Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge [Hardcover]

In The Cosmic Serpent anthropologist Jeremy Narby sets himself the enormous undertaking of attempting to provide a rational, scientific explanation for the realm of the non-rational and the spiritual - how Amazonian shamans (known as ayahuasqueros) obtain their valuable knowledge of plants. Narby's central thesis in the book is as follows:
1.Snakes are important in shamanic work in many indigenous cultures and especially appear regularly in hallucinations caused by the powerful plant-based drug ayahuasca.
2.Snakes and DNA look very similar.
3.Therefore what the ayahuasqueros call 'maninkari' or spirits, and cite as the source of their knowledge is actually DNA. By using ayahuasca, ayahuasqueros are in fact able to connect their consciousness to the biomolecular level of their DNA and use it to communicate with 'the global network of DNA-based life' (p.111) so accessing the knowledge that is stored in the DNA double-helix of all life-forms throughout the planet.

Narby's first person narrative and enormous enthusiasm for his subject is accessible and engaging, and I found the first four chapters of the book compelling as he analyses how unlikely it is that the sophisticated botanical knowledge of the indigenous Amazonian peoples could have been discovered simply by chance. He argues convincingly that plant-based substances such as curare and ayahuasca are so extremely complex to produce that the knowledge of how to create them cannot have been derived from simple trial and error but must have come from somewhere beyond everyday human consciousness.

The rest of the book is spent outlining and exploring his working hypothesis concerning the relationship between shamanically derived knowledge, snakes and DNA. However, at times it seems he is too obsessed with his own theories to be able to step back and take a wider and more balanced perspective. Firstly, he fails to seriously engage with the importance of animal spirits other than snakes in shamanic practices around the world - spirits such as deer, horse and different species of birds - merely dismissing these as the result of DNA being a 'master of transformation' (p.116). He also chooses to ignore alternative reasons for the importance of snakes in many indigenous cultures, such as their connection with life, sexuality and birth because of their phallic appearance, their connection with the Underworld and re-birth as they shed their skin, or their connection with the lines of energy that run through the land, known as 'ley lines' or 'song lines'. Throughout the book Narby concentrates only on one element of an Amazonian shaman's work, that of obtaining knowledge of plant healing, but ignores the many other roles they would routinely carry out such as hunting down and return missing or stolen fragments of people's souls, or psychopomping - guiding the soul of a person who has recently died safely to the afterlife. How can the biomolecular realm of DNA provide knowledge and power in activities such as these? In addition, Narby doesn't explore how if DNA is the source of all shamanically derived knowledge then in what ways do shamans from other cultures that do not use plant-based hallucinogens communicate with DNA to obtain the knowledge and power to heal people?

Taken to its logical conclusion, Narby's hypothesis is an attack on the essence of shamanic practice, that of working with the sacred. If the shaman's knowledge comes not from the sacred - from the spirits - but from his or her own DNA communicating with the DNA of plants, trees, animals etc then that knowledge can be said to 'belong' to him or her rather than being a gift from the spiritual realm for the good of all. As such, the shaman's knowledge becomes a commodity to be sold on the open market - something that Narby even goes to the extent of suggesting: "If the hypothesis presented in this book is correct, it means that they [indigenous people] have not only a precious understanding of specific plants and remedies, but an unsuspected source of biomolecular knowledge, which is financially invaluable ... " (p.146). To be fair to Narby, I can see that this attitude probably comes from the highest of motives: before writing this book he was (and I believe still is) working with the Swiss organisation Nouvelle Planète securing the legal recognition of indigenous territories in the Amazon. As such, it is understandable that he might want indigenous people to gain access to greater economic power by any means possible. But it does reveal that he simply does not 'get it' - nor has he truly listened to the ayahuasqueros who he has interviewed for his book. As one, Carlos Perez Shuma, tells him: "I hold on to those words and to the ones that say that truth is not for sale, that wisdom is for you, but it is for sharing. Translating this, it means it is bad to make a business of it." (p.35)

The Cosmic Serpent is an important book in that it has brought an awareness of the validity of shamanic practices to a potentially new and large audience: readers of 'Popular Science' publications rather than the usual 'Mind, Body and Spirit' folk. There is a sense of compromise throughout it though, as if Narby may not always be letting us in on what he really thinks about the true source of shamanically derived knowledge, mindful of the need to position his argument so that mainstream readers may take it with at least some degree of seriousness. In the conclusion he says that he has chosen not to describe in detail the impact that working on the book has had on his spirituality. I would have very much liked him to have written about that and I hope that one day he will.

The Cosmic Serpent is a book written by an anthropologist who sets out to aid indigneous peoples keeping rights to their land by demonstrating that their knowledge of the fauna and flora allows them to use the rainforest as a natural pharmacy, during his time with these peoples his life is re-directed by the honest spiritual accounts of the 'ayahuasqueros' the local shamans. Years later he cannot ignore the spiritual elements of what he learned with these people and he begins to push at the boundaries of the known sciences.

The book is written in a very readable manner, and even though the author has little or no background in other sciences he has gone into great detail in his research. I think this book would be quite readable for those with no science type background right up to those with a good knowledge of biochemistry, but an open mind is needed to observe the logic Narby works with.

As pointed out in some of his other reviews his logic can seem to leap a little far sometimes, e.g. a plumed snake from the Aztec mythology representing both 'serpent' and 'non-serpent'. However i believe this is more to do with the detail he has gone into for when he states examples from other known myths and civilisations, books on ancient Aztec and Mayan civilisations would explain this conclusion a little more.

Parts of this book read very much like Bill Brysons short history of nearly everything, and it is wonderful to read the fascinating facts of DNA and biochemistry first hand from someone who has just learned about the awe inspiring facts of our bodies and there secret codes. I think Narby gives a much needed push to some 'accepted' areas of science. For example, as DNA has been further understood since Crick and Howell, it has become apparent that only a small portion of it, 3%, is used to instruct how to make a human body. When i studied biology it was a source of frustration to me that the other 97% was termed 'nonsense DNA' and was believed to be useless. Why after however billion years of evolution our DNA would only be 3% useful is beyond Darwin, It was good to read Narby pushing this and other curious elements about things we take for granted scientifically.

Sorry to waffle on so much, but I have found this book really inspiring and i feel passionately about the subjects it moves through.

Good fact from the book "The average human body contains 25,000,000,000 miles of DNA" Pretty cool eh?

This book takes you on an unexpected and surprising journey. Ever since sub-atomic physics discovered that the presence of the experimenter alters the outcome of any experiment - ie that pure objectivity is no longer possible - some avant garde scientists have slowly begun to see reality through new eyes. More and more scientists are beginning to discover what every good intuitive already knows: that an inherent intelligence pervades all things. This idea flies directly in the face of old 'objective' science which rests on materialist philosophy. This philosophy claims, for instance, that we will ultimately be able to understand life as just a series of chemical reactions. Jeremy Narby, a scientist himself, begins The Cosmic Serpent with this materialistic perspective but gradually, in the face of more and more overwhelming and compelling evidence finds himself forced to challenge the materialist philosophy on which science is based as he discovers the active intelligent, coded language at the heart of life itself, in the DNA. This is something way beyond the blind chemistry of materialistic science. DNA originated life as we understand it 3500 million years ago almost as soon as the planet cooled enough to sustain it and, according to the fossil record, with hardly enough time to develop anything so sophisticated. Scientists are inclined to think that only humans have been intelligent enough to invent language. So where did the ultra sophisticated coded language embedded in DNA come from? What is it saying?

This book is like discovering those important pieces of the jig-saw puzzle you've been looking for everywhere. It explains some of the mysteries. It also elevates so-called tribal knowledge - obtained by shamans the world over - to a par and probably beyond recent discoveries in the field of genetics. It becomes obvious reading this book that the shamans have long known about DNA and the origin of life - even if they use their own language to describe it. Also, because they are not looking to exploit it, their relationship to this knowledge is very different to ours.

The Cosmic Serpent describes Jeremy Narby's personal quest for truth. It's an exciting read as he uses his scientific mind to uncover truths which have long remained hidden. Along the way he finds his own beliefs challenged again and again. He expects his work to be rejected by dogmatic and fundamentalist believers in science. They may do this out of hand by not reading this book. But any who do and have a half-way open mind will surely also be challenged to the roots of their belief. It will be interesting to see if and how Western scientists come to terms with the remarkable facts in this fascinating book. And if science ever does come to recognise the sacredness of life then this book will have been one of the stepping stones which helped it to a better perspective.