GH: There was a concept from the beginning. Had in mind for a while, writing a book about the origins of man. I always felt it was a mystery in this, but when I started to investigate human origins I found a long, boring story, which was the period since the last common ancestor with chimpanzees (which might have been like 7 million years earlier) until 40 000 years ago. Appeared to be a rather dull tale, with very gradual anatomical changes and behavioral changes glacial slow. The complete design Modern anatomy was hit at least 200 000 years earlier, but still no sign of behavior that we consider as a human. And yes, much later, really only 40 000 years ago, the archaeological record suddenly begins to attest to a dramatic change. In my opinion, this dramatic change of 40 000 years ago is really the big topic in human development, even bigger in terms of its impact, our vaunted evolutionary adaptation to walking on two legs. It's amazing how the archaeological record "lights" after 40 000 years with incredible symbolism, the appearance of art, evidence across a broad spectrum of activities which recognize as a complete modern human behavior, which seem to arise suddenly. I realized this is where lay the mystery, that this was the mystery that I wanted to explore. However it was found, this process made us human, right there at the very beginning, it was art, and incredible symbolism ... the art of the cave paintings of Europe, for example, going back 35 000 years.
When I started studying about these fields, I found that cave art specialists had been discussing for most of a century, but since the 80's was presented a powerful and increasingly accepted theory suggests that this amazing adventure of art and religion that coincides with the beginning of modern human behavior, was inspired due to the use of hallucinogenic plants, induction of altered states of consciousness, and the paintings are the visions that our ancestors had in those states. Once I was sure the real possibility of this, then opened the door to other areas of research in Supernatural.
SR: We talk to him about the neuropsychological model of David Lewis-Williams ...
GH: Yes, the remarkable work of David Lewis-Williams. David Lewis-Williams is an archeology professor who founded the Rock Art Institute at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. He was recognized as one of the leading researchers in the world of rock art and caves. After years of field work, David did away with a theory that explained the extraordinary common features found in Paleolithic rock art top European and South African rock art. These cultures were separated by a vast geographical distance and indeed separated chronologically. The explanation is that they were playing the same great mental events, experienced in altered states of consciousness.
Thanks to modern scientific work with volunteers who took hallucinogens and study of their experiences, we know that the typical visionary sequence begins with patterns and shapes, dots, dashes, zig-zag lines, and gradually become a complete sense of an altered reality in which the individual can very often see human beings partially transformed into animals. And this is exactly what we see in the cave art in Europe and in the rocky walls of Bushmen in South Africa, this mixture of geometric shapes and strange visionary forms showing transformed beings. We have no space to go deep into this here, but the evidence is described in Supernatural. The conclusion is that there is little doubt that the explanation that David Lewis-Williams has come to be correct. SR: Going to the idea of \u200b\u200bpeople viewing items archetypal as snakes and jaguars on the effects of ayahuasca, this being a high profile book, do you think there is a risk that can "pollute the integrity ', ie all subsequent reports? For example, a lot of people say they see 'DMT elves "now, just because we described by Terence McKenna.
GH: If you, or do people see elves because under the influence of these chemicals, they go to the same places that Terence McKenna was? This is the question, and is a bit difficult to answer, but I think I'm pretty clear on this. I think the source of these experiences is the visionary world, these fall within the culture, but start in the visionary world. And so, somehow, is a pointless argument to say: "ah, but you're influenced by what they took from the culture, because culture itself is influenced by what people have been injected from these experiences visionary.
A good example is the so-called alien abduction experience, which can be reproduced in a laboratory tested by injection of dimethyltryptamine, DMT, subjects. They are so tiny beings with large dark eyes who cluster around them as they make painful and unpleasant experiments. I refer here to the pioneering work done with DMT and human volunteers in the 90's by Dr. Rick Strassman at the University of New Mexico. Now we could say that those lab subjects just spit in their own minds what they had previously absorbed the tabloids about alien abductions, and from the culture around them. Well, one could say this, except that the experiment with exactly the same drug was also made at 50-years they had never spoken of alien abduction in the media, and those experiments also reported these meetings subjects with the tiny beings who also abducían nasty things to them. Then, as you know, of course human beings talk to each other and share their experiences and shared experiences affect the future of the experiences we have, I'm not denying this. We impose interpretation on every act of perception, and at the end of the day, hallucinations are perceptions as well. But what I'm saying is that the experiences of this particular type are widely scattered and are universal, are widely distributed in time, to be explained in this way.
SR: And this is another of the great mysteries that have explored in Supernatural - the mystery of a very surprising and complex ingredients in the supposedly non-experience displayed real-universally shared by all humans?
GH: Yes, you're right. The first mystery that got me, we've played before, was the sudden appearance of modern human behavior less than 40 000 years, which was completely linked to the emergence art and religious ideas, and the first known representation, painted on the walls of caves and rock beds throughout the world, of beings who can instantly recognize as "supernatural," for example hybrid beings have mixtures of animal and human characteristics. In other words, these are the oldest representations that have survived in human culture of the "spiritual world" and its inhabitants. Once I established that this imagery is best explained by the neuropsychological model of David Lewis-Williams, that is, that these images were trying to depict what shamans saw in their travels, in his delusional state, then is that I was ready for the next mystery. This is why people from all over the world and in an entirely different historical periods, reported more or less identical "hallucinations"? How can we explain these striking similarities in what are supposed to experience "non-real?
If we take the conventional model of what are hallucinations, we find scientists explaining them as merely a mental disorder where the brain releases elements from memory, culture, reassembled at new ways to create images rather strange real- we call hallucinations. But this individualistic approach may not be the explanation, because it ignores the incredible universality of these images, reported by people of completely different cultures with no shared memory. So we have a huge mystery here, from my point of view. Why are these experiences "no real" from around the globe and in all historical periods, have many common elements clearly identifiable?
SR: And what conclusions have you arrived?
GH: I have concluded that the "coincidences"-materialist arguments can not explain the massive universality of human experiences many so-called "non-real." To make a long story short, I think there are two possibilities, both extraordinary, we can provide fruitful answers to this mystery.
One is that the brain is primarily a receiver of consciousness, not just a generator of consciousness. To operate in the everyday world, our brain has to be set at a certain wavelength, and must stay more or less in line with that wavelength, as a TV tuned a canal. However, there a variety of media existing ( most of them long exploited and exploited by shamans) by through which we change wavelength receptor to our brain and capture other realities that are not normally present in our everyday perception but in fact there . So we can reach other dimensions, not through some fantastic arrangements of the 21 century technology but simply through a tuning of our consciousness, and perhaps this is what these shamanic hallucinogens do.
The second extraordinary possibility, I examine in some depth, goes to the thinking of Francis Crick. No is a fact widely known that Crick was under the influence of LSD when he discovered the dual structure helix of DNA and that this supreme achievement scientific rationalism , by which won the Nobel Prize , wine him in an alteration , even mystical, its status consciousness.
Until his death in 2004 Crick remained an atheist, deeply committed to materialism, ie, with a view no spiritual reality. However was unable to accept that the DNA molecule could have formed by chance. Just arrived at the idea that perhaps life originated on earth in this way: perhaps billions of years before the other side of the galaxy, doomed by a supernova, some ancient alien civilization sought ways to preserve their DNA, and he suggests that bacteria were sent, perhaps with a genetically engineered DNA inside-to the universe in spaceships. Eventually one of those ships crashed on Earth, bacteria containing the DNA began to reproduce, and the entire history of evolution as scientists tell us, began from here. Once DNA appeared, evolution became very plausible. Before that, it was difficult to explain.
If this explanation makes sense, then it may be the case that DNA contains much more genetic information. We do not know what 97% of the DNA. Scientists call this "junk DNA" or "junk DNA." Must be that there some sort of message there, or even an extensive archive of messages, inscribed on the supposedly redundant DNA extension. I presented strong evidence of this in this book is strong scientific evidence that reveal intriguing linguistic structure in the junk DNA. Perhaps it could even be that we can only access these messages through the heightened consciousness. Therefore, these are the elements of the second thesis I seek: that can see these universal images because they are recorded on this stretch of DNA we all share , and that these are messages to us by our creator, whoever is our creator. Again, common sense and logic suggest that the least we can do is investigate further into this and try to see. We have the means, the hallucinogens, the technology to investigate into the secret chambers of our minds ... or parallel universes, if that is what they are.
SR: What I find most fascinating with the idea of \u200b\u200bPanspermia Crick, is that it is basically the definition of Intelligent Design , and still today we have scientists that suggest that this idea is a waste because they see it as "New Creationism."
GH: Exactly, there is a huge propaganda war waged against Intelligent Design. First, I think it is important to note that arch-creationists such as Richard Dawkins of Oxford University are men and women who practice a religion. The belief that life assembled itself accidentally out of the collision of molecules in a primordial soup is just that: a belief. There is no evidence of this. It is a metaphysical assumption ...
SR: Belief of "Hurricane in the junkyard" ...
GH: Si. The scenario favored by materialists that the DNA molecule could assemble itself by accident from any "primordial soup" has been correctly described as this, as if a Boeing 767 could be assembled in perfect order by a hurricane in a tank scrap. And this is what worried Crick, this amazing statistical improbability, and his view was not religious, but scientific. He simply could not conceive how the DNA molecule itself could be formed only by chance, and if he could not think this, then it is difficult to understand how anyone could conceive.
I do not think that Crick would have been happy to be associated with the Intelligent Design movement, but the fact is that the process of "guided panspermia" that he proposed to explain the origins of DNA, was, definition, Intelligent Design .
SR: LSD use by Crick, as a "thinking tool" was not known until shortly before his death, however, in your case You say in this book that you have used these substances. Do you think that other public figures should be more open about the positive aspects of this?
GH: Si. I think it's time for a debate in our society about hallucinogenic plants, and their use by shamanic cultures for thousands of years. At this point, are coupled to package many substances under the category of "drugs." This word has become tiresome - the word "drug" and "drug abuse" are meanings attached all the time by the propaganda war. Somehow, it is very Orwellian, the language itself has been subverted and corrupted ... people talk constantly of "drug abuse" as if they had another way of referring to substances that alter consciousness except for abuse of these. When using this type of language too often, it becomes almost impossible to think of these substances away from this negative.
Nevertheless, the fact is that people everywhere have an innate and deeply rooted in the impulse to alter their consciousness, and we do this in many different ways. Some channels such as alcohol, are socially sanctioned, while others are not. But as much as whether they are socially sanctioned or not, all statistics show that modifying drug awareness is increasing, not decreasing, despite the cruelties and the enormous cost of the "war on drugs."
SR: I think if people were more aware of the story of how these chemicals were banned in the first place, they would open their eyes about it.
GH: Yes, this would open his eyes absolutely flimsy evidence and poor reasoning is the basis of these prohibitions. Recently, for example, fresh psilocybe mushrooms was outlawed in the United Kingdom. If you look at the justification for this additional layer of bureaucracy , this crime additional that has introduced our legislation , of eating fresh mushrooms that grow wild and free in fields - why should this be a crime? Government officials who talk about these matters say that is because it can cause some people to become crazy. This is a completely illogical pretext for illegal substances. First, the illegal does not prevent them available. Second, the evidence that make people mad is extremely low and weak, and absolutely convincing in couple to million people around the world have eaten psychedelic mushrooms , and have repeated the experience many times , keeping your sanity intact.
is true that some individuals, for example, schizophrenics or those who are at the limit of schizophrenia, "may precipitate psychotic episodes within if they consume these substances. But this is an argument to encourage closer monitoring or advice to use or not, but it is something that justifies criminalizing their use by responsible adults and mentally balanced. There are many substances and objects in our society that are much more dangerous in the hands of schizophrenics than in the hands of people with good mental health, for example, alcohol, acetaminophen, fire, but the car- fact that people mentally unstable may abuse them never taken as an excuse pathetic to criminalize general use of alcohol, acetaminophen , fire and cars.
We're talking about our individual consciousness, the root, the heart of what we are each us. And the ancient hallucinogenic plants offer us a method for screening of our consciousness. is absurd and ridiculous, that in societies which call themselves advanced and democratic, there are medieval laws that send people to prison for years, simply for exploring their own consciousness through "free thanks" to the Nature provides. If we are not sovereign in our own consciousness, then what are we sovereign? What kind of party is playing with us when our society uses its bureaucratic apparatus made of public money to prosecute and punish people for "Crimes of conscience?
SR: These negative connotations of "drug" also extend to the field of rock art. In the book: Supernatural you plant experts of cave art as David Lewis-Williams to discuss the issue of neuropsychological model are not willing to try these substances by themselves to "get inside minds of the artists. "
GH: Well, there are two aspects to this. First, there is a huge debate, because a group of scholars of rock art make objection to the idea that our ancestors discovered art and religion through hallucinogens. It is clear that a number of archaeologists object to this at first, and attack in a terribly ugly and underhanded the neuropsychological model, precisely because it confronts the basic sensitivity of archaeologists trained in the logical positivist tradition. The sheer idea that hallucinations could be the source of art and religion is extremely threatening to them.
But then, beyond that, you're right: many people who study this subject no desean tomar alucinógenos. Acercándose a estas nociones desde el punto de vista de la razón, pueden averiguar cómo las experiencias visionarias pudieran haber dado lugar a lo que vemos en las paredes de las cuevas, y cuentan con una gran cantidad de informes realizados por científicos en experimentos de laboratorio con voluntarios. Sin embargo, siguen diciendo no-no al acto de tomar substancias por sí mismos.
Pienso que es perfectamente legítimo teorizar acerca de todo esto, pero no el hacer declaraciones autoritarias acerca de la realidad de los estados alterados producidos por los alucinógenos, si uno no ha probado nunca alucinógenos por sí mismo. Uno debería certainly research in this area, but to be qualified to speak about the reality of these states, these mysterious visions, one would have to have the visions himself.
SR: You begin the book with a personal story about the death of your father, how it affected you and the fact that you took ibogaine in your house and you had a experience parallels the experience of common ibogaine talk to the dead. Ayahuacas is said to have the same property. Do you think hallucinogens may offer a way to investigate the possibility of life after of life?
GH: Si. I believe that every experience we describe as "supernatural" encounters with nonphysical beings, whether dead or spirits called fairies or elves or angels or aliens, I believe that research in these areas will be, and may be aided by the use of hallucinogens. currently has no exploration paranormal with hallucinogens on top of their priorities research. But I would say could be a of the most fruitful areas of study that can handle.
SR: Terence McKenna has repeatedly said he felt he had a telepathic connection when I was under the influence of fungi.
GH: If there are such special reports, and remote viewing, a detailed description of things happening in distant places. We have a lot of anecdotal information about this, and then also very specific information of people receiving practical knowledge during their hallucinations from the vision of Francis Crick's DNA under the influence of LSD to shamans of the Amazon who have learned to make mixtures of plants to achieve certain medications. This appears to be available to us in the hallucinatory state, and I think that is something that should be taken very seriously, and that seems to have been connected with the mysterious and radical process that made us human, at first, the biggest event in the evolutionary history of our species. Even might seem that we are losing our next major evolutionary advance by certain factions within our society who have managed to demonize, stigmatize and repress visionary states of consciousness.
SR: One of the greatest parts of the book, and perhaps this is just a personal cosideration is that felt like a continuation of the book by Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia, which is equates the UFO experience with folklore tale . Do you think Vallee was something here?
GH: Yes, very much. This aspect of the investigation, to me, covered three different topics. Beings who are called spirits in shamanic societies, people who were called fairies and elves in medieval Europe, and people who are called aliens today. I was drawn inevitably to take ayahuasca this because I had an alien abduction experience. This led me to find comparisons between the spirits that shamans have been described over the centuries, and the aliens and abductions of today. I realized how close they were astonishingly these comparisons between suspected that different categories of beings.
When I studied the work of Vallee, which was conducted in 1960, and compared the tale with aliens, I discovered that the similarities went even further, so I decided to update and extend the research of Vallee, looking at the vast body evidence that was in the alien abduction since the late 60's, and compared with fairies and elves. I think the comparison is quite tight, and that we are dealing here with a phenomenon that has been with humans since the beginning of the species that we interpreted in many different ways at different periods of history. We see this phenomenon through nuestras espectativas culturales, pero cuando nos lo permitimos, nos damos cuenta de que es el mismo fenómeno todo el tiempo, así los llamemos espíritus, hadas o aliens.
Estoy casi seguro ahora de que la clave de todas estas experiencias será encontrada en estados modificados de consciencia. Y deseo enfatizar que cuando hablo de experiencias derivadas de los estados modificados de la consciencia, no quiero decir que estas experiencias sean de ningún modo “irreales“. Por lo contrario, creo que hay una gran probabilidad de que muchos encuentros sobrenaturales, incluidos aquellos que llamamos “abducciones alienígenas“ hoy en día, sean 100% real, but are difficult to prove in a scientific, precisely because they are only accessible to us through those states. I also accept that there are paradoxical physical elements often associated with visionary experiences, such as implants that shamans and alien abductees are in their bodies, miraculous healings, signs and other objects (books, sometimes) left by spirits, fairies and aliens. This is a huge mystery that has haunted our ancestors from at least 35 000 years.
SR: You talked to John Mack before death?
I connected with John Mack for many years and I met him twice. We had a e-mail exchange in 2004, with the intention of meet again and conduct an extensive interview . I wanted to compare work with work Dr. Rick Strassman in University of New Mexico , the studies DMT - I mentioned earlier - but unfortunately , John Mack died in a car accident in London before we fulfill our desire . John was a great man , in my opinion, a good-hearted man, a scientist of first category, and a researcher without fear of conclusions little unorthodox to which his science led him .
I spoke with Rick Strassman and my interview with him appeared in the book's appendix. He confirmed that John saw many similarities between the reports of abductions and experiences of DMT volunteers.
SR: Many of the advocates of materialist philosophy research quote Dr. Michael Persinger in the "presence felt" as a way of explaining a lot of these appearances. Do you agree with the approach of Persinger?
GH: What is interesting here is that it depends on our understanding of the brain. Persinger is also talking about altered states of consciousness, only that its particular approach is induced by electromagnetic fields, rather than through chemical hallucinogens. But in the end the effect is the same. Now, Persinger can be reductionist and could say "I see brain changes when I turn on the electromagnetic field the head of my subject, have caused their experiences of seeing tiny beings. " But this causal connection is not entirely clear, it may be that the electromagnetic fields just tuned the wavelength receptors in the brain, and enabled him to capture other "realities" that can only access through altered states.
For me, Persinger just provides us with another avenue through which human beings can enter altered states of consciousness, but it proves that what we see can be reduced to brain activity associated with this state. We naturally hope there will be any brain activity mediating experiencia humana, pero el hecho de que no haya actividad por sí sola, no reduce la experiencia para esa actividad.
SR: Se trata de si es causal o no…
GH: Sí , o es - una vez más volvemos a este modelo de receptor del cerebro , que creo que es de enorme utilidad- , que veríamos actividad si el cerebro es un receptor And that is tunes himself, as we would a telescope change its focal length . That would be activity, but not causing the experience. The telescope could be looking at a star again, or our brain could be seeing another level of reality.
I think where Persinger is interesting is that this concept gives us a connection to earth energies, since the energy of the earth generates electromagnetic fields, which may explain why a crowd of tens of thousands, de pie en un mismo lugar comienzan a ver de pronto la misma visión: porque están todos sometidos al mismo estado modificado de consciencia.
SR: ¿Te refieres a los “milagros“ religiosos, tales como las apariciones de Fátima?
GH: Como Fátima, por ejemplo. No hay dudas de que lo que ellos están viendo es absolutamente típico de un estado alterado de la consciencia. Ahora, ¿cómo se explica que una multitud de 70 000 personas vayan a la vez a un estado alterado de consciencia? Creo que Persinger pudiera proveernos de una respuesta.
One point raised in the book is about the caves of Lourdes, where miracles and healings occur and modern pilgrimage. Nearby is a cave of the Stone Age containing a large number of parts of the Upper Paleolithic. Perhaps some places have been sacred for tens of thousands of years, because they cause an effect on our consciousness, and this effect can happen certain healing processes.
SR: To finish: Supernatural comprises a number of fascinating topics, and you plant them in a very intelligent with lots of evidence. Having said that, there are a lot of foreign material, hallucinogens, sex with aliens, fairies and elves. Worried about the degree of reception has the book, with critics saying: "Graham was and fried your brain on drugs and now look at what you write?
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| SUB ROSA Journal |
GH: Yeah, I'm sure it's a cheap tactic to be used to attack and try to ridicule . It is obvious that the critics resort this, I am sure you will not be able to resist. Anyway, I have expressed my opinion considering views that are the result of a lot of work. Do not think any critic is qualified to express any view about the reality of delusional states, unless they have been willing to take the shamanic hallucinogenic plants and deal with these experiences.
Had they done this, then they would be at least qualified to talk about this, but if you have not, then it's just empty air really. So try to ignore them.
Interview with Graham Hancock on his book Supernatural (Sobrenatural) which originally appeared in the journal on - line: SUB ROSA
Translated by María Villares
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