Texts / 1950-1970 / Ayahuasca

Ginsberg Senate Testimony on LSD (1966)

The poet Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) testified on June 14, 1966, before the special Senate Judiciary subcommittee holding hearings on narcotic rehabilitation and LSD on college campuses, with Quentin N. Burdick (1908–1992) presiding. He read a long prepared statement describing his visionary experience of 1948 and his use of peyote, mescaline, LSD, and ayahuasca, then argued from newspaper coverage and the medical literature that LSD's dangers had been exaggerated and that research should be expanded. The record hosts the full printed text, pp. 487–509, including his questioning by Burdick and Jacob K. Javits (1904–1986), his list of proposed research topics (Exhibit No. 76), and the references he put into the record.

Psychotropic Properties of the Harmala Alkaloids

A Chilean psychiatrist's report on harmala alkaloids, ayahuasca-related beta-carbolines, and comparative human experiments with harmaline and mescaline at the University of Chile.

El contexto cultural de un alucinógeno aborigen

Banisteriopsis caapi

A Colombian Amazon ethnographic study placing Tukano use of Banisteriopsis caapi, or yajé, within a wider cultural system of mythology, ritual, symbolism, perception, and social knowledge.