The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge
by Jeremy Narby
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jeremy NarbyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-04-05
ISBN: 0874779642
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780874779646
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge
Book Review: HOW CAN NATURE NOT BE CONSCIOUS?
Summary: 5 Stars
The central idea of THE COSMIC SERPENT is that shamans have w way of communicating with nature at the molecular level when under the influence of certain drugs or in a trance state. This is a far-fetched idea, one that most scientists would consider so silly that they would not bother to read the book. What the shamans claim is that they communicate with plants, and the plants give them the information that they need to make medicines or poisons such as curare. Sometimes these preparations are made from many different plants, and require complicated preparation. It is also true that some animals, such as chimpanzees, know what plants to eat to help them when they are sick. So where does this knowledge come from if not from nature itself?
What Jeremy Narby is specifically claiming is that shamans communicate with DNA. He points out that throughout the world, and throughout history, intertwined snakes, or a ladder, both of which are reminiscent of DNA, have been symbols of shamanism. Paintings of ayahuasca visions by the Peruvian shamans Luis Eduardo Luna and Pablo Amaringo, and rock paintings of Australian Aborigines, certainly look very much like DNA in its various stages of mitosis. Dr. Narby presents a multitude of other resemblances of the shamans' serpents and DNA. If all of this is mere happenstance, it certainly is astonishing.
Dr. Narby asks the sensible question: "How could nature not be conscious if our own consciousness is produced by nature?" Is this really so much harder to believe than life and human intelligence arising from blind errors in the duplicating process? Obviously, only a tiny percentage of such errors could be beneficial, then these errors would have to escape DNA's self-repair mechanisms, and they would have to somehow manage to pass on future offspring. Could anything be less likely than this? Dr. Narby also presents a fascinating and plausible hypothesis that for the role of the "junk DNA" that constitutes 97% of the genome, namely that it functions as a crystal to amplify photons for communication between DNA molecules.
This might well be one of the most important books on DNA to have ever been written.
(Peter Payne, author of CAPTAIN CALIFORNIA BATTLES THE BEELZEBUBIAN BEASTS OF THE BIBLE)
Summary of The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge
This adventure in science and imagination, which the Medical Tribune said might herald "a Copernican revolution for the life sciences," leads the reader through unexplored jungles and uncharted aspects of mind to the heart of knowledge. In a first-person narrative of scientific discovery that opens new perspectives on biology, anthropology, and the limits of rationalism, The Cosmic Serpent reveals how startlingly different the world around us appears when we open our minds to it.
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