Jill V. Mangino • 1 year ago • 1 Comments
This interview originally appeared in Om Times.
A real life “Indiana Jones”, international,
bestselling author Graham Hancock has traversed the planet investigating
ancient mysteries including the origin of humankind, archeological anomalies,
the realms of consciousness and beyond. An unconventional thinker he is always
on the forefront redefining our history. His new novel, War God: Return
of the Plumed Serpent, will be released next month. He was so gracious
to spend an hour with me on a phone to talk about everything from his views on
aliens, Atlantis, ayahuasca and much more, including his theories on the
world’s most ancient “unsolved” mysteries and the future of our planet.
JVM: I am a huge fan of the TV series Ancient
Aliens, you always have amazing commentaries to share on that series.
GH: I’ve got nothing against the entities
our species presently calls “aliens”. These entities are real, in my view,
although I don’t think we’re anywhere near understanding exactly what they are
or where they come from. That being said, though, the fact is that I don’t need
“aliens” – whatever they are — to explain any mysteries in our pre-history.
Honestly I don’t need a single alien for the great pyramids or the Mayan
calendar. I just don’t. What I need is a more advanced level of human
civilization in that period than is recognized by historians.
But let me be clear about this. We are dealing
with something extremely interesting in the so-called UFO/alien phenomenon.
It’s just that we don’t know yet exactly what lies at the source of that
phenomenon and may be jumping too quickly to the conclusion that it is
something as simple, and as relatively un-mysterious, as high-tech beings a bit
like us but from other planets. In my book Supernatural, I
looked at the similarities at the level of phenomenology, at the level of
experience, between what were construed as abductions by faeries in the Middle
Ages, and what are construed as abductions by spirits by shamans in the Amazon
rainforest, for example, and what are construed as abductions by aliens in the
technologically developed countries today. Whatever is going on – and I repeat
there may be no single, simple explanation — it is the same thing in
every case; I’m really very clear on that. One of the problems I have with
the whole ancient alien lobby is that at one level it operates like a religion
or a cult, by which I mean its believers are resistant to, and often get
furiously angry about, other possible explanations that challenge their faith.
But at another level members of the “ancient astronaut cult” are also crassly
materialistic, seeking to reduce everything to a simplistic material reference
frame, projecting our present and imagined future levels of technology onto
what are in fact deeply mysterious and unexplained phenomena, and sticking
their heads in the sand when it comes the implications of the latest research
into altered states of consciousness – for example Rick Strassman’s
groundbreaking work with DMT and human volunteers. I’m not saying altered
states of consciousness explain everything about the UFO/alien phenomenon. I am
not saying there are no physical aspects to the UFO/alien phenomenon, because
there are. I’m simply saying that if we neglect altered states of consciousness
and focus solely on the physical, we will never solve the UFO/alien mystery.
How did you go from being a mainstream investigative
journalist, to exploring the hidden mysteries of our origin on planet
Earth?
