BEING AN OUTSIDER: WHY IT’S GOOD TO BE ON THE EDGE OF THINGS NOT AT THE CENTER

Controversial bestselling author Graham Hancock has spent his life at the edge. Whether he was reporting the Somali-Ethiopian war of 1977 from the front lines and giving the London Sunday Times a radically different take on the news story of the day, or exploring the wild frontiers of Pakistan and Afghanistan for his first book, Journey Through Pakistan, published in 1982, or challenging the orthodoxy with his 1989 book Lords of Poverty that exposed the ugly underbelly of the multi-billion dollar foreign aid business, Hancock’s early years as a writer were filled with adventure and a willingness to take personal risks to bring back the real story. In the 1980’s an encounter with a monk in the war-torn Ethiopian city of Axum lit the fuse for the radical new direction that his work would take from 1989 forwards – examining the hidden mysteries of the human past. The result of that Ethiopian encounter led to deep research into Ethiopia’s claim to possess the lost Ark of the Covenant and the publication in 1992 of Hancock’s first book of historical investigation, The Sign and the Seal: A Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant.

In 1995 Fingerprints of the Gods followed. Perhaps Hancock’s best known book, it presents the case for a lost advanced civilization of prehistoric antiquity. Although attacked and vilified by archaeologists and their friends in the media, Fingerprints captured the public imagination and inspired millions to think for themselves about the mysteries of the human past rather than simply and uncritically accepting what the so-called ‘experts’ claim to be true. In this tradition Hancock has gone on to publish numerous other books exploring the lost civilization mystery, of which the latest is Magicians of the Gods (2015). His next book, America Before, will be published in 2019 and presents shattering new evidence that rips out the rug from under establishment views of the prehistory of the Americas and brings his quest to rewrite history to a conclusion. Hancock’s 2005 book Supernatural explores humanity’s ancient relationship with visionary plants. While researching this book he travelled to the Amazon rainforest and encountered Ayahuasca for the first time.

It was a life-changing experience and the beginning of a long relationship with the ‘Vine of Souls’, but once again it has made him a hate figure with the establishment – as the controversy around the banning of his 2013 TED talk, The War on Consciousness (https://grahamhancock.com/ted-war-on-consciousness-hancock/) has demonstrated. At Rythmia Hancock will share his lifetime of experiences of living at the edge and will explain why that’s where he always wants to be. The center is comfortable. The center is secure. But the center is also stifling and it is never a place where changes can be worked.

If you want to change stuff in this world you need to take the risks of the edge.

GRAHAM HANCOCK is the author of the major international non-fiction bestsellers The Sign and the Seal, Fingerprints of the Gods, The Message of the Sphinx, Heaven’s Mirror, Underworld and Supernatural, and of the epic adventure novels Entangled and War God. His books have sold more than seven million copies worldwide and have been translated into thirty languages. His public lectures, radio and TV appearances, including two major TV series, Quest For The Lost Civilization and Flooded Kingdoms of the Ice Age, as well as his censored TEDx talk The War on Consciousness and his strong presence on the internet, have put his ideas before audiences of tens of millions.

He has become recognized as an unconventional thinker who raises resonant questions about humanity’s past and about our present predicament. Hancock’s latest book, the sequel to Fingerprints of the Gods, is Magicians of the Gods.