Plant Sentience as seen through the Shamanic Amazonian worldview

Source: http://forums.ayahuasca.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=13575


This article is from around 2007, and the original link is dead in that forum post is dead, so I feel happy posting this in its entirety. Good thing I remembered this, thanks to Stan's post prompting me. Thanks Stan!

PLANT SENTIENCE AS SEEN THROUGH
AN SHAMANIC AMAZONIAN WORLDVIEW

by Kevin Furnas

Invariably when we think of amazonian shamanism,
images arise of the forest itself with its endless
array of twisting vines and exotic plants whose
primordial character exudes a sense of reality more
akin to myth than the concrete existence of our more
modern world. Alexander Von Humboldt broke open the
trail with his early exploratory expeditions at the
start of the 19th century which in turn inspired
Schultz and the ensuing ranks of plant researchers who
came to make up the growing field of ethnobotany.
Intrepid botanists and anthropologists paddled down
uncharted rivers and hacked their way through virgin
forest in the name of science and with the ultimate
goal of one day being able to understand this
mysterious new frontier.

Kevin Furnas #559-63-9501
kevinfurnas@yahoo.com

Kevin Furnas was born in San Francisco and has spent
many years exploring and learning from various
cultures around the world. He underwent shamanic
initiation at Sachamama Ethnobotanical Gardens outside
of Iquitos, Peru and spent 20 months dieting with
various plants, trees and stones. He currently resides
in Cuzco, Peru where he is in the midst of studying
the Andean system, performing ceremonies, and writing
a series of books on the diet process. He can be
reached via e-mail at kevinfurnas@yahoo.com or else
at K'uichi Wasi, d-4, camino capacnan, urb.jardin del
inca, Cuzco, Peru where ceremonies are conducted in
the traditional manner on a voluntary basis via
donations.

[Laird]

This article is from around 2007, and the original link is dead in that forum post is dead, so I feel happy posting this in its entirety.

Neither of those conditions, though, satisfy our requirements for reproducing content in full, so I have truncated your post. I am happy for you to edit it to restore the full content if you can demonstrate that the conditions are met, i.e., that Kevin Furnas released his content into the public domain or otherwise granted permission for his content to be reproduced in full on Psience Quest, whether by a generic permission or by permission to you personally through personal contact - you have his email address, so this should be possible to obtain if he is willing to grant it.

Moderation aside: thank you for sharing that article - it was fascinating.

The link works for me - I guess the server was just down! It looks interesting.

BTW the Way Back engine holds back copies of all sorts of websites that have either gone out of operation or changed!