Jeremy Narby

The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge, published in 1998 documents Narby's time researching, as part of his doctoral studies in the Pichis Valley of the Peruvian Amazon, the ecology of the Asháninka, an indigenous peoples in Peru that started in 1984.[6] The book argued that modern scientific understandings of DNA have been known to indigenous people for thousands of years and learned by shamans through ritual.[10][7][6]

Narby also documents his own ingestion of ayahuasca, and claims that shamans may be able to access information at the molecular level through the ingestion of ayahuasca and other entheogens.[11][12] He writes that his own ayahuasca ingestion was followed by hallucination and visions of two snakes, which he associates with DNA.[10] The book documents numerous indigenous peoples who incorporate images of snakes in their documentation of human creation stories, specifically peoples in the Amazonia, Mexico, Australia, Persia, Sumer, Egypt, India, the Pacific, Greece, Crete, and Scandinavia.[10]

Swami Gopalananda, writing in Ascent Magazine, praises the book's "spirit of personal discovery" and "unbridled enthusiasm".[13]

Biophysicist Jacques Dubochet criticized Narby for not testing his hypothesis.[13]

Publishers Weekly was critical of Narby, stating that he confuses his own enthusiasm for evidence, and while it praises his advocacy for the rights of indigenous peoples, it was critical of the lack of scientific methodology, noting the absence of experimental tests to his hypotheses.[14]

Intelligence in Nature: An Inquiry into Knowledge is Narby's 2005 sequel to The Cosmic Serpent and present's his hypotheses about intelligence in flora and fauna, and the ability of different species to communicate, including at the molecular level.