A journey into the deeper workings of indigenous healing in the Amazon
• Explores the three pillars of Amazonian shamanism: purging, psychoactive plants, and diet
• Shares the experiences of apprenticing with an Ashaninca master shaman
• Reveals the intimate relationship between shamans and plant spirits
The Jaguar that Roams the Mind is a journey into the vanishing world of Amazonian shamanism--an adventure of initiation and return--that explores the unique reality at the heart of the Amazonian healing system. Robert Tindall shares his journeys through the inner and outer landscape of the churches of ayahuasca and with the Kaxinawa Indians in Brazil; his experiences at the pioneering center for the treatment of addiction, Takiwasi, in Peru; and his studies with an Ashaninca master shaman deep in the rainforest jungle.
Moving beyond the scientific approach to medicinal plants, which seeks to reduce them to their chemical constituents, Tindall illustrates the shamans' intimate relationships with plant spirits. He explores the three pillars of Amazonian shamanism: purging (drawing disease out of the body), psychoactive plants (including the ritual use of ayahuasca), and diet (communing with the innate intelligence of teacher plants). Through trials and revelations, the subtle inner logic of indigenous healing unfolds for him, including the "miraculous" healing of a woman suffering from a brain tumor. Culminating in a ceremony fraught with terror yet ultimately enlightening, Tindall's journey reveals the crucial component missing from the metaphysics of the West: the understanding and appreciation of the sentience of nature itself.

Robert Tindall is a writer, classical guitarist, and inveterate traveler who has lived in England, Argentina, Peru, and Mexico. His work explores themes of pilgrimage and the crossing of frontiers into other cultures and states of consciousness. With his wife, Susana, he leads groups into the Amazon rain forest to encounter the indigenous healing traditions there. In addition to The Jaguar that Roams the Mind, he is the author of The Battle of the Soul in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He lives in California.

Foreword by Mark J. Plotkin, Ph.D.
1 Prelude--It's Better to Pray Than Sleep

2 The Jaguar that Roams the Mind

3 Fear No Spirits

4 Close to the Hurt Lies Growing the Balm

5 The Spirit of Mist

6 The Sacred City

7 The Will to Heal Is the Will to Be Whole

8 A Sweet Odor Shall Enter Their Bones

9 The Holy Tree

10 Our Revels Now Are Ended
Acknowledgments

Appendix: The Verse of the Plant We Follow by Susana Bustos, Ph.D.

Notes

Bibliography

Index