Do you really need to extract anything from Peganum Harmala (Syrian Rue) Seeds for them to be effective? Or can you just eat them?
What are the benefits or downfalls to just eating the seeds vs extracting the compounds?
How long does the MAOI last? Is eating Rue Seeds worth doing when smoking DMT, or only taking DMT orally?

It's better to make a tea from them than to eat the seeds as is. 3 grams of crushed seeds brewed in 1 cup of water and then filtered works really well. That way you don't swallow the seeds. The seeds are hard to digest.

Even so, pure alkaloid extracts of rue are much better, less toxic, and easier to digest than tea.

Ok, drinking a tea definitely sounds better then just eating the seeds.

What type of toxins come out from the seeds? Is it extremely dangerous?

The seeds are fairly safe, but are hard to digest causing digestive problems in a lot of people. People have eaten huge amounts, up to 50 grams of seeds and were ok after several hours of feeling sick. You only need 3 grams.

A tea made from them will contain almost all the alkaloids, not just the harmala alkaloids. You only want the harmala alkaloids (harmine, harmaline, harmalol). That’s the good stuff in the seeds. Vasicinone and vasicine are also present in the seeds. Their toxicology is not well known. Some believe these are responsible for the negative effects.

Take a look at the attached document on the toxicity of these seeds.

Thank you so much!
That really clears up some confusion I've had reading about the Rue Seeds, and gives me a good foundation to extend my knowledge of the MAOI's in them. Searching around the forums I've found a ton of information about extraction TEKs for the harmala akaloids, but I felt as if I was jumping into the deep end of the pool.
Thank you again!

I think I may try out the tea, and see how I feel... if it makes me feel like crap I'll go ahead with an extraction

Also one more question. Should I be aware of a certain diet to use or avoid before consuming a Rue Tea? Medications to avoid?

no diet restrictions necessary, just good sense, like, dont eat mcdonalds before taking things haha.

medications, well, SSRI antidepressants should not be taken together with rue or caapi.


extraction is very easy. Making a tea, then letting decant in the fridge overnight, throw the bottom particles away, then saturate solution with salt (36g per 100ml), then into the fridge overnight again, now you throw the liquid away and keep the solids. These are harmalas hcl, without the possibly toxic vasicine vasicinone. Also there will be some salt together. To clean further, just redissolve in pure water, basify with ammonia or sodium carbonate, and let precipitate again, keeping whatever precipitates and throwing away the water. Now you will have harmalas freebase, without any salt contamination

Yes, spot on! I did that once (but 2 grams, I weigh only 55 kg), it takes a long time to drip through a coffee filter! Next time I'll strain it through cheesecloth first, or boil the seeds in a teabag. No need to add loads of some acid - the belly doesn't like that and the alkaloids don't really need it to dissolve.

No nausea or gastric problems whatsoever with filtered tea, also no psychoactivity in itself at that low dose. But enough to debilitate the MAO enzymes. It made the smoked DMT blast very different: more intense and mellow at the same time, and longer, with a very long afterglow! Total bliss. And the dietary precautions are often exaggerated.

The next step is obviously the pure alkaloids, it's high on my to-do list! Maybe even separation of harmine, harmaline and THH, but that's pretty advanced...

Very good, I think I'm going to start with the tea. Although the extraction seems easy enough.


Do I have to get rid of the salt? Can't I just use it on my mashed potatoes or something? Ahh, just playing around.

Thanks everyone!

You don't need to get rid of the salt. If you take 200 mg of the resulting alkaloids, maybe about 5-10% will be salt, so that's 10-20 mg of salt. No big deal. If it's not done right, much more salt could be present though.

Can anyone tell me what the extract from rue looks like?

I did an extraction with salt saturated water and several ammonia washes. What was extracted is a somewhat gray, light brown powder thats a tiny bit grainy. It tastes bitter and hasn't got the slightest trace of salt in it.

I'm wondering if this is what it is supposed to be. I haven't tried it yet.

The freebase alkaloids can be anywhere from completely white (extremely pure) to tan to reddish to even purplish depending on the impurities present which varies by technique of extraction and type of seeds used.

If it tastes bitter and makes your tongue a little numb after a while, then it’s harmala alkaloids, otherwise you did something wrong.

personally i eat rue i totally got over the nausea caused by it and usually the people i give it to arnt effected by it either but i also tend to only use 1g-2g of rue. in most cases 1.5g

which when you look at other peoples common use 3 grams its 1/3 or 1/2 the amount which might explain the lack of nausea.

but i only use rue for initiation and prefer caapi