Ayahuasca for Herpes

In the west, Ayahuasca is most often thought of as a psychoactive entheogen that people use for spiritual development or to overcome mental illness, but Ayahuasca contains substances that have powerful anti-herpes activity according to scientific studies. And there are a number of models of medicine outside of the model of conventional medicine, that can explain the value of Ayahuasca to cure herpes or at least significantly reduce herpes outbreaks naturally. Indeed, Ayahuasca may work to cure mental illness in part through its ability to kill viruses that live on the nerves, ganglia, and in brain tissues, but how it works and why it works involves an brief exploration of other relevant systems of medicine.

When a person works with Ayahuasca for herpes, they enter into a contract with a different model or models medicine that don’t just view the biology of the body or just one part of the body (the immune system, for example) as an expression of stress, but where the body is the mind. It involves the idea of the body as an electrical unit. And in accepting this body-as-mind contract, the mind of a human can meld with the mind of a plant and the plant or plants and the human can talk to each other. Indeed, the plant can adjust certain aspects of the body to heal it.

So even as we endeavor to use the reductive views of science and scientific research to explain how Ayahuasca works (via different substances or parts of this plant), we begin this discussion by acknowledging and also presenting the idea that Ayahuasca is a sentient being. If you haven’t ever worked with Ayahuasca and you don’t know her personally, it may be hard to appreciate her wisdom fully just from reading this article. That’s okay. Ayahuasca knows that modern humans are very oriented toward logic and science to the point where truth can become obscure and buried under the facts. We have to start at this place where we acknowledge Ayahuasca with reverence, though, as a whole thing before we talk about the pieces of her and the substances she contains that have antiviral effects against herpes. If you’re willing to approach this discussion about a plant that can talk to you and that can know you as an individual human being though, you might also be able to wander with an open mind into some of the fringe-science that challenges everything about conventional medicine and how to cure herpes and other diseases. 

Let’s start by considering Ayahuasca antiviral substances like harmine and harmaline.

Ayahuasca for Herpes: Antiviral Substances Found in Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca is an herbal remedy for herpes that contains 2 different main plant ingredients: Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis. Sometimes Banisteriopsis caapi is replaced by Peganum harmala or other plants, but Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis are the main plants that were first used to make this brew. 

Ayahuasca brews may contain other plants as well – sometimes several additional plant medicines –  and some of these plant medicines may have anti-herpes activity as well. If you plan to do an Ayahuasca retreat in Mexico with us and work with Ayahuasca, be sure to let us know that you’d like to cure herpes. Of course, the cure for herpes often includes more than one “magic bullet” treatment like Ayahuasca, and our experience has shown that people typically require a very unique protocol that’s designed in steps specifically for them, but Ayahuasca boosts the immune system in a general way. It does so through a series of spiritual-emotional adjustments, but also through a direct action on the immune system. So people often report seeing a positive difference in the pattern of their outbreaks and their sense that they can control herpes after Ayahuasca.

Harmaline

Harmaline is a substance found in Ayahuasca that has antiviral effects against HSV-1 and HSV-2. It is also antiviral against other types of viruses. Studies have shown that harmaline suppresses early viral gene expression.

In one study, harmaline was isolated from the plant, Ophiorrhiza nicobarica, which belongs to the coffee family. It has strong anti-HSV-1 activity. Though it didn’t interfere with HSV entry into human cells, it did suppress the expression of certain herpes virus genes. At concentrations that inhibited the herpes virus, harmaline was non-toxic ait reduced the number of herpes viruses in mice. It has a very different mode of action than acyclovir. 

Another study showed that harmaline is also a powerful medicine for HSV-2. Inhibition of HSV-2 was dependent on the dose of harmaline and scientists were able to show up to a 99% inhibition of HSV-2 infection. It was able to prevent herpes infection but it was also able to inhibit viral attachment and penetration of human cells. At the virucidal dose, harmaline was non-toxic. 

Harmine

Harmine is found in several plants such as Peganum harmala / Syrian Rue and Banisteriopsis caapi (one of the main ingredients in traditional Ayahuasca formulas) and it has been used for centuries in China and the Middle East to produce the following medicinal effects in the body:

• Antiviral
• Antifungal
• Antibacterial
• Antimalarial
• Antioxidant
• Anti-inflammatory
• Neuroprotective
• Antidiabetic
• Antitumor / Anticancer
• Antidepressant
• Insecticidal

Studies have shown that harmine inhibits HSV-2 infection in a dose-dependent manner. In other words, as the dose of harmine increases, the inhibition of HSV-2 also increases. Harmine blocks HSV-induced reactive oxygen species production and it also upregulates cytokine production and chemokine expression. 

In a different article at this link, we talk about how Ayahuasca works to cure cancer and diabetes via harmine.

Harmine is also known as: 

• Banisterin
• Banisterine
• Telopathin
• Telepathine
• Leucoharmine
• Yagin
• Yageine

Harmine is derived from harmaline and it is more toxic at certain doses than harmaline. 

Peganum Harmala Whole Herb Remedies for Herpes

In one study, Peganum harmala / Syrian Rue was investigated to determine its HSV-2 activity. The methanol extract of Peganum harmala seeds didn’t protect human cells from herpes infection, but rather worked through other mechanisms of action. In the study, the methanol extract of Peganum harmala seeds worked as a natural antiviral against herpes during the entry of the virus into human cells and at the moment of release of newly formed virions. 

Other Plants That Contain Harmine

Peganum harmala and Banisteriopsis caapi are just two plants that contain harmine, but these two plants contain high levels of harmine in comparison with the other plants that are known to contain this substance. 

Below are additional plants that contain harmine:

• Tobacco
• Passiflora incarnata
• Melissa officinalis
• Callaeum antifebrile (this plant is often included in Ayahuasca recipes)
• Peganum nigellastrum
• Zygophyllu fabago

Pancreatic Islet Cell Proliferation: How Ayahuasca for Herpes Works

The pancreas is the organ of the body that holds onto trauma and trust-issues in Traditional Chinese Medicine. It is also the organ that is at the root of cancer and diabetes through disordered production or release of pancreatic enzymes and insulin. Ayahuasca for diabetes or cancer works via its ability to heal the pancreas and also the liver (the liver holds anger and the liver can stand in the way of pancreatic enzyme release, in particular, if there is bile sludge or bile stones in the common bile duct).

Harmine is one of few substances on the planet that can regrow the beta cells that produce insulin in the pancreas. And the Ayahuasca brew is famous for its ability to produce a “purge” that cleanses the liver and the gallbladder as well as liver ducts (which connect the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas in 90% of individuals), which in turn, clear the common bile duct leading from the pancreas to the small intestine. As a general “tonic” for the pancreas, liver, and gallbladder, Ayahuasca is known to clear the way for pancreatic enzymes that digest food in the digestive system, but that also circulate throughout the body via the bloodstream to act as a general antimicrobial / antiviral and antibiotic agent. 

Pancreatic enzymes are adept at eating away at biofilm and other tough outer coverings that often protect pathogens in the body, making it possible for them to elude the immune system. When we have too little pancreatic enzymes circulating in the bloodstream, we become vulnerable to infection and “outbreaks” of diseases that are caused by pathogens that naturally colonize the human body. But insulin, which is also produced by different types of cells (the beta cells) in the pancreas, insure that each and every cell in the body is charged with fuel. If insulin levels are too low, cells go dormant and the body (which is also the mind) goes into a parasympathetic “freeze” response (to use Dr. Stephen Porges’ model of the autonomic nervous system). This “freeze” response, which is emotion-based and rooted in the autonomic nervous system and our “felt sense” of the world, is maladaptive. It makes us chronically feel tired, depressed, and hopeless in the face of high stress and trauma that normally could be “shaken off” or processed with a good night of sleep.

The harmine in Ayahuasca induces pancreatic cell proliferation. It is one of few known substances in the world that has this ability. The harmine in Ayahuasca also has the ability to clear the ducts that allow for passage of pancreatic enzymes that work as antimicrobials in the body. This is one of the secrets that explains why Ayahuasca has a generally boosting effect on general health. It literally heals the body as it heals the emotions and what we normally think of as the “mind” and mental health. The biological actions and physical effects caused by Ayahuasca are coordinated fluently with the emotional and spiritual experience of Ayahuasca.

Quorum Sensing: Ayahuasca for Infection and How It Works 

Quorum sensing is something that mostly applies to bacterial colonies in the body. But before I can talk about quorum sensing and how quorum sensing might be relevant to a viral infection like herpes, I have to explain that most of the time, a given pathogen that colonizes the body is associated with a second or sometimes even a third pathogen that provides a “negative or positive polarity” that the first pathogen can use to create an electrically conducive space for itself. In other words, a given pathogen requires a safe space in the body that is optimized in terms of pH / electrical charge. A micro-environment in the body (such as the nervous system ganglia where herpes viruses live) with an acidic pH has a greater positive polarity than a micro-environment in the body with an alkaline pH (which has a more negative polarity). Pathogens like the herpes virus are able to exist in the body and thrive when certain other bacteria, fungi, or parasites are present in the body to complement and “balance” that polarity required by the herpes virus. An electrically “charged” channel exists between a colony of the herpes virus and bacteria, protozoa, fungi or other pathogens that complement the herpes virus colony in terms of electrical charge and pH. 

Studies have shown that patients who have some form of a herpes co-infection, particularly cytomegalovirus (CMV) or HHV-6 tend to have several bacterial or fungal infections. Scientists acknowledge that herpes co-infections exist, but in modern conventional medicine, doctors don’t view the co-infections as a key to understanding how and why herpes is so hard to treat using just antiviral medications like acyclovir. If a patient, for example, uses acyclovir and they treat the herpes virus, but they don’t treat underlying bacterial or fungal colonies that essentially produce this polarized “channel” and “safe space” for herpes to hide-out, the herpes virus can get stronger over time. If the herpes virus goes undetected by the immune system due to the presence of other pathogens and if it exists at an optimal pH in the micro-environment of the ganglia, the herpes virus thrives. In contrast, if the patient administers an herb or some other form of treatment rather than acyclovir that targets bacteria, fungi, and other viruses all at the same time, the chances of being able to overcome herpes is significantly enhanced. 

I draw this information about polarity and channels the run between viral and bacterial or fungal colonies from the work of Dr. Isaac Goiz, a medical doctor who used NASA’s research to develop a system of medicine called biomagnetism, also known as The Biomagnetic Pair. 

So returning to the idea of “quorum sensing”, a phenomenon in which populations of bacteria produce and respond to certain chemical signals that indicate the density of said population, we can see another mechanism of action by which Ayahuasca treats herpes. At a certain population density, bacterial genes are expressed and coordinated within the group to impact pathogenicity including the production of biofilm among other things. Biofilm protects pathogens from detection and eradication by the immune system. Harmine has the ability to alter quorum sensing in certain bacteria that support the presence of herpes colonies in the body which means that it has the ability to prevent biofilm formation. Alterations in quorum sensing threaten the survival of pathogenic bacteria that have colonized the body and that might maintain a herpes infection in the body.

It is possible that one of the reasons why the use of Ayahuasca for herpes has become popular to reduce outbreaks and in some cases, cure the disease, is because it not only kills the herpes virus, but it also threatens bacterial infections that support herpes colonization in the body.

Parasites and Herpes 

Scientists have shown that helminth parasite infections cause a type 2 immune response that includes upregulation of specific cytokines. These cytokines then polarize immune cells such as CD4+ T helper 2 cells and macrophages. Activation of CD8+ T cells also happens indirectly as a result of the presence of certain parasitic infections. The CD4+ and CD8+ T helper cells resemble virtual memory T cells that protect the body against viral infections. Some studies, for example, have shown that Schistosoma mansoni eggs boost CD8+ T cell response in a way that can protect mice against an initial herpes virus infection. But most people aren’t willing to infect themselves with Schistoma mansoni as this type of infection is just as miserable as herpes. 

On the other hand, another study using S. mansoni and Heligmosomoides polygyrus parasites showed how helminths impact how virulent existing infectious herpes viruses become inside a living body. In the study, scientists were able to demonstrate that herpes viruses that are dormant inside the body require more than just one signal from the immune system to become active again and infectious. In other words, the immune system must trigger a herpes virus outbreak in two different ways for the virus to become active and produce lesions or other symptoms. This study showed that certain kinds of parasite infection can impair the host’s immune response to viral infections in particular. This is consistent with Dr. Isaac Goiz’s research that demonstrates that certain parasite infections can make a person vulnerable to viral infection. Click here to read more about the treatment of parasites in humans.

Click here to learn more about biomagnetism.

No one wants an infection with Schistosoma mansoni over a herpes infection, but this research demonstrates how the body is an ecosystem and how different types of pathogens alter the human ecosystem in a way that promotes or impairs infection. There are, in fact, certain systems of medicine that administer malaria as an infection to cure cancer (this is known as “Plasmodium Immunotherapy”). These studies help us better understand how and why some people can be infected with the herpes virus and never experience an actual “outbreak” of herpes lesions while another person is infected and they are constantly afflicted with lesions and other symptoms. It can also explain how Ayahuasca works to cure herpes in some cases by temporarily and also permanently modifying certain aspects of the ecosystem in the human body.

Terrain Theory, Somatids, and Herpes

Yet another theory about how Ayahuasca for herpes can reduce outbreaks or cure the disease. This theory is called terrain theory. Terrain theory, which was originally set forth by Antoine Bechamp, states that disease happens not as a result of “germs” and infectious pathogens, but rather because the “terrain” inside the body is conducive to disease. Terrain theory never became popular because Louis Pasteur’s germ theory took center stage as the most marketable model of human biology and physiology, not because it was proven correct beyond a shadow of a doubt. According to some sources, Pasteur and Bechamp argued in the lab about whether germ theory or terrain theory was correct and Bechamp drank a flask full of cholera water to prove that he wouldn’t get sick as long as his internal “terrain” was healthy. And Bechamp didn’t get sick from the cholera water. But Pasteur was more popular with the elite at that time so germ theory became the theory that still dominates conventional medicine today. 

Germ theory and our undying believe in germs and “infection” often gets in the way when we try to cure a disease like herpes that is said to colonize the body permanently. Terrain theory, nonetheless, has been discovered and rediscovered over time by many different doctors who have used dark-field microscopy (as opposed to light-field microscopy that is used in most mainstream labs) to look at blood samples. Dark-field microscopy reveals the presence of something called “somatids” (they have been named different things by the various scientists and doctors that have rediscovered them without knowing that they’ve been discovered many times already since the invention of microscopy). Somatids look like tiny pin-dots of light in the blood, but they are, in fact, pleiomorphic. They change shape in response to different factors, especially pH. When the body is healthy and at a slightly acidic (above 6.6)  or alkaline state, somatids change into a series of 4-6 different shapes that look like bacteria, but that merely trigger the immune system to stay alert and vigilant, but not too alert and vigilant. At other pH levels, or when the body has recently been through a trauma or high levels of stress, somatids can go through a cycle to produce over 64 different shapes that actually cause infection in the body. Candida infections are among them, though certain bacteria and viral infections also occur spontaneously and without exposure to other people who are infected.

Candida is an excellent example of pleiomorphic microorganisms that cause human infection because our body constantly have a supply of harmless Candida forms in the gut. An acidic pH, poor diet, or high stress can trigger the hyphal forms of Candida that burrow into the gut lining to cause inflammation and even leaky gut syndrome. They can develop spontaneously from a somatid in the blood, but they may exist in a harmless form without ever causing disease. As with other pathogens that can emerge spontaneously and then change shape, the hyphal form of Candida looks very different from harmless forms of this yeast. Helicobacter pylori is another shape-shifting pathogen that exists in very different-looking forms depending on the pH of the micro-environment where it is living.

This may seem hard to believe, but it’s fairly easy to observe this phenomena of somatids in the blood changing spontaneously into infectious pathogens using dark field microscopy and live blood analysis. And the pleiomorphism of certain microorganisms is well-known in the scientific literature. Once these pathogens are present in the blood, they can also change back into harmless somatids sometimes, however, people tend to go through something called “reverse cycling” as a result in which they experience previous states of illness as the somatids cycle backward to the original pin-dots of light in the bloodstream and the body becomes healthy again. In other words, there’s work involved in the process of re-establishing a healthy terrain. It doesn’t happen immediately in most people. For those who are dedicated to regaining their health though using Ayahuasca and other medicines, it’s standard to assume that with consistent effort and using the right medicines that help and that don’t cause additional harm, a person can get back to a baseline state of health within about a year.

Believe It Or Not: Multiple Personality Disorder / Dissociative Identity Disorder and the Somatid Theory

Terrain theory and somatids challenge our basic assumptions about medicine, namely germ theory, so this kind of idea understandably doesn’t get a lot of airtime in mainstream media. But if you’re reading this article to find a cure for herpes and you’re open-minded enough to get this far, then it might also interest you to know something about multiple personality disorder (also known today as Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID) and physical, biological disease.

Earlier in this discussion, we talked about how the body is the mind. We didn’t qualify this idea except to pay homage to Ayahuasca, a plant medicine that can show people first-hand how the mind-as-body and body-as-mind paradigm is real and true. But having set up some other models of how infectious disease works, we might as well talk about how people with multiple personality disorder / DID can have one personality that has diabetes and another personality that does not.

This is a fact. A person with multiple personality disorder / DID might have one personality that is near-sighted and another personality with perfect vision. Or it might have one personality that is color-blind and another personality that is not. In DID, patients may have one personality that reacts strongly, let’s say, to a certain sedative drug while another personality is unaffected by it.

These facts challenge our basic assumptions about how our bodies work, what “infection” actually entails, how drugs work, and how we can heal ourselves. Multiple personality disorder is a mental health issue that happens when a person experiences an extreme form of trauma that causes them to dissociate into sub-personalities that are not integrated and that don’t have communication with each other. Every person on earth has multiple personalities though, but for most of us, sub-personalities (most people have at least 15 of them) are in communication with each other. They are not completely separate units that don’t ever talk or share information. People experience this communication between sub-personalities as “mental chatter” and often it’s pretty toxic and judgmental, though this varies. In people with DID, personalities don’t necessarily talk to each other which can create instances of amnesia and situations in which people keep secrets from themselves.

Dr. Richard Schwartz is the go-to psychologist who successfully developed “parts theory” about sub-personalities into something that’s fairly mainstream in trauma-informed therapy circles. Before Schwartz, sub-personalities and “parts therapy” was used mostly by hypnotherapists who work primarily with the unconscious mind. One might think of the “unconscious” as the autonomic nervous system, the part of us that senses things that exist beyond what our five senses can pick up. The ganglia of the autonomic nervous system is where herpes viruses like to live when they aren’t causing havoc in other areas of the body. These ganglia include nerve tissues that communicate with blood vessels about states of stress and they tell blood vessels that feed different areas of the body whether to constrict or dilate. Having good blood flow to cells and tissues, as a general rule, implies good health while constricted blood flow is, as a general rule, associated with poorer tissue and cellular health in the areas where blood is restricted.

So let’s say that you have a particular personality or “part” of you that deals with public speaking. And you have a very different part of you that “steps forward” when you are at home with your family. The part of you that does public speaking may do very well at public speaking, but the part of you that you embody when you are at home with family may view the public speaking part as mean or bad in some way. Your public speaking part might view your at-home private part as too quiet, not out-going enough, or even secretive. When you leave a public-speaking gig and go home, you might feel troubled by things you said or did while in public because your private, at-home part begins commenting, inside your head, about the things you said or did while standing at a podium or behind a microphone. A great deal of self-criticism is a manifestation of dissociated sub-personalities arguing with each other inside a person’s head.

In theory, it’s possible for a person to have herpes when they step up to the podium to do public speaking and to not have herpes when they go home at night and vice versa. Because herpes lives in the sacral ganglia, this infection would be very responsive to our emotions as well as to shifts from one sub-personality to another and people tend to report that indeed, herpes flares are associated with stress. Ayahuasca is a sacred medicine that helps people integrate personalities to overcome trauma and release it among other things. So this is yet another model that can help us understand the use of Ayahuasca for herpes and why it reduces outbreaks in some people and cures it in others. When a sub-personality becomes fully integrated, it no longer technically exists as a separate thing. It integrates into the Core Self which can, in some cases, release the need for a herpes infection resulting in a full cure. 

Ayahuasca for Herpes

In this article, we’ve discussed several alternative models of medicine that might help to explain how and why Ayahuasca cures herpes or reduces outbreaks. In our view, Ayahuasca should be administered in full doses several times within close succession for best results with microdosing afterward to get the best results. Many people can benefit from doing Kambo before each Ayahuasca session to boost the immune system and cure herpes. Kambo for herpes works through an entirely different mechanism of action. 

A large number of people who develop a herpes infection also experience a broken heart as a result. The development of a herpes infection often feels like a profound betrayal when people find out that they got the infection from someone they thought they loved. The development of a herpes infection can, essentially, lead to big trust issues that people have to overcome in order to move on with their lives. This is just another reason why Ayahuasca should be used to treat herpes. Ayahuasca can restore faith in a person’s ability to heal as well as faith in humanity as a whole. 

If you’re considering working with Ayahuasca for herpes at our facility in Mexico, contact us at info@medicinassagradas.com. We’ll set up an initial consultation with you to discuss a special pre-Ayahuasca dieta, herbs, and other supplements that will help you begin to heal even before you arrive, and also herbs, supplements, and other treatments herpes that will help you cross the finish line with this disease after you return home.

Resources:

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