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Supernatural: Meetings With the Ancient Teachers of Mankind

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Supernatural: Meetings With the Ancient Teachers of Mankind
Description
Less than fifty thousand years ago mankind had no art, no religion, no sophisticated symbolism, no innovative thinking. Then, in a dramatic and electrifying change, described by scientists as "the greatest riddle in human history," all the skills and qualities that we value most highly in ourselves appeared already fully formed, as though bestowed on us by hidden powers. In Supernatural Graham Hancock sets out to investigate this mysterious "before-and-after moment" and to discover the truth about the influences that gave birth to the modern human mind. His quest takes him on a detective journey from the stunningly beautiful painted caves of prehistoric France, Spain, and Italy to rock shelters in the mountains of South Africa, where he finds extraordinary Stone Age art. He uncovers clues that lead him to the depths of the Amazon rainforest to drink the powerful hallucinogen Ayahuasca with shamans, whose paintings contain images of "supernatural beings" identical to the animal-human hybrids depicted in prehistoric caves. Hallucinogens such as mescaline also produce visionary encounters with exactly the same beings. Scientists at the cutting edge of consciousness research have begun to consider the possibility that such hallucinations may be real perceptions of other "dimensions." Could the "supernaturals" first depicted in the painted caves be the ancient teachers of mankind? Could it be that human evolution is not just the "meaningless" process that Darwin identified, but something more purposive and intelligent that we have barely begun to understand? This newly revised edition of Supernatural is now available for the first time as a paperback original. Graham Hancock is the author of the international bestsellers The Sign and The Seal, Fingerprints of the Gods, and Heaven's Mirror. His books have sold more than five million copies.
Author
Graham Hancock
Publisher
Disinformation Company
Release Date
Oct 01, 2007 (2 years ago)
Price
$18.95
ISBN
1932857842
Original URL
http://www.amazon.com/Supernatural-Meetings-Ancient-Teachers-Mankind/dp/1932857842/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205246145&sr=8-1
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Comments

  • Public Comments

    • Nova Spivack Nova Spivack
      2 years ago


      Excellent new book by radical archaeologist, Graham Hancock. The basic premise is that shamanistic visions are similar around the world, implying that the human brain is hardwired for these experiences. Hancock even posits that this may be coded into the junk DNA regions of our Genome. Very interesting.
      Philosopher's Corner, News of the Strange, Nova Spivack - My Public Twine

    • David Scott "Lightman" Lewis
      2 years ago


      What do you think, Nova? Are we "hardwired for these experiences"?

      I'm inclined to believe that we're hardwired for belief. Of course, this begs the question: How/why did this happen?
      Philosopher's Corner

    • Nova Spivack Nova Spivack
      2 years ago


      I should mention that at 800 pages this is not light reading...
      Philosopher's Corner

    • Nova Spivack Nova Spivack
      2 years ago


      The book presents very interesting evidence from cave art, as well as from modern and ancient shamanic art and field studies, that humans across a wide range of cultures and time periods have nearly identical visions when on various hallucinogens. These are highly detailed visions with very particular characteristics. It's very strange. It's also strange that ancient cave art and aboriginal art from widely separated communities have unusual similarities, and all appeared at around the same time in history. Hancock weaves this together in a fascinating detective story of sorts.

      Ultimately his hypothesis is that hallucinogens played a large role in the flowering of higher cognitive abilities in our species, and also that this may be related to information that is stored in the junk DNA regions of our genome. This part is highly speculative, however studies of the junk DNA region have shown that the data it contains obeys Zipf's law, which implies that it does contain some kind of language. Studies of the non-Junk portions of DNA find that the coding regions do not obey Zipf's law, which makes sense since they are specifications, not data.

      Essentially the coding regions of DNA are software and the so-called "junk DNA" regions may be the "database." This is where it gets very interesting... What's in the database? Where does the database come from? This is what Hancock is actually fascinated by.

      Is there a "semantic web" in DNA?
      Philosopher's Corner

      • David Scott "Lightman" Lewis
        2 years ago


        Nova, noticing your most recent bookmarks, I suspect that what you did with this book will be typical of what many Twinerians will do. I certainly do it and I believe others will/do, too. In other words, take one item, search for related items, and then bookmark these items as well. Might need to add a search within a Twine feature combined with searching tags. For example, rather than just searching among everything in Twine, a search can be limited to a particular Twine and further refined by searching tags within that Twine or a collection of Twines.
        Philosopher's Corner

        • Nova Spivack Nova Spivack
          2 years ago


          I believe we can already do that...

          If you are in a twine and do a search, it should be weighting items within that twine higher? Worth testing out to make sure it is working right?
          Philosopher's Corner

    • Kristinn R. Thórisson
      2 years ago


      It all sounds pretty interesting, and somewhat truthworthy, until you get to the second half of the description:

      "Scientists at the cutting edge of consciousness research have begun to consider the possibility that such hallucinations may be real perceptions of other "dimensions." "

      Yikes. It doesn't matter whether it's the King of Spain, Queen of Denmark or the Dalai Laama who is responsible for these "considerations", they belong strictly in the realm of pure speculation and remain utterly unscientific, with no evidence behind them.

      "Could the "supernaturals" first depicted in the painted caves be the ancient teachers of mankind?" "

      Haha. Give me a break.... what a concept, "the ancient teachers of mankind". If you don't find this laughable on first read, read that sentence fragment a few times and you'll hopefully see how absurd it really sounds. Mankind -- that is, all of mankind -- has some "ancient teachers"? Wow, what a catch phrase. I guess it sells books.... sadly. Unless, of course, it's all a metaphor.

      =K
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