The Archangels

recipe and methods of manufacture. Narby continues in the next chapter of his book:

“The main enigma I encountered during my research on Ashaninca ecology was that these extremely practical and frank people, living almost autonomously in the Amazonian forest, insisted that their extensive botanical knowledge came from plant-induced hallucinations. How could this be true? The enigma was all the more intriguing because the botanical knowledge of indigenous Amazonians has long astonished scientists. The chemical composition of ayahuasca is a case in point. Amazonian shamans have been preparing ayahuasca for millennia. The brew is a necessary combination of two plants, which must be boiled together for hours. The first contains a hallucinogenic substance, dimethyltryptamine, which also seems to be secreted by the human brain; but this hallucinogen has no effect when swallowed, because a stomach enzyme called monoamine oxidase blocks it. The second plant, however, contains several substances that inactivate this precise stomach enzyme, allowing the hallucinogen to reach the brain. The sophistication of this recipe has prompted Richard Evans Schultes, the most renowned ethnobotanist of the twentieth century, to comment: “One wonders how peoples in primitive societies, with no knowledge of chemistry or physiology, ever hit upon a solution to the activation of an alkaloid by a monoamine oxidase inhibitor. Pure experimentation? Perhaps not. The examples are too numerous and may become even more numerous with future research.” So here are people without electron microscopes who choose, among some 80,000 Amazonian plant species, the leaves of a bush containing a hallucinogenic brain hormone, which they combine with a vine containing substances that inactivate an enzyme of the digestive tract, which would otherwise block the hallucinogenic effect. And they do this to modify their consciousness. It is as if they knew about the molecular properties of plants and the art of combining them, and when one asks them how they know these things, they say their knowledge comes directly from hallucinogenic plants. Not many anthropologists have looked into this enigma — but the failure of academics to consider this kind of mystery is not limited to the Amazon. Over the course of the twentieth century, anthropologists have examined shamanic practices around the world without fully grasping them. A brief history of anthropology reveals a blind spot in its studies of shamanism.”

Narby, Jeremy. The Cosmic Serpent (pp. 10-11). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Consider further that most of these tribes traditionally have no written language, and so this information is said to be transmitted orally. The pharmacopoeia of the Amazon tribes is VAST and only a fraction of it has been studied by Western scientists. Yet shamanic training is not an apprentice sitting at the feet of an elder for years memorizing botanical recipes. Rather, it’s living ALONE in the rain forest drinking gallons of ayahuasca and tobacco mixtures while fasting and undergoing rigorous and immensely uncomfortable and painful physical and mental ordeals. Yet, when they emerge from this “initiation” they are expected to treat and heal all manner of physical maladies, forecast danger, advise on agriculture and all other matters of tribal livelihood. Further consider how extremely hostile the rain forest is, and the innumerable hazards it contains. Yet, these people live in harmony with it, and many reach very old ages. Yet most scientists consider these shamans mentally ill drug addicts who couldn’t possibly have anything of value to offer to Western science.

Except when they “do”. Narby continues in a later chapter:

“So whenever I had a health problem and people told me they knew of a cure, I tried it. Often the results went beyond not only my expectations, but my very understanding of reality. For instance, I had suffered from chronic back pain since the age of seventeen, having played too much tennis during my adolescence. I had consulted several European doctors, who had used cortisone injections and heat treatment, to no avail. In Quirishari there was a man, Abelardo Shingari, known for his ‘body medicine.’ He proposed to cure my back pain by administering a sanango tea at the new moon. He warned me that I would feel cold, that my body would seem rubbery for two days, and that I would see some images. I was skeptical, thinking that if it were really possible to cure chronic back pain with half a cup of vegetal tea, Western medicine would surely know about it. On the other hand, I thought it was worth trying, because it could not be less effective than cortisone injections. Early one morning, the day after the new moon, I drank the sanango tea. After twenty minutes, a wave of cold submerged me. I felt chilled to the bone. I broke out into a profuse cold sweat and had to wring out my sweatshirt several times. After six rather difficult hours, the cold feeling went away, but I no longer controlled the coordination of my body. I could not walk without falling down. For five minutes I saw an enormous column of multicolored lights across the sky—my only hallucinations. The lack of coordination lasted forty-eight hours. On the morning of the third day, my back pain had disappeared. To this day it has not returned. I tend not to believe this kind of story unless I have lived it myself, so I am not trying to convince anybody about the effectiveness of sanango. However, from my point of view, Abelardo had pulled off a trick that seemed more biochemical than psychosomatic. I had several other similar experiences. Each time, I noted that the seemingly fanciful explanations I was given ended up being verified in practice—such as ‘a tea you drink at the new moon which turns your body to rubber and cures your back pain.’ So I began to trust the literal descriptions of my friends in Quirishari even though I did not understand the mechanisms of their knowledge. Furthermore, by living with them on a daily basis, I was continually struck by their profound practicality. They did not talk of doing things; they did them.”

Narby, Jeremy. The Cosmic Serpent (pp. 27-28). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition

Consider Curare. Narby continues:

“Pharmaceutical companies have a history of going to the Amazon to sample indigenous plant remedies and then of returning to their laboratories to synthesize and patent the active ingredients without leaving anything for those who made the original discovery. CURARE is the best-known example of this kind of poaching. Several millennia ago, Amazonian hunters developed this muscle-paralyzing substance as a blow-gun poison. It kills tree-borne animals without poisoning the meat while causing them to relax their grip and fall to the ground. Monkeys, when hit with an untreated arrow, tend to wrap their tails around branches and die out of the archer’s reach. In the 1940s, scientists realized that curare could greatly facilitate surgery of the torso and of the vital organs, because it interrupts nerve impulses and relaxes all muscles, including breathing muscles. Chemists synthesized derivatives of the plant mixture by modifying the molecular structure of one of its active ingredients. Currently, anesthesiologists who ‘curarize’ their patients use only synthetic compounds. In the entire process, everyone has received compensation for their work except the developers of the original product. Most of the time scientists balk at recognizing that ‘Stone Age Indians’ could have developed anything. According to the usual theory, Indians stumbled on nature’s useful molecules by chance experimentation. In the case of curare, this explanation seems improbable. There are forty types of curares in the Amazon, made from seventy plant species. The kind used in modern medicine comes from the Western Amazon. To produce it, it is necessary to combine several plants and boil them for seventy-two hours, while avoiding the fragrant but mortal vapors emitted by the broth. The final product is a paste that is inactive unless injected under the skin. If swallowed, it has no effect. It is difficult to see how anybody could have stumbled on this recipe by chance experimentation. Besides, how could hunters in the tropical forest, concerned with preserving the quality of the meat, have even imagined an intravenous solution? When one asks these people about the invention of curare, they almost invariably answer that it has a mythical origin. The Tukano of the Colombian Amazon say that the creator of the universe invented curare and gave it to them.”

Narby, Jeremy. The Cosmic Serpent (pp. 39-40). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Again, Narby wrote: “Most of the time scientists balk at recognizing that ‘Stone Age Indians’ could have developed anything.“

Yet the fact is actually, MOST of our modern plant-based pharmaceuticals (74%) were originally discovered by “traditional” societies (See Farnsworth, Norman R. 1988. Screening plants for new medicines. In National forum on biodiversity, E. O. Wilson and F. M. Peters, eds., pp. 83-97. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.)

“Worldwide, between 50,000 and 80,000 flowering plants are used medicinally (IUCN Species Survival Commission, 2007; Marinelli, 2005). In the United States, of the top 150 prescription drugs, at least 118 are based on natural sources: 74 percent come from plants, 18 percent from fungi, 5 percent from bacteria, and 3 percent from vertebrate species such as snakes or frogs (Ecology Society of America, 1997).

 https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/publications/papers/Medicinal_Plants_042008_lores.pdf

The point is, as much as modern humanity likes to credit our own ingenuity for the incredible advances of “modern” medicine, the fact remains that most of it is product of revelation, not innovation. Shamanism is not unique to the Amazon, but it has survived there into modern times principally because the Amazon is so vast, and so challenging, that these tribes were able maintain some level of independence and isolation from the rest of the world. But that’s changing fast. Everywhere else in the world, shamanism is in steep decline, or has been eliminated altogether.

Why? POLITICS. At the tribal level, shamans were the virtual if not actual leaders of their respective tribes. The hostility of the rain forest and vast wilderness in other parts of the globe, especially centuries and millennia ago, meant shamans were the principle ruling agency in much of the world. However, whenever “civilization” arose, with agriculture, permanent dwellings, and standing armies, with them arrived “kings” and “emperors”. Subterfuge is a big element of monarchical rule. Lying to the people is time honored and very effective political strategy. Shamans and mystics and seers with their spiritual skills, have often been able to detect dishonesty and hidden agendas accurately, and if willing to inform the people of their “insights”, become a serious thorn in the side of the ruling classes. Knowledge is power, and by eliminating a source of profound knowledge that has traditionally been close to the people, knowledge and the power that stems from it, becomes ever more concentrated in the hands of a few. The inquisitions of the middle ages carried out largely by the Catholic Church, was in fact the genocide of western shamanic traditions. With the elimination of these traditions and practices and practitioners, the seeds of our wholly “secular” society with its growing atheism and complete disconnect from the spiritual realms the shamans once communicated with daily, became possible.

Now, in case you’ve gotten the impression that shamans were all “love and light”, think again. The spirit realm where dwell the elemental spirits, and plant and animal hive soul spirits is simply a reflection of nature itself. In nature, there are predators and prey, and these have their counterparts in the spirit realm. And just as the rain forest is full of bounty and danger at the same time, so too is the spirit realm. Mostly shaman’s dealt directly with these plant and animal spirits. As such, the emphasis was usually practical. However, shamans were people too, with all the faults and foibles, weaknesses, and temptations. Of course, some couldn’t resist, and were prone to use their power selfishly and ended up essentially becoming black magicians. Personal “wars” of sorcery where shamans cursed each other was and still is a problem in these societies. Collectively we need to re-establish our connection with spirit, but with a higher purpose. Just returning to traditional shamanism is not the goal. We will not be moving back to the rain forest. Those times for the bulk of humanity are in the past, and not our future. Millions of people today commute to work farther than most shamans ever traveled away from their village in their entire lifetimes. Most shamans never learned a written language.

We’d have trouble establishing a “modern” shamanism, even if we tried. For starters, hallucinogenic substances have been outlawed in much of the modern world. The practices have been forgotten, and knowledgeable practitioners  are rare and difficult to engage. Modern diets loaded with artificial substances, interfere with spiritual faculties like the pineal gland. The corporate titans who largely control politics through finance today, have the same incentives as the old monarchies to keep any kind of mysticism or seer abilities and practices suppressed. They do this through numerous ways via our education curriculum, mass media and entertainment content, and constant push to erase any affiliation with spiritual traditions from modern life. Schools and workplaces are being discouraged from even having Christmas decorations during the holiday season, as it might “offend” someone. The result of these efforts is a genuine disconnect on the part of more and more individuals with the Divine Realm, and even their own higher selves and guides.  Genuine atheism is on the rise as it is now the encouraged and supported and promulgated world view and philosophy in most modern settings. From the laboratory to the classroom; from the boardroom to the factory floor; from the movie theater to the sports arena, atheism is the promoted outlook.

The suppression of traditional shamanism had multiple effects, not all of them negative. We are evolving beings, and to some extent, total dependency on the spirit realm for problem solving, solutions and guidance meant humans were lacking incentive to do and explore and create more on their own. It could be argued that the rise of modern civilization, science, technology, philosophy, you name it, was a partial consequence of the suppression of traditional shamanistic societies. Humans, cut off from direct, daily interaction and two-way conversation with the spirit realm, were literally forced to do more for themselves. Humanity found its “legs” and started shaping the world, rather than being a mere occupant of it. A lot of people will think this a “bad” thing, and that we have shaped it rather poorly. That may be, but if there is an upside to this adolescent period of human development, it’s that we are “hopefully” beginning to learn from our mistakes.

However, lest one think that we have banished the influence of the spirit realm completely, think again. W. I. B. Beveridge writes in The Art of Scientific Investigation:

“The most characteristic circumstances of an intuition are a period of intense work on the problem accompanied by a desire for its solution, abandonment of the work perhaps with attention to something else, then the appearance of the idea with dramatic suddenness and often a sense of certainty. Often there is a feeling of exhilaration and perhaps surprise that the idea had not been thought of previously.”

Narby, Jeremy. The Cosmic Serpent (p. 158). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

The “period of intense work” is needed to create the fertile ground upon which the insight can sprout and blossom to full flower. Humans kid themselves that ground-breaking innovative insights are somehow an “inevitable” result of such preparation. When in fact, it’s more the case, if you want to win the lottery, you need to buy a ticket. If E=mc² was revealed to Mother Theresa rather than Einstein, she honestly wouldn’t know what to do with it. There are lots of smart, hard-working people, laboring away everyday at all manner of endeavors. But few will ever be recognized as true innovators. Insights come when they come, on their own timetable and circumstances. Like Beveridge said, “Often there is a feeling of exhilaration and perhaps surprise that the idea had not been thought of previously.“

Humanity is acting like its thirteen going on thirty. Adolescence however, with it’s feeling of infinite potential, it’s rebellious attitude, boundless enthusiasm, energy, and growing pains is actually a very short period in a human life. The demands of the “real world” arrive sooner than expected and becoming mature and responsible becomes necessary if one wants to participate in the world fully. People stuck in adolescence are not regarded as “well-adjusted” or even capable of managing their own affairs.

Creator and the spirit realm are humanity’s “parents”. As children we were wholly dependent on our parents for EVERYTHING, and the spirit realm through the agency of the shaman, provided EVERYTHING. Then as adolescents we embraced our power and embarked on a whirlwind of discovery and exploration, all the while kidding ourselves that we “arrived” and didn’t even need our parents anymore. Our parents being our spirit realm caretakers.

But all the while we turned our back on our parents, defied them, ignored them, and marginalized them, our parents were still there, supporting us, and providing for us what we needed, whether we acknowledged it or not.

At some point, “graduation” happens, and suddenly we have to wrestle with the REAL problems our parents wisely shielded us from, in the hopes that we would be ready when the fateful day arrived.

For humanity, that day is upon us.

We can no longer afford to act like children, or even teenagers. We have to reckon with the REAL problems and dilemma’s that face us. As we begin to do so, we surprisingly discover how much we needed our parents after all, and how much they had been doing for us all along, how wise they actually were, and how difficult it really was for them, all-the-while we were preoccupied and blinded with our own majesty free of genuine cares and worries.

As adults, our parents become our partners, not our caretakers.

It is time that humanity leave adolescence behind, and begin PARTNERING with Creator and the Divine Realm. Our very survival depends on it. It is not “optional”.

Throughout history, many young people have had a relatively easy transition to adulthood, while others find themselves sucked into a vortex of immense trial and difficulty. Imagine the fresh high school graduate suddenly drafted into the army, and sitting in a landing craft on a cold foggy morning in early June, 1944, seasick, chilled to the bone, and frightened beyond description, for in a few hours he will face an ordeal that will take the lives of many around him, and perhaps even his own. Such was the experience of thousands of young men on the morning of the D-Day invasion of Europe in World War II.

This is the kind of genuine uncertainty humanity as whole faces right now. If you’re not sure exactly what we’re talking about, read or review “Love’s Last Stand”:

Love’s Last Stand?

We have powerful adversaries.  From our information sources, we have less than forty years, and perhaps even as little as ten, to make a major course correction, or it could be humanity’s “final performance”. Just as it was for many young men in the D-Day invasion.

A major effort was made in the first half of this dialogue, to educate and persuade you that the spirit realm is very real, and that your medicine cabinet is quite literally filled with remedies that were not in fact “human innovations” at all, but indeed, directly bequeathed gifts of Creator and the spirit realm. In fact, whether people acknowledge it or not, MOST innovations are bequeathed gifts of Creator and the spirit realm, and many innovators will humbly acknowledge that.

Nikola Tesla was the discoverer of AC electricity, and the innovator of it’s necessary components:

“In the 1890s Tesla invented electric oscillators, meters, improved lights and the high-voltage transformer known as the Tesla coil. He also experimented with X-rays, gave short-range demonstrations of radio communication two years before Guglielmo Marconi and piloted a radio-controlled boat around a pool in Madison Square Garden. Together, Tesla and Westinghouse lit the 1891 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and partnered with General Electric to install AC generators at Niagara Falls, creating the first modern power station.”

 https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/nikola-tesla

Tesla wrote this in his Autobiography:

“The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power.”

My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla (Originally published in 1919 in Electrical Experimenter magazine)

Up to now, we’ve been using the term “spirit realm” rather than “Divine Realm”. This is a major and all important distinction. Shamans worked and communed mostly in the “spirit realm”. As said earlier, the spirit realm is the non-physical counterpart to nature. As in nature, there is predator and prey, beauty and ugliness, hot and cold, fire and ice. The Divine Realm is ABOVE this domain, in terms of vibration, and is a realm of pure energy, a realm of pure LIGHT. Many who believe in the existence of the spirit realm, would dispute the existence of the “Divine Realm”. Including our most powerful adversaries, the Extraterrestrial Alliance. These beings in their own manner, think of the “spirit realm” as the “mental realm” – akin to a “collective unconscious.” Otherwise, they are atheists in that they don’t believe in a Source Creator, or angels, or “heaven” as the “Divine Realm” is more popularly understood to be.

Within the “spirit realm” or “mental realm” are all manner of beings and life. Not only all of the nature spirits, elemental spirits, plant and animal hive soul spirits, but “earth-bound” humans and fallen angels or demons. (We like to call them “spirit meddlers,” as that is what they do, and it is a term that evokes less fear and dread.) Also in this environment are deceased alien spirits who are quite powerful and who possess rather impressive abilities compared to deceased humans. This is a factor of their having lived extremely long physical lives with advanced psychic abilities. Unlike the majority of humans – especially today. Shamans had to learn to navigate this dangerous environment and undergo horrific ordeals modern humans can’t even imagine.

“The career of many shamans start by powerful experiences of unusual states of consciousness with the sense of going into the underworld, being attacked, dismembered, and then being put back together, and ascending to the supernal realm.”

Campbell, Joseph, The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on his Life and Work, HarperSanFransicso, San Francisco, 1990, p.63.

We don’t know about you, but we don’t know of too many urban and suburban dwellers interested in seeking out the experience of being “dismembered”. This particular path to spiritual advancement has always been for the few. It is the rare individual who is truly suited for this kind of undertaking. Many know of the celebrated poet Alan Ginsburg. He wrote of his own experience after ingesting ayahuasca:

“And then the whole fucking Cosmos broke loose around me, I think the strongest and worst I’ve ever had it nearly . . .—First I began to realize my worry about the mosquitoes or vomiting was silly as there was the great stake of life and Death—I felt faced by Death, my skull in my beard on pallet on porch rolling back and forth and settling finally as if in reproduction of the last physical move I make before settling into real death—got nauseous, rushed out and began vomiting, all covered with snakes, like a Snake Seraph, colored serpents in aureole around my body, I felt like a snake vomiting out the universe—or a Jivaro in headdress with fangs vomiting up in realization of the Murder of the Universe—my death to come—everyone’s death to come—all unready—I unready . . .”

Burroughs, William, and Allen Ginsberg. 1963. The yagé letters. San Francisco: City Lights. p.51-52.

Not everyone is cut out to be a shaman, just as not everyone is cut out to be a Navy Seal. Though, it would be a disservice to leave you with an entirely negative impression of shamanism:

“The shaman is not the slave, but the master of anomaly and chaos. In rising to the challenge of the powers which rule his life and by valiantly overcoming them in this crucial initiatory rite which reimposes order on chaos and despair, man reasserts his mastery of the universe and affirms his control of destiny and fate.”

Lewis, Ioan M. 1971. Ecstatic religion: An anthropological study of spirit possession and shamanism. London: Penguin Books. p.188-189.

Source Creator knows perfectly well that this path to spiritual maturity is off limits to the vast majority of us. The reason we have examined it so thoroughly is to help those who harbor doubt of the reality of the spirit realm itself. Hopefully, after considering what is shared here, their “belief quotient” is significantly bolstered.

The shamanic path is largely a DIY (do-it-yourself) path to spiritual advancement. That is the principle reason it is so difficult and challenging.

Difficult is not always “best”. There are circumstances where other considerations outweigh the exaggerated focus on “self-mastery”, as desirable and laudable as it is.

We have been told by Source Creator, and have powerful reasons to be persuaded, that humanity itself is in grave risk of near-future annihilation by very old, very powerful, and extremely dangerous and unsympathetic alien foes. Saving humanity from this peril, which includes each one of us as individuals of course, is no longer a DIY undertaking. If we continue to focus solely on our own personal needs and desires, admirable as they might be, we all lose. The time for selfish pursuits is over, if you wish to see the divine human project and human occupation of Earth continue into the distant future, then we have to work together to bring in the help of powerful allies. Powerful spiritual friends and advocates who have our back, and who have the means to turn back, permanently, the collective threat we currently together face: Source Creator and the Divine Realm. Within the Divine Realm, operates a very specialized group of powerful intermediaries whose impact has been felt throughout the ages:

THE ARCHANGELS.

Who are these beings, and if they were really our friends, how did they allow us to get into this mess in the first place?

The entirety of creation is consciousness, and consciousness is segregated by vibration. Love is the highest vibration there is, which is why “God” is a “loving” God. God (or Source Creator as we prefer) *IS* love. Anything that is not Creator, is by definition a lower vibration, and therefore “flawed” in that they are not perfectly loving. This suggests an actual “hierarchy” of vibration. And indeed, hierarchy as always been how the Divine Realm and it’s “choirs of angels” has been presented and described since the middle ages:

Why did the medievals arrange angels into nine levels, or “choirs”? 

They began with their biblical database: nine names of ranks of angels occur throughout Scripture. Then they reflected on the generic name “angel”, meaning “messenger” (gofer). Then they combined the two concepts and classified nine errands or tasks for angels: The first three levels see and adore God directly:

 1. The seraphim, the highest choir, comprehend God with maximum clarity, and therefore their love flames the hottest. (“Seraphim” means “the burning ones”.) Lucifer (“Light-bearer”) was once one of them. That’s why he’s still very powerful and dangerous. 

2. The cherubim contemplate God too, but less in himself than in his providence, his wise plan for creatures. (“Cherubim” means “fullness of wisdom”.) 

3. The thrones contemplate God’s power and judgments. (Thrones symbolize judicial, juridical power.)

 The next three choirs fulfill God’s providential plans for the universe, like middle management personnel: 

4. The dominations or “dominions” (the name means “authority”), command the lesser angels below them.

5. The virtues receive their orders from the dominations and “run” the universe, so to speak, especially the heavenly bodies. (“Virtue” used to mean power, might, or energy.)

6. The powers serve the virtues by fighting against evil influences that oppose the virtues’ providential plan.

The last three choirs directly order human affairs (they are like warriors): 

7. The principalities care for earthly principalities, that is, cities and nations and kingdoms. 

8. The archangels (such as Gabriel) carry God’s important messages to man. 

9. Ordinary angels are the “guardian angels”, one for each individual.

The scheme is not official dogma, but it is a beautiful work of art, a reasonable work of philosophical speculation, an inspiring work of faith, and an enduring work of tradition.

Kreeft, Peter J., Angels and Demons: What Do We Really Know about Them? (Kindle Locations 827-835). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.