Episode · Lex Fridman Podcast · 2024-10-16
Books mentioned on #449 – Graham Hancock: Lost Civilization of the Ice Age & Ancient Human History
Graham Hancock a journalist and author who for over 30 years has explored the controversial possibility that there existed a lost civilization during the last Ice Age, and that it was destroyed in a global cataclysm some 12,000 years ago.
Graham Hancock recommended Hamlet's mill by Giorgio De Santillana and Macbeth by William Shakespeare, and discussed Hamlet's Mill by Giorgio De_Santillana and others, Life Itself by Francis Crick, Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna, and The Mind in the Cave by J. David Lewis-Williams.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Hamlet's Mill
Hamlet's Mill by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend is an influential history of science examining how ancient mythologies preserve sophisticated prehistoric astronomical knowledge concerning the precession of the equinoxes.
Discussed“And they wrote an immense book in the 1960s called "Hamlet's Mill".”
Where to get it
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Hamlet's mill
Hamlet's mill by Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha von Dechend is a scholarly history of science book that explores how ancient myths encode astronomical knowledge, specifically the precession of the equinoxes.
Recommended“They wrote an immense book in the 1960s called 'Hamlet's Mill'.”
Where to get it
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Life Itself
Life Itself by Francis Crick is a detailed scientific examination exploring the origins of life on Earth and the hypothesis of panspermia, written by one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA.
Discussed“And Crick wrote a book called "Life Itself", that was published in 1981, and he suggested that life had been brought here by a process of panspermia.”
Where to get it
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Food of the Gods
Food of the Gods is a fringe exploration of the history of plants, drugs, and human evolution written by ethnobotanist Terence McKenna.
Discussed“One is the late great Terence McKenna and his book, "Food of the Gods", where he proposed the idea very strongly that it was our ancestral encounters with psychedelics that made us fully human.”
Where to get it
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The Mind in the Cave
The Mind in the Cave by J.
Discussed“And very much the same idea began to be explored a bit earlier by Professor David Lewis-Williams at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, fabulous book called "The Mind in the Cave",”
Where to get it
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Macbeth
Macbeth by William Shakespeare is one of the playwright's darkest and most famous tragedies, exploring the destructive psychological and political ambitions of a Scottish lord who seizes the throne.
Recommended“A similar idea was explored by Professor David Lewis-Williams at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, in a fabulous book called The Mind in the Cave, where he's again asserting that astonishing similarities in cave art and rock art around the world can only be properly explained by people in deeply altered states of consciousness trying to remember their”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (6) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“By the time 2002, when I published a book called "Underworld", which was the most massive and most heavy book that I've ever written, because I was writing very defensively at the time.”
“But by 2002, when I published a book called 'Underworld', which was the most massive and heavy book that I've ever written because I was writing very defensively at the time.”
“And I turned in another direction and I wrote a book called, "Supernatural: Meetings "with the Ancient Teachers "of Mankind", recently retitled "Visionary".”
“And I turned in another direction and I wrote a book called, "Supernatural: Meetings "with the Ancient Teachers "of Mankind", recently retitled "Visionary".”
“I wasn't very interesting to them when I just had one minor bestseller in 1992 with a book called "The Sign and the Seal".”
“But when "Fingerprints of the Gods" was published in 1995 and became a global bestseller, then I started to attract their attention, and appear to have been regarded as a threat to them.”