Hallucinogens: Serotonin Enhancers

Question 1

Serotonin

Answer 1

• Regulation of body temperature, sleep, and sensory perception
• Enhancers-powerful hallucinogens

Question 2

Iboga

BOTANICAL INFORMATION:

Answer 2

• Shrub
• Periwinkle family
• West Africa
• Cultivated in West and Central Africa

Question 3

Iboga

HISTORY AS A MEDICINAL PLANT:

Answer 3

• Root contains active principle
• Shamanistic, enhance psychic powers, increase inspiration, assist in contemplation, important element of life
• Object ritual-women and children, used to reveal where they hid treasure in previous lives
• Entheogenic-Bwiti cult of Gabon and Congo
  
  • Social cohesion, solidarity, superior divinity

Question 4

Iboga

MODERN UTILIZATION:

Answer 4

• Alkaloid-Ibogaine
  
  • Enhancer-visual and auditory hallucinations, interferes with motor skills, sensation of floating or flying
• Opiate addiction therapy
• Treatment of alcohol, amphetamine, nicotine dependence

Question 5

Psilocybin Mushrooms

BOTANICAL INFORMATION:

Answer 5

• “magic” or “sacred” mushrooms
• Central America
• Tropics and temperate regions

Question 6

Psilocybin Mushrooms

HISTORY AS A MEDICINAL PLANT:

Answer 6

• Entheogens-Aztecs
• Mayan civilizations
• Communicate with the spirit world, shamanistic, diagnose illnesses
• Spanish conquests-forced the indigenous entheogenic use underground, ritualistic use by Roman Catholic clergy, was discouraged, “devices of the devil”

Question 7

Psilocybin Mushrooms

MODERN UTILIZATION:

Answer 7

• “divine flesh”
• Anthropologists had proposed that hallucinogenic mushrooms did not exist
• Shamanistic use witnessed by Wasson via Mazatec shaman Maria Sabina
  
  • Evidence of sacred mushroom use
• Psilocybin and psilocin-serotonin mimics
• Muscle relaxation, dilation of the pupils, powerful visual and auditory hallucinations