, he is chatting to other woman and I wish my ex boyfriend were her, it would be easier. am now off on my ritualistic search for a clean toilet, but I can not find one, someone taking a shower while I am on the toilet, think it's the man, throw water down toilet to flush it and turns to shit and I am horrified, but a bright damsel says never mind, think she is the man's new girlfriend and she rises above the shit and I am left in it and awake full of it!

Dream: trying to take bath but room expands and becomes dining room and all my family gathered there for dinner, and I am trying to bathe inconspicuously and hide my nakedness. Dad says everyone sees nakedness but I am tell him he has no ideas what it is like and everyone keeps sneaking looks at me but then Dad sorts of understands me.

Dream: I am in this car with this man a cross between my cousin and Richard Gere. I like him he is quick witted and we enjoy a most poignant conversation with each other. He is my match, at one point he asks me if I was having a battle with the female side of me, and after consideration agreed although not sure whether female or male side. Then he turns his face and looks at me and I feel this is my man!

2. Animals

Dream: writing a poem on dolphins whales and the rain. - - - -

Energy and patterns of light developing into different shapes on going to sleep developing into many life forms like tigers, lions, jungle trees, some in dream some awake (daydreaming).

Dream: about giant frogs bright green I love them but I do not know what to feed them on they want meat and am wondering about cat and dog food but quality meat would be better. - - - -

Dream: Angus (my dog) and woman coming off train hinting she knew I ignored my children and said she had material for me to keep them safe.

Driving towards tube station saw a little animal with hedgehog body and squirrel head, thought I'd driven over it but it was only a plastic bag. therefore assumed it to be a hallucinogenic flash.

This day felt like a hallucinogenic trip, I felt like I was observing myself doing things. Could not take things seriously, there was a hilarity to most situations.

Dream: a man trying to show me how to cast a dead body and makes sand cement and cast it into a sacred scarab over the body, but realize it is the wrong spot so he moves it and it disintegrates and we have to remake it. - - - -

3. The Sea

Going on a voyage on a huge sailing ship there is another woman who is very experienced and she is very welcoming feels great to be there taking risks and feeling secure huge waves.

Next scene am working in a cake shop near the sea. The owners name is Sheila. The cake shop is very busy all the time. am staying by the sea with my mother and I am filling in the shop' when Sheila is not there. I am a student and I am trying to earn some money so that can continue my studies. I am very industrious efficient and responsible in the dream.

Next Dream I am with a married couple (friends of mine) . The man says he can envisage retiring by the sea and that there is a town by the sea that he has always known will be his place of retirement. In the dream I feel neither the debauched scene or the married couple scenario suits me. I do not fit in with either world.

4. House / Flats

Dream: that I have a Scottie dog. I am living in a small attic room which you get to by ascending loads of stairs. The Scottie dog for some reason lives in a flat lower down. One day I go to the flat but men are moving into it and there will be no place for the dog. I am very anxious for the dog as have left him in the flat for a long time without a walk and now I do not known where to put him. - - - -

I wonder whether I can go and live with him at my parents but decide against that. There is nowhere to go and feel anxious.

Dream:1 was house sitting a series of flats and houses. Each one was very grand with high ceilings and large windows and each had more than one domestic cat.

I was mauled by a lion. Then I was working at a job had left one month before. The place was of the same grand architectural as previous dream. I was writing a report.

Dream: Trying to get into a large flat but was not able even to get to the door because there were physical pitfalls underfoot and large gaps in the pavement. I could not get in and could not leave. Others were there hindering me. 5 h. in a flat and cannot open or lock the door. Someone's prowling around outside. They get in but turn out to be friendly. Then I ran into old friends of 5 years ago, both are men both have Tuberculosis and I notice am afraid of catching it.

Dream: Trying to work out how to negotiate my way through a building using mathematics. A life and death struggle. Involved in building a huge tent (say 50m ) eventually it was built and seemed small when walked about inside but still was rather temporary and unsound, met Antony Hopkins. - - - -

Dream: Woke up in a room in a house as though out of a black out, not knowing how had got there. Seemed to be in Dublin.

Seemed to be as a result of some mistake of mind. There were lodgers in other rooms in the house. My mother was the landlady and I had a feeling of relief when awoke.

Dream: Sharing a house with friends, had a large part of it to myself, it felt good. - - - -

Dream: Vague lot of houses and cars feelings of vertigo lots of colour was back at old job part time where there was a large party going on with lots of people in a house. - - - -

Once stopped the remedy slept very soundly the first night and then the following nights had very vivid dreams. They were dreams related to houses. The feelings of the dreams were very positive.

5. Drugs

Dream: smoking dope and taking drugs, lots of drugs in the dream I am in quite a debauched state with everyone on some kind of drug. am smoking dope with Paul Simm. I ask him, is your name Jonathan? he replies Are you kidding/ And then I realise that he is Paul Simm. He is very sexual towards me and I am feeling repelled by it. All the men in the dream are very sexual but feel threatened and repulsed by their energy. feel frozen and unsafe. - - - -

Dream: This dream was amazing, was teaching to a class of students how an L.S.D. trip works on a biochemical, physiological, emotional, hallucinogenic and telepathic level. I had complete understanding of this in the dream and could teach it. On waking tried to remember the theory, but couldn't. - - - -

6. Miscellaneous Themes

Dream: Barbara at centre of clock or wheel. There are different people at different points of wheel going round and round like a fairground ride but it is not a fair ground It is magic or alchemy and something wrong I remove myself from it and find various people they are under cover as greengrocers selling vegetables but are really wizards or alchemists but there is some danger and we have to speak in whispers. We do not approve of Barbara's wheel. - - - -

Dream: Gave a talk on an Australian novel I had read to a large gathering of people. However, every time I tried to refer to it, the text appeared to be a long piece of aimless drivel. So my talk was not good. Then dreamt of a woman I know whose boyfriend had left her and she had found someone else immediately in America.

Dream: In Crouch End ran into an old friend Gillian who in dream was the mother of another old friend. We talked about him. Then I was sitting in a public area and someone came up and said to me you are Aunt Nelly's great nephew which is true he recognised me by my facial features. - - - -

Dream: In some place of DSS Doctor's surgery large place lots of people lots of queues with a friend. Had a period of vertigo terror walking on a side of cat walk. - - - -

Dream: Lots of people and a large group of us are going to Brighton. Someone wants a ride on my bicycle which cannot take two people. Eventually bicycle breaks. met Barbara Windsor who opens her wallet showing many colourful notes and gave me £10 Then does not give it to me. Frustrating dream. Dream: That night of sleeping with a woman who had an orgasm before we even had sex. Then there was a girl travelling very fast towards me on a skate board, we met and then went to a movie together.

Dream: I was somewhere with lots of roller-skates and roller-skate park. This made me happy as they were all there for the trip and 1 was able to mend my skates. - - - -

Dream: of Pauline and daughter, Pauline was upset that a friend had come round to paint her daughter, we went out, on our return we found out her daughter was posing nude for the painter. - - - -

Pauline was upset with her daughter and blamed the bad influence of her hairdresser friends. This is a strange dream as another prover is doing nude modelling for artists (of which I was completely unaware at the time and seems to represent some telepathic link?).

Dream: that a surgeon at our hospital came home and found that had got his sports car very dirty. picked it up on my back and washed it in the sea which was in his garage. Then rinsed it with water, the of us walked to a nearby off license. We saw guys with guns but ignored them. Then suddenly we heard shots and the men were running. ran quickly and arrived at the office to alert the police who were raiding the premises at the time because of a brawl. They went to sort out the shooting and more shooting was heard. Finally it was over and a guy I know who is the son of the surgeon emerged from the fracas with various shot wounds.

Dream: of murder a boy was killed in police custody and I made a statement saying so the police went crazy and very angry I had a dilemma was it the truth or not since the boy had only been. - - - -

HEAD:

Very sick headaches and want to sleep with it.

EYES:

Tongue coated white. Feeling deaf in my cars and could not focus on anything. 2

FEMALE Organs:

Period about to come and late and feels more heavy than usual.

Period did not come wish could take a remedy for this and take Nux-v. for exhaustion and yukiness in the morning and wanted to take Ign. for some of the feeling she had been going through.

EXTREMITIES

Had peculiar sensations in right foot as if someone suddenly stabbed to the top of it with a sharp needle. Awoke one night at 3 h. with this and could not sleep.

CONCLUSION

All provers reported that the effect of this remedy was very powerful. One prover was forced to abandon taking the remedy after two days as she reported feeling so tired and 'shut down' that she became virtually non functional.

Predominant feelings, were of being exhausted, disorientated, separated from the body, 'spaced out' as if removed from everyday reality. Such characteristic exhaustion might be compared to a state of nocturnal fatigue which we associate with pineal secretion .

Some provers reported " becoming dysfunctional and detached from every day reality". Others reported intense feelings, both negative and positive in content from grief and despair to joy and ecstasy which compared favourably to the original meditative proving, where it was noted to be a remedy of extremes. Furthermore this intensity was accentuated by a noticeable increase in the state of sensitivity and cognitive ability of some provers. There was a heightened sensitivity to colour and light and an increase in psychic ability which is most interesting since the remedy seems to have

a strong affinity for the pineal gland (which has always been associated in many cultures to be the centre of the 'third eye'). This remedy also seemed to access a deeper level of reality. Two provers said that individually they experienced a sense of oneness", akin to the mystic state. The symptom has been noted in the proving of the remedy Hydrogen. Ayahuasca is very different to other hallucinogens belonging to the family Solanaceae, and does not present hyperactive or manic symptoms. Instead, provers it facilitated profound personal insight.

Abundant dreams were produced by the majority of provers, and were noted in individual patients who were prescribed the remedy. If I were to give these dreams any significance, especially after having gained insight into the remedy, a good starting point would be the sea. According to C.G. Jung, "the sea is a symbol of the collective unconscious because unfathomed depths lie concealed beneath its reflecting surface the sea is a favourite place for the birth of visions is invasion by unconscious contents . The themes were about four main subjects. The sea could represent the unresolved material deep in the psyche; the animal theme, the movement out from this matrix. The house and flat theme could indicate resolution and the material to be resolved would be the last theme.

This tentative and speculative process on the dream material is only possible, because of the noted tranformative nature of this remedy on the psyche. Not only was this reported in a number of provers but also occurred in some cases who not had been given the remedy. As a complete description of the powers of this remedy, from having observed its profound effects, I would say that the remedy appears to align oneself with one's soul purpose, and put one on the next part of life's journey. My feeling is that this remedy can constellate universal archetypes that can be activated into consciousness, if the individual is ready for that transformative movement forward.

BLACK TYPE SYMPTOMS

Weariness

Sensitive to all external impressions

Delusion Mind/Body separated

Clairvoyance

Grief

Extremes of Mood

CLINICAL OBSERVATIONS

Though ayahuasca did not appear to produce many physical symptoms, which I believe is in the nature of this remedy, a group of women (forty in total), have taken the remedy 3x once a month at full moon. A number of menstrual symptoms were reported by almost all the women. Generally speaking the cycle changed menses started a couple of days after taking the remedy whether or not it was in its cycle and adjusted the cycle to that of the full Moon. Several women reported a longer/heavier period (which was painless) dark discharge at the close of the period sensation of cleansing of the womb. In one woman all menopausal flooding ceased and she has had normal menses ever since. Others reported clearer dreaming and an increased facility to recall dreams.

As well as a number of reports of increased self confidence i.e. people who had great difficulty in obtaining and keeping work, found they were able to channel their energies more creatively and constructively.

DD.: Phos. Cann-i. Lach. Med. Anh.

Vorwort/Suchen Zeichen/Abkürzungen Impressum