Back in pre-college and college days, anthropology of religion was of great interest to me. I studied belief systems, seeking commonality among religions at first, and was fascinated with what might be considered pagan or primitive. The Greeks, The Romans, the Egyptians... Native Americans... Among the many books I encountered, sought, and read that had to do with what and why people believe(d) as they do, I read around the subject of rock art. Rock Art, as well as the hallucinations and visions that our ancestors had thousands of years ago, is the subject of the book VIsionary, by Graham Hancock.
I learned through reading and in anthropology classes that rock art was generally thought to be the work of shamans or the work of hunters who, perhaps, imagined the success of the hunt before they went out to kill, as a kind of psychological pre-hunt ritual, perhaps the essence of positive thinking. If they were hunting cattle, then they might create images of the cattle or men with the heads of cattle (pre-cattle aurochs). Bison. Horses.
Another notion that's promoted is that the underlying theme of cave drawings is abundance and fertility. Rather than the hunt, this might be about the wish for animals who are being domesticated to be fruitful and multiply.
Some rock art is elegant and sophisticated. We often think that our ancient ancestors were too stuck in survival mode to have the time to create art or become sensitive artists. (Rather I think most of their art did not survive weather and time and a cave is a sheltered environment that better preserved the art.) Some rock art is rudimentary. Thanks to carbon 14 dating, an idea of when humans created this art, which often features half animal humans, has evolved and been accepted by academic science.
While my study of rock art did brush up with the use of hallucinogens by people who did not keep written records or print books but remembered their origin stories and spiritual beliefs through story telling and being taught by previous generations, I myself never sought the experience. Friends from long ago did try LSD, reporting in some frightening experiences, such as visions that their house was on fire.
I learned that there were also symbols such as spirals, ladders, star-like motifs, and so on that were found on rocks in various places around the world which seemed to show a possibly universal rather than culturally-bound experiences. These motifs coexist with images of the half-animal humans in some places.
What you see under the influence - what they saw - was supposed to be cultural or rooted in a conscious belief system. Thus, if a particular animal was local and hunted, supplying necessary protein in a diet, and thus a desired animal that one might also be grateful to, it would feature in the rock art. Thus a Christian who ventures to the spirit world is expected to see Jesus or angels, while a Hindu might meet with Krishna or Vishnu... that's the general idea. (NDE's - Near Death Experiences seem to play out the religious-cultural expectations of encounter.)
But what about all those images of lion-like creatures where lions did not exist? Were those animals that once lived in that part of the world but are extinct?
If the substance is Datura, which grows wild in Southern California, will that result in the vision of a different animal or half animal - half human than if a person is under the influence of Ayahuasca, a brew from plants the Brazilian rain forest? (With Ayahuasa Tourism being what it is, I wonder if these plants will become crops in California.) Why would an animal that is not native to Europe, such as a lion or big cat, or a stag deer, have become such an Icon in Europe, I ask, as it appears in the family crests and armory of many families from medieval times.)
In Visionary by Graham Hancock, an "out of the box" thinker and earnest non-academic researcher, who has been pilloried by them, we learn that the use of hallucinogens inspired the rock art of half-human animals. It turns out that these half -human animals, supposed to be cultural, may just be what shamans and other users of hallucinogens see while under the influence of a brew and that the hallucinogenic experience is universal.
Hancock, who has used Ayahuasca in supervised situations many times, and says snake images are universal with it, says yes, it is the substance that moves a user towards a certain repertoire of visions. (This is the latest, trendy hallucinogen and is being tried by Westerners far from the Amazon where it originates.)
Noteworthy: In some rock art settings the imagine of hand appears, which is thought to be like the signature of the artist. These hands are either painted on, or the person put their hand on the wall and dabbed around them or even spit paint. In some rock art the natural forms of the stone are integrated into the art as if the rock form suggested the image. Rock art sometimes suggests that the artist is imagining the animal or chimera of coming out of the rock or going in and out of the rock itself.
The book is plentiful with images of rock art at various locations including Europe - France and Spain - and South Africa.
Hancock goes on to detail how it was that academics fought for professional prominence and their theories starting in the late 1800's (that era that was the beginning of anthropology, starting with the gentleman world travelers) and the "Frightening Power of Preconceived Ideas." While it can be understood, by me, that so many were inventing anthropology and it's sister that goes hand in hand, archeaology, just like psychology, that there has been trial and error as well as tremendous mistakes, the question is if today's professionals in those fields are willing to go past what might be called the canon.
ART FOR ART's SAKE or HUNTING MAGIC?
MUSHROOMS, WATER LILLY, MORNING GLORY SEEDS, PEYOTE CACTUS, FUNGUS ERGOT...
Why, I ask, is there a human need to have out of this world experiences? Is it because we wish to be reminded of the world we left before we came here? Or are we just bored with life as it is? Imagination and creativity is what's needed to progress or to deal with or extinguish the problems of life caused by change. Do we imagine creatures that do not exist on earth while under the influence or did these creatures once exist, perhaps created through some superior intelligence mixing the DNA? While on Ayahuasca, Hancock saw a butterfly turn into a serpent, a serpent turn into a jaguar, and a huge insect with human features.
TRANCE: SLEEP DISTURBANCES and DEFICIT, DEHYDRATION... DRUMMING (I think also mantra, and rocking the body while chanting or praying), certain music, bells... forms of dance..)
ARE THESE IMAGES HARDWIRED INTO OUR BRAINS or NERVOUS SYSTEMS?
The neuropsychologists call these entopic phenomena, phosphenes, or form constants.
WHAT ARE OR WERE THE POWERS OF A SHAMAN that are considered super-natural? Controlling the weather, in particular making it rain, so that the crops will prosper and animals and humans will be able to eat. Ability to locate animals to hunt. Being able to also check on family and friends - to understand their whereabouts, if they are alive, and if they are OK, understanding plants in particular knowing how to make healing botonicals, to control and alter consciousness.
FIRST with HALLUCINOGEN VISION are the motifs, the geometric shapes. grids, zig zags, dots, eye-shapes, which seem to show up in ancient rock art all over the world.
NEXT are the animals and people, larger shapes... Snakes, jaguars, as well as monsters. At this point the user is moving into what is perceived as the spirit world.
FINALLY the icons, such as human-type spirits. Ancestors. Reports of communications with the recent ancestors, such as parents and grandparents.
In some cases, AFTER-IMAGES, which we commonly call flash-backs, as if projected on a wall or ceiling.
and MEMORIES of the experience.
PREHISTORIC HUMANS were wired just like us and we, them.
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Datura also called Jimsonweed or Loco Weed was used throughout the region it grew which includes most of present day California. While under the influence, the shamans saw helpers they called mountain dwarfs, water babies, and rock babies...
VISION QUESTING... In my post about Taisha Abelar, I mentioned that her book was suggested and loaned to me by a young friend, CB. CB, in attempting to determine what she wished to do career-wise, went on a vision quest. I'm not sure if she was part Native American, if someone who was or is Native American set this experience up for her, or where it was done as at the time some Westerners, without fear of accusations of cultural theft, were interested in various tribal beliefs and such opportunities existed without either. She reported, if I recall, that about three days into it, just when she was thinking of becoming a midwife, she saw a shooting star.
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Hancock suggests that AFTER a visionary experience, the art's painted or carved memories of that vision on the rocks.
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Bodily Sensations : Prickling. "Hairs" extending out. Less or more fingers and toes.
Prickling of body all over or a particular area of the body. Insects gnawing or crawling under the skin - as how the human perceives a bodily hallucination.
More coming up...
C 2023 Christine Trzyna
