Hi everyone!

I've been asked to write a chapter on P. Harmala for a book on contemporary entheogenic healing and I think the nexus could be a wonderful resource. As you may know, there's not much out there (academically speaking) about the entheogenic use of PH and I'd love to hear some folks experiences. While I'm interested in the use of PH as an admixture, I'm particularly interested in entheogenic experiences related to PH alone. So, if you've had a entheogenic healing experience related to PH, please, consider participating in building knowledge!

If you'd like to share, feel free to reply here or DM me.

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My first draft is due 1 Feb 2023, so if you could get your experience in by November, that would be amazing and give me time to analyze the data.

Thanks!

Almost Dr dotyfish

What would entheogenic healing with P. harmala actually mean? Is it a psychological healing? Of what? Is it lower inhibition, higher inhibition? Decreased neurosis? Decreased fight or flight response? Is it more euphoria? Lack of care for everyday responsibilities? Decreased narcissism? Decreased magical thinking? More empathy? Increase in IQ? Less addiction to substances?

When working with harmalas at the beginning, I used to make a tea out of 2 to 3 g of seeds and take it without admixture out of curiosity. Did this probably 4-5 times and stopped because I developed nausea at the sight and smell of the seeds. The acute effects were typical like you can surely find in the literature. Long-term effects? I don't know. I've been using harmine, harmaline and THH for about 2 years with and without DMT. I feel that changed parts of my behaviour, personality, for the better in my opinion, and other people commented on it without knowing of my "side hobby". But maybe that is just me becoming more of an adult. Nonetheless you are interested more in actual P. harmala usage

I googled the term entheogenic healing and came up with this article
https://www.researchgate...ceremonial_ayahuasca_use
" Entheogenic healing is a concept that derives from the term “entheogen,” coined by scholars to convey the sacramental nature of traditional shamanic practices using psychoactive plants"
That doesn't explain it that well for me, and I don't see it explained it better in the rest of the article. Are you interested in the acute effects of the tea? Effects days after? If there are psychedelic effects of harmine and harmaline from P. harmala (with the implication that caapi drinks that have presumably high tetrahydroharmine don't apply here)? Are you interested if there are visual effects besides tracers, "fever dreams"?

Have you used P. harmala in any way or other forms of harmalas? This is probably the most important question I am curious about. What is your experience with P. harmala?
Is the future book written by someone involved with academia? Has the person written other books before? Are you interested in the role of harmalas in the Persian culture?

Have you read the book "Haoma and Harmaline: The Botanical Identity of the Indo-iranian Sacred Hallucinogen Soma and Its Legacy in Religion, Language, and Middle Eastern Folklore" by David Stophlet Flattery
a pdf of it is here
https://ia803204.us.arch...ma%20%26%20Harmaline.pdf

Have you read opinions that that are opposed to the idea that P. harmalas was not a part of the known Soma drink and are you aware of the numerous other plant and fungi candidates for it?

I consent to my posts being used for research purposes

L-dreamer,

Thanks for the link to Flattery's book; I haven't read it! You ask a ton of great questions that may be helpful for other folks who are interested!


I suppose the first to address would be the definition of "enthogengic healing," which could be seen as a "grey-area" (poorly defined) term. - below is adapted from Wikipedia:


The term entheogen was coined in 1979 by a group of ethnobotanists and scholars of mythology (Carl A. P. Ruck, Jeremy Bigwood, Danny Staples, Richard Evans Schultes, Jonathan Ott and R. Gordon Wasson). The term is derived from two words of Ancient Greek, ἔνθεος (éntheos) and γενέσθαι (genésthai). The adjective entheos translates to English as "full of the god, inspired, possessed", and is the root of the English word "enthusiasm". The Greeks used it as a term of praise for poets and other artists. Genesthai means "to come into being". Thus, an entheogen is a drug that causes one to become inspired or to experience feelings of inspiration, often in a religious or "spiritual" manner.

The meanings of the term entheogen were formally defined by Ruck et al.:

In a strict sense, only those vision-producing drugs that can be shown to have figured in shamanic or religious rites would be designated entheogens, but in a looser sense, the term could also be applied to other drugs, both natural and artificial, that induce alterations of consciousness similar to those documented for ritual ingestion of traditional entheogens.
— Ruck et al, 1979, Journal of Psychedelic Drugs[8]

In 2004, David E. Nichols wrote the following about nomenclature:[9]

Many different names have been proposed over the years for this drug class. The famous German toxicologist Louis Lewin used the name phantastica earlier in this century, and as we shall see later, such a descriptor is not so farfetched. The most popular names—hallucinogen, psychotomimetic, and psychedelic ("mind manifesting"—have often been used interchangeably. Hallucinogen is now, however, the most common designation in the scientific literature, although it is an inaccurate descriptor of the actual effects of these drugs. In the lay press, the term psychedelic is still the most popular and has held sway for nearly four decades. Most recently, there has been a movement in nonscientific circles to recognize the ability of these substances to provoke mystical experiences and evoke feelings of spiritual significance. Thus, the term entheogen, derived from the Greek word entheos, which means "god within", was introduced by Ruck et al. and has seen increasing use. This term suggests that these substances reveal or allow a connection to the "divine within". Although it seems unlikely that this name will ever be accepted in formal scientific circles, its use has dramatically increased in the popular media and on internet sites. Indeed, in much of the counterculture that uses these substances, entheogen has replaced psychedelic as the name of choice and we may expect to see this trend continue.


So for the purpose of this, I'm looking for experiences that promote psychological and/or spiritual wellbeing. This could include some of what you mentioned, such as decreased neuroses, decreased stress/fight-or-flight response, changes in depression/anxiety/other mental health symptoms, feeling inspired, increases in creativity, positive mood, sense of deeper connection to self, others, the world/universe. Essentially, anything you see as healing or a positive addition to your life.


Are you interested in the acute effects of the tea? Effects days after? If there are psychedelic effects of harmine and harmaline from P. harmala (with the implication that caapi drinks that have presumably high tetrahydroharmine don't apply here)? Are you interested if there are visual effects besides tracers, "fever dreams"?

I'm pretty much (personally) interested in all the effects, however, for this purpose, I'd say to focus on ones that have a positive carryover outside of the experience (for example, I have used my dreamlike PH experiences to inspire art and to help me concertize my life path. If something like tracers, heightened visual acuity, etc. provide inspiration or help you find the beauty in our reality, please include those. While caapi is pharmacologically similar, there are, at the least 5 other chapters currently slated for Aya and co.


Have you used P. harmala in any way or other forms of harmalas? ... What is your experience with P. harmala?

Oh yeah!! Teas, many varieties of extracts, full spectrum and isolated, smoked, incense, aya analouges, "psilohuasca," macrodoses and microdoses ...

I have been actively involved with self-experimentation (and later research) with PH since 2014. I cut my teeth with info from the Nexus, then a small study for my PhD program before slowly getting this out:

Doty, M. (2020). Psychedelic properties of Peganum harmala: Marcodose and microdose reports. Integral Transpersonal Journal, 14, 99-115.
(attached to this post)

Is the future book written by someone involved with academia? Has the person written other books before?

There are about 28 academics contributing. Michael Winkelman may be the most well known. His focus is on shamanism, anthropology, and neurotheology. You can find more about him here: Research Gate: Michael Winkelman

Are you interested in the role of harmalas in the Persian culture?


While my role is to focus more on contemporary use, I sure am!

Speaking of, indigenous co-authors are encouraged, so if anyone reading this has cultural ties to the use of PH and are interested, let me know.

Ajay Sharma (Research Gate: Ajay Sharma) will be covering traditional uses in India.


I hope that helps provide some clarification!

Thank you for both: "Haoma and Harmaline" by David Stophlet Flattery and "Psychedelic properties of Peganum harmala". I'm reading the Flattery one now and got curious of the other one too.

I try to find interesting papers and text regarding this plant. The only longer one I've read so far is "Harmal: The Genus Peganum" by Ephraim Shmaya Lansk et al.

Murklan,

Unfortunately, information is sparse. There is a lot emerging focusing on its traditional and contemporary physical medicinal properties but almost nothing else. Looking forward to helping change that!

Great that you are on that path! I'll see if I can halp in any way.

My experiences with P harmala is mostly together with varying doses of vaped DMT or with cannabis. Not so mush in it self. But I've had quite a few were the effects have been strongly harmala effected. See this thread for example.

That's perfect, murklan!

After a lot of consideration, I decided that I'd add PH's role in 'huascas and changa as well due to prevalence vs solo use. I sent that idea off to the editors, so we'll see how they respond but until then, I'm open to collecting data for all uses.

I absolutely love Peganum Harmala.

My experiences might be more up your alley, as I haven't mixed it with DMT(orally anyway), just cannabis and mushrooms mostly.

My first experience was probably the weirdest drug encounter I have ever had. I smoked probably a gram's worth of crushed/roasted seeds, and I smoked some ganja roughly 15 min later. I was treated to the phattest tracers known to science, and I had a telepathic conversation with a cat, centered around use/abuse regarding relationships, and how to prevent and even recover from such use/abuse. Some really crazy stuff to be sure. From that first hour under the influence of PH, I felt a calling toward the seeds. I remember the seeds told me that first time, "I can teach you how to live in the desert(presumably metaphorical), how to be like pearls thrown to the swine, and be fucking pleased about it!".

I have taken the seeds quite a few times since, my favorite combo being what I affectionately call "cannahuasca", which is 4.5-5.5g of lightly roasted seeds brewed into tea, and then smoking a joint about an hour in. I have had probably the most profound and pragmatic insights I have ever had in my life, consistently, with this combo.

The closest I have come to experiencing the seeds shamanically on their own was a really strong brew(about 7.5g unroasted seeds). The come-up felt like the spins you get from alcohol, only alcohol cannot get you there without killing you twice on the way from pure overdose. The visuals started soon after, right alongside the nausea. I was puking for more than 7 hours on that day, each time after puking the visuals would intensify, and I was treated to beautifully animated abstract Kandinsky-esque reveries. I kept wishing I could stop puking for long enough to paint something, as I felt genuinely inspired, but I think just handling a brush would have been too much considering the vertigo. Also, the entire sky turned into a purple/green brain pattern, and the tracers were such that if I shifted my focus, my entire visual field would break up into what looked like doves flying from the old to the new point of focus(against a pitch black background).

I consent to any and all use of my reported experiences with PH, I think it is truly a plant that can, and wants to, save the world. Let me know if you have other questions, I can talk for days about this wonderful plant.