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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MANY THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING: first reader, Rachel Vuillaume Narby; research assistant, Marie-Claire Chappuis; third base coach, Jon Christensen; unconditional support, Willy Randin/Nouvelle Planète; epistemology, Suren Erkman; anthropology, Jürg Gasché; metaphysics, Richard Chappuis; biology, Jean-Luc Renck, Véronique Servais; botany, Mathias Läubli, Michel Mettraux; medicine, Gilbert Guignard; professional guidance, Henri Weissenbach; argumentation, Jeremy P. Tarcher; French language consultant, Fabienne Radi Maitre; images,
[email protected]; original readers, Christophe Berdat, Philippe Randin, Yona Birker Chavanne, Patrick Lyndon, Claude Corboz, Laurent Grand, Jacques Falquet, Jean-Pierre Hurni, Jacques Mabit, Jacob Granatouroff; English manuscript readers, Michael Harner, Patrick Lyndon, Adrian Franklin, Rob La Frenais, Philip Colchin, Francis Huxley; literary agent, Barbara Moulton; my professors, Humphry Osmond, Sylvia Yanagisako, Renato Rosaldo, Shelton Davis, Stefano Varese, Albert Duruz; my colleagues, Alberto Chirif, Anna Tsing, John Beauclerk, Marcus Colchester, Pierrette Birraux-Ziegler, Oliviero Ratti, Laurent Demierre; nicotinic receptors, Marc Ballivet; dimethyltryptamine information, Olaf Anderson, Novartis; nicotine information, Brigitte Caretti, Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health; stereograms, Madeleine Siffert, Pascal Siffert; the term “DNA-TV,” Kit Miller; child care, Sandrine Arnold, Marianne Santos.
Books: The Cantonal and University Library of Fribourg, Switzerland; The Network of Swiss Libraries; Librophoros, Christophe Piller, Fribourg, Switzerland; Flashback Books, Michael Horowitz, 20 Sunny-side Avenue, Suite A195, Mill Valley, CA 94941.
In Peru: Sally Swenson, Victoria Mendoza, Abelardo Shingari, and the community of Quirishari.
Original fieldwork funded by National Science Foundation (No. BNS 8420651); Wenner-Gren Foundation (No. 4622); Stanford’s Center for Research in International Studies.
 
; Specials thanks go to Carlos Perez Shuma, who made an anthropologist of me; the indigenous people of the world, who taught me the most important things I know, who have kept their ancient knowledge despite persecution, genocide and territorial confiscation, and whose ethical standard is an inspiration; my parents, grandparents, and ancestors for the DNA; the global network of life, with a special thought for the plant-teachers.
PERMISSIONS AND CREDITS
p. 57. “The human brain.... Redrawn from Desana sketches.” From G. Reichel-Dolmatoff, “Brain and Mind in Desana Shamanism,” in Journal of Latin American Lore, vol. 7, no. 1 (1981). Reprinted with permission of The Regents of the University of California.
p. 58. “The human brain.... Redrawn from Desana sketches.” From G. Reichel-Dolmatoff, “Brain and Mind in Desana Shamanism,” in Journal of Latin American Lore, vol. 7, no. 1 (1981). Reprinted with permission of The Regents of the University of California.
p. 64. “The ancestral anaconda . . . guided by the divine rock crystal.” From G. Reichel-Dolmatoff, “Brain and Mind in Desana Shamanism,” in Journal of Latin American Lore, vol. 7, no. 1 (1981). Reprinted with permission of The Regents of the University of California.
p. 65. “‘The Serpent Lord Enthroned.’” From J. Campbell (1964), p. 11. New York, Viking, all rights reserved.
p. 67. “‘Zeus against Typhon.’” From J. Campbell (1964), p. 239. New York, Viking, all rights reserved.
p. 69. (No title.) From Luna and Amaringo (1991), “Vision 33: Campana Ayahuasca,” p. 113. Reprinted with the authors’ kind permission.
p. 70. “‘. . . the spread-out form of DNA . . .’” From Luna and Amaringo (1991), “Vision 46: Sepultura Tonduri,” p. 139. Reprinted with the authors’ kind permission.
p. 70. “‘. . . chromosomes at a specific phase. . . .’” From Luna and Amaringo (1991), “Vision 40: Ayacatuca,” p. 127. Reprinted with the authors’ kind permission.
p. 70. “‘. . . triple helixes of collagen . . .’” From Luna and Amaringo (1991), “Vision 21: The Sublimity of the Sumiruna,” p. 89. Reprinted with the authors’ kind permission.
p. 70. “‘. . . DNA from afar, looking like a telephone cord . . .’” From Luna and Amaringo (1991), “Vision 32: Pregnant by an Anaconda,” p. 111. Reprinted with the authors’ kind permission.
p. 74. Cover of Crick (1981) is reprinted with the kind permission of Little, Brown & Co.
p. 78. “‘A painting on hardboard of the Snake of the Marinbata people of Arnhem Land.’” From F. Huxley (1974), p. 127. Photo by Axel Poignant. All rights reserved.
p. 79. “‘A rock painting of the Walbiri tribe of Aborigines representing the Rainbow Snake.’ ” From F. Huxley (1974), p. 126. Photo by David Attenborough. All rights reserved.
p. 80. “Early prophase . . .” From Watson et al. (1987). Copyright © 1987 by James D. Watson. Published by the Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company.
p. 80. “Anaphase II . . .” From Watson et al. (1987). Copyright © 1987 by James D. Watson. Published by the Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company.
p. 81. “‘The cosmic serpent, provider of attributes.’” From R. T. R. Clark (1959), p. 52. Reprinted with permission from Thames and Hudson Ltd.
p. 82. “‘Sito, the primordial serpent.’ ” From R. T. R. Clark (1959), p. 192. Copyright British Museum.
p. 82. “‘Ronín, the two-headed serpent.’” From A. Gebhart-Sayer (1987), p. 42. Reprinted with the author’s kind permission.
p. 83. “‘The serpent of the earth becomes celestial ...’” From C. Jacq (1993), p. 99. Reprinted with the author’s kind permission.
p. 84. “‘Here is the dragon that devours its tail.’” From M. Maier (1965, orig. 1618), p. 139. All rights reserved.
p. 84. “‘Ouroboros: bronze disk, Benin art.’” From Chevalier and Gheerbrant (1982), p. 716. Paris, Robert Laffont, all rights reserved.
p. 85. “‘Vishnu and his wife Lakshmi resting on Sesha . . .’” From F. Huxley (1974), pp. 188-89. Reprinted with the kind permission of Aldus Books and the Ferguson Publishing Company.
p. 87. “‘Cosmovision.’” From A. Gebhart-Sayer (1987), p. 26. Reprinted with the author’s kind permission.
p. 87. “‘Aspects of Ronín.’” From A. Gebhart-Sayer (1987), p. 34. Reprinted with the author’s kind permission.
p. 89. (No title.) From J. Watson (1968), p. 165. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, all rights reserved.
p. 92. “‘The DNA double helix represented as a pair of snakes...’” From Wills (1991), p. 37. Copyright © 1991 by Christopher Wills. Reprinted by permission of Basic Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
p. 94. “Liana (Bauhinia caulotretus) ‘that goes from earth up to heaven.’” From T. Koch-Grünberg (1917), vol. 2, drawing IV. All rights reserved.
p. 96. “The ‘sky-ladder’ drawing . . .” From A. Gebhart-Sayer (1987). Reprinted with the author’s kind permission.
p. 97. “‘Banisteriopsis caapi, a liana that tends to grow in charming double helices ...’” From Schultes and Raffauf (1992), p. 26. Reprinted with permission from Synergetic Press, Oracle, Arizona.
p. 102. “‘The cosmic serpent, provider of attributes.’” From R. T. R. Clark (1959), p. 52. Reprinted with permission from Thames and Hudson Ltd.
p. 105. “A magnified section of a leaf . . .” From a photo by Alfred Pasieka. Reprinted with the photographer’s permission.
p. 111. “‘Cosmovision.’” From A. Gebhart-Sayer (1987), p. 26. Reprinted with the author’s kind permission.
p. 113. “Detail from Pablo Amaringo’s painting ‘Pregnant by an Anaconda.’” From Luna and Amaringo (1991), p. 111. Reprinted with the authors’ kind permission.
INDEX
Amaringo, Pablo
Anaconda
Ancon, Laureano
Ant
Artaud, Antonin
Avíreri
Axis of the world
Ayahuasca
Bergson, Henri
Beveridge, W. I. B.
Biophoton
Bourdieu, Pierre
Brain
Calladine, Chris
Campbell, Joseph
Castaneda, Carlos
Chaumeil, Jean-Pierre
Chuang-Tzu
Chucano Santos, José
Consciousness
Crick, Francis
Curare
Darwin, Charles
Descartes, René
Devereux, George
Dimethyltryptamine
DNA
Drew, Horace
Education, bilingual
Einstein, Albert
Eliade, Mircea
Frank-Kamenetskii, Maxim
Franklin, Rosalind
Gaia
Gebhart-Sayer, Angelika
Geertz, Clifford
Gomez, Ruperto
Gurvich, Alexander
Harner, Michael
Heraclitus
Ho, Mae-Wan
Holmes, Sherlock
Huxley, Francis
Jacob, François
Jakobson, Roman
“Junk” DNA
Kekulé, August
Koch-Grünberg, Theodor
Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste
Langaney, André
Lévi-Strauss, Claude
Linnaeus, Carl von
LSD
Luisi, Pier Luigi
Luna, Luis Eduardo
Malinowski, Bronislaw
Maninkari
Margulis, Lynn
Mayr, Ernst
Métraux, Alfred
Monod, Jacques
Mundkur, Balaji
Nash, J. Madeleine
Nicotine
Perez Shuma, Carlos
Piaget, Jean
Pollack, Robert
Popp, Fritz-Albert
Popper, Karl
Quartz
Radio waves
Receptor
Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo
Sagan, Dorion
Schu
ltes, Richard E.
Scott, Alwyn
Serotonin
Serpent
Shapiro, James
Shapiro, Robert
Shingari, Abelardo
Snake
Stereogram
Strassman, Rick
Sullivan, Lawrence
Tangoa, Luis
Television
Tobacco
Townsley, Graham
Twins
Twisted language
Tylor, Edward
Visual system
Wallace, Alfred
Watson, James
Weiss, Gerald
Wesson, Robert
Wilbert, Johannes
Wills, Christopher
Yahweh
Zeus
BIBLIOGRAPHIC INDEX
Abelin (1993)
Alberts et al. (1990)
Artaud (1979)
Atkinson (1992)
Atlan and Koppel (1990)
Baer (1992)
Balick et al. (1996)
Barker et al. (1981)
Bass (1994)
Baudoin (1918)
Bayard (1987)
Beach et al. (1994)
Beauclerk et al. (1988)
Bellier (1986)
Beveridge (1950)
Bisset (1989)
Blocker and Salem (1994)
Blubaugh and Linegar (1948)
Boulnois (1939)
Bourdieu (1977) (1980) (1990)
Bourguignon (1979)
Broad (1994)
Browman and Schwarz (1979)
Brown (1988)
Buchillet (1982)
Burnand (1991)
Burroughs and Ginsberg (1963)
Butler (1996)