I have been told time and again by countless ayahuasca drinkers that the experience of ayahuasca is ultimately beyond words. These impenetrable descriptions are nonetheless usually followed by…
Talk delivered at EGA (Entheogenesis Australis) 2014, RMIT, Melbourne. Abstract: Images saturate our consciousness today. With the advent of photography, television, the personal computer and the Inte…
This paper imports nuances of nature-culture theory in Amazonian anthropology and demonstrates ways in which the reimagining of ayahuasca use in Australian society involves the modern idea of…
[Abstract] This essay explores proposals that have been made for the political economy of Amazonian ayahuasca shamanism by the Western-based NGO Ethnobotanical Stewardship Council (ESC). The discourse…
Despite Hiedegger’s revolutionary claim that it is not possible to escape existence and find a view of the world from nowhere,we continue to divide anthropology into neat subfields— defined typi…
As icons of the difference between nature and culture, there is arguably nothing more opposite than plant life and computers. Such is common sense and is based upon key…
Are there any common denominators that may underlie the practices of leading physicists and scientists, Renaissance alchemists, and indigenous Amazonian ayahuasca healers? There are obviously a myriad…
The psychoactive beverage ayahuasca is used differently in Australia compared to in its homeland of indigenous Amazonia. The simplicity of this statement is haunted by an immense complexity. The…
Yesterday I took my copy of William James’ Varieties off the shelf to read more about his notion of radical empiricism and shortly after placing it on…
“There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all” ~ Oscar Wilde Recently I came to realise…
“Drugs are like chameleons. They take on the characteristics of the culture they are in” Des Tramacchi. The mercurial psychoactive effects of ayahuasca seemingly allow the substance to ac…
If we are led to believe that what takes place in our mind is something not substantially or fundamentally different from the basic phenomena of life itself,…