Turn on, tune in . . . evolve?
By Michael Posner
Globe and Mail
Saturday, November. 25, 2006

On the walls of dozens of caves in southern France and northern Spain lie some of the most majestic works of art ever painted. Drawn 25,000 to 40,000 years ago, the paintings have puzzled anthropologists since they were discovered more than four decades ago.

Where did this astonishing display of talent come from? Why did these prehistoric societies decide to paint these scenes in such remote locations? And what inspired them to paint the strange array of bisons, horses and therianthropes (part animal, part man)?

A scientific consensus of sorts has finally emerged on one of those questions: Although there are still dissenters, a majority of anthropologists now champion the theory that the paintings in Europe were the work of shamans, and in part the product of trance states, likely induced by psilocybin (the psychoactive ingredient in some species of mushrooms).

Similarly, South African anthropologist David Lewis-Williams maintains that the remarkable rock art of the San people of southern Africa, also painted at least 25,000 years ago, is the result of shamanic trances created by drumming and ritual ecstatic dancing.

In his new book, Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind, published by Random House, British writer Graham Hancock has taken Prof. Lewis-Williams's research as a point of departure to posit a theory as fascinating as it is provocative: If it's true that cave art derives from altered states of consciousness, then it constitutes a watershed moment in human history, marking the first visible encounter with the supernatural, the first expression of spiritual myth.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the paintings were begun just when, according to anthropologists, human civilization made a great leap forward in terms of social organization, hunting-and-gathering skills and general creativity.

Mr. Hancock (previously author of Fingerprints of the Gods and The Sign and the Seal) notes striking similarities between cave paintings produced by shamanic artists 25,000 years ago and the abundant descriptions of fairies, elves, angels and other fantastic creatures commonly reported in Europe from the medieval ages to the 17th century.

And what is their modern equivalent? Mr. Hancock suggests the myriad accounts of alien abduction. His new book devotes several hundred pages to documenting these parallels, showing a surprising commonality of visions.

Although he does not rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial encounters, Mr. Hancock says the vast majority of these accounts are more logically explained by spontaneous entrance into trance states.

Because few of the alien abductees are users of mind-altering drugs, the most likely explanation, he believes, is that the brains of a small percentage of the population contain slightly higher levels of dimethyltryptamine (DMT) than already occur naturally in humans, as well as in other mammals, frogs, grasses, barks and flowers. Such people, he says, don't need to consume magic mushrooms or any other drug in order to enter trance states: Their hallucinogenic potential is more or less built-in.

Mr. Hancock insists that just because such events and encounters may not have occurred on a physical plane, it doesn't mean they never happened. His book quotes Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD, who wrote that the brain, biochemically altered, tunes to "another wavelength than that corresponding to normal, everyday reality."

As part of his project, Mr. Hancock plunged himself into the netherworld of mind-altering drugs -- he ate psychedelic mushrooms, took the African drug ibogaine, drank ayahuasca tea 13 times and smoked DMT. His own drug experiences included multiple encounters with "spirit beings" that, he insists, have profoundly changed him.

"This life we look at is only a fragment of reality. . . . What the physicists have arrived at with the notion of parallel dimensions, through their methods, is pretty much the same as what shamans are arriving at through their methods," Mr. Hancock says. "Except shamans are ahead of the quantum physicists, because they can actually get into those dimensions."

Going a few steps further than the late John Allegro, a Dead Sea scholar who suggested in the 1970s that early Christianity was essentially a mushroom-and-sex cult, Mr. Hancock maintains that all religions are "rooted and grounded in shamanic experiences."

In Toronto recently to promote his book, Mr. Hancock said organized religion as we know it is "the attempt to account for and explain those experiences. And then the bureaucrats come in, take it over, become the priesthood, impose themselves as the sole intermediaries, and eventually lose the connection to the spiritual life that once was at the heart of the religion. We've seen that again and again.

"I don't even know if God isn't one of those things that happen after the bureaucrats step in. Indeed, many monotheistic religions are very opposed to altered states of consciousness. And so we've lost contact with the origins of religion."

The use of most hallucinogens, of course, is outlawed in most Western nations. In that context, Mr. Hancock -- a former Economist correspondent in East Africa who gave up journalism to begin writing bestselling books about lost civilizations -- says most of us live under a repressive regime.

"If you pause to think about it," he says, "the essence of a human being is consciousness. Without it, we are nothing. So it's a transgression of my sovereignty as an individual that some other individual can rule on what experiences I may or may not have with my consciousness, doing no harm to others."

Long prison terms await those convicted of experimenting with their consciousness. That, Mr. Hancock says, "tells me our society is deeply afraid of this problem and is engaged in a propaganda war to persuade us that these drugs are dangerous."

Various long-term studies show that the only people seriously adversely affected by hallucinogens are schizophrenics. Meanwhile, he says, more common risks are played down. "Look at the mass slaughter on our roads. Look at over-the-counter drugs, which also kill many people. Look at extreme sports. We don't seem to have a problem with any of that."

Even if the current prohibitions were lifted, Mr. Hancock thinks it's unlikely that millions would sign up for a psychedelic journey. "Taking ayahusaca, for example, is a scary experience. Most people would be quite happy to stay locked in their world."

Mr. Hancock himself is not finished exploring the mysteries of human consciousness. Acknowledging the gap between the lessons learned while in a trance state and applying them to life afterward, he says his experiences have made him less intolerant, less judgmental, less prone to anger. "I've really tried to take those insights and integrate them."

He intends to spend part of this summer at a retreat in Brazil, where ayahuasca is legal, drinking the tea every other day for two weeks. "I'm only certain that there's a huge mystery here," he says. "I'm not certain what the answer to the mystery is."

22 Questions for Cardinal Ratzinger and the Silver Lining in the
Election of this first Grand Inquisitor as Pope

Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox, ex-Catholic priest, now Episcopalian, author, founder of the school of Creation Spirituality

Last night I was all hooked up to be on "Hardball with Chris Matthews" to be interviewed about the new pope when they suddenly cut the line and said they did not have time for me. I said: "This is a political act." The tv man hooking me up said it was the "first time in 8 years of working in television" that he had seen anything like that happen. I think Chris Matthews' program should be renamed "Softball." When it comes to religion the American media is soft, soft, soft.

Thus I have taken it upon myself to feed journalists with some real questions about this man and his record and his intentions. Twenty two questions follow:

1. You come from Bavaria, that part of Germany that most admired Hitler and first voted for him. Did you ever denounce Hitler or fascism? If so, when? If not, why not?

2. If you denounced Hitler why do you support today the Spanish priest Escriva who admired him publicly and why did you rush Escriva, founder of the opus dei movement, into canonization thus leaving the impression that fascism is a path to holiness?

3. If you denounced Hitler then why do you carry on in his ways such as 1) bookburning and denouncing of thinkers and theologians? 2) whipping up hostility toward homosexuals as he did? 3) excluding women of all decision-making and leadership? 4) create scapegoats including people of religions other than Catholic along with women and gay people?

4. Do you want to put gays in concentration camps like Hitler did? (In the second of two documents you wrote and the past pope signed denouncing homosexuals you did not cite even ONE scientific study of homosexuality but cited your catchechism five times. Is this anti-intellectual attitude not another Galileo case in the making?)

5. Do you know the difference between ideology and theology? Why have you destroyed the latter by condemning theologians while you create ideological churchmen by your loyalty oaths?

6. According to a serious study done on the death of Pope John Paul I, cardinals were part of the plot that killed him. Do you know which cardinals were involved in his murder and have they ever been brought to justice?

7. How much was the CIA involved in the rushed election of John Paul II? (A CIA agent told me he had been "their man in Poland" for many years.)

8. You once said you wanted a "smaller church." Might you tell us why? Does it have anything to do with absolute control?

9. Do you agree with Lord Acton that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely?" What are you -- the champion of papal infallibility (as in "the fuhrer is always right") -- doing to prevent that from happening in your organization?

10. How do you sleep at night knowing that your theology of forbidding condoms in a time of AIDS has contributed to the death of millions in the African continent and beyond?

11. How do you sleep at night knowing that your theology of no birth control is contributing to the destruction of 25,000 other species annually as well as to the degradation of life among human beings?

12. Did Jesus ever say anything at all about condoms or birth control or homosexuality or the ordination of women? (In fact, today's scholarship shows how many women were in position of leadership in the early church.) Then why are you so sure of your absolutist position?

13. You complain about "the dictatorship of relativism." Isn't there also -- and more easily -- a dictatorship of absolutism?

14. Why do issues of social and economic injustice play so little a role in your definition of morality which seems to be 98% about sex? (Hint: Saint Augustine!)

15. Are you aware that your destruction (with the help of the CIA) of liberation theology and base communities in Latin America has stripped Catholicism so bare that Pentecostals are taking over the continent?

16. Why did you canonize the Escriva who favored Franco and fascism and not canonize the holy martyr Oscar Romero who favored the poor against the military in El Salvador?

17. Jesus was on the side of the anawim (those without a voice). When have you or your dictates ever been on the side of the anawim?

18. Are you a Christian? (A canon lawyer who spent years in Rome told me that to understand you I had to first realize that you are not a Christian.) Can you prove it to us please.

19. Are you the first Grand Inquisitor to be elected pope? What does that tell us about the state of the Roman Catholic Church at this time in history? How does that feel to be treading such fresh ground?

20. A Native American woman who is also a Roman Catholic went to Rome a few years ago for the beatification of Blessed Tekekwitha. It was her first visit to the Vatican and she was looking forward to it. However, she came back shaking her head saying, "there are evil spirits in that place." Was she correct? Have evil spirits taken over the Vatican at this time in history?

21. Why do you denounce Buddhists as "atheists" and "autoerotocists?" Why do you condemn Hindus? Protestant churches? Pagans? Goddess worshippers? Native American believers? Feminists? The practice of Yoga? (You write that it gets you "too much in touch with your body"). Is your church -- mother of Inquisitions and Crusades and anti-Semitism -- without sin and the holder of all spiritual wisdom? Why did your church never excommunicate Hitler?

22. Why do you forbid Catholics to talk about God as Mother? God as Child? Original Blessing instead of Original Sin (which is not in the Bible)? God as female as well as male?

Now the good news. The silver lining in the election of this, the first Grand Inquisitor as Pope, is this: Now people of conscience the world over have a clear choice between Religion and Spirituality; Fundamentalism and Wisdom; A Punitive Father God and the Mother-Father Creator of Justice and Compassion; Fascism and Control vs. Letting the Spirit Work; between a preferential option for the rich and powerful (cf. Opus Dei) and a preferential option for the poor (as in liberation theology).

Now all people -- and Catholics in particular -- are called to find their consciences and take a stand about the Punitive Father God of Fundamentalism and the Divine Wisdom of Justice and Compassion, and against idolatry including religious idolatry and papalolatry and the television cult of personality, and between lies and truth.

This is already happening. I received an e-mail this morning from a life-long Catholic who says she is now leaving the Ratzinger Church. Ratzinger and his German entourage have been running the Vatican for the last twenty-five years while Pope John Paul II traveled about the world. From that point of view, nothing has changed. Only that their head man is now the man out front. ALL bishops and cardinals have been appointed through Ratzinger already. This is how he got so many votes so swiftly in the conclave. It is his church. It is a schismatic church. They are out of touch with the spirit and letter of Vatican II as well as the person and teachings of Jesus.

A New Reformation can happen swiftly. It is already underway. The Internet can help feed it. The myths that have kept the Roman Catholic Church afloat for 1800 years have been washed away. (The historical Jesus never said: "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church." That came later.) Maybe the new version of Christianity need not be Peter based (Roman Catholicism) or Paul based (the Protestant option) but Mary Magdalene based. Any takers?

Copyright 2005 Dr Matthew Fox

Muslims outnumber Jews in Canada
By GLORIA GALLOWAY
Globe and Mail
Wednesday, May. 14, 2003

When the 1991 census was taken, about 25 per cent more people said they were Jewish than Muslim. But immigration from predominantly Muslim countries has reversed that dynamic.

Figures from the 2001 Canadian census released yesterday by Statistics Canada show that the number of people claiming to be of Muslim faith increased by 128.9 per cent to 579,640 in the decade beginning in 1991, making Islam the fastest growing religion in Canada. Two years ago, Muslims made up 2 per cent of this country's population.

The number of Jews also increased during that period, but only by 3.7 per cent to 329,995. And the proportion they represent of the total Canadian population declined to 1.1 per cent from 1.2 per cent.

While Canada has, in recent years, tried to maintain an evenhanded response to the Mideast crisis, Israel's supporters in Canada's Jewish community have sometimes argued that remaining neutral means siding with Palestinian terrorists. But the growing influence of the Muslim faith may reinforce Canada's desire for neutrality.

"I would have to say with a caution that, yes, of course it is going to have an effect because politicians respond, of course to votes," said John Carson, a professor of Canadian foreign policy at the University of Toronto.

"It's cautious because . . . the group within the domestic scene that supports Israel is organized, wealthy and focused. Unfortunately, many of the Muslims are not well organized, and not particularly wealthy - with some exceptions, of course - and they are not particularly focused."

And while most Muslims do support the Palestinians in the Mideast conflict, many come from places like Indonesia and Pakistan where the troubles in Israel are secondary concerns, he said.

Howard English, director of marketing and communications for United Jewish Appeal of Greater Toronto, discounts the notion that the Jewish community may lose influence as its piece of the demographic pie shrinks.

"The extent to which any group can influence elected officials is based in very large measure on the strength of arguments put forward and the skill with which you put forward those arguments," Mr. English said.

In addition, the census numbers do not take into account people who may consider themselves ethnically to be Jews but do not list Judaism as their religion, he said. And, in any event, he added, his group believes in harmonious relations between different ethnic groups and sees diversity as a positive force.

Wahida Valiante, national vice-president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, has watched her community's ranks swell since she arrived at Montreal's Concordia University in 1961.

"When I came here, I remember going to my college and saying 'Do you have any Muslim students' federations?' And they said 'Muslim? What's that?' Nobody really knew in Montreal what Muslims were," Ms. Valiante said.

That has changed, of course. But she believes it will be some time before people of her faith have a major voice in Canadian policy.

"The numbers don't say much unless the citizens that are being numbered play some active role," Ms. Valiante said. "Our lawyers are not in the thousands. Our social workers are not in the thousands. We're not in the government. Nobody calls us up and says 'listen, we've got this problem in the Middle East, can you come and consult with us?' So we don't have that kind of clout."

But it may be coming, she said, pointing out that the median age of Muslims in Canada in 2001 was 28.1. The national median was 37.3. And the median of the Jewish population was 45.1. So the Muslims constitute a young population with years to mature into Canadian leaders.

In the meantime, the churches that spawned the old generation of Canada's power elite are on the wane. The number of Canadians who said they were Protestant declined by 772,830 to 8,654,845 between 1991 and 2001, leaving the religion with 29.2 per cent of the population.

Roman Catholics, on the other hand, increased their ranks by 589,500 to 12,793,125 as a result of immigration from countries like the Philippines where that faith is still strong. Catholics outnumbered Protestants for the first time in 1971 and Catholicism continues to be the dominant religion in Canada with 43.2 per cent of the population claiming to follow its doctrines.

It seems the biggest blow to the Protestant churches was - and continues to be - a drift away from organized religion.

The number of people who said they had no religion was up by 43.9 per cent between 1991 and 2001 and, perhaps more telling, the number of those identifying themselves simply as Christian with no particular denomination was up by 121.1 per cent to 780,450.

"People have, over the last 20 to 25 years, kind of moved away, not from faith or spirituality, but from institutionalized religion," said Mark McGowan, the principal of St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto.

"They have moved away from the formal disciplines and really personalized it or taken what they want from a variety of different faith perspectives and combined it, made it personal."

War sparks revival of doomsday predictions
By ELISE ACKERMAN
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Sun, May. 04, 2003

CAIRO, Egypt - The end is near.

From Egypt to the United States, books about Armageddon and the return of Jesus Christ are once again big sellers. The war in Iraq, a region central to both Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, has sparked a revived interest in predictions of the end and led to an usual convergence of the apocalyptic visions that percolate on the edges of both American and Middle Eastern societies.

Web sites discuss end-of-time signs in the Bible and in the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. Christian preachers and Muslim prayer leaders link today's headlines about war in the Garden of Eden and the birthplace of Abraham to centuries-old descriptions of humanity's final hours.

"The U.S.-led war on Iraq is an introduction to the battle of Armageddon," Yusef Faqr, an Egyptian attorney, recently told guests in his home. "It is very, very near."

In the United States, fundamentalists thumb through the Book of Revelation, which twice mentions the Euphrates River that runs through Iraq. According to Revelation, before Armageddon begins, "the four angels that are bound in the great river Euphrates" will be loosened and the river will be dried up so "that the way of the kings of the East might be prepared" to march to battle in Israel.

In Cairo, believers also are watching water levels in Iraq. According to Amin Mohamed Gamal El-Din, author of "Armageddon: Last Declaration of the Islamic Nation," the damming of the Euphrates was prophesied by Muhammad as a sign that Judgment Day, known in Islam as "The Hour," is nigh.

The river continues to flow, but Gamal El-Din says other prophetic signs have already come to pass, including an economic siege on Iraq (United Nations sanctions), a siege on Palestine (the Israeli occupation) and the appearance of people with black flags (the Taliban). "I expect a severe war to start in the near future," Gamal El-Din said. "Maybe in weeks, maybe in months, not in years."

Muslims and Christians share strikingly similar views of the final days. Both believe that a demonic leader - Dajal to Muslims and the Antichrist to Christians - will take over much of the world, and that Jesus Christ will return and defeat him prior to the hour of final judgment.

"The commonalities are overwhelming," said David Cook, a religion professor at Rice University in Houston who is finishing a book on classical Muslim apocalyptic literature.

Cook has traced these ideas to the founding of the religion in the 7th Century when some Muslims believed they had less than 100 years to unify the world under the belief in one God. Cook and others believe this helped inspire the victories of early Islamic warriors.

At a teashop near Al Azhar University in Cairo, the oldest Islamic institution of higher learning, students crowd around rickety tables to discuss Gamal El-Din's book. One student notes that Saddam Hussein's name itself is a sign of the last days, because its meaning is related to conflict.

The student believes this agrees with Muhammad's prophecies. The notion has a counterpart in apocalyptic Christianity, which finds a similarity between "Saddam" and "Abaddon," the evil leader in Revelation Chapter 9, Verse 11.

"When (Gamal El-Din's) first book came out it caused a big scandal because it was based a lot on the Torah and the Bible," says Osama Mohamed, a 29-year-old graduate student in criminal law. "The Christians and the Jews were treating Armageddon as their own secret. There were very few Muslims who knew about the details, but when the book came out, it became more known."

It's hard to know how many doomsday believers there are. In the United States, opinion polls and book sales indicate the ideas are widespread. Apocalyptic authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins have sold 55 million copies of their "Left Behind" series of fictional novels and children's books. "Armageddon," the 11th book in the adult series, debuted on various best-seller lists when it was released on April 8, the day before the fall of Baghdad.

In the Middle East, similar statistics don't exist, but Cairo booksellers say books dealing with events at the end of time are among their strongest sellers besides the Koran.

El-Din, a 49-year-old petroleum engineer, believes his "Armageddon" book, published in October 2001, has sold more than a million copies throughout the Middle East. The publisher, Abdel Hamid Shaalan, wouldn't discuss sales figures, but complained bitterly that pirated editions of "Armageddon" are available in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, the Emirates and Morocco.

The publisher of another popular work, "Armageddon: Truth or Fantasy," accused a reporter inquiring about sales of being a spy. "This book is very famous in America," Fathi Hashem, of the Island of Roses Bookstore said. "They want to know our point of view of who will win the Battle of Armageddon."

Belief that the Last Days are close not only spurred Islamic warriors in ancient times, but has also altered events in the modern era. In 1979, the last year of the 14th century of the Islamic calendar, apocalyptic conviction helped fuel the brief takeover of the Great Mosque in Mecca by armed militants and the revolution that toppled the shah of Iran, said Rice University's Cook, who is also an associate of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University.

Leading up to 2000, Islamic writers predicted Jews would destroy Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock during the millennial year. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to the mosque in September 2000 fed that anxiety. "I think the second intifadah was also sparked by apocalyptic fears," Cook said.

Now, with interest in doomsday building, observers are again wary.

Gamal El Shaer, a member of the Egyptian Supreme Council for Islamic Matters and a professor of mass communications at Al Azhar, said he invited Gamal El-Din to appear on a two-hour program on state television so that the ideas in his book could be rationally discussed - and rebutted.

"This really worries me," he said. "I am afraid this book will lead to the implementation of these beliefs."