What Western medicine can learn from the ancient history of psychedelics
Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2024 10:39 am
What Western medicine can learn from the ancient history of psychedelics
Read more here:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2024 ... ychedelics
After more than 10,000 years of use, the ancient cultures and indigenous communities who use plant medicines may hold lessons for today's psychedelic Renaissance.
In a cave nestled into the rocky vastness of the Andes in south-west Bolivia, amid rubble and llama dung, in 2008 anthropologists discovered a small leather bag which had once belonged to a shaman from the Tiwanaku civilization – a pre-Columbian empire in the Southern Andes – more than 1,000 years ago. Inside, they found a collection of ancient drug paraphernalia. This included a snuffing tube, spatulas to crush the seeds of psychoactive plants and traces of chemicals ranging from cocaine to psilocin, one of the active hallucinogens within magic mushrooms, and the base ingredients of the psychoactive tea ayahuasca.
Experts believe that the shaman's bag represents a unique window into the relationship between ancient civilisations and powerful hallucinogenic drugs. The substances found within the bag are also of growing interest to today's medical researchers.
Read more here:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2024 ... ychedelics
After more than 10,000 years of use, the ancient cultures and indigenous communities who use plant medicines may hold lessons for today's psychedelic Renaissance.
In a cave nestled into the rocky vastness of the Andes in south-west Bolivia, amid rubble and llama dung, in 2008 anthropologists discovered a small leather bag which had once belonged to a shaman from the Tiwanaku civilization – a pre-Columbian empire in the Southern Andes – more than 1,000 years ago. Inside, they found a collection of ancient drug paraphernalia. This included a snuffing tube, spatulas to crush the seeds of psychoactive plants and traces of chemicals ranging from cocaine to psilocin, one of the active hallucinogens within magic mushrooms, and the base ingredients of the psychoactive tea ayahuasca.
Experts believe that the shaman's bag represents a unique window into the relationship between ancient civilisations and powerful hallucinogenic drugs. The substances found within the bag are also of growing interest to today's medical researchers.