This could be the last time I speak
about myself, my work, because there's a
chance that I might not make it off the
operating table this month. And a
journalist who has very bad blood
towards me has been trying to publish a
story on me for more than 2 years now,
and it will come out in the next month
or two. And I didn't want that to be the
last word on my life.
>> What do you want the last word of your
life to be?
>> I'm here to communicate about the
possibility of a major forgotten episode
in Human Story. I'm talking about a lost
civilization.
>> So, most people think civilization
started 6,000 years ago.
>> Yes.
>> But you believe there's strong evidence
that there could have been a previous
civilization
>> 20,000 years ago. And I'm going to
present the evidence for that here,
Stephen. And it suggests a golden age
where there was no violence, no cruelty,
where great healers and sages were at
work. They're extremely sophisticated.
However, if you follow the myths
further, as I've done, you find
something odd happens. We find that they
stepped away from the original purity
and become a culture that begins to
impose its power on others around the
world. And then sewn into those myths is
scientific information which record a
gigantic cataclysm all but wiping out
the human race.
>> If what you're saying is true, what does
that mean for our lives? I guess also
our future.
>> Well, there's always this feeling in the
myth that we brought this upon
ourselves. And when I look at our
civilization today, I see a civilization
that ticks all the mythological boxes
for the next lost civilization. And that
we are most likely to be the cause of
that cataclysm ourselves. Unless we wake
up.
Graeme Hancock, what will you care about
on your last day?
>> Most of all,
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Please help us. Really appreciate it.
Let's get on with the show.
>> Bram Hancock, I guess the first question
I wanted to ask you is what is it you've
committed the last more than 30 years of
your life to understanding
>> what it is is a a puzzle.
I'm puzzled by aspects of the human
past. There could be, and I think
there's a lot to suggest there was, a
major forgotten episode in the human
story. That's why I refer to us as a
species with amnesia. When I use that
phrase, I need to give credit to Emanuel
Velikovski who wrote a book called
mankind in Amnesia. I think we are a
species with amnesia. I think we have
forgotten something very important in
our own past. And when I turn to the
experts, I find much of what they say
very interesting and very useful. but
some of what they say extremely
unsatisfactory and and not responding to
the problems that that I have in the
past. And that's led me to to take my
own approach to the past to look at that
and and to offer uh readers because I'm
mainly an author occasionally make TV
shows to offer them an alternative point
of view which is rational and and and
solidly based but which is contrary to
key aspects of the mainstream narrative.
We only have decipherable written
scripts from the last 5 and a half
thousand years maximum. Before that, we
don't have any any writing that we can
at any rate read. Go back 10, 12, 15,
20,000 years. All you can base it on
from an archaeological point of view is
what they can dig out of the ground. And
I think what they're missing, the
ancients did leave us memories of what
they went through. We have myths and
traditions and scriptures from all
around the world which record a gigantic
cataclysm affecting the human race and
all but wiping out the human race.
Everybody knows the story of the flood
of Noah. Of course, the flood of Noah is
just an one example of hundreds like
that of stories from around the world.
Uh archaeologists pour scorn on Plato's
story of Atlantis. Uh but Atlantis is
another of those stories that remembers
a global flood that wiped out a former
era of existence, leaving only a few
survivors. And the archaeological
response to them is there was a local
river flood. They exaggerated it. It was
a big deal for them. So they said it
happened to the whole world. And I'm
sick of archaeologists saying that. This
is the memory banks of our species. This
is the record, the only record we have
of a period before 6,000 years ago. And
we shouldn't despise it and scorn it as
primitive superstition. We should say,
what can we find in here that we can
coordinate with scientific facts that
we're aware of? Let's see if there's
something to this rather than just
dismissing it. Many of these myths
contain imagery and a series of numbers.
A very important academic study
published in the 1960s a book called
Hamlet's Mill by Giorgio de Santilana,
professor of the history of science at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and Hera Vondes, professor of history of
science. This is not me speaking. This
is major major historians of science in
the 1960s. They found encoded in those
myths numbers and imagery that could
only relate to one thing and that's an
obscure astronomical phenomenon called
the precession of the equinoxes. I'm not
going to go into the technical details,
but to observe it and to record it and
to predict it, to predict its effects in
the future involves very precise
astronomical observations maintained
over a very long period of time,
hundreds and hundreds of years at least.
So here we have myths of a global
cataclysm. There is just so much else.
There are ancient maps that show the
world as it looked during the ice age,
again dismissed as just total
coincidence and not significant by
archaeology. I feel that archaeology has
failed miserably in providing a
nurturing satisfying answer to the
questions we all have.
>> So when you say global cataclysm
>> what does that mean? Means that some
something hit the planet there was we
were wiped out.
>> Yeah. There there there are a number of
options and again I need to stress this
because because there's so much
propaganda in this business I'll be
immediately accused of lunatic fringe.
The solid science that's been done on
this uh is twofold. One aspect of it,
the one that I think I find most
persuasive is called the younger drius
impact hypothesis. And this is a
mainstream hypothesis, but it is
severely criticized within academia. The
hypothesis is that about 20,000 years
ago, a very large comet came in from
deep space and went into orbit around
the sun. This would be a comet of a
diameter of 100 kilometers, maybe 200.
Comes in, gets captured by the sun's
gravity, goes into an orbit. That orbit
crosses the orbit of the Earth. While
you're dealing with one large object,
the chances of getting hit are extremely
low. It would be very bad if you did,
but very low. Trouble is, nobody
disputes this. Once comets are caught by
the gravitational field of a very large
planet or of a sun, they start to break
up into multiple parts. And this is what
happened to the younger dryass comet.
Instead of being a single bullet, it
became a shotgun blast. It became
thousands and thousands of objects of
which we've cataloged quite a lot.
Numbers of them, comet Enki is the best
known bit of that former comet. Many of
the academics who look at this think
that comet Enki which is about six
kilometers in diameter and which does
cross the orbit of the earth they think
that that was the source comet but
whereas the other team are saying no
that's a bit of the source comet there
were many other bits as well and 12,800
years ago 12,860
approximately the earth went into a
storm of these fragments none of them
big enough to compare with the object
that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million
years ago but all over the world. The
earth is turning. This stuff comes in.
They found it in the west coast of North
America. They found it in Belgium. And
they found it as far east as Syria. So,
it's like the earth turns and this stuff
is just coming in. Most of it is blowing
up in the air. It isn't even hitting the
ground. But an air burst from an object
that might be 100 meters in diameter is
equivalent to a very substantial nuclear
blast. So, their argument is the Earth
was hit by a comet storm. And this they
then argue, and I think they're right,
uh, explains what happened then because
12,800 years ago, we were still in the
ice age. Uh, but the earth was coming
out of the ice age. In fact, for about
a,00 maybe 2,000 years before that, the
earth had been getting warmer, getting
quite nice. And you would normally
expect that to continue. But then
suddenly, 12,800
years ago, give or take, 60 years,
there's a huge interruption. There's a
radical change. The earth instead of
warming, it suddenly goes back into a
massive deep freeze. And this is the
time when all the famous big animals of
the ice age, the megapora are wiped out.
The the woolly mammoths, the mastadons,
the giant sloths, these things like 14
ft tall, you know, they're all they're
all wiped out in that window around
about 12,800 years ago. And most
important of all, there's a very
mysterious sea level rise that occurs
then. This you would not expect when the
earth is entering a cold phase. Normally
when earth enters a cold phase, ice
accumulates on the existing ice caps. It
doesn't melt and go into the sea. So the
next thing is how do we explain this
sudden rise in sea levels at the
beginning of younger drives? It
shouldn't have happened. The comet
theory explains it perfectly. the the
the mass, the impact, the heat, the air
bursts, that would have been enough to
send the ice sheets into meltdown and to
cause this pulse of melt water. Then the
freeze sets in, you have about 1,200
years of freezing, desperately cold
conditions. And then again, 11,600 years
ago, womph, it suddenly warms up. I
mean, these are radical climate changes.
They're beyond anything that's happening
now. And uh I I think explanations are
needed for them. And because 12,800
years ago may sound a long time ago, but
it's really yesterday in the human
story. Uh, so something very big
happened to the Earth and happened to
our ancestors 12,800 years ago. If it
wasn't a comet, another theory that's
been put forward is a radical change in
solar activity. This might have been
involved with it as well. I don't find
that as persuasive as the younger dus
impact hypothesis. And you know maybe
some other explanation will come up but
what nobody disputes is that the younger
dus was a catastrophe. Uh it was global
uh and and it had huge effects.
>> You um you chose intentionally to come
and have this conversation today.
>> Why today?
>> Well I've been quite unwell really
noticeably unwell since uh January
February uh this year particularly very
very short of breath. It's it's because
the one of the failed valves in my my
heart is um causing blood to regurgitate
inside the heart rather than pumping it
through the body. And that means that
oxygenated blood is not getting to my
lungs. I probably would live another two
or three years without the surgery,
maybe maybe even five, but the quality
of life would be very low. I I can't
even walk up three stairs without being
being exhausted at the moment. So, I've
definitely decided to to have the
surgery. Why am I doing this interview
now rather than postponing it until
after the surgery and I've recovered?
Well, there's a tiny chance, absolutely
minuscule chance that I might not make
it off the operating table
>> this month.
>> Yeah, this month. And if that were the
case, uh this would be the last time
I've spoken about myself, my work, my
life, challenges I faced, uh in an open
forum like this. And and and I I I
choose to do that. And I'm going to say
specifically why without giving without
mentioning names. I choose to do that
because a journalist uh who has very bad
blood towards me has been trying to
publish a story on me for more than two
years now. Uh and it will come out in
the next in the next month or two. And I
didn't want that to be the last word of
my life. That's why I'm here. Stephen,
>> what do you want the last word of your
life to be?
I would I would hope that people will
come to understand that I'm not the
person that
a very small minority of archaeologists
have mobilized social media to present
me as. I'm not a grifter. I'm not a
hoaxer. I'm not a con man. I'm deeply
committed to this. I've devoted my life
to it for more than for more than 30
years. I'm passionate about it. It
matters to me. And I think again I'll be
laughed at for saying this, but I feel
called to do this. I feel I
I feel it's my obligation and my
responsibility to do this.
>> How is that disputed? Because I I guess
I need to understand human history to
understand why
>> the the the fundamental belief that you
have that there was a civilization that
we aren't talking about.
>> I'd like to be clear. It's not a belief.
Um this is another is a mistake that my
that my critics of often make. They they
think that I'm dealing with some sort of
belief system or some sort of cult here.
No, I'm not. I'm I'm just puzzled. I'm
just puzzled by the past and I'm puzzled
by the memories that have been passed
down to us and I'm puzzled that those
memories concur all around the world on
a serious cataclysmic event.
>> What is it that the your people that
aren't puzzled and are certain belief?
>> Yeah. They think that glacial lakes in
North America
gradually grew in size and overspilled
the ice dams that held them in place and
that the water from those lakes, some of
it went into the Atlantic Ocean and cut
the Gulf Stream. I don't dispute that
glacial lakes were involved, but those
lakes were filled up at a massive speed.
Nobody disputes that the Younger Dryus
was a cataclysmic event. It's just the
the degree of the cataclysm that's
disputed and what caused it that's
disputed.
>> But everyone agrees that humans are 300
15,000 years.
>> I mean at present when I started on this
quest back back in the late 80s early
90s it was felt that anatomically modern
human beings had not existed for more
than 50,000 years. Very recent really.
But this turned out to be complete
rubbish because anatomically modern
humans are much older than 50,000 years
ago. We have 196,000y old anatomically
modern human remains from Ethiopia. And
then finally 315,000
years ago a recent find in um Gibir Hood
in Morocco again anatomically modern
humans. So we can say that
if we define ourselves by our anatomy,
uh, brain size,
capacity of the skull, if we define
ourselves in those ways, we've been
around for at least 315,000 years and
probably much longer. That's that's just
an accident of discovery. And that's one
of the things that puzzles me. If we're
anatomically modern, if we've got all
the modern kit, if we've got the same
brains, we've got the same neurology,
everything is there. Why do we wait more
than 300,000 years to establish
something recognizable as a human
civilization? Why do we wait so long? We
got all the kit. There's evidence that
that our ancestors were aware of
agriculture, just chose not to use it
much, much much earlier than that. the
complex of events that leads to a
city-based civilization, which is the
kind of civilization we have now all
over the world that you can only really
trace that back to 6,000 years ago. Yes,
you can say that before 6,000 years ago
there was buildup to what became the
high civilizations.
But my question is why not much earlier?
Why why did we wait until that moment?
And and I don't find a satisfactory
answer to that question, except perhaps
we didn't wait. Perhaps we're missing
part of our story. And when I say a lost
civilization, I do not mean a
civilization like ours. I do not mean an
industrial civilization. I don't mean
they had cell phones or flew to the moon
or any of that I think they
were very different civilization from
ours. But they had conquered a number of
peaks and one of those peaks was
navigation and ocean seafaring. Hence
the survival of maps which show the
world as it looked during the ice age.
And another was astronomy. Uh and
another really important breakthrough
evidenced by by the ancient maps
particularly a category of maps called
the portalanos
um is accurate relative longitudes. This
is the Arantius Phineas map. It shows
Antarctica uh right there. Uh and and um
this is interesting because this map was
drawn in 1531.
Uh the problem is that our civilization
didn't discover Antarctica until 1820.
So its appearance on a map drawn in
1521,
particularly when we know that the map
was based on older source maps. And the
map maker tells us in his own legend
that he has uncovered material
previously hidden in darkness. When we
find that uh we have to begin to wonder
what is what is going on here. Had
somebody found Antarctica long before
long before we did uh and mapped it with
extremely accurate relative longitudes.
And that's important because our
civilization didn't crack the longitude
problem until the mid- 18th century.
What that meant was that if you're on a
vessel sailing west or east, uh you
might be 300 miles closer to a coastline
than you think you are and suddenly
you're on it in the night and you're
dead. Once you've got longitude work
out, you know exactly where you are. We
didn't get that until 1750, 1760
thereabouts with Harrison's chronometer.
So finding good longitudes on very
ancient maps is another puzzle that I
don't think archaeology solved. So, you
think there could have been a
civilization 20,000 years ago which was
before this young dryest moment where um
I mean I've got this photo here which
I'll throw up on the screen.
>> Yeah.
>> I think you say it's evidence that
something took place.
>> It is that's that's the younger dry
boundary. Uh and I'm with Alan West
who's one of the scientists from the
from the comet research group who are
working on the younger dry hypothesis.
And our hands are on that black stripe
running through the middle of the
drawer. And that is soot. That is
evidence of wildfires burning. Uh it's
full of nano diamonds, tiny little
diamonds microscopic size which are a
classic product of comet impacts. Uh
microspherules, some platinum, some
iridium. All signatures of a cometry
impact. And there it is. It's about 5 in
thick. That layer is the younger dus
boundary layer. It dates to 12,800 years
ago.
>> So for anyone that can't see, it's just
like a slice of earth. And there's this
black line going through through the
earth. We're in a draw here where a
river has cut a channel and it's exposed
the sides of the channel and on the
sides of the channel we can see this
black stripe running through and that is
precisely the younger driest boundary
>> and the current hypothesis is from a lot
of archaeologists is there wasn't a
human civilization before this point
12,000 years ago but you believe there's
strong evidence that there could have
been.
>> Yes.
>> So civilization then in your definition
of the word how do you define that? a
group of people gathering and working
together.
>> Fundamentally, it involves it involves
the willing organization or the
unwilling organization of labor. If you
look at a site like Gobeci in Turkey, we
have it on our timeline here somewhere.
It's 11,600
years old. Uh this is really an
extraordinary site. It's a it's a very
sophisticated site. It's very large. It
consists of large T-shaped megaliths
that can weigh up to 20 tons. There are
precise astronomical alignments in it.
Uh this was not done by two or three
people working together. This was well
that's the gobeci today covered by a a
modern canopy to keep uh fair enough to
keep the the weather off it because it
was previously deliberately buried by
its builders. Um but of course there's
much more around. Hundreds and hundreds
more pillars are still underground. We
know they're there because of ground
penetrating radar, but they've not been
excavated yet. So, so this was a major
project and interestingly the people who
built Gobeclet at that at the time
Gobeclet began there was no agriculture
happening there. They were all hunter
gatherers.
>> Mhm.
>> Nevertheless, they did something that
archaeologists used to say hunter
gatherers couldn't do. They organized
themselves. They made a huge project.
They implemented it and they delivered
it. And Gobecletep is not alone. It's
one of dozens of sites like that all
over Anatolia in in in Turkey. This was
a highly organized, sophisticated
huntergatherer civilization that was
involved in making this place.
>> I'm I'm a little bit confused. So, if
the ice age ended 11,700 years ago,
>> Yeah.
>> and Gbecki is 11,600 years ago,
>> that means there's a 100redyear gap
between the end of the ice age and
something as sophisticated as Gabbecki.
>> Not exactly. Because because dates in
this frame, they're not spot-on accurate
dates. Some will say the ice age ended
11,600. Some will say it ended 11,700
years ago. But the fact is that in this
window, the world was warming up again.
It was getting better. And that's when
this project was was created. And the
mystery is mystery for for
archaeologists anyway is that it was
hunter gatherers. And archaeologists are
now having to come to terms with that.
You see the idea was you had to have an
agricultural community first in order to
create projects like this because that
allows people to become specialists.
What if you generate a food surplus that
you can rely on then you can take people
with certain skills and say focus on
that become an astronomer become an
architect become an engineer we'll
support you in doing that. That was the
idea and that was why it was felt that
something like Gobeclet couldn't be
built until about 6,000 years ago when
there was widespread agriculture. But
that turned out not to be true. Uh it
was built by hunter gatherers, but
within a thousand years of it being
built, agriculture becomes present in
that whole area.
>> H origins of agriculture are definitely
earlier than we've than we've been
taught.
>> So it's funny because I don't know a lot
about the ice age, but humans survived
the ice age.
>> Oh god, yes, we we we did. It's just
it's just um
where do you want to be during an ice
age? That's the question.
>> What are my options?
If you were a rational being, which most
human beings are, you would immediately
exclude Northern Europe.
>> Absolutely no point in being in that
frozen, miserable wilderness.
>> You'd immediately exclude the northern
part of North America, too. No point in
being there. It's just horrible at that
time. Siberia, pretty rough. No, you'd
look for the tropics. You'd go you'd go
down close to the equator. you'd go to
the places that weren't affected by the
ice age, that were actually the best
real estate on Earth. That's where you'd
go. That's why uh if we are looking for
a missing episode in the human story,
we're wasting our time looking for it in
Northern Europe or North America. Uh we
should be looking for it in Mexico. We
should be looking for it in India. We
should be looking for it in Indonesia.
we should be looking for it uh around
Papu Nu Guinea. All of these areas that
were that were really great places to
live during the ice age. That's that's
the kind of place that the sort of
civilization I'm talking about could
have thrived.
>> What is the difference? You know, cuz on
here it says the earliest known humans
were 300,000 odd years ago.
>> Yeah.
>> What is the difference between these
humans 300,000 years ago and the
civilization you're describing 20,000
years ago that you believe existed?
Apart from what is perhaps wrongly
described as a slight refinement in
human features, natural selection
operating on what humans perceive as
beauty, I don't know. But otherwise, the
same
>> the same
>> the same. Yeah. Yeah. And again, that's
not that not disputed. Nobody's saying
that Jebel Hood human beings were
somehow different from us. They're
anatomically modern humans.
>> But how did they live um versus your
definition of ai civilization?
>> They lived a simple hunter gatherer
life.
>> Okay. in small groups.
>> Yeah. But somehow
around 11,600 years ago, people started
accumulating
monuments that can only be made with
large groups and organized organized
labor. You've got to you you have to
have a system. You have to can't build
something like Gobeci without planning
out in advance. You got to draw it out
somehow. There has to be a plan. It's
not something you just wing. Uh so so
there has to there's a missing
background to all of that which bothers
me. And again, so most people think
civilization started what 6,000 years
ago.
>> Yes. That that would be when
civilizations become archaeologically
visible. So you have uh ancient Sumemer,
Mesopotamia,
uh which roughly 3,500 I'm going to use
BC because everybody's familiar with
that. Roughly 3,500 BC, which is 5,500
years ago approximately. We start seeing
cities being built. We start seeing the
beginnings of writing taking place
around about the same time. The same
thing is happening in Egypt. Maybe a
couple of hundred years later, but the
new work that's being done in Egypt is
pushing Egypt much closer to to Sumer
narrowing that that window. Effectively,
you can say that these two civilizations
become archaeologically visible at the
same time. And uh they're not alone
because on the other side of the world
in Peru uh there's a civilization now
recognized called the Karal Supoupe
civilization which built pyramids uh
which also goes back 5,500 years. Uh and
and this is one of the mysteries I'm I'm
looking at now is is why we have these
apparently coincidental emergence of
high civilizations in the same window uh
all around the world. Indis Valley
civilization roughly the same 5,000
years old. Yeah. We're looking at Karal
here I think. Yeah. Yeah. These classic
these the feature is these circular
plazas in front of them and then the
pyramid with a and and uh you know these
were not and not expected in Peru. When
archaeologists think of Peru they tend
to think of Machu Picchu the Inca
civilization. That's what gets all the
coverage.
>> And that's 600 years ago.
>> That's 600 years ago. yesterday. Whereas
these Kal Supoupe pyramids, Karal,
Asparro, Bandura,
Pineo, these ones are much older,
thousands of years older. They're
extremely sophisticated. They built with
an earthquake proof technology. They
instead of using blocks, they put small
stones in in textile bags and those
allow a certain amount of shifting so
the thing doesn't collapse in an
earthquake. And this is 5,500 years old
getting on. So again, not an
agricultural civilization at the at that
time. They're a huntergatherer
civilization. So So archaeologists are
having to confront a reversal of their
model at the moment. And I think there's
room in that reversal of the model for a
forgotten episode in the human story.
>> Tell me about this forgotten episode in
the human story.
>> Yeah, it's uh it's remembered it's
remembered all around the world as a
golden age where there was no violence,
no cruelty. Um where great healers and
sages were at work. where powers that
are scorned in our society today such as
telepathy and telekinesis which are
regarded as completely non-existent by
our scientists uh were regarded as a
matter of fact of life in in in this
ancient world. That's uh a civilization
that emerged out of shamanism uh and
made something good. But then if you
follow the myths further as I've done,
you find something odd happens,
you find that they've stepped away from
the original purity.
That they've become
a culture that begins to impose its
power on others around the world. And
that's always given as the reason for
the cataclysm in the myths that that we
angered the gods. It might have been
with our noise. It might have been with
our irreverence. We angered the gods and
they sent a flood. They weren't happy
with their creation. They wanted to
start again, wipe the slate clean. And
so there's this there's always this
feeling in the myths and it's and I
can't explain it. I don't know what what
it comes from, but it's always there is
that in some way we ourselves
brought this upon ourselves. Is this
those people not understanding the
forces of mother nature and trying to
sort of justify it as
>> or perhaps a deeper understanding of the
forces of mother nature? Maybe
>> perhaps the way that human beings are
operating in the world today
um should be included amongst the forces
of nature. We we are a geological force.
Uh and worse than that, we're a psychic
force which is full of anger and hatred
and suspicion and and and mutual
destruction. That's not going to be good
for nature. That that's that's going to
be disturbing. We're an integrated
system in my view. We we're not
separate. Human beings are part of all
of this and what we do affects all of
that. And that's what the ancient myths
seem to testify to.
So, if I may finish on that,
>> when I look at our civilization today, I
I don't want to go off on a rant, but
when I look at our civilization today, I
see a civilization that ticks all the
mythological boxes. every single one for
the next lost civilization. And I
envision a situation
10 or 15,000 years from now when we will
be a myth,
a fantasy that our our ancestors
actually could speak to one another on
opposite sides of the planet, that our
ancestors they could fly to the moon, uh
you know, they could go to the depths of
the ocean. The archaeologists of that
time will say complete fantasy, just
made up, never happened, but it did.
We're that lost civilization
and we don't need a comet and we don't
need solar activity because if we're so
psychically messed up as a species,
we'll probably end up doing it to
ourselves.
That's what nuclear weapons are about.
mass species suicide
and the mental processes that drive that
very dangerous very effective of the
world we live in.
Hatred is a psychic force and uh the way
it's being generated around the world at
the moment and mobilized and focused is
um it's got to be bad for all of us
>> especially when we have such powers to
self-destruct. It's terrible. This This
is what drives me nuts is is looking at
the low consciousness level of the
so-called leaders on this planet. When I
look around the whole bunch of them,
I just see very low consciousness
individuals who define everything in
material terms. uh who who are who are
who are focused on
this also gets me into trouble but I
I think nationalism is something that
humanity needs to grow out of we need to
grow out of nationalism it's just an
extension of tribalism we need to grow
out of it soon and let me be clear I am
not talking about world government I
don't want anything like I don't want
any government I'm an anarchist
basically and that's what anarchy means
it means without government I don't not
any government at all. But we have to
get past this notion that by accident I
was born with this particular skin. You
know, the notion is that this these
accidents of birth define us. That we
must somehow massively respect and love
people who look like us and and and kind
of hate and fear people who don't look
like us. We have to get past that. We
have to get past that as a species. It's
really important. All human beings
everywhere all the same fundamentally.
Of course, we're vastly diverse. We have
we have incredible different gifts. I
value and appreciate the differences in
different cultures all around the world.
This is wonderful. But it doesn't have
to come with and we are better than you.
Uh and we're going to kill you because
you don't share our ideas. This is
insane. It's crazy. We're not a mature
species. We're we're a childish species.
And leading our species are leaders who
have the mentality of um deranged
teenagers.
>> We elected them.
>> Yeah, we did. Very unfortunately, which
shows how easy it is to manipulate
uh the narrative in the world today.
Today, who wins in elections isn't the
best person, isn't the good person,
isn't the person who's going to do good,
it's the best communicator who wins. So
this um ancient civilization that we
could have theoretically forgotten, you
were somewhat implying that maybe they
were right that their own actions
>> caused the
great flood as they say they they talk
about in mythology.
>> I floated that notion. Yeah. Yeah. They
might they might have been, but it's
enough to say that that's what they
believed because that's what all the
myths say. The Noah story is prefigured
in ancient Sumer um with um an almost
identical flood myth. The gods are
angry. A great flood is going to be
sent. The intention is to wipe out
humanity.
But this this god who's called Enki
says to Atraasis, "I'm going to save
you. Build a boat. Build it now. A big
one. Put into it the seeds of all things
that you will need. Bring each animal of
every kind into your boat." This is this
is a kind of survival arc which is
exactly the same as Noah. Noah's arc is
just copied on that. It's just borrowed
from that. And to people that say,
"Well, these are just stories. These are
fictions that someone wrote and then
they pass them down and there's no truth
in these things at all."
>> They're welcome to say that. Uh I I I
just happen to think they're not. And
and my job has been to make that case. I
do not claim that I have proved there
was a lost civilization. Any
archaeologist who says Hanok claims he's
proved that is lying. I don't claim
that. I claim I'm puzzled and mystified.
And I'm going to I'm going to complete
that journey as long as I can. I'm going
to carry on investigating and looking
into all aspects of this because that's
what I'm here to do.
>> And that lost civilization, you said
they were seabbearing potentially.
>> Seafaring. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Which means they had boats.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So we know, for example,
that anatomically modern uh human beings
reached Australia 60,000 years ago. That
those involve significant sea journeys.
They reached Cyprus in the Mediterranean
14,000 years ago. Again, they involve
sea journeys, not engine boats, not
metal boats. You can do it on quite
simple craft. Look at look at the
Polynesians. Look at the vast distances
that they explored on outrigger canoes.
Uh so yeah, boats, but not our kind of
boats.
>> H I just don't understand how if they're
traveling the seas and boats, how
they're they aren't classified as a
civilization. Well, because according to
the mainstream model which I am trying
to provide an alternative to, they never
existed. There was no such people. They
never did these things. The maps are
just coincidences, irrelevance, just
odd. They put Antarctica, they put a a
land mass in Antarctica because they
felt it would balance the world. That's
the theory that's given. And it's just
to me it's not it's not satisfactory.
Doesn't it just doesn't add up. These
things need to be explained. And it's
why it's why in every society which
wishes to make progress, uh, mavericks,
people who go against the grain, no
matter
how much they have to take, are
needed. They're needed in our society to
provide a balance to this overwhelming
mass that science now occupies. Science
has now come to occupy the space that
religion occupied in many people's
minds. And again, I need to emphasize
I'm not against science. Science.
Science is about to save my life. I have
major heart surgery coming up in two
weeks time. I'm not against it at all,
but I think it should be one weapon in
our armory, not the only weapon.
>> There should be a button just down below
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And if you're not subscribed, please
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Thank you so much.
>> One of the um things I was super curious
about, cuz I was actually there last
last week, is this place,
>> Giza.
>> Pyramids of Giza.
>> The great pyramid of Giza.
Here we look at it. Attributed to the
pharaoh Kufu,
who was a pharaoh of the fourth dynasty.
>> What is the mystery here? So again,
pyramids are this big stack of like
concrete blocks in Egypt.
>> What is the Why is it so mysterious?
>> Well, first of all, they're not
concrete. They're they're human
limestone um and granite. Uh first of
all, it's mysterious for the sheer size
of it. Look.
So you got roughly 750 ft along each
side. Okay? And they vary in length by
only fractions of an inch. they've got
it just about spot-on exact on the side
length. And you want that in a pyramid
because if you get it wrong, you're
going to end up with a corkcrew rather
than a pyramid. If you get it wrong at
the bottom, those errors are going to
magnify and they're going to get worse
and worse and it's not going to be a
pyramid at the end of the day. Secondly,
weight calculated at about 6 million
tons,
more than 2 million individual blocks of
stone. I've climbed the pyramid five
times. Once I climbed it, when there was
an event taking place on the Giza
Plateau, picnics basically, and and a
lot of Kyne just decided to climb the
pyramid. As I say, I've climbed it four
other times without other people there,
but this time there were hundreds of
people on the pyramid. That's when I
realized how difficult this thing is to
make because the biggest danger was the
other people. Once you're up two or
three courses, you fall, you're dead.
It's uh it's a 52° slope. there's no way
you're going to stop. You're going to
come down and still every year people
die on the Great Pyramid. That's why
they've made it illegal to climb it now.
So, there's that. Then there's the
almost perfect alignment of the Great
Pyramid to true north. Not to compass
North, which is about 10 or 11 degrees
off true north, but to astronomical
north, real north. The Great Pyramid is
aligned within 3 60ths of a single
degree. I put it that way because
degrees are divided into 60 minutes. So,
3 minutes of arc. The Great Pyramid is
aligned to that level of precision,
360ths of a single degree to true north.
And they've done that on a 6 million ton
monument which is 481 ft high if you
take account of its original height
which has a 52° slope which is filled
with internal corridors and spaces,
Grand Gallery, the ascending, the
descending corridors. All of this is
extremely difficult to do. It is it's
not impossible to do because we see it
there. Uh, could our civilization do it?
Yeah, I think we could. Uh, but would we
do it? No, I don't think we would. Uh,
the motive wouldn't be there. People
say, "What the why? I mean, why do you
want to align it perfectly to true
north? It's enough to ask me to build a
6 million ton monument, but you want it
aligned to true north as well. Come on.
I mean, that's a really difficult
specification. We'd find that hard." um
a kind of artistry
was put to work on the Great Pyramid as
well as skill. Let's get rid of any
notion that slaves were involved. They
were not there. There wasn't slavery in
the Old Kingdom anyway, but this is a
work of love from the first to the last
stone. It's a work done with great skill
and care. It's a beautiful and
extraordinary thing both inside and out.
It sits almost exactly on latitude 30
which is 1/ird of the way between the
north pole and the equator. And uh it
incorporates the dimensions of the earth
on a scale of 1 to 43,200
in its own dimensions. So if you take
the height of the great pyramid and
multiply it by 43,200.
I'll explain why that number matters.
Multiply it by that number, you get the
polar radius of the earth. Measure the
base perimeter of the Great Pyramid.
multiply it by the same factor, 43,200,
and you get the equatorial circumference
of the Earth.
Archaeologists know this. They say it's
a coincidence, total coincidence, just
by chance. However, I I could agree with
them actually if the scale was not 1 to
43,200.
But the fact that it's 1 to 43,200
changes everything because that belongs
to a sequence of numbers that is found
in ancient mythology all around the
world. And those numbers are all
multiples of the number 72. And I
mentioned at the beginning of our
discussion the book by the great
historian of science Giorgio de
Santiliano professor of the history of
science at MIT. He was the first to
identify that these numbers and the
imagery that go with them derive from a
phenomenon called the precession of the
equinoxes. I better explain that a
little bit. The procession of the
equinoxes.
Everybody's heard the song We live in
the dawning of the age of Aquarius. I'm
sure you've heard that.
>> Uh no comment.
>> We live in the dawning of the age of
Aquarius.
That's astrology at the moment. And for
the last 2,000 years on the spring
equinox, the sun has risen against the
background of the constellation of
Pisces.
That's the age of Pisces. We live in the
age of Pisces. It's not an accident that
the early Christians used the fish as
their symbol.
>> The next constellation on the zodiac
when you go backwards around it is
Aquarius.
And the procession is actually caused by
a wobble on the axis of the Earth. I'm
going to pretend that this is the Earth.
>> Okay.
>> And instead of just doing this, while
it's doing that, it's also doing that.
It's wobbling.
>> And that affects the rising time and
season at which particular stars rise.
It affects two things noticeably. One
thing it affects is the pole star. At
the moment, the pole star is Polaris.
The pole star, this is astron
astronomical north. It's the star
towards which the extended north pole
pole of the earth points most directly.
>> Okay. At present, it's Polaris. It
hasn't always been Polaris. 4,000 years
ago, it was Thuban in the constellation
of Draco. That's because the Earth's
axis is doing this. At the horizon, it
does the same thing with the zodiacal
constellations. We shift gradually
through each constellation lasts about
2,000 years in each constellation. The
great year where we come back to square
one is just under 26,000 years. 25,920
years is the convention that's applied
in ancient mythology. So, the fact that
one of those numbers is the scale used
to encode the dimensions of the earth in
the Great Pyramid cannot be accidental
in my view. It's a deliberate choice. If
it was 1 to 57,000,
I wouldn't pay attention to it. If it
was 1 to 21,000,
I wouldn't pay attention to it. But 1 to
43,200,
that's the number of syllables in the
Rigveda, for example. You find this all
over the world, everywhere.
>> So, what does that imply or suggest? Uh
what it suggests is that incorporated
into the building of the great pyramid
was knowledge that was not supposed to
have existed 4 and a half thousand years
ago. In fact, knowledge that was not
supposed to have existed until 2,000
years ago. Hypocus of Alexandria is the
Greek who was supposed to have
discovered procession. Uh but the
incorporation of procession in the
structure of the Great Pyramid says to
me that that knowledge is much older. It
was already old then. I really want to
make sure I'm clear on this procession
thing because I'm not not super clear.
Yeah. Um, what does it what does it mean
procession? It means that there's a
certain star pattern that we see once
every 20,000 years.
>> It it it it precesses. It goes
backwards. The direction through the
through the zodiac is is forwards in the
normal year, but in the long term year
because of the wobble, the sun rise
against the background of the spring
equinox. The sun rises perfectly due
east. It always does. It also rises
perfectly due east on the autumn
equinox. On the summer solstice, the sun
rises in the northern hemisphere north
of east and south of east on the on the
winter solstice. The key moment for the
ancients was the equinox. It was
considered to define the character of
the year. And what defined it was the
constellation that housed the sun that
was the house of the sun.
>> Okay. So the star pattern.
>> Yeah. The a zodiacal constellation.
These the constellations of the zodiac
lie along what is called the ecliptic,
the path of the sun.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. The earth, the moon, we're all on
the ecliptic within a few degrees above
or below it. And and therefore, these
are constellations that we can see the
sun against the background of.
>> Constellation like Orion, you'll never
see the sun against the background of
it. You're only going to see it against
the background of the zodiacal
constellations that lie on the so-called
path of the sun. And those are the 12
familiar constellations of the zodiac.
And as I say, we're living in the age of
Pisces right now. And uh according to
ancient astrology, we're going to be
making the transition into Aquarius
within about the next 150 years. The sun
will have left Pisces and will be rising
in Aquarius. So actually, the song is
true. We do live in the dawning of the
age of Aquarius. The only question is
whether that means anything or not. The
ancients thought it did. Uh we think it
doesn't. Uh, I'm not sure who's right.
>> So, I'm going to repeat this back to you
to check if I'm I've got it correctly,
but I suspect I might not have. Within
the design of the pyramids, there was a
number which you said was 43,000.
>> It's a scale.
>> It's a scale.
>> It's a scale that's used for the height
and the base perimeter of the Great
Pyramid. Base perimeter, measure, four
sides, add it together. Height, the
actual height of the Great Pyramid. It's
true original height. It lost about 30
feet in an earthquake in 131. But you
can calculate the true original height
from the angle of the of the sides.
>> Ah yeah right.
>> Um and when you take that height
>> and multiply it by 43,200
you get the polar radius of the earth.
>> You get the radius of the earth.
>> That's from the center of the earth to
the edge of the earth. It's not the
diameter of the earth. The diameter is
twice the radius.
>> It's the it's the polar radius. Okay.
>> A key dimension of the earth. measure
the sides and you get on the same scale
1 to 43,200, you get the equatorial
circumference of the Earth, what the
Earth measures at its equator, its
largest its largest measure. Um, and and
that uh is either a coincidence or it's
deliberate. And because of the number
chosen and because that number is all
over ancient mythology, I think it's
deliberate.
>> That means that they must have known the
circumference of the Earth.
>> Yeah. It means they they knew the
circumference of the earth and it means
they chose a place to put the great
pyramid which also was relevant. Uh this
isn't latitude 23 or latitude 37. This
is just a fraction off latitude 30°
north. So therefore 1/3 of the way
between the equator and the north pole.
It's a it's a re it's a significant
relevant. What it's telling us is this
monument speaks to the earth. This
monument is locked into the true north
of this planet. This monument gives you
the dimensions of this planet. This
monument is speaking to this planet.
>> How could they possibly know the
circumference of the Earth 4,500 years
ago?
>> Because they're a lost civilization
because the the knowledge comes down
from a former time. I don't think the
Egyptians knew it. I think it came down
I think it was inherited knowledge from
what I'm here to advocate for and to
speak for the possibility of a major
forgotten episode in the human story
>> which could be 20,000 years ago and
they've passed it down in in myths and
stories.
>> Yes, passed it down but not only in
myths and stories. Um, this is something
else that I will I'll just hint at here
that I intend to get into in the new
book is that there appear to have been
organizations
in each of these civilizations. In
Egypt, they were called the followers of
Horus.
In Sumer, they were called the Akcaloo.
They served as advisers to kings. They
were called sages. There's a reference
to them. Many cultures refer to them as
the seven sages. They provided advice to
kings in the historical period. And I'm
wondering whether we're looking at some
kind of longived organization here which
is carrying down information looking for
the right time to switch the engine of
civilization back on again. I know it's
sounds extreme but uh that's what I do.
I explore I explore extreme ideas and
see whether and see whether they fit or
not. And I'm beginning to find this idea
does fit it. It fit it fits with a whole
range of information which will be in
the next book.
>> A sage that reports to the king. And
>> it not only reports to the king but
advises the king
>> on what?
>> On everything on what to do. Oh okay.
>> Yeah.
>> The abcalu in the ancient traditions of
Sumer they existed in the pre-deluvian
world. They were there in the world
before the flood. Then there and and
they taught mankind knowledge then. But
the flood came, the cataclysm came, they
were wiped out. But some of the abcalu
survived and they appear after the flood
as advisers to the earliest historical
kings of Sumer. And I'm just wondering
whether you know there are there are
religions in the world which have
maintained traditions and maintained
offices, priesthoods for example for
thousands of years. I don't see why the
same shouldn't be true here. Why there
shouldn't have been some driving motive
at the end of the ice age to preserve in
a way what they knew and to find
mechanisms to pass it down. One
mechanism is to embed it in wonderful
stories that will go on being told. And
another mechanism is to set up some kind
of secret society which is operating
behind the scenes to guide and steer
society. I'm not going to present the
evidence for that here, but it's an
avenue I'm pursuing. If I if I don't
find it a satisfactory avenue, I'll
abandon it. But at the moment, it's
looking very interesting.
>> Then where did all this information
go? You know, because if the people who
built the pyramids of Giza had this
information, where did the sages go and
with their information?
>> Yeah, it's very it's very odd actually
what what happens after Giza is
fascinating. Um because once you once
you leave the fourth dynasty period, get
into the fifth and sixth dynasties,
pyramid building collapses. The stuff
they're making in the fifth dynasty,
like the pyramid of Unas, fifth dynasty
pyramid in Sakara.
Inside it's stunningly beautiful.
Beautiful tomb chamber, stars on the
ceiling, incredible hieroglyphs on the
side. It's magical. But outside it's
just a pile of dust. It's a mess. It
doesn't even you could hardly recognize
it as a pyramid. And it's true of all
those. So this is odd in itself.
Normally when human cultures create
something they continue to work on it
and it tends to get better and better
not worse and worse. So it's odd what
happens to the pyramids that they get
worse and worse in Egypt. It's like job
done that move on and that's there and
that's going to speak to human beings
not just for a generation, not just for
a hundred years. It's going to be there
speaking to us for thousands of years.
It's going to be sitting there on the
Giza plateau like an enormous question
mark calling towards it those who don't
see it just as a heap of stones but
actually see it as something wonderful
and magnificent and mysterious calling
them to and saying learn about me figure
me out and in the process of learning
about me you're going to learn so much
else well in learning about the great
pyramid I find that it is encoded with
astronomical information that should not
be there if the current model of the
history of science is correct. I think
the current model of the history of
science is wrong. I think this
information was known much earlier and
it's encoded in the great pyramid. Once
I know that, then I have to start
thinking what else does that mean? And
what else it means to me is a big
forgotten episode in our story
>> again. Why? Because they had
intelligence that they're not credited
with having at that time.
>> Yes. Because it's there. Because there
should not be a monument of this scale
which incorporates into it information
that was not supposed to be available to
human beings for another 2 and a half
thousand years.
>> So they must have got it from somewhere.
>> Yes, they must have got it from
somewhere. And and uh the fact that it's
there is is just a fact. All that's left
for us to say is either it's a
coincidence, complete coincidence, or
it's the result of a deliberate
decision. And if it's the result of a
deliberate decision, that weighs much
more towards a deliberate decision
because of the scale chosen because the
scale is part of a system that is found
all over the ancient world. It's not a
random number. It's a very specific
number. uh and it's a number that is
derived from a motion of the earth
itself from the precession of the
earth's axis. It is derived from that.
So I'm situated at a significant
latitude. I'm oriented to true north and
I incorporate the measurements of your
planet on a scale derived from your
planet itself. That's what the Great
Pyramid is saying to us. And it's saying
figure that out.
>> Do you think there's something
underneath it?
>> Oh, there's definitely something
underneath it. Because we think of it as
a sort of like building with the with
tunnels inside it. But
>> yeah, when you go into the great pyramid
now, you go in through what is what is
called the robber's tunnel or Mammoon's
hole. The Khalifa Mammoon had a notion
that there would be a entrance to the
Great Pyramid in its northern face.
Other pyramids had been found with
entrances in their northern face, but at
that time the Great Pyramid was
completely covered with perfectly smooth
limestone facing stones and nobody could
see the entrance. They came off later in
that earthquake in 13001, but when he
broke in in the 9th century, they didn't
know where the door was. Apparently,
there was a place you could almost
literally press a switch and open that
door, but they couldn't find it. So,
they broke in with sledgehammers and
chisels and they smashed their way into
the Great Pyramid. And then at a certain
moment when they're about 60 or 70 ft
into the Great Pyramid, they hear
something dropping in a hollow space. a
big something has fallen in a hollow
space. They head towards that sound and
then they enter the original corridor
system of the Great Pyramid. And that's
the way we all go in now. We go in
through that robber's tunnel and then we
go up the Grand Gallery, but we can also
go down. We can go down to the
subterranean chamber, which is 100 ft
vertically beneath the base of the Great
Pyramid, deep in the bedrock. I actually
think that was the original sacred site
on that monument is that subterranean
chamber. I don't advise anybody with
claustrophobia to go down there. You're
very conscious that you got a 6 million
ton monument sitting right above you and
it place that has earthquakes. Um it can
be quite oppressive, but that's just a
hint of what's under the Giza plateau.
That's just that's an accessible bit. Uh
but it's it's it's already obvious that
there that there is so much more. Some
of it's being picked up with ground
penetrating radar. And I'll take this
opportunity to say that the hysterical
reaction of mainstream scientists to the
announcement by Filippo Beyond uh
>> what is he saying?
>> He's saying that there are enormous
structures under the second pyramid that
not the great pyramid under the pyramid
attributed to Kafrey Kufu's successor.
the the structures that go hundreds of
feet deep under there, structures that
involve spiral
kind of stairways. The reaction has been
overwhelmingly dismissing this.
Archaeologists have not they won't look
further. They say it's impossible and
they won't look at it. And I think
that's shameful for people who imagine
they're scientists. They should be
looking further. I'd like to see the
technology trial in Turkey. There are
underground cities in Turkey, Kaimaki,
for example. we know every room in those
underground cities. Run this technology
on them. If they accurately reproduce
what we already know is there, then we
can be pretty sure they're accurately
reproducing what's under the Giza
pyramids. We need to do a lot more work
before dismissing this. So, I'm I remain
open to the notion that a huge
underworld awaits discovery under Giza.
And the ancient Egyptians themselves
felt that way. They felt that Giza, the
ancient name for it was Rosttow. It was
an entrance to the underworld. They saw
it as an entrance to the afterlife
realm. It makes sense that there would
be much much underground structures
there.
>> And you've been alone in the pyramids.
>> Being with large groups in the pyramid
is difficult in the sense that the
pyramid to me feels like a personality.
When I'm in there with a large group, I
I feel the pyramid withdrawing. It it
it's like it doesn't want to speak to
you anymore. It's the place becomes a
dead space. But but if you can be in
there with a very small group or be
there alone
and just be still,
let the silence descend. Sit in that
silence in the very low lighting that's
in there.
Just pause and
remind yourself that you're in the last
surviving wonder of the ancient world
and it's an incredible privilege to be
there.
And just let it speak to you. And it
does. This is of course my critics will
say another proof that Hanok's a
lunatic. Uh but uh I'm just telling you
what what what what happens to me. It's
a I I think it's a monument that
communicates.
>> What did it say to you?
>> It said to me go further
very much so. I I I I feel
in a weird way validated by the Great
Pyramid. I think it's um not only me,
others as well who've devoted big chunks
of their lives to the great pyramid like
Robert Baval who is a great man by the
way. The Orion correlation, the
recognition that the three pyramids on
the ground are laid out in the pattern
of the belt stars of the constellation
of Orion makes radical and important
changes to our understanding of ancient
Egypt. Again, that's another thing
that's been leapt upon by the
archaeological mafia, uh, because they
want to destroy every new idea, uh,
rather than spend a bit of time thinking
about it.
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If what you're saying is true around
the, you know, the first civilizations
being 20 plus thousand years ago, what
does that mean for us, for our lives?
>> Oh, it's really important meaning for us
because because it will finally remind
us and tell us once and for all that
we're not what it's all about.
>> It's not all about us. The whole human
story is not about us. It's not
inevitable that it comes to this and
that we are temporary like every other
civilization. We're so filled with
arrogance and pride right now in our
technological achievements, our great
abilities, our great powers
and uh the arrogance that comes with
that. The Greeks used to call that
hubris. It's ultimately ends in nemesis.
Ultimately brings you down. Arrogance
arrogance is not a good thing. It's not
a good thing in an individual and it's a
terrible thing in a civilization.
>> It also means that a lot of the things
that we've dismissed as you know
conspiracy or you know hocus pocus
whatever might not be. I mean you talk a
lot about like astrology and stuff like
that and
>> yeah I think we should keep open to to
systems that the ancients used which
we've dismissed like
>> which might be very astrology is one of
them. What does astrology ultimately
say? It it ultimately says that
we these beings these humans aren't
isolated but are connected to the
universe and are affected by everything
that happens in the universe and it's
and it's recognizing that there may be
patterns in that and instead of instead
of just rubbishing that or doing a few
investigations I think it may be worth
looking further into that worth looking
further into telepathy too my friend
Rbert Sheldrich a serious scientist one
of the very few who's doing serious
scientist ific work on
issues like telepathy and like
telekinesis, being able to move things
with your mind. Mainstream scientists,
most of them will just laugh at that.
Absolute rubbish. Yeah, go away. You're
a lunatic. But why are we lunatics to
look into those things? It's really
interesting and it's really worth
investigating. We re should realize that
we have a heritage of hundreds of
thousands of years and I believe it's
even older than 315,000 years. We do not
have a heritage of a hundred years,
which is the heritage of modern science.
Well, let's let's be generous. Let's put
modern science even back to the Greeks
in a way. But it doesn't become what we
would recognize as science until the
19th century really. So, it's a very
young thing on if you take the human
being as the as the heart of this and
and and you were to find a little pimple
on the nose of that human being, that
would be science. It's a pimple on the
nose of hundreds of thousands of years
of human experience. Why should we be so
arrogant to dismiss those hundreds of
thousands of years of human experience
in the favor of 150 years maximum of
so-called science?
>> I mean, one of the interesting things is
I actually did go to the Amazon
rainforest in Peru. Um,
>> and they've discovered these like big
square things underground.
>> I've been involved in that.
>> What is What is that? Well, the the name
that's being given to them is uh is
geoglyphs.
>> Geoglyphs.
>> I think I know this one. Nobody knew
they existed at all until about 40 years
ago
>> really.
>> And uh because the Amazon rainforest is
a rainforest and and densely covered
with uh canopy. However, it's constantly
being settled. This is a problem in
itself. It's constantly being settled.
The Amazon is being cleared and it's
being turned into farms. It's the
clearance of bits of the Amazon
initially that exposed these huge
geometric structures.
>> Mhm.
>> Under the rainforest, no longer under
because they cleared the rainforest. Now
with LiDAR, I've been involved with
Marty Parsonan. In fact, he was on my
Netflix show. He's a archaeologist from
Finland and and with Alteo Ramanzi, a
Brazilian geographer. Um what they're
doing is a dense lidar survey of the
whole of Ara province in Brazil. This is
in our Cray province as well. The areas
that are still under canopy rainforest
and lidar can see through the canopy and
it can see raised objects underneath and
it can actually give you the shape of
that object. Then they can go in low u
you know low impact just a few of them
go in check it out see what's there and
then begin the archaeology on the site.
>> I mean this is a prime example. I've got
um I've got a list here of things that
we used to believe and things that how
those beliefs have changed. And one of
them was that we used to believe that
the Amazon was an untouched wilderness.
>> That's right.
>> But in the 1970s, we discovered what, a
thousand of these structures
>> at least. Uh they're confident now from
the LAR work that they're you're talking
of thousands,
3, five, 6 thousand. There are also
roadways that run for 100 km plus. Uh
there's absolutely no doubt that the
Amazon once supported a population of
millions with um extraordinary clever
management of rainforest. soils by
creating a man-made soil that they call
terrapa. It's still used in Brazil
today. We are having to
completely reconceive the Amazon.
It was thought of as a pristine
rainforest which a few human beings
wandered around aimlessly in hunting
whatever. Now we know that it was the
homeland
of a very large population who lived in
city-sized communities.
um who joined those communities with
long straight roadways.
It's it's as though the veil is being
pulled back and we're beginning to see a
completely untold story in the Amazon.
And these geoglyphs,
very precise rectangles, triangles,
circles, squares, all of these it's
geometry. It's geometry. What what's it
what's it doing there in the Amazon? And
and when I when I talked to a local
shaman about this, and I did on on
camera in the in the in the Netflix
show, um he talked to me about how
important these places still are to him,
that these places were made by their
ancestors, that they're places for
shamanic gatherings,
places for shamans to use specifically
to contact the world beyond. Let's be
clear about this. All civilizations,
including ours, although we may deny it,
all of them emerged from shamanism.
Shamanism is the essence uh of the human
adventure uh and and all civilizations
emerge from shamanism. And this one was
shamanism. Yes. Shamanism being the
system of using altered states of
consciousness to gain direct access to
other levels of reality
>> like psychedelics.
>> Yeah, psychedelics or you can fast for a
month. Uh that will give you some
visions too. Uh there there are there
are other ways but but psychedelics are
the most efficient way to enter the
altered state of consciousness and
shamans are masters of the use of plant
medicines everywhere in the world but
particularly in the Amazon rainforest.
This is this is where you you see it
most strongly and DMT the active
ingredient of awaska is very fast acting
in the way that it's normally consumed.
Okay. It's normally vaped or smoked. Uh
it produces a 10-minute journey
literally to the other side of reality.
Uh and there's not much you can do about
it once you're in there. But then you're
out again.
Iaska
is a very clever technology. The Iaska
brew contains DMT.
DMT is not orally active. So you can
drink a tea made of with loads of DMT in
it and it's not going to do anything to
you because there's an enzyme in the gut
that destroys it.
>> The iawaska vine contains a chemical
that shuts that enzyme down and allows
the DMT to be absorbed orally producing
an experience that can last for hours
that can be physically very
uncomfortable. Um what they're doing at
Imperial College is they're giving them
DMT by intravenous infusion
>> using basically anesthesia technology to
constantly top up the dose to keep the
individual in the peak state and unlike
other psychedelics there's no tolerance
with DMT so you can keep on dosing
people
>> when you you've taken OAS 80 times
>> something like that something like that
um it's not just it's important to be
clear about a number of things.
First of all, all psychedelics are
extremely serious matters. They are not
to be taken trivially. They are
extremely serious. With uh
experienced use of Iawaska, one of the
very common reports is this moral
dimension that you are presented with
your own life, with what you've done
with your own life, with the pain that
you may have caused to others. And
suddenly that pain that you caused to
another person which you dismissed as
they just deserved that they just
deserve those words. You suddenly get it
from their point of view. You feel the
agony that your words caused that person
and you and you find yourself did I do
that? Did I say that? You suddenly see
what you are.
You can't go back into your own past and
change negative and useless and
pointless things that you did. You can't
do that. but you can avoid repeating
them in the future. And it's that
teaching of a moral lesson uh that I
find most valuable in Iawaska. It's
helped me to come to terms with my
tendency to swift anger. I'm I'm very
aware that that's a problem I have and
it's something I need to do something
about. And I I helped me with that. I'
I've become gentler and and softer. Not
gentle enough, maybe. It's a journey.
It's not a it's not an overnight
transformation. Not a magic pill. Uh the
main work with Iawaska comes after the
medicine. The main work comes with what
you do with the experience, how you
integrate it into your life. That's
where the work begins. People say, "Oh,
it's so easy to take a a brew." Well,
it's not actually not that easy because
you're going to vomit and have diarrhea,
but but easy. Um but that's where the
work begins, not where it ends.
>> And that emotion is that does that stem
back to your relationship with your
parents? Because I was reading about
your early your early years.
Look, we're all frail human beings.
We're all messed about in lots of ways.
We all have we all have issues in our
lives. Um,
>> you said regret.
>> Regret. Yes, I I do regret saying
hurtful and unkind things to a number of
people uh over the years. I do I do
regret that very much. I do regret very
much that I wasn't
I wasn't mature enough to realize why my
parents were so difficult. Uh that I
never really forgave them for that. I
never really forgave them for the
stranges of my childhood and and uh the
various things that that that that
happened. I never really saw it from
their point of view. My mother lost
three children aside from me. I'm an
only child, but her first child was
carried to term before me and born dead.
Then I was born. I lived and then the
next two both died at the age of a year.
Well, I know now as a father, I know I
know what what quite a catastrophe that
is for a person for a for a mother to to
lose three children like that.
>> You said weird childhood.
>> Yeah. So, this is me. This is little
Graeme here with my mother and my
father. I was It was 1954
that we landed in India. My father was a
s consultant surgeon and so he went as a
missionary surgeon to India to a place
called the Christian medical college in
velour in south India. Um and we lived
in a tin hut but he was following his
faith. He was doing what was what was
right for him. He was giving his skills
to help to help people. I I I realize
that now and a lot of resentment I have
towards him I probably you know
shouldn't have. Um he was an odd guy. He
was very eccentric. He used to take me
in to watch dissections. Um the there
were still hangings in India at that
time and he would dissect the prisoners
after the hangings. He had me in there
watching it. Um he took me later on.
>> What age?
>> Uh uh five.
>> You were watching bodies being cut up at
five.
>> I was. Yeah. Absolutely very strange.
See it was presented to me as completely
normal. Um but but it was it it was
strange. Fundamentally he was a good man
I believe.
But I think allowing a 4 to 5year-old
child be to see those things is deeply
traumatic in a way that you probably
don't recognize until later.
>> I I agree. It's it's come home to me
more and more as the years have gone by
that what happened to me in those years
in India
scarred me deeply. It wasn't just the
operating theaters and the dissections,
the dissections. It was the gloom and
the misery and the despair that settled
over my family at that time and I don't
think I ever really recovered from that.
>> Did you have nightmares?
>> Yeah.
>> And what what were those nightmares?
>> Um, usually nightmares of loss. Usually
nightmares of
suddenly I'm alone. I'm in a I'm in a
I'm completely isolated, lost, alone.
The reason I ask these questions is
there's only ever been one other guest
who I sat here with a couple of years
ago
>> who I believe's dad was a surgeon.
>> Mhm.
>> And his dad brought him in to watch
operations and dissections when he was
young.
>> Yeah.
>> And it scarred him in a way that he
didn't realize until later. Yeah.
>> And he told me about the nightmares of
waking up in the night and seeing those
bodies of those people around his bed on
a predictable basis and told me he
actually um coached Michael Jordan
>> and then um Kobe before Kobe Bryant um
passed away and he told me still as an
adult those bodies join him at night
time. So he'll wake up at nighttime and
he'll see them around
>> around his bed. So
>> well thank you universe. That didn't
happen to me. I I I do not have I don't
remember having gruesome nightmares. I
remember a feeling of loneliness and
abandonment. That's what I remember.
>> Loneliness and abandonment.
>> Mhm. I've always felt that way. I was
always an outsider at school. Uh
everywhere I've been all my life. That's
what I'm for. I'm here to be an
outsider. I've come to that conclusion.
And and uh I need to do that. Well, I
need to provide an alternative point of
view on the past.
>> There's a real cost to being an
outsider.
>> Oh, yeah. But there are also some
benefits. You know, we are what we are.
And and for me, I was always strange. I
had this childhood in in in India. I
didn't fit into the British school
system. I was a total failure at school.
I could not connect. I could not connect
with any of it. It seemed I just didn't
get it. What was this about? And and and
the cruelty, the viciousness. My dad
went to a boarding school and had a good
experience. So he sent me to a boarding
school in Durham in the north of
England. It was the crulest place,
beatings going on. I I was repeatedly
beaten about the bare buttocks by a
sadistic headmaster with a cane. I
couldn't fit in with the other kids at
school. And uh I don't feel victimized
for being an outsider. I feel I feel
it's a privilege. I feel I've been given
I've been given an opportunity to take a
different view of things as a result of
being an outsider.
>> Are there words unsaid here with these
two people in your life?
>> Yes, there are there are so many words
unsaid. I'd like to go back to my mom
and say,
you know, I understand why you were so
obsessed with keeping me alive and
making sure that I did something with my
life. And I'd like to say to my dad,
look, you you were pretty crazy, but you
you did at least inspire me to be
eccentric.
It's a funny thing getting older. I'm
75, 76 in August. One of the things it
does is it you realize how collapsed
life actually is. I remember being a
teenager and I remember being a young
man and and I remember being
middle-aged. And the feeling is you're
immortal. It's going to go on forever.
Everything's going to go on forever. And
it's long. It's long. Lots of time to do
the things you want to do. I have a
message. No, it's not long. There is not
lots of time. If there's things you want
to do with your life, start now. Start
right away. Don't wait. Otherwise,
you'll not have the opportunity. Life is
very short. It's a beautiful, beautiful
gift that the universe has given to us.
We are responsible for returning that
gift by as far as possible within the
circumstances that the universe has
given us living a full life and
contributing something worthwhile to
that life. Not being a robot, not being
commanded what to do, not We we need to
learn to think for ourselves. This is
something that is so easily forgotten.
It's a miracle that you and I are
sitting here at all that I'm here, that
you're here, that we're here together.
It's absolute miracle. It's a result of
billions and billions of years of
processes in the universe which had
nothing to do with us randomly bring us
together at this at this point. It's
it's really quite a miraculous
situation. To be alive, to be born at
all is a miracle. Um I think it was
Voltater who talking about reincarnation
uh who said um it's no more
extraordinary to be born twice than to
be born once. Uh and I think there's a
point in that.
>> Are you religious? You believe in a god
or
>> I would say that I am um that I pay
attention close attention to what I
would regard as the spiritual
non-physical side of life. Um but I do
not belong to any organized religion.
One of the things I don't like about
organized religion is that your
relationship to the divine, whatever you
call the divine spirit world, whatever
you want to call it, your relationship
is mediated in some way. Some priest or
rabbi or müller teaches you how to
mediate that relationship. And I I think
what's important in for me anyway in in
the spiritual inquiry is a direct
relationship, a direct experience.
Rather than being taught something, I
want to experience it for myself. And
that's why I found Iawaska very very
valuable. Um because it has enabled me
to experience something that is
absolutely impossible to experience in
normal everyday life. We're so plugged
in. We're so plugged in to the physical
world and we have to be we've got to be
we got to obey the laws of physics. We
got to deal with the economics of our
circumstances. You know, we have to make
our way through life. All of those
things we've got to do. Um, but
if they become our total focus, we
become shut off from everything and
anything else that may exist. And what
the big psychedelics can do if they're
taken in the right circumstances with
the right advice
with sincere intention, what they can do
is get you out of your own way and allow
you to connect to that wider realm that
normally you cannot connect to. And yes,
I do believe that a wider realm exists.
uh just in the same way that uh you you
know before the invention of the
microscope we had no idea that there
were bacteria I think I'm right about
that we start seeing these tiny little
things swimming around gosh major
discovery well they were always there we
just didn't have the kit to see them and
I'm suggesting that what psychedelics
can be and certainly what they used as
shamans by for is a technology a device
uh for getting you out of your own way
and allowing you to connect with other
levels of reality that in daily life it
doesn't serve you to be connected with.
>> The interesting thing about DMT in
particular is when you speak to people
who have done DMT, you know, I spent
about a year working in a quite a big
psychedelics company just to I got
really fascinated. I'd left my company.
I didn't have anything to do with my
time. So I started this podcast and I
also uh on YouTube and I also started
working at a psychedelics business cuz I
found the studies on mental health and
psychedelics really interesting. So I
have quite a deep understanding I guess
higher than average of IV gain and Iaska
and DMT and my partner um is very very
spiritual and has done all these things
as well. So
>> one of the fascinating things is how
similar people's experiences are on
something like DMT. the funnily enough
your description of these creatures
saying you're you belong to us now is
almost verbatim what what one of my
friends described two weeks ago
>> that they were teleported into this like
4K realm where these creatures that are
like slightly animal in their anatomical
structure maybe slightly a little bit
human as well
>> basically was like had
>> had taken hold of him
>> and they were very curious and
inspecting him very colorful realm and
then they kind of sent him back or at
least you know after the and and it does
make one wonder. I think one of my
conclusions was if if inhaling a small
chemical can completely take me to
another place
>> then and and if you from a reasoning
perspective it's just a it was an in one
inhale of a chemical then it goes to say
that my current perception of reality
>> is just is as fragile as an inhale of a
chemical. Like me thinking that I'm here
with you now
>> is as fragile as inhaling
>> one chemical. Yeah.
>> So to think that this is base reality
when the difference between this and
being with some grasshopper people
>> in 4K
>> Exactly.
>> is literally an ale. It just that for me
I was like, "Oh, wow." Okay.
>> It's an extraordinary realization when
that comes and it causes us to question
the nature of reality itself. And this
is um this is what's really important
about these medicines. First and
foremost, you're right. the these um
psychedelic medicines are proving
incredibly effective as therapeutic
tools and that's great. I I I really I
think that's incredibly valuable. But
there's another level to go which is to
the inquiry into the nature of reality
and the inquiry into what consciousness
is. These medicines are very effective
means to conduct that inquiry. And
that's why I applaud what they're doing
at Imperial College in London. They're
also going to be doing trials at the
University of California, San Diego. Um
they're going to be doing trials in
Costa Rica. Uh a whole range of places
now are looking into this because it's
really interesting people coming back
and reporting the same experience when
they haven't compared notes yet.
>> How do we explain that? Because it's in
a vision
>> and people say that at the moment the
default mode is to dismiss it and say
that's just rubbish. Don't waste time on
it. Our preconceptions about the nature
of reality should not limit our inquiry
into the nature of reality. And at the
moment still unfortunately there are
preconceptions about the nature of
reality which is that it's materialbased
that there's nothing else to it really.
Everything is reduced to matter. Even
consciousness is reduced to matter. It's
reduced to the physical matter of the
brain. We don't know that for sure. We
don't know what's going on.
consciousness is absolutely not
understood. And so when we have
mysteries like people who are injected a
small dose of a chemical like DMT and go
off into a completely other reality,
that's really interesting. And it's it's
it's it's at least as interesting, if
not more interesting than exploring
other planets right now. I think we need
to I think we need to explore ourselves
first. We need to We're not in shape as
a species to start exploring the
universe. We don't want to export our
toxicity to other parts of the universe
until we've overcome it, until we've
grown up as a species, which we haven't
done yet. We need to know ourselves.
Psychedelics are one way to do that. Not
used irresponsibly, but used responsibly
in a structured, careful, thoughtful
way. They can be very helpful in knowing
ourselves. That's the journey we need to
do first. Go to Mars by all means, you
know, go to the moon. we go even
further, but do this first. Know who you
are first before you start doing those
bigger and wider investigations. Get all
that sorted out because we're hardly
sorted out anything on this planet and
we're talking about exploring other
planets. Well, I'm all in favor of
exploring other planets, but I'd like to
sort out things on this planet first.
That's where the resources should be
going. And we should stop kidding
ourselves that we can just escape this
planet and make a complete hole of
it, leave it, and go and live somewhere
else. No, we can fix this. We are
capable of fixing this. We're capable of
fixing everything. Human beings have
enormous potential. We're just using a
fraction of 1% of it at the moment.
>> The question I, you know, I mean, the
obvious question that comes to mind is
how I see, you know, maybe I don't know,
maybe some kind of leader comes along.
>> Could be. Um, I think we need to need to
move past leaders.
>> I just don't know how else humans would
change without some kind of leadership.
It's very difficult to see. I agree with
you. It's very it's very difficult to
see how it happens one person at a time
um slowly through through word of mouth,
through experience. But look, everything
in the Iawaska garden is not all flowers
either. There's a lot of very wrong
behavior going on there. People are
exploiting that medicine. Basically,
drug dealers are exploiting that
medicine and offering it irresponsibly
to people in groups of a hundred or even
more. that that that's that's actually
really really stupid to do that. I Iaska
is an intimate experience and it needs
to be done in a very small group, not a
very large group.
So it's not it's not all roses. I'm not
you know I'm not trying to paint these
medicines in a in in a false light. They
have their downsides. They have their
problems. They are extremely serious. We
should always research and investigate
before any experience with psychedelics,
but they have a part to play and it's an
important part. And thank God we're
seeing its effects. Psilocybin effect on
long-term depression, very important.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, very
important. These therapeutic
breakthroughs hopefully will open the
door to further inquiries into the kind
of work that's being done at Imperial
College. What does this really tell us
about the mystery of consciousness? What
does this really tell us about what we
think is real?
>> If you're thinking about starting a
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>> Through your journey through um ancient
civilizations, what have you come to
learn about what this consciousness
thing is, if anything at all, or at
least what people believed.
>> Yeah.
>> Um and how those mythologies were
similar.
>> Yes. I've partly I've partly come to
this through the ancient texts. There's
a very specific uh scene in a number of
the ancient Egyptianerary texts. It's
called the judgment scene. And what you
see is you see the deceased entering
into a hall into a room at the end of
which sits the god Osiris enthroned.
And uh the deceased is led into the hall
by the goddess Mart. She's recognized by
a feather that she wears in her
headdress. She's the goddess of truth,
justice, and cosmic harmony.
He enters the hall. There's a scale in
the hall. In one pan of the scale is an
object that represents his heart,
oblique, his soul. Heart and soul were
the same thing for the Egyptians in that
sense. And in the other pan is the
feather of mart, the feather of truth,
harmony, and cosmic justice.
You do not want your heart to outweigh
the feather at that moment.
You want at the very least to be in
balance.
And in order to be in balance then comes
into question the whole way that you've
lived your life. Up on the wall of the
hall there are 42 little figures.
They're called the 42 negative
assessors. Each one of them is going to
ask you a question. Did you steal? Did
you kill? Actually, the ten commandments
are all in there and a lot more as well.
Ideally, you should be able to answer no
to all of those questions, but the
ancient Egyptians always understood how
frail human beings are and that we can
always make mistakes. The question is,
what do we do when we make a mistake? Do
we learn from it or do we keep on
repeating it? And what I read into that
is you were given, you deceased, you
were given an incredible opportunity. We
allowed you to be born in a human body.
You could have a range of experiences
that no other physical form on your
planet could have. You you you had this
huge brain. You had this enormous
capacity. We gave it this to you. What
did you do with it?
Did you use it well or did you squander
it and waste it? And at that moment,
you'd better be there with some answers
about how you used it well. So, as I
come towards the end of my life, I look
very carefully at my life. I and um I
try to undo wrongs that I have done in
the past if I can and I try to make sure
I don't do any more in the future. I
want to be a nurturing and positive and
useful person to the people around me.
>> The the health situation you've gone
through has clearly made you quite
introspective, probably more so than you
you might have been 10 years ago, I'm
guessing.
>> Oh, yeah. AB: Absolutely. I was still
immortal 10 years ago. M
>> listen each and every one of us, every
single human being on this planet could
die in the next minute. Life is that
fragile. It's that sudden. You can never
predict you you how long you're going to
live. But what something like this does,
it focuses the mind and it does make me
wish more and more that I can leave this
life with as few regrets as possible and
that I can feel that I played a useful
and positive role in the life of others
and that I even played in some way a
useful and positive role in the life of
the species to which I belong. Are you
happy?
>> I am very happy
in a lot of ways. I'm blessed to have
lived the life I've lived, to have
traveled the world, to have the
adventures that I have had. I am blessed
with a beautiful and wonderful wife and
companion. My wife Samtha
>> got this wonderful picture of her.
>> Yeah.
>> Glows.
>> That's me and Samantha. We met when we
were about 40 years old. And um I don't
think we've been apart more than 4 days
in the entire 30 plus years uh since
then.
>> Wow.
>> Uh we do everything together. We travel
together. Samantha's a photographer.
Brilliant photographer. And and and uh I
do not have a great visual eye. So we
work together. I do the words. Sa does
the pictures. We have the adventures
together. We did the scuba diving
together. Samantha nearly lost her life
twice in intense currents scuba diving.
She's brave. She's an adventurer.
She's a wonderful mother. This is so
important. Samantha and I have six
children between us. Samantha brought
two from her previous marriage. I
brought two from my first marriage and
two from my second marriage. So, six
children from three broken marriages is
a potential disaster. Santa brought them
all together into a group of loving,
deeply committed siblings who care for
one another, who are constantly in each
other's lives, who are there to support
one another. SA did that by just being a
brilliant, loving person. So, I'm very
happy to have such a great partner who's
stood by me through thick and thin and
who's brought out these wonderful
characters in in in our children and now
our grandchildren. You know, nine
grandchildren, six grandkids, all of
it's down to Santa. It's remarkable that
through all the wonders of human history
and all the things we talked about that
love like this kind of romantic love is
so central, so important, so central to
our happiness. I just thought, oh, it's
it's just a wonderful reminder of um how
easy it is to get caught up in the
material and and all the toxic whereas,
you know, so much of it comes from just
the simplicity of falling in love with
someone.
>> Love is what it's all about. And and
love is love is giving. It's giving
yourself to somebody else. It's putting
the other person. Sorry, I'm going to
end up crying. This This is what my wife
does all the time with everybody.
She puts other people first and uh
others benefit enormously from that. I'm
very fortunate. I think I think if I
hadn't met Samantha when I did and we
hadn't formed this joint life, I think I
would have made nothing of my life.
Nothing at all really.
>> I think it would have just gone down the
tubes. I needed a loving steering hand
at that point. Anyway, very lucky. I I I
am happy. There are things that make me
unhappy, of course, just like every
every every other human being. I I don't
understand why those who are bitterly
opposed to my work want to try and
present me as some kind of fraud or
grifter. But I suppose it's a easy way
to lazily dismiss somebody else. Uh,
another thing that has been used is
because I've considered the possibility
of a lost civilization having an
influence on other known historical
civilization. Uh I've been accused of
racism as well that I've been I've been
accused of taking away the authenticity
of indigenous achievements. Um and and
that again has been without without any
receipts. It's not been it's just thrown
out there as an accusation. Now for me
with with a multithnic family uh that
racism abuse that has been thrown at me
constantly uh is extremely hurtful and
extremely painful. It's one of the few
things that have been thrown at me that
I actually cannot forgive. It's
unforgivable to use that lazy
easy dismissal
in a society where a lot of people don't
read anymore. I mean, pretty much
guarantee people who hear that on the
internet, they're not going to go and
read the books and actually find out
what I said. They're just going to take
it as face value. So, that does hurt and
it does make me sad. But generally, I'm
blessed. I'm lucky. I've lived a
fantastic privileged life. I've explored
the world. I'm surrounded by love and
onwards and upwards as far as I'm
concerned.
>> Well, you know, Graeme, I think at the
end of the day, the thing that endures
is
>> the impact, the curiosity that you've
you've provoked in people, allowed them
to wander beyond the narrowness of our
lives, which is quite miserable.
>> A narrow life is feels quite like a
miserable life where you can't be
open-minded and explore. And and that's
why I love these conversations. It's not
to say that I that I always accept when
I have these kind of conversations
everything to be 100% true, but the net
benefit for me is just expanding my mind
>> to possibility.
>> Absolutely.
>> And like please don't rob me of the
opportunity to expand my mind to
possibility. What would my life become
without possibility or hope or these
things? And and actually when I look at
>> graphs like this that show how our
beliefs uh and scientific understanding
has changed even in recent times as as
recent as 2017 on this particular graph.
I go well I have some arrogance to
assume that I know it all today.
>> Totally. Things things are constantly
changing. You know every turn of the
spade in an archaeological dig can
change the whole story.
>> Change the whole story. This is not
limited to archaeology. This is found in
all fields where there are specialists
that they they tend to get locked into a
particular reference frame and actually
defend it in a territorial way. It
becomes like a war and they they they
feel absolutely responsible to defend
that territory against all comers and
will use any dirty tricks that are
needed to be used in order to defeat the
enemy. So you asked me a straightforward
question. Am I happy? Yes, I am happy.
And I honestly answered you that there
are certain things, particularly the
racism assaults on me, that do make me
extremely unhappy.
>> What else do I need to know about the
the possibility of an ancient
civilization that might inform how I
think about myself, my life, and I guess
also our future. What I found so
fascinating is especially we're in a
moment of this AI revolution where
you've got these sort of big forces of
you got nuclear weapons over here,
you've now got this advanced
intelligence, there's humanoid robots on
the horizon. And if there was ever a
moment where the word, you know,
existential is being used in a in a way
that is probably appropriate for me, it
feels like now.
>> Yeah, feels like now to me, too. Uh this
is uh no doubt uh our species is poised
on the edge of an abyss right now. Uh
our technology has outgrown our
mentality. Uh and we're not uh we're not
in good shape to deal with the
challenges that lie ahead. I I un
unfortunately the chances of a nuclear
exchange are just higher and higher.
That's just a realistic assessment of
the way the world is with these maniacal
leaders. So what could we learn from the
past? We can I I I believe we can learn
that there's another way to live that we
don't have to do it this way.
>> I I that's that's something I believe.
>> Okay. Believe
>> that's something I don't know.
>> Okay. I guess I'm optimistic that human
beings have made it through
all these centuries, all these thousands
of years, all these hundreds of
thousands of years that we've made it
through. We've made terrible mistakes
and terrible. I mean, look at the Second
World War. God know how many people were
killed there. 20 million Russians alone
if I remember correct. It was just
horrific. Absolute horror. It's only
when I was born in 1950, the Second
World War was only 5 years away. and at
the end of it and it hung over us. You
know, you our our generation were aware
of that, but it seems to me people today
aren't aware of the horror of global war
in the way that they were and and and uh
that adds to the to the danger that we
will emulate ourselves. I think a new
approach to the nature of reality is
really vital. I think we we need to
begin to understand consciousness
better. Uh and what I would wish for the
human species
is that we understand we are actually
all one. Incredibly diverse,
full of creativity and differences, but
but all one. And a mother in the middle
of subsahara and Africa and a mother in
New York City, they love their kids in
exactly the same way. They hope for
their kids in exactly the same way.
There's no difference between them at
all. As long as we're as long as we're
indoctrinated into this notion of
divisive differences, I'm all in favor
of differences between human beings.
That's part of our creativity as our
species, but divisive differences,
that's what's going to kill us off. Uh,
and that's, I think, the message that
comes down from the past. Whether it's a
correct message or not, the message is
we, a former civilization,
made a terrible mistake. and it resulted
in a cataclysm that brought us down. I
think we need to realize that can happen
again. Uh and that we are most likely to
be the cause of that cataclysm
ourselves. Uh there may there may be a
danger of further comet impacts. The
younger drius comet fragments. It's
called the torid meteor stream. The
earth passes through it twice a year in
June and in October, November. Uh there
are hundreds of deadly objects in the
torid meteor stream. It could happen.
But I think a much more likely way that
we're going to bring our civilization
back almost to the stone age is nuclear
war.
We're going to do it to ourselves.
Unless we wake up, unless we become more
conscious of what it is to be a human
being, of the privilege and the gift of
being a human being, and how that
privilege of gift belongs to every human
being, not just to us. But I don't know
how that's going to be done. I I I do
think psychedelics can play a role. I've
said many times and I'll say it again.
If I if I had the power to do so, I
would insist that every world leader has
at least at least a dozen sessions of
Iawaska before they even apply for the
job.
>> Because you believe that would give them
the same feeling of oneness that
>> I think most of them wouldn't apply for
the job at all.
>> Oh, really?
>> And those who did would would probably
do a much better job
>> because they'd understand themselves
better.
Graeme, what is the most important thing
we haven't discussed as it relates to
our past and what it might teach us or,
you know, how it might inform how we
choose to live our lives today? Um, that
we haven't discussed. Look, the most
important thing as far as far as I'm
concerned is independent inquiry. We
need to start thinking for ourselves and
that's true of the past and it's true of
everything else. uh to the to the extent
that I that I do get positive feedback
from young people and I do a lot that
feedback is thank you for being an
example to question everything.
>> Mhm.
>> It happens that what I'm questioning is
the past but that can be a model for
questioning everything. I I feel that
that
very poor journalism
being used to smear my name because I
asked questions and because I asked them
vigorously and because most important of
all I reached a large audience. That's
it really. They won't sneer your name if
you don't reach a large audience. You're
not worth their trouble.
>> I know the feeling.
>> Yeah. But I think but you know for me my
thing has always been that um all it's
done has made me clearer like you know
you have a bigger platform more people
um watching you etc and talking about
you all it's done for me is made me
clearer on my principles and what I
believe and I'm actually really thankful
for that in a weird way. Yeah,
>> because you're forced to, you know, when
you hear so many things said about you
or written about you, whatever, it does
focus one minds on, okay, like who am I
and what matters? What am I where am I
uncompromising in terms of the
conversations I want to have, the way I
want to do it? And that's given me a
huge amount of clarity and one of the
things that I'm really
>> I really want to make sure is that it
doesn't make me um bitter or resentful
in any way.
>> Very important.
>> And you can see how it happens. Yeah, I
can I can absolutely see how it happens
>> because you you have to live with a sort
of um injustice potentially or being
mischaracterized or whatever. So, it's
easy to see how one can slip off into
bitterness and resentment and
>> that's a that's a big part of the work
I'm doing on myself at the moment. I I'm
confident that I am doing the right
thing with my life. I'm doing no harm to
anyone and I'm putting ideas out there
that are worth thinking about. I'm
confident of that. I have no I have no
doubts about that. And what will you
care about on your on your last day?
>> Most of all, the love of my family.
That's the most important thing to me.
And um I don't know, the feeling that
I did my best. I did the best I could to
carry out the task that uh fell upon me
quite by accident. I didn't I was a
current affairs journalist in the 1980s.
I had no idea I was going to go down
this rabbit hole into the ancient world.
It was a series of accidents that led to
it. But having gone down it, I feel very
very very committed to it.
>> It's interesting because one of the ways
that I um I've always chosen to conduct
my interviews is just to um judge people
as I find them. I remember once upon a
time I had Brian Johnson coming on my
podcast and you know he's quite a he's a
he has some radical beliefs about living
forever etc. He's the longevity guy. And
I remember one of my team members
walking up to me beforehand and saying
before he had arrived and saying, "What
do you think of him?"
>> And I remember saying, "I have no idea.
I've not met him yet."
>> Yeah.
>> And then I sat down with him, had this
interview, and he said this thing to me
at the end of the interview where he
goes, "Thank you." And I go, "What do
you mean?" He goes, "Thank you. This is
the first time I've done an interview in
my life where the interviewer had like
no preconceptions of me."
>> And he goes, "It meant that I was
relaxed and able to be myself and blah
blah blah blah." And I and I say that
because
my opinion of you is someone who is
really curious about about humanity and
has this interesting idea that is really
expansive for one's mind about what
could have happened. And um again, the
net benefit for me of that is just
expanding my mind in a way that makes me
empathetic to other people.
>> Yeah.
>> Makes me feel like me and you aren't
different.
>> Yeah. like I've met you today but we're
probably you know we we we go back a
long way maybe consciously we're the
same but
>> in our history and our lineage we are
>> we are one of the same and um it also
gives me a huge amount of respect for
other living things including my
ancestors
>> in a way that you kind of think of your
ancestors as these like monkeys that
lived in trees potentially
>> but actually hearing some of these
stories makes me go oh my gosh and
actually it gives me a huge sense of
responsibility
>> to leave this planet and this earth in a
way that it's going to be good for, you
know, the future the future kids that
will live 20,000 years from now in the
future and that will probably look at
our um fossil records and wonder.
>> I I think I think those of us who have a
a platform do have a responsibility
>> very very very definitely. I mean, we're
living in this strange new world. This
this world was inconceivable even in the
beginning of the 1990s.
>> This this this world of communication
that we live in now. And there's no
doubt that that um
this is where influence
can be applied. And and
if that influence is
encouraging all that's good in the human
race, then that's really great and it's
a wonderful thing. And if it's
encouraging all that's dark and negative
and cruel and unkind and vicious in the
human race, because that's also out
there on the internet,
>> then it's not so good.
Graeme, we have a um closing tradition
on the show where the last guest leaves
the question for the next not knowing
who they're leaving it for. And the
question left for you is, is there a
danger of us sleepwalking into
worshiping a machine god?
>> You want me to answer that question?
>> Yes, we're already worshiping a machine
god. As I said earlier in our
discussion, uh in the minds of many,
science has already been elevated to
occupy the space that was once occupied
by religions.
That is a belief in a machine
fundamentally that's taking place there.
Science should be seen as a tool, one
amongst many tools that we as human
beings have at our disposal. It should
never be the only tool and it should
never be woripped. I don't ever want to
hear the words, trust the science.
The words for me are investigate the
science. See whether it's right for you
or not. See what else is available in
the in the in the situation. Don't just
routinely without thought, without
question, trust the science. Don't do
that. That's that's betraying science as
well. One of the fundamental ethics of
science is not to trust the science is
to question
and challenge the science. That's what
we should be doing with the science. And
yes, we are in danger of creating a kind
of
multi-dimensional machine which reaches
into all aspects of human consciousness
and and controls us. Yeah.
We got to stop worshiping science.
That's for sure. We got to put it in its
rightful place as an incredibly valuable
tool which which can do great things for
human beings but which can also do
terrible harm and damage.
>> Because when we trust science, there's
something we stop listening to.
>> Well, when you put your trust in
anything, you better have good reason to
put your trust in it. If I if I'm going
to trust another human being with my
life, I I really want to know that I can
trust that person. And I'm not just
going to say, "Oh, you're a doctor, so I
trust you." No, it's not that's not
enough. I want to know more about that
doctor. And uh in in indeed, I have
pursued that just recently. Science is
great. Science is really useful, but
we're not we're not being what we should
be. We're not living up to the potential
that the universe gave us if we just go
around trusting everything all the time.
We're here to ask questions. That's what
we got these enormous brains for. and
this incredible connectivity is to ask
questions. Anybody who says don't ask
questions is doing a great deal of harm.
>> Well, I hope my audience are very
curious. Um, and I think they must be by
now if they're still hanging around uh
on this platform because we've had lots
of very curious conversations and
hopefully expansive. I this acronym DOA
obviously stands for Draio, but also we
think of it as like
>> being for dreamers and open-minded
people, which is the O, and the A being
about expanding awareness and the C
really being about feeling more
connected.
>> Brilliant. like hearing your story and
about your partner and your journey and
your parents all makes me all, you know,
I think it makes us like spiritually
connected in a way that's increasingly
rare.
>> If people want to learn and read more
from you, Graeme, where do they go? I
mean, you've written so many wonderful
books. You've got another one on the
way.
>> I'll link all of these books you've
written and the others that aren't here
below.
>> Okay. Um, very briefly, the the the book
that put me on the map was Fingerprints
of the Gods.
>> Yeah. And that's the book where I really
investigate begin to investigate the
possibility of a lost civilization.
Before that came the sign and the seal
which was which was about Ethiopia's
claim to possess the lost ark of the
covenant. It happened that as a reporter
in the 1980s I spent a lot of time in
Ethiopia and I came across this
tradition which is fundamental to all
religious life in Ethiopia. uh and and
um ended up writing a book about it that
put me on the track of a lost
civilization led to fingerprints of the
gods. Then after fingerprints of the
gods, there's a book that's not here
which is keeper of genesis that I wrote
with Robert Bval underworld. This was
seven years of scuba diving that Sam and
I did all around the world following up
tips from local fishermen, local divers.
They'd seen something interesting,
something that looked man-made at a
depth of 30 m just offshore there and
they would take us and we would find it.
Uh so underworld is about all those
flooded continental shelves. 27 million
square kilmters of continental shelf
were flooded at the end of the ice age.
That's 27 million square kilmters.
That's Europe and China and a bit more
combined. uh were the best real estate
on Earth uh 20,000 years ago and are all
underwater today
>> and and there's signs that there was
life there.
>> Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
>> Civilizations there.
>> Yeah. Well, we found very large
structures underwater. Um so that's
that's uh underworld. Then after
underworld I wrote supernatural which is
that one there which has been reissued
in America under the title visionary.
And that's where I went deep into the
shamanistic medicines, the the iawasa,
psilocybin,
and and and the whole notion that cave
art, the art that we see in the painted
caves is an art of visions, that this is
shamans who had entered deeply altered
states of consciousness. They'd
remembered what they'd seen, and when
they came back to the everyday state of
consciousness, they painted their
visions in caves. is the best
explanation for cave arts and why cave
art is so similar all around the world
and so similar to the visions of Iawaska
shamans to this day.
>> Graham, thank you so much for all that
you do. I won't repeat every all the
reasons why, but you've you've blown my
mind open in a way that's just driven
curiosity. And um I think that's maybe
the start of all inquiry is deep
curiosity. And that's what you've done
for not just myself, but the hundreds of
millions of people that have watched you
over the years um all over the world and
I hope long may it continue and good
luck with your heart operation and
hopefully we'll be back again to
continue this conversation soon.
>> Absolutely. Thank you so much.
Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Really
good to meet you.
>> Thank you so much. That was brilliant.
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