The Role of Music in Healing with Hallucinogens: Tribal and Western Studies
Marlene Dobkin de Rios, Ph.D.1
Introduction
Over the last 35 years, the author has studied the role of plant hallucinogens
in tribal and third world societies (see Dobkin de Rios 1972, l984,1994). Several
articles have examined the role of music produced by shamanic healers as adjuncts
to their healing rituals, particularly with such plant hallucinogens as ayahuasca
(various Banisteriopsis sps.), as well as other hallucinogens (De Rios and Katz
1975, Katz and De Rios l97l). In Hallucinogens: Cross-cultural Perspectives
(l984:211), a table was compiled of the then described music that accompanied
psychedelic rituals world-wide. They included, among others, tropical rain forest
native Indians such as the Chama and Cashinahua of Peru, the Huichol of Mexico,
the Jivaro of Ecuador, and the Kiowa and Comanche Indians of North America.
It appeared that percussion and drumming were the major modalities used.
Peruvian Healing Sessions
Ayahuasca and melody
Fred Katz, a musicologist and I prepared an article for the American
Journal of Folklore (l971) in which we transcribed some of the ayahuasca
tapes that de Rios had gathered in urban Mestizo healing sessions in Iquitos,
Peru. Healers were adamant about the importance of music in the healing
session, and the role that melody played in programming the actual content
of the vision in their "icaros," or chants calling upon familiars
to help them to see the cause of illness (often witchcraft hexes) and
to allow them to return the evil to the perpetrator so that healing could
occur. Katz and I subsequently published a second article on music and
drug-induced altered states of consciousness (l975). We argued that the
anxiety generated by rapid access to the unconscious may be expressed
in such symptoms as nausea, diarrhea, cramps, tachycardia and increased
blood pressure. These components of the "bad trip" have been
reported in all cultures for which adequate data is available. The pervasive
presence of music as an integral part of the drug experience constitutes
one of the most powerful rituals associated with the social management
of altered states of consciousness.
Healing Session 1 (mp3, 1,7 MB); Healing
Session 2 (mp3, 5,7 MB)
"Jungle Gym"
The participant in the ritual perceives the structure of music quite
differently from the way he would perceive it during normal waking consciousness.
We know, of course, of the mathematical precision and structure that all
music possesses, whatever the musical tonal system of a given culture
or the repetition of musical phrases involved. What Katz and I argued
is that once the biochemical effects of the hallucinogenic drug alter
the user's perception, the music operates as a "jungle gym"
for the person's consciousness during the drug state. Just like the playground
structure that children climb upon, the "jungle gym" provides
a series of pathways and banisters through which the drug user negotiates
his way. Here we are using metaphorically the architectural structure
composed of iron bars interlinked in horizontal and vertical planes. In
contrast, however, to the child's playtime structure, where the child
can choose spontaneous pathways and heights to explore, we suggested that
the companionship of music to the hallucinogenic drug experience functions
almost like a computer's software. It instructs the machine in a particular
course to follow. The cultural patterning of hallucinogenic-induced visions
suggest that the mathematical structure of music may serve specific cultural
goals-- allowing the drug taker to see the guardian spirit of the ayahuasca
vine, to achieve contact with a special supernatural deity, and so forth.
The music is imposed upon the drug user by the shaman, who controls to
some degree his client's visual options within this ritualized use of
music.
Frequency
The lowest common denominator of the musics appears to be the frequency
of rattling effects, or rapid vibratory sounds, almost always in consort
with whistling or singing. Rattles, singing, chanting and vocal productions
in general, may be a very important part of the hallucinogenic experience
in that the "jungle gym" is built up, torn down and rearranged
in a sort of "block-building" of consciousness to serve specific
cultural goals.
Synesthesia
Synesthesias are commonly reported by drug users. In most tribal and
third world societies where drugs are used, this scrambling of sensory
modalities is not only recognized but actually underpins the programming
of rituals so as to heighten all sensory modalities that include visual,
olfactory, tactile, auditory and gustatory senses.
LSD and Psychotherapy
Most recently, I have published a book, LSD, Spirituality and the Creative
Process (2003), based on LSD research from l954-l962 conducted by the psychiatrist,
Oscar Janiger, when more than 930 people in Los Angeles were given Sandoz
LSD experimentally. While the aim of the experiment was not to validate
psychotherapeutic benefits of the LSD, a large subset of more than 225 people
who were then in therapy, were given a moderate dose of LSD. Included in
the sample were artists and musicians. One world-renowned musician reported
the following effects:
"My flesh is charged with emotional responsiveness to the
Mozart E-flat symphony. My skin seems microscopically thick and porous so
as to admit the music more easily. The inner lines of counterpoint are suddenly
so clear. The dissonances are so penetrating and the bass-line is positively
alive. It jumps and strides with a kind of cosmic purpose. I am very sensitive
but my real emotions still have not been engaged.
...My listening is extremely acute. (He listened to Mozart, Bizet
Symphony, Moussorsky Pictures, the suite from Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier
and his own incident music).
My reaction to these pieces began with the conventional response
but gradually took on a new character. It was as though the remaining ecstasy
that flowed through me has washed away my patience with the exterior posturing
of music. I felt that I saw directly into its heart and was interested only
in what the music was really saying, remaining totally indifferent to how
I was dressed. ...The visual hallucinations were one of the more entertaining
features of the afternoon. ...I could not for a time distinguish between
sight and sound. Later Mozart's melodic line was filling the room. Later
woodwind harmonies released ethereal glowing purples and pinks in shafts
of radiant light which streamed out from a picture in precise synchronization
with the music. I felt that moment of incredible exaltation. I am, in this
very instant, free from every petty negative emotion. I am devoid of anger,
of jealousy, of fear."
Conclusion
If these hallucinogenic substances are to be used psychotherapeutically
in the future, the role of music as a primary conditioning agent of the
experience will have to be taken into account. Any planning for psychotherapeutic
intervention in times to come would necessitate a clear musicological approach
to create therapeutic states of consciousness. Not discussed in this article
is the work that Grob and I have done on suggestibility and the hallucinogenic
substances (see Grob and De Rios l996, De Rios and Grob l994) which are
also important effects of the hallucinogenic experience. Music can be a
major mode of managing the drug-induced altered state of consciousness for
therapeutic goals.
References
De Rios, Marlene Dobkin. (1972) Visionary Vine: Hallucinogenic Healing
in the Peruvian Amazon. San Francisco: Chandler (reprinted in l984 by Waveland
Press).
De Rios, Marlene Dobkin. (1984) Hallucinogens: Cross-cultural Perspective.
Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press.
De Rios, Marlene Dobkin. (2003) LSD, Spirituality and the Creative Process.
Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press.
De Rios, Marlene Dobkin and Grob, Charles.S. (1994) Hallucinogens, Suggestibility
and Adolescence in Cross-cultural Perspective. Yearbook for Ethnomedicine
and the Study of Consciousness. Vol. 3. Berlin. Verlag fur Wissenschaft
und Bildung
De Rios, Marlene Dobkin and Katz, Fred. (1975) Some Relationships between
Music and Hallucinogenic Ritual: the Jungle Gym in Consciousness. Ethos
3:74-76.
Grob, Charles S. and Marlene Dobkin de Rios. (1996) Hallucinogens, Suggestibility
and Adolescence in Cross-cultural Perspective. Journal of Drug Issues 22:1:121-138.
Katz, Fred and Marlene Dobkin de Rios (1971) Hallucinogenic Music: an
Analysis of the Role of Whistling in Peruvian Ayahuasca Healing Sessions.
American Journal of Folklore 84:320-327.
This article can be cited as: de Rios, M. D. (2003) The Role of Music
in Healing with Hallucinogens: Tribal and Western Studies. Music Therapy
Today (online) Vol. IV (3) June 2003, available at http://musictherapytoday.net
1. Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, University
of California, Irvine
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