Some Relationships between Music and Hallucinogenic Ritual. The “Jungle Gym” in Consciousness

Abstract

Although the anthropological literature on hallucinogenic drug use is fast growing, few studies examine the role of music in such drug ritual (see, however, McAllester 1949). In an earlier study, we looked at the whistling produced by folk healers who use plant hallucinogens in treating emotional and psychological illness among a civilized Indian population in the Peruvian Amazon region (Katz and Dobkin de Rios 1971). At that time, Dobkin de Rios (as field anthropologist) wrote of her initial assumptions that the musical accompaniment to evening ritual drug sessions were, at best, merely in the realm of extra effects and tangential to the