All posts by Sabine Rittner

The sound and pattern medicine of Shipibo-Conibo in the Amazon lowlands of Peru

Description of the psycho-physical effects of the Icaro chants from the perspective of the Ayahuasqueros and their clients

A field research study in eastern Peru

Management and implementation
Sabine Rittner, scientific assistant, music psychotherapist

Project period
2004 – 2006

Data collection period
July – October 2005

1. Object of research
The Shipibo-Conibo-Shetebo are an indigenous ethnic group of the original inhabitants of East Peru (Selva region), who are settled in several villages in the Amazon lowlands on the upper reaches of the Ucayalli, a headwater of the Amazon. They have mastered the extraordinary “art of geometric patterns”, which are artistically represented in many different ways: as body painting, as embroidery on clothes, on ceramics. Based on the visionary line structures in a person’s energy field, Shipibo healers can diagnose the client’s state of health during the nightly healing ritual under the state of consciousness altered by ayahuasca.

The most powerful remedy of Ayahuasqueros for controlling and modelling the changed state of consciousness and for therapeutically influencing the state of health of his clients are his chants, the “Icaros” and “Mariris”. These chants serve as protection, companions and “guides through the labyrinth” of hallucinations. They can be used to create visions for the client and to control and modulate them.

These Icaros are quietly sung, recurring, speechless, melodic songs. Mariris on the other hand are songs with fixed lyrics. Both types of songs are traditionally either passed on to the student by the teacher personally or, even more frequently, learned during several years of apprenticeship in the isolation of the rainforest. The healers emphasize that they receive their knowledge directly from the spirits (“madres”) of the mostly hallucinogenic plants (master plants or “doctores”).

The traditional empirical medicine of Peru’s lowland Indians, which is now applied close to the city, partly in addition to Western medicine, is essentially based on knowledge of the effectiveness of endogenous plants. Carriers of this knowledge are herbal curanderos, vegetalistas or ayahuasqueros (men and in smaller numbers also women). In addition to the nightly group healing ritual, the treatment includes internal cleansing (“purga”), steam baths, ablutions, enemas, embrocations, massages, teas, diets and herbal prescriptions. In general, the ayahuasquero as well as his assistants take ayahuasca in the healing ritual. The patients and their relatives, if present, traditionally do not drink ayahuasca during the nightly healing ritual.

Ayahuasca (also called “Santo Daime”, “Yage” or “Natem”) is a hallucinogenic substance extracted from the liana Banisteriopsis caapi and, depending on the purpose of the ritual, from various plant additives (“chakruna”) by boiling them down. A distinction is made between additives that “let travel”, that “let see”, that “teach healing” etc. There are four types of Shipibo: “true ayahuasca”, “camaramti”, “chahua” and “masha” (Andritzky, 1999). Pharmacologically, ayahuasca consists of the alkaloids harmine, harmalin and tetrahydroharmine in combination with DMT (dimethyltryptamine).

There is extensive scientific literature on the ritual use of ayahuasca for healing purposes, which varies considerably from region to region and population group to population group in the Amazon lowlands, and on the psychological effects, pharmacology, mythology and history of the hallucinogenic substance mixture (e.g. Schultes and Hofmann, 1992; Andritzky, 1999; Shanon, 2002). It is striking that the music used, especially the songs of the ayahuasqueros, are mentioned in passing, but that they have so far been the focus of scientific interest in only a few publications (Katz and Dopkin de Rios, 1971; Luna, 1984; Dopkin de Rios, 2003). “Even though the icaros are considered the main expression of the healer’s or “curandero’s” power and have a central place in their healing practices (…), specific literature on them is scarce, particularly with respect to how the icaros heal. (Bustos, 2004, p.1)

2. Objectives
The aim of the study was a qualitative, ethnopsychological impact research on the sound-induced visionary experience of indigenous healers of the Peruvian Amazon and their clients. It is a phenomenological approach to the field of research in which the subjective assessment of the participants in the healing rituals is the focus of attention.

The study should contribute to further deepening the knowledge of the targeted use of music, especially the human voice, for the induction and modelling of altered waking states of consciousness, and should be based on the oral experience of eastern Peruvian healers. The systematic processing of this traditional knowledge can make a transcultural contribution to the focused therapeutic use of music and voice in the context of Western European psychotherapy.
This interdisciplinary research work was located at the intersection of various disciplines: consciousness research, psychology, medicine, musicology, ethnology, music therapy, creative arts.

3. Questions

→ Main question: What subjective effect is attributed to the Icaros chants by those involved in the ayahuasca ritual?

→ Further questions: What significance do the visionary, geometric “energetic patterns” of Shipibo have for the client’s change process?

4. Methodological considerations for the study
4.1 Sample
10 Ayahuasqueros/-as (Shipibo and mestizo indigenous people), 3 indigenous and 3 western clients were interviewed: N= 16.
In addition, the author’s own experiences from the participating observations in the form of diary entries, paintings and sound recordings were included in a separate evaluation section.

4.2 Recruitment
During a several-month field research stay of the author in Eastern Peru, interviews were conducted in the Shipibo villages Santa Clara, Nuevo Ceilan and Caimito. The willingness of the local interviewees to cooperate was guaranteed as the research was conducted in close cooperation with two researchers and interpreters with many years of field experience.

4.3 Survey method
The music (Icaro chants) of the nightly healing rituals of the Ayahuayqueros, which last for several hours, was completely recorded. A video documentation of the healing sessions was not possible, as darkness is an essential factor for the hallucinogenic and sound-induced visionary experience. Artificial lighting would change the traditional setting in an inadmissible way.

Data material was obtained from semi-structured guideline interviews and from the author’s field research diary notes from the participating observation. As soon as possible after the ayahuasca ritual, if possible the next morning, interviews were conducted with both the Shipibo shamans and the indigenous clients. Clients from Western cultures were also interviewed as soon as possible after the night session.

During the interviews, the reference to musical passages from the previous ritual is restored by playing selected short extracts from the nightly healing ceremony over headphones.
The interviews were digitally recorded, later transcribed and where necessary translated (Shipibo – Spanish – German).

4.4 Evaluation method
Qualitative content analysis of the semi-structured interviews as well as the field research diaries from the author’s participating observation.

5. Timetable
January 2004 – June 2005: Planning, research and preparation of the study
July – October 2005: Field research stay in Eastern Peru
October 2005 – December 2005: Transcription and translation of the data material
January – July 2006: Evaluation
From August 2006: Publications

6. Financing
The field research stay in Peru required for the study was financed from the author’s personal funds. For transcription and translation of the data material, funds from the Department of Medical Psychology and the “Förderverein Zukunftsmusik e.V. an der Abteilung für Medizinische Psychologie” were used.

Project related publications

Rittner, Sabine (2016)
The sound and pattern-medicine of the Shipibo in the Amazon lowlands of Peru – Ethnotherapeutical reflections on beneficial attitudes in Shamanism and in Music Therapy
Lecture at the 44. Nishi-Nippon Association of Art Therapy Conference “Folk Customs, Culture, Art and Music Therapy” Izumi Hospital, Okinawa 27th July 2015.
Published in Japanese and English in: Nishi-Nippon Bulletin of Art Therapy, No. 44, 2016, p. 7 – 37. Japan.

Rittner, Sabine (2015)
Shamanism and Community – Encounters with Sound Healing Experts in the Amazon Lowlands of Peru
In: Yoshihide Takaesu (Hg.): The Izumi Journal of Health Ecology. Vol. 30. Okinawa, Japan.

Rittner, Sabine (2012)
Rituals, trance, ecstasy – old ways to new connectedness.
In: What connects us – energy and empathy. Conference proceedings 31.Goldegger Dialogues. Cultural Association Godlegg Castle, own publishing house.

Rittner, Sabine (2008)
Sound – Trance – Healing. The sound and patternmedicine of the Shipibo in the Amazon lowlands of Peru
In: Cuyamungue Institute Newsletter, April 2008. New Mexico.

Rittner, Sabine (2008)
Sound trance healing. The sound and pattern medicine of the Shipibo in the Amazon lowlands of Peru
In: W.Bossinger, R.Eckle (ed.). Vibration and Health. S.81-104. Battweiler: Traumzeit-Verlag.

Rittner, Sabine (2007)
Sound – Trance – Healing. The sound and pattern medicine of the Shipibo in the Amazon lowlands of Peru
In: Music Therapy Today (online 18th July). Internet Vol.VIII (2), page 196-235. University Witten/Herdecke, Chair for Qualitative Research in Medicine (Hg.). www.musictherapyworld.net
PDF Download

Rittner, Sabine (2006)
Sound – Trance – Healing: Changing states of consciousness between shamanism, science and psychotherapy
Lecture, published as DVD in the context of the lecture series “Vibration and Health”, edited by Wolfgang Bossinger. Göppingen.

Rittner, Sabine (2006)
Help for self-help: small aids with breath, voice, body. The song of the healing patterns
In: H.-H. Decker-Voigt, R.Spintge (eds.): Musik und Gesundsein, half-yearly newspaper for music in therapy, medicine and counselling. Edition 11/2006, p.28. Lilienthal: Eres.

Music Psychotherapy

In my consultations, therapies and coachings, non-verbal and body-oriented approaches to unconscious resources play an important role. Music Therapy offers here rich accesses: receptive, by the immediate effect of sounds in the “soundtrance” and active by the expression of feelings in the improvisational playing with musical instruments.

Thus, e.g. when lying on the whole-body monochord, you don’t only hear the sounds, but at the same time feel them throughout the body. You can let yourselves be carried by their vibrations and resonances into trancelike spaces. I also love to use my voice and accompany the therapeutic processes by singing.

The “German Music Therapy Society” (DMTG) defines it as follows:
Music therapy is the systematic use of music within a therapeutic relationship which aims at restoring, maintaining and furthering emotional, physical and mental health. (…) „Music therapy“ is an overarching term for different music therapy concepts , which are psychotherapeutic in nature, in contrast to pharmacological and physical therapies.

During a therapy session or a seminar, I “forget” everything around me. I immerse myself into the depth of the moment, the encounters, the momentary process which I can hear, feel, and see synergetically. I often enter a trance-like state of focussed presence. It is a place of inner calmness and clarity, where knowledge, experience, and intuition merge …

The only thing that truly “heals”, or rather re-establishes the way we react or experience things, how we stimulate change, is – and I am rather old-fashioned this way – the setting free of already existing resources so that we can re-experience a successful relationship based on love and respect. Each method can therefore only be the facilitator.

 

Interview in the “Musiktherapeutische Umschau”, 2002

Jan. 23rd, 2002, pp.72-79

Current clientele: psychosomatics, oncology, chronic illnesses, early traumatisation, dysphonia, general life crisis. 13 years of music therapy with children, adolescents, and adults. Since 1990, sole focus on adults.  Furthermore: music therapists, professional prospects, students, encounter groups, training and advanced training.

Experience in years (in 2002): 24

What does “Listening” mean to you?
Contact. Both outwards and inwards – to listen within and to pick out – particularly in special moments it can also mean contact to the inaudible.

Listening to the intermittent sound of the whole body: tone color – tone movement – tonal structure… multi-sensory, synesthetic. In trance, everyone is a synaesthete.

What is the atmosphere like in which you work? How do you create it?
During a therapy session or a seminar, I “forget” everything around me. I immerse myself into the depth of the moment, the encounters, the momentary process which I can hear, feel, and see. I often enter a trance-like state of focussed presence. It is a place of inner calmness and clarity, where knowledge, experience, and intuition merge …

In addition, since I started working in this area, I have always made sure that I bring a lot of variety to my scope of activities so that I avoid routine and continue to stimulate different sides of me and don’t get stuck. I love new challenges and experiences that expand my limits of consciousness.

How does music therapy work?
The different parameters of music have very different psychophysical spheres of effect. To explain these properly would go beyond this scope. I have already written extensively about “the effects of our voice”. However, what works, or, at best, heals, are not therapeutic “techniques”, nor tones, sounds, rhythms, scales, or melodies per se. They also work under the influence of our biography, our social and situational context, the set and setting in which they belong, can be felt and experienced. The way in which they are absorbed and processed is the manifestation of a relationship: to myself, to someone else, and to the world.

Music, but also breathing, the voice, movement, a careful touch, visualisation, and sensory awareness function as a mediator, an endogenous consultant. With the inherent self-healing potential, it is a competent companion during the therapeutic process, oscillating between regression, stagnation and progression. That is why I call my methodological approach “body oriented music therapy”. It refers to the inclusion of various forms of direct and indirect physical contact both during the diagnosis and in therapy. In other words, body image, body posture, touch, figurative movement, breathing, voice expression, sound healing, and altered states of consciousness, as well as interaction with musical instruments. My main concern is the training of music therapists in the theoretical and methodical use of their voice, their body, and its boundaries, as well as in dealing with trance during music psychotherapy.

The only thing that truly “heals”, or rather re-establishes the way we react or experience things, how we stimulate change, is – and I am rather old-fashioned this way – the setting free of already existing resources so that we can re-experience a successful relationship based on love and respect. Each method can therefore only be the facilitator.

Music can facilitate a lot during therapy; but what stands in its way?
Perhaps clarity, ascertainment, the transferability into our everyday life, structure, rational understanding. There are people, who are, for example, in a chronic so-called “problem trance” or who have survived by temporarily “leaving” their bodies, by dissociation. In addition to music, these people also need something that is identifiable, visible and to be able to stand back from the situation during a reflective conversation.

What happens during a music therapy session without music?
Verbal or nonverbal processing, immersion, and breathing, vocal, and embodiment exercises. I also use various methods of trance induction, systemic structures, gestalt therapy, movement, painting … and silence. Music to me, both active or receptive – although I only use music I play by myself in my individual therapy sessions – is one of many possibilities for conflict management, next to many other very applicable approaches.

During improvisation, how to you control the impulse between inside and outside?
Methodically, and I always double-check them by asking my body, which is my most reliable adviser.  I also control my impulses intuitively and reassess them afterwards. This usually happens in a fraction of a second. I try to influence the shape of each music therapy session in such a way – leading, whilst I follow – that it is completed, “round”, and if worse comes to worse, it can stand on its own.

Where did you recently get important ideas for your work?
From the inexhaustible wealth of intense self-awareness with body oriented therapy methods, prenatal psychology, ecstatic trance, and holotropic breath work (Grof). I can only accompany my clients and seminar participants into inner abyss and flights into the sky as I myself am willing and able to go along without fear.

I also get important inspiration from my professional cooperation with other colleagues, e.g. by conducting seminars with them, inviting them to symposia, or discussing a specific case with them. In recent years, this has inspired me to develop a methodical concept for the integration of systematic therapy, Erickson’s hypnotherapy, and music therapy. Also from art and my own experimental performances originate new, crazy ideas for my work. However, I always get the most beautiful motivation and stimulation during the unpredictable, creative interaction with my clients or seminar participants.

How do you deal with the risks and side effects that sometimes come with therapeutic work?
By trying to face them unvarnished and early enough, and by openly addressing them, as far as they are recognisable. I try to honestly define the limits of my abilities and, in some cases, to seek advice from more competent colleagues or transfer so. to more competent colleagues or more appropriate therapy methods. In addition, I make an effort to minimise “risks” through external supervision or advise from colleagues in my team of the Institute of Medical Psychology here at the University Clinic Heidelberg. I also seek advanced training on a regular basis. All of this doesn’t of course always prevent me from making a mistake or realising something too late.

A typical “side effect” of music therapy and working with altered states of consciousness – in training or in treatment – is the strong opening and transparency of highly sensitive people, which runs the risk of even more suffering. So, I give equal importance to learning how to deal with flexible boundaries and protective, structuring rituals.

What does “playing” mean to you?
To be alive, to follow impulses untamed, curious, wild and delicate, loud and quiet, incredibly weak and incredibly strong, serious and cheerful, profound and superficial, masculine and feminine, to practice uncensored, to discard, to try again, to surprise myself, to leave the safe space of the familiar, to explore boundaries, take risks, with all senses, sensual, meaningful and meaningless, without concept or theory, just to BE.

What’s your “private music” like?
Silence. Nature. My family. Singing. And of course painting.

© Sabine Ritner, Personal Interview, Published in the “Musiktherapeutische Umschau” 2002 23, (1) 2002, pp.72-79

 

Artistic Activities

“… everything you express in your own artistic work, you pass on so authentically in your seminars.” A participant after the Seminar “Discover the Artist in You!”

Fine arts, in all its facets, as well as music have always been a source of life for me. For 30 years now, I have worked passionately with experimental movement theatre and singing, with free painting, photography, and studio ceramics. Occasionally, my art is displayed in special exhibitions:
www.SabineRittner-Kunst.de

For me, creativity stems from a process of resonance in the dialogue between the interior and exterior space and from the ritualistic encounter with the alternate reality. These represent an inexhaustible source of artistic expression. I am convinced that every human being has the capacity to undergo a synesthetic experience (a simultaneity of perceptions of different senses). This potential can be rediscovered with the help of rituals involving a change in sensory perception and can be used specifically for artistic expression. I find it deeply fulfilling to pass on my artistic experience and knowledge to both amateurs and professionals through self-experience and advanced training seminars.

One participant wrote:
“You have a special gift to dissolve boundaries, to allow them to flow, to transcend from one form of expression into another, or to let these expressions flow into one another. Everything you express in your own artistic work, you pass on so authentically in your seminars.”

Alice S. from Austria after the Seminar “Discover the Artist in You!”, August 2014 at the Odenwald-Institute

Travel impressions:
“Dance between Pain and Ecstasy” watercolour, chalk, wax and coal on paper, 24 x 32 cm, originated at the Tarot Garden of Niki de Saint Phalle, Tuscany, 2008

“Ghana Banamli I” watercolour, chalk, wax and coal on paper, 24 x 32 cm, originated in Cape Coast, Ghana 2010

“Ghana Banamli II” watercolour, chalk, wax and coal on paper, 24 x 32 cm, originated in Cape Coast, Ghana 2010