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 serpents and DNA.
The shamans insist that the ‘serpents’ possess consciousness and that they enter into real dialogue with them. If 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 Lévi-Strauss, that the Aztec word coatl, as in the name Quetzalcoatl, means both ‘snake’ and ‘twin’.17 (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 represent the two strands of the double helix of DNA. 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.)
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
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 forms 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.
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 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 begin’.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, including Egypt, 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
Several other scientists and researchers have studied the shamanic practices of ancient Egypt and their use of psychoactive drugs. They include Benny Shanon, a cognitive psychologist and philosopher at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Carmichael agreed emphatically with Narby’s observations that useful information can be gained by shamans in their ecstatic states, from communion with otherwordly entities. He told us:
These substances are used as vehicles to expedite shamanistic performance, in that the shaman is able to elevate his consciousness to a new level, whereby he can experience nature at a much more astute, acute and engaged level than is the normal case with human perception. He is then able to witness natural phenomena which other people are not able to witness in normal states of consciousness... That is what gives him his deeper and more profound insights into nature and the world.24
But what are the entities? Are they ‘real’, or elaborate constructs of the shaman’s mind? Carmichael pointed out that this question involved the whole philosophical and metaphysical argument about the nature of reality itself, and was probably unanswerable. We suggested that one test of the reality of the shaman’s experience was whether the knowledge he acquired actually worked - which, as we have seen, it most assuredly does. Carmichael agreed.
Turning to the question of the inexplicable knowledge of the ancient Egyptians, Carmichael - who is well acquainted with the ideas of the New Egyptology - told us:
My own belief at this point in time is that the pyramids were no
t built by a space-faring race that came from a Martian colony. I see no evidence for that whatsoever... While it’s unsound of modern Egyptologists to presume that plants and other substances were used by the ancient Egyptians in sacred contexts solely for their decorative or the aesthetic properties, it would be just as unsound for us to believe that they had to build the pyramids in exactly the way that we suppose that they would have built them. It might not have been slaves and whips, nor may it necessarily have been through some sort of acoustic levitational technology. It may have been some other way. There may be a technology between those extremes. Shamanistic experience could well have been the door, the gate, the stargate through which the ancient Egyptian architects and engineers were able to achieve that technology.
So what are the entities? Nature spirits, the gods, a dramatisation from the shaman’s subconscious mind, somehow personifying information picked up by ESP or even DNA? Or could the shaman really be in contact with beings on some far-off world?
Jeremy Narby told us: ‘I guess this is what your average Amazonian shaman would testify: travelling in his mind to another planet.’ He referred to the paintings of an Amazonian shaman, Pablo Ameringo, who depicts the things he sees under the influence of ayahuasca, saying:
Different plants contain different molecules, and they set off different kinds of visions. There are even different kinds of ayahuascas, some of which are a lot more organic and make you see things about nature on Earth, whereas others will make you see things more like distant worlds with cities and so forth. In Pablo Ameringo’s paintings you get a bit of both. If you look at the paintings of the distant cities - because this is one of the common themes that comes up in the ayahuasca literature, distant cities with hypersophisticated technology and so on - they’re filled with pyramids, and Babel towers, and minarets.
Although such scenes and entities may well not originate from another planet, no one has all the answers. It will probably turn out to have a much more complex - and stranger - explanation than a straightforward extraterrestrial hypothesis. But it may be significant that Whitley Strieber has described similar visions of ‘golden cities’ and exotic otherworldly structures.25 Similarly, the Space Kids, while in hypnotic trance induced by Puharich, also described alien cities. Does this imply that their experiences were basically shamanic? And - at least in the case of the Space Kids - was it the result of a deliberate experiment to induce shamanic experiences?
On the other hand, could the shamanic experience really be of extraterrestrial origin - or is such a question meaningless? Narby says:
The Western world that has started to rediscover all these old out-of-body experiences is glued down in a kind of ‘fifties techno-vision that seems like kindergarten. When you’ve spent time with Amazonian shamans, they seem like university professors compared to kindergarteners. The old texts describe them as ‘spirits from the sky‘. I like the sound of that more than ‘extraterrestrial intelligence’, because the latter has all that kind of ’fifties baggage that isn’t necessary. ‘Spirits from the sky’ sounds kind of beautiful.
Not everything in the shamanistic experience is beautiful, though. Narby warns:
Not all spirits are friendly and benevolent. One can make parallels with biology quite simply. In other words, there are organisms that impart health, happiness and food to the human species, and there are others, like the HIV virus for instance, that break into the immune system and screw us up. It’s all part of life. And death.
Even highly trained shamanistic initiates can encounter not just evil, but also trickster spirits. Perhaps this should be a warning to those amateurs who believe that they are in touch with the gods.
The evidence of shamans and mystics suggests strongly that there is a stargate and it is possible for individuals to step through it into a magical otherworld. But it is not a physical device like the rippling vortex machine of the movie. Just as Michael Harner’s internal journey brought him face to face with animal-headed gods so reminiscent of the ancient Egyptian deities, so it seems each of us already possesses the means to meet the gods. Perhaps this is what the Hermeticists - the much later initiates of the old mystery schools - meant when they taught that man is a microcosm of the whole universe. It is interesting that Dale E. Graff, the man who was not only director of the US Army’s remote viewing STAR GATE project, but also chose its highly evocative name, wrote:
Stars send faint light from a cosmic distance. They may forever remain out of reach, but not the Stargate within. Our inner Stargate can be found by anyone who chooses to search.26
No teacher, priest or guru can locate the stargate for us, so our quest for it and its mysteries, if we care to look for it, may be long and hard. The problem is that many find it easier to listen to those who promise to deliver the stargate already neatly packaged and temptingly ajar, and to invite mighty ineffable beings to step through it to inspire us with awe, enliven our dull existence and make us feel special, chosen - until we realise that in coming through they have slammed shut the ultimate prison door through which there is no escape. The beings who come as gods may not exist beyond top-secret rooms inside government buildings or in the fevered imaginings of channellers. But even if they do come from distant star systems, we have a right to defend our minds against what is dangerous and corrupt.
If we are right, then this warning does not come a moment too soon. If we are wrong, then we still have time to learn to be proud of our humanity - and find the stargate for ourselves.
Afterword
With the greatest firework display the world has ever seen - and an unprecedented outbreak of good behaviour - Millennium night came and went, leaving only sore heads and slightly depleted bank balances in its wake. The celebrations, although memorable and hugely enjoyable, had not turned into rioting, violence and anarchy as many had predicted. No cults rose up to commit either mass homicide or suicide; Jerusalem did not erupt in fiery fanaticism of any sort, neither did American militia groups attempt to overturn the government. Even the dreaded ‘Y2K Bug’ failed to wipe out the world’s computers, destroying civilisation as we know it. No doubt to the disappointment of some, we woke on 1 January 2000 to a world that looked pretty much the same as it did the day before.
At Giza in Egypt the pyramids stood unmoved and unmarked by the coming of the year 2000, as enigmatic and imposing as ever. The Great Pyramid (now open again to the public1) remained without its long-lost capstone, still innocent of any replacement. Significantly, the ceremony in which the temporary gilded capstone that was to have been lowered into position by an Egyptian Army helicopter as the clock struck midnight - while Jean-Michel Jarre’s music2 welled up from the plateau and a giant eye of Horus was lasered onto the third pyramid3 - was abandoned at the last minute. But as with everything connected with modern Egypt, there was more to this than meets the eye.
The months following the publication of this book in July 1999 saw a flurry of activity concerning Giza. Two major books on the politics and behind-the-scenes machinations appeared: Giza: The Truth by Ian Lawton and Chris Ogilvie-Herald examines the claims and counter-claims of the main players from an independent perspective, while the other book, Secret Chamber, was actually by one of those involved, Robert Bauval. There was also the by-now famous BBC television documentary, the two-part Horizon programme on Atlantis, the second of which was devoted to a searing critique of Graham Hancock’s theories.4
This centred on his - and Bauval’s - 10,500 BCE theory, presenting the same arguments against it (to the stirring background music from the movie Stargate, for some reason) as we detailed in this book. In fact, the whole 10,500 BCE business is now reeling from an onslaught from several quarters: Lawton and Ogilvie-Herald attack the astronomical aspects of Bauval and Gilbert’s Orion/Giza correlation theory,5 as does the South African astronomer Professor Anthony Fairall.6 (Although, as we pointed out, the original objections were actually raised by Robin J. Cook, who provided the diagrams for The Orion Mystery, back in 1996
.) Even the author David Rohl - a qualified Egyptologist who, because of his willingness to challenge orthodoxy, is now largely seen as part of the alternative camp - fired a broadside in a page-long article in the Daily Express, attacking Hancock and Bauval for persisting in their claims about the magic date of 10,500 BCE despite the mounting evidence against it. However, as Rohl points out, Hancock and Bauval have vested interests in engendering excitement about imminent discoveries at Giza. He writes the following:
The stakes are high. The hero worship surrounding Hancock and Bauval would rapidly wane if no such evidence came to light. So far, their theories have, in part, been sustained by their ability to claim that the proof is just around the corner but that they are being thwarted by the powers-that-be.
However, he goes on to say that ‘... the portents are not good for the would-be messiahs of Egyptology. Since excitement peaked in the mid-Nineties, there has been a growing disillusionment.’7
Behind the Giza myth-making
We left the story with the weird kiss-and-make-up scenario in which the three major factions involved in the Giza controversy - the Alternative Egypt trio of Hancock, Bauval and John Anthony West; the seekers after Edgar Cayce’s Hall of Records, namely the Schor Foundation and ARE; and the Egyptian archaeological authorities represented by Dr. Zahi Hawass - had apparently reached what Bauval calls an ‘entente cordiale’. There was the promise of exciting events such as the capstone ceremony and the ‘message to the planet’ by Bauval’s Magic 12’, and even that Gantenbrink’s Chamber was to be opened on Millennium night. However, something seems to have put a serious spanner in the works. None of this was to happen.
The Stargate Conspiracy Page 39
