This article gives an overview of key components of the Piaroa shamanic training and initiation comp[ex. While anthropologists have given accounts of the Piaroa people describe the initiatory rites undertaken by shamans, the ongoing training involved in preparing for initiation has received comparatively little attention. Piaroa shamanic training is ongoing, and punctuated by three painful initiatory ordeals. Piaroa shamans speclalise in the use of plant hallucinogens to attain visions interpreted according to a dynamic matrix o psycho-social forces and mytho-historical templates. Direct experience oJ the parameters and technologies of consciousness employed by Piaroa shamans can lead to ethnographic locutions of the functlonal experiential and ideo!ogical dynamics of Piaroa shamanism. While cuttural loadlng cond!tions what one sees during visions, the neurobiolog!cal bases of shamanic practices are crosscuturally accessible and allow for participatory understanding of an inner shamanic logic, that is how one sees.