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The following is an excerpt from Aya: A Shamanic Odyssey now available from Icaro Publishing.

"The vine has spread her tendrils across the world and a genuine archaic revival was underway. My bags were packed; South America beckoned, and the ancient mysteries of the rainforest awaited. I wanted in on it..."

Iquitos, Wednesday July 5th., 2006

IQUITOS IS ELECTRIC WITH NOONDAY HUMIDITY as Vance, John and I wade through the horde of locals hustling trinkets outside the Parthenon gates and join the other ayahuasca gringos amassing by the pool. It's Bowman's birthday -- he's twenty-four today -- and drinking with Guillermo is going to be his present.

We're waiting for Alexis, a blond, twenty-ish dude from Washington D.C. who's going to help translate the interview with Guillermo I've lined up. Alexis is a Princeton dropout who's backpacking around on a spiritual path, drinking ayahuasca with shamans and asking critical questions to deepen his own understanding. He's drunk with Guillermo four times now, and calls him "a fucking Jedi." When he turns up an hour late, wearing a Corey Feldman School of the Arts t-shirt, I know he'll fit right in with our media crew.

Vance wants to get out to the Espiritu de Anaconda, Guillermo's ayahuasca retreat to take some shots before we lose the afternoon light, so we pile into two motorcarros and speed away from the front of the Hotel Parthenon before the touristos bus has even arrived. But our motorcarros get bogged down on the dirt road turnoff from Km 14, a long undulating strip of mud from recent rains, and we get out to walk. The local villagers are busy building a concrete footpath to run from the highway past their village and towards the ayahuasca retreat a few miles in, and part of me wonders if this will facilitate t-shirt and refreshment stalls springing up wherever the gringos go, like mushrooms after a fresh rain.

'Cognition Factor' is premiering internationally this Sunday 21st of June in New York, London, Toronto, Amsterdam, Cape Town, Byron Bay, Sonoma CA and Johannesburg.

Cognition Factor is an independent South African production with an edgy take on documentary film making. It's an experiment in conscious cinema somewhere beyond Bleep and Secret, a movie about the evolution of consciousness and the war between science and spirituality. It stars the internationally acclaimed Terence Mckenna, plus a score of interesting, smart people.

wow.
that night was nothing like i was expecting at all.

it started out pretty disheveled.
5 powerfull, stubborn minds trying to get into the same frequency to get everything together.
i took my dose around 6pm
with everyone else.
i left all technology behind before we left my house to adventure my backyard.
i live in the middle of nowhere.
my backyard is about 10 acres+a mountain.
the appalation trail runs through this mountain.
we were planning on climbing the mountain all week.

Hi.
Today I am going on a spiritual adventure-
2C-E

My plan is to do my research about it now. below i am going to type up some of the information.....and later on i am going to conclude my own description of the drug.

right away i get the picture that this drug isnt for people to just mess around with.
it is meant for spiritual awakening.
a change in perception.
those who are not experienced with psychedelics and who do not have a full understanding for the spiritual world would not get any benefit from this drug.

I Wanna Go To Burning Man

A Freak convention in the desert deserves dire attention

If an artist performs in the desert and no ones there to see it, is it performance class or just pure arse??

Rajistan: The land of Princes and Professional hustlers.

In primary school I used to organise the school discos and it always made me feel important.  I would head a little committee of grade sixer’s and sevener’s and we’d pick a theme, like Underwater World or Space Jungle.  Then we’d break out the clag for a hefty cut and paste session old school style, photocopy the results and get Mrs Nash to send them home with the news letters.  The next few weeks would be very exciting, planning costumes and picking songs to play.  I remember trying really hard to keep my costume a secret and of course ended up telling my best friend Kelly, who then turned around a day or two later and announces in front of everybody that she’s going as a mermaid princess.  Bitch.  Some small time bitching would ensues and rival groups within the committee would form.  Closer to the date things would get very hectic indeed.  Big time sucking up and borderline bribing would occur so that maths time or group reading sessions could be used as valuable decoration preparation time.  I’d have a mass assembly line of kids doing arts and crafts, child labour laws be damned!  The younger less co-ordinated ones would be allocated the more low-skill level jobs, like cutting newspaper into strips for the paper mache coral or gluing sequins to plastic fish.  An approved group of senior artists would actually paint the fish and the coral and work on constructing the marine castle.  While I appreciated the help and needed the assistance a lot of the time I would end up doing it myself cause at least then it would be done properly with the care and attention such handiwork demands.  Occasionally annoying interfering boys would attempt to sabotage the operation and do things like steal the Giant Clam and use it as a football.    We would workshop ideas for party games. Pass the parcel was a staple, as was Pin the Tail on the Donkey - which always provided the opportunity for good natured ridicule.  Knights, Mounts and Cavaliers was always popular, probably because it gave you a good excuse to get physical with whatever boy you had a crush on at the time.  I used to love being thrown into different positions whenever the music stopped….  So the actual night would arrive and we’d all show up dressed as pirates, sharks (or mermaids.)  We would get the principal to line us up with a thumping sound system and some flashing lights and we’d get somebodies older brother to play the music and sure sometimes the disco would be slow to get going with all the girls on one side of the room and all the boys on the other side of the room, but as the hostess I would always try to break the ice and get the dance floor happening.  Somebody would always have a bitch about the music and I remember the shit hitting the fan once when some unsuspecting parent walked into NWA blaring over the speakers.  Classics such as Nut Bush City Limits were safe as the dance was non-threatening and simple enough for the boys to pick up.  So once we were all charged up on red cordial, chocolate crackles and homemade fudge the party would definitely start cranking.  A lot of action always happened outside what with general running around like silly buggers, and perhaps the odd romantic interlude behind the water tank which had to be conducted with the upmost caution to evade the night patrolling teacher. 

This is an advance look at of one of the key presentations at the forthcoming  Entheogenesis Australis 2008 Symposium...

The Medical Marijuana Movement, alongside the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and others are doing great work to publicise the medical benefits of psychedelics, but greater effort is needed in promoting a return to the entheogenic foundations of religion and the spiritual arena. The time is right fort each of us advocate that organised religion reinstate the Earth/Ecological Sacraments, at least at special Earth Masses and Retreats.

Listen: Burial - 'Shell of Light' and 'Etched Headplate'(from album 'Untrue' (2007) Hyperdub, London)

From the first in a series of notes on the dismantling of global capitalism, life after 9/11, post-historical dispersion and the opportunies for the new human in this time of accelerated chaos:

Listen: Shackleton - Blood on my Hands (Original Mix)