Greg Bishop has written an excellent blog over at UFO Mystic discussing one of my favorite researchers, Dr. Rick Strassman, who in the 1990s conducted extensive research with Di-Methyl Tryptamine (DMT) not unlike the experiments of Terrence McKenna. Strassman’s work did involve government funding and a laboratory setting as hosted by University of New Mexico’s School of Medicine in Albuquerque, however. You can read Greg’s entire post by clicking here.
Since I’ve discussed Strassman, McKenna, and their work more in-depth in previous Gralien Report articles (not to mention the fact that Greg Bishop elegantly does so in the link above), I won’t delve into details about their work here. However, one exceptionally fascinating thing leapt out at me in Greg’s piece, as illustrated in the following excerpt:
Perhaps the subjects in (Strassman’s) DMT study, a portion of whom described experiences strikingly similar to what we would consider an alien abduction, were influenced by their culture and stories they had read. Strassman assured me that not only had some not known the details of reported UFO abductions, but that he knew of accounts from cultures who have had little or no contact with civilization that also described UFOs and alien-like entities while under the influence of psychoactive plants, and that his had occurred before contact with those from outside of their culture.
In a nutshell, around twenty percent of those who took the hallucinogenic DMT in Strassman’s studies described encounters with beings resembling grey aliens, reptilians, and “insectoids”. The idea alone that more primitive cultures, far removed from our technologically-driven society, have still suggested the existence of these same sorts of beings as indicated during hallucinations with psychoactive drugs is, simply put, riveting. It also reminds me of yet another piece of information which was recently shared with me dealing with “entities” along these same lines.
In response to an article I wrote over at the UFO Magazine blog having to do with Travis Walton’s 1975 abduction in Arizona, I received a very interesting perspective regarding the Walton case from a writer and researcher named Gary A. David. Gary’s research encompasses everything from Hopi Indian villages which correspond with the alignment of the constellation Orion, to native traditions involving the Ant People, Snake People, Dog Star People, Sedona Sanskrit, Arizona Knights Templar Crosses, Reptilian Round Towers, Frontier Freemasonry, Meteor Crater, Hopi Kachinas, Stone Tablets and the “End Times”. Below is an interesting correlation Gary made with regard to grey aliens and American Indian traditions:
Here is perhaps another piece of the puzzle. Building on your premise, I would like to mention a Hopi god that supposedly still visits the Mesas in Arizona, not far from where Walton had his experience. The god’s name is Masau’u, deity of fire, the underworld (which paradoxically includes the stars), this earth plane, and death. He is associated with the ball lightning, plasma discharge, or whatever you want to call it. These blazing orbs frequently dance across the mesas, which means that Masau’u is near. To see a rather disturbing artistic rendition of Masau’u, go to my website:
As you can see, this creature looks very much like a Grey alien. In fact, in Hopi the root-word mas (first syllable of the god’s name) literally means “gray.”
As Gary A. David has illustrated for us, and as Dr. Rick Strassman has found in his research, are there reports of “grey aliens” stemming from early and primitive cultures around the world? As Strassman also suggests, could it be that native cultures have found organic methods of accessing “Inner Paths to Outer Space”?
June 4th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Hi Micah,
Thanks for mentioning my work.
I think McKenna was one of the finest minds of the 20th century, and Strassman has done some crucial scientific research.
The funny thing about the Hopi though: they supposedly did/do not use hallucinogens. They were thought to be an island of Apollonian sensibility as opposed to some of nearby tribes, such as the peyote-eating Yaqui, who were, as anthropologist Ruth Benedict once said, Dionysian. (I’m beginning to wonder about this dichotomy though, with the easy availability of psychedelic plants such as Datura in northern Arizona.)
Anyway, in terms of the physical versus inner space ETs you mention, the Hopi say that once long ago they met with their gods and kachinas (messenger spirits) in the flesh– that is in the 3-dimensional world. Now, however, because of their general spiritual decline, these entities come only in the spirit.
These are accessed via shamanic drumming and hours and hours of dancing in the brutal heat of the desert, rather than through ingesting substances.
This inner/outer stuff is a messy problem–whether we’re seeing actual physcial abduction, mental experiences, or (as I think Whitley Strieber advocates) a combination of both.