Ayahuasca Reader

Luis Eduardo Luna, born in Florenciain 1947, in the Colombian Amazon region, is co-editor with Steven F. White of the Ayahuasca Reader. He received his PhD from the Institute of Comparative Religion at Stockholm University. A Guggenheim Fellow and Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, he is also the author of Vegetalismo: Shamanism among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon and, with Pablo Amaringo, Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman, a project that grew from their work to establish the internationally recognized USKO-AYAR Amazonian School of Painting in Pucallpa, Peru. From 1994 to 1998 he was a Professor in Anthropology at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Florianópolis, Brazil. He retired from the Swedish School of Economics in Helsinki in 2011. He is the Director of Wasiwaska, Research Center for the Study of Psychointegrator Plants, Visionary Art and Consciousness, based in Florianópolis, southern Brazil. Steven F. White, born in Abington, Pennsylvania in 1955, is co-editor with Luis Eduardo Luna of the Ayahuasca Reader. He received a BA in English from Williams College as well as MA and PhD degrees in Spanish from the University of Oregon. He received support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lannan Foundation and was the recipient of two Fulbright fellowships. He has lived and worked in many Latin American countries, an opportunity that enabled him to edit bilingual anthologies of poetry from Nicaragua, Chile and Brazil. Recent books have focused on ecology and include El mundo más que humano en la poesía de Pablo Antonio Cuadra: un estudio ecocrítico, Arando el aire: la ecología en la poesía y la música de Nicaragua and El consumo de lo que somos: muestra de poesía ecológica hispánica contemporánea. He also co-translated Federico García Lorca’s Poet in New York and The Angel of Rain by Gastón Baquero. His published poetry includes Escanciador de pócimas, Bajo la palabra de las plantas (poesía selecta: 1979-2009) and Sworn to the Plants: Selected Poems (1976-2016). He has been teaching at St. Lawrence University since 1987 and is one of the co-founders of its Caribbean and Latin American Studies program.

“Given the plethora of publications on ayahuasca, it is sometimes difficult to know which are the worthiest. That being said, the Ayahuasca Reader is a classic.” –Mark Plotkin, PhD, ethnobotanist and director of Amazon Conservation Team“The second edition of Ayahuasca Reader confirms that it is an invaluable resource and a must-read for anybody interested in ayahuasca.” –Jeremy Narby, PhD, Amazonian Project Director, Nouvelle Planète“Gripping myths, rituals, and initiation rites; heavens, hells, and other worlds; healing, therapy, and spiritual growth. With all this as well as the chemistry and biology of this very special brew, this book is everything a ‘Reader’ should be: broad, comprehensive, and enticing.” –Susan Blackmore, psychologist and memeticist

• Foreword by Ralph MetznerPreface to the Second Edition Luis Eduardo Luna and Steven F. WhiteIntroduction I. AYAHUASCA MYTHS AND TESTIMONIESYajé: Myth and RitualGerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff The Creation MythGerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff A Visit to the Second Heaven: A Siona Narrative of the Yagé ExperienceE. Jean Matteson Langdon Two Ayahuasca Myths from the Cashinahua of Northwestern BrazilElsje Maria Lagrou Mythologies of the VineOscar Calavia Sáez A Huaorani Myth of the First Miiyabu (Ayahuasca Vine)Jonathon S. Miller Weisberger Initiation ExperienceJean-Pierre Chaumeil (as told by Alberto Prohaño) Light of This WorldDon Hilario Peña Unámarai, Father of YajéHugo Niño At the End You See GodFernando Payaguaje II.AYAHUASCA CULTURAL ENCOUNTERSOn Some Remarkable Narcotics of the Amazon Valley and OrinocoRichard Spruce First Known Printed Reference to Ayahuasca (1675)José Chantre y Herrera The Drug that Makes Men BraveGordon MacCreagh Discovering the WayMichael Harner A Yajé SessionGerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff Yagé NostalgiaScott S. Robinson The Spears of Twilight: Life and Death in the Amazon JunglePhilippe Descola One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain ForestWade Davis Becoming-JaguarWilliam Torres C. The Jaguar Who Would Not Say Her Prayers: Changing Polarities in Upper Amazonian ShamanismFrançoise Barbira Freedman MontageMichael Taussig Design TherapyAngelika Gebhart-Sayer Healing Icaros in Peruvian VegetalismoSusana Bustos Tracking the River of Change: A Multidimensional Interpretation of Ayahuasca HealingThe Heart: Hungarian Ethnobotanical and Ayahuasca Research Team (Petra Bokor, Ede Frecska, Lajos Horvath, Attila Szabo) Through the Void: A Cognitive TestimonyJan Kounen Twenty Years LaterFrançois Demange Some Observations on the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca ExperienceLuis Eduardo Luna Ayahuasca as AntidoteJeremy Narby III. NEW RELIGIONS: SANTO DAIME, BARQUINHA, AND UNIÃO DO VEGETAL (UDV)HymnsReceived by Raimundo Irineu SerraReceived by Sebastião Mota de MeloReceived by Alfredo Gregório de MeloReceived by Daniel Pereira de MatosReceived by Francisca Campos do Nascimento The Book of Visions: Journey to Santo Daime (excerpt)Alex Polari de Alverga An Unusual Experience with “Hoasca”: A Lesson From the TeacherDennis J. McKenna IV. WRITING AYAHUASCAThe Vortex (excerpt)José Eustasio Rivera The Yagé LettersAllen Ginsberg Men of ChazútaF. Bruce Lamb The Three Halves of Ino Moxo (excerpt)César Calvo Ayahuasca, or What There Is at the EndMario Villafranca Saravia ReturningIb Michael Aerial WatersNéstor Perlongher The Mother of the Voice in the Ear (excerpt)Alfonso Domingo Rio NAPODale Pendell From Sworn to the PlantsSteven F. White Ayahuasca in My Art and PhilosophyAlex Grey AyahuascaJuan Carlos Galeano The Woman I Could Have BeenEsthela Calderón Icaro of the YacumamaAna Varela Tafur Rite of PassagePercy Vílchez Vela Ayahuasca Gave Me a StoryGraham Hancock V. AYAHUASCA IN VISUAL EXPRESSIONList of Color Plates, Ayahuasca in Visual Expression Bibliography, Select Discography and FilmographyAppendix – Selected Works in Their Original LanguageNotes on ContributorsGeneral Index