Scientist says psychedelic brew consumed by Amazonian shamans could fight cancer

By Eric W. Dolan
Monday, January 27, 2014 11:57 EST
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/27/scientist-says-psychedelic-brew-consumed-by-amazonian-shamans-could-fight-cancer/

A powerful psychedelic brew consumed by shamans deep in the Amazon could help in the fight against cancer and should be researched, according to a Brazilian scientist.

Ayahuasca — meaning the “vine of the souls” – is traditionally prepared using the Banisteriopsis caapi vine and Psychotria viridis leaves, though other combinations of plants are sometimes used. Psychotria viridis contains N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) in the leaves, while Banisteriopsis caapi contains beta-carbolines such as harmine and harmaline.

For centuries, the psychedelic brew has been used in shamanistic healing rituals. A Natural Geographic reporter who participated in an ayahuasca ritual described the experience as “terrifying—but enlightening.”

Eduardo E. Schenberg of the Federal University of Sao Paulo thinks some of the healing powers attributed to ayahuasca deserve scientific attention, particularly when it comes to cancer.
“There is enough available evidence that ayahuasca’s active principles, especially DMT and harmine, have positive effects in some cell cultures used to study cancer, and in biochemical processes important in cancer treatment, both in vitro and in vivo,” he wrote in an article published in SAGE Open Medicine. ”Therefore, the few available reports of people benefiting from ayahuasca in their cancer treatment experiences should be taken seriously, and the hypothesis presented here, fully testable by rigorous scientific experimentation, helps to understand the available cases and pave the way for new experiments.”

Rumors of ayahuasca helping people with cancer are common, according to Schenberg, and there are at least nine case reports of cancer patients using ayahuasca during their treatment. Of these nine reports, three showed improvements after consuming the psychedelic brew.


Rumors and less than a dozen case reports are hardly substantial evidence. But the physiological effects of the drug suggests there might be some truth behind them, Schenberg said.

DMT produces a powerful psychedelic experience by binding to serotonin receptors in the brain. More importantly, for Schenberg, the drug also binds to the sigma 1 receptor, which is found throughout the body and is involved in many cellular functions. The sigma 1 receptor appears to be implicated in the death signalling of cancer cells.

In addition, harmine has been shown to induce the death of some cancer cells and inhibit the proliferation of human carcinoma cells.

Other physiological factors suggest the combination of DMT and harmine could have medically-important antitumor effects, though more research is need.

“In summary, it is hypothesized that the combined actions of β-carbolines and DMT present in ayahuasca may diminish tumor blood supply, activate apoptotic pathways, diminish cell proliferation, and change the energetic metabolic imbalance of cancer cells, which is known as the Warburg effect,” Schenberg  wrote. ”Therefore, ayahuasca may act on cancer hallmarks such as angiogenesis, apoptosis, and cell metabolism.”

DMT is currently prohibited as a Schedule I drug by the U.S. Controlled Substances Act and the international Convention on Psychotropic Substances. The drug is relatively unknown compared to other illicit substances like cannabis, but researchers have found that DMT appears to be increasing in popularity.

“If ayahuasca is scientifically proven to have the healing potentials long recorded by anthropologists, explorers, and ethnobotanists, outlawing ayahuasca or its medical use and denying people adequate access to its curative effects could be perceived as an infringement on human rights, a serious issue that demands careful and thorough discussion,” Schenberg wrote.

Originally published by PsyPost

["Woman Touching Her Third Eye With Hand Mudra." on Shutterstock]

As cannabis is widely legalised, China cashes in on an unprecedented boom

Source: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=296255

Almost 5,000 years ago, Chinese physicians recommended a tea made from cannabis leaves to treat a wide variety of conditions including gout and malaria. Today, as the global market for marijuana experiences an unprecedented boom after being widely legalised, it is China that again appears to have set its eyes on dominating trade in the drug.
The communist country is well placed to exploit the burgeoning cannabis trade with more than half of the patents relating to or involving cannabis originating in China. According to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo), Chinese firms have filed 309 of the 606 patents relating to the drug.

About 147 million people – around 2.5 per cent of the world's population – use cannabis, according to the World Health Organisation. And medicinal properties of the drug are increasingly being recognised. It can be used to treat conditions ranging from the nausea caused by chemotherapy for cancer patients and chronic pain to cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. 

Last month, Uruguay became the first country to legalise marijuana in its entirety – from growing the crop to processing and use. Yesterday it appeared that a second South American country, Peru, could follow Uruguay's example and legalise cannabis production. The former director of the Peruvian National Drug Control Commission, Ricardo Soberon, said: "The possibility of removing the criminal element from the cannabis trade – a drug that is a lot less dangerous than others – is the answer to 50 years of repeating the same strategies with no results." 


Last week, the US state of Colorado decriminalised the recreational use of cannabis and people in Washington state have also voted to legalise marijuana, although stores are not expected to open until later in the year. Shares in companies involved in cannabis soared after Colorado's move. One firm, MediSwipe Inc, had its stock jump by nearly 70 per cent on 2 January. The legal trade of cannabis in the US alone could be worth $10bn (£6bn) by 2018. And analysts say it is China that is once again at the forefront of exploiting new economic opportunities. 

"Because cannabis in Western medicine is becoming accepted, the predominance of Chinese patents suggests that pharmaceutical sciences are evolving quickly in China, outpacing Western capabilities," Dr Luc Duchesne, an Ottawa-based businessman and biochemist, wrote in InvestorIntel. "CTM [Chinese traditional medicine] is poised to take advantage of a growing trend. The writing is on the wall: Westernised Chinese traditional medicine is coming to a dispensary near you." 

Many of the Chinese patents are for herbal treatments. One, filed by the Yunan Industrial Cannabis Sativa Co, refers to an application made from whole cannabis sativa seeds to make "functional food" designed to improve the human immune system. Another, by an inventor called Zhang Hongqi, is for a "Chinese medicinal preparation" for treating peptic ulcers. It uses an array of ingredients, including cannabis sativa seed. The filing says it has "significant therapeutic effectiveness and does not cause any adverse effect". 

There is also a patent filing from China for a treatment for constipation, which is made using fructus cannabis and other ingredients such as "immature bitter orange", Chinese angelica and balloon flower. This, it is claimed, treats constipation's root causes and symptoms resulting in "obvious curative effects". 

However, only one company in the world has developed cannabis-based drugs as medicines that have been recognised by regulators in the West following the long, costly process of clinical trials. GW Pharmaceuticals, based in Wiltshire, makes Sativex for the treatment of symptoms of multiple sclerosis and cancer pain, and Epidiolex for childhood epilepsy. 

A spokesman for the company, which is the only one licensed to carry out research on cannabis in the UK, said China had a long history of working with herbal medicines. "In that sense it doesn't come as a surprise. This is a country with thousands of years of working with plants in medicines," he said of the patent filings. 

In December, Jamaica announced it was forming its first medical marijuana company, called MediCanja. Henry Lowe, a scientist and executive chairman of MediCanja, said medical cannabis could help "transform Jamaica's fledgling economy". He added: "Given Jamaica's history with ganja, we could be the hub for medical ganja in Latin America and the Caribbean." 

Peter Reynolds, leader of Cannabis Law Reform (Clear), a UK-based campaign group, said China had another advantage over other countries in selling cannabis as it is one of the largest producers in the world of industrial hemp, a form of cannabis with a low amount of the psychoactive compound THC. "The Chinese are smarter and they are on to all the good ideas," Mr Reynolds said. "The potential for cannabis as a medicine is monumental."
But smoking cannabis remains illegal in China. In April last year, the South China Morning Post reported that it was a popular drug among the country's young people despite the threat of lengthy prison sentences. 

Mr Reynolds said the UK possessed world-leading expertise on cannabinoids, and there was a "terrible, terrible irony" that the Government was so hostile to its use. "We're in a situation now where cannabis is available on prescription [in the UK], but it's almost impossible to get because it costs so much more," he said. 

The opening up of a legal trade in non-medical marijuana is not without its critics. Uruguay's decision to remove all legal restrictions on use was condemned by the International Narcotics Control Board, the body charged with monitoring international treaties on narcotics. "Cannabis is not only addictive but may also affect some fundamental brain functions, IQ potential and academic and job performance, and impair driving skills," it said in a statement. "Smoking cannabis is more carcinogenic than smoking tobacco."

Stepping Into The Fire (full ayahuasca documentary)

You didn't come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here. -Alan Watts 

Stepping Into the Fire is the cinematic release that reaches into the ash of the bare bones of existence and asks the question “is humanity born to die, or is humanity born to live?” 
 

The film follows the true story of three successful individuals brought together by an ancestral medicine from South America that has become legendary for its miraculous and profound effects. Ayahuasca — as the Amazonian brew is known — is well known for its mental, physical and energetic healing properties. Stepping Into the Fire closely examines the life-changing effects Ayahuasca can have and illustrates why environment and health are so crucial to human success on a global scale.

Stepping Into the Fire features Roberto Velez, Donna Walsh, Bo and José Pineda Varges (a.k.a Maestro Mancoluto). The story begins with Roberto Velez — a high-level New York Stock Exchange trader — raised since adolescence in America, but ultimately of Peruvian descent. In the peak of his career, Velez finds himself seeking; unable to reconcile his material gains with the lack of direction and depth in his life. With nowhere else to turn, Velez scours Peru — the land of his ancestors — only to find Mancoluto, a first-level master shaman descended from one of the earliest civilizations in Amerindian history, Chavin. 

Mancoluto’s expertise in natural health, particularly in the case of two ancestral medicines known as Ayahuasca and Huachuma, provides him a unique lens when treating Velez’s predicament. Once this connection was made, countless other pieces start falling into place and a center for ancient Peruvian healing arts is quickly born.

Stepping Into the Fire is the beautifully woven tapestry of recent events that will leave you ignited and inspired to discover what it is in your life that keeps the fire alive

https://jhaines6.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/stepping-into-the-fire-full-ayahuasca-documentary/

On The Vipassana Trail, A Journey Within

Artwork by Markus Meier

by Carolyn O'Donnell
In Goa four years ago, an Indian with a shaved head first told me about Vipassana. Clutching a vodka tonic and a cigarette, he talked enthusiastically about his annual 10-day retreat of silence and meditation. He was a bit vague as to the meaning it had for his spiritual and mental development -- I think he was in a hurry to get to a nightclub.

The idea stayed with me though, and in India last year I met people without vodka tonics and cigarettes who also urged me to do Vipassana, saying they really felt the benefits. It certainly seemed to bond people. Enrol in a course run by dhamma.org they urged, and eventually I did, in Penang, Malaysia, early in 2013.

The course they recommended was the technique taught by SN Goenka. These courses are open to anyone, with centers all over the world. There is no charge -- students pay what they can afford to donate, or you can volunteer to serve on another course.

Vipassana means "seeing things as they really are." One of India's most ancient meditation techniques, it was lost, then rediscovered by Gautama Buddha more than 2,500 years ago. After a few centuries it was lost again, to survive only in Myanmar (Burma) where Goenka, an Indian businessman, learnt the technique and brought it back to India.

Learning this method begins with sitting cross-legged and observing the breath. Awareness is sharpened and then the student begins to observe the changing nature of body and mind, experiencing the "universal truth" of impermanence. According to the literature, "Vipassana eliminates the three causes of all unhappiness: craving, aversion and ignorance."

In its highest forms, Vipassana aims for spiritual goals of "total liberation and full enlightenment." Naturally, this requires some effort. Our daily program encompassed rising at 4 a.m., consuming our two vegetarian meals by noon, with a tea break and maybe a little fruit in the afternoon, along with 10 hours of a meditation practice and instruction a day.

No phones, no internet, no talking and endless meditation. It's not everyone's idea of a vacation, and it's not a holiday. It is though an opportunity for what I call a detox of the brain. Without TV and internet you realize how much junk is floating around in your mind.


A retreat like this clears out the consciousness, like a health farm detox might clear out the large intestine. (As you are eating plenty of vegetables, mostly the physical self motors along quite nicely.) Vipassana works by "eroding conditioned responses." But it's not all serious. Goenka smiles a lot, and urged us to "be happy in all situations."

Sila, or moral conduct, is a foundation of the practice. New students must abstain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and abstain from all intoxicants (alcohol, drugs, tobacco), while observing Noble Silence.

At the course I did in Penang we had a teacher, but by using recordings and DVDs we followed the course as if Goenka, now almost 90, were teaching it himself. His recordings started the meditation sessions, we followed his instructions and in the evening there was "discourse," or a lecture from Goenka where he reviewed the day and told stories to illustrate principles we needed to understand.

I thought I wasn't new to Vipassana, as three years ago I did a 10-day course at a monastery outside Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. At Wat Ram Poeng they offer Vipassana, or the "insight meditation technique" for mental development and "to prepare a path to a better, peaceful life through clear understanding about oneself" irrespective of religion. It is open to anyone and payment again is by donation, though it may be necessary to pay to borrow some white clothing.

As the Abbott said to us: "It is hard ... we are all dirty inside and we need a clean. We must learn to live in the moment and learn to observe." Eat less, sleep less, talk less and make more effort, was the general directive. It was rewarding: With my mind purged of 40 kinds of crap, I thought about things that had been buried for years, I learnt I could meditate for 10 hours a day, and I developed some minor mastery over the emotions.

Staying in a monastery was interesting too, especially taking part in a procession for Buddha's birthday and helping to clean up after a colossal thunderstorm while the monks zipped around with chainsaws. A Chinese monk, a former racing car driver who knew what it was to feel like an outsider, was assigned to make sure we were OK.

But apparently it wasn't true Vipassana. As Goenka explained in one of his nightly lectures, the technique disappeared everywhere except in Burma. Having spent a month there and visited the Shwedagon Pagoda, said to the oldest in the world and one of the great Buddhist pilgrimage sites, I recognized how important Buddhism is to the Burmese.

It is important to note that the course uses the teachings of Buddha, but is not about becoming Buddhist. Even at the monastery, the emphasis was on meditation -- your own inner journey -- rather than Buddhism.

Goenka explained that the mental habit of reaction, sankhara, is one of the causes of suffering, as craving or aversion leads to attachment. Part of the technique is monitoring sensations in the body without reaction which has a purifying effect. Vipassana is taught as a practical way of alleviating misery, that can become the basis of an "art of living."

Anyone hoping to take either course is emailed a thorough description of what is expected. In Malaysia, instead of having my own room and bathroom as I did in Thailand, I stayed in a dormitory with 15 other people, which manifested its own challenges, as I'll describe in part two of this story.

Organizers say the 10-day course is the minimum -- it provides an essential introduction and foundation for the technique, which can take a lifetime to perfect. It's not a quick fix, and I was probably not a particularly good student. But while as I'm not as disciplined as I would like to be with meditating, I do feel calmer and more focused when I do it.

A Vipassana course is travel of a very personal kind, as it is above all a journey with the self, which may or may not involve conventional travel. If you love travel of all types, you can, as I did, combine both.

Read on for part two of my experience.

Follow Carolyn O'Donnell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Hotitchytravel

A Hospital in China that Uses No Medicine

by Luke Chan
ChiLel Qigong

Huaxia Zhineng Qigong Clinic & Training Center, simply known as the Center, normally has more than four thousand people living there, including doctors, patients, ChiLel teachers, trainees, and supporting personnel. The Center was established in 1988 in the city of Zigachong and later, in 1992, relocated to the city of Qinhuangdao. In 1995, it again expanded to its present address, an old army hospital in the city of Fengrun, two hours by train from Beijing.

Grandmaster Pang Ming, M.D.

It is directed by its founder, Dr. Pang Ming, a Qigong grandmaster and physician trained in both Western and Chinese traditional medicine. This hospital is the largest of its kind in China and probably in the world. The Center avoids medicines and special diets in favor of exercise, love, and life energy. It is a non-profit organization and is recognized by the Chinese government as a legitimate clinic. Over the years, the Center has treated more than one hundred and eighty diseases, the overall success rate being more than 95%.

I spent the entire month of May living in the Center, observing first hand how the hospital operates and interviewing more than one hundred people who have miraculously recovered from incurable diseases such as cancer, diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, severe depression, paralysis, and systemic lupus. Many times I was moved to tears while listening to these accounts of heroic struggle against disease. One mother told me that she was so weak that she couldn’t even pick up a kitchen knife to kill herself and so attempted to end her life by not eating. But when her six-year-old son tried to spoon feed her a bowl of milk while her eleven-year-old held a towel to wipe any spills, she decided to live at any cost. Since doctors couldn’t help her, she turned to ChiLel and, against all odds, recovered. She is now a teacher at the Center.

The Power of ChiLel

ChiLel, the method employed in the Center, was developed by Dr. Pang. The method is based on the 5,000-year-old concept of qigong (chigong, chi kung) as well as modern medical knowledge. Dr. Pang, reverently known as Lao-shi, the Teacher, has written more than nine books on ChiLel.

ChiLel consists of four parts…

1. Strong belief (Shan Shin): a belief that chi or life energy, can heal all ailments, including one’s own. Students build belief by listening to testimonials of recovered patients and learning about chi and its healing effects.

2. Group Healing (Chu Chong): before a group of students begins ChiLel, the teacher verbally synchronizes the thinking of the group to obtain chi from the universe and bring it down into a healing energy field, shrouding everyone including the teacher himself or herself. The healing effect is enhanced because the group is acting as one.

3. Chi Healing (Fa Chi): Facilitating chi healing by teachers teachers bring healing energy from the universe to each individual to facilitate healing.

4. Practice (Lan Gong): Students learn easy-to-follow ChiLel movements and practice them over and over again. The methods, parts of Zhineng qigong, are called:

      Lift Chi Up and Pour Chi Down Method.
      Three Centers Merge Standing Method.

Patient Treatment

When a patient enters the hospital, he is diagnosed by a doctor, and then assigned to a class of fifty or so people for a 24-day treatment period. He spends most of his time practicing ChiLel, eight hours a day without television, newspapers or telephone. Those who can stand up practice standing; those who can sit practice in their chairs; and those who can’t move practice in their beds. I was moved by
the dedication of these students.

Despite its amazing success at healing, the Center is little known even in China because of its policy of not advertising in newspapers or magazines. However, the Center is well known among its estimated eight million ChiLel practitioners. Through word of mouth, thousands of people from all over China are coming to the Center every month. Indeed, ChiLel has a great number of followers and the Center is the brain of this vast organization. New techniques for treating diseases are developed daily. For example, a new way of demonstrating the effectiveness of chi for treating cancer has been developed. I witnessed a cancer patient being treated by four ChiLel teachers while the patient’s bladder cancer was viewed on a screen via an ultra-sound machine, and monitored by two doctors.

The cancer literally disappeared in front of my eyes in less than a minute as the teachers emitted chi into the patient, dissolving the cancer! In fact, I videotaped this incredible act. Ten days later, I requested the doctors to double check if the patient’s tumor was gone. Kindly enough the doctors put the same patient’s bladder again on screen and we saw no trace of cancer. Later I was told that a major German TV station crew, visiting the Center a week before, had successfully videotaped the same process with other cancer patients.

The Center has over six hundred staff members, including twenty-six Western-trained doctors. Since no medicine is prescribed, there aren’t any pharmacists. Doctors, who prefer to be called teachers, play only a minor role in this special hospital. Occasionally, they are called upon to attend emergency cases. Their main function is to diagnose patients when they come in to register and again after each
24-day training period. Their diagnoses are classified into four categories for statistical purposes.

1. Cured: Symptoms disappear and appropriate instruments (e.g. EKG, ultra-sound, X-ray, CT and so on) register normal.

2. Very Effective: Symptoms almost disappear and instruments show great improvement.

3. Effective: Noticeable improvements, and student can eat, sleep, and feel good.

4. Non-effective: No change or even worse.

According to “Summary of Zhineng Qigong’s Healing Effects on Chronic Diseases”, published by the Center in 1991, data of 7,936 patients showed an overall effective healing rate of 94.96%. (15.20% cured; 37.68% very effective; 42.09% effective.)
  
In the Center, no matter how sick a person is, he is still addressed as a “student” never “patient”. Why? Because he is learning an art the goal of which is to heal oneself, not to rely on doctors. Therefore no doctor-patient relationships exist.

Students are enrolled in a 24-days treatment program. The tuition fee is only one hundred yuan (about twelve dollars). Students can spend as little as six hundred yuan (about seventy dollars) per month! The Center is probably the most inexpensive hospital in the world and is truly a non-profit organization. Yet the Center is an independent, self-sufficient organization, without any help from
government or private foundations. How do they operate so efficiently? Because many of the doctors, ChiLel teachers, and supporting personnel are former students who have recovered from serious illnesses themselves and have now returned voluntarily to “serve the sick”, with very little pay.

Teachers play the roles of doctor, nurse, social worker, cheerleader, parent, friend, brother, and sister. Their effectiveness is measured by the healing rate of their students. Another reason for the Center’s effective but low-budget operation is that it uses group therapy. Students live in groups of four, eight or sixteen persons per room. By living in groups, students develop in a cooperative spirit of caring and love toward each other. Many of those I interviewed had been rejected by their former hospitals as “incurable,” and, therefore, had regarded the Center as their last hope. As though sailing on the same boat in the ocean, students bond together against their common enemy’s disease.

Trained to Heal

Just as hospitals associate with medical schools to train young people to enter into the medical profession, the Center also has ChiLel schools to train ChiLel professionals. There is a Zhineng Qigong Academy and one-month and three-month instructor training schools. The Academy, established in 1992, has a two-year training program for young men and women under the age of thirty who have the minimum of a high-school education. The one-month and three-months instructor-training programs are for anyone interested in ChiLel. I was told that there are typically
more than a thousand students in both programs in school.

In addition, just as prestigious hospitals have research programs, the Center has many on-going research projects both on site and at different university campuses around the country. When I requested the person in charge, a retired college professor, to show me some published papers, he gave me two volumes of experiment data, as thick as a telephone book!

Besides doctors, teachers, and students, there are hundreds of supporting personnel, working in the office, cafeteria, bookstore, and so on. All of them are ChiLel practitioners and they practice ChiLel together in the morning and in the evening, about three hours a day. As they say, it is not just a job, it is a ChiLel job. The Center is open only ten months a year because of lack of heating in the rooms during winter. The Center is currently building a home for itself, a “ChiLel City” in a place near Beijing, with better facilities to accommodate the ever-increasing number of students, including Americans and others coming from abroad.

I asked the founder, Lao-shi, why didn’t he promote ChiLel to the world sooner. He replied that many people need proof whether chi works or not. So instead of arguing with others, he preferred to work solidly by treating patients and collecting valuable data. As a result, tens of thousands of documented cases over a period of eight years have been collected and, “Now we are ready. Please tell the world that we exist and ChiLel can benefit mankind.”

Copyright © 1998 by Benefactor Press, All rights in the above article are reserved.