Jeremy Narby

Narby was born in 1959{{Cite book |last=Jim Willis |title=Supernatural Gods: Spiritual Mysteries, Psychic Experiences, and Scientific Truths |publisher=Visible Ink Press |year=2017 |isbn=9781578596652}} and grew up in Montreal, Quebec, and Switzerland. He studied history at the University of Kent at Canterbury.

He has a PhD in anthropology from Stanford University{{Cite web |title=Jeremy Narby |url=https://www.psycherence.org/blog/speakers/jeremy-narby/ |access-date=2022-05-16 |website=Psycherence |language=en-GB}} and spent time in the Peruvian Amazon undertaking his PhD researchWishart, Paul M. "[https://prism.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/handle/1880/45064/Cosmic%20Serpent%20Dspace%20Nov7-07.pdf?sequence=1 Reflections on the cosmic serpent]." Spirituality and Health International 3.4 (2002): 50-53. starting in 1984.{{Cite web |last=Stewart |first=Todd |date=2014-12-16 |title=The Cosmic Serpent |url=http://www.ascentmagazine.com/articles.aspx?articleID=123&issueID=3 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141216044805/http://www.ascentmagazine.com/articles.aspx?articleID=123&issueID=3 |archive-date=16 Dec 2014 |access-date=2022-05-17 |website=Ascent}} During those years living with the Ashaninca, Narby catalogued indigenous uses of rainforest resources to help combat ecological destruction.

Narby has written and edited five books, as well as sponsored an expedition to the rainforest for biologists and other scientists to examine indigenous knowledge systems and the utility of Ayahuasca in gaining knowledge. The resulting documentary film was Night of the Liana.Grant, John (2006). Discarded Science. Sterling Publishing. pp. 285–286. {{ISBN|1-904332-49-8}}.

From 1989 to 2024, Narby was working as the Amazonian projects director for the Swiss Non-governmental organization, Nouvelle Planète.

Narby and three molecular biologists feature in the documentary Night of the Liana that documents them revising the Peruvian Amazon to test hypothesis presented in Intelligence in Nature.{{cite book |last=Grant |first=John |title=Discarded Science |publisher=Sterling Publishing |year=2006 |isbn=1-904332-49-8 |pages=285–286 |author-link=Paul Barnett (author)}}

File:Cosmic serpent.jpg

The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge, published in 1998 documents Narby's time researching, as part of his doctoral studies in the Pichis Valley of the Peruvian Amazon, the ecology of the Asháninka, an indigenous peoples in Peru that started in 1984. The book argued that modern scientific understandings of DNA have been known to indigenous people for thousands of years and learned by shamans through ritual.{{Cite web |last=Griffiths |first=Jay |date=1999-07-07 |title=Serpent's tale |url=http://www.theguardian.com/society/1999/jul/07/guardiansocietysupplement4 |access-date=2022-05-15 |website=The Guardian |language=en}}

Narby also documents his own ingestion of ayahuasca, and claims that shamans may be able to access information at the molecular level through the ingestion of ayahuasca and other entheogens.{{cite book |last=Narby |first=Jeremy |url=https://archive.org/details/intelligenceinna0000narb/page/1 |title=Intelligence in Nature |publisher=Penguin |year=2006 |isbn=1-58542-399-8 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/intelligenceinna0000narb/page/1 1–2, 149–150] }}We’re All Tools of DNA. Whole Earth. 2002;(107):84. Accessed May 16, 2022. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=6395822&site=eds-live&scope=site He writes that his own ayahuasca ingestion was followed by hallucination and visions of two snakes, which he associates with DNA. The book documents numerous indigenous peoples who incorporate images of snakes in their documentation of human creation stories, specifically peoples in the Amazonia, Mexico, Australia, Persia, Sumer, Egypt, India, the Pacific, Greece, Crete, and Scandinavia.

Swami Gopalananda, writing in Ascent Magazine, praises the book's "spirit of personal discovery" and "unbridled enthusiasm".Gopalananda S. Intelligence in Nature. Ascent Magazine. 2005;(27):61-62. Accessed May 16, 2022. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=18047495&site=eds-live&scope=site

Biophysicist Jacques Dubochet criticized Narby for not testing his hypothesis.

Publishers Weekly was critical of Narby, stating that he confuses his own enthusiasm for evidence, and while it praises his advocacy for the rights of indigenous peoples, it was critical of the lack of scientific methodology, noting the absence of experimental tests to his hypotheses.{{Cite web |date=1998-04-01 |title=Nonfiction Book Review: The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge by Jeremy Narby |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780874779110 |access-date=2022-05-16 |website=www.publishersweekly.com}}

{{Main|Intelligence in Nature}}

Intelligence in Nature: An Inquiry into Knowledge is Narby's 2005 sequel to The Cosmic Serpent and present's his hypotheses about intelligence in flora and fauna, and the ability of different species to communicate, including at the molecular level.

• The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge (1995) {{ISBN|0-87477-911-1}}
• Shamans Through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge (2001) edited by Jeremy Narby and Francis Huxley {{ISBN|1-58542-091-3}}{{Cite web |title=Shamans Through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge |url=https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/shamans-through-time-500-years-path-knowledge |access-date=2022-05-16 |website=www.culturalsurvival.org |date=2 April 2010 |language=en}}
• Intelligence in Nature (2005) {{ISBN|1-58542-399-8}}{{Cite book |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jeremy-narby/intelligence-in-nature/ |title=INTELLIGENCE IN NATURE {{!}} Kirkus Reviews |language=en}}
• Psychotropic Mind: The World According to Ayahuasca, Iboga, and Shamanism (2010) {{ISBN|978-1-59477-312-9}}{{Cite web |date=2021-10-05 |title=Jeremy Narby – The Psychotropic Mind {{!}} Mind, Body, Health & Politics |url=https://www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/jeremy-narby-the-psychotropic-mind/ |access-date=2022-05-16 |language=en-US |archive-date=1 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220701065249/https://www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/jeremy-narby-the-psychotropic-mind/ |url-status=dead }}
• Plant Teachers: Ayahuasca, Tobacco, and the Pursuit of Knowledge (2021) {{ISBN|978-1608687732}}{{Cite web |date=2021-09-16 |title=Plant Teachers: Ayahuasca, Tobacco, and the Pursuit of Knowledge by Jeremy Narby and Rafael Chanchari Pizuri |url=https://psychedelicscene.com/2021/09/16/plant-teachers-ayahuasca-tobacco-and-the-pursuit-of-knowledge-book-review/ |access-date=2022-05-16 |website=Psychedelic Scene Magazine |language=en-US}}

• Collapse
• Comparative psychology
• Consilience
• List of psychedelic literature
• Serpent (symbolism)

{{Reflist}}

• {{Commons category-inline}}
• {{IMDb name|1776173}}

{{Neoshamanism}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Narby, Jeremy}}

Category:1959 births

Category:Living people

Category:Anglophone Quebec people

Category:Canadian anthropologists

Category:Neoshamanism

Category:People from Montreal

Category:Canadian psychedelic drug advocates

Category:Psychedelic drug researchers

Category:Psychonautics researchers

Category:Alumni of the University of Kent