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Sept. 18, 2014 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:59:40
Joe Rogan Experience #551 - Graham Hancock
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graham hancock
01:36:18
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joe rogan
01:21:52
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Speaker Time Text
joe rogan
Hello, ladies and gentlemen.
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unidentified
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Oh, she sent me another one.
The MeUndies one, which I'm wearing MeUndies right now, by the way.
Not that you needed to know, but there's a new underwear sponsor.
Where's the fucking MeUndies thing, man?
See, that's what I hate when she sends me separate ones.
unidentified
Hold on a second, let me find it.
joe rogan
MeUndies.
They're the best underwear I've ever had.
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But I'll tell you what, I didn't think anything of it.
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Just throw it in the cart and keep moving.
But when they started sending me these MeUndies, I was like, what is it, just underwear?
Like, what's the big deal?
Well, this is one big deal.
The average man doesn't change his underwear more often than every seven years.
That's ridiculous.
Like, the average male buys a pair of underwear and keeps that rotten butt filter for seven years.
That's terrible.
And they're not that comfortable.
They also have that weird hole in the front that no one understands.
That shit was made, like, during the Depression.
When people didn't understand how to really pee out of your undies.
What is that hole?
Nobody uses that goddamn hole.
unidentified
I do.
joe rogan
Okay?
Do you use that hole?
unidentified
Yeah, sometimes.
joe rogan
Shut up.
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So, Ting, the first way they did it was to credit people.
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Alright, Graham Hancock is here.
Why fuck around?
Young Jamie, cue the music.
unidentified
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day.
Joe Rogan Podcast by night.
All day.
joe rogan
My friend, Graham Hancock.
I'll take these off since you're not wearing them.
Good to see you, buddy.
graham hancock
Nice to see you, Joe.
Good to be back.
joe rogan
Good to see you returning from floating.
I saw your tweet which showed a picture of what looked like someone was in space.
graham hancock
Yeah, because that's how it felt to me.
Now, I have to thank you for this because you're the guy who turned me on to floating.
I never did it before.
You spoke to me about it last year.
I was so harassed and so rushed.
I never got a chance to do it.
I thought I'd do it when I got back to England.
It didn't happen.
So I got in touch with your friend, Crash, a few weeks before I came out here, and he very kindly fitted me in.
And I think his place is called Float Labs Technologies.
They're in Venice Beach.
So it's a totally new experience for me.
And what made the experience even more surreal and special, because I'd asked for an appointment fairly late in the day, was that...
I mean, he needed more notice.
He's constantly booked up.
joe rogan
Yeah, isn't that amazing?
graham hancock
So what he could give me...
It was the two rooms, one for myself, one for my wife, Santa, at midnight.
At midnight, two nights in a row.
And actually, there's something about floating at midnight, which I think is really special.
joe rogan
I don't do any floating during the day.
graham hancock
Right, right.
It's a really good time to do it.
So we went along to Venice Beach and parked the car and crash came out and took us in.
First of all...
He showed us his collection of African masks.
And he has got the most amazing, slightly fearsome collection of African masks up there.
It's really incredible, actually.
This is a deep guy.
He's thinking about a lot of stuff.
I've spent a lot of time in Africa.
I've never seen a collection like that.
It's just amazing.
Dogon, you know, some of the really fascinating peoples and their masks.
Then he takes us down.
He talks us through what it is.
So, you know, you go into this room and in it, I've seen in some places they have like a pod where you close a lid over yourself.
But that's not what he's got.
He's got a bigger room than that, and there's a big full-size, feels like a huge metal safe.
If you have trust issues, it's a little bit, you're going to close yourself up in a huge metal safe in the darkness.
It takes a little bit, you know, a little bit of courage, I would say, is required to do that at midnight on Venice Beach.
LAUGHTER We did it.
At certain warnings, you don't want to get the salty water in your eyes.
If you do, it's a big distraction.
You don't want to get it in your ears, so you wear earplugs.
joe rogan
It doesn't bother me.
I just go in with my ears.
I don't wear earplugs.
graham hancock
I think I would prefer to because being completely deaf was slightly alarming for me, although I realize that sensory deprivation is part of the deal.
Yeah.
And so you close the door.
There's a towel hanging off the back of the door in case you do get salty water in your eyes.
And then you just lie down in this, I guess, body temperature saline solution in which it's impossible to sink.
And there you are in the darkness.
completely without without sensation totally by yourself for the first time in a way ever I mean this is the sometimes we're alone but to be completely alone in total darkness yeah suspended in that amniotic fluid that strange saline saline solution with no sensations coming in no sounds no
It's an extraordinary opportunity to meditate, to reflect, to just drift away into another place and not...
I find it difficult to shut down my mind.
My mind is always running.
And a few times when I was just wanting to let everything go, everyday concerns and worries came back in and started annoying me.
But most of the time I was able to let go and it felt like I was weightless and I was floating in space.
That's why I posted that picture on Facebook today.
That's what it felt like.
And sometimes I didn't know whether I was horizontal or vertical.
I felt sometimes like I was vertically, floating vertically.
It was a very odd sensation.
I wouldn't say that I got into deeply trippy space, but I did have fundamental visions, patterns, lights started to generate purple.
Purple strips of light started to appear, which certainly were not there in the darkness with me.
And that was And that was interesting.
But most of all, it was just very relaxing.
Just very relaxing to let go, be completely supported by this soft, gentle water and drift away into the realms of the mind.
It was a wonderful experience.
And I felt much better about it the second day than I did the first.
The first day was some unfamiliarity.
The second night, last night, was just amazing.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's what it's all about.
It's all about getting used to the experience, and the more you get used to the experience, the easier it is to slip into the deeper and deeper states.
Yes.
But the first time, it's very alien.
It's so odd, and you also kind of bump against the sides, and you have to center yourself.
graham hancock
And I've just seen Crash's African masks as well, you know.
joe rogan
Yeah, he probably shouldn't show you those before you go into total darkness in a meat locker.
graham hancock
Yeah, exactly.
But, yeah, the second day is so much better.
And so much so, it's made me think, maybe I should get myself a float thing.
joe rogan
Oh, you definitely should.
It's huge.
I love having one.
I love knowing that any time I want to go in there, I could just go in there.
graham hancock
Are they loads and loads of money, or are they okay?
joe rogan
Yeah.
They're loads and loads of money.
graham hancock
Like thousands and thousands of dollars?
joe rogan
Yeah.
Especially the flash ones.
The crash ones, rather.
The original one that I got, which was a Samadhi tank, I think that was like $6,000 or $7,000.
But crashes are more like $30,000.
graham hancock
Okay, because his is like a car.
Yeah, it's like buying a car.
joe rogan
And it's also, it has these incredible filters that it's set up through.
He has it set up, like the one that I have in my house, I'm the only one who goes in it, but it's a commercial-grade filtration system.
He filters things through ozone, there's all these different various steps that it takes.
He's written an entire, I don't know how many pages, probably like 50 or 60 page He's an obsessive guy.
And his obsession with tanks has made...
There's a guy in Austin that has some really amazing tanks, too, that does it a little bit differently.
He does it through a company that makes boats.
And his are really excellent, too.
But Crash is, like, the leader of the pack.
graham hancock
He's the master of the game.
joe rogan
There was nothing like his stuff when his stuff came out.
Now there's guys like the guy in Austin that is elevating his.
I spent some time there and checked out his facility.
It's beautiful.
He's friends with my friend Aubrey.
But what Crash did was there was no innovation.
states when it came to float technology there was like the standard samadhi tank which is really great i mean it's cool you could definitely get a cool experience in it and there's some some uh home models that a few people had but what he did is he just took everything to the next level and made everything
these steel modular boxes that it fits together perfectly more sound deadening more insulation better filtration system stronger reinforced sides because the samadhi ones would kind of bow out on the sides a little bit from the water and sometimes they would rot and like you He fixed everything.
He fixed, there was an issue with the linings would burn out sometimes because of the heat pads.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Heat pads would short out, it would burn through the linings, and it would leak water everywhere.
He fixed that by, first of all, by setting this redundant system and having two heat pads too, so if one burns out, you have a second one ready to go.
And then secondly, he put these thick pond filters.
He doesn't use the same kind of filters that a lot of people do.
Not filters, rather, liners.
His liners are very thick.
They're like koi ponds.
So he's done a lot of innovation.
He's really figured out a lot of different things.
It's the place to go if you're lucky enough to live in L.A., Well, also if you're lucky enough to be able to get in now, because now he's booked way in advance.
graham hancock
Well, that's what I found.
I mean, I wrote to him at least four weeks ago, and there were just no slots available during the day.
That's why he gave me the two midnight slots, although actually I'm really glad he gave me the midnight slots.
joe rogan
That's the way to do it.
Late at night's the way to do it.
graham hancock
But I understand he's opening a new unit in Westwood.
joe rogan
Yes.
graham hancock
Where there'll be seven.
joe rogan
Yeah.
That's not enough.
graham hancock
No, it's not.
joe rogan
Even seven's not enough.
I mean, you could open up one somewhere that has 50, and that sucker would be filled all day.
graham hancock
It would be filled.
There's 20 million people in L.A. So there's not so many other people doing this in LA right now?
joe rogan
There's a few.
I think people are starting to become aware of it now.
graham hancock
It's a fabulous experience.
We all need this experience.
One question I have and wonder about, what about if you have a joint before you get in or take some psilocybin?
What would that do?
joe rogan
I don't know what it's like to not do that before you go in.
graham hancock
You do that every time.
joe rogan
Not psilocybin, but I have.
But the pot is the, edibles are the way to go for me.
graham hancock
Okay, so you eat about an hour before?
joe rogan
Yeah, a terrifying supply of edibles.
A terrifying dose.
You're just like, oh, what did I do?
And then I get in there.
That's what I like to do.
Okay.
graham hancock
That's what I'd like to do as well if I hadn't given up pot three years ago.
joe rogan
Makes me very humble.
There's something about getting in there.
And because I've done it so many times, because I have the tank in my house, I'm super comfortable.
I can get relaxed with floating.
It's a normal thing to me.
So when you're on the edibles too, it just takes you to these really, really, really bizarre places.
graham hancock
No moments of paranoia or fear?
You're just calm there?
joe rogan
I mean, I wouldn't say that.
I'm pretty good with that, though.
I mean, if I had real problems with paranoia and fear, I wouldn't be able to do everything I do for a living.
graham hancock
Sure.
joe rogan
You know what I mean?
Everything I do, this is live.
graham hancock
Yeah.
joe rogan
Everything I do when I do commentary for the UFC, that's live.
graham hancock
Stand-up is live.
Very edgy.
joe rogan
Yeah.
All these things are all live, and they all depend on maintaining your sanity under sometimes pretty intense pressure.
So I don't have those paranoia or fear issues, but I certainly feel the thoughts.
I just don't indulge them.
I feel the thoughts, but...
That's a good way to go.
graham hancock
Not indulge them.
joe rogan
Yeah.
It's like a lot of psychedelic experiences.
It's a matter of controlling the mindset.
And I kind of equate it to just the ability to communicate on the internet and the ability to access information on the internet has led us to this weird place where if you wanted to, your day could be filled with horror.
You could just go every day to the worst possible websites and see the most horrific videos and the most horrific photographs and see the world in the worst possible light.
if you chose to just immerse yourself Or just watch the news.
Even worse than the news.
I mean, if you really wanted to really change the way you saw the world.
I mean, you could live on a beautiful tree-lined street with the nicest neighbors and the cutest little dogs barking, and the life looks beautiful.
But through the portal that is the internet, you can immerse yourself in the most twisted, sadistic minds.
And it's like you have this decision to not do that.
That's, in sort of reinforcing that decision and making those choices, you build up your resistance to doing things that are negative.
You build up your resistance to indulging in negative thoughts.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
joe rogan
And in that sense, I think it's good.
Like, one of the weirdest things is, if you've ever seen someone who's never been in any sort of a conflict-type situation, but they get thrown into one and they have a panic attack.
graham hancock
Yeah.
joe rogan
And they hyperventilate and they don't know what to do.
graham hancock
It's very weird.
joe rogan
I've seen it happen many times.
graham hancock
I've seen it happen.
joe rogan
And then I've seen other people that are in panic situations or rather high-stress situations a lot, and they know how to stay calm and keep cool.
And I think...
graham hancock
Sometimes your life can depend on it.
joe rogan
Sure, very much so.
graham hancock
Panic is a killer.
Scuba diving, which I did a lot of, panic will kill you.
joe rogan
Oh, I would imagine.
I'm terrified of scuba diving.
I've never done it.
But I would imagine that being 100 feet down in the ocean while the winds are moving, the currents banging you against rocks and stuff.
graham hancock
Absolutely.
joe rogan
That's got to be...
graham hancock
You lose it down there and you're really gone.
joe rogan
Yeah, yeah.
That's a whole other world.
I did some snorkeling recently with dolphins.
graham hancock
Right.
joe rogan
I was in Hawaii and I actually did it with my four-year-old too.
I took her with me into the water and she had the mask on and everything and she's looking down and we're seeing the dolphins swimming under us.
It was amazing.
Really incredibly rewarding.
graham hancock
Did they come and scan you?
joe rogan
No, they didn't...
But they just swam underneath us.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
You know, they really didn't give a shit about us.
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
It was really kind of...
graham hancock
What are those weird-looking things up there?
joe rogan
They just, you know, it's kind of...
It's an eye-opener.
Like, how little of a shit dolphins care.
unidentified
Yes.
joe rogan
They don't care about you, man.
As long as you're not trying to capture them, they're like, more people, whatever.
unidentified
Yeah, exactly.
joe rogan
Avoid the boat, you know?
They came near the boat.
I've been around them, though, when they're very playful, too.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
joe rogan
We were fishing once and they were jumping by the boat and being really playful with us.
This was a totally different experience.
This was pretty much indifferent, but so beautiful.
Just being around them, hundreds of dolphins.
And you're just looking at them swimming underneath you.
But yeah, I can imagine that panic in that world...
graham hancock
Well, something goes wrong, you know, at depth in a current.
If you panic, you literally are dead.
That's when you have to stay steady.
And that's the power of the mind.
It's mind over matter.
unidentified
You have to...
graham hancock
Impose your mind on that situation, because I don't know why, actually, if we have all this evolution, why we panic.
I mean, they would have thought millions of years of evolution would have got rid of that terrible, dangerous thing called panic, but actually it's there.
joe rogan
Well, fight or flight, though, is so necessary.
It sharpens your reflexes.
It's one of the things about fighters, is that a fighter going into a fight and not being nervous can be incredibly dangerous.
graham hancock
Yes.
joe rogan
And when I was competing, there were moments that I was too confident, and I went in and I couldn't compete right.
I also couldn't snap myself out of it.
There's a level that you achieve when you're really nervous, and you're not sure of what the outcome is going to be.
There's a level of reaction and of intensity that you achieve when you go into a competition where you're scared, where you perform so much better.
graham hancock
Right.
joe rogan
And then there's like, when you're super confident, there's something that happens where you're not nervous at all.
You can't get up for it.
It's a weird thing that happens.
So that adrenaline is, I think it's a necessary component.
It gives you that extra charge.
It's just about managing that, and managing it is very difficult.
graham hancock
It was interesting.
I watched...
I told you a few moments ago, I watched this Hicks and Gracie movie called Choke.
And that's one of the things that he said quite early on in the movie.
He said, actually, he's always afraid.
He doesn't say, I am a fearless person.
He says, I'm always afraid.
And yeah, it's managing that.
What a formidable fighter, that guy.
joe rogan
Yeah, he's an amazing guy, too.
We had him on the podcast recently, him and my friend Eddie Bravo together.
It was just a huge treat for me as a martial arts, lifelong martial arts practitioner and fan, because he's a real master.
Fascinating, fascinating guy.
That documentary, I recommend that to everybody, even people that don't do martial arts, like yourself.
How did you hear about it?
graham hancock
Okay, well, my son-in-law...
Jason Saris does mixed martial arts.
He does particularly Brazilian jiu-jitsu at a place called the MMA Clinic in London.
And he does it three, four times a week.
He's very, very, very devoted to it.
And he's been talking me through a lot of these issues over the last year.
And I get it.
I get why he loves it.
And I think it's been a really great thing for him.
And I think it's a really...
It's a really great thing for anybody.
There was a time in my life when I did do a martial art.
I did Aikido.
I got to Brown Belt in my very early 20s and then I quit.
I'm not quite sure why.
I had traveled.
I went away.
I'd lost the practice.
And then in my 40s, I went back to it and I went my way back up to Greenbelt.
But Aikido is a different thing from this real grappling.
I mean, this Brazilian jiu-jitsu, what I see is two people who are interlocked and they're sensing each other, each other's movements all the time.
You can't predict what's going to happen next in any way.
And I understand that it's a kind of meditative thing also, that if you actually start thinking, I imagine, because I don't do it, but this is what my son-in-law tells me.
If you start thinking while you're in there, in that grapple with that other very strong person.
very dangerous person, I don't think that's really good.
I think you have to not be thinking.
You have to be acting somehow on muscle, memory, on instinct, on experience.
You're not really thinking through your next move, or are you?
I don't know.
joe rogan
Sometimes you're thinking, but a lot of times you are reacting in what you try to do is achieve sort of a zen state, a flow state.
And when you're at your best, you're in that flow state where sometimes you'll be in a position where you don't even realize how you achieve the position.
You just...
You instinctively did it.
And it's instinctive based on thousands of repetitions.
Many, many hours of mat time.
Mat time is very important.
Mat time being the actual sparring itself.
Because the rolling, the grappling, sparring, you understand the language of human interaction.
There's an interaction between a person attacking, a person defending, and there's this thing that goes on where you kind of figure out...
graham hancock
And this is something that in daily life, in our modern technological society, most people have no experience of at all.
They're never in a fight situation.
They're never ever having to deal with that.
So if they suddenly find themselves in a situation of danger, attacked on the street, they're not going to have the faintest idea what to do.
joe rogan
No.
Well, hopefully that never comes up anyway.
graham hancock
Hopefully not, but it does sometimes.
joe rogan
But the benefits extend outside of that, in my opinion.
The benefits are it prepares you for the drama of regular life pales in comparison to the real drama of training and of competing inside the gymnasium.
Because essentially every time someone does jiu-jitsu, they're competing.
Every time you spar, even if you spar with a very good friend, you're still competing.
You get used to this struggle.
And that's something that most people don't have in their life.
graham hancock
Right.
joe rogan
And in having that struggle and in this competition, it makes the regular stress that people go through, the stress of bills and of relationships, it alleviates and mitigates a lot of the issues that people have.
Because the life or death struggle of someone trying to choke you and you battling it out and you're tired, you're exhausted, and you're trying to remain calm and catch your breath and defend and trying to stay cool and trying to figure out what's the proper defense for this situation.
And how to turn this around and how to get back to a better spot.
It's so harrowing.
And it's so stressful.
But in a good way.
graham hancock
So you're totally in the moment.
joe rogan
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
graham hancock
Totally in the moment.
There's no time for any other shit.
joe rogan
Some girl you dated when you were in high school.
Where is she now?
You're not thinking about that.
graham hancock
Or the bills you've got to pay, aren't you?
joe rogan
No, you're not thinking about any of those things.
And in that sense, it is very meditative.
It alleviates a lot of the stress of life.
And then when it's over, you just kind of feel very relaxed because you've spent all this excess energy that I believe people...
I mean, it's not a scientific way of looking at the human body, but I think of the human body in a lot of ways as sort of like a battery.
And a lot of people's batteries are overflowing with juice because you don't use them.
You sit down in a sedentary state in front of a computer all day, which is pretty bad for your back, and you stare at a screen, and you do your work, and then you sit in your car or on the train or whatever to get home, and then you sit in front of the television.
That's a lot of people's lives.
graham hancock
Absolutely.
joe rogan
That's not normal for a body.
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
The body is supposed to be moving.
While you're young and alive and while you have energy, your body wants to be involved in activities.
Your body wants to go hiking and do things.
And if it doesn't, it atrophies and shrivels up and it stops being functional.
Mm-hmm.
When you can get all that energy out in a training session, it does a couple things.
One, it strengthens your body so that if you ever do have to use it for something, even if something as simple as picking things up or just strength to help move something, you have that.
But two, you alleviate all the excess energy.
You drain the battery a bit.
And by draining the battery, you put more juice in the battery for the future.
Like the battery has like a higher threshold.
And then you also like, you can deal with stuff easier.
Like when I don't train, if I don't exercise, if I don't do some sort of rigorous physical exercise, like at least a few days a week, I react differently to stress.
graham hancock
Right.
joe rogan
You start getting snappish and Well, I get more irritated than I should.
It affects me more than it should.
But when I train, like if I train a lot, everything is pretty easy.
graham hancock
Yeah.
I've seen this effect on my son-in-law.
His couple of years now of doing this, he's been, it's really transformed him.
It's a really, really great thing.
joe rogan
A lot of people could benefit from it.
graham hancock
I mean, I'm 64 years old.
I don't know.
I don't think I can go and do that stuff now.
joe rogan
You could if you found another 64-year-old.
graham hancock
Yeah, okay.
Or I could work with one personal teacher, you know, who would understand my level.
I see huge advantages in doing it.
I think I've got more and more interested in it over the last couple of years.
It's a really fascinating thing.
And also, tell me about this.
I mean, in a way, you're being a warrior in there.
In a way, it's a warrior thing.
I mean, this is a contentious issue.
The human race, we've been around in anatomically modern form for the last 200,000 years.
For a lot of that time, our young men...
In many societies have been called to warfare in one form or another.
I would say that it's gone on long enough for it to be a fundamental part of the human experience, actually.
in our society today a lot has a lot has worked to move that aside and probably that's a that's a very good thing although we still do have war of course but it's done at a distance largely it's done it's not I mean I'm writing I'm writing novels about the Spanish conquest of Mexico at the moment I am dealing with I'm getting inside the heads of warriors and those guys are on the battlefield hand to hand with edged weapons um
That kind of experience of battle and warfare doesn't happen, I think, much in modern warfare today.
It's more the guy remotely piloting a drone and shooting people from a distance.
But maybe there is a warrior need in us which can be met in a harmless and positive way on the mat in something like mixed martial arts.
That's what I'm coming to.
Would you agree with that?
joe rogan
It's very possible that there's something to that.
I think it's very possible that there's something to the idea that we have ingrained in us a certain amount of experiences based on the genetics of all the people that have lived before us.
And that whatever fight or flight is inside of us, whatever...
I mean, throughout history...
Like, I've been discussing this with friends, like how fascinating this time is, because throughout history, in the past, if a boat of strangers showed up, it was very dangerous.
graham hancock
Yeah.
joe rogan
A boat showed up, and you're like, holy shit, it's gonna get crazy.
A bunch of men climb off the boat, you gotta hide women and children, and now when a boat shows up, it's tourism.
And everybody gets excited.
Like, oh, we need their money.
Come on, come to this island, come to this place, bring your family.
It's a completely different world that we live in.
graham hancock
It is.
joe rogan
Those experiences that led us to, that led the human race to 2014, these experiences of people, pirates showing up and Vikings showing up and all those dangerous people showing up in these different places, you know, people coming over the hill, oh, an army's coming.
That was just a part of being a human being for the longest time.
graham hancock
For a very long time, yeah.
joe rogan
Have you seen this new thing that was going on about the autopsy of which king of England was it?
Richard II or Richard III. Yeah, they found his bones, which is really amazing, man.
They found his bones, like, they found it under, like, a parking lot or something like that?
graham hancock
In a car park, yeah, a parking lot.
joe rogan
How crazy is that, man?
unidentified
I know, I know.
joe rogan
How do they know it's him?
graham hancock
I think that there's a long tradition regarding him and the battle that he was killed in.
There's even a Shakespeare play where he's at the end of the battle saying famously, my horse, my horse, a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse, so that he can flee.
But it seems that he died in face-to-face combat and was hacked to pieces as far as I can.
joe rogan
One of the last of the kings to die like that, too, right?
graham hancock
To die in combat, yeah.
We're in the sort of late 1400s there, I would say so.
I mean, combat went on.
The period I'm writing about, early 1500s, was brutal and bloody.
Brutal and bloody period.
A man like Hernán Cortés is a leader, but he's a killer.
He's a cold-blooded killer.
I think that kind of...
That kind of experience is rare today.
joe rogan
Does it freak you out when you read stuff about these days and realize that that all could happen today?
We just need the wrong set of events to take place.
We're not far removed as a species from that time.
In terms of actual history, it's the blink of an eye between then and now.
graham hancock
Absolute blink of an eye.
We are the same people.
Nothing's changed.
There's been some social changes.
But look, we're still slaughtering people on large-scale levels.
It's just that that hand-to-hand, face-to-face thing, technology has intervened.
A little bit in that.
If our society were to go into a radical collapse, people could find themselves facing those contingencies very quickly, very, very, very rapidly.
joe rogan
And it is in fact a radical collapse in other parts of the world.
I've been talking about this on stage a lot lately.
Because there's a lot of these...
There's this Duck Dynasty guy.
It's hilarious.
Duck Dynasty is this ridiculous American reality show.
But one of the main guys on Duck Dynasty, he gave this speech, this video speech, where he was talking about the impending apocalypse...
And what they call the rapture, where Christians think that Jesus is going to come and he's going to take away everybody that's Christian and bring them to heaven and everybody else is going to be stuck on earth.
graham hancock
I believe there's a very elite group are going to go.
144,000 of them are going to be floated up in the clouds.
joe rogan
Is that what the idea is?
graham hancock
Apparently so, yeah, with the rapture.
joe rogan
And he told people that they should watch this Nicolas Cage movie that's about to come out, called Left Behind, that's based on this very famous series of books amongst the Christians, Left Behind.
And these people have this...
graham hancock
You mean he's somebody who doesn't get raptured?
Is that the idea?
joe rogan
I guess.
I don't know.
It's so fucking stupid.
It's so stupid.
It hurts my brain to talk about it.
But what's fascinating is that they're all worried about...
Everyone's worried about the apocalypse.
The apocalypse, the apocalypse, the end, the end.
But...
The apocalypse, if you go to certain parts of the world, it's there.
graham hancock
It's there.
joe rogan
It's in Liberia right now.
graham hancock
It's in Somalia right now.
joe rogan
Right now.
graham hancock
Listen, back in the 1970s, I lived in Mogadishu.
I lived in Somalia.
I lived in that failed state.
It was a fine place then.
joe rogan
Back then it was fine.
graham hancock
Yeah, it was fine.
Why was it fine?
I mean, this is not politically correct, but it was run by a dictator.
And he kept things calm, you know?
joe rogan
Well, that has been the case in many unfortunate scenarios.
I mean, that's what's argued about Iraq.
If you looked at Iraq before the US invasion, it was largely superior to what it is now.
graham hancock
Vastly superior to what it is now.
Again, I mean, we're not, you know, kind of not supposed to say these things.
unidentified
Right.
graham hancock
Things were a whole lot better under Saddam Hussein.
It was peaceful.
There was not a lot of inter-religious conflict.
joe rogan
It was a secular state.
graham hancock
It was a secular state.
In fact, quite tolerant.
And all you had to do was not get in the face of Saddam Hussein.
That was the simple rule of life.
Just don't get in the face of Saddam Hussein.
And that was a simple rule of life in Somalia in the 1970s.
Don't get in the face of Siad Bahre if you do.
I'll tell you a story.
Siad Barre, Mohamed Siad Barre, who was the president of Somalia when I went there in 1975, he did a number of interesting things.
For example, the Somali language was not written.
This was a nomadic society, 70% nomadic.
He introduced a written script for the Somali language based on the Latin alphabet.
This had not been possible before because religious leaders had said they had to have it in the Arabic script because they were Muslims.
He just forced that through.
Then he introduced a family law which allowed women to divorce their husbands.
At that point, 11 religious leaders, 11 sheikhs, mobilized the public and said they had to rebel against Siad Bari.
Well, what he did, he hauled those guys out of the mosque the very same day and shot them all.
And that was the end of that argument, and suddenly women could divorce their husbands, and the society was very free and very open.
One can't imagine today, from the scenes of horror that we see from Mogadishu, actually how peaceful it was.
So, you know, it may be the case that in some situations, an Iraq is definitely another example.
We in the West are constantly saying we must have democracy.
Democracy is a great thing.
Well, maybe it is a great thing at a certain point, at a certain level.
When you're in a society that's very sectarian, very divided into tribal interests, very divided into different religious groups, maybe it's actually more comfortable if you have a dictator.
joe rogan
Well, there's a power vacuum issue.
I think the issue is civilizations largely operate on momentum.
And when things have been set up in the way that they have been in Iraq or the way they have been, obviously, in Somalia, Where there's one guy who's calling all the shots, and they've got this whole thing established, when that guy's not there anymore.
And then everyone's scrambling to be the new guy.
graham hancock
Everyone's scrambling.
joe rogan
It creates chaos.
graham hancock
Absolute chaos.
joe rogan
It's horrific.
graham hancock
And hell.
joe rogan
And it creates this intense violence amongst the people.
Iraq, the people that are in that civil war state that they're at now, where...
Various sections of their population are vying for control of this failed state.
It's horrific.
graham hancock
It's horrific.
You have this hideous death cult called the Islamic State, which may or may not have been initially funded and set up by the United States of America and its allies.
Who knows?
But it's a death cult, and it's horrible.
Frankly, I would rather have Saddam Hussein than the Islamic State.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's a crazy thing to say, right?
The one evil is better than the other evil.
Obviously, we're only talking in objective reality terms here.
We're not like saying, hey, it's okay to be a dictator.
graham hancock
No, not at all.
joe rogan
It's evil to be a dictator, clearly.
It's evil and wrong.
graham hancock
Ideally, we move to a situation where we have no governments and where people run their own lives and peacefully negotiate with one another.
But that isn't the way it's going down in Iraq, and it's not the way it's gone down in the southern part of Somalia.
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, that would be ideal, right?
But it's really hard to run a bunch of people.
Like, the idea of a society, the idea of taking a million people, 500 million people, whatever the number is, and having a group of people that Adhere to the best interests of all the folks that are in that society.
Their needs are so varied.
Their resources are so varied.
Their fortune in what situation they find themselves born into is so varied.
And then you have the people that are fortunate sons and daughters that are trying to keep the unfortunate from getting into their gated community of life.
There's so much crazier.
graham hancock
And you can be sure that dictators, sons and daughters, are all very well looked after in a dictatorship.
That always happens, like Saddam's kids, like Siad Barry's kids.
It's always the case, you know, that they are.
And that then generates feelings of anger and fury that that is happening.
But a situation where just bullets are flying down the street constantly and you live in permanent fear of your life, that's not good either.
joe rogan
Yeah, the arguments that the United States has funded ISIS in order to build up support for an invasion of Saudi Arabia, or of Syria, rather, are really terrifying.
And more terrifying because I don't want to look into it, because I don't want to know.
graham hancock
It's a horrible thought, yeah.
joe rogan
It's like, I don't even want to know.
I know that that kind of shit has happened before.
So when you see that it's happening now, you're like, oh, fuck.
Is this really going on?
Is that really what's causing all this?
graham hancock
It's profoundly depressing.
And the problem is that we can't really believe anything that our political leaders in the West say.
I mean, they have been proven to be.
Absolute crooks, thieves and liars.
They lie by instinct all the time and the problem with constant lying at the top levels of politics is that it pollutes the debate completely.
You suddenly can't believe anything that's said and that leads to suspicion of all kinds of horrendous possibilities including the funding and setting in motion of this ISIS horror.
joe rogan
Yeah, it doesn't help when someone like Julian Assange comes along and exposes all these things that a lot of people disagree with, and what do they do?
They try to get him locked up on some trumped-up charges and export him, as if they were really trying to export him to Sweden and eventually to the United States because of some sexual thing that wasn't even violent, or it wasn't even rape.
It was consensual.
It was some weird sexual charge.
I think they call it surprise sex or something like that.
They're not even calling it rape.
graham hancock
Right.
joe rogan
There's one thing, like, if there was a woman who was saying, hey, Julian Assange, she's a piece of shit, he drugged me, he raped me, you know, okay, yeah, send that guy to Sweden.
But they're not even saying that.
This isn't a charge that makes any sense.
And the fact that this guy's been locked up in the embassy in London for all these years...
It's crazy.
graham hancock
It's a very crazy situation.
joe rogan
It's really weird to see, man.
It's really weird to see him on television doing these Skype interviews and knowing that he's in this embassy.
And the moment he steps out of that, they're going to snatch him up.
It's like he's just being protected by some weird loophole.
graham hancock
Yes.
Well, you could take sanctuary in an embassy.
It's an old law.
joe rogan
But you can't leave.
He's going to have to dig a hole underneath that motherfucker.
A mile out.
Yeah.
Out of the street and then pop out of a manhole and then scoop him up in a car and take him to Costa Rica or somewhere where they're going to honor.
graham hancock
No, we live in a time when they're just constant conspiracy theories.
I mean, there's even conspiracy theories about him, you know, that he is part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
joe rogan
Of course.
graham hancock
All of that happens.
Nothing is believed anymore.
And that comes from the proven fact that our political leaders are...
Actually, liars.
joe rogan
Absolutely.
graham hancock
Lied to us again and again.
And how can we trust them?
How can we entrust ourselves to them when they behave in that way?
What's needed is transparency.
What's needed is openness.
joe rogan
Do you think that transparency is going to be an eventuality because of the internet?
graham hancock
It's happening, yeah.
joe rogan
I think it is, right?
graham hancock
Everything gets blown wide open.
It's very difficult to keep secrets.
joe rogan
And it also erodes faith in the leadership when like, is this a democracy?
Is this a representative government?
Or is it some sort of a weird dictatorship?
Because if it is a democracy, how the fuck are you keeping that guy locked up?
How is Julian Assange still locked up?
I need to know, please tell me, what exactly he did that you need to export him to the United States.
Oh, he released some information.
graham hancock
Which is our information, we the citizens.
This is not, you know, information that should be kept secret.
joe rogan
It's not from a king.
It's information that someone who was being paid with taxpayer dollars did a bunch of shit that the United States doesn't agree with.
with, everyone was upset by the information that was released.
Everyone was upset by that video, the collateral murder video.
Everyone was obsessed by this massive amount of data that showed there was a lot of coercion, a lot of lies, a lot of stuff that we don't agree with.
And because of that, this guy is like public enemy number one.
That's so anti what we think of as the United States.
graham hancock
It's completely contrary to everything the United States stands for.
joe rogan
Yeah, completely.
graham hancock
And so in answer to your question, I would say yes, it is some kind of weird dictatorship, posturing and posing as a democracy.
Because for democracy to be real, you have to have complete openness of information.
People must be told the truth.
Then they can vote and make decisions on the basis of facts.
What we actually have in our society is the continual very clever massaging and management of information.
So it ceases to be democracy when the voting public are fed lies on the basis of which they make their decisions and vote.
That isn't democracy anymore.
And in a way, democracies are the worst kind of dictatorship because they have this appearance of freedom.
I have this illusion of freedom.
And everybody can say, well, it's great because I live in a democracy.
At least if you live in a dictatorship, you know you live in a dictatorship.
And there are certain parameters that you have to work your way around.
But when you live in a dictatorship that is posing as a democracy, it's more complicated to do.
joe rogan
And it's where a lot of people truly believe and act as if it is a democracy, but at the very top, there's fuckery and manipulation and coercion and money and corporate greed and interests and the military-industrial complex that is funding all of these maneuvers, and it's people profiting wildly.
graham hancock
Not to forget all the big corporations, big pharmaceutical corporations.
All of this is about management of information that we are given.
What the internet offers is the opportunity for ordinary people who are not part of a power structure, not running a big corporation, to take power back to themselves.
And that is happening.
And it's happening in a big way.
And it's very disturbing to the powers that be.
joe rogan
Yeah, people want like an instant change, but it is almost instant.
The amount of time that we've actually spent having the internet has been pretty brief.
1993-ish, 4-ish is when it gave birth.
graham hancock
Yes.
joe rogan
And then like...
2014, where we're at now, it's really only been around in this form for the last decade, like 2004, 2005, and then social media allowing people to exchange information in the heat of political crisis, where they've been able to expose things that are happening in real time that ordinarily would be protected by the media.
They would shelter and filter the information.
Now it's all just coming out and they can't...
So they'd have to shut down the whole fucking internet in some of these countries.
graham hancock
Which is a very difficult thing to do.
Now, I've seen the huge shift in power that this has introduced.
There was a time, just at my own small level, as an author...
Where I would have depended on the goodwill of the big media in order to get my ideas out there.
And since my ideas have sometimes been radical and contradictory to the established order of things, it was very difficult to do that.
Well, I don't need the big media anymore.
I absolutely don't need them.
They're not required at all.
They're redundant as far as I'm concerned.
What is important...
Is the community of like-minded people that I am reaching through social media, through Facebook, through my website.
Not to say that Facebook is perfect because Facebook is very problematic and is itself a large corporation which is filtering and controlling information.
But at least it's there.
It's something.
joe rogan
There's some excellent things with Facebook, though.
One of the excellent things is that everyone is themselves.
graham hancock
Yes.
joe rogan
Like that is your Facebook account.
This is when you're posting.
This is who you are.
graham hancock
Yeah.
joe rogan
For the most part.
I mean, obviously, there's some frauds out there.
But a lot of when people are commenting, they're commenting using their Facebook identity.
So that's a real person, as opposed to Twitter or a lot of message boards where you're getting trolls and a lot of assholes that are posting under fake names.
There's a lot of people out there that it's like a sport to them to be shitty or to rile people up.
graham hancock
Yeah, it always puzzles me.
I get relatively little of it on my Facebook pages.
I have an author Facebook page.
I have a personal Facebook page.
I run them both parallel, put the same stuff on both of them.
There's one or two people who kind of haunt me there and just always want to say negative and unpleasant things.
And my view is go for it, Guy.
Say those things if you want to.
joe rogan
Well, you're always going to get that if you're in the public eye.
And the thing to be aware of...
It's a tremendous waste of, unless you're actually doing something evil and someone's trying to expose something, which you're clearly not.
But if you were, then that kind of makes sense.
Like, these people are crusaders.
But a lot of them are just what you call haters in the United States.
And the thing about haters is they're all losers.
graham hancock
Yes.
joe rogan
There's no one that lives a fulfilled, successful life with an awesome family, a great relationship.
They're doing what they want to do for a living.
They're happy and at peace.
And they also go online and they're very...
And say hateful things.
And shit on people.
No, it's a mess of wasted energy.
unidentified
Yes.
joe rogan
Like, they're...
And some people are really good at it.
And it's like, damn, if you put that energy into something productive, instead of stalking Graham Hancock, you know, and fucking with him all day, you could get a lot of shit done.
You could probably be a happier person.
graham hancock
Exactly.
So the only answer at the receiving end of that is not to feed it.
joe rogan
Yes.
graham hancock
You know, it's not to nourish it with angry or hurt responses.
joe rogan
Well, that's what they're trying to do.
You know, when someone's saying, you research your shit, your fucking book's...
I wipe my ass with your book.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
They're trying to fuck with you.
graham hancock
Absolutely.
And the answer is, somehow, what I try to do sometimes is to just respond with love, you know?
joe rogan
It's nice if it's true, if it's real.
And I try to do the same if I can.
graham hancock
Sometimes it's really hard.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's hard.
But do you also agree, I definitely feel this about myself, that some of the criticism that I've received, even extreme criticism, even if it's unbalanced, I've benefited from.
graham hancock
Always.
joe rogan
Yes.
graham hancock
Always.
joe rogan
It's useful.
Yes.
graham hancock
It's useful.
There's something to learn from that.
It's like I was saying, you know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
I mean, you have to learn from this.
It's out there.
We have to engage in some way with criticism.
I've received an enormous amount of criticism from my work and for the suggestion that it was a lost civilization and the work that I've done on psychedelics and altered states of consciousness.
Just endless.
It's nonstop.
And my view is thank you.
Thank you for criticizing me.
I appreciate it.
If there are holes in what I'm saying, if my argument is weak in a particular area and you're helping me to see that… The right response is gratitude to that.
joe rogan
They really are, in a sense, working for you in some way, because, I mean, there's been unwarranted criticism that I've received that have made me rethink a lot of things I do.
Even if it's unwarranted, they've made me rethink, like, what is causing this reaction?
Like, is there anything that I could have done differently that could have avoided that?
Or is this a necessary evil that just comes with the business?
graham hancock
Yes.
joe rogan
And it makes you think about things in a more complex way.
And although that might be uncomfortable, I think there's some great benefit of it.
graham hancock
There's some great benefit from it.
And once again, it's putting us into a real social situation.
As you say, these people are real.
It's like being back in the village in the old days where...
You might be directly criticized by one or other of your fellow villagers.
Well, now our village is the whole world, and it crosses all national boundaries and all religious interests.
It can be anybody, anywhere, who's taking an interest in you.
I'm constantly receiving information, some of it critical, some of it positive, through Facebook, in particular through Facebook, which is very helpful to me.
And I really appreciate it.
And I try the best I can.
I try as much as I can do.
I don't want to spend my entire day Morning to night on Facebook.
But I try to engage with it.
I try to respond because I realize that people are giving me their time.
Somebody sends me a link to a story I haven't ever seen before.
It's really important for my research.
Thank you.
That's really great.
joe rogan
Twitter's giant for that for me.
Just absolutely gigantic.
I've gotten more information from Twitter, more interesting websites that people have sent me to, more interesting articles that people have sent me to than any other resource that I've ever been in contact with.
And it's just...
Directly because of interacting with people, and when they send me interesting things, I retweet them, and then those retweets get seen by a large number of people, so people see that I do that, and so they send me more interesting stuff.
It's really cool in that way.
I like that.
It's establishing a network in that sense.
graham hancock
It's a whole new situation, which we've not faced before, done on a gigantic scale, and What it means is that information which used to be strictly controlled and in the hands of elites is now changing.
The power structure of information is changing entirely and that's potentially a very exciting new time to live in and great things are coming out of it.
It's easy to say this, but I think a new consciousness is dawning in the world, actually.
I don't think it's very big yet.
I think the old way of doing things is still extremely strong, but people are waking up to their power and saying, you know, I am not simply to be pushed around and told what to do by people.
An expert or a government official or a corporation.
And that's great.
joe rogan
Yeah, I believe you're correct.
And I think that it's hard to see while you're in the middle of it.
graham hancock
Yeah.
joe rogan
Because it's all happening while we're participating in it.
graham hancock
We are living in a time of extraordinary, rapid, unbelievable change.
And when the history of this time...
Maybe things will settle down.
Maybe they won't.
I don't know.
But when the history of this time comes to be written...
There'll have to be some perspective on it 200-300 years from now.
It will be seen as one of the most extraordinary moments in the whole human story.
joe rogan
My friend Amber Lyon has an interesting way of talking about certain events and one of the things she talks about when it comes to corporate control of information and things along the lines of the Julian Assange situation She talks about being on the wrong side of history, and I think that's a very good point.
The people that are trying to suppress information in that way, and the information that would directly affect the lives, but the consciousness of the entire culture.
That that's the wrong side of history and exactly all things are said and done people trying to act in their best interest Currently they don't realize like the fucking jig is up man You might be able to hang on and keep treading water for another three or four years.
graham hancock
Yeah, but the jig is up Yeah, it's like the Inquisition was on the wrong side of history You know when it made when it made Galileo say that actually the Sun did revolve around the earth Even though he knew that the earth moved It's clear that Galileo was on the right side of history We know that now.
We've got perspective on it.
We can look back with hindsight.
And it's the same thing that's happening today in different ways.
joe rogan
Yeah, it really is.
It's just more intense because it's happening worldwide.
And it's all happening at the same time.
And we're seeing positive and negative repercussions of it.
Like these failed states that come about because of Arab Spring.
Like everybody says, let's get rid of the dictator.
And then, you know, Muammar Gaddafi gets killed.
graham hancock
Pandora's box is open.
joe rogan
Yeah.
And now Libya is like this insane place.
unidentified
Hell world.
graham hancock
Libya is a hell world.
Syria is a hell world.
Iraq is a hell world.
In every case, Pandora's box has been opened and the immediate result has been that things got way worse than they were before.
And then, you know, if we're talking about the dark side, the negative side of things as well, there is this horrible problem of bigoted religious fundamentalism, which is not confined to the Islamic world by any means.
I mean, there are many Christian bigots as well.
There's a tendency for people to cling on to old and devalued ideas and to have an almost religious, fanatical commitment to them and be willing.
I mean, what idea is worth killing another fellow human being for because they don't share your idea?
I mean, this is demonic.
It's a horrendous, horrendous situation that this happens.
joe rogan
I followed a few guys on Twitter that are a part of that whole Islamic state.
There was an article about this guy who was a rapper who is suspected, a rapper from London, suspected of being one of the guys that beheaded one of the American journalists.
And I was following his Twitter feed.
It's just like they banned his Twitter account.
But it was so strange to see what's going on.
unidentified
And also strange to see his...
joe rogan
There was this thing that was going on with his interaction with the other people, There was this intense camaraderie, this intense camaraderie with his other Islamic warriors, you know, that they all looked at it.
Everyone was brothers and sisters and everyone was, you know, it was all, there was great intensity to all of the decisions that were being made and great intensity to the bonds they all had, you know, fighting against what they thought was the evil United States government.
And, unfortunately, there was also some things that he said that, you know, they were talking about how everybody's freaking out, that one head got cut off, one body part got cut off of this one guy, but what about the thousands of people that are blown to bits by these drones that no one's talking about?
That's undeniable.
graham hancock
That is undeniable.
That is absolutely true.
Two wrongs never make a right.
joe rogan
They do not.
graham hancock
The fact that that happens does not excuse the cold-blooded slicing off of a fellow human being's head.
But nevertheless, it happens.
We should not condemn the one without condemning the other as well.
joe rogan
Absolutely.
And in fact, the one...
You're talking about one individual as opposed to thousands of people that have been killed by drones that are innocent.
graham hancock
Completely innocent people who are so-called collateral damage, who are just ripped apart by our high-tech weapons, which will behead a person in an instant, slice body parts off just completely broken.
joe rogan
If you're lucky.
Or if you're not lucky, they only break off a few things, and then you suffer for the rest of your life in agonizing pain.
graham hancock
So we have to own this.
We have to accept that this is something we do.
We in the West are not innocent of this barbarity.
We're also part of it.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Is it we?
You know, that's the real thing.
graham hancock
Well, that's the real thing, because then you come back to the question of the manipulation of public opinion by very small interest groups who have...
A very unbalanced control of information.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
And then what does we mean?
If it's not you and it's not I, do we take responsibility for people we don't even know, doing things that are under the orders of people we also don't know, and under the influence of corporations, we're not really exactly sure who's pulling the strings or how it's getting done or what politicians are moving what pieces into place.
The whole thing's a fucking mess.
graham hancock
We take responsibility for standing by and letting bad shit happen and not doing anything about it.
Somehow or other, to fail to act when we know that something really wrong is being done in our name, that is as bad as doing it ourselves.
joe rogan
Have you ever seen the interview?
There's an interview that's out there of one of the guys that's a...
He was a drone pilot, and he was responsible for, I don't know, a large number of deaths.
But he would describe what it was like to be a drone pilot and what it's like to...
You know, to operate these death machines that fly through the sky and just launch rockets and how crazy it was.
And this is a new thing that didn't exist decades ago.
Didn't exist during the first Gulf War.
There was no drones.
I mean, this idea of precision attacks by automated machines that fly around the air and launch Hellfire missiles.
I mean, what a fucking crazy name.
They call them Hellfire.
graham hancock
Hellfire, yeah.
And it becomes like a computer game.
unidentified
Oh yeah.
graham hancock
You're looking at it on a screen.
joe rogan
Completely detached.
graham hancock
Completely detached from the mass murder that you are in fact inflicting.
joe rogan
What a dark world.
graham hancock
Dark.
We live in a dark time and the only thing is that there is this light which is growing.
There is the capacity for love.
Human beings, we are capable of love.
It involves detaching ourselves from controlling orders and actually thinking As human beings, thinking for ourselves.
Very difficult to do, but I think it's happening.
joe rogan
I also think that that conflict, the conflict of battling against the negative, builds up the positive in some strange way.
I mean, the anti-war movement was really a big part of what made the hippie movement of the 60s.
Like, a lot of it was in response to the Vietnam War.
There's this war that people knew to be unjust, and so this flower power, love power movement LSD and marijuana and all that came out of that.
That very resistance to killing people that didn't do anything bad to us.
graham hancock
To produce this very positive thing.
But then, of course, there was then a counter-reaction to that, which we call the war on drugs, which slapped down on that and shut it all down again.
I mean, I know you're not big into supernatural issues, but when I look at all of this, I have to say the Gnostics who...
If I simplify the Gnostic ideas, we know about Gnostic ideas because a batch of texts were found buried at a place called Nakamadi in Upper Egypt near the Temple of Dendera in Upper Egypt, and they'd been buried for 1,600 years.
And they were found in 1945, and they contain a complete corpus of ideas of a people who call themselves the Gnostics.
And they see a dark force at work in the universe, which is seeking to snuff out the divine spark in humanity.
And it's a supernatural force.
And what they say is that the entity who we've been taught for the last 2,000-plus years to believe is God, The God of Abraham, who may be called Yahweh or who may be called Allah, that from the Gnostic point of view, that's not a God at all.
That's a demon.
That's a lower-level supernatural who's got this huge inflated ego, who wants to be praised and worshipped, who's constantly urging his followers on to acts of violence and war.
And I think we cannot say there are any facts in this area.
Maybe it's just the dark side of the human psyche, and maybe it's all generated by our brains, or maybe there is a supernatural realm.
But I think Gnosticism is a very useful tool to look at the society we live in today.
They believed that there were entities called archons who are evil angels who disguise themselves as human beings and mingle with us to drive us into all manner of That's why the serpent in the Garden of Eden Is the good guy in the Gnostic frame of reference.
joe rogan
That's very bizarre, the serpent being the good guy.
graham hancock
He's the good guy because he's saying to Adam and Eve, you have to know the difference between good and evil.
You can't just be these thoughtless meat creatures, you know, who are wandering around in a happy daze in the garden.
If you're going to grow and develop, you have to make choices between good and evil.
And it's the tree of knowledge of good and evil that the serpent introduces Adam and Eve to.
And says you need to eat from that.
And actually, I would say this is true.
We are defined by our choices.
It's through our choices that we grow.
And if we're ignorant of the context, how can we hope to grow?
joe rogan
Yeah, and the stories of Adam and Eve and all that stuff, It's allegorical, right?
I mean, it's supposed to be...
There's an allegory to...
graham hancock
There's certainly an allegory.
There's certainly an allegory there.
joe rogan
It's not a real serpent.
You know, it's not a real apple.
unidentified
No, I don't read it as a real serpent or a real apple.
graham hancock
I mean, actually, for the Gnostics, very clearly and definitely it was a psychedelic mushroom.
When the Gnostics portray...
The tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden.
It is Amanita muscaria.
It's the phyagoric.
Sometimes it's a psilocybe.
It is a visionary substance, which they are depicting.
And that, in a way, from the Gnostic point of view...
Is a necessary part of the liberation of the spirit, that it's an agent for awakening.
That's what the serpent was giving.
Now, I know that all the fundamentalist Christians out there are going to say Hancock is a devil worshipper because he's saying that the serpent is the good guy.
But that's what the Gnostics said, and there was a deep and ancient study of the mystery of life and the mystery of reality.
joe rogan
I've read somewhere, I don't remember the source, but I read somewhere where they were talking about the interpretations of ancient languages and the translations from, you know, ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, all to Greek, Latin, that a lot of things got lost along the way in the confusion, and that one of the confusions was that the word apple, It could be interpreted also as red.
And that it wasn't an apple, but that it was a red.
And that red being the color of the Amanita Muscaria.
That was why.
graham hancock
Absolutely.
joe rogan
I mean, folks have to understand, if they've never tried to pay attention to how people translate ancient languages, And then try to translate them several times, not just into, you know, from ancient Hebrew to Latin, but also from Latin to Greek, from Greek to English.
There's so much that gets weirded out along the way.
Like, if you've ever taken a phrase from, like, a Russian website where you don't know what they're saying and then put it into, like, Google Translate and you see the English version of what they're saying, like, Oh my God, it's so convoluted and confusing because of the way the structure of their language is very different.
The grammar that they use is very different.
And it's nothing in comparison to how different it was in ancient times.
graham hancock
A lot get lost in translation, and a lot the translator imposes his or her idea of how things should be on the material.
And many of the texts that come down to us are...
which are actually representing a particular point of view.
That's why these hidden Gnostic texts, which just lay buried for 1600 years until they were found in the 1940s, are extremely interesting.
And actually, we don't need to rely on translations.
Most of the Gnostics were wiped out by Christianity when Christianity pulled on the jackboot of Rome and became the state religion of the most powerful militaristic empire of the ancient world.
It set about destroying all competitors.
And amongst those it destroyed were the Gnostics.
And they were burnt at the stake from a very early date.
But some Gnostic sects survived and they have left us images.
And there are a number of Gnostic churches.
These guys saw themselves as Christians.
There are a number of Gnostic churches where they painted the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil quite specifically as Amanita Muscaria.
joe rogan
Yeah, and even in French frescoes, what is that fresco from like, it was, I don't remember the year, but it was an Adam and Eve portrayal that showed several different types of mushrooms.
Several different types of mushrooms, I know the one you mean.
Including psilocybin, and it's Adam and Eve clearly standing.
graham hancock
Absolutely.
joe rogan
And it makes you wonder, like, this was in, not modern times, but not 5,000 years.
graham hancock
No, this was like 1200 AD. It was like 800 years ago, something like that.
We were at the tail end of the last surviving Gnostic sects.
The Cathars in the southwest of France are an example of a Gnostic sect who survived through until the Catholic Church wiped them out with the so-called Albigensian Crusades, a truly horrendous act of ethnic murder that took place in the 1200s.
So we're actually not that long ago, and things have survived from that time.
and it's very interesting that they are clearly indicating that the psychedelic experience is of crucial importance, that it's a liberating experience, that it allows us to wake up to the true nature of things.
Now, of course, they would do it right.
They would do it in a sacred context.
They would work very hard on the setting to create the place and the space where this experience unfolded because that's part of the experience.
The substance on its own is only part of the story, as anybody who's worked with psychedelics knows.
The context in which the experience unfolds is at least as important and the intent with which you go into it And what we're seeing now, again, history has been obscured from us, but recent research is showing, for example, the famous Eleusinian Mysteries in Greece.
2,000 years at the Temple of Eleusis.
Pilgrims came from all over Greece once a year to undergo an experience, and that experience involved drinking a brew.
We can now say with absolute certainty that that was a brew closely, that there were elements in it closely related to LSD. How do we know that with absolute certainty?
Because the work has been done by Hoffman, by Gordon Wasson, and others.
There's a very detailed study of what was in that brew.
It was called the Kaikion.
And growing on the barley that was used in the brew was a form of ergot.
Which contained LSD amides and which was soluble in water.
They've really done the science in great depth.
And when you read the accounts, you know, of great figures from the ancient world, people like Plato or Socrates, who went and had the experience at the Eleusinian Mysteries, they drink this, they enter a darkened series of corridors and passageways and chambers in this huge temple, and this light appears and they start seeing visions.
It's pretty obvious what's going on.
joe rogan
Yeah, pretty obvious that they were tripping in some way, shape or form.
graham hancock
And they saw it as nurturing.
They saw it as nurturing.
They felt that there were several of the ancients who had this experience and who said that after having had this experience, they lost their fear of death, that they understood.
That it was not the end.
Now, we could argue about that, but that was the experience that they had.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's the experience that a lot of people have when they take acid.
One of the things that Larry Hagman said, who is a popular American actor, he did this interview when he was on CNN, and they were talking to him about death, and he said that LSD completely took away his fear of death.
He just didn't mean what it meant before.
graham hancock
Because you realize you're part of something larger.
joe rogan
You're part of something.
It is important to have a sense of self because it's important to brush your teeth.
It's important to pay attention when you're driving.
It's important to take care of your health while you're alive or you'll suffer some ill consequences.
But it's also important to recognize that a lot of your need to take care of yourself can overwhelm your greater perspective.
The greater perspective of being a part of everything.
Right.
graham hancock
Yeah.
joe rogan
And that it's not just about you.
And the worst cases of human beings are the egos run amok, like the dictator, like the Saddam Hussein, or anyone who controls.
It's all them.
It's all about them.
graham hancock
Huge, insane egos.
joe rogan
Yes.
And they cut people down and smash...
You know, and destroy and kill and leave horrible, horrible lives in the wake of their ridiculous detachment from these universal ideas.
We are a part of a giant collective consciousness.
And that's almost impossible to get to that without something.
Whether it's yoga, whether it's DMT, whether it's something that you ingest that gets you to that understanding.
That understanding is very difficult to realize.
with our normal conditioning, the normal alpha male primate behavior that we have in bed.
graham hancock
What I call the unled problem-solving state of consciousness.
That state of consciousness is not our friend when it comes to understanding our place in the wider scheme of things.
It is our friend in many ways, and it's a good state of consciousness, but there are so many other states of consciousness that are of value and that need to be sought out.
Now some people are very lucky and they can get into deeply altered states of consciousness and see reality in a different way without needing to take any substance.
It's fine, you know.
Or they can get there through meditation or they can get there through floating in a flotation tank.
But for a lot of people a very powerful vehicle For changing our perspective on the nature of reality has been, for thousands of years, the psychedelic experience.
And it's time that we rehabilitated that and gave it a place in our society.
joe rogan
Well, I think, as you were talking about earlier, that this is a time of great change.
I think this is a time of great awakening when it comes to psychedelics.
I was listening to this guy, Sturgill Simpson.
I tweeted it today.
He's just a country music singer who sings about DMT. Oh, really?
graham hancock
I haven't come across the show.
joe rogan
I mean, there's country music, like old school Waylon Jennings style country music.
If you're into that, and I am, I like that kind of old music.
I've been really into that the last couple of years I've gotten in.
I've always been a Johnny Cash fan.
I've always liked Dwight Yoakam and some country singers, but I've gotten into a bunch of other stuff recently, but...
This guy, Sturgill Simpson, is like a big part of what he's singing about is psychedelics.
And in a country song.
I mean, incredible stuff.
And I think that that, to me, just sort of highlights that this is spreading through a bunch of different genres, different art forms.
You see a lot of psychedelic art now.
Not just Alex Gray, who's the master, but you see others that are coming along.
A lot of psychedelic artwork.
graham hancock
I see it all the time when I go and speak at events, at conferences.
People come to me with their art, and I'm seeing this huge explosion of visionary creativity taking place.
And I'm constantly meeting people whose lives have been transformed by these experiences.
joe rogan
And I think a lot of people are getting informed by guys like you who have written books on these experiences, from Supernatural to your own discussions, including the one that got banned from TED. The whole TED thing has kind of been exposed as being this really bizarre, almost cultish thing.
Thing that's done a lot of great good.
I mean, I'm a big fan of a lot of the speakers that have come on TED. But I had Eddie Huang on the show where he talked about his experience in TED, where they kicked him out because he left there to do my podcast.
They wanted him to be a part of this whole thing all day where you had to hang out.
He had to stay in a hotel room with someone else.
Like, they made him.
He's like, can I get my own hotel room?
They're like, no, the TED experience, you have to shack up with some fucking random dude who's talking about physics or whatever it is.
How extremely bizarre.
It's very cult-like.
graham hancock
It's a cult, yeah.
It's like Scientology.
joe rogan
Well, it's also become intensely profitable.
And when things become intensely profitable, they become this giant business that's part of why your talk got banned from TED instead of having an open discourse about agreeing or disagreeing about what you're saying.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But your talk got banned because of pressure from a bunch of people.
They start using the word pseudoscience.
Pseudoscience!
Stop the pseudoscience!
There's almost a cult of people that are afraid of debating ideas that are very controversial and very difficult to nail down, especially when you're talking about the emergence of consciousness in early man.
Okay, no one knows how the fuck people got from hunting things to drawing on cave walls to experiencing visionary psychedelic states, but we do know that happened.
graham hancock
It happened.
joe rogan
It happened.
graham hancock
And it's worth talking about.
joe rogan
Yeah, we're not...
It's not like 1940, whatever the fuck it was, when people figured out ayahuasca, whatever year it was.
What year it was?
graham hancock
Oh, ayahuasca goes back a very long way.
joe rogan
No, but I mean, Western world.
McKenna talked about how they first, when they found harming, they wanted to call it...
graham hancock
Telepathy.
joe rogan
Yeah, telepathy.
graham hancock
That's right.
joe rogan
But they realized that it had already been scientifically defined as harming.
graham hancock
Yeah.
joe rogan
So that was like, what year was that?
graham hancock
That would probably be in the 1930s somewhere.
joe rogan
And then Wasson, Gordon Wasson was in like the 50s, is that what it was?
graham hancock
Yeah, 50s, goes down to Mexico, encounters Maria Sabina has a mushroom experience and that's the beginning of the mushroom story in the West actually.
joe rogan
So that's like modern Western culture and civilization.
This is our introduction to it.
But the shit had been going on for thousands of years.
Thousands of years.
Thousands and thousands of years.
So for us to assume that these, you, especially you and I, who have had these psychedelic experiences.
I've never had an ayahuasca experience, but I've had a dozen DMT trips and mushroom trips.
graham hancock
Yeah.
joe rogan
There's something there.
There's something there that's unbelievably intense, and to deny that that had an effect on consciousness of emerging people?
graham hancock
It's just crazy.
joe rogan
It's ridiculous.
graham hancock
It's just crazy.
joe rogan
That's, in my opinion, very anti-scientific.
graham hancock
It's extremely anti-scientific.
It is like the modern Inquisition.
joe rogan
But it's a weird thing where people are ignoring that aspect and concentrating on all the other potential aspects which I think probably worked in some sort of a symbiotic fashion.
The introduction of meat into the diet, the experimenting with different food sources because of the changing of the climate.
There was a lot of factors that We're good to go.
You know what I'm saying?
I mean, there was a lot of things had to take place.
graham hancock
A lot.
It was a very complicated process, but I'm absolutely sure that psychedelics were a key part of it.
joe rogan
Everyone who's taken psychedelics is pretty sure that it was a key part.
You know why?
Because you've had the experience.
graham hancock
You've had the experience.
joe rogan
And everyone who doesn't...
If you haven't had a psychedelic experience, and you're talking about psychedelic experiences being not a factor or non-effective, you're crazy.
graham hancock
Yeah, you'd be better to shut up.
joe rogan
Well, it's just nonsense.
graham hancock
Because people who've not had the experience at all, they don't, even in my view, need to come to the table, because they've got nothing to bring to the discussion.
joe rogan
I don't mind if they come to the table, but I find their arguments to be almost hilarious.
I have a very good friend who's a very intelligent guy, and he's never taken any drugs.
And his take on it is, and he's a brilliant guy, I love talking to him, but his take on it is simply, all the work's been done.
I'm not going to learn anything new from that.
And I'm like, well, that's so crazy.
I'll just say his name, Penn Jillette.
graham hancock
Right.
joe rogan
I love that guy.
graham hancock
Well, it was the same.
joe rogan
But he doesn't do any drugs.
He doesn't do anything.
graham hancock
Right.
And he feels that there's no need for him to have that experience.
joe rogan
He said it's all been figured out.
All the work's been done.
I'm like, oh, God, dude.
graham hancock
Yeah.
joe rogan
Let me get you high on DMT. It lasts 15 minutes.
And you tell me what work's been done.
graham hancock
See, that's what's so special about DMT in particular is that there is no negotiation with the experience.
There are very few people who can resist it once you hit the requisite dose.
joe rogan
The threshold.
graham hancock
And it's going to take you where it takes you.
And then you are confronted by one of the most intense and extraordinary experiences that it is possible for any human being to have.
Yes, we can jump out of an airplane at 10,000 feet.
Yes, we can scale a sheer cliff.
That's also very intense and very, very extraordinary.
Yes, we can go scuba diving to the depths.
But if we look at the whole range of human experiences and say, what is one of the most intense and potentially most transformative experiences as possible to have, I would say DMT done with the right intention in the right context is right up there with anything else.
joe rogan
It's the most intense thing I've ever experienced.
graham hancock
Me too.
joe rogan
I mean, I've experienced everything, obviously.
I've never been scuba diving.
I've never been skydiving.
And it doesn't mean that those things aren't intense as well.
But to deny the impact of those things, it seems silly.
And the people that are arguing against the efficacy of these experiences, or against the influence of these experiences, to have those people actually have never had taken these experiences arguing against It seems so silly.
graham hancock
It's crazy.
joe rogan
People are scared of them, though.
graham hancock
But it's those people who are running the rules in our society still.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Well, if they weren't, that would be really terrifying.
If our society was run in the way it is now by a bunch of people doing DMT, you'd be like, what the fuck?
graham hancock
Yeah, but that's one thing we can be quite sure.
If our society was run by a bunch of people doing DMT, it wouldn't be run in the way that it's run now.
joe rogan
No, it wouldn't.
Well, you know, McKenna found out about DMT by a friend who was a scientist who worked at the Army Research Lab, and they had like a barrel of the stuff.
They had a fucking barrel of DMT. DMT is very small doses that are transformative.
These tiny little doses that you smoke take you into these incredible realms.
So the idea of a barrel...
Or LSD. I mean, McKenna described LSD in the best way I've ever heard, is that the amount of LSD you need for it to be effective is like an ant that can break down the Empire State Building in 30 minutes.
graham hancock
Yeah, exactly.
joe rogan
Like, it's literally that little.
graham hancock
He was a great genius.
And it's very fortunate, again, we have the Internet.
And Terence McKenna has passed in the year 2000.
He's still with us.
And he is having this liberating effect on people all around the world.
And he had the gift.
He had the gift of language.
joe rogan
Yeah.
graham hancock
He spoke in such a compelling way.
I love listening to Terrence McKenna.
I do too.
And Bill Hicks, you know, the two of them together.
joe rogan
Sure.
graham hancock
Just amazing.
joe rogan
And Hicks was a huge fan of McKenna and became – I found out about McKenna because of Hicks.
graham hancock
Right.
joe rogan
Because there was a joke where Hicks said something about leaving mushrooms under the table of all these people.
Take it.
And he said what Terrence McKenna would describe as a heroic dose.
And I remember saying, who the fuck is Terrence McKenna?
And so then I, it wasn't even a Google back then, I searched Terrence McKenna because of hearing about it on Bill Hicks.
And then I got a hold of some of the audio recordings.
And then you listen to the guy's voice and it's like, wow, what a weird guy.
A weird, interesting, compelling way of communicating.
graham hancock
Incredible use of language, which just makes you think all the time.
That's the service he's providing for all of us still.
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, he missed the mark on that December 21st, 2012 thing, but everybody did.
graham hancock
Sure he did.
Everybody's going to miss the mark.
joe rogan
Well, he was also a guy who used to get high a lot and come up with cool theories and things to think about.
And when you're postulating and thinking about the future, here's the thing about thinking about the future.
No one's ever got it right.
graham hancock
No.
joe rogan
No one's ever figured out the future.
There's not a single fucking person who's ever sat down.
graham hancock
For anybody to get it right.
joe rogan
Nobody got it right.
graham hancock
The future is indeterminate.
joe rogan
Yeah.
graham hancock
It's interesting.
I mean, talking about psychedelics, what's happening with cannabis in the United States right now is very interesting to me coming from Britain where nobody is ever even willing to contemplate the legalization or the de-restriction of cannabis.
But in America, state by state, people are voting with their feet and the barriers are being broken down.
I mean, America has been the huge dark force behind the war on drugs all over the world for the last 40 or 50 years.
So many countries around the world have just blindly followed the American lead.
That's the American government.
That's the American power structure.
But the American people are saying no.
The American people are saying, actually, we want to smoke cannabis and we find it positive and nurturing for us.
And state by state, either it's being decriminalized or medical marijuana is available or it's actually being legalized in a number of cases.
This is a big change.
Again, there's all kind of conspiracy theories like how Monsanto is going to take it over and so on and so forth.
But I see it as a really good thing that these barriers in the heartland of the war of drugs are being broken down by the American people themselves.
And I say kudos to the American people for getting on and making that happen because it's going to be a benefit to the whole world.
joe rogan
Yeah, Warren Buffet is starting to get into the marijuana trade.
graham hancock
Oh, yeah?
joe rogan
That's when things are going to get freaky.
graham hancock
Yeah.
joe rogan
Because when you've got a guy who's worth $90 billion or whatever the hell he's worth, that's when things are going to get very interesting.
graham hancock
Well, sure.
I mean, people are going to make commercial advantage of this.
But at the end of the day, I just come back to this is something that I've said again and again as the years have gone by.
For me, the fundamental issue is the right of the adult to to make sovereign decisions about their own consciousness and one of those sovereign decisions has to be the right to use cannabis or not to use it but one must be free to make that decision and not controlled by society and once that is recognized once all the scare stories about cannabis go away and we find that in fact state by state it's a positive rather than a harmful thing I think
that the question marks are going to begin to arise over the psychedelics too, and we're going to see all those barriers breaking down in the years to come.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think you're right.
I think bringing up Warren Buffett and Warren Buffett's company, specifically, what's happening is he's a part of this company.
He's a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, has this company called Cubic Designs, and they sell, they maximize usable floor space in warehouses, and they send 1,000 flyers to weed dispensaries.
In recent weeks, and these flyers, they show these medical marijuana grow-ups, and it's like double your usable growing space.
This is intense stuff, because it's companies that are real estate holders that have giant amounts of money invested in this that are saying, you know what, we're going to dip our feet into this growing marijuana industry.
I have a friend who works at a dispensary in Colorado, and the dispensary is $5 Five acres indoor.
graham hancock
Wow.
joe rogan
Five acres.
graham hancock
That's great.
joe rogan
Five acres.
That's an enormous building.
And it's all pot.
It's just millions of dollars in marijuana.
And there's people that are there.
This has only been less than a year.
I mean, it was made legal last January.
And here we are.
We're talking right now.
It is September of 2014. This is a crazy thing.
I just did my comedy special in Denver, and I hadn't been to Denver in a while.
The place has changed, man.
It's like marijuana is a huge part of the culture now.
People are moving.
There's marijuana tourism.
People are moving there for marijuana.
They're moving there to be a part of the marijuana business because you can get really fucking rich right now.
Because there's a lot of people that are not sure what's going to happen federally, because it's still illegal, federally.
So they're not sure whether or not they want to dive into it yet.
But the people that are bold, that are diving in, they're making insane profits.
graham hancock
They've got a chance of making a great fortune from it.
joe rogan
And the government is making a lot of money, too.
39% of the profits go to taxes.
Wow.
So every marijuana joint that gets sold, if it's sold for $1, $0.39, no one's selling it for $1.
But if it's sold for $100 $39 is going to the government So they're making over $100 million this year in taxes, just in Colorado.
graham hancock
State government.
joe rogan
Yes, and so they're looking at this.
graham hancock
So the federal government is not reaping the revenues because it's...
joe rogan
No, because it's illegal.
graham hancock
It's illegal.
joe rogan
But they're finally allowing the people to put their money in banks, which was, for a long time, they had to do this weird shit where they had to Like, put it in safe deposit boxes, or they had to take the cash and then use it to buy bank notes and buy bank checks.
It was very strange.
They weren't allowing them to use credit cards or any of the normal ways that people do business that keep them from being robbed at gunpoint by criminals, untrackable bills.
So they had these kids that were driving around with stacks of cash.
It's really dangerous and scary.
graham hancock
Very dangerous and scary.
But it's very good that all of this is changing.
I can only see it as a good thing.
I don't see any downside in it.
It's a really positive development that's taking place.
joe rogan
I agree.
And I think it's also a part of this whole movement that you and I were talking about, where the world is just changing.
Information is out there.
graham hancock
People are just not prepared to put up with that fucking shit any longer.
They're not prepared to put up with it.
To be told what to think, to be told what to do with their own consciousness.
And it's great that it's Americans who are leading the way in this and the rest of the world is watching.
And all the lies we've been told about cannabis, they're going to just drift away and be wrecked and destroyed forever by what's happening in America.
So it's a great service that's being...
That's being done to the world.
As you know, I had my own long-term relationship with cannabis.
I smoked cannabis for 24 years.
I overindulged.
I undoubtedly abused my relationship with cannabis.
I don't blame the cannabis for that.
It was me.
I was...
joe rogan
You got crazy.
graham hancock
I was crazy.
joe rogan
You got a little crazy.
graham hancock
I mean, it's very crazy to smoke it from 9 in the morning until 2 o'clock the next morning, seven days a week, or rather vaporize it as I... As I did.
And I reached a point, thanks to a series of ayahuasca journeys, in October 2011, where I made the decision that I wouldn't smoke cannabis.
Now, three years have come since then.
But I want to live in a society where I and fellow adults are free to choose either to...
Use cannabis or not to use it without any state agent sticking their nose in our private business.
This is our private business, what we do with our own consciousness.
And it's incredibly encouraging to see that the Americans are taking that power back and showing the rest of the world how to do it.
joe rogan
And also, anti-pot doctors are being exposed.
It's really fascinating, all these doctors that are paid off by pharmaceutical companies.
There was an article recently about anti-pot doctors being paid off, and all of the leading anti-pot doctors, all of them, are paid off.
graham hancock
Are taking big pharma's money?
joe rogan
Oh yeah, all of them.
graham hancock
Why am I not surprised?
joe rogan
Well, it's interesting that guys like Sanjay Gupta, who used to do that, who used to be on board with that, now has stepped up, come out in a huge way.
And he's also starting to address psychedelics, starting to address what's going on with psilocybin, the new study that's shown these people that took psilocybin and quit smoking.
Six months later, 80% of them, some large number, 70 or 80% quit smoking and didn't go back to it because of just the clarity of those visions where you kind of understand, like, what am I doing?
unidentified
Oh, I see.
graham hancock
You really get that perspective on yourself.
And that's the big news, you know, that these things are positive and beneficial.
And the way forward for society is to create...
Positive social environment and positive spaces in which we can explore these experiences, and the result for society as a whole will be very positive.
joe rogan
Very positive.
graham hancock
I'm convinced of that.
joe rogan
Yeah, Vice.com is the guys who broke this story.
It's incredible.
And it's all these different doctors that have been...
Like, here's one.
Dr. Herbert Keebler of Columbia University.
He's been...
Impeccable academic credentials.
He's been quoted in the press in academic publications warning against the use of marijuana, which he stresses may cause wide-ranging addiction.
That's my favorite.
Wide-ranging addiction.
And public health issues.
When he's writing his anti-pot opinion pieces for CBS News or being quoted by NBR and CNBC, what's left unsaid is that Clever has served as a paid consultant to leading prescription drug companies including Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, Reckitt Bankizer, the producer of painkiller called Neurofin, and Alkermes, the producer of a powerful new opiate...
Z-O-H-Y-D-R-O. How do you say that?
Zohydro?
Zohydro, I guess?
He's a cunt.
graham hancock
He's a professional cunt.
And what you say is, what he's been hiding and covering up is that all this stuff he's pushing, that's the real addictive drugs.
joe rogan
Well, Panko is called 16,000 deaths a year.
It's a multi-billion dollar business.
graham hancock
Absolutely.
joe rogan
It causes 16 deaths a year just in this country.
graham hancock
16,000 deaths a year.
joe rogan
16,000 deaths a year.
graham hancock
Stunning.
Yeah, 16,000.
And doctors are on the take to keep promoting that and to stop us exercising our free choice as adults to manage our pain in other ways, for example, with cannabis.
joe rogan
And even if it was just 16 deaths, obviously, 16,000.
If it was 16 deaths, that's 16 more than cannabis.
Cannabis is causing zero.
graham hancock
Cannabis doesn't kill anybody.
joe rogan
That's the most ridiculous thing ever.
You could die from aspirin.
A lot of people die every year from aspirin.
A lot of people die every year from salt.
They eat too much salt and they die.
graham hancock
Absolutely.
joe rogan
You drink too much water, you die.
graham hancock
Now, we have a painkiller.
I think you call it acetaminophen here in America.
We call it paracetamol in England.
It really fucks your liver.
It's a really, really dangerous, dangerous thing.
And once it reaches a certain level, there's no recovery from it.
And it kills thousands and thousands of people a year.
joe rogan
Well, I was reading this thing about bodybuilder, or watching a video, rather, about bodybuilding.
And this guy was being interviewed, who used to be this big competitive bodybuilder.
And they're talking about all the drugs that you have to take to get so big.
But one of the things he was talking about was that what really kills these guys is not the steroids.
It's painkillers.
graham hancock
Right.
joe rogan
They all get hooked on painkillers.
graham hancock
Right.
joe rogan
Because they're in pain all the time because they're lifting all this crazy weight and they're fucking up their body while they're doing it.
And they take acetaminophen, all these different Valiums, Percocets, and that stuff just destroys their kidneys.
Destroys their liver.
graham hancock
The kidneys, yeah.
And the withdrawal symptom from stopping taking the painkiller is a huge amount of pain.
So you then go and take more painkillers.
These are highly addictive, highly dangerous drugs.
joe rogan
Yeah, and state-sanctioned.
Government's looking out for you, kids.
graham hancock
Totally state-sanctioned.
Totally, totally state-sanctioned.
So I'm wondering now, three years after I gave up cannabis, whether the time has come to dip my toes back in the water in a respectful way, not do it every day, have some sacred moments.
I value the sensual side of it.
I don't know.
The next time I have an ayahuasca session, I'm going to I'm going to ask ayahuasca.
It's going to be my intent because it was ayahuasca that really interrupted my cannabis habit.
I'm going to ask, is there a way I can do this?
I don't know.
Maybe that's weak of me.
I wonder this.
I was talking with a friend last night and he said there's a true addict speaking when I said this because it sounds a bit like that.
But I did value cannabis.
It was an extraordinarily positive thing for me in many, many ways.
And what I feel is that I got out of balance with it.
And if I could...
If I could find that balance again and use it rarely at special times, then I think it would be okay.
But I'm a little afraid to go back there.
joe rogan
Well, you should be afraid, right?
You know, because you've had personal experience with addiction.
And I think that addiction is purely mental.
graham hancock
It's purely mental.
It was very easy to stop.
Once ayahuasca gave me the message, and I really got that.
I had a severe kicking.
First of all, a DMT trip.
Then immediately afterwards, five ayahuasca sessions.
I was psychologically busy.
And the message of that beating was you have to stop smoking cannabis.
And I did.
And looking back on it, it's absurd.
This is a very powerful plant agent.
And here I am, you know, vaporizing it 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
joe rogan
You went deep!
graham hancock
I went deep.
I went very deep.
And it got to the point where I actually wasn't enjoying it anymore, where I just felt that I couldn't live my life without it.
But I discovered I easily could live my life without it.
When I stopped, it wasn't a huge chore or problem to stop.
It wasn't actually difficult.
And in that sense, I definitely was not physically addicted to it.
joe rogan
Right.
Yeah.
That's the thing, is that I think there's some people that do get physically addicted.
I'm not...
You know, I used to say, marijuana is not addictive.
And I don't think it is with most people.
But I think biological diversity, biodiversity in human beings is such that, like, there's certain folks that have weird reactions to all kinds of different things.
Cats.
Some people around cats, like, my friend Gary, he can't even come over to my house.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
Because I have two cats.
unidentified
Okay.
joe rogan
If he walks in the door, he would start going, he would start wheezing.
unidentified
He can't breathe.
graham hancock
Yeah.
joe rogan
Like, he has to get out of there.
You could kill him with a room of cats.
graham hancock
Yes.
joe rogan
But then I got my friend Joey Diaz, who has, what is he, 11?
I think he has 11 cats.
This motherfucker has 11 cats.
graham hancock
His house is a zoo.
joe rogan
But if my friend Gary went over to my friend Joey's house, he would die.
But Joey's having a party over there.
He's got cats on his lap, he's petting them, he's sitting on his shoulders.
graham hancock
So the message is, we're all different.
And what works for one person doesn't work for another.
And that's again why this issue of adult sovereignty, of us having the right to make our choices about our own bodies is fundamental.
And actually with the psychedelics and the cannabis issue, that's just the tip of the iceberg of the whole issue of health and personal health.
And how our society is working to take away our choices over our personal health and to turn us into robots who consume the products that are pumped at us by the big pharmaceutical companies or who inventing every year this unholy alliance with psychiatrists, inventing every year new mental conditions for which new pills will be will be dosed out.
joe rogan
Yeah, in England, you guys don't have those commercials either.
Those commercials are so fucking insidious.
Ask your doctor about this drug that might cause you to shit yourself all day long and commit suicide.
That's the weirdest thing.
graham hancock
That's the big untold story about antidepressants.
Many antidepressants cause people to kill themselves.
joe rogan
How about antidepressants that supplement the antidepressants?
There's a certain antidepressant, I forget what it was called, that had insane side effects that they were promoting as a supplement to your regular antidepressant.
If your regular antidepressant isn't doing it, mix it up with this one.
But this one could cause fucking kidney failure, your dick might fly across the room like a mockingbird.
Anything could happen to you, but you might not be depressed, or you might.
I mean, fuck it.
Just take our pills.
unidentified
Ask your doctor.
graham hancock
These are the world's biggest drug dealers.
These are the true mafia of drugs.
joe rogan
Well, it's also the idea of commercials.
Commercials are influential, and the influence of commercials is very insidious, because there's one thing if a commercial is influencing you to buy a particular vacuum cleaner.
That doesn't bother me, man.
This is the best.
Hey, look, if you're If you're too much of a knucklehead to go on Consumer Reports or to read reviews online by independent people that tell you, this vacuum cleaner is great, this vacuum cleaner sucks, if you're too much of a knucklehead to do that, I don't feel bad for you.
graham hancock
Exactly.
joe rogan
But when it comes to consciousness, when it comes to pills, especially when it comes to happiness, man, because that's the big one.
Antidepressants, they should be calling them happy pills.
I wrote an article a long time ago from my blog about happy pills.
I called it happy pills.
And it was about this girl who was taking these antidepressants.
And I think that the selling of happiness in pill form is the ultimate ridiculous American notion.
graham hancock
It's horrible.
It's horrible.
It's suggesting that the answer does not lie within.
That it can be bought.
That happiness can be bought.
That's the ultimate illusion.
joe rogan
Also, what's insidious about it is selling it on television like that does a huge disservice to the actual people that could use antidepressants because they have a real mental imbalance.
There's people that do do that.
So, like, you're selling it as an antidote for a shit life, where there's other folks that might have a real issue.
They have an imbalance.
graham hancock
A huge chemical imbalance in the brain, and that can be adjusted.
unidentified
Yeah.
Yes.
joe rogan
Adjust it and make their life wonderful.
People that have a miserable life, they can make their life wonderful.
But instead, people will trivialize it because you see a commercial where a chick's running around a field of wheat and spinning around with her baby, and then someone says, I want to live like that, and then they call her a fucking doctor, and next thing you know, you're on a pill that you didn't need.
If you just started eating vegetables and going jogging every day, you'd be a way happier person than you were on that pill.
graham hancock
And again, let me say outright that the psychedelics are very effective antidepressants.
Psilocybin, being trial tested in human communities for thousands and thousands of years.
Ayahuasca in the Amazon, at least 4,000 years of use.
And anybody who's worked with psilocybin or ayahuasca enough will know that they do help with mood.
They do help you take a more positive outlook on life.
And whether that's to do with altering the chemical balance in the brain, because they do work on the serotonin system in the brain chemically, or whether it's to do with the revelation that one has that life is an incredible gift and an incredible joy and a privilege to be alive.
This is what we forget.
We're immersed in the cares and woes of daily life, constantly struggling to pay the next bills, to get on in work, relentlessly driven by To produce and consume and we forget that it's a magical, enchanted Gorgeous, glorious universe that we live in and we have this amazing bodies and we should just celebrate every minute of it.
Psychedelics help with that, too.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's hard.
It's hard to keep a balanced perspective, but I think it's also important to realize that perspective-shifting, consciousness-shifting experiences can also change the way you look at the world, and when you change the way you look at the world, it can adjust the way your brain functions.
And that it's not an either-or situation.
It's a combinatory situation.
It's like they might affect your brain in a very chemical way, but also just the altering of a perspective could enhance your mood.
And it could enhance the way your body and brain function.
graham hancock
Yeah, because the mind is what we are.
We are our minds.
The mind is the most powerful thing.
And that's where all healing, I believe, resides.
It resides in the mind.
If you can kick in the body's ability to heal itself, Through right mental attitude.
No medicine will do that for you.
That's why placebos actually work.
That's why they work better than the prescription drugs that they're being tested against.
joe rogan
Most of the time they don't work better than prescription drugs, but occasionally they do work.
Just the fact that they work at all.
The placebo effect is not nearly as effective as medicine in most cases, but just the fact that it does work at all.
That there's a way that you can tell your body to make itself better.
And the way is by tricking it to thinking it's taking medicine.
Look, you're going to be better.
I'm going to be better.
The alleviation of stress and anticipation of this horrible demise, this impending doom that you can't escape with a sugar pill.
graham hancock
Mm-hmm.
joe rogan
That's incredible.
graham hancock
It's incredible.
It says something about the mind.
And it's something, you know, really worth looking at.
joe rogan
And that is enhanced in psychedelic experiences.
The perspective enhancing aspects of that, I do believe, can change your overall health or change your overall consciousness, which can change your overall health.
Yeah, there's a lot going on, man.
And I think these conversations are super important for people that are uninitiated and that haven't...
They don't understand what's the hoopla all about.
Why is everybody...
Goddammit, that Rogan's going on about drugs again.
graham hancock
I know.
I have a constituency of my readers and people who follow me on Facebook who are constantly throwing that Hancock's a druggie and all of this at me.
And I just feel this is a really important conversation to have and fundamentally get right down to – To the bottom of what it's about, it's about this whole issue of us taking back power over ourselves.
That's what it's really about, and it needs to be seen in that context, to make decisions about our own lives, right or wrong, and to learn from our mistakes and to grow and develop as a result.
joe rogan
I think it's also super important that you discussed your relationship with cannabis in an abusive way, too.
There's a balance to be achieved.
There's a balance to be achieved for all of us in sort of a strange way.
graham hancock
That's what I've learned.
In a way, I had to deny myself this wonderful sensual plant, which helped me to enjoy food and music and many other sensual places.
unidentified
Sex.
graham hancock
Sex, absolutely.
joe rogan
You've never had That sucks on pot.
You don't even know what you're talking about.
You don't even know what Led Zeppelin sounds like.
graham hancock
Exactly.
It's a beautiful, sensual ally.
And I've had to deny myself that sensual ally for the last three years because I abused it.
joe rogan
Do you want to spark up a joint right now?
Of course I want to.
Do you want to dive in right now?
graham hancock
Of course, Joe, you're like the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
joe rogan
Sure.
Yes?
You sure?
graham hancock
Why not?
joe rogan
I don't want to force you into anything.
graham hancock
You're not forcing me.
It's an interesting experiment.
unidentified
No, no, no, no.
I'm going to go live on Joe Rogan.
joe rogan
Is that bad?
graham hancock
No, that's not bad.
joe rogan
That's not bad.
That's the way to do it, if you want to dive in.
We'll go with a little baby hit.
Little baby hit.
graham hancock
It'll be my first baby hit in three years.
joe rogan
Yeah, nothing crazy.
Nobody has to get hurt here.
You were showing some images from Lebanon to us before the podcast.
What have you gotten into?
graham hancock
Well, by the time I smoke this little baby hit, I'll probably have forgotten.
So what I was getting into was this fella here.
joe rogan
That's some American shit, too.
That's not that crap you get in England.
That's made by American scientists and botanists.
They all drive muscle cars and they do steroids.
graham hancock
Oh, that's so familiar.
That's such a nice feeling.
joe rogan
He's back.
graham hancock
Are we seeing that on the screen?
joe rogan
Yeah.
graham hancock
That is...
joe rogan
You're going in for another baby hit.
Look at you.
unidentified
Jesus Christ, Joe.
joe rogan
Just a little more.
Just a tiny.
You're good.
That's it.
Stop right there.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
You might need to get confused on the way back.
graham hancock
We will see.
So here it is.
Lebanon.
This is what is called the Stone of the Pregnant Woman.
joe rogan
Whoa.
graham hancock
At Baalbek.
joe rogan
And that's you on top of that.
graham hancock
And that is me on top of that.
Can we see that?
joe rogan
Unfortunately, this is a PowerPoint demonstration.
graham hancock
Can we see it?
But this little...
joe rogan
Tiny dot.
graham hancock
This little tiny dot up here on top of that, that's me.
In Lebanon.
joe rogan
And is this a recent?
graham hancock
In July, yes.
I was there in July.
People say that Lebanon is very dangerous, and that this place is right on the Syrian border, but I didn't see any danger there at all.
I had a magical experience in Lebanon.
It was great.
It was exciting.
unidentified
It was joy.
joe rogan
Well, for you, it must be incredible, because that's the site of so many ancient, huge, monolithic structures that are unexplained, as far as their construction methods or...
graham hancock
So the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek Temple of Jupiter?
This is what they call it.
There's undoubtedly a Roman temple there, okay?
And that Roman temple dates from the known historical period, some two, three hundred years after Christ.
It's the Roman temple of Jupiter, and it's very extraordinary, but it stands on these huge foundations.
There's a group of stones, three stones, called the Trilithion, which are each weighing 840 tons.
840 tons.
joe rogan
What the fuck?
graham hancock
And they are lifted to 20 feet above the ground and built into a wall.
I've sat on top of one of those stones.
I've been down underneath it and looked up at it.
840 ton stones.
This is a gigantic achievement.
Now, the Orthodox view is...
That the Romans did everything.
That they built those foundations and they built the temple.
I think, and many researchers who've studied them in this field agree with me on this, that actually the Romans found a much more ancient site, which was just extraordinarily megalithic, gigantic stones, and they built their temple on top of it.
And later historians have simply given the whole thing to the Romans without considering what was going on there.
And part of the reason I think that is because of these stones that are still in the quarry, which I was trying to – I don't know if it showed up on the screen.
You got it.
I'm trying to show it, you know, I'm trying to show it just now.
These stones stood in the quarry, okay?
Now, so what the historians say is that the Romans, okay, they found they could move the 840 ton stones.
joe rogan
That's 1,680,000 pounds for people who don't like the word ton.
graham hancock
You got your calculator going there?
joe rogan
Yeah, I had to.
Because it didn't make sense.
I was trying to double it, but it's not double.
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
Like, it's 2 pounds.
Like, 2,000 pounds for every ton.
graham hancock
It's a fearsome number, whatever it is.
unidentified
That's what it is.
Right?
graham hancock
It's just a fearsome number.
It's extraordinary.
unidentified
2,000?
joe rogan
2,000 pounds for every ton.
So I was going, 2,000 for each, what?
840 times 2,000?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Is that real?
And then, that's what it is.
graham hancock
That's what it is.
joe rogan
1 million.
graham hancock
So here's the thing.
Those are the 840 ton blocks in the walls, in the foundation of the temple.
Then we go to the quarry and we find this humongous thing, which weighs over 1,000 tons.
And there's another one on the other side of the road which weighs 1,200 tons.
joe rogan
1,200 tons.
2,400,000 pounds.
graham hancock
Yeah.
joe rogan
What the fuck?
graham hancock
So here's the theory, okay?
The Romans found they could move the 840 tonne blocks, and they did.
This is the orthodox theory, and then they built their temple on top of it.
But they found they couldn't move these 1,200 plus tonne blocks, and by the way, this one is completely separated from the bedrock out of which it's been caught.
They couldn't move them, so they left them in the quarry.
I think that actually proves that the Romans didn't create the 840 ton megalith, because if the Romans had known that these gigantic blocks, if they had cut the blocks, okay, if they had cut them themselves, which we must say they did, if we are saying that the Romans were responsible for these megaliths, if the Romans had cut these blocks themselves, they knew they were there.
And the very first thing they would have used for the smaller blocks that they put into place in the Temple of Jupiter was these large blocks.
They would have sliced them up like a loaf of bread into smaller blocks and moved those over to the temples.
The fact that these huge megaliths still stand in the quarry suggests to me that they were buried when the Romans came to that site because otherwise it would have been the very first thing they would have used for quarrying smaller blocks.
That they were buried and that the Romans found an existing prehistoric megalithic platform And on top of it, they built their Temple of Jupiter.
joe rogan
That's a fascinating theory.
It seems like open to interpretation to me.
Sure.
It's just a theory.
Yeah, because you're looking at...
Regardless of why they built the one...
What is it?
One million?
Jesus Christ.
Two million four hundred thousand.
graham hancock
It's freaky when you do it in pounds.
joe rogan
That's insane.
Yeah, when you do it in tons, it's abstract.
1,200 tons.
Okay, what's that mean?
You know, it's hard for my head.
graham hancock
Well, let's consider an average vehicle, which might weigh...
Let's push this weight up.
joe rogan
4,000 pounds.
graham hancock
So it's about two tons, right?
Is that about the weight of an average vehicle?
So two tons divide 1,000 by that.
So you're looking at 500 family-sized cars in a 1,000-ton block.
joe rogan
And a thousand tons!
Oh my god.
It's just the imagining a two million pound rock and a bunch of dudes are moving it.
And we know that someone at some time in history, they built that, they moved those stones.
I mean, it wasn't that one, right?
It wasn't, it was, what was the first calculation that we had?
What did we say it was?
640 tons?
graham hancock
No, the eight, there's three blocks.
A box of 840 tons each joined so closely that you can't slip a sheet of paper between them.
I mean, they've not been just roughly levered into place.
They've been set down with perfect precision.
joe rogan
So someone did that.
We know that.
graham hancock
Someone did that.
And there are plenty of people arguing that the Romans did it.
I feel, along with other researchers who've approached this subject, I feel I want to look at alternative possibilities for what these megaliths are all about.
And that's one of the things I've been doing for the last year is traveling around the world.
I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to do this.
joe rogan
I would imagine.
graham hancock
Looking at just amazing, amazing archaeological sites.
joe rogan
God!
graham hancock
and one of the countries that i visited and i want to to really mention this is armenia where i have seen incredible stone circles just wonderful dwarf stonehenge make make us just stand in awe and look at the way that these huge megalithic stones in the what is called the holes drilled in them to line up with particular areas of the sky.
And an Armenian archaeoastronomer from that kind of data believes that the place called Karahunj is not just 2,000 or 3,000 years old, as most historians believe, but well over 12,000 years old.
joe rogan
Why does he believe that?
graham hancock
Because of the astronomical alignments, that the positions of the stars in the sky change very slowly down the ages, that the alignment to the solstices changes because there's a slow nod on the axis of the earth, very, very slow over tens of thousands of years, which means that if the very slow over tens of thousands of years, which means that if the sun rises at a certain point on the horizon on the summer solstice today in 2,000 or 3,000 or 5,000 years time, that point on the horizon
You wouldn't notice it in a lifetime.
You wouldn't notice it in 10 lifetimes.
But if you stay long enough, you'll note that actually the sun isn't rising in the same place on the horizon anymore.
joe rogan
When did we confirm?
That's called the precession of the equinox, right?
graham hancock
Well, actually, no.
That's a second matter.
joe rogan
That's a different wobble?
graham hancock
That's the changing tilt of the Earth's axis.
joe rogan
Oh.
So there's a wobble and a tilt.
graham hancock
There's a wobble and there's a tilt, and then there's actually a tilt within the tilt.
joe rogan
No way.
graham hancock
Yeah, this is the view.
But the effect is, because the Earth is the viewing platform from which we observe the stars and which we observe the other celestial bodies, such as the moon and the sun, the Earth is our viewing platform.
If you change the orientation in space of that viewing platform, then the rising points of stars, the moon, the sun change, and the positions of the stars and the sky change.
Wow.
And it becomes a kind of language.
Once you...
Understand this, that it is universally available to us.
The calculations can be done.
We can do it.
Anybody can buy computer software today, which will show you the ancient skies over any point on the Earth's surface at any time in the last 30,000 years.
joe rogan
That's amazing.
graham hancock
And what's involved in those computer simulations is simply calculations that had been done in previous centuries by astronomers.
And we understand these processes.
We can measure them and set them up.
But there you have...
A regularity, a changing patterns in the sky.
If you tie that into architecture on the ground, then actually you have a way free of all language of dating, of actually speaking.
You can use this universal language of the stars and architecture to make a statement to the future.
You can say that this particular time was very important to me, to our culture.
It mattered to us.
It mattered to us so much.
That we've created this huge monument to freeze the skies over a particular point.
joe rogan
I wonder why those particular constellations, if at all, were important to them.
That's where things get really strange.
And if I wanted to play devil's advocate, I would say, well, these holes, they're pointing up towards the sky.
There's a lot of fucking stars up there.
graham hancock
Sure there are.
joe rogan
How do we know?
Just because they line up with this from 12,000 years.
And years ago, it doesn't mean I weren't looking at some other shit.
graham hancock
It's very complicated.
So what you want is multiple locks.
I mean, take the Pyramids of Giza.
joe rogan
Right.
graham hancock
And here I cite the work of my close friend and colleague, Robert Boval, in particular, in his book, The Orion Mystery.
You take the three great pyramids of Giza, and you look at the heavens overhead.
And you also look...
At the religious system of the ancient Egyptians.
What was important to them?
What did they believe?
You pretty soon discover that stars were incredibly important to them.
Stars cover the inside of the ceilings of all tombs, all the pharaoh's tombs, for example.
Monuments are lined up to particular places on the horizon where a star, perhaps it's Sirius, whose counterpart amongst the gods was the goddess Isis.
Perhaps it's Orion.
Whose counterpart amongst the gods was the god Osiris.
This is the thing.
You have a mythology that speaks of entities who are clearly stated to be connected to particular asterisms, particular constellations.
That's the first thing.
Are the constellations that are being said to have a reflection upon the ground in architecture, were they significant to the culture concerned?
Well, yes.
Absolutely.
The constellation of Orion was of enormous significance to the ancient Egyptians.
Therefore, It has to be a matter of interest that the three pyramids on the ground are laid out in a pattern that is temptingly similar to the pattern of the three belt stars of the constellation of Orion.
joe rogan
That's fascinating.
graham hancock
Temptingly similar, but there's something else.
Then you have shafts which run through the body of the Great Pyramid.
There's a place called the King's Chamber high up in the Great Pyramid.
It has a shaft in its north and south wall, which are about eight inches high and eight inches wide.
And those shafts cut all the way through the body of the pyramid, and they come out on the south and north sides of the pyramid.
You can actually, and it's been done in the past, you can drop a cannonball in at the outside entrance to those shafts, and that cannonball moments later will appear in the king's chamber.
The shafts are about 200 feet long.
Okay?
In the queen's chamber down below, there are also two shafts.
These shafts do not exit on the outside of the pyramid, which creates a mystery of its own, of great interest, what is at the other end of those shafts, but they do have very definite alignments.
Thank you very much.
All of those four shafts that shoot up out of the King's Chamber and the Queen's Chamber all targeted very significant stars in the sky at that time.
Like, for example, the southern shaft of the Queen's Chamber targeted the star Sirius at exactly the moment that the star crosses the meridian.
That's the north-south line that divides the sky above our heads.
At exactly the moment that the star crosses that line The shaft targets it and you could fire a laser beam up and you'd hit that, in theory, you'd hit that star.
The alignment is that great.
So they're locking the pyramid in, in the epoch of 2500 BC, to four significant stars in the sky.
Another one of those stars is the lowest star of the belt of Orion.
That tells us that this is a dating mechanism of some kind.
And it can't be an accident that that's the case.
And once you understand precession, you understand that these alignments will change.
So it therefore becomes very interesting to discover that the orientation of the pyramids on the ground, which Robert argues are the terrestrial reflection of the three stars of the belt of Orion, that the orientation of the pyramids on the ground because of precession shifts very slowly down the ages.
And you can see this clearly on any good SkyMap program.
As you go back in time, you find that the constellation of Orion, at the moment it crosses the meridian, the same place that was targeting the star Sirius at the moment it crosses the meridian, that the perfect alignment between the belt stars of Orion and the three great pyramids of Giza is not in 2500 BC, but in 10,500 BC, 8,000 years earlier.
So we have a very interesting problem here.
Either it's all coincidence...
Or the pyramids are monuments that speak both to the age of the ancient Egyptians, 2500 BC, and to a much earlier time.
joe rogan
Wasn't it also the same time where the Sphinx was pointing towards the constellation Leo?
graham hancock
Well, that's, again, the third part of the lock, and Robert and I looked at this in depth together in our book called The Message of the Sphinx.
And so we have the Giza Plateau, we have the three pyramids laid out on the ground in the pattern of the belt of Orion in 10,500 BC. That's looking south.
Now let's look east.
Let's look due east.
East, of course, is where the sun rises, but people who don't observe the sun don't realize that the sun tracks back and forth along the horizon during the solar year.
It reaches its northernmost point on the summer solstice, 21st of June, and its southernmost point on the winter solstice, 21st of December.
On the equinox, The day that night and day are of equal length, the sun rises directly perfectly due east.
That's actually how you define an equinox, because the sun is rising perfectly due east.
And looking at it is the Sphinx.
Aligned, gazing directly, perfectly at the point of sunrise.
Now we have to consider what's behind the sun then?
What is the constellation of the zodiac that the sun is rising in?
Because that's what the zodiac is.
It's a group of constellations that by chance the sun passes through during the course of the year.
But that The constellation that the sun rises against the background of is also affected by precession, the wobble on the axis of the earth, and that changes.
You have roughly 2,160 years in each house of the zodiac.
For the last 2,160 years, we've been in Pisces.
And as I often say, it's not an accident that the early Christians used the fish as their symbol.
Before that, it was the constellation of Aries.
The ram.
Rams were incredibly important in the years from 2000 down to the time of Christ.
Just look at the biblical stories.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, the Great Sphinx is a lion, admittedly with a human head, but that head is rather small and we think that the head almost certainly was re-carved in a later time.
Probably the whole statue was originally a lion, crouching there on the horizon, gazing due east, At the rising sun on the equinox and at the constellation behind the sun.
And that constellation is, in 10,500 BC, the constellation of Leo.
As above, so below.
Leo, speaking to the Sphinx.
Orion, speaking to the pyramids.
Locking in to a date that is far before any civilization began.
And I know I'm on a long rap here.
unidentified
But it's awesome.
graham hancock
But just at that point, when the Egyptologists say, well, it's impossible for there to be any...
civilization at Giza 12,500 years ago, just when they're very happy saying that and they're telling us that no other monument can be found anywhere in the world, which is 12,500 years old on this scale, lo and behold, up pops Gobekli Tepe in Turkey.
Gobekli Tepe in the area of Turkey that, by the way, was once historic Armenia.
Gobekli Tepe pops up.
It's dated by the German Archaeological Institute.
They discover that this huge complex of stone circles has been deliberately buried 10,000 years ago.
And the carbon dating, because you can't date stones, you have to date organic materials, the carbon dating of organic materials found with...
Those stone circles puts their age back to 12,000 years and more.
joe rogan
For you, that must have been like Christmas.
graham hancock
It was like Christmas.
It was like Christmas.
It was like a gift.
I have to confess.
I mean, we all have egos.
joe rogan
Of course.
graham hancock
I have to confess that it was a nice moment for me when the New Scientist magazine in Britain...
Which, years ago, back in the 90s, when I published Fingerprints of the Gods, was amongst the magazines that attacked my work as, quote-unquote, pseudoscientific.
I don't know how my work can be pseudoscientific, because I don't claim to be a scientist.
I'm a fucking journalist, you know.
I'm not a scientist.
How can I be a pseudoscientist?
joe rogan
You're just a guy who's gotten obsessed with an idea.
graham hancock
Kind of.
A little bit.
joe rogan
A little weed-like.
graham hancock
So anyway, New Scientist magazine, back in the 1980s, 90s was saying that I was wrong.
The basic message of Fingerprints of the Gods is history is much older and much more mysterious than we've been told.
So it was great in October 2013 when New Scientist magazine came out with a headline saying history is much older and more mysterious than we thought.
joe rogan
It's funny.
You should say Graham Hancock was right.
That's what the title should have been.
unidentified
In my next life.
joe rogan
We're sorry, dude.
graham hancock
In my next life.
joe rogan
We were fucking with you.
graham hancock
But there was Gobekli Tepe and that's what changes everything.
joe rogan
Yeah, that really does.
graham hancock
And by the way, I'll just say, I guess we may be running out of time, but I'll just say, are we good?
I'll just say also Indonesia, which is the other place that my wife, Santa, and I have done a lot of research in the last six or seven months, has been found what was thought to be a 2,500-year-old site on top of a hill, a site made of blocks of columnar basalt, which forms naturally, but which can be used as a construction medium.
It's called Gunung Padang and on the top of a hill in a series of terraces is a rather extraordinary monument thought to be about 2,500 years old made of these blocks of columnar basalt.
No really thorough research was ever done by archaeologists.
A little bit of trenching down to about half a meter in depth was done and some carbon was brought up and dated.
But really the site, it was just kind of taken for granted that it was two and a half thousand years old.
Along comes Danny Natawajija, who is a Caltech-trained PhD geologist working out of the city of Bandung in a government agency of the Indonesian government.
In fact, he particularly focuses on earthquakes.
Earthquakes are his thing.
He comes along and he's intrigued by Gunung Padang.
First of all, that there's old traditions about it being a sacred place.
It seemed to go back a very, very, very long way.
And he starts to look at it as a geologist.
And what he realizes, suddenly it comes to him, he's not looking at a natural hill.
He's looking at a pyramid, on top of which is this relatively recent monument.
But somebody built a pyramid there.
So he begins work on this.
joe rogan
So it's covered in dirt.
graham hancock
It looks like a hill, but inside it's a man-made structure.
That was Danny's intuition, but then he had to prove it.
So he put together a team and they did a huge amount of remote sensing work and some core drilling down to depths of about 15 meters into the top of the hill.
And what they discovered was incredibly tempting.
It supports Danny's intuition that we are looking at a man-made pyramid here.
It produces dates that go back as much as 26,000 years, right into the last ice age.
And the remote sensing equipment shows rather regular cavities inside the monument, which look like chambers of some kind.
Well, naturally, Danny and his team were stopped working for quite a long while by the archaeological establishment in Indonesia, who said, we know that this structure is 2,500 years old, and there's no need for any further research on it, and it just disturbs the local villagers and, you know, go away.
And so they lobbied and they had him stopped.
But Danny took it to the highest level.
He got the support of the Indonesian government, and two and a half weeks ago, they started work excavating, thoroughly excavating Gunung Pada.
unidentified
Wow.
graham hancock
And so far, the results look very interesting.
joe rogan
What if they get down to see a building?
26,000-year-old building.
graham hancock
26,000 years old.
And again, you know, I can't summon up a map magically, but if I were to do so, consider Indonesia, which is a long string of islands today.
But if you go back 12,500 years ago, that long string of islands is joined to a gigantic mainland, a huge ice age continent because sea level is hundreds of feet lower.
And therefore, Indonesia becomes actually quite a plausible place for some sort of hall of records, some sort of time capsule, because Gobekli Tepe is also a time capsule.
joe rogan
That's so absolutely incredible.
I can't say fascinating anymore because people are starting giving me shit about it.
Last few podcasts I see.
I don't know.
When things are fascinating, I can't come up with anything.
It's my way of going, whoa.
graham hancock
There's interesting stuff happening in the world.
It's beautiful.
I've been lucky to spend some time exploring this.
I am writing a sequel to my best-known book, undoubtedly, is Fingerprints of the Gods, The Evidence for Earth's Lost Civilization.
joe rogan
What year was that?
graham hancock
1995. 1995. And now, you know, after being scorned and put down by the archaeological establishment, there is enough new evidence out there for me to produce a whole other book.
There's a whole other story to tell.
Not an update of Fingerprints of the Gospel, but a new book.
Which looks at all of this information.
joe rogan
How about what's going on in Stonehenge?
These most recent monuments they discovered.
Much bigger than the rest of Stonehenge.
graham hancock
Than the rest of Stonehenge.
That's the thing, you see.
That's why archaeologists need to be a little more humble.
Because the next turn of the spade can change everything.
Completely alter the story.
And we should always...
Remain open to that.
joe rogan
Yeah, just one discovery, like that one farmer finding this stone in Gobekli Tepe unearths this incredible structure that rewrites history.
graham hancock
And that piece of stone is seen by American archaeologists in the 1950s.
joe rogan
Really?
graham hancock
They ignored it.
And they decide not to look at it because it's so finely done that they think it belongs to the Ottoman period within the last four or five hundred years.
Actually, it turns out to be 12,000 years old.
joe rogan
What's good that they didn't fuck with it, they probably would have...
graham hancock
Yeah, well, you know...
joe rogan
It's cool that it happens this way.
graham hancock
We've got the German Archaeological Institute later.
Unfortunately, they've stuck a hideous roof over the top of Gobekli Tepe now.
joe rogan
They have?
graham hancock
Oh, it's so...
joe rogan
To try to keep it from decaying or something?
graham hancock
Look, it was 19 years it was exposed to the sun.
It was out there.
It was being...
They began the excavations in 1996, and it's fine for...
Fine.
And now that they've finished the excavations, they decide that in that particular area, they're excavating other areas, they decide to stick this horrendous roof over it, which cuts out the light, makes it impossible to see the stone pillars.
The roof is badly built, so there are platforms built inside it on which huge heaps of stones have been piled up.
That's to keep the roof on if there's any high winds.
So suddenly, yes.
So suddenly the possibility of any kind of magical experience at the world's most intriguing place.
And mysterious ancient site is completely written off by this hideous piece of so-called protective architecture, which in my view is just the worst kind of vandalism.
I'm really offended by it.
I was in Gobekli Tepe in 2013. I went back again this year, and I was just horrified.
It made me feel physically sick to see what had been done to it.
joe rogan
That's so bizarre.
The desire to...
Is it to sell tickets?
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
So people have to pay to get in there?
graham hancock
Do they pay?
I think it's a kind of...
In this case, I think it's a kind of possession.
This is ours.
unidentified
Really?
graham hancock
We've seen it.
We're the experts.
We're the authorities.
joe rogan
Wow.
unidentified
That's so weird.
graham hancock
Nobody else will really get to form an opinion about it because we're going to damage its appearance so much in protecting it that it'll lose its essential mystery.
joe rogan
Well, it just seems bizarre that they're trying to protect stone.
That doesn't make any sense.
It's like, imagine if someone decided to put a giant canopy over the Sphinx.
You'd be like, what are you talking about?
It's been here forever, dummy.
graham hancock
You see, and this is being done at archaeological sites around the world.
It's been done at Manidra and Hagorim in Malta, which have profound astronomical alignments.
You stick a fucking great dome over the top of it, you know?
It's being done at Roslyn Chapel in Edinburgh.
joe rogan
We ruin everything!
graham hancock
We ruin everything.
The worst vandals are often the authorities, those who are in control.
joe rogan
Well, that Zawi Hawass guy is in the pokey now, right?
graham hancock
No, he's not.
joe rogan
Didn't he arrest him?
graham hancock
He did, but all the charges were dropped.
joe rogan
Oh, he came up with some shackles.
graham hancock
Yeah.
joe rogan
Situation.
graham hancock
He's a big front man for Egypt.
joe rogan
Is he still running everything over there?
graham hancock
No, he's not running everything, but he's got an official position in relation to the promotion of tourism.
joe rogan
It's so bizarre when you see those guys so vehemently opposed to new information, which is essentially what the ideas being proposed are.
There's new information.
There's certain pieces of new information that in my mind are just undeniable.
The Robert Schock stuff.
graham hancock
By the way, my first trip to Gobekli Tepe, Robert Schock and I traveled together.
joe rogan
You guys made a video, right?
graham hancock
There was some filming, yeah.
But we were at Gobekli Tepe in December.
Sorry, not Gobekli Tepe, at Gunung Padang in Indonesia.
Shok and I were there in December 2013. And then I went back again with...
joe rogan
What was his impression of it?
graham hancock
His impression was very much that this is an intriguing site.
He looked at the remote.
You see, as a geologist, he can understand what remote scanning paperwork looks like.
And he looked at what Danny's team had produced and said, this is absolutely fascinating.
It really deserves further research.
And that's now what it's getting, fortunately.
joe rogan
Well, it's just amazing when they uncover these things.
I love the ones they find in Mexico when they're building something and then they stumble upon some ancient Aztec temple.
graham hancock
Not many people who go to Chichen Itza and see the temple of Kukul Khan there, the pyramid of Kukul Khan, which is the famous monument of Chichen Itza, not many people realize that there's another pyramid inside it.
joe rogan
Inside?
graham hancock
Inside it.
There's a little door at the bottom of the northern stairway.
And I don't think it can be done now.
The place has been so tightly controlled.
I don't think people are even allowed to climb the pyramid of Kukulkan.
joe rogan
When did they stop that?
graham hancock
I believe that stopped in the last two or three years.
I was there...
No, it may be a little longer.
The last time I was there was in 2010, and then it was stopped.
joe rogan
Well, they say that they were seeing erosion.
By people's feet?
graham hancock
I don't know.
There may be all kinds of arguments, but the fact is it was possible to climb it.
joe rogan
Yeah, I used to.
graham hancock
I did it.
Back in the 90s.
Anyway, inside it is a whole second pyramid.
The pyramid that we see has been built on top of an earlier one, and there's a passageway that leads up to the top of it, and there's an altar, and there's a figure of a puma or a jaguar inside.
It's a very spooky place.
joe rogan
Wow.
Yeah, that whole complex is so incredible.
It's so amazing to think that, you know, I know you scuba dive.
Have you ever done those tunnels that they found?
graham hancock
In the cenotes?
joe rogan
Yeah.
graham hancock
No, I haven't.
joe rogan
Those are terrifying.
These people scuba dive, and there's these Mayan tunnels that they had found that are underwater.
graham hancock
Yeah.
joe rogan
But the people that are treasure hunters have gone into these things and found these incredible artifacts.
Yes.
But you've got to be willing to swim underwater with scuba gear in a dark tunnel for a long time.
They're long, like you can get a mile in.
graham hancock
It takes tremendous courage.
It also takes very special equipment.
You're having to carry a lot more air with you, and it would be a very complex mixture of gases.
joe rogan
And sometimes they have narrow passages you have to squeeze through.
graham hancock
One of the most...
Cave diving is one of the most dangerous things.
joe rogan
Fuck that, man.
graham hancock
Fuck all that.
I'll tell you why.
Because the entrance passage can be long and winding.
There can be several alternative routes through it.
And it's often heavily laden with silt, with sediment.
If the diver is not very experienced or if the diver panics and starts thrashing around...
gets thrown up into the water and completely fills the water so that you can't see your hand in front of your face.
And suddenly you're a mile in, a hundred feet deep and blind.
joe rogan
Oh, fuck.
That was one of the most legitimate freakouts I've ever had on a podcast.
You saying that?
unidentified
Yes.
joe rogan
Me thinking that was just a tremendous freakout.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Just the idea of knowing that you're going to run out of air before it settles, too.
graham hancock
Yes.
Oh, yes.
You're done for.
Unless you can find your way, unless by some miracle you can find your way through that fog, where the very first thing, if you're going to do that, that you have to do is you have to calm your mind.
joe rogan
You're freaking me out, man.
Yeah.
graham hancock
Well, let's talk about my novels then.
joe rogan
Well, listen, those people are just brave as fuck.
It's just amazing that people are willing to do that.
graham hancock
Yeah, it's guts.
It's courage.
It's courage.
Courage of the warrior, in a way.
joe rogan
So, how many novels have you written now?
graham hancock
So I've written three.
joe rogan
Is this the third?
graham hancock
Well, I've written Entangled, which is a whole other story, and then I've written Volume 1 and Volume 2 of War God.
The first volume was War God, Knights of the Witch.
It was published in 2013. There was a big support and take-up from your audience, which I'm extremely grateful for.
joe rogan
I heard a lot of positive reviews too.
to people enjoyed it.
graham hancock
Thank you.
And I made an offer at that time on your show where I said that if people wrote to me at a particular address, which is wargoddedications at gmail.com, and sent me their own address and showed me that they pre-ordered the book, I would send them a signed, dedicated book and sent me their own address and showed me that I would send them a signed, dedicated book plate.
In other words, I would sign a label, I would dedicate it to them, I would send it to them.
Little did I know that nearly 5,000 people would ask for those signed, dedicated book plates.
It became a massive labor of love for myself and my wife, Santa.
She's doing the enveloping, I'm dealing with the correspondence.
We're signing the book plates.
We're going to the post office.
We're spending thousands of pounds on postage.
But it was great.
It was a fantastic thing.
And it helped the book to get noticed because there was great skepticism about buying a second volume from my publishers unless the first volume worked.
And the first volume worked enough for me to be commissioned to write volume two of War God, which is called War God, Return of the Plumed Serpent.
And that is published on the 9th of October.
And I'm making the same special offer.
Very limited.
joe rogan
Don't do it.
graham hancock
But it's going to be a bit different.
First off, if you go to my website, go to www.gramhancock.com and go to the War God page.
It's very easy to get there.
Scroll down at the bottom of the page that shows the covers of all the editions and you will find a statement there and that is that if people write to me, if people pre-order, first of all they have to pre-order, either order Volume 1 or pre-order Volume 2. Amazon don't take your money until they actually send the book and I've got the links to Amazon.com there.
I will, when I finish my travels, and I'm going to be on the road until the 27th of October, but during November, I will send out those book plates again.
But what I can't do this time is I can't get into personal correspondence with people.
It was very interesting.
It was very touching and heartwarming thing that so many people wrote to me.
And so many of them, I wanted to speak back to them.
It's very cold, you know, to receive a letter and not to reply.
So I did.
But the problem this year is that I've got to write the sequel to Fingerprints of the Gods.
And I really need to start that during November because my research travels will be over at that point.
I've got to write that, and I can't spend two months or three months corresponding in detail.
So my offer is, write to me.
Show me that you've bought the book or pre-ordered Volume 2, and above all, please give me your postal address, because you can't imagine how many times people write to me Asking for the book plates, and don't give me their postal address.
Please give me your postal address.
And when I get back from my travels, I will sign the book plates.
I will send you a signed book plate, which is simply a label that you can stick inside your copy of the book.
And if that results in a bit more uptake for War God II, it'll be good for me, because it's very difficult to start a sort of new career as a novelist at the age of 64. But you seem to be really enjoying it.
I love it.
I love writing novels.
This is why I was talking about warriors earlier.
I love getting into the spirit of the warrior.
I don't know why.
It's fascinating.
It's just absolutely fascinating.
What would drive a man like Cortez to take 490 men and face them against the might of the Aztec Empire?
Hundreds of thousands of men under arms who will kill you in the most awful way if they...
If they catch you, what kind of will does it take to do that?
And it's been interesting for me to get inside the heads of these people and also to consider, because I'm interested in them, supernatural elements.
Were they being misled by demonic forces in some way?
That's something that I examine there.
So I love doing it, but I'm known as a nonfiction author, and that's mainly what I do.
People buy nonfiction because they're interested in the subject very often.
People buy a novelist because they trust that novelist and know that his next book will be good.
And I need to build up that leadership.
joe rogan
What is your fascination with demons?
What's your fascination with supernatural influences and the concept of demons?
graham hancock
At the same time, I didn't believe in any spiritual element to life.
I didn't see any of that at all.
It was only really when I started drinking ayahuasca in 2003. I suppose for a decade before that, I'd been immersed in the ancient Egyptian texts.
And the ancient Egyptians are all about the quest for immortal life.
They're all about how you live this life to continue on as a spirit and ultimately to live the life of millions of years.
And they very clearly indicate that Dark forces are at work in the universe which can mislead us, as well as there are light and positive forces that we can choose to follow which will lead us into very nurturing and worthwhile and excellent directions.
All those influences are there.
So that's there in ancient Egypt.
Then I start drinking ayahuasca in 2003 and I encounter seamlessly convincing parallel realms inhabited by intelligent beings, some of whom seem very dark and dangerous and some of whom are filled with light and joy and exercise some of whom seem very dark and dangerous and some of whom are filled
Now, I absolutely accept that all of this could be a projection or a creation of my own mind, that there is no exterior reality to it whatsoever.
It's just that's all there is.
But I don't think it's that way.
I think that what happens in a deeply altered state of consciousness is that we retune the receiver wavelength of the brain and encounter other levels of reality that are normally closed off to our senses.
And the first thing I would say to any...
I know that a number of people who've worked with psychedelics in depth haven't come to that conclusion.
I know that, but the conclusion that I come to, the little offering that I bring to the table and that many others have brought, is that there is a separate freestanding reality of some kind which we don't fully understand yet, and that in altered states of consciousness we can encounter, interact with that reality.
That's the view that I have now.
In that reality are spiritual forces, some of which seem to eat fear and energy and dark energy.
They seem to thrive on anything that's miserable or wicked or cruel or thoughtless or vile about humanity.
And at the other side of it are entities that glow with light and love and that seek to show us how we may bring to light that divine spark within us to go back to the Gnostic idea.
Those you encounter in a very direct way in the ayahuasca journey become...
Thank you.
It's unfolding over four hours, not four or five minutes.
And that is a huge effect.
And it had a huge effect on me.
And I'm not adamant about this.
I accept I could be fantasizing it all.
It's interesting that other people encounter pretty much the same beings and the same sort of drive to do something better than they've done before.
unidentified
Right.
graham hancock
It's interesting that there's that transpersonal side of it.
I choose to believe that there are freestanding parallel dimensions and that we are encountering them in altered states of consciousness and that therefore there's interesting scientific work to be done because in theory we could actually begin the targeted exploration of those dimensions by using volunteers and psychedelics.
I choose to believe that that's what's going on.
I could be completely wrong.
It could just be the majesty of the human mind and we just invent all these worlds.
joe rogan
That's what I was going to ask you.
What's the most compelling argument against it?
What's the most compelling argument from a neurological standpoint?
Has anybody ever explained to you what's going on?
graham hancock
There isn't a compelling argument.
joe rogan
They don't know?
graham hancock
There isn't a compelling argument.
There's a reference frame.
And the reference frame, and this is again where I got myself into so much trouble with Ted.
The reference frame is the reference frame of materialist science, and that reference frame says that all consciousness is a kind of accidental epiphenomenon of brain activity.
There's actually no reality to consciousness.
That is not something that's been proven scientifically and experimentally.
It is just the way that a large and influential group of scientists see the world, that everything can be reduced to material causes.
So the changes in brain activity that accompany visions, you can observe those changes on an MRI scanner, those changes in brain activity Are the experience you're having according to this reference frame.
Your experience can just be reduced to that and there's nothing else to it.
But that's not a fact.
That is a philosophical view about how reality works.
We don't know for sure.
It could easily be the other way around.
That the brain activity is simply necessary in order for us to see something that was always there, but that was normally closed off to our senses.
joe rogan
So, the compelling argument as far as, like, what's happening when you're having these extreme visual experiences, what is the argument?
Has anybody ever tried to explain it?
Is it just supposed to be some chemical reaction with your cerebral cortex?
graham hancock
Yes, that is the materialist reductionist view, that it's just that and nothing more.
But there's a whole other view on it.
Rick Strassman at the University of New Mexico, you're very familiar with his work because you presented the spirit molecule.
Rick Strassman does entertain the possibility that what is going on is not merely in and of our brains, but does represent stable freestanding spirit.
Dimensions of reality.
We have no facts in this, but we have an incredibly intriguing area to inquire into.
joe rogan
Yeah, and it's also one of those things where I feel like when you've experienced it yourself, you get a really better frame of reference as to why is this compelling at all.
Because it sounds preposterous to someone who has no experience.
I know, I know.
graham hancock
And I'm going to have loads of people saying Hancock's a druggy.
joe rogan
Of course.
Too late.
But, you know, there's that thing that people, when you want to define certain aspects of whatever the psychedelic experience is, where they seem to be almost impossible to define for people who have actually experienced it.
The real problem is when someone who hasn't experienced it tries to define it.
It's like, man, you can come up with a bunch of really compelling arguments from a medical standpoint.
It's like, what's the effect on the cerebral cortex?
What's the effect on the visual aspects of your interpretation of this thing?
Is it because of this chemical interacting with that?
That's all fascinating, amazing stuff.
graham hancock
But it's bad science.
It's bad science to present it as fact when it isn't.
Many times, given this very simple analogy of the telescope, which I think explains the logical problem in the materialist view, if you want to look at a distant star with your telescope, you're going to point it at the right area of the sky, first of all, and then you're going to focus it.
And as you focus it, physical changes will take place in the relationship between the lenses inside the barrel of the telescope.
Yeah?
joe rogan
Right.
unidentified
Okay.
graham hancock
Eventually the star will come into view and you can see it clearly.
You'd be completely wrong to say that the star is the physical changes inside the barrel of the telescope.
Those physical changes have simply allowed you to see the star.
joe rogan
Whoa.
You just blew my fucking mind.
graham hancock
And that's the same idea with DMT, that it's changing brain function to allow you to see something that you couldn't – it's refocusing the brain, in other words.
joe rogan
Wow, that's very possible.
That's possible.
graham hancock
It's an interesting inquiry.
joe rogan
I never thought about it that way, I don't think.
Not entirely.
graham hancock
And interesting experiments could be done to test that.
With human volunteers, you could begin to investigate.
If there is a freestanding reality, then we ought to be able to get certain information out of it.
There should be possibilities.
joe rogan
I always had just thought of it as a chemical gateway, but I think this is a way better way of explaining it.
The idea of a telescope having to focus in to see something.
And then the chemicals focusing you in.
A chemical your own brain makes.
graham hancock
Your own brain makes it.
joe rogan
Focusing you in.
graham hancock
And perhaps for some very good reason.
joe rogan
Wow, that's amazing.
I never thought about it that way before.
But whatever it is, it's pretty fucking profound.
And for someone to comment on it that hasn't taken, it seems kind of silly.
Especially because it's only 15 minutes.
graham hancock
It's disrespectful to speak of it.
It's fine to speak of it, but it's disrespectful to put it down without having had the guts, actually, to have the experience yourself.
joe rogan
Don't you think it's becoming more and more accepted, though?
Because I think for a long time, academics resisted taking it, or if they did take it, talking about it, because they didn't want to be labelled.
Because there's a lot of people that will label you if you talk about psychedelic drugs.
graham hancock
Until very recently, it's been considered a career-ruining move, you know, for any academic to speak positively to psychedelics.
Even though they all knew the news, they all knew the positive side of this.
But this is, again, gradually changing.
And again, I think the American role, the role of the American people in changing the legal status of cannabis state by state is also going to feed into this and allow us to have a more rational dialogue regarding psychedelics.
Of course, I'm not saying to people, go out and take psychedelics.
What I'm saying is that these are very powerful agents and that they can be extremely healing, used in the right way, and they can change our whole view of reality.
Why should we be forbidden to explore that if, as responsible adults, we choose to do so?
joe rogan
Yeah, the argument is stupid, and I think the argument is eventually going away, and I think it'll be replaced by a new argument, and then the new argument is, what the fuck is really happening?
Yeah, that's it.
And your question about it, or your proposal, is a very fascinating one.
But whatever it is, those things are there, and you can benefit from them, or not.
It's up to you.
graham hancock
Yeah, it's up to you.
joe rogan
The fact that we live in a world where those are illegal...
graham hancock
It's crazy.
joe rogan
It's bizarre.
graham hancock
And if people are having very bad experiences from time to time with psychedelics, part of the reason for that is the world we've created where these are illegal and where it's impossible for people to get good advice that they can trust and where there's this atmosphere of danger and threat that surrounds it.
Take all that away and this very powerful instrument can be managed much more effectively.
joe rogan
No doubt, and I equate it in a lot of ways, this idea of it being bad and negative.
I equate it in a lot of ways to vaccinations, and here's why.
There's this anti-vaccination movement in this country, and a lot of people feel like vaccinations are unnecessary, and they may have some good arguments.
They may have some good arguments, especially about certain vaccinations for things that are sexually transmitted diseases and things along those lines, like hepatitis shots and shit you're giving to little kids.
There's a real good argument against that.
And there's definitely an argument that there's a lot of medication that kids are taking, and is it the right amount?
But there's no argument that vaccinations haven't saved a fuckton of lives, because they have.
They've stopped a lot of diseases dead in their tracks.
Absolutely.
They also, much like we talked about, some people are allergic to cats.
Some people have very different biological reactions to all sorts of different chemicals.
And there's going to be some adverse reactions to anything you put in your body.
graham hancock
I absolutely agree that vaccination is an incredibly effective medical tool in many ways.
But there also is a kind of vaccination mafia.
Yes.
Because they're the ultimate mass medication.
And people are making money.
joe rogan
There's no doubt.
Whenever there's profits, there's fuckery.
There's no getting around it.
It's just the way human beings are.
So, it's one of those scenarios, very much like psychedelics, in a way that there are going to be some rare cases if we make psychedelics legal across the board.
There's going to be some rare cases of a person in a bad state of mind or a bad...
Mental makeup or, you know, what have you, bad psychological makeup, fill in the blanks, where they take it and it's detrimental to them.
It's going to happen.
graham hancock
And that'll be highly publicized and used as an argument to stop all of these freedoms.
And Bill Hicks had the very best answer to that, as I'm sure you remember, you know, the lunatic who leaps out of the window imagine he can fly on LSD. Why didn't the fucker try and take off from the ground, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah, he goes, we lost a moron, the world got lighter.
The World Got Lighter is one of my favorite lines.
graham hancock
Beautiful.
joe rogan
Yeah, but that's, um, that is, uh, you know...
It's just a strange argument to keep people from doing it because, especially this doctor that we were talking about earlier that's talking about cannabis and the addictive properties of cannabis.
This isn't even talking to someone who was addicted to cannabis than you.
It's still, it's a silly, like there's a lot going on when someone's addicted.
It's not all necessarily chemical.
And the ones that are chemical, you're getting paid for.
So that doesn't even make any sense.
The ones that chemically make you addicted is the ones you're getting money from.
graham hancock
And that's why people have We're fed up with all of this shit because it's so corrupt and it's so wrong and it's time that a new direction was taken.
And there are people who are on the wrong side of history on this.
And there will be.
But we are moving forward.
joe rogan
I think we are as well.
I think it's pretty cool to see too.
But, you know, I think it's also important that a guy like you, who smoked pot from 9am to 2am every day...
graham hancock
Seven days a week.
joe rogan
Seven days a week?
graham hancock
365 days a year.
Going to enormous lengths to be able to obtain it when I was traveling.
How did you do that?
joe rogan
Well, it's complicated.
You have to have a network.
graham hancock
But, you know, it is...
I do know what I'm talking about.
I had a long relationship with it, and I understand how...
joe rogan
How do you feel now, having dipped back in the water a little bit?
graham hancock
I feel good, but I don't feel any urge to become an all-day cannabis smoker again.
I like my clarity.
I was able to write with cannabis, but since I stopped smoking cannabis, I've been clear.
My...
My mind, there's been a clarity.
There's a certain fog we lifted.
That fog wouldn't have been there if I'd had one joint at the weekend and that was all.
But since I was smoking all day long, that's why it was there.
It's nice not to have that fog.
I feel good about it.
I feel more productive.
On my novels, I can write 5,000 words a day sometimes.
I get so into the zone, so into the flow.
All that is good and I feel good about it.
I feel probably...
In the long run, my right choice would not be to have a big relationship with cannabis.
I think I've done that.
I've been there.
I've done that.
I've got the t-shirt.
joe rogan
Yeah, for me, it's a tool.
I don't use the same tool every day.
Sometimes I don't use any tools.
I don't need it.
But it has a pretty profound effect in a lot of ways.
You know one of my favorite things to do is?
At night, get high and go down to the beach and stare at the ocean.
graham hancock
Oh, I used to love doing that.
joe rogan
Oh my god, that thing freaks me out when I'm high.
graham hancock
It's a goddess.
joe rogan
It's a monster.
It's a living thing almost.
It's a force.
It's a nature force that doesn't give a fuck about you.
I think there's one reason why people that live by the beach are so mellow.
Beach communities are notoriously mellow.
graham hancock
That's true.
joe rogan
And I think one of the reasons why they're notoriously mellow is because they're faced with overwhelming evidence that they ain't shit.
You're sitting there looking out at the greatest natural force that you could imagine.
It's an entire different world.
You're out there.
Literally, it's like...
If we had explained it in a galactic term, it would be like you're parking yourself next to the membrane between dimensions.
I mean, you are literally in this world over here, and right next to your face is a whole other world.
We couldn't even imagine that, but that's the fuck exactly what it is.
If you go to Santa Monica, and you go over by where that pier is, and you just walk along that sand, and just start walking out into that water, you're in another world in like 20 steps.
graham hancock
Absolutely.
joe rogan
You're over your head, and you're in another dimension that you can't survive in.
You better get the fuck back.
It doesn't feel like you went to another planet, but you might as well have gone to another planet.
Definitely.
graham hancock
Definitely.
joe rogan
And it's right there.
graham hancock
One of my strongest experiences of diving was, just to tell a little story, was diving off Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
And I was down at a good 20 meters underwater, let's say 70 feet.
But there was a storm that day, and the huge swell on the surface was so powerful that it was smashing me against the bottom of the sea.
joe rogan
Oh my god.
graham hancock
Bang, bang, bang.
Just that moment, I realized I'm in the hands of a gigantic force that I can do absolutely nothing about.
There's nothing you can do.
The sea, for me, is a goddess.
Fortunately, I got over a lip and down into deeper water, and it was okay.
joe rogan
Deeper water?
graham hancock
Yeah, another 10 meters.
joe rogan
What the fuck, man?
How long did you have to wait it out?
graham hancock
That was another story.
We stayed down for about 20-25 minutes.
We then had to come up.
We'd been working quite hard at depth and you get through your air.
But what we hadn't done was recce the exit point.
And when we surfaced in this heavy swell, it was extremely difficult to get out of the sea.
The rocks came down quite steep and sheer.
joe rogan
I think we discussed this before.
You came up at a different spot, right?
graham hancock
Yeah, and it was bad.
But anyway, here I am to tell the tale, an older and wiser man.
joe rogan
Greg Fitzsimmons is a terrifying, he's a good buddy of mine, very funny stand-up comedian, has a terrifying story.
He was on vacation, he saw a woman drowning.
And he went out to save her.
And he realized that he was hanging on to this woman, swinging back while his kids and his wife and everyone was on the shore.
And he was like, holy shit.
Like, I'm trying to save someone here.
And sometimes when people try to save people, they get drowned.
graham hancock
I know.
It happens often.
joe rogan
Yeah.
graham hancock
It happens often.
joe rogan
Yeah.
And he said that the tide was a little bit too strong.
He was always spooked by the riptide.
graham hancock
The sea is something to respect.
joe rogan
Fuck yeah, it is.
graham hancock
You know, something...
joe rogan
Fuck yeah, it is.
That's a terrifying thing.
But that's my favorite thing.
One of my favorite things to do when I... To walk the beach late at night.
Yeah.
By myself.
graham hancock
Smug a spliff.
joe rogan
Just stand out there and stare by myself.
Puts everything in perspective.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's just...
It's like the ultimate...
It's very psych...
Not just psychedelic, but it's very isolation tank-esque in a way.
It's an overwhelming amount of information.
But there's like solitude in the sound and the noise that sort of drowns out the rest of Yeah.
Yeah.
static image because it's these water waves that are coming at you and they're very similar so you get in this very similar thing over and over again with very little variation and then there's the overwhelming number the gallons of water that's just so in front of you so you can't see past this fucking thing and it's dark So then there's the unknown.
The unknown, which is the big freaker.
You know, you're looking at this black monster, and sometimes when it's this black monster, you get a better sense of it than when it's this beautiful blue thing during the day, when the sun's hitting it, it's reflecting, because then you get all this visual stuff that's distracting you from the fact, that's how fuck It's a giant fuckload of water.
It's a giant fuckload of water and it's right there.
And it could just go whoosh.
Just come in like this.
unidentified
Whoosh.
graham hancock
And you're gone.
joe rogan
And everything's gone.
Like a thousand fucking feet high waves.
That's happened before.
graham hancock
It has happened before.
That's also part of the new research that I'm doing.
And I'm about to do a trip with Randall Carlson, who's been on your show.
joe rogan
Love him.
graham hancock
You know, Randall was so far ahead of the curve in recognizing that the gigantic flooding that came off the North American ice cap...
It wasn't just caused by what I used to think it was caused by, which is that lakes of meltwater develop on the surface of the ice cap and finally the ice dam breaks and the meltwater pours out.
Randall has been pointing out for years that the water flows were much too radical for that.
Something much bigger had to be involved.
So he was well ahead of the evidence when scientists began to realize that the North American ice cap had been hit by a comet.
12,980 years ago, set in motion the epoch that geologists called the Younger Dryas.
So Randall is a great expert in this area.
My wife, Santa, is traveling with us as well, and a friend of Randall's who's worked with him for many years called Bradley, and we're going to do a road trip from Portland, Oregon, all the way to Minneapolis, following the...
it's about 2,000 miles, I believe, following the southern edge of the former ice cap.
And Randall's going to show us the scars and tears on the landscape of what happened when that ice cap was instantly liquidized by a comet impact and huge tidal waves of water roared down off it across the land.
joe rogan
Good Lord.
graham hancock
I'm going to see that in detail with Randall.
Really looking forward to doing that.
Also, the first time I've ever crossed, well, most of America by road, I've been I've always wanted to do that.
joe rogan
There's certain spots you shouldn't stop.
If you feel like you're in danger, you're in danger.
Just get in the car and hit the gas.
Do you know what country music is?
You've got to listen to some of that.
Get a hold of some country music.
You've got to fit in.
You've got to blend in.
Can you fake a southern accent?
Because if they think you're from the England...
graham hancock
I can do my best.
joe rogan
Are you from the England?
They won't like you, man.
graham hancock
They won't.
joe rogan
They'll get very upset at you.
graham hancock
It'll go down badly.
joe rogan
You think you're better than us.
What are you, Doctor Who?
graham hancock
The funny thing is, in England, I often get mistaken for an American.
joe rogan
Do you really?
graham hancock
It's weird.
Here, nobody's in any doubt what I am.
joe rogan
They think you're American?
graham hancock
Yeah, or sometimes Canadian.
joe rogan
Whoa!
Canada has a bit of that.
There's like a certain amount of English, it sounds like, in the way they talk about things.
There's a certain clear variation between them and us.
graham hancock
Yeah, there is.
Definitely.
Even I can hear that, and I've got a tin ear.
I can hear that, too.
joe rogan
Yeah, I can totally tell a Canadian after a while.
But so similar.
graham hancock
Yeah, very similar.
joe rogan
Yeah.
graham hancock
Very similar.
joe rogan
That's hilarious that anybody would ever think you're an American, though.
graham hancock
I know, I know.
Anyway, it's going to be great.
I'm really looking forward to this.
joe rogan
That sounds fantastic.
graham hancock
I'm going to take loads and loads of pictures, and we're going to go up in an airplane a few times and look at the land underneath us, and it's going to be a great, exciting research trip.
And it's the last research trip for this sequel that I'm writing to Facebook.
joe rogan
I'm sure you've seen this most recent discovery about microdiamonds.
graham hancock
Yeah, that's exactly it.
That's precisely...
That has finally settled it.
Any scientists who were attempting to argue that there wasn't a comet impact, now, with all the evidence that's come in over the last five or six years, it's just settled by the nanodiamonds, scattered in a huge swathe all over the world, which are a sure chemical imprint of a massive comet impact.
And they know...
A lot about it now.
It's really very, very clear.
And this was an episode that changed the world.
It killed off many of the megafauna that we've all heard of, the mammoths, the woody rhinos and so on and so forth.
And it got rid of what was called the Clovis culture, hunter-gatherer culture in the United States.
And I think it got rid of a whole civilization that we've only remembered in myth and memory.
At least that's the line that I'm investigating.
joe rogan
It's a fascinating line, especially when as each visit that you come back to the podcast, there's new information.
The last time it was the nuclear glass that they discovered when they were doing core samples again, which is about 12,000 years ago, right?
And then the new one is this microdiamonds.
It seems like over and over again, it becomes not a possibility but a reality that there was some sort of an impact.
graham hancock
Something gigantic happened.
joe rogan
But all over the world, right?
It wasn't just North America.
graham hancock
No, no, all over the world.
It was massive in America, but the effect was everywhere.
Both impacts, because this comment broke up into fragments like Shoemaker-Levy 9, both impacts, but also, very important, the gigantic cloud of dust that's thrown up into the upper atmosphere.
So you have this immediate reaction of flooding as the comet liquidizes part of the North American ice cap, and then a huge dust plume is up in the air all over the world, and the whole Earth is shrouded in dust.
joe rogan
And cooled.
graham hancock
And cooled, because it's reflecting back the sun's rays.
So we go into this 1,300, 1,400-year period called the Younger Dryas, where the Earth gets incredibly cold, even though previously it had been coming out of the...
It's truly a gigantic event.
And then, weirdly, all our history, everything we think of as our past, begins at the end of the Younger Dryas, kicks in 12,980 years ago, ends 11,600 years ago.
The earth begins to warm up again.
And everything we know about ourselves, or can claim we know, unfolds in that last 11,600 years.
And the period before the Younger Dryas, we really blank on so much of it.
joe rogan
It's so fascinating.
I said it again, shit.
It's amazing that all this information keeps coming up to support this, and it's amazing if we do consider the possibility that it is true, that everything can be essentially shut back down to zero with some rocks from the sky.
That's absolutely right.
And that's something that we really need to get in our head.
That could happen.
There is a very distinct possibility that we could be hit by something.
graham hancock
The NASA photographs of the, I think they call it the black diamond, the Earth at night, What you see is certain areas of the world are brightly lit up.
Europe, North America, for example.
On the other hand, Africa and large parts of South America are dark because there's no electrification in those areas.
And those photographs are often taken to speak of our achievement.
Look how we can light up the planet like a Christmas tree so that it can be viewed from space.
But I would say it also says another thing, that if we were to confront again the same sort of cataclysm that hit the Earth 12,980 years ago, Then the people who would survive and carry the human story forward would be those very people who live in the dark areas, the areas that aren't electrified.
And we who live in the glowing lights that show up on those NASA photographs, who've become so specialized, who most of us are unable even to know how to plant a vegetable or hunt an animal, we're the ones who would be gone.
And the whole order of the world would be reversed.
joe rogan
Whoa!
So the world would become like an ayahuasca culture.
You'd have all these fucking people from the Amazon that would be fine.
graham hancock
Because they're fine.
They'd be absolutely fine.
They know how to survive.
They know how to do it.
So again, I think the message of this is we shouldn't be arrogant and complacent in the achievements of our civilization.
We have done wonderful and amazing things as well as terrible things.
But we shouldn't be arrogant or complacent about it.
We should recognize it's all very fragile.
It can be taken away from us at any time.
We can take it away from ourselves.
joe rogan
Without a doubt, the information is something to consider.
Just the information about these It's something to consider.
And it's also something to consider that if that's correct, boy, what a magical time it must have been back when they had developed some sort of technology that was enabling them to make structures like Gobekli Tepe.
graham hancock
That's why I'm calling the book Magicians of the Gods, because there's something magical, something about it that we would call magic, but perhaps was just another form of science.
joe rogan
Yeah, whatever they were able to do, I mean, it's amazing that we haven't figured it out yet, but we're so arrogant in our assumptions that it had to be all the ways that we've already figured out.
It's so silly.
Isn't there some shit we haven't figured out yet?
graham hancock
Yeah, exactly.
joe rogan
Like this new ability that they've just found out, that they've taken people and they've used the internet to send information from one person's mind to another person's mind 5,000 miles away.
It's incredible.
But nobody else did that before that, so we didn't really think that that was it.
We thought maybe it would be a possibility, but now we know it's a possibility.
Well, whatever the fuck they did to make these pyramids, just because we haven't figured it out yet doesn't mean they were using wooden rollers.
They could have had some really incredible technology that just we don't have a trace of it anymore.
graham hancock
We're looking at a form of technology that we don't recognize as what it is.
Because we're programmed to think of it entirely in our own terms.
joe rogan
And it's almost like the universe is giving us a puzzle that's so incredibly in your face with its most obvious results.
And because we have these preconceived notions, that we're not willing to accept that as a possibility.
Like when people look at the pyramids, they go, well, you know, the thing is they build ramps and they use stone rollers and like, There's a whole faction who will look for the most boring, meaningless possible explanation.
They might have done that.
graham hancock
But the fact that there are large groups of people whose mission is to look for the most boring rather than the most extraordinary possibility, it's good.
That's how we have balance in our society.
We do need to look with a skeptical eye and say that there could be mundane explanations for this.
But we also need to keep a tiny fraction of our research effort, perhaps a very small fraction indeed, To exploring alternative ideas.
Because if they do come out right, they change everything in the way that the mundane things don't.
And it's really worthwhile.
And the only thing, I understand why I've been subjected to so much criticism.
And I welcome it.
I've learned a great deal from that criticism.
But is it wise for us to live in a society which is hostile to the exploration of extraordinary possibilities?
Shouldn't we actually protect that and make that something which we encourage those who wish to do so in our society to do, just on the off chance that they might come up with something utterly world-changing?
joe rogan
Especially if it's done with careful consideration like you've done, or especially like what Randall Carlson's done with asteroidal impacts is absolutely stunning and fascinating.
I mean and what he's done is done with very careful consideration Absolutely.
unidentified
Absolutely.
graham hancock
Randall, he's a real scholar, a real thorough researcher and investigator.
joe rogan
And he was awesome on the podcast.
He was one of my all-time favorites.
Yeah, these ideas are fascinating, but what I was going to say was that it's almost like the number is so large, like 2,300,000 stones in the Great Pyramid, which is so bizarre.
graham hancock
Six million tons, blocks of 50 to 70 tons, roofing the King's Chamber, elevated to heights of 300 feet above the ground.
It's almost perfectly aligned to true north, south, east, and west within a fraction of a single degree.
joe rogan
So crazy that if they could come back from the past and if they come to our time today and go, wait a minute, how did you guys think we did this?
You think we use slaves?
Oh my god, that's so funny.
Ahmad, come over here, man.
Tell them how you think we made the pyramids.
Slaves on wood?
unidentified
Get the fuck out of here!
joe rogan
Are you really saying that?
They'd be like laughing, like, you guys haven't invented this Magneto thing yet?
Something that allows you to turn stone into foam?
unidentified
You mean you don't know how to move things with sound?
joe rogan
Yeah, you don't know how to manifest things out of the air.
graham hancock
You don't know how to exercise the majestic and incredible power of your mind.
joe rogan
We're running out of time, unfortunately.
graham hancock
We are.
And if we're running out of time, can I say again?
joe rogan
Yes, please.
graham hancock
Because I am a better novelist.
Please.
If anybody out there would like to take me up on this offer, just go to grahamhancock.com, go to the War God page, which you'll find easily.
Scroll down and see where to write to me.
I have to repeat again, I will send you the book plates, but I can't correspond.
And it will be November before I'm in a position to send the book plates, because I'm on the road continuously until the 27th.
joe rogan
GrahamHancock.com.
graham hancock
GrahamHancock.com.
joe rogan
My goal is to make this so successful that you never make another offer ever again.
I want to ruin you.
You can't sign all these things.
You have too many coming in.
And you're like, what the fuck am I doing?
I can't do this.
This is my whole life now.
I know.
This will be the last one.
graham hancock
I think it'll probably be the last one.
By the way, there's chapters to read free online on the War God page as well, so I'm not asking people to buy Sight Unseen.
They can have a look.
joe rogan
Beautiful.
And your book, Fingerprints of the Gods, I've said it before when you've been on the podcast before, changed my single-handedly, changed my ideas about history.
Changed my ideas, not in any way discounting the amazing work that traditional historians have done, but just that these things exist that defy explanation and that I didn't know.
Just the fact that there is a guy from Boston University named Robert Schock, who's a prominent geologist, who said, this is clear erosion, and the last time there was erosion was 9000 BC. You're talking about an insane amount of time has passed since there was thousands of years of that rainfall, by the way.
You needed thousands of years to do what we see on this.
This isn't wind.
This is some crazy shit.
graham hancock
That's what I tried to do in Fingerprints, was to bring together people like John Anthony West, who brought Robert Shock to the Sphinx, like Robert Boval, like Randon Rose Flemath.
A lot of researchers were working in the field and coming up with extraordinary information.
And part of what I did in that book was to bring all that information together into a kind of synthesis, I suppose.
joe rogan
It's such an interesting theory, and it's such an interesting subject, and now that it keeps getting substantiated by places like Gobekli Tepe or these micrometeors, it's sort of like piece the puzzle together slowly but surely.
I think as time goes on, we're going to find there's going to be a bunch of civilizations that we uncover.
Those ones that they're finding in Mexico, and then, of course, there's ones that they're finding in the Amazon, where they think, just like we were talking about with the other- Fascinating.
They find a hill, and they think it's a hill, and then someone realizes, like, holy shit, this is a building, guys.
graham hancock
Huge earthworks in the Amazon, stone circles.
You know, that's another place to look for a lost civilization.
joe rogan
We're out of time.
That's it, right?
unidentified
We're dying.
joe rogan
We're dying?
How much time do we have?
unidentified
It's counting down.
joe rogan
How much time?
Give me seconds.
Less than a minute.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you, Graham Hancock.
unidentified
Joe, it's been a pleasure.
joe rogan
Thanks to our sponsors.
Thanks to MeUndies.
Thanks to Ting.
And thanks to DraftKings.com.
Go there and do that.
And use those codes.
They were all earlier.
I said them earlier.
Just fucking rewind it, bitch.
But thank you also to everybody tuning in to this podcast.
And thanks for all the positive feedback and everything.
Go to GrahamHancock.com.
GrahamHancock.com.
And order the book.
Thank you, sir.
Appreciate it very much.
unidentified
Thanks, Joe.
graham hancock
It's been fun.
unidentified
Say bye.
joe rogan
That's it?
unidentified
You can say bye.
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