How did you get into doing this?

I’ve always had fiddly hands and an obsessive disposition and then five years ago I scratched up enough cash for airfare and went to the Peruvian Amazon where some truly amazing things happened. It changed me. When I got back, I quit my hated job painting houses, downsized to a backyard Ted Kazinsky shack, collected a pile of scrap wood and never looked back. It was a hungry struggle but I was determined to never work a job again. It requires suffering, true, but we’re all going to suffer in life anyway, so we might as well suffer for what we love rather than for jobs we hate.

Your art is gorgeous, like nothing else I’ve seen.

Thanks. I think that’s due to its genesis which was magic, pure and simple, the result of drinking magic potions in the jungle and seeing visions in which I learned a very ancient technique, perhaps even one of the earliest. This was within the context of ancient pagan healing science still practiced today, science that was never eradicated by invading Christians. There are many places in the world where such powerful science still exists but they’re becoming more and more remote.

You say science?

Sure it’s science, quite enlightened science in my opinion. The problem for us is that it was developed within completely different paradigms from our own, so it may be impossible for us to even begin to comprehend it or recognize it as science in the first place given that our cognition was developed within such a vastly different paradigm.

If 10,000 years ago someone observed animals eating certain plants, then observed them acting very strangely and thought, “I wonder if I would have a strange experience as well if I ate them,” then experimented with dosages, additives, preparation and indication within various sets of conditions, and meticulously recorded the results through oral tradition in an unbroken lineage of intensive training and practice spanning millennia, well, that’s some pretty thorough science. Add spiritual teachers into that mix and it transcends modern comprehension.

A profound paradigm shift seems necessary to even consider it.

Entheogens seem to do that pretty well.

Agreed. I think it’s far more likely than not that all religion begins with entheogenic visions. Anyone who has tried ayahuasca, for instance, wouldn’t bat an eye at someone else’s trip report about talking to the Angel of God in a fiery bush that didn’t burn or seeing many-winged Angels with the heads of humans and lions and oxen, or high thrones of lapis lazuli and wheels within wheels in the sky.

I would point out that there is a distinct similarity between the fractal geometry found in Middle Eastern art and that of Amazonian tribes. We know for a fact that Amazonian geometry is the result of entheogenic visions, so I think it safe to assume the same for Middle Eastern motifs given that similar plants are plentiful throughout that region. Wahid Azal turned me on to a very good, scholarly study, which purports to identify the sacred plants mentioned in ancient Vedic texts and the Quran. Of course, they are ayahuasca-analog plants that Bedouin tribes-people still use today.

So, hey, Jesus fasting for 40 days in the wilderness and being tempted by Satan himself with visions of world domination? No biggie, happens every day. Although the Bible makes no mention of the projectile purging from both ends simultaneously…