Review of Graham Hancock's "Magicians of the Gods"

9/10/2015

Today is release day for Graham Hancock's new book Magicians of the Gods (2015), the sequel to his 1995 bestseller Fingerprints of the Gods. Thomas Dunne, his U.S. publisher, provided me with an advance copy. There is no embargo on reviewing the book, so I have posted my review today, timed to the U.K. release. The American release isn't until November. Because the review is very long, I've made a separate page for it, and you can read my full review here. Enjoy!

50 Comments

busterggi (Bob Jase)

9/10/2015 03:02:57 pm

And some folks criticize HPL and REH for being racists - at least they have the excuse that they lived almost seventy years ago.

Scarecrow

9/10/2015 05:00:11 pm

Now let's see how popular Magicians of the Gods will be.

Jason Colavito link

9/10/2015 05:04:14 pm

It will inevitably do decently well. Hancock was on the BBC's Breakfast show promoting it, and only a handful of books get that kind of publicity. Here in the U.S., it's already Amazon's #1 bestseller in the prehistory category. (But: My Ancient Aliens book was #1 in its category, too, so that doesn't really mean much.)

Michael MacRae

9/10/2015 11:22:15 pm

Jason writes:
'He (Graham Hancock) must be particularly enraged that both Herodotus and the Egyptian priest Manetho agreed in their ancient accounts that the fourth dynasty pharaoh known to us as Khufu built the Great Pyramid.'

Jason writes:
'You also appeal to the authority of the Egyptians, who were well known for telling travelers what they wanted to hear, and who, if we take Herodotus literally, also inform us that Homer was selective, reductive, and often incomplete or wrong. This once again suggests that your
interpretation is unlikely.'

Herodotus is a reliable source when it suits your argument and unreliable when he doesn’t.

Scott Hamilton

9/11/2015 12:27:32 am

Anyone else less than surprised that Hancock's little followers don't have very good reading comprehension?

Michael MacRae

9/11/2015 01:34:00 am

Does Jason regard Herodotus to be a reliable source of history? Yes or no?

Only Me

9/11/2015 02:41:35 am

"Does Jason regard ______ to be a reliable source of history? Yes or no?"

This is the same bullshit you pulled last time, Michael. Your whole "criticism" is basically, "I have no arguments against yours, I can't prove you wrong, I don't even understand what you are saying, but I'm going to call you out just because I don't like what you said."

Jason Colavito link

9/11/2015 09:15:31 pm

Granted that Michael is simply trolling, but there is a good reason that I mentioned Manetho: Herodotus' testimony alone isn't enough to establish that something is true, or even worth considering whether it might be true. His testimony is supported, though, by Manetho, Diodorus, Africanus, and others. Interestingly, Herodotus and Diodorus are both wrong in placing the pyramids after Ramses III of the 20th dynasty while assigning them to similar names (Cheops / Chemmis). However, Herodotus' discussion of the relationships between the pharaohs allow us to correlate his testimony with Manetho's dynasties (where Africanus confirms that Suphis/Khufu built the Great Pyramid). Thus, it is Manetho whose work is actually the foundation for identifying the builder, and his king list is correlated with the hieroglyphic inscriptions to match kings.

Stephen

11/23/2015 06:45:05 pm

"My book" "before I was born" "when I was only 9". I'm not devoted to any theory nor have I even heard of Hancock until today (never heard of you either :( ). So it is my unbiased observation that your ego constructs your opinion of of other authors. It's not all about you sir. Either way it doesn't matter to me. You lost my interest as soon as you admitted to not understanding references to science publications. You literally complained that Hancock didn't dumb it down for you. Why should we care about your review anyway? Oh that's right, because you are also an author and you have a book, and you, not to mention you, but let's not forget you.

Scott Hamilton

9/10/2015 05:10:22 pm

Thanks for reading it so I don't have to. I'm surprised how much seems to have been recycled from Andrew Collins, though with a coastal civilization subbed in for the Swiderian culture. I'd love to get either of those guys to actually explain what the features of the "lost civilization" actually are, besides "astronomical knowledge." Did they have buildings? Where are they? I'm guessing Hancock will just say underwater (really, they built nothing inland?), while Collins is dead set on ignoring all the real archeology that's been done on neolithic Poland.

Tony

12/15/2015 03:00:39 pm

He actually does describe his purported lost civilization, spending several chapters on the subject. He refers to megalithic architecture, a central temple with huge canals, a "lighthouse" of some type and that it was built on an island. He does state that they didn't build inland because they were an sea-faring culture, or that when building on the mainland they only focused on the coast. How reasonable that is can definitely be questioned, but it was addressed. Additionally, he claims to have found evidence of these in his dives; pictures of which he has posted on his website. Again, a lack of expertise on my part stops me from making any definitive statements, but he attempts to address your concerns.

Only Me

9/10/2015 10:24:48 pm

1) No ideas of his own. Check.
2) Appropriation of ideas from others to rehash for cash. Check.
3) Ignorance of science = conspiracy/suppression of truth. Check.
4) Use of outdated or secondary sources. Check.
5) Recycling of material from previous books. Check.
6) PAY ATTENTION TO ME! I ARE SERIOUS RESEARCHER! Check.

Yep. Hancock is definitely fringe through and through. In other words, a hack.

Eigendom link

9/17/2016 10:59:02 pm

Graham Hancock is def. a fraude, and so are all of his colleagues (Beauval)
they use the same crew as National Geographic, proof?Ask!
: eigendom@outlook.com

Shane Sullivan

9/11/2015 01:34:52 am

Yay! Thanks, Jason, I appreciate the in-depth review. I got a late start on reading it today, so I'm only about half way through right now, but I'm already amused. I like how Hancock treats Edgar Cayce as if he were a real psychic, but apparently not a very good one, considering he failed to differentiate between Egypt and Indonesia when reporting on the Hall of Records.

Mark L

9/11/2015 03:08:03 am

I wouldn't put too much in Hancock going on the BBC to promote his book - he sued (and won) over the rebuttal programme to a documentary he made a couple of decades ago. Perhaps the settlement was, he gets free publicity time for any new books he writes.

Dave

9/11/2015 09:09:27 am

I read "Fingerprints" years ago and found it entertaining but lacking in any proof. My distaste for the fringe genre keeps me from reading anything else in that genre regardless of who is the author. They're all the same ilk and I question if they even believe the garbage they spew forth and are doing so only to make money.

Eigendom link

9/17/2016 11:07:20 pm

Hancock and all is ''friends'' are a fraud, no science needed to show you how '' they '' do it! proof? ask:
eigendom@outlook.com

bkd69

9/11/2015 09:25:34 am

Just an editing note:

"makes him boil over with apocalyptic rage"

Did you mean apopleptic?

Jason Colavito link

9/11/2015 09:43:40 am

I did. I'll fix it. Thanks.

Duke of URL

9/11/2015 11:53:48 am

Oh, I don't know - going apocalyptic would be even more ragey than just having apoplexy...

Dave

9/11/2015 01:33:46 pm

Apocalyptic rage has the "Wrath of Jason" vibe.

nablator

9/11/2015 10:49:55 am

"He goes on to re-litigate his contention from Mystery of the Sphinx (1996)"
Isn't it "The message of the Sphinx"?

Jason Colavito link

9/11/2015 11:51:53 am

It is. I must have been thinking of the documentary.

drewbert

9/11/2015 07:21:31 pm

I'm not sure what is more difficult to understand...people who don't take the show Ancient Aliens with a grain of salt (let's be honest it's high comedy with great high quality footage from great sites) or "debunkers" who spend their time trying to convince themselves that they are rational human beings with a monopoly on said rationality.

terry the censor

9/16/2015 01:22:32 am

> they are rational human beings with a monopoly on said rationality.

Do you really think that fact-checking claims is a character flaw?

11/21/2015 10:49:55 am

It is when facts are simply checked against current contentions. Fact checking is about falsification of stated facts not just the mocking of them..

drewbert

9/11/2015 07:26:04 pm

The book is by its very nature speculative, a circumstantial case. ANYONE writing a book on this topic is inherently working with a mantra of "what would really be left even if there was a civilization in remote prehistory" looming over their work. Some of what Hancock has written deserves a review like this, with all its snarky irritation in tow (Mars Mystery sans the bollide objects sections) but if this is anything like fingerprints it's an intelligently written entertaining jaunt through history that again, is totally speculative for basically anyone tackling it. Everything pre-Younger Dryas regarding humans and social behavior is guesswork...to say the very least.

Jason Colavito link

9/11/2015 09:08:57 pm

I judge fringe books on two criteria: (a) did the book make a convincing case, and (b) is the book fun to read? Hancock's "Fingerprints" failed (a) but passed (b) admirably. "Magicians" failed both (a) and (b), and the failure of (b) was especially disappointing. The large blocks of pasted in, undigested scientific abstracts and incessant self-referencing of his 20-year-old "Fingerprints" made this less than engaging.

drewbert

9/12/2015 12:50:51 am

Just a quick question, and it's sort of a "gotcha" one so I apologize in advance...what is your opinion on the die off of animals at the end of the last ice age where the planet lost about 125 species of mammal over 100lbs in body weight? I only ask this because I'm not super familiar with your work, there are basically two camps people fall into with this question in my experience and speaks to how one would approach a book like this. No nuance required either, even though it is a bit of a complicated question in details. Overkill or "other"? Or even better, did overkill play a major part?

Only Me

9/12/2015 02:11:41 am

drewbert, as I understand it, there are four main competing theories that seek to explain the Quaternary extinction event: (a) overkill (b) climate change (c) hyperdisease and (d) asteroid/comet. You also have the continentality and second-order predation hypotheses. All have arguments for and against, but I think it's generally accepted that these causes are not mutually exclusive.

That means that even if it's true a comet hit Earth in the Younger Dryas, the other three main causes proposed for the extinction may have already been in play. The comet impact would have only added to the pressures Pleistocene animals were already facing. Even humans weren't immune, as suggested by the Toba catastrophe theory.

Even accepting all of that at face value doesn't really help Hancock's argument. As Jason pointed out, a comet impact is only relevant to a lost civilization IF one existed at the time of the event.

E.P. Grondine

12/11/2015 04:14:31 pm

Hi Drewbert, Only me -

Elephants need about 400 pounds of fodder a day, and starve when they can not get it.

The amoun of impatites found so far indicate an atmospheric dust load which caused a complete failure of a food supply sufficient to support mega-fauna, and this extinction is independent of human populations.

Those mega-fauna populations were isolated to some degree, so one can rule out a pathogenic virus,

Mammoth and mastodon fossila have tow date clusters - 1 is at 10,850 BCE. Quite likely, that is because they wandered into dangerous situations in search of food.

The first of the Holocene Start Impact Events was on an ice sheet, and did not generate an atmospheric dust loading.

The second Holocene Start Impact Event did generate a tremendous dust loading, which is clearly not volcanic in origin.

Neither of these comet impacts date to the Younger Dryas.

Contra Nancock, there was not one advanced civilization destroyed - that is where the theosophist nonsense comes in.

There have been many civilations collapsed by many different impact events.

As near as is now known, nearly all of these were reduced by cometary impact.

The earlier NASA impact hazard estimates were off by about a factor of 3. And NASA funding for detection has been abysimal.

If Hancock's book can increase those detection funds, good on him.
If his book turns the field of impact studies into a farce... oh well.

E.P.

drewbert

9/12/2015 01:38:35 pm

ONLY ME, thanks for the input. You have posited 2 competing theories, not 4. Cometary impact accounts for b,c and d. Overkill is nonsense, both from an evidence angle and a logic point of view (some estimates even have the world being populated by more mammoths than humans at that time) and is frankly just an old vestige of a theory from a time when we didn't have the requisite knowledge about the specifics of the Younger Dryas, regardless of it's initial onset cause.

I think in pointing out the sheer magnitude of the events that precipitated and ended the Younger Dryas (two separate events spaced by 1100 or so years), Hancock does one thing to support his case...what happened has basically obscured the events in what some would call "deep history", going back well into the ice age. It doesn't not mean there was some relatively advanced maritime civilization, what it does mean is that the evidence for such an entity is going to be very circumstantial regardless of it's validity because of how drastically the planet changed.

In short, I think Hancock's work is important, because while he certainly doesn't prove anything, he does shine a light on the fact that human beings have been around for 150k to 180k years...and we only have a record of what humans were doing culturally for about 6k of that. That in the very least should raise some eyebrows and elicit proper curiosity, not outright dismissal because evidence that we shouldn't expect to find (due to immense changes in coastlines and sheer amount of time that has passed) isn't found.

I always pose this question to people regarding this topic, and I think it says a lot about the person you're dealing with and how well they can project imagination onto the cold reality of the situation.

Would you really be that surprised of Hancock was correct?

Last but not least, let's remember that like the "God" debate, you have to have some definitions to start or you will get nowhere. "Advanced Civilizations" to a lot of people rings alarm bells of crystals and aliens...when it might just mean, as in the case with Hancock, a civilization with say 5-10k years of development under its belt might have mapped the world and been on the level of the Minoans for example.

Last last but not least:)...the most damning thing for me, because I'm a geology and earth history buff, regarding Hancock's claims, is that the longest unbroken period of inter-glacial warmth on record since humans have been around...is the Holocene, the one we're in right now. That alone says to me there may simply not have been enough time to develop.

Only Me

9/12/2015 06:35:53 pm

Thanks to Joe Scales posting this link under another blog post,

http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/pseudo.html

I found two points presented by Dr. Rory Coker that fit Hancock's work.

*Pseudoscience "research" is invariably sloppy.*

Pseudoscientists clip newspaper reports, collect hearsay, cite other pseudoscience books, and pore over ancient religious or mythological works. They rarely or never make an independent investigation to check their sources.

*Pseudoscience argues from ignorance, an elementary fallacy.*

Many pseudoscientists base their claims on incompleteness of information about nature, rather than on what is known at present. But no claim can possibly be supported by lack of information.

If Hancock were proven correct, it would truly be remarkable. However, claiming a lost civilization existed based on a belief, then asserting a conspiracy due to lack of evidence that can be explained by the very cataclysmic event he uses to justify that belief is simply ludicrous.

Drewbert

9/13/2015 12:40:29 am

I'm not even going to get into the pseudoscience nonsense...I honestly don't think it applies to Hancock. He's offering possibilities and directed food for thought...he's not saying for a fact his premise is correct.

His ideas really bother people for some reason. But whatever...with this book it's worth the read alone simply for the Holocene impact group work sections alone. Much more accessible than the papers it is derived from.

Also, his point about nonsensical, over reactions to new ideas is spot on and well laid out with his narrative on bretz.

Only Me

9/13/2015 01:29:12 am

>>>he's not saying for a fact his premise is correct<<<

Then why dismiss the science of archaeology as "guesswork", make an accusation of conspiracy "at work in science" and call those who disagree with him "dogmatic uniformitarians"? It appears he believes his premise is correct, without coming right out and saying so.

>>>His ideas really bother people for some reason.<<<
>>>Also, his point about nonsensical, over reactions to new ideas is spot on and well laid out with his narrative on bretz. <<<

These two points are closely related. First, Hancock presents ideas that aren't even his own, and like Bretz, is unable to explain how he reached his conclusions or why we should accept them without any form of evidence. As to Bretz himself, think about what Jason noted:

[Bretz’s claims were greeted with skepticism because he could not explain how such a flood might occur, and only gradually did geologists come to embrace the idea as geological knowledge developed and mechanisms to explain such catastrophic flooding became understood.]

I just can't see how Hancock is justified in his attitude toward criticism and disagreement. When he says, "But actually, like so much else in the sceptical literature that is passed off as fact, it turns out, on close scrutiny, to be speculation, opinion, and bias masquerading as objectivity", he should be aware that statement applies equally to his own literature.

Paul Davis

11/9/2015 12:58:28 am

I'd like for you and all the others that are making very emotional and out of proportion attacks on Hancock's speculations to take a trip down memory lane and read the timeline of the archeological discovery of Troy.
Then compare the damn near identical ridicule and condemnation from the mainstream archeological orthodoxy at the psuedoscientific, preposterous claims that this could be the real, historic city of Troy.

The personal attacks on methodology, speculation and I think one called it "flights of fancy" were amazing.

The status quo of the highly insular archeological academia is hostile to any new claim that requires re-writing a textbook - until those fringe ideas become the new status quo.
This has happened at least five times in my lifetime as human history goes through yet another paradigm shift.

Seriously, some of you people are behaving as if he personally insulted your moms. Grow up and grow some thicker skin.

Eigendom link

9/17/2016 11:47:45 pm

You would be right, with you're comment, that Hancock's work is important, only to make people aware of the fakery of academics to
hide the real history ... but would it have the same impact to know that his whole profile was made up by the elite, and he's actually a part of the same societies he's so called going against? He and ALL the so called lectures are all fake set ups, did anybody you know actually attended a Hancock ''lecture''?Want to know who he is in actual life?ask;eigendom@outlook.com

drewbert

9/13/2015 01:58:42 am

his attitude is based on his long experience dealing with ad hom attacks.

Bretz' claims were greeted with a bit more than "Skepticism" as Hancock clearly explains. Derision is a better word. Mocking perhaps works as well.

I will completely agree that his conspiracy idea about science is easily put down to his own personal experience. But not skepticism, I'd say it's more about personal attacks on him and people impugning his integrity as a writer, which is beyond the pale IMO.

Hancock's whole point about Bretz was in the build up to the nonsense being thrown these days at the cometary impact hypothesis, which lets face it, is correct. Not complete as yet, but correct. Simply because it goes against the long standing work of others with their own agendas, they are throwing things like "it was house fires in Syria"...really? We need to listen to drivel like that and waste Firestone, Kennett, etc...time shutting them down like children explaining how wrong they are over and over again because certain aspects of science don't like change?

With that said, you should easily be able to determine why Hancock is the way he is, and as a fan of this book in particular, I can say with little regret that Hancock goes overboard in his response to the scrutiny...but again, only because it goes beyond simple "skepticism" in many cases.

Last for the night, a LOT of archeology is guesswork. Most of it actually past a certain point in history...almost all of it pre-old kingdom Egypt and Sumer.

E.P. Grondine

12/11/2015 04:35:16 pm

Hi Drewbert -

One problem is that Firestone, Kennettt, and mysefl will have to field questions about Hancock's mistakes.

Another problem is that some really vicious people will atttribute Hancock's mistakes to Firestone, Kennet et al, and myself.

Hancock's use of Bretz is most likely a literary device to produce a willing suspension of disbelief. Childress regularly used to use plate theory for the same purpose.

sorry for the typos - they are a product of my stroke, and I can not catch them all...

drewbert

9/13/2015 02:00:42 am

Hancock is presenting a TON of factual information in this book, he's an amazing synthesis writer for lay people. There is also a lot of speculation on his part...which is frankly why this book will sells boatloads of copies and other works that stick to the straight and narrow won't. He's not passing anything off regarding his own leaps in logic as pure fact. Never has.

Pacal

9/13/2015 09:39:45 pm

I cannot take Hancock in any sense even remotely seriously has a thinker. To me he is the quintessential pseudoscientist. Virtually everything he writes can be dismissed has valueless.

However like a good pseudoscientist he has mastered all the rhetorical tricks of the trade. For example I am just asking questions and lets speculate. (In actuality outrageously fantasize.) And of course the usual orthodox scientists are supressing the truth. None of this is in the slightest new. Hancock wins no awards for originality here.

AS for being a pseudoscientist, well that is amply demonstrated by the fact he regurgitates all sorts of old pseudoscience, which shows a lack of originality on his part. Reading his Fingerprints of the Gods I was reminded by nothing so much as Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by Ignatius L. Donnelly published in 1882. To say nothing of a whole swarm of similar works of pseudoscience published since then. Hancock's lack of originality is striking.

Sometimes Hancock is almost breathtaking in his ignorance. (His bibliographies are risible.) What convinced me that Hancock was a joke was the breathtaking badness of his stuff about the Mayan Calendar and the acres of nonsense about Tiwanaku in Bolivia. The stuff he writes about Tiwanaku is hilarious, I especially love how he, with great effort, almost completely ignores the massive and compelling evidence of the dates of Tiwanaku in favour of a wacky, far out piece of nonsense that has been refuted for decades.

Added to that his Hancock's regurgitation of the returning "White God" mythos which is to put it politely a pile of crap has any looking at the literature would reveal. Then there is of course his nonsense about Baalbek in Lebanon, which is amusing in that he repeats virtually all the old pseudoarcheology nostrums about it.

Hancock simply largely repeats a whole series of old time pseudohistorical tropes with very little originality and he relies on out of date and to a large extent worthless work.

Taking him seriously is for me impossible.

Eigendom link

9/17/2016 11:34:01 pm

Hancock is a mainstream media creation to create
confusion, and pretending to care about the earth.
If you want to know his real identity?ask:eigendom@outlook

Mark

10/6/2015 11:52:03 am

Surprising that such a long review is so shallow. There is a wealth of evidence established by "legitimate" archeologists and other scientists to back up most of Hancock's claims. You may disagree on how he connects the dots, but the dots themselves are pretty well established. And it is also a common fallacy to try to discredit an author simply by pointing out where his/her work treads the same ground as earlier discredited authors without actually considering how the arguments are different in their particulars. Hancock isn't offering definitive proof of anything, but he has certainly punched a truck-sized hole in the reasoning and conclusions of establishment science and offered compelling evidence to reconsider received wisdom.

In my opinion, the reviewer establishes his bias immediately that he doesn't consider Hancock credible and his entire review is a project to justify his bias.

Tony

2/5/2016 08:45:22 am

Absolutely, very shallow and definitively biased. Why even review him at all if you have such a low opinion of the man?

Mike Rodent

11/22/2015 03:37:03 pm

Excellent review: what I read of it at least.

I think Hancock has squandered his opportunities: to wander the world, make lots of money through pseudo-science and then gradually to mature into accepting that there are some uncanny suggestions that ancient civilizations *may* have known about precession, etc., but that quite what it tells us can only be teased out with scientific rigour and patience. And that the truth may well be more interesting and strange than he imagines. I'm thinking, for example, of the Antikythera.

Not being an archaeologist I'm not au fait with what the "mainstream" (i.e. non-crank) explanation is for the weathering of the side of the sphinx. But when it was first brought to light it certainly had a lot of geologists very puzzled. Maybe this is indeed the "riddle of the sphinx": much of reality is very puzzling, but none of it justifies taking leave of your senses and indulging your imagination when claiming to be seriously and exclusively interested in scientific truth.

But I find Hancock much sadder than he need have been: that closing para about humanity being on "the brink of a new consciousness" suggests not actually someone exploiting the lucrative market of apocalypse-prediction, but a rather lonely and unhappy man, with very little love, indeed aversion, for anything which is not just what it seems, however intriguing and curious.

Eigendom link

9/17/2016 11:23:35 pm

I am not even going to comment,
on (yet another) made up (profile)
personality, by mainstream media, pretending to be
controversial, well he is, but not as a ...
what is he actually, did anybody know him fro schooldays?
University? that black wife of his, that only mumbles, taking pictures,
plus let her carry the heaviest travel bags?Or those so called professors, experts, he uses to back up his nonsense,
you won't get much info, or easily debunk able info, as non of them exist:! I know who he is in real live,proof: ask: eigendom@outlook.com

E.P. Grondine link

12/9/2015 05:22:51 pm

You must have missed this:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ancient-egypt-shipping-mining-farming-economy-pyramids-180956619/?no-ist

Schoch et al are done.

Lemur

1/8/2016 10:42:46 am

I was under the impression (perhaps mistaken) that Schoch's perspective was focused on the age of the Sphinx, not the pyramids. Ie that The Pyramids were constructed during the old kingdom period but that it was in fact the Sphinx which was older due to evidence of water erosion

From the notes on that smithsonian article, i see mentions of details regarding pyramid construction, but nothing about the Sphinx. If there is no mention of the Sphinx construction, I find the omission of such discussion on the ancient papyri intriguing

E.P. Grondine

12/9/2015 05:30:11 pm

My work notes on the two separate Holocene Start Impact Events:

http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3656
http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3668

No theosophist nonsense,
No spiritual guidance,
No comments on AGW

Just data on two cometary impacts.

Hannah

2/8/2016 11:28:20 pm

I find this book difficult to read. Hancock has a lot of knowledge, no doubt. His intention to prove main stream archeology wrong takes him on an extensive journey through archeological and geological detail. This can be frustrating for a more spiritually minded reader who already has an understanding of Atlantis. A good book for skeptics of the Atlantis myth.

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Review of Graham Hancock's "Magicians of the Gods"

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