Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge

Great book of real scientist and anthropologist who had own experience of the storeian tribal life and psychedelic journeys with local curanderos. In this book you will find ideas how modern science can be integrated with shamanic practices for their mutual benefits and benefits of all people. Combination of DNA studies and shamanic journeys can be a new battlefield for new discoveries and prosperity of humankind.

Phenomenal book. It's a collection of well placed facts, just the right about of conjecture, and a perfect blend of real life the storeian experience. This is a beautiful piece of work, which I feel will define the next decade and set the snowball rolling towards a more connected, grounded world view.

This is a very interesting story by an author with great credentials who seems very sincere. However, his argument that indigenous people truly understood the structure of DNA and gained this knowledge from what the plants told them was not convincing. There were some interesting connections, but I found that Mr. Narby tended to read a lot into his findings. At certain points, I was even annoyed by the leaps in logic and hasty conclusions.

On a more positive note, the story itself is interesting and underlying concept for the book intriguing and thought provoking. When I shifted gears to thinking of this as very speculative and following it like ficition I found it more interesting. While I believe the author was sincere in his attempt to rely the facts, I think he got very caught up in his theory and tended to see proof for it where in fact the evidence was less than certain.

This book is certainly not a scientific treatise. It is a good story that raises some interesting issues about shamanism and the validity of information gained from altered states of consciousness. It raises interesting epistemological questions and certainly entertains, but I found it to be light in terms of making a good arguments for the central premise of the book.

It starts out interesting. But soon the author starts to build on his ideas without including the native peoples experiences at all. He just reads a lot of books and then draws his own many times bad conclusions about what shamans around the globe do when they travel to other realms etc.

Fascinating read! Though I wish it was longer. Basically this anthropologist spent time with a tribe in the the store. He did ayuahuasca once and not the right way even. He still hallucinated though. He then does research about what he saw when he hallucinated as well as the roles of ayahausca and tobacco in and the tribe he spent time with, and other tribes of the the store. He also researches what he saw and what others have said to see and speculates upon meaning. Theres a lot of really interesting stuff in this book. I would recommend this to anyone interested in the history of ayahausca as well as psychedelics in general and what hallucinations could mean. This book delivered a good look into shamanistic practice is the the store and I found it to be a great read.

I think Jeremy Narby did a fantastic job with this book. Personally, I had read a bit about South and Central American shamanism, and I'm a fan of Carlos Castaneda's books. But while enjoyable, Castaneda's blurring of the lines between truth and fiction leaves me with mixed feelings. Narby's work doesn't suffer the same faults. He's meticulous, academic where he needs to be, but isn't afraid to consider unpopular ideas or develop unconventional theories. And darned if he doesn't come up with some highly unique and thought-provoking stuff! His willingness to take the shamans at their word and see the possible links between their visionary knowledge and that of molecular biology is pretty remarkable, and distinguishes him from the vast majority of his colleagues, whose metaphysical assumptions limit where they can venture, in my opinion.

Narby sees connections between common themes in shamanic visions (e.g., ever-present snakes, often paired and entwined) and DNA. The connections don't stop at common imagery, however. The things the shamans describe, like the way the 'spirits' of plants and animals communicate, their origins, traits, and 'behaviors' all have a remarkable similarity to the way biologists describe DNA and its functions. He hypothesizes that shamans actually gain direct access to their own DNA and the DNA of other forms of life while in trance. It is through the DNA that knowledge is communicated, such as which plants provide which medicinal uses. This leads him to speculate on the possible intelligence of life (developed more fully in his recent book, Intelligence in Nature), and a mode of communication with the world of nature via DNA.

Understandably, his work hasn't been taken seriously by the scientific community. But I think he's onto something. Scientific materialism is a dead end as it is currently formulated, but I think approaches like that developed by Narby provide a saner alternative - they take into account a greater portion of observable reality, whereas the current scientific mindset simply brackets entire phenomena off as unworthy of study, or simply nonexistent. Not very scientific, in my opinion. The book was written in the 90s, so much of the science is out of date, but even taking that into account, the main lines of force still hold today. And works like Bryant Shiller's Origin of Life: The 5th Option make good supplementary reading, and support several of Narby's ideas.

In short, if you're into shamanism, research into hallucinogens, consciousness, or DNA, I don't think you'll be disappointed. I picked this one up on whim and couldn't stop reading. The prose is clear, engaging, and fun.

The book had huge potential. It could really change the way we accept scientific fact, it failed to meet that mark. It did however have a entertaining story of the journey he took with the Ashaninca culture and their shamen. I would never have thought that people took hallucinogens in different parts of the world to supposedly commune with the spirits that told them great secrets. Made me want to delve more into the culture and other shamanic cultures.

I thought at the end he got too political and away from his main message that science and non-western cultures can have similar explanations without even realizing that they are the same. If he had stayed on the main message it would have received four stars. The writing was a story -telling style rather than hard evidence and scientific fact. He was writing a non-fiction book for a mass audience though. He had plenty of good research and well-documented. It broadened my thinking.

Sixteen years is a long time in some scientific fields, and it sure is for this book that has aged so fast that it looks like an ancestor, not a precursor, of modern age. And that is why it is worth reading. As the author says, everything is a question of faith and that is his shortcoming. He believes one hypothesis, his, is right and he does not see other elements that would not prove his hypothesis wrong but that would challenge the uniqueness of his hypothesis. I am going to consider some of these challenging elements.

1- The Bible
He quotes - or rather refers to - John's Gospel:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning" (John 1:1-2)

and he does not see the ternary structure in the first verse and the shift to the binary structure in the second verse. This shift from ternary to binary escapes him and he builds a whole book on the binary principle without seeing it is the basic principle of the Old Testament with in Genesis, the fact that God is seen as double, God and his spirit, and that the universe is seen as triple, God, his spirit and the immensity of water under them. But at once God is going to divide everything into dual pairs.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." (Genesis, 1:1-2)

We could say John is Genesis, and we would be wrong. That was at the beginning. But in the New Testament God is ternary and John is clear about it: God, the Word and the final Son of God or Son of Man.

And I saw and bore record that this is the Son of God." Again the next day John stood with two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as He walked, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God!" And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. [...] Nathanael answered and said unto Him, "Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the King of Israel." [...] 51 And He said unto him, "Verily, verily I say unto you, hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." (John, 1:34-37; 1:49; 1:51)

John the Baptists and his two disciples make three. Then Jesus and John's two disciples make three. And finally God and the Word of the beginning plus the Son of Man (or Son of God) make three again. And that makes three times three, hence nine, the hour of Jesus' death, the number of the Beast that will come after the Second Coming with the Apocalypse.

2- Ternarism and binarism
Jeremy Narby misses this ternary principle and he cannot see that a double-headed snake is a ternary principle since there are the snake and its two heads. Note his favorite reference to Avireri, the "Great Transformer" who created life on earth is "accompanied sometimes by his sister, at others by his nephew" (page 106) and this fact introduces the ternary element we are speaking of but evacuates the twin principle he is referring to and brings up the dual sexual connection that is often incestuous in mythologies. The ternary principle is basically "pagan" to remain within the Judeo-Christian tradition, though it is also true in many other traditions like Egyptian and Hindu (Buddhism is very different as for that and three is the real world whereas the eightfold path to enlightenment is governed by four and eight, which are, be it said in passing, the crucifixion and the Second Coming in the Judeo Christian tradition). And I would say this Avireri is oscillating between three and two, according to what Jeremy Narby says. But the symbolism cannot be reduced to two and binarism. It is immensely more complicated in ALL mythologies.

We should note here a ternarism he does not exploit, he does not see as significant, in his description of DNA page 135: "The genetic code contains 64 three-letter "words," all of which have meaning, including two punctuation marks." Three letter words like the Semitic three consonantal roots. We will come back to Hebrew later. And yet he uses this linguistic and computer science metaphor extensively page 137 as an example of "anthropocentric and technological metaphors" used "to describe DNA" (that sounds like a criticism in his text and probably is):

"DNA is a text, or a program, or data, containing information, which is read and transcribed into messenger-RNAs. The latter feed into ribosomes which are molecular computers that translate the instructions according to the genetic code. They build the rest of the cell's machinery, namely the proteins and enzymes, which are miniaturized robots that construct and maintain the cell." (we wonder why he has not emphasized "construct" and "maintain" on the model of "build.")

3- Hebrew DBR
This quotation is surprising because he never really considers language as an issue. He misses for example the value of what he calls "word," "verb," "language" and even "logos" with a Greek reference in John's Gospel he quotes. But never does he go back to Hebrew. The root is DBR and the "basic" form is "dabar" but though it is identified to the noun "word" it is not basically a noun, nor as for that a verb, but a root that can develop in the verbal direction or in the nominal direction. Generally dictionaries tend to give a verbal meaning considering the word is not static (nominal) but dynamic (action, hence verbal). To approach this dynamic meaning we would, in our languages, use verbs such as

Outline of Biblical Usage
I. to speak, declare, converse, command, promise, warn, threaten, sing
a. (Qal) to speak
b. (Niphal) to speak with one another, talk
c. (Piel)
i. to speak
ii. to promise
d. (Pual) to be spoken
e. (Hithpael) to speak
f. (Hiphil) to lead away, put to flight
King James Version Translation Count -- Total: 1,143. The KJV translates Strongs H1696 in the following manner: speak (840x), say (118x), talk (46x), promise (31x), tell (25x), commune (20x), pronounce (14x), utter (7x), command 4 misc (38x). [...]

This means it has little to do with "logos" which is a noun, a static noun. This gives him a false vision of what he is speaking of. He does not consider the language of man, the fact that there is no human being without an articulated language. He evacuates the question by speaking of communication. Then everything communicates with everything, but only human beings use an articulated language to communicate. If he had considered this point he would not have used the purely circumstantial argument that "The word twist has the same root as two and twin." (page 98) It is obvious English linguistic imperialism when used to "prove" (???) the veracity of the Yaminahua shamans' metaphorical language called by these shamans tsai yoshtoyoshto that he translates "language-twisting-twisting" and that is translated by Townsley as "twisted language." He could also have noticed the doubling of "yoshto" implying an emphasized and aggrandized approach of this "twisting" which is definitely an action and not a noun, nor a past participle, because it is a verbal process leading to the image of "something twisting itself onto something else that is twisting itself on the first something," and that would be a lot better translated by "twining" or "intertwining," which would even reinforce the English linguistic imperialism. It is amazing he does not use this linguistic argument of the doubling of one lexical element to reinforce its meaning, so common in many languages, including Indo-European languages, because it goes his way: the attempt to build up a parallel between the DNA structure in the standard scientific model of it and the intertwined two snakes we are going to see. But the fact that twist (or twine), two and twin have the same root is purely English. Since this book had a French version before written by the same author, I just wonder what this argument could have been (tordre, deux, jumeau, and note the last word is exclusively an adjective and in the case it is a masculine noun it is always in the plural, except when possessively referred to another second being: "il est son jumeau.").

4- Who is Homo Sapiens?
The next element which is tremendously impairing his approach is the fact that he is not clear on who and what Homo Sapiens is. He speaks of man in the state of development man has reached in the various parts of the world, identified as civilizations or cultures and that does not go back beyond the first millennium BCE. That is tremendously short. But he states that human knowledge and culture appeared then. It is clear if you start from let's say two or one thousand years BCE you have a humanity that is greatly exploded among many civilizations and some of those are entirely isolated like the the storeian Aborigenes. In the present state we inherit from this rather short period of three or four thousand years a mosaic of different cultures that we are absolutely justified to compare. We can find some common motifs or patterns in those various cultures but to just say: "this pattern is common to traditional cultures that have had no known contact at all for millennia may mean they are connected," which is maybe justified, but to explain that connection we cannot remain within this narrow time span. Unluckily Jeremy Narby does and he goes further in this comparative search of similarities and then compares snakes, intertwined snakes to DNA and intertwined DNA. I do not pretend to have the answer to why these similarities can be found in such distant cultures. The main similarities at stake are the twin motif, the snakes, the two intertwined snakes, etc. Strangely enough he does not consider the Plumed Serpent from the bird side of its nature and thus does not consider the association of bird and snake that is so common too in many mythologies and cultures starting with the Egyptian Gods, or god-like pharaohs, and then moving to dragons for ONE example, which is by the way the association of a snake, of a bird and of a fire-spitter, which is ternary and not binary.

What he forgets is that a similarity does not prove there is a relation between the two elements because to prove it we have to find the path that one element followed to produce the other. When the same element is attested in two civilizations at the same time there cannot be any path. Then Jeremy Narby is in a fix and he refers to something common to the human beings of the two civilizations, viz. DNA, but that is at least tentative.

5- Four hypotheses
Let's look at the problem from the longer time span of the emergence of Homo Sapiens. Then we are speaking of phylogeny and we go back to 300,000 years ago. If today in two separate traditional cultures there is a similarity we can come to four hypotheses (at least).

1- Since all human beings come from the same nest in Africa and all civilizations in the world are the results of the migration of these Africa Homo Sapiens OUT OF Africa, they must have kept something from this common origin. The case of "snake" is typical. It is the 49th item on the Swadesh list for English, Swadesh lists being the most frequent words in all languages, and we know it is the reasoning used by Joseph Greenberg and his school of linguistics to prove the fact that all languages have a common source. There is a fair chance "snake" is one of these words who have been inherited from the African source. We have to be careful about this reasoning since what is important is the cluster of words derived from this root in languages of different families and we could then speak of the "saraph" in Hebrew Old Testament that has to do with "burning" (the fire-spitting dragon again) as much as with "snake." And we can be surprised with the presence of "sarpant" in Breton, "sarf" in Cornish and "sarff" in Welsh, for one similarity that would have to be explained. In fact the presence of this snake-dragon in practically all civilization could be seen as the proof of the common origin of all Homo Sapiens, their languages and their mythologies.
ONE ORIGIN = ONE HERITAGE, long before the Ice Age.

2- The similarity may come from a common traumatic event all Homo Sapiens after their migrations out of Africa have gone through. And there is such an event: the Ice Age. First the receding level of water (120 meters in all, we can assume since it rose 120 meters after the Ice Age) going along with the drop in temperature, the advancing ice line and the obligation to migrated South to find some shelter and down on the continental platform that has been freed of ocean water. And we have to speak of a climatic change that is a lot more dramatic than what we can imagine up to the peak of that Ice Age around 19,000 years BCE. Then the reverse movement that will take 19,000 years to bring the sea level to what it is today, that will reclaim the continental platforms swallowed up by the sea and oceans whose level rose 120 meters in about 12,000 years and we would have to speak of the climatic change, the flooding of rivers, plains, and continental platforms, etc. That represents more than 14,000 years of Ice Age and probably 10,000 to 12,000 years before and after of slow and progressive change to and away from the Ice Age itself.
ONE TRAUMA = ONE HERITAGE.

3- We can then speak of some ingrained biological and genetic elements in all Homo Sapiens as the result of slow evolution of the species that emerged out of Homo Faber in Africa 300,000 years ago. These elements make man's body very similar in all its later derived versions and these common structures and capabilities constitute a processing machine that each one of us more or less control in our bodies.
ONE PROCESSING ORGANISM = ONE HERITAGE.

4- This fourth approach takes into account the psychogenesis of the human individual. As soon as Homo Sapiens emerged from Homo Faber in one phylogenetic process, the first characteristics are visible at birth: a long dependence for the children of three to five years at least (about 16% or one sixth of an individual's life expectancy at the time). The trauma of birth and the trauma/potential of language amplified by the trauma/potential of mirror neurons and empathy (we can see these various processes as traumas or as potentials, but they are tremendous long and painful processes nevertheless) that determine a similar psychogenesis for all Homo Sapiens children, probably a lot more traumatic and stringent 300,000 years ago, not to speak of the long migrations they went through as soon as 200,000 years ago within Africa at first and out of Africa.
ONE PSYCHOGENETIC PROCESS = ONE HERITAGE.

6- Retrospective Creative Conceptualization
The last point I would like to show is what I call Creative Conceptualization that becomes Retrospective Creative Conceptualization with Jeremy Narby.

Creative Conceptualization is typical of Homo Sapiens because it requires an articulated language to be effective. An individual (a community with mirror neurons and communication) goes through sensations from the stimuli coming from the outside world, that then become perceptions after the first processing by the brain that isolates, recognizes or identifies patterns. Then the mind intervenes (the virtual construct the brain develops as soon as the perceptive level is reached) to actually identifies these patterns and give them names. This is the first level of linguistic conceptualization. From here Homo Sapiens experiments with the development of techniques that are often accidental but not always (since Homo Sapiens is going to transfer previous experience to the new experiments), which leads Homo Sapiens to speculate on what he experiences and that is the level of scientific or religious or mythological or artistic conceptualization that requires language though it also requires other elements that could not be autonomous nor active if it did not have a linguistic basis.

That's how Homo Sapiens invented agriculture all over the world at about the same time after the Ice Age and after the waters were liberated to speak like the Zoroastrians of Sumerian literature. That's how the Mesoamericans produced the modern cultivated maize that cannot reproduce itself naturally from several different wild species that can reproduce themselves naturally. If we take this process into account and the fact that language multiplies the speed of evolution we can very well accept the idea of Mesoamericans inventing a vegetal variety of one wild vegetal species whose path from the wild to the cultivated varieties we still cannot identify genetically, and what's more important technically: how did these Mesoamericans do it? How could wild maize contain in its different varieties of DNA the knowledge of a species that did not exist yet and that was naturally condemned to be rejected by being unable to reproduce itself? We would have to state that the DNA of wild maize was able to invent a new species to satisfy the needs of local Homo Sapiens. That sounds iffy to me. But if we could tell time in generations the invention of cultivated maize took something like 5,000 years, that is to say 120 generations or maybe even more. If Homo Sapiens, with the fully developed languages they had there (and we know a few since they were written, like Maya) at the time and with the virtual mind they had developed thanks to this language they had developed at the same time as their mind, could not succeed in that invention we would not be speaking of Homo Sapiens but of some Homo Neanderthals that we know could not cope with that change.

But Jeremy Narby invents Retrospective Creative Conceptualization. The direct procedure I have just described produces a final mental, imaginative, scientific, mythological, religious or artistic conceptualization of the model that emerges from the long process of observation, experimentation and speculation. Jeremy Narby states that the speculative beings they come too are the truth, hence that these speculative beings are real beings in real nature.

"Why are these metaphors so consistently and so frequently used unless they mean what they say?" (page 102)

And why should they mean what they say? If I tell my son he is the apple of my eye, he is neither an apple nor part of my eye. It is just what it is, a metaphor, but it shapes if not format my mind.

This book is quite important in the way Homo Sapiens today is still unable to cope with the question of the origin of life. There is no answer to this question. If we consider the "directed panspermia" of Francis Crick, that Jeremy Narby turns from the earth to the cosmos to its reversal from the cosmos to the earth to explain the apparition of life on earth, it does not answer the question of where from? Because where did that living element arriving from the Cosmos come from and how was it devised from non living elements, or shouldn't I say how did it devise itself from non living elements? We have to remain modest and consider what we can consider and not hypotheses about which we have no material element to support them and that only push the initial question one step further away.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

I sincerely enjoyed reading this book as I could not put it down. This book is roughly 240 pages with eleven chapters. And, it is very easy to read. Narby's "Notes" section at the end of the book is lengthy and informative.

"The Cosmic Serpent" reads more like a novel or a personal journey rather than a scholarly work that one would normally read on the subject. Personally, I was fascinated with the sincere expression of the author's stories and his mix-in with the science of DNA. There were much confusion among the scientific community about connection between the use of hallucinogenic plants and genetic, and yet Narby was able to clear that up, even as briefly, in this book. I also find it interesting about Narby's discovery of the connection between the symbolism of snakes and that of DNA (double helix), and he backed this up with historical evidence from Americas as well from other cultures.

I found this book to be quite informative and most interesting to read. Most certainly a new look on DNA. I also enjoyed his other book, such as Intelligence in Nature.

"The Cosmic Serpent" is doubly themed. One theme is that of the symbol of the creator serpent (or twin serpents) as the source of knowledge and of all life itself. The other theme is that of DNA which in our modern western world-view is the source of all life and all organic information. These two threads are wound about in a spiraling narrative like the double helix of the DNA molecule or the twin serpents found in the timeless myths of cultures the world over.

The myths involving the serpent or twin serpents as the source of life and knowledge emerge from the ancient past with their tails hidden in the mists of prehistory. At the head of modern knowledge we have molecular biology and genetics; the study of that most serpentine of molecules - DNA. Like the Ouroboros, the cosmic snake of time and eternity that encircles the world swallowing its tail in a symbol of both unity and infinity, this book is an attempt to merge this cutting edge of scientific knowledge with the ancient source of wisdom steeped deeply in the shadows of our past.

The author, Jeremy Narby, holds a PH.D. in anthropology from Stanford University. In 1985 he began his fieldwork of 2 years in the Peruvian the store to earn his doctorate in anthropology. He wanted to show the Western world that the indigenous people of the the store basin knew best how to use their own land because international "development" agencies typically assert that indigenous people do not know how to use their own land "rationally" and use this rationalization to justify the "confiscation" (theft) of these people's lands to use and exploit for their own greed and in the process destroy crucial ecosystems forever. Narby's agenda was to establish protection of the territories of these the storeian people by demonstrating that only they know how to best use their own land because they had intimate, sophisticated and pragmatic knowledge of their land. To appeal to Western civilization for support of his efforts, Narby had to emphasize the practical nature of these people's knowledge of their land.

However, it was inevitable that in the course of his study with these people Narby would come up against the enigma of ayahuasca, the plant-based entheogenic brew par excellence of the Western the store rain forest. Commonly, the various ayahuasca using people of the the store tell us that they gain their knowledge of the many properties and uses of their local plants by consulting ayahuasca. In the visionary state induced by this brew, they are told many practical things; which plants to combine and use as a tranquilizer in which to dip their hunting darts, which plants to use to cure a given disease and how to use them, what plant to use to treat poisonous snake bites and so on. Narby felt that he had to avoid mentioning the fundamentally irrational origins of these people's pragmatic knowledge because it would undermine his basic assertion that these people were perfectly rational and practical people.

As Narby points out, these people are very practical. But from our modern materialist perspectives, the source of their pharmacological knowledge is not at all rational because this knowledge is derived from what we would call hallucinations.

The modern Western view would deny that hallucinations could provide reliable and practical information, but if the knowledge these people gain from ayahuasca is merely delusional then how is it that this knowledge is so practical? Why does it work? If pharmaceutical companies make millions from the pharmacological knowledge gained from these people can we really dismiss their botanical knowledge as irrational or superstitious? Yet lawmakers in Europe and the United States assure us that ayahuasca is a dangerous drug with no medical or spiritual value.

While conducting his fieldwork, Narby stayed with the Ashaninca and Quirishari people of the Peruvian the store. When he questioned them about how they learned all they knew about their local plants they would tell him that they learned what they knew from ayahuasca. Of course, Narby could not believe that a hallucinogen could impart real knowledge.

In the book Narby says, "After about a year in Quirishari, I had come to see that my hosts' practical sense was much more reliable in their environment than my academically informed understanding of reality. Their empirical knowledge was undeniable. However, their explanations concerning the origins of their knowledge was unbelievable to me."

One day while inquiring about these matters he was told that if he wanted to know the true answers to his questions he would simply have to take ayahuasca with them and see for himself. Narby accepted this offer and had a life changing experience. After drinking ayahuasca, Narby had a profound life changing experience. His view on himself and reality shifted from an intellectually superior know-it-all to a mere human being that has no real understanding of reality at all. In his experience, these thoughts were telepathically imparted to him by two giant snakes. There was more to his ayahuasca experience, but these are the elements that had the important impact on him.

In 1986 Narby returned to civilization to write his dissertation and two years later he became a doctor of anthropology. Following this he traveled around the the store working with indigenous organizations to earn them official governmental recognition of their territories. To these ends he also did fund-raising work in Europe. To appeal to benefactors Narby emphasized the practical knowledge of these the storeian people, deliberately omitting the enigma of ayahuasca.

After some years of this kind of work, Narby set back to reflect upon and write about the mystery of ayahuasca. Much of this book is the story of how we came to write the book; a sort of boot-strapping process. Months of research and note-taking led Narby to many different topics including shamanism, ethnopharmacology, serpent myths, DNA, quantum physics and more.

As anyone who studies mythology, mysticism and occult traditions knows, the symbol of the serpent of the twin serpents as the creator of life is astoundingly ever-present as is what has been called the axis mundi or axis of the world. This latter concept has been symbolized as the world tree, the pillar of the worlds, the ladder connecting the earth to the upper and lower realms and so on. Often we see this central axis of the macrocosm mirrored in the central axis of the microcosm of the self in the form of the twin serpents. Consider the kundalini snakes that spiral up the spine in eastern mysticism or the spiraling snakes of the ancient Greek caduceus that is still used as the symbol of the medical profession. These symbols are found in ancient Egypt, in Sumerian and Babylonian frescos, among Siberian shamans who have never seen real snakes in their lives; consider Quetzalcoatl, the serpent-god of the Aztecs, the rainbow serpent and creator god of Australian aborigines, the Midgard serpent of Nordic myths wound about the world tree, the serpent and the Tree of Knowledge in the Judeo-Christian mythology and so on.

Through chance, synchronicity or some other cause Narby encountered many uncanny connections between this symbol complex and DNA without really knowing what it all meant. Here is the main thrust of Narby's book, fueled by his own powerful experience with the two serpents he encountered in his ayahuasca experience years earlier.

Narby developed the hypothesis that somehow, through what Eliade called "archaic techniques of ecstasy" shamans receive information from DNA in the form of visions. Indeed, it is almost a universal truism that shamans gain their unique view on things by traveling up and down the axis mundi of the macrocosm or the microcosmic axis of the self.

Through his studies, Narby became engrossed in the molecular biology of DNA and he gives us many correlations between DNA and the shamanic world view. Close minded readers may find these to be mere circumstantial coincidences and gullible readers may find these to be proof that Narby's hypothesis is correct. These correlations are truly astounding but far from conclusive. Narby does not pretend to have final answers but he definitely forces the reader to take these questions seriously as correlation after correlation pile up. These correlations or coincidences seemingly never end but Narby actually misses a few; that the ancient Chinese system of divination known as the I Ching there are 64 different symbols to cover the totality of possible phenomena in the universe and that there are 64 different codons or strands in DNA, or that DNA is made from 22 different amino acids and that in the ancient Greco-Egyptian system of the Tarot there are 22 cards in the major arcane sequence to cover the totality of possible phenomena in the universe but I digress or that the final card in this series uses the serpent as a symbol of the macrocosm of the world and eternity.

As many a student of the occult, mysticism and mythology has found, once you start unraveling these uncanny correlations and connections, it just gets deeper and deeper and that the more one looks for answers, the more questions arise without answers. There seems to be no end to this sort of inquiry. Indeed, as exhaustive as Narby seems to be in the exploration of his hypothesis, his book really only scratches the surface of the seemingly endless mystery we encounter in the shamanic realms.

The following passages sum up Narby's hypothesis and position, "I began my investigation with the enigma of "plant communication." I went on to accept the idea that hallucinations could be the source of verifiable information. And I ended up with a hypothesis suggesting that a human mind can communicate in defocalized consciousness with the global network of DNA-based life. All this contradicts principles of Western knowledge.

Nevertheless, my hypothesis is testable. A test would consist of seeing whether institutionally respected biologists could find biomolecular information in the hallucinatory world of ayahuasqueros... My hypothesis suggests that what scientists call DNA corresponds to the animate essences that shamans say communicate with them and animate all life forms. Modern biology, however, is founded on the notion that nature is not animated by an intelligence and therefore cannot communicate." (page 132)

"To sum up: My hypothesis is based on the idea that DNA in particular and nature in general are minded." (page 145)

Along the way, we are given a dizzying dose of the mysterious nature of molecular biology. It is easy for the non-biologist to assume that this science is all tedious details of well-understood mechanisms but as Narby shows us, this science is just now tapping into the truly miraculous, bizarre and still fundamentally puzzling inner workings of the core of life.

It can not go unmentioned here that René Descartes became the "founder of modern philosophy" and the "father of modern mathematics" (as he is generally considered) after being inspired by a dream revelation in which an angel came to him and told him that "the conquest of nature is to be achieved through measure and number" and that this angelic revelation is the basis for the modern scientific method. Also, we should note that Kekulé discovered the benzene ring after dreaming about the Ouroboric serpent in the shape of a circle, swallowing its own tail. The idea that dreams could be a verifiable source of important scientific knowledge seems contradictory to science itself, yet many scientists have gained important knowledge this way. Here's an even more startling example that brings us closer to the dual theme of Narby's book; towards the end of his life, Francis Crick, the nobel-prize winning father of modern genetics confided a secret he kept for almost 50 years - that he hit upon the double helix structure of DNA while on LSD (see reference below). With this example of scientific knowledge derived from a hallucinogen, we see the snake swallowing its tail.

"The Cosmic Serpent" is similar to Terence McKenna's "True Hallucinations" to the extent that both books give us accounts of the store excursions and experiences with plant hallucinogens imparting visions and ideas fecund with profound hypotheses involving the molecular biology of DNA. "The Cosmic Serpent" is similar to "The Invisible Landscape" by Terence and Dennis McKenna in that both of these books extrapolate upon such hypotheses in dizzying detail.

It should be noted that "The Cosmic Serpent" contains little in the way of descriptions of the ayahuasca experience. Readers looking for good trip stories would do better to look elsewhere.

This book is by no means light reading. Though not nearly as dense with complex details and wild extrapolations as the McKenna brother's "The Invisible Landscape", "The Cosmic Serpent" may contain far too detailed a discussion of molecular biology for many readers, though one certainly does not need a background in biology to understand Narby's book, only an appreciation for the fascinating mysteries this science is just scratching the surface of.

Also, this book contains many long footnotes that some readers

may find distracting or tedious while others may appreciate these details. Personally I found these details interesting but distracting. Many pages had multiple footnotes and sometimes the footnotes for a given page were longer than the page itself.

Overall, however, it is my opinion that this is a fascinating book. It brings up correlations or coincidences, raises questions and suggests ramifications that are too profound and challenging to go unexamined. The intelligent, discerning, but open-minded reader with a passion for the deepest mysteries of life and with an interest in both shamanism and science would be likely to find this book to be both important and amazing.

It is perhaps fitting to close this review with a quote from the book, "All things considered, wisdom requires not only the investigation of many things, but contemplation of the mystery."

References: Rees, Alan "Nobel Prize genius Crick was high on LSD

when he discovered the secret of life" August 8, 2004 Associated Newspapers Ltd. (London)

The use of cosmic serpent symbolism is an extremely old method of portraying scientific relationships that describe the universe. The ancient Minoans of the Mediterranean, American Indians, East Indian cultures, the early Druids of Europe, the Jews, Egyptians, and others, all used portrayals of the Serpent and/on the Tree of Life (the Caduceus), or the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, to represent a macro-micro cosmic image and understanding of the universe. The ancient universality of this symbolic image, and later disuse following the rise of Christianity, leads to a contemplation of the meaning behind the story of St. Patrick when he apparently "drove the Snakes out of Ireland" (an unlikely occurance if taken literally and without a context or reason). Modern science is sadly lacking in the methodology to understand criteria based upon qualities that go beyond the abilities of quantitative analysis. An avaluation of this book based upon the limited views of scientific verification are not apt to do it justice. DNA is just one application that the image of the cosmic serpent can be applied to. Extrapolations of this concept hold vast understandings for scientists able to transplant the pattern of this image into other contexts. I am thoroughly excited about this book.

The book is extremely interesting, no doubt about it, but if the reader is seeking information about ayahusca trips, there are no significant anecdotes. The author only provides a few details about its first experience.

As an anthropologist, he is bewildered by the large amount of wisdom and information displayed by shamans he met, about the environment and the uses of plants. Many of the medicines they posses, are extracted from different specimens by elaborated processing methods. However they lack any technological means to gather data about their biochemical properties. So, the obtainment of the final result only by chance is almost impossible. When he inquired how the information is obtained, the response is usually the same - The plants "told" it to the shamans - while drinking ayahuasca.

So the author decides to find out how is it possible that while having hallucinations a person can reach veritable data with wonderful practical uses, and his conclusion is fascinating. In a nutshell, when drinking ayahuasca a shaman - or any person with an open mind - can communicate in a defocalized consciousness with the global network of DNA- based life.

He is humble enough to recognize that his methods and mental associations of mythological images, biochemistry, history, DNA, are for the moment nothing more that a plausible proposition. Nevertheless most of those who have drink this not so tasty beverage, can attest that their experience would challenged their preconceptions about themselves and the world they live in.

'The Cosmic Serpent' is an extraordinary and refreshing book. Written from the perspective of an anthropologist, the book unveils many myths in that science when it goes out ‘to meet the other’, and return to declare the peoples it met as schizophrenic, retarded or ‘possessed by the devil.’

But the author also reports how ethnology changed over time and become more objective in its look on cultures that are markedly different from our own.

In this context of a critical review of Western science meeting tribal cultures, Narby reveals a very important secret about tobacco, and unveils the myths behind the current worldwide propaganda against tobacco, with its alleged cancerogenous effects.

Narby, who has done research on tobacco over several years, has published in this book a good part of the research results, and gives further references in the footnotes. His research indicates that it’s not tobacco that causes cancer, but additives and preservatives that are put in cigarettes in the process of industrial fabrication. He writes:
—There are fundamental differences between the shamanic use of tobacco and the consumption of industrial cigarettes. The botanical variety used in the the store contains up to eighteen times more nicotine than the plants used in Virginia-type cigarettes. the storeian tobacco is grown without chemical fertilizers or pesticides and contains none of the ingredients added to cigarettes, such as aluminum oxide, potassium nitrate, ammonium phosphate, polyvinyl acetate, and a hundred or so others, which make up approximately 10 percent of the smokable matter. During combustion, a cigarette emits some 4000 substances, most of which are toxic. Some of these substances are even radioactive, making cigarettes the largest single source of radiation in the daily life of an average smoker. According to one study, the average smoker absorbs the equivalent of the radiation dosages from 250 chest X-rays per year. Cigarette smoke is directly implicated in more than 24 serious illnesses, including 17 forms of cancer. In the the store, on the other hand, tobacco is considered a remedy. The Ashaninca word for healer or shaman is sheripiári—literally, the person who uses tobacco. The oldest Ashaninca men I knew were all sheripiári. They were so old that they did not know their own age, which only their deeply wrinkled skin suggested, and they were remarkably alert and healthy. Intrigued by these disparities, I looked through the data banks for comparative studies between the toxicity of the the storeian variety (Nicotinia rustica) and the variety used by the manufacturers of cigarettes, cigars, rolling tobacco, and pipe tobacco (Nicotinia tabacum). I found nothing. The question, it seemed, had not been / asked. I also looked for studies on the cancer rate among shamans who use massive and regular doses of nicotine: again, nothing. So I decided to write to the main authority on the matter, Johannes Wilbert, author of the book Tobacco and Shamanism in South America, to put my questions to him. He replied: There is certainly evidence that Western tobacco products contain many different harmful agents which are probably not present in organically grown plants. I have not heard of shamans developing cancers but that may, of course, be a function of several things like lack of Western diagnosis, natural life span of indigenous people, magico-religious restriction of tobacco used in tribal societies. It seems clear that nicotine does not cause cancer, given that it is active in the brain and that cigarettes do not cause cancer in the brain, but in the lungs, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, rectum, kidneys, and bladder, the organs reached by the carcinogenic tars, which are also swallowed. /120-121

But this general outline of shamanism and how the modern world came to discover it is only a by-product of the book, so to speak. The real topic is a very specific problem that Narby had well defined in advance. He wanted to prove his hypothesis that the visions and encounters psychedelic substances trigger are actually visions of the DNA, or the photons that irradiate from it. He defines his research topic, first negatively, by demonstrating why this link between entheogenic substances and the DNA could not be discovered before by modern science.

The outline of Narby’s research is the most daring I have encountered in my shamanism research so far, and despite his well-written book, it seems that his theory was not picked up by the scientific community so far. Narby had previously noted a decrease of interest in the subject, but his vision about a paradigm change in science is hopeful in case that his hypothesis can be confirmed by more in-depth research in the future.

In addition, Narby made the discovery that quartz played a decisive role in the biophoton research he went through for proving his hypothesis.

Now, succinctly speaking, what Narby wants to show is that what the shamans perceive as ‘spirits’ are in reality biophotons emitted by the cells of the human body. He writes:
—What if these spirits were none other than the biophotons emitted by all the cells of the world and were picked up, amplified, and transmitted by shamans’ quartz crystals, Gurvich’s quartz screens, and the quartz containers of biophoton researchers? This would mean that spirits are beings of pure light—as has always been claimed. /129

I will leave it here with my review and let you discover this exciting book that is often quoted in shamanism literature. However, I have not yet found an author who either corroborated the theory, or else falsified it. So much the more the book should be read and its daring hypothesis shared with as many minds as possible, so that a scientific agreement can be found to either corroborate or falsify this very interesting theory or hypothesis.

This book was very interesting to me. For as many questions as were answered in the book, for me, it raised that many more. It really made me think about so many things . . . life, death, spirituality, reality, consciousness, medicine, healing, biology, botany, quantum physics, the human condition, society - I could go on. I feel like this book opened a door in my mind. It was truly a stepping off point where I decided to start reading more about these kinds of topics. I really enjoyed the journey. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to read something different and thought provoking.

The Cosmic Seprent stands strong as a work of non-fiction exploring the line between traditional understandings of nature and modern science, as it begins to blur.

The plan was simple. Anthropologist, Jeremy Narby, was to go into the the store and use his training, rooted in western rationalism, to report on how a given traditional community made use of the forest. This included foods and medicines, as well as the boundaries of their territory. The UN would then take those findings and prevent corporate interests from interfering with land that had now been 'legitimately' recorded as being occupied.

All was going well until Narby started to question the following disparity. The locals had thousands of functional medicines at their disposal, earning the the store the reputation of being the medicine bowl of the world. Why then was the fifth largest industry on the planet, with all it's money, resources and years of lab research, only able to turn their masses of the storeian plant samples into a small handful of functional drugs?

At every turn when he asked the locals how they knew so much about making medicines from the forest, the answer was always the same. Plants themselves had told them how to make these medicines.

From here Narby works obsessively to reconcile his rational worldview with the explanations and undeniable empirical evidence provided by the traditional communities he had encountered.

Not unlike a detective story, we follow Narby as he recreates his exploration of this mystery. His research leads him from the serpent mythology of ancient cultures from across the globe, through many different scientific disciplines, all the way to modern genetic science.

At it's core this work is a hypothesis that speculates quite convincingly that DNA, present in every cell of every living thing on the planet, has transmitting and receiving qualities. This in itself opens the door to a legitimate scientific exploration of a much more intimate level of connectedness in nature that has been suggested by almost every known culture in history, but has often been ridiculed by western science. In fact, one of this book's most powerful functions is to illuminate the reader to the very limits of western rationalism itself, starting with it's common propensity towards demoting that which it doesn't understand to being unimportant or useless.

The highlight for me was his discussion with a geneticist who, upon being questioned, admitted that the field of subtle bio-photon energy emitted by DNA may actually be where consciousness itself exists. This is by far the best suggestion I've heard so far on a subject that science rarely even wants to discuss.

This book is a must read for anyone interested in the cutting edge of where shamanic plant based mysticism and rational science are finally starting to intersect.

4.5 Stars.

The central idea of THE COSMIC SERPENT is that shamans have w way of communicating with nature at the molecular level when under the influence of certain drugs or in a trance state. This is a far-fetched idea, one that most scientists would consider so silly that they would not bother to read the book. What the shamans claim is that they communicate with plants, and the plants give them the information that they need to make medicines or poisons such as curare. Sometimes these preparations are made from many different plants, and require complicated preparation. It is also true that some animals, such as chimpanzees, know what plants to eat to help them when they are sick. So where does this knowledge come from if not from nature itself?

What Jeremy Narby is specifically claiming is that shamans communicate with DNA. He points out that throughout the world, and throughout history, intertwined snakes, or a ladder, both of which are reminiscent of DNA, have been symbols of shamanism. Paintings of ayahuasca visions by the Peruvian shamans Luis Eduardo Luna and Pablo Amaringo, and rock paintings of Australian Aborigines, certainly look very much like DNA in its various stages of mitosis. Dr. Narby presents a multitude of other resemblances of the shamans' serpents and DNA. If all of this is mere happenstance, it certainly is astonishing.

Dr. Narby asks the sensible question: "How could nature not be conscious if our own consciousness is produced by nature?" Is this really so much harder to believe than life and human intelligence arising from blind errors in the duplicating process? Obviously, only a tiny percentage of such errors could be beneficial, then these errors would have to escape DNA's self-repair mechanisms, and they would have to somehow manage to pass on future offspring. Could anything be less likely than this? Dr. Narby also presents a fascinating and plausible hypothesis that for the role of the "junk DNA" that constitutes 97% of the genome, namely that it functions as a crystal to amplify photons for communication between DNA molecules.

This might well be one of the most important books on DNA to have ever been written.

(Peter Payne, author of CAPTAIN CALIFORNIA BATTLES THE BEELZEBUBIAN BEASTS OF THE BIBLE)

Jeremy Narby's argument is that when shaman's drink hallucinogenic brews, their consciousness sinks to the molecular level, and literally communicates with DNA, the basic building block of life. DNA appears to shamans, and others who drink these magic brews, as serpents. This is why, Narby claims, serpents loom large in ancient cultures around the world. It is also how shamans get their expert knowledge of plants. When shamans say that the spirit in the plants tell them how to concoct life-saving remedies, they mean what they say. In hallucinogenic trances, the plants speak. Narby goes onto to speculate that the world is one vast communication network among strands of DNA. You don't have to buy the DNA-communication theory to enjoy this book. It is written in an engaging, personal, first person narrative style. It shows how science works, how "eureka moments" occur when one is relaxed and thinking about other things. Maybe his theory is totally off-base, but even so, big ideas like this one often spur research in different, interesting directions. We are only as good as our questions, and Narby's question is a great one: What if the shamans are right?

The Cosmic Serpent, by Jeremy Narby

I remember my personal shift from poetic to philosophical or scientific language. That was more than twenty years ago. I then paid more attention to the things themselves through rigorous analysis rather than relying intuitively on fanciful images that have a vague, questionable, kinship with these things.

In evolving so, I increasingly showed a typical prejudice of the Western, rational mind. I turned my back on all manner of mythological narratives where intuition and imagination share the same bed and beget strange, perplexing mental creations, open to a multitude of interpretations. Admittedly, this prejudice is warranted to the extent that purely rational or factual accounts that relate clear, if limited, realities with words directly appropriate to these realities are more intelligible and reliable. Having said this, it can become a serious impediment in the study of so-called primitive cultures. Their wisdom is an indiscriminate blend of profound truths, rooted in experience (sometimes expanded by psychoactive agents found in certain plants), and quirky anthropomorphic projections or poetic assimilations.

Open-mindedness here implies a renewed tolerance toward fanciful myths to rediscover the truth hidden in them, as that of ancient mythologies.

The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby - a brilliantly written and solidly documented book that is a pleasant read into the bargain - is an invitation to reunite with our intuitive, imaginative self and conciliate it with our Western, rational mind.

Likewise, in my own intellectual journey, I have finally chosen to be not a philosopher (fond of the scientific method) instead of a poet, in the name of reason and clarity, but both a philosopher and a poet. Reality is indeed best apprehended by means of all our mental faculties: mnemonic, associative, intuitive, imaginative, conceptive or other.

Having said this, Jeremy Narby in the Cosmic Serpent goes further than other anthropologists who strive to salvage the old myths by showing their secret relevancy to the real world. In establishing a connection between intertwined cosmic serpents as the universal principle of life (which is a foundational element of the so-called primitive knowledge) and the DNA double helix (which is the prized discovery of our scientific age), he opens a door that some may never have imagined even existed. Is the world truly animistic, where everything down to the smallest thing has a spirit? Thanks to some special training or special psychoactive agents, can humans, who are preeminently spiritual beings, communicate with the spirits of such large molecules as DNA molecules and through this process learn from and about them? Shamans apparently do. This would account for their knowledge of these molecules, represented metaphorically by intertwined cosmic serpents (or such like imagery as a cosmic ladder), outside the arena of science.

Let me conclude with a recommendation: read this book. Thrilling and informative, wonderfully unsettling.

Laurent Grenier
author of the book A REASON FOR LIVING
- The way to fulfillment against great odds -

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and found the writing easy to get along with as its written in narrative form that. Anthropologist Jeremy Narby steps off the plane and into the storeian country. Here he tries the commonplace hallucinagenic ayahuasca. This plant gives Narby incredible insight into the human soul, body and nature of life. The author then gives his experience in as much detail as he could remember, then passing along the rest of his trip with conversations and whatnot. From here, he sets out to write his book. Although the author does sort of jump to conclusions that the double serpents he sees all over ancient mythology is the double helix of DNA (i.e. the medical symbol caduceus). Although in some cases I tend to agree with his point of view, and I find much of the ancient symbols of the past to correlate strongly with our modern psychology, mathematical sciences and biology. However, in his search, he does not let go of the idea, which may or not not help his cause. The book would have received 5 stars, if he stayed on top of his subject. He began with hallucinagenics in the the store, then to DNA, then neurology and smoking ingredients. He writes humbly knowing what he believes wont be taken to heart very lightly. There are no answers in this book, however many questions, pertinent questions no less, which makes this such a valuble and enjoyable book. Definately reccomended. Fans of Joseph Campbell may really enjoy this one.

I found this book very interesting, but quite bizarre. The author states that South American shamans taking an orally active dimethyltrptamine preparation and then seeing various visions or hallucinations, are actually seeing the structure of DNA (which to them appears as snakes). The author further reviews world myth, where snakes often appear, and then states that DNA has communcated with various shamans throughout the world. There is some attempt to show that the molecular biology of DNA somehow supports this idea, but most of the author's sources are conversations with aquaintances who have some knowledge of molecular biology. The recent observations that DNA very weakly emitts photons under some conditions is taken as a molecular mechanism by wich shamans under the infulence of dimethyltryptamine see snakes - or "see" DNA and the "knowledge" that it's out to impart. Without knowing it, the author is part of a long line of scientists and laymen who have tried to find unusual and mystical aspects of the DNA molecule, almost, but not always, without sucess. The author lacks the trainig in molecular biology to understand that these photons may represent oxidation reactions and nothing more. Similarly his ideas about the function of repeditive DNA sequences in the mammalian genome are speculative and nonsensical.
I found this book fun to read, but speculative in the extreme. How photons emitted from DNA can be seen by humans under the influence of a hallucinogen is not mentioned. Or how the photons manage to move through solid matter and be "seen" through any mechanism. In fact, very few of the ideas set forth in this book are supported, particularly those that relate to science.
I still rate the book highly as the author is willing to put together two very different areas and he does have some interesting ideas. However, he is absolutely out of his depth when he tries to relate the structure of DNA to dimethyltryptamine visions. Snakes and DNA are both relatively linear, but that's as far as the comparison can really go. If shamans saw molecular biology, why don't they see DNA polymerase? Any vision could be called molecular biology. One could for example, say that shamans also saw "round things". Round things things could be ribosomes. Ribosomes are both nucleic acids and proteins....I think I have a book here. For what it's worth my science background includes a Ph.D. in molecular biology and medical school. The author is making comparisons that are very hard to take seriously. Still, the book is fun to read and may make one think.

Apparently countless civilizations have recognized the serpent or other double-helix like shapes as of primal importance, and consumption of hallucogenic drugs induces similar visions. Narby has taken this information and declared that humans are, and always have been, somehow aware of the DNA that underlies our existence. He also believes that DNA has intentions, can communicate with us, and it not of this world (he does not believe in natural selection, etc). As a geneticist with an interest in neurobiology and consciousness myself, I am aware that he has butchered much of the science he presents (for example, claiming that the circularity of natural selection makes it untestable). However he writes well, and I enjoyed reading about the anthropology (which appears well documented to my admittedly inexpert eye) that led him to derive this new mythology. I certainly don't agree with his conclusions, but I appreciate his intellectual creativity and sense of discovery.

Are there other roads to knowledge other than reason? It would appear that ayahuasca using shamans ascertain information by accessing imaginal (not imaginary) worlds. This is what they claim and it is hard to explain their vast and complicated understanding of herbal pharmacology in some other way. This was the point that this book impressed upon me.
Also, it would appear that big pharmaceutical companies exploit these shamans by stealing their information and taking the credit and the profit for it.
I cannot go so far as believing that the serpent visions are somehow projections of DNA. It is an interesting hypothesis though, and perhaps in the future science MAY confirm Narby's theory.
Anyway, I have heard so many good things about the entheogen ayahuasca (from varied sources) that I would definitely like to try it in the future

Let me begin by saying that I enjoyed this book. Since having finished it a number of weeks ago, it has definitely remained in my awareness, reminding me of the staggering abundance of aqueous, self-transforming serpentine matter thriving within and moving all of the "living" world... a line of thinking that inevitably leads to a boggled mind and a deep feeling of awe at the wonder of it all!

However, while Narby presents some novel connections pregnant with possibility, when all is said and done, this book reads more like a blog than an (even soft-science) scientific exposition. In Narby's defense, he states outright why he chose to write the book in the manner that he did, however the narrative structure did not provide ample space in which to delve into any of these ideas in more depth, which made it difficult to take the thesis seriously as a whole.

Narby's "one-eye-on-science, one-eye-on-mysticism" methodology seemed to impoverish each in turn, for although an interesting image did arise through such "Magic Eye" conceptual-gymnastics, by never bringing either side into sharp focus the book's thesis invokes little more than the vacant stare typical of one who regards such 3D dot-patterns images.

I hope that the author continues on his journey and is able to flesh-out his concepts, bolstering them with physical, psychological or even philosophical/theological evidence... eventually arriving at a theory which can be clearly stated, and ultimately: tested.

It really doesn't matter whether what Narby concludes is total nonsene or not. Some of the scientific reasoning is pretty weak. The microbiological evidence remains thin. Nevertheless. What matters is that Narby develops a view of the world that's outside the envelope. He invites readers to suspend belief in the version of reality that they have grown up in and to open their minds to one of a million of other ways of looking at the world. I believe that if you want to feel that little "snap" in your mind that signifies opening to a new way of seeing; if for just a moment you want to allow yourself to feel less secure on the foundation of scientific "truth" that has become the standard for describing the world we experience; then this book could be worthwhile reading for you. It sure was for me.

"Chariots of the Gods" meets "What the Bleep?" with a dash of Creationism. Know that that's what coming, and it makes a good read.

As metaphor and myth, the DNA-serpent connection is intriguing and powerful, much like the entirely philosophical ruminations of the ancient Greeks that have informed modern physical science via concepts like the "atom." And it's always interesting to poke around the dark areas that science hasn't fully charted - the mysteries of hallucinogens and the sources of indigenous knowledge being ripe territory.

But when he ventures out of his self-described area of expertise, anthropology, his ideas become as shaky as they are engaging. His experience of hallucinating two giant, "fluorescent" snakes that communicated how to relieve the physical side-effects of the drugs is an interesting story in and of itself; saying that this was literally a perception of photon-emitting DNA crystals is an unsteady plunge into pseudo-science. It would make a fun basis for sci-fi storytelling - in fact, Alan Moore used ideas from this book (among many, many others) in his "Promethea" comic - and I recommend readers view it entirely as such.

To be fair, Narby does seem to admit the flaws of his presentation and gaps of knowledge. To me, by the end it reads more like a call to action than a treatise, a plea to other scientists to put his ideas and their implications to real tests rather than dismissing them out of hand. He especially wants to see epistemological barriers fall so that things like the physics of hallucination and the process of apparently-non-scientific knowledge-acquisition can be investigated with all the rigor and depth of any other field of inquiry.

I would be intrigued to see if any researchers have taken up his challenge in the 10+ years since the book was published, but until hard science has said anything about it, this remains simply an engaging myth for modern imaginations.

Ayahuasca is not a "drug" in the traditional sense, it is an orally activated dose of naturally occuring dimethyltryptamine. Your brain produces this same substance naturally and uses it to transmit information, although the way this works is still largely unexplored. The ayahuasqueros's of the the store use this same substance to gain a deeper perception of the world around them.
There presently exists in humankind a chasm between those who "know" and those who understand that they do not know. Those who know are limited by the structures of reason they have erected in order to feel safer in the vastly paradoxical wonder that is life. The same structures that provide illusory safety, sadly, often blind them to the Truth.
What is a human being? Do you know?
If a thing has a name, does that mean we understand what it is?
Perhaps J. Narby has begun to bridge the gap for those who seek only within rigid constraints. Perhaps these houses will begin to crumble and those in them will begin to see that they were always safe, they were always home, there is only boundless wonder waiting in all directions.
I recommend this book, but beyond the first steps of investigation and research; I recommend imbibing, immersing, and including yourself in the place that has always been your home.

This is one of the most thought provoking books I have read, not so much because the arguments and theories presented are correct (they can never be scientifically proven) but because it really gave me cause for wonder and to ponder on how the mind/brain/body might function right down to the DNA level. Who is to say that the arguments the author presents are wrong? And if so, prove it!

At last a good study proving the "savage" people in the the store basin have knowledge we have not even touched upon. The author documents cases where the shamans world over know things about plants and healing our "modern" medicine refuses to acknowledge. Written for the interested non-medically trained, you will like this book and it will open your mind to things beyond what our science says is possible.

I received this book as a birthday present. Now that I have finished it, I realize the true value of the gift.
Jeremy's concise handling of the issues surrounding the subject of "native shamanic knowledge" versus "modern scientific knowledge" is eye-openning to say the least. He embarks on a rollercoaster journey of discovery that, just like a coaster, starts out slow and picks up speed as it goes. I had a great deal of trouble putting this book down and once I did, the world looked different somehow.

Jeremy Narby takes himself too seriously and he thinks he's stumbled upon a materialist kind of spirituality were DMT is a kind of chemical telescope. What does this chemical telescope do? Brown topless men are able to visualise bacteria with their DMT soaked brains and paint what they see on a canvas for dazzled Westerners to be impressed by.

I'll stick with Terence's post death state visions.

Although my background in literature and creative writing precludes me from making judgements about the science upholding Narby's ideas, I found this book to be an especially interesting and very thought-provoking read. A science fiction writer--as I sometimes pretend to be--will experience a gush of story ideas after perusing its contents, and anyone who has read about the connections between shamanism and science will begin to see the DMT "fantasies" of Burroughs and MacKenna in an entirely new light, no pun intended. Some readers will certainly dream about the theories of minded DNA and ultra-weak biolasers, and those persons with poetic spirits may ponder the cosmic implications of a conscious biosphere. I wouldn't be surprised if NASA receives a number of e-mails and letters from readers of this book which openly question our current views of outer space exploration and SETI research, because a new vision of the universe and the life within it is suggested by this book. Be warned though--Narby's creation is only the sketch for a far greater painting.

This is one of the most thought provoking books I have read, not so much because the arguments and theories presented are correct (they can never be scientifically proven) but because it really gave me cause for wonder and to ponder on how the mind/brain/body might function right down to the DNA level. Who is to say that the arguments the author presents are wrong? And if so, prove it!

At last a good study proving the "savage" people in the the store basin have knowledge we have not even touched upon. The author documents cases where the shamans world over know things about plants and healing our "modern" medicine refuses to acknowledge. Written for the interested non-medically trained, you will like this book and it will open your mind to things beyond what our science says is possible.

I received this book as a birthday present. Now that I have finished it, I realize the true value of the gift.
Jeremy's concise handling of the issues surrounding the subject of "native shamanic knowledge" versus "modern scientific knowledge" is eye-openning to say the least. He embarks on a rollercoaster journey of discovery that, just like a coaster, starts out slow and picks up speed as it goes. I had a great deal of trouble putting this book down and once I did, the world looked different somehow.

Jeremy Narby takes himself too seriously and he thinks he's stumbled upon a materialist kind of spirituality were DMT is a kind of chemical telescope. What does this chemical telescope do? Brown topless men are able to visualise bacteria with their DMT soaked brains and paint what they see on a canvas for dazzled Westerners to be impressed by.

I'll stick with Terence's post death state visions.

Although my background in literature and creative writing precludes me from making judgements about the science upholding Narby's ideas, I found this book to be an especially interesting and very thought-provoking read. A science fiction writer--as I sometimes pretend to be--will experience a gush of story ideas after perusing its contents, and anyone who has read about the connections between shamanism and science will begin to see the DMT "fantasies" of Burroughs and MacKenna in an entirely new light, no pun intended. Some readers will certainly dream about the theories of minded DNA and ultra-weak biolasers, and those persons with poetic spirits may ponder the cosmic implications of a conscious biosphere. I wouldn't be surprised if NASA receives a number of e-mails and letters from readers of this book which openly question our current views of outer space exploration and SETI research, because a new vision of the universe and the life within it is suggested by this book. Be warned though--Narby's creation is only the sketch for a far greater painting.

Parts of this book were really interesting, and others were a bit tedious. Overall, the author's theory that Shamans are "seeing and learning" from plant DNA (that looks like snakes/serpents to them, hence the inordinate amount of ancient paintings that depict snakes) is certainly counter to conventional Western thought.

If you enjoy learning about alternative ideas, you'll enjoy this book. Who knows, it may be generally accurate -- Western science certainly can't explain the knowledge native Shamans have acquired.

Jeremy Narby has made a breakthrough of epic proportions. I am not some new age fruitcake - I have a degree in biochemistry and have studied extensively in the areas of genetics, physics, and the properties of light. This book is a MUST READ for anyone even slightly concerned with finding the truth. If you do not have a scientific background, do not worry. Narby has written this book so that anyone can understand it (I estimate that 5-10 % of the information might require additional research by those with no scientific background). I find myself incorporating the theories of Cosmic Serpent into basically all other apects of study, including the Bible, Chaos Theory, the Kaballah, Sacred Geometry, and other religious beliefs from all over the world. I have read many books, and I consider Cosmic Serpent to be one of the most important books of our time, or any time, for that matter. I hope there is a follow up soon.

Author, Jeremy Narby leaps between science and mysticism on his quest to explain how several millennia ago Stone-Age hunters living in the Peruvian rainforest learned the botanical properties and the chemistry of plants. Dr. Narby, a Canadian-born scientist, lived two years with the Ashaninca people in the jungles of the Pichis Valley in Peru. Early in his work with the Ashaninca, Dr Narby perceived an enigma. He writes, "These extremely practical and frank people, living almost autonomously in the the storeian forest, insisted that their extensive botanical knowledge came from plant-induced hallucinations." For Dr. Narby, the hallucinatory origin of botany contradicts two fundamental principles of Western knowledge. First hallucinations cannot be the source of real information, because to consider them as such is the definition of psychosis. Western knowledge considers hallucinations to be at best illusions, at worst morbid phenomena. Second plants do not communicate like human beings. Scientific theories of communication consider that only human beings use abstract symbols like words and pictures and that plants do not relay information in the form of mental images. Dr. Narby said that he often asked Carlos (interpreter) to explain the origin of place names, and Carlos would invariably reply that nature itself had communicated them to the shaman during their hallucinations. Throughout Western the storeia people drink ayahuasca. (hallucinogenic drug) Carlos said, "That is how nature talks, because in nature, there is God, and God talks to us in our visions. When a shaman drinks his plant brew, the spirits present themselves to him and explain everything." Narby observes that in the jungles of Peru are people without electron microscopes who seem to know about the molecular properties of plants and the art of combining them, and when one asks them how they know these things, they say their knowledge comes directly from hallucinogenic plants, themselves. He says, "I was staggered by their familiarity with a reality that turned me upside down and of which I was totally ignorant." For example, hunters in the the storeian rainforests developed a muscle-paralyzing substance, curare, as a blow-gun poison. He explains that in the case of curare, a chance discovery seems improbable because... "there are forty types of curares in the the store, made from seventy plant species. The kind used in modern medicine comes from the Western the store. To produce it, it is necessary to combine several plants and boil them for seventy-two hours, while avoiding the fragrant but deadly vapors emitted by the broth. The final product is a paste that is inactive unless injected under the skin. If swallowed, it has no effect."  Narby experienced two drug-induced hallucinations the memories of which motivated him ten years later (when the hot-topic, ethno-biology, was highlighted at the Rio Earth Conference), to develop the hypotheses explored in The Cosmic Serpent: Plants reveal their own properties Indians get molecularly verifiable information from drug-induced hallucinations. His research propels him along a most intricate and twisted path, and one that will fascinate readers who appreciate science as well as those of us who read about spirituality and the occult. Dr. Norby finds that shamans insist with disarming consistency the world over on the existence of animate essences (or spirits,) which are common to all life forms. The interpreter, Carlos, referred to invisible beings, called maninkari, who are found in animals, plants, mountains, streams, lakes, and certain crystals, and who are sources of knowledge. The spirits materialize when the shaman ingests tobacco and ayahuasca. Aboriginal shamans of Australia reach conclusions similar to those of the storeian shamans, without the use of psychoactive plants, by working mainly with their dreams. Dr. Narby doggedly pursues the facts although the research takes him into areas that science hesitates to explore. Areas, he calls "blind spots." He gathers evidence to conclude that shamans know about the hidden unity of nature precisely because they have access to the reality of molecular biology! I hope to tweak your curiosity with the following intriguing phrases lifted from the text of The Cosmic Serpent: I know that any living soul, or any dead one, is like radio waves flying around in the air. That means that you do not see them, but they are there, like radio waves. Once you turn on the radio, you can pick them up.. The Shaman is simply a guide, who conducts the initiate to the spirits. The initiate picks up the information revealed by the spirits and does what he or she wants with it. Rationalism separates things to understand them. But its fragmented disciplines have limited perspectives and blind spots. And as any driver knows, it is important to pay attention to blind spots, because they can contain vital information. To reach a fuller understanding of reality, science will have to shift its gaze. Could shamanism help science to focus differently? True reality is more complex than our eyes lead us to believe.  This is perhaps one of the most important things I learned during this investigation: We see what we believe, and not just the contrary; and to change what we see, it is sometimes necessary to change what we believe. Shamans every where speak a secret language, the language of all nature which allows them to communicate with the spirits.

a facinating account of an antropologists journeys into the world of indiginous knowlege and utter amazement at the depth of knowlege that these "uneducated" shamans have regarding DNA (which they call "language twisting twisting") and mitosis and medicinal properties of plants. Also includes a very interesting set of statistics (you are welcome to view a post at gotblogua for my redigestion and investigation of these statistics) about the likelihood that the complexity of life that we observe as the result of evolution, could have actually emerged by pure chance...

Which raises a few questions i have for you:

Do you believe in evolution as a process of diversication of life via genetic mutations?

If so, do you believe that the primary driving force of these advantageous genetic mutations is random chance?

Do you believe that DNA is a language?

Do you believe that the use of language is a sign of intelligence?

Please consider sharing your answers with me via email

or via the comments page at gotblogua

regardless of what you prefer to think and or believe about these questions, i promise you that this book will engage you to think about them at great depths, providing a balanced and enlightened perspective grounded both in personal experience and solid scientific research.

I was disappointed in this book for several reasons.

First, it was classified as "science" when in fact it is a first person narrative of how the author investigated various avenues of mythology, history, biology, and other subjects. A typical chapter describes how, stunned and shaken by the train of thought he has been following, the author intrepidly soldiers on, diving into books and articles and perhaps making a phone call to a writer or scientist friend (many of whom are not mentioned by name).

Second, the author includes a few token quotations from the shamans he holds in such high esteem and claims can communicate directly through DNA - but doesn't take the opportunity to travel to meet them or interview them. That would have been a much more interesting read, from a travel and cultural perspective.

As for his dismissal of modern science and scientists for their narrow-mindedness and materialism, I find it highly suspect that he is perfectly willing to quote scientific studies and principles to justify his points (such as when he describes how DNA replicates or when discussing the molecular structure of various hallucinogens) but shrugs his shoulders at major bodies of scientific thought (mainly evolution) as though those scientists can't possibly know what they're talking about. He reminds me of intelligent design theorists who love to talk about gaps in the fossil record, without a hint of irony that they are dependent on the scientists doing the research for evidence of a fossil record, or gaps in it, to begin with.

Basically, this is a New Agey view of intelligent design. The author can sound like a scientist on occasion, but clearly isn't one. He doesn't seem to know anything about RNA (he calls it "messenger DNA") or plasmids. His theory that all DNA molecules are part of a global web that communicates with and designs itself doesn't make sense when you think about auto-immune disorders, cancers, or even allergies. And he needs to update his textbook about evolution, too, since he puts great stock in objections that have been long since answered.

It's a shame - this could have been a really interesting book, but the writing is too self-absorbed, and the "science" is inaccurate at best and plain wrong at worst.

Rarely does a book or discovery of any kind touch on so many of the critical issues in both the developement of the individual and evolution of human society. With his intelligent and refreshingly honest study of a classified 'primitive' culture along with the lastest discoveries made by molecular biology, Dr. Narby bridges the gap between what we percieve as real and the collective unconscious of every living thing known in existance. His book defines the purpose, and incredible power of DNA. The Cosmic Serpent should be required reading for everyone; it will lead the way to a greater understanding of this world, ourselves and each other. Bravo!

The implications of this book are potentially staggering. Narby poses some very tough questions - how should science account for the array of knowledge the shamanic traditions of the the store have? I retain a fairly skeptical attitude towards some of the claims people will make about psychedelics, meditation and so on, however in the hands of someone as generally level-headed and unpretentious as Narby it is difficult not to be impressed by the possibilities. For interesting companion volumes see Sansonese's The Body of Myth and Yan's DNA and the I Ching.

Finally a book that describes what my intuition has always believed, that the DNA actually has a voice and a way to dialogue with the body. As a healer, I have always seen this as the voice of the higher self, the voice that holds the wisdom of the organisms wholeness and potential. This book scientifically tracks what healers have felt and tracked for centuries. I love books that bring science and metaphysics together.

I have always been conflicted with the theory of evolution. It seems rational, but speciously so. It ignores consciousness, which is senior to science. Surely, any theory that purports to map out the arrow of life must account for our ability to know that we know. Without bringing theology or Creationism, God forbid (pun intended) into the equation, Narby explains a viewpoint that puts sentinent life onto center stage. Weaving together intuition and rationlism, Narby allowed me to dispell my conflict and realize that LIFE is consciousness and is the driving force behind "evolutionary" progress. Sounds corny, I know, but read it with an open mind and see if your views don't change, even a bit.