The consumption of ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic beverage used by indigenous communities in the Amazon, is increasing worldwide due to the expansion of syncretic religions founded in the north of Brazil in the first half of the twentieth century, such as Santo Daime and União do Vegetal. Another example is the jurema wine, a drink that originated from indigenous cultures of the northeast of Brazil. It is currently used for several religious practices throughout Brazil involving urban neo-shamanic rituals and syncretic Brazilian religions, such as Catimbó and Umbanda. Both plant products contain N,N-dimethyltryptamine which requires co-administration of naturally occurring monoamine oxidase inhibitors, for example β-carboline derivatives, in order to induce its psychoactive effects in humans. This review explores the cultural use of tryptamines and β-carbolines and focuses on the analytical techniques that have been recently applied to the determination of these compounds in ayahuasca, its analogues, and the plants used during the preparation of these beverages.
This article proposes an exposition and analysis of perceptions intrinsic to rituals carried out with the use of the jurema plant, especially when mixed with Syrian rue (juremahuasca) in contexts of contemporary esoteric re‐actualizations in Brazil. These rituals are conducted by people who look at jurema as a spiritual path, once acquainted with its psychedelic properties. We highlight the mystical attributes and the cultural bricolage elaborated by these individuals, who conduct ceremonies in ritual spaces in which participants experience altered states of perception and consciousness. Considered as an entheogen, jurema leads to states of mystical transformation in people. Such personal changes are often considered by users as the rhetoric of healing. Life stories and ethnographic contexts form the background of the article, which seeks to advance understandings about jurema based on speculations around the intertwining of the themes of consciousness, mysticism, and healing.
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