Saving lost souls for three million years. And now with MDMA

Approach

Could the love drug offer salvation to the lost?

Graciela Arias Salazar, ‘La Virgen del Capinurí out of @centro_selva_arte_y_ciencia via Antricion gallery in Zurich

Dr Tafur saw ayahuasca’s positive effect on beleaguered veterans.

He took this as a validation of his own conversion to plant medicine after ayahuasca was instrumental in his recovery from a depressive episode.

He told Vital students that transcendent unconditional love, of the kind received in a sacred ceremony, has a positive effect on psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) just like family love (the good enough kind).

It can be transmitted via ‘limbic resonance’ – a theoretical term for hormonal interaction between one or more people. With its support our subconscious processes difficult emotions more efficiently. The healing effect moves from the psyche (P) through the nervous system (N) into the immune system (I), bolstering the body’s own intuitive ‘inner healer’.

The importance of empathy has recently been recognised within western medical treatment. But we are all understanding that professional clinicians can only give so much of themselves.

However. Try instead exotic ceremonies, remarkable locations, skilled practitioner, devout participants, and zealous dedication in the form of the ‘only was out is through’ strategy of taking high-strength ancient jungle acid five nights in a row – and you have the missing element required to treat a range of psychoneuroimmunologically-related conditions currently frustrating doctors and destroying families.

The spiritual sector, to its eternal credit, provides the social role of offering salvation to those mired in confusion, or paralysed by ethical quagmire. It can provide rare complex moral reconciliation, of the kind that PTSD treatment benefits from enormously. Where though does MDMA come in? It’s an ‘empathogen’ as opposed to a psychedelic.

Nonetheless the ‘love drug’ too can augment some characteristics of psychotherapy just like psychedelics and traditional healing ceremonies. Not only does MDMA increase the level of limbic resonance between doctor and patient, it’s also been shown to activate areas of the brain used during childhood to ingrain healthy social behaviour patterns.

Besides, “The MAPS PTSD programme going up for FDA-approval has a mystical element,” says Dr Tafur, responding to my disbelief that western psychotherapy can rapidly replicate the awe of ayahuasca, “in my experience the clinical sector is increasingly interested in ceremony. There are some really open-hearted therapists at MAPS,” he expands, referencing the completely accepting nature of spiritual fulfilment… historically known as ecstasy.