Video: Conversation with Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna about the Science and Philosophy of Plant Intelligence

February 16, 2024

Dr. Luis Eduardo is the Director of Wasiwaska, a research center in Brazil for the study of psychointegrator plants, visionary art and consciousness. On February 16, 2024, Dr. Luna presented about ethnobotanical research at his Center, learning with and from the local communities, as well as speaking with and to the plants. He also discussed the relationship between his research work and art, and how the greater-than-human world informed his approach to being an artist as well as an exhibition director.

Conversation with Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna about the Science and Philosophy of Plant Intelligence

Harvard Divinity School. The Science and philosophy of Plant Intelligence. February 16, 2024.

RACHEL PETERSON: Welcome, welcome. Good afternoon. Thank you all for coming. I understand we have close to 60 people online and many people here in the room with us today. We're so excited that you've taken the time to join us for this talk with Luis Eduardo Luna, Thinking with Plants and the Peruvian Amazon and the Brazilian Atlantic Coastal Forests.

My name is Rachel Peterson, and together with my colleague, Natalia Schwien. I co-lead the plant consciousness reading group here at the Center for the Study of World Religions. And the reading group is in our second year and we are pleased to announce that we have blossomed into a full blown initiative, thanks to, Yay. Thanks to generous support from the VK Rasmussen Foundation. And this initiative will bring in the coming year, additional programming around plants and fungi, a continuation of our reading group, and an interdisciplinary conference next spring in 2025.

So stay tuned for all that we have in store for you on this subject. This initiative, Thinking with Plants and Fungi, is an interdisciplinary exploration into how plants help us rethink the nature of mind and matter, and humans relationship to the more than human world. How in turning our attention to plants might we cultivate an ecological imagination that displaces humans from its center, and how do different cultural theological and philosophical systems, both new and old, accommodate for the vibrancy and agency of plant life.

Cutting edge scientific research is shedding light on the sophisticated ways that plants and fungi sense, make sense of and interact with the world. Recent scholarship has made mainstream notions that mere years ago were preposterous in the academy, namely that plants and fungi communicate, cooperate, and behave in ways previously unimaginable. Some argue that plants are even intelligent or conscious.

This research in many cases resonates with ancient wisdom that has been safeguarded by indigenous, spiritual and folk traditions throughout the world, as well as often forgotten ecological strains of thought within major philosophical and religious traditions. Indeed, the study of plants invites a redefinition of critical categories once indexed exclusively to humans, including mind, intelligence, sentience, consciousness and agency.

For that reason, scholars from across fields have taken up plants in an ongoing effort to challenge the anthropocentric focus of academic inquiry, a movement that has been termed, the vegetal turn, which we are very happy to be part of. Some of you may be wondering why a Divinity School, why is this initiative housed at a Divinity School? Well, the questions provoked by the so-called vegetal turn lie at the heart of the study and practice of religion, namely, what is the relationship between mind and matter, spirit and flesh?

How does this relationship change our understanding of what it means to be human? How do we regard the lives of beings very different from us and importantly, what do we owe one another? We are so lucky today to have Luis Eduardo Luna who will reflect with us on how the Indigenous communities with which he has worked for many years answer these questions and more by learning from plants.

So with that, I will pass things off to my colleague, Natalia, who will introduce Luis Eduardo, and then we will leave time for Q&A at the end. Thank you.

NATALIA SCHWEIN: Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today, and thank you Rachel for introducing the initiative. We're so excited. So we are joined today by Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna. Dr. Luna is the Director of Ayahuasca, a Brazilian Research Center specializing in interdisciplinary research on plants, consciousness, visionary art and indigenous spirituality.

He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London. Dr. Luna has been working with Indigenous Amazonian communities for over 45 years and has written extensively about the shipibo conibo in Peru and related ayahuasca traditions. Notably, his books, Ayahuasca Visions, The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman and Vegetalismo, Shamanism among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon.

His expansive and interdisciplinary work incorporates approaches from anthropology, religious studies, philosophy and the visionary arts. He originally hails from Florencia in the Colombian Amazonian region. Today's talk with Dr. Luna is titled The Science and Philosophy of Plant Intelligence, and we welcome him and thank him for his time and his gracious sharing of his work. Thank you Dr. Luna and again, please hold your questions until after the talk. Thanks.

DR LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: Thank you very much for the invitation. It's a pleasure and an honor to be here with you. I was born in the Colombian Amazon, and I think that-- I have I met this man, Don Apolinar Jacanamijoy since I was a child, but I never put much attention. I left for Spain in 1965, and in '71 I went back to Colombia to see my parents. And in a bar I met Terence McKenna.

Many of him. And he was 25, I was 24. We spent two months together and then from time to time, I went to the Florencia, my town, to the pension where Apolinar used to go. With Terence and I took yagé together alone without the shaman. And then I became very interested, went to see Apolinar and said, Don Apolinar, I want to learn with you.

He said, well, if you want to learn, you have to come with me. Take yagé 40 nights and then at the end, yagé you will come. And said, how he looks like. He's a little man. He's simpatico. OK. So, in '73 I spent two months in Berkeley with Terence, reading the literature about psychedelic plants in different indigenous communities.

But I went back to Colombia only in '78, and this was the photo taken after I took yagé for the second time. But it was such a change for me because I discovered Amerindian Epistemology, another way of looking at things. Animism in fact. So I planned to make a film about him. Look at the feet.

Don Apolinar and his wife never wear shoes and then his children, Don Roberto had sandals and the grandchildren, tennis shoes. So I thought, I'm going to make a film. But he died before I was able to go back. By the way, I'm still in touch. This is Roberto and his wife, Natalia, the children of Apolinar. And this girl who is having a child is Waira Nina, who is now a very important leader in Colombia and working in Canada.

I had never seen-- she just sent me this photo today. I'm going to see her in Bogota in a few days. But anyway, apparently she's working combining Indigenous knowledge with art and poetry. So, it's a pleasure to see that after so many years she is carrying the flag. And I'm part of a group in Exeter University which we are working on decolonization issues.

OK. So, in 1980 I went to Iquitos, and then with the bolex camera and I thought, OK, I'm going to make a film about this. And I met Don Emilio and spent two months with him watching ceremonies, ritual healings and preparing ayahuasca. And so I was very impressed with his knowledge and his humility, and I was watching the people coming to have the sessions just to see-- they call it the jungle television.

But sometimes it was for healing of different kinds and he introduced me to other vegetalista, which is the name they call the ayahuasca, the vegetalismo, is coming from vegetal. And vegetal, it means plants that have power that teach you. In fact, in different practitioners-- And then, Tony Miller started to say, the plants know each other.

They can heal you, they can harm you, and so on. So it was a completely different way of looking at plants. He said ayahuasca is a doctor, is a teacher, but so is tobacco. Is toye, Brunfelsia, Calliandra. These are all teachers. And in fact, I started to-- many of these are used as a mixture of plants to ayahuasca.

Some of them are used completely separate. But anyway, I found that there was something like 70 admixture plants to ayahuasca. Later on, the number goes all the way to 200. And in fact, it is a way to learn from other plants in the Sibundoy Valley. They use any other plant, put it in the ayahuasca, so that they get in touch with the spirit of the plant and the plant will tell them how to be used.

So this plan, for instance, couroupita guianensis is used for dreaming. They put the flower into a glass of water and they take the water and they said it induce dreaming. And of course big trees, they have a strong spirit. You have to connect with them. You will never disrespect such a tree, defecating and urinating close to a tree because it has big spirit and it can harm you.

And in '86, I defended my doctoral dissertation at Stockholm University with this book, which was published later on in Czechish. And in 1984, I published the concept of plants as teachers. It's an overlap here. OK. And one of the persons that I met during this time was Demetri Efthyvoulos who was a photographer, and he was photographing the forest, the reflection of the forest on the water.

And then he said, you turn it 90 degrees and then you see the spirits. He published a book with many, many of his photographs. And in fact, he died some years ago. Now in touch with the creator, the little foundation in Cyprus, where they continue doing exhibitions with his work. And then in Colombia I was in the Sibundoy Valley.

I was with the Kamsa elders. And there I was doing a study about the plants around the gardens of the practitioners there. And Don Miguel Chindoy, he had an apprentice, mestizo apprentice, and he's the one who told me these plants around here, this is the Jardin de Ciencia, the Garden of Science. So again, Don Emilio was talking about plant teachers, then in the Sibundoy Valley they were talking about Jardin de Ciencia.

This is Don Salvador Chindoy, the father of Miguel Chindoy. So the idea is that they are communicating with the plants. They are the knowledge. These are our university. So, I collected plants for botanical dimensions in Hawaii, together with Dennis McKenna. And then he introduced me to this man, Pablo Amaringo. I visited him and he was showing me some landscapes he had made on very cheap paper.

And he told me that he had been in ayahuasca years ago. He didn't take ayahuasca any longer. And then he said, I remember everything. And I thought, do you remember the visions that you had when you were taking ayahuasca? He said, Yes, I do. So this was-- he was at that time-- this was some of the paintings they were doing on watercolor, cheap paper. But anyway, very beautiful. So he said, Yes, I remember.

And this is the very first vision. He gave one to Dennis, one to me. And then I went back to Helsinki where I was living. And then I sent a photocopy and asking, what is this? What is this? And then came a big description. He sent me a big description about what was in that painting, and I was completely amazed because there was a detailed description with the names of the spirits and all that.

So I realized, I mean, I'm used to talking to the shaman. They tell you about the spirits, but here was a man who was telling me they look like this. They are like this. So we started the communication. The same idea. These are the plant teachers. In Iquitos, they say that the trees have mothers or owners. Las madres. De Los arboles.

So we started a collaboration that lasted for many years. And each of these paintings has a big description, so impossible to go through it. But anyways, here you have the feeling for the kind of material he was doing, and I organized exhibitions all over Europe, in Japan, in the States, in Mexico, other places and gradually he became a quite famous painter, and we published together this book in 1991.

With a description footnotes, scientific names of the plants and scientific names of the plants and animals and so on. Big index. And this is a painting that he made for me. This is now in Quai Branly Museum in Paris, with 37 pages of descriptions of all this. So it's just amazing. It was-- And then once Pablo started to have-- I managed to get money for him, all materials, the best materials I could get.

And then one of the kids, the third one from the left, came and started to paint. So I asked Pablo, please give him materials. Everything that-- So he started to paint, and then another kid came, and another one guy came. And so they said, let's create a school of painting. So we created in 1988 the Escuela Amazonian School of Painting, and it was such an incredible success.

Poor kids from the neighborhood started to come, and soon we have no space. And so we have to build some more, and then and more. And so, and it was just quite amazing. One of the things that I realized, Amazonian have eidetic memory. Incredible eidetic memory. That's what Pablo has. He said I look, I remember anything that I have seen. He was able to put it on a painting. The kids as well.

So he said, never copy directly from anything. You have to internalize it and project it on the paper. And so this is what the kids were doing. Many of the paintings I organize exhibitions as well, and put it in cover of books and so on. And collected paintings as well. This one is in the Children's Museum in Oslo. If you ever go there Barnekunsmuseet there. And so at some point, we had 300 students.

And it was too much for me. It was free. It was free and the tuition was free. The materials were free but I was just-- seven years just organizing exhibitions and it was too much. And then some conflicts started also because money always creates envies and this and that. Gossip. And so anyway, in 1994 I said, OK. I'm sorry I'm going to leave you there.

The school continues up and down. It now disappear but what happens is-- this is the beginning of the school. So this is some of the exhibitions I organized. This one, Landau, the last one. It was really a big success in Peru as well. Calendars and so on. And I wanted to create new schools but at the end it was not possible.

But anyway, we had some kids from the school too in Leticia and then in Helsinki. And they were doing the paintings in front of everyone. The plants, especially the plants of course. Some of the kids started to do ayahuasca visions as well. Pablo didn't like it so much.

But anyway, here are some examples of it. And we had fantastic cases. Like, this is a fisherman, Marcelino, who came with cardboard, with this painting. And I saw this, I told Pablo please don't teach him anything. Just give him the materials. And he started to do extraordinary things. Unfortunately, he was killed. He was taking care of chickens and somebody came to steal the chickens and killed him for that, but such a terrible but beautiful paintings.

And then, this is a person who also heard about the school and started to do her visions as well. I mean, the incredible thing is that I had no idea before starting to work with Pablo that all this was in the minds of these people. Amazonian people, you see, humble people materially very poor, but you start to dig into their minds and it's all this in there.

This is Anderson de Bernardi, one of the kids there doing extraordinary paintings. He's now doing wonderful things, and he's doing both naturalistic paintings as well as visionary art as well. And we created a ethnobotanical garden close to the school. We have to close it because, the guerrilla the Sendero Luminoso came to threaten us, asking for money.

So we created a second garden in Iquitos. And so we sent 14 of the kids to do portraits of the plants. And it was the last exhibition I organized. It was in Washington in the Children's Museum, Capital Children's Museum in Washington with portraits of plants. I introduced Pablo to a sculptor, Agustin Rivas.

And then later on I was traveling in France, and there was a combination of the sculptures of Agustin Rivas and the paintings of Pablo Amaringo. Beautiful things. So we started a whole movement of visionary art in the Amazon. I was very surprised. I got a message from Scott Olsen who had organized an exhibition in Florida.

And I also continue doing organizing exhibitions of visionary art in Valparaiso, and in Canton and New York, and so on. This is some of the artists that I invited. So I became interested in visionary art. Rick Harlow from Boston, who is coming here tomorrow, he's working also with Indigenous communities in Colombia. Roberto Venosa.

He died but he did extraordinary paintings also related to his visions with ayahuasca. And so this is the Appleton Museum In Florida. And so, Oh, sorry. Repeated. So this is the kind of thing they're doing now. If you go to Iquitos or Pucallpa, you see everywhere this kind of art. So it started from that school that we created.

And then I was surprised there was a Swiss man who sent me some invitations to exhibitions. He has been now working with something like 20 of older students, organizing big exhibitions in Holland, in Romania, in Belgium, et cetera. So we created a whole movement which didn't exist before.

OK. Some examples of the kind of art these kids are doing now. They are now in the 40s or the 50s now the older students. And right now, there is in the musee du quai Branly in Paris an exhibition of Amazonian Visionary Art and there are several of the paintings from Pablo Amaringo and some of the students, plus a shipibo visionary art as well. By the way. I didn't--

I was with the shipibo only one month. I was not in depth. So, all right. OK now a little bit about the project that we have in Florianopolis. There Wasiwaska Research Center. It was started 25 years ago with very little money. But anyway, I was insisted I was dreaming of a place where I could invite my friends and we could have interdisciplinary seminars.

And this is in Southern Brazil on the island of Santa Catarina this place was practically deforested because the boats came from Europe and some boats came from New York to San Francisco via Florianopolis because before the Panama Channel was built, it was all around the Magellan Strait.

And so this area, all this the Atlantic coastal forest, and some people, some biologists, said that the Atlantic coastal forest was even more diverse than the Amazon. Rich even in biological diversity because it went through many different latitudes. But it's only about 3% to 5% left because most of the big cities in Brazil were built just along the coast. coffee plantations, sugar, cattle, all this has been destroyed.

So what we are doing is trying just to do a little bit. This is Florianopolis, the city. But we are in the northern part of the island. It's Wasiwaska there. We are close to a reserve. There's a Ratones River running there. And this is the place, and we are now reforesting this area with plants from the Atlantic coastal forest. So this is the place now and we have three hectares.

I don't know how many hikers would be. And then some friends bought this other area and then another friend. So we are now taking care of nine hectares, fighting with very invasive fern with pines, which are very invasive. And so slowly reforestation and our institution has a very interesting advisory board. We organize completely historians, archeologists, anthropologists, biologists, cosmologists.

We're inviting people and we organize just two or three seminars per year. But now we are opening a residence also for students. We have a residence for different countries. A very good place close to the ocean. You can swim. The only sounds are birds. Good place to be, and the idea is to gather students and some sort of brainstorming and helping each other in writing the thesis and so on. Now the garden.

In South Africa I met Dale Miller, a naturalist, over 20 years ago and I invited him. We went together to the Sangoma Valley and met some of the sangomas there in South Africa. There's my wife there to the right. And so we started the botanical garden there. These are our two main gardeners, Don Baldomero and Don Jose. And every seminar people are planting trees.

And so we started with from the very beginning with some seeds of banisteriopsis caapi and psychotria viridis, and it's very nice to see from the scratch. When you see the seeds, you see the whole growing. Get this and a completely different contact with plants. And so we did experiments like planting.

Planting a fast growing tree together with the vine. So growing vertically ayahuasca in great quantities because ayahuasca is very invasive. It goes into other plants but like this, you can. And at the same time, produce a lot of biomass which means that you're restoring the soil, and you can plant other trees in between and so on. So different varieties of ayahuasca.

This is the so-called [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] and [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]. This is the name given to one of the churches to the different kinds. Beautiful flowers. And diplopterys cabrerana, which is the one that you use together with banisteriopsis caapi to make [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]. That's what I took first, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] in ayahuasca.

The mixture plant is the difference. Calliandras, which are used as a mixture plants and so on. So we have brugmansia, daturas. This is brugmansia aurea from the Sibundoy Valley. Very rare and very beautiful. It flowers six times per year. It's just amazing. Beautiful, incredible scent. Beautiful. Every flower is different.

And so here, you can compare the two brugmansias, the brugmansia suaveolens and brugmansia aurea. Very different because this is some kind of mutation done by the kamsa and engano Indians in the Sibundoy Valley created these new varieties. And we have, of course, Hawaiian baby rose. You see the flowers. And this is the ololiuqui from the Aztecs and so on.

So we have now about over 400 species, including some of the sacred ones like kava-kava from Polynesia. And we have the anadenanthera, both from the North and South America, and the Caribbean, and the South. Very important in different cultures. Tomorrow, I'm going to talk to about some of these. And then discovering these monkeys, they are [INAUDIBLE] and they go for plants that contain DMT. We wonder whether they can get high. We don't know.

And then and then we created paths. And the idea, hopefully, soon, we are going to have school children to visit the garden and so on. So we are now making the steps and so on. So we don't want to have accidents. We have bees, and we produce a lot of the food we eat. Places where we take out this fern and pines, and we plant new trees. And we have a lot of bromeliads, and orchids, and so on.

OK, so now, we have the problem-- what I see with western way of thinking is objectivity. That's our big problem because it means that there is a separation between subject and object. And this is the human and non-human, of course. And the human, both biotic and abiotic. And so western culture and all other cultures. And very often is the male and the female, you know, and so so.

And this separation between culture and nature, and this is not happening in traditional societies where you have culture and nature are one. In fact, if everything is alive, if everything is intelligent, then there is no-- really, there is no difference. Because the epistemological way of looking at things is subject through subject. It's interrelational epistemology. So this is some thoughts and I'm open for conversation. All right.

[APPLAUSE]

SPEAKER 1: Thank you so much, Luis Eduardo, for that rich sweeping overview of your incredible career to date, especially the pictures, the paintings, I think, for all of us we're special to see. I want to start off by asking you to elaborate a little bit on vegetalismo. I was particularly drawn in by this quote, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH], plants know one another. And I have so many questions. I'll try to make it short. It sounds like there are some plants that teach and some plants that don't teach. I'm curious if I'm right in that characterization?

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: OK.

SPEAKER 1: And number one, in this cosmology, what is the account for why and how plants teach? And then how do those plants speak to one another? [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] I guess would be the question.

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: OK, well, first, of all plants, I was asking this-- OK, are all plants have mother, owner? And some people say, yes. If you know them well, yes. But some plants are especially powerful, like ayahuasca, toye, all this. They are special plants that open the way to other plants. Because that's something that I realize, OK, ayahuasca was using many different ways, but one of the ways is the gate to understand other plants.

And it's just adding a little bit. It can be just put in some leaves, or a little bit of bark into the brew, and then it opens the communication to the plants. So I think that there is the most important. The other thing is I was asking, OK, what do you take plants? What do you do with it? What is the meaning behind? He said, to strengthen your body and to clarify your mind. And so, in a way, I understood that health and wisdom are the two sides of the same coin.

Yes, I think that all plants have a spirit. That's the idea. Not only plants, animals, lakes, rivers, mountains. In the Andes is the apples. So the idea is that everything is intelligent, and we have to learn how to communicate with that. And of course, I mean now that I have this botanical garden at home, what I do is try to communicate.

And of course, it is not a conceptual. It is just simply putting your mind at peace. I would say something that some people will not like, but I will say that because it's a joke. In Brazil, they said that what is the definition of ego? It's the little Argentinian that is inside of us.

[LAUGHTER]

So we have to try the rest, the Argentinian at peace open to communication. And of course, the way to open the communication is watching, smiling, touching the plants with no concepts, no apparatus chatting there, but just be there. And one of the things that we do, we have benches in the garden so the people can just go there and sit and just be at peace with nature, with the plants.

So I got to do all this gradually. It took many years to really get it. Now, of course, I've been in communication with some anthropologists about animism, of course. Descola is talking about the subjectivity that is in everything. And then that subjectivity is human. And Eduardo Vivero de Castro said, OK, perspective is [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] so that the jaguar, for the jaguar, we are the jaguar.

The jaguar is human. We are the prey and so on. This kind of-- and then I've been talking to other anthropologists, and I think that they are right. This plurality of being, for instance, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] is at the same time corn and deer. There are three manifestations of the same entity. And I found also when I was working with the Barquinha, one of the churches that use ayahuasca, they also say that they are entity manifestations in the different mysteries, the mystery of the water, the mystery of the heaven, the mystery of the Earth and so on.

So very complex. And thinking about that, in a way, I think that much more sophisticated than we are, I mean, the western way of looking at things. I mean, how poor this concept of plant blindness. For most people, things just green or now gray. No idea about where we are. And in Indigenous communities, I was reading Descola. He was in a conversation. They were asking-- he was with the [INAUDIBLE] for several years.

And they were asking, did you learn how to hunt? He said, no way. Because in order to hunt, the kids, already when they are 12 years old, they already know 300 different birds and how to imitate those birds. And a real hunter, it will take 20 years in order to be able. There is such a deep knowledge about nature. So for one of us, impossible. Completely impossible to do.

So I see now that our western civilization, the peak of civilization, I mean, it's just like we have no-- we have to go back. And I think that we have to revitalize animism. And animism is not a dogma. It's not a religion. It's not a philosophy. It's simply based really on sensorial world.

SPEAKER 2: Thank you. Oh, I love that. Thank you very much. So that brings me to a question about ethnobotanical research. I love what you're saying about engaging with animism as it's just a means of living in the world. And the more you engage with intersubjectivity, the more that it's not really that refutable.

But this clash of epistemologies that we're seeing, as you're speaking, I'm thinking about ethnobotanical research can lead to the discovery of new plant species, compounds, biomolecules, which could be used in medicine, agriculture, industry, which puts humans and non-humans at risk of extractionist culture that comes out of western industrialization.

And I'm wondering, as you're expanding these gardens, as you're engaging with kids, as you're educating, but you're also bringing different plants from different places and creating these intercontinental plants communities. My question has two parts to how do you see your work engaging with protecting those relationships and protecting those communities, human and non-human from extraction culture?

And second part, on a more personal level, how did the plants that are from different continents engage with one another? And as we're interacting with the subjectivity of plants in these spaces, how do they feel about meeting a cousin that they would never have engaged with otherwise?

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: Well, the second question I'm also wondering. Because sometimes, you have a Mexican side by side with an Australian plant and a Polynesian one and so on. I just wonder what is happening underneath as well. Because of course, there's root communication, micro rhizome and so on. So then I don't know. That is a question mark for me as well.

Now, of course, one of the problems we have is reductionism. Let's talk about ayahuasca. Banisteriopsis caapi, OK, we say banisteriopsis caapi, one species. OK, no, there are varieties. Indigenous communities, they recognize many different varieties, different, local taxonomies in every place. But some Indians say, OK, these are only a few ones, but we have many more and so on.

So first, we reduce one species. All these variety, they exist to one species. And then we say, OK, banisteriopsis caapi has three alkaloids. OK, harmine, tetrahydroharmine. That is already a reduction because at least there are many more compounds in a plant.

And then we do the other reduction, which is even worse I OK, but instead of a SCOBY, you combine it with psychotria viridis or diploporus. And the people are talking about ayahuasca is DMT. And DMT is in the mixture plant. And DMT is not so important among the Indigenous communities. The visionary world is OK. Fine. But that is not the most important. The most important is the communication, the strength, and all that communication.

So in the Western way, we have this reduction into molecules. Well, I know the people in John Hopkins, and I respect, of course, the work. But I would prefer if we are talking about plant-- use the plants, look the other mushrooms-- the whole compound, the whole compound. I think that this-- look what happened with coca. All the compounds that there is in coca. The way they have been used traditionally both in the Andes, in the Amazon.

Sacred plant giving you strength, nutrition, being used as offering for the abuse and so on. And it's reduced to cocaine. And look what happened-- the tragedy with cocaine. The same with all the plants-- cafe coffee. Mushroom is psilocybin. And also this reduction is very problematic. And then we have the interaction, the secondary effects, and so on. So I will go for-- go back and recover the ancient wisdom of the Indigenous people and using whole plants-- whole plants if possible, and-- yeah.

So you avoid also all these patenting and all that. I have seen terrible things happening for instance with Croton in Ecuador. I met the people many years ago with shooters, and Lisa Conti, the director, and all this. So came to Ecuador, extracted as much as possible the Croton species. The local people could not any longer afford even to use their own plant, and it was just extracted and et cetera.

So, of course, I know that we are 8 billion people. It's very difficult how to have plans for-- but I think that that's what we should strive towards. Go back and recover the wisdom and the knowledge that we have lost.

NATALIA SCHWIEN: [INAUDIBLE]

RACHAEL PETERSEN: Sure. I have two questions. One is prompted by your reflection about the gesture towards the medicalization of psychedelics, which I'm sure will be a hot topic at the conference happening tomorrow. You mentioned that, for example, this example with [INAUDIBLE] saying, I'd never hunt because I can't actually do hunting the way hunting should be done.

And I'm thinking about the way that these plants are being extracted from their context and then marshaled into a clinic, for example, in the West. And I'm curious what maybe people that you work with in the field in these communities would think about that sort of decontextualization. And relatedly, I'm also curious to think about how in vegetalismo, what is the ontological status of the vision?

Is their understanding of vision something that these plants are allowing them to go into another realm of reality? What is happening in a vision? Are they accessing reality, truth, or is it just-- is it the Western clinical model wants to tell us a chemical reaction in your brain? What would be their response to that kind of reductionist narrative that's happening with medicalization? That was a very convoluted question. Do you under-- OK. [LAUGHS]

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: Yes. OK. OK, for the first, when I was with the vegetalista and so on trying to get some information about the visions, there was not-- they didn't talk so much about that. It was not so important. And, OK, you can see-- well, you can see spirits. You can ask questions. You can see the doctore they call it. See the doctores. So the doctores will tell you what plants to use with the patients, and so on.

But the whole thing about the vision, it was not so important-- not the importance that we give in the West to the vision. And, in fact, this globalization of ayahuasca, it was to a great extent through the work of Pablo Amaringo because the division-- people started to come. But at the same time, it's the-- how to-- the way to learn from the plants is that you have to-- in a way-- you have to be like a plant.

You have to purify yourself. The importance of the diet. You are in the forest. You are in isolation eating very little-- just [INAUDIBLE] a little fish, minimum rice plantains. That's it-- no salt, no sugar. In this way, you are purifying yourself and open to the communications. So that is the way. Of course, you talk about the medicalization of these things. I kind of skeptical. I mean, I know that it can--

I mean, there are a lot of people is very positive. But what a difference. OK, for the first, I think the community is very important. So many of these treatments is just one person-- psychologist, doctor-- this and that, focusing on one person. So far is-- It is very expensive. All this attention for one person. All these treatments are extremely expensive. You know this.

And I think that the community is so very important in these kind of rituals. Because it's not only your relationship with the plant, it's our relationship, what we all learn from this and from each other. So that is a factor. There was something else that I just forgot. Ah, the other thing in the medicalization of these substances, the therapists do not take the substance.

I mean it will be impossible, forbidden. I mean there is unthinkable that ayahuasca will not take the brew himself, because that is part of the thing. And very often, it is he who has to see what is the problem with the patient-- perhaps not the patient himself-- but he will see. So there is a completely-- there is an immersion of minds, of emotions, and so on in the ceremonies.

Different from this detachment that you find which is the subject, object thing that we mentioned. You have the therapist, and you have the patient there. So I know that this is going to be very difficult, but I'm dreaming of a world in which we are all going to be gardeners. We go back to that. I think that we should for every machine that we have, we should plant a tree or have a plant.

We are surrounded by objects. What about being surrounded by subjects or both? So, I think that we need a really tremendous revolution of mind. So, I don't know if-- I also wondered--

RACHAEL PETERSEN: Thank you.

NATALIA SCHWIEN: I'll ask-- Yeah, I'll ask one more question, and then we'll open it up to the audience. My question is launching off of what Rachael asked, but also how you responded, Dr. Luna. See how I can phrase this. I think what I'm hearing quite often in psychedelic conversations around how it's used in medical settings is that a tool to be able to then experience.

Whereas what you were saying and what I understand from the work you've done and others who are working more in relational settings, relational ontologies, is that this is one teacher amongst other teachers who introduces you to other teachers who are non-humans.

And I also understand, from members of my community, a fear of working with such a powerful teacher and that they won't be able to then-- or that they wouldn't be able to, say, engage with an oak tree without the help of a plant that's been labeled a psychedelic, which is complicated anyway.

So I'm wondering about when you're working with communities, especially kids, who are doing these incredible paintings of the non-humans that they're seeing, that they're holding in their memory, like you said there. It's not painting one for one. It's what they're feeling, what they're experiencing. How does it feel or how do people describe--

How can people who aren't working with ayahuasca or don't have access to ayahuasca or other powerful teachers, how can they engage with the plants in their community in a way that's just as deep and intersubjective without relying on necessarily like powerful traditional medicines and access to a shaman, if that makes sense? Do you have anything to add to that, because I feel like I'm not sure. That was kind of convoluted, but--

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: No, no, no. Well, I think that you don't need those plans in order to get the communication. I mean, there are Indigenous communities that do not use any plants, and still they have this animistic view. So, and I see, of course, perhaps I will make a parenthesis. We talk about shamans, vegetalista, and so on.

But we have to think of shamanic communities in which those ideas of plant-- the mother of the plants, it's all there. So it is in the culture. So you don't need to take the plant. And, in fact, for most people, I mean, I think that you don't need to take ayahuasca. You don't need to take the mushrooms. You just need silence, and attention, and the attention to what it is there.

And I think that we will get it, but we need to stop the radio, start the constant input that we have of advertisement. And I was just two days ago in a shopping center, and I was seeing, my goodness, how can we live like that? There is no space for anything. And then you saw the news and all this advertisement all the time. I mean, this is really horrible.

This is the way to not completely stop the communication. Remember Don Emilio said-- he said in Spanish, [SPEAKING IN SPANISH]. Spirits are annoyed by the noise. [SPEAKING IN SPANISH] I hope that you have been reading this book-- fantastic book, The Fallen Sky. He said, the white people-- how can they live with this noise-- the noise of their televisions, of the cars, of the-- Because there is no space for anything.

So I think that that's what we need to simply-- space. And we will get there. Yeah.

RACHAEL PETERSEN: Can I ask one concluding question before? That quote of the noise drives out the spirits-- you mentioned so many threats to the communities you're working with. Do they have a sense that these threats are driving out the spirits-- that there is an emptying of the rich intersubjective forest life that they have known? Or, yeah, what is the resilience of the spirits and the face of these threats?

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: Yeah. Well, Davi Kopenawa is saying that the spirits of the forest is the forest itself. It's not-- so that we are losing it. And Don Emilio was saying as well. In the Amazon, in the Peruvian Amazon, it's so very difficult to be in a place where you don't hear a machine. It's just terrible. So, yes, I think that by destroying nature we are destroying the spirits of nature of course.

We are getting alone, and this is our tragedy of-- we already-- is the only species. We lost the [INAUDIBLE] and we lost all the other species, and we are many-- And now I was preparing my talk for tomorrow. In the Americas, Abya Yala-- they said it. The name is instead of America-- Abya Yala. And Indians are using this word. 95% to 98% of the population die out within 150 years of contact. The same with the Buffaloes.

The millions of buffaloes all over North America-- 2000 left. I don't know nowadays recovery. I mean, it's this loss of nature means the loss of the spirits. Because spirits of nature is nature itself. So--

RACHAEL PETERSEN: Well, we'll do a quick round of applause, and then--

[APPLAUSE]

And I think for convenience sake, we'll have you ask your question, and we'll repeat it for the people online into the microphone.

NATALIA SCHWIEN: Christine?

AUDIENCE: Thank you so much. So I was really intrigued by the example of the Marmoset monkey who was consuming the sap or the gum of this [INAUDIBLE] the psychedelic experience. So I would love-- if you have any other details-- I would love for you to elaborate on that.

But I guess much more broadly, in the communities and cosmologies that you're most familiar with, is this idea of plants as teachers something that refers to teachers for humans or teachers for other animals as well? And then I'm thinking, is there some sort of correspondence between some animals and some plants--

[CLATTERING]

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: OK.

NATALIA SCHWIEN: Thank you, Christina. I'll repeat your question. So three-part question-- first, about the marmosets that were taking plant medicine and if there were other examples of that. Second, are the plant teachers also-- are they only meant to be teachers for humans or are they teachers to other beings non-human? And the third part of your question--

AUDIENCE: The correspondence between certain--

NATALIA SCHWIEN: Correspondences between certain animals and certain plants.

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: OK. Let's see if I remember. OK, about the marmosets. We started to see-- we planted this anadenanthera which are not from our ecosystem. They are from the Cerrado. And then suddenly we started to see this marmoset and doing-- we were worried that they were going to kill the tree. But no, no, it was OK. They continue.

And then sudden, we planted also yuremamine, mimosa tenuiflora, which also contains DMT. And then the marmoset went for that one. And then we have-- so that we realized that we're all going to the meeting DMT containing plants. I don't know whether they are getting from that. They look quite active. They come in the morning and look active.

Now I cannot be sure, of course, that they are really getting high or--

RACHAEL PETERSEN: Do they join your painting school?

[LAUGHTER]

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: Yeah, so, the other thing is that I think that we are not the center. We think, are they teaching to us? Of course, the whole nature is in communication. They are all teaching each other. They are-- I remember once walking in London with Rupert Sheldrake. He lives very big park and all, and he said, you know nature is putting all this beauty and colors for each other. It's not for us.

It's just like there is a constant communication between everything there. So they are not only talking to us. They are talking to each other, of course. And so what was the third one? Yeah, OK. I think that I have an example. Thinking about what is the limit? What is the limit? We said-- David Bloom said, there is really no thing, no thing. Because everything is in flux.

So once we had a poet, Mauricio Tolosa, who was a resident in Wasiwaska. He was there six months. Wrote a beautiful book called, Mi Maestro El Manzano-- my teacher, the apple tree, and so like mi maestro, the octopus, and so on. And so he-- we had a wall-- a stone wall with a hololeuca, rivea corymbosa covering. And then when it flowers the whole wall is 30 meters of white flowers.

And he heard one morning a noise, he came out and he was just-- he thought they were hummingbirds-- tiny hummingbirds-- jump, jump, jump. But moving too fast to see. So observing again and again, no realize, no, no, it was not a hummingbird. It is-- it's a moth, which looks like a hummingbird-- tiny little one.

And then it comes just before sunrise for about 20 minutes, and they go and then come bees and other insects come. So they take turns. So I was thinking-- rivea corymbosa. What is the limit? What about the scent that sending out is not part of the plant itself? And what about those moths? It's not also part of the plant. Because without those, the plant will not exist, because it needs for pollination.

So suddenly you realize that everything is in communication. And it is only our Western mind that define it, this is this-- the idea of species. If everything is in flux, we put names to things that are changing. At some point they are changing. We say this is this, but it changes into something else. So I think that we have in this respect, I think, thinking about the Greeks-- Plato and Aristotle-- we have forgotten Heraclitus.

Panta rhei-- everything is in flow. I think that-- And I also like Whitehead's process philosophy and all this. I think that we have to go back into this, because it's more interrelationship. It's not separation. It is all moving into each other. Yeah.

NATALIA SCHWIEN: More questions? Dan?

AUDIENCE: Yes. One challenge that I've been very concerned about wondering how to overcome is for the large percentage of people, particularly in the West who lived for 10, 20 generations with this objective world-- with this world of where we are told this is how it is. This world that serves capitalism. How do we--

I agree with you completely on the what. What's the how to bring this society into a better relationship?

NATALIA SCHWIEN: Dan asked how do we bring society into a better relationship?

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: Thank you. Well, with Christine Hauskeller, we have this group in Exeter University. And we are thinking about decolonization. And I think that we need to decolonize our minds. Because all of us, we say the West, but our ancestors-- all the Western-- your ancestors and my ancestors and all the ancestors, we were all animists. If you go back, it doesn't matter what country in Europe you are from.

At the end, you have this process of deanimation. It has been a process as well. It's a disease. I don't know when you started. Some people say they started in summer or when, I mean, who knows. And, so, first of all, we have to be aware, be conscious, that we need to overcome this kind of-- The only thing is awareness I think. And then give ourselves the opportunity to get in touch with these other things.

So I will say, you don't need to go to the forest. You can communicate with the grasses outside your door. I mean, it's all there. It's just a question of paying attention. That's all. Paying attention. And, of course, it's difficult because we don't pay attention. So, yeah.

NATALIA SCHWIEN: Go for it.

AUDIENCE: So, I guess in the Western context when we talk about teaching and learning, it's a very human to human verbal process. So when we're talking about teaching and learning from plants, what kind of form or experience does that take? Is it like insight from close paying attention? Is it like a feeling you get when you ingest a plant? Or what kinds of--

I think people in order to reanimate, there's kind of a need for understanding other forms of learning. So I just wanted to hear your thoughts about that.

NATALIA SCHWIEN: Question was on forms of learning.

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: OK. Well, you remind me of something that I didn't say. Many of the people that I was working with and Davi Kopenawa and all the dreams, there is a communication. One of the communications through dream. Monica Gagliano, you know her work, and she learned about couroupita guianensis-- the cannonball tree. She got the idea.

In fact, I think that he got the idea of her experiments with mimosa pudica through the cannonball tree. So, and, Davi Kopenawa, he complains why people don't know how to dream. And, in fact, the whole Western world, we kill our dreams. The first thing-- first, you put an alarm clock-- boom! Destroy everything. And then you take a coffee-- bomb! They're gone.

Everything is gone. There is no information there left. And while the other societies like the Australian Aboriginal-- very important, the dream world. So, in the moment, in the morning silence and just think what happened. What was there. What is the message? What is-- because it's another channel of information.

The Macuna in Colombia, they say that these are two ways of mind-- two minds-- the mind during the day, the mind during the night. And so there is something-- there is another lack we have in the West. We don't pay attention to half of our lives, which happens in this other side. And dreams and visions go hand in hand, and probably, maybe even physiological as well.

I don't know if you have read this article by James Calloway who posed that the possibility that the five periods that we have of REM sleep, perhaps it is related to internal endogenous DMT. Could be. We don't know what is the mechanism. But it may happen that-- it may happen that we are all shamans at night. We only do not remember. We don't remember.

[LAUGHTER]

Yeah. Yeah.

RACHAEL PETERSEN: That's a great book title-- We Are All Shamans At Night. Keep that. I just want to briefly comment quickly on two things you said. One is that we're very interested in this Initiative to recover strains in the Western philosophical and intellectual tradition that are more animistic.

Because I think there's this risk that when people start to have a more intersubjective experience with plants, they think to themselves if they're from Western traditions like I am, there's no room for that here. So I'll look to a tradition that is not mine in order to do that. So I love what you're saying and invoking people like Whitehead.

We've been exploring Hildegard Von Bingen. You can explore Spinoza. There are so many people who've been lost in this thought that I think we need to go back to go forward. And I forgot my second thought, so I'm just going to read-- Oh, I remember. Yes. So we read Monica Gagliano's book, Thus Spoke The Plant, last year. And, yeah, my understanding is that actually cost her a bit in terms of her career. I could be wrong.

And going on the record saying, my scientific experiments were informed by my plants. My plants told me how to design these experiments. So I'm really curious, and I hope there is more. There are more scientists who are willing to put their career at risk a little bit in order to have these intersubjective experiences and learn from plants directly. Before we go back to this audience, I have two questions here from Zoom.

The anthropologist, Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, did some wonderful studies with the Desana. Could you speak to their wonderful worldview of spirit guardians, masters of plants, and masters of animals? And the second is going to be, thanks for all you have done. I'm so moved to hear about your Amazon painting school. Would you tell a little bit about your experience with the sangoma? So those are the two that we have from Zoom here. OK.

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: OK. First about Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, Austrian Colombian. He was a-- we call it the father of Colombian anthropology and archeology. But he never studied neither anthropology or archeology. He was a classical man. I was lucky I met him twice. In fact, he was very important to me. Because when I was in Berkeley, I read the Amazonian Cosmos who is-- the first time an anthropologist pointed out the importance of banisteriopsis caapi in Indigenous communities.

And then I wrote him and, it was 1973. I wrote him a letter. I don't know what I wrote. But anyway he wrote me. In a way, it was Carlos Castaneda's time the teachings of the Huari. He said, I recommend you to study biology, botany, hard science first before you get into anthropology-- not to get lost into it. So he was-- and I follow.

I went to Oslo University. I spent some time studying mathematics and chemistry. I forgot all of it. But, anyway, I hope that it somehow molded my mind in order to be more careful with that. But, anyway, yeah, Reichel-Dolmatoff was very important, because he's the first one, I think, that pointed out to the philosophy of Amerindian-- the depth of their thoughts, the way their relation, how they have this idea of flow.

In fact, when I saw this film, which is called the-- oh, my goodness. This film about the other world and--

NATALIA SCHWIEN: Avatar?

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: Avatar. I was remember when I look at Avatar, he said, oh, my God. Come around. He must have read that article by Reichel-Dolmatoff because-- And, in fact, this tree, it's ayahuasca. I was talking to one of the people who put money into this film. A Pakistani man said, yes. He said, there was the inspiration of this was there. So it's very important film-- the first one.

The second one I didn't like so much. But the first one, the same Matrix. The first one was fantastic. The second one's there. OK. So anyway-- so, yes, very important. And what I-- and then what was the second?

RACHAEL PETERSEN: Sangoma.

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: The Sangoma. OK. I can tell you a little story about the Sangoma. You know Dave Miller-- he this naturalist. He took me to the Sangoma Valley. I was visiting the Russells Valley giving some talks there. And I, at that time many years ago, I took ayahuasca with me. And then I had a little group. We took ayahuasca there. And then I was visiting the Sangoma.

And Dave introduce me to this wonderful woman-- Zulu woman-- called Monica. And I told Monica that I have this brew from the Amazon. And almost before I finished the sentence-- said, you mean that I will be able to see the spirits and ask them how to heal my patients? I mean, it was just immediate. And then I said, well, that's what they say. I am interested. OK, so we had a session with a few people.

And I was nervous because how much to give a person who has never-- and then I saw her walking toward-- it was outside to a very primitive bathroom. And she, at some point, almost lost balance. And I came to help her. And she said, don't touch me. I know you want to cut my body into pieces. And you want to take my head and sell it abroad for thousands of rands.

So, I mean, I was calm. And then she went back several times. And then in the morning, I always have a sherry. And she said, my grandmother came to me last night, and she told me that this is good muti-- medicine. Because you die with it, but you come to life again-- exactly the shamanic motif. This vibration, and then-- and coming to life again.

So, I mean, I met several sangomas there. Pity I didn't have the time. I wish that I was able to spend time there. By the way, the Sangoma Valley, it was a place where sangomas from all over South Africa went there. They live in caves. And they have to wait there to get in touch with their ancestors. And only when their ancestors will give them permission, they will be able to go back, go to the city or to where they live and to be healers.

So sometimes they will spend two years, three years there. They will take in all sorts of medicines-- some of them probably psychoactive as well or at least mildly psychoactive and so on. OK, very important place. OK. It belongs to some South African guy who send them out-- all the sangomas, because it's private property. A traditional place, traditional places-- the sacred Sangoma Valley belongs to some guy who didn't want to have these Blacks there and out.

So I don't know. I mean, I hope I have to try to get in touch with somebody to see if it is possible to buy that land back and give it to the sangomas. Because it's such a horrible thing that happens. So, yeah.

RACHAEL PETERSEN: Other questions?

NATALIA SCHWIEN: Questions from the audience? Do you have a question, Rachael?

RACHAEL PETERSEN: Sure. [INAUDIBLE] OK. We have-- so I'll ask this one first. We have talked about subject, subject relationships, and learning from plants. Are there time and space dimensions from learning from plants? On what realm of time and space do plants operate? And do we share that maybe as a gloss on that question?

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: Well, that's a difficult question-- time and space. Because when you are there, the normal time doesn't work. I mean, sometimes we are in a group in a ceremony, and people say, time seems to slow down. And a lot of times people agree. Or other times, it's just it went too fast. Time and space work in completely different ways.

I've been wondering. I even wrote an article. I have this ayahuasca reader. It's an anthology. And I wrote a chapter for that. And I was wondering about space. Because you see a space of course. But now you cannot measure that space. And in the space you can see through different spaces. So and even I was wondering. This is kind of, perhaps, silly.

But I was thinking of Descartes who divided everything into res cogitans and res extensa which you measure. And I think that there is something in-between, which I call it res phantastica-- to call it something-- in which there is some kind of time and space. But it is not this physical space you can measure. And it's not this physical time. But there is something else, which is probably like many shaman used to say in Antipodes of the Mind.

This is a beautiful book about the phenomenology of ayahuasca, which is a co-creation. There is something out there which we don't know what it is. And it's something in there, which we don't know what it is either. And there is some kind of interface of this. So this time and space probably is the interface with something which is in us and something which is out there. And what it is depends on our ontologies. Who knows what it is. So--

RACHAEL PETERSEN: Oh, let's take these first. Jeff, why don't you?

AUDIENCE: Yeah. Thank you for the amazing talk. I have a question about animism. It's sort of extended beyond the living world and into maybe the machine or the human created or what we would normally truly view as inanimate. And to tie the question to my interest in psychedelics and, specifically, synthetic psychedelics, I think there are a lot of people who would say those are teachers and beings in a way despite their creation in the lab.

And I'm curious if, in your opinion or the cosmologies of the people you work with, there's space for that as well.

RACHAEL PETERSEN: So the question to restate it is, is there room within the traditions that you know and work with for a forwarding agency or life to the non biotic-- so created things, synthetic molecules, stones, et cetera.

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: OK. Many Indigenous people is not only the biotic, it's also lakes, rivers, mountains. And you have read probably Robin Wall Kimmerer. You know her book. And she made this beautiful observation about the language in her Native language or the language of her parents. Because she didn't grow up with her language-- with English. And she has been learning it.

And she was pointing out how, in the language of her ancestors, something like 70% I think of the language are verbs. The opposite in English which are objects. So if you have verbs, if you have a language in which much of the words are verbs, verbs means-- it implies agency. You have somebody who is doing something. It's a completely different way.

So beach is not the beach. Its beach is also the waves, the sand, the rocks there. All this is-- so the agency is everywhere, in everything. Not only what is alive for us. But it's everywhere. So, and, of course, the name. You can say the Gaia, the planet itself, the galaxy itself. Rupert [INAUDIBLE] has beautiful talk about, is the sun conscious.

So, I think that many of the Indigenous societies will not really differentiate everything is alive. Who is in a Halliwell, I think. Who was the--

RACHAEL PETERSEN: Stone.

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: Yes. Are all stones living? Some are. And sometimes they are but not all the time. Perhaps when you put attention, they are alive. But when you don't pay attention to them, they are not living, so on. So, and about the new molecules and all this. OK. Well, I mean, I agree. Even I remember once I took a farm ayahuasca just to try to see.

We did harmine, and harmine and DMT together. OK. Yes. They said, you will not get sick. Yes, I got sick. And you saw a vision? Yes, I saw-- not the same. I mean, it has not the quality of the plant. So I prefer always plants living organisms in a way. I prefer that. OK. Synthetics. Yes. But look again. I will repeat what happened with coca, what happened with tobacco. Cigarettes-- what 3,000 or 4,000 chemicals.

There only a little bit of nicotine-- nicotine by itself. I mean, the tobacco is used by the American Indians. It doesn't do anything. I mean, my grandmother smoke tobacco. She died 103 years old. I mean, if I get there, I am happy. So that is my own feeling. I think that there is a problem that we classify, we make things.

The moment you are is a new molecular. You can patent, you can make money out of it. You objectify and it becomes an object, not a subject. So I'm skeptical myself. But, of course, people can do whatever. By the way, I will tell you something. I came via Sao Paulo. And there was, with artificial intelligence, they are doing all sorts of visionary art-- all this.

And, of course, it's very impressive. And I was watching one of them when our Brazilian artists-- it's just Pablo Amaringo. It's just the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. So this little school that we created have ramifications is all ready. In fact, Pablo had a very big influence in other artists in the Western world. But, anyway, so--

RACHAEL PETERSEN: You got a question here?

AUDIENCE: Yeah. Sorry, I'm new to the subject. So thank you very much for the introduction. I hope my question isn't naive. I've read another book by a person called Diana Beresford-Kroeger.

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: Excuse me?

AUDIENCE: Diana Beresford-Kroeger-- The Wisdom of Trees or To Speak of the Trees. And she seems to take a more Celtic approach to looking at the animist or tradition of Europe I'd say. And looking at your face and I'm thinking maybe whether to answer this question. But I just wondering if there'd be overlap between her thinking and your own. But if you're not familiar then--

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: No, I'm not familiar. But I think that if we go back, you have read probably Marija Gimbutas, of course. And when she's writing about how the Teutonic or the Germans were going into what is today in Latvia, the Baltic countries. And say, they believe in the sun and the moon, and the Germans came with the true faith.

They had been already lost their faith through the Franks and so on. So this process of the animation of Europe which happened within 400 or 500 years. In fact, even today if you go to the Sami people in Northern Norway, there are still some. Most of them-- they are Christian. But some of them still keep their all religion.

And I think that we go back enough, it's just the same. I mean, in a way, I think that we are animistic at heart really. In fact, all children are animistic until it comes to the time when we tell them Santa Claus doesn't exist. There are no mermaids. There are no fairies. And I'm sure that we all went through some kind of trauma that we forgot when we are told, it's not true. It's not true. We have been lying-- lied all.

So I think that, in fact, I have to say something. Now they are talking so much about animism here and there, I see that there is a response. I think that we feel somehow that this is true, especially giving talks to young people. Suddenly you see that you are touching something there in which I think that we all agree, somehow, that we have missed it somehow in the so-called civilizational project.

We lost that memory called-- what is called the disenchantment of the world. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, yeah.

NATALIA SCHWIEN: Thank you. Comments on that really quickly. One thing that reminds me of that our community has talked about is of the many things that aren't great about social media. One thing that's been really beautiful to watch has been young people who are regularly engaging with videos or content that depicts or shows non-humans behaving in unexpected ways.

And it becomes more and more difficult to tell a young person that an animal is not conscious or non-human isn't capable of empathy or isn't capable of deep relationship and community when they are inundated with material that shows otherwise. And traditionally that's been thought of as anecdotal science. So it's not taken seriously in research communities.

It has to be done in a lab in a specific setting that's hypercontrolled, where an animal is not going to behave naturally, and not going to have a relationship with the researcher, has a very complicated relationship with the researcher. And so I think it's, as you're saying with young people, that's one of the things that I'm excited about is seeing this push back, and saying, no, there's actually tons of content and material that shows that this is otherwise.

And the second thing I wanted to say was actually about Celtic studies. There's quite a lot of material on the animist relationships-- the intersubjective relationships. And one thing just to look for-- if this is something of interest to you-- is there's a beautiful book called, Celtic Nature Poetry, that was the translator Jackson-- his last name is Jackson. He has a piece from the 11th century where the poet, [INAUDIBLE], who's this prophet madman.

He's up in a tree, and he's speaking to all of these plants and other non-humans who are in his Glen that he loves. And he uses the vocative and the diminutive to speak to them. So even in the grammar of the language he's using, he's expressing this deep love, deep inner subjectivity, and deep respect as well. So to say that, yeah, it's totally there. It's just a matter of searching for it. Any other questions from the audience? Yeah?

AUDIENCE: I have a question thinking about Carl Jung a little bit. And you were talking about dreams and the importance of dreams. We're actually talking about dreams on our drive here. I'm thinking about the core animus that we're talking about, and how maybe all universal. It's a universal human experience.

So from that, thinking about universal symbols and what you think of that as far as-- it's pretty controversial. I think there's some heavy opinions in that regard, but I'm curious what you think about it.

NATALIA SCHWIEN: To reiterate the question, it was around Carl Jung and dreams and universal symbols and how that resonates.

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: Well, it's difficult for me to say. I don't know Jung well enough to say that really these archetypes are arche-- no, no, what is called?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: Are really universal and so on. I don't know. I just wondered. But that's a question mark for me. I cannot really say that it is a fact. But when you were talking about-- I was thinking of this book. I don't remember the author. He's a Dutch primatologist. Are we not smart enough to know how smart animals are? And, in fact, now I'm reading as much as I can the world of animals, the world of fish, how the birds think, how the bees think. There's a lot of literature.

And, in fact, I see that the distance between science and animism is getting closer. The gap is being closed. In a way, we were animistic, then came religion, then criticized animism, and then came philosophy criticizing religion, and then science criticizing philosophy. Now science is coming back. And so, it's a circle. Yeah.

AUDIENCE: Yeah, what you just said gave me the courage to ask my question, which is, do you feel that the decline of animism happens with the idea of God and particular with the monotheistic God? And in the cultures that you see, like I know Maria Sabina somehow managed to merge Christianity and psychedelic consciousness.

But I'm wondering in the cultures that you study, what's the relationship to Western religion, if any?

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: You want to repeat it-- the question?

NATALIA SCHWIEN: So the question is about the role of monotheism in the criticism or perhaps decline of animist ontologies and relational existence with non-humans.

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: OK, two thoughts. Don Emilio-- my teacher-- he always begins the session addressing Christ, Divino Cristo. You should see my film. It's in YouTube. Don Emilio and His Little Doctors, my name, is a 27-minute film. He always begins with that. But once that is done, that is, we are not any longer. It's the world of spirits. It's just on the beginning.

When I was doing don Basilio Gordon, I was with the Shipibo. I spent a month doing the diet myself taking ayahuasca with him. And I was recording. He didn't talk much, but I was recording. Every time he wanted to talk, I just pressed the button. And then once I was surprised. He said, please don't record this. Don't record. OK. But he said it was a prayer-- a Catholic prayer. But he didn't want to have it on tape.

So, in a way, I don't know what it was in his mind. But I don't know whether he didn't want me to-- they will know that he also did it or not. But even when I was in the Sangoma Valley, many of them were Christians as well doing the ritual. So I think that what I think myself is that animism doesn't-- it can coexist perfectly well with any religion in fact.

If we get into animism, who is going to quarrel with you? The problem, of course, is the book, the dogma. That is the big problem, I think. Monotheism, when it is crystallized in such a way that here is the truth, and nothing else that this. I think that it can coexist. And even some of the Indians, they talk about the big spirit-- North American, the big spirit. But also the other spirits.

So I don't think that there is a contradiction really. But, of course, I myself have my qualms about Christianity-- certain aspects of Christianity, and so on. Because I know what happened in the Americas with Christianity.

NATALIA SCHWIEN: There's a really wonderful book by Mark Wallace called, When God Was A Bird, that explores animism and Christianity. And he has two really incredible points. One of them is that there's more references to God as a rock than as anything else in the text. And the second is how many, for every story of a garden or of a grove being bulldozed in processes of colonization, there are just as many stories of Saints hiding in trees that they deeply love-- our monks and their relationships to trees.

So I think it's a deeply complex and hard to untangle, and very culturally specific question. Any more questions from the audience? OK. Rachael, I'm going to pass the mic to you. Then we'll close it out.

RACHAEL PETERSEN: Sure. I would love to end by reflecting on these paintings. I'm sitting with attention in something you said. You said when you asked a person you worked with about the visions, the response was the visions don't really matter. It's the information that I received and the healing that this doctor was administering.

I'm just curious, what does it mean to paint these visions? Why paint these visions? I'm thinking in the study of religion, we often have this archetype of the prophet who receives a vision and there's some sort of carrying out or a culmination of that vision often by sharing. But it sounds like that's not necessarily what's happening here.

So what does it mean to paint these visions and share them with the world? What does it mean to the people doing it? What does it mean to you? Is there a tension there-- and having these experiences, and then kind of reifying them and sharing them through painting.

DR. LUIS EDUARDO LUNA: OK. For the first, we have to think that Indigenous art, which there is a lot of meaning there in the Malacca and the body painting, face painting of the [INAUDIBLE] and other people. These are also from the visionary world. The vision that we have now today, in a way, it was Pablo Amaringo who started all this.

And I remember we started from zero with very little money. And I used to make photocopies of the paintings, and sell them for money to local people. But the thing is that it was immediate recognition that it was the ayahuasca world. People saw it-- oh, that's ayahuasca. Nobody had thought to do it. But when it was done, then OK, it is possible to do that.

Even Pablo told me, I never did it because I thought nobody would be interested in this. And then it was that what make him famous-- his visions. So I think that simply there was no-- nobody was interested in that and suddenly now, more and more. So, perhaps I was exaggerating that people do not pay att-- don't talk about vision. They don't talk. Perhaps it's more private. I don't know.

It's like these are messages that you get and you don't need to talk about that. Perhaps it's-- the thing is that in the Western world, if something happens to you, you have to tell it immediately or with dreams. And they say, don't tell your dream. Don't tell it, because then it will not work. So I don't know. Perhaps it's something like that. I don't know. OK.

RACHAEL PETERSEN: Well, thank you everyone for joining. And we hope to see you at future events. Thank you, Luis Eduardo. And please join the conference tomorrow.

[APPLAUSE]

NATALIA SCHWIEN: And thank you to everyone on Zoom as well.

ANNOUNCER: Sponsor-- Center for the Study of World Religions.