Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth’s Lost Civilization

Graham Hancock has the annoying habit of issuing updated, revised, and expanded editions of his books. There's an updated <i>Fingerprints of the Gods</i> (that is really hard-to-find and I think only published in Britain), an updated <i>Underworld</i>, and a totally re-written and updated <i>Supernatural</i>. Thus, if you are a completist, or want the best editions, you should get the paperback (except <i>Supernatural</i>, where you really need to get both).Anyway, in this updated, revised, and expanded edition of <i>Magicians of the Gods</i> there is an extra paragraph in the acknowledgements on Joe Rogan; a Part IX with two new chapters, and an Appendix II. (Hancock's editors really should be ashamed of themselves. In the original book, the sole appendix was called "Appendix I." Why call it "I" if there was no "II"? Here is the "Appendix II," finally. There are numerous copyediting errors in the two new chapters and appendix. Which is annoying. The superscript endnote numbers in "Appendix II" start with 54, continuing from Chapter 21 in the text, yet they start with 1 in the endnotes! Bad.)Anyway, my original review of the hardcover:Graham Hancock is a fringe writer. Or pseudoscience, or pseudo-history, if you're being mean. I would say speculative history or alternative history. But, it is a calumny to group Hancock together with cranks like David Hatcher Childress, Erich von Däniken, Scott Wolter, and the like. He is a better researcher, much more based in secular science, and a far better writer. There are things in this book that are a tad far-fetched, but there is a lot more that is close-fetched.Presented as a sequel to his 1995 <i>Fingerprints of the Gods</i> (ignoring, I guess, <i>Underworld</i> and <i>Heaven's Mirror</i>), Hancock presents evidence, again, for his theory that there was a rather advanced civilization that flourished before the last Ice Age, was destroyed, and survivors from this "Atlantis" (or whatever you want to call it) spread knowledge to the less-civilized remnants of mankind. Thus, like <i>Fingerprints</i> we have Oannes, Quetzalcoatl, Viracocha, etc.' astronomically aligned megaliths and temples, etc., that point to a circa 10,000 BC apocalypse of some sort.In <i>Fingerprints</i> the civilization was in Antarctica and was swallowed by earth-crust displacement. Here he doesn't really say where the civilization may be (with hints it may be in North America or Indonesia), and he dropped earth-crust displacement for a cometary impact, the so-called Younger Dryas impact hypothesis. This places Hancock on more firm scientific ground, though many scientists still don't buy it. Nor will they sign on to the notion that comet impacts destroyed an advanced civilization.It is amazing how much his theories now resemble Ignatius Donnelly's theories (from <i>Atlantis: The Antediluvian World</i> and <i>Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel</i>).Since <i>Fingerprints</i>, archaeologists have discovered Göbekli Tepe in Turkey. A pre-historic (as in pre-writing) site that seems to be a religious cult center. Hancock spends an inordinate amount of time on Pillar 43, saying it is an early zodiac that focuses on the Younger Dryas era and our own 2012ish era. Why he hangs so much on one pillar I don't understand. Why not any of the other dozens of pillars?It's rather a lot to hang your hat on.I was disappointed, a little, in the slapdash appearance of the book. Why no running chapter heads? Why the numerous little errors? And, I love that Hancock has numerous endnotes, some with additional content. And, I admit I like he's old school and still uses ibid. and op. cit., etc. But, his citations are a mess. They could have used a nerd to make them all follow the same rules.Nice color photographs and some nice line images, though the halftone maps are hard to read and/or useless. These could have been done much better. It's like someone plotted some GIS info on a Google clone and hit the print button, thinking it would be a good map in a printed book.Overall, if you are willing to look into Hancock's speculations and you liked <i>Fingerprints of the Gods</i>, you will like this too. If you think Hancock is no better than the folks on <i>Ancient Aliens</i>, you will think it all is stupid. There is much to mentally chew on here and it is interesting, though it drags in a couple of places. Hancock, committed spiritual-secularist (i.e. anti-organized religion) never considers a biblical view of his evidence.I don't quite buy it all, but, it is interesting nevertheless.[Review of the hardcover, first US edition.]My review of the additional stuff in the updated, revised, and expanded paperback edition:Chapter 20 talks of additional evidence of Hancock's Younger Dryas era cataclysm in Australia, Indonesia, and India (with a long section on background of Hancock's previous book <i>Underworld</i>). He mentions, too, the Denisovans (a new catchall for lots of fringe theories on human development, evolution, etc.). Chapter 21 talks about theories of how comets could have struck the earth at periodic intervals. Interesting enough. Appendix II addressed something I noticed above, what happened to the earth-crust displacement theory in <i>Fingerprints of the Gods</i>? Here, Hancock says it hasn't quite been abandoned, just modified. Hapgood's method for initiating such crustal movement did not stand up to scrutiny, but perhaps a comet could kick start it. The Younger Dryas impact event?Decent enough additions. Either buy the paperback, if you like paperbacks, or get it super cheap if you want to complete the hardback.[Review of the paperback, updated, revised, and expanded, US edition.]

I very much appreciate Graham Hancock's work and the resulting books. They are always interesting and full of information. I read Fingerprints of the Gods twenty years ago and this new book (Magicians of the Gods) certainly adds new and important information and helps to answer some of the questions leftover from Fingerprints. The scientifically supported Younger-Dryas Comet Impact theory is put forth in detail as a hypothesis for some of the global flooding and civilization destroying changes that may have occurred around 12,000 years ago. I am happy to own this book.Having said that, I do believe this book is not as good as Fingerprints. I agree with many of the criticisms espoused by the 2-star and 3-star reviews concerning the exposition of the material and the narrative (not the material itself). But rather than rehash those critiques here, I would like to ask for your help in understanding a particular aspect of the book (which I have just finished reading). Thanks in advance to those readers who will respond with helpful comments.I am referring to a section of Chapter 15 called "Eliminating the impossible" that begins on page 327 and continues to the end of the chapter on page 333. This section includes the four figures (53-56) on pages 328, 329, 330, and 331 each of which shows an overhead diagram of Gobekli Tepi enclosures A, B, C, and D. In each figure, along with the compass directions, there is overlaid the same "orientation" line (arrow) that goes through the center (?) of enclosure D and passes just next to (west of) two stone pillars that are external to any enclosure but seem to "lead to" enclosure C.The two stone pillars that seem to "lead to" enclosure C are not numbered or labelled (like all the others) - presumably because they are not "part of" or within any of the enclosures - rather they are considered external (?) to the enclosures. Curiously, the author does not label or even refer to these twin stone pillars either in Chapter 1 (see Figure 2) or in Chapter 15 or anywhere else in the book. Yet just looking at the site diagram, they seem oddly important since (unlike all the other stone pillars depicted) they are collinear with each other, similar or equal size (as far as we can tell), and so close as to form some sort of entryway or gateway leading to enclosure C.But my real disappointment with the author concerning the "Eliminating the impossible" section of Chapter 15 is that his logic is all based on this site "orientation" line (shown on the diagrams) which he fails to establish with any degree of explanation or precision. If the the whole alignments issue is based on this site orientation line (arrow), isn't it incumbent upon the author to establish not only its existence, but its exact orientation with some degree of precision or reference points? I think so. But the author fails to do so.In the text below figure 54 on page 329, the author simply "reminds" himself (and the reader) of the orientation of all the enclosures at Gobekli Tepi - that they "...have a very definite northwest to southeast orientation.""Very definite" based on what? The author does not say. There is however a footnote here (17) which only refers the reader to yet another book and another paper. Is the answer in those references? I don't know.So my beef here, is that the author sets out in this section to make a complex logical argument regarding the proper cosmic alignment of the site and what it means (tying it in to his theory of the meaning of Pillar 43 and the message the builders have presumably sent to us in the present) but it is all based on the fuzzy foundation of this "very definite" (yet undefined by the author) precise site orientation line. How is he drawing this orientation line exactly? What are the reference points?As far as I can tell (pure guess) is that the site orientation line was arbitrarily drawn using the "center" of enclosure D (where there is no particular stone marker) and the west side of the (unlabeled) twin stone pillars as "reference points". If so, the author fails to explain this choice of reference points (or any other). Why does the line not go through the center of the twin stone pillars (rather than just to the west of both)? Why does the site orientation line go through the "center" of enclosure D, but skims the edge of enclosure C and avoids enclosures A and B altogether?Perhaps even more troubling, we recall from Chapter 1 (see page 11) that enclosures A, B, C, and D are only four enclosures of at least sixteen and possibly as many as fifty enclosures comprising the totality of the Gobekli Tepi site. So if only a quarter to a tenth of the entire site is currently excavated, how can the author provide a precise site orientation line from that small portion at one end of the whole site? The author does not explain, nor does he provide the reference points he is using to orient the site. And the author (nor anyone else to date) has explored the 75% to 90% that remains unexcavated. Maybe the GPR studies show roughly where these unexcavated enclosures are, maybe even where some of the unexcavated stone pillars are located, but the author does not say whether or not he is using any of that information to determine the precise "site orientation".Perhaps I am making too much of this point, but it is frustrating for this reader (and perhaps others), to wade through complex logic arguments concerning star alignments and dating of this important archeological site when the whole argument is fundamentally based on an arbitrary "orientation" line that is unexplained by the author and has no reference points. Perhaps, if I were to visit the site myself, this site orientation would be "obvious" to me (as it seems to be to the author). Perhaps the author is just assuming this site orientation line from diagrams in other books (as footnote 17 would suggest).I don't know. I'm asking you. Did I miss something in this book?Did any of you read the Andrew Collins book ("Gobekli Tepi, Genesis of the Gods")? Is the site orientation line or reference points explained there?Does this bother anyone else? Or is it just me?

Always found Graham Hancock provocative and informative. He does his homework.

Thought provoking. Impossible to put down. Technical terms explained in ways that are easy to understand periods. Will read everything that Hancock writes

This is a fascinating investigation into strange, anomalous archeological and mythological threads that Hancock weaves into a compelling argument for the existence of an advanced Ice Age civilization that was wiped out during the Younger Dryas era but whose memory has persisted in the oral histories and mythologies passed down to modern times.Following the science and evidence Hancock presents can be a bit challenging if you’re not familiar with it, as I wasn’t, but overall I was able to follow his reasoning.My criticisms of the book are that it’s quite repetitive at times; his regular references to his earlier works gets irritating if you haven’t read them as I hadn’t; and photographs would have been an enormous help. Hancock could have easily given quick summaries of those prior works to provide more context. I also found his whining about being ignored or criticized by mainstream archeology tiresome after awhile.Overall it’s a challenging, intriguing read and theory that makes a great deal of sense. The book would have benefited from a much better editor and a synthesizing of the major points and related archeology instead of being largely a chronological retelling of his exploration trips.

I love this book, and Graham writes so smoothly that it is easy to read. If you believe there is more to History than what you have been taught in school, this is a must read for you.

Es un libro de imprescindible lectura. Integra una serie de conocimientos científicos para evidenciar cómo lo que hemos aprendido hasta ahora en las escuelas no es sino una pálido reflejo de nuestro verdadero origen. Es la secuela de Fingerprints of the gods.

Já conhecia o trabalho de Graham Hancock, e tinha lido “the fingerprints of the gods”. E ele tem as últimas informações sobre o achado arqueológico do momento na Turquia.

Magicians of the Gods is an eye opener and an amazing read. I found Graham Hancock while perusing YouTube one day, listened to him for about 30 minutes and just had to buy his books.Keep an open mind if you decide to read this book, and I do recommend it-- more so if you are fascinated by the ancient world. There is a lot more to our history than what you learnt in school. Magicians is about, what Hancock calls, the lost global civilization that was wiped out by a flood in the Younger Dryas due to a comet impact in the ice caps in North America 10,800 BCE (c). A few years after this book was released an impact crater was found in Greenland and Ice core samples also prove the advent of mass flooding in a very quick period of time so it is not as much as stretch as it once was.Gobekli Tepe is referenced in this book as the site was not as yet discovered when Hancock released Fingerprints of the Gods in the mid 90s. Heliopolis in Lebanon and the Giza pyramids are also topics of conversation within the book.

Thoroughly researched and insightful. Hancock’s brings together information from across geology, history, climatology, archeology and shows how they all point to the same broad story that the story of civilization is not linear and goes back much further than is commonly acknowledged.

Grate purchase