by yesferatu » Sun Oct 22, 2006 12:49 pm
<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I could feel it<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>That's called subjectivity. <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :rolleyes --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/eyes.gif ALT=":rolleyes"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br><<If we look at the mainstream model of what hallucinations are, we find scientists explaining them as merely the brain in a disturbed state releasing items from memory, and from culture, reconstructing them in novel ways to create the bizarre non-real imagery that we call hallucinations. But this individualistic approach can't possibly be the explanation, because it doesn't account for the incredible universality of these images, reported by people from completely different cultures with no shared memories at all. So we have a huge mystery here, in my view. Why is it that 'non-real' experiences from all parts of the globe and all periods of history, have so many clearly-identifiable common features?<br><br> I conclude that “coincidence” – that much over-used longstop of materialist arguments – cannot explain the massive universality of many supposedly “non-real” human experiences. To cut a long story very short, I think there are two possibilities – both extraordinary – which could provide us with fruitful answers to this mystery. <br><br>One is that the brain is fundamentally a receiver of consciousness, not simply a generator of consciousness. To function in the everyday world, our brains have to be set at a certain wavelength, and have to stay pretty much tuned in to that wavelength, like a TV set tuned into a channel. But a variety of means exist (most of them long ago harnessed and exploited by shamans) by which we can change the receiver wavelength of our brains and pick up other realities which are not normally present in our daily perceptions, but are in fact there. So we can reach other dimensions that way, not through some sort of mechanistic fantasy of 21st century technology, but simply through retuning our consciousness - and perhaps that's what these shamanic hallucinogens do. <br><br>The second extraordinary possibility, which I also look into in some depth, goes back to the thinking of Francis Crick. It's not a widely known fact that Crick was under the influence of LSD when he discovered the double-helix structure of DNA and that this supreme achievement of scientific rationalism, for which he won the Nobel Prize, came to him in an altered, even mystical state of consciousness. <br><br>Until his death in 2004 Crick remained an atheist, deeply committed to the materialist (i.e. non-spiritual) view of reality. Nevertheless he was unable to accept that the DNA molecule could have assembled itself by accident. So he came to the idea that perhaps life originated on Earth this way: perhaps billions of years ago on the other side of the galaxy, doomed by a supernova, some ancient alien civilization sought to preserve its DNA, and he suggests that bacteria - perhaps with genetically engineered DNA inside them - were sent out into the Universe in spaceships. Eventually one of those ships crashed into the early Earth, and the bacteria containing that DNA began to reproduce, and the whole story of evolution as our scientists tell it started there. Once we have the DNA, evolution becomes plausible. Until we have the DNA, it's difficult to explain. <br><br>But if his explanation has anything to it, then it may be the case that DNA carries more than just genetic instructions. 97% of DNA we don't know what it does - scientists call it 'junk DNA'. It may be that there's some kind of message, or even a vast archive of messages, inscribed on these supposedly redundant stretches of DNA. I present strong evidence for this in the book – solid scientific evidence that reveals an intriguing linguistic structure in junk DNA. It may also be that we can only access these messages in altered states of consciousness. So these are the elements of the second possibility I pursue: that we may see these universal images because they are stored in the stretches of DNA that all humans share, and that they are in a sense messages to us from our creator - whoever our creator was. Once again, common sense and logic suggests the very least we can do is enquire further into this and see. We have the means, the hallucinogens - this technology to enquire into these secret chambers inside our own minds...Or parallel universes, if that's what they are.>><br><br><snip><br><br>The scenario favoured by materialists that the DNA molecule could have assembled itself by accident out of any imaginable “primeval soup” has been rightly described as about as likely as a Boeing 767 being assembled in perfect working order by a hurricane in a junkyard. And this is what bothered Crick – this amazing statistical improbability - not because he came to it from a religious point of view, but because he came to it from a scientific point of view. He simply could not see how the DNA molecule could have self-assembled just by chance, and if he couldn't see it, then it's difficult to understand why anybody else should see it. <br><br><snip><br><br>The beings that are called spirits in shamanic societies, the beings that were called fairies and elves in medieval Europe, and the beings that are called aliens today. I was inevitably drawn to this because in taking ayahuasca I had something like an alien abduction experience myself. It led me to look at comparisons between the spirits that shamans have spoken of down the ages, and aliens that modern so-called UFO abductees speak of today. I realised there were astonishingly close, really eerie spine-tingling comparisons, between these two supposedly very different categories of beings.<br><br>When I learnt of Vallee's work, which was conducted in the 1960s, and compared fairies with aliens, I realised that the similarities spread even further, and I decided to update and extend Vallee's investigation, looking at the huge body of evidence that's become available on alien abductions since the end of the 1960s, and comparing that with folklore about fairies and elves. I think the comparison is absolutely watertight - what we are dealing with here is one phenomenon, which has been with the human race since we first became human, and which we have interpreted in slightly different ways at different periods of history. We see this phenomenon through our cultural spectacles, but when you allow for that you realise that it's the same phenomenon all the time - whether we call them spirits, whether we call them fairies, or whether we call them aliens. <br><br>I’m quite confident now that the key to all such experiences is to be found in altered states of consciousness. But I also want to re-emphasise that when I speak of experiences stemming from altered states of consciousness, I absolutely do NOT mean to imply that those experiences are necessarily “unreal”. On the contrary, I think there's a very good chance that many so-called supernatural encounters, including those we call "alien abductions" today, are 100 per cent real but are difficult to demonstrate scientifically precisely because they are only accessible to us in altered states of consciousness. I also accept that there are paradoxical physical elements often associated with visionary experiences, from the implants that shamans and alien-abductees find in their bodies, to mysterious healings, to objects and other traces, even books sometimes, left behind by “spirits”, “fairies” and “aliens”. It’s a huge mystery and it has haunted our ancestors for at least 35,000 years.<br><br>What’s interesting here is that it depends on our understanding of the brain. Persinger is also talking about altered states of consciousness - it’s just that his particular approach is to induce them through the use of electromagnetic fields, instead of inducing them through the use of chemical hallucinogens. But the end effect is the same. Now, Persinger might be a reductionist, and he might say “the brain changes I observe when I fire this electromagnetic field at my subject’s head have caused his experiences of small beings standing beside him.” <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>But that causal connection is not at all clear – it may be that the electromagnetic fields simply retuned the receiver wavelength of the brain, and allowed it to pick up another “reality”, that is only accessible in altered states.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->>><br><br>Graham Hancock interview<br><br>Nothing illogical, irrational, or mysterious about this, your faux-skeptical <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>ignorance</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br>notwithstanding<br><br>It's one word.<br><br>not•with•stand•ing<br><br>Pronunciation: (not"wi&thslash;-stan'ding, -with-), [key] <br>—prep. <br>in spite of; without being opposed or prevented by: Notwithstanding a brilliant defense, he was found guilty. She went to the game anyway, doctor's orders notwithstanding. <br><br>—conj. <br>in spite of the fact that; although: It was the same material, notwithstanding the texture seemed different. <br><br>Interview <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.dailygrail.com/node/2369" target="top">here</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
