While in this hallucinogenic state, a person can communicate with their own DNA through images and music. Narby claims that shamanistic practices, particularly the extremely hallucinogenic rituals of the Western Amazonian peoples, allow a person's consciousness to perceive reality on a molecular level. Now, for what I didn't care for: his actual theory.
I like that he framed his theory in the context of a story.Īs you can see, there are a lot of positive things about this book! I like that he wrote for a regular, non-academic audience. I like how he tries to find evidentiary support for all of his claims. I love Narby's cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, "big picture" approach. I like how he fearlessly points out the cultural biases and confirmation bias of the scientific method. I like how Narby takes a deconstructionist approach to anthropology. While many in the scientific world have scoffed at his theories, Jeremy Narby has succeeded at least in throwing a monkey wrench in the the more-myth-than-truth paradigm of science and has opened the door for inquiry into what may prove to be the future of human knowledge. His argument is actually quite convincing as he punches holes in rational constructive thinking and makes the case for completely different and more intuitive platform of knowledge.
Narby calls into serious question the limits of the scientific process and how we come to know things int he industrialized world. More than an anthropological account of how shaman use hallucination to find cures for disease, The Cosmic Serpent is a challenge to Western rationalism and modern science. Only in the past decades have pharmaceutical companies invade the province of these shaman to start mining for botanical compounds to patent and basically steal from the indigenous population. And yet, ayahuasca is used throughout the Amazon rain forest as an access to a hallucinatory world where images of spirits inform shaman how to use the hidden power of the plant life in the Amazon rain forest cure a very broad spectrum of disease. This compound, by itself is mystifying because it is made through a complex chemical process that one would not expect would be within the reach of native Amazonian chemistry. His journey starts with his experience in the Western Amazon basin where he was invited to try powerful hallucinogen called "ayahuasca". in anthropology and his work is based an extensive survey of academic materials across numerous disciplines. This would be a rather bizarre premise except for the fact that Narby is a trained PhD. Narby's premise is that hallucinogenic drugs used by shaman in the Western Amazon actually give them access to medicinal information through knowledge coded in DNA. This not light reading, but on the other hand it is essential reading. Jeremy Narby's Cosmic Serpent is a densely academic book that is 50% footnotes.
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