SUPERNATURAL:

Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind

written by Graham Hancock

720 pages

published by The Disinformation Company

ISBN: 0-38566216-5

ISBN-13: 978-1932857849

 

reviewed by Michael Lohr

08.22.2008

 

 

In my opinion Graham Hancock is the most important alternative archaeological/historical writer of this day and age. He asks the questions that few other writers or historians dare ask. His various books Underworld, The Sign and the Seal, Talisman, Heaven’s Mirror and Fingerprints of the Gods, all bestsellers, have set the standard for research and paradigm shift thinking about human history. Supernatural is no exception. In fact, I believe Supernatural is the best book he’s written yet.

 

He has made a career of challenging conventional wisdom and seeking out hidden truths. With Supernatural he tackles the heady subjects of human evolution, Paleolithic cave art and shamanic rituals. Sometime around 196,000 years ago the human species evolved to full anatomical modernity. Even so, we advanced little along the road to civilization until about 150,000 years later. We began to practice various forms of symbolic cultural activity such as religion, art and communication. But it was only about 40,000 years ago that we began to fully develop. Scientists call this the greatest riddle in human history. It was at this point in time that we suddenly developed everything that essentially makes us human. What was the mechanism that pushed us down the path to civilization? What was the prime mover involved that gave us language, art, religion and culture? These are just a few of the questions that Graham Hancock asks in Supernatural.

 

Graham does an in depth study of ancient cave paintings that exists in France, Spain as well as in other regions of Europe and comes to the conclusion that they were not just basic hunter/hunting magic ceremonial images. That in fact the cave paintings and the intellectual expansion of humanity was the direct result of our ancestors performing shamanic rituals with powerful, hallucinogenic plants. The archaeological evidence backs up his assumption. Paleoanthropologist Dr David Lewis-Williams, author of The Mind in the Cave, discovered the neuropsychological model for cave art and argued that such geometric shapes that exist in Paleolithic cave art are actually entopic forms that are commonplace in human neurology (just rub your eyes and you’ll see what I mean). Hancock takes great concern for the rock art of the San, an unfortunately extinct people of southern Africa. The knowledge anthropologists gathered on the San since the late 19th century has proven invaluable for studying and comprehending the religion and rock art of the ancients.

 

Hancock based his summation on Lewis-Williams theorems and on his own, vivid experiences with a variety of hallucinogens such as Ayahuasca, eboga and psilocybin mushrooms, which are commonly used in shamanic ritual. It’s difficult to deny their conclusions. Hancock’s central premise, first introduced by philosopher Henri Bergson and writer Aldous Huxley, is that the human brain is a receiver for consciousness rather than a creator of consciousness. Due to receiver ability we are, while under hypnotic trance, able to visit other realms and it was this ability that gave humanity the spark of culture and creativity. Through this paradigm shifting process, religion was born.

 

Did you know that Cambridge University astrobiologist Francis Crick, the discoverer of DNA, believed in panspermia, the hypothesis that life was seeded by extraterrestrials? Did you know he was on LSD when he made this discovery? LSD essentially functions the same as the above mentioned hallucinogens.

 

Hancock also delves into the fascinating work of Dr. Rick Strassman and his work on the spirit molecule. He explores the very real possibility that in trance states we are actually seeing into a parallel existence. He investigates medieval fairy lore and the UFO abduction phenomenon including the possibility of hybrid babies being born in alternative realms.

 

Supernatural is a real mindbender indeed. This book is Graham Hancock’s most important work to date. It is a must read for anyone with even a subtle interest in religion, origins of humanity, ancient art, anthropology, etc. In fact, is should be required reading everywhere.

 

 

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Michael Lohr is a professional journalist, outdoorsman, treasure hunter and adventurer. His writing has appeared in such diverse magazines as, Outside Magazine, Southern Living, Cowboys & Indians, Sailing World, Caribbean Travel & Life, Canoe & Kayaking, Outdoor Life, and Adventure Sports, to name a few. He contributes regularly to Bluegrass Unlimited magazine and Persimmon Hill, the Journal of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, and also had a few dabblings published in Rolling Stone and Esquire.