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The Therapeutic Imagination in Amazon Shamanism - A few Observations.


Pages: 105 - 114

Abstract

Description made by vegetalists and patients on the phenomenology of therapeutic rituals under the influence of ayahuasca show that more experienced vegetalists seem to have some personal and transpersonal control over the hallucinations produced by the drink. In fact, this power is what distinguishes in the minds of the unvegetalist Amazon peoples good from a mediocre, for which losing this ability is equivalent to the loss of shamanic powers. The images invoked by vegetables are often described as some type of electromagnetic defenomenon which is under illoro control and which can take many forms. In rural environments, they often recover images deposited in their knowledge -and in their patients -on behavior and the outlying properties of the plant and animal. However, any new technological conquest idea can be appropriate if used in shamanic mode: angels, saints, reeergine, different informal spirits, books, machinery X, pharmacies, doctors, airplanes, UFO, means of any kind may appear in visions and be used as therapeutic symbols for shamanic perfumerces. The traditional use of psychoactive disseminating unusual shamanic is a rich and edgnous field of the exploration. It can offer interesting traces of the potential of a vivid imagination at the service of therapeutic findings of hatyautocure. These studies seem particularly important today, as the indiscriminate use of psychoactive disobstacles presents a challenge for western society.