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A gripping investigation that opens fresh perspectives on biology
and anthropology 'At the cutting edge of contemporary thought'
GUARDIAN 'A thoroughly enjoyable read' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH While
living among Peruvian Indians, anthropologist Jeremy Narby became
intrigued by their claim that their phenomenal knowledge of plants
and biochemistry was communicated to them directly while under the
influence of hallucinogens. Despite his initial scepticism, Narby
found himself engaged in an increasingly obsessive personal quest.
The evidence he collected - on subjects as diverse as molecular
biology, shamanism, neurology and ancient mythology - led
inexorably to the conclusion that the Indians' claims were
literally true: to a consciousness prepared with drugs, specific
biochemical knowledge could indeed be directly transmitted through
DNA itself. A gripping investigation that opens fresh perspectives
on biology, anthropology and the limits of rationalism, The Cosmic
Serpent is new science of the most exhilarating kind.
This adventure in science and imagination, which the Medical Tribune said might herald "a Copernican revolution for the life sciences," leads the reader through unexplored jungles and uncharted aspects of mind to the heart of knowledge. In a first-person narrative of scientific discovery that opens new perspectives on biology, anthropology, and the limits of rationalism, The Cosmic Serpent reveals how startlingly different the world around us appears when we open our minds to it.
Conversations on shamanism and mind-altering plants by filmmaker
Jan Kounen, anthropologist Jeremy Narby, and writer/filmmaker
Vincent Ravalec
- Explores how ayahuasca and iboga are tools for communicating with
other life-forms
- Offers insights into the role this indigenous knowledge can play
in solving the current problems facing the world
In the Amazon, shamans do not talk in terms of hallucinogens but of
tools for communicating with other life-forms. Ayahuasca, for
example, is first and foremost a means of breaking down the barrier
that separates humans from other species, allowing us to
communicate with them. The introduction of plant-centered shamanism
into the Western world in the 1970s was literally the meeting of
two entirely different paradigms. In "The Psychotropic Mind," three
of the individuals who have been at the forefront of embracing
other ways of knowing look at the ramifications of the introduction
into our Western culture of these shamanic practices and the
psychotropic substances that support them.
With rare sincerity and depth, noted anthropologist Jeremy Narby,
filmmaker Jan Kounen, and writer/filmmaker Vincent Ravalec explore
the questions of sacred plants, initiations, hallucinogens, and
altered states of consciousness, looking at both the benefits and
dangers that await those who seek to travel this path. Focusing
specifically on ayahuasca and iboga, psychotropic substances with
which the authors are intimately familiar, they examine how we can
best learn the other ways of perceiving the world found in
indigenous cultures, and how this knowledge offers immense benefits
and likely solutions to some of the modern world's most pressing
problems.
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