The Cosmic Serpent Read Online Free PDF Page B

these plants, then?”
    â€œThe owner of these plants, in truth, is like God; it is the maninkari. They are the ones who help us. Their existence knows neither end nor illness. That’s why they say when the ayahuasquero puts his head into the dark room: ‘If you want me to help you, then you must do things well, I will give you the power not for your personal gain, but for the good of all.’ So clearly, that is where the force lies. It is by believing the plant that you will have more life. That is the path. That’s why they say that there is a very narrow path on which no one can travel, not even with a machete. It is not a straight path, but it is a path nonetheless. I hold on to those words and to the ones that say that truth is not for sale, that wisdom is for you, but it is for sharing. Translating this, it means it is bad to make a business of it.”
    During my last interviews with Carlos, I had the impression that the more I asked questions, the less I understood his answers. Not only was ayahuasca the mother of tobacco, which I already knew, but the mother of ayahuasca was a snake. What could this possibly mean—other than that the mother of the mother of tobacco is a snake?
    On leaving Quirishari, I knew I had not solved the enigma of the hallucinatory origin of Ashaninca ecological knowledge. I had done my best, however, to listen to what people said. I had constantly tried to reduce the nuisance of my presence as an anthropologist. I never took notes in front of people to avoid their feeling spied on. Mostly, I would write in the evening, lying on my blanket, before going to sleep. I would simply note what I had done during the day and the important things that people had said. I even tried thinking about my presuppositions, knowing that it was important to objectify my objectifying gaze. But the mystery remained intact.
    I left with the strange feeling that the problem had more to do with my incapacity to understand what people had said, rather than the inadequacy of their explanations. They had always used such simple words.

Chapter 5
    DEFOCALIZING

    Twelve months after the Rio conference a publisher accepted my proposal for a book on Amazonian shamanism and ecology. I was going to call it Ecological hallucinations. Several weeks later my employer agreed to let me spend part of my time working on the book.
    I was set to investigate the enigma of plant communication. But where was I to begin?
    My initial impulse would have been to return to the Peruvian Amazon and spend some time with the ayahuasqueros. However, my life had changed. I was no longer a free-roaming anthropologist, but the father of two young children. I was going to have to conduct my investigation from my office and the nearest library, rather than from the forests of Peru.
    I started by rereading my fieldnotes and the transcripts of the Carlos Perez Shuma interviews. I paid particular attention to the strange passages I had left out of my thesis. Then, given that writing is an extension of thinking, I drafted a preliminary version of a first chapter on my arrival in Quirishari and my initial ayahuasca experience.
    During this immersion in mysterious moments of my past, I started thinking about what Carlos had said. What if I took him literally? What if it were true that nature speaks in signs and that the secret to understanding its language consists in noticing similarities in shape or in form? I liked this idea and decided to read the anthropological texts on shamanism paying attention not only to their content but to their style. I taped a note on the wall of my office: “Look at the FORM.”
    One thing became clear as I thought back to my stay in Quirishari. Every time I had doubted one of my consultants’ explanations, my understanding of the Ashaninca view of reality had seized up; conversely, on the rare occasions that I had managed to silence my doubts, my understanding of local reality had been