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The epistemics of ayahuasca visions

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Abstract

In this paper, I discuss substance-induced visions and consider their epistemic status, meaning, and modes of proper interpretation. I focus on the visions induced by ayahuasca, a powerful psychoactive plant-made brew that has had a central status and role in the indigenous tribal cultures of the upper Amazonian region. The brew is especially famous for the visions seen with it. These are often coupled with personal psychological insights, mentations concerning topics of special significance to one, intellectual (notably, philosophical and metaphysical) ideations, as well as powerful religious and spiritual sentiments. Thus, under the intoxication, people often feel that they gain significant knowledge and understanding. The present discussion takes a cognitive-phenomenological perspective coupled with a philosophical analysis of the various epistemological questions at hand.

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Notes

  1. Possessing firsthand familiarity with the ayahuasca experience is, I strongly believe, crucial for the academic investigator. Such familiarity is requisite for a comprehending accounts furnished by informants, gaging the scope of possibilities in the subject domain in question, being sensitive to particular details in the data and appreciating special and/or novel patterns in them and, last but not least, formulate questions for study and directions of research. With ayahuasca, this might seem to be an unusual requirement but in fact, the same applies with any other phenomenal domain. After all, it would unimaginable for one to study dreams without ever having dreamt oneself or language without being a speaker of any.

  2. This is a standard term used for referring to individuals partaking of ayahuasca (for a classical indigenous report, see Payaguaje 1983).

  3. Of course, this brings to mind Nagel (1974).

  4. This insight and this term are due to my friend, the anthropologist Els Lagrou (personal discussion).

  5. This is in line with my view of cognition and mind in general. In Shanon (1993), I argue against the standard views in contemporary cognitive science which model the mind in terms of the manipulation of stored symbolic representations and the processing of information. Instead, I propose that the generation of novelty is the fundamental feature of the human cognitive system.

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Acknowledgment

I thank Yochanan Bigman for his comments and help in the preparation of this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 91905, Israel

    Benny Shanon

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  1. Benny Shanon
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Correspondence to Benny Shanon.

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Shanon, B. The epistemics of ayahuasca visions. Phenom Cogn Sci 9, 263–280 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-010-9161-3

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