19) f02

THE ENTHEOGEN REVIEWVolume XI, Number 3 Autumnal Equinox 2002 ISSN 1066-1913

The Journal of Unauthorized Research on Visionary Plants and Drugs

CONTENTS

Jay Fikes Speaks 81Lilly and Lotus 94Journey into the Realm of Ibogaine 98Network Feedback 101Kaempferia galanga, MAOI assay, Mirabilis multifora 101Anadenanthera & Mimosa 102Destructive Distillation, Cactus Tea Success 103Medical MAOI, Iboganie Extract 104Storage, Shelf-life, MAOI Activity, Tolerance, TMA-2 105Even More Scorpion Tales 107Growing Peganum harmala 108More on Mushrooms 108Foreign Data 108Events Calendar 109Sources 110Book Review 114Bibliography 116

Disclaimer:Disclaimer:Disclaimer:Disclaimer:Disclaimer: Information presented in The Entheogen Review comes from manydifferent sources and represents the opinions and beliefs of a highly diverse group ofindividuals. The Entheogen Reviews editors assume no responsibility for the accuracyof any claims or representations presented in the text, illustrations, or advertisementsof this journal, nor do they encourage illegal activities of any type. Manufacture, pos-session, or sale of a controlled substance is a crime that can result in a lengthy prisonterm and significant fines.

Statement of Purpose:Statement of Purpose:Statement of Purpose:Statement of Purpose:Statement of Purpose: This journal is a clearinghouse for current dataabout the use of visionary plants and drugs. Think of it as a community of subscribersseeking and sharing information on the cultivation, extraction, and ritual use ofentheogens. All communications are kept in strictest confidencepublished mate-rial is identified by the authors initials and state of residence (pseudonym or nameprinted on request only). The mailing list (kept encrypted) is not for sale, rent, orloan to anyone for any reason.

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The Entheogen ReviewThe Entheogen ReviewThe Entheogen ReviewThe Entheogen ReviewThe Entheogen ReviewThe Journal of Unauthorized Research

on Visionary Plants and Drugs

Editor:Editor:Editor:Editor:Editor: David Aardvark

Technical Editor:Technical Editor:Technical Editor:Technical Editor:Technical Editor: K. Trout

Copy Editor:Copy Editor:Copy Editor:Copy Editor:Copy Editor: E.V. Love

ContributorsContributorsContributorsContributorsContributorsJay Fikes, Ph.D.Thomas Lyttle

Tao JonesInfinite Ayes

N.B., New York Botanical GardenAnonymous, WI

M.H., TNK. Trout

O.H., SwedenAlexander Shulgin, Ph.D.

B.N.R.G., WAP.H., NMR.K., WA

Jon HannaJay Yasgur, RPh., MSc.

Design & LayoutDesign & LayoutDesign & LayoutDesign & LayoutDesign & LayoutSoma Graphics

AddressAddressAddressAddressAddressThe Entheogen Review

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Front Cover ImageFront Cover ImageFront Cover ImageFront Cover ImageFront Cover ImageAnadenanthera colubrina seeds and foliage,

photographed by Jon Hanna; hand model Kyri Roan.

Back Cover ImageBack Cover ImageBack Cover ImageBack Cover ImageBack Cover ImageDetail of motif adorning a snuff tray

from Tiahuanaco (No. 10718).

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Just My OpinionRemembering Bob Wallace (19492002)

I first met Bob Wallace at a party, although we had con-versed for some time prior to this meeting via e-mail. Bobhad plans to open up Mind Booksa specialty book vendingbusiness geared towards psychedelicsan idea that was sug-gested to him by Jonathan Ott at one of the now legendaryBotanical Preservation Corps seminars that were held inPalenque for many years. Bob had notyet opened this business, but as I wasat the time working on the first edi-tion of my book Psychedelic ResourceList, it seemed like he was someonewhom I should get to know.

We later partied together on the playaat Burning Man. I loved to talk withBob about these gatherings, and hearhim excitedly describe his latestthoughts on flaming whips, shadestructures, flame throwers, or thetransportation art that he was cook-ing up. (In searching for a photo touse for this remembrance, I cameacross several that had been taken ofBob over the years at Burning Man,scantily-clad in various costumes thatseemed perhaps less than appropri-ate. I finally located the sole fully-clothed picture that I snapped inMxico of Bob peaking through thejungle foliage, and recalled the timethere that we spent smoking toomuch Cannabis into the wee hours ofthe night, discussing plans for the1997 Mind States conference.)

Burning Man became increasingly important to Bob over theyears, as did many aspects of the psychedelic community. Bobrecently started hosting the monthly Friday Night Dinnersin the Bay Area. His new digs were the perfect spot for suchgatherings, where folks in attendance could feed their headsin his extensive library, or their hedonism in his large poolthat he had heated to 100 for night-time naked swimming.As well as such flesh meets, Bob was very active in the on-line community. While sometimes I dont read all of the e-mailing lists that I belong to, due to lack of time, I wouldeagerly crack into a thread at the point when I noticed thatBob had chimed in. (I suspect that I am not the only busyperson who did this.) Bobs comments always reflected histhoughtful nature and intelligence. His frequently was thevoice of reason that calmed flame wars. He even began tosign off his e-mails with the line just my opiniona quipto deflate any conception that he was attempting to providethe authoritative voice on a given subject.

Bob was hugely supportive of my own projects, and I alwaysappreciated his ideas about these. At the 2001 Mind Statesconference that I produced, Bob stated that he felt that it wasthe best such event that he had ever attendedhigh praise,since I knew that he went to most of these sort of gatherings.He backed up these words by actually paying me more than

the agreed-upon booth-rental fee forhis book vending table, because hehad had such a good time. This wastypical of his generous spirit, and helater helped me out financially withsome other psychedelic projects. Hewas a source of funding for MAPS,the Center for Cognitive Liberty,the Heffter Research Institute,Erowid, and other worthy organiza-tions. (See www.promind.org for re-cent donations.) One of Bobs mainconcerns was harm reduction in thepsychedelic community, and he wasthe primary funder for the pill test-ing project at www.ecstasydata.org.

Bob planned on attending the MindStates Jamaica conference that I justproduced. He would have had a blast.At the event, his friends Earth andFire Erowid led a remembrance forhim. A group of ussome of whom Ihad only recently met at Bobshousejoined hands in a squashedoval, stepping slowly to the left sothat each of us for a moment faced

each other. Bob had developed this ritual as an opening cer-emony for the trance-dance parties that he frequented, andfor the first time it sunk in how meaningful this ceremonycan be and the care that Bob had taken in creating somethingsimple yet powerful.

Apparently stricken with pneumonia, Bob died in his homeon September 20. Mainstream press obituaries noted that hewas a computer programmer, an early Microsoft employee,one of the first to make shareware software commerciallyavailable, and that his fortune was largely gained through thestock he retained upon leaving Microsoft to start his ownbusiness. Yet none of this bespeaks the riches that he offeredthe psychedelic community that he loved. While his financialgenerosity was great, his generosity of mind and spirit wasgreater. Bob had the heart of a little boy and the wisdom of anelder. He was largely soft-spoken (occasionally not so), hadkeen insight, a great sense of humor, and the determinationthat it takes to bring dreams into reality. Well miss you Bob.

Jon Hanna

81THE ENTHEOGEN REVIEW, POB 19820, SACRAMENTO, CA 95819-0820, USA

VOLUME XI, NUMBER 3 AUTUMNAL EQUINOX 2002

Jay C. Fikes Speaksinterviewed by Thomas Lyttle

Dr. JAY C. FIKES is an anthro-pologist who has publishedextensively on Native Americanshamanism and entheogenicceremonies. He has lectured andtaught at several universities, andhis books include Step Inside theSacred Circle, co-authored withNELLEKE NIX (WYNDHAM HALLPRESS, 1989), Carlos Castaneda:Academic Opportunism and thePsychedelic Sixties (MILLENNIAPRESS, 1993), Reuben Snake, YourHumble Serpent (CLEAR LIGHT,1996), and Huichol Mythology (acollection of ROBERT ZINGGSmyths, in press 2003 for theUNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA). Heexploded onto the psychedeliclandscape with research claimingthat several scholarsincludingCARLOS CASTANEDAfaked dataabout the Huichol Indians (andother tribes) and misled theAmerican public about psyche-delic rituals, especially peyoterituals. An impeccable scholar, Dr.FIKES search for truth in anthro-pology led him to record never-before-seen shamanic rituals, andprint narratives relating to thenagual, a were-body inhabitedby Indian shamans and sorcerers.Dr. FIKES and I spoke in Spring of2002, when he took time from histeaching position in Turkey.

Thomas Lyttle: Dr. Fikes, can you tell us a little about your childhood? What wereyour first exposures to Native American culture?

Jay Fikes: I grew up near the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, CA. I playedbaseball with my friends and did well in school. Most of all I loved roaming thefields of the vast Irvine Ranch in search of snakes and the animals necessary tofeed them. I kept several species of snakes as pets. My mother did not mind myhaving them around the house because she had worked during her college yearsin Kansas for Dr. Burt, who shipped snakes and other animals to schools andcollectors. As a boy I was surprised that people other than my mother and myfriendswho also had snakes as petswere scared of snakes. Didnt they knowthe difference between harmless and poisonous species? My friends, my mother,and I did.

When I turned ten years old my parents gave me a .22 rifle. From then until 1975I frequently hunted quail, mourning doves, and rabbits. I often hunted alone andI believe that my 14 years of experience as a hunter gave me a profound emotionalconnection to the Huichol and other traditional Native Americans. I rememberbeing around eleven years old and having a rattler strike at me (but miss) when Iwas on a hike with other boys. I remember shooting as many as ten rattlesnakesduring my many years of hunting. I ate the last rattlesnake I shot and kept its skinin my freezer, thinking I might make a belt or something with it. But I began hav-ing nightmares. Rattlers were attacking me. Perhaps two years passed before Ifinally decided to take the skin back to the same place where I had shot that par-ticular rattler in 1975. After I took it back, my nightmares stoppedand I stoppedhunting rattlers.

TL: These dreams bothered you enough to talk to shamans about it, later on in your life.

JF: There is more to tell about my hunting experiences, but suffice it to say thatafter talking with Huichol shamans about the specifics of my nightmares I real-ized that snakes and other animals have spirits. This insight, one that I gainedfrom first-hand experience, is fundamental to American Indian hunting rituals.Performing those rituals shows proper respect for the animals spirit and therebyprevents hunters and their families from illness sent by angered spirits (see myinterpretation of Huichol deer hunting in my 1985 doctoral dissertation). Ortho-dox anthropologists evidently dont know, or dont want to admit, that there is aspirit world.

TL: Your teaching and writing focuses on truth and the search for truth in anthropology.Where did this come from?

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THE ENTHEOGEN REVIEW, POB 19820, SACRAMENTO, CA 95819-0820, USA


JF: I should probably mention receiving corporeal punish-ment as a child. I remember being spanked twice as a pun-ishment by my father and twiceI thinkby my junior andsenior high school coach, Mr. John Blair, who was a Mor-mon. The first spanking I can remember happened when Iwas five or six years old. My father spanked me for lying aboutstealing some pop bottles in concert with another boy. Whata vivid memory. I suspect the condemnation of misrepresen-tation and fraud expressed in Carlos Castaneda, Academic Op-portunism and the PsychedelicSixties is, in part, based on mybeing punished the first timeI lied. My criticism is alsoconsistent with the fact thatI respect Indian spiritualitymore than anthropologicaltheories. Although my par-ents were strict they also al-lowed me great freedom.They praised and rewardedme for reading books andgetting good grades. Moreimportantly, my father usedto drop me off at roads endto hunt by myself for hours,once or twice every weekendduring my high school years.

TL: Did you see Native Ameri-can Indians on TV when youwere a kid? Did that influenceyou?

JF: My earliest memory ofAmerican Indians was de-rived from television. At fiveor six years of age I was play-ing Cochise with my bestfriend, James David. In 1956or 1957 we were keen on imitating the heroes of the televi-sion series Broken Arrow. James and I decided to becameblood-brothers, just like Thomas Jeffords, the mail super-intendent who became an Indian agent, and Cochise, theChiricahua Apache chief. In real life the friendship betweenCochise and Jeffords was truly instrumental in establish-ing peace between Anglos and Apaches in southern Arizonain the early 1870s. I probably remember becoming blood-brothers because my mother and grandmother continuedto mention this incident, expressing amazement that we used

rose bush thorns to draw blood so we could smear our bloodyfingers together.

TL: When did you actually meet real Indians?

JF: My first contacts with real American Indians came whenI was a teenager. That summer when I was 13 years old myfamily took a vacation trip through a few southwestern states.Somewhere along the highway north of Santa Fe, NewMexico, our car broke down or had a flat tire. A Native Ameri-

can man kindly repaired itand we took him to SantaFe. I clearly remember hav-ing dinner with him at aSanta Fe restaurant. WhenI was in high school my fa-ther began working with aLakota named CaptainFlynn. He came to ourhouse a few times and madea positive impression on me.

TL: Tell us about your firstshamanic journey on psyche-delics.

JF: In the summer of 1970, Ijourneyed to a small villagein southern Mxico insearch of entheogenic mush-rooms. Reading Casta-nedas first book had in-spired me to seek the kind ofmystical experiences he haddescribed. I bought somefresh mushrooms from anelderly Indian woman. Myfirst experience with mush-rooms was awesome. I

stayed up all night strolling through forests. I saw a blackjaguar, had an experience of magical flight and magicalheat, and left this mountain village the next morning afterbreakfast. I remember meeting many Indians in Oaxaca andSan Cristobal de las Casas that summer.

TL: Wounded Knee and the American Indian Movement (AIM)also was protesting during this period and was in the news a lot.This was the late 1960s and early 1970s.

FIGURE 1: My adopted grandfather,the premier ritual orator at Santa Catarina, circa 1981.



JF: By the time the confrontation at Wounded Knee happenedin 1973, I was very pro-Indian. By then I had read a few booksbesides Castaneda on American Indians for my collegeclasses. It bothered me to see on television that they werehaving to fight for their rights. I tutored American Indiansat the Pala Indian reservation in California in the summer of1974, and briefly visited the Seri Indians of Sonora. The Seriseemed too removed from their aboriginal life-style so I de-cided to do my fieldwork with the Huichol. In 1975, I taughtanthropology classes on Vandenburg Air Force Base andbecame friendly with Juanita Centeno, a Chumash Indian.Once I became a graduate student at the University ofMichigan, I began hanging out with Indians. I startedmy research with Huichols of Santa Catarina in 1976.

TL: What religion were you raised with?

JF: My parents had me baptized in the Methodist Church.They took me to Sunday school regularly until I was about14 years old. After that I rarely went to church. My fatheralways hinted that his ancestors were Jewish. He eventuallytold me that his maternal grandfather, Edmond OrangeWise, was a Jew who converted to Christianity. So I grew upwith many Jewish friends and what was probably a slightlyunorthodox perspective on Christianity. I remember as ateenager, my mother spoke about Bishop Pike in a way thatshowed me she believed in the spirit world. For many years Iquestioned the relevance of Christianity, citing its lamentablehistorical record.

I was planning to claim conscientious objector status duringthe Vietnam War. President Nixons establishment of thelottery system made that unnecessary because my birth datecorresponded to number 363 in the first lottery. In the mid-1970s, while I was a graduate student in anthropology in AnnArbor, Michigan, I began attending Friends (Quaker) meet-ings. I became an official member of the Religious Societyof Friends in 1982. I am still a member although I do notagree with certain of their political positions: I support ourwar against terrorism and the death penalty.

Reflecting on my 25 years of experience, observation, andstudy of Huichol Indian rituals and sacred sites, as well asseveral years of participation in some 30 NAC meetings, Ifind that I agree wholeheartedly with Reuben Snake thatChristian and American Indian religious beliefs and practicescan be complementary. Let me address this issue, of syncre-tism, in both a personal and scholarly way. I have concludedthat people who find significant similarities between beliefs

and practices in Christian and indigenous American religionsare adapting to being bicultural (having a dual religious alle-giance or wanting to belong to two distinct cultures). In lightof geneticists lauding hybrid vigor, it seems to me that be-coming a religious hybrid or eclectic should be perfectly ac-ceptable. Yet critics of bicultural religious identity seem tooutnumber advocates. Detractors of syncretism are typicallyreligious fundamentalists, native militants, and cultural an-thropologists. I am not at all interested in systematically re-butting their position. Suffice it to say that I suspect mostcritics of syncretism are either very comfortable being mo-nocultural or perhaps they have not yet perceived the valueof having a hybrid or eclectic religious identity. My trainingat the University of Michigan, and subsequent contactwith academic anthropologists, has convinced me that mostanthropologists have emphasized identifying and interpret-ing the meaning of non-European aspects of American In-dian religions. If pursued with a blind eye toward clear evi-dence of religious acculturation to Christianity, this ortho-dox bias in anthropology will produce an incomplete andpossibly misleading view of individuals and cultures. Some-times, as in the case of Black Elk, who was both an Oglalaholy man and a Catholic catechist (see Michael Stelten-kamps book Black Elk: Holy Man of the Oglala and PaulSteinmetzs book Pipe, Bible and Peyote among the OglalaLakota), this anthropological bias can involve a deliberateneglect of the Christian component of an American Indianspersonality. Such neglect of Christian influence on aborigi-nal American religions is also a serious problem in Huicholstudies and the New Age tours they inspire (see my 1999 es-say Examining Ethics, Benefits and Perils of Tours toMexico in the International Conference on Heritage,Multicultural Attractions and Tourism, Conference ProceedingsVol. I, pp. 407422. Edited by Meral Korzay et al.,Bosphorus University). The problem is not simply thatsyncretism is understudied, or that some anthropologistsmay succumb to the so-called imperialist nostalgia syndromedefined by Renato Rosaldo, in his book Culture and Truth.To respect the totality of somebodys religious identity maymean recognizing that the recurrent anthropological biashaving high regard for native religions coupled with lowregard for Christianityis not an attribute of objectivity butis merely an ideological stance or perhaps a personal choice.This anthropological bias privileges one of three possiblechoiceswhich I define below as choice # 2that are madewhenever there is an obvious conflict between cultures. MostAmerican Indians select one of these three positions: 1) Hav-ing high regard for Christian religion/low regard for nativereligion; 2) Having low regard for Christian religion/high re-

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gard for native religion; or 3) Having high regard for bothChristian and native religion. A fourth possibility, being neu-tral or negative about both Christian and native religion, israrely selected by Indians. I would like to see anthropolo-gists better prepared to understand each of these three posi-tions. If they want to achieve a more complete and accurateunderstanding of a particular person (e.g., Black Elk orReuben Snake), or culture (e.g., Lakota or Huichol), theymust try to examine impartially the kind of choices variousmembers of a particular culture make. To respectfully explainthe choices made by religious leaders in other cultures mayrequire that we become more candid about our own religiouspreferences.

Like Reuben Snake, I value syncretism and admire his at-tempt to combine valuable elements from both Christian andAmerican Indian religions. I find syncretism a more satisfy-ing choice than either rejecting or accepting all elements ofany one religion. My participation in NAC rituals and re-search with Huichol shamans, including my pilgrimage tothe plant entheogen called kiri (see Entheos 1(2): 3842), hasenabled me to combine elements of Judeo-Christian andAmerican Indian religions. Acculturation into American In-dian religions has reinforced my childhood belief that snakesare not Satanic, and forced me to discard or modify certainJudeo-Christian doctrines. My preference for religious eclec-ticism allows me to discard elements of both tribal and Judeo-Christian dogma. I do not need to believe that Jesus Christis the only begotten son of God to retain him as my role-model. I can believe in an afterlife or spirit-world withoutsubscribing to the orthodox Christian view of heaven andhell. I do not need to believe, as traditional Huichols do, thatthe Sun-Father must regularly be given human (deer or cattle)blood to survive. Yet I learned from them to value the sun asa source of terrestrial life. I also learned from them that ani-mals and people have spirits that do communicate with useven after death, and that peyote and kiri are entheogens(plants that have intelligence and divinity). Unlike mostHuichols, I take Jesus Christ as my role-model (my personalLord and Saviorto use religious terms). Almost daily I prayto Wakonda (the Winnebago name for the Great Mysteryor God), to our celestial Mother and Father and to Grandfa-ther-Fire (addressing them with their Huichol names), andoffering them all cedar and tobacco, which I grow myself. Ialso make my prayers in Jesus Christs name, sometimeseven addressing him. It has taken considerable effort for meto feel comfortable having this sort of hybrid religious iden-tity. Probably the most important corollary of my personaltransformation is that I abhor dogma, of whatever kind.

TL: Can you speak about your academic training? Whatprompted Huichol Indian Identity and Adaptation, your Ph.D.dissertation?

JF: I remember vividly arriving for the first time in Ann Ar-bor, Michigan, in January 1975 to begin my training as a cul-tural anthropologist. It was the middle of winter and snowblanketed the ground. At the base of the Corinthian-stylecolumns of Angell Hall, where the anthropology depart-ment was located then, was written ANARCHY! in red paint.As an undergraduate at the University of California atSan Diego, and later at Irvine, I had learned a considerableamount about Marxism and anarchism so I felt I was at theright place at the right time. At that time the Universityof Michigans anthropology department was rated first inthe nation. The professors who had the greatest impact onme at the University of Michigan were Michael Taussig,Roy Rappaport, Conrad Kottak, and Gary Wither-spoon. I truly enjoyed being a teaching assistant for four se-mesters for Conrad Kottak. He was friendly and had anencyclopedia-like grasp of anthropology as an academic dis-cipline. I remain in touch with Kottak, who is one of thefew cultural anthropologists I still admire. My mentor andacademic advisor, Roy Rappaport, died several years ago.Rappaport was considered one of the worlds foremost au-thorities on ritual and he had a profound influence on theecological perspective on ritual evident in my dissertation,Huichol Indian Identity and Adaptation. Gary Witherspoonwas a Mormon missionary to the Navajo when he met theNavajo woman who became his wife. His emphasis on un-derstanding native cosmology and languageillustrated byhis own work among the Navajocontinues to inspire me.Mick Taussig was like an elder brother to me. He was alsointerested in shamanism and radical politics so it was natu-ral that we would be close. I feel some regret at having lostcontact with him. He reinforced my own inclination to paycareful attention to the history and structuring of economicrelations in whatever culture I intend to interpret.

My doctoral dissertation chairperson, Joyce Marcus, was aMayan specialist. She was interested in cosmology and ritualand was instrumental in guiding me through the difficultiesinherent in dissertation writing. At the end of 1981, in myreview of literature previous scholars had published aboutthe Huichol, I expressed skepticism about the veracity ofsome of Dr. Peter Fursts statementsespecially aboutHuichol waterfall jumping being illustrative of shamanicbalance. Marcus immediately restrained my criticism of Dr.Furst, while neglecting to tell mein her letter dated 23



March, 1982that she was a friend of Dr. Furst. We dis-covered that later, during the course of my lawsuit againstDr. Furst. In that 1982 letter she warned me that my attackwill be responded to, and defenders of Furst and Myerhoffwill come to their defense; everyone will overlook the origi-nal contributions to Huichol studies that you can make. Justbefore I defended my dissertationin autumn of 1984Marcus removed Dr. Phil Weigand from my dissertationcommittee. I was upset about her decision because at thattime I regarded Weigand as the foremost authority on theHuichol. Weigand was also critical of many aspects of thework Furst and Myerhoff had published on the Huichol.With reference to my criticism of Furst and Myerhoff,Marcus was right in stating in 1982 that: The field ofMesoamerican ethnology and particularly that of Huicholstudies to boot is so small that you will damage your reputa-tion before you ever get underway. She supported her friend,Dr. Furst, and discarded my mentor, Dr. Weigand. Sheabandoned me around 1989, at the time I began asking Dr.Furst for his field notes concerning waterfall jumping.

I am not sure if it would be accurate to attribute my ability torecognize anomalies in ethnographic data to my training atthe University of Michigan. But then again, where elsecould I have developed that skill? Exercising that ability wascentral to my debunking of spurious elements in Casta-nedas portrait of Mexican Indian shamans. In my book,Carlos Castaneda, Academic Opportunism and the PsychedelicSixties, I noted that neither Castaneda nor BarbaraMyerhoff had field notes to support claims they made aboutwaterfall jumping. I also mentioned that Dr. Furst had re-fused to produce any field notes about waterfall jumping inresponse to my requests to see them. I feel that my condem-nation of Castaneda is strengthened by the fact that Dr.Furst admitted in his deposition testimony of December 19,1996, that he has no field notes to support his interpretationof Ramon Medina Silvas stunts at the waterfall nearGuadalajara. On page 219 of that deposition Dr. Furststated: There are no field notes on the waterfall incident.My photographs are my field notes. Thirty or 40 or 50 pho-tographs that I took. It wasnt an occasion on which you writethings down. So we have three people (Furst, Myerhoff,and Castaneda) who have no field notes to help elucidatetheir strikingly similar accounts of Mexican Indians doingamazing acrobatic displays at waterfalls.

Being a native of southern California, I hated Michigans long,cold winters. I made some wonderful friends in Ann Arbor,including my dear friend, David Robbins. My academic

training in Michigan was surely as good as it would have beenanywhere else. In addition to obtaining my doctorate fromthe top rated anthropology department in America, livingin Ann Arbor provided me with an unexpected bonus, meet-ing Lebriz Tosuner, the woman who has been my wife since1979. Lebriz and I were both enrolled in a required ethnol-ogy class taught by Professor Aram Yengoyan. The next yearwe were both teaching assistants in Conrad KottaksAmerican culture class. When I first noticed her, at a drink-ing fountain in Angell Hall, I thought she looked like aLatin American. I started speaking to her in Spanish but shereplied in English that she didnt speak it. Then I asked her ifshe was Jewish, since the vast majority of my girlfriends hadbeen. She declared she was Turkish. I replied, Then you mustbe a Sephardic (Jew). I knew almost nothing then aboutTurkey. Telling the rest of the story about my years livingand teaching in Turkey will fill a book.

I have not yet published my doctoral dissertation. Waitingthis long to rewrite it has some advantages. I have obtainedmuch more data on Huichol ritual and shamanism and havegradually arrived at a different perspective on Huichol ritualthan the ecologically oriented one I used in my dissertation.I now believe that prior to Spanish conquest Huichol weresubservient to the Cora, a more powerful tribe living to theirwest. In addition to being an entheogen essential to Huicholshamanism, peyote was probably supplied to the Cora bythe Huichol. Because kiri is a powerful entheogen native tothe territory Huichols have inhabited for at least the past1,800 years, the question I must answer in rewriting my dis-sertation is, Who and what induced the Huichols to makethose arduous annual pilgrimages to collect peyote? Theelaborate rituals I saw performed at aboriginal Huicholtemples have a long history, one that involved Huichols mak-ing peyote pilgrimages not merely to acquire shamanic skillsbut also to give peyote in tribute to the Cora. My mentor,Phil Weigand, shares this understanding of Huicholhistory.

TL: Your first book, written with Nelleke Nix, is Step Inside theSacred Circle. This book contains the chapter, A Shaman CalledFool. Can you tell us about this chapter?

JF: As I reflect on Step Inside the Sacred Circle, I see it as thebeginning of my moving outside the mainstream of anthro-pology. In that book, I defined civilization as problematic,and I tended to romanticize American Indians. Among thenarratives contained in that book, A Shaman Called Foolis most important because it offers an authentic first-person

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account of how one becomes a shaman (set in Kwakiutl cul-ture of the 1870s), and because it illustrates the esteem inwhich wolves are held throughout North America. I wantedto popularize this story, recorded by Franz Boas, of howone Kwakiutl man acquired extraordinary ability in huntingand healing as a result of his act of kindness to an injuredwolf.

TL: As an anthropologist, you were interested in myths andtheories surrounding shamanic powersare they real?

JF: I had noticed that there were not enough readable andaccurate first-person narratives that clarified how shamanicpowerto enable success in hunting, healing, warfare, divi-nation, and sometimes in sorcery or witchcraftis acquired.Some well-known narratives about becoming a shaman, suchas the account of Quesalid recorded by Franz Boas andpopularized by the famous French anthropologist Levi-Strauss, suggest that shamanism works because of the pla-

cebo effect, i.e., the patients faith in the efficacy of theshamans symbols is what makes the patient well. The wayin which Levi-Strauss presents Quesalids adventures inbecoming a shaman raises certain ethical questions such as,Is deceit justified in treating a patient, if indeed that patientrecovers? While some shamans may know, or suspect, thattheir healing ability depends primarily on the faith their pa-tients have in them, I am convinced that there issometimesat leastmore to shamanism than that. A Shaman CalledFool makes it clear that it is the wolf spirit communicatingwith the shaman that makes his hunting and healing effica-cious. A Shaman Called Fool illustrates primordial or au-thentic shamanism, a phenomenon in which special humanability (e.g., in healing) is attributed to receiving aid fromones ancestors, from sacred plants (entheogens), or fromesteemed animal spirits. I am still fascinated by authenticfirst-person accounts of shamanism.

TL: What have other anthropologists said in this regard?

FIGURE 2: The Huichol shaman CATARINO sings and plays his instrument at a California library.



JF: Let me mention three other narratives that I believe ex-emplify authentic shamanism. How Aua Became a Shaman(see pages 6469 in Native American Autobiography, editedby Arnold Krupat for University of Wisconsin Press,1994) is a first-person narrative that describes how this Inuit(Eskimo) man, born in 1870, obtains shamanic power fromhis first two tutelary spirits: a female seashore spirit (hisnamesake, Aua) and a shark. Auas report is filled with refer-ences to nuances of Inuit culture. Aua interprets his birth,life, and attaining enlightenment (i.e., gaining helping spir-its as well as extrasensory perception or divinatory power)from within that context. It seems worth mentioning thatKnud Rasmussenthe man who recorded Auas remark-able storywas, like Boas, devoted to systematicallystudying one culture.

The Man Who Ate Honey: Kiri and the Calling of a HuicholShaman (Entheos 1(2): 3842, 2002) is a first-person storythat describes how, around 1930, a powerful plant entheo-gen, kiri, selected my Huichol friend, Catarino, to serve asa shaman. I believe my knowledge of Huichol religion wasobvious to Catarino and that he confided the story of hislife-altering transformation, triggered on a material level byeating honey containing kiri pollen, because he trusted thatI would understand and accurately interpret his personalexperiences, as uncanny as they might seem. So I supposethis sounds like I am putting myself in the same league withBoas and Rasmussen. If it does, I ask readers to pardon mylack of humility and please read Catarinos story anyway.

Finally I want to revive interest in the adventures of a teen-ager captured in 1907 by Amazonian Indians, as told in F.Bruce Lambs book, Wizard of the Upper Amazon. I had thepleasure of meeting Lamb at his home in Santa Fe, NewMexico, in 1988. At that meeting Lamb helped dispel doubtsthat I had about the authenticity of his book, Wizard. Mydoubts were prompted by having read anthropologist Rob-ert Carneiros attack, Chimera of the Upper Amazon (seepages 9498 in Richard deMilles The Don Juan Papers,1980, Ross-Erikson Publishers). Lamb kindly gave me acopy of his rebuttal to Carneiro (see Wizard of the UpperAmazon as Ethnography, Current Anthropology 22(5): 577580, October 1981) and his book, Rio Tigre and Beyond(North Atlantic Books, 1985). Rio Tigre complements andupdates the life of the mestizo shaman, Manuel CrdovaRios, whose account of his several years of life spent amongan Amazonian Indian tribe is presented in Wizard. Most no-tably, Rio Tigre provides many examples of successful healingsdone by Rios. Rios, whose amazing diagnostic ability seems

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to have been nurtured by numerous sessions with theentheogen known as ayahuasca, had his own unique methodfor diagnosing and treating his patients, often with medici-nal plants. I heartily recommend both books. Lambs focuson Crdova Rios life among the Indians (the subject in Wiz-ard) and after Rios had returned to Iquitos (the focus of RioTigre) is clearly aided by his considerable knowledge of tropi-cal eco-systems and his familiarity with published ethnogra-phies of Amazonian tribes (but not by having done fieldworkin them). I am hoping to find similar first-person narrativesthat interpret clearly howpeople in Central Asia be-come shamans. I invitereaders of The EntheogenReview to let me knowabout such reports.

TL: Tell us more about theshamanic Wolf Nagualand the Wolf-Shrines youvisited.

JF: Another reason that AShaman Called Fool at-tracted my attention wasbased on my own experi-ences among the Huichol.During my research inSanta Catarina I had vis-ited wolf-shrines, recordedmyths depicting wolves astutelary spirits in deer, rab-bit, and peyote hunting,and recorded esoteric in-formation that explainedhow a few elite Huichollearned to take the wolf sform (see my 1985 disser-tation). One day as I wasleaving the Huichol home-land to return to civiliza-tion, I was given some peyote to give me stamina. As wewalked through a pine forest I sensed (heard and felt) wolvescalling me. When I asked my compadre about it he repliednonchalantly that my experience was consistent with expe-riences that peyote-hunters have when they travel some 350kilometers (one-way) to collect their sacrament. They say thatthe spirit of the wolf is their guide and companion. Eventu-ally, no doubt as a result of my blessing by a wolf-shaman

and my visits to their wolf-shrines, I had a memorable dreamin which I inhaled the breath of a wolf. Despite the signifi-cance of this dream, I do not pretend to be a shaman. I claimonly to understand what they tell me about how they havebecome shamans.

TL: Your article about the Huichol shaman who received a bless-ing after eating honey that contained pollen from the sacred plant,kiri, is outstanding. Please tell us more.

JF: We can simply excerptsome of what is published inmy article, mentioned earlier:

As we crossed the streamthere were plants calledKutam (snakes tooth).When we came to theseplants there was a honey-comb made by wasps (calledhuariches in Spanish andrumaste in Huichol). Aswe ate the honey we sud-denly started vomiting. Ourvomit was a very yellowcolor. I turned and lookedup and a saw a huge rocksliding down. That rock wassliding down towards us(but it was only a hallucina-tion). The rocks were break-ing apart at the same timeand I saw two paths divid-ing. My cousin shouted atme, Where are you going?...I continued climbing upthe mountain. When Ilooked up at the summit Isaw a boy who spoke to me:Come on, come on. I fol-lowed him until we came toa hill covered with god-houses (sherikite). Then hegave me tacuatzi (an oblong

basket containing the shamans sacred paraphernalia)placing it on the ground in front of me. He opened thetacuatzi and everybody could see the prayer feathers. Hebegan singing the song of hahue [T.N.: This song is usedin several ceremonies such as parching of the corn, andfor the bull, and when the cornfield is cleared for plant-ing].

FIGURE 3: At age seven, CATARINO learned songsafter ingesting honey containing kiri pollen.



Listen well, he told me I am only going to give youthese five verses. I am never going to give you a rope, nora bow, nor an arrow [T.N.: Not having a rope meansthat he will never be able to grab a cacaoyari (male an-cestor), not having a bow means that he will not be ableto shoot an itaoqui (the spirit of a deceased shaman thatappears in non-human form), not having an arrow meansthat he will not be an evil-doer using witchcraft]. I cameto my senses and began to look around in every direc-tion. I was completely alone, sitting with my backagainst a boulder. Almost all of my body was numb. Af-ter I recovered my normal consciousness I spent almostall day laying down there, overcoming my numbness.

Catarinos experiences were life-altering. My own experi-ences, as well as Huichol doctrine, have convinced me thatthis is one powerful plant. As I mentioned in that essay,Huichols have warned me never to eat Kiri. I feel compelledto emphasize that eating any part of this plant may well behazardous to ones health. Kiri can punish, with seriousillness or death, all those who fail to abide by their vows.When transgressions against Kiri are committed, forgive-ness or atonement is virtually impossible.

TL: You often mention the Boasian Essence in anthropology.What is this and why do you hope to revive it? How has thisinfluenced your work?

TL: I hesitate to answer this question because I am rethink-ing the value of Franz Boas methods of collecting data fromAmerican Indians in light of ethical standards that have beenemerging. On the positive side, Boas recommended certainguidelines for doing anthropological research that I believeare sound. In contrast to armchair theorists, many of whomadvocated uni-linear cultural evolution, Boas emphasizedthe need to do fieldwork focused on a particular culture andits geographical neighbors. This is precisely what I have beendoing with the Huichol. In collecting information about an-other culture Boas realized that speaking the native languagewas essential. Although I have learned some Huichol I amnot fluent. To compensate for my deficiency, I recorded songsand sacred texts (myths) in the Huichol language and hadbilingual Huichols translate them into Spanish (a language Ispeak fluently). Boas believed that obtaining an accurate in-terpretation of the meaning of such data entailed graspingthe native perspective. If the meaning of a myth or ritual prac-tice was unclear after it had been translated into Spanish, Ialways asked my translators to ask the shamans to explainmore, until I understood what it meant to them.

TL: Your investigations went beyond those of Boas, however. Youactually entered the world of the shaman, and tried to become ashaman?

JF: Unlike Boas, I attempted to understand certain esotericHuichol beliefs by going to their sacred sites, participatingin rituals and eating their sacrament, peyote. I view this ap-proach as a corollary of his recommendation that anthro-pologists understand meaning from the native perspective.Boas, with the help of a Kwakiutl named George Hunt,studied Kwakiutl culture and language for decades. Doingresearch within a single culture for an extended period oftime is precisely what I have been doing, since 1976, withthe Huichol. Boas felt and acted with a sense of urgencyabout preserving aboriginal American culture. Given ourfederal governments ethnocentric policy of suppressing na-tive religions, enforced from the mid-1880s until 1934, therewas every reason to believe that much cultural knowledgewould be lost, and it was. The Huichol and other Mexicantribes have experienced similar problems. Certain Huicholrituals, such as rabbit hunting, are only preserved on tapeand in my translations.

TL: Is there anything about Franz Boas that you want tocriticize?

JF: Some of what Boas did, as a part of his research amongAmerican Indians, can and should be criticized. I am par-ticularly disturbed, given my firm belief in the spirit world,that Boas stole many American Indian skulls and skeletonsand encouraged others to do so. He also purchased humanremains to sell to museums such as the Smithsonian. A care-ful reading of his diaries and letters (see The Ethnography ofFranz Boas by Ronald Rohner, University of ChicagoPress, 1969) reveals other questionable activities.

TL: Your 1996 book Reuben Snake: Your Humble Serpant isthe biography of AIM (American Indian Movement) and NativeAmerican Church elder Reuben Snake. This book is filled withWinnebago Wisdom, as you say. Tell us how you came to writethis book.

JF: In April of 1990, when I was working as a lobbyist for theFriends Committee on National Legislation in Wash-ington, D.C., I called Reuben Snake to offer to help him per-suade Congress to pass legislation to protect the religiousfreedom of peyotists whose way of worship had just beenthreatened by the Supreme Courts tragic decision in Employ-ment Division of Oregon v. Smith. In late May of 1993, just

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after Senator Daniel Inouye had introduced legislation toprotect the Native American Church (NAC), I decided thatI would go to Winnebago, Nebraska to interview ReubenSnake. What prompted me to go to Winnebago was a dreamI had. In it a voice told me not to go underground. I under-stood that message to mean that I should not go to theHuichol peyote dance, which is held at the end of May toinitiate the rainy season.

The dream occurred just as Ihad been thinking aboutwhether to interview ReubenSnake, or to go instead to theHuichol peyote dance, whichfor me is full of symbolismabout entering the rainy sea-son, darkness, and the pri-mordial underworld (PacificOcean). Today I see anothermeaning to the warning aboutmy not going underground: itmeant that I should remainpublicly active during thecampaign to pass what be-came Public Law 103-344 (seeOne Nation Under God: TheTriumph of the Native AmericanChurch). I obeyed my dream,wrote Reuben Snakes biog-raphy, and helped pass P.L.103-344, in part by doing over20 radio interviews nation-wide. The interviews I didwith Reuben Snake on theWinnebago reservation in lateMay and early June of 1993 were all tape-recorded. Insteadof explaining here the mechanics of how I edited and inter-preted what Reuben Snake said on those tapes I prefer toemerge from the closetor perhaps the undergroundandexplain something about my belief in the reality of the spiritworld.

TL: Tell us about the last days of Reuben Snake and your visitswith him.

JF: The last day I saw Reubenabout two weeks before hedied, on June 28, 1993he was talking to a college class onthe Winnebago reservation about the need for museums,collectors, and anthropologists to divest themselves of skel-

etons of American Indians. We did not discuss that issue, ofrepatriation of bones and sacred artifacts, in the book, butwe had certainly talked about the spirit world. Shortly be-fore participating in my first NAC meeting, in June of 1990,I told Reuben about some of my paranormal experiences.He warned me not to discuss them publicly because fewAnglos would understand. We agreed that revealing such ex-periencesthereby announcing my belief in spiritsbefore

we had passed legislation toprotect the NAC might bedetrimental to our cause. Ihave honored his request tostay undergroundin thecloset on this issueuntilnow.

TL: Tell us about your visionsand the paranormal, please.This will help people partlyunderstand what happens onpsychedelics.

JF: I want to briefly describetwo experiences, which hap-pened without my havingeaten any peyote, that in-creased my faith in the spiritworld that Reuben oftentalked about. About foura.m. one morning I was writ-ing the Epilogue to theReuben Snake book, ponder-ing what Reuben meant bydeclaring that the spirit ofthe eagle was his lawyer and

that, The eagle is the one bird that can fly up into the face ofGod. He carries our message up to God. Suddenly I wasamazed that my doorbell rang, but from inside the house,just above the piano in my hallway.

At that moment I knew Reubens spirit was present, teach-ing me that it is indeed the eagles spirit that carries ourprayers up to God. I understood that the eagle-bone whistleI heard him blow in NAC meetings was like my doorbell ring-inga way of making God aware of peoples prayers. Oneafternoon, some days later, I was writing an explanation ofthe significance of thunder in Reuben Snakes life. His firstmemory was of his grandmother, a member of theWinnebago Thunder Clan, praying with tobacco to the first

FIGURE 4: REUBEN SNAKE at theHo-chunk (Winnebago) pow-wow.



thunder that brings the life-giving rain back again eachspring. His final experience on this earth was when thethunder-beings struck the earth behind his house just as heand his family completed their singing and praying. As I waswriting down a quotation explaining what the anthropolo-gist Paul Radin had discovered about Thunder Clan mem-bers: that they called themselves thunderbirds because they,like the true thunderbirds, caused a drizzling rain and fogwhen they went about (see Fikes 1996: 256) it began driz-zling above and around my house. A few minutes later mymother arrived and immediately remarked to me howstrange it was that it was drizzling at my house but it wasclear everywhere else. By communicating with me, after hisdeath, Reuben deepened my conviction that our deceasedrelatives may help heal us and may meet us as we journeyinto the spirit world. Reubens benevolent presence hasmade my life more marvelous. For that and more, I thankyou brother. Given these and other experiences I have hadwith spirits of the deceased, I feel compelled to emphasizewhat Reuben and others have told me about the importanceof putting the bodily remains of American Indians back un-derground. That is where they belong. Believers in the spiritworld are distressed, as I am, by the fact that so many skel-etons are still trapped in museums such as the Smithsonian.This is one reason that I call myself a recovering anthro-pologist.

TL: Do you think the introduction of psychedelics into Americanculture is a good thing? Do you feel psychedelics should be legal?

JF: Although I do not personally use marijuana I believe itshould be legalized, with appropriate restrictions on driv-ing and performing other dangerous tasks while under itsinfluence. If I remember correctly marijuana is still classi-fied as a Schedule I controlled substance. Both medical andrecreational users of marijuana attest to its benefits and I haveconcluded that those benefits outweigh the harm that comesfrom keeping it illegal. Many Americans are not aware ofcertain problems associated with growing marijuana outsideour countrys borders. I am particularly bothered by theharm to Huichols that continues to result from the treatmentof marijuana as an illegal substance. On the one hand theMexican army has invaded Huichol territory, sprayedHuichol cornfields where no marijuana was being grown andhassled people who were not involved in its cultivation. Onthe other hand, Huichol marijuana growers and their Mexi-can distributors are believed to have murdered rivals andthose they fear might report their illegal activities. Huicholshave warned me not to travel to certain areas. Some of them

believe that the journalist Phil True was killed in 1998 inHuichol territory because he stumbled onto a marijuanafield. In 1986, my pilgrimage to a specific kiri was consid-ered somewhat dangerous because of its proximity to mari-juana growers. Legalizing marijuana should eliminate theseand other problems. Making it a legal cash crop wouldbring real benefits to many Huichol families who badly needextra income to survivebut who dont want to take the risksentailed by illegal cultivation.

TL: Do you teach and lecture? Describe a college class with Dr.Jay Fikes.

JF: I am preparing a lecture for upper division anthropologystudents. I will briefly summarize several cases of fraud andinvite them to comment on each of them. The first exampleof fraud comes from an essay in Native American Voices, AReader by Susan Lobo and Steve Talbot (Addison WesleyLongman Educational Publishers, 1998). The authors ofEthnic Fraud, Native Peoples and Higher Education citetwo studies of ethnic fraud, one in 19911992 at the Uni-versity of Michigan and one in 19881989 at the Univer-sity of California, Los Angeles. Only about twenty per-cent of all students claiming to be American Indians orAlaska natives could produce documentation proving thatthey were in fact members of a federally recognized tribe. Itell my students that somebody I knew in 19761978 at theUniversity of Michigan encouraged me to falsely claim,as he or she had done, that I was an Indian. Of course I didnot make such a false claim.

TL: So you emphasize integrity and keeping to the facts in a sci-entific manner, and recording narratives without emphasis. Andto avoid fraud or the appearance of fraud. A sacred trust withhistory; you try to impart this attitude in your students, right?

JF: Yes I do, and I am still disturbed that fraud-tolerance is sowidespread in academia. Another study of ethnic fraud, a1993 survey of UCLA students, showed that only about 15%could prove they were enrolled in a federally recognized In-dian tribe. I encourage my students to think about what dif-ference this magnitude of fraud in higher education mighthave on bona fide Indian students, and why non-Indianswould misrepresent themselves (basically to get grant andscholarship money set aside for Indians), and what shouldbe done about it (proof of state or federal tribal enrollmentshould be required to qualify for college admission or funds).I also have students discuss the motive and consequencesassociated with Franz Boas having misrepresented himself

92



as a chief in 1886; at the first isolated Kwakiutl settlementhe visited. Boas used such self-aggrandizement to receivemore favorable treatment from people who did not know ortrust him. I ask them to discuss the pros and cons of thiswhite lie.

TL: Wasnt the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead accusedof fraud?

JF: She did misrepresentherself and she was fooledby two Samoan hoaxers sherelied upon as infor-mants. She became Boasmost famous student,and I tell my studentsto read what I said abouther in my interviewwith Sandy McIntosh(www.sustainedaction.org).In that interview I endorseDerek Freemans debunk-ing of Margaret Meadsglobally celebrated conclu-sionthat a stress-freeadolescence facilitated byfree love existed in Samoain the 1920s. I cite the hos-tile reception Freeman wasgiven by anthropologistswho united behind Meadand attacked him. I explainthat his research provedconclusively that two ofMeads adolescent femaleinformants conspired tomislead her about Samoansexual practicessee page161 of Margaret Meadsbook Blackberry Winter (Pocket Books, 1975) and page 67of Derek Freemans book Margaret Mead and the Heretic(Penguin Books, 1996). I tell them that Mead purposelyconcealed/lied about the fact that she was married. I askthem: did she do this in order to establish rapport with theadolescent females she relied upon for information aboutSamoan pre-marital sexual practices? Was her deceit repaidby theirs toward her? What were the pros/cons of Mead mis-representing herself? Should they follow the example of Boasand Mead when they do fieldwork? How important are trust

and rapport in doing fieldwork? This discussion sets the stagefor evaluation of Carlos Castaneda. What were the mo-tives and the consequences for him falsely claiming to havebecome a sorcerers apprentice? Should anthropologists con-demn Castanedas hoaxing and his research methods andconclusions? Should anthropologists retract their denuncia-tion of Derek Freemans well-documented expose of Mead?

TL: What are the basic issueshere?

JF: The basic ethical questionis under what circumstancesand for what reasons is anymisrepresentation of self everjustified? Which goals arenoble enough to exoneratepeople who use fraud? An-other question I ask them toconsider is this: given the factthat professional anthropolo-gists do not or can not enforceany ethical standardsI re-mind my students that theEthics Committee of theAmerican Anthropologi-cal Association was dis-banded several years agothen for what reasons shouldanybody take any of theirpublications seriously? I re-mind my Turkish studentsthat they have a special tensein their language, that clearlydistinguishes first-hand ob-servation and experiencefrom hearsay.

What safeguards or rules doAmerican anthropologists currently use in order to differ-entiate accurate research from hearsaywhich may well in-clude fraud and undocumented ethnographic anomalies.Citing as an analogy adopting a policy of having college stu-dents submit proof of their ethnic identity (as advocated bythe authors of Ethnic Fraud, Native Peoples and HigherEducation), I ask them if there is a need to adopt a policyrequiring that field notes or recordings be produced to sup-port claims about data presented in doctoral dissertations,or to authenticate publications where anomalous data (such

FIGURE 5: Huichol shaman sucked outthe object causing a patients illness.



as the sensational waterfall jumping described by Furst,Myerhoff, and Castaneda) are presented. Speaking of fieldnotes, I tell them what I wrote earlier (Fikes 1993: 57), thatwhen UCLAs resident expert on Yaqui Indians, ProfessorRalph Beals, asked Castaneda to see his field notes, de-scribing his conversations and observations of don Juan,Castaneda never came back. Just imagine how different ourworld would be if there had been a UCLA departmentalpolicy requiring that field notes be produced prior to grant-ing an anthropology doctorate.

TL: You have just cited what is your most famous and controver-sial book, Carlos Castaneda: Academic Opportunism and thePsychedelic Sixties. This book accuses Furst, Myerhoff, andCastaneda of academic fraud. A lawsuit resulted, with yousuing Furst for defamation of character and for tortiousinterference with your book.

JF: This is a complicated issue. Id prefer that interested par-ties write to me to obtain a copy of the legal brief surround-ing this case, as prepared by my legal team: Modrall,Sperling, Roehl, Harris, and Sisk. The title of the brief isThe State of New Mexico Court of Appeals, No. 20,717 : JayCourtney Fikes, Ph.D. [Plaintiff ] vs. Peter T. Furst, Ph.D. [De-fendant]. People requesting that brief should write to JayFikes, POB 517 Carlsbad, CA 92018-0517, and include acheck for $5.00 to cover my costs of copying and postage.

TL: There are a lot of rumors surrounding this lawsuit, whichdirectly pertains to your book on Carlos Castaneda. Id like toquote The Summary of Facts from your brief. Is this okay?

JF: Yes, go ahead with the quote.

TL: Quoting from page 2 of your legal brief under the titleSummary of the Facts we read:

From 1976 to 1982, Dr. Fikes intensely studied and livedamong the Huichol and discovered that many of Dr.Fursts earlier representations concerning the Huichol,including those representations relating to peyote en-emas and waterfall jumping, could not be verified. (R.P.35657) [Refers to official court record of documents relevantto Fikes appeal.]. After Dr. Furst denied several requeststo produce field-notes, Dr. Fikes took steps to publishhis observations and correct Dr. Fursts earlier observa-tions (R.P. 35861). These observations were set forthin a manuscript titled Carlos Castaneda: Academic Op-portunism and the Psychedelic Sixties, which Dr. Fikessought to publish with Madison Books (R.P. 36162).

This present lawsuit is the end result of Dr. Furstsrelentless efforts to prevent Dr. Fikes from correctingthe record concerning the Huichol and to destroy Dr.Fikes anthropological career.

It is a sad day when two distinguished scholars have to face off incourt, over religious anthropology.

JF: I dont mind admitting that I have suffered a lot from themany defamatory statements Dr. Furst has made about me.I feel strongly that my reputation, as well as the righteous-ness of bona fide Huichol shamans, will be vindicated as thetruth emerges through this lawsuit.

TL: Thank you Dr. Fikes. This has been a very enjoyable chat.God bless you.

JF: Ive enjoyed it. I hope the Creator blesses you and the read-ers of The Entheogen Review.

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Lilly and Lotusby Tao Jones

I am going to touch on the botanical and pharmacologicalside of the plants in question and also delve into the meta-physical aspects of their use.

It is necessary to distinguish clearly the genusNymphaea from Nelumbo as the term lotus has beenused in a general sense to denote both genera. Thegenus Nelumbo (syn. Nelumbium) was unknown in an-cient Egypt and was never found as a part of ancientmonuments or of anyart. Nelumbo was intro-duced by the Persiansand was present only asa cultivated plant Thelarge flowers of Nelumboare borne a meter abovethe water and at matu-rity the petals are shedrevealing a large funnel-form seed pod. Likewisethe leaves are often ameter across and arepeltate. They are alwaysheld above the surfaceof the water. These char-acteristics are not foundtogether in any of thewater lilies.

Nymphaea lotus does not refer to the lotus of commonparlance, but to a white flowered night blooming spe-cies of Nymphaea also common to the Nile delta at a veryearly date (Emboden 1981).

The plant parts in questionflowers of Nelumbo nucifera(sacred lotus), Nymphaea nouchali var. caerulea (sacred bluelily of the Nile), Nymphaea alba and Nymphaea lotusall havesuggestion of entheogenic applications in the ancient cultureswho used them reverently, although for the most part howthey were utilized is still uncertain. My experiences with theseplants have convinced me that they wereat least in theEgyptian cultureresponsible for entheogenic beliefs andpractices. I have tried the flowers of all the above mentionedplants by either smoking them (or an extract thereof ), soak-ing them in wine (7 grams of flowers per bottle) and drink-ing the wine thereafter, and by soaking extracts in cranberry

juice (1 gram of 5X per cup of juice) and drinking the juice,or smoking the flowers mixed with Cannabis.

While alcohol infusions produced the most noticeable ef-fects, the juice infusion left me completely incapacitated andin the it can wait until later mode I mentioned in my previ-ous paper, The Land of the Lotus Smokers (ER Vol. X, No.4, 2001: 125)

A decoction of 310 un-opened flower buds [ofN. caerulea] has narcotic,anaphrodisiac, mildlyeuphoric and antitussiveeffects (Voogelbrein-der 2002).

Smoking the flowers, nomatter which species, hada more pronounced andimmediate effect, whichrequired some familiarityto fully appreciate. In myopinion, the dreaminessof the plant is more mani-fest when smoked. Whileflowers from all threeNymphaea species as-

sayedas well as those from Nelumbo nuciferahadpsychoactivity, all were different in potency. N. nouchali var.caerulea had the highest percentage of dissolved solids whenprepared as a 5X concentrate powder. Next was N. alba, fol-lowed by N. nucifera, and N. lotus. When just the flowers weresmoked, N. lotus seemed to be least effective. However, asthis is the species with which I have worked the least, there isa good possibility I have just not yet become familiar with itsrange of effects.

It is the euphoric and lasting sense that nothing matters andall is perfect, which the herb produces, that is the main ob-jection I have to continued use of the plant. I find myself let-ting my affairs in the real world slide, something I cannotafford to do on a regular basis. When I first started usingNymphaea species I was not obtaining the effects I now

Nymphaea nouchali var. caerulea.



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experience. It took a period of becoming acquainted with the effects in orderto let the herb show me what it does before I understood the amazing powerand beauty of the experience. Indeed, a week after my last experiencea hardweek, mind youthe first thing my body and mind wanted was to experiencethe blissful letting go into infinite oblivion that I had experienced previously.However, as it had taken me four days to return to normal after trying theherb for two days in a row, I could not spare that large a block of time from myprofessional life to head out for another such excursion. It is easy to see thatHomer had obtained his description of the effects of eating lotus flowers fromeither first-hand experience or first-hand observation.

In instances of divination, one sometimes does not obtain an answer immedi-ately upon asking the question. Sometimes one does not get an answer. Some-times an answer is not recognized for what it is until much later, long after thenecessity for asking the original question has passed. Sometimes one does notrecognize the answer until years later, and then, only by the grace of memoryrecall of the question asked so long ago. Sometimes one is not aware of havingasked a question.

I was in lily dreamland, a disincarnate intelligence traveling with another ofthe same. We came upon a metaphysical knot in the pathone I had encoun-tered before and for which I could see no solution. I remarked to my compan-ion that it seemed unlikely this could be resolved in this lifetime. I was imme-diately given a vision (within the dream) of myself in the future, young againand in the fullness of health in a beautiful garden surrounded by friends andlovers; the obstacleand all othershad been overcome and the scene wasof youth and perfection. This lasted only a second, and to myself at the time itseemed to be a different type of reincarnation vision. Rather than visions ofpast lifetimes, this was of a future life. I noted the oddity of this and proceededwith the dream.

Later that evening as I was going to visit friends I recalled that the Egyptiansdid not have the conception of previous lifetimes in their cosmology, but ratherthe promise of an afterlife of perfection with the gods. My own mind, gearedtoward oriental mysticism, had unsuccessfully attempted to supply an expla-nation from the Hindu system of belief instead of an Egyptian mythology-based explanation. When I realized that this plant gave visions of an afterlifeas described by the Egyptian priests in the Book of the Dead, the origin of theircosmology began to make a great deal of sense.

We must consider that the legends that became the history of Egyptiandynastic belief are founded upon a water lily as having arisen from chaos(nun) to produce the first god, Ra or Atum. This was to have happenedbefore the birth of the sun and it is the substance of three of the fourcosmogonies of ancient Egypt.

An overview of these cosmogonies, which have numerous variant versions,shows the influence of the blue water lily in conceptions of the origins of theuniverse (Emboden 1981).

96



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Blue lily flowers were found in the tombs of the Pharoahsand unguent bottles in the shape of the blue lily flower wereburied with the bodies. Emboden proposes these to havecontained a powerful extract made from the blue lily to helpthe deceased in their trip to the realm of the afterlife.

N. caerulea was a symbol of death and rebirth to the Egyp-tians and was held sacred to Osiris, who was said to havebeen reincarnated as a blue water lily after his murderby Set. A text called Transformation into the Blue Wa-ter Lily [or alternately, Lotus] from the Egyptian Book ofthe Dead makes reference to a blue water lily associatedwith Ra and Hathor and the pure light of the sun. Theincantation discusses the desire of Ani to transformhimself into the sacred blue water lily so that his bodymight have new birth and ascend daily into heaven(Voogelbreinder 2002).

That this plant was responsible for the origin of the conceptof and belief in an afterlife can never be proven definitively,but my experience has shown that it is indeed to be classedas a narcotic entheogen, capable of producing ecstatic andwondrous visions. It can dissolve the boundaries betweenthe self and the universe. Infinity and ecstasy are recognizedas realities rather than concepts. The experience is of a subtleenergy, until one learns to tune in and let it take one where itwill. My latest experience lasted for four days and I foundmyself at times coexisting in two complete and separateworlds simultaneously.

On this particular journey I had smoked one small cigaretteof a cultivar of an N. nouchali species (pink), followed thenext day with a cigarette of N. alba flowers. As noted before,when I take these herbs for more than one day (or use themmore than once in a day), the effects become cumulative. Bythe third day, I am in a place that is almost impossible todescribe. It is truly a magical world of extreme physical joyand mental and spiritual amazement. I can coexist in thisworld while also being present in the normal world in whichwe live. The worlds overlap in such a way that I can haveawareness of living two completely different lives at the sametime. I coexists in both, in a kind of dream state.

I should mention at this juncture that it took me over a yearof sporadic useperhaps 810 usagesbefore I fell into thestate described above, and it was only due the fact that I fi-nally used the plant alone and not in a social situation withothers, which would leave me externally oriented as opposedto being inwardly focused. It is only when I find the inwardfocus that I experience these effects.



The effects of flowers from the Nymphaea species appear verysimilar to that of the Nelumbo flowers, varying only in pro-portions of aporphinic alkaloids present from species to spe-cies. While searching for data on Nymphaea and Nelumbo spe-cies alkaloids, I came across the following: Emboden men-tions Nymphaea species contain nuciferine, nornuciferine,nupharine, and also apomorphine:

apomorphine is one kind of aporphine and is capableof producing profound neurochemical alterations. Whileit is listed in most pharmacopoeias as a non-narcoticemetic, we have evidence from Diaz that it acts much asergotamine in Rivea corymbosa and Ipomoea violacea; thatis to say, it acts directly upon the dopaminergic recep-tors to produce a compulsive stereotyped behavior indiverse species of animals Large doses (in humans)mimic psychoses which would be considered typicalshamanic behavior (Emboden 1981).

Nelumbo nucifera contains the following alkaloids as listedon the Nelumbo pages of Garden of Eden, Vol II:

Seeds of N. nucifera are + narcotic (Ott 1993), and yield avariety of isoquinoline-type alkaloidsnuciferine,nornuciferine, pronuciferine, 0.01% armepavine, dl-armepavine oxalate, 0.02% nererine {antihypertensive},lotusine, liensinine {antihypertensive}, 0.01% isolieni-sine, roemerine, anonanine, demethylcoclaurine, 4-me-thyl-N-methyl-coclaurine, methylcorypalline and 5-MeO-6-OH-aporphine (Voogelbreinder 2002).

The seeds are used as an antipsychotic, antihypertensive,tranquilizing, tonic, aphrodisiac, nervine, antifebrile, an-tipyretic heart tonic with an affinity for the spleen, kid-neys and heart. (Bremness 1994; Huang 1993; Nishibeet al. 1986; Reid 1995) (Voogelbreinder 2002).

I could find no information on the chemical constituentsof Nelumbo flowers, although there is copious informationavailable on every other part of the plant.

In China the leaves have been smoked with tobacco therhizome fiber is used to restore the health of those withnervous exhaustion (see Nicotania, Cooke 1860).

A methanol extract was shown to have CNS-depressantor narcotic and muscle relaxant activity in mice.(Mukherjee et al. 1996) (Voogelbreinder 2002).

While I believe that nuciferine is the prominent alkaloid inN. caerulea flowers (aporphine is a powerful emetic and I ex-perienced no nausea or emesis at any time while using these

plants except for a slight dizziness the first few time I smokedN. caerulea flowers), there may well be other alkaloids presentthat could account for some or the majority of the perceivedeffects. At least it seems that way to me.

This is certainly an area that is far from being fully exploredand understood, and I have been experimenting with otherNymphaea species flowers to determine if the effects are ubiq-uitous throughout the genus. So far I have had success witha number of different species and cultivars, informationabout which will be forthcoming when I have had time tomore fully assess and evaluate these plants. There are alsospecies listed in botanical literature as having no alkaloid con-tent and I am attempting to locate these as well and assaythem for comparison.

A personal communication from theobromus mentionsactivity in Nuphar species. While I have not had the oppor-tunity to assay these plants for myself as yet, I am confidentin his findings.

In conclusion, this field has barely been touched and is wideopen for further exploration and discovery. I feel certain thatexperiments with parts of Nelumbo species other than theflowers will provide results similar to those of the flowers,and have strong suspicions that the same holds true for theother parts of various Nymphaea species.

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Journey into the Realm of Ibogaineby Infinite Ayes

Back in 1964, when psychedelic exploration was still legal, Iobtained three doses of ibogaine. I had previously been do-ing extensive exploration with LSD, peyote, DMT, and mes-caline, both in my laboratory as chief alchemist for theLeague of Spiritual Discovery, and internally on my ownquest for illumination. Always on the lookout for new andeffective ways to access God-consciousness, I was eager totry ibogaine. I had heard fascinating stories about ibogainefrom the older friends who had turned me on to my first psy-chedelic experience with mescaline. One told of a parade ofcosmic proportions. Another described a pageant of incred-ible detail and completely realistic visions, like watching amovie. These were some of the tantalizing descriptionspresented to me about ibogaine.

LSD tends to magnify, intensify and empower the vision of atimeless moment. DMT, on the other end of the tryptaminespectrum, tends to transport one into a totally other realm,replete with elaborate and intensely colorful designs, strangeguardian creatures, and visitations from divine messengers.Having retrieved rich treasures of spiritual secrets from theDMT realms, I was intrigued by the descriptions of ibogaine.

Looking through my anthropology books, I found passagesdescribing members of the Bwiti cult in central Africa usingTabernanthe iboga, a traditional plant source for ibogaine, inceremonies to visit their ancestors and receive instructions.In lower doses, ibogaine was said to give hunters the abilityto stay motionless for many hours while they became onewith the jungle.

My two intrepid cosmic companions, Alan and Raymond,and myself were all enthusiastic about trying it. We decidedto take it at their flat in Brooklyn Heightsa brownstonebuilding that had fallen into disrepairthat lay on theboundary between the black and Puerto Rican neighbor-hoods. They had fixed the fireplace and transformed the flatinto a psychedelic temple. Now assembled, we discussed thepreparations. We had fasted for two days and spent the daybefore quietly reading, meditating, and doing yoga to ensurethe best possible experience. We disconnected the phone andput a do not disturb, meditation in progress sign up onthe door.

We each took about 800 mg of ibogaine hydrochloride, achalky white powder with a bitter, earthy taste. We sat onmattresses arranged on a carpet around the fire. We waitedone, two, three hours, and nothing happened. The fireburned low, but no one moved to build it up. The shadowsgrew long and night fell. Simultaneously, we all lay down, asthe lethargy that had subtly been coming on grew more in-tense. I had no desire to move. Everything became silent andstill. I felt that I was in a soft, humming, electric cocoon thatgave me little funny bone shocks if I touched it.

I was in the middle, centered between euphoria and depres-sion. I felt balanced. My sense perceptions were heightened.The little glow from the fire brightened the whole room. Myeyes focused in a different wayclear, but taking everythingin. And then the room started to spin. It was similar to analcohol drunkenness, but with no feeling of vertigo or nau-sea at all. I was glad that I had fasted! The whirling increasedand I felt like I was in the center of a pinwheel. Faster andfaster it spun and then I was rising like a projectile throughthe roomgreat chunks of wall and brick peeling back andfalling away in slow motion. I shot up into the stars: a pair ofdisembodied eyes wandering, searching. I was an essencea solo awareness flying through the universe, exploring andseeking.

After an immense journey, I came to a planet. It was a sandyyellow color. I was able to project my vision down to it, and Ilooked around the surface of the planet. It was an inhospi-table looking place; with winds strong enough to blow rocksand sand past me. It looked lethally hot and dry. I movedon. Next, I came to a dark green planet. No clouds. No seas.No mountains. It looked as though it were covered with apoisonous mold. I did not want to go any closer. I continuedon through the galaxies until I arrived above a whirling vor-tex that was coalescing into a solar system. I watched a sunand its planets form, and came closer to observe. I was drawnto one of the middle planets. The fiery liquid surface wascooling and turning from yellow and red to black solids bro-ken by red rivers of lava emitting flames. Slowly, the planetcooled until fumes and vapors veiled the entire surface. As Icircled the planet, I sensed a long epoch of torrential rains,as water vapor formed and condensed in the upper atmo-



sphere and fell toward the burning surface, only to evapo-rate again long before reaching the ground. Eventually, theplanet cooled and the rains arrived on the lands below. Afterwhat seemed like a long time, the clouds began to clear. Iskimmed the planet now, seeing and being everything that Icame across. I watched mountain chains rise and volcanoesburst, and everything subside again and again into flat plainsand meandering rivers. Time and time again, mountains roseand dissolved and continents appeared and disappeared.Then this slowed down and I watched the seas and plains.All was sterilea tan land with smoking volcanoes and nolife, yet fecund and ready.

As I watched, I then saw life appear. I observed spots of greenforming along the seashores. They shot along the banks,forming a green margin and then running up the rivers andtributaries like the veins in a leaf. The barren spaces betweenthese branches of life filled with proliferating plant life. Theoceans seemed to be teeming with life and then the first bug-like creatures started to crawl out on land. They spread allover, rapidly changing into a variety of insects and strangelobster-like creatures. Fern-like plants appeared. Vast variet-ies of life appeared and then disappeared. Elaborate lifeexperiments succeeded one another with awesome com-plexity.

Then suddenly I was in a steaming swamp-like environmentthat looked familiar. With a sense of awe and amazement, Irealized that I was watching the age of the dinosaur, and itslowly dawned on me that I was witness to the history of lifeevolving on the planet Earth! With a speed that defies accu-rate recall, life forms changed again and again, spreading andmultiplying in a dizzying array of shapes and colors. Human-oid creatures appeared and soon after were hunting and thenfarming and building. Civilizations bloomed, spread, andsubsided, like bubbles on a fermenting pond. Ages of warand conquest expressed the speed of civilization and tech-nology. I witnessed slaughter and mayhem, torture and mu-tilation, rape and castration. Mans inhumanity to man wasillustrated in myriad forms. I was there in it, feeling it asboth the doer and the done to. For what seemed an intermi-nably long time civilization rose and fell in inter-foldingwaves of creation and brilliant innovations in arts and sci-ences, only to fall in smoking ruins followed by ages ofdarkness.

Then, points of light appeared in the dark, interconnectingagain in new waves of discovery and renaissance. Undulat-ing waves of humanity were crashing and washing over the

planet in a succession of expansion and contraction. As I livedthrough this flux and change, there arose in me an aware-ness of the noble and brave potential of humanity and itsduty as the intelligent species to protect the forests and lifeforms and water of the planet. I was experiencing a feeling ofthe sacred unity with all life. I saw the whole planets surfaceas one organism inhabited by one spirit growing its foreststo protect its surface and provide even moisture and tem-perature for all its creatures. I saw one species, humanity, asthe natural intelligent guardian of all life. I realized that itwas humanitys intelligence that must understand, preserve,and care for the earths surfaceand life that is its nutrientsubstrate, its womb, and its mother. I felt how all life wasprecious, interconnecting, and supportive of all other life. Idedicated my spirit not to destroy any part of this puzzle ofdivine mystery that is the milk of creation. Throughout, therewas this balance and acknowledgment of the intertwiningof opposites, the negative and positive, the base and noble.This feeling went through me as a dual aspect of one energytotal, deep, and sweeping me away on this immense journeyof lifes history. It was like falling in love, so entrancing wasthis vision.

Hours had gone by. The fire was long gone, yet this moviecontinued with fantastic detail, one pageant coming on theheels of another. An e

19) f02

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