Drugs, Gods, and Alternative History's Spirituality

2/15/2013

The other day on Facebook, alternative historian Graham Hancock reported that he has become a regular user of hallucinogenic drugs, with which he communes with spirit beings from another realm. Hancock cautioned that he can provide no evidence that these entities have a reality outside his imagination, but he has more or less made clear that he believes that he is in actual contact with goddesses and demons. In his latest drug-induced vision, he experienced a “psychic” attack from an entity that he was unable to stop by “projecting love” at it.

I tried projecting love at it. It wouldn’t work. The sense of threat and danger continued to mount. I tried to invoke Mother Ayahuasca in her manifestation as the Blue Angel. This did no good at all. I tried to raise a barrier of light. Failure again. Finally my out-of-body self just curled up into a ball while I was pummeled and beaten and humbled on that etheric plane.

Note that Hancock is employing the terminology of the first ancient astronaut religion, Theosophy, in ascribing the angels and demons to the “etheric plane.”

It would be easy to make fun of Hancock, but the truth is that no one who has not had spirit visions in altered states of consciousness (whether brought on by drugs, meditation, or vivid dreams) can truly appreciate the sense of the timeless and the uncanny that they produce.

My concern is less for Hancock’s drug habit than for what it reveals about the alternative history project. As alternative historians might phrase it: Is it really a coincidence that all of the major threads of alternative history have moved in the direction of alternative spirituality?

Graham Hancock burst onto the alternative history scene with The Sign and the Seal (1992), a book that went in search of the Ark of the Covenant and suggested that the Biblical box was a piece of technology from a lost civilization. He followed this with Fingerprints of the Gods (1995), which sought concrete evidence of a lost civilization in ruins of ancient cultures and the makeup of their myths. In 1998, he even tried to find ancient astronauts on Mars in The Mars Mystery. But that same year in Heaven’s Mirror his more spiritual side began to emerge. He was more interested in the meaning behind the myths than proof that the lost civilization had a real location or history; he cared what they believed and what it could teach us about eternal life.

In 2005, he made his last attempt at finding the lost civilization in Underworld, but when science debunked and disproved nearly all of his hypotheses about a lost empire (not least of which is the impossibility of human settlement in Ice Age Antarctica) he turned inward. By the time of Supernatural (2009), he had all but admitted that he no longer thought of his lost civilization as a real place buried in some forgotten corner of the world; rather, he saw myths and legends and their advanced knowledge as originating in the spirit realm, where the gods communed with humans. He gained this knowledge, he said, through his use of ayahuasca, the South American hallucinogen, as well as regular and heavy use of marijuana.

Hancock recognized that there is a scientific explanation for this, one I’ve mentioned many times. According to David Lewis-Williams, cited by Hancock as well as me, the human brain evolved to display certain shapes and figures when in altered states of consciousness. These the brain interprets through the prism of culture, giving rise to similar but distinct cultural myth-patterns and imagery, including, for example, spirals, serpents, hybrid beast-creatures, etc. However, Hancock came down cautiously on the side of assuming that these images came not from a quirk of evolution but rather from real access to a different dimension populated by advanced creatures who are indistinguishable from pagan gods.

Notice that this is almost identical to the most recent versions of the ancient astronaut hypothesis, as put forward on Ancient Aliens, which claims that the “aliens” are not the inhabitants of other planets in our universe but rather immortal mystical travelers from another dimension who intervene in ours and use their omniscient command of physics to exercise godly powers. They are indistinguishable from pagan gods.

Even the more nuts-and-bolts approach to alternative history, as promoted by America Unearthed, has followed this trend, spending a great deal of time wondering in awe at abstract concepts like the Mysteries of Mithras and spirit-matter duality, often at the expense of looking for physical evidence to support diffusionist claims.

So what’s behind the turn to what is essentially Theosophy?

I can think of a few possibilities:

Science (and, let’s say, certain debunking blogs) has done such a good job laying out factual reasons why alternative history cannot be physically true that only appeals to theology can sustain the genre and ensure continued cashflow.
Spiritual claims are simply an easier sell, easier to produce and requiring less research and effort, and also more profitable, as Scientology well knows.
Alternative history’s nebulous spirituality is being used to fill the void left behind by the increasing and alienating fundamentalism of mainstream religion. (Over the past ten years, the number of self-identified Wiccans, for example, has doubled.)
Alternative history is an ethnic/racial identity movement with political, social, and spiritual dimensions, and therefore discovering and restoring the (presumed) “pure” belief system of the ancestors is an essential part of constructing an identity.

I’m not sure I know what the right answer is, but I’d think that different speculators have different reasons, some of which they may not even be aware of. For whatever reason, though, those who consume this material seem interested in a neo-pagan religion. And if alternative history becomes a religion, there isn’t any way to speak truth to power, since its claims will have moved beyond fact into the realm of faith.

21 Comments

Kean Scott Monahan link

2/15/2013 04:43:21 am

History is a humanity, not a hard science. Moreover, the only history one can know is one's own. Historians are essentially journalists, often with agendas, reconstructing the past often citing likely biased historians from earlier times, to teach us the history we do not know.

In your daily harangue of alternative historians, you attack those who disagree with the histories you have assimilated as true. But how do you know the truth other than trusting those you've chosen to trust and distrusting those you've obsessively chosen to condemn?

What is the scientific litmus test for scholarship? What the majority says is true and untrue? Mainstream anthropology, similarly, is dismissive, at least in America, of diffusionism, a priori, without any curiosity or commitment whatsoever to actually investigate ideas that run contrary to their dogmatic beliefs no written histories can or will be found in the New World prior to Columbus, i.e., anything that might rock the boat on a fantasy ideal that indigenous cultures in North America were pristinely isolated from other cultures in ancient times.

So when you assert:

"Even the more nuts-and-bolts approach to alternative history, as promoted by America Unearthed, has followed this trend, spending a great deal of time wondering in awe at abstract concepts like the Mysteries of Mithras and spirit-matter duality, often at the expense of looking for physical evidence to support diffusionist claims."

You are merely echoing the mainstream mantra without knowing or permitting yourself to know what might change your reality were any archaeologist to authorize an actual dig at the Anubis Caves or anywhere else for that matter at dozens of similar, anomalous, non-indigenous sites along the Arkansas River.

It must be very comforting to live in a bubble of the history you regard as mainstream, ignorant of the possibility parallel histories, unknown to you and the mainstream at this time, might actually exist.

What real science (archaeology and anthropology more properly seen as humanities with non-omniscient knowledge) do you trust, Mr. Colavito, to write with such passion that you know all there is to know and condemn what you fear might be true?

Jason Colavito link

2/15/2013 06:34:37 am

There is nothing I fear might be true; I've said many times that archaeologists would welcome confirmed information about trans-oceanic contact, as they did with the Vikings in Newfoundland and the Polynesians in South America.

Have you studied much historiography, the study of how we create history? It sounds like you have not. You seem to confuse the higher-level construction of historical narratives (the interpretation of facts) with the establishment of facts themselves. Historians disagree (often viciously) about how to interpret facts, and the interpretations can and do change as ideologies change.

But facts are different things. Historians cannot work without facts: when Charlemagne reigned, whether the Arabs were present in Sicily, etc. Facts are scientific, testable, and verifiable.

You are upset that no one wants to engage you at the interpretive level when you have so far failed to provide facts to establish a European presence in Oklahoma. One does not bother to ask why they were worshiping Mithras until one can prove they were there. And all you have to suggest they were there are some lines that most Ogham experts fail to recognize as Ogham and some line drawings that even you admit are in Native American style.

Kean Monahan link

2/15/2013 07:17:08 am

Dr. Robert Meyer, Professor of Celtic at Catholic University of America, visited the Anubis Cave on the autumnal equinox of 1986 and declared some of the inscriptions he evaluated there as genuine ogham. The Mithraic connections were postulated 2 decades later by self educated epigrapher Phil Leonard. Dr. Barry Fell, archaeology's favorite whipping boy for diffusionism, translated consonantal ogham in the adjacent Nosepointer Cave to read, "Sun 6 months in the north, the remainder in the gloomy south" before any of 3 companion equinox solar alignments were observed at the pair of shelters. As David H. Kelley, Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at the University of Calgary observed in the Spring 1990 Review of Archaeology, Volume 11, Number 1, "Proto-Tifinagh and Proto-Ogham in the Americas:

"I have no personal doubts that some of the inscriptions which have been reported are genuine Celtic ogham. Despite my occasional harsh criticism of Fell's treatment of individual inscriptions, it should be recognized that without Fell's work there would be no ogham problem to perplex us. We need to ask not only what Fell has sone wrong in his epigraphy, but also where we have gone wrong as archaeologists in not recognizing such an extensive European presence in the New World."

Dr. Kelley's remarks and other reputably cited news articles in defense of ogham-associated solar alignments in mid-America were scrubbed from the archaeoastronomy article on Wikipedia by an outspoken University of Leister grad student and a sympathetic American colleague co-authoring it in the spring of 2008 when I attempted to add some balance to their dismissive bias. In the end, these 2 academics had me silenced because I directly challenged an important omission in their historical narrative on archaeoastronomy's genesis: Metrology. This is the kind of whitewash and a priori rejection I have experienced first-hand with so-called professional archaeologists who regard themselves as sole authorities and gatekeepers of the collection of facts you worship as inviolable. Click the link next to my name above for a 3 minute synopsis video at the end of which I ask, rhetorically, "Isn't sanitizing history, pseudoscience?"

Mr. Colavito, evidence and the postulated theory set forth by credentialed experts of Ogham and associated archaeoastronomy in mid-America has been around for nearly 3 decades. Deny it if you will, but show me where your credentialed associates in archaeology have ever even bothered to visit the sites or authorize digs for portable artifacts, though those calls have been made by scientists with the USGS. It hasn't happened and it won't as long as the close-minded attitudes you espouse remain mainstream and unchallenged.

2/15/2013 12:35:22 pm

I think you are mistakenly directing your outrage at me rather than Oklahoma archaeologists. Even if we assume the writing is Ogham, that doesn't make it ancient. It suggests only the earliest date it could have been placed there, not the latest.

2/15/2013 02:19:05 pm

You first characterized me as "upset", now there's "outrage"? You're welcome to interpret my remarks as you please, however I'll point out to your readership I've remained "on topic" rebutting your remarks.

Indeed, your readership is aware you've been on a daily crusade the past week or so (perhaps longer) belittling and diminishing threads of history you find unpalatable with the drumbeat that diffusionism is wrong-headed thinking. I'm chiming in with anecdotal stories that demonstrate how manipulative and myopic American archaeology actually is. You clearly don't agree with my point of view, but that neither conveys that I am upset or outraged. I am your op ed voice.

Since this blog thread title begins with drugs, might I suggest the most dangerous drugs are dogmatic complacency and scientific indifference to new evidentiary paradigms, both of which American archaeology appears to over-indulge. So be it. The "facts" promulgated by these constrained minds must be weighted accordingly, IMHO.

2/15/2013 02:33:59 pm

Oh, another point w/r/t your remark the ogham is not ancient. In fact, a CATION ratio patina dating of the Gemini ogham inscription at the Sun Temple by Ron Dorn in 1987, whereby leached potassium plus calcium divided by retentive titanium was compared to background samples of similar rock, placed the age of the groves 1000 BC plus or minus 250 years. Ron Dorn is now a professor of geography as Arizona State University, Tempe and stands by his earlier dating evaluations.

John J. McKay link

2/15/2013 02:45:49 pm

"Sun 6 months in the north, the remainder in the gloomy south" makes no sense for Oklahoma. The sun is always in the south when viewed from OK. The only place it is six months in the north and six months in the south is on the equator.

2/15/2013 07:22:39 pm

JJ McKay,

When all else fails, blame the messenger! As tag-teamer from Mammoth Tales, kindly address the questions I've posed in this thread to Mr. Calavito to which he's sidestepped preferring to characterize my feelings?

Clearly, the shadow casters' intent in captioning the archaeoastronomy phenomena at the Anubis Cave, is lost. You must be a technocentrist presuming ancient seafarers with celestial navigation skills far more developed than most contemporary earthlings similarly lacked comprehension of our planet's tilt on the ecliptic and the twice yearly crossings of the sun across our equator on the equinoxes. Let's demean them as stupid primitives with their silly astrologies!

If you care to investigate why our research seems to validate these travelers' advanced knowledge, I urge you to invest 3 minutes of your valuable time viewing archaeoastronomer Rollin Gillespie's explanation of the Compass Cave with it's summer solstice sundown alignment about 500 yards to the north of the Anubis Cave on the same west facing bluff in Oklahoma and let me know what you think of that!

Link by clicking on the tiny arrow next to my name on this post, or just

2/15/2013 10:24:57 pm

Glad to hear the grooves date back to 1000 BCE. You can now explain how Ogham writing, not invented until the medieval period, got to the caves 1400 years before its invention.

2/16/2013 01:02:51 am

correction: the 2200 BC Avebury artifact has Ogham WITHOUT vowels

2/16/2013 01:00:14 am

It's a good reason to view my 85 minute documentary released in 2005, rather than have to do piecemeal educational responses to your many skeptical parries. But I'll oblige, as I understand many have short attention spans which is the reason I assembled 3 minute video vignettes. While you watch this one, you'll also hear from Barry Fell why the preferred pronunciation in America (and after all I am an American) is Seltic, confirmed independently at http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_Celtic_pronounced_seltic_or_keltic.

Contrary to the archaeologists consulted for the Encyclopedia Britannica's article on ogham, which you and fellow archaeologists love to cite, there is an artifact I filmed at the Avebury museum north of Salisbury with vowels, consonantal ogham (same as is found in America's heartland) from 2200 BC, as you will see in Barry Fell's rebuttal at http://onter.net/video13.html

Next question, Mr. Anti-diffusionist? Oh, by the way, what about MY questions that have gone unanswered? How do you know what you know about history? It's the people you trust, right. It's the opposition you condemn you have such difficulties with. While you're on my web site's collection you might benefit from viewing onte.net/video14.html under the Rollin Gillespie caption and thumbnail regarding the psychological inertial barrier that prevents dogmatic professionals from grasping new ideas.

What is your scientific litmus test for scholarship? What the majority says is true and untrue? Is what the majority says always correct?

Varika

2/16/2013 11:50:39 am

1. Do you always have to sound like a bad infomercial for your own website? EVERY reply of yours I have ever seen on this site starts out with "WATCH MY VIDEO" or "CLICK THE LINK TO ME TELLING YOU STUFF."

2. What the majority says is true is a good litmus test for scholarship--when you're talking about hte majority OF THE EVIDENCE. You have a single purported artifact with Ogham purporting to be from 2200BC, and yet the plethora of evidence points to Ogham being no earlier than the 4th century. At best, I would be willing to accept your single artifact as some form of Ogham predecessor. However, if you can show me at least a few examples in the intervening TWO MILLENIA, I could possibly admit you have a point. Either that, or give me some good explanation for why it was there, then not there, then there again, and support it with at least a little evidence. Otherwise, I'm going to go, "...yeah, you're seeing what you want to see."

Also, insulting people and giving superior attitude that you and only you must be right really doesn't do anything to convince people you're right. Actually, it kind of hurts your cause, because you come across as sounding like a self-righteous, close-minded bigot, regardless of whether you are or not. Political leaders all over understand the power of how you present yourself, so maybe you should consider that.

Kean Scott Monahan

2/16/2013 02:11:37 pm

Varika,

Scholars disagree. One thing I try to do in rebutting Mr. Colavito or in responding to his challenges to me is present not just what I have to say as a journalist, but what other authorities I've interviewed in the past 30 years in researching this story have told me on video. Even then, I'm clearly disadvantaged against the authorities in control of the so-called facts and the dynamic that American archaeology has no fondness for diffusionist claims. I offer the best evidence I can to rebut. While you may regard this as overboard promotion, it is the only way I can effectively pit scholarship versus scholarship.

I don't know how to fill in some gaps in Ogham chronology; there's no comparable Rosetta Stone out there, at least not yet discovered. What I will say is we have collected enough of a pattern of circumstantial evidence of translatable ogham associated with archaeoastronomy, star maps and petroglyphic evidence distinctive from Native American rock carvings that some archaeological experts should be investigating this, but they've consistently demonstrated complacency. To me, that's an amazing 30 years of indifference, all because it suggests a total lack of the scientific method. Yes, I'm an advocate for change. If that's irritating to some, I plead guilty as charged, but I'm not backing down.

Nathaniel Harari link

2/16/2013 01:41:58 am

I am not going to answer for Jason, but I just can't help answering your "questions".

History is a humanity, but it relies on "evidence". There's this little thing in history which says that you can't just make up any old bullshit and pass it off as real - just like in any other legitimate discipline. You see, that's why they don't allow "mediums", "readers", and "channelers" (a.k.a. "bullshit artists") into the academic hallways - because closing your eyes and saying that you're just going to dictate stuff that you "feel" is real is not considered "evidence". It's considered bullshit.

Jason already mentioned how you can interpret different facts differently, and that's fine - as long as you're not inventing facts, or closing your eyes and just "feeling" out there for new ones. So I won't bother getting into that because it's already been covered.

However, what you sound like is one of those lost people who think there's going to be an information revolution soon (man!), and it just gets you all so excited that you have to put down the fully loaded bong with the new shipment of skunk just to tell us about it. So, seeing your excitement (man!), let's go over a couple of things, shall we?

"Alternative" anything is bullshit. To (semi) quote Tim Minchin: "You know what they call alternative medicine which is proven to work? Medicine." That's right, man. Science isn't a conspiracy. Science is the method which takes claims, verifies their validity, and then adopts them as factual or not depending on what the outcome of the experiment is.

For example: if you can prove that the bark of the willow tree actually contains a substance which really does help with headaches and other ailments, then you're using science to prove that. And if it is actually proven, then it becomes part of the scientific factual repertoire with which to understand, ascertain, determine, and learn from in future tests and claims.

If you claim that space aliens from another dimension came and visited King Henry VIII and told him that they hung out with Jesus, well, I'm sorry man, but that needs to be proven. You can't just say "Hey man! but my bong gives me visions that tell me it's true, and that's just my alternative narrative, man, because it's so out there and it just seems to make sense to me, man!"

Once again, in science, that sort of claim would be considered "bullshit".

Your bullshit is of a particular stripe, but it all sounds the same to those of us who have smelled it before because it uses all of the same codewords which *gasp* creationists use as well. Your obvious scorn for anything "mainstream", and your implied sympathy for a "term" such as "your reality", are the exact sort of bullshit codewords which are put forward as "arguments" by idiots who think that the world is a scant 6,000-10,000 years old, and that everything claimed in the bible is literally true. And while you may both come from completely different backgrounds and beliefs, you and the creationists are of the exact same ilk: the bullshit which science has tested and rejected.

You see, everything is bullshit, Mr. Monahan. Everything in the entire universe is considered bullshit by science, until proven otherwise. Your side had their bullshit tested over and over again, and it's been found to be nothing but bullshit. There isn't a hidden grain of truth which science is somehow concealing from the general public. There are no back room decisions by heartily wealthy scientists smoking cigars as they plan out the next ignorant dark ages of mankind by hiding away your bullshit beliefs. In fact, science barely has any recognized sort of "lobby" in any way whatsoever, which is why bullshit artists such as yourself appear to thrive so mightily amongst an unscientific community.

You can paint that bullshit with all the hippie, alternative history, and "real science" all you like, but it won't change the fact that to real academics, to people who need actual evidence of things which are real and are not real, your brand of "alternative...whatever" smells like bullshit. And no amount of testing has yet managed to rub off that smell to reveal the claimed golden surface beneath.

2/16/2013 01:57:56 am

By the way, just as an aside, crazy usually shows itself in so many forms. One of those forms is in web site design. Yours, Mr. Monahan, fits the theme perfectly. It looks like it was designed in 1995, back when transitional gif animations used as logos were considered "cool", has the disorder and presentation of a jumbled mess, and the background certainly confirms my absolute worst fears for your mental stability and health.

But that is nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the horror when I see that you have a "Made with a Mac" button on the bottom of your "Archaeoastronomy" site. Please. That sort of thing went out of style nearly 20 years ago. And, as a designer who uses mostly Macs since you probably hadn't even ever heard of them, that horrified me the most of all.

I kindly beseech you, nay implore you, to change your design, bring it up to speed with modern times, and remove that silly throwback button which hails from the dark ages of the internet. I should not be so surprised at your use of it, however, because that usually is where your brand of "beliefs" usually belong.

I do have to confess that before I clicked on your site link, I had predicted exactly what sort of insanity I was likely to be confronted with in terms of design. Amazing how accurate these kinds of predictors can be, eh? To think: I was right on the money (except for the "Made on a Mac" button - that was a twist and a real horror).

You see, the science of psychology can most certainly provide people such as myself with the tools to ascertain what we shall encounter by making accurate predictions about people such as yourself. Now, if only your "alternative" theories could do as much....

terry the censor

2/22/2013 04:05:02 pm

@Kean

Phil Leonard was on this blog not long ago arguing about the Anubis cave, making long comments. I put this to him and he didn't respond. Perhaps you would care to?

--------------------------

You cite Dr. Kelly in support of your claims. Why don't you cite Dr. James Keyser, who eviscerated your "scholarship" in the Plains Anthropologist, Vol. 40, No. 153 (August 1995), pp. 290-294?
http://www.jstor.org/stable/25669351

He goes into minute detail of what you got wrong or plain made up. From all this he concluded:

"In summary, for the Anubis Caves, their mixture of circular logic, obfuscation, misrepresentation, and simple failure to understand the concept of the 'least hypothesis' would be comical if the authors did not take themselves so seriously."

"The authors' pseudoscientific methods, circular logic, slipshod data presentation, and failure to use basic statistics and comparative data doom the work to the lunatic fringe."

"As cult archaeologists, they misunderstand (or ignore) the fact that modern science deals not with absolutes, but with probabilities. They fail to use Occam's Razor, preferring instead to create Rube Goldbergian explanations best characterized as 'the more complex the better.'"

"In the end, after 400 tedious pages purporting to be the best American epigraphy can offer, I am left with a mental image of their Pre-Columbian "Ogam" writers as a multiethnic (Libyan, Norse, Egyptian, Irish, Celtiberian, Roman, Arabic), multilingual (at least 13 Old World scripts have been identified) bunch of scribes who surprisingly were only semiliterate (they sometimes wrote back wards and they often omitted key characters or added extraneous ones). Furthermore, they wrote in a code (not using the vowels or stemline characteristic of Old World Ogam) known only in North America. Coming from cultures with well developed metallurgic, ceramic, animal husbandry, and agricultural industries, they sailed the Atlantic and then traveled overland from 600 to 3000 miles through territory well-populated by American Indians to carve their coded scripts. Yet, other than these markings, they left behind not one indisputable artifact or site to indicate their pres ence and brought back to Europe not one Indian artifact, cultivar, or emissary? Quite a feat in any body's book!"

2/25/2013 02:58:50 pm

Terry,

I've just reviewed your citation of Dr. Keyser's 1995 screed. Thanks for mentioning it, a fine example of American archaeology's archetypical close-mindedness and "dismissive at a distance" attitude toward the diffusionist implications of the Anubis Cave and its family of a dozen, demonstrably non-indigeneous examples of Ogham-captioned seasonal cusp shadow plays documented in America's heartland.

Had Keyser seen the site? No. Had he suggested archaeological digs there? No, yet, as with his similarly indifferent brethren, he heartily faults the authors for an absence of locally unearthed portable artifacts supportive of the petroglyphic/archaeoastronomical tandems, a classic, professionally-managed Catch-22 since the story erupted in 1975.

Yes, Keyser tries his best to "eviscerate the scholarship" of the advocates. He's not the first, and he'll not be the last. It is prototypical of archaeologists confronting challenges to their absolute authority to go long on generalities peppered with insults and pejoratives, but fall short on specifics. Keyser is consistent and consistently fails to score any direct hits of substance.

The Book of Ballymote contracdicts Keyser's assertion "true Ogam has vowels". There are over a hundred documented variants, including consonantal. Furthermore, many ancient languages including Hebrew began as vowelless and added vowels later for expansive reasons.

Keyser also relies on the shopworn belief that all vertically incised strokes found come from Plains Indian tally marks, yet make this observation of the Nosepointer Ogham (again from photos in the book, not from actual in situ observation)

"...the marks were made with at least four different tools (based on width and shape of the groove), the strokes are oriented in five different directions, and are of at least 3 different lengths."

Indeed, as the advocates have remarked, this screams of intentionality, specifically out of the ordinary for Indian tally marks, in that the ancient author most likely used different depths and different angles to DISTINGUISH adjacent linear clusters as independent letters. Nonetheless, Keyser considers himself enough of an authority to divine from the photos in the book alternate cluster patterns other than the 2-5-3 groupings representative of the Ogham consonants G-R-N (Grian, sun). His insistence that Occam's Razor alone is grounds for dismissal of pre-Columbian contact is a trite and convenient canard well worn as a justification to ignore and insult all challengers of mainstream anthropological thought. But what's not to expect from a reviewer who openly admits his skepticism in advance.

Bradley T. Lepper's review in American Antiquity, Vol. 60, No. 3 (July 1995) pp. 586-587 http://www.jstor.org/stable/282289 erred in ignoring the Anubis Cave's archaeoastronomy, witnessed only AFTER the neighboring Ogham inscriptions were understood, but he took a more moderate and reasoned POV in rejecting the advocates compared to Keyser's 4 page rant. Lepper viewed the advocates' comparisons with Old World analogs "inherently racist". Keyser claims "they fall prey to the subtle racism inherent in the 'Diffusionist True Believer' school". Colorado State Highway archaeologists on TV accused advocates and me, as documentary producer, of racism in 1985. John Colavito is much more muted, in politically correct 2013 to so resist the R word, but he indirectly continues to raise "racism" as an underlying motivator for some who could welcome the possibility Europeans left their mark in America before Columbus or the Norse. In a sense, then, should that condemn the research being done by those professionals who stay away from the sites and won't authorize digs to uncover any possibly supportive evidence. It's just missing, get over it everyone and trust the experts it won't be there ever were they to look?

Please consult the book's co-author Rollin Gillespie's response, www.jstor.org/stable/25669401 published in Plains Anthropologist, Volume 41, No. 156 (May 1996), pp. 201-203. Another rebuttal appeared to Leppert's review in American Antiquity, Volume 61, No. 3, July 1996.

Graham

2/15/2013 11:19:46 am

You might be interested in looking at Graham Hancocks fictional output. "Entangled:The Eater of Souls (2010)" presents a disturbing picture of his current ideas.

To partially quote the Amazon plot summary:

"Entangled is the first book in a trilogy relating the story of an unrelentingly evil master magician named Sulpa who is on the loose and determined to destroy humanity. Leoni, a troubled teen from modern-day Los Angeles, and Ria, a young woman who lives in Stone Age Spain, meet in a parallel dimension outside the flow of time to stop Sulpa's spectacular, deadly materialization of the modern world."

and

"...Entangled has the added merit of being grounded in solid anthropological and scientific research. Hancock calls on his years of research into cutting-edge issues, including the "Neanderthal Enigma," the nature of consciousness, the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics, parallel realms, time travel, and near-death and out-of-body experiences."

Sounds like the New Age is inventing a Devil.

L Bean

2/15/2013 11:40:20 am

Sounds like the plot to Ghostbusters II.

Christopher Randolph

2/17/2013 10:21:50 am

What's awful here is that Hancock wrote a really great, valuable book titled "Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige, and Corruption of the International Aid Business" back in 1989. It's based in his experiences doing some serious development work. I stumbled across this book in 2001 & then set about looking into what else he was writing.

... yikes! At first seeing the list of the insanity I had to verify that there wasn't more than one GH writing two different bodies of work. Sadly there isn't. I'm afraid that instead of invalidating mainstream archeology and history he's just knocking the legs out from under his own earlier sharp observations of the foreign aid (or "aid") world. Apparently having rejected some western economic practices with good reason he's also rejecting most other western disciplines for shaky reasons.

Christine Erikson link

3/13/2016 11:07:00 am

"Is it really a coincidence that all of the major threads of alternative history have moved in the direction of alternative spirituality? "

I think not. whatever the actual truth of these things is (I mean by "truth" objective physical day to day boring sedentary 9 to5 workers all over the place mundane nonspiritual icky ordinary bleah merely material reality stuff)

there is a heavy dose of the mythic FEELING, the awe and wonder, etc. suppose several hundred years from now, our defunct civilization is dug up. "AFTER MAN" or something like that title on TV shows how fast everything would deteriorate without maintenance, the rust capable things especially. And suppose the attitude was awe and wonder and yearning towards those great days of which little actually would be known.

personal and impersonal spirits (the latter like trace effects, artifacts psychic residuum some kind of "current") left in those remains might be stirred up by the attitude, to no good effect. much evil exists in our civilization that might well begin to affect such dreamy yearners. meanwhile the hardnosed objective scientific sorts would have a built in shielding against this by their attitude. a new category of fringe plus "spirituality" would develop in the former case.

yeah, I'm dragging in "haints" a good term from American southern black culture, which goes beyond personal entities, i.e., dead people and demons, to include all manner of stuff. but my take on this "etheric world" etc. is not that its a good idea to mess with.

cultures that use entheogens are not characterized by overall sanity of worldview, high moral standards, and medical and technological development enough to get them out of some jungle gutter. enough to keep them useful for the spirits who are predatory parasitical vampires. THESE GOD DAMNED THINGS LIE.

whatever reality is met by such measures is not good. and like a false hearted lover (that a song says is worse than a thief) they will sometimes lead you with great beauty, wonderful feelings and the end is misery and maybe death and worse.

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Drugs, Gods, and Alternative History's Spirituality

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