Graham Hancock Professions : Writer Born : August 2, 1950 Browse All Authors Top 27 quotes by Graham Hancock I believe we are a species with amnesia, I think we have forgotten our roots and our origins. I think we are quite lost in many ways. And we live in a society that invests huge amounts of money and vast quantities of energy in ensuring that we all stay lost. A society that invests in creating unconsciousness, which invests in keeping people asleep so that we are just passive consumers or products and not really asking any of the questions. Graham Hancock roots believe thinking I think it's obvious that the psychedelics are demonized and illegalized by our society because somewhere in our society are controlling minds that realize that these substances have the potential, have the power to unpick the controlling hierarchy. Graham Hancock substance mind thinking We live in a society that will send us to prison if we make use of time-honored sacred plants to explore our own consciousness. Yet surely the exploration and expansion of the miracle of our consciousness is the essence of what it is to be human? By demonstrating and persecuting whole areas of consciousness, we may be denying ourselves the next vital step in our own evolution. Graham Hancock expansion miracle essence This beautiful Earth that we have, this gift that the Universe has given us is precious beyond measure, precious beyond imagination, and we are part of it and we must treat it with Love, respect, and reverence. Graham Hancock imagination earth beautiful My sense is that we are missing a huge part of the human story. I think it's possible, indeed probable, that we are a species with amnesia; that we've lost the record of our story going back thousands of years before so-called history began, and I think that if we could go back to that dark epoch, we would discover many astounding things about ourselves. Graham Hancock dark years thinking Any kind of consciousness that is not related to the production or consumption of material goods is stigmatized in our society today. Graham Hancock society-today our-society kind All politicians should be required to drink Ayahuasca 10 times before taking office. Graham Hancock ayahuasca drink office Our society values alert, problem-solving consciousness, and it devalues all other states of consciousness. Any kind of consciousness that is not related to the production or consumption of material goods is stigmatized in our society today. Of course we accept drunkenness. We allow people some brief respite from the material grind. A society that subscribes to that model is a society that is going to condemn the states of consciousness that have nothing to do with the alert problem-solving mentality. Graham Hancock society-today our-society people There can be no more intimate and elemental part of the individual than his or her own consciousness. At the deepest level, our consciousness is what we are - to the extent that if we are not sovereign over our own consciousness then we cannot in any meaningful sense be sovereign over anything else either. Graham Hancock sovereign levels meaningful I don't believe that consciousness is generated by the brain. I believe that the brain is more of a reciever of consciousness. Graham Hancock consciousness brain believe Do we as adults have the right to make decisions about what we put in our own bodies and what we experience with our own consciousness without reference to the powers of the state, or must we seek permission from the state in order to explore our own consciousness? Graham Hancock adults decision order If this is how science operates, by silencing those who express opposing views rather than by debating with them, then science is dead and we are in a new era of the Inquisition. Graham Hancock new-era eras views Just plain logic says that the war on drugs does not work. It absolutely does not work. We have this highly addictive legal drug called tobacco which has never resulted in people being sent to prison, but there has been a massive reduction in its consumption simply because responsible adults looking at their own bodies have said they don't want to do that to themselves. Graham Hancock drug war people There are all kinds of ways to challenge ourselves. Some people do it by climbing a mountain or scuba diving. The most profound and challenging ordeals is to drink Ayahuasca. It is in a way the ultimate adventure. Graham Hancock ayahuasca climbing adventure It may be that DMT makes us able to perceive what the physicist call "dark matter" - the 95 per cent of the universe's mass that is known to exist but that at present remains invisible to our senses and instruments. Graham Hancock dmt dark may Human history has become too much a matter of dogma taught by 'professionals' in ivory towers as though it's all fact. Actually, much of human history is up for grabs. The further back you go, the more that the history that's taught in the schools and universities begins to look like some kind of faerie story. Graham Hancock ivory-tower taught school Science has often resisted new ideas and fought bitterly to prevent them coming on board. Graham Hancock new-ideas boards ideas I see myself as a journalist reporting neglected stories about our past and trying to bring rigor, reason and intuition to the quest. Graham Hancock intuition trying past Most of the so-called illegal drugs have vastly increased in use, despite billions of dollars spent suppressing them. I believe 750,000 Americans are arrested every year for possession of cannabis. I mean that's 750, 000 lives damaged by that arrest process. It's a crazy, crazy system. It's playing into the system that the hallucinogens are grouped together with addictive drugs, which they are not. But addictive or not it's our responsibility as adults to make decisions and it's not the states' right to do that, in my opinion. Graham Hancock crazy mean believe You have to understand that we've had more than 40 years now of massively financed propaganda called the 'War on Drugs'. 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