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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 5 of 5. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by stan_the_man70 on December 29, 2015, at 2:13:16
--------------quote reference
http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/amazing-power-plant-amazon-and-respect-it-demands
-----------------end quotePERSONAL HEALTH
The Amazing Power of a Plant from the Amazonand the Respect It Demands
The spirit of the plant puts people in touch with their repressed pain and trauma.
By Gabor Mate / Globe and Mail December 22, 2015
As a Western-trained doctor, I have long been aware of modern medicines limitations in handling chronic conditions of mind and body. For all our achievements, there are ailments whose ravages we physicians can at best alleviate. In our narrow pursuit of cure, we fail to comprehend the essence of healing.
Thus the popularity of ayahuasca, the Amazonian plant medicine that many Westerners seek out for the healing of physical illness or mental anguish or for a sense of meaning amid the growing alienation in our culture.The recent killing by a Canadian during an ayahuasca ceremony at a Peruvian shamanic centre brought unwelcome but perhaps necessary attention to this mysterious brew.
A holistic understanding informs many aboriginal wisdom teachings. Like all plant-based indigenous practices around the world, the use of ayahuasca arises from a tradition where mind and body are seen as inseparable.
A woman I know was completely immobilized by an often-fatal autoimmune condition. Two years ago, she began to work with ayahuasca. She now moves about independently and with self-reliant authority.
Another, having made more than a dozen suicide attempts, is today animated by energy and hope.
I have witnessed people overcome addiction to substances, sexual compulsion and other self-harming behaviours. Some have found liberation from chronic shame or the mental fog of depression or anxiety.
The plant is not a drug in the Western sense of a compound that attacks pathogens or obliterates pathological tissue. Nor is it a chemical taken chronically to alter the biology of a diseased nervous system. And it is far from being a recreational psychedelic ingested for escapist purposes.
In its proper ceremonial setting, under compassionate and experienced guidance, the plant or, as tradition has it, the spirit of the plant puts people in touch with their repressed pain and trauma, the very factors that drive all dysfunctional mind states. Consciously experiencing our primal pain loosens its hold on us. Thus ayahuasca may achieve in a few sittings what many years of psychotherapy can only aspire to do. People can re-experience long-lost inner qualities such as wholeness, trust, love and a sense of possibility. They quite literally remember themselves.
The unity of mind and body, well-documented by current scientific research, means that such experiential transformation can powerfully affect the hormonal apparatus, the nervous and immune systems and organs such as the brain, the gut and the heart. Hence ayahuascas potential healing capacity.
It is not all good news. Ayahuasca can be exploited for financial gain by unscrupulous practitioners or even for the sexual gratification of healers preying on vulnerable clients, most often young women. Such cases are notorious in the ayahuasca world.
Nor is the plant a panacea. Nothing works for everyone. Its very power to penetrate the psyche can awaken deeply repressed hostility and rage. Although ayahuasca-related violence is exceedingly rare almost unheard of something like that may have occurred in the recent incident in Peru.
All the more reason, then, to approach ayahuasca with caution, profound respect and only in the right context.
------------------------------
Gabor Mate is a Canadian physician, speaker and author of four books. For more information, visit DrGaborMate.com.
Posted by SLS on December 29, 2015, at 8:03:23
In reply to What do you know of ayahuasca...., posted by stan_the_man70 on December 29, 2015, at 2:13:16
I saw something on CNN about this. Some people totally freaked-out. Others didn't. However, in interviews with people who had gone through the experience, many of them with various mental illnesses claimed attaining full remission. I think anxiety disorders were most likely to be remedied. This was far from being a scientific investigation, but it is interesting. Doesn't psilocybin have the same reputation?
- Scott
Posted by stan_the_man70 on December 29, 2015, at 11:24:15
In reply to Re: What do you know of ayahuasca...., posted by SLS on December 29, 2015, at 8:03:23
I guess you may be right - both seem to be psychedelic substances - and I don't know much about this stuff.
Ayahuasca is a vine and psilocybin is a mushroom.
Both DMT and psilocybin are Tryptamines.
Both DMT and psilocybin affect 5-HT1a receptor ligands.> I saw something on CNN about this. Some people totally freaked-out. Others didn't. However, in interviews with people who had gone through the experience, many of them with various mental illnesses claimed attaining full remission. I think anxiety disorders were most likely to be remedied. This was far from being a scientific investigation, but it is interesting. Doesn't psilocybin have the same reputation?
>
>
> - Scott
Posted by ClearSkies on December 30, 2015, at 1:40:09
In reply to Re: What do you know of ayahuasca...., posted by stan_the_man70 on December 29, 2015, at 11:24:15
> I guess you may be right - both seem to be psychedelic substances - and I don't know much about this stuff.
>
> Ayahuasca is a vine and psilocybin is a mushroom.
> Both DMT and psilocybin are Tryptamines.
> Both DMT and psilocybin affect 5-HT1a receptor ligands.
>
> > I saw something on CNN about this. Some people totally freaked-out. Others didn't. However, in interviews with people who had gone through the experience, many of them with various mental illnesses claimed attaining full remission. I think anxiety disorders were most likely to be remedied. This was far from being a scientific investigation, but it is interesting. Doesn't psilocybin have the same reputation?
> >
> >
> > - Scott
>
>From what I have studied, it's been effective in treating those whose issues stem from trauma. I am wary - no, just scared - to go on such a journey. I am not certain that this plant based remedy is appropriate for me.
CS
Posted by John Locke on January 1, 2016, at 20:46:34
In reply to What do you know of ayahuasca...., posted by stan_the_man70 on December 29, 2015, at 2:13:16
> --------------quote reference
> http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/amazing-power-plant-amazon-and-respect-it-demands
> -----------------end quote
>
> PERSONAL HEALTH
>
> The Amazing Power of a Plant from the Amazonand the Respect It Demands
>
> The spirit of the plant puts people in touch with their repressed pain and trauma.
>
> By Gabor Mate / Globe and Mail December 22, 2015
>
>
>
> As a Western-trained doctor, I have long been aware of modern medicines limitations in handling chronic conditions of mind and body. For all our achievements, there are ailments whose ravages we physicians can at best alleviate. In our narrow pursuit of cure, we fail to comprehend the essence of healing.
>
>
> Thus the popularity of ayahuasca, the Amazonian plant medicine that many Westerners seek out for the healing of physical illness or mental anguish or for a sense of meaning amid the growing alienation in our culture.
>
> The recent killing by a Canadian during an ayahuasca ceremony at a Peruvian shamanic centre brought unwelcome but perhaps necessary attention to this mysterious brew.
>
> A holistic understanding informs many aboriginal wisdom teachings. Like all plant-based indigenous practices around the world, the use of ayahuasca arises from a tradition where mind and body are seen as inseparable.
>
> A woman I know was completely immobilized by an often-fatal autoimmune condition. Two years ago, she began to work with ayahuasca. She now moves about independently and with self-reliant authority.
>
> Another, having made more than a dozen suicide attempts, is today animated by energy and hope.
>
> I have witnessed people overcome addiction to substances, sexual compulsion and other self-harming behaviours. Some have found liberation from chronic shame or the mental fog of depression or anxiety.
>
> The plant is not a drug in the Western sense of a compound that attacks pathogens or obliterates pathological tissue. Nor is it a chemical taken chronically to alter the biology of a diseased nervous system. And it is far from being a recreational psychedelic ingested for escapist purposes.
>
> In its proper ceremonial setting, under compassionate and experienced guidance, the plant or, as tradition has it, the spirit of the plant puts people in touch with their repressed pain and trauma, the very factors that drive all dysfunctional mind states. Consciously experiencing our primal pain loosens its hold on us. Thus ayahuasca may achieve in a few sittings what many years of psychotherapy can only aspire to do. People can re-experience long-lost inner qualities such as wholeness, trust, love and a sense of possibility. They quite literally remember themselves.
>
> The unity of mind and body, well-documented by current scientific research, means that such experiential transformation can powerfully affect the hormonal apparatus, the nervous and immune systems and organs such as the brain, the gut and the heart. Hence ayahuascas potential healing capacity.
>
> It is not all good news. Ayahuasca can be exploited for financial gain by unscrupulous practitioners or even for the sexual gratification of healers preying on vulnerable clients, most often young women. Such cases are notorious in the ayahuasca world.
>
> Nor is the plant a panacea. Nothing works for everyone. Its very power to penetrate the psyche can awaken deeply repressed hostility and rage. Although ayahuasca-related violence is exceedingly rare almost unheard of something like that may have occurred in the recent incident in Peru.
>
> All the more reason, then, to approach ayahuasca with caution, profound respect and only in the right context.
> ------------------------------
> Gabor Mate is a Canadian physician, speaker and author of four books. For more information, visit DrGaborMate.com.To try this in a therapeutic sense, could I just order some DMT to my house to smoke? or would I really have to go down to South America and drink the brew in some ceremony
This is the end of the thread.
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