Waring official cloth of low ranking official at the gate of Sunuhyan-Utaki（園比屋武御獄）[*1], one of the most sacred site at Shuri （首里）, Okinawa Island（沖縄本島）, southwest Japan
蛭川 立（Tatsu Hirukawa）
- Associate professor of anthropology, Meiji University. Tokyo, Japan
- Visiting researcher of National Institute of Mental Health, National Centre of Neurology and Psychiatry. Tokyo, Japan
I have encountered psychedelics twice. Once as an anthropologist, and once as a patient with depression. I am amazed by the unexpected serendipity.
Peru and Brazil
I was born in Japan. I studied evolutionary biology at Kyoto University and ecological anthropology at the University of Tokyo in Japan from 1980s to 1990s, partly because I wanted to know my own ethnic roots.
I was fascinated by the "psychedelic" designs on pottery of Jomon (Japanese Neolithic) period[*2], and found similarities with the patterns of pottery and clothes inspired by ayahuasca-induced visions in the Peruvian Amazon. Both prehistoric Japanese societies and traditional Shipibo-Conibo society of the upper Amazon have been tribal - chiefdom societies with matrilocal residence based on root farming and fishing. While the theory of cultural evolution is now considered outdated, classical anthropology studied primitive societies as a model for prehistoric societies.
From 2000 to 2001, in Peru, I did field research about ayahuasca shamanism in a Shipibo-Conibo village[*3] and also studied acrylic painting under Pablo Amaringo, a mestizo curandero and painter[*4].
From 2004 to 2005, in Brazil, I was a visiting researcher of psychology at Campus Universitário Bezerra de Menezes in Curitiba, Parana[*5], where I encountered Santo Daime[*6], the modernization of ayahuasca use in urban areas.
I had many visions taking ayahuasca. There were two most impressive experiences. First, I saw a landscape in ancient Japan, maybe one or two thousand years ago. I was a low rank fallen aristocrat working in the government office, studying astronomy and writing love poems.
Second, I experienced my own death, and then I met a spirit in the world of light where the dead ancestors live. The spirit told me in Japanese, "It's not time for you to die. Go back to the human world. Tell this world to humans." The indigenous shamans in Peru did not interpret the meaning of my vision.
Like many near-death experiencers, the experience completely reset my view of life and death.
Depression
In 2004, I returned to Japan and became an associate professor of anthropology at Meiji University in Tokyo. Unfortunately, since around 2017, I've been suffering from chronic depression. I couldn't go out to field research.
Depression and suicide are "national diseases" in Japan. The melancholic type of personality (Typus. Melancholicus) that values industriousness and self-sacrifice is popular among Japanese. In East Asian Mongoloid populations, there are many genetic mutations that tend to lower serotonin levels like the gene codes 5-HTT.
In the 2000s, newly developed antidepressants market such as SSRIs became popular in Japan but their effect is insufficient.
In 2017, I spent my "vacation" in a psychiatric hospital for 3 months. Living with patients with mental illnesses was a valuable opportunity for participant observation for me, as I was no longer able to travel overseas for research.
Psychedelic Renaissance
In 2019, a university student in Kyoto was arrested for attempting to self-treat his depression and suicide idealization with a cup of tea made from acacia confusa containing DMT, and a man who provided the plant to the student was accused. The trial has been pending for 7 years[*7][*8].
Psychedelic research in Japan can be traced back to researches on ergot alkaloids during World War II. However, the research of experimental psychosis and experimental aesthetics using "psychotomimetic drugs" ended around 1960. Western "psychedelic culture" was imported to Japan after the 1960s, but it did not growth in the context of Japanese culture.
In these years, the 2020s, psychedelic renaissance imported to Japan. Clinical trial on ketamine and psilocybin has began, primarily for major depression.
As a patient with treatment-resistant depression, from 2023 to 2025, I experienced psychedelic therapy at a ketamine clinic in Tokyo and a psilocybin service in Oregon, US[*9]. I experienced the rapid antidepressant effects of psychedelics, even if the effects last only a few weeks, and have personally understood the meaning of the psychedelic renaissance. I am lucky to become depression.
Shamanism in Japan
Even if shamanism is universal culture of Homo sapiens, the arts to alter states of consciousness are vary by region. The technology of using psychedelic plants developed mainly in Central and South America, predating Western neuropharmacology.
Japan has long tradition of spirit possession. Since the Medieval era, both indigenous shamanism and Buddhism from India have been changed into the worship to ancestors.
In 1990s, I did field research on shamanism and mental disorders in Okinawa, southwest islands in Japan. Folk religion in Okinawan islands keep religious tradition in mainland Japan before Buddhism.
Typically, middle-aged [wo]men, due to stress or trauma from family or health problem, suddenly experience acute dissociative psychotic episodes usually with mythical visions for months. This episode different from major depression or PTSD, even schizophrenia as defined by the DSM of American Psychiatric Association.
Elder shamans interpret the episodes as sprit possession and teach to possessed person how to make a pilgrimage among sacred sites. Through symbolic death and rebirth experiences, patients recover instead of committing suicide. Usually, after that, they become shamans.
Japanese animism is polytheistic but not idolatrous. Sacred sites are symbolically marked spaces. Rocks or trees are often the objects of worship. However, symbolic meaning of sacred sites are not the "power" of each site itself, but rather the "emic" structures among the sacred sites and the order of pilgrimage. By making pilgrimage among sacred sites in order, individuals re-experience myths.
After the ketamine and psilocybin treatment, in 2025, I returned to Okinawa and restarted my field research, which is the pilgrimage to reconstruct my own personal myth than an academic research. Walking around sacred sites helps me re-connect with my collective unconsciousness, with the land of my ancestors.
Even I still haven't recovered from my depression. This ritual process can be interpreted as an "integration" process after psychedelic treatments for depression and PTSD in modern psychiatric hospital.
Endogenous Ayahuasca?
In Near-Death Experiences, it has been discovered that endogenous DMT, which has neuroprotective effect, is biosynthesized in the brain during life-threatening stress[*10].
Shamanic initiation and ascetic practices of Buddhism are also experiences of death and rebirth. There is a Zen question in tea ceremony: "茶禅一味：Tea and Zen are of one taste (drinking tea has the same effect as meditating)". The discovery of endogenous DMT suggests integrative understanding between of psychedelics like ayahuasca, shamanic and meditative experiences from the viewpoints both of biological psychiatry and cultural anthropology.
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This article is based on an oral presentation given at Meiji University on 27 Feb. 2026, but is currently being revised. Many of the linked articles are in Japanese, but please try using machine translation such as Google Translate.
