Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature
is ourselves, to be cherished and explored. Shamanism has always known this,
and shamanism has always, in its most authentic expressions, taught that the
path required allies. These allies are the hallucinogenic plants and the
mysterious teaching entities, luminous and transcendental, that reside in that
nearby dimension of ecstatic beauty and understanding that we have denied until
it is now nearly too late.