Supernatural

   Author: Graham Hancock

reviewed by Theresa Welsh

Graham Hancock has taken on controversial topics in his books, and always thoughtfully researches and examines his material, giving his readers new insights. In Supernatural, he takes on the most explosive topic of all, exploring the origins of religion and spiritual ideas. He takes us back 35,000 years to the magnificent drawings our ancestors made in the caves of Europe. He points out that these beautiful drawings feature entoptic shapes (universal shapes thought to originate in the brain) and therianthropic figures (part human and part animal). He gives us a theory of why these drawings are so similar in rock art spanning a huge stretch of time and in numerous locations around the world. The answer lies in the trance state which shamans in all times and places have used to communicate with "other realities."

Visiting Other Realities

Hancock does not stop at interviewing shamans and those who study them. He tries the hallucinogenic drugs himself and encounters some of those other realities, meeting a human with a crocodile head in one session in Peru with the drug, ayahuasca. He finds that he too sees the same strange visions as shamans. He researches different peoples, current and ancient, who have a tradition of shamanism and finds the commonalities in their visions. I was surprised to find that even the Greek Eleusinian Mysteries involved participants drinking a hallucinogenic brew before entering the Temple for an inititation ceremony. In modern times, Dr. Rick Strassman ran a government-approved study in the mid-1990s with the drug DMT, giving it to volunteers. These modern Americans reported having similar effects, and encounters with strange, and seemingly very real, but not exactly human entities, just as our ancestors apparently did.

Not all shamans use drugs. The same trance state can be induced by other methods: rhythmic dancing with drum-beating or hypnotic music, self-mutilation, or sensory deprivation. But use of a psychedelic drug is the most common method. Hancock postulates that it was these very meetings with supernatural beings while in trance that first gave our ancestors the idea of a spiritual realm and that this is the origin of religion.

But aren't these hallucinations just images manufactured in the brain? Not necessarily. Those who have visitied these realms are generally convinced of their reality. If you can accept that consciousness is separate from the brain, that the brain may simply be a receiver, then you can consider the possibility that human consciousness is actually going to places that in some way are real, the same as out-of-body travel (OBE) and near death experiences (NDE).

Spirit Guides, Fairies, and Aliens

Hancock continues his research by looking for other instances throughout history where people report similar kinds of experiences. He finds fairies and aliens. The stories about fairies, elves and imps involve a lot of the same kinds of activities as shamans observe in their altered states of consciousness. He finds parallels with the alien abduction experiences widely reported. What is interesting in these reports is the mixture of the "other worldly" with the physical, as in implants in abductees, or physical evidence left behind by UFOs. Shamans do not bring back anything from their drug-induced trips - except knowledge. Many say they have learned all they know about healing and other useful arts from the beings they meet in the other realm. It is common that they meet the same beings repeatedly. Shamans do not doubt the actual reality of the places they visit in trance.

When did we lose the connection to these supernatural visits? Modern religious leaders have no supernatural power to offer us, only dogmas. Direct experience of the supernatural is discouraged and hallucinogenic drugs are illegal in the United States and Great Britain. We are effectively blocked from having these experiences, which, throughout the history of mankind, have been so revered for the insights and wisdom they can potentially bestow.

Intersecting Realms of Consciousness

If drugs bring on experiences like seeing a UFO, why do people who are not taking drugs also see them? Hancock speculates that about two percent of all people can enter an altered state of consciousness spontaneously. Here I find his ideas are shaky. Many UFO sightings have involved large numbers of people. They could not all have been in an altered state. I think the theory that you see these beings only in a trance state may be wrong. Perhaps the beings sometimes enter our reality and, when they do, they are as physical as us. If we can enter their reality with only our spirit body, then maybe they can enter our reality and, first, put on a physical body. Like us, maybe they switch back and forth between the two realms.

Hancock discusses the reports of aliens apparently trying to breed with humans, and abductees being brought to places where there were hybrid babies, with human mothers asked to breast-feed and nurture "their children." Hancock does not speculate about the agenda of these entities, many of whom resemble the "grays" widely discussed in UFO circles, but he remains open to the possibility that these entities are trying to gain a foothold in our reality by creating hybrids.

Messages From DNA?

He presents another intriguing idea, that our very DNA contains a history (in the so-called "junk DNA") of our race, as well as useful knowledge. Particularly with the drug DMT, users report being in a kind of school where they are rapidly presented with large amounts of information. The beings they meet seem mechanical and seem to be there only to help present the information. Does the drug let us access information coded into our DNA?

The DNA of all living things (plant and animal) is almost entirely the same. Is this the reason for, or the source of the mystical insight which enlightenment brings that "we are all one?" Some mystics have found their consciousness can enter a plant, and spirits sometimes appear as animals. Do the therianthropes of the cave art represent the insight that man and animals are essentially the same?

Ayahuasca Visions

Hancock is not the only author to go to South America to drink ayahuasca. I recently read a book by David Icke (Tales From the Time Loop) in which he relates his experience with the same drug. Amazingly, even though Icke had been a debunker of religion, he returned from South America with spiritual leanings, concluding that "infinite love is all there is; everything else is illusion." Icke writes in all his books about the reptilians who, he says, control the world behind the scenes. In one of the most outlandish of conspiracy theories, Icke says most of the world leaders are really shape-shifting reptilians, and they need to drink the blood of humans to retain their material shape in our reality. Okay, the theory sounds ridiculous, but maybe his reptilians are from another reality and they might need something from human biology to remain here.

Hancock ends his book with his last drug experience, and he too alludes to having achieved something personally valuable from his use of hallucinagens, but he lets the words trail off without telling us what happened in that last visit to the other realm. He leaves us with the impression that there is so much more he could have told us.

Learning More

I recommend the books of Raymond Fowler, who has spent a lifetime researching the abduction experiences of Betty Luca (she was Betty Aho and Betty Andreasson in her youth and first marriage). Fowler has concluded that aliens come from the spirit world. Could they be the spirits of dead people who once lived in material bodies? Another author who connects the dots between UFOs and spiritual entities is Richard Thompson in his book, Alien Identities : Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena. He draws a comparison between the vimanas of ancient India and modern UFO sightings, but shows how both of these could come from another level of reality. In his book, he says the vimanas were built by the spiritual entities, but they could operate in our reality.

A final observation. Those human-animal hybrids are assumed by Hancock to be purely mythical, but American seer Edgar Cayce, who went into a trance to give "life readings," said that humans were originally "thought forms" and these thought forms found they could inhabit matter. They became so entangled with matter that they lost their ability to leave it. They experimented with different forms and many took the form of animals. Cayce describes a time when many humans had animal appendages. He says the high civilization of ancient times (think Atlantis) created the Temple Beautiful to help people lose these appendages, which were eventually considered grotesque. So, isn't is also possible that human-animal creatures once actually existed?

What are we to make of these visions of life-forms mixed together? I offer this quote from Luther Burbank, as quoted in one of my favorite books, The Secret Life of Plants:

In pursuing the study of any of the universal and everlasting laws of nature, whether relating to the life, growth, structure and movement of a giant planet, the tiniest plant or the psychological movements of the human brain, some conditions are necessary before we can become one of nature's interpreters or the creator of any valuable work for the world. Preconceived notions, dogmas, and all personal prejudice and bias must be laid aside. Listen patiently, quietly and reverently to the lessons, one by one, which Mother Nature has to teach, shedding light on that which before was a mystery, so that all who will may see or know. She conveys her truths only to those who are passive and receptive.

Graham Hancock has given us some fascinating insights into those mysteries with Supernatural. It may be his very best book.

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