Thanks for taking the time to consider this question.
Many people are drawn to further refinement, and rightfully so, this is evolving shamanism:
Integrating new and novel methods to improve ones practice.
However, it can be tricky, when for some reason, one goes too far and loses healing value.
That is what this poll is about: Healing Value as a determinant for the answer.
Of course healing isn't everyone's intention when working with the plants.
Some may just want to see, or be shown something in which case this poll would not apply.
One thing I sometimes wonder is if it is the morphogenetic signature that is playing a role in differences, rather than the physical dimension of concoction on the body.
As if the brew might be like an organized key that taps into the collective historical and present energy field...

Dude...this is essentially the same thread as this one. Come on now, people will see your polls, no need for multiple posts.

EDIT: Eh, I guess I can see the legitimacy of the different questions, but even still, this could've all been done in one poll, dontcha think?

Yes Sir I agree, sorry, I couldn't decide which one it should be in. I promise I don't want to abuse my privileges; I have never made a poll before.
I scratched my head on this one and then thought I wanted to make sure die-hard pharma or aya people should both be able to see it.
I would be happy to have one erased, but which one?

It's not a big deal Trav and I were just chatting about it and he thinks they both may as well be left up to give as widespread feedback as possible. If you had just done one, I'd say Ayahuasca as they both deal with Aya, and pharma's really just an offshoot of Aya, but again, no biggie, lookin' forward to the results.

I think people for whatever new-age spiritual reason try to talk up ayhauasca as if taking an maoi and freebase spice is significantly different. They claim that some kind of magical plant spirit is missing (which is pretty much garbage), and if it is true its due to a secondary alkaloid, not magic, no spirits, just psychoactive drugs acting on your central nervous system.

lol, have fun rationalists. I love how people make they're terminology they're reality, and then make the mistake of confusing a temporal reality that is personally and subjectvly constructed based on linguistics an ultimatum.

BORRRRING.

but..... the additional alkaloids are there. So they could be more healing right?

If you cant see spirit in something..than for YOU it will be absent.

There is somthing very special about caapi that the extracted alks just dont have.

But it does depend on what you bring back from either experience, ive had some very rewarding pharma sessions, rewarding in a different kinda way than caapi.

Absolutely, Positively, 100% Right, IME

They could definitely alter the experience yeah. But I'd argue its all chemistry. The subjective healing spirit is the result of milder and different maoi alkaloids in the material, with caapi containing harmine and tetrahydroharmine as the major components, and syrian rue containing harmine and harmaline with unfortunately tetrahydroharmine in a much much smaller concentration. If there is a difference between extracted caapi alks and leaf it is because of incomplete extractions.

I have had amazing experiences both with ayahuasca as well as pharmahuasca. Even though I couldnt exactly point out why, I must say that subjectively they do feel different. This difference can be many things, and anybody that claims with certainty one reason or another is likely not thinking critically enough. A few possibilities:

- Chemistry. Caapi is composed of not only harmine and tetrahydroharmine, but also of many other trace beta carbolines and other substances. These could by themselves be active and affect the experience or they could have synergistic effects and affect the experience when in combination with other harmalas/dmt. Also maybe plant oils and other inactive substances could affect the digestion, absorption, bio-availability of alkaloids and therefore affecting the experience.

- Set and setting. Quite often it is the case that the ingestion of pharmahuasca and ayahuasca are done in different places, situations or mind settings. This can greatly affect the experience. This is connected to:

- Self suggestion. Expectations of what the effects of one or another substance/brew will affect the experience itself. If one takes ayahuasca considering it will have spirits that will be more healing, this is very likely to affect the experience

- Spirits. While there is no direct evidence of spirit, there is neither direct evidence that there isnt a spiritual level that affects the experience. Though questions that arise: Do spirits attach to plant matter but not to alkaloids when extracted? Why? If the spirits dont come across to the alkaloids, then will taking the plant matter that has been exhausted from alkaloids also generate healing because the spirits are in the inactive plant matter? etc...

- and probably other things im not thinking of right now...

Double blind tests could potentially be devised to separately test at least a few of these variables (for example self-suggestion).

In any case, I would say that for me, both pharmahuasca and ayahuasca have their own place and can generate very learning experiences. If you havent tried any of them and feel like it, do it in a good situation and see for yourself if you preffer one or another or if both are good.

Lastly I just want to make a comment to mumbles. I understand your skepticism, and as you may have noticed I generally tend for the skeptic side too. Nevertheless, we have to be careful how we express ourselves and try to be respectful to others, specially if their opinion is different than ours. Saying that spirits in plants is 'bullshit' is a very disrespectful way of saying it, against our forum attitude and also its a poor argument because it doesnt explain why so, it just intends to de-legitimize a way of thinking by ridiculing. You are a very intelligent person so I ask if you feel like argumenting against plant spirits or anything else, please do so in a reasonable manner.

My apologies folks, I didn't mean to rain on anybody's parade but I believe all these effects to be perfectly explainable by chemistry with a touch of self suggestion, so why bring spirits into it? That just complicates and muddles what we know is happening. Anyway, we're all on the same path, maybe I'll become a convert further down the line who knows.

why become a convert or believer in anything?..current scientific models included..it all just seems terribly reductionist to me, and reductionism will never be objective in a holistic sence of the term.

These models that science *currently* provides peronally fail me and my experience of "reality", because while on one hand they serve to explain specific functions.. a greater form, a complete story that extends it hand towards something far more elegant is lost in the translation.

Reductionism is a rational persuit. It grasps at order in a chaotic multiverse..

The story you are going to tell through the models of reductionism will be devoid of the spark we find in all facets of life..that shimmering light in the dark that we endlessly communicate through music, art and poety..through the stories we tell and the myths that guide us..without that life would be drab and uninspired. How does one reduce a metaphore..who is going to be the one to say what facet of the thing is relevent?..and to what degree?..how does one rationalize the abstract?..the world of the dream is all around us and it will never be reduced in such a way..temoporal waveforms with crash out of the solution of the cosmic mind but they will be but single realities collapsing out of a formless sea of infinite re-creation..

"spirit" exists within all things..it just bends according to how you choose to see.

Is pharmahuasca as healing as ayahuasca? I don't think there is a simple answer to that question. Beside the fact that there isn't just one single form of ayahuasca and pharmahuasca but numerous recipes of both, people have their individual preferences.

I don't know about spirits. I think we have nothing to say about spirits and such. All human knowledge fails when it comes to those things.

For me ayahuasca in this regard does have something extra to it, wich has to do with the fact that it's a traditional thing: It's like walking in the footsteps of all the generations before, something like standing on the shoulders of giants.

I don't know if you'd call that a spirit thing or not. Probably depends on how you look at it.

I don't think anyone can say which is more healing for sure. It seems like a personal and subjective thing to me..I feel greater healing qualities from aya, but that might just have to do with the the various maois and tannins ect in ayahuasca that pharma lacks-which may eventually prove it to me more healing on one level-, or my expectations, context, or its spirit, morphogenetic fields, whatever. If someone else gets better healing from pharma, then good for them. I doubt we'll come to any solid conclusions here

This debate on spirit is useless. As polytrip- said human knowledge fails when it comes to those things. We have a tendency in our society to denounce outright everything without a brain as being not conscious or devoid of spirit, some apply this logic to ourselves and see no spirit when coming from the reductionist materialist approach. It really just depends on your own individual linguistic constructs. The truth is we don't know how consciousness is organized and experienced by a plant, a planet, or by anything else the universe other than ourselves- and for ourselves all we know is that it is there, we have no idea how it works, where its located, ect.. If it exists in matter, things without brains, cells, ect. Or if if the spirits are in the molecules and its all intertwined beyond our imagination.

So to say that anything having a spirit or consciousness is bullshit because its 'just a bunch of chemical interactions with your cns' just seems ignorant to me, and arrogant since apparently as far as we can tell WE are 'just' a big bag of chemical interactions and cells as well, using that same reductionist approach..and we remain today unable to locate the seat of consciousness within our own organism. This doesn't mean that's all that we are, or that we have no spirit

It sounds like self suggestion. I wonder how different they would really be if you had zero knowledge of the history/cultural use or preparation or names of either. A true test.

You're probably right. But i can't change what i know (except maybe if i would try to damage my brain by excessive use of alcohol or methamefetamine, wich i'm not likely to be attempting to do in the near future). The knowledge that i take with me on my journeys is as much part of the whole experience as the brew itself. Placebo-effects are important: red pills work differently than blue pills, even if the only difference between them is their colour.