Giovanni Lattanzi’s Reinvented Toltecs, Science, and Dislocution: Critical Discussion of the Monograph Kambo and Iboga (2016)

Abstract

This article scrutinizes Giovanni Lattanzi’s 2016 monograph about kambo and iboga, two “entheogens,” i.e., substances traditionally believed to bring about, if consumed in an appropriate setting, experiences of the divine as well as beneficial effects on a spiritual and bodily level. Lattanzi draws upon indigenous practices and beliefs, but he pioneers the two substances’ simultaneous application in shamanic ceremonies. A major role in Lattanzi’s narrative is played by “Toltec” doctrines that he reinvents by drawing upon controversial sources like Carlos Castaneda’s books and by constantly linking Toltec doctrines and achievements with modern and “scientific” ones. After a deconstruction of Lattanzi’s Toltec narrative the paper shows, through textual analysis, that his discourse well exemplifies what the scholar Andrew Dawson, in his analysis of Santo Daime (another contemporary, entheogen-based religious movement originating in Latin America), defines as “dislocution.” It is argued that dislocution (i.e., a simultaneous attitude of verbal rejection and practical acceptance towards modernity or one of its elements) is interesting ethnographically, but it does not constructively contribute to the understanding, on behalf of scholars and laypeople alike, of entheogens and their effects, nor to the more general debate over religion and science.