Anahuasca is a term used to describe the substitution of one or both of the plant species traditionally used in the preparation of ayahuasca for other species which provide the same or similar chemical compounds found in the traditional species. The word anahuasca is a portmanteau of the words analog and ayahuasca, signifying that the substituted recipe is a chemical analog of traditional ayahuasca.
Traditional ayahuasca is prepared using a combination of the plant species b. caapi and p. viridis, the first containing significant amounts of DMT and the second containing the MAOIs harmine, harmaline, and tetrahydroharmine. The MAOIs inhibit the rapid destruction of DMT in the body, resulting in increased accumulation of DMT and a resulting psychedelic experience.
DMT is not unique to b. caapi and MAOIs are relatively common and in no way unique to p. viridis; a great number of plant species around the world have been identified to contain various levels of DMT or MAOIs. While ayahuasca’s traditional preparation is understood to be a particularly effective means of experiencing DMT’s effects, there are several other means through which a DMT-containing plant and an MAOI containing plant can be combined to induce similar effects as traditional ayahuasca.
Syrian rue (peganum harmala) is one such specie that substitutes b. caapi for providing MAOIs due to the presence of harmine and harmaline, and jurema (mimosa tenuiflora) or one of several species of acacia might substitute p. viridis due to the presence of DMT.
Anahuasca, while often mimicking the effects of real ayahuasca, is in no way a suitable substitute for the real thing. Traditional ayahuasca is prepared in the care of a highly trained, studied, and experienced traditional healer in the native lands where ayahuasca’s ingredients grow naturally. The healer’s experience accounts for the variables inherent in the preparation of any plant-derived medicine, variables that imitation brews by inexperienced people using substitute ingredients simply cannot match. The results can be disappointing or even dangerous.
Perhaps more importantly, taking genuine ayahuasca is only a part of taking part in a genuine healing experience with a traditional Amazonian healer. Genuine ayahuasca is one of many important curative modalities employed in the traditional medicinal practices of the Shipibo-Konibo people.
Plants such as syrian rue and mimosa have their own worth and their own place as plant medicines but they are not nor should they ever be considered as interchangeable substitutes for ayahuasca.
