Then (1998), The Cosmic Serpent
Ayahuasca Combinatorial Problem: How Did They Know?
In an Amazon of 80,000 plant species, indigenous people identified two specific plants whose combination creates oral DMT activity, a pharmacological interaction that requires both a MAO inhibitor and a source of DMT to work. 'The plants told us' is the universal explanation. How they discovered this combination is unexplained by Western models.
contested
No Western scientific explanation for the ayahuasca discovery has achieved consensus. Proposed mechanisms include: trial-and-error over millennia (statistically implausible given the search space), prior knowledge of plant alkaloids through other routes, smell-based identification of alkaloid chemistry, or direct experiential guidance during altered states. A 2019 chemical ecology study confirmed that Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis both independently produce compounds with insecticidal and antifungal properties that would make them notable to herbalists. The pharmacological interaction remains the harder question.
Sources
- Narby, The Cosmic Serpent (1998)
- Schultes & Hofmann, Plants of the Gods (1979)
- Carod-Artal, Neurología (2015)