Early Hancock

Graham Hancock gets upset that it is often noted that hyperdiffusionist interpretations of the past like his have roots in some kinds of supremacies or -centrisms. In this context, it is worth noting also one of his earlier books exhibits this (Aaron Rabinowitz, 'Netflix’s Ancient Apocalypse with Graham Hancock: from alien conspiracies to antisemitism' The Skeptic 15th February 2023)

Things go from outlandish to disturbing when you get to Hancock’s book The Master Game: Unmasking the Secret Rulers of the World, coauthored by Robert Bauval and originally released under the name Talisman: Sacred Cities, Secret Faith. Hancock’s website claims the book reveals a “secret religion that has shaped the world”, and if you’re a regular reader you know exactly where this is going. However, I need to be careful, because The Master Game really puts the (((J))) in JAQing Off. As David Barrett puts it in his review of the book, the incoherent mess of an argument culminates in the authors promoting “the old Jewish-Masonic plot so beloved by ultra-right-wing conspiracy theorists”.

The Talisman squeezes in a whole lot of mumbo-jumbo from 'esoteric' claptrap popular at the time, but seems to owe a large deal to the 1982 book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln: "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail", in turn borrowing ideas from the 1967 book L'Or de Rennes by Gérard de Sède, with the collaboration of document forger Pierre Plantard (they both also lie behind the equally fictional 'Da Vinci Code' by Dan Brown). From amazon.pl

Keeping an Eye on the Goalposts

After the Hancock-Dibble debate on the Joe Rogan Experience in April (and indeed towards its end) Graham Hancock started to deny that he'd said a number of things about his hypothetical lost civilisation that it seems he had in fact claimed he had "evidence" for. Unpicking this gaslighting would require going through all of his writings to reference where he'd claimed this or that, and how those claims shifted. It seems to be that since his (Hapgood's and Donnolly's) basic source was Plato's text, it might be worth trying to extract from that text what Plato thought would be the archaeology that we would be looking for IDF he imagined this polity existed. To save time, and get a more "mechanical" and not subjective review, I asked the Grok AI programme: " Can you please take Plato's full description (https://www.ascendingpassage.com/plato-atlantis-timaeus.htm) of Atlantis and write me what the material culture would look like? What kind of economy did they have, what kind of tools would they  have used, did they mine and work metals? What other materials did they produce and use? Thanks".

Based on Plato's description in "Timaeus" and "Critias," here's an analysis of the material culture of Atlantis:

Economy:
• Agriculture: Atlantis was described as having fertile soil and abundant water sources, suggesting a strong agricultural economy. The use of irrigation systems ensured great