Peruvian whistling vessels were not merely ceramic utilitarian or
decorative instruments. They were tuned with great skill around the
primary frequency of the culture, a primary frequency which evolved,
becoming higher for each new culture. By utilizing synesthesia and
other sensing modalities not common to our present cultures in their
tuning process, the resulting effect produced an entheogenic experience
through the vibrations produced by the whistles. In my experienced
opinion, the vessels are Visionary Plant allies, capable enough BY
THEMSELVES to provide a profound expanded experience, and clearly
enhancer/facilitators when merged with Visionary Plants. The
frequencies at which they were tuned is in the amplitude/frequency
range that we have only recently discovered produces an auditory
illusion of being 15% louder than the true amplitude, but the
consensual concept of sound does not apply here!
(It is interesting to me to observe that during present day Peruvian
ceremonies, Peruvians continue to wear small empty bottles tied around
their neck. Bottles which they repeatedly blow across to produce the
sound of a whistle. Unfortunately, the small glass bottle will not
open the portal to the shamanic realm accessed by the Peruvian
whistling vessels of their ancesters.)
On April 27, 1972, Peruvian whistling vessels reawakened through a
person named Daniel Stat. Daniel, a prosperous east coast businessman,
purchased a vessel at an estate auction because of its antiquity. He
happened to serendipitously blow through it in his study one day and
the resulting experience changed of his life. His story can be read in
"Animated Earth", Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1987. After
producing several sets of vessels he apprenticed me before leaving the
path of the vessels. I continue to produce the vessels today.
The vessels have recently experienced a rapid evolution in their effect
and appearance. While writing an article for New Age Magazine, I
suddenly began to have profound insights into how the vessels should be
altered in their tuning and construction. My previous method of
precision constructing and tuning the vessels had frozen them into the
evolutionary level of one of the last cultures (Chimu) to make them.
The new insights enabled me to allow to vessels to once again freely
evolve to be in harmony with the present. My new approach to producing
the vessels involves tuning them while in a state of self-induced
synesthesia, intuitive irregular incision of resonator apertures, and
the use of copal and frankincense, sacred resins of Peru and Arabia.
This evolution has resulted in the vessels producing a tremendously
profound subjective as well as objective experience as opposed to the
earlier predominately objective experience. The time of the onset of
the expanded/altered state has changed from 20 to 30 minutes to only 2
to 3 minutes. The experience is much more entheogenic in nature. It
now appears to be accumulative in that a person becomes more sensitive
and responsive to the effect. The experience now seems to also have
residual effects of sensitizing a person’s perception of colors, sounds
(music), and the emotional states of others.
(The New Frontier Magazine article can be found in the July ‘95 issue
and on the web at: http://www.consciousnet.com/NewFrontier/peru795.htm)
(Although the vessels have continued to evolve since this interview,
more recent information can be found in an interveiw conducted by
Richard Rogers for DEI, New Age Info Net at:
http://www.newageinfo.com/articles/intervie/donwri.ht)
Bibliography
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE VESSELS
For over two thousand years the vessels were part of generation after
generation of Peruvian people. Around 1532AD the makers of Peruvian
whistling vessels were conquered by the Spanish. Corresponding to this
date the vessels effectively ceased to exist! We can be relatively
sure of this because the Spanish conquerors, who kept detailed and
copious notes of these conquered people, did not once mention the
vessels. What is just as mysterious is that the Peruvians, themselves,
never depicted or left any decipherable record of the vessels or their
use. When an individual of one of these cultures died, his or her
whistling vessel was such an intimate, personal artifact that it was
not passed on to the family, but instead taken to the grave to
accompany the person into eternity.
Broad, William J. "Complex Whistles Found to Play Key Roles in Inca
and Maya Life." New York Times, 29 Mar., 1988: C1
Dragon, Avendar. "Chapter 15: The Peruvian Whistling Vessels." From
In the Stomach of the Dragon, Quest for Freedom Press, New York: 1995.
Findley, William S. "Peruvian Whistling Vessels: Pre-Columbian Sound
Tools for Transformation."Sedona Journal of EMERGENCE April 1993.
Garrett, Steven, and Daniel K. Stat. "Peruvian Whistling Bottles."
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Aug 1977, Vol. 62, No. 2.
Kimball, Richard W. "The Mysterious Peruvian Whistling Vessels." The
Indian Trader, Mar. 1990.
Long, Joseph K. "Animated Earth." Review of Animated Earth and report
on Whistling Vessel experience at the 1988 Annual Meeting. AASC
Quarterly: Association for the Anthropological Study of Consciousness,
June-Sept. 1989, Vol. 5, No. 2-3.
Rogers, Richard. "Whistlings of the Gods: an Interview with Don
Wright, Keeper of the Peruvian Whistling Vessels." Interview, DEI,
NewAgeInfo Net, 27 Aug. 1995, La Selva Beach, CA.
(http://www.newageinfo.com/articles/intervie/donwri.ht)
Stat, Daniel K. "Ancient Sound: The Whistling Vessels of Peru." El
Palacio (New Mexico museum journal), Summer 1979, Vol. 85, No. 2.
Stat, Daniel K. "Double Chambered Whistling Bottles: A Unique Pottery
Form." Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, No. 2: 157-162.
Statnekov, Daniel K. "Animated Earth" Berkeley: North Atlantic Books,
1987.
Wright, Don. "Peruvian Whistling Vessels: The Doorway Re-Opens." New
Frontier Magazine, Aug. 1995.
(http://www.consciousnet.com/NewFrontier/peru795.htm)
Wright, Don. "Chapter 14: Peruvian Whistling Vessels: Pre-Columbian
Instruments that Alter ConsciousnessThrough Sound." From Music and
Miracles, Don Campbell, ed., Quest Books, Wheaton, IL, 1992.
Wright, Don. "Peruvian Whistling Vessels: Rebirth of Ancient Sounds
of Consciousness." Southwest Source, Fall 1982 (out of circulation).