For the people of the Amazon ‘Ayahuasca’ was/ is a healing medicine that allowed them to enter the spiritual realm and undo illness and dis-ease if possible, through their interaction with the spirits. Ayahuasca is a term from the Amazon that means ‘vine of the soul’ or ‘vine of the dead’, after the liana Banisteropsis caapi used widely as the base ingredient of these drinks, this plant contains large amounts of b-carboline alkaloids, particularly harmine and harmaline. This vine is used as the base with many other different plants, some containing tryptamine alkaloids, but also plants that have not been found to contain tryptamine alkaloids.
These societies had (have?) a very different world view and experience, for example the Tarahumara of Mexico have no term for ‘poison’ in their language, as they feel all plants, even species such as datura spp, which contain potentially fatal tropane alkaloids, could be of some value to people, useful for healing and divination, if used in a knowledgeable way.
The plants were (are?) seen as teachers, or at least the spirits inhabiting those plants are teachers, and used by ‘shaman’ to learn and understand their world, which in this case was the Amazon forest, it’s plants and animals. 'Shaman' is actually a Siberian term that sort of means ‘to know ’ or ‘one who knows’, it is however a term that is reasonably well recognised as denoting a type of spiritual/ healing/ herbal knowledge, and that is why I use it.

Personally I feel that now there are many differences in the situation, and misunderstandings about ourselves and our role in the world, that to me any belief that ingesting these plants or their active ingredients infers some immediate cosmic or shamanic knowledge is highly unlikely. I feel that today we are all much more individuals, with varied experience, and especially within highly industrialised western cultures are quite out of touch with aspects of ourselves and the rest of the world. Our reaction to these alkaloids and plants is most probably affected by this, repressed and unknown aspects of our psyche, also affect our reaction, possibly creating a personally very confronting situation for the unwary. Everything we come in contact with effects us, and can teach us about ourselves, balanced relations with each other and the planet are just as important aspects of our lives...I do believe though that perhaps these compounds can help us to understand ourselves and the world, at least some aspects of it. They are after all part of the world, and people already have a long and well established relationship with many of these plants.