Hancock - Supernatural: meetings with the ancient teachers of mankind

2007 Graham Hancock

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The modern world was not alive to the tremendous Reality that encompassed it. We were surrounded by an immeasurable abyss of darkness and splendor. We built our empires on a pellet of dust revolving round a ball of fire in unfathomable space. Life, that Sphinx, with the human face and the body of a brute, asked us new riddles every hour. Matter itself was dissolving under the scrutiny of Science; and yet, in our daily lives, we were becoming a race of somnambulists, whose very breathing, in train and bus and car, was timed to the movement of the wheels; and the more perfectly, and even alertly, we clicked through our automatic affairs on the surface of things, the more complete was our insensibility to the utterly inscrutable mystery that anything should be in existence at all.

Alfred Noyes, The Unknown God, Sheed and Ward,
London, 1934, pp. 176-177

For my father, Donald M. Hancock, December 7, 1924 - September 16, 2003. Ride in green pastures.

The Sign And The Seal: A Quest For The Lost Ark Of The Covenant
Fingerprints Of The Gods: A Quest For The Beginning And The End
Keeper Of Genesis: A Quest For The Hidden Legacy of Mankind
(with Robert Bauval)
The Mars Mystery: A Tale Of The End Of Two Worlds
(with Robert Bauval and John Grigsby)
Heaven's Mirror: Quest For The Lost Civilization (with Santha Faiia)
Underworld: Flooded Kingdoms Of The Ice Age
Talisman: Sacred Cities, Secret Faith (with Robert Bauval)

My father Donald Hancock died when research on this book was in its early stages. He influenced me, and the work I have done, more than I think he ever realized. I miss his warmth, his wise advice, his enduring love, and his celebration of the mysteries and spiritual truths that lie at the heart of this life of ours. I retain the hope, and the expectation, that our dialogue is not over and that death is not the end of all things but simply a transition to another level of consciousness. As ever my wife and partner Santha was with me, stood by me, gave me love, gave me support, gave me understanding - every step of the way. I can't thank her enough. I am also grateful for the encouragement of our six children, Sean, Shanti, Ravi, Leila, Luke and Gabrielle. Each one of them contributed an insight into what was needed to get this book done. Thanks to my mother and to my uncle James Macaulay for reading and commenting on the manuscript.

In South Africa special thanks go to Bokka du Toit for bringing his unique skills and understanding to our research adventures in that ancient land that he loves so much, and to Ann Steyn for her friendship and help during our stay in Jeffries Bay. I am extremely grateful to all the excellent staff at the superb Bushman's Kloof in the Cedar-berg for their hospitality and knowledge of the local rock art, and to Judy Soul of the Monkey Valley Resort in Cape Town for her kindness shown to us during our stay there. Thanks to Chris Henshilwood and his team at Blombos cave for their hospitality and for a most instructive day spent with them in the midst of an active, news-breaking excavation. And thanks to David Lewis-Williams for revolutionizing scientific understanding of the factors at work in the birth of modern human behavior.

My research in the Amazon would not have been possible without the fantastic back-up, local knowledge, and organizational skills of Francesco Sammarco and Ignazia Posadinu of El Mundo Magico (www.ayahuasca-shamanism.co.uk), who again and again put me on the right track in the jungle and in contact with absolutely the right people. Additional thanks go to the shamans who introduced me to ayahuasca during my stay - notably Don Francisco Montes Shuna of Sachamama, Don Leoncio Garca Sampaya, Don Alberto Torres Davilla (in the Aucayacu), Dona Otilia Pashmino and Don Alberto Alvarez Vela. Im also grateful to Ruber del Castillo Ramirez and his wonderful family for the hospitality and kindness that they extended to us when we stayed with them on their homestead in the Aucayacu. Additional thanks go to Clever Hoyos who worked with us as an insightful and resourceful translator during our stay in the Peruvian Amazon. Finally, thanks and deep appreciation to Pablo Amaringo (www.pabloamaringo.com) for kind permission to reproduce some of his luminous and inspiring paintings of his ayahuasca visions. In every case, with these remarkable images, a picture says far more than a thousand words. Thanks also to the anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna (www.wasiwaska.org) who worked with Pablo on their wonderful book Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman.

In Brazil special thanks go to the Uniao de Vegetal and in particular to Mestre Antonio Francisco Fleury. In France I would like to thank the administration of la Grotte du Pech-Merle and in particular M. Zimmermann who took the time to show me around on my private visit to the cave and to share his insights with me.

I am most grateful to Dr. Rick Strassman for discussing with me at such length his breakthrough research with DMT and human volunteers at the University of New Mexico. Thanks, too, to Professor Benny Shanon of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem for our discussions and for his remarkable work which has advanced the scientific understanding of the phenomenology of ayahuasca experiences to a level not hitherto reached by any other researcher. I am also most grateful to the anthropologist Jeremy Narby for his hospitality in Switzerland and for his remarkable book The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge which opened my eyes to many possibilities that I simply had not seen before. Thanks to Professor Roy Watling for contributing Appendix I of this book documenting the ancient Old World provenance of the hallucinogenic mushroom Psilocybe semilanceata. Thanks to the late Professor John Mack for his pioneering work at the borders of consensual reality and for his tremendous intellectual courage. Thanks to Hattie Wells for seeing me safely through my first ibogaine session. One of the great untold stories of this book is the remarkable success that Hattie and other healers all around the world have achieved administering ibogaine to drug addicts as a cure for heroin, cocaine and alcohol addiction. In many cases two to three ibogaine sessions have been sufficient to produce virtually symptom-free withdrawal, a strong determination not to relapse, and a transformed outlook on life on the part of the individuals concerned.

Thanks and appreciation to Simon Macara for his kind and sincere help on several occasions in making difficult things easy, to Helen Vinckier for looking after us in Belgium, to Zoe Kenway for her excellent work under intense time-pressure on so many of the black-and-white illustrations in this book. Thanks to Shanti Faiia for her specialized research into the human-rights implications of current drug laws, and to Damian Walter for his excellent and professional bibliographic research. Thanks to my literary agents Bill Hamilton and Sara Fisher for wise advice and good practical encouragement at all times. Thanks to Tim Andrews at Century in London for working so professionally with me on the final stages of the editing and production of