Product Description

The mythologies and cosmology of Amazonian shamanism materialize in fantastic color and style in this unique, large-format volume, representing the fruit of several years of collaboration between a Peruvian folk artist/shaman and a Colombian anthropologist/filmmaker.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #116455 in Books
• Published on: 1999-04-28
• Released on: 1999-04-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Review
"Publication of these outstanding paintings of ayahuasca visions experienced by a native medicine man, Pablo Amaringo, and interpreted by the distinguished anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna permits us to understand the unworldly psychic effects of the ‘vine of the soul.’"
-Professor Richard Schultes, Director, Botanical Museum of Harvard University

"Pablo Amaringo and Luis Eduardo Luna are to be congratulated for their collaboration. It has yielded a book that is both beautiful and sure to be an enduring contribution to the ethnography and art history of shamanism. The visions and vanishing lifestyles of the ayahuasqueros of Amazons are presented with wonderful integrity and sensitivity.”
-Terence McKenna, author of The Invisible Landscape (with Dennis McKenna) and True Hallucinations

About the Author
Peter César Amaringo practiced for many years as a healer in the Peruvian Amazon. Today he paints the visions he remembers from his shamanic practice and teachers young people to paint as director of the USKO-AYAR Amazonian School of Painting in Pucallpa, an art school he cofounded with Luis Eduardo Luna in 1988, where local youth are educated in the care and preservation of the Amazon ecosystem.

Luis Eduardo Luna was born and raised in the Colombian Amazon region. He earned his Ph.D. from the Institute of Comparative Religion of Stockholm University. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London. The author of Vegetalismo: Shamanism among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon, he has been a Senior Lecturer in Spanish at the Swedish School of Economics in Helsinki since 1979 and since 1986 an Associate of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University.

Customer Reviews

Excellent!
Along with Schultes' and Raffauf's Vine of the Soul, this is one of the best books on ayahuasca ever written. Luis Eduardo Luna is one of the world's leading authorities on this intriguing subject and Pablo Amaringo is equally knowledgeable. A treasure trove of info and art for anyone interested in art, the Amazon, and shamanism-

Captivating Imagery from the Spirit World
I have tried time and again to pick up this book and read the text in sequence, but the full-page color plates of Pablo Amaringo's paintings always pull me away from the text and into the world of shamans, angels, devils, serpents, jungle cats, mermaids, and aliens. I've read a lot of the text, but usually I have done so in search of an explanation for the images in specific paintings.

My first ayahuasca experiences were under the guidance of Luis Eduardo Luna. His knowledge of plant lore, chemistry, shamanism, and human nature is awe-inspiring, and I do want to read his words, but the pull of Pablo Amaringo's images has been too strong for me to resist thus far. I'm glad to have this book on my shelf because whenever someone asks me about ayahuasca, I know that I can place this book in their hands and the images will capture their imagination and make them hungry to learn more.

Outstanding
If you wish a clear, objective overview of shamanic worldview, this book is outstanding. The introduction alone (which is all I have read so far) is worth a great deal. Without being dressed up in obscurities, there is much to learn here.