Shamans, ayahuasca, and healing

BOOK REVIEW

SHAMANS, AYAHUASCA, AND HEALING

Author: Santiago López-Pavillard From the reader report by: Antônio R. Esteves

Chamanes, ayahuasca y sanación, by the Spanish Santiago López-Pavillard, is the result of more than a decade of studies seeking to bring together shamanic practices and the anthropological thinking.

The processes that are triggered under the effect of ayahuasca could be described as a moment of rupture with all that is known, and bring up a new reorganization of the world. In other words, the participant gets empowered in their own life, and timidly begins to take charge of themselves. It is a holistic view of the world that leads to a greater ecological awareness, and to the need to live in harmony with the environment.

The book also introduces a complex aspect of our society, namely the coexistence of different rationalities that obey different perceptions of reality. For this, the set of notions such as health/ healing, religion/spirituality, or religious beliefs should be clearly distinguished from spiritual knowledge, from which we should try to understand how and why the animistic concepts are gradually introduced in the Western society.

Thus, we consider the book in question worthy of being disseminated in Brazil. This is justified both for its scientific rigor, which puts into question the very concept of science in the Western world, and which takes the theme of ayahuasca out of the self-help and religion sections, where not very scientifically serious titles proliferate, and also because of the historical links of the theme with the Brazilian culture.

PUBLISHED IN NEW SPANISH BOOKS BR

CSIC EDITORIAL

Title SHAMANS, AYAHUASCA, AND HEALING CHAMANES, AYAHUASCA Y SANACIÓN

Author Santiago López-Pavillard Genre Social sciences and religion Pages 332

ISBN 978-84-00103-47-7 Year of publication 2018 Number of editions 1 Language Spanish Spanish retail price 21.00 €

Author’s biography: Santiago López-Pavillard is a cultural anthropologist. When he received his doctorate from the Complutense University, Madrid he was awarded the extraordinary doctoral prize in Anthropology (2015-2016). He is a founding member of the Thematic Group for the Anthropology of Religion and Spirituality at the Madrid Institute for Anthropology. He is also part of the team working on the R+D project “Religious expressions in the urban spaces of Madrid and Barcelona” and is president of the Eleusis Association, a non-profit organisation interested in research, training, and dissemination of information related to states of consciousness. He has worked in the field in Spain, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil and has produced documentaries for Spanish TV. His main areas of investigation include the shamanistic practices of the high Amazon, spiritual and healing practices, Buddhism, and traditional Tibetan medicine, states of consciousness and their relationship with culture.

Synopsis: There have been many studies of shamanism, but those directly addressing shamanistic practice are rare. Based on six years of fieldwork among the native shamans of both the Amazon and Andean regions, and Spanish shamans trained in the tropical jungle, the author presents an in-depth anthropological exploration of the topic unifying an ethnographic description with debates concerning concepts and methods and reflection about ethnographic practices and their effects on the researcher. This approach enables the reconceptualization of the shaman as a figure, and his/her practices with regards to the ceremonial use of “master herbs” including ayahuasca and tobacco. The result is the construction of a critique of the paradigms of social and cultural anthropology and from there, the author frames a debate concerning the nature and reach of scientific knowledge in general.

Publisher: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas Through Editorial CSIC with its broad catalogue in Science and Technology, Social sciences, Art and Humanities, we offer books and journals of high academic quality, as well as reference texts aimed not only at experts but also a more general Science and Culture readership.

Publishing rights available from: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas --Q2818002D Vitruvio 8, 28006, Madrid, Madrid www.editorial.csic.es www. libros.csic.es Contact: Pura Fernández [direccion.publicaciones@csic.es] Phone: (+34) 915 681 402