The book starts with Hancock sampling psychotropic plants that have long been used in shamanist practice. (This is for purely educational purposes, of course ).) He begins by relating his experience with the root bark of Tabernanthe iboga, containing the hallucinogenic chemical ibogaine. Hancock tells us this is administered by a reputable healer and with a doctor present. It leads to a pretty intense series of hallucinations and an OBE that affect Hancock quite profoundly,
I hadn't expected ibogaine to make a difference, but it did. From the moment I woke up with my strength recovered I knew that it had flipped a sort of switch in me because I was no longer able to see anything in the same negative, nihilistic way as I had done before, (p.13)
It also leaves him “violently ill and unable to walk†for a further 12 hours after the visions conclude.
After this introduction, he launches into some of the history of cave art, presenting David Lewis-Williams' neuropsychological theory. While the human brain has been anatomically the same for 200000 years, it is only about 30000 years ago that humans begin to paint the caves. This theory states that it was the newly discovered ability to access altered states through psychotropic plants and other methods such as dancing, drumming, sensory deprivation and physical trauma that altered humankind dramatically, resulting in the development of religion and culture, as reflected in cave art. Prehistoric cave art, according to this theory, depicts the experiences of shamans while hallucinating.
Hancock now relates the experience he has had, prior to his experience with ibogaine, of drinking the sacred ayahuasca -the “vine of the deadâ€Â- in the Peruvian Amazon. (There are coloured prints of ayahuasca vision-inspired artworks at the centre of the book. If you’re interested, try http://www.pabloamaringo.com/ They are quite beautiful.) Before he does so, however, he points out the unlikelihood of the Indians discovering the properties of this plant. Of the 80000 plants they can choose from they find not only a bush with hallucinogenic leaves but also how to combine it with a vine that inactivates an enzyme in the digestive tract that would block the hallucinogenic effect.
So, he attends his first ceremony conducted by a shaman in the jungle. His hallucination begins with “entoptic phenomenaâ€Â/ “phosphenes†or “form constants:†technical terms for the patterns, often geometric, that appear before the real hallucinations/visions begin. As a chant begins, he finds that the phosphenes he sees (that form into the flank of a giant serpent and the eye of a peacock’s display feather) begin to beat in time to the chant and he feels as though he is rising. He is nauseous and there’s a chance he’ll evacuate his bowels. Then, he comes down, feeling he has only “stood at the doors of perception†and resolves to drink more of the horrible brew.
In this second experience, the opening images are overlaid with large snakes. This is a universal experience for ayahuasca users. These snakes, he tells us, often resolve into the double helix of DNA. He begins to vomit and sweat, finding himself on his hands and knees. When he returns to the circle, he suddenly encounters two beings of white light only three or four feet tall. They have heart- shaped faces on big domed foreheads and seem to be trying to communicate with him when he is again overwhelmed by bout of vomiting. He continues in this way, relating other ayahuasca experiences and beginning to hint at his belief that these are not mere hallucinations, in the sense that Science uses the word, but glimpses into spiritual dimensions. He elaborates on that later.
Of interest is that he encounters the classic grey aliens in further experiences of ayahuasca,
…then suddenly I find myself looking, at very close range, into a shockingly “alien†face, grey in colour, with a wide domed forehead and narrow pointed chin – heart shaped like the faces of the “light-beingsâ€Â….But this creature doesn’t look friendly. Its eyes are multi-segmented like those of flies….since aliens and ETs have never been interests of mine, I’m really puzzled to experience such an hallucination….A short while later… a beautiful Egyptian goddess appears. (pp68-69)
What’s frightening is something that would be easy to interpret as an abduction experience – the feeling that if I allow the vision to continue I’m going to be taken up by those metal ships. They rotate and pulse with light from beneath, seeming to rise through a tube or funnel in the universe. I distinctly don’t want to be taken and open my eyes to stop what I’m seeing. But the strangeness persists. I’m back in the real world but just out of sight I can feel serpents, dragons, demonic aliens and spaceships whirling all around. (pp71-72)
He goes on to describe the alien as different to the serpents and dragons, as a huge insect with humanoid features. He also describes other insect creatures, less intelligent worker beings, that are present as well.
In his final ayahuasca vision, Hancock encounters a therianthrope, that is an animal-human hybrid, in this case a man crocodile being. Again this is typical of the sort of entity encountered by the Indian shamans. Hancock later sees many of the things he experienced in his visions in Pablo Amaringo’s paintings of his ayahuasca visions.
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