The Dark Side of the Force
When St Paul wrote his famous epistle to the Ephesians, he warned them that there were many obstacles to be faced by those who would follow the path of Christ. But the greatest of these obstacles were not the actions of evil men and women, but rather “principalities, powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world“. (Ephesians 6:12)
It is likely that early Christians of Ephesus had little idea what Paul was referring to, especially since translators of the Bible have struggled to interpret this verse ever since.
The words used in the King James version of the Bible shown above have been variously translated as “rulers”, “authorities”, “cosmic powers”, “world forces of darkness”, “universal lords of darkness” and so on.
Modern interpreters of this epistle tend to regard the words of Paul as a warning to the early Christians not to dabble with the supernatural, especially as Jesus himself had “cast devils” out of those who were “possessed”. To this day the Church continues to conduct rituals of exorcism to cast out “evil spirits” or “demons”.
Among materially-minded men and women who live on earth today, there are few who pay any heed to the warning conveyed by St Paul. In their world view, everything that happens in the world is controlled by powerful men and women who run the various institutions of this world.
And it is doubtful if there is a single political, corporate or institutuional gathering anywhere on the planet today that defers to “principalities or powers”, let alone “the rulers of the darkness of this world”.
But here lies the trap that Paul warned about, and the reason why the demonic entities that he was referring to have so much power in the modern world. Nobody fears the “rulers of the darkness of this world” anymore, because they simply don’t believe that they exist.
One man who knows that they do exist is Michael Harner. He had a personal encounter with them that changed his life, and almost brought him to the point of death. But he returned from his near rendezvous with death with the knowledge of an ancient secret. It was the knowledge of the true nature of the “rulers of the darkness of this world”.
Michael Harner
In 1960, the American Museum of Natural History invited Harner, then a young anthropologist, to undertake a year-long expedition to the Peruvian Amazon to study the culture of the Conibo Indians of the Ucayali River region.
During the course of this expedition, Michael was invited by a friend to partake of the shaman’s sacred drink made from ayahuasca. With some trepidation he agreed to do so, and elaborate preparations were made to prepare him for this ordeal later that evening.
In his book “The Way of the Shaman” published some twenty years later, Harner described the events that followed, and the visions which the potion of ayahuasca had produced. The story of these visions, and the secret that he discovered, is retold in the entry that will follow.
