Beatriz Caiuby Labate and Clancy Cavnar offer an in-depth exploration of how Amerindian epistemology and ontology concerning indigenous shamanic rituals of the Amazon have spread to Western societies, and of how indigenous, mestizo, and cosmopolitan cultures have engaged with and transformed these forest traditions. The volume focuses on the use of ayahuasca, a psychoactive drink essential in many indigenous shamanic rituals of the Amazon. Ayahuasca use has spread to countries far beyond its Amazonian origin, spurring a wide variety of legal and cultural responses. The essays in this volume look at how these responses have influenced ritual design and performance in traditional and non-traditional contexts, how displaced indigenous people and rubber tappers are engaged in the creative reinvention of rituals, and how these rituals help build ethnic alliances and cultural and political strategies. These essays explore important classic and contemporary issues in anthropology, including the relationship between the expansion of ecotourism and ethnic tourism and recent indigenous cultural revival and the emergence of new ethnic identities. The volume also examines trends in the commodification of indigenous cultures in post-colonial contexts, the combination of shamanism with a network of health and spiritually related services, and identity hybridization in global societies. The rich ethnographies and extensive analysis of these essays will allow deeper understanding of the role of ritual in mediating the encounter between indigenous traditions and modern societies.

Beatriz Caiuby Labate and Clancy Cavnar offer an in-depth exploration of how Amerindian epistemology and ontology concerning indigenous shamanic rituals of the Amazon have spread to Western societies, and of how indigenous, mestizo, and cosmopolitan cultures have engaged with and transformed these forest traditions. The volume focuses on the use of ayahuasca, a psychoactive drink essential in many indigenous shamanic rituals of the Amazon. Ayahuasca use has spread to countries far beyond its Amazonian origin, spurring a wide variety of legal and cultural responses. The essays in this volume look at how these responses have influenced ritual design and performance in traditional and non-traditional contexts, how displaced indigenous people and rubber tappers are engaged in the creative reinvention of rituals, and how these rituals help build ethnic alliances and cultural and political strategies. These essays explore important classic and contemporary issues in anthropology, including the relationship between the expansion of ecotourism and ethnic tourism and recent indigenous cultural revival and the emergence of new ethnic identities. The volume also examines trends in the commodification of indigenous cultures in post-colonial contexts, the combination of shamanism with a network of health and spiritually related services, and identity hybridization in global societies. The rich ethnographies and extensive analysis of these essays will allow deeper understanding of the role of ritual in mediating the encounter between indigenous traditions and modern societies.

A diagnosis of cancer leads to healing and transformation in the Amazon jungle • Explains in vivid detail De Wys’s experience of being healed from cancer through visionary ayahuasca rituals in Ecuador • Describes her apprenticeship and relationship with the shaman who cured her • Explores the ways this spiritual medicine can heal the emotional origins of disease now plaguing our modern technological culture • Chosen as one of the “Top 10 Books of the New Edge” by Jonathan Talat Phillips on The Huffington Post When composer and Bard College music professor Margaret De Wys learned she had breast cancer, the diagnosis shattered her comfortable life. Seized by fear, crushed by existential loneliness, she couldn’t respond when her loved ones reached out to her. To everyone’s concern, the illness propelled her away from her family and deep into the Amazon to work with Carlos, a charismatic Shuar shaman and master of medicina milenaria, an ancient mystical tradition with a highly sophisticated and precise technology of healing. In Black Smoke, De Wys writes of her amazing encounter with Carlos as he guided her into a world of potent visionary plants, harrowing initiations, ritual purification, and miraculous healings, including the complete disappearance of her cancer. It was, as Carlos called it, “the path of the warrior.” Sharing a journey not only through cancer but also through self-transformation, De Wys provides an intimate inside look at the shamanic ceremonies of ayahuasca and the ways this spiritual medicine can heal the emotional origins of disease now plaguing our modern technological culture. Capturing her physical, emotional, and “holy voyage” through a world that differs vastly from our own in its perception of healing and wholeness, she offers a revealing chronicle of spiritual insight and a trenchant exploration of the limits of idealism. She not only provides a probing look at how our society can learn and benefit from indigenous wisdom but also weaves a cautionary tale about how potentially dangerous it is--on both sides--to try to cross those frontiers.

In the Upper Amazon, mestizos are the Spanish-speaking descendants of Hispanic colonizers and the indigenous peoples of the jungle. Some mestizos have migrated to Amazon towns and cities, such as Iquitos and Pucallpa; most remain in small villages. They have retained features of a folk Catholicism and traditional Hispanic medicine, and have incorporated much of the religious tradition of the Amazon, especially its healing, sorcery, shamanism, and the use of potent plant hallucinogens, including ayahuasca. The result is a uniquely eclectic shamanist culture that continues to fascinate outsiders with its brilliant visionary art. Ayahuasca shamanism is now part of global culture. Once the terrain of anthropologists, it is now the subject of novels and spiritual memoirs, while ayahuasca shamans perform their healing rituals in Ontario and Wisconsin. Singing to the Plants sets forth just what this shamanism is about--what happens at an ayahuasca healing ceremony, how the apprentice shaman forms a spiritual relationship with the healing plant spirits, how sorcerers inflict the harm that the shaman heals, and the ways that plants are used in healing, love magic, and sorcery.

Ayahuasca is a powerful tool for transformation, that more and more Westerners are flocking to drink in a quest for greater self-knowledge, healing and reconnection with the natural world. This formerly esoteric, little-known brew is now a growth industry. But why? Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew that has a long history of ritual use among indigenous groups of the Upper Amazon. Made from the ayahuasca vine and the leaves of a shrub, it is associated with healing in collective ceremonies and in more intimate contexts, generally under the direction of specialist – an ayahuasquero. These are experienced practitioners who guide the ceremony and the drinkers’ experience. Ayahuasca has gained significant popularity these days in cities around the world. Why? What effect might ayahuasca be having on our culture? Does the brew, which seems to inspire environmental action, simplified lifestyles and more communitarian behaviour, act as an antidote to frenzied consumerist culture? In When Plants Dream, Pinchbeck and Rokhlin explore the economic, social, political, cultural and environmental impact that ayahuasca is having on society. Part 1 covers the background; what ayahuasca is, where it is found, and its cultural origins. Part 2 explores the role and practices of the ayahuasquero in both Amazonian and Western cultures. Part 3 examines the medicinal plants of the Amazon, looking particularly at the ingredients in ayahuasca and their therapeutic qualities, covering the most up-to-date biomedical research, psychedelic science and psychopharmacology. It also covers all the legal aspects of ayahuasca use. Lastly in Part 4 Pinchbeck and Rokhlin question the future of ayahuasca. When Plants Dream is the first book of its kind to look at the science and expanding culture of ayahuasca, from its historical use to its appropriation by the West and the impact it is having on cultures beyond the Amazon.

This book brings a timely breath of fresh air into the labyrinth of material now available on shamanism involving the Amazon River Basin. The Second Edition of Amazon Shamans: Healing traditions from South America (first published in 2003), catches a moment in time when the ancient knowledge of the Amazon shamans was already changing rapidly. Through Michael Peter Langevin's journey together with his family, we get to take part of this fascinating region, and it's inherent ancient mysteries and miracles. Michael Peter Langevin has been on the shamanic path since 1973, and traveled extensively in Latin America. Over the years he has met and studied with many shamans in the Amazon River Basin and the Andean Mountain region. In this down-to-earth book he intersperses his own and his family’s journeys through the many countries surrounding the Amazon River Basin, inviting the reader to feel part of adventurous meetings with shamans, whose knowledge and wisdom stretches the mind to what is possible. Meetings that are often humorously conveyed, but there are also serious encounters when the peaceful life of remote villages clashes with modern life. Michael tells what it is like to see life from the eyes of someone else in a healing ceremony; about a Calling the Dead Ritual where he could actually see their spirits with his physical eyes; what it is like to experience the intensity of Ayahuasca ritual, and having your life revisited; but also about the strain of traveling with your children being far away from so-called civilization when they fall ill. The story of this book moves between Michael's shamanic initiations, and his joys and challenges of traveling as a family, coming together in the fearful situation of his sick children, which turns into a miraculous healing. This book is an exiting inroad to the mysteries of the Amazon shaman way, based on real life meetings and experiences. The Amazon shamans and healers hold libraries of knowledge that has been built through thousands of years of experimentation. Michael has an uncanny ability to translate the mysterious knowledge of Amazon shamanism into magical everyday practice, that is understandable and approachable. Throughout the book we are presented with basic Amazon shaman principles, procedures and rituals, adapted to work in any setting. These principles, procedures and rituals can be used to enhance the richness of life, to heal and even to question basic assumptions on how the world is connected and what is possible. In the words of Michael, “An invisible web of life connects everything in existence. Westerners often loose sight of this, but in the Amazon it's easy to remember, because it's presence is so visceral. Amazon shamans know that while reason is a useful tool, intuition and magic surpass it in most every way.” The journal-like, warm, free-flowing writing style adds to the intimacy and charm of this book. Michael is a convincing proponent of the Amazon way of spirituality and mysticism. He conveys a sense of urgency to change our direction in life and become more connected to nature, and to each other. In the concluding chapter of The Amazon Shamans: Healing traditions from South America he writes, “You must begin to speak with the plants, the wind and the stars. Only in these ways will you fully understand and appreciate your own inherent healing abilities as a natural part of the world.” As a handbook for Amazon shamanic healing and rituals, this volume is packed with powerful knowledge and practical techniques.