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Ayahuasca: the importance of framework and intention during consumption of psychedelics.


Web link: www.cairn.info/revue-psy...

Pages: 81 - 100

Abstract

The Amazonian drink ayahuasca generates deeply altered states of consciousness and is “traditionally” ingested during rituals for precise purposes e.g. shamanic learning, healing, divination... The meaning of the experience is consubstantial to the rituals in this shamanistic culture within which accessing the “other world” remains a possibility. The globalization of this drink has led to new uses, at first with the ayahuasca religions in Brazil and in the neo-psychotherapeutic centers in South America, then in the “West” with newly developing intentions: artistic help, medical research, personal fulfilment... but also decontextualized “wild uses”, where there is no existing framework and the experience can’t make sense. This cross-cultural illustration of the importance of framework during consumption of psychedelics highlights the necessity of a minimum safety framework and questions the current legislative position.