Comments on: More Decrepit Than We Actually Are

By: Sara

Sara — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 20:35:52 +0000

another ethnobotanical book you may enjoy, one with a very different perspective: Sastun, by Rosita Arvigo. She apprenticed for years with a Mayan healer, and did things his way, rather than her way. Excellent stuff.

By: JohnEmerson

JohnEmerson — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 19:47:49 +0000

Too out of context to really judge. It’s a different culture, but they’re still the same range of saints and jerks that you’d find at the local minimart. Can you honestly say that if your family was sick, you woudn’t fib a bit to a doctor in order to get the prescription in time to help them?

By: Taylor (peaknickster)

Taylor (peaknickster) — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 17:08:43 +0000

Great, I’m off!

By: Taylor

Taylor — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 13:17:53 +0000

Even my mother wrote to you, asking you to ban me from this site. I need this temporarily. Can you please do it to help an autistic person who cannot help himself?

By: Taylor

Taylor — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 10:40:17 +0000

Tim:

You see, that’s the problem. You have faith in my ability to control myself. Yet I do not have that ability. I begged to be banned before simply because I cannot control myself. (Why do you think I am not true to my word?)

By: Tim Boucher

Tim Boucher — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 02:42:25 +0000

Sounds like an excellent recommendation, thanks Lin!

By: LIN

LIN — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 02:38:35 +0000

You might consider reading “Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice, An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Amazon Rain Forest” by Mark J. Plotkin. Plotkin studied under Schultes and Schultes wrote the forward to his book. I found it interesting that Plotkin uses some of Schultes tactics successfully, such as the one you’ve described, to elicit information from the tribal shamans. However, Plotkin undergoes an awakening of sorts over the course of several events, one of which is taking hallucinogenic snuff from the local shaman. He participates as fully as he can in the tribal and shamanistic practices- a technique that was modeled by Schultes. Unfortunately, Pltokin doesn’t awaken to the reductive paradigm of western science and the exploitive basis of big pharma (at least not at the time he published his book in 1993).

By: clancy

clancy — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 01:35:08 +0000

you are absolutely right in your conclusion. Until the “west” learns to approach the question properly, the forest and the forest people will not give up their secrets.

By: magic grubb

magic grubb — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 22:21:08 +0000

Great post Tim. I think a lot of this simply has to do with what you were discussing back when you were focusing heavily on the Gnostic stuff. This kind of attitude, that if you can see it and you can grab it and you can take it, then you’re getting exactly what you’re seeing, grabbing and taking, is what’s wrong. You can’t lie, cheat and steal you’re way into getting what you’re after. (the fact that you’re “after” it is probably also a big problem) There’s a process you have to go through, information and experience that has to be learned and gathered for this stuff to “work”, I’d imagine.

I think the indigenous peoples’ shamans know what they know and live how they live and interact with plants and nature as they do, because they walked the long-ass road to get to that point. They went the distance….respectfully. They tried…and probably died…to get where they are now by trying to respect nature and recognize that we’re all linked in some way or another…but also pushed forward in the spirit of exploration…..respectfully.

I really don’t know too much about shamanism, personally. But in my experiences over the past few years, I’ve learned that there’s no quick road to anything. The quick road DOES exist, but the end destination is different. The fact that this guy is lying to get what he’s after, to me, means the plants have been tainted. They are not the same plants that they would have been, had he listened and learned and tried to really communicate with these indians. If he had been honest, if he had listened and learned and tried to communicate on an honest, HUMAN level, he would have learned so much more! that’s a shame. it’s a shame that someone with that much knowledge is pulling shit like that.

I dunno…maybe we can’t sit here and judge him because we don’t know what his whole trip is, but that just seems really lame and deceptive and…typical? typical in that way that makes me think, “Way to reinforce the negative image of the western man, dude.” He could have been building giant positive bridges made out of light and energy and information, and instead it’s just another cheap scam, attained through a lie. fucking typical.

David Abram is dead-on with that statement, IMO. I don’t think you can do that…you can’t waltz into something ancient like that and just start leaving your soda cans on the ground, talking loudly and asking where the restroom is. You can’t sit there and say, “yeah yeah yeah, I get it I get it…spirit, soul, nature, linked, sacred, yeah yeah yeah…I get all that…now, what’s THIS one do? Oh, and how is THAT one, gonna help ME?” Seems pretty straight forward, but I guess it isn’t. The same loud ass, soda can leaving prick is also sitting there, the next time, wondering aloud, “Hey! How come I can’t come in?!! What?! well, fine then…fuck this shit! I’m outta here…god damn assholes think they’re better than me…” and on and on. It’s that fucking blind, double faced, moronically hypocritical attitude that I just can’t handle anymore. That blind, dumb, loud “HUH?!!! WHAT?!!!” crap. Gee, no wonder they don’t trust us, genius…you fucking lied to them, stomped all over the place and then walked off with knowledge it took them who knows how long to get.

I’m just really sick and tired of this blow-up-the-entire-mountain-range-to-get-one-diamond-and-then-wonder-aloud
-why-the-mountain-people-hate-our-asses culture we’ve become. It’s like watching a bunch of spoiled two year olds fight in a sand box. And then, typically, the same 2 year olds that blew up the mountain and are scratching their heads over why the mountain people hate us, are the ones that then invent a bunch of bullshit about the mountain people to make it all their fault.

By: alistair

alistair — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 19:47:08 +0000

out of context is out of context no matter how you slice it. it should be no surprise that a representitive of modern medicine would be that deceptive in his approach to knowledge. the problem is that if you do gain the natives trust you tend to go native, much like terence and his brother, and wander around the jungle stoned for days…………and the only questions you are left with are about how western civilisation is going to make it much further……………

By: prunes

prunes — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 19:28:41 +0000

All he elicits (apparently) by this method is a couple-word datum “earache-related.” He doesn’t get the proper usage, the context of proper use, the gestalt of the plant usage.