Diego Rodolfo Viegas
| Diego Rodolfo Viegas | |
|---|---|
 Diego-DSC 0813-1.png | |
| Born | 12 September 1969 (age 56) Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina |
| 🏡 Residence | Rosario |
| 🏳️ Nationality | Argentina |
| 💼 Occupation | Antropólogo cultural y de la conciencia |
Diego Rodolfo Viegas (born 12 September 1969 in Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina) is an Argentine lawyer, essayist, and anthropologist.
He graduated from the National University of Rosario and has specialized in the anthropology of knowledge. He is considered a pioneer in Latin America in the field of the anthropology of consciousness, also known as transpersonal anthropology. He holds a specialization in Epistemologies of the South from CLACSO and the University of Coimbra.
Biography
He is a tenured professor of the chair Ethnography of Knowledge at the School of Anthropology of the Faculty of Humanities and Arts at the National University of Rosario. He was a professor in the Postgraduate Course on Indo-American Traditional Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of the same university between 2014 and 2019, and since 2022 he has served as coordinator and technical secretary of the Diploma of Advanced Studies in Traditional Medicine and Indo-American Worldview (online modality) at FHUMyAR-UNR. He is also a visiting professor in the Master's Program in Cultural Diversity at the National University of Tres de Febrero in Buenos Aires. Additionally, he teaches the courses Sociology and Heritage Legislation at the School of Museology in his hometown.
Abroad, he has delivered seminars and lectures at the National Institute of Culture of the Department of La Libertad (Peru, 2007); the International Congress on Traditional Medicines, Interculturality, and Mental Health in Tarapoto (Peru); the University of São Paulo (Brazil); and the 2nd and 3rd World Ayahuasca Conference (Rio Branco, Brazil, 2016; Girona, Spain, 2019), among others.
He has conducted fieldwork in Mazatec and Zapotec communities in Mexico, with Shipibo-Konibo, Lamista, and Shuar shamans in the Amazon rainforest, and in the Sierra and northern coast of Peru, as well as with traditional healers of the Argentine Northwest (Ava-Guaraní, Chorote, Wichi). In many of these contexts, he engaged in what he calls involved observation in ayahuasca, wachuma, temazcal, cebil, and other ceremonies. He has also conducted interviews with Bön and Buddhist monks in the Drak Yerpa caves (Tibet), Triten Norbutse Monastery (Nepal), and the Kingdom of Bhutan, maintaining Dzogchen practices in recent years.
He is co-author, together with Néstor Berlanda, a psychiatrist, of the first Argentine book on the entheogen ayahuasca, Ayahuasca, medicina del alma (2012), with a foreword by Dr. Jacques Mabit. He also co-authored the first Argentine compilation on the anthropology of altered states of consciousness, Antropología transpersonal: sociedad, cultura, realidad y conciencia (2016), which includes the first Spanish translations of works by authors such as Charles D. Laughlin, Edith Turner, Marianne George, and Tina Fields, as well as original works by Viegas and other renowned ethnographers of consciousness such as Josep María Fericgla and Julio Glockner.
He is also the author of Los espíritus del aire: Ovnis, visiones y antropología transpersonal (Argentine edition, Buenos Aires: Dunken, 2018; expanded Mexican edition by Lunaria Ediciones, Mexico, 2022; and a more complete and updated Spanish edition by Editorial Reediciones Anómalas, 2022) and Transpersonalismo y decolonialidad: Espiritualidad, chamanismo y modernidad (with a foreword by Charles D. Laughlin and a blurb by Jeremy Narby, 2021). In the former, he develops a parallel between the UFO phenomenon and experiences with celestial, chthonic, and tectonic lights, on the one hand, and visionary phenomena resulting from consciousness exploration, on the other. In the latter, he aims to establish a parallel and bridge transpersonalism (in a broad sense) with the academic current known as the “decolonial turn” or the modernity/coloniality network.
He is co-founder, together with Néstor Berlanda, of the Fundación Mesa Verde in Rosario, Argentina, which has organized experiential workshops, seminars, courses, and conferences from 1996 to the present.
He was a member of the group of professionals and university students CIFO (Círculo de Investigadores del Fenómeno Ovni de Rosario) between 1990 and 1999.
He is the director of CEACC (Center for Studies in the Anthropology of Knowledge and Consciousness) and its academic journal Uáipo Nem at the National University of Rosario (UNR). Its honorary and corresponding foreign academic members include Professor Jeffrey J. Kripal and Marcelo Mercante, among others.
He also participates in the radio program and YouTube channel La Grieta de lo Increado (2013–2015 and 2021–present) and served as an advisor and inspiration for the documentary film Witness of Another World (Testigo de Otro Mundo, 2018), appearing in the credits alongside Jacques Vallée. The film, directed by Alan Stivelman, is partly based on his research.
Works
Books
- Ayahuasca, medicina del alma, Biblos, Buenos Aires, Colección Desde América (2012, co-author). ISBN 978-950-786-984-6
- Ayahuasca, medicina del alma, Biblos, Buenos Aires, Colección Desde América (2012, co-author). ISBN 978-950-786-984-6
- Antropología transpersonal: Sociedad, cultura, realidad y conciencia, Biblos, Buenos Aires, Colección Sin Fronteras (2016, author and editor). ISBN 978-987-691-435-2
- Los espíritus del aire: Ovnis, visiones y antropología transpersonal, Dunken, Buenos Aires (2018, author). ISBN 978-987-763-476-1
- Los espíritus del aire: Ovnis, visiones y antropología transpersonal, Lunaria Ediciones, Nueva Tenochtitlán, Mexico (2022, author). ISBN 979-607-99304-1-7
- Los espíritus del aire: Ovnis, visiones y antropología transpersonal, revised and expanded edition, foreword by José Antonio Caravaca, Valencia, Spain, Editorial Reediciones Anómalas (2022). ISBN 978-84-09-44912-5
- Transpersonalismo y decolonialidad: Espiritualidad, chamanismo y modernidad, Biblos, Buenos Aires (2021, author). ISBN 978-987-691-968-5
- Uáipo Nem No. 1, H y A Ediciones, Rosario (2019, academic journal/book. Editor-in-chief and author). ISSN 2683-7218
- Uáipo Nem No. 2, H y A Ediciones, Rosario (2021, academic journal/book. Editor-in-chief and author). ISSN 2683-7218
- El impacto ovni: Sociedad y cultura frente a la saga del siglo, Coliseo Sentosa, Santiago de Chile (2022 [original edition 1997]).
- Abraxas: Prácticas de la conciencia en los orígenes de la cultura, five volumes (2025–). Editorial Guante Blanco.
- Volume 1: La génesis del arte, la medicina y la religión entre sueños y visiones (2025). ISBN 978-84-10137-16-5
- The Therapeutic Potential of Ayahuasca,” in AA. VV., Medicinas tradicionales, interculturalidad y salud mental, Takiwasi, Lima, 2012. ISBN 978-612-46310-0-9
- “The Illusion of Separate Consciousnesses: Reciprocity in the Path of the Temazcal, Wachuma, and Ayahuasca,” in Renold, Juan Mauricio (Coordinator), Antropología Social. Perspectivas y problemáticas, vol. 6, Laborde Editor, Rosario, 2020 (pp. 149–186). ISBN 978-987-677-290-7
- “UFO Cults, Contactees, and Extraterrestrial Shrines in Argentina: An Anthropological Perspective,” in De Filippi, Sebastiano (Compiler), Proyecto Erks. Aportes desde la academia para la zona Uritorco, Biblos, Buenos Aires. ISBN 978-987-691-945-6
- Mesa Verde Foundation website
- Ayahuasca, Medicina del Alma book blog
- Antropología Transpersonal on Editorial Biblos website
- Transpersonalismo y Decolonialidad: Espiritualidad, chamanismo y modernidad on Editorial Biblos website
- CEACC-UNR channel
- La Grieta de lo Increado channel
- “Experiencing Shamanic Culture from Within” — Article
- “Faculty of Medicine Offers Postgraduate Course with Shamans” — Article
- “Medicines of All Times” — Article
- “A Shamanic Abduction” — Article
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