As for the long term use… I’ve been scouring the 'net for positive as well as negative results for long-term effects of ayuahasca, but found mostly positive reports. If anyone can point me to negative results, I’d be interested.
This study http://reset.me/study/study-ayahuasca-has-no-long-term-negative-effects/
And by negative effects, I don’t mean the effects of improper use. Ayuahasca tourism is booming in South America, and with such a boom come fake sjamans looking for easy cash. “Sjamans” that are little better then drug peddlers. They will let people participate that have heart problems, are on SSRI anti depressants, or are at immediate risk for psychosis. They won’t have valium at hand to administer in case of a panic attack. They won’t speak the language of the tripper, so they can’t talk him down or calm him. People have died in such sham “ceremonies” and have never been heard from again.
But I would be interested in research pointing to negative long term effects, while used properly and cautiously.
Just an anecdote about what you quoted, specifically this:
"Ayahuasca users also showed lower rates of depression, anxiety, hostility, worry and other negative traits than the control subjects, and higher in self-transcendence and spiritual orientation. “Taken together,” the study says, “the data point at better general mental health and bio-psycho-social adaptation in the ayahuasca-using group compared to the control subjects.”
I saw a show on TV, on History or some such years ago, about a guy who went down to some small village somewhere in South America to take aya with the village.
Apparantly the village takes it once a month as a community event and there is a festival and food and stuff. And one of the leaders said he’s being doing it every month his whole adult life. The reason the village does it is to bring the community together and get all the bad mojo out that may have built up since last month.
He also told an anecdote about someone from another village was caught trying to steal food or something from them but they caught him and as punishment they made him take aya to try to make him a better person who would help the village instead of harming it. The elders guided him to want to be a better person and to want to help the village. After that they took care of him for a couple of days and then asked him to remain with the village and be one of their own and he did.
That’s about all I remember from that show.
I hate to break it to you, but none of that is true. It’s just what I would like to call our imagination mixed with survival instinct, it’s why you don’t see Buddhists taking this stuff and why when Ram Dass offered it to a yogi he said it was close but not there.
You had an experience, but that was it. It doesn’t mean anything unless you make it so.
Also to the post above, you left out the ones who get horribly scarred by the experience.
Thank you. I would say that from meditating I have some experience of the phenomena you summarized from Watts, but never of contact with a greater universal life force. To say it another way, perhaps, I have a cognitive but not affective experience of the numinous, and thus still characterize myself as an atheist, albeit one who ponders these things a great deal. /also a psychologist
I hate to break it to you, but Malthus, the poster you quoted, hasn’t been active since 6/19/18.
Doesn’t seem fair. Machinaforce put a lot of time into that reply. Also, tomorrow is the third birthday of that Malthus post. I’m not sure why but I feel like that should be a mitigating factor.
It’s almost like it SHOULD happen like this. Woo!
Ramd-Ass, Shmamed-Ass…
Jokes aside; for all the hell you catch in your pointless meanderings in other threads, you should be given credit where credit is due, for this lucid and rational analysis. Good on ya.
So you aren’t getting enough attention in your own “woe is me, life has no meaning but man is Buddhism great” threads and now must dig up other old threads where you can play the same broken record?
Machinaforce, i asked above if anyone can point me to people horribly scarred by ayahuasca, if taken in a responsibly organized ceremony.
I know of two instances, and both are not good examples. There’s a videoclip of a woman thrashing on a river beach, like she’s having a bad trip. And there was a news message of a death in the Netherlands, which I know for a fact to be a suicide days after a ayahuasca ceremony - where the guy was turned away from because he had ingested sinething that would have been incompatible with taking ayahuasca.
So who are these people that were horribly scarred?
You won’t see videos of them because it would be bad for the tourism.
As for the effects, purely imaginary. There are not great insights to be gained from it and all that people get out of it are what they project onto it, like most of reality. There is no purpose to life or grand design, it’s just a void were you live and then you die (in the short part, there is a lot in between).
Also Alan Watts isn’t a credible source on anything, especially considering that one book he wrote.
But I guess people will believe anything to escape the grip of the void, even that a drug lets you see god.
What’s the permanent + to intelligence and creative post ayuahasca?
So what is your source of information?
Ataraxy, ayahuasca has been legal for 17+ years now in Brazil, and the question you ask has been studied in depth, as well as long term.
The result is: people who attend ayahuasca ceremonies (once a month or forthnight) for years, in generally do somewhat better then a control group. Mostly with regard to mental health, but they also do slightly better intellectually.
Of course, it is hard to control for selection. People with whom ayahuasca doesn’t agree, just don’t take it anymore.
As use has become more wide spread, and therefore attracts a group who may use or dispense ayahuasca less responsibly, some problems have emerged.
You can read up yourself on Google scholar and on pubmed.gov if you like. Google Scholar
As for creativity, my impression is that after ayahuasca one’s subjects may change, and one’s outlook on the world, but not the level of creativity- if such a thing is measurable, anyway. I can hear it in some music when the artist had used ayahuasca. Like Xavier Rudd, or Sting, or Nessi Gomes. There’s also a whole genre if ayahuasca music on YouTube.
Machinaforce, I take it you are not unwilling to hurt tourism, so I ask: have you seen these videos, or have you only heard of them?
And what do you think of all the first hand accounts on youtube of people describing their ayahuasca experience?
I also think it worth mentioning that there is no criminality or exploitation involved in ayahuasca, as far as I know or have experienced. I think I know why.
‘There is a vast conspiracy to protect tourism by suppressing these videos. I know this because… well, I just know it. This isn’t imaginary. This isn’t all in my mind like the rest of the universe, which is unreal because the Buddhists say so. This is real!’ 
I don’t give the firsthand accounts of it much value any more than those who say they say aliens, god, ghosts, etc. It’s just an experience and only really means whatever people want it to. It’s powerful sure, and people think that it has to mean something. But considering we are the same species that says they see Jesus on toast or how clouds look like certain things (bear in mind that this is just our conception of things so unless someone knows what you are talking about a cloud is a cloud and doesn’t look like anything) I’m still going to say that it’s their imagination plus the drug, mostly the drug. If the accounts are consistent then you can most likely just chalk it up to the effects of the drug.
People try to cope with the inherent meaninglessness/purposelessness of reality so they believe such experiences mean something or reveal something. Spoiler: they don’t. Bear in mind the people describing their experience are just affixing meaning to something that is inherently meaningless. Anything they believe they gained is more likely their fabrication, like people who say they saw God and it told them X or Y.
And being an atheist psychologist doesn’t mean much of anything when it comes to the truth of what you are trying to claim.