Supernatural: Meetings With the Ancient Teachers of Mankind
Supernatural: Meetings With the Ancient Teachers of Mankind
by Graham Hancock
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THE STONED AGE Graham Hancock Believes Human Culture Arose With The Use Of Hallucinogens
When the possibility of interviewing Graham Hancock presented itself, I wasn't sure if I could do it -- time was tight, there was a 700-page book to read, and I had a host of other commitments. But, then, as my partner Donna slipped into the hypnagogic state -- that trance-like transition between waking and sleeping -- she suddenly blurted, "An old woman in a blue dress just popped into my head and said you should do it." When Hancock heard this story, he chuckled and commented, "Interesting."
After reading Hancock's latest book, Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind (Doubleday Canada. 710 pages, $39.95), I might be convinced that Donna's vision wasn't entirely random.
Supernatural takes readers on a trip from ancient pre-history to the present day, seeking the beginnings and tracing the evolution of human consciousness.
From cave art to DNA, from Amazonian shamans to American psychedelic drug research, from alien abduction stories to DNA coding, Hancock searches for clues about how those little people in our heads have been talking to humans for millennia -- and the possibility that maybe they're not in our heads at all.
"I'd had the germ of the idea for a book on the mysteries of human origins for years," Hancock, who is in his 50s, explains over the phone from Bath, England, where he's preparing for a tour of Canada to promote Supernatural.
When I started to research it (human origins) seriously," he continues, "I discovered most of it wasn't interesting or mysterious. It was incredibly dull for millions of years. It's only after 40,000 years ago, and really rather suddenly, that it starts to get interesting."
This interest in his subject matter drives Hancock. Supernatural is as much a record of his investigation as it is a synthesis of archeology, science, and belief. "I wanted to bring my personal experience to this inquiry. If I'm going to write it, I have to experience it for myself."
He documents his visions as he ingests the African hallucinogenic root, iboga, drinks ayahuasca with South American shamans, doses himself with illicitly obtained DMT, and eats magic mushrooms on a henge in England. Less psychedelically, he describes what he sees in his visits to the painted caves and rock shelters of Europe and South Africa.
Indeed, the rock art provides the clues that inspire his interpretations of the origins of being human. "The great and dramatic change seems marked by, expressed through the rock and cave-wall art. In other words, human experiences with altered states of consciousness and the resultant visions seem to have been instrumental in the transformation of our ancestors," he says. "Cave art quite explicitly connects the great change in human behaviour to visionary experiences, and documents this connection."
Hancock elaborates: "Our ancestors reached full anatomical modernity at least 200,000 years ago, with fully modern brain size. But what we would recognize as modern human behaviour -- with all its subtleties and creativity, with all its powers to conceive of the abstract and to manipulate symbols -- only shows up in the archeological record after 40,000 years ago.
"The hardware stayed the same -- homo sapiens had reached full anatomical modernity, with the modern-sized brain, at least 160,000 years previously. So what changed had to do with the software -- with the basic programming of human behaviour."
Specifically, he posits that it was altered states induced by hallucinogens or trance-inducing practices that sparked human culture as we know it. "Visionary experiences seemed to switch it (consciousness) on."
Hancock's heady mix of adventure-travel, history, archeology, and speculation has earned him a huge readership. His books have sold more than five million copies around the world.
"It's the mysteries that are fascinating," he says. The mysteries that Hancock has plumbed in his work before Supernatural have included the Ark of the Covenant, the riddles of the Sphinx, and lost continent of Atlantis.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, he spent his early years in India, where his father was a surgeon, and later graduated from Durham University in 1973 with first class honours in sociology. He began his writing career as journalist, working for leading newspapers in the U.K. like The Times, The Independent, and The Guardian. By the early 1980s, he was East African correspondent for The Economist. "In Ethiopa, I came across the claim that the lost Ark of the Covenant was there, and I met the guardian of the ark," he recalls.
Over the next several years, Hancock followed the story. "I pursued my investigation of the ark as an investigative journalist." The resulting book, The Sign and the Seal (1992), was his breakthrough into bestsellerdom. He switched the direction of his writing, and he carried on exploring mysteries of lost civilizations for 10 years.
The nature of Hancock's material, and his very unorthodox challenges to conventional wisdom, have gained him legions of fans and detractors. Of his methods, he says, "I'm synthesizing a lot of material. When it's brought together it gains a lot of force." For some, this kind of synthesis is contrary to scientific and academic practice. For others, it is a welcome alternative.
Hancock argues that "archeologists and academic historians have appointed themselves as the spokesmen for and sole interpreters of the past in the modern world. Often they do brilliant work, but they can be extremely dogmatic and narrow-minded over certain issues. I think there is room for alternative perspectives."
Supernatural is unlikely to quell either the enthusiasm for or the criticism of his work or methods. Chapter titles like The Shabby Academy, are sure to raise the ire of the orthodox. The detailed analysis of alien abduction narratives will attract the Area 51 and Roswell conspiracy fanatics. His voyages into inner space will appeal to 21st century theosophists.
Hancock remarks that "How readers react and which particular readers respond to a book is something I can't control. All I can do is write the best book I can -- which means writing with passion about things I'm interested in."
Ultimately, Hancock distances himself from the reception of his
books: "I've always written my books for me, about subjects that I have a special interest in." Undoubtedly his enthusiasm and no small skill as a journalist and storyteller help to engage readers.
Supernatural explores fascinating territories of the known and unknown, perhaps even the knowable and the unknowable. And the next time a voice pops into your head while you're daydreaming -- well, it might really be trying to tell you something important. Maybe.
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