- kidflash2008 wrote:
- The latest book by Mr Hancock will probably be his most controversial.
Hello Lloyd,
It is only controversial if you actually believe that thousands upon thousands of years of human experience are nothing more than a lot of nonsense. To my mind, the only real controversy is why so many in our culture think the authentic mystical experiences of peoples from other times and cultures to be invalid.
I would offer that it is our cultural "nuts and bolts" expectation (that only materiality is valid) that is the real culprit here. To put it bluntly:
our contemporary cultural mindset is in a state of abject denial. And we have the nerve to think such denial "intelligent". As they say, ignorance is bliss. But that is not the same thing as being aware or educated.
- kidflash2008 wrote:
- The subject is the spiritual or "Otherwold" that many shamans have been to throughout history. Mr Hancock starts off by discussing the artwork left by the Stone Age peoples and starts to ponder the start of religious or spiritual thought. This takes him to the shamans, and to experience the hallucinogenic drugs of the cultures. The trips he goes on are rather incredible and real. He then hypothesizes that the trips shamans and others make are to another realm of reality that is inhabited by supernatural beings.
He goes on to talk to a person who has studied the effects of DMT on people through the use of controlled experiments. The groups actually took the DMT and wrote down their experiences.
That would be Dr, Rick Strassman. I suggest that reading his book, "DMT, The Spirit Molecule" is a proper introduction to Graham Hancock's book. It is one of the building blocks from which Hancock constructs his own book, although certainly, Hancock's book goes much further. Personally, I think Hancock's "Supernatural" is one of the most important books concerning the subject of UFOs that has been written in recent times.
Even if it is not a book specifically about UFOs,
per-se.
- kidflash2008 wrote:
- Mr Hancock then states the corollaries between the trips and many UFO abductions. He thinks that people who are abducted are not physically taken to ships, but are able to view the Otherworld. The beings take on the forms of aliens (something Mr Hancock experienced himself), and did medical procedures to people. Mr Hancock also brings up the same types of medical procedures done to the shamans who are on their journey to become healers. The book is profound, and even scary if some of the hypothesis is true.
One problem I did have was Mr Hancock does think all UFO abductions are due to these experiences, and not nuts and bolts craft. While I do think his hypothesis would explain many cases, I also think there are some nuts and bolts cases out there.
Lloyd, I agree with you here. But I only believe it is because Hancock's theory is not inclusive enough. I think what we are dealing with is some fuzzy edges between this "alternate reality" and our material reality.
I do not think that either conceptual "reality" can be invalidated. What I think we are seeing is that beings from the para-material reality are able to project themselves into our material reality - under certain circumstances.
See, that way, you can have your materialist cake and eat the mystical frosting too. No muss, no fuss.
- kidflash2008 wrote:
- Mr Hancock also explains that one to two percent of the population is hardwired to having these types of experiences without the use of drugs or other methods. Without any shaman guiding them on their journeys, no wonder people have such terrifying experiences.
An excellent book, especially for people who believe they may have been abducted. This explanation would blow their mind, yet open up new horizons for them in wonderful ways.
Yes, I agree. Hancock's book makes no less of an assertion than that there is a lot more to reality than our cultural status quo allows for.
Those "two per-centers" would be known as natural shamans or mystics in other cultures. In our own they are known as curiosities (at best) or cranks, weirdos and psychotics at worst. The one problem with this stilted view is that a great many people continue to have these experiences despite our overt cultural denial. Boy, they sure have a lot of nerve....
If nothing else, the book helps dissolve the barriers of pervasive cultural denial. I highly recommend this book for anybody interested in the UFO subject, but it is best approached with an open mind: leave your stale cultural assumptions at the door.