Navigating Hyperspace

Maya Shamanism and 2012: A Psychedelic Cosmology
by John Major Jenkins

What’s going on in this 2,000-year-old carving? Prominently, we see a frog or toad with its neck craned back and mouth open. In Maya symbology, the mouth of the frog, jaguar, or snake (or cave, even) symbolizes the door to the underworld. Its forked tongue sticks out and appears to jostle a tiny figure in a canoe. Shamans, traditionally, go on a journey into the underworld, and this carving clearly depicts precisely that. But there’s more going on here. Notice the little dots or holes on the toad’s shoulder. These are what scholars call “vision scrolls.” This toad has been identified as the Bufo marines species, whose parotid glands, located on it back and shoulders, secrete a powerful hallucinogen: 5-Meo-DMT. read more...