Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge

While undertaking anthropological fieldwork in the Pichis Valley of the Peruvian Amazon, Narby became intrigued by the local community’s claim that they received their phenomenal biochemical knowledge under the influence of hallucinogens. Here he reports how further investigation dispelled his scepticism and led him to conclude both that such transmission is possible and that indigenous peoples have known for millennia about the double helix structure of DNA.