Welcome to Ayahuasca Info

This website is dedicated to a magical potion from the Amazone basin which is known as ayahuasca. Here you can find information on the different ingredients that are used to make this brew, the way it's used by indigenous people, and what you can expect when you take it yourself.

Traditionally this beverage contained a combination of the bark of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine and the leaves of the Psychotria viridis (or alternatively the Diplopterys cabrerana). It has now been determined what the active components of these ingredients are, and some people have used plants from other parts of the world to make similar herbal potions. You can read about this in the botany and chemistry pages.

The most important active component in ayahuasca as far as its visionary qualities are concerned is a substance called DMT (dimethyltryptamine). DMT has a powerful effect on consciousness that is difficult to describe in words. It's described by many as "spiritual", and is characterized by detailed, very bright and colourful visions. Indigenous people say that during their trance, which lasts approximately four hours, they enter the world of the spirits and communicate with them, while psychologists consider DMT to be one of the hallucinogens, or psychedelics: "substances which make the soul visible."

We invite you to explore this site, read the interviews and prepare yourself well before you decide to try this powerful potion yourself. In case you are completely new to ayahuasca, we recommend you start by reading the introduction.

News

August 27, 2008 - 4th International Amazonian Shamanism Conference: FREE Mp3 downloads

For those of you who could not attend the fourth annual Amazonian Shamanism Conference in Iquitos Peru this summer, we have some good news to share with you. A number of presentations were recorded and are available online. These include talks and presentations by many shamans & curanderos, Dennis McKenna, Robert Forte, Frank Echenhofer, Pablo Amaringo, Dr. Richard Grossman, Jimmy Weiskopf, and many other luminaries of this field. Enjoy!
Download the complete Mp3 collection (right click and save as):
4th_International_Amazonian_Shamanism_Conference_vbr_mp3.zip [1GB Zip file]
To download individual talks, go here.

To read previous articles on ayahuasca go to the news page.