1. INTRODUCTION: SCIENCE AND SHAMANISM IN THE PERUVIAN RAINFOREST

This book tells the interlinked stories of the transformation of each of the two authors. Randy Chung Gonzales was transformed in a sudden and radical way, one not welcomed initially but impossible to refuse and eventually accepted, which completely changed his life. My own final breakthrough, the result of my directly witnessing Randy Chung’s journey, was the last step in a long and slow transformation. Randy was initiated by discarnate beings in an ayahuasca shamanic ceremony to which I insisted he accompany me. This kind of initiation is extremely rare in the region, where typically a neophyte shaman seeks the teachings of an older living shaman.1 Randy tried, unsuccessfully, to reject that path. At the beginning it left him totally disoriented and confused. His three-year initiation by disembodied beings eventually transformed him from a materialist secular person into an effective healer, an empowered shaman, and a deeply spiritual person. As far as my own final breakthrough is concerned, it led me to ask new questions concerning the sustained efforts to eradicate shamanism in the Western tradition. It allowed me to perceive how the eradication of shamanism is embodied in our contemporary modern institutions, and to recognize that shamanism can be a powerful tool for addressing some of modernity’s most intractable ills: the ecological crisis and the growing epidemics of mental illness, including drug addiction.

The recent renewal, around the year 2000, of the scientific study of shamanic psychedelic substances—referred to as “the psychedelic renaissance”—along with other neuroscientific breakthroughs, have contributed greatly to my recognition of the potential for shamanism to play a role in addressing the ills of modernity. These shamanic substances are still classified as Schedule I illegal drugs in most countries, although not in Peru. This renaissance of the scientific study of psychedelics, taking place in many universities and hospitals in North America and Europe, as well as a few in Latin America, has been given new urgency by the dire epidemics of mental illness worldwide, combined with the limited efficacy of legal treatments. I am part of an interdisciplinary research project funded by the National Autonomous University of Mexico focusing on “magic mushrooms” containing psylocibin.2 The Nahuatl name for those mushrooms isteonanácatl. This project is unique in that it works collaboratively with indigenous Mexican shamans and their communities, something that is not happening in the psychedelic renaissance in the global north.

Randy’s narration and black and white line drawings, which form Part Two of this book, are based on his telling me his most important visions and other experiences during his three-year initiatory journey. Randy is not loquacious; his medium is not the word but visual expressions: drawing, architecture, and landscaping. He has designed and overseen all the buildings and landscaping in our non-profit center in the Peruvian Upper Amazon, in the town of Lamas in the department of San Martin.3 Now, because of his initiation, he is also healing a growing number of patients seeki