Blob
11-01-2005, 11:44 AM
I'd never heard of journalist-cum-professional-crank Graham Hancock (http://www.grahamhancock.com/) till he popped up on the radio yesterday to hawk his new book Supernatural. You can hear the interview here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/mayo.shtml) by listening to Monday's show and forwarding about an hour and 55 minutes. (I've only heard the first ten minutes so far).
His main push is that the great cultural leap forward circa 40000 years ago was due to humans taking hallucinagens and stepping over into another universe that really does is exist. We know it exists because people from different times and different cultures see similar beings. (Which reminds me as a young man I took mushrooms and 'met' minor British celebrity Bobby Davro who grew horns and span round 'before' my very eyes. Unfortunately Mr Hancock did not state whether Bobby Davro is a universal image seen by all humans who ingest hallucinagens.)
Rest assured that Mr Hancock hasn't just done lots of research taking drugs in his garden shed. Oh no. This is serious stuff - he has also travelled to the amazon and taken drugs with traditional peoples. And we have Mr Hancock's word that his experiences were too profound to be a conconction of his mere mind, they were actually real experiences in an altenative universe. (Although quite how the same mere mind can determine that they were real he didn't expand upon.)
Needless to say, in the best new-age tradition, science and rational thinking is scorned and frowned upon, only to be immediately evoked in support of his crankery (junk DNA, multiple universes and laboratory evidence is all shamelessly cited after bashing science per se). Oh yes, and of course there is a closed-minded conspiracy to disallow investigating the supernatural amongst respected researchers (someone better inform James Randi (http://www.randi.org/)).
The greatest thing about Mr Hancock is the way his pompous and very sensible journalistic accent sits uneasily with the crankery of his actual words. One is almost reminded of John Cleese's zealously sensible face being all at odds with his silly walk. Sadly, however, the effect was less funny in Mr Hancock's case.
His main push is that the great cultural leap forward circa 40000 years ago was due to humans taking hallucinagens and stepping over into another universe that really does is exist. We know it exists because people from different times and different cultures see similar beings. (Which reminds me as a young man I took mushrooms and 'met' minor British celebrity Bobby Davro who grew horns and span round 'before' my very eyes. Unfortunately Mr Hancock did not state whether Bobby Davro is a universal image seen by all humans who ingest hallucinagens.)
Rest assured that Mr Hancock hasn't just done lots of research taking drugs in his garden shed. Oh no. This is serious stuff - he has also travelled to the amazon and taken drugs with traditional peoples. And we have Mr Hancock's word that his experiences were too profound to be a conconction of his mere mind, they were actually real experiences in an altenative universe. (Although quite how the same mere mind can determine that they were real he didn't expand upon.)
Needless to say, in the best new-age tradition, science and rational thinking is scorned and frowned upon, only to be immediately evoked in support of his crankery (junk DNA, multiple universes and laboratory evidence is all shamelessly cited after bashing science per se). Oh yes, and of course there is a closed-minded conspiracy to disallow investigating the supernatural amongst respected researchers (someone better inform James Randi (http://www.randi.org/)).
The greatest thing about Mr Hancock is the way his pompous and very sensible journalistic accent sits uneasily with the crankery of his actual words. One is almost reminded of John Cleese's zealously sensible face being all at odds with his silly walk. Sadly, however, the effect was less funny in Mr Hancock's case.