Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind

by Graham Hancock

Book Overview

Publisher's Note: A new, expanded edition has replaced this book under the new title Visionary: The Mysterious Origins of Human Consciousness, ISBN 9781637480069 This definitive edition includes a new Introduction by Graham Hancock as well as restored chapters that were omitted from the original paperback release.

Less than fifty thousand years ago mankind had no art, no religion, no sophisticated symbolism, no innovative...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1932857842
• ISBN13: 9781932857849
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Disinformation Company
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Magisterial work and riveting read

This fascinating book by alternative historian Graham Hancock investigates the origins of consciousness with reference to the work of David Lewis-Williams and his theory of the neuropsychological origins of cave art. It also goes further in proposing that those worlds and entities encountered in shamanic visions are not mere hallucinations but very real and that altered states are the means to gain entry to them. Part One: The Visions, includes the author's experiences with the African hallucinogenic plant Iboga, looks at the cave of Pech Merle and then examines the theory of David Lewis-Williams. It also includes a section on Hancock's use of the South American plant ayahuasca. Part Two explores the cave art of Upper Paleolithic Europe, with a closer look at the half-human half-animal representations that are so widespread. These "therianthropic" designs also occur in the rock art of Southern Africa and elsewhere. Hancock examines recurring themes in this ancient art, like that of the Wounded Man. He also discusses other aspects of this art, like the dots, starbursts, nets, ladders and windowpane-like geometrical figures. He closely examines the similarities and the differences between the art of ancient Europe and that of Africa. For example, the European art is found in dark subterranean caves while in Africa it is most often found in open rock shelters. Chapter Six looks at the history of the academic study of rock art and concludes that it led nowhere until the theory of Lewis-Williams came along. Hancock demolishes the criticisms leveled at the work of Lewis-Williams and exposes the smear campaign waged against the South African academic. Among other interesting topics, he considers the 19th century notebooks of Bleek and Lloyd on the mythology of the San. These valuable documents provide clues to the religion of the San and the trance or altered state experience. Part Three: The Beings, starts with discussions of the experiences and work of William James, Aldous Huxley, Albert Hoffman and Rick Strassman. It also looks at the UFO abduction experience and compares it with the shamanic exploration of other-worlds, with supernatural myths and folkloric traditions like that of fairies and elves. There really are fascinating correspondences between fairy lore, the UFO abduction experience and certain hallucinatory states. Part Four: The Codes, looks at the structural similarities and connections and the common themes like therianthropic transformations, small robot-like humanoids, the breeding of hybrid infants, the idea of the Wounded Healer, etc. Hancock is convinced that the mind is a receiver and not simply a generator of consciousness. In this section he relates his impressions after smoking DMT, and then goes into a deeper exploration of the work of Dr Rick Strassman who is famous for his work with this substance. The passages on DNA are particularly gripping, especially the idea that our DNA might contain specific information on our

Super Supernatural

Graham Hancock, the author of Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind could never be accused of pussyfooting around the revelations of his research, and he certainly postulates the heck out of the place of consciousness altering agents in the shamanic origins of religion and consciousness itself. It's a brilliant, breakthrough book which comes close to being the unified field theory of, if not all of the supernatural, at least of all encounters between humans and supernatural beings. Hancock begins with a description of his own visionary experiences with the hallucinogen Ibogaine, which he took, with a logical vigor that escapes most academics, in order to truly gauge its effect, and therefore the validity of his theories. He follows this with a (perhaps too) meticulous examination of the cave paintings that represent the beginnings of human art, concentrating on their bizarre and seemingly inexplicable nature, at once representative and fantastic, a contradiction that the bonehead academics have (naturally) been totally unable to puzzle out in over a hundred years of trying. But just when I thought the book was going to be one of those tedious Fortean catalogues of weird stuff, Hancock brought forth his first thesis, based on David Lewis-Williams's The Mind in the Cave. Lewis-Williams's idea is simple - that the enigmatic cave paintings were produced by shamans in a trance state and are representations of the shamanic experience. It's an audacious, elegant solution - the psychotropic distortions and patterns match that of drug users and there's no doubt that many shamanistic cultures, such as the prototypical Siberian and the still extant South American, exhibit a heavy use of mushrooms and other hallucinogens to achieve shamanic journeys and transformations. Hancock also examines the rock art of a tribe in South Africa whose paintings were similar to cave art and whose imagery was explicated by the last survivors of that tribe. This theory seems almost self-evident, so naturally it remains controversial in the academic world. Perhaps as a reaction to the sixties, the academic establishment now rejects all the fruits of dream, drug and trance as hallucination, and tries to efface the very clear fingerprints of sense altering agents in our culture and civilization. It should come as now surprise, then, that several stalwart defenders of the empty status quo have stepped forward to advance their careers by attacking Lewis-Williams theories with various sophistries. Hancock handily refutes them, exposing them as deeply misguided if not purposefully dishonest. It's a deft explanation for the general reader of a difficult theory in the manner of Colin Wilson, but the start of the book is just a stepping stone for Hancock, who moves on to his own conceptual breakthroughs. The genesis of Hancock's insight, like many of the crucial insights of modernity, came while he was under the influence. During his Ibogaine trip he saw a la

mysterious skeptics

The realm of the skeptic is a strange one. Certainly, it is always immersed within fear, denial, arrogance, and, quite frankly, laziness. I had completed graduate level work in human evolution and development many years ago, and I didn't exactly have an easy time accepting the tremendous possibility that 95% of what I had read and regurgitated many times over was simply false, given the compelling frame work of the vast (often hidden) evidence. But, I have always been interested in the truth, no matter how bizarre, so I moved on and contemplated other theories and ideas that were not solely politically based, but rather were rational and simply "workable" in their presentation. I understand academia all too well and I realize that "science" has been bought and paid for for too long, which is why it is somewhat sad for me to encounter the skeptics. They don't understand that the "facts" that they are clinging to have precious little hard science supporting them. Science has become like a group of little tyrants all trying to maintain control and grab a buck while being patted on the head by their financiers. Where has the courage, the curiosity, the thirst for knowledge, the adventurous spirit of science gone? Surely it goes well beyond ego, conservatism, or even money. This is why alternative theories within science always must somehow come to terms with the obvious conspiracy of it all, whether naming it the Illuminati, or Sons of Belial, or space Aliens, or mind control, or Satanism, or whatever, because there is most certainly an agenda operating that is keeping incredible information from us. My humble advice: just let it go, open your mind, and move on. A good start is reading books like this. We may all find that we are far more special, more powerful, more truly bizarre than any "alternative" book has speculated thus far. And what would be so bad about that?

Courageous exploration of our shamanic history.

I've followed Graham Hancock's work through the years with great interest and appreciation, even when he has been on a few side trails. History is less easily tested than the "hard" sciences, but Hancock has made a career of gathering together many small bits and pieces of things to reveal the underlying patterns that were not as noticeable before, but now appear strongly and certainly to be true. Always in pursuit of the presumed lost civilization that gave birth to our own, Hancock has been all over the world and even under the seas in his recent book, Underworld, searching for empirical evidence in ruins of human structures dateable to a time before the commonly accepted genesis dates of civilization. It was quite a twist for me, then, when I learned that he was writing a new book on a totally different angle. In Supernatural, Hancock takes us on an epic journey from the famous pre-historic cave art of Europe and rock art from Africa with its strange menageries of part human-part animal beings, through modern expressions of shamanistic beliefs and techniques, and the use of and research into psychoactive substances that seem to open a doorway into another reality. These things, he maintains, are all connected and should be given the consideration of representing something real rather than being casually dismissed as primitive superstition or "brain fiction" caused by chemical reactions in the molecules of the brain. This is a philosophy I've been personally exploring for some time, and it is quite a treat to have a researcher with the time, resources, and courage of Hancock, to forge so strongly ahead in a direction I was going. He has locked on to the same literary resources that propelled my own interest - Narby's "Cosmic Serpent", Shanon's epic "Antipodes of the Mind", Strassman's "DMT The Spirit Molecule", etc. Plus, he has now personally experienced the effects of those natural psychoactive plants that have opened a portal for humans for millenia, from magic mushrooms to iboga to ayahuasca. Far from being "pleasure trips", most of these substances are difficult and extremely unpleasant to use. The ritual and sacremental use of them is endured in order to experience the non-ordinary realities that they can reveal. Realities that seem to include non-human entities. Hancock takes us through the centuries with stories of angels, demons, fairies, goblins, and all the "other beings" called by various names through the centuries. Not the least of these are the modern concepts of extra-terrestrial aliens. He shows how these are all expressions of the same phenomenon, from the part-human/animal cave art depictions to the grey aliens of UFO's, and how their interactions with humans over time has seemingly evolved towards some purpose. The first part of the book dealing with the cave art can get somewhat long and repetitive, but I realize that Hancock is being rather more careful these days to back up what he is saying with the most thorough res