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 Indians, 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 with the writing of a book on the intelligence of nature and with the Amazonia Ambient Project. The AAP links up anthropologic tales - about ecology, shamanism and the encounter with different cultures - with the improvised music of The Young Gods, a band that was founded by Franz Treichler in the early 80s. For this new performance, the band draws its inspiration from their new ambient album entitled Music for Artificial Clouds, which mingles electro-organic sounds, percussions and recordings made in Amazonia.

In The Cosmic Serpent, your thesis is that nature, the spirits of nature, pass information on to shamans through the hallucinatory sphere. The theoretical explanation focuses on biophotons, which are emitted by living beings and which would be the visual language of these exchanges. Since the release of the book in 1995, has there been any confirmation of these hypotheses ?

Jeremy Narby : It was one possibility among others. But where does this information come from ? That’s the same as asking how consciousness works. As you know, it’s the black box. Biophotons remain a slightly marginal phenomenon ; it’s so difficult to measure in vivo. Intuitively, it seems right to me that light plays a fundamental role in biology which has been neglected up until now. But it’s true that there is a lack of hard data on which to rely. On the other hand, I did a simple test which I describe at the end of Shamans Through Time. 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.

Why did you exclusively take researchers in molecular biology with you ?

JN : The main issue in The Cosmic Serpent is that knowledge relevant to molecular biology can be reached through Amazonian shamanism. Therefore I wanted to try to test this hypothesis by taking several molecular biologists down there to undergo this experience. I could have invited psychologists, quantum physicians, etc. But I didn’t want to mix everything up. It was the first time in my life I was testing a hypothesis. Maybe I hadn’t realized what it represented. Imagine asking people to submit their psyches to hallucinations ! Taking scientists who are respected by their peers, who have never taken mind-altering substances, and accompanying them into Amazonian reality to the point of hallucinating... What if the three scientists had gone mad ? Drinking ayahuasca or taking LSD is quite risky, thinking otherwise is absurd. That’s why I wasn’t in a hurry to repeat the experiment. You should listen to nature and humans are part of it. If humanity as a whole is not in a hurry to put this hypothesis to the test, maybe it’s because it is not ready yet. The meeting will take place sometime later.

What happened with the scientists you took to Peru ?

JN : I can’t talk on their behalf, but as they say in The Night of the Liana - the film that was made about this experiment - the three of them changed drastically. The way they now consider plants and other species has changed their lives. When they got back, two of them decided to get involved into Chinese medicine. They’re looking for something in between Amazonian shamanism and molecular biology. Ayahuasca gave them a hard time with regards to their own personalities. When you work in a lab, you try to evacuate subjectivity. There, before you get visions of interwoven snakes, of DNA, of proteins, you’ve got to clean up your mind. It is hard to find oneself in this subjective, irrational and terrifying world. It’s difficult for a scientist who’s used to move step by step and to conceive restricted hypotheses. Science works with the idea of control ; in the shamanic sphere, you have to agree to let yourself be carried by the waves.

Is there a limit to the type of information that can be received ?

JN : There is a fascinating book called The Antipodes of the Mind by Benny Shanon. Note that he is not an anthropologist, but a cognitive psychologist at the University of Jerusalem. He has really done an in-depth study on what people see under the influence of ayahuasca ; he has classified, categorized, analyzed. In my opinion, he goes further than what I wrote in my book on the acquisition of knowledge through ayahuasca. Benny Shanon doesn’t see limits to the type of information that can be received.

These spirits of nature would thus give information. You ask questions and you get answers. Do these spirits seek information from the shamans as well ? Is there an exchange or does communication work only in one way ?

JN : It seems that there is an exchange. The spirits of nature that the shamans talk about like singing, they like melody. They also like tobacco smoke, which is food to them. They also like respect for what they bring ; that is to say that someone who is going to use the information to heal, who is going to transmit it constructively will have the favor of these entities. People who use the information for their own purposes will have a tendency to finish badly. That’s what the shamans say.

Could you tell us more precisely what the icaros are ?

JN : The icaros are chants that shamans use as a technique to communicate with the other beings of nature. They use them in a precise way, in order to have an impact on a mind altered by psycho-active plants. They are a tool for navigating through the hallucinatory sphere, by using certain melodies and words. The shaman orchestrates the visions of the person who takes part in an ayahuasca session. The icaros are also used to heal, to balance energies in the body ; as if the body were a tuning fork, they vibrate through the body and heal it. Besides, it would be very interesting to study the link that exists between melodic vibrations and the energetic equilibrium of the body.

Have you continued to explore hallucinogens ?

JN : With prudence and preferably in Peru with local shamans whom I know and respect. But I feel much more at home with rationalism than with shamanism. I think it’s a mistake to consider it necessary to undergo a lengthy training in shamanism in order to be able to comment on shamanism. On the contrary, to be outside the phenomenon while understanding the approach can help, because people who delve into it often find themselves facing the ineffable.

What subjects do you deal with in your next book ?

JN : It’s been two years and a half since I started investigating the intelligence of animals and plants. I left Amazonia as a place for research in order to look into science laboratories in different countries. This journey took me from Toulouse to Edinburgh to Sapporo in Japan, a country which has a Shintoist culture and is highly developed scientifically. The Japanese believe that there’s never been a barrier between humans and other species. In Japan, scientists raise questions stemming from other presuppositions, which are rather animistic. They presuppose that plants and animals possess a form of intelligence, but they recognise that the European word “intelligence” presents a problem. They have other words, like “chi sei” for instance, which represents the capacity to know. In Sapporo, Toshiyuki Nakagaki put a true slime mould into a maze and demonstrated that this creature - which is composed of only one cell - was able to solve the maze, even though it has no brains. Nakagaki describes this feat as an instance of “chi sei”. The data indicate that this brainless cell is able to calculate the shortest path and take it. But the mechanism of calculation it uses remains unknown.

On an anthropological level, you are more into interpretation, auto-criticism, and non-respect for barriers. Is it an approach that quickly imposed itself on your research ?

JN : Once I got my doctorate at Stanford, I turned my back on the academic world. I started a project that was quite political, in favor of the rights of the indigenous people of Amazonia. The point was to make Amazonian thought and practices familiar here, in ecological circles, and vice versa, to show the Amazonian Indians that there were ecologists here who wanted to support them. So there was anthropological translation and interpretation in both directions, but it was completely practical, not theoretical, and not academic. Thanks to Nouvelle Planète, the Swiss NGO that employs me, I have benefited from thirteen years of absolute freedom. I have complete autonomy to choose and support projects in Amazonia. Having demonstrated the relevance of the practical work, I began to write The Cosmic Serpent in order to explain the knowledge of the indigenous Amazonian people. That seemed to me a necessary part of defending these people’s rights. It was not just about demarcating territories, it was also necessary to show that their knowledge was pertinent. I was just someone who raised funds and who was in favor of ecology and of indigenous people. I did not really see myself as a critic of molecular biology or anything. I took the knowledge of the indigenous people seriously enough to want to try to bring together diverse fragments from the libraries and to see how to put this mosaic together. And that was The Cosmic Serpent project, in which, to show solidarity with the thought of Amazonian people, I had to flout the barriers between disciplines. In the end, you notice that there are too many links for it to be coincidence. We have been blinded by the fragmentation of our own knowledge. Anthropologists know little about botany, botanists know little about neurology, etc... Now it’s been nine years since the publication of The Cosmic Serpent. I’ve been told that some respected academics do not consider my work as anthropology. Maybe I don’t do anthropology in the classic sense of the term. The entire approach of the book goes against the grain of what is practiced in classic academic disciplines. Ultimately, I find it almost normal that they have a hard time swallowing such a story ; they’re just doing their job.

So there is still no instruction of this type of thought in the universities ?

JN : To my knowledge, no. There are young people who contact me to find out where they can learn anthropology as I practice it. Up until now, I have had to reply that I don’t really know. If someone reads what I say here and can contradict me, I would be very happy. There is a post-graduate diploma on “comparative religions and altered states of consciousness” just starting at the University of Lausanne though. They invited people from the best circles, like Isabelle Stengers, and they told me I could say whatever I wanted. So, there are some signs of change.

What can possibly be done to make mentalities evolve in the academic world ?

JN : Depending on an academic institution to earn your living limits what you are able to think, to do and to say. People’s careers are at stake, there are many small pyramids of power. The professors hold their positions for life, and when you’re the one who decides what the truth is on a subject, you don’t open the door to heretics. An anthropologist who takes hallucinogenic drugs with Indians, bare feet in the forest, can’t be taken seriously. That’s not the way to study DNA. They have equipment worth millions that bombard DNA molecules with electrons, that’s the way they do science.

Franz Treichler : In one of your texts, you say that it’s a contradiction to try to prove that indigenous people have gained rational knowledge through hallucinogens.

JN : That’s the very definition of psychosis. There are epistemological blocks. I found it easier to drop the idea of proving anything. I found that it was fruitful to go through the universities, to use the good side of rationalism, and afterwards, to go into reality. Universities are not true reality. They need changing, but it’s such an enormous job... What’s great about music is that the opinions of your colleagues do not determine what you do.

FT : You escape a lot of that in music, even though you have other constraints. But it’s true that they give you less trouble. If you hallucinate, everybody will find you great, it’s the opposite...

You talk about the incapacity of Westerners to hallucinate. Does the work you’re doing together amount to teaching us to unlearn certain mental schemas in order to put us in a receptive state ?

JN : Yes, combining music and anthropological stories as we do in the Amazonia Ambient Project seeks to stimulate people’s mental imagery. It’s a trance without drugs.

Franz, you accompanied Jeremy to Peru. Could you tell us about your experience ?

FT : I accompanied him twice, and each time I had the impression that it was too short. Just to find yourself in that environment makes you realize to what extent you are accustomed to your European vision, how you would like things to happen. It’s difficult to adapt, be it only to the pace of life, to approach their everyday life, the relationship they have with spirits, with nature. When you put yourself in the hands of a medicine man, or in those of the leader of an ayahuasca session in nature, you explore this world peopled by spirits. It’s very difficult to understand what is happening, but a lot of question marks have been removed. But I never stayed long enough to reach the stage of meeting the spirit of a given plant. That already goes much further, it’s a more complex apprenticeship.

Have you brought things back, for example for your performance with Jeremy ?

FT : In this performance, I have no pretension at all of doing shamanism. We try to relate the experience of a world, as we lived it. It’s very difficult to share that. The people who manage to do that have been taking plants for forty years, they grew up with it. It’s something that demands a lot more time and involvement. You cannot be halfway in this world and halfway in the other. I hesitate a lot. For example, the shamans’ songs that I’ve recorded, I didn’t really want to put them on disc. To do so would bother me because it would once again be a European approach, to want to have it all. What is interesting in this experience is the manner in which you get involved, the way you make yourself available. We also hope that people will want to approach this world. But we talk about ecology as well, of the sociopolitical, of exchanges, of the multicultural, of “bilingualism” ; which goes hand in hand with our vision of things. For me personally, it’s a beneficial experience, that’s for sure. I encourage everyone to go traveling, if you can afford to, and to experiment with that.

And to travel down there ? That may cause problems, as in Mexico where crowds of people went on quest...

FT : I read the biography of Maria Sabina, and it’s true that that did a lot of harm. But at the same time, there are many people down there who are waiting. For example, the shaman Juan Flores would like people to come to his center, because he thinks that it’s good for humanity. He thinks that it’s necessary that people see the world like the indigenous people - the world of spirits. As for myself, I am more in-between. But it’s true that it’s better to have a good guide ; otherwise it’s not really the same thing. And you feel it, make yourself humble, you feel that you’re in good hands, that’s important. They make an effort to guide you, they take everything upon themselves, because sometimes highly emotional things come out. You have the impression that they know where they stand. If someone is sick - psychologically or physically - within a few seconds, they will sing a special song for them, they will take care of them until it passes, and they don’t take enormous risks. They are not there to impress people, it’s all the same to them. They have such confidence in the plants, they know that what they are doing is right. If you have a physical problem, it’s because you need it. It isn’t in order to avoid taking responsibility that they have that attitude, you can really feel it. They are very aware of what they are doing, that’s very impressive.

Could you tell us about their relationship to music ?

FT : They are there and they sing, that’s it. Sometimes you can have variations with a flutist, or a rattle player. But usually you just have nature and singing, it is the most total purification. It’s a return to the essential that, once again, raises a lot of questions. Just think about all the things that have to be set up for a concert, or the technology that goes into a laptop... But that doesn’t prevent me from working with a laptop because I believe in it.

After several trips down there, what are your views on drug use ?

JN : I learnt that you should take plants rather than chemical products. Secondly, you should do it with a goal, that is to say in order to “psycho-activate” the brain. For example, I like to take mushrooms by myself, without alcohol, while listening to music, to shamans’ songs, with the deliberate aim of bringing images into my head, to reflect upon serious and deep subjects. But, unlike ayahuasca, mushrooms are these little jokers. There is a personality behind mushrooms that easily plays tricks on you, they have fun with you.

FT : Here people use drugs to entertain themselves, drugs aren’t considered as a tool for knowledge. Down there, they search for knowledge. They basically take them to find answers, for example for the organization of a village, or to heal people, or for hunting. Here it’s to escape from everyday life, to forget your problems for a moment. Down there it’s in order to solve them.