Date of Award

Spring 5-18-2024

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Advisor(s)

Doyle McCarthy

Second Advisor

Kate Wilson, Ph.D.

Abstract

New Age Americans' growing fetishization of exotic cultural practices—places the powerful entheogenic-life altering drug "Ayahuasca" into their cultural context of Eclectic Amalgams, lending itself as a catalyst for shifting perceptions and understandings of conventional thought. "Eclectic Amalgams" refers to the blend or combination of various elements from different spiritual, religious, or cultural traditions. In New Age practices, there is often an eclectic approach where diverse sources are amalgamated to form a personalized spiritual path or practice. This work explores the growing awareness and practice of Ayahuasca usage in the developed world. The term "Ayahuasca" is used to name the ceremonial medicine embedded within aboriginal Shamanism of Indigenous cultures in the Amazon. Hallucinogenic properties associated with the experience relate to the category known as psychedelia, yet its unique experience gives way to its own slot on the bookshelf. Due to the vast array of psychedelic compounds having distinctive aspects to their "trip," the Ayahuasca brew contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT), known as the most potent of all psychedelics, granting the name "spirit molecule" in the New Age context. In turn, the findings elucidate several critical aspects when placing people outside the original culture to adopt that practice into a society with an entirely different tradition of healing and drugs, which influences their perception of reality; looking at this complex interplay raises the question: How do Anglo peoples who are interested in or using Ayahuasca express their views of the practice? To understand this component of the new age, I closely read informal reports posted to a website revolving around American use of psychedelics (Erowid.org), in addition to examining online sources of new age knowledge through podcasts and videos. These online sources show a significant ideological shift from Ayahuasca's roots in Amazonian society, highlighting the problems of Western engagement, such as romanticization, commodification, and cultural estrangement.

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