Punch Kids

Does this count as mainstream press coverage ?

I will never forget what it was like. The overwhelming misery. The certainty of never-ending suffering. No one to help you, no way to escape. Everywhere I looked: darkness so thick that the idea of light seemed inconceivable.

Suddenly, I swirled down a tunnel of fire, wailing figures calling out to me in agony, begging me to save them. Others tried to terrorize me. “You will never leave here,” they said. “Never. Never.”

I found myself laughing at them. “Im not scared of you,” I said. But the darkness became even thicker; the emotional charge of suffering nearly unbearable. I felt as if I would burst from heartbreak—everywhere, I felt the agony of humankind, its tragedies, its hatreds, its sorrows. I reached the bottom of the tunnel and saw three thrones in a black chamber. Three shadowy figures sat in the chairs; in the middle was what I took to be the devil himself.

“The darkness will never end,” he said. “It will never end. You can never escape this place.”

“I can,” I replied.

All at once, I willed myself to rise. I sailed up through the tunnel of fire, higher and higher until I broke through to a white light. All darkness immediately vanished. My body felt light, at peace. I floated among a beautiful spread of colors and patterns. Slowly my ayahuasca vision faded. I returned to my body, to where I lay in the hut, insects calling from the jungle.

“Welcome back,” the shaman said.

Link: Ayahuasca article in National Geographic Magazine

Link: Terence McKenna – Shamanic Approaches to the UFO

Part 1 :

Part 2 :

Researcher and author Graham Hancock presented his thesis that “supernatural” entities such as aliens and fairies are actually transdimensional beings that humans encounter during altered states of consciousness. The ability to shape-shift has been ascribed to both modern aliens as well as elves and other entities reported centuries ago, he detailed.

Around 35,000 to 40,000 years ago humans underwent a sudden change, and the emergence of cave and rock paintings are evidence of this, said Hancock, who noted that some of their depictions were of part human/part animal beings. He believes these represent the supernatural entities, and through altered states (probably due to ingesting psilocybin mushrooms) humans learned advanced skills from their encounters with these beings.

Nowadays, shamans commonly have such altered state communications. They feel humanity is at a crossroads– the West has lost contact with the spirit world, and many of the world’s woes are due to this, Hancock reported. As part of his experiential research, he traveled to South America and took the psychedelic plant mixture ayahuasca. During one such episode, he described a confrontation with an alien being, but rather than being an extraterrestrial, he suggested it inhabits another dimension that can only be accessed during an altered state.

Link: Shamanism, Aliens & Ayahuasca : Graham Hancock

Personally i don’t think “true” techno shamanism is possible until we reach the point where we can actually transfer the our brain / mind / consciousness onto silicon for storage.

Shamanism involves a disengagement from the constraints of the body, a liberation of the mind through incantations, trance dance, drugs, heightening of the senses and prolonged dreamstates. Terrance McKenna a contemporary philosopher, believes that technology is becoming a substitute for these kinds of ancient rituals which were once evident in many nomadic cultures. Young people today see Virtual Reality as drug-simultated escape, Rave Clubs as a place for massive trance dance rituals and The Internet as the ultimate way for more modern nomads to traverse time and space. Are we entering an era of Technoshamanism?

Link: Technoshamanism: Reality or Nonsense ?