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THREE BETA-CARBOLINE CONTAINING PLANTS AS POTENTIATORS OF SYNTHETIC DMT
AND OTHER INDOLE PSYCHEDELICS
 
         . . . a technical note from the underground
 
         by "Gracie and Zarkov"
 
Copyright August 1985 by Gracie and Zarkov productions.  We believe that in
a truly free society the price of packaged information would be driven down
to the cost of reproduction and transmission. We, therefore, give blanket
permission and encourage photocopy, quotation, reprint or entry into a
database of all or part of our articles provided that the copier or quoter
does not take credit for our statements!
 
Number 7.
 
 
_Introduction_
 
This paper is aimed at the serious student and/or researcher of psychedelic
substances. Unlike many of our more popularly oriented articles and papers we
do not intend it for our recreationally inclined friends on the psychedelic
underground. Given the diets and drug habits of most contemporary "heads", the
use of MAO inhibitors could easily result in serious physical complications
(like death). Additionally, these states are so intense that unless you are
crazy enough to regard 50 mg of DMT or 7.5 grams of potent stropharia
mushrooms as the beginning of a good time, these mixes are definitely out for
you.
 
The content of this technical note will, we hope, provide researchers
interested in the beta-carboline/tryptamine combinations with some "hard
empirical facts" combined with our musings. Hopefully, these will spawn new
ideas for further experiments in this very exciting and very confusing area
of psychedelic research.
 
 
_Summary_
 
The purpose of this paper is to summarize our current work with three
beta-carboline, Harmala alkaloid-containing plants, i.e.,
 
   _Passiflora incarnata_  (passion flower)
   _Peganum harmala_       (syrian rue)
   _Bansteriopsis caapi_   (principal ingredient in yage)
 
Specifically, we wish to report on the phenomena and comparative activity
when extracts of each of these plants are smoked in conjunction with DMT.
 
 
_Sources of the Plant Material_
 
The passion flower was purchased as dried, whole, chopped plant material from
an herb store. The seeds of the syrian rue were purchased from a specialty
seed service. No attempt was made to ascertain the origin of the plant
material. The _Banisteriopsis caapi_ was obtained from a private plantation
in Hawaii. The caapi arrived cut into lengths of about one foot long, and
ranged in diameter from about one quarter of an inch to one half inch. The
original plant specimens had been collected in the Amazon by the grower.
 
 
_Extraction Technique_
 
We used the same extraction technique for all three plants. We had developed
this technique for smoking the passion flower to potentiate Psilocybian
mushrooms (see below) and wished to have the data from this set of
experiments be comparable. The technique was a two-stage extraction. The
first extraction used was a boiling alcohol (we used vodka) and water
infusion followed by a second extraction using boiled distilled water. Each
infusion was boiled for several hours. A "slow cooker" is ideal for this. In
the case of the caapi, the bark was peeled off in strips first. For the
syrian rue, we first ground the seeds very fine. For both the passion flower
and the caapi, the second extract was essentially clear and seemed
unnecessary. However, in the case of the syrian rue, the second extract was a
bright cloudy yellow which may indicate harmine in solution.
 
The plant material was strained and compressed after each extraction. the
liquids from the two extractions were combined and dried using low heat on
the slow cooker. The result was a brown caramally mass for both the passion
flower and caapi. The weight was about 20% of the original for the passion
flower and the rue, and about 45% for the caapi. Except in the case of the
passion flower, we cannot see any clear advantages of extraction over that of
smoking the original plant material due to the relatively minor concentration
of the amount needed to smoke. A plain water infusion would also seem to be
just as effective in removing the harmine and would result in less of the
other plant components being extracted.
 
The syrian rue extract was the most interesting. It actually had long, thin,
yellowish crystals in a brownish, red, hard, clear matrix which was not at
all gooey like the other two extracts. This is not surprising given the
assumed concentration of beta-carboline alkaloids. Based on our rough
averaging from a variety of sources, our up-front beta-carboline
concentration estimates for the plant materials were as follows:
 
Plant      % beta-Carbolines    Ratio      (syrian rue=1)
-----      ------------------   -----
Rue               2.0  - 4.0%      1
Caapi                    0.1%     20
Passion flower    0.05 - 0.1%     40
 
 
_Usage_
 
In each case we smoked the extract until we had reached subjectively the same
high. As with our previous work with the passion flower extract, smoking
significant amounts above this did not seem to get one any higher, but just
intensified the physical symptoms and one felt increasingly sick. So far,
only with the passion flower have we experimented with an oral dose. Oral
infusions of the other plants are planned for our fall 1985 series of
experiments.
 
The plant material is smoked with a match, lighter, or torch in such a way to
promote the boiling of the material, rather than burning it. This seems to
yield the most effective high. The highly concentrated rue extract lends
itself nicely to smoking in a "hash oil" pipe with the flame heating the bowl
on the outside.
 
 
_The High_
 
The high is not particularly psychedelic or hallucinogenic. One feels calm.
This calming effect is particularly noted by an observer as a significant
change in facial expression and tone of voice. The limbs become heavy and
lethargic and visibly tremble. Hypersalivation occurs, particularly at the
back of the mouth, making for a particularly smooth smoke. A slight
irritation of urethra and anus is sometimes noted. At higher dosages,
dizziness and nausea sets in with very little increase in the high.  Closed
eye imagery is at best hypnagogic. That is to say, faint, moving outlines can
be discerned with closed eyes. If one has a particularly vivid imagination,
ghostly outlines of figures can be discerned. The more literal minded just
see dim shifting blobs of light and dark. No one who has experienced DMT or
high dose mushrooms would ever call them visions.
 
The high comes on and stabilizes after about 5 to 10 minutes or smoking. As
mentioned before, it is very difficult to get higher by smoking more. If one
stops at this point, the most noticeable thing would be a calm and
unapprehensive state. We take particular note of this diminishing of
apprehensions since we are always apprehensive before we smoke DMT so its
diminution or absence is very noticeable.
 
The passion flower is mentally the foggiest high, but curiously has the
strongest "anti-depressant" effect. This may be related to the overall mix of
alkaloids in the passion flower (see below). The syrian rue was the clearest,
cleanest high with the caapi being, subjectively, in between. The caapi had
the least "antidepressant" effect.
 
 
_Dosage_
 
 
The dosage ratios of the original plant material smoked for subjectively
reaching the same level of high is roughly estimated as follows:
 
Plant            Dosage Ratio
------           ------------
Rue                  1
Caapi               12
Passion flower      80
 
The dosage ratio is based on the mass of the original plant material. That is
to say, to get as high as smoking one ounce of syrian rue, would require
smoking 12 ounces of caapi, or over two kilograms of passion flower.
Curiously, although various field researchers estimate beta-carboline dosage
in native brews to range between 300 to 500 mg, in our dosage we only needed
dosages in the 50 mg range. As noted above, increasing the dosage did not
increase the high but only aggravated the physical symptoms. Even when
tryptamines were taken later in addition, increasing the dosage past this
point did not significantly alter the combined trip. It was as if there was
some "switch" in the brain which, with sufficient beta-carbolines, was set
from "off" to "on" and no further action would take place. We do not rule out
the possibility of a second "switch" at the 300 - 500 mg range that we might
have missed.
 
 
 
_Tryptamine Combinations_
 
For comparison purposes, each of the plant materials was smoked according to
the above method. Approximately 10 minutes after this plant-material-high
stabilized, 15 mg of DMT was smoked. One of us would go through the entire
procedure while the other kept notes and timings.
 
The following consistent effects were observed:
 
  > The overall impact of the trip was heightened far above the normally
    only threshold effects of a 15 mg dose of DMT. Subjectively, the dose felt
    more like 34-45 mg or roughly tripled in intensity.
 
  > The overall length of the DMT "flash" and subsequent patterns was
    lengthened. The "flash" of visions which is normally 2 to 3 minutes at
    a 40 mg dosage, was about 6 minutes with the beta-carboline predosing
    at 15 mg of DMT. The total period of intense closed eye imagery, normally
    less than 5 to 7 minutes (including the flash) was extended uniformly to
    about 9 minutes with an additional 10 minute slowly decreasing tail of
    closed eye patterns.
 
  > The auditory effects were so pronounced as to be almost overwhelming on
    several occasions. In fact, the auditory effects were stronger than even
    extremely high dose trips where we had smoked 50 to 70 mg of DMT all at
    once. The initial sounds, the so-called "carrier wave" or opening buzz
    that has been described as "tearing plastic" was greatly amplified.
    The DMT "music" which we describe as a xylophone-type sound which
    accompanies the visions was extremely loud and seemed to keep coming
    on to the point where it became disturbing on several trips.
 
  > The basic "jeweled dome" or "chrysanthemum" pattern, seen after the
    "vision flash" was fractured or separated. Instead of a uniform circular
    pattern, there seemed to be distinctive left and right halves of the
    pattern with a new, hard to describe pattern in the middle. The overall
    effect of the patterns seemed to us more mushroom-like, although we would
    be hard pressed to give a detailed explanation of why we felt this way.
 
  > Similarly, the visions seemed to unfold in a more leisurely
    fashion.  Again, we were reminded of the mushroom. While the DMT effect
    still hits fast and hard, the rushed "million things at once" feeling of
    DMT smoked alone is quite muted.
 
  > The colors of the pattern are also shifted as compared to DMT
    alone.  Again, since we can't accurately describe colors in the first
    place, it is hard to pin down, but it could be characterized as less
    primary or jewel-like, with fewer or less saturated colors than DMT
    alone.
 
  > Finally, when one comes out of the vision state, the "woozey"
    feeling is quite pronounced for an additional 10 minutes or so. This
    feeling was very reminiscent of the mushroom "knock-down".
 
    The content of the visions was also altered. There were fewer "alien,
    self-transforming, elf-machines" and more visions of recognizable
    things.  Strange animals and hooded figures marched in a bas relief
    procession.  Griffin-like monsters rhythmically changed into beautiful
    naked women and back. The feeling-tone was serious, unlike the
    playfulness or cheerful (even though quite terrifying) hilarity of the
    "self-transforming elf machines" experienced on DMT alone. The intensity
    was altered. We hesitate to say increase, since DMT is intense by
    itself, but the change in feeling tone, the more serious, almost
    personally directed information of the trance, subjectively made the
    trip more intense. On one trip, one of us made contact with a highly
    serious, palpable entity whose message could be quite simply summarized
    as "Are you sure you want to get into this? This is far more extreme
    than what you have done before. It is the path to destruction of
    gnosis!"
 
    Subjectively, we preferred the syrian rue to potentiate DMT. It gave the
    cleanest, most intense high. While we have never taken true Ayahuasca,
    detailed discussion of some of the trip's contents with someone who has
    significant experience with that brew, confirmed that the trip content
    was like a short Ayahuasca trip.
 
    The passion flower was the least desirable potentiator. (Probably due to
    low harmine content in proportion to the total beta-carboline content.)
    The amount required for effective tryptamine potentiation left us foggy
    and somewhat sick. Furthermore, the MAO effects lingered for two to
    three days.  The caapi's effects were, again, in between.
 
 
_Anomalous Observations_
 
This brings us to a curious set of observations. First, although the
literature would indicate that the harmine MAO inhibition should be reversed
in about five hours, the effects from all of the smoked plant material
continued for at least 24 to 48 hours. That is to say, clear potentiation was
noticed after this amount of time had elapsed. We hypothesize that this effect
is due primarily to beta-carbolines other than harmine present in the plant
material which, while qualitatively weaker as MAO inhibitors, may have a
duration of effect which is much longer. However, we have reason to believe
that something additional, due to the tryptamines, may be happening.
 
Once we had taken 7.5 grams of very potent dried Stropharia. We were
interested in making contact with the "voice in the head" phenomenon. We
potentiated the mushrooms by each smoking about 750 grams(!) of passion
flower (reduced as described above) starting about 30 minutes after eating
the mushrooms. The potentiation was quite overwhelming. After smoking about one
quarter of the plant material, each fresh lungfull brought on, within seconds,
powerful "starburst" and "intersecting lightning bolt" hallucinations which,
with eyes opened, obscured a well-lit room. The "voice" phenomenon was loud
and clear and very unsettling (the content of the trip has been described in
High Frontiers, Issue 2.) Before this trip we had attempted on several
occasions to invoke the voice phenomenon with the same mushrooms at dosages
of up to 10 grams, to no avail. But, even more curiously, effects such as
clear instance of MAO inhibition, voices in the head, visions (with both
closed and opened eyes) and finally at the end of the period, clear
potentiation of another psychedelic (LSD) occurred at discrete short
intervals over a period of 14 days! We realize that this sounds unbelievable,
however it did happen. It is our opinion that peculiar long-term effects can
be initiated by large combined doses of tryptamines and beta-carbolines that
cannot be adequately explained using current models of brain chemistry.
 
Additionally, since that rather harrowing trip, the mushroom "voice" has been
inescapable even on dosages as low as approximately one gram. As less
spectacular long-term effects, we have also noticed this "locking-in" or
tuning-in effect with the beta-carboline/DMT combination. That is, effects
that were previously elusive on DMT alone became easy to invoke once they
have occurred in the combination.
 
NOTE: We understand from conversations with other investigators that this
approach of first taking the mushrooms and then smoking the beta-carboline
material when the mushroom effects begin to come on to be in the most
efficacious approach.
 
Another curious observation is the "9 minute barrier". So far, we have not
been successful in causing the DMT imagery to last longer than 9 minutes,
irrespective of the dosage, or the type of underlying predose plant material.
To make matters more interesting in our experiments with DMT and MDA (which
is also a mild MAO inhibitor) the DMT effects are gain lengthened to about 9
minutes. (See, our "Note From Underground, no. 4") Yet Ayahuasca produces a
trip which lasts for several hours. At present we have no explanation,
especially since much of the active components in the orally consumed brews
are inactivated in the stomach and intestines or not absorbed.
 
In experiments in which we have predosed ourselves with DMT and then taken
another psychedelic several hours later, we have noted very discernible (MDA)
to dramatic effects (mushrooms or LSD) when the second substance is taken as
much as 8 hours after the DMT. (See, our "Note from the Underground, nos. 5
and 6.") Again, this is hard to explain since the total DMT experience should
only last about one hour. However, when we smoked DMT and after the flash
smoked the beta-carboline plant material we were unable to cause any clear
DMT imagery. What did happen was an immediate feeling of depression, almost
exactly opposite the effect on mood of DMT.
 
One final hard-to-explain phenomenon. On about one quarter of the trips,
after coming out of the trance and with our condition stabilized (or at least
so we felt) about 20 minutes after smoking DMT, we experienced a rush of
"information" into our minds with no other psychedelic effects. That is to
say, without any visual, physical or auditory shift, we suddenly possessed, in
our minds, a complex, detailed and lengthy thought with non ida where it had
come from and the conviction that it had not existed in our heads, even in
fragments, an instant before. The content of each of these thoughts was
bizarre and had to do with directions on how to accomplish activities that
are normally regarded as supernatural, impossible and/or crazy. Furthermore,
the content of the thought was encouraging us to attempt these feats! While
we have no first hand experience with schizophrenics (other than some
Berkeley street people) our reading of the literature caused us to conclude
that this type of phenomena would be considered a clear instance of
schizophrenic thinking.
 
 
 
_Beta-Carboline Potentiation of LSD_
 
We have also experimented with potentiation of LSD by beta-carboline
containing plants. Generically, the effects follow the same patterns.
Subjectively, the dose feels three to four times more potent than it actually
is. The closed eye imagery is greatly enhanced with circular highly detailed
bright imagery visible on only 25 - 25 [sic] micrograms. On higher doses (150
- 200 micrograms) there was a feeling of an ancestral presence (we have never
felt an outside presence on LSD alone in over several hundred acid trips but
we have found it quite common when LSD is combined with another psychedelic).
 
The closed-eye patterns were "almost visions". That is to say they were
clearer than hypnagogic imagery but not as overwhelming or clear as DMT
visions. The visuals were more like clear dream imagery. The mood elevation
was quite astounding. At one point one of us shouted "You couldn't possibly
have a bad trip on this stuff." There were no mood swings and the buoyant
elation slowly receded to baseline over the course of the trip.
 
 
 
_Tentative Conclusions and Suggestions for Further Research_
 
To restate the obvious, indole psychedelics taken in a state of MAO
inhibition are much more intense and _qualitatively different_ than when
taken alone. We believe that these combinations offer numerous fruitful
avenues for further research.
 
Additionally, we find the syrian rue seeds to be a convenient, concentrated
and easily obtainable source of beta-carbolines that can serve as a substitute
for the more exotic, difficult to obtain, Banisteriopsis caapi.
 
Clearly, our next area of research should be in the area of "synthetic
Ayahuasca". That is, trying to perfect an orally administered mixture of
syrian rue and synthetic DMT that qualitatively behaves like the South
American plant brews.
 
Additional work should be done with the smoked mixtures to investigate the
"9 minute barrier" and to provide more qualitative mixtures for some future
beta-carboline/Tryptamine cookbook.
 
Finally, we hope that the information in this article might be correlated
with the work of other researchers to suggest entirely new areas for research
and to provide explanations for some of these phenomena.
 
 
 
    Stay High and Stay Free,
 
    Gracie and Zarkov
 
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