Graham Hancock anyone?

[JustAnotherHuman]

Hi Nexians!

Are anyone of you guys fans of Graham Hancock? I personally am a huge fan. I haven't read any of his books(something I need to remedy:grin, however, I have watched many of his interviews and lectures.

As I'm sure many of you know, his main shtick is that the mainstream, established history of human civilisation as presented by the academic community is incorrect and that there were highly advanced civilisations that existed before the last Ice Age that were wiped out by massive cataclysms.

This is an idea that he presents of a "lost civilisation" is something that I knew about before I heard of Graham Hancock. I knew, as I'm sure many of you do, of the story of Atlantis but I always thought of it as a myth. Something interesting to think about, but nothing based in reality. However, when I listened to Graham described the evidence for this lost civilisation, the awesome feats of architecture that are more than ten thousand years old, which are found all over the whole world, it changed my thinking on the matter. Something that he talks about often is how the idea of Atlantis is seen as ridiculous by the academic community, but that ironically, the story Atlantis is passed down to us by Plato, someone who is revered by the scientific community. This really struck me, and shifted my opinion on the whole issue. Now, I believe that there indeed a highly advanced civilisation that existed before the last Ice Age.

Graham also talks about many other subjects, like altered states of consciousness, shamanism, pshychelics and human. I also agree with many of his views on these subjects.

Basically, I'm just a huge Graham Hancock fanboy:grin:. I respect him a great deal, I he's a genuine, down to earth human being, very passionate about what he believes in and also very knowledgeable.

What do guys think of Graham Hancock? Please share your thoughts!

 

[Cognitive Heart]

Graham is an incredible individual. I had the pleasure of attending one of his recent all-day lectures on psychedelics and civilizations. It's nice to gather with so many like-minded people and sharing thoughts, ideas and possibilities. Although I'm in agreement with most of what Mr. Hancock presents and encourages, I disagree with some of his thoughts on encountering specific beings with entheogens. I just don't think everyone can relate to this level of experience. Great presentation overall, however. He has my support. Him and Randall Carlson have some very interesting findings regarding ancient geography in connection with earthly cataclysms.

I'll need to catch up with Magicians of the Gods soon.

 

[JustAnotherHuman]

Graham is an incredible individual. I had the pleasure of attending one of his recent all-day lectures on psychedelics and civilizations. It's nice to gather with so many like-minded people and sharing thoughts, ideas and possibilities. Although I'm in agreement with most of what Mr. Hancock presents and encourages, I disagree with some of his thoughts on encountering specific beings with entheogens. I just don't think everyone can relate to this level of experience. Great presentation overall, however. He has my support. Him and Randall Carlson have some very interesting findings regarding ancient geography in connection with earthly cataclysms.

I'll need to catch up with Magicians of the Gods soon.

That lecture must have been wonderful Cognitive Heart, I haven't had the pleasure myself unfortunately.

Yeah Randall Carlson's work is also fascinating. I've watched all his interviews with Joe Rogan, and each time my mind has been completely blown by all the evidence he presents for massive cataclysms at the end of the last Ice Age.

 

[universecannon]

I would recommend fingerprints of the gods and his new book magicians of the gods

 

[downwardsfromzero]

He has also done some very interesting work on submarine archaeology, which substantially backs up the idea of lost civilisations. Basically, due to post-ice-age sea level rises - some of which happened catastrophically - there are remains of cities sometimes several hundred metres (feet?) below the surface of the ocean on the continental shelves.

He has written a book on this subject, a short search should lead you to it but its title at present escapes me.

 

[Swayambhu]

I do not have a high opinion of Graham Hancock, based on a few talks of his I've watched on youtube.
It seems that little or none of his material is original, and that his understanding of his chosen topics is superficial.
The talks I watched were mostly waffle, re-hashed crypto-archaeology theory chestnuts and hyperbole littered with basic factual errors.

 

[entheogenic-gnosis]

Before Hancock began to incorporate entheogens into his work, he made an incredibly bad impression on me, and I have never really been able to get past it. I always seen him as one of these "David Icke" or "ancient aliens" type individuals, and it has completely ruined my ability to take him seriously in regards to entheogens...


Though I'm still willing to give his work and ideas a fair chance, What would you recommend for a person in my position to gain a better understanding of Hancock and his work?

-eg

 

[Swayambhu]

Though I'm still willing to give his work and ideas a fair chance, What would you recommend for a person in my position to gain a better understanding of Hancock and his work?

-eg

I think a good place to start is the "Aquarian" section of your local second hand bookstore; there is a vast body of "Earth Mystery" literature which was popular from the late 60s through to the early 80s. Then imagine you could market this information to a whole new generation of readers who were unaware of the originals.

Personally I don't feel he should be held to any great standard of integrity, as his work should be taken as fiction. None the less, some of the things he comes out with are really really goofy.

 

[null24]

I really just have a superficial knowledge of his work, and am really only familiar with 'fingerprints' and 'magicians', that said, i find many of the ideas he presents in those books to be good food for thought.

His research methods may be questionable and i think he belongs more in the category of entertainment than education, nonetheless, he presents some fascinating ideas about the possibilities of a pre-deluvian civilization and paints a picture of a vastly different human history than what we are taught. Combined with the work of people like the aforementioned Randall Carlson, especially when it comes to the catastrophic impact theories, there is some valid stuff there.

I did have the pleasure of attending one of his book tour presentations for magicians, and he is a personable man and consummate professional in what he does and i have nothing negative to say about him or his work, at least from my understanding of it. He did what he does well, and as with any presenter of novel out controversial ideas, it is up to the consumer of those ideas to do further research.

 

[smoothmonkey]

I would recommend fingerprints of the gods and his new book magicians of the gods

Yes, and additionally I would highly recommend his book "Supernatural" :thumb_up:

 

[wanderNwonder]

Though I'm still willing to give his work and ideas a fair chance, What would you recommend for a person in my position to gain a better understanding of Hancock and his work?

-eg

I think a good place to start is the "Aquarian" section of your local second hand bookstore; there is a vast body of "Earth Mystery" literature which was popular from the late 60s through to the early 80s. Then imagine you could market this information to a whole new generation of readers who were unaware of the originals.

Personally I don't feel he should be held to any great standard of integrity, as his work should be taken as fiction. None the less, some of the things he comes out with are really really goofy.

I think he has 'picked up' on a few things and put it together, probably basing his work on what has already been discovered. This is natural. This is how in-roads in understanding are gained. Maybe he could hone it a bit...do work instead of selling so many books...but hey gotta get the message out too. :lol:

*Good rec on the Aquarian section...many insights have already been uncovered

 

[acacian]

I think Graham is a man with a good heart and an honest way of exploring his subject matter.. not much more I can say other than that his work changed my life this past decade and i'm hugely grateful for his work.. he's started dialogue on some really important subjects that I wasn't aware of prior.

at the very least I think he's asking the right questions and he seems pretty open to being wrong... I think that he's a genuine truth seeker

 

[Jees]

The little I know of him it looks like guessing works, trying to connect the dots and he goes very far digging up dots to connect, a dot collector.

Phenomena must/can mean something, but from there I rate Graham's talent as one that does the improvisation in a particular charming and enthusiastic way.
The cut and dry scientist might not be amused by suggestions which are carefully and refined presented as true-ish, all the while science itself start somewhere with collecting and puzzling, estimating, etc..

 

[exquisitus]

i don't have a positive opinion on hancock. i put him in the same bin with w strieber. amusing, huge ego, little substance. i wouldn't want to generalize but those people among my acquitances with the lesser ability to think for themselves and to do research and with the most severeally collapsed mental horizons, the most shallow worldviews and the most inflated egos are huge hancock fans. hmmmm, since it's a strong recurring and persisting pattern and although i don't even care about it, because these people are invariably incurable for life, there must be a mechanism behind the pattern for sure as the universe is to a large degree somewhat deterministic methinks 8)

i discovered hancock way back in '91 (yes that's a quarter of a century ago, many people here have not been even born back then ) and he is getting worse with time. his work is very poor on ideas. and getting progressively poorer. only the hype is exploding.

jees said it very very well "dot collector".

on everything he is ever written there are better works by others. sometimes by a huge margin.
so no, if people are reading this forum, that does not mean necessary they are (or even should be) hancock fans

 

[dreamer042]

I'm quite surprised by the negative comments here. Graham's books (Fingerprints and Magicians) are incredibly well referenced, and his shtick really isn't that controversial to my mind. Human civilization has existed longer than previous archaeological theory has given it credit for, a cataclysmic event around 12,000 years ago put most of it 400' underwater. It's not that hard of a hypothesis to investigate really and it looks like the supporting evidence is only increasing as the archaeologists and scientists keep digging.

Randall Carlson has me pretty well convinced with the nanodiamonds and melt-glass in the ice. I'm open other explanations on this if any are forthcoming, but something happened right around that Younger Dryas period.

I've also found Graham to be fairly insightful on the subject of psychedelics, and I'm actually glad he's spoken so openly about them. Even if he may tend to generalize his personal experiences a bit much, you can't deny that he's gotten peoples attention on the matter. His banned TED talk on psychedelics has over a million views on youtube.

I really don't understand what the controversy is, from what I can tell, his research and evidence is solid (again open to evidence to the contrary). Seems like a lot of people have a personal grudge against the guy, and maybe I'm out of the loop on that or something, but he's always presented as pretty genuine to me. I've really enjoyed watching his interviews with Joe and Randall and quite honestly don't understand where the animosity towards him is coming from.

 

[entheogenic-gnosis]

I apologize if I came off as being negative, and I will give the recommendations cited in this thread a chance, thank you for understanding, and for the recommendations.

-eg

 

[Jees]

Not defining G.H. as a scientist is no negativity IMHO.

...it looks like the supporting evidence is only increasing as the archaeologists and scientists keep digging...

That might be true but not as a generalization, as the word "only" suggests.
G.H. himself mentioned the critics brought forth by astronomer Edwin Krupp who claimed false play to make the theories by G.H. work.

In the wiki page of G.H. there's mentioning of documentaries dedicated to put light against his theories. The Broadcasting Standards Commission concluded all (except one) of G.H.'s complains over this opposition as dismissed. This indicates a discrepancy between G.H. and 'science' I think.

As usual we find ourselves between opposing views, and we must make our own.

 

[Swayambhu]

I really don't understand what the controversy is, from what I can tell, his research and evidence is solid

As one without a particularly positive view of GH, I would say that the only real "controversy" in my view is perhaps that his work is derivative, but I am have not read any of his books and am not especially familiar with that genre as a whole so I can't really comment.

Having watched a couple of his videos, however, I can see how his "persona" is not for everyone. He does come across as a bit of a smug know-it-all, while not really having any access to material other than that available to a visitor to a well-stocked public library, and is very much connecting dots of his own fabrication using little but the power of supposition.
And, as I mentioned earlier, he was not particularly well informed on his chosen subject for instance when speaking in a video I watched on shamanism.
Aside from that, and I do recognise that the man needs to earn his crust

 

[dreamer042]

Thanks for the replies! :thumb_up:

I was hoping this thread could move away a bit from the "Graham is great/Graham sucks" back and forth and start digging a little deeper into the theories presented and the criticisms against them, and it looks we are on track for that, so, win!

Thanks Jees for the links, that's the kind of thing I was hoping someone would bring up. I'll give them a good looking over this weekend and share my insights (if warranted).

The Fingerprints and Magicians books are fairly dense, really just loads and loads of evidence on rather curious things. I'd suggest anyone not really familiar with Graham and what he is about watch the Joe Rogan interviews, albeit rather long (3 hours each!) they provide a good overview of his hypothesis and are less dense and (perhaps) slightly less time consuming than reading the books.

I can see how his public talk on psychedelics can seem shallow and fairly uninteresting to members of this website, kuz let's face it we are a bunch drug geeks. It's hard to blow a psychonauts mind. :d

However, I have to admit the material in Magicians of the Gods and the recent JRE podcasts with Graham and Randall have been doing just that for me. For those who aren't up to date with all this new material, I'd suggest giving it a watch/read, and let's see if we can expand this here discussion a little bit.

 

[Jees]

Thank you for that podcast hint dreamer042, I'm half trough but some things already showed for me. Like GH derives much of base data from clean uninterpreted scientific observations, geology, astronomy, sea levels, etc, we could call them the dots. From there he connects them.

What I've noticed is that he applies an intellectual unfair trick namely to borrow credibility from hard data, intel that is factual, the dots, but then extends that credibility into the region where he connect the dots in his way, as if his explanation must be obvious, and the proof of the dots-data serves immediately as the proof of his theories. Because of the dots he continues to ratify his theories (which might be right or wrong at this point) using: we now know - that's the story of - we are sure - it happened effectively - compelling evidence that... - massive evidence say...
He avoids as much as he can terms like 'indicating' or 'suggesting' or 'hinting', at least in the part I know of him. His style certainly invites flak which he got.

He uses science to degree to build on, and then scientists who disagree with his constructs get the full load. I paused to take notes so this is quite literal:

- scientists dismiss (GH theories) because it doesn't fit ongoing science;
- scientists take (old) established science personal and defend it as it's their own ego;
- good ole science resist change by default and this is an old problem;
- we must modify views as new discovered facts appear (with facts he means his interpretations);
- classic science is no science but an ideology that tries to maintain a political correct format;
- the old science is a form of praising in an arrogant form and dwells in self pride;
- old science is about ego of the scientists, it's all about 'us' the scientists;
- if you tell something different (as GH does) then scientists start to piss on you before they even read what you have to say;
- established archeology is in a general state of denial;
- scientists are unwilling to look further;
- scientists deliberately holding back information in a mind controlling agenda, he did used the word 'conspiracy';
- Randall adds that classic science executes an agenda to picture us humans as the main driving force on the planet and comets that could destroy us are thus a competition for our grotesque attitude. Thus scientists deny (GH proposed) comet theory.

:shock: TBH I could not believe my ears. I am still not choosing sides who's right, just observing the relationship GH vs science/scientists.

This is in complete opposite towards what science should be like here:

...Science is not a religion and will never come close to it, mainly since it can adapt new evidence and because it works with reproducable cause and effect models...

For example science will never say "we are 100% sure"...

Anyone who claims to know the universal truth, is for sure not a scientist. A scientist however will be sceptic if you state that a certain scientific law or theory is not correct, some people might confuse this with a "knowing it all" attitude.

GH said to have been hurt by scientists critics but he knew what was coming right? He exploits the underdog I think, quite successfully.
The criticizing scientists are humans too and thus potentially over react to radical proposals like GH's, but GH could have remained more cool by all that. That shoot out corroded my confidence, why did he not just say: "Well others say and do on their own account, but that won't stop me from proposing differently."

*

For myself I have no definite ideas about the truth of the theories he claims. My feeling says a mix of potential nail hitters and utter BS.