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 | 
              19 | 
              9 | 
              19 | 
            
             
               | 
                1+9  | 
               | 
                1+9  | 
            
             
               | 
              10 | 
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              10 | 
            
             
               | 
              1+0 | 
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              1+0 | 
            
             
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              1 | 
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              1 | 
            
             
              | 9 | 
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              | 9 | 
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              | I | 
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      BREAD
      B
      READ
      B
      RED
       
       
        
          
             
              | 2 | 
              RE | 
              23 | 
              14 | 
              5 | 
            
             
              | 3 | 
              RED | 
              27 | 
              18 | 
              9 | 
            
             
              | 4 | 
              READ | 
              28 | 
              19 | 
              1 | 
            
             
              | 5 | 
              RE ADD | 
              32 | 
              23 | 
              5 | 
            
             
              | 3 | 
              ADD | 
              9 | 
              9 | 
              9 | 
            
             
              | 3 | 
              DAD | 
              9 | 
              9 | 
              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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              1 | 
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              21 | 
              1 | 
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              21 | 
              5 | 
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              19 | 
            
             
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              7 | 
              1 | 
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              1 | 
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              8 | 
              3 | 
              5 | 
              9 | 
              6 | 
              10 | 
            
             
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               | 
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              7 | 
              1 | 
              8 | 
              3 | 
              1 | 
              1 | 
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              3 | 
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              9 | 
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              |   13  | 
              AYAHUASQUEROS | 
                171  | 
                54  | 
                9  | 
            
             
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              |   13  | 
              AYAHUASQUEROS | 
               | 
               | 
               | 
            
             
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              AYA | 
                27  | 
                9  | 
                9  | 
            
             
               | 
              HUA | 
                30  | 
                12  | 
                3  | 
            
             
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              SQ | 
                36  | 
                9  | 
                9  | 
            
             
               | 
              UE | 
                26  | 
              8 | 
              8 | 
            
             
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              R | 
              18 | 
              9 | 
              9 | 
            
             
               | 
              OS | 
                34  | 
                7  | 
                7  | 
            
             
              |   13  | 
              AYAHUASQUEROS | 
                171  | 
                54  | 
                45  | 
            
             
              | 1+3 | 
               | 
                1+7+1  | 
                5+4  | 
                4+5  | 
            
             
              |   4  | 
                AYAHUASQUEROS  | 
              9 | 
              9 | 
              9 | 
            
             
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               | 
               | 
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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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                63  | 
                18  | 
              9 | 
            
             
               | 
              ZALCOATL | 
                90  | 
                27  | 
              9 | 
            
             
              |   12  | 
              QUETZALCOATL | 
                153  | 
                45  | 
                9  | 
            
             
              | 1+2 | 
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                9  | 
                9  | 
                9  | 
            
             
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              |   12  | 
                QUETZALCOATL  | 
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               | 
              QUET | 
                63  | 
              18 | 
              9 | 
            
             
               | 
              ZA | 
              27 | 
              9 | 
              9 | 
            
             
               | 
              L | 
              12 | 
              3 | 
              3 | 
            
             
               | 
              CO | 
              18 | 
              9 | 
              9 | 
            
             
               | 
              ATL | 
              33 | 
              6 | 
              6 | 
            
             
              |   12  | 
              QUETZALCOATL | 
                153  | 
                45  | 
                9  | 
            
             
              | 1+2 | 
               | 
              1+5+3 | 
                4+5  | 
               | 
            
             
              |   3  | 
               | 
                9  | 
                9  | 
                9  | 
            
             
               | 
               | 
               | 
               | 
               | 
            
             
               | 
               | 
               | 
               | 
               | 
            
             
              |   12  | 
              QUETZALCOATL | 
                153  | 
                45  | 
                9  | 
            
             
              |   9  | 
              FEATHERED | 
                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 |