the way of the future

Alleged photo of UFOs taken over China in 1974
Secrets of the Vimana
The Ancient Legends
All images by Kamini Singh from South Asian Women's Forum - Monday, Oct 16, 2000
(1) An Overview of the Literature
"In various kinds of Asian and South Asian texts, we find references to flying machines and aerial vehicles. Chinese and Indian stories tell of peoples or individual artisans who constructed devices for travelling through the air. The stories take many different forms, including quite fanciful romances. Others present a picture of inventors taking pains to understand the basic principles of flight, and crafting machines of wood to achieve this goal." - Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin, "Mechanical Mythology: Private Descriptions of Flying Machines as Found in Early Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Other Texts" (draft copy)
The word vimana is purportedly derived from vamana: "he who is able at three strides to take measure of the entire earth and heavens."
"In the Vedic literature of India, there are many descriptions of flying machines that are generally called vimanas. These fall into two categories: (1) manmade craft that resemble airplanes and fly with the aid of birdlike wings, and (2) unstreamlined structures that fly in a mysterious manner and are generally not made by human beings. The machines in category (1) are described mainly in medieval, secular Sanskrit works dealing with architecture, automata, military siege engines, and other mechanical contrivances. Those in category (2) are described in ancient works such as the Rg Veda, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Puranas, and they have many features reminiscent of UFOs." - Richard L. Thompson, Alien Identities - Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena
"One time while King Citaketu was traveling in outer space on a brilliantly effulgent airplane given to him by Lord Vishnu, he saw Lord Siva..." "The arrows released by Lord Siva appeared like fiery beams emanating from the sun globe and covered the three residential airplanes, which could then no longer be seen." - Srimad Bhagasvatam, Sixth Canto, Part 3
"The so-called 'Rama Empire' of Northern India and Pakistan developed at least fifteen thousand years ago on the Indian sub-continent and was a nation of many large, sophisticated cities, many of which are still to be found in the deserts of Pakistan, northern, and western India. Rama...was ruled by 'enlightened Priest-Kings' who governed the cities. "The seven greatest capital cities of Rama were known in classical Hindu texts as 'The Seven Rishi Cities'. According to ancient Indian texts, the people had flying machines which were called 'vimanas'. The ancient Indian epic describes a vimana as a double- deck, circular aircraft with portholes and a dome, much as we would imagine a flying saucer. It flew with the "speed of the wind" and gave forth a 'melodious sound'. There were at least four different types of vimanas; some saucer shaped, others like long cylinders ('cigar shaped airships')." - D. Hatcher Childress, "Ancient Indian Aircraft Technology" In The Anti-Gravity Handbook
"An aerial chariot, the Pushpaka, conveys many people to the capital of Ayodhya. The sky is full of stupendous flying-machines, dark as night,but picked out by lights with a yellowish glare." - Mahavira of Bhavabhuti (A Jain text of the eighth century culled from older texts and traditions)
"The Vedas, ancient Hindu poems, thought to be the oldest of all the Indian texts, describe vimanas of various shapes and sizes: the 'ahnihotra-vimana' with two engines, the 'elephant-vimana' with more engines, and other types named after the kingfisher, ibis and other animals." - D. Hatcher Childress, "Ancient Indian Aircraft Technology" In The Anti-Gravity Handbook
"Now Vata's chariot's greatness! Breaking goes it, And Thunderous is its noise, To heaven it touches, Makes light lurid [a red fiery glare], and whirls dust upon the earth." - Rig-Veda (Vata is the Aryan god of wind.)
"Taoist tales often tell of adepts or immortals flying through the air. The xian were immortals capable of flight under their own divine power. They were said to be feathered, and a term that has been used for Taoist priests is yu ke, meaning 'feathered guest'. The fei tian, which might be translated as 'flying immortals', also appear in early tales, adding to the numbers of airborne beings in the Chinese mythological corpus." "The Chinese tales of fei che, flying vehicles, exhibit the first understanding, perhaps, that humans would fly only with some kind of technological apparatus. A hymn written in the second century B.C. speaks of deity appearing in chariots drawn by flying dragons." - Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin, "Mechanical Mythology: Private Descriptions of Flying Machines as Found in Early Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Other Texts" (draft copy)
(2) The Mahabharata
"The more typical vimanas had flight characteristics resembling those reported for UFOs, and the being associated with them were said to possess powers similar to those presently ascribed to UFO entities. An interesting example of a vimana is the flying machine which Salva, an ancient Indian king, acquired from Maya Danava, an inhabitant of a planetary system called Taltala." - Richard L. Thompson, Alien Identities - Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena
"The cruel Salva had come mounted on the Saubha chariot that can go anywhere, and from it he killed many valiant Vrishni youths and evilly devastated all the city parks." - Mahabharata
"The Mahabharata, a poem of vast length and complexity, achieved its present form in the second century A.D." - Reader's Digest Mysteries of the Unexplained
"It is significant that Salva asked for a vehicle that could not be destroyed by Devas, Asuras, Gandharvas, Uragas, or Raksasas. These are all powerful races of humanoid beings that were openly active on the earth or in its general environs in Salva's time, and so naturally he wanted to be able to defend himself against them. "Salva's vehicle is described as an iron city, and thus it must have been metallic in appearance and quite large....Many Vedic vimanas are described as flying cities, and one is reminded of the very large 'mother-ships' that are sometimes discussed in UFO reports." - Richard L. Thompson, Alien Identities - Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena
"The airplane occupied by Salva was very mysterious. It was so extraordinary that sometimes many airplanes would appear to be in the sky, and sometimes there were apparently none. Sometimes the plane was visible and sometimes not visible, and the warriors of the Yadu dynasty were puzzled about the whereabouts of the peculiar airplane. Sometimes they would see the airplane on the ground, sometimes flying in the sky, sometimes resting on the peak of a hill and sometimes floating on the water. The wonderful airplane flew in the sky like a whirling firebrand - it was not steady even for a moment." - Bhaktivedanta, Swami Prabhupada, Krsna
"An Air Force RB-47, equipped with electronic countermeasure (ECM) gear and manned by six officers, was followed by an unidentified object for a distance of well over 700 mi. and for a time period of 1.5 hr., as it flew from Mississippi, through Louisiana and Texas and into Oklahoma. The object was, at various times, seen visually by the cockpit crew as an intensely luminous light, followed by ground-radar and detected on ECM monitoring gear aboard the RB-47. Of special interest in this case are several instances of simultaneous appearances and disappearances on all three of these ph1ysically distinct 'channels', and rapidity of manoeuvres beyond the prior experience of the air crew." - July 17, 1957 sighting reported in the journal Astronautics and Aeronautics
"It is significant that Salva dropped such things as snakes, stones, and tree trunks from his vimana. There is no mention of bombs, and it would seem that even though Salva possessed a remarkable flying machine, he did not have the kind of aerial weapons technology used in World War II. He did, however, have a quite different technology, which could be used to affect the weather and produce whirlwinds, thunderbolts, and hailstones." - Richard L. Thompson, Alien Identities - Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena
There is this account by the hero Krishna that is suggestive of more modern weapons. As he takes to the skies in pursuit of Salva:
"His Saubha clung to the sky at a league's length...He threw at me rockets, missiles, spears, spikes, battle-axes, three-bladed javelins, flame-throwers, without pausing....The sky...seemed to hold a hundred suns, a hundred moons...and a hundred myriad stars. Neither day nor night could be made out, or the points of compass." - The Mahabharata
Later, when Saubha becomes invisible, Krishna relates:
"I quickly laid on an arrow, which killed by seeking out sound, to kill them...All the Danavas [troops in Salva's army] who had been screeching lay dead, killed by the blazing sunlike arrows that were triggered by sound." - The Mahabharata
"But the Saubha itself has escaped the attack, and at last Krishna hurls against it his 'favorite fire weapon', a discus having the shape of the 'haloed sun'. Severed in two by the impact, the aerial city falls down. "Salva himself is killed, and with his death this episode of The Mahabharata comes to an end." - Reader's Digest Mysteries of the Unexplained
In another episode the fearful Agneya weapon, "a blazing missile of smokeless fire" is unleashed by the hero Adwattan.
"Dense arrows of flame, like a great shower, issued forth upon creation, encompassing the enemy....A thick gloom swiftly settled upon the Pandava hosts. All points of the compass were lost in darkness. Fierce winds began to blow. Clouds roared upward, showering dust and gravel. "Birds croaked madly...the very elements seemed disturbed. The sun seemed to waver in the heavens. The earth shook, scorched by the terrible violent heat of this weapon. Elephants burst into flame and ran to and fro in a frenzy...over a vast area, other animals crumpled to the ground and died. From all points of the compass the arrows of flame rained continuously and fiercely."
"Gurkha, flying in his swift and powerful Vimana, hurled against the three cities of the Vrishnis and Andhakas a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as the thousand suns rose in all its splendour...An iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas....The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. The hair and nails fell out; pottery broke without apparent cause, and the birds turned white....After a few hours all foodstuffs were infected.... To escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment..." - The Mahabharata
"It would seem that The Mahabharata is describing an atomic war! References like this one are not isolated; but battles, using a fantastic array of weapons and aerial vehicles are common in all the epic Indian books. One even describes a vimana-Vailix battle on the Moon! The above section very accurately describes what an atomic explosion would look like and the effects of the radioactivity on the population. Jumping into water is the only respite. "When the Rishi City of Mohenjodaro was excavated by archaeologists in the last century, they found skeletons just lying in the streets, some of them holding hands, as if some great doom had suddenly overtaken them. These skeletons are among the most radioactive ever found, on a par with those found at Hiroshima and Nagasaki." "Futhermore, at Mohenjo-Daro, a well planned city laid on a grid, with a plumbing system superior to those used in Pakistan and India today, the streets were littered with 'black lumps of glass'. These globs of glass were discovered to be clay pots that had melted under intense heat! " - D. Hatcher Childress, "Ancient Indian Aircraft Technology" In The Anti-Gravity Handbook
There is another account of such a weapon:
"Cuka, flying on board a high-powered vimana, hurled on to the triple city a single projectile charged with all the power of the universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand suns, rose in all the splendor... When the vimana returned to Earth, it looked like a splendid block of antimony resting on the ground." - Mausola Purva
An Examination of the Technology
(1) The Dreamlike Quality of Vimanas
"O King, this beautifully decorated airplane had been manufactured by the demon Maya and was equipped with weapons for all types of combat. It was inconceivable and indescribable. Indeed, it was sometimes visible and sometimes not. Seated in this airplane under a beautiful protective umbrella and being fanned by the best of camaras, Maharaja Bai, surrounded by his captains and commanders, appeared just like the moon rising in the evening, illuminating all directions." - Swami Prabhupada Bhaktivedanta, Srimad Bhagavatam
"The Vedic universe is described as a product of maya, or illusion, and it can be thought of as a universal virtual reality system.....The role of the computer is played by a fundamental energy called pradhana. This energy is activated by an expansion of the Supreme known as Maha-Visnu, who acts as the universal programmer. Thus activated pradhana produces subtle forms of energy, and these in turn produce gross matter." "Uma, the wife of Lord Siva, is also known as Maya Devi, or the goddess in charge of the illusory energy. She is also the Mother Goddess who has been worshipped all over the world by many different names. Since Siva is Uma's husband, he is the master of illusion and technology. Thus there is a natural connection between Lord Siva, who Salva approached to obtain his vimana, and Maya Danava, the master of illusion who manufactured it." - Richard L. Thompson, Alien Identities - Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena
Many of properties of the vimanas bring to mind the ephemeral nature of UFO's and their seeming ability to defy the conventional laws of physics. Carl Jung has remarked on the dreamlike quality of UFO's, and somewhere, amidst the observation of bright lights and lost time, the delineation between objective and subjective consciousness appears to break down.
"Our research has found extensive similarities between UFO encounters and religious and metaphysical mysticism, folklore, shamans' trances, migraine attacks, and even the operations of the creative imagination. Among the similarities are recurrent image-constants, a basically consistent sequence of events, and the unusual "peak experience" quality common to all. Also, very bizarre incidents in abduction reports have parallels in these phenomena. For example, the embarrassingly incredible "bodily dismemberment" sometimes reported by abductees is a regular feature of shaman's "death-rebirth" trances." - Alvin H. Lawson
Do the vimanas represent an ancient technology that utilizes the forces of nature (such as transient geophysical electrical fields) to effect human consciousness and alter the perception of reality? Certainly there have been rumours of psycho-tronic devices, such as those reported tested in the "M" Triangle area west of Moscow.
"There exists a natural phenomenon whose manifestations border on both the physical and the mental. There is a medium in which human dreams can be implemented, and this is the mechanism by which UFO events are generated, needing no superior intelligence to trigger them This would explain the fugitivity of UFO manifestations, the alleged contact with friendly occupants, and the fact that the objects appear to keep pace with human technology and to use current symbols." - Jacques Valleé
An early UFO report in 1929 (18 years before Kenneth Arnold filed his famous report which lead newspapers to coin the term "flying saucers") may be instructive. In a valley in between Mongolia and Tibet, a team of Norwegians and sherpas had just completed building a shrine dedicated to Shambhala. (To Tibetan lamas, Shambhala [which means "quietude"] is a secret place of enlightenment in the northern mountains.)
"On August fifth - something remarkable! We were in our camp in the Kukunor district not far from the Humboldt Chain. In the morning about half-past nine some of our caravaneers noticed a remarkably big black eagle flying over us. Seven of us began to watch this unusual bird. At this same moment another of our caravaneers remarked, 'There is something far above the bird'. And he shouted in his astonishment. We all saw, in a direction from north to south, something big and shiny reflecting the sun, like a huge oval moving at great speed. Crossing our camp the thing changed in its direction from south to southwest. And we saw how it disappeared in the intense blue sky. We even had time to take our field glasses and saw quite distinctly an oval form with shiny surface, one side of which was brilliant from the sun." - Nicholas Roerich, Altai-Himalaya
According to a lama, the shiny oval was a "Radiant form of Matter" from Shambhala. It was, he said, a protecting force that was always near but could not always be perceived. In Tibetan Buddhist belief "matter is a development of thought, crystallized mental energy".
"What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our like of tomorrow; our life is the creation of our mind." - The Dhammapada
Students are taught to mentally visualize their tutelary god which slowly takes on the same quasi-reality as a phantom monk. Under experienced control such ephemeral creations of the mind, or tulpas, can take many different forms such as man, animal, tree, rock, etc.
"Once the tulpa is endowed with enough vitality to be capable of playing the part of a real being, it tends to free itself from its maker's control....Tibetan magicians also relate cases in which the tulpa is sent to fulfill a mission, but does not come back and pursues its peregrinations as a half-conscious, dangerously mischievous puppet. The same thing, it is said, may happen when the maker of the tulpa dies before having dissolved it." - Alexandra David-Neel, With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet
(2) Indian Technological Data
"There are ancient Indian accounts of manmade wooden vehicles that flew with wings in the manner of modern airplanes. Although these wooden vehicles were also called vimanas, most vimanas were not at all like airplanes. " - Richard L. Thompson, Alien Identities - Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena
"According to ancient Sanskrit texts found a few years ago by Westerners in a South Indian temple, vimanas were open topped flying devices, not strictly UFOs since they were restricted to the Earth's atmosphere. Dr. Roberto Pinotti is an Italian scientist, and on the 12th of October 1988 was a speaker in the World Space Conference in Bangalore, India. He referred to several Hindu texts and pointed out that Indian gods and heroes fought in the skies using piloted vehicles armed with weapons. These weapons consisted of seven different types of mirrors and lenses which were used for offensive and defensive purposes. The 'Pinjula Mirror' offered a form of 'visual shield' preventing the pilots from 'evil rays', and the weapon named 'Marika' was used to shoot enemy aircraft. Dr. Pinotti said that these weapons 'do not seem to be too different from what we today call laser technology'.
"The vehicles themselves were made of special heat absorbing metals, called 'Somaka, Soundalike and Mourthwika'. According to Dr. Pinotti, the 'principles of propulsion as far as the descriptions were concerned, might be defined as electrical and chemical, but solar energy was involved as well.' Other scientists have put forward the theory that the craft were driven by some sort of mercury ion propulsion system. Dr. Pinotti concluded that the fact that vimanas were written about hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years ago, plus that they resembled modern UFOs would suggest that India had a '...superior but forgotten civilisation. In the light of this, we think it will be better to examine the Hindu texts and subject the descriptive models of vimanas to more scientific scrutiny'." - Nick Humphries, "UFO Guide"
"The Puspaku Car, that resembles the sun and belongs to my brother, was brought by the powerful Ravan; that aerial and excellent car, going everywhere at will, is ready for thee. That car, resembling a bright cloud in the sky, is in the city of Lanka." - Ramayana
"According to the Dronaparva, part of the Mahabarata, and the Ramayana, one vimana described was shaped like a sphere and born along at great speed on a mighty wind generated by mercury. It moved like a UFO, going up, down, backwards and forwards as the pilot desired. In another Indian source, the Samar, vimanas were 'iron machines, well-knit and smooth, with a charge of mercury that shot out of the back in the form of a roaring flame'. Another work called the Samaranganasutradhara describes how the vehicles were constructed. It is possible that mercury did have something to do with the propulsion, or more possibly, with the guidance system. Curiously, Soviet scientists have discovered what they call 'age-old instruments used in navigating cosmic vehicles' in caves in Turkestan and the Gobi Desert. The 'devices' are hemispherical objects of glass or porcelain, ending in a cone with a drop of mercury inside." - D. Hatcher Childress, "Ancient Indian Aircraft Technology" In The Anti-Gravity Handbook
"G. R.. Josyer, director of the International Academy of Sanskrit Research in Mysore, India, stated on September 25, 1952, that Indian manuscripts several thousands of years old dealt with the construction of various types of aircraft for civil aviation and for warfare. "The specific manuscript on aeronautics included plans for three types of vimanas (aircraft), the Rukma, Sundara, and Shakuna. Five hundred stanzas of an ancient text treat of such intricate details as the choice and preparation of metals which would be suitable for various parts of vimanas of different types." "There were eight chapters...that provided plans for the construction of aircraft that flew in the air, traveled under water, or floated pontoon-like on the water's surface. Some stanzas told of the qualifications and training of pilots." - Brad Steiger, Worlds Before Our Own
"Indeed, there are a remarkable number of stories which involve the construction of flying machines. Within some of these stories, we find an interesting clue as to their possible source. In another set of eleventh-century narratives, the Brihat Kath_ Álokasamgraha, carpenters are involved in the attempt to construct a flying vehicle. When asked by Rumanavat to build a machine which can fly, they reply that such aerial devices are only known to the Yavanas, i.e., the Greeks. "This is repeated again in the same story, with the suggestion that it is kept as a secret by them. Another romance, the 'Deeds of King Harsha', from the seventh century, speaks of a flying machine made by a Greek who had been taken prisoner. Laufer notes that the term for the aerial machine in this tale is 'a mechanical vehicle (yantray_na) which travels on the surface of the air'." Clive Hart, The Prehistory of Flight (Berkeley, 1985) "chronologically lists references in various Western texts to flying machines [pp.195-197 et ff.] It is notable that most of these early references to flight in these sources involve the use of man-made wings. There are no discussions of more complex man-carrying aerial vehicles as we found in the Chinese, Korean, and Indian tales." - Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin, "Mechanical Mythology: Private Descriptions of Flying Machines as Found in Early Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Other Texts" (draft copy)
(3) Chinese and Korean Flying Devices
The earliest written Chinese account of flying machines describes them as taking place in remote antiquity. The following selections are from Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin, "Mechanical Mythology: Private Descriptions of Flying Machines as Found in Early Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Other Texts", which I am able to quote with the kind permission of the author.
"The Chi Kung people were good at making mechanical devices for killing [all kinds of] birds. They could also make aerial carriages which, with a fair wind, traveled great distances. In the time of the emperor Thang [mid-second millennium B.C.], a westerly wind carried such a car as far as Yüchow, whereupon Thang had the car taken to pieces, not wishing his own people to see it. Ten years later there came an easterly wind (of sufficient strength), and then the car was reassembled and the visitors were sent back to their own country, which lies 40,000 li beyond the Jade Gate." - Chang Hua, "Po Wu Chih" ('Record of Investigation of Things') in the Po Wu Chih
Like the devices described in the Indian Brihat Kath_ Álokasamgraha, Chinese flying machines are often described as being made of wood and fly according to straightforward (although not understood) mechanical principles. The following accounts also postdate the spread of Hellenistic culture.
"On the southern peak of Tian Lau mountain, a long time ago, Lu Ban carved some wood into a crane which then flew 700 li. Later, the bird was placed on the west peak of the northern mountain. Emperor Wu [157-87 B.C.] ordered his people to go take it, but then it flew back to the southern peak. Often, when it looks like it is about to rain, then the bird's wings begin to move, flapping as if it is about to fly." - Shu I Chi
"By the third century A.D., we read of people constructing a flying vehicle." - Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin, "Mechanical Mythology: Private Descriptions of Flying Machines as Found in Early Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Other Texts" (draft copy)
"Some use the inner part of the jujube [=date] tree to make a flying vehicle, using ox leather straps fastened to encircling blades, so as to propel this machine. Some others have the idea of making five snakes, six dragons, and three oxen [these are kites in the shape of these animals] encounter the 'hard wind', and so ride it (i.e., the vehicle), rising up 40 li. [That region] is called the Tai Qing ('Area of Upper Air'). In the Tai Qing region, the air is very hard, and can lift people. The Master says that a yuan [this word can mean 'kite' or 'hawk'] flying, spiraling higher and higher, only needs to straighten out its two wings and not flap them any more to move forward, because it is riding on the hard wind. The dragons when they first rise up, step on the clouds, going to 40 li [altitude], then fly by themselves. This account comes from the [Taoist] adepts, and is recounted, being handed down to ordinary people, yet the common people are not really able to understand it." - Ko Hung (A.D. 283-343), Pao Pu Tzu
"...The picture we get of the device is quite ambiguous, with ox leather straps somehow tied to a circle of swords or blades, or blades [moving?] around. The motion of the blades, though, is never really clearly described in the passage, nor is the overall configuration of the vehicle. We are left with the nonetheless interesting fact that there is a description of a mechanical device intended for flying." "This is precisely what is relevant in these stories to the historian of science: the fact that a romantic tale or story should employ a mechanical device and at times even include a description of its construction or function. This fact does not necessarily mean that the stories contain elements of fact, or actual records of some now-lost technology." - Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin, "Mechanical Mythology: Private Descriptions of Flying Machines as Found in Early Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Other Texts" (draft copy)
The Koreans have accounts of similar flying machines, although of much more recent derivation.
"There is another story related to these [ways of naming]. Jung Pyung Goo was the inventor of an airplane in Choson [Korea]. During the Im Jin War [between Korea and Japan, 1592-1597], when Jin Joo fortress was in danger, he rescued his friend by an airplane, flying 30 miles away, and then landing. The spinning top with which children play, 'Ping Goo', whirls around on the ground as it is whipped by them, and then lifts up into the air. This is like Jung Pyung Goo's riding of the airplane, moving up and down. So the name 'Pyung Goo' was given [to the top], changed to 'Ping Goo'." - Kwon Tokkyu in a 1923 Korean text
Where were such machines manufactured?
"Several thousand of li from China, in what is today Russia... it is said that the people were able to manufacture wheels for a flying machine. Each flying machine required four wheels in all. Furthermore, legend has it that they were able to fly one thousand li in one day. The people of Xi Wu [?] also produced a flying machine, and utilizing a bellows [usually] used in smelting, a pulley hauling device, and other methods, enabled the flying machine to move. The machine was able to float in the air and move freely and without obstacle on rivers or land. During the dangerous times of war and turmoil, this vehicle could be used to ward off attacks from the enemy." - Yi Kyu Gyong, "A Discriminating Look at the Possibilities of Flying Machines" in A Compilation of Previously Uncollected Texts from Throughout the World
"What caused the creation of this separate category of 'technical myths' is not entirely clear. One what might well ask why the some of the stories ever entered into discussions of machines at all. Why didn't stories of winged beings and levitating immortals simply continue? Why did this separate category of humans in flying machines arise? Perhaps there is a connection to the development of kites, which occurred at a period in China preceding many of these tales of 'aerial carriages'. Kites gave people a view of flight made practical: structures made of bamboo, wood, cloth, and paper, man-made devices actually airborne. There are even stories of kites large enough to hold individuals, a not implausible scenario." - Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin, "Mechanical Mythology: Private Descriptions of Flying Machines as Found in Early Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Other Texts" (draft copy)
Vaimanika-sastra
"...There is one book entitled Vaimanika-sastra that was dictated in trance during this century and purports to be a transcription of an ancient work preserved in the Akashic record.""The medium in this case was Pandit Subbaraya Sastry, a 'walking lexicon gifted with occult perception', who began to dictate the Vaimanika-sastra to Mr. Venkatachala Sarma on August 1, 1918. The complete work was taken down in 23 exercise books up to August 23, 1923. In 1923, Subbaraya Sastry also had a draftsman prepare some drawings of the vimanas according to his instructions." - Richard L. Thompson, Alien Identities - Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena
According to the Vymankia Shastra, purportedly written by Maharishi Bharadwaja in the 4th Century BC, there are 32 secrets to piloting a vimana. These include:
"Maantrika: The invoking of mantras which will permit one to achieve certain spiritual and hypnotic powers so that he can construct airplanes which cannot be destroyed.Taantrika: by acquiring some of the Tantric powers, one may endow his aircraft with those same powers.Goodha: This secret permits the pilot to make his vimana invisible to his enemies. Adrishya accomplishes the same purpose by attracting 'the force of the ethereal flow in the sky'.Paroksha: This helpful hint enables the pilot to paralyze other vimanas and put them out of action.Aparoksha: One may employ this ability to project a beam of light in front of his craft to light his way.Viroopa Karana: With this skill mastered, the pilot can produce 'the thirty-second kind of smoke', charge it with 'the light of the heat waves in the sky' and transform his craft into a 'very fierce and terrifying shape' guaranteed to cause 'utter fright to onlookers'. Roopaanara can cause the vimana to assume such shapes as those of the lion, tiger, rhinoceros, serpent - even a mountain- to confuse observers.Suroopa: If one can attract the thirteen kinds of 'Karaka force', one can make the vimana appear to be 'a heavenly damsel bedecked with flowers and jewels'.Pralaya: This deadly secret pushed electrical force through the 'five-limbed aerial tube' so that the pilot may 'destroy everything as in a cataclysm'. Vimukna sends a poison powder through the air to produce 'wholesale insensibility and coma'.Taara: This ability, once mastered, provides the pilot with another means of avoiding contact with an enemy or hiding his purpose from observers: 'By mixing with ethereal force 10 parts of air force, 7 parts of water force, and 16 parts of solar glow, and projecting it by means of the star-faced mirror through the frontal tube of the vimana, the appearance of a star-spangled sky is created.'Saarpa-Gamana: This secret enables the pilot to attract the forces of air, join them with solar ryas, and pass the mixture through the center of the craft so the vimana will 'have a zig-zagging motion like a serpent'.Roopaakarshana permits the pilot to see inside an enemy's airplane, while Kriyaagrahana allows one to spy on 'all the activities going on down below on the ground'.Jalada roopa instructs the pilot in the correct proportions of certain chemicals which will envelop the vimana and give it the appearance of a cloud." - Brad Steiger, Worlds Before Our Own
"Aavartaas or aerial whirlpools are innumerable in the above regions. Of them the whirlpools in the routes of the vimanas are five. In the Rekhapathha there occurs the whirlpool of winds. In Kakshya-pathha there occurs Kiranavarta or whirlpool from solar rays. In Shaktipathha there occurs Shytyaavarta or whirlpool of cold currents. And in Kendrapathha there occurs gharshanavartaor whirlpool by collision. Such whirlpools are destructive of vimanas, and have to be guarded against."The pilot should now these five sources of danger, and learn to steer clear of them to safety." - Vymankia Shastra
"In ancient India the writers of knowledge were careful to observer every form of change, every pattern of flow - rest- motion and to describe even the smallest of effects seen, the causes unseen. Often they spoke of matter that were beyond the five senses, yet in much detail. It seems their science was one of experience more than speculation." - John Walker, "The Vortex Arena" in Anti-Gravity and the Unified Field
"Since the siddhis [paranormal powers] are natural principles, it is possible that machines might be constructed that take advantage of them, and some vimanas and UFOs might operate on this basis. Thus, laghima-siddhi could be used to make the craft weightless, and mano-java could be used to move it through the ether. Other vehicles might make use of more familiar mechanical or electromagnetic propulsion methods, or they might employ a combination of siddhis and more familiar principles." - - Richard L. Thompson, Alien Identities - Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena
According to the "psychic crystallization theory", thought forms as independent energy entities "might be the result of mind blending with a psi substratum". "Samuel Lentine, a physicist at Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute, has investigated such 'thought forms', and claims they can be created by mixing psi energies in the same way you can create certain chemicals by mixing other chemicals. Lentine, blind since childhood, found during meditation that such humanly-created entities can actually exist by themselves for short periods, causing a whirl of energy about them."
As G. Patrick Flanagan "has speculated, it is an all-pervasive 'ether' that actually causes the force of gravity by the pressure it exerts, and forms electricity and magnetism by flowing in whirls and eddies.""...The PK effect could be looked upon as mind not necessarily intermingling with the physical elements of an object but altering the etheric or organizing forces that supposedly shape the material world - the idea that thoughts are actual things imprinted in the clay of the universe." - Michael H. Brown, PK
Plasma: a collective of elementary particles devoid of atoms which exist at normal temperatures in metals and so forth. Living organisms are an unusual reservoir and generator of plasma. Almost any plasma generates inhomogeneity, pinching itself together into dense, swirling filaments, separated by diffuse voids.

Hermes Trismegistus
The Archaic Underground Tradition
(1) Ancient Egyptian Tradition
"In the ancient city of Annu (later called On in the Bible and Heliopolis by the Greeks) there was a great sacred pillar, itself named Annu - possibly before the city. This, we believe, was the great pillar of Lower Egypt and its counterpart in Upper Egypt at the time of unification was in the city of Nekheb. Later the city of Thebes, known then as 'Waset', had the title 'Iwnu Shema', which meant 'the Southern Pillar'.""The twin pillars of the Two Lands became the Pillars of Hermes and the attributes of the ancient Egyptian moon god Thoth became absorbed into Hermes...It was said that this god [Thoth] possessed all secret knowledge on 36,535 scrolls that were hidden under the heavenly vault (the sky) which could only be found by the worthy, who would use such knowledge for the benefit of mankind." - Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
The tradition of a secret doctrine of Thoth appears to be well established in Egypt:1.) According to a papyrus dating to Dynasty 12 of the Old Kingdom:
"Then [His Majesty] King Khufu, the vindicated, said: Now as for the rumor that you know the shrines of the secret chambers of the enclosure of [Thoth]? Dedi said: By your favor, I do not know their shrines, Sovereign, my lord, but I do know the place where they are. His Majesty said: Where are they? And Dedi said: There is a passage of flint in a chamber called the Inventory in Heliopolis in that passage." - "A Marvel in the Time of King Khufu Himself"
2.) A chapter in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, according to its rubric, is said to have been found at:
"Shmun [Hermopolis] under the feet of the majesty of this sublime god [Thoth] upon a slab of upper Egyptian granite in the script of the god himself in the tomb of...Mycerinus, by Prince Hor-dedef. He found the spell when he was engaged in inspecting the temples." - The Egyptian Book of the Dead
"Divine authorship elevates religious literature from present day existence; similarly, the accounts about the discovery of such works ascribe them to a more or less distant past. This exemplifies the tendency to emphasize the antiquity of sacred writings, which is particularly evident in the retention of ancient linguistic forms or the deliberate choice of archaistic expressions. Egyptians could also adopt the customs of bygone ages in their mode of writing.""There is a particle of truth in the statement of Clement of Alexandria that the Egyptians had forty-two sacred writings by Hermes (Thoth), in so far as these texts, which include geographical and medical works among others, constitute the entire range of material available for the education of priests. The reference to Thoth's authorship...is based on ancient tradition; the figure forty-two probably stems from the number of Egyptian nomes, and thus conveys the notion of completeness." - Siegfried Morenz, Egyptian Religion
Regarding the "Pillars of Hermes" of "Seth" and of "Solomon""In the 9th chapter of the [Egyptian] Ritual of the Dead they are referred to as the 'Pillars of Shu', the 'Pillars of the Gods of the Dawning Light', and also as 'the North and Southern Columns of the Gate of the Hall of Truth'. In the 125th chapter, they are represented by the sacred gateway, the door to which the aspirant is brought when he has completed the negative confession. The archaic pictures on the one Pillar are painted in black upon a white ground, and those on the other in white upon a black ground, in order to express the interchange and reconciliation of opposing forces and the eternal balance of light and darkness which give force to visible nature....The archaic illustrations are taken from vignettes of the 17th and 125th chapter of the Ritual of the Dead, the Egyptian Book of the 'Per-em-Hru' or the 'Book of Coming Forth into the Day', the oldest book in the world as yet discovered.""...The general design of the White Pillar is a pictorial synthesis of the gradual freeing of the soul from the body, left to be mummied and its union with Osiris, Lord and Judge of the Dead and of the resurrection, the sun in his rising....The Black Pillar symbolizes the pathway of darkness, the Negative Confession, as the White Pillar represents the Hymn to the Rising Sun, the Pathway of Light, and the Positive Confession." - G. H. Frater, "The Core of the Tradition" The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic
(2) Greek Accounts
"Explaining the Egyptian pantheon of twelve gods to his countrymen, the Greek historian Herodotus also wrote of an 'Immortal whom the Egyptians venerated as "Hercules".' He traced the origins of the worship of this Immortal to Phoenicia, 'hearing that there was a temple of Hercules at that place, very highly venerated'. In the temple he saw two pillars. 'One was of pure gold; the other was as of emerald, shining with great brilliancy at night." - Zecharia Sitchin, The Stairway to Heaven
"Plato's Timaeus and Critias state that about 560 BC in the temple of Neith at Sais there were secret halls containing historical records which had been kept for more the 9,000 years. Proclus gives the name of the high priest with whom Plato spoke in Sais - Pateneit. It is probably from him that the Greek philosopher learned about the oldest archives of Egypt. Another interesting fact to notice is that the high priest of Egypt Psonchis, teacher of Pythagoras, also mentioned sacred registers which even speak of a collision of the Earth with a giant asteroid in a remote past." - Andrew Tomas, On the Shores of Endless Worlds
"Greek philosophy and Egyptian lore really came together at the time of the Lagides, who gradually made Alexandria the intellectual, scientific, philosophic and religious center of the Hellenistic world....Manetho [his hieroglyphic name meant 'Gift of Thoth'], the Egyptian priest of Heliopolis, was also famous for translating the mysteries into Greek. He lived during the final years of the fourth and first half of the third centuries B.C. in the reign of the last two Ptolemies." - Murray Hope, Practical Egyptian Magic
"Manetho extracted his history from certain pillars which he discovered in Egypt, whereon inscriptions had been made by Thoth, or the first Mercury [or Hermes], in the sacred letters and dialect; but which were after the flood translated from that dialect into the Greek tongue, and laid up in the private recesses the Egyptian Temples. These pillars were found in subterranean caverns, near Thebes and beyond the Nile, not far from the sounding statue of Memnon, in a place called Syringes; which are described to be certain winding apartments underground; made, it is said, by those who were skilled in ancient rites; who, foreseeing the coming of the Deluge, and fearing lest the memory of their ceremonies be obliterated, built and contrived vaults, dug with vast labor, in several places."
Hermes Trismegistus "invented many things necessary for the uses of life, and gave them suitable names; he taught men how to write down their thoughts and arrange their speech; he instituted the ceremonies to be observed in the worship of each of the Gods; he observed the course of the stars; he invented music, the different bodily exercises, arithmetic, medicine, the art of working in metals, the lyre with three strings; he regulated the three tones of the voice, the sharp, taken from autumn, the grave from winter, and the middle from spring, there being then but three seasons. It was he who taught the Greeks the mode of interpreting terms and things, when they gave him the name of [Hermes], which signifies Interpreter."In Egypt he instituted hieroglyphics: he selected a certain number of persons whom he judged fitted to be the depositories of his secrets, of such only as were capable at attaining the throne and the first offices in the Mysteries, he united them in a body, created them Priests of the Living God, instructed them in the sciences and arts, and explained to them the symbols by which they were veiled." - General Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma
"...The so-called Hermetic literature...is a series of papyri describing various induction procedures...In one of them, there is a dialogue called the Asclepius (after the Greek god of healing) that describes the art of imprisoning the souls of demons or of angel in statues with the help of herbs, gems and odors, such that the statue could speak and prophesy. In other papyri, there are still other recipes for constructing such images and animating them, such as when images are to be hollow so as to enclose a magic name inscribed on gold leaf." - Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
"The Vision is the most famous of all the Hermetic fragments, and contains an exposition of Hermetic cosmogony and the secret sciences of the Egyptians regarding the culture and unfoldment of the human soul. For some time it was erroneously called 'The Genesis of Enoch', but that mistake has now been rectified." - Manly P. Hall, Masonic, Hermetic, Quabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy
"His importance in magic is due to the so-called 'Emerald Tablet' which succinctly sets out the 'as above, so below' principle on which most magical theory is based." - David Conway, Ritual Magic
"The exact origins of the celebrated 'Emerald Tablet' are lost, but it is certainly not nearly as old as it is supposed to be. The content of the 'Emerald Tablet' can be traced back, with a fair degree of certainty, to Moslem alchemists in Syria in about the tenth or eleventh centuries." - Daniel Cohen, Masters of the Occult
"While Hermes still walked the earth with men, he entrusted to his chosen successors the sacred Book of Thoth. This work contained the secret processes by which the regeneration of humanity was to be accomplished and also served as the key to is other writings. Nothing definite is known concerning the contents of the Book of Thoth other than that its pages were covered with strange hieroglyphic figures and symbols, which gave to those acquainted with their use unlimited power over the spirits of the air and the subterranean divinities. When certain areas of the brain are stimulated by the secret processes of the Mysteries, the consciousness of man is extended and he is permitted to behold the Immortals and enter into the presence of the superior gods. The Book of Thoth described the method whereby this stimulation was accomplished. In truth, therefore, it was the 'Key to Immortality'.
According to legend, the Book of Thoth was kept in a golden box in the inner sanctuary of the temple. There was but one key and this was in the possession of the 'Master of the Mysteries', the highest initiate of the Hermetic Arcanum. He alone knew what was written in the secret book. The Book of Thoth was lost to the ancient world with the decay of the Mysteries, but its faithful initiates carried it sealed in the sacred casket into another land. The book is still in existence and continues to lead the disciples of this age into the presence of the Immortals. No other information can be given to the world concerning it now, but the apostolic succession from the first hierophant initiated by Hermes himself remains unbroken to this day, and those who are peculiarly fitted to serve the Immortals may discover this priceless document if they will search sincerely and tirelessly for it.""It has been asserted that the Book of Thoth is, in reality, the mysterious Tarot of the Bohemians - a strange emblematic book of seventy-eight leaves which has been in possession of the gypsies since the time then they were driven from their ancient temple, the Serapeum." - Manly P. Hall, Masonic, Hermetic, Quabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy
The Philosphy of Hermes
"According to the Neoplatonic view the material world is arranged as a 'golden chain', which reaches from the topmost being and from the one which is beyond even existence, down to the last shimmer of being in matter, joining plane with plane in their essence. Ascending the chain the beings climb back to the summit of all being." - Holger Kersten & Elmar R. Gruber, The Jesus Conspiracy - The Turin Shroud & The Truth About the Resurrection (1992)
"Written by a Neoplatonist philosopher of about the fifth century, "the Celestial Hierarchies describes three worlds of which ours is the lowest. This is the elemental world of nature and is subject to influences from above. Above this 'sublunary' world, is what is called the 'celestial' world wherein are found the stars and their 'spirits' or 'guardians' (analogous to the Gnostic archons). Even higher is the sphere of the 'supercelestial' world, the world of nous, the 'intellectual' or 'intelligible' world of angelic spirits, of superior knowledge of reality because closer to the One, the divine source of creation, who is beyond the three worlds. Hand in hand with this concept of worlds, of which ours is the lowest projection, goes it essential counterpart; the concept of microcosm.... Going deeper and deeper into the mind of Man, illuminated by nous, man could travel farther and farther into the universe - and back again." - Tobias Churton, The Gnostics
"Hermes, while wandering in a rocky and desolate place, gave himself over to meditation and prayer. Following the secret instructions of the Temple, he gradually freed his higher consciousness from the bondage of his bodily senses; and, thus release, his divine nature revealed to him the mysteries of the transcendental spheres. He beheld a figure, terrible and awe-inspiring. It was the Great Dragon, with wings stretching across the sky and light streaming in all directions from its body. (The Mysteries taught that the Universal Life was personified as a dragon.) The Great Dragon called Hermes by name, and asked him why he thus meditated upon the World Mystery. Terrified by the spectacle, Hermes prostrated himself before the Dragon, beseeching it to reveal its identity. The great creature answered that it was Poimandres, the Mind of the Universe, the Creative Intelligence, and the Absolute Emperor of all. [Edouard Schure, The Mysteries of Egypt, identities Poimandres as the god Osiris.] Hermes then besought Poimandres to disclose the nature of the universe and the constitution of the gods. The dragon acquiesced, bidding Trismegistus hold its image in his mind. "Immediately the form of Poimandres changed. Where it had stood there was a glorious and pulsating Radiance. This Light was the spiritual nature of the Great Dragon itself. Hermes was 'raised' into the midst of this Divine Effulgence and the universe of material things faded from his consciousness. Presently a great darkness descended and, expanding, swallowed up the Light. Everything was troubled. about Hermes swirled a mysterious watery substance which gave forth a smokelike vapor. The air was filled with inarticulate moanings and sighings which seemed to come from the Light swallowed up in the darkness. His mind told Hermes that the Light was the form of the spiritual universe and that the swirling darkness which had engulfed it represented material substance."Then out of the imprisoned Light a mysterious and Holy Word came forth and took its stand upon the smoking waters. This Word - the Voice of the Light - rose out of the darkness as a great pillar, and the fire and the air followed after it, but the earth and the water remained unmoved below. Thus the waters of Light were divided from the waters of darkness, and from the waters of Light were formed the worlds above and from the waters of darkness were formed the worlds below. The earth and the water next mingle, becoming inseparable, and the Spiritual Word which is called Reason moved upon their surface, causing endless turmoil."
"Then again was heard the voice of Poimandres, but His form was not revealed: 'I Thy God am the Light and the Mind which were before substance was divided from spirit and darkness from Light. And the Word which appeared as a pillar of flame out of the darkness is the Son of God, born of the mystery of the Mind. the name of that Word is Reason. Reason is the offspring of Thought [Thoth] and Reason shall divide the Light from the darkness and establish truth in the midst of the waters'." - Manly P. Hall, Masonic, Hermetic, Quabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy
[Compare with the tradition behind the pillar of fire that the Isrealites followed in the wilderness.]
"Of the immortal man it should be said that He is hermaphrodite, or male and female, and eternally watchful. He neither slumbers nor sleeps, and is governed by a Father also both male and female, and ever watchful. Such is the mystery kept hidden to this day, for Nature, being mingled in marriage with the Sky Man, brought forth a wonder most wonderful - seven men, all bisexual, male and female, and upright of stature, each one exemplifying the natures of the Seven governors [spirits of the Planets]. These, O Hermes, are the seven races, species, and wheels.""Then all living creatures, including man, which had been hermaphroditical, were separated, the males being set apart by themselves and the females likewise, according to the dictates of Reason.'"Then God spoke to the Holy Word within the soul of all things, saying: 'Increase in increasing and multiply in multitudes, all you, my creatures and workmanships. Let him that is endued with Mind know himself to be immortal and that the cause of death is the love of the body; and let him learn all things that are, for he who has recognized himself enters into the state of Good.'" - Poimadres (or The Vision of Hermes)
"Man, according to Hermes, had taken on a mortal body merely to commune with nature, but at heart remained a spirit, a divine, creative, and immortal essence. Living beings did not die, but, being composite, dissolved the bond in order to reunite and re-form. Nothing dies; it only dissolves and transforms. The gnosis consisted in re-becoming a god." - Peter Tompkins, The Magic of Obelisks
"We suffer a perpetual transmutation, whereby we receive a perpetual flow of fresh atoms, while those that we have received are leaving us." - Giordano Bruno
"Indeed, for antiquity in general, the divination of man was not an extravagant dream. 'Know, then, that you are a God,' Cicero wrote. And in a Hermetic text we read: 'I know thee, Hermes, and thou knowest me: I am thou and thou art I.' Similar expressions are found in Christian writings. As Clement of Alexandria says, the true (Christian) Gnostic 'has already become God.' And for Lactantlius, the chaste man will end by becoming consimilis Deo, 'identical in all respects with God.'" - Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation
"...You saw the spirit, you became spirit. You saw Christ, you became Christ. You saw the father, you shall become Father....you see yourself, and what you see you shall [become]." "Whoever achieves gnosis becomes "no longer Christian but a Christ." - Gospel of Philip
"...I was very disturbed, and I turned to myself...Having seen the light that surrounded me and the good that was within me, I became divine." - Allogenes
The Neoplatonic Origins of the Writings
"...A Greek manuscript in seventeen books brought from Macedonia to Cosimo de' Medici...was said to contain the secret wisdom of Thoth, the Egyptian sage whom the Greeks called Hermes Trismegistus, or the Thrice Great Hermes." - Peter Tompkins, The Magic of Obelisks
"A fusion of Greek philosophy and the ancient religion of Egypt, the beliefs of Hermeticism were contained in a body of texts known as the Corpus Hermeticum.""The Corpus Hermeticum takes the form of dialogues between Trismegistus, Thoth, and several other Egyptian deities, including Isis. Scholars point out that little in the text is truly original. In fact, much of the Hermetic world view is grounded in the philosophy of Plato. Hermetics saw the universe in terms of light and dark, good and evil, spirit and matter. Like their Gnostic contemporaries, practitioners preached a mind-body dualism and salvation through the possession of true and divine knowledge." - Ancient Wisdom and the Secret Sects
"...In 1614 the brilliant scholar of Greek, Isaac Casaubon had shown in his de rebus sacris et ecclesiaticis exercitiones XVI that the Corpus Hermeticum could not possibly have been written by an ancient Egyptian sage - be he Hermes Trismegistus or anyone else. The Greek style was of the period of Plotinus (second and third century) and, furthermore, it had clearly escaped the attention of former commentators that neither Plato nor Moses nor Aristotle nor indeed any pre-Christian writer had ever made reference to this Hermes Trismegistus." - Tobias Churton, The Gnostics
"It is this very book [the Book of Moses/] which Hermes plagiarized when he named the seven perfumes of sacrifice in his sacred book entitled The Wing." - Fr Festugiere, Revelation of Hermes
"According to the legend... which had come from Lactantius, a father of the Church, Hermes Trismegistus was supposed to have foretold the coming of Christ. Hermes Trismegistus, in the book titled The Perfect Word, made use of these words: 'The Lord and Creator of all things, whom we have thought right to call God, since He made the second God visible and sensible.... Since, therefore, He made Him first, and alone, and one only, He appeared to Him beautiful, and most full of all good things; and He hallowed Him, and altogether loved Him as His own Son.' The fraud perpetrated by Neoplatonics of the second century was that Hermes was supposed to have been living at the time of Moses and his creation story and the quote which I read you was all about 1,500 years before Christ. In reality it was dated about the second century AD."
"The Neoplatonics believed in a world spirit, and that one could coax the spirit into matter through the use of the soul, which was located midway between spirit and matter. This use of the soul is what is known as magic. Augustine was revulsed by this practice and strongly admonished Hermes for practicing such magic." - Gerry Rose ,"The Venetian Takeover of England and Its Creation of Freemasonry"
"The Trismegistus, then, came under the influence of the early Christian Gnostics, many of whom adopted large chunks of it in defense of their 'heresies'. The most notable of these was Basilides, whom the great psychologist Carl Jung believed to be either a fragment of his own group soul guiding him in trance through the Seven Sermons of the Dead, or himself in a former life. The Valentinian Gnosis was also strongly Hermetical. The Gnostic flavor in the Trismegistus literature is therefore obviously very strong, so it will pay the student to strip away some of these Christo-Gnostic overleaves in order to get a little nearer to the Egyptian original." - Murray Hope, Practical Egyptian Magic
Tantric Sexual Rituals
Tantrism was a "movement appearing in India about AD 400 and operating within both Hinduism and Buddhism. The word tantra means a work. It may simply mean a book. But it also has an implication of the right way to do something, to perform ritual, for example. And there seems to be allusion to weaving and spinning, the skilled work of women: the world too is woven like a tissue." - John Ferguson, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Mysticism and the Mystery Religions
"It uses meditation, ritual, symbolism, and magic. Although magic was not part of the Buddha's teaching, Tantric practitioners regard Tantra as a faster way of attaining the Buddha-nature than the path of the bodhisattvas. The forms of Tantra using mantras, powerful sacred sounds, are known as Mantrayana. Tantra tries to realize the continuous connection between all human states and conditions, including ones that are usually thought polluting or dangerous; all are the Buddha-nature, if perceived and experienced rightly. Thus hatred and revulsion, which are the oppositions of love and desire, dissolve in the realization that all states are equally the undifferentiated Buddha-nature and are without real characteristics of their own." - John Bowker, World Religions: The Great Faiths Explained and Explored (1997), p. 74
"Not to all and any should this hymn be revealedFor be it made known to one who is unworthy,Then ill falls upon him.Therefore should it be carefully concealed." - Tantras
"Their principal theme is ritual and worship; they are involved with what one critic calls 'baroque forms of yoga'; women, goddesses, and fertility and sexual energy generally are important for religious understanding; wine and meat are also important. Tantric ritual has in fact been summed up as 'the five ms' - madya (intoxicating drinks), mamsa (meat), matsya (fish), mudra (ritual gestures), maithuna (ritual sexual union). Thus whereas Hinduism tends to deny this world, Tantrism in general affirms it." - John Ferguson, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Mysticism and the Mystery Religions
"Another name for Tantric Buddhism is Vajrayana, the Vehicle of the Thunderbolt. The vajra is a double-headed ritual implement, used with a bell. Held in the right hand, it represents the masculine, skillful means, and compassion. The bell in the left hand represents the feminine, wisdom, emptiness, and nirvana. It is especially common in Tibet. In the Vajrayana the five Jinas, eminent ones, also known as the dhyani-Buddha, are a major focus of meditation. they are Akshobya, Amitabha, Amoghasiddhi, Ratnasambhava, and Vairocana." - John Bowker, World Religions: The Great Faiths Explained and Explored (1997), p. 74
"In the creative process, initially the sexual pair, Shiva and Shakti, within both man and world, are so deeply joined in sexual union they are unaware of their differences and beyond Time. They then become aware of their distinction and the female 'objective' separates from the male 'subject'. She performs her dance of illusion, persuading the male 'subject' he is not one but many, and generating from her womb the world of multiplied objects in what seems to be a sequence in time. These 'subjects' now each perceive a differentiated reality, seeming to be composed of separate particles of objective fact, and live lives that seem to be extended in time." - Philip Rawson The Art of Tantra
"What yogis see as the eternal, unwasting, solitary, pure, supreme Brahman, that is the ultimate state of the Great Goddess [Shakti]. That all-embracing existence, higher than the highest, universal, benevolent and faultless, which is in the genitals of Prakriti, that is the ultimate state of the Great Goddess. That which is white, spotless, pure, without qualities and distinction, that which is realized only in the self, that is the ultimate state of the Great Goddess." - Hindu Text (from An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Mysticism and the Mystery Religions)
"A close analogy was found by Shellon [Annotations on the Sacred Writings of the Hindus] between the rituals of the Hindus and those of the Egyptians. He equated Shiva with Osiris, and Shakti with Isis, represented by the same equilateral triangle with a dot in the center, the same emblem of the generative power - two coexisting principles of nature, active and passive, linga and yoni."Shellon describes Hindu Tantric sexual rituals as being performed with naked temple courtesans or yoginis, young and beautiful, representing the goddess Shakti, or power, reciting mantras, becoming sexually excited and inducing promiscuous orgies among the votaries which he qualifies as 'very licentious' but constituting a mysterious initiation. He further describes Shakti as represented in coitu sitting on Shiva's erect member, just as Isis 'the goddess who grants all desires' did with the dead Osiris." - Peter Tompkins, The Magic of Obelisks
"...Not only initiation, but the very capacity to reach to Tantric goal can only be transmitted along a line of female 'power-holders'... Tantra demands that every bond with the everyday conventional world must be broken if one is to obtain enlightenment." - Philip Rawson The Art of Tantra
"In all Tantric magic, the essential requirement - whether in the ecstasy of couples or the solo rituals of a priestess - involved the raising of the energy known as the serpent of fire, or kundalini....The excited chakras are seen clairvoyantly as whirls of multicolored lights, glowing and pulsing along the spinal column, with lesser lights 'pulsating like stars throughout the ganglionic network of nerves which constitute the subtle anatomy of man.' The aroused chakras are described as petaled lotuses, tuned as receivers of powerful cosmic rays to link the microscopic body to the macroscopic universe." - Peter Tompkins, The Magic of Obelisks
"...All the faculties - the senses, the emotions, and the intellect - should be encouraged and roused to their highest pitch, that the person's store of memories and responses can be awakened and re-converted into the pure energy from which they all originated. Feelings and pleasures thus become the raw material for transformation back into enlightenment.""Raise your enjoyment to its highest power, and then use it as a spiritual rocket fuel." - Philip Rawson The Art of Tantra
"The ambrosia is the nectarlike reproductive secretion which, at the highest point of ecstasy, pours into the brain with such an intensely pleasurable sensation that even the sexual orgasm pales into insignificance before it. This unbelievably rapturous sensation - pervading the whole of the spinal cord, the organs of generation and the brain - is nature's incentive to the effort directed at self-transcendence, as the orgasm is the incentive to the reproductive act." - Gopi Krishna
Kenneth Rextroth, in his introduction to the works of the seventeenth-century alchemist Thomas Vaughan, states "that the 'Vessel of Nature', the vessel in which the alchemical operation takes place, is a 'menstruous substance'. 'It is the matrix of Nature, wherein you must place the universal sperm as soon as it appears beyond its body. The heat of this matrix is suphureous, and it is that which coagulates the sperm...This matrix is the life of the sperm, for it preserves and quickens it.' And he ends his postscript by stating that he is convinced that this basic secret of alchemy was originally 'revealed' to man, 'for it is the secret of Nature, even that which the philosophers call "the first copulation"...' Such sexual symbolism is not rare in alchemy (i.e., the sexual yoga of Chinese alchemy and Tantrism). It looks as though either Vaughan is hinting that the 'vessel' is the female vagina, or the alchemical operation closely parallels sexual intercourse." - Colin Wilson, Mysteries
"The 'left-hand' worshippers, who follow the destructive principle and claim that they can utilize it, worship [Kali] in secret. In the higher levels of initiation, worship is changed, for both the Tantra (left hand) and other worshippers"The Tantrics explain that the physical license of the worship of Kali is needed for brutish mankind in this evil (Kaliyuga) time. This is because only a few can liberate themselves from the flesh and reach divinity direct. Kalipuja (Kali-worship) gives the brutish man and woman an outlet and an idea of how intoxicating true communion with the divine could be. For this reason, according to the priest, it is not uncommon for mass orgies to be held in the early stages of initiation of even the right-hand worshippers, so that they may get a glimpse of the physical reflection of the true ecstasy which comes with acceptance by Kali." - Arkon Daraul, Secret Societies
Vedic Cosmic Hierarchy
"In the Vedic cosmic hierarchy, there is a graded series of higher planetary systems, each of which is inaccessible to the inhabitants of the systems below it. The topmost authority in the material universe is known as Brahma, and he lives in the highest material planetary system, called Brahmaloka. Beneath Brahmaloka there are the planetary systems Tapoloka, Janaloka, and Maharloka, which are inhabited by sages (rsis) who live as ascetics and cultivate knowledge and transcendental consciousness."Beneath these planets, there is the realm of Svargaloka, which is predominated by the beings known as Devas. The Devas are organized in a military hierarchy. They engage in politics and warfare, and their battles with lower forces may sometimes have an impact on life on the earth. However, due to the extremely long life spans of the Devas [hundreds of millions of years], their social and political relationships tend to be stable."
"The most famous rebels are the Asuras, who are close relatives of the Devas. The Puranas describe protracted wars in Svargaloka between the Devas and Asuras, and the basic plot of the Mahabharata has to do with an invasion of the earth by the Asuras."Since the Devas are beings of a godly nature who hold administrative posts in the universal hierarchy, the word 'demigod', which in classical Roman times meant a being intermediate between the demigods and man. The Romans and Greeks thought that there were many types of beings in this category, and these were not all regarded as evil or 'demonic'. The Vedic literature also describes many races intermediate between the Devas and human beings, and these include the Vidyadharas, Uragas, and Raksasas."The Raksasas are demonic and highly inimical to humans. The Vidyadharas and Uragas are essentially neutral - they cooperate with the universal hierarchy, but they have their own agendas to pursue, and they neither favor nor oppose the human race. They belong to a category of beings known as Upadevas, or almost-Devas."
"According to Vedic understanding, different races of humanoid beings tend to be predominated by different combinations of the three modes [sattva - 'pure beingness', rajas - passionate desires, tamas - 'darkness' and delusion]. Thus human beings of this earth tend to be predominantly in the mode of passion, with some admixture of goodness and ignorance. The Devas and Rsis of higher planets are predominantly in the mode of goodness and thus, in comparison with ourselves, they tend to be very peaceful and attracted to knowledge."Among the Vedic humanoids, there are a number of groups that are predominantly in the mode of ignorance. These are broadly known as Bhutas (a term which, appropriately enough, can be translated as 'entities'). They include the Pisacas, Yaksas, Raksasas, and Vinayakas, as well as the Dakinis, Yatudhanis, and Kusmandas. These beings are said to live in subtle form on the earth and in the region immediately above the earth's atmosphere. They are known for their mystic powers, including the power of suddenly appearing and disappearing in gross material form."It is said in the Bhagavanta Purana that these beings are known for causing trouble to the body and the senses. They also cause of memory and bad dreams, and they are said to be particularly troublesome for children." - Richard L. Thompson, Alien Identities - Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena
GROSS AND SUBTLE ENERGIES
In August, 1975, a 48-year-old man was undergoing open-heart surgery. A half hour after being taken off cardiopulmonary bypass, he suffered from cardiac arrest and had to be revived by an injection of epinephrine into the heart and two electric shock treatments. On awakening, he recalled the following experience:
I was walking across this wooden bridge over this running beautiful stream of water and on the opposite side I was looking and there was Christ and he was standing with a very white robe. He had jet-black hair and a very black short beard. His teeth were extremely white and his eyes were blue, very blue. . . . He looked different from any pictures I had seen before. . . . My real focus was on the white robe and if I could prove it to myself that this was really Christ. . . . And during all this time the knowledge, the universal knowledge, opened up to me and I wanted to capture all of this so that when I was able, I could let people know what was really around them. Only trouble was that I was unable to bring any of it back.
This is a typical example of an out-of-body experience, or OBE. In such an experience, a person has the impression of leaving his physical body while continuing to see, hear, and think as a conscious being. Out-of-body experiences often occur when a person is in a near-fatal physical condition, and so they are also called near-death experiences, or NDEs. With the recent development of techniques for reviving a person who is near death, there has been a great increase in reports of such experiences, and a number of books have been written about them by doctors, psychologists, and psychical researchers.
Many OBEs are difficult for an external observer to distinguish from dreams, although persons experiencing them may regard them as real because of their great vividness and profound psychological impact. This is true of the OBE mentioned above, which took place entirely in some dreamlike otherworld. There are many instances, however, in which a person having an OBE sees his own unconscious body from a distance. In some of these cases, persons who were supposedly unconscious due to cardiac arrest were able to give accurate descriptions of medical procedures being used to revive them.
Here is how cardiologist Michael Sabom summed up one man's description of his own resuscitation from a heart attack, as seen during an OBE:
His description is extremely accurate in portraying the appearance of both the technique of CPR [cardiopulmonary resuscitation] and the proper sequence in which this technique is performed i.e., chest thump, external cardiac massage, airway insertion, administration of medications and defibrillation.
Sabom said that he came to know this man quite well and that the man gave no indication that he possessed more than a layman's knowledge of medicine. The man also testified that he had not watched cardiac resuscitations on TV before his experience. In his OBE, the man had seen the resuscitation procedures in vivid detail, even though his heart was not functioning at the time and his brain was deprived of oxygen. If the experience was a dream, then how did the man acquire the accurate knowledge of detailed medical procedures that this dream contained?
OBEs and UFOs
There has been a great deal of controversy over how to interpret out-of-body experiences, with some favoring theories based on dreams or hallucinations and others advocating paranormal explanations. One topic that is generally not introduced into these discussions is the subject of UFOs. However, it has recently emerged that out-of-body experiences may take place in connection with UFO encounters. Many witnesses have reported experiencing out-of-body travel during UFO abductions, and some have also reported spontaneously experiencing OBEs in the aftermath of UFO encounters. This leads to a completely new controversy over out-of-body experiences one that inevitably brings in the body of observation and theory that has built up around the UFO phenomenon.
One theory is that UFO-related out-of-body experiences are actually misperceptions of physically real abduction experiences. Another is that UFO abductions are essentially illusory. According to this theory, OBEs are also hallucinatory experiences that are generated by the mind, perhaps due to the influence of some external agency. UFO abductions and OBEs go together because both are of a similar illusory nature.
A third theory is that UFO abductions are real events that can take place on a gross or subtle level of material energy, and OBEs are real events involving the temporary separation of the subtle mind from the physical body. In a UFO abduction, the physical body may be taken onto a UFO, and during this experience an OBE may or may not take place. Also, some UFO abductions may take place within OBEs. In these cases, the subtle mind is taken on board a UFO and the gross body is left behind. I will discuss these theories after giving a few examples of out-of-body experiences associated with UFOs.
First of all, there are reports indicating that OBEs are sometimes induced by humanoid entities of the kind associated with UFOs. One example of this is an experience reported by Betty Andreasson. She said that in July of 1986 she was lying on the couch of her trailer-home reading a Bible when she heard a whirring sound and saw a strange being appear next to the couch.
At this point, she had the experience of seeing her own body from an external vantage point:
I see myself standing and I see myself laying on the couch! The being had put a small box or something on the couch first and then I saw myself appear there. I see myself standing up. . . . And I see myself moving toward the being. And then I turn toward the couch and I reach down to touch myself and Ahhhh! when I do, my hand goes right through me!
In this case, the being was of the standard "Gray" type. After entering the out-of-body state, Betty underwent a strange experience involving visions of crystal spheres, the passing shadow of a gigantic bird, and a hovering spherical craft. This is in some ways reminiscent of the otherworldly experiences that often occur in OBEs. However, the "Gray" aliens were present throughout the experience.
Whitley Strieber recounted a very similar experience, in which he awoke at about 4:30 in the morning in his country cabin and tried to achieve an OBE using methods recommended by Robert Monroe, a well-known investigator of out-of-body states. He said that he saw an image of a long, bony, four-fingered hand of a "Gray" being pointing towards a two-foot-square box on a gray floor. He then experienced an inappropriate wave of sexual feeling, followed by an OBE. He found himself floating above his body. He saw his cat, which should have been in New York City, and he saw the face of a "Gray" visitor outside one window. He found that he could move about in his out-of-body state, and he described his adventures of passing out through a closed window and back. During all this he experienced himself as a "roughly spherical field."
There are also cases in which a person has an out-of-body experience with no obvious cause, enters a UFO in the out-of-body state, and has an encounter with UFO entities. For example, Betty Andreasson, after her remarriage to Bob Luca, reported a joint OBE in which they both entered a UFO occupied by typical "Gray" beings. There she encountered featureless human shapes glowing with light and found that she was also in this condition. She also saw the featureless light-forms changing into balls of light and then back into human light-forms.
In another out-of-body UFO experience, a person named Emily Cronin had the experience of standing by her car and seeing her dormant body within the car. Here she recounts this experience under hypnosis:
Emily: Not in the car. But I am in the car. It's silly.McCall: Don't worry about it. Just tell me what's going on.Emily: That's silly! You can't do that!McCall: You can't do what?Emily: You can't be in the car and out of the car, too. That's silly! But I am.
After this, she saw a large, glowing "bubble" hovering over some trees by the roadside. She communicated telepathically with unseen intelligences associated with this object, and she had a realization that all life is one and that the intelligences were not actually alien.
In the case of Judy Doraty discussed in Chapter 9, the witness, Judy, experienced standing by her car and simultaneously entering a UFO and observing what was happening inside it. In this case, the UFO had been previously seen by Judy and other witnesses from a normal, physically embodied point of view. Within the UFO, Judy reportedly observed humanoid entities cutting up a living calf and then dropping its body to the ground using a shaft of light. This would suggest that the scene within the UFO was grossly physical and that Judy was viewing it just as persons having OBEs sometimes observe their own bodies.
People in their normal bodily condition usually cannot perceive someone who is present near them in an out-of-body state. However, Judy reported that the entities she saw in the UFO were aware of her presence, and they communicated with her telepathically.
The White-Robed Beings
Betty Andreasson recalled under hypnosis that as a teenager she was taken into an alien craft, which entered a body of water and emerged in an underground complex. Up to this point, she seemed to be traveling in her physical body, since the trip involved what appeared to be great g-forces of the kind produced by ordinary acceleration. In the underground complex, she was told by "Gray" beings that she was going to be taken home to see the One. Here is the experience that unfolded next, as relived through hypnotic regression:
Betty: We're coming up to this wall of glass and a big, big, big, big, big, door. It's made of glass.Fred Max: Does it have hinges?Betty: No. It is so big and there is I can't explain it. It is door after door after door after door. He is stopping there and telling me to stop. I'm just stopping there. He says: "Now you shall enter the door to see the One." And I'm standing there and I'm coming out of myself! There's two of me! There's two of me there! . . . It's like a twin
After thus entering an out-of-body state, she went through the door:
Betty: I went in the door and it's very bright. I can't take you any further.Fred Max: Why?Betty: Because . . . I can't take you past this door.Fred Max: Why are you so happy?Betty: It's just, ah, I just can't tell you about it. . . .Words cannot explain it. It's wonderful. It's for everybody. I just can't explain this. I understand that everything is one. Everything fits together. It's beautiful!
This sounds like a typical description of the experience of Brahman realization, a state of consciousness that has been sought by yogis and mystics the world over. In the Vedic tradition, there are several schools of philosophical thought regarding the nature of Brahman realization. I will discuss this topic in some detail in Chapter 11. For now, I am interested in what happened after this experience was over.
After leaving the door of the One, Betty reported encountering mysterious white-robed beings: "Okay, I'm outside the door and there's a tall person there. He's got white hair and he's got a white nightgown on and he's motioning me to come there with him. His nightgown is, is glowing and his hair is white and he's got bluish eyes." This person looked like a normal human, in contrast to the small "Gray" beings she had encountered thus far.
In his discussion of this case, Raymond Fowler pointed out that possibly similar beings were reported by Italian Navy personnel during a UFO sighting on the slopes of Mount Etna on July 4, 1978. Here a red, pulsating, domed disc landed, and the witnesses encountered "two tall golden-haired, white-robed beings accompanied by three or four shorter beings wearing helmets and spacesuits." In this case the tall white-robed beings were seen by military personnel who were presumably in their physical bodies, in a more or less normal state of consciousness.
In OBEs not connected with UFOs, there are frequent references to beings in white robes. An example would be the cardiac patient's OBE mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. It is significant that although this witness thought the white-robed being he saw was Christ, he remarked, "He looked different from any pictures I had seen before." Evidently, he felt some doubts about this identification. It is also interesting that the man's encounter with this being was accompanied, as with Betty Andreasson, by a mystical experience involving intimations of universal knowledge.
So here we have three cases in which white-robed beings are described. In one, a person had apparently been physically abducted by ufonauts, then had an OBE involving a mystical experience, and finally met a being of this type. In another, these beings were seen along with a UFO by military personnel who were walking about in an apparently normal state. In yet another, a being of this type was encountered in an OBE that occurred during a medical emergency and was not connected with UFOs.
Jenny Randles discussed a possibly related case, in which a medically instigated OBE led to a meeting with a tall white-haired being from a UFO. This experience was reported to her by Robert Harland, a professional magician and, alas, a self-confessed phony medium. Harland told Randles that he went to a dentist in 1964 for major oral surgery. An anesthetic gas was administered, and he had an OBE. From an out-of-body perspective, he saw that the dentist banged his knee, and the dentist later verified this.
Thus far, this was a typical OBE of the kind associated with physical trauma. But then Harland saw a tall being with long white hair drift through the ceiling and explain telepathically that they must go together. They floated through the roof into a UFO. He was shown around. The UFO's operation was explained, and he was given a message to convey about a terrible holocaust in which the Earth's crust would split apart. He was then told he would have to fight his way back to his body. Indeed, small, ugly creatures tried to prevent his return, but he made it and awoke to see the dentist thumping him and looking very worried. He had nearly died in the chair.
One can always hypothesize that the beings seen in these four cases were simply dreams or hallucinations, although this raises the question of why people would independently have such similar dreams. If we leave the dream hypothesis in the background and consider that the beings might actually exist, then the question is: Are these beings operating in gross physical bodies or bodies made of some kind of subtle energy? The observations of the Italian naval personnel would suggest the former, while the stories of the cardiac patient and Mr. Harland would suggest the latter.
Physical Form or Subtle Form?
One interpretation of this bewildering data is to interpret all UFO abductions as strictly physical and reject OBEs as a mistaken idea. This approach has been taken by David Jacobs, an associate professor of history at Temple University in Philadelphia and an active investigator of UFO abductions. Jacobs wrote the following about abductees' perceptions:
Part of these anomalous memories and dreams might be the unaware abductees' knowledge that they have had Out of Body Experiences. It is common for abductees to feel that they in some way left their body, usually during the night in bed. . . . A few unaware abductees claim that they have not only had Out of Body Experiences but that they have experienced Astral Travel as well. They know that they have in some mysterious way experienced a strange displacement in location. . . . The only way that they can reconcile what has happened to them is through the only available explanation astral travel, no matter how ill-defined that might be.
Jacobs's idea was that abductions by UFO entities really happen but that out-of-body experiences are a "new age" misconception adopted by "unaware" abductees. He maintained that abductees will generally abandon their false ideas about OBEs when they become aware of what really happened to them. Thus, "knowledge of the abductions finally gives them the answers they were seeking and the majority of them let go of previously held belief structures that were never fully satisfactory."
This interpretation seems unsatisfactory because it blurs the distinction between (1) abduction experiences in the physical body during which an OBE takes place, and (2) abduction experiences occurring entirely in an out-of-body state and accompanied by memories of seeing the gross body as it is left behind.
The same can be said of the interpretation of all abduction experiences as being entirely psychical or mental. For example, Jenny Randles has used accounts such as Robert Harland's to argue that UFO abductions are entirely mental experiences induced in psychically susceptible and visually creative persons by alien beings that "have harnessed the power of consciousness to cross the gulfs of space and seek out new life forms."
This interpretation also blurs the distinction between points (1) and (2). If all abduction experiences occur entirely in the mind, then why do some seem to the witnesses to occur on the bodily platform of experience, while others, such as Harland's or Emily Cronin's, occur in an out-of-body state?
Physical Aftereffects of UFO Abductions
Of course, a further objection to the all-mental theory is that scars and infectious diseases have been reported in connection with UFO abductions. Budd Hopkins is well known for his claim that abductees sometimes bear scars, which they associate directly or indirectly with UFO encounters. One example is Virginia Horton, whose illusory deer encounter is mentioned above. She also told of a deep, profusely bleeding but painless cut that she received as a six-year-old child. In her conscious recollections, the cut was memorable because at the time she was unable to explain to her elders how she had gotten it. Under hypnosis, she related an elaborate abduction scenario in which aliens of the typical "Gray" variety took her into a circular room illuminated by diffuse, pearly gray light and made the cut with some kind of machine. They explained to her that "we need a little, bitty piece of you for understanding."
The noted UFO researcher Raymond Fowler has also described under hypnosis a nightmarish, dreamlike experience in which he seemed to be manipulated by beings that he could not see. This would seem to be a good candidate for a purely mental experience but for the fact that it occurred on the night before a mysterious, unexplained scar appeared on his leg. This scar was said by a dermatologist to resemble the mark made by a punch biopsy.
Fowler cited research into scars and other medical sequelae of UFO encounters that was carried out by Dr. Richard N. Neal, a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology at the Beach Medical Center in Lawndale, California. Neal maintained that scars tend to show up on the bodies of abductees in a consistent manner. Thus, "scars have been observed on the calf (including just over tibia or shin bone), thigh, hip, shoulder, knee, spinal column and on the right sides of the back and forehead." These scars tend to be either thin, straight hairline cuts about 2-3 inches long or circular depressions about 1/8-inch to 3/4-inch in diameter and as much as 1/4-inch deep.
Other kinds of bodily marks have also been noted, such as rashes on the upper chest or the legs that are often geometrical in shape. First or second degree burns have been noted, as well as infections and unusual growths. For example, in Chapter 9, there are two examples of women reporting severe vaginal infections after UFO abductions that involved gynecological examinations.
The very fact that abduction witnesses report invasive physical examinations suggests that their experiences are not simply mental. Dr. Neal pointed out, "Aliens have taken blood, oocytes (ova) from females and spermatozoa from males, and tissue scrapings from their subjects' ears, eyes, noses, calfs, thighs and hips." Sometimes tubes are inserted into women's navels an operation that was described to Betty Hill as a pregnancy test by her captors. It has been pointed out that this operation is similar to a gynecological testing procedure called laparoscopy that was developed years after Betty and Barney Hill's abduction experience in September of 1961.
Finally, we shouldn't overlook the controversial topic of probes that are inserted into the nose by alien entities. As Dr. Neal put it, "Many abductees have described a thin probe with a tiny ball on its end being inserted into the nostril usually on the right side. They are able to hear a `crushing' type sound as the bone in this area is apparently being penetrated. Many will have nosebleeds following these examinations." Fowler and Hopkins give examples of this, and it seems to come up repeatedly in UFO accounts.
From time to time, investigators have claimed that such probes have been recovered from people's bodies for examination. However, I have yet to see any reliable publication describing a systematic study of a recovered probe.
One could postulate that people may imagine physical experiences, such as having probes inserted into their bodies. However, it is not clear what their inner motive would be for imagining such things. Many UFO abductees reporting these experiences have been tested psychologically and found to be quite normal. So their testimony cannot be attributed to abnormal mental processes.
One could also postulate that beings acting on a subtle level might be able to invoke in people's minds traumatic experiences that would result in physical symptoms. There are cases in which people have developed bleeding wounds called stigmata, apparently under the influence of intense religious emotions. There are also reports that a particular pattern of reddened skin, such as a cross, can be produced by hypnotic suggestion. Could it be that the physical symptoms of UFO abductions are similarly produced by some form of psychical influence?
One reply to this is that some abduction cases involve physical traces on objects or on the ground that suggest the presence of some physically real agent. Examples would be the ground traces reported by Budd Hopkins in the Kathie Davis case, or the strange shiny spots appearing on the car of Betty and Barney Hill after their UFO experience. Also, there are abduction cases, such as those of Travis Walton, William Herrmann, and Filiberto Cardenas, in which the abductee was dropped off by the UFO miles from his pickup point.
Near-Death Experiences with Administrative Bungling
There is certainly a great deal of evidence indicating that UFOs can become manifest as physically real vehicles, and there is also much evidence suggesting that people are sometimes physically taken on board these vehicles. However, since some UFO abductions do seem to involve out-of-body experiences, the idea that trauma on a subtle, mental level can bring about gross physical effects should be carefully considered. To illustrate what might happen, consider the following account of a near-death experience occurring in India:
In the late 1940s, an Indian man named Durga Jatav suffered for several weeks from a disease diagnosed as typhoid. At a certain point his body became cold for a couple of hours, and his family thought he had died. But he revived and told his family that he had been taken to another place by ten people. After attempting to escape from them, they cut off his legs at the knees to prevent further attempts. Then they took him to a place where about forty or fifty people were sitting. They looked up his "papers," declared that the wrong man had been fetched, and ordered his captors to take him back. When he pointed out that his legs had been cut off, he was shown several pairs of legs and recognized his own. These were somehow reattached, and he was warned not to "stretch" his knees until they had a chance to heal.
After his revival, his sister and a neighbor both noticed that he had deep folds or fissures in the skin on the fronts of his knees, even though such marks had not been there previously. The marks were still visible in 1979, but X-rays taken in 1981 showed no abnormality beneath the surface of the skin. Could it be that the experience of having his legs cut off in a subtle realm caused these marks on his physical legs?
Ian Stevenson has assembled a large amount of evidence indicating that young children who spontaneously remember previous lives sometimes bear birthmarks on their bodies corresponding to injuries received during those lives. He has about 200 cases of this type, and he says that in fifteen he has been able to match up birthmarks with postmortem reports describing the previous body. Regarding these birthmarks, he made the following observation: "Some marks are simply areas of increased pigmentation; in other cases, the birthmark is three-dimensional, the area being partly or wholly elevated, depressed, or puckered. I have examined at least two hundred of this kind, and many of them cannot be distinguished, at least by me, from the scars of healed wounds." The point about scars is especially significant in connection with UFO abductions.
In the case of Durga Jatav, one can imagine that some psychical influence injected into his brain the idea that his legs had been cut off, and this in turn resulted in the fissures in his knees. However, if a wound in one life can affect a body in another, then more must be involved than just the brain.
An explanation can be devised if we introduce the idea that the soul, encased in a body made of subtle energy, is able to transmigrate from one gross physical body to another. In that case, one can suppose that the fatal injury in one life traumatized the subtle body, and this resulted in birthmarks in the developing embryo in the next life. One could likewise suppose that Durga Jatav's subtle body was traumatized in a subtle domain, and this resulted in the knee fissures when his subtle body was returned to his gross body.
A wide variety of physical effects can apparently be produced by subtle action. Here is an example involving a man named Mangal Singh who experienced an NDE in about 1977 while in his early 70s. He described his experience as follows:
I was lying down on a cot when two people came, lifted me up, and took me along. I heard a hissing sound, but I couldn't see anything. Then I came to a gate. There was grass, and the ground seemed to be sloping. A man was there, and he reprimanded the men who had brought me: "Why have you brought the wrong person? Why have you not brought the man you had been sent for?" The two men ran away, and the senior man said, "You go back." Suddenly I saw two big pots of boiling water, although there was no fire, no firewood, and no fireplace. Then the man pushed me with his hand and said, "You had better hurry up and go back." When he touched me, I suddenly became aware of how hot his hand was. Then I realized why the pots were boiling. The heat was coming from his hands.
On returning to consciousness, Mangal felt a severe burning sensation in his left arm. This area developed the appearance of a boil and left a residual mark after healing. He was apparently unable to describe the appearance of the "men" he had met.
The stories of Durga Jatav and Mangal Singh are part of a group of sixteen Indian near-death accounts collected by Satwant Pasricha and Ian Stevenson. They observed that in these cases messengers typically come to take the witness, in contrast to Western NDEs, in which the witness generally meets other beings only after being translated to "another world." Pasricha and Stevenson noted that their Indian subjects naturally identify these messengers with the Yamadutas, the agents of Yamaraja, the lord of the dead in traditional Hinduism.
They also pointed out that the evident cultural differences between Indian and Western NDEs do not necessarily demonstrate that these experiences are simply unreal mental concoctions. It is possible that persons near death are treated differently in different cultures by personalities on the subtle level. There could be different policies for groups of people with different karmic situations.
According to Vedic literature, the transmigration of souls is regulated by the Yamadutas, or servants of Yamaraja. The Yamadutas serve as functionaries in the celestial hierarchy, and they are equipped with mystic powers, or siddhis, that enable them to carry out their duties. They are described as having a very negative, fearful disposition. Nonetheless, they are employed by higher authorities for the positive purpose of reforming the consciousness of souls entangled in material illusion.
Generally, when the Yamadutas take a person, he doesn't return to tell the tale. But Vedic accounts do mention some cases where someone returns. There is the story from the Bhagavata Purana of Ajamila, a sinful man who uttered "Narayana," a name of God, when seeing the Yamadutas at the time of death. As a result of this action, several effulgent servants of Narayana intervened and told the Yamadutas not to touch Ajamila. There followed a debate between the Yamadutas and the servants of Narayana on the laws regarding the treatment of departed souls. Finally, the Yamadutas accepted defeat in this debate and departed from the scene, and Ajamila was revived from apparent death.
There are UFO encounter cases involving the capture-by-mistake theme of the Indian NDEs. In Chapter 9, I presented the story of a woman and her son who were abducted by strange beings and taken on board a UFO while driving near Cimarron, New Mexico. In this case, the woman and boy were physically dragged away by strange "men." The woman was subjected to a harrowing physical examination, after which a tall, authoritative "man" appeared on the scene and angrily declared that the woman should not have been taken and should be sent back. Not only that, but the tall man placed his hand on the woman's forehead, and she was burned by it. This is reminiscent of the Indian NDE cases, and of the case of Mangal Singh, in particular.
However, the woman came down with a severe vaginal infection after the experience, apparently as a result of the examination she received on the UFO. Was this due to a subtle examination, or was it caused by a botched physical examination?
Another example illustrating the theme of capture by mistake is an encounter story related by Emily Cronin. (This is a different encounter than the one mentioned previously.) On this occasion, Emily, her young son, and her friend Jan were resting by the side of a road called Ridge Route near Los Angeles. She consciously remembered seeing a bright yellow light, hearing a high-pitched whine that seemed to have a paralyzing effect, and feeling the car shaking. Under hypnosis, she said that a strange, tall figure in black was looking in the back window of the car and was shaking it. Two other similar beings were standing to one side, telepathically telling the first being that this was a mistake and they shouldn't be there. When Emily managed to move one finger by strongly focusing her will, the noise stopped, the light and figures vanished, and everything was back to normal. Here, the way the experience ended suggests that it occurred on a subtle level.
UFOs and the Recycling of Souls
Western OBEs occurring during medical emergencies are naturally related with death, and the persons experiencing them often connect them with the fate of the soul in the next life. In India, of course, these experiences are associated with the process of transmigration, whereby the soul, riding in the subtle body, is transferred to a new situation at the time of death. Given all the parallels that exist between OBEs and UFO abductions, could it be that some UFO entities are involved with the transmigration of the soul? It turns out that ideas along these lines have been discussed in the UFO literature.
For example, Whitley Strieber has said that his visitors told him, "We recycle souls." Strieber's visitor experiences inspired him with the following general idea: "Could it be that the soul is not only real, but the flux of souls between life and death is a process directed by consciousness and supported by artistry and technology?" This idea is completely Vedic, and so is the corollary that our actions are watched and appraised by beings who control our destination after death. Appraising modern attitudes, Strieber noted, "Because we have deluded ourselves into ignoring the reality of the soul, we imagine everything we do to be some kind of secret," and he asked, "Who watches us?"
The following story gives some indication of how Strieber arrived at these ideas. He related that his visitors invisibly spoke to him, repeatedly warning him not to eat sweets. After several weeks of these warnings, he asked why he shouldn't eat sweets, and they said, "We will show you."
Six days later, he learned through an acquaintance about a woman in Australia who was dying from diabetes. During the previous evening, the woman had seen seven little men "like Chinese mushrooms" who appeared and descended from the ceiling. They lifted the sick lady to the ceiling, and as she protested they put her on the floor. Then she had a vision of sitting in a park, putting on a flowing blue robe, and watching the sun set as a desolate wind blew all symbols of death. After this experience, the woman declined quickly. Strieber was told that the woman was very conservative and probably had given no thought at all to such topics as UFOs and humanoid visitors.
Strieber took this unexpected story from Australia as a graphic answer to his question as to why he shouldn't eat sweets. The story involved beings similar to his visitors; it involved diabetes, a disorder of the body's sugar metabolism; and it came from a bare acquaintance on the other side of the world shortly after he asked his question. Since the woman's encounter with the beings involved symbolic intimations of her death, it struck him that his visitors might have some connection with what happens to people after death.
The relationship between Strieber's visitors and the Vedic Yamadutas is difficult to ascertain. There are differences between these two groups indicating that they play different roles, and there are also similarities suggesting that they may be closely related. For example, one difference is that the Yamadutas normally act only on the subtle level, whereas Strieber maintained that when he was abducted on one occasion, he was able to physically take his cat with him an indication that his trip took place on the physical platform. Nonetheless, there are also similarities. For example, the Yamadutas look strange and frightening, they emanate a strongly negative mood, they can travel invisibly and pass through walls, and they can induce OBEs in human subjects.
Similar remarks can be made about the beings who repeatedly abducted Betty Andreasson, but in her case there are additional complications. For example, during one UFO abduction she had a classical mystical experience, and then she saw white-robed beings similar to those connected with mystical insights in Western NDEs. To understand fully what is going on here, we will need much more information. I suspect that we are seeing a few traces of a complex universal control system involving many different types of intelligent beings.
Soul Recycling and the Government
It may come as no surprise that references to the soul, OBEs, and reincarnation come up in the lore on UFOs and the U.S. Government. In addition, some of this material shows connections with Whitley Strieber's testimony. Here is the story:
Strieber described dreams or visions in which his visitors were found to live in a strange desert setting where ancient buildings were built into cliffs under a tan sky. Now according to Linda Howe, an Air Force intelligence officer named Richard Doty informed her in 1983 about EBEs Extraterrestrial Biological Entities that were allegedly in contact with the U.S. Government. Supposedly, these EBEs come from a desert planet where they live in buildings like those of the Pueblo Indians. One of them is said to have informed an Air Force Colonel that "our souls recycle, that reincarnation is real. It's the machinery of the universe."
This provides a link between the Strieber visitors, the highly physical aliens spoken of in connection with the U.S. Government, and reincarnation. The similarities are so close that we seem to be faced with two alternatives. Either Strieber wrote material from Government/EBE stories into his book, or he was independently reporting experiences that tend to corroborate some of those stories.
There is another story connecting UFOs, OBEs, and the U.S. Government. This involves the thoroughly physical case occurring in October of 1973 in which a UFO was said to approach an Army Reserve helicopter flying from Columbus, Ohio, to Cleveland. At about 11:02 p.m. the crew members saw a red light on the eastern horizon that seemed to be on a collision course with the helicopter. The pilot, Capt. Lawrence J. Coyne, tried to radio a nearby airport, but after an initial response he couldn't get through. To avoid collision, he sent the helicopter into a dive. A cigar-shaped, metallic object took up a position directly over the helicopter and flooded the cockpit with green light. After a short interval, the object continued to the west, but Coyne found that the helicopter was at 3,500 feet and climbing at 1,000 feet per minute, even though they had initiated a dive from 2,500 feet to 1,700 feet. Once the object had departed the radio worked.
There were ground witnesses. A family consisting of a mother and four adolescent children were driving on a rural road below. They saw the encounter between the object and the helicopter and noted the green light. Also, Jeanne Elias, who was in bed at home watching the TV news, heard the diving helicopter and hid her head under her pillow. Her 14-year-old son woke up and saw the green light, which lit up his whole bedroom. The object was explained as a meteor by the famous UFO debunker Philip Klass.
In the aftermath of this case, Capt. Coyne reported receiving a call from the "Department of the Army, Surgeon General's office," asking whether he had had any unusual dreams after the UFO incident. As it happened, he reported a vivid dream of an OBE.
Sgt. John Healey, one of the helicopter crewmen, reported, "As time would go by, the Pentagon would call us up and ask us, well, has this incident happened to you since the occurrence? And in two of the instances that I recall, what they questioned me, was, number one, have I ever dreamed of body separation, and I have I dreamed that I was dead in bed and that my spirit or whatever was floating, looking down at me lying dead in bed, . . . and the other thing was if I had ever dreamed of anything in spherical shape. Which definitely had not occurred to me." He went on to say that the Pentagon would often call Coyne with such questions, asking about all the crew members, and the Pentagon people seemed to believe what they were told. One wonders who in the Pentagon might be interested in the UFO/OBE connection.
The Physical, the Subtle, and Beyond
In summary, the available evidence suggests that UFO abductions and close encounters may occur both in an ordinary bodily state and in an out-of-body state. In the former, the subtle senses of the witness operate through the medium of the gross sense organs (such as eyes and ears), and in the latter, perception occurs directly through the senses of the subtle body. Experiences involving a combination of in-body and out-of-body phases may also occur, and the Doraty case suggests that it is possible to perceive through gross bodily senses and through subtle senses at the same time. This has been called bilocation.
The evidence also suggests that the UFO occupants themselves can operate both on a physical and on a subtle level. They can perceive the subtle form of a human being, and they can arrange things so that a human being can see them in the out-of-body state. They can make themselves physically manifest and visible to ordinary eyes, or they can become unmanifest and invisible. They can also make their vehicles and other paraphernalia visible on either a gross or subtle level.
There is also evidence indicating that UFO entities can enter into a person's mind and control it in a manner reminiscent of traditional spirit possession. In her survey of UFO abductees, Karla Turner noted that "in some cases there seems to be a merging and the abductee then begins to feel or think what the ET is feeling or thinking." She also observed that "We have ET takeover of a human's body. . . . The person is still there but they're not in control. Sometimes they're not even aware until somebody tells them afterwards . . . that they were doing or saying things that are not characteristic of the person."
In the Bhagavata Purana a mystic siddhi is described which enables a grossly embodied being to leave his gross body behind and enter in subtle form into another person's body. This is illustrated by the following story in the Mahabharata:
A king named Kalmashapada once arrogantly insulted and struck the sage Shakti because the latter would not give way to the king on a narrow forest path. Shakti, a son of the famous sage Vasishtha, then cursed the king to become a man-eater.
While the king and Shakti were quarreling, Vishvamitra, an enemy of Vasishtha and a powerful yogi, approached invisibly with the aim of gaining something for himself. After seeing what happened and evaluating the condition of the king's mind, Vishvamitra waited until the king returned to his capital city and then ordered a Rakshasa to approach him. By the sage's curse and the order of Vishvamitra, the Rakshasa was able to enter the king and possess him.
The king was severely harassed by the Rakshasa within him, but he was able to protect himself with his own willpower. Later the king was asked by a brahmana for a meal with meat. The request slipped the king's mind, but late that night he remembered it and asked a cook to prepare the meal for the brahmana, who was waiting at a certain place. Unable to find any meat, the cook asked the king what to do. The Rakshasa then exerted his influence, and the king ordered the cook repeatedly to get human meat. The cook did this, using flesh from an executed prisoner. The brahmana, on seeing the resulting meal, realized that it was unfit to eat, and he also cursed the king to become a man-eater. As a result of this second curse, the Rakshasa was able to completely take over the king, and driven by madness and a desire for vengeance, the king began to kill and devour first Shakti and then the other sons of Vasishtha.
The Rakshasas were mentioned in Chapter 6 in connection with the illusory deer that Ravana used to abduct Sita, and in Chapter 8 in connection with Bhima and his Rakshasi wife, Hidimba. They were beings with powerfully structured gross bodies, and they were also known for their mastery of mystic powers.
Before meeting Hidimba, Bhima engaged in an intense hand-to-hand struggle with her brother Hidimba and killed him by strangulation after exhausting him in the fight. This battle was thoroughly physical. But in the story of king Kalmashapada, the Rakshasa ordered by Vishvamitra was able to act on a subtle level and possess the king in the manner of a traditional evil spirit.
This story illustrates the idea that beings of essentially inimical motivation may have the power to act both on the subtle and gross platforms of existence. The Vedic literature also describes a completely transcendental level of existence, and it is similarly possible for suitably qualified beings to function on both the transcendental and the physical planes. I will present three accounts illustrating this that date back roughly 500 years. As with the UFO stories that we have been considering, these stories display a bewildering combination of what appear to be physical phenomena and phenomena occurring on another plane of existence.
All three accounts are religious in nature, which means that they have to do with spiritual worship and meditation. Although some would categorically reject such material as admissible evidence, I disagree. If so many strange phenomena mentioned in this book could be true, it doesn't make sense to think that phenomena reported in religious contexts must all necessarily be false. In fact, I think that an imbalanced picture will be created if events of a positive spiritual nature are excluded, while those of a negative or at best neutral character are extensively presented.
The first example involves the Vaishnava saint Narottama Dasa Thakura, who lived in India in the 16th century. Narottama would regularly meditate on living in the spiritual world in his siddha-deha, or perfected spiritual form. There he would perform the service of boiling milk for Krishna, and he would actually experience this as real in all respects. In Vaishnava philosophy, Krishna is the Supreme Lord, and He lives in the transcendental realm in an eternal personal form. In that realm, many simple acts of service serve as media for the exchange of intense love between Krishna and His devotees.
On occasion, the milk would boil over, and in his meditation Narottama would burn his hands while trying to stop it. It turned out, however, that upon awakening from his reverie, he would find that his hands were actually burned.
This story can be compared with the two near-death experiences mentioned above, in which physical effects resulted from subtle experiences. One might argue that in all these cases, the physical effects were somehow impressed on the body by the power of the mind, as a consequence of intense mental experiences. From the Vedic point of view, this idea is acceptable as long as we understand that the mind of the individual involved had actually been functioning in another realm of existence. But more is involved than some kind of psychosomatic influence of the mind on the body. To illustrate this point, consider the next story.
The Vaishnava saint Shrinivasa Acarya was a contemporary of Narottama Dasa Thakura's. On one occasion, he was meditating on the pastimes of Lord Caitanya, who is an incarnation of Krishna. Shrinivasa was meditating on Krishna's form as Lord Caitanya by placing a garland of aromatic flowers around His neck and fanning Him with a camara whisk:
As Shrinivasa served the Lord in this way, he could not keep his composure and, looking at the Lord's magnificent form, he began to exhibit ecstatic symptoms. This pleased Lord Caitanya, who then took the same garland of flowers that Shrinivasa had given Him and placed it around Shrinivasa's neck. After the Lord made this loving gesture, Shrinivasa's meditation broke; but the garland was still adorning his own chest. Its fragrance was unlike anything he had ever experienced.
In this case, an object that was observed in trance in another world appeared in physical form in this world. This is certainly not a psychosomatic effect, but one might imagine that the mind of Shrinivasa, charged with intense spiritual emotion, might have paranormally manifested the garland as a physical object. Now, however, I turn to an example in which a human being in this world first meets someone from a higher realm and later visits that realm through meditative trance and again meets the same person.
In this account, a Vaishnava saint named Duhkhi Krishnadasa was performing the daily service of sweeping a certain sacred area in the town of Vrindavana, a famous pilgrimage place in India. While doing this one day, he found a golden anklet that seemed to emanate a remarkable aura. Impressed by the influence that it had on his consciousness, he considered it to be very important, and he buried it in a secret place.
Shortly thereafter an old lady came to him, asking for the anklet and saying that it belonged to her daughter-in-law. Because of its spiritual influence, Duhkhi Krishnadasa was convinced that the anklet must really belong to Radharani, the eternal consort of Krishna. After a long discussion, the old lady finally admitted that this was so, and revealed that her true identity was Lalita-sundari, one of Radharani's servants.
At this point, Duhkhi Krishnadas wanted to see his visitor in her true form, but she said he would be unable to bear such a revelation. After being convinced of his sincere desire, however, she finally acquiesced to his request and revealed her true, incomparable beauty. After giving him several benedictions and receiving the anklet from him, she disappeared, and he was unable to find where she had gone.
One of the benedictions given to Duhkhi Krishnadasa was a special tilaka mark on his forehead, and a new name, Shyamananda. Since Lalita had sworn him to secrecy about their meeting, it was difficult for Shyamananda to explain the tilaka and new name to his guru, who thought that he had simply concocted them. In the course of dealing with this difficult situation, Shyamananda again met Lalita-sundari. This time, however, he met her by entering into her transcendental realm in a state of meditation.
In this case, Duhkhi Krishnadasa met Lalita-sundari in this world, in his physical body, and he also met her in another world that he entered in his spiritual form by meditation. Thus both Duhkhi Krishnadasa and Lalita-sundari were able to operate on different planes of existence. It is significant also that Lalita-sundari was able to assume a disguised form.
Thus in both ancient and recent Vedic traditions there are accounts of beings who can operate on different planes of existence. These beings may be materialistic in orientation, like Vishvamitra Muni and the Rakshasa, or they may be spiritually advanced. The UFO literature likewise seems to contain examples of activity on both subtle and gross physical planes.
Shamanism
A Master of Ecstasy
DefinitionThe shaman "is a man who has immediate concrete experiences with gods and spirits; he sees them face to face, he talks to them, prays to them, implores them - but he does not 'control' more than a limited number of them." - Mircea Ellade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964), p. 89
samann: "one who is excited, moved, raised." (Tungus people of Siberia) The word "may be derived from an ancient Indian word meaning 'to heat oneself or practice austerities' or from a Tungus verb meaning 'to know'." - - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 8
"In the Tungus languages this term (saman) refers to persons of both sexes who have mastered spirits, who at their will can introduce these spirits into themselves and use their power over the spirits in their own interests, particularly helping other people, who suffer from the spirits." - S. Shirokaogoroff, Psychomental Complex of the Tungus (1935), p. 269
"The word shaman comes to English from the Tungus language via Russian. Among the Tungus of Siberia it is both a noun and a verb. While the Tungus have no word for shamanism, it has come into usage by anthropologists, historians of religion and others in contemporary society to designate the experience and the practices of the shaman. Its usage has grown to include similar experiences and practices in cultures outside of the original Ural-Altaic cultures from which the term shaman originated. Thus shamanism is not the name of a religion or group of religions." "Shamanism is classified by anthropologists as an archaic magico-religious phenomenon in which the shaman is the great master of ecstasy. " - Dean Edwards, "Shamanism-General Overview" (FAQ)
"A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." - Mircea Ellade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964), p. 4
Ecstasy: "Being taken or moved out of one's self or one's normal state and entering a state of intensified or heightened feeling." - Random House Dictionary
The shaman "commands the techniques of ecstasy - that is, because his soul can safely abandon his body and roam at vast distances, can penetrate the underworld and rise to the sky. Through his own ecstatic experience he knows the roads of the extraterrestrial regions. He can go below and above because he has already been there. The danger of losing his way in these forbidden regions is still great; but sanctified by his initiation and furnished with his guardian spirit, a shaman is the only human being able to challenge the danger and venture into a mystical geography." - Mircea Ellade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964), p. 182
The ceremonies of the Cult of the Horned god were first found in the Paleolithic cave paintings of Ariege which depicted a dancing figure in the skin of a horned animal.
Cave paintings from the Upper Paleolithic (20-30,000 years ago) depicts zig zags and dots combined with realistic images of animals against grid forms. (See Hypnogogic images.) Similar abstract geometric designs are also found in the ritual art of the South African bushman where the trance dance of the shaman is a central unifying force of the community. In the dance the shaman perceives his body as stretching and becoming elongated. His spirit soars out of the top of his head and is transformed into an animal. In the century old depictions of the trance dance, the bushman shaman absorb the energy of a dying eland and take on many of the magic animal's physical characteristics. He perceives his transformed state as similar to being under water; he has difficulty breathing and feels weightless. When he returns from his spirit journey he is able to perform healing and even his sweat supposedly posses curative powers. A few days later the shaman would be able to reflect upon his experience and paint it in natural rock shelters found in the surrounding cliffs. There was no esoteric stream of wisdom and everyone in the village would share in knowledge of the spirit world.
The Role and Psychology of the Shaman"...Although shamanic practices were found in most regions of the world, they occur only in particular types of societies, primarily simple nomadic hunting and gathering societies. These peoples rely very little on agriculture and have almost no social classes or political organization." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 15
Common myths of these people "refer to a time when communication between heaven and earth was possible; in consequence of a certain event or a ritual fault, the communication was broken off, but heroes and medicine men are nevertheless able to reestablish it." - Mircea Elliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy
"In [Australian] Aboriginal society, like every other society, there were problems; droughts, shortages of food, people became sick or injured, and they died. Supernatural forces were blamed for almost every event, and magic and ritual used to correct the situation. The 'medicine man' or 'doctor' was a powerful man, and tried to cure many physical ills, sometimes by massage or sucking, to remove the 'evil' causing the pain, or by the application of natural medicines made from plants or roots. The emphasis on healing was on the spirit, rather than the body. It was the belief that the spirit was the primary resource of illness - evil thoughts act first on the spirit, and the physical symptoms came later ..." - Michael_Humphrey, "Aborigines"
Shamans "are commonly described as displaying remarkable energy and stamina, usual levels of concentration, control of altered states of consciousness, high intelligence, leadership skills, and a grasp of complex data, myths, and rituals. So, although the symptoms and behavior of the shamanic initiation crises are unusual and even are by both Western and tribal standards, shamans not only reover but may function exceptionally well as leaders and healers of their people." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 153
"A study of Zinacanteco natives of Mexico showed a number of perceptual differences between shamans and nonshamans. In this study the experimenter showed a series of blurred, out-of-focus photographs nd asked the natives what they saw. Shamans were much less likely than nonshamans to say 'I don't know' even when the photographs were blurred to the point of being completely unrecognizable. Moreover, when the experimenter offered suggestions as to what the image might be, shamans were more likely than non-shamans to ignore the suggestions and to give their own personal interpretation. "These findings suggest that shamans may be especially able to create meaningful patterns from unclear data - that is, they tend to organize ambiguous experiences into coherent meaningful images." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 118
"...An acute schizophrenic episode...is one of the most devastating experiences any human being can undergo. Psychological disorganization is extreme, disrupting emotions, thought, perception, and identity. Victims can be completely overwhelmed, plunged into a nightmare of terror and confusion, haunted by hallucinations, swept from their usual sense of reality and identity, and lost in a private autistic world." "This schizophrenic experience is very different from the shamanic journey. The shaman's experience is coherent, meaningful, and consistent with the purpose of the journey. In addition the shaman has good control of his experience, heightened concentration, and a clear, coherent sense of identity. The shaman experiences leaving her body and roaming at will. By comparison with the almost invariable terror of the schizophrenic, the shaman's experience may be a source of wonder and delight." In addition "Shamans are often outstanding members of the community and may display considerable intellectual, artistic, and leadership skills and make significant contributions to their community. Such skills and contributions are very rare among schizophrenics." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), pp. 224, 226
Induction and Initiation
The Call to Shamanism"It is only in the face of death that man's self is born." - St. Augustine
"A common experience of the call to shamanism is a psychic or spiritual crisis, which often accompanies a physical or even a medical crisis, and is cured by the shaman him or herself....The shaman is often marked by eccentric behavior such as periods of melancholy, solitude, visions, singing in his or her sleep, etc. The inability of the traditional remedies to cure the condition of the shamanic candidate and the eventual self cure by the new shaman is a significant episode in development of the shaman. The underlying significant aspect of this experience, when it is present, is the ability of the shaman to manage and resolve periods of distress." - Dean Edwards, "Shamanism-General Overview" (FAQ)
Among the Chukchee Indians: "For men the preparatory stage of shamanistic inspiration is in most cases very painful, and extends over a long time. The call comes in an abrupt and obscure manner, leaving the young novice in much uncertainty regarding it.... He feels 'bashful' and frightened; he doubts his own disposition and strength, as has been the case with all seers, from Moses down. Half unconsciously and half against his own will, his whole soul undergoes a strange and painful transformation. This period may last months, and sometimes even years. The young novice, the 'newly inspired' (turene'nltvillin), loses all interest in the ordinary affairs of life. He ceases to work, eats but little and without relishing the food, ceases to talk to people, and does not even answer their questions. The greater part of his time he spends in sleep." - W. Bogaras, The Chukchee (1909), p. 420
"A shaman may exhibit a particular magical specialty (such as control over fire, wind or magical flight). When a specialization is present the most common is as a healer. The distinguishing characteristic of shamanism is its focus on an ecstatic trance state in which the soul of the shaman is believed to leave the body and ascend to the sky (heavens) or descend into the earth (underworld). The shaman makes use of spirit helpers, which he or she communicates with, all the while retaining control over his or her own consciousness. (Examples of possession occur, but are the exception, rather than the rule.) It is also important to note that while most shamans in traditional societies are men, either women or men may and have become shamans." - Dean Edwards, "Shamanism-General Overview" (FAQ)
2 Kings 3:15
Exaggerated RhythmA common method of inducing a trance state is to listen to the protracted pounding of a drum.
"Dancing, music and other exaggerations of natural rhythm have been pressed into the same service by the Greek initiates of Dionysus, by the gnostics, by innumerable other mystic cults. That these proceedings do effect a remarkable change in the human consciousness is proved by experience: though how and why they do it is yet little understood. "Shamans too have used these techniques. Drums and rattles have been their most widely used instruments. When a drum is played at a tempo of some 200 to 22 beats per minute, most Western novices report that they can journey successfully even on their first attempt." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 174
"By entering an ecstatic state, induced by ritual dancing and the invocation of spirits, the shaman is believed able to return to that time, visiting heaven and hell to talk with gods, spirits of the dead, and animals." - Cosmic Duality
Hallucinogenic Drugs"Shamans reach the state that gives them access to the supernatural world in a variety of ways. A very common way is by ingesting mind-altering drugs of various types." - James Davila, "Enoch as a Divine Mediator"
"It is the Siberian and Latin American shamans who have most often employed psychedelics as booster rockets to launch their cosmic travels. In Siberia the preferred substance has been the mushroom known as Amanita muscaria or agaric. This is perhaps the much-praised soma of early Indian religion as well as one of the drugs referred to in European legends." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism
Psychologists differentiate two stages in trance states induced by drugs, fasting and/or sensory deprivation.1.) Antopic forms - abstract geometric forms such as grids, dots and spirals 2.) Realistic images from memory combined in surreal ways against a geometric background.The Paleolithic paintings depicts similar hallucinatory images to the modern bushman's but differ in one respect; they were not done out in the open but in the deep, dark recesses of caves. Was the sensory deprivation of being immersed in the dark a means of inducing a trance state in the Cro-Magnon shaman? - "Images of Another World" An episode of Ancient Mysteries broadcast by the A&E Network
"Hypnogogic images are the germinal stuff of dreams, and they usually begin with flashes of light. Often, an illuminated circle, lozenge, or other generally round form appears to come nearer and nearer, swelling to gigantic size. This particular image is known as the Isakower phenomenon, named after an Austrian psychoanalyst who first identified it. Isakower claimed the image was rooted in the memory of the mother's breast as it approached the infant's mouth.""Hypnagogic images can be interpreted in many different ways. Literally and figuratively, it's all in the eye of the beholder. The drowsy person in the hypnagogic state is just as open to suggestions as subjects in the hypnotized state.""When people start floating in the hypnagogic state, the amplitude and frequency of brainwaves decrease. The alpha rhythms of wakefulness are progressively replaced by slower theta activity. This translates to a loss of volitional control, a sense of paralysis. As the person descends further into sleep itself, the outside physical world retreats to the fringe of consciousness and the new reality becomes the internal dream world."
The final stage of hypnagogic images is, "polyopia, the multiplication of the image, usually seen in one eye....These specks of light...are produced by electrical activity in the visual system and brain. One can almost imagine the specks representing electric sparks flying along the neural pathways of the brain." They may look like hundred of stars "but they can also take the form of spots, circles, swirls, grids, checkerboards, or other figures composed of curves or lines. They are easy to see in the dark, but, in the light, they are on the borderline of perception.""Even when the hypnagogic forms are not consciously noticed, they can still register as subliminal stimuli and influence subsequent image formation and fantasy." - Ronald K.Siegel, Fire in the Brain
Sensory Deprivation"Less direct methods are also widely practiced. These include various forms of isolation and self-denial, such as fasting, solitary confinement, celibacy, dietary and purity restrictions, and protracted prayer. Igjugarjuk, a Caribou Inuit shaman, claims to have been isolated by his mentor in a small snow hut where he fasted and meditated in the cold, drinking only a little water twice, for thirty days. After his initiatory vision (see below) he continued a rigorous regime involving a special diet and celibacy. Leonard Crow Dog, a Native American Sioux shaman, describes in detail the process of his first vision quest. He participated in a sweat lodge ceremony for spiritual cleansing, then was taken to a fasting place of his family's, where he was wrapped naked in a blanket and left in a hole to fast and pray alone for two days (an adult shaman will fast four or more days). Wallace Black Elk also frequently describes both the sweat lodge ('stone-people-lodge') ceremony and the vision quest. Ascetic practices by Japanese shamans are especially prevalent among those who actively seek shamanhood rather than being called by a deity. These practices include fasting and dietary restrictions of various kinds, seclusion in a dark place, walking pilgrimages between sacred places, and rigorous regimes of immersion and bathing in ice-cold water. These disciplines, especially the endurance of cold, eventually fill the shaman with heat and spiritual might." - James Davila, "Enoch as a Divine Mediator"
Similar practices can be found in Jewish mysticism dating from at least the 5th-6th c C.E.
"Let him who would join himself to the prince of Torah wash his garments and his clothes and let him immerse (in) a strict immersion as a safeguard in case of pollution. And let him dwell for twelve days in a room or in an upper chamber. Let him not go out or come in, and he must neither eat nor drink. But from evening to evening see that he eats his bread, clean bread of his own hands, and he drinks pure water, and that he does not taste any kind of vegetable. And let him insert this midrash of the prince of Torah into the prayer three times in every single day; it is after the prayer that he should pray it from its beginning to its end. And afterward, let him sit and recite during the twelve days, the days of his fasting, from morning until evening, and let him not be silent. And in every hour that he finishes it let him stand on his feet and adjure by the servants (and?) by their king, twelve times by every single prince. Afterward let him adjure every single one of them by the seal." - Sar Torah, paras. 299-300
Body DismembermentThe shaman is said to 'make a journey,' during which he is spoken to by the spirits, who give him curing instructions and make their wishes known for certain kinds of propitiatory sacrifices; they may also appear to him in the form of visions or apparitions. Motifs of death and rebirth, often involving bodily dismemberment and reassimilation, are common in shamanism..." - McKenna and McKenna, The Invisible Landscape
"...The important moments of a shamanic initiation are these five; first, torture and violent dismemberment of the body; second, scraping away of the flesh until the body is reduced to a skeleton; third, substitution of viscera and reveal of the blood; fourth, a period spent in Hell, during which the future shaman is taught by the souls of dead shamans and by 'demons'; fifth, an ascent to Heaven to obtain consecration from the God of Heaven" - Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation
"Before a shaman attains the stage at which any helping spirit would think it worth while to come to him, he must, by struggle and toil and concentration of thought, acquire for himself yet another great and inexplicable power: he must be able to see himself as a skeleton. Though no shaman can explain to himself how and why, he can, by the power his brain derives from the supernatural, as it were by thought alone, divest his body of its flesh and blood, so that nothing remains but his bones.... By thus seeing himself naked, altogether freed from the perishable and transient flesh and blood, he consecrates himself, in the sacred tongue of the shamans, to his great task, through that part of his body which will longest withstand the action of sun, wind and weather, after he is dead." - K. Ramussen, Intellectual Culture of the Igluilik Eskimos (1929), p. 114
"Frequently a candidate will gain shamanic powers during a visionary experience in which he or she undergoes some form of death or personal destruction and disintegration at the hands of divine beings, followed by a corresponding resurrection or reintegration that purges and gives a qualitatively different life to the initiate. For example, the Siberian (Tagvi Samoyed) Sereptie, in his long and arduous initiatory vision (on which see below), was at one point reduced to a skeleton and then was 'forged' with a hammer and anvil. Autdaruta, an Inuit initiate, had a vision in which he was eaten by a bear and then was vomited up, having gained power over the spirits." - James R. Davila, "Hekhalot Literature and Mysticism"
"I saw that I was painted red all over, and my joints were painted black, with white stripes between the joints. My bay had lightning stripes all over him and his mane was cloud. And when I breathed, my breath was lightning." - Nick Black Elk, in the narrative of his Great Vision
Shamans may believe that "they are cut up by demons or by their ancestral spirits; their bones are cleaned, the flesh scraped off, the body fluids thrown away, and their eyes torn from their sockets.... His bones are then covered with new flesh and in some cases he is also given new blood." - H. Fabrega and D. Silver, "Some Social and Psychological Properties of Zinacanteco Shamans", Behavioral Science 15, 471-86 (1970), p. 203
"This dismemberment experience is similar to that of the Tibetan tantric practice of gChod. Here practitioners cultivate deachment and compassion by visualizing their bodies being dismembered and offered to wrathful deities and hungry demons to at. The major difference seems to be that whereas for the tantric these experiences are recognized as voluntary visualizations, for the shaman they are experienced as involuntary trials." "The experience of death and rebirth, dismemberment and reconstitution, appears to be a psychological and/or spiritual transformative process most likely to occur at times of overwhelming emotional arousal and stress. This arousal activates psychological tensions and conflicts to unsustainable levels. The result is a crisis in which old patterning forces are no longer able to maintain the former psychological balance. The old psychodynamic forces, conflicts, habits, conditioning, organization, beliefs, and identity are overwhelmed and the psyche's organization temporarily collapses." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), pp. 60, 63
"What is destroyed in this process is the old, limiting concept of oneself and the corresponding restricting view of existence and of the universe." - S. Grof, LSD Psychotherapy (1980), p. 170
Seeing Spirits"The ecstatic experience of the shaman goes beyond a feeling or perception of the sacred, the demonic or of natural spirits. It involves them shaman directly and actively in transcendent realities or lower realms of being.""The shaman is not recognized as legitimate without having undergone two types of training:1) Ecstatic (dreams, trances, etc.)2) Traditional ('shamanic techniques, names and functions of spirits,mythology and genealogy of the clan, secret language, etc.)The two-fold course of instruction, given by the spirits and the old master shamans is equivalent to an initiation.' [Mircea Eliade, The Encyclopedia of Religion, v. 13 , p. 202; Mcmillian, N.Y., 1987.] It is also possible for the entire process to take place in the dream state or in ecstatic experience." - Dean Edwards, "Shamanism-General Overview" (FAQ)
"The novice's task of learning to see the spirits involves two stages. The first is simply to catch an initial glimpse of them. The second is to deepen and stabilize this glimpse into a permanent visionary capacity in which the spirits can be summoned and seen at will.""The spirits are usually sought under specific conditions such as reduced lighting and altered states of consciousness, conditions that enhance awareness of visual imagery. Trance and drug states intensify images, and darkness enhances sensitivity to them." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 118
A shaman from a South American tribe rubs herbs onto the eyes of an initiate: "For three days and nights the two men sit opposite each other, singing and ringing their bells. Until the eyes of the boy are clear, neither of the two men obtains any sleep. At the end of the three days the two again go to the woods and obtain more herbs. . . . If at the end of seven days the boy sees the wood-spirits, the ceremony is at an end. Otherwise the entire seven day ceremony must be repeated." - E. Loeb, "Shaman and Seer", American Anthropologist 41, 60-84 (1929)
The Eskimo shaman, lgjugarjuk endured a grueling initiation in isolation during the depth of winter. "Ig'ugarjuk declared that the strain of those thirty days of cold and fasting was so severe that he 'sometimes died a little.' During all that time he thought only of the Great Spirit, and endeavored to keep his mind free from all memory of human beings and everyday things. Toward the end of the thirty days there came to him a helping spirit in the shape of a woman. She came while he was asleep and seemed to hover in the air above him. After that he dreamed no more of her, but she became his helping spirit. For five months following this period of trial, he was kept on the strictest diet, and required to abstain from all intercourse with women. The fasting was then repeated; for such fasts at frequent intervals are the best means of attaining to knowledge of hidden things." - K. Ramussen, Across Arctic America (1927), p. 84
"All this long and tiring ceremony has as its object transforming the apprentice magician's initial and momentary and ecstatic experience...into a permanent condition - that in which it is possible to see the spirits." - Mircea Elliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy
"Among the Eskimo shaman's clairvoyance is the result of qaumenaq, which means 'lightning' or 'illumination'. It is a mysterious light which the shaman suddenly feels in his body, inside his head, within the brain, enabling him to see in the dark, both literally and metaphorically speaking, for he can now even with closed eyes, see through darkness and perceive things and coming events which are hidden from others. With the experience of the light goes a feeling of ascension, distant vision, clairvoyance, the perception of invisible entities and foreknowledge of the future. There is an interesting parallel, despite differences, in the initiation of Australian medicine-men, who go through a ritual death, and are filled with solidified light in the form of rock-crystals; on returning to life they have similar powers of clairvoyance and extra-sensory perception." - John Ferguson, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Mysticism and the Mystery Religions
"The next thing an old shaman has to do for his pupil is to procure him anak ua by which is meant his 'angakoq', i.e., the altogether special and particular element which makes this man an angakoq (shaman). It is also called his quamenEg his 'lightning' or 'enlightenment', for anak ua consists of a mysterious light which the shaman suddenly feels in his body, inside his head, within the brain, an inexplicable searchlight, a luminous fire, which enables him to see in the dark both literally and metaphorically speaking, for he can now, even with closed eyes see through darkness and perceive things and coming events which are hidden from others; thus they look into the future and into the secrets of others."The first time a young shaman experiences this light...it is as if the house in which he is suddenly rises; he sees far ahead of him, through mountains, exactly as if the earth were on a great plain, and his eyes could reach to the end of the earth. Nothing is hidden from him any longer; not only can he see things far, far away, but he can also discover souls, stolen souls, which are either kept concealed in far, strange lands or have been taken up or down to the Land of the dead." - K. Rasmussen, Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos
A Transpersonal Experience"And then in the midst of such a fit of mysterious and overwhelming delight I became a shaman, not knowing myself how it came about. But I was a shaman. I could see and hear in a totally different way. I had gained my quameneq ('lightning'), my enlightenment, the shaman-light of brain and body, and this in such a manner that it was not only I who could see through the darkness of life, but the same light also shone out from me, imperceptible to human beings, but visible to all the spirits of earth and sky and sea, and these now came to me and became my helping spirits." - The Eskimo shaman Aua, quoted in Intellectual Culture of the Igluilik Eskimos (1929), p. 119
"The totem-spirit-animal inhabits the mind of the shaman. Thus the shaman might think, feel, see and smell as wolf for example. Alternatively the shaman may in fact possess the body of the animal, and ride within the wolf, sharing what the wolf sees and feels, thus providing the wolf the added bonus of human intelligence and experience." - Jean de Cabilis, "Demonic Possession" (1993)
"Perhaps the most dramatic example among religious traditions is the so-called 'deity yoga' of Tibetan Buddhism. Here the yogi visualizes himself first creating and then merging with a godlike figure who embodies virtue upon virtue: unconditional love, boundless compassion, profound wisdom, and more. After merging, just like the shaman and her power animal dance, the yogi attempts to move, speak, and act as the deity. In other words, after merging with their allies, both shaman and yogi attempt to embody, experience, and express their allies' qualities. The difference is that for the shaman the power animal ally is regarded as real, whereas for the yogi the deity is ultimately regarded as a mental creation and projection." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), pp. 122-123
"Thou art in me and I am in thee; and thy attributes are my attributes. I am the god of the inundation (Bah), and Qem-ur-she is my name. My forms are the forms of the god Khepera [the father of the gods who symbolizes resurrection], the hair of the earth of Tem [the source of creation]. I have entered in as a man of no understanding, and I shall come forth in the form of a strong Spirit, and I shall look upon my form which shall be that of men and women for ever and ever." - Egyptian Book of the Dead, Chapter LXIV (short version)
A "possibility for transpersonal psychologists would be that these spiritual sources of wisdom represent transcendent aspects of the psyche 'above and beyond' the ego. Several such transcendent aspects of the psyche have been described in both Eastern and Western psychologies. Western examples include the higher Self; the transpersonal witness; the Junglan Self, which is the center of the psyche; and the inner self helper, which is a helpful and apparently transcendent personality that occurs in multiple personalities." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 131
Carl Jung writes about his inner teacher, Philemon, who appeared to him in a dream: "Suddenly there appeared from the right a winged being sailing across the sky. I saw that it was an old man with the horns of a bull. He held a bunch of four keys, one of which he clutched as if he were about to open a lock. He had the wings of the kingfisher with its characteristic colors.... Philemon and other figures of my fantastes brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life. Philemon represented a force which was not myself. In my fantasies I held conversations with him, and he said things which I had not consciously thought. For I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I.... I understood that there is something in me which can say things that I do not know and do not intend, things which may even be directed against me. "Psychologically, Philemon represented superior insight. He was a mysterious figure to me. At times he seemed to me quite real as if he were a living personality. I went walking up and down the garden with him, and to me he was what the Indians call a guru." - Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections (1961), pp. 182-183
A Second Real World
Soul Travel"The pre-eminently shamanic technique is the passage from one cosmic region to another - from earth to the sky or from earth to the underworld. The shaman knows the mystery of the breakthrough in plane. This communication among the cosmic zones is made possible by the very structure of the universe." - Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy
In lucid dreams "strange worlds and scenes seem to arise spontaneously, but we are usually able to control our responses to them and, if we wish, to awaken from the dream at any time. The shaman's control during journeys is similar, and lucid dreams may well have provided inspiration for early shamanic journeys." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 220
"He commands the techniques of ecstasy - that is, because his soul can safely abandon his body and roam at vast distances, can penetrate the underworld and rise to the sky. Through his own ecstatic experience he knows the roads of the extraterrestrial regions. He can go below and above because he has already been there. The danger of losing his way in these forbidden regions is still great; but sanctified by his initiation and furnished with his guardian spirit, a shaman is the only human being able to challenge the danger and venture into a mystical geography." - Mircea Elliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy
"In the ages of the rude beginnings of culture, man believed that he was discovering a second real world in dream, and here is the origin of metaphysics. Without dream, mankind would never have had occasion to invent such a division of the world. The parting of soul and body goes also with this way of interpreting dream; likewise, the idea of a soul's apparitional body: whence, all belief in ghosts, and apparently, too, in gods." - Neitzsche, Human, All-Too-Human
"We must recognize ourselves as beings of four dimensions. Do we not in sleep live in a fantastic fairy kingdom where everything is capable of transformation, where there is no stability belonging to the physical world, where one man can become another or two men at the same time, where the most improbable things look simple and natural, where events often occur in inverse order, from end to beginning, where we see the symbolical images of ideas and moods, where we talk with the dead, fly in the air, pass through walls, are drowned or burnt, die and remain alive?" - P. D. Ouspensky
The Cosmic Zones"The main feature of the shamans' universe is...the cosmic center, a bond or axis connecting earth, heaven and hell. It is often pictured as a tree or a pole holding up the sky. In a trance state, a shaman can travel disembodied from one region to another, climbing the tree into the heavens or following its downward extension. By doing so he can meet and consult the gods. There is always a numerical factor. He climbs through a fixed number of celestial stages, or descends through a fixed number of infernal ones. His key number may be expressed in his costume - for example, in a set of bells which he attaches to it. The key number varies from shaman to shaman and from tribe to tribe." - Geoffrey Ashe, The Ancient Wisdom
"...There are three great cosmic regions, which can be successively transversed because they are linked together by a central axis. This axis, of course, passes through an 'opening', a 'hole'; it is through this hole that the gods descent to earth and the dead to the subterranean regions; it is through the same hole that the soul of the shaman in ecstasy can fly up or down in the course of his celestial or infernal journeys." - Mircea Ellade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964), p. 21
"The distinctive feature of the shamanic ecstasy is the experience of 'soul flight' or 'journeying' or 'out-of-body experience.' That is, in their ecstatic state shamans experience themselves, or their soul or spirit, flying through space and traveling either to other worlds or to distant parts of this world. In Ellade's words, 'The shaman specializes in a trance during which his soul is believed to leave his body and ascend to the sky or descend to the underworld.' "These flights reflect the shamanic view of the cosmos. This comprises a three-tiered universe of upper, middle, and lower worlds, the middle one corresponding to our earth. The shaman ranges throughout this threefold world system in order to learn, obtain power, or to diagnose and treat those who come for help and healing. During these journeys shamans may experience themselves exploring other worlds and meeting the people, animals, or spirits who inhabit them, seeing the cause and cure of a patient's 'illness, or interceding with friendly or demonic forces." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 10
"Entrances into the Lower world commonly lead down into a tunnel or tube that conveys the shaman to an exit, which opens out upon bright and marvelous landscapes. From there the shaman travels wherever he desires for minutes or even hours, finally returning back up through the tube ... to emerge at the surface, where he entered." - Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman (1982), p. 27
"Journeys to the middle or upper worlds have the same general features as those to the lower world. There are, however, some differences in purpose and in the types of entities likely to be encountered. The lower world is often a place of tests and challenges, but it is also a place where power animals are acquired and the shaman is guided and empowered to victory." "The middle world is our familiar world. In their visions shamans journey over it at will, unimpeded by barriers or distance, seeing far and wide, and returning with information about hunting, weather, or warfare. Middle-world journeys are particularly common in the near-Arctic areas of North America and Siberia. Here food supplies are precarious and migrating animal herds must be located." "The upper world is a place where teachers and guides may be found, and 'journeys here may be particularly ecstatic." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 147
An Experience of AweThere is "an ineffable joy in what he sees, an awe of the beautiful and mysterious worlds that open before him. His experiences are like dreams, but waking ones that feel real and in which he can control his actions and direct his adventures." - M. Harner, The Way of the Shaman (1982), p. 27
"The journey to the upper world usually begins from a raised area such as a mountain, treetop, or cliff, from which the shaman envisions himself ascending into the sky. At some stage of the journey there may be an experience of a kind of membrane that temporarily impedes the ascent. When this is pierced the shaman finds himself in the upper world, a world notably different from the middle world and perhaps populated with strange animals, plants, and people. Like the lower one, the upper world may have several levels, and the shaman can usually move between them at will, perhaps assisted by a helping spirit." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 147
"During journeys awareness of the environment is significantly reduced. This is hardly surprising since the shaman is preoccupied with life-and-death dramas in other worlds. In spite of these other-world adventures, the shaman may be able to split her awareness between those worlds and this one sufficiently to communicate with her audience. In such cases the listeners may be treated to a blow-by-blow account of the worlds, spirits, and battles encountered by the shaman." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 220
"Among religions, practitioners of Taoism, Islam, Yoga, and Tibetan Buddhism may journey to other realms. Among Taoists visualizations were believed to help the adept ascend to paradise. In the course of the visualization he crossed the gates of the three celestial passes to enter the Yu-ching Heaven, where he undertook an excursion of paradise. Some Indian Muslims practice 'allowing the soul to explore the spirit world;' helped on its way with hashish, which they call the 'heavenly guide or poor man's heaven.' In contrast to shamanism, however, these traditions use journeying only occasionally; it is by no means a central practice." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 90
The Shaman as Psychotherapist
Healing the Body"...It appears that shamans are able to draw on a range of psychologically skillful diagnostic and therapeutic techniques accumulated by their predecessors over centuries. Some of these techniques clearly foreshadow ones widely used today and thereby confirm the reputation of shamans as humankind's first psychotherapists." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism
Placebo effect: "a poorly understood process in which psychological factors such as belief and expectation trigger a healing response that can be as powerful as any conventional therapy-be it drugs, surgery or psychotherapy-for a wide range of medical and psychological problems." - Roger N. Walsh, "Initial Meditative Experiences: Part I", Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 9, 151-192 (1977)
"...Approximately one-third of people who are treated with completely inactive placebos are likely to show improvements The placebo effect has probably been a major factor in most therapies through most of human history." "The range of ills that the placebo effect can help is awesome. Positive responses have been found with coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, cancer, arthritis, ulcers, migraine headaches, allergies, hay fever, acne, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, parkinsonism, pain, radiation sickness, and psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety. "Placebo effects also play a role in many, if not all, therapeutic interactions." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 189
"If the patient really has confidence in me, then he gets cured. If he has no confidence, then that is his problem." - Navaho medicine man quoted in D. Sandner, Navaho Symbols of Healing (1979), pp. 17-18
"Whether the shaman cures himself by helping others or first cures himself and then helps others, it may be essential that he continue shamanizing and helping 'in order to avoid a relapse." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 206
This is evident in the belief of the Chukchee.
"While the shaman is in possession of the inspiration, he must practice, and cannot hide his power. Otherwise it will manifest itself in the form of bloody sweat or in a fit of madness similar to epilepsy." - W. Borgoras, The Chukchee (1909), p. 419
Healing the Community"Shamanism often exists alongside and even in cooperation with the religious or healing practices of the community....Knowledge of other realms of being and consciousness and the cosmology of those regions is the basis of the shamanic perspective and power. With this knowledge, the shaman is able to serve as a bridge between the mundane and the higher and lower states. The shaman lives at the edge of reality as most people would recognize it and most commonly at the edge of society itself." - Dean Edwards, "Shamanism-General Overview" (FAQ)
"A shaman working to cure a patient does not simply intercede with the spirits (though he may do that): he tries to rectify the disharmony that the sickness represents. He seeks to reestablish the balance not only of the sick body but also of the society to which the patient belongs - and of the cosmic order that contains it." - David Maybury-Lewis, Millennium - Tribal Wisdom and the Mondern World, p. 187
Amongst the Eskimo, the shaman upon his "return" forces "the audience to confess their breaches of taboo. All must acknowledge their sins, a process that produces a powerful group confession and cohesion." - Roger N. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (1990), p. 146
"We know today that the medicine man derives his power from a circular feedback involving his personal myth and the hopes and expectations of those who share it with him. The ensuing 'mutual exaltation' was studied by McDougal and by Gustave LeBon many years ago. It is still regarded as one of the key factors in the psychology of masses. It has subsequently been reinterpreted in Freudian terms as the individual's willing surrender to an all-powerful father figure capable of meeting the childish dependency needs still lingering in members of the group." - Ehrewald, The ESP Experience
Ancient Aircraft
Our resident MUFON psychologist and hypnotherapist, Dr. Ruth Hover, and her husband took a trip to the pyramids and temples of Egypt. In the temple at Abydios, she photographed a wall panel in a section where an overlaying panel with Egyptian heiroglyphics crumbled and fell, revealing an older panel beneath it. This older panel, shown below, contains embossed images of what appear to be ancient aircraft.

Egyptian Temple Wall in Abydos with panel above columns

Egyptian Temple Wall Panel on which the images are raised

Is this an Ancient Helicopter?

Is this an Ancient Aircraft?

Another Ancient Aircraft?

A Mysterious Flying Cylinder?
A small model of what has been called a "glider" plane was found in a museum in Cairo. Its body was just over 6" long and its wingspan was a little over 7". Made of light sycamore wood, it would glide a short distance when thrown by hand. Other models of aircraft have been found in Egypt and South America. One of them bears a striking resemblance to a modern delta-winged jet! More will be added later. Read below about the ancient aircraft of India.
ANCIENT VIMANA AIRCRAFT
Contributed by John Burrows
Sanskrit texts are filled with references to gods who fought battles in the sky using Vimanas equipped with weapons as deadly as any we can deploy in these more enlightened times. For example, there is a passage in the Ramayana which reads:
"The Puspaka car that resembles the Sun and belongs to my brother was brought by the powerful Ravan; that aerial and excellent car going everywhere at will .... that car resembling a bright cloud in the sky."
".. and the King [Rama] got in, and the excellent car at the command of the Raghira, rose up into the higher atmosphere."
In the Mahabharatra, an ancient Indian poem of enormous length, we learn that an individual named Asura Maya had a Vimana measuring twelve cubits in circumference, with four strong wheels. The poem is a veritable gold mine of information relating to conflicts between gods who settled their differences apparently using weapons as lethal as the ones we are capable of deploying. Apart from 'blazing missiles', the poem records the use of other deadly weapons. 'Indra's Dart' operated via a circular 'reflector'. When switched on, it produced a 'shaft of light' which, when focused on any target, immediately 'consumed it with its power'. In one particular exchange, the hero, Krishna, is pursuing his enemy, Salva, in the sky, when Salva's Vimana, the Saubha is made invisible in some way. Undeterred, Krishna immediately fires off a special weapon: 'I quickly laid on an arrow, which killed by seeking out sound'. Many other terrible weapons are described, quite matter of factly, in the Mahabharata, but the most fearsome of all is the one used against the Vrishis. The narrative records:
"Gurkha flying in his swift and powerful Vimana hurled against the three cities of the Vrishis and Andhakas a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and fire, as brilliant as ten thousands suns, rose in all its splendour. It was the unknown weapon, the Iron Thunderbolt, a gigantic messaenger of death which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas."
It is important to note, that these kinds of records are not isolated. They can be cross-correlated with similiar reports in other ancient civilizations. The after-affects of this Iron Thunderbolt have an ominously recognizable ring. Apparently, those killed by it were so burnt that their corpses were unidentifiable. The survivors fared little etter, as it caused their hair and nails to fall out.
Perhaps the most disturbing and challenging, information about these allegedly mythical Vimanas in the ancient records is that there are some matter-of-fact records, describing how to build one. In their way, the instructions are quite precise.
In the Sanskrit Samarangana Sutradhara, it is written:
"Strong and durable must the body of the Vimana be made, like a great flying bird of light material. Inside one must put the mercury engine with its iron heating apparatus underneath. By means of the power latent in the mecrcury which sets the driving whirlwind in motion, a man sitting inside may travel a great distance in the sky. The movements of the Vimana are such that it can vertically ascend, vertically descend, move slanting forwards and backwards. With the help of the machines human beings can fly in the air and heavenly beings can come down to earth."
The Hakatha (Laws of the Babylonians) states quite unambiguously: "The privilege of operating a flying machine is great. The knowledge of flight is among the most ancient of our inheritances. A gift from 'those from upon high'. We received it from them as a means of saving many lives."
More fantastic still is the information given in the ancient Chaldean work, The Sifrala, which contains over one hundred pages of technical details on building a flying machine. It contains words which translate as graphite rod, copper coils, crystal indicator, vibrating spheres, stable angles, etc.
Ancient Indian Aircraft Technology From The Anti-Gravity Handbook
by D. Hatcher Childress
Many researchers into the UFO enigma tend to overlook a very important fact. While it assumed that most flying saucers are of alien, or perhaps Governmental Military origin, another possible origin of UFOs is ancient India and Atlantis. What we know about ancient Indian flying vehicles comes from ancient Indian sources; written texts that have come down to us through the centuries. There is no doubt that most of these texts are authentic; many are the well known ancient Indian Epics themselves, and there are literally hundreds of them. Most of them have not even been translated into English yet from the old sanskrit.
The Indian Emperor Ashoka started a "Secret Society of the Nine Unknown Men": great Indian scientists who were supposed to catalogue the many sciences. Ashoka kept their work secret because he was afraid that the advanced science catalogued by these men, culled from ancient Indian sources, would be used for the evil purpose of war, which Ashoka was strongly against, having been converted to Buddhism after defeating a rival army in a bloody battle. The "Nine Unknown Men" wrote a total of nine books, presumably one each. Book number was "The Secrets of Gravitation!" This book, known to historians, but not actually seen by them dealt chiefly with "gravity control." It is presumably still around somewhere, kept in a secret library in India, Tibet or elsewhere (perhaps even in North America somewhere). One can certainly understand Ashoka's reasoning for wanting to keep such knowledge a secret, assuming it exists.
Ashoka was also aware of devastating wars using such advanced vehicles and other "futuristic weapons" that had destroyed the ancient Indian "Rama Empire" several thousand years before. Only a few years ago, the Chinese discovered some sanskrit documents in Lhasa, Tibet and sent them to the University of Chandrigarh to be translated. Dr. Ruth Reyna of the University said recently that the documents contain directions for building interstellar spaceships! Their method of propulsion, she said, was "anti- gravitational" and was based upon a system analogous to that of "laghima," the unknown power of the ego existing in man's physiological makeup, "a centrifugal force strong enough to counteract all gravitational pull." According to Hindu Yogis, it is this "laghima" which enables a person to levitate.
Dr. Reyna said that on board these machines, which were called "Astras" by the text, the ancient Indians could have sent a detachment of men onto any planet, according to the document, which is thought to be thousands of years old. The manuscripts were also said to reveal the secret of "antima"; "the cap of invisibility" and "garima"; "how to become as heavy as a mountain of lead." Naturally, Indian scientists did not take the texts very seriously, but then became more positive about the value of them when the Chinese announced that they were including certain parts of the data for study in their space program! This was one of the first instances of a government admitting to be researching anti-gravity.
The manuscripts did not say definitely that interplanetary travel was ever made but did mention, of all things, a planned trip to the Moon, though it is not clear whether this trip was actually carried out. However, one of the great Indian epics, the Ramayana, does have a highly detailed story in it of a trip to the moon in a Vimana (or "Astra"), and in fact details a battle on the moon with an "Asvin" (or Atlantean") airship. This is but a small bit of recent evidence of anti-gravity and aerospace technology used by Indians.
To really understand the technology, we must go much further back in time. The so-called "Rama Empire" of Northern India and Pakistan developed at least fifteen thousand years ago on the Indian subcontinent and was a nation of many large, sophisticated cities, many of which are still to be found in the deserts of Pakistan, northern, and western India. Rama existed, apparently, parallel to the Atlantean civilization in the mid- Atlantic Ocean, and was ruled by "enlightened Priest-Kings" who governed the cities,
The seven greatest capital cities of Rama were known in classical Hindu texts as "The Seven Rishi Cities." According to ancient Indian texts, the people had flying machines which were called "Vimanas." The ancient Indian epic describes a Vimana as a doubledeck, circular aircraft with portholes and a dome, much as we would imagine a flying saucer. It flew with the "speed of the wind" and gave forth a"melodious sound." There were at least four different types of Vimanas; some saucer shaped, others like long cylinders ("cigar shaped airships"). The ancient Indian texts on Vimanas are so numerous, it would take volumes to relate what they had to say. The ancient Indians, who manufactured these ships themselves, wrote entire flight manuals on the control of the various types of Vimanas, many of which are still in existence, and some have even been translated into English.
The Samara Sutradhara is a scientific treatise dealing with every possible angle of air travel in a Vimana. There are 230 stanzas dealing with the construction, take-off, cruising for thousand of miles, normal and forced landings, and even possible collisions with birds. In 1875, the Vaimanika Sastra, a fourth century B.C. text written by Bharadvajy the Wise, using even older texts as his source, was rediscovered in a temple in India. It dealt with the operation of Vimanas and included information on the steering, precautions for long flights, protection of the airships from storms and lightning and how to switch the drive to "solar energy" from a free energy source which sounds like "anti-gravity." The Vaimanika Sastra (or Vymaanika-Shaastra) has eight chapters with diagrams, describing three types of aircraft, including apparatuses that could neither catch on fire nor break. It also mentions 31 essential parts of these vehicles and 16 materials from which they are constructed, which absorb light and heat; for which reason they were considered suitable for the construction of Vimanas.
This document has been translated into English and is available by writing the publisher: VYMAANIDASHAASTRA AERONAUTICS by Maharishi Bharadwaaja, translated into English and edited, printed and published by Mr. G. R.Josyer, Mysore, India, 1979 (sorry, no street address). Mr. Josyer is the director of the International Academy of Sanskrit Investigation, located in Mysore. There seems to be no doubt that Vimanas were powered by some sort of "anti-gravity." Vimanas took off vertically, and were capable of hovering in the sky, like a modern helicopter or dirigible. Bharadvajy the Wise refers to no less than 70 authorities and 10 experts of air travel in antiquity.
These sources are now lost. Vimanas were kept in a Vimana Griha, a kind of hanger, and were sometimes said to be propelled by a yellowish-white liquid, and sometimes by some sort of mercury compound, though writers seem confused in this matter. It is most likely that the later writers on Vimanas, wrote as observers and from earlier texts, and were understandably confused on the principle of their propulsion. The "yellowish- white liquid" sounds suspiciously like gasoline, and perhaps Vimanas had a number of different propulsion sources, including combustion engines and even "pulse-jet" engines. It is interesting to note, that the Nazis developed the first practical pulse-jet engines for their V-8 rocket "buzz bombs." Hitler and the Nazi staff were exceptionally interested in ancient India and Tibet and sent expeditions to both these places yearly, starting in the 30's, in order to gather esoteric evidence that they did so, and perhaps it was from these people that the Nazis gained some of their scientific information!
According to the Dronaparva, part of the Mahabarata, and the Ramayana, one Vimana described was shaped like a sphere and born along at great speed on a mighty wind generated by mercury. It moved like a UFO, going up, down, backwards and forwards as the pilot desired. In another Indian source, the Samar, Vimanas were "iron machines, well-knit and smooth, with a charge of mercury that shot out of the back in the form of a roaring flame." Another work called the Samaranganasutradhara describes how the vehicles were constructed. It is possible that mercury did have something to do with the propulsion, or more possibly, with the guidance system. Curiously, Soviet scientists have discovered what they call "age old instruments used in navigating cosmic vehicles" in caves in Turkestan and the Gobi Desert. The "devices" are hemispherical objects of glass or porcelain, ending in a cone with a drop of mercury inside.
It is evident that ancient Indians flew around in these vehicles, all over Asia, to Atlantis presumably; and even, apparently, to South America.Writing found at Mohenjodaro in Pakistan (presumed to be one of the "Seven Rishi Cities of the Rama Empire") and still undeciphered, has also been found in one other place in the world: Easter Island! Writing on Easter Island, called Rongo-Rongo writing, is also undeciphered, and is uncannily similar to the Mohenjodaro script. Was Easter Island an air base for the Rama Empire's Vimana route? (At the Mohenjo- Daro Vimana-drome, as the passenger walks down the concourse, he hears the sweet, melodic sound of the announcer over the loudspeaker,"Rama Airways flight number seven for Bali, Easter Island, Nazca, and Atlantis is now ready for boarding. Passengers please proceed to gate number..") in Tibet, no small distance, and speaks of the "fiery chariot" thus: "Bhima flew along in his car, resplendent as the sun and loud as thunder... The flying chariot shone like a flame in the night sky of summer ... it swept by like a comet... It was as if two suns were shining. Then the chariot rose up and all the heaven brightened."
In the Mahavira of Bhavabhuti, a Jain text of the eighth century culled from older texts and traditions, we read: "An aerial chariot, the Pushpaka, conveys many people to the capital of Ayodhya. The sky is full of stupendous flying-machines, dark as night,but picked out by lights with a yellowish glare." The Vedas, ancient Hindu poems, thought to be the oldest of all the Indian texts, describe Vimanas of various shapes and sizes: the "ahnihotravimana" with two engines, the"elephant-vimana" with more engines, and other types named after the kingfisher, ibis and other animals.
Unfortunately, Vimanas, like most scientific discoveries, were ultimately used for war. Atlanteans used their flying machines, "Vailixi," a similar type of aircraft, to literally try and subjugate the world, it would seem, if Indian texts are to be believed. The Atlanteans, known as "Asvins" in the Indian writings, were apparently even more advanced technologically than the Indians, and certainly of a more war-like temperament. Although no ancient texts on Atlantean Vailixi are known to exist, some information has come down through esoteric, "occult" sources which describe their flying machines.
Similar, if not identical to Vimanas, Vailixi were generally "cigar shaped" and had the capability of manoeuvering underwater as well as in the atmosphere or even outer space. Other vehicles, like Vimanas, were saucer shaped, and could apparently also be submerged.According to Eklal Kueshana, author of "The Ultimate Frontier," in an article he wrote in 1966, Vailixi were first developed in Atlantis 20,000 years ago, and the most common ones are "saucer shaped of generally trapezoidal cross- section with three hemispherical engine pods on the underside." "They use a mechanical antigravity device driven by engines developing approximately 80,000 horse power." The Ramayana, Mahabarata and other texts speak of the hideous war that took place, some ten or twelve thousand years ago between Atlantis and Rama using weapons of destruction that could not be imagined by readers until the second half of this century.
The ancient Mahabharata, one of the sources on Vimanas, goes on to tell the awesome destructiveness of the war: "...(the weapon was) a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as the thousand suns rose in all its splendour... An iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.... the corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. The hair and nails fell out; pottery broke without apparent cause, and the birds turned white.... after a few hours all foodstuffs were infected.... to escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment..." It would seem that the Mahabharata is describing an atomic war! References like this one are not isolated; but battles, using a fantastic array of weapons and aerial vehicles are common in all the epic Indian books. One even describes a Vimana-Vailix battle on the Moon! The above section very accurately describes what an atomic explosion would look like and the effects of the radioactivity on the population. Jumping into water is the only respite.
When the Rishi City of Mohenjodaro was excavated by archaeologists in the last century, they found skeletons just lying in the streets, some of them holding hands, as if some great doom had suddenly overtaken them. These skeletons are among the most radioactive ever found, on a par with those found at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ancient cities whose brick and stonewalls have literally been vitrified, that is-fused together, can be found in India, Ireland, Scotland, France, Turkey and other places. There is no logical explanation for the vitrification of stone forts and cities, except from an atomic blast.
Futhermore, at Mohenjo-Daro, a well planned city laid on a grid, with a plumbing system superior to those used in Pakistan and India today, the streets were littered with "black lumps of glass." These globs of glass were discovered to be clay pots that had melted under intense heat! With the cataclysmic sinking of Atlantis and the wiping out of Rama with atomic weapons, the world collapsed into a "stone age" of sorts, and modern history picks up a few thousand years later Yet, it would seem that not all the Vimanas and Vailixi of Rama and Atlantis were gone. Built to last for thousands of years, many of them would still be in use, as evidenced by Ashoka's "Nine Unknown Men" and the Lhasa manuscript.
That secret societies or "Brotherhoods" of exceptional, "enlightened" human beings would have preserved these inventions and the knowledge of science, history, etc., does not seem surprising. Many well known historical personages including Jesus, Buddah, Lao Tzu, Confucious, Krishna, Zoroaster, Mahavira, Quetzalcoatl, Akhenaton, Moses, and more recent inventors and of course many other people who will probably remain anonymous, were probably members of such a secret organization. It is interesting to note that when Alexander the Great invaded India more than two thousand years ago, his historians chronicled that at one point they were attacked by "flying,fiery shields" that dove at his army and frightened the cavalry. These "flying saucers" did not use any atomic bombs or beam weapons on Alexander's army however, perhaps out of benevolence, and Alexander went on to conquer India.It has been suggested by many writers that these "Brotherhoods" keep some of their Vimanas and Vailixi in secret caverns in Tibet or some other place is Central Asia, and the Lop Nor Desert in western China is known to be the centre of a great UFO mystery. Perhaps it is here that many of the airships are still kept, in underground bases much as the Americans, British and Soviets have built around the world in the past few decades. Still, not all UFO activity can be accounted for by old Vimanas making trips to the Moon for some reason.
End of John Burrow's contribution.
From NEXUS New Times (Dec 1996):
An article in this magazine reveals that unknown alloys have been revealed in ancient palm leaf manuscripts. The writer and Sanskrit scholar Subramanyam Iyer has spent many years of his life deciphering old collections of palm leaves found in the villages of his native Karnataka in southern India.
One of the palm leaf manuscripts they intend to decipher is the Amsu Bodhini, which, according to an anonymous text of 1931, contains information about the planets; the different kinds of light, heat, color, and electromagnetic fields; the methods used to construct machines capable of attracting solar rays and, in turn, of analysing and separating their energy components; the possibility of conversing with people in remote places and sending messages by cable; and the manufacture of machines to transport people to other planets!