Hi, i just got banisteriopsis caapi 12:1 tincture but i have no idea how to dose it. I need a shaman explaining how much i should take and if its better to eat dmt freebase with it or smoke. any ideas? thanks

A shaman? Simple arithmetic should do for the first question and a look around the forum will help you with options for the second inasmuch as there are more ways than just smoking or ingestion - boofing (plugging) or sublingual, for example, but the one most people don't recommend is snorting freebase DMT.

Another way might be to explore the tincture in and of itself, as a way of getting to know the caapi. Perhaps this would entail trying a couple of drops sublingually, then slowly increasing the dose over the following days. Maybe keep a journal of your thoughts, dreams and feelings. With any luck and a modicum of imagination, it should all unfold from there.

well, actually i never got maoi before so i dont even have an idea how it works, if i have to dont eat certain food, how much time to take it before dmt etc. what i want is ahuayasca. and i dont want to waste this tincture for other purposes. that's it

All of those questions have been answered on the forum, multiple times. Caapi is ayahuasca, DMT is an admixture that brings light to the caapi visions. Have a browse of the ayahuasca section.

What are your reasons for wanting ayahuasca?

Okay, I think a crash course in misconceptions aroumd ayahuasca and shamanism is in order.

For that question, you really don’t need a “shaman”, you just need basic information about pharmacology, which as the above poster has noted, is readily available online. So, I’ll give you a bit of basic info vis-a-vis pharmacology and “shamanism”.

Pharmacologically, harmalas (the chemicals in caapi) are a category of drugs called MAOI’s. Their function, as I’m sure you know, is to stop your body from digesting things properly. If you eat DMT on its own, your body will digest it too efficiently for you to feel its effects - you eat the MAOI so that you can eat DMT the same way you would eat any other psychedelic, such as psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, mescaline cactus, etc.

There are some dietary protocol around MAOI’s. Never take MAOI’s (your caapi) with antidepressants, MDMA, or other pharmaceutical meds - but those ones especially. You will die a very painful death if you do. This is because your body NEEDS to digest those particular drugs properly. Regarding your FOOD diet - it’s pretty safe. If you eat anything aged - pickles, cheese, cured meats, beer, whatever - caapi will not kill you. You will instead basically experience instant “turkey coma” - you’ll just get very sleepy. There are kinds of MAOI far more powerful than caapi that would KILL YOU if you had a beer - the same way CAAPI CAN KILL YOU IF YOU TAKE ANTIDEPRESSANTS OR MDMA WITH IT - but caapi is not nearly as strong as those kinds of MAOI. Cheese is not going to kill you if you eat it with caapi. It’ll just make you very sleepy.

That’s pharmacology. Now shamanism.

Shamans don’t give a fuck about cheese and pickles.

Shamans will tell you to diet, but their reasons for the “diet” has NOTHING TO DO WITH MAOI SAFETY STUFF LIKE THE ABOVE INFORMATION.

Shamans will give you the exact same “dietary” advice in Peru with ayahuasca as a Mazatec shaman in Mexico will give you with mushrooms. That’s right!!! MUSHROOM SHAMANS GIVE THE EXACT SAME “DIET” AS AYAHUASCA SHAMANS, with zero cultural contact with one another (Peruvian shamans and Mexican shamans aren’t exactly neighbours geographically, if you get my drift). So, what IS that diet, and WHY that diet?

The “diet” is basically: blandness. The blander, the better. Nothing spicy, oily, salty, sugary. At its most extreme, white rice and bony fish, for months on end. No exposure to sunlight. No sex, at all, including masturbation, or even sexual thoughts. The more rigorous, the better. Basically the ideal is: do not be of the flesh. This is the universal “diet”, although as you can see, the “diet” goes far beyond food. A diet that is not extreme is basically just no sex and only bland food for a few days prior to tripping. It has nothing to do with MAOI’s. As I said, a mushroom shaman in Mexico will give the exact same “diet” as an ayahuasca shaman in Peru.

“Shamans” are equally necessary with every single psychedelic. Some people think you “need” a shaman for ayahuasca in a sense where you “don’t need” a shaman with mushrooms. This is wrong. Period. This misconception exists because people think ayahuasca is “more powerful” than other psychedelics. This is also wrong. Psychedelic potency is a matter of dose, and that’s it. Most people only hear about ayahuasca in the context of going to South America and taking it with shamans - who give out very big doses. Consequently, people think ayahuasca is “extra powerful”. Nope. Take a low dose of ayahuasca and a high dose of mushrooms and presto! Suddenly mushrooms are the super-powered psychedelic.

Shamans are doctors. Sometimes in a materialist sense that is recognizable to Western medicine, but more often, they are supernatural doctors. They perform medicinal magic. There is a large industry of medical tourism where rich white people go down and pay South American healers to give them the medicine, which they of course oblige the money-having white people for But, this is not traditional. Sometimes in their traditional context the shaman will give ayahuasca to their patients - but more commonly, the SHAMAN takes the ayahuasca, NOT THE PATIENT, and the SHAMAN uses the ayahuasca to perform magical healing on the sober sick patient. A shaman is basically a medical sorcerer. Also, shamans are like doctors but without the hippocratic oath. They know medical magic, but they’re not monks. You’ll find shamans who are happy to use their medical magical abilities to psychically attack people. A “good shaman” is just an efficient shaman. They can be great at hurting people, and will often happily take money to perform that service, just as happily as to perform healing services for the same dollar.

There’s nothing special about ayahuasca vis-a-vis shamans compared to other psychedelics. Whether it is cactus or ayahuasca or mushrooms, the same “diets” apply and everything that goes for any given psychedelic “shamanically”, goes for all the rest of the psychedelics. Shamans know nothing of MAOI protocols. Their “diets” have nothing to do with that. As I said above, the only time you really need to worry about MAOI diet stuff is basically with medications. Caapi (harmalas) are so mild as MAOI’s that food safety isn’t really a thing. Even beer isn’t particularly “unsafe” with harmalas, it just makes you very sleepy. The shamanic ayahuasca diet is IDENTICAL to the shamanic mushroom diet.

Hope that clarifies some things

Hi HardTripper,

I've seen caapi tinctures bottles aimed for some drops under the tongue. The bottle contained 9 grams of caapi in total. No way one could make a deep session with those numbers. I guess they are aimed to give a vibe, not a due psychedelic session. It might however have a slight tuning change when using deems.
Can you be more specific about your tincture? Spill some beans please.

Ok i think i wasnt clear enough. For “need a shaman” i simply meant “i need advices for dosing caapi + dmt”. It was ironic :-) Lets say “take X grams Y hours before taking Z dmt grams for a mild trip”. Dont eat those foods/medicines/drugs for at least X hours before getting caapi etc. now, even if i go to these forums, ill certainly have tons of questions that i cant quest as im registered here from almost a year and still stuck in the welcome section. Dunno if admins are still alive or maybe lost in an endless breakthrough...

I have 25g

BANISTERIOPSIS CAAPI RED VINE LIQUID 12:1
Banisteriopsis Caapi Red Vine is the main ingredient in Ayahuasca (Yage, Yaje), a sacred brew known for millennia in order to enter the sacred supernatural divine world.

The Red Vine caapi is now available as Banisteriopsis Caapi Liquid 12X extract.

Thanks for the refreshing breath of air, OneIsEros!

I wish we could sticky this comment.

Not to hijack, but just to clarify based on this post... is it recommended to abstain from sex and masturbation purely because of it's hedonistic nature ("do not be of the flesh" as you say)? Or is there a physical reason?

I believe I've heard of individuals reaching orgasm without touching themselves while under psychedelic experiences, mainly ayahuasca.

Super high quality post Eros thank you.

I’m going to address OP’s question first, then widderic’s.

Harmalas+freebase DMT: Harmalas can be taken at the same time as the freebase DMT, or 15 minutes before. Both work.

When using this sort of thing (freebase DMT rather than a purely plant potion - usually referred to as “pharmahuasca”, because of using a pharmaceutical chemical rather than just a plant), the body has a hit/miss thing that happens. I have experienced this, and have heard from and read MANY accounts of this. Best way around it is: after you eat the harmalas+DMT, eat something. A bit of toast usually does the trick. I don’t know why the body does this, but eat a bit of something after you dose, and it will hit you more reliably.

If you have freebase DMT: 100 mg is a strong dose. In shroom terms? Eh, maybe equivalent to five grams or so.

For the caapi extract: I have no idea. Never done caapi, only syrian rue.

Google tells me 50 grams of caapi vine in a brew, but I don’t know what that translates to in your extract.
Got that tidbit from here: https://erowid.org/chemi...ca/ayahuasca_info9.shtml


If you are on any pharmaceutical medication - do not be on it when you do ayahuasca. If you’re on antidepressants, be off of those for a couple weeks before you take ayahuasca. Food? Well, aged/fermented/cured stuff will make you sleepy, which is not particularly desirable.

To widderic: with the sex thing, I’ve heard varying theories. For males, storing up “psychic power”. Maybe that’s a physical thing - tesosterone build up? Who knows. Also heard a lot about “purity” - I’ve heard things like spirits don’t like the “smell” of sex and hedonistic food types. Psychedelics can be great with sex, in my experience. It just depends on what you want from them. Shamanic work is generally regarded in these cultures as more successful when not engaged in hedonic flesh world stuff. It’s an “on the job” sort of thing; shamans are not celibate monks in their off hours

OneIsEros, this hit/miss phenomenon is about using freebase DMT, right?

IME, when it comes to plants, some are reliable and predictable (like acacia confusa an psychotria) while others are unpredictable (like chaliponga).

Great to see someone who has an understanding of the spiritual diet which is a universal principle transcending specific cultures.

Though eating something during ceremony would be anti-diet.

Ah, interesting. Yes, pharmahuasca is notorious for hit/miss. I am interested to learn about chaliponga also being subject to this!

I did not know that eating during ceremony would be against shamanic diet. I’d only ever heard of the particulars of what not to consume, not when. Thank-you! Generally I only take food with pharmahuasca, as my standard rue+acacia brews hit so reliably without food.

Great explanation, OneIsEros!


I have a sneaking suspicion that DMT absorption is enhanced by some kinds of oligosaccharides. Or it could be down to changes in stomach pH - yet another area for research.


IME (as I've not been averse to the occasional bout of self-poisoning in the name of science), fermented foods like sauerkraut, pickled herrings and yeast extract tend to produce more nausea, probably due to their amine content, along with an overall unpleasant, 'dirty' feeling to the experience. And stuff like chilli is just far too noticeable as a ball of fire passing through the gut (on mushrooms as well as pharmahuasca) which I would happily forego for the rest of my psychonautic career. Thus, some good proportion of the dietary restrictions make sense from a purely aesthetic point of view as well.

Just adding some specifics about the safety that's being discussed.

With traditional MAOIs, the concern with certain foods is a buildup of tyramine, which can lead to hypertensive crisis. Betacarbolines in caapi and rue are reversible and are known as Rimas. They don't last as long in the system as "true" MAOIs and so need less attention to diet from a safety and health perspective.

One love

As a lover of chili and all things spicy, I find it wild that I never mixed the two by mistake (mushrooms).

I would very much NOT like to have a fire ball moving about in my solar plexus.

A plethora of helpful info here. Perhaps a sticky thread with the universal aya diet and other diets is in order? Could be very helpful to newcomers.

Yes OneIsEros, being on an empty stomach is part of this universal principle.

İt all boils down to what you are doing this for. İf you are just looking to "get effects" and eating helps, then that's that. But if you are intending to work shamanically/spiritually then keeping your body empty of other energies, and also not activating the digestion which causes blur in the spiritual connection is necessary.

I think that’s probably the case. Although, I would mention that dieting is on a spectrum. I have heard of some diets that involve not being exposed to sunlight for extended periods of time. A person who eats a slice of bread will have an easier time accessing supernatural abilities than if they had eaten a giant pulled pork sandwich. Strictly speaking, I don’t think diets are “necessary” for shamanic work any more than they are for, say, athletics. But wise athletes know: diet will impact performance. But, wise people also know: Lebron James is gonna crush me no matter how he and I respectively eat. Lebron’s gonna do everything in his power to max out his abilities, but, he’ll still pulverize 99.99% of any sporty health nuts out there even if he’s not preparing himself properly.

This is where I depart from what I’ve read online though, this is speaking from my own personal experience and what I have observed in other talented individuals. The most psychically potent individual I ever met was an alcoholic guitar player who loved McDonald’s and garlic. A born shaman if ever I’ve seen one. No cultural training - just pure natural ability.

Sounds like my kindred spirit. Minus the shaman, although I have guided people.

Okay.
12:1 I think this means they needed 12kg vine to end with 1 kg of product.
But was that fresh wet vine or dried vine? We will never know I guess and the difference is a lot.
An acceptable amount of vine for an ayahuasca session would be like 50gr dry vine. (Many take more)
If your bottle referred to dry vine weights used, you'd need 50/12 = like 4 grams of the tincture.
If it referred to wet vine weights used, you'd need 3 to 4 times as much, as a guess.
I'm open to be corrected.