First of all
ayahuasca does not necessarily mean MAOI+DMT;
ayahuasca is a native word that means "vine of the dead" or "vine of souls". Having said that, the point of this thread is the harmala-type chemicals in the vine. More and more people are recognizing that harmine, the predominant MAOI, also has a "stoning" effect. This is how Ken Nelson describes it, the man who discovered that vaping Bufo gets you high:
The harmala alkaloids are psychoactive in man at oral doses of 25 to 750 milligrams. A small dose (25.50 milligrams) is a CNS stimulant. It increases mental activity and produces a pleasant dreamy state for several hours. The larger doses—200 milligrams up to 750 milligrams—yield the hallucinogenic effects.*
Some people enjoy harmalas by themselves, but they haven't gained mass appeal, indeed, some people don't like them, even choosing to use a synthetic MAOI for DMT instead. One of those people is Hamilton Morris (although he said he needs more experience with them). Another one of those people is me.
Many are familiar with Alexander Shulgin and his accomplishment of inventing a ton of novel psychedelic substances, some of them close variants of natural ones, for example, the chemical name of mescaline is trimethoxyphenethylamine; trimethoxyamphetamine is one of Shulgin's (
amphetamine stands for
alpha-methyl-phenethylamine).
I recently downloaded a review article that goes over numerous harmala-type chemicals that have been synthesized over the years (attached).** None of the researchers ingested them, so we don't know anything about their broader psychoactive effects, but the point is that other researchers have explored a territory that Shulgin didn't. In fact, here is a relevant quote of Shulgin's:
"We both saw this as being a rich and promising virgin field for exploring human pharmacology. It still is rich and promising. And it still is virgin."
TiHKAL, #44 6-MeO-THH
Even though I said I don't like them, they still feel like they have potential, especially in combination with tryptamines and ergoamides. I keep the dose low so as to avoid their roughness—unfortunately this is too low for a good oral DMT experience.
It feels like they go in the right direction but they just feel so dirty. And I
have tried pharmaceutically pure harmine (from China). So, my thought was perhaps we can refine harmalas using the power of chemistry. Like turning crude oil into gasoline. The next frontier of Shulgin's work.
How do others feel about this?
*
Peganum Harmala: The Hallucinogenic Herb of the American Southwest. Albert Most. 1985. Venom Press
**Review of β-carboline and its derivatives as selective MAO-A inhibitors. Benny, F., Kumar, S., Jayan, J., Abdelgawad, M. A., Ghoneim, M. M., Kumar, A., Manoharan, A., Susan, R., Sudevan, S. T., & Mathew, B. 2023. Archiv der Pharmazie, 356(7), e2300091. doi: 10.1002/ardp.202300091
