Through your journey through

ancient civilizations, what have you

come to learn about what this

consciousness thing is, if anything at

all, or at least what people believed?

>> Yeah.

>> Um, and how those similar mythologies

were similar.

>> Yes, I've partly I've partly come to

this through the ancient texts.

There's a very specific

scene in a number of the ancient

Egyptian funerary text. It's called the

judgment scene.

And what you see is you see the deceased

entering into a hall into a room, at the

end of which sits the god Osiris

enthroned.

And the deceased is led into the hall by

the goddess Ma'at. She's recognized by a

feather that she wears in her headdress.

She's the goddess of truth,

justice,

and cosmic harmony.

He enters

the hall. There's a scale in the hall.

In one pan of the scale

is an object that represents his heart

{oblique} his soul. Heart and soul were

the same thing for the Egyptians in that

sense.

And in the other pan

is the feather of Ma'at.

The feather of truth, harmony, and

cosmic justice.

You do not want your heart to outweigh

the feather

at that moment.

You want, at the very least, to be in

balance.

And in order to be in balance, then

comes into question the whole way that

you've lived your life. Up on the wall

of the hall, there are 42 little

figures. They're called the 42 negative

assessors. Each one of them's going to

ask you a question. Did you steal?

Did you kill? Actually, the Ten

Commandments are all in there, and a lot

more as well.

Ideally,

you should be able to answer no to all

of those questions, but the ancient

Egyptians

always understood how frail human beings

are, and that we can always make

mistakes. The question is, what do we do

when we make a mistake? Do we learn from

it, or do we keep on repeating it? And

what I read into that is

you were given

you, the deceased, you were given an

incredible opportunity.

We allowed you to be born in a human

body.

You could have a range of experiences

that no other physical form on your

planet could have. You you you had this

huge brain. You had this enormous

capacity. We gave it this to you.

What did you do with it?

Did you use it well?

Or did you squander it and waste it? And

at that moment, you'd better be there

with some answers about how you used it

well.

So, as I come towards the end of my

life, I look very carefully at my life.

I and um

I try to undo wrongs that I have done in

the past if I can, and I try to make

sure I don't do any more in the future.

I want to be a nurturing

and positive

and useful person to the people around

me.

>> The the health situation you've gone

through has clearly made you quite

introspective, probably more so than you

you might have been 10 years ago, I'm

guessing.

>> ab- absolutely. I was still immortal 10

years ago.

>> [laughter]

>> Listen,

each and every one of us, every single

human being on this planet, could die in

the next minute.

Life is that fragile. It's that sudden.

You can never predict you you how long

you're going to live. But, what

something like this does, it focuses the

mind, and it does make me wish more and

more that I can leave this life with

as few regrets as possible.

And that I can feel that I played a

useful and positive role

in the life of others, and that I

even played in some way, a useful and

positive role in the life of the species

to which I belong.

>> Are you happy?

>> I am very happy.

In a lot of ways, I'm blessed to have

lived the life I've lived,

to have traveled the world, to have the

adventures that I have had.

I'm blessed with a beautiful and

wonderful wife and companion, my wife

Santha. I've got this wonderful picture

of her.

>> Yeah, it glows.

>> That's me and Santha.

We met when we were about 40 years old.

And um

I don't think we've been apart more than

4 days in the entire 30-plus years

uh since then.

>> Wow.

>> Uh we do everything together. We travel

together. Santha is a photographer,

brilliant photographer. And and and uh I

do not have a great visual eye. So, we

work together. I do the words, Santha

does the pictures. We have the

adventures together. We did the scuba

diving together. Santha nearly lost her

life twice in in tense currents scuba

diving. She's brave. She's an

adventurer.

But she's a wonderful mother. This is so

important. Santha and I have six

children between us. Santha brought two

from her previous marriage. I brought

two from my first marriage and two from

my second marriage. So, six children

from three broken marriages is a

potential disaster. Santha brought them

all together into a group of loving,

deeply committed siblings who care for

one another, who are constantly in each

other's lives, who are there to support

one another. Santha did that by just

being a brilliant, loving person. So,

I'm very happy

to have such a great partner

who's stood by me through thick and thin

and has brought out these wonderful

characters in in in our children and now

our grandchildren. You know, nine

grandchildren, six grandkids. All of

it's down to Santha.

>> It's remarkable that through all the

wonders of human history and all the

things we talked about that love

like this kind of romantic love is

so central, so important, so central to

our happiness. I just thought oh, it's

it's just a wonderful reminder of um how

easy it is to get caught up in the

material and and all the toxic whereas,

you know,

so much of it comes from just the

simplicity of falling in love with

someone.

>> Love is what it's all about and and love

is love is giving. It's giving yourself

to somebody else. It's putting the other

person.

Sorry, I'm going to end up crying. This

This is what my [clears throat] wife

does all the time with everybody.

She puts other people first.

And

>> [sighs and clears throat]

>> I have this benefit enormously from

that. I'm very fortunate.

I think I think if I hadn't met Santha

when I did and we hadn't formed this

joint life,

>> [snorts]

>> I think

I would have made nothing of my life.

Nothing at all. I think it would have

just gone down the tubes. I needed a

loving steering hand at that point.

Anyway, very lucky. I I I am happy.

There are things that make me unhappy,

of course, just like every every every

other human being. I I don't understand

why those who are bitterly opposed to my

work want to try and present me as some

kind of fraud or grifter, but I suppose

it's a easy way to lazily dismiss

somebody else. Uh another thing that has

been used

is because I've considered the

possibility of a lost civilization

having an influence on other known

historical civilization. Uh I've been

accused of racism as well.

That I've been I've been accused of

taking away the authenticity of

indigenous achievements.

Um and and that again has been without

without any receipts. It's not been It's

just thrown out there as an accusation.

Now, for me, with with a multi-ethnic

family,

uh that racism abuse that has been

thrown at me constantly is extremely

hurtful and extremely painful. It's one

of the few things that have been thrown

at me that I actually cannot forgive.

It's unforgivable to use that lazy

easy dismissal.

In a society where a lot of people don't

read anymore, I mean pretty much

guarantee people who hear that on the

internet, they're not going to go and

read the books and actually find out

what I said. They're just going to take

it as face value. So that does hurt and

it does make me sad, but generally I'm

blessed, I'm lucky. I've lived a

fantastic

privileged life. I've explored the

world, I'm surrounded by love and

onwards and upwards as far as I'm

concerned.

>> Well, you know Graham, I think at the

end of the day, the thing that endures

is

the impact, the curiosity that you've

you've provoked in people, allowed them

to wonder beyond the narrowness of our

lives which is quite miserable. A narrow

life is feels quite like a miserable

life where you can't be open-minded and

explore and and that's why I love these

conversations. It's not to say that I

that I always accept when I have these

kind of conversations everything to be

100% true, but the net benefit for me is

just expanding my mind to possibility.

And like please don't rob me of the

opportunity to expand my mind to

possibility.

What would my life become without

possibility or hope or these things and

and actually when I look at

graphs like this that show how our

beliefs and scientific understanding has

changed even in recent times as as

recent as 2017

on this particular graph. I go, well,

I'd have some arrogance to assume that I

know it all today.

>> Totally. Thing things are things are

constantly changing. You know, every

turn of the spade in an archaeological

dig can change the whole story, change

the whole story. This is not limited to

archaeology. This is found in all fields

where there are specialists

that they they tend to get locked into a

particular reference frame and actually

defend it in a territorial way. It

becomes like a war and they they they

feel absolutely responsible to defend

that territory against all comers and

will use any dirty tricks that are

needed to be used in order to defeat the

enemy. So you asked me a straightforward

question,

am I happy? Yes, I am happy and I

honestly answered you that there are

certain things, particularly the racism

assaults on me that I do make me

extremely unhappy.

>> What else do I need to know about

the the possibility of an ancient

civilization that might inform how I

think about myself, my life, and I guess

also our future. What I find so

fascinating is especially we're in a

moment of this AI revolution where

you've got these sort of big forces if

you've got nuclear weapons over here,

you've now got this advanced

intelligence. There's humanoid robots on

the horizon. And if there was ever a

moment where the word, you know,

existential is being used in a in a way

that is probably appropriate. For me, it

feels like now.

>> Yeah, feels like now to me, too.

This is a no doubt

our species is poised on the edge of an

abyss right now.

Our technology has outgrown our

mentality.

And we're not we're not in good shape to

deal with the chances that lie ahead. I

I

unfortunately the chances of a nuclear

exchange are just higher and higher.

That's just a realistic assessment of

the way the world is with these maniacal

leaders. So, what could we learn from

the past? We could

I believe we can learn that there's

another way to live, that we don't have

to do it this way. We don't have to do

it.

>> I I that's that's something I believe.

>> Okay, I believe.

>> That's something I don't know.

>> Okay.

>> I guess I'm optimistic that human beings

have made it through

all these centuries, all these thousands

of years, all these hundreds of

thousands of years, that we've made it

through. We've made terrible mistakes,

done terrible things. I mean, look at

the Second World War.

God knows how many people were killed

there. 20 million Russians alone, if I

remember correctly. It's just horrific,

absolute horror.

It's on

When I was born in 1950, the Second

World War was only 5 years away and at

the end of it and it hung over us, you

know, you

our generation were aware of that, but

it seems to me

people today aren't aware of the horror

of global war in the way that they were

then, and and and

that adds to the

to the danger that we will immolate

ourselves.

I think a new approach to the nature of

reality is really vital. I think we we

need to begin to understand

consciousness better.

Uh and what I would wish

for the human species

is that we understand we are actually

all one.

Incredibly diverse,

full of creativity and differences, but

but all one, and a mother

in the middle of sub-Saharan Africa and

a mother in New York City, they love

their kids in exactly the same way.

They hope for their kids in exactly the

same way. There's no difference between

them at all.

As long as we're as long as we're

indoctrinated into this notion of

divisive differences. I'm all in favor

of differences between human beings.

That's part of our creativity as our

species, but divisive differences,

that's what's going to kill us off.

Uh and that's, I think, the message that

comes down from the past, whether it's

correct message or not, the message is

we

a former civilization

made a terrible mistake, and it resulted

in a cataclysm that brought us down.

I think we need to realize that can

happen again,

uh and that we are

most likely to be the cause of that

cataclysm ourselves.

Uh

there may there may be a danger of

further comet impacts, the Younger Dryas

comet fragments, it's called the Taurid

meteor stream. The Earth passes through

it twice a year in June and in

October-November.

Uh there are hundreds of deadly objects

in the Taurid meteor stream. It could

happen, but I think a much more likely

way that we're going to

bring our civilization

back almost to the Stone Age

is nuclear war.

We can do it to ourselves.

Unless we wake up, unless we

become more conscious of what it is to

be a human being, of the privilege and

the gift of being a human being, and how

that privilege and gift belongs to every

human being, not just to us.

Now, I don't know how that's going to be

done. I I I do think psychedelics can

play a role.

I've said many times, and I'll say it

again, if I if I had the power to do so,

I would insist that every world leader

has at least at least a dozen sessions

of ayahuasca before they even apply for

the job.

>> Because you believe that would give them

the same feeling of oneness that

>> most of them wouldn't apply for the job

at all.

>> Oh, really?

>> And those who did would would probably

do a much better job.

>> Hm.

Because they'd understand

>> and themselves better.

>> Graham, what is the most important thing

we haven't discussed as it relates to

our past and what it might teach us or

you know, how it might inform how we

choose to live our lives today

um that we haven't discussed?

>> Look, the most important thing as far as

as far as I'm concerned is independent

inquiry.

We need to start thinking for ourselves,

and that's true of the past and it's

true of everything else.

To the to the extent that I that I do

get positive feedback from young people,

and I do

a lot, that feedback is

thank you for being an example to

question everything.

>> Hm.

>> It happens that what I'm questioning is

the past, but that can be a model for

questioning everything. I I feel that

that

very poor journalism

being used to smear my name because I

asked questions and because I asked them

vigorously.

And because most important of all, I

reached a large audience.

That's it really. They won't smear smear

your name if you don't reach a large

audience. You're not worth their

trouble.

>> I know the feeling.

>> Yeah. But I think you do.

>> But you know, for me my thing has always

been that um

all it's done is made me clearer. Like

you know, if you have a bigger platform,

more people um watching you etc. and

talking about you. All it's done for me

is made me clearer on my principles and

what I believe.

>> Yeah.

>> And I'm actually really thankful for

that in a weird way.

>> Yeah.

>> Because you're forced to you know, when

you hear so many things said said about

you written about you whatever, it does

focus one mind on like okay, like who am

I?

>> Yeah.

>> And what matters? What am I where am I

uncompromising in terms of the

conversations I want to have, the way I

want to do it? And that's given me a

huge amount of clarity. And one of the

things that I'm really I really want to

make sure is that it doesn't make me um

bitter or resentful in any way.

>> And you can see how it happens.

>> Yeah, I can I can absolutely see how it

happens.

>> Cuz you you have to live with this sort

of um

injustice potentially or being

mischaracterized or whatever. So

it's easy to see how one can slip off

into bitterness and resentment and to

>> That's a that's a big part of the work

I'm doing on myself at the moment. I I'm

confident that I am doing the right

thing with my life. I'm doing no harm to

anyone.

And I'm putting ideas out there that are

worth thinking about. I'm confident of

that. I have no I have no doubts about

that.

>> And what will you care about on your on

your last day?

>> Most of all

the love of my family.

That's the most important thing to me.

And um

I don't know. The feeling that

I did my best.

I did the best I could

to

carry out the task that uh fell upon me.

Quite by accident. I didn't I was a

current affairs journalist in the 1980s.

I had no idea I was going to go down

this rabbit hole into the ancient world.

It was a series of accidents that led to

it. But having gone down it, I feel

very, very, very committed to it.

>> It's interesting cuz one of the ways

that I I've always chosen to conduct my

interviews is just to

treat people as I find them. I remember

once upon a time I had Brian Johnson

coming on my podcast and you know, he's

quite a he's a he has some radical

beliefs about living forever, etc. He's

the longevity guy. You know, I remember

one of my team members walking up to me

beforehand and saying before he had

arrived and saying, "What do you think

of him?"

And I remember saying, "I've no idea.

I've not met him yet." Yeah. And then I

sat down with him, had this interview

and he said this thing to me at the end

of the interview where he goes, "Thank

you." And I go, "What do you mean?" He

goes, "Thank you. This is the first time

I've done an interview in my life where

the interviewer had like no

preconceptions of me." And he goes,

"That meant that I was relaxed and able

to be myself and blah blah blah." And I

and I say that because

my opinion of you is someone who is

really curious about about humanity and

has this interesting idea that is really

expansive for one's mind about what

could have happened. And um again, the

net benefit for me of that is just

expanding my mind in a way that makes me

empathetic to other people.

>> Yeah.

>> Makes me feel like me and you aren't

different.

>> Yeah.

>> Like I've never I've met you today, but

we probably you know, we we we go back a

long way. Maybe consciously we're the

same, but

>> Mhm.

>> in our history and our lineage, we are

we are one of the same. And um it also

gives me a huge amount of respect for

other living things, including my

ancestors.

In a way that you kind of think of your

ancestors as these like monkeys that

lived in trees potentially.

>> Yeah.

>> But actually hearing some of these

stories makes me go, "Oh my gosh." And

actually it gives me a huge sense of

responsibility

>> Mhm.

>> to leave this planet and this earth in a

way that's going to be good for

you know, the future the future kids

that will live 20,000 years from now in

the future and that will probably look

at our

fossil records and wonder.

>> I think I think those of us who have a a

platform do have a responsibility.

Very, very, [clears throat] very

definitely. I mean, we're living in this

strange new world. This this this this

this this world was inconceivable even

in the beginning of the 1990s.

This this this this world of

communication that we live in now. And

there's no doubt that that um

this is where influence

can be applied. And and

if that influence is

encouraging all that's good in the human

race, then that's really great. It's a

wonderful thing. And if it's encouraging

all that's dark and negative and cruel

and unkind and vicious in the human

race, cuz that's also out there on the

internet,

then it's not so good.

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