My Critique of Graham Hancock

Five years ago, I became deeply fascinated and intrigued by humanity’s shared ancient history. I began an exploration of its unsolved mysteries: the Egyptian pyramids, the megaliths at sites such as Baalbek, the mirror polish of some of the hardest stones, the mathematically precise symmetry, the precision cuts, tubular drills, and polygonal stones that seem to fit together perfectly.

I remain unconvinced by mainstream explanations for these anomalies. Moving multi-hundred-ton stone blocks high up in the Andes, or the 1,800-ton block at Baalbek, does not easily fit conventional explanations. We should not blindly follow, like a herd of sheep, whatever we are told by those in positions of authority. Instead, we should strive to gather as much evidence as possible and explain as much of our history as we can. But we should do so carefully, without oversimplifying or underestimating our own capacity for problem-solving.

More recently, I have begun a deeper exploration of that ancient past in the form of essays. My curiosity and desire to understand it have been my primary drivers. I have also been deeply fascinated by symbolic language. It is the language of the psyche, and to understand oneself, one must first learn to speak it. It frequently floods our minds with vivid dreams and images that may point us toward deeper understanding and the achievement of psychological wholeness. Knowing oneself requires constant effort in deciphering the meaning behind those visions.

This combination of personal interests, ancient history and symbolism, led me to explore the origins of symbolic language in ancient societies. What I discovered was not a primitive understanding of the world, but rather the beginnings of complex social organization, resulting in the emergence of religion and the state. To understand the ancients, one must first understand the psyche itself. Since then, it hasn’t changed much. The unconscious is the primordial water from which everything emerges. It contains the blueprint for differentiation from the ouroboric beginning; the snake biting its own tail, devouring itself, and thus annihilating illusion.

The symbolic is like a riddle to be solved; it contains information to be decoded and is not literal. Reading the symbolic as literal can lead to psychosis, believing things that are not real. When we explore the ancient world through a modern literal understanding of it, we risk arriving at a distorted interpretation, a kind of collective delusion.

When we dig into ancient sites, it can initially seem as if complex social organization, together with symbolic language, emerged out of nowhere at places such as Göbekli Tepe. This is one of the reasons why alternative history proponents such as Graham Hancock exist. And while it is true that there are many unresolved mysteries at various ancient sites across the world, many alternative history theories are shaped by confirmation bias.

In this field of exploration, we are all driven by a desire for truth. I want to know what the past looked like, what brought us to where we are today, and to develop a coherent narrative of our shared history; because knowing oneself is not only based on the present, but also on the past.

That being said, this is where I separate from people like Graham Hancock. They see a pattern, then they build a narrative from it, and then interpret every ancient clue through that narrative. This tendency can easily turn into a filter, where anything that doesn’t fit gets pushed aside or reinterpreted until it does.

Ironically, this is how mainstream archeology operates too. This is also how my chatbot operates. I share an idea with it and then it proceeds to give me the most elaborate narrative, fully supporting my idea. Its default operating directive is to please me and so it assumes that by creating a narrative that aligns with my idea, but distorts reality, is the most optimal path.

One cannot claim to be a truth seeker while ignoring parts of reality that do not fit within their narrative. It requires humility to know when to push forward and when to step back, examine the situation more critically, and proceed with a clearer understanding; even if it does not fully align with one’s initial assumptions. One must consider all available evidence when building a case.

After watching a recent podcast with Graham Hancock, I was disappointed by how shallow his argumentation for his theory is. It seemed to me that he has been going in circles for the past 30 years, since he began exploring this alternative history narrative. He repeatedly brings up the same anomalous artifacts and claims of advanced knowledge in ancient history, but he fails to provide a deeper explanation of how things might have actually happened.

Instead of digging into archaeological findings and trying to trace our cognitive and cultural development over time, through which he could then support or challenge his own claims, he sticks with a narrative built on assumptions. In the podcast, he proposed that a lost ancient civilization must have originated 20,000 years ago. He provided no clear explanation for why he suggests that date, or what evidence supports it. It was simply presented as a claim, without substantiation.

But then imagine you’re part of a jury, tasked with determining the fate of a human being. Would you support the lawyer who provides no evidence for his narrative? Who claims that the suspect was at the crime scene, but has nothing to substantiate that claim?

This may not necessarily be an indicator of a false narrative, but it is an indicator of a weak argumentation, and a poor narrator. A form of self-sabotage, even. Instead of staying grounded in the strongest available evidence for advanced engineering, Graham pivots into entirely speculative narratives, pulled out of thin air.

This is not how a case is won.

Graham Hancock is among the most well-known alternative history proponents. He has built both an audience and authority within that field. When it comes to ancient mysteries, many people look up to him. He has opened the door to exploring the “what ifs” of the ancient world.

That is why it feels disheartening when what I would describe as psychological immaturity comes through in some of his statements. And rather than leaving it as a claim, I will now try to back it up.

Further in the podcast conversation, Graham mentioned the Followers of Horus. The Followers of Horus refers to a semi-mythical group of kings and demigods who are said to have ruled Egypt during the Predynastic period (roughly 6000–3150 BCE). Egyptian king lists, such as the Turin Papyrus, record these mysterious figures as ancestral rulers who came after the gods but before the first mortal pharaohs.

In Egyptian mythology, they are often described as demigods, sages, and divine followers who accompanied the gods Osiris, Isis, and Horus to earth. They were believed to act as intermediary guides and teachers between the higher gods and humanity.

This is not an original narrative. The development of Egyptian symbolism can be traced, in part, to earlier cultural exchanges with ancient Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia in particular is often considered as a key influence in the emergence of early complex social and symbolic systems.

[embed]The Serpent’s Temple and the Eagle’s Throne The Origins of Human Power in Ancient Mesopotamiamedium.com

The Predynastic Egyptians did not necessarily “borrow” in a simple or direct sense, but there is evidence to suggest that they observed neighboring systems of organization and adapted certain structural and symbolic elements locally. It is not to say they would not have arrived at similar developments independently, but the historical record does point to significant cross-cultural influence in the broader region.

A close parallel to the Followers of Horus in Mesopotamian tradition can be found in the Apkallu, also known as the Seven Sages. Like the Followers of Horus, the Apkallu were semi-divine beings said to have existed before a great flood and to have served as civilizing teachers to humanity.

Created by the god Enki, they were credited with bringing essential knowledge such as law, writing, craftsmanship, and cultural foundations to early civilizations. Their symbolic representation is also striking: while Horus is famously depicted as a falcon-headed deity, some Apkallu are portrayed as eagle-headed, winged humanoid figures, suggesting a shared association with birds of prey imagery and divine kingship.

Both traditions further describe these beings as intermediaries between gods and humans, eventually fading into human lineages, where later generations appear not as divine rulers but as fully human sages and advisors to kings.

Briefly explained, the ancient Egyptian ruling class used symbolic language and the mythology that emerged from it as a means of political indoctrination. They developed complex narratives to explain their divine origin and to create a sense of cultural continuity that did not exist. In doing so, they subjugated the human mind through a deeply compelling, but ultimately constructed, narrative.

When a ruler’s right to govern is derived directly from the gods, rebelling against that ruler becomes equivalent to rebelling against the gods themselves. And rebelling against the gods can be framed as self-annihilation. This logic helped sustain the system of divine kingship in pharaonic Egypt, allowing it to endure for thousands of years.

[embed]The Cobra’s Temple and The Falcon’s Throne Symbolism as a Political Tool for Indoctrinationmedium.com

Graham uses the Followers of Horus as an example of a group of humans who have been spreading ancient knowledge across the world. He speaks of pre-flood times as an era of peace and prosperity, where the lion did not eat the gazelle and humans lived in a utopia.

This romanticized, idealized view of the past, and of the world in general, is not only naïve, but potentially dangerous. It can give way to autocratic systems in which the masses believe in salvation, while a small, unelected few claim to provide it. It is history repeating itself in different forms. First, it was the pharaoh, then it was the emperor, then it became the pope.

Have we not learned anything from our past? Apparently, Graham has not. He falls prey to the same kinds of narratives that deceived people living 5,000 years ago. This suggests that we are not psychologically more mature than the ancients.

Graham Hancock describes himself as a writer and a communicator of ideas. But in doing so, he has, in my view, failed to consistently apply critical thinking to the ideas he presents. In his desire to find truth, he often comes across less as an investigator and more as a storyteller, constructing a compelling narrative without sufficiently grounding it in evidence.

This is no longer simply truth-seeking. You cannot appear on a podcast with almost 20 million listeners and state that a lost ancient civilization existed 20,000 years ago without clearly substantiating that claim. Nor can you invoke historical narratives about “ancient teachers”, created to legitimize political authority, while bypassing the archaeological record when it does not support the hypothesis. In doing so, he reenacts the same behavior seen in mainstream archaeology that he criticizes.

What is missing, repeatedly, is sustained self-critique, the willingness to challenge and potentially dismantle one’s own framework when the evidence requires it. Instead, the narrative tends to remain intact, with new data interpreted through its lens rather than used to test its validity.

He often presents mythological structures from the past as if they preserve literal historical memory, without sufficient effort to distinguish between symbolic narrative and empirical history. When this interpretive approach reaches a large audience, it risks becoming the shared framework of millions of people for understanding the past that is not adequately anchored in evidence. Thus, he has failed to represent the part of the population that wants to know the truth.

Graham Hancock has said that “we are a species with amnesia,” and while the metaphor is powerful, the issue is not memory alone. The challenge is how we reconstruct the past responsibly. Without careful standards of evidence, the result is not recovered history, but an increasingly speculative narrative presented as if it were settled understanding.

This is not the path to understanding truth. It only adds layers of unprovable assumptions that bury what may be closer to reality even deeper. To find truth, we must rely on what is present, not on what is absent; not on constructing narratives through distorted interpretations of the past, or of the world in general.

Perhaps we need to ground our understanding of what it means to be human in nature itself. We have been part of it for hundreds of thousands of years. We carry both the primal and the symbolic, or “divine.” It is not either/or; it is both, held together. Denying either aspect of our nature leads to fragmentation of the psyche.

The psyche, however, can be understood as a dynamic system. It seeks balance, and whenever we engage only with the primal or only with the symbolic, it tends to compensate. That correction is often experienced as disruption or psychological tension. In this sense, balance resembles the ancient Egyptian concept of Ma’at.

The people who control narratives are often resistant to this balance. The Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten is sometimes described as a “heretic pharaoh” for leading a religious revolution in his time. He promoted exclusive worship centered on the sun disk Aten, elevating it above the traditional Egyptian pantheon. This shift reduced the influence of the powerful priesthood of Amun and other temples, which had functioned as major economic and social institutions. In practice, this also meant a redistribution of ritual authority and political power toward the king and his court.

His reforms challenged the established order, and after his death his legacy was significantly dismantled: monuments were altered or removed, and his name was largely excluded from later king lists. He challenged the status quo and in return, the status quo tried to erase him from history. But before he was labeled a heretic, he was known as the prince of ma’at, associated with the principle of truth, order, and balance.

Similarly, nowadays we face the same opposition to ma’at. The established order holds onto its narrative and will not let go, and any attempt to establish ma’at will be labeled as hereticism. This is not to discourage the truth seekers, but to emphasize the importance of remaining vigilant in our pursuit of it. To remain grounded in the same truth that we seek to establish.

As a final note, I wish for a future where the truth is accessible to everyone and not only to the ego-driven, knowledge gate-keepers. If, as a leader, you cannot maintain order through ma’at, then you don’t deserve to be a leader at all. Let each heart be weighted against the feather of ma’at and thus our destiny decided.