Customer Reviews

The Psychotropic Mind: The World according to Ayahuasca, Iboga, and Shamanism

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Having pre-ordered this book back in July, I was unaware that it was a trialogue; the edited transcript of conversations between the three co-authors rather than an extension of Jeremy Narby's fine work in THE COSMIC SERPENT. Thus, it started out as a bit of a disappointment for me, but i never-the-less found much to enjoy, particularly in exchanges between Narby and Jan Kounen. Indeed, i liked Kounen's contributions quite a lot. What made the book tedious for me was Vincent Ravalec's egotism and constant attempts at one-upmanship.

Throughout the book Ravalec seems to regard the experiences of the others with ayahuasca as inferior to his own experience with iboga. On occasion he'll make a big deal about raising a point and then later dismiss it as irrelevant when the others take it up. In short, it would have been a much better book if he'd been left out of the mix, not because of his disagreements but because of his disagreeable nature which left me with the impression that he was being disagreeable for it's own sake. Unfortunately, one pretty much needs to read the whole book to realize this, though now that I've told you, you'll likely pick up on it very (VERY!) early. He has his moments where he contributes positively to the discussion, but these moments do not compensate for what he detracts from the overall intent of the project. From time to time, both Narby and Kounen take Ravalec to task on either something he's said or the way he's said it and when they do he generally backs down. But this also distracted me from the discussion and I didn't need to waste my reading time dealing with his ego (I'm thinking maybe he needs a couple more of those ego-busting ayahuasca sessions). Let's just hope there's not a video of these conversations in the works.

Yet overall,it is worth the read, especially if you are contemplating an ayahuasca experience of your own. As for iboga, there's not much in here about it because Ravalec is the only one of the three who claims to have had the experience. He has his own book out on iboga which I wanted to read before i wrote this review, but because of the trialogue format of PSYCHOTORPIC MIND i wanted to get that info out there and clear to potential buyers and readers.

Like some other reviewers, I found the conversation taking far too much of an ego one-upsmanship turn throughout this book. I kept looking forward to the next time Jeremy Narby was to speak and wishing the others would just be quiet and listen to him. I think the English translation from French impacts the way it comes off to an English speaker a bit, too.
That said, there were some interesting thoughts and observations in the book, which is not an actual, well-organized book - just a printed conversation that does tend to skew off track from time to time.
Another review was correct in pointing out the lack of any real discussion of Iboga here. I'd have been interested in some comparing and contrasting with the Male energy/spirit of Iboga vs. the Female one of Ayahuasca, etc. from some who have encountered both.
This would not be the best introductory book to someone wanting to learn about or preparing to work with these Teachers. There are many others that would be superior, but it is worth a look for those who are drawn to read what they can about these great plant medicines.

I consider Jeremy Narby's previous books to have been excellent contributions to our understanding of the connections between 'science' as we understand it, particulary the 'social sciences', and the profundities of the 'science' or wisdom obtained by means of the ceremonial taking of the ayahuasca plant(s) for example, that native peoples have long practiced.

This book is simply a transcription of two conversations in which Mr. Narby participates, along with two other no doubt interesting, but unknown to me, guys on the general topic of their experiences using ayahuasca and other hallucinogens.

These two conversations may be welcome memories for the participants, but they are not fit for a general audience. The nuggets of insight that may be somewhere buried in the discussions, will in my view forever be buried behind the boring format of people talking, with no framing into a focused subject of general interest.

For 'conversation' to be newsworthy, it must be carefully edited and framed. Unless the participants themselves are newsworthy, like Einstein and Freud talking for example. This book is NEITHER!

This book is the transcription of the authors' conversations over a few days of talking about writing a book. The thought process of what would be important to put in the book and why, where are the pit-falls people are likely to stumble into and how can we have them be avoided and what is the value of writing such a book...these are the some of the things covered in this book. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

This is simply a transcript of conversations between experts in the field. I've tried several times to pick it up and get into it, but have not been successful. I would return it if I could.

It's a shame, because I was so enthralled by Narby's seminal work, "The Cosmic Serpent."

Save your $!

I have been studying plant medicine and journeying intensively for the past 4 years and found this book to be very helpful.
I disagree with the review that suggested that Vincent Ravalec was at odds with Kounen and Narby. Ravalec seemed to be
right there with them, often asking them for their views on a particular topic. There were a few moments, certainly, where Ravalec
seemed to be going off, but I felt it was just that he wanted to address certain things that weren't being addressed. If anything,
I feel this discussion would have been that much stronger had Kounen and Narby participated in an Iboga ceremony prior to their meeting.
From what I understand, Iboga is truly the mother of all plant medicines, more powerful than ayahuasca. I feel that a deeper
exploration of it was missing from the discussion, and perhaps that may have been from whence the slight tension was arising.
I say "yea" to more dialogues/trialogues such as this!