"Will the Real Messiah Please Stand up"
THE
HOURS OF HORUS
ISISIS
NOW
IS
THE
OUTSIDER
Colin Wilson
1956
Page 58
A refreshing laughter rose in me. . . . It soared aloft
like a soap bubble . . . and then softly burst. . . . The
golden trail was blazed and I was reminded of the eternal,
and of Mozart, and the stars. For an hour I could breathe
once more. . . .9"
9 Chapter 3 Hesse Hermann Steppenwolf pp / 55 57
THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU
UNLESS A HUMAN BE BORN AGAIN THEY CANNOT ENTER THE KINGDOM OF
EVEN
NAMUH YOU I NAME NAME I YOU NAMUH
DIVINE LOVE EVOLVE EVOLVE LOVE DIVINE
THE STARGATE CONSPIRACY
Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince
Epilogue
The Real Stargate
Page 340 Number omitted
"The
Star gate Conspiracy became,
for us, a profoundly unsettling detective story, a 'case' that, whether
we like it or not, involves all of us as the end times machine swings
into action. But inevitably, having exposed the intricate layers of
human agenda behind the mysteries of Egypt and Mars, we ourselves may
appear to be resolutely sceptical on all matters spiritual or
mystical. This is not so. Fortunately, as our investigation proceeded,
certain lines of research opened up a completely new angle on many of
the most intractable mysteries discussed in this book, enabling us to
offer an elegant, exciting - and unashamedly otherworldly -
solution to those
problems.
Originally
we had intended to concentrate much more on the Heliopolitan religion,
and had spent many months researching the Pyramid Texts and other
material, but because we soon discovered the existence of the
conspiracy, our early research was very largely put aside. However,
when we began to delve into the work of Andrija Pulharich on shamanism,
it reminded us of certain elements repeated throughout the Pyramid
Texts, and gradually a revolutionary posssibility began to take shape
in our minds / Page
341/ minds.
We noted that Puharich himself linked the shamanic experience, the use
of psychoactive substances and the Heliopolitan religion, although he
failed to develop the idea in print (no matter how far he may have
taken it privately). And we were also fascinated by the implications of
the fact that the CIA have spent so much time and resources on
experimenting with shamanic techniques and mind-altering drugs.
The
Pyramid Texts suggested to us that the afterlife journey of the king could also
describe the astral flight characteristic of shamanism. Excitingly, the latest
anthropological research into the phenomenon of shamanism could well provide the
key to understanding the mystery of the extraordinarily advanced knowledge of
the ancient Egyptians and the secrets of the Heliopolitan religion.
The
breakthrough
Shamans
are what used to be called medicine men and women, natural-born
psychics who are nevertheless highly trained to interpret dreams, heal
the sick and guide people through knowledge that comes to them during
their ecstatic trances. They are found in what are generally taken to
be 'primitive' tribal societies, from Siberia to the Amazonian rain
forest. These adepts take shamanic 'flights' out of the body into the
realms normally inaccessible to mankind and return with"
specific information of great practical use.
In
1995 a remarkable book was published in Switzerland entitled Le
serpent cosmique, l'ADN et les origines du savior (The Cosmic Serpent,
DNA and the Origins of Knowledge) by Swiss anthropologist Jeremy
Narby. (It was first published in English in 1998.) It presents the
results of Narby's personal study of Amazonian shamans, and reveals the
remarkable scope of the information shamans glean during the ecstatic
trances they induce by taking natural hallucinogenic substances,
primarily one
called ayahuasca. From this research, Narby developed
a /
Page342
/ theory
about the origins;of that knowledge that - we believe - has enormous
significance for an investigation of the mysteries of ancient
Egypt.
In
the mid-t980s Narby was studying for his doctorate among the indigenous
people of the Peruvian Amazon, working on an enviromental project. Like
many before him he soon became
fascinated by the astounding botanical knowledge of these so
called 'primilitive' people, specifically their medicinal use of
certain rare plants. He was impressed by the range of plantderived
mediciines used by the tribal shamans - ayahuasqueros
and by their effectiveness, especially after they cured a long
- standing back problem which European doctors had proved completely
incapable of treating. The more he learned, the more intrigued he
became about the ways in which the Amazonian natives, had developed or
acquired this knowledge. The odds against them coming up with even one
of these recipes by chance or
even by experimentation are simply overwhelming. There are some
80,000
species of plants in
the Amazonian rain forest, so to discover an effective remedy using a
mixture of just two of them would theoretically require the testing of
every possible combination - about 3,700,000,000 It does not
end there: many of their medicines involve several plants, and even
then such a calculation does not allow for experimentation with the
often extremely complex procedures necessary to extract the active
ingrediants and produce a potent mixture
One
good example
of this mysterious medicinal knowledge is ayahuasca itself, a
combination of just two plants. The first come from the leaves of a
shrub and contains a hormone naturally sectreted in the human brain,
dimethyltryptamine a powerful hal-ucinogen only discovered by Western
science in 1979. If taken orally, though, it is broken down by an
enzyme in the stomach and becomes totally ineffective, so the second
component of ayahuasca, extracted from a creeper, contains several
substances that protect the dimethyltryptamine from that specific
enzyme;
In
effect, ayahuasca is a designer drug, made to order. It is as if the
exact requirements of the mixture were specified in / Page
343 / advance,
then the correct ingredients chosen to meet the requirements. But
how? How could anyone, even sophisticated Westem botanists, have found
the perfect ingredients without spending decades - perhaps even
centuries - on trial and error? How can the 'primitive' Amazonian
natives have known the properties of these two plants? After all, the
odds against them coming up with this combination by accident are truly
astronomical. As Narby writes
So
here are people without electron microscopes who choose, among some
80,000 Amazonian plant species, the leaves of a bush containing a
hallucinogenic brain hormone, which they combine with a vine containing
substances thatinactivate an enzyme of the digestive tract, which
would. otherwise block the hallucinogenic effect. And they do this to
modify their consciousness.
It
is as if
they' knew about the molecular properties of plants and the art
of combining them, and when one asks them how they know these things,
they say their knowledge comes directly from hallucinogenic plants.1
Another
example given by Narby is that of curare.2
This powerful nerve poison is another 'made-to-order' drug, whose
ingredients this time come from several different plants and fit a very
precise set of requirements. As Narby points out, the natives needed a
substance that, when smeared on the tips of blowpipe darts, would not
only kill the animal but also ensure that it would fall to the ground..
Tree monkeys, for example, if shot with an unpoisoned arrow, often
tighten their grip on the branches with a reflex action and so die out
of reach of the hunter. The meat itself would, of course, have to be
free from poison and safe to eat. It seemed like a very tall
order, but curare fits all these requirements: it is a muscle
relaxant (killing by arresting the respiratory muscles); it is only
effective when injected into the bloodstreamhence its delivery by
blowpipe; and it has no effect when taken orally.
Page
344
The
invention of curare is a truly astounding thing. The most common type
requires a complex method of preparation in which several plants are
boiled for three days, during which lethal fumes are produced. And the
final result needs a specific piece of technology - the blowpipe - to
deliver it. How was all this discovered
in the first place?
The
problem becomes even more baffling when it is realised that forty
different types of curare are used across the Amazon rain forest, all
with the same properties but each using slightly different ingredients
as the same plants do not grow in every region. Therefore, in effect,
curare was invented forty times. The Western world only learned of it
in the 1940s, when it first began to be used as a muscle relaxant
during surgery.
The
Amazonians themselves do not claim to have inventedcurare, but that
it was given to them by the spirits, through their shamans.
These
are just two examples from a vast range of vegetable mixtures used by
the peoples of the Amazon, the full extent of which has not yet been
catalogued by modern botanists. Realising that it was nonsense to
suggest that these complex recipes could have been achieved by
experimentation, Narby began to ask local people and shamans how they
had acquired this knowledge. They told him that the properties of
plants and the recipes for combining them are given directly to the
shaman by very powerful spirit entities while he is in ecstatic trance
under the influence of hallucinogens such as ayahuasca. (Of course this
raises a fascinating chicken-and-egg type of problem. If the shamans
discovered the secret properties of ayahuasca only by ingesting it, how
did they know about them in the first place ?)
This
realisation led Narby on to his own personal quest to research this
neglected aspect of shamanism, which included taking ayahuasca himself.
Many anthropologists before Narby had recorded the claim that the
shaman obtains knowledge by the ingestion of hallucinogens, but none
had ever taken this seriously enough to follow it up. He found that
this was a shared feature of Page
345 / shamanism
across, the world and that the tribes ascribe the origins and the
techniques of their culture to knowledge gleaned by their shamans while
in ecstatic trance, during which they
encounter
guiding entities who teach them.
Narby
himself, on his first experience with ayahuasca, encountered 'a
pair of giganticsnakes that lectured him on his
insignificance
as a human being and the limits of his knowledge, which turned out to
be an important personal turning point. He began to question his Western
preconceptions and approached his subsequent studies in a more
open-minded and less scientifically arroganfway. His own book is
itself an example of the way in which the shamanic experience can
impart new knowledge. Narby writes that the serpents induced thoughts
in his mind that he was incapable of having himself.3
The
properties and methods of combining plants to achieve specific results
are not the only things communicated through the trance state by
spiritual entities in this way. The Amazonian tribes ascribe their
knowledge of specific techniques, such as the art of weaving, and
their mastery of woodworking, to the same source. What the shamans
receive while in trance is useful knowledge that often, in the case of
healing, actually saves lives.
Aside
from the question of the reality of such entities, the very idea of
obtaining practical tips and actual information by such a method is, to
our culture, absurd. Tliere are, surely, only two ways of obtaining
knowledge: it is either worked out in logical steps by experiment or
trial-and-error; or it is taught by someone who, or some other culture
which, has already worked it out.
This,
in a nutshell, forms the problem of the origins of the knowledge of the
ancient Egyptians, such as how they built the
'impossible' Great Pyramid. Techniques appeared to come out of nowhere, without any
apparent process of logical or historical development. Since no
archaeological evidence of stage-by-stage technological development has
been found, it can be assumed that the process never occurred. This may
seem crazy, but where are all the failed pyramids 'predating those of
the Old Kingdom? The only alternative seems to be that the ancient
Egyptians / Page 346 / learned
their techniques whole and fully formed from somebody else -
a lost civilisation, or visiting extraterrestrials perhaps.
What
if there is a third way of obtaining useful and unique information: the
way of the shaman, where knowledge is somehow obtained directly from
its source?
The
extraordinary botanical knowledge of the Amazonian peoples forms, in
fact, an exact parallel to the building expertise of the ancient
Egyptians. Not only should it lie beyond the skills of their time and
place, but it also stands far in advance of today's scientific
knowledge.
Questions
and answers
Shamanism
is considered to be a phenomenon of primitive societies, those who
still live at-roughly the level of the Stone Age while surrounded by
the extreme sophistication of the modern world. It was outgrown by the
'advanced' cultures thousands of years ago. However, can we imagine
that shamanic rituals could be practised as a culture moved from
primitive to advanced, perhaps at an even more sophisticated level
than is found in today's Amazonian rain forest? If such a phenomenon
could be conceived, what would be the limits of the knowledge
obtained through the shamans' curious art?
Several
writers have recently noted clear signs of shamanistic influence at
work in ancient Egypt. Andrew Collins, for example, has written of the
shamanistic nature of the 'Elder Culture' that he believes was
responsible for the great achievements of Egypt, but he has also
surmised that they developed the advanced techniques that enabled
them to build the pyramids and carve the Great Sphinx.4 Could the
priesthood of Heliopolis have been in essence a college of shamans,
free to apply their closely guarded techniques for purposes of pure
research? Could the shamanic hypothesis explain how the pyramid
builders knew how to quarry, transport, shape and position immense
blocks of stone, among many other baffling examples of their knowledge?
Page
347
This
would also account for an aspect of the ancient Egyptians' knowledge
that has not been properly explored -
its curiously selective nature. While they are justly famed for their
mysterious expertise in pyramid building, there are certain areas that
- perhaps
bizarrely - appear to have been unknown arts to
them. We
have noted that, despite "the use of colossal granite and limestone
blocks and the extraordinary skill used in shaping them, the walls of
the Valley Temple at Giza Have been built in an oddly primitive way.
And one sophisticated architectural feature completely missing in
ancient Egypt was the arch. Perhaps this is because the development of
the arch requires a conceptual leap, and its construction requires a
theoretical knowledge of weight distribution: Maybe this is also the
reason why the Egyptians do not seem to have mastered the art of
bridge-building.
Recently
French Egyptologist Jean Kerisel has argued persuasively
that cracks in the granite slabs forming the ceiling of the King's Chamber
were not, as previously-thought, the result of an earthquake, but happened
while the Great Pyramid was actually under construction.5
This, he suggests, was because the builders did not understand
the consequences of working with two materials limestove and granite
- of different composition, which would compress at different rates
under the enormous weight of stonepressingdown on them. (If Kerisel
is correct, this would also cast
doubt on the theory that the cavities above the' King's Chamber were
intended as stress-relieving chambers for the building.)
We
have observed the Amazonian shaman's receive specific answers to
specific questions, such as the herbal recipe for the cure for a
specific illness, but rarely more or less than is needed. The same
appears to be true of the Egyptians, who appear to have had information
only about, for example, ways of moving huge blocks of stone. Because
bridges and arches needed new concepts of building, they never asked
the right questions in order to be told how to build them.
Could
this be how the Dogon have such otherwise inexplicable knowledge of the
Sirius system? If the Amazonian shamans can / Page 348 /
They talk of a ladder
- or a vine, a rope, a
spiral staircase, a twisted rope ladder - that connects heaven and
earth and which they use to gain access to the world of spirits. They consider
these spirits have come from the sky and to have created life on earth.
7
This
imagery is found in the ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. For example, in
Utterance 478
-
which speaks of Isis as
the personification of the ladder - it says:
As
for any spirit or any god who will help me when I ascend to the sky on
the ladder of the god; my bones are assembled for me, my limbs are
gathered together for me, and I leap up to the sky in the presence of
the god of the Lord of the ladder.8"
| I |
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| 9 |
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9 |
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BREAD
B
READ
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RED
| 2 |
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READ |
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RE ADD |
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ADD |
9 |
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| 3 |
DAD |
9 |
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9 |
And
another utterance says:
A
ladder is knotted together by Re before Osiris, a ladder
is knotted together by Horns before his father Osiris when he
goes to his spirit, one of them being on this side and one of them
being on that, while I am between them.9
Ascension
to the Milky Way is a central theme of the Pyramid Texts; in Colombia the
ayahuasca vine is known as the 'ladder to the Milky Way'.10
Recognising
the concept of shamanism in the Pyramid Texts radically changes our
understanding of the ancient Egyptians and their religion - and perhaps
even the whole nature of human potential. Could it be that the central
'ascension of the king' is not the description of his afterlife journey
as is always believed, but the shamanic flight to the 'otherworld' - the
realm of guiding spirits - that is undertaken in life? The two are not mutually
exclusive, for the shamans know that the realm they enter when entranced
is the portal to the eternal world of light where the spirits of the dead are
taken, so the Pyramid Texts
/ Page
350 / can
be read as a description of both the shamanic and afterlife journeys.
Traditionally, the journeying shaman is believed to have actually died, to be
resurrected when his soul returns.
Although
shamans are very special people, born with a natural psychic gift, they are
nevertheless required to undergo fearsome initiations by ordeal, the horrors of
which impinge on both the physical and spiritual levels. A classic feature of
the shamanic initiation is a hellish out-of-the-body experience in which they
appear to be torn limb from limb, after which they are magically reassembled. As
Stanislav Grof writes:
"The
career of many shamans start by the powerful experiences of unusual states of
consciousness with the sense of going into the underworld, being attacked,
dismembered, and then being put back together, and ascending to the supernal
realm.11
This
is strikingly reminiscent of the story of Osiris, with whom the king in
the Pyramid Texts is identified, who is cut into pieces by the evil god Set,
but magically reassembled by his lover Isis in order to father the hawk
god Horus, who is in turn regarded as the reincarnation of Osiris as
well as his son. As we have seen in the extract from Utterance 478, Isis
is identified with the legendary ladder, up which the reassembled king climbs to
heaven clearly,
a classic shamanic image.
The
role of Isis is particularly interesting because it portrays the feminine
principle as being essential to the shamanic journey. In fact, the
whole concept of female initiates has been sadly neglected, but perhaps for
unexpected reasons. At a London conference in October 1996 called The Incident,
Jeremy Narby was questioned on why all the shamans he had mentioned in his talk
were men. He replied that specially selected women often sit with the
ayahuasqueros as, fuelled with the drug, they embark on their out-of-the-body
adventures. The women actually accompany them and share in their experience,
and afterwards, when !hey have returned to normal consciousness, help them to /
Page 351 / remember
what took place in those other realms. But the important
point is that the women do all this without taking
ayahuasca.
| A |
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AYAHUASQUEROS |
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AYA |
27 |
9 |
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HUA |
30 |
12 |
3 |
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SQ |
36 |
9 |
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UE |
26 |
8 |
8 |
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R |
18 |
9 |
9 |
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OS |
34 |
7 |
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AYAHUASQUEROS |
171 |
54 |
45 |
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AYAHUASQUEROS |
9 |
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Page 351 continues
Clearly,
the female companions of the shamans have no need of chemical aids for their
spiritual flights. Why is not known, possibly because women's roles have
traditionally been of less interest to anthropologists.
The
mathematician, cyberneticist and mythologist Charles Muses has written
extensively on shamanism. (As with most of his non-New Age / mystical writings
under the pseudonym of 'Musaios', these are particularly incisive and
persuasive.) He has noted the nature of its essential significance:
The
point of shamanism is really not ecstasy, 'archaic' or otherwise, or even
'healing', but rather the development of communication with a community of
higher than human beings and a modus operandi for attaining an eventual
transmutation to more exalted states and paths.12
Muses
goes on to make the explicit parallel between this, the underlying objective of
shamanism, and the religion of ancient Egypt. He equates the Duat -
the afterlife realm to which the king travels - of the Pyramid Texts, not with a
mythical otherworld but with the Tibetan Bardo, where spirits live between
incarnations and which certain special people can visit during life.
The
Pyramid Texts also speak of the 'deceased' being transformed into a 'body of
light' (aker), which again may imply more than a straightforward
afterlife existence. Charles Muses says: ,'The acquisition of a higher body by
an individual-meant also, by that very token, the possibility of communicating
with beings already so endowed.'14 In other
words, anyone with a higher body can communicate with anyone else who exists in
the light., Shamans, during their trips to the invisible realm, can make
contact with all the higher beings who live there.
In
our opinion, Jeremy Narby's ground-breaking work on shamanism has important
implications for some of the recent / Page 352 /
theories concerning the origins of
Egyptian wisdom, particularly those of the 'ancient astronaut' school.
Proponents of such hypotheses, such as Alan F. Alford, tend to treat the myths
and religious writings, such as the Pyramid Texts, in an excessively literal
way. When the ancients tell us of meetings with partanimal, part-man entities,
who descend to Earth or to whom the priest ascends, and who impart specific
information, such researchers assume these to be garbled stories of actual
meetings with exotic beings from outer space, making gods of astronauts.
Shamans
living in the Amazonian rain forest today regularly describe identical
experiences - sometimes under the
watchful gaze of anthropologists - without the least suggestion of a descending
spaceship or visitors from a lost continent.
But
who are the entities from whom shamans have always received their invaluable
knowledge?
It
is possible that we will never be able to answer that question fully. Even
shamans know that some mysteries and secrets are never meant to be understood.
But once again, the work of Jeremy Narby may provide certain exciting clues
about what it is that shamans - from ancient Heliopolis to today -
tap into when they enter their exalted states of consciousness.
Narby
noted that the visions of shamans across the world shared certain key images,
the most fundamental being that of twin serpents that live inside every
creature. The penny finally dropped for him when he read about Michael Harner's
experience in 1961. He saw winged, dragonlike creatures who explained to him
that they 'had created life on the planet in order to hide within the
multitudinous forms. . . I learned that the dragon-like creatures were thus
inside all forms of life, including man' .15
Harner
himself wrote that 'one could say they were almost like DNA', but added that he
had no Idea where the vision came from -
certainly not from his own mind, as at that time he knew nothing about DNA.
Whatever the origin of the words, this was to be a major inspiration: Narby
realised that the image of 'serpents' living inside every living thing is, in
fact, an excellent description of the strands of DNA.
ANDDNAANDDNAANDDNAANDDNAANDDNAANDDNA
Page
353
Shamans
ascribe the source of their remarkable knowledge to these twin serpents, like
the two Narby himself encountered. Could it be that the 'primitive' belief that
all living things are animated by the same single principle, described in this
ubiquitous serpentine imagery, is actually correct and that what it has always
described is DNA? Narby cites numerous examples, from ancient myths and the
shamanistic lore of 'primitive' cultures from Peru to
Australia, to support his superb connection between the ser- pents and DNA.
The
shamans insist that the 'serpents' possess consciousness and that they enter
into real dialogue with them.The shamans are, in reality, somehow communicating
with DNA, the implication is that it must be intelligent: the DNA of the
ayahuasca plants, for example, must 'know' its own properties, but will only
impart them to the shaman in answer to specific questions. This means that the
DNA has to understand the question and be able to communicate with the shaman's
own DNA. Can the DNA of one individual living creature really communicate with
that of another?
Narby"s
theory still has a long way to go. For example, it is hard to see how
intelligent DNA can explain the knowledge the shamans receive about specific
techniques, such as weaving or mixing curare. The important achievement is that
he has shown that shamans derive usable information by mental contact with some
nonhuman source. And they do appear to be in touch with the 'gods', or at least
some strange beings who exist in another dimension and share their undoubted
powers with them.
Another
very significant aspect of Narby's research is his identification of a common
feature throughout the shamanistic cultures (and ancient myths):. divine twins
as the bringers of wisdom, 'the theme of double beings of celestial origin and
creators of life' .16 He points out, for example, quoting from Claude
Levi-Strauss, that the Aztec word coatl, as in the name Quetzalcoatl,
mean both 'snake' and 'twin' (Quetzalcoatl can be interpreted as either 'feathered
serpent' or 'magnificent twin'.) Narby believes that the 'twin
serpents' so often encountered during shamanic flights and which he himself
experienced / Page 354 / represent
the two strands of the double helix of DNA,"
|
12 |
QUETZALCOATL |
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ZALCOATL |
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ATL |
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72 |
45 |
9 |
|
FEATHE |
45 |
27 |
9 |
|
RED |
27 |
18 |
9 |
| 8 |
SERPENTS |
116 |
35 |
8 |
| 8 |
PRESENTS |
116 |
35 |
8 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
6 |
DOUBLE |
59 |
23 |
5 |
|
5 |
HELIX |
58 |
31 |
4 |
|
11 |
DOUBLE HELIX |
117 |
54 |
9 |
|
1+1 |
|
1+1+7 |
5+4 |
|
|
2 |
DOUBLE HELIX |
9 |
9 |
9 |
| 3 |
AND |
|
|
|
| 3 |
DNA |
|
|
|
|
DN |
18 |
9 |
9 |
|
A |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
19 |
10 |
10 |
| 3 |
DNA |
1 |
1 |
1 |
| 4 |
CODE |
|
|
|
|
CO |
18 |
9 |
9 |
|
DE |
9 |
9 |
9 |
| 4 |
CODE |
27 |
18 |
9 |
|
|
|
|
|
| 4 |
AGTC |
31 |
13 |
4 |
| 8 |
THIRTEEN |
99 |
45 |
9 |
|
|
|
|
13 |
| 8 |
THIRTEEN |
99 |
45 |
9 |
Page 354
(Continues)
"This reminds us of the two sets of
twins in the Heliopolitan religion (Isis and Osiris, Nepthys and Set) as well as
the Nommo of the Dogon, as described in Robert Temple's The Sirius Mystery, who
are also made up of sets of twins and descend to earth to civilise mankind.18
Again, Narby's shamanic theory provides an elegant and, in our view, much more plausible- alternative to the ubiquitous
'ancient astronaut' explanation for these myths.
Perhaps
DNA has other secrets to impart. The genetic code in the human genome is made up
of just 3 per cent of its total DNA - the function of the rest is unknown, and
is officially termed 'junk DNA'. Narby suggests that a better term would be
'mystery DNA'.19 How many 'miracles' and how much potential does the other 97
per cent encompass?
'Spirits from the sky'
Narby's ideas about DNA and shamanism
throw a completely new light on hitherto intractable historical mysteries. Were
the outline drawings of animals and birds on the sands of Nazca in Peru meant to
be guides to and celebrations of the shaman's flight? Did the Dogon discover the
secrets of Sirius simply by asking their shamans' spirit guides? Were the
massive stone blocks that make up the giant pyramids of Egypt manoeuvred into
place according to the advice of the 'gods' visited by their priests in trance?
Significantly
the flight of the shaman also enables him to visit far
distant places and later describe what he saw and heard there
in
other words, remote viewing. This aspect of shamanism particularly intrigued
anthropologist Kenneth Kensinger, who tested it among the ayahuasqueros of the
Amazon and found that they were able to 'bring back' accurate information about
distant places, as well as tell him about the death of a relative before he
heard about it himself.20 (Andrija Puharich also studied the
remote-viewing potential of shamans, as described in Chapter 6.) /
Page 355 / We
asked Jeremy Narby if he agreed with us that his ideas could account for the
extraordinary knowledge implicit in the building of the pyramids. He pointed out
that the Aztecs, Incas and Maya had constructed comparable temples, and that
'the double serpent, or Quetzalcoatl, or Viracocha, or whatever figure you take
depending on the culture, teaches about curing, healing and plants, but also
about astronomy, building techniques, technology - arts and crafts in general.
'21
| 5 |
AZTEC |
55 |
19 |
1 |
| 6 |
AZTECS |
74 |
20 |
2 |
|
|
|
|
|
| 4 |
INCA |
27 |
18 |
9 |
| 5 |
INCAS |
46 |
19 |
1 |
|
|
|
|
|
| 4 |
MAYA |
40 |
31 |
4 |
| 5 |
MAYAN |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
6 |
INDIAN |
51 |
33 |
6 |
|
4 |
RACE |
27 |
18 |
9 |
|
5 |
RACES |
46 |
19 |
1 |
| 12 |
QUETZALCOATL |
153 |
45 |
9 |
| 9 |
VIRACOCHA |
80 |
44 |
8 |
| 6 |
OSIRIS |
89 |
35 |
8 |
| 3 |
SET |
44 |
8 |
8 |
|
LORD PACAL |
82 |
37 |
1 |
Page 355
"Narby was cautious about stepping
outside his field of specialism. But was there really an ancient Egyptian
equivalent of
ayahuasca - and
if so, what was it? Synchronistically, the Channel 4 television series, Sacred
Weeds, went far in answering this question. This four-part series, first shown
in August 1998, featured the use of natural hallucinogens in sacred practices
such as shamanism. The final programme attempted to rediscover what some
believed to be an ancient Egyptian ritual drug, the blue waterlily.
Although
now very rare, this plant was commonly used both recreationally and ritually by
the ancient Egyptians. It is frequently depicted in wall paintings and papyri,
and even fobms the design of the pillars of the great temple at Karnak.
Egyptologists believed it to have been merely decorative, but the programme set
out to determine if it had a psychoactive effect, which may well have been
exploited in ancient Egypt. Interestingly, the lily was specifically associated
with Ra-Atum. Seeing the way the plant flowers, shooting a long stem out of the
water which then bursts into an open flower, it is easy to see the symbolic
association with Atum's bursting forth from the primeval waters.
| R |
A |
|
A |
T |
U |
M |
| 18 |
1 |
|
1 |
20 |
21 |
13 |
| 1+8 |
|
|
|
2+0 |
2+1 |
1+3 |
| 9 |
1 |
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
|
R |
A |
|
A |
T |
U |
M |
|
|
|
A |
T |
U |
M |
|
|
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
|
|
|
A |
T |
U |
M |
As
tested on two volunteers, an extract from the blue lily proved to have the
suspected narcotic effect. Towards the
end of the programme historian Michael Carmichael, an American living in Oxford
who is a specialist in the shamanic use of psychoactive plants, discussed the
possibility that, in higher doses, it could be used to induce shamanic
experiences.
We
contacted Carmichael, who worked with R. Gordon Wasson, one of the pioneers of
research into the shamanic
use of / Page 356 / drugs
(see Chapter 5). He told us that there is abundant evidence
for the use - of psychoactive drugs in ancient.Egypt, saying, 'there are so many
that I don't know where to begiin'.22 Several
are mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus (c.1500 BCE, the oldest known medical text in
the world). They are known to have included opium (imported from Crete),-
mandrake and cannabis. The psychoactive substances used by ancient cultures,
includingeEgypt, have been studied by several researchers. Little if anything
of: this has found its way into the Egyptological literature Because of its characteristic
extreme conservatism.23
| 5 |
OPIUM |
74 |
29 |
2 |
| 8 |
MANDRAKE |
67 |
31 |
4 |
| 8 |
CANNABIS |
63 |
27 |
9 |
| 7 |
HASHISH
72 |
36
9 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
HASHISH |
|
|
|
|
HA |
9 |
9 |
9 |
|
SH |
27 |
9 |
9 |
|
I |
9 |
9 |
9 |
|
SH |
27 |
9 |
9 |
| 7 |
HASHISH |
72 |
36 |
36 |
|
|
|
|
3+6 |
| 3 |
HIS |
36 |
18 |
9 |
| 4 |
HASH |
36 |
18 |
9 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 4 |
HASH |
36 |
18 |
9 |
| 4 |
SHAH |
36 |
18 |
9 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 7 |
HASHISH |
72 |
36 |
9 |
| 5 |
RISHI |
63 |
36 |
9 |
| 4 |
ISHI |
45 |
27 |
9 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
I |
|
|
|
|
ME |
|
|
|
| 4 |
ISHI |
45 |
27 |
9 |
