Entheogen[ic] was proposed as a name for a subclass of psychotropic or
psychoactive plants (and, by extension, their active principles and derivatives
‘both natural and artificial’), as a broad term to describe the cultural context of
use, not specific chemistry or pharmacology; as an efficient substitute for
cumbersome terms like shamanic inebriant, visionary drug, plant-sacrament,
and plant-teacher.
(Ott 1996:205)3 A doof is essentially an event—usually held in a remote outdoor setting rather than in
a metropolitan nightclub—where people assemble in an anarchic formation to
celebrate psychedelic community and culture, as expressed through characteristic
psychedelic arts and music, and where people are free to explore consciousness (often via
dance, psychedelic drugs) in a safe, supportive and stimulating environment. Those
attending doofs frequently report a sense of connectedness, community and sacrality.
One field consultant described it as ‘an almost tribal, spiritual thing for some of the
people there’ (Tramacchi 2000:203). For a comprehensive discussion of doofs within
the constellation of Australian post-rave cultures, see St John (2001).
4 Barbara Myerhoff (1974:249) suggested that the desire for a return to a paradisiacal
‘illud tempus’ via a magical portal may have a psychological relationship to Carl Jung’s
notion of ‘uroboric incest’—the desire to return to the safety of the womb.
5 The Vaupés is the largest of a number of states or comisarías in the Colombian
Amazon. The Vaupés is home to a culturally diverse Indian population, comprising
speakers of many different languages and dialects. One of the major language groups
of this region is known as Tukanoan (Schultes and Raffauf 1992).
6The use of yajé—also known as ayahuasca, dápa, mihi, kahi, natéma, caapi and pindé—
is widespread in the western parts of the Amazon Basin, including parts of Brazil,
Colombia and Peru (Luna and Amaringo 1991; Schultes and Hofmann 1980, 1992).
Yajé is often taken in conjunction with tobacco, ipadú (Erythroxylum coca var. ipadú),
and chicha (a mildly alcoholic beverage made from the fermented starchy tubers of
Manihot esculenta) during all-night collective rituals, as well as for magical and healing
purposes (Schultes and Raffauf 1992).
7 Reichel-Dolmatoff’s ethnographic account not only includes the structures and
processes of a yajé session, but is of the utmost interest to the phenomenologist of
consciousness as it also furnishes a rare and almost microscopically detailed account of
the visions and impressions that the author experienced during the acute phases of yajé
inebriation.
8 The members of Bwiti are known as ‘Banzie’, which means ‘those of the chapel’, but
which has also come to be associated with the French term ‘ange’ or ‘angels’
(Fernandez 1982). Participants in Bwiti are also called ndzi-eboka or ‘eaters of Iboga’
(Schultes and Hofmann 1992).
9 Akyunge are also the means by which supernaturals are thought to intervene in human
affairs, and Bwiti ‘amazes’ its members by enabling them to ‘surpass themselves and
come to an understanding of the extraordinary, the unseen, the “death side” of things’
(Fernandez 1982:436). The substance eboga is itself ‘miraculous’: ‘It amazes by
opening up both the initiate (once in a lifetime by massive doses) and all the Banzie
(regularly by smaller doses) to greater possibilities of the self’ (ibid.:492).
10 Nima na kombo is the title for the leader of a Bwiti chapel (ibid.).
ENTHEOGENIC DANCE ECSTASIS 139