FOREWORD BY DR LUIS EDUARDO LUNA

Reality is wonderful. To a great extent, it is what we want it to be -- always changing, always perceived differently. Certain ways of seeing are rooted in the uninterrupted stream of human consciousness and last for generations. Others are soon forgotten. Some are resurrected mysteriously or find ways to embody themselves through time. Demetri dimas Efthyvoulos, without a doubt is on to somethig important. I am sure that his discovery published at long last as a book, will be remembered. In our increasingly digitalized age, these images soon will be everywhere, and then there will be many more to come, since once someone knows about it, the miracle is there for all to see: a reflection, an innocent twist, and the gate of symmetry, of being human, opens! Cultural anthropology, extensive traveling, as well as navigation by means of the sacred wings of ayahuasca, the Amazonian brew that was instrumental in Demetri's discovery, have taught me how we construct the world. Yet rarely is there a way of demonstrating the exact nature of this phenomenon. These photographs, however, provide the evidence: they reveal a complex, infinite and communicable anthropomorphic/theriomorphic world. Anyone, especially children (for I have found them to be particularly adept at this task), can find new images and then show them to others, who, in turn, will see: castles, beings, masks, animals, anything at all in this world that resembles the mythopoetic, shamanic imagination. And within this redefinition of photographic verisimilitude there is, of course, a paradox: what is really there? Nature, spirit, and culture projection: all these are simultaneously revealed.

I met Demetri in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, I think around 1982. He was, for some of us (anthropologists, biologists, travelers,), almost a mythical character in those years -- he and his old orange motorcycle, which was so useful to me many times (though it wasn't always in the best state of repair!). We shared an interest in vegetalismo, the local shamanic tradition of that area. In 1987 I had been in Iquitos scarcely an hour before I went to look for Demetri. He was set to leave the city in a matter of minutes. Then he showed me his first photograph of the spirits. "Who are they?" Demetri kept repeating.

That very same year I organized the first exhibition of the work of Peruvian artist Pablo Amaringo at the Instituto Colombiano de Antropologia at Bogota's Museo Nacional. There was to be a symposium on shamanism in connection with the exhibit.

I thought of Demetri and invited him to come. This would be the test that we had been seeking!
I announced that someone was coming to show slides of the spirit world. There was a muffled roar in the packed auditorium. Minutes later, the audience was thoroughly engrossed in and perplexed by Demetri's work. I know that, for Demetri, this was the beginning of a journey through many countries and many equally-crowded auditoriums. And then for years I lost track of him. But, by some wonderful synchronicity, we found ourselves in London at the same time in 1996. I was in the process of planning "Visions that the Plants Gave Us", an exhibition pf vosopmaru art at tje Rocjard F. Bush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, for which Demetri allowed me to show some of his photographs.

But Demetri has reached a turning point in his career. The landmark, pioneering book that he has been preparing all these years is finally here. This makes me very happy, and I'm proud of him for teachings others the privilege of seeing the world this way.

Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna