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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
challenging
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
My god. I don't know what else to say other than this is my new favorite book and it has probably just changed my life.
The Cosmic Serpent has been on my to-read shelf for years. This book definitely did not exceed my expectations. Although it did have some interesting points, I found the supporting arguments breathless, reaching, and hard to understand. I do believe it would be worth a second read as I am sure I have missed some important information.
Brilliant and thought-provoking. This one will be with me for a while.
Very enjoyable. It is short and reads like a mystery novel. The author's ideas are very intriguing and made me think about spirituality. Really stimulated my curiosity.
adventurous
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
So… what did I just read?? Narby set out to answer one simple anthropologic question, and ended up hypothesizing about 10 different questions within disciplines that he had no prior knowledge of. While reading, I kept cycling back and forth between; ‘oh my god he has a point, this is actually possible, it makes so much sense’ and ‘this has gone too far, the man is spurring absolute nonsense.’
Some elements seemed quite far fetched to me, and I’m not sure how much of this book could be disproven with the knowledge we’ve gained in roughly 25 years, but I have to admit that Narby made some excellent points and did make me look differently at the world.
Some elements seemed quite far fetched to me, and I’m not sure how much of this book could be disproven with the knowledge we’ve gained in roughly 25 years, but I have to admit that Narby made some excellent points and did make me look differently at the world.
challenging
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
Claims to approach shaman principles in a scientific matter but unfortunately disregards standards for writing a good hypothesis. The connections of symbols he brings up are interesting and I’ll be researching further, but his theories come with jumps in logic that need an assumption a lot of things to be considered. But the beginning biography was lovely to read.
This was an incredibly charming, passionate book in the 'far out' McKenna style of thinking. Pretty decently annotated piece of puzzle in the multidisciplinary mystery of the origins of life, weaves together bits from anthropology, shamanism, neuroscience, molecular biology, you-name-it. It's an inspiring story, but no, I would not dare to lie the book back to back to Dawkins (they *both* would probably get offended)
Don't: if you expect rigorous scientific proofs, high level of details in molecular biology
Do: if you like to get inspired by a beautiful exploration of 'thinking out of the box' sprinkled with some science or maybe... just in general enjoy dropping 250μg once in a while
Don't: if you expect rigorous scientific proofs, high level of details in molecular biology
Do: if you like to get inspired by a beautiful exploration of 'thinking out of the box' sprinkled with some science or maybe... just in general enjoy dropping 250μg once in a while