Jeffrey J. Kripal
Liquid Light is a spiritual-intellectual memoir that moves back and forth between two voices or genres: that of the believing (if often struggling to believe) participant in the religion of Santo Daime and that of the more detached scholar of religion. In his doubled spirit, Barnard answers objections to and criticisms of visionary experience, psychedelic revelation, and the often quite striking experience of mediumship. By so doing, he makes a most welcome and original contribution to the growing literature on Santo Daime and its central sacrament, commonly known as ayahuasca.
Christopher Bache
Liquid Light is a monumental achievement, a unique synthesis of psychedelic experience and critical scholarship. Writing as a philosopher, historian, psychologist, and daimista, Barnard takes us deep into the Santo Daime community and its sacramental use ayahuasca. His descriptions of ayahuasca initiation are penetrating, searingly honest, breathtakingly beautiful, and told with self-deprecating humor. Liquid Light is an absolute gem of a book and a milestone in the emerging field of psychedelic philosophy.
Rachel Harris
Liquid Light is a magical mystery tour of Barnard's immersion into the Santo Daime Church. As a professor of religious studies, his journey is set within the sophisticated context of William James and Henri Bergson. It's a wild ride on many levels and an important contribution to our understanding of what it means to be a modern mystic.
Edward MacRae
In this book, Barnard describes, in a highly personal and vivid manner, some of the experiences he has been having during the over fifteen years that he has been taking Daime (the name given by the Santo Daime tradition to ayahuasca). The result is a rather unusual blend of rigorous academic thought and vivid descriptions of his own personal spiritual experiences, written in a highly readable style that makes the book difficult to put down.
