The Return of The Cosmic Serpent

"Jeremy Narby's critical view of anthropology has been marked by his stays in the Amazonian forest. He spent several years in Peru working with the native people, notably on the issue of territorial rights. That's where he met with shamans who gave him an intimate knowledge of the hallucinatory sphere.

"He was thus able to construct new hypotheses for research and to write a controversial book, The Cosmic Serpent, which was published in 1995. He's currently carrying on with his investigations [by writing] a book on the intelligence of nature and [by contributing to the] Amazonia Ambient Project...

"'We asked molecular biologists to submit themselves to the shamanic state of consciousness in order to see if they could find information in their visions which was pertinent to their research. We did this in 1999 in Peru with three leading researchers and the results were conclusive. That scientists can find information in visions orchestrated by shamans is an idea that will now need to be tested as many times as possible.'"

via Magpie