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Scholars: Paleolithic People Got High Before Painting Caves

7/24/2013

84 Comments

 
I’m way behind on work today, so you will have to settle for a short blog post. You’ll recall that I have frequently referred to the work of South African researcher David Lewis-Williams, who proposed that Paleolithic cave art and the shamanic practices associated with Paleolithic and Neolithic religious expression could be attributed to altered states of consciousness. By extension, this same idea can be applied to modern alien abduction motifs and also provides a reasonable framework for understanding key imagery in ancient mythology.

Tom Froese, Alexander Woodward and Takashi Ikegami have just published a new paper in the Journal of Adaptive Behavior (21, no. 3) that examined cave paintings across 40,000 years in which they essentially concur that the patterns found in cave paintings are indicative of altered states of consciousness. However, the authors are not convinced that this explanation is sufficient to explain why prehistoric people worldwide loved to get high and paint spirals in caves. They specifically take Lewis-Williams to task for an incomplete explanation.

According to an enactive approach, self-sustaining neural dynamics can generate their own intrinsic value in relation to their conditions of self-maintenance, and they can also serve as a neural mechanism by which to decouple autonomous brain activity from the influence of environmentally mediated sensorimotor dynamics. Both of these aspects can help to explain the aesthetic selective biases of the first artists, in particular their interest in inner experience as exemplified by abstract hallucinations and imaginary phenomena, which are not directly related to the demands of their physical environment. We speculate that the self-sustaining dynamics may account for why these geometric hallucinations were experienced as more significant than other phenomena, and that at the same time their underlying neural dynamics may have served to mediate and facilitate a form of imaginary sense-making that is not bound to immediate surroundings.

This is a rather fancy way of trying to square the circle and solve the chicken-and-egg dilemma. According to the authors, the hallucinations came to be seen as valuable because they were experienced during shamanic rituals, rather than rituals emerging to explain the hallucinations. This, they say, explains why people the world over chose the same hallucinatory images to invoke. Later, they discuss the power of such images and how they appear to induce apparently powerful feelings in those that experience them, speaking to the point I recently made in Paranthropology that the intensity of an experience is not related to its objective physical reality.

This allows the authors to dispense with Lewis-Williams’s semi-Marxist idea of a prehistoric class struggle between shamans and the rest of society for control over these hallucinations. Frankly, though, I never thought that was the most important part of Lewis-Williams’ ideas, and I happily jettisoned it myself in my references to his work in Knowing Fear and another work whose details I can’t reveal yet. Lewis-Williams, if I recall correctly, was trying to say that in known cultures shamans acted on behalf of the community as ritual specialists, not that they were in a war with the hunters and the gatherers for control over the supernatural.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Froese et al.’s work. It is certainly extremely rigorous in its analysis, but I’m just not sure it’s all that different from Lewis-Williams’s original idea.

At any rate, the recognition of spiral patterns as indicative of altered states of consciousness counts as a point against the ancient astronaut and alternative history writers, who try to make these into symbols of distant galaxies, worldwide Atlantis cults, or other unsupportable ideas.

84 Comments
Cathleen Anderson
7/24/2013 09:02:17 am

The last sentence in the fourth paragraph from the bottom, " is not reality to its objective physical reality" I'm wondering if that first 'reality' shouldn't be a different word "related" perhaps?

Reply
Jason Colavito link
7/24/2013 09:08:01 am

Yes, it should have been "related." I've fixed it. Thanks for catching the error.

Reply
drew hempel link
7/24/2013 12:05:25 pm

Jason I enjoy your rigorous research but please be careful because you might discover the truth of reality soon! haha. On the real reason for the original human cave paintings - read Dr. Bradford Keeney's book http://books.google.com/books/about/Ropes_to_God.html?id=oSISAQAAIAAJ Ropes to God: experiencing the Bushmen spiritual universe.

Keeney explains in detail the specific meaning of the original and oldest human culture cave paintings. So... also Elizabeth Marshell Thomas, the anthropologist on the Bushmen, documents how the singing ritual songs of the Bushmen are older than the separation of their first languages!! So more verification that these cave paintings depict shamanic rituals going back probably100,000 years ago.

O.K. so what is that meaning? I could tell you but you probably would not be able to accept the truth of reality! haha. The title of Dr. Keeney's book gives the hint "Ropes to God" means that the lines going out of the dancers in the cave paintings are astral spirit light ropes. But you would have to read the book for the excruciating details - this isn't any hypothesis - it is verified by the actual Bushmen and understood experientially by Dr. Keeney also - and this specific shamanic training was spread worldwide after the original humans left Africa. The same training is found as the qigong training for example - as I mentioned to you before you can actually investigate REAL qigong masters who have already been proven by science - randomized controlled research by doctors from the U of MN and the Mayo Clinic, for example. http://springforestqigong.com for details.

Reply
varika
7/24/2013 01:22:01 pm

While the book looks interesting from what I can see, the blurb attached to it rather indicates to me that what you get out of the book is what the Bushmen BELIEVE is the original purpose of cave paintings, which is not necessarily gospel truth.

I also have to say, I have to take anyone who claims to know "the truth of reality" with a Mt. Everest-sized grain of sand, regardless of profession or education level. Sorry. The credibility drops to near zero the moment that phrase comes out.

Reply
Tara Jordan
7/24/2013 01:43:40 pm

As a hardcore materialist I dont even trust science for interpreting spiritual & paranormal experiences.Scientists can be tricked or lead to react in a particular way.The Stanford Research Institute experiments on Uri Geller is the perfect example

drew hempel link
7/24/2013 06:21:51 pm

There you go - dismissing a book based on the blurb! It's exactly that kind of closed-minded pre-emptive attitude that keeps this subject off-limits - and why? The Bushmen original culture is based on very specific training procedures - again this is gone into great detail. It's not a "belief" but a training of body-mind transformation and it has been carried in through non-western cultures around the world - turned into a nonwestern science by India and China.

So the Bushmen terms N/um and !Xia and Tshoma for example are keys to this training.

varika
7/27/2013 04:24:29 am

No offense, Drew, but there is no way in HELL I'm going to spend $75 on this book, so the blurb will have to do. If you want to buy a copy and ship it to me, I'll give it a more thorough read.

I would bet you twice the cost of the book that I'd still conclude that it was a book chronicling the belief system of the Bushmen. You do realize that every belief system out there involves "training of body and mind," right? Even evangelical priests have to have SOME idea of what they're doing in the pulpit, and their parishes need to have SOME idea of how to respond to the services. I would expect any book chronicling the belief system of evangelicals to go into "great detail" in explaining that, too.

I'm not dissing Bushman culture. I'm not even dissing the book. However, a single book discussing a single culture CANNOT, by any reasonable standard, give a scientifically-accurate reason for something that happens in cultures not even looked at in the book.

I am quite certain that the book says that "Bushmen say _____ is the reason behind cave paintings." Logic, however, dictates that while that may be the reason BUSHMEN did cave paintings, we absolutely CANNOT, with any certainty, state that this is why, say, the Anasazi did cave paintings. Or the peoples of Europe. Or Asian peoples. Or the Australian peoples. MAYBE it's all the same reason...but a book about Bushmen of Africa is not a comparative look at cultures of the world--and at 176 pages it's not going into "great detail" about every cave-painting culture in the world--so this book is in no way a definitive source for that conclusion.

Furthermore, the article Jason references is attempting to explain, so far as I can understand, the neurological imperatives behind the specific types of cave paintings. A book on the cultural beliefs of the Bushmen attempts to explain the cultural descriptions of the reasons for the same thing. It's rather like the difference between "MRIs of people having a religious ecstasy moment" and "The Ecstasy of St. Theresa." The MRI shows what's going on in the brain, while the document describes what the person subjectively experienced.

Finally, throwing around terms that are absolutely meaningless to me convinces me of nothing and in fact only makes me feel a bit...impatient. If you're trying to make a point, you should be explaining those terms, not just flinging them at me as if the words alone are going to actually do something.

Seriously. How am I supposed to do anything BUT dismiss you?

drew hempel link
7/29/2013 07:02:35 am

" The American anthropologist Lorna Marshall who, together with her family, worked with !Kung Bushmen the early 1950s, likened this potency to electricity: it is a power that can be harnessed for the good of humankind, but intense concentration, if allowed to get out of control, can kill people.
Supernatural power -and the dance that activates it - lies behind the rock paintings and engraving, for which the Bushmen are justly famous."

Dr. David Lewis-Williams, 1991

http://winnivangessel.home.insightbb.com/MMSK/BUSHMEN%20a%20changing%20way%20of%20life.pdf

drew hempel link
7/29/2013 04:42:01 pm

I read the book "Ropes to God" for free via interlibrary loan.

Good luck with that.

Tara Jordan
7/24/2013 01:15:12 pm

"the intensity of an experience is not related to its objective physical reality".My sex therapist is going bonkers over this statement.

Reply
Clint Knapp
7/24/2013 04:43:16 pm

I've never been entirely comfortable with the assumption that paleolithic man had to be on something to make some doodles on walls, or even that there was necessarily a binding, uniform interpretation of any given symbol across cultures and regions. It's one of those ideas that seems to fit more in line with the Theosophical view of the world than a natural progression of development.

We can't really know what was going on in their minds at the time of any given painting, and it feels like the assumption that mind-altering substances and trances were the only way to induce artistic expression is just a cheap way to say "we don't know, therefore..." and insert aliens, drugs, or divine intervention as needed.

Mankind's evolution from primitive, primal urges to a thinking and expressive organism is a fascinating study on its own without supposition about having eaten the wrong mushroom- or the right one- to kickstart mental evolution. We're talking about a process of thousands upon thousands of years worth of observing the world, adapting to live and cope within it, and discovering new things.

Do we suspect that all genius today is the result of drug induced trance? Of course not. With the exception of the "therefore, aliens" crowd, we recognize that people are born with different with varying thought processes and are often capable of great leaps in radical thinking that lead to new innovations. Why should the development of artistic ability in the form of cave painting be any different or limited to the tribal shaman?

Reply
The Other J.
7/24/2013 05:51:48 pm

I think you're right, but I also think it can go both ways. Not all genius will be substance-induced; some people of genius may have had a breakthrough with a substance, but that doesn't necessarily mean they never would have made their breakthrough without the substance. Sometimes a substance is the right tool to open or knock down a door and open up some new and useful understanding; sometimes it just gets you buzzed. It's probably all very circumstantial and haphazard.

You could imagine a situation where one person's clear-headed breakthrough -- say in knapping a stone tool -- is reflected upon by someone else after they eat something with ergot in it; that ergot-eater then envisions a way to improve on the tool; and the clear-head then recognizes the ergot-eater's innovation and is able to improve on it yet again.

IO9 recently had a post about Big Brains who had breakthroughs with substances, not all of which were actually illegal when taken by the Big Brain. The list includes: Freud, Edison - cocaine; Francis Crick, Richard Feynman, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, John C. Lilly, Kerry Mullis - LSD; Paul Erdos - amphetamines; Richard Feynam, John C. Lilly - ketamine; Richard Feynman, Carl Saga - marijuana. (Feynman pops up a lot.) Now a REAL interesting test would be to get those guys in a cave with some finger paints and let 'em roll. (I'd bet Freud and Edison wouldn't make it out.)

Reply
Jason Colavito link
7/24/2013 11:25:45 pm

The evidence, in this case, is the otherwise inexplicable repetition of specific patterns in art across time and space. Certain geometric forms occur regularly in cave art in an abundance that is otherwise difficult to attribute to utter chance. Not every group, incidentally, painted caves or made this type of art, so it's not that all ancient genius is the result of drugs or trances but rather that these experiences, across cultures, yielded similar patterns in art.

Reply
Varika
7/27/2013 04:32:05 am

Well, Jason, I would argue that at least the specific example you mentioned--spirals--is in no way inexplicable as a repetition. There are so many spiral structures in the natural world that it would be more inexplicable to NOT abstract them into the art. Shells spiral, flower petals spiral, leaves spiral, tree branches spiral, wind spirals, water spirals, clouds spiral, spinning in circles creates spiral patterns in the dirt....the human eye travels in a spiral around an image, even. The prevalence of spirals has led at least some groups, not using drugs, to declare it proof of God, "because otherwise things should be all different." So if spirals are the only thing that is common, this paper and the one it's critiquing just don't hold much water.

Jason Colavito link
7/27/2013 04:47:22 am

No, spirals aren't the only thing. There's an entire set of symbols that repeat with relative consistency across cultures. Those who ascribe them to altered states of consciousness (which don't have to be drug induced--trance can do it) hold that this set of symbols, repeated across cultures, implies a common neurological source. Check the article if you'd like. It's free.

tubby
7/25/2013 06:04:07 am

Draw something weird right now. Just something weird for the sake of weird, and add a number of purposely disturbing elements to it. Make sure those elements don't look stuck on though, or people may guess the game.

Then show this drawing to some friends, coworkers, colleges or even post it online to an art site of your choice or even to your blog.

Chances are someone will assume you were on drugs and ask you about it. Some might also suggest that you have undiagnosed psychological problems.

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The Other J.
7/24/2013 05:34:13 pm

"by which to decouple autonomous brain activity from the influence of environmentally mediated sensorimotor dynamics."

What a great line of academese. Doesn't that just mean drugs helped them shut off their brain from outside influence?

Mediated Sensorimotor Dynamics sounds like a good name for an 80's electronica band.

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drew hempel link
7/24/2013 06:23:44 pm

Seriously does someone have the intellectual maturity to just consider all the evidence? Read the Ropes to God book already instead of just dismissing it without really investigating it.

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Tara Jordan
7/25/2013 01:59:41 am

"Maturity is the faculty to resist to symbolism". Milan Kundera.

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Joep
7/25/2013 02:51:11 am

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Joep
7/25/2013 02:54:01 am

Maybe they just drew things for no reason at all. My child draws stange shapes and symbols all the time.

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Paul
7/25/2013 02:55:39 am

If we considered the evidence and disagreed with it, then what?

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Jason Colavito link
7/25/2013 03:21:02 am

Then you critique what's wrong with this idea, and if you make a good case, then that's that.

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Paul
7/25/2013 05:50:05 am

Precisely. The paper makes a reasonable claim, Keener's book on spirituality less so.

Tara Jordan
7/25/2013 04:38:01 am

These are not "evidences" but interpretations.

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Paul
7/25/2013 06:14:53 am

No need to counter my generalizations with specificity.

Gunn
7/25/2013 05:20:13 am

What gets people, including children, high? All kinds of things, drugs and other things, too. Who can possibly say what prompted someone to be creative? And no, one doesn't need to be high to be creative...but it probably helps. The idea is to be able to see something differently.

Some seemingly simple things are not simple at all. Take recently-referenced windmills, for example. When I invented my own double-enclosed, vertical-axis wind turbine for building tops in good wind zones, a very "disruptive" concept not yet put into common practice, I wanted to start from scratch to make this better mouse trap. I challenged myself. Why are they making these 3-prop wind turbines larger and larger, and so far away from buildings?

As simple as a cave painting can be (not) in understanding, this is somewhat how my own creation can be seen and understood. The image is there http://www.hallmarkemporium.com/id26.html (look at the hand drawing), but it will not be understood by all. Someone who does not adequately understand particular cave paintings or carved images cannot say what they mean. We must take an abstract image or idea and make sense of it. Sometimes it is a common farmer or rancher who will see the new wind turbine design for the energy game-changer it will be, not unlike early Native Americans who watched and copied a better knapping technique to produce a better spear point.

For me in my own creative process, the beast to kill was the turbine blades. By killing the beastly blades, I would save birds from swirling treachery, and I would do away with the psychologically damaging effects of blades on humans as well.

Across earth today, we refuse to put blades near or on top of our homes or skyscrapers. Take away the real or perceived danger of blades, and astute people in good wind zones will want to save money. Look Ma! No grid! Detach from the grid, or sell back. You better hum. Future Chinese infrastructure influence-peddling? No way. My home is my own energy castle, and I will help save Earth from her spoilers...

How can I depict this in a modern cave painting? I have, but the cave is still sealed shut. I'm an artist, a dreamer, not a business man. Is global warming real? The evidence is in: yes. Well, I have new technology to help, but it has not yet seen the light of day. I have no influence as I stand before the cave wall. I have plenty of jerky, but no audience for my creation. I have plenty of time to doodle, while time for Mother Earth is running out.

The way of getting there to success is not known. Sometimes there is this weird crossing of the brains, not telepathy, not good communications even, not a definite connection or an adequate answer. Wind turbine success for me is as vague as prehistoric art. The ancient artist wanted to be understood in the future, but for me, the future is already here. I'm just waiting to be understood, as a good answer deserves attention.

Being high may or may not have anything to do with it. But, ultimately, the arm must move. The eye must see. Who or what is controlling? Is there help for life, or does life and help not matter?

I know only that life is a circle, a spinning wind turbine, and that by spinning in a circle faster and faster, we can become dizzy and high and laugh like children...or else puke from the effort.

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varika
7/27/2013 04:37:22 am

"And no, one doesn't need to be high to be creative...but it probably helps."

Seldom, if ever, does it help. Sorry, just speaking as a trained artist. The problem with "creative" and "high/stoned/drunk" is that those substances remove one's ability to be critical of the work one is doing, and therefore one will invariably fail to notice that one has come up with a highly-derivative, unappealing, flat-out mess. Some of my classmates in art school couldn't resist trying, and yeah, we all came to the conclusion that not one thing any of them created under the influence was worth even attempting to salvage.

Not commenting on the rest of your post, btw; it got a little too existential for me. Just commenting on that one thing you said.

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drew hempel link
7/25/2013 07:55:19 am

As usual -- so-called skeptics - practicing self-censorship! Refusing to consider real evidence! Hilarious.

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Tara Jordan
7/25/2013 11:00:57 am

Drew,You have an interesting blog. I am particularly interested in the "anti-radiation healing techniques" (because I live in Tokyo).Next time we are faced with another nuclear catastrophe,I`ll seek your wisdom.Please wake me up when you have succeeded at levitating yourself several feet above ground floor.I am also a big fan of Qigong & Shaolin finger power....

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drew hempel link
7/25/2013 08:02:30 am

Just for the record I get the same response from Graham Hancock and his followers - who want to believe that psychedelic mushrooms spawned the cave paintings.

I point out that for the original human culture psychedelics are "neither necessary nor sufficient" for the trance healing training that is the central defining trait of the Bushmen - quoting Dr. Richard Katz book "Boiling Energy" regarding the use of the psychedelic !Gwa root.

The use of a plant is called "false N/om" -- the !Gwa root is just usually taken once by females before puberty - and maybe by males to help induce trance - but it is definitely not the main tool or main source of inspiration, etc.

There is one Bushmen cave painting that might be considered a mushroom but I have never come across any use of psychedelic mushrooms by the original human culture....

The Tshoma is the month long celibacy trance dance training done by males in solitude when they hit puberty -- it relies on the same principles detailed in the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality."

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Only Me
7/25/2013 08:42:43 am

I clicked on Drew's name and went to his blog, just to find out why he was so adamant in peddling Keeney's book. After reading the excerpt recounting his personal experiences, I understand. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

I found it as no coincidence that every culture that ever existed has discovered the use of drugs and the process of fermentation. Can some paintings be the result of drug-induced influence? Sure. Are all of them? I doubt it. The truth is, no one living knows what the symbols represent definitively, and it's likely we never will. The message left behind, if there is one, is open to interpretation.

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drew hempel link
7/25/2013 09:50:41 am

"peddling" - the same term was used by the former podcast host of theparacast -- when I posted on their forum about qigong being scientifically proven.

Can you provide any evidence that I'm "peddling" something?

I have a masters degree from the U of Minnesota - a degree I finished doing qigong training as self-directed research through a local community college - that was in 2000.

I am not selling anything. Peddling implies some kind of sex connotation also - but the Bushmen original training is based on celibacy! haha.

Go figure.

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Only Me
7/25/2013 10:59:58 am

The evidence, my friend, is your previous posts. You seemed frustrated that no one stampeded out the door towards Keeney's book. You accuse everyone of self-censorship and make comparisons with Graham Hancock and associates. You proclaim close-mindedness and ask about intellectual maturity. The majority here are intelligent, knowledgeable, well-spoken individuals who won't be bullied or open to a condescending guilt trip. Choose your words more carefully. Your passion for the subject does not excuse boorish behavior.

Your educational accomplishments, while exemplary, are not relevant to this topic. I never challenged your intellectual prowess.

Any sexual connotations were clearly not intended.

If you want civil discourse, I'm all for it, but do refrain from the personal attacks. It serves only to make you sound like just another fringe extremist.

Varika
7/27/2013 04:45:58 am

"Peddling" in no way implies sexual activity. "Peddling" is an ancient and honorable profession, sir, most certainly practiced by your beloved Bushmen, dealing with the transfer of ownership of small items as it does. Items such as healing talismans, for instance. Spell components going TO the shamans or priests or whatever. Dung for fires. Beads and threads and fabric. THAT sort of thing.

But we can use the term "hawking" to describe what you're doing, if you prefer. As in "Drew keeps hawking this Bushmen book."

drew hempel link
7/25/2013 09:48:00 am

"Toward what I believed to be the end of the evening, Xaxe, a great hunter, healer, and shaman, laid hands on me....I felt the energy, his energy, surge through my body. He had his hands on me for about twenty-five or thirty seconds, but it felt like he had only touched me for a split second. Time stood still. I literally had a
short out of body experience. I could see him touching me from just above my body, almost like I was floating six feet off the ground, watching myself. All of a sudden I was back in my body observing an image of him thumbing through the book that contained all the pictures and moments in my life. I saw images of my childhood I hadn't remembered in years, pictures of my mother and me walking on a beach and shelling, very strong images. At the time, both during his touch and immediately afterward, I described it as him flipping through the pages of my life....Later the next morning, I spoke with Xaxe about the trance dance. He told
me he wanted access to me in a way that was not possible through a translator....Xaxe's curiosity was such a caring, loving gesture....When he detached from me it felt like someone was unplugging a lamp from a wall socket.
As he let go of me and continued to dance around the fire, I spontaneously burst into uncontrollable tears....I had been stripped to my emotional core, completely stunned by what I had witnessed so up close and personal."

Andrew Zimmern, The Bizarre Truth: how I walked out the door mouth first – and came back shaking my head (Random House, 2009), 234-5.

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Jason Colavito link
7/25/2013 09:52:56 am

When I was 13, "The Call of Cthulhu" gave me a similar feeling of communion with the uncanny, but that doesn't mean that Cthulhu has an objective reality outside my head. I've also experienced an "alien" abduction (a waking dream) that was similarly intense and powerful but nonetheless untrue. The intensity of an experience does not correlate to its physical reality.

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Bo Jangles
7/25/2013 10:25:47 am

"After many astounding experiences, the Bushmen accepted Keeney as a "doctor," a n/om-kxao, one who is believed to possess and control a supernatural essence or power that can be harnessed to heal people with physical and social ills."

DAVID LEWIS-WILLIAMS, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus and Founder, Rock Art Research Institute, Department of Archaeology at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

"There is no question in the minds of the Bushman healers that Keeney’s strength and purposes are coterminous with theirs. I know this from talking myself with some of the Kalahari shamans who danced with him . . . He knows whereof he writes, having traveled ‘ropes to God’ himself for much of his life."

MEGAN BIESELE, Ph.D.
Cofounder and coordinator of the Kalahari People’s Fund, former member of the Harvard Kalahari Research Project

Jason Colavito link
7/25/2013 10:31:10 am

I'm not sure of your point. I once had a supposed Gypsy psychic tell me that I possessed the gift of prophecy, but that hardly makes psychic powers real. What people believe and what is actually occurring are two very different things. There is no doubt that shamanic ceremonies are powerful for those experiencing them; that does not necessarily mean that they involve an actual other dimension peopled by aliens, monsters, and gods.

drew hempel link
7/29/2013 03:00:52 pm

Jason before just dismissing the original human culture from 100,000 BCE - maybe read some of the research on it? How about consider the evidence! Are Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and Megan Biesele just making up the powerful healing that they witnessed? They are professional anthropologists who have lived with the Bushmen. What about Dr. Richard Katz and Dr. Bradford Keeney - the both attest to the real healing energy of the Bushmen trance dancing training.

The training is a month long of fasting and trance dancing for the males in solitude during puberty when they have been chaste since birth - it's a very special training.

It's been corroborated by the same type of training for Indian yoga meditation and Chinese yoga meditation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyLF3y1YJKA

So India and China have existed twice as long as the West - they have detailed sciences about this training.

The Bushmen have existed since 100,000 BCE.

But apparently for you it's o.k. to say - well just because they believe they are doing this does not mean they are doing it.

That statement is meaningless! You are being a fundamentalist who ignores the evidence!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyLF3y1YJKA

I thought you were a rationalist who fairly investigated evidence but I guess not!

http://www.racctz.org/page11/page16/page16.html ROCK ART PROJECT TANZANIA

"Another shaman told Keeney about what he called the “rope of light,” an important vision apparently only seen by a few shamans during their healing dances.
“The rope is the most important thing we know abut, because you can walk with the rope and visit God. The rope is the power. It does not carry power like a pipe carrying water. It is like God’s finger: it stretches out into a long thin line that reaches us… It is also a line that you can use to talk to God…”


Significantly, the shaman concludes his vivid description by stating that: “Several of us in this community have gone all the way up that rope and have seen God. I turn into a wind and then travel up the rope.” These descriptions suddenly made sense out of what first appeared to Cavallo as a string of Christmas lights. There is the vertical rope with tiny step-like parallel lines that look exactly like symbols of human footprints found on two other paintings from the same Kondoa rock shelter—the so-called snare represents the rope to God. (From M.D. Leakey, 1983. Redrawn by J.A. Cavallo)."

drew hempel link
7/25/2013 09:53:52 am

So for those who want to continue practicing "willful ignorance" - that is Andrew Zimmern of the cable t.v. show Bizarre World -- he goes around the world eating bizarre food. He did an episode on the Bushmen of the Kalahari and he happened upon a real Bushmen healer - the so-called "stone age" people. haha. That is the type of energy that the cave paintings are based on - something the psychedelic crowd does not delve into.

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Tara Jordan
7/25/2013 11:16:42 am

All things considered, I'd rather be "willfully ignorant" than grandiosely self delusional. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

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Bill
7/25/2013 12:27:56 pm

I was at your website and saw the link to this blog entry and the following tweet: a skeptic tries to censor me again! the subject - cave art and shamanism! Enjoy.

I can't find any evidence of anyone on this blog censoring you. They simply don't seem to be as impressed with your beliefs or you blog as you are. People examining your ideas and finding them lacking in merit is the same thing as censorship.

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drew hempel link
7/25/2013 03:46:45 pm

I'll explain things real simply -- there is a book that needs to be read for the best analysis on the cave art of the original human culture going back to 100,000 BCE.

You don't have to "rush out to buy" the book - I read it through interlibrary loan.

Secondly because the book documents the real training of the original human culture, the development of real paranormal powers, this is dismissed as a symbolic belief system that is magic and therefore not real. If a person does not read the evidence they can not come to that conclusion.

Thirdly my own personal views are not included in this book and therefore I am simply the "messenger" - any rejection of the book based on me is simply an excuse to avoid the evidence by using ad hominems, etc.

drew hempel link
7/25/2013 03:52:05 pm

Fourth - I wasn't sure my post would go through since my posts were being censored by this blog. I had to do a IP reset to get that post through. Sorry you could not find any evidence but I had to post as Bo Jangles before to ensure that the post would go through. Apparently all I needed was the IP reset and I didn't need to use a new email, etc.

Now if any one wants to actually engage with the evidence of the cave art shamanism - I have already proven that Dr. David Lewis-Williams recommends the work of Dr. Bradford Keeney and Dr. David Lewis-Williams is one of the main sources for Jason's blogpost.

So good luck people - I have tons more evidence on this topic - as Jason tweeted me in response - so am I "implying" that hunter-gatherer cultures practiced magic? Call it whatever you want but quantum biology gives a scientific explanation for these extraordinary human skills. As I stated I investigated these abilities myself by doing the actual training as a student of a real paranormal spiritual master who trained at Shaolin. I'm referring to qigong master Chunyi Lin - he was tested and proven by doctors at the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota doing "gold standard" science - randomized controlled research.

Subjects with chronic pain who received external qigong experienced reduction in pain intensity following each qigong treatment. This is especially impressive given the long duration of pain (>5 years) in the most of the participants," writes lead author Ann Vincent, MD, MBBS, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.

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Jason Colavito link
7/25/2013 11:25:39 pm

I'm not censoring anything on this blog. If you are experiencing technical difficulties with posting, please contact Weebly support at http://www.weebly.com. The forums can be a bit buggy, and there is a word limit on post sizes.

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drew hempel link
7/25/2013 03:58:53 pm

O.K. the whole bit about shamanism being based on some Marxist analysis needs to be corrected. The original human culture, the Bushmen, had 90% of the males train to be shamans - so it was not some class differential structure scenario.

So what the Bushmen call the N/um or N/om is also the name for the oldest Bushmen cave art - found in Tsolido Hills in Namibia. One study claims a date of around 70,000 BCE. N/om actually means the spirit light that also creates a boiling energy heat in the belly. This phenomenon, as I mentioned, is detailed as a nonwestern scientific training in the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality." But for a Western science perspective - I have written a book that is a free download -- there's some 725 scholarly references. The book is not clearly written - more just an investigation - but I recommend quantum biologist Dr. Mae-Wan Ho for more details.

Oh yeah I wrote this recent article for free "The Secret Science of Spiritual Healing" - which gives a good summary of the quantum biology research - http://www.viewzone.com/spiritualhealing.html

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Tara JOrdan
7/25/2013 04:52:32 pm

I`d hate to break your heart, but we understand why "The Secret Science of Spiritual Healing" works among a specific category of individuals.Spiritual Healing is nothing more than a psychological placebo effect.There is nothing scientific & mysterious about Spiritual Healing.It is just a matter of faith & convincing yourself that "it works".

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drew hempel link
7/25/2013 05:11:04 pm

Do you mean you don't want to consider the evidence that shows it's beyond any placebo effect? First of all "placebo" has been dismissed by Western science. http://yjhm.yale.edu/essays/ecohen1.htm "The Placebo Disavowed: Or Unveiling the Bio-Medical Imagination"

Secondly Spring Forest Qigong Master Chunyi Lin has healed people with conditions that are beyond any possible self-induced healing - like the rare lung disease of Esther Trejo -even her scar tissue was gone! She would have otherwise needed a lung transplant. Or the severe epilepsy of Skyler Krull. He was on 40 medications and after getting healed by the qigong master Leslie Anne Vincent - trained by Chunyi Lin - Skyler was no longer having seizures all day long - like 22 hours a day - when he was on the 40 medications. Now he is normal and going to college. Both of these people were students of the Mayo Clinic. Chunyi Lin works with the Mayo Clinic doctors - he has taught them qigong and the doctors recommend him since Chunyi has been so effective. There are many more examples, of course, but these are good "black swan" examples.

Third - let's say it's all placebo - hey if it works -- who cares what you call it! This nonwestern paranormal spiritual healing is based on a definition of reality not allowed by Western mathematical logic which relies on a symmetric geometric containment of infinity. So consciousness as nondual, formless reality beyond spacetime - this can be logically inferred to by quantum physicists, as Dr. Bernard E'spagnat details, but quantum physics has to convert the infinite potential back into a symmetric math measurement. So that's why there can not be a recreation of this type of healing using technology - because quantum biology can prove this type of nonlocal information transformation from photons to electrons, for example, but it can not reproduce this technology in a lab.

So quantum physics is based on linear operators - while human perception is nonlinear, chaotic. But these two realms interact through quantum biology. So spirit healing is based on coherent biophoton energy that is like a laser - but much more complex - nonlinear, constantly evolving. But that is a higher frequency than the force of the healing energy which is also electromagnetic but not light energy - there is also electrochemical energy which when stored up then creates the electromagnetic force. These energies are all inter-related and interactive - and the training is very specific.

The Bushmen call the trance healing state !Kia - and so for example the eyes should not move so that the light energy can be focused better as laser energy -- but the energy is also holographic so that reality is interactive - externally and internally.

drew hempel link
7/25/2013 05:20:08 pm

Also Tara just so you know - I always sit in full lotus at the computer - it's another good example how this training is not just some wishful thinking, a belief etc. You don't need to believe anything! haha.

Full lotus yoga position is a foundational training - so for example qigong master Chunyi Lin for his training did 2 months of nonstop full lotus meditation in a cave in China. Most people can not even sit in full lotus for a few minutes - much less 2 hours.

O.K. so for example the Bushmen males at puberty do a month of constant fasting and trance dancing while the older males transmit the light energy into the younger males. This is the same process of the nonwestern shamanic training that then became Taoist Yoga internal alchemy and the yoga training in India.

So Chunyi Lin also did not sleep the whole 2 months! Now Chunyi Lin sleeps only a few hours a night and then sits in full lotus yoga meditation position for 4 to 5 hours nonstop every night. Qigong master Jim Nance also does the same.

As for what the training is - how it works, etc. -- it has to do with defining reality through complementary opposites rather than the symmetric geometry math used for Western science.

Tara Jordan
7/25/2013 06:46:19 pm

It doesn't really matter if you call it "placebo effect" or "self induced mechanism",science understands the mechanism behind the power of suggestion.It is a psychological process.The Power of Suggestion, especially the power of self suggestion,has a tremendous influence on physiological,physical & psychological conditioning.Particularly among specific groups of individuals who are receptive,attached or wired to spiritual & magical thinking.What we are & what we expect influences our behavior & condition.

"Let's say it's all placebo - hey if it works -- who cares what you call it!".This is precisely the point.If the "healing" is only the result of an inner psychological process,there is no relationship between the process of healing, the cause and effect,considering that the result of the experiment is entirely conditioned by(& subjected to)the will of the individual who submits himself to the experiment.You may call it anything you like,but this is not scientific.

I previously mentioned that I was extremely suspicious of so called "scientific investigations of paranormal activities".Scientists & lab technicians are not immune from being tricked & mislead to react in a particular fashion. Uri Geller also "performed successfully" during the experiments at the Stanford Research Institute. I hope we can agree that Uri Geller doesn't have any paranormal or special power?

Tara Jordan
7/25/2013 07:05:41 pm

Of course there is no need to believe anything.I am the least spiritual person you`ll ever meet but I also spent most of my time in Zazen position when I am at home.I guess I must have special skills since I am capable of sitting in full lotus position for hours & hours.But there is nothing really extraordinary about that,since I have been living in Tokyo for years.As opposed to your Qigong Master,I don't attach any spirituality or special ability to my capacity of sitting in Zazen for hours.It`s nothing but a matter of getting accustomed to particular living conditions,

Jason Colavito link
7/25/2013 11:28:20 pm

The !Kung (San) Bushmen are not the "original" human culture. They have evolved from prehistory as much as anyone. As hunter gatherers they are often used as an analogue for prehistoric cultures, but they cannot be considered unchanged from the Paleolithic.

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drew hempel link
7/27/2013 12:19:48 pm

Jason just get over it and read the cave art book by Dr. Bradford Keeney - you might learn something! haha. I will be happy to discuss the so-called "evolution" of the original human culture with you after you take a look at the evidence.

Only Me
7/27/2013 01:06:13 pm

Sorry, Drew, but I doubt you could hold up your end of that discussion. I bet most of your arguments would be based on what you've retained from Keeney's book. In other words, the arguments would be someone else's, put forth by you.

Now, if you can prove me wrong by using your own words and referencing some other work(s), other than Keeney, then let fly.

drew hempel link
7/27/2013 05:32:12 pm

"In a paper published today in Science, he counted the number of distinct sounds, or phonemes, used in 504 languages from around the world and charted them on a map. The number of sounds varies hugely from language to language. English, for instance has around 46 sounds, some languages in South America have fewer than
15, while the San bushmen of South Africa use a staggering 200. Dr Atkinson found that the number of distinct sounds in a language tends to increase the closer it is to sub-Saharan Africa. He argues that these differences reflect the patterns of migration of our ancestors when they left Africa 70,000 years ago."

David Derbyshire, “Is This How Eve Spoke? Every human language evolved from 'single prehistoric African
'mother tongue',” MailOnline.com, April 15, 2011.

drew hempel link
7/27/2013 05:34:10 pm

"There are things about the antiquity of the Bushmen’s culture that we didn't know. A musicologist found very important music which was used at a woman's first menarche called ‘elan music’ (honoring the fat-rich antelope). This ‘elan music’ was also present in other language groups of other Bushmen language groups and also the noun-less speakers who are not exactly Bushmen but they're related. This means that way back before these groups diverged,
somebody invented or composed (this) music and then they took it with them."

Interview with Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Paula Gordon Show (Peterborough, New Hampshire, July
19, 2008).

drew hempel link
7/27/2013 05:38:13 pm

"Since, as we’ve seen, Khoisan and Pygmies vocalize in essentially the same manner, it’s not difficult to conclude that their “Utopian” cultures are also mirrored by a no less “Utopian” style of music making. Or, in more realistic terms, the Utopian aspects of their musical language would seem to mirror an equally Utopian ideal at the heart of their value system – an ideal more easily achieved, no doubt, in music than the realities of day to day life. (I’ll be having
more to say about Utopia, and its discontents, in an upcoming chapter.)"

From Chapter Three, The Cultural Connection of Victor Grauer’s Sounding the Depth: Tradition and
the Voices of History (2011).

drew hempel link
7/27/2013 05:50:24 pm

If you ever read the Bushmen cave art book by Keeney then you can pursue these other Bushmen books I've already read:

Megan Biesele, Women like meat: the folklore and foraging ideology of the Kalahari Ju/’Hoan (Witwatersrand
University Press, 1993).

Mathias Georg Guenther, Tricksters and trancers: bushman religion and society (Indiana University Press,
1999).

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The harmless people (Random House, Inc., 1989) and Rupert Isaacson, The
Healing Land: The Khoisan and the Kalahari Desert (Grove Press, 2004).

Richard Katz, Boiling energy: community healing among the Kalahari Kung (Harvard University Press, 1984).

Marjorie Shostak, Nisa: the life and words of a !Kung woman (Harvard University Press, 2000).

the Bushmen book Healing Makes Our Hearts Happy.

The Past and Future of !Kung Ethnography: Critical Reflections and Symbolic Perspectives. Essays in Honour of
Lorna Marshall, edited by Megan Biesele, with Robert Gordon and Richard Lee

drew hempel link
7/27/2013 06:05:28 pm

"Cross-hatch designs engraved into two pieces
of ochre found in a cave in South Africa have been dated to perhaps
77,000 years ago and, while they cannot be construed as “art”,
suggest abstract thought and the ability to convey this visually.

I shall list four that illuminated the folklore for me and, I believe,
may begin to illuminate San rock art as well:
• !aia, trance
• n/om, spiritual energy
• n!au, powers of the
spine linking control of prey,
weather, and childbirth
• !uig!oq, magical escape
from carnivores.
I have also been much interested in the dual symbolism of arrows
in Ju/’hoan healing. Just as arrow symbols in our own society may
mean a variety of things known only by convention, arrows in
Ju/’hoan society may signify both healing power and illness. To use
this information to inform rock art study, we need detailed verbal
access to the conventions of Ju/’hoan healing ideology"

"The meaning of Rock Art: Ethnography, comparison and metaphor," Dr. Megan Biesele http://africanrockart.org

Smoothbaby
7/27/2013 07:04:32 pm

"Using knowledge of San beliefs, researchers have shown that the art played a fundamental part in the religious lives of its San painters. The art captured things from the San's world behind the rock-face: the other world inhabited by spirit creatures, to which dancers could travel in animal form, and where people of ecstasy could draw power and bring it back for healing, rain-making and capturing the game."

University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Rock Art Research Institute

http://www.wits.ac.za/rockart/

giggywiggy
7/27/2013 07:49:12 pm

"Recent genetic and linguistic mapping studies now supports what long seemed clear to many who grew up in Bushman country: they are the closest living relatives to our shared ‗African Adam and Eve‘....Chris Henshilwood‘s discovery at Blombos Cave suggests a South African tradition of symbolic, and probably ‗religious,‘ activity which antedates the European cave paintings by at least 40,000 years....The songs have few words, but the tune, together with the clapping and dancing, amplifies a kind of spiritual energy, or life-force called /num. This is roughly equivalent to Henri Bergson‘s elan vitale, Chinese chi, Sanskrit prana, Hawaiian mana, or Hebrew ruach –a vitalizing energy permeating all things....But when we return to the South African rock paintings we find many images representing elements of the dance and the trance experience." 2011, Louis Herman
University of Hawaii West-Oahu citing

Chris S. Henshilwood, and C. W Marean, ―Remodelling the origins of modern human behaviour.‖ In : The Human Genome and Africa Part One: History and Archaeology. ed. H. Soodyall. Cape Town, South Africa: Human Sciences Research Council Press. 2006. Edited version available on Blombos Cave Project websitehttp://www.svf.uib.no/sfu/blombos/

gigglywiggly
7/27/2013 08:04:44 pm

"Down along the scenic coastline of South Africa, Professor Christopher Henshilwood is digging up the anthropological proof of our human African origins. In the Blombos Cave, over the years he and his team have painstakingly unearthed beads likely used by humans on necklaces 75,000 years ago, bone tools dating back 80,000 years and the world's earliest known painting kit.

Because these findings are the oldest of their kind, it suggests our modern human behavior began in Africa and has been developing ever since. For example, the ancient "painting kit" contained red ochre and was likely used as body paint, just as the Himba people of Namibia use it today"

African roots of the human family tree
By Errol Barnett, CNN
updated 7:22 AM EDT, Tue May 14, 2013

gigglywiggly
7/27/2013 08:15:32 pm


Becoming Human: Innovation in Prehistoric Material and Spiritual Culture [Paperback] 2009
Colin Renfrew (Editor), Iain Morley (Editor)

Christopher Henshilwood's chapter "The origins of symbolism, spirituality and shamans: exploring middle Stone Age material culture in South Africa"

Only Me
7/27/2013 08:30:19 pm

Well, I'll give you credit for trying. There are others who've come here and refused to accept the challenge to back up their claims. However, you haven't proven your "original human culture" yet.

1) The first example is the only one to argue for "cultural evolution". Unfortunately, language itself cannot provide the proof. Many words have cross-pollinated between individual cultures; sometimes, words that sound and are spelled the same have different meanings. At other times, words are corrupted versions of their original forms. Languages can be divided into sub-groups based on similarity, but they are still unique stand-alone languages. Dialect has a lot to do with this division as well. Until archaeological proof can be found, no one can say with certainty, "Proto-culture X spawned all the cultures that exist today."

2) Your other examples deal with the ethnocentric qualities of the art and music of related groups in Africa. Art and music are even more stylistic than language, therefore, they also cannot establish an evolution from a singular proto-culture. Basic shapes are easily recognizable across all cultures, it's the symbology that differs. For example, the ki'rin of Japan could be seen as an alternate depiction of the unicorn to a medieval European, or as a demon to a Mayan.
As for music itself, we know that humans only hear in the range of 20-20,000 Hz. A B-flat, is B-flat, is a B-flat. It may be perceived differently, but its frequency does not alter, whether it's heard by an Inuit or an Aborigine. Similarity between musical structures is inevitable.

3) Archaeological finds of tools, bones and personal items only prove that humans once lived in the area where such artifacts are found. They offer no more evidence that all cultures stem from one progenitor proto-culture than your previous examples.

Thanks for at least putting forth the effort.

drew hempel link
7/28/2013 05:42:18 am

Ah - you are arguing from willful ignorance - you refuse to investigate the issue for yourself and they say - you have to prove it to MY standards! haha. This is no different than a spoiled boy at the Mall never satisified with what Mommy presents for him. haha. I call your attitude Mall Science.

First of all - the language response you gave was completely lame - you're trying to sound like you can actually debate a real linguist? haha. Hilarious!

Secondly your music analysis is also completely lame. Dr. Victor Grauer's book Sounding the Depths details how the original human culture music spread around the world. This is easily demonstrated by the dominance of the 1-4-5 chords found in all human cultures and the basis for the Bushmen music. Grauer gives more details of course,

"And despite all the many tens of thousands of years from that primeval time to this, we still find ensembles of pipes and panpipes, still cut from lengths of cane, still tuned, in a great many cases (though not all), more or less according to the system described in the story of the Yellow Bell, based on the simple whole number ratios, 2/3 and 4/3.
Remarkably, we still find, all over the world, musical traditions, both instrumental and vocal, based, more or less, on those exact same ratios." Victor Grauer, “Chapter Nine: The Migration,” and “Chapter Eighteen: The Legacy,” Sounding the
Depths: Tradition and the Voices of History, 2011.

As for the genetics -- that is, of course, the strongest argument. Just as the Bushmen language uses the most sounds, the Bushmen people are the most genetically diverse humans on Earth!!

"A study showed the Khoe and San peoples of the sub-Sahara are descendents of the earliest diversification event in the history of all humans, some 100,000 years ago."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2207097/Genetic-study-challenges-theory-modern-humans-came-just-place-Africa.html#ixzz2aMKnT5xf

22 September 2012

Only Me
7/28/2013 09:14:18 am

And cue the ad hominem attack. Wow, I'm glad you finally laid your cards on the table. You've become so enamored with the Bushman people, you've accumulated any body of work that supports your belief they are the progenitors of us all. Pay attention, Drew. It's called Afrocentrism.

First, I'm not debating a linguist; I'm debating you.

Second, it appears you've missed the point entirely. Musical structure, like basic patterns in art, will inevitably be discovered, refined and repeated in all cultures, often independently due to several factors. It's akin to Neanderthals fashioning stone and bone tools and weapons, only to learn from trade with Cro-Magnons, how to make better versions. Both groups learned independently how to make such implements; one simply knew how to make them better. Bottom line, we are all human; we share the ability to imagine, create and adapt.

Third, the genetics scene established decades ago a common ancestry originating in Africa. I think your timeline on diversification is wrong, though. It has been the subject of much research and debate that roughly 100,000 years ago, a supervolcano erupted, causing global climactic change. This event very nearly wiped out mankind, with only an estimated few thousand survivors left to continue our species. I think your diversification happened sometime after.

By the way, if I was engaging in willful ignorance, why am I here debating with you? I'm not a scholar, I don't have a degree, and I need neither credential to justify analyzing your arguments with healthy skepticism and good old common sense.

drew hempel link
7/28/2013 11:52:10 am

So ... you refer to the Toba supervolcano? When there were only 2,000 humans on Earth? ummm again it's just more proof that the Bushmen are the original human culture! It has nothing to do with "afrocentrism" haha - maybe you are projecting your own racism there.

"Writing in the American Journal of Human Genetics, the researchers estimate that the entire population of ancestral humans at the time of the African expansion consisted of only about 2,000 individuals....Our results are consistent with the 'out-of-Africa' theory, according to which a sub-Saharan African ancestral population gave rise to all populations of anatomically modern humans through a chain of migrations to the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Oceania and America," Feldman noted. ...Statistical analysis of the microsatellite data revealed a close genetic relationship between two hunter-gatherer populations in sub-Saharan Africa -- the Mbuti pygmies of the Congo Basin and the Khoisan (or "bushmen") of Botswana and Namibia. These two populations "may represent the oldest branch of modern humans studied here," the authors concluded."

http://news.stanford.edu/pr/03/humans528.html

As for the music - Western music uses a logarithmic equal-tempered scale - not the natural 1-4-5 intervals of the Bushmen music which then spread worldwide. So all of Western music is based on a very different symmetric geometric mathematics - I've researched this in great detail. The only underlying commonality of nonwestern music is precisely this 1-4-5 music interval relationship which is the focus of Dr. Victor Grauer's book.

On the linguistics - all I did was provide the quote - so if you have a problem with the quote then maybe you want to find a counter article from the journal Science which is the source of the quote. It's very clear research that the Bushmen language is the original human language.

I also quoted Dr. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas who documented that the music of the Bushmen existed before their languages! This is called "musilanguage" - just as it's now proven that infants learn music before they learn to speak.

"The Pygmies and Bushmen on the other hand, occupy a very different musical universe, far more complex vocally, and far simpler instrumentally, with no indigenous string instruments other than the mouth bow, no percussion other than hand clapping and stick beating, and no drums, at least traditionally (as we can hear, some Pygmies and Bushmen have become expert performers on drums borrowed from neighboring Bantu groups)."

http://soundingthedepths.blogspot.com/2011/02/chapter-one-pygmy-bushmen-nexus.html


drew hempel link
7/28/2013 12:08:56 pm

"This low population census and genetic bottleneck explains why humans are so similar among them while in the case of the ape species, this does not happen. The DNA analyses that detected this bottleneck also revealed the oldest human race: Khoisan (Bushmen), now restricted to South Africa, being at least 100,000 years old."

O.K. so yeah the Bushmen are the oldest human culture on Earth and the trance songs and dancing are depicted on the cave art and Dr. Bradford Keeney and Dr. Megan Biesele and Dr. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and Dr. Richard Katz have all confirmed that this trance dance healing is not just symbolic nor just a belief....

I have also referenced the archaeologist stating that the cave culture documented to 77,000 years ago reflects spiritual beliefs also. So there's no reason to think that the Bushmen culture of trance dancing is some recent invention - in fact the DNA as I documented now proves the northern Bushmen broke off from the Southern Bushmen around 45,000 years ago - and so that proves the trance dancing culture is at least 45,000 years old. The ritual music proves the trance dancing goes back before human language, as Dr. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has pointed out. Dr. Robin Dunbar also takes this view:

"The !Kung San of southern Africa, for example, seek to heal rifts in personal relationships within the community using music and repetitive dance movement to trigger trance states. Many religions have practices such as chanting and fasting that invoke similar mental states: blinding light bursts within the head….It is easy to see how this activity could have been extremely beneficial to our ancestors, uniting the group, discouraging free riders, and so increasing the chances that individuals would survive and reproduce more successfully."

Professor Robin Dunbar, How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Dunbars Number and Other
Evolutionary Quirks (Harvard University Press, 2010), passim.

Only Me
7/28/2013 12:53:06 pm

So I'm projecting racism because I challenge your assertion that one, and only one, group could possibly be the progenitors of all recorded cultures in human history. Then you include a genetic report that outlines TWO closely related groups that "may represent the oldest branch of modern humans studied here." You've completely dismissed one, the Mbuti pygmies, in favor of the Bushmen. You also dismiss the idea that any groups existing prior to the Toba incident could have possibly had a hand in cultural development, again in favor of the Bushmen. Classic.

Okay, so, non-Western music has an underlying commonality in its structure, as opposed to Western music. That proves that music can develop independently, based on the personal preference of the culture that developed it. Again, and try to keep up, humans of all kinds imagine and create new technologies, ideas, customs, etc., that are invariably adopted through contact and exchange. In time, what has been adopted morphs further, shaped by the influence of the particular culture that uses it. Eventually, it is identified as unique to that culture, which is true, since its original identity has now been forgotten.

I have no problem with the quote you gave me. I only tried to explain how getting to the original form of a word/language is extremely difficult, due to the numerous influences that shape it. This makes establishing the primary source of all developed languages even more difficult.

Here's the point: Africa is a huge place, science has shown that several sub-species of ancient human co-existed there at the same time, and if the survivors of the Toba eruption where geographically located in one area, it stands to reason that we would share a genetic family tree with them. I'm only pointing out that everything that makes us human (language, art, music, technology) cannot be neatly wrapped into one central point of origin, while discounting the fact that all cultures developed SOMETHING independently of outside influence, no matter how similar the result (MesoAmerican pyramids, Egyptian pyramids...the "dragon" of myth, etc.)

I think it is more honest and respectable to account for the contributions made by ALL our ancestors, not just one specific group.

drew hempel link
7/28/2013 03:30:06 pm

"A study showed the Khoe and San peoples of the sub-Sahara are descendents of the earliest diversification event in the history of all humans, some 100,000 years ago."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2207097/Genetic-study-challenges-theory-modern-humans-came-just-place-Africa.html#ixzz2aMKnT5xf

22 September 2012

O.K. -- this is the LATEST research! Yes the pygmies are the next closest related tribe to the Bushmen. The Bushmen are first and from before that original bottleneck of 2000 people. O.K. you brought up the bottleneck. It was 70,000 years ago - after the Bushmen.

"Genetic and paleoanthropological evidence is in accord that today’s human population is the result of a great demic (demographic and geographic) expansion that began approximately 45,000 to 60,000 y ago in Africa and rapidly resulted in human occupation of almost all of the Earth’s habitable regions. Genomic data from contemporary humans suggest that this expansion was accompanied by a continuous loss of genetic diversity, a result of what is called the “serial founder effect.” In addition to genomic data, the serial founder effect model is now supported by the genetics of human parasites, morphology, and linguistics. This particular population history gave rise to the two defining features of genetic variation in humans: genomes from the substructured populations of Africa retain an exceptional number of unique variants, and there is a dramatic reduction in genetic diversity within populations living outside of Africa."

The great human expansion

Brenna M. Henna,
L. L. Cavalli-Sforzaa,1, and
Marcus W. Feldmanb,2

Edited by C. Owen Lovejoy, Kent State University, Kent, OH, and approved September 25, 2012 (received for review July 19, 2012)

O.K. so the Bushmen culture - the music and language -- spread around the world fairly rapidly.

So the Bushmen culture is the original human culture. The music of the other cultures is based on the Bushmen culture - as Dr. Victor Grauer details - you can read his blog book.

But I realize you refuse to research on your own - you maintain the "willful ignorance" position. haha.

drew hempel link
7/28/2013 03:32:28 pm

"Africa's Khoe-San were first to split from other humans

(AFP) – Sep 21, 2012

WASHINGTON — Southern Africa's bushmen, and their relatives the Khoe, veered off on their own path of genetic development 100,000 years ago, according to a new study this week.

The split, gleaned from an analysis of genetic data, is the earliest divergence scientists have discovered in the evolution of modern humans.

The Khoe and the San peoples -- who speak click languages, and live across a wide swath of southern Africa from Namibia to Mozambique to South Africa -- have long fascinated scientists.

The San, in particular, were one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer societies, living well into the 20th century in a style anthropologists think was similar to humans' most ancient ancestors."

O.K. again the original human culture!

Bo Jangles
7/28/2013 03:36:37 pm

"The deepest divergence of all living people occurred some 100,000 years ago, well before modern humans migrated out of Africa and about twice as old as the divergences of central African Pygmies and East African hunter-gatherers and from other African groups," says lead author Dr Carina Schlebusch, a Wits University PhD-graduate now conducting post-doctoral research at Uppsala University in Sweden."

Khoe-San Peoples Diverged Before 'Out-Of-Africa' Migration of Modern Humans

Science Daily Sept 20, 2012

Only Me
7/28/2013 04:42:55 pm

Well, Drew, it seems we are at an impasse. Your belief simply will not allow for anyone to disagree with your point of view. The constant falling back to accuse someone of "willful ignorance" confirms that. I refuse to sacrifice logic and reason on the altar of your fanaticism.

You have my sympathy; the way you casually wipe clean the accomplishments of every culture that flourished throughout human history is, to put it bluntly, fucking sad. I could continue arguing the "evidence" you put forth, but why bother? You are convinced that all we are, all we have become, can be summed up thusly: the Bushmen did it. No one else matters.

I won't waste your time any more.

And, Drew,.....haha.

drew hempel link
7/29/2013 06:57:12 am

I have no idea what you're talking about - you're just babbling nonsense. The Bushmen are the original human culture. Anthropologists have demonstrated that the Bushmen culture is the continuation of human's ancient ancestors.

Does that mean that other human cultures have not changed! Of course not, that would be absurd - but are all human cultures based on the original human culture of the Bushmen? YES!!

"To find out more, von Cramon-Taubadel investigated museum specimens of skulls from 11 human populations...such as the San Bushmen of Africa or the Inuit of Alaska and Greenland, while the other six relied on agriculture. ...Since jaws of modern societies are now shorter, they "are not big enough to accommodate the size of our teeth," von Cramon-Taubadel said.

The result could be crowded, painful wisdom teeth.

Von Cramon-Taubadel detailed her findings online Nov. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

"Ancient Diet Shift Explains Why Wisdom Teeth Are a Pain," November 21, 2011

See so the Bushmen spread out around the world but then with the rise of agriculture there has been significant changes in modern humans.

drew hempel link
7/29/2013 07:12:39 am

''The rapid cultural change of the last 10,000 years is in a sense a cultural veneer on an older biological pattern,'' said Dr. DeVore of Harvard. ''Our deepest emotional makeup - what makes us happy, sad or loving - evolved around the campfires of hunter-gatherer bands.''

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/09/science/as-ancient-ways-slide-into-oblivion-hunter-tribes-face-painful-choices.html?pagewanted=2

So yes we all do remain Bushmen at heart.

drew hempel link
7/25/2013 07:37:01 pm

I agree that sitting in full lotus is not necessarily going to achieve the energy of what a qigong master has -- but meditating in full lotus is a different experience.

The training for qigong usually does not start with full lotus anyway - but the foundation is something called the small universe or microcosmic orbit exercise. This is basically like what is normally called "kundalini" but what the Bushmen call the N/om or boiling heat in the pit of the stomach. It rises up the spine and it becomes electromagnetic energy.

I sympathesize that you personally are not interested in scientific studies of the phenomenon. The main problem with these science studies is that real energy masters are very rare! So this is why Dr. Anne Vincent of the Mayo Clinic reported that she was "especially impressed" with the results of the "external qi" healing study she did. Her methodology was a "gold standard" or "randomized controlled" study - and so these meet the standards of an objective research - the results were real beyond the personal feelings of any one.

There have been now probably half a dozen good qigong science studies using this randomized controlled methodology all with positive results. Qigong master Yan Xin has been involved with medical research of external qi studies through Harvard medical school - the results have been published in hard science journals. Yan Xin is one of the most famous qigong masters of China and he's now a "national treasure" of the Chinese government.

So yes - is this phenomenon rare in modern times? Of course! But are their real qigong masters out there! Indeed! It's just a matter of if a person is interesting in pursuing the information. Anyone skeptical can just try it out by getting a phone healing - if they are skeptical then they should not be subject to a placebo effect. The Spring Forest Qigong Center also does Free Friday healings with the qigong master. For example my mom was skeptical so she went to a couple Free Friday healings with qigong master Jim Nance - she felt the energy and she was stronger but she the effect was temporary. As Jim said - the Free Friday is a free sample healing. haha. So then I was talking to Jim on the phone and he healed my mom while she was asleep! She woke up the next day full of energy! I didn't tell her what happened till a week later and when I asked Jim about it he said he had sent her energy several times while he was having a conversation with me. I was, of course, never aware of this healing except that he told me he had been "having a conversation with my mom" while she was asleep. Jim has told me that it is easier to heal people while they are asleep because then their mind does not get in the way of the healing.

So if any one does read the Ropes of God book about the true meaning of the original human culture cave paintings - you read lots of personal testimonials from the Bushmen healers themselves - how there is long distance healing and many details that are the same as the qigong masters.

Reply
Tara Jordan
7/25/2013 11:22:39 pm

Drew.There is no necessity to agree on anything in order to have a proper exchange.There is a benefit to this conversation,I hope you`ll realize that no one is trying to shut you down or censor you.(although I do not consider myself to be the most qualified commentator to discuss these issues).

I am neither a spiritual nor a religious person but I respect the individual desire of pursuit of knowledge,but having said that,we also have to respect the definition behind the terminology we use.A spiritual experience is not a scientific process because the nature of the experience is outside the realm of scientific investigation.

There is no doubt that particular living & environmental conditions have tremendous impacts on the "self". Having lived for years in Japan,I am deeply influenced by the Japanese "way of thinking", & living among Japanese has changed my perception,who I am & the way I see the world surrounding me.I understand your fascination for Far Eastern philosophy.In terms of Stoicism, we Westerners have a lot to learn.I was in Tokyo during the earthquake in 2011 & I witnessed first hand the aftermaths of the Fukushima Genpatsu.There was no panic,no looting,no civil unrest & public disorder.Even during the most difficult stages of the disaster,I saw dignity & humility.

Reply
drew hempel link
7/26/2013 05:46:42 am

Tara you reminded me of a book I read about the cooperative movement in Japan as being part of what became the fascist society during WWII. To say "fascinated" is a bit limited because I don't really focus myself or specialize on Far Eastern philosophy. What happened is that I saw a flyer for a qigong master in 1995 - Effie P. Chow - and it was not just stretching, etc. but about paranormal healing. So that fascinated me but I am very critical of the New Age woo-woo scene and so I called the number to ask for my admittance fee to be lowered. Effie P. Chow let me in for half price - $10 - and my girlfriend joined me. So Effie P. Chow filled the room with chi energy and transmitted energy to people -- and then she had us make "chi balls" by putting our palms facing each other. Sure enough I felt strong electromagnetic energy pushing my hands apart. My girlfriend did not really feel anything. Now I know at the time she was having health problems whereas I was biking everyday and so relatively healthy. But then when everyone was leaving this obese female security guard wandered in saying she was wondering what was going on in her. The presentation had been at a small private college right in the city, right by the University - where there are several private colleges nearby in Minneapolis Minnesota. So then the security guard said that the fuse had been blown in the room right behind us - she had come from the door right behind Effie P. Chow. So for me that really provided some independent corroboration of my experience and so I began investigating qigong more. Dr. David Eisenberg is a Harvard-trained medical doctor who went to China to research Traditional Chinese Medicine and he meets a qigong master who provides a demonstrate of telekinesis. That book is called "Encounters with Qi."

But anyway I found this book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality" that really gives the training process in detail. The creation of the boiling energy in the belly is based on emptying the heart of passion - and by sublimating the stored up life force energy that would otherwise be used for reproduction. So there is a meeting of the electromagnetic of the heart with the hormones which are then ionized and this occurs through the piezoelectric collagen, the most common protein in the body. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho gives details http://www.i-sis.org.uk/ACELCM.php in this article "Acupuncture, Coherent Energy and Liquid Crystalline Meridians."

So with the Bushmen trance dancing - the females have to sing all night and the voice of the female transmits the life force energy of the female into the males who are then dancing all night. So then the male sympathetic nervous system is pushed to its extreme which then causes a phenomenon called "parasympathetic rebound" - an overreaction of the vagus nerve to the heart. This creates the ionization of the electrochemical hormone energy.

O.K. so with male ejaculation, as Dr. Robert Sapolsky documents, there is a switch from the parasympathetic to the sympathetic nervous system. With celibacy this switch does not happen so then the system builds up into a stronger parasympathetic reaction which activates and ionizes the huge amounts of serotonin in the lower body.

So then I tested my qigong training - after I was told I had an enlightenment experience and I had opened my pineal gland in 2000. So I have a permanent magnetized blissful center of the brain since 2000. I actually stopped my qigong training to see if it would go away!! Nope - but my energy channels of my body did close up - so I didn't finish opening up my third eye - so I have a brain blockage now. haha.

But then I tested the qigong on the same psychedelics proposed to be the inspiration for the cave art. First I did Salvia Divinorum which is considered the most powerful psychedelic - but it activates the cannabinoids more like extremely strong THC. So I did this in full lotus yoga position of course which ensured that the life force energy would work with the psychedelic. Sure enough there was a "kundalini" activation from smoking the Salvia Divinorum and then I increased the concentration of extract and dosage. I kept blacking out but since I was in full lotus I didn't fall over. Most people fall over from smoking Salvia but the effect of the drug wears off after a few minutes. So then I would wake up all confused wondering what had happened. But then I blacked out only I heard this voice saying "I think I opened my third eye!" I was embarrassed to hear this realizing it was my own voice but when I woke up then I put my hands in front of my face. Even though my eyes were closed with a winter hat covering my eyes, in a pitch black room, I could see rainbow auras around my hands! This immediately went away and I could not repeat it.

Anyway then I tested DMT as a plant-based medicine used in the Amazonian jungle. My point again is that I am not just fascinated with the Far East - I have studied

Tara Jordan
7/26/2013 04:51:11 pm

"Tara you reminded me of a book I read about the cooperative movement in Japan as being part of what became the fascist society during WWII".
I am sorry but I dont understand the correlation, you`ll have to explain it to me.

drew hempel link
7/26/2013 05:50:56 am

http://phy.ntnu.edu.tw/~chchang/Notes10b/0611038.pdf

Oops -- that was just half of my post. haha. Anyway check out Vedral's SciAm article "Living in the Quantum World" on macroquantum biology. This stuff is now mainstream but the skeptics have not caught up yet with the science. haha.

Reply
Dave Lewis
7/27/2013 11:27:29 am

I'm always interested in understanding what motivates people. Drew Hemphill exhibits behavior that I've seen on the internet quite a bit.

It seems to me that he suffers from either a histrionic or narcissistic personality disorder.

Histrionic personality disorder involves a pervasive pattern of attention-seeking behavior and excessive emotions whereas narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy.

Which do you think describes his behavior better?

Dave Lewis

Reply
drew hempel link
7/27/2013 12:21:10 pm

Dude you're hilarious! Keep it coming.

Reply
Only Me
7/27/2013 01:10:20 pm

Dude. You have your own blog. You keep flooding this one by basically recreating the content from yours with almost every comment.

It's not hilarious. Don't keep it coming.

Dude.


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