Dr. John Walliss
Research Associate, Dept. of Sociology, University of Warwick, UK

Mr. Wayne Spencer
Independent Researcher, UK

Abstract

In recent years, a number of commentators have discussed the emergence of a "spiritual supermarket" within western societies, wherein, among a general "deregulation" of the spiritual "marketplace," old and established spiritual "products" have to increasingly compete with newer ones. In this article, our aim is to discuss one manifestation of this phenomena; namely "fringe" or "alternative archaeology." In particular, we intend to discuss the modern version of the Atlantis myth promoted by the British author, Graham Hancock, exploring in particular how it may be understood within the context of the contemporary "spiritual supermarket."

Introduction

[1] "Make the past serve the present" was an organising slogan for archaeology and other intellectual disciplines in China in the 20 years following 1959. However, the use of representations of the past in the service of present social objectives has not been restricted to Maoist China. In the sphere of politics, nationalist movements are perhaps the paradigmatic instance of social movements that appeal to historiographical depictions in order to provide motivation and legitimation for present social projects. Thus, nationalists across the globe have constructed connections between their target audiences and various putative genealogical or cultural-ideological forebears in an attempt to stimulate or maintain the creation of nation states (see, for example, Hobsbawm and Ranger, eds., 1983; Graves-Brown, Jones and Gamble, 1996; D'az-Andreu and Champion, eds., 1996; Kohl and Fawcett, 1996). Similarly, within the sphere of religion, both mainstream and new religious movements generally look backwards for the foundation of their belief systems. For example, various early practitioners of twentieth century Paganism, such as Gerald Gardner, depicted themselves as literally reviving a religious tradition that developed in Palaeolithic times, coexisted with Christianity during the early centuries of the Christianisation of Europe, and then was driven underground by a series of persecutions that culminated in the witch-hunts of the Early Modern period (see Hutton, 1999; York, 1999).

[2] Attempts to make the past serve the present have differed in their degree of closeness to the dominant social forces and scientific orthodoxies of their times, and that remains the case today. Some of these attempts can be classified as manifestations of "cult" or "fringe" archaeology. These terms refer to a broad range of radical, new and typically sensationalist theories about the past that are promoted as outside and against archaeological orthodoxy and the archaeological profession (Cole, 1980; Harrold and Eve, 1995). Insofar as these theories relate to ancient history, they can be crudely but usefully divided into two sub-categories: "Danikenism" (stemming from the writings of Erich Von Daniken; see Von Daniken, 1972) and "Atlanticism" (Ashworth, 1980). These two types of historical theories have in common the notion that ancient historical civilisations possessed knowledge and technology that was hugely more advanced than that thought to have existed by contemporary archaeology. They also share the idea that these accomplishments later came to be destroyed or degraded, surviving today only more or less obliquely in the form of ancient monuments, mythical writings and the teachings of esoteric groups. Where Danikenism and Atlanticism part company is in the matter of the ultimate origins of the ancient social, philosophical, religious and scientific phenomena they postulate. Danikenism attributes them to extraterrestrial visitors to Earth, while Atlanticism assigns them to a golden age of human activity.

[3] In this paper, we shall be looking at the work of perhaps the most prominent exponent of Atlanticism today: the popular author, lecturer and broadcaster, Graham Hancock. Although Hancock can properly be seen as falling within the intellectual tradition of Atlanticism, we are of the view that one must also look to contemporary social conditions in order to more fully understand the nature of his ideas and the processes by which they are diffused and consumed within advanced industrial societies. One useful analytic tool that may be applied to Hancock's work is that of the "spiritual supermarket" or "spiritual marketplace" (Roof, 1999; Lyon, 2000). According to this perspective, there has been a "de-regulation" of the religious "market-place" and, as a result, existing "brands" (the Churches and denominations) increasingly have to compete for "customers" with newer, rival products (such as New Religious Movements, New Age spiritualities and charismatic forms of Christianity). As a correlate of this, religion has increasingly become a site of choice, experimentation and consumption rather than duty or social obligation. Moreover, globalisation has increased the number of products available to the consumer, whether these be electrical goods, motor cars, religious traditions or even children. For example, whereas just over a century ago, Buddhism and Hinduism were almost exclusively the preserve of the western academic and social elite, now, through increased travel, immigration and the rise of global telecommunications and the internet, they are now an accepted part of the Western religious and cultural landscape (Laqueuer, 1996). In short, there exists a huge range of religious ideas and systems available to the modern individual, and individuals can and do assemble for themselves their own personal and shifting belief systems out of the panoply of elements presented to them.

[4] Our examination of the work of Graham Hancock in the context of the contemporary spiritual supermarket will have four key components. First, we will outline briefly the development of discussions of Atlantis from the "classical Atlanticism" of Plato, through to the "modern Atlanticism" of authors such as Cayce, Blavatsky and Donnely. Second, we will focus our attention on the British author Graham Hancock himself as on one key proponent of modern Atlanticism. Third, we will propose four ways in which Hancock's work may be understood within the context of the spiritual supermarket. Fourth, to draw the paper to a conclusion, we explore the appeal of Hancock's ideas. We conclude that although Hancock's writings do not advance any overtly social, religious or political message, they nonetheless hold out a twofold appeal to contemporary consumers of spiritual ideas. In the first instance, they offer what we term Transcendental Exemplars: actual persons who have purportedly attained a status beyond the quotidian, and who serve the purpose of providing seemingly concrete proof to those disinclined to use mere faith as a basis of belief. But this concreteness is balanced by a marked absence of prescription as to just how the Transcendental Exemplars and other elements of Hancock's ideas are to be deployed by the individual. That is, Hancock's writings also offer Transcendental Possibilities, in the sense of creating a blank canvas on which the spiritual consumer constructs his or her own spiritual universe, utilising both Hancock's historical foundation and other products of the Spiritual Supermarket.

Atlanticism

[5] While the term "Atlantean" goes back to Herodotus (c. 460 BCE), it was in two dialogues by Plato, Timaeus and Critas, that the story of Atlantis was first told. Plato's mouthpiece in these dialogues, Critias, relates a story to Socrates and Timaeus of a massive continent–Atlantis–that was once located in the Atlantic Ocean. It was here, he claims, that the god Poseidon wedded a mortal, Cleito, and fathered five sets of male twins who divided the continent into ten kingdoms under the kingship of Poseidon's eldest son, Atlas. The continent's natural resources were limitless (including mineral resources, timber, domestic and wild animals, fruits, crops and cereals), with anything not possessed being imported from oversees. With this natural endowment, the Atlanteans were able to build an elaborate circular metropolis fifteen miles in diameter of alternating rings of water and land, the former being connected to the sea via a canal. In addition, the Atlantean culture thrived and there were military successes abroad with an empire stretching as far as Italy and Egypt. However, over time the Atlanteans became more and more degenerate as the blood that they had inherited from Poseidon became more diluted and so Zeus decided to "reduce them to order by discipline." At this point the Critias ends mid-sentence, with Zeus summoning all the gods. However, earlier in Timaeus it is stated that "there occurred violent earthquakes and floods of extraordinary violence" and that after "a single dreadful day and night ... the island of Atlantis was ... swallowed up by the sea and vanished" (Plato [trans. Lee], 1971, 38).

[6] In the centuries immediately following the appearance of Plato's writings, it appears that most commentators on the story of Atlantis viewed it with "a coldly critical eye" (de Camp, 1970, 17). The rise of a mystical Neoplatonism in the later Roman Empire changed this, and both Neoplatonist writers and the Church Fathers discussed the existence of Atlantis with greater credence (de Camp, 1970, 17-19). Subsequently, however, the decline in interest in classical ideas generally within Christian Europe appears to removed whatever currency the Atlantis story may have among natural philosophers and theologians; the only extant mention for many centuries after Kosmos' sixth century Christian Topography is a brief reference in De Imagine Mundi, an encyclopaedia by Honorious of Autun dating from around 1100 (de Camp, 1970, 19). It is not until the discovery of the Americas in the sixteenth century that interest in Atlantis substantially revived, especially as the result of the influential claims by Spanish historian Francesco López de Gómara in his 1553 General History of the Indes that the newly discovered continent was in fact Atlantis (de Camp, 1970, 28-9).

[7] The notion that the Americas were Atlantis was promulgated in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by various writers, including Buffon, and helped to keep the story of the island alive in the West (de Camp, 1970, 29). However, the visibility and acceptance of the reality of Atlantis, especially among the general public, began to burgeon only with the publication in 1882 of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly, a book that went through 50 reprints by 1949 (de Camp, 1970, 37) and many more since. Donnelly radically reinterpreted, and in fact went far beyond, Plato's dialogue in four main ways. First, he claimed that the story of Atlantis was historic fact and that it was the source of all civilisation. Moreover, not only had it been "the true Antediluvian world ... where mankind dwelt for ages in peace and happiness" (Donnelly quoted in James, 1995:23), but its inhabitants had been the Gods and Goddesses of the ancient myths. Thirdly, he claimed that Egypt was an Atlantean colony and that consequently its culture had blossomed all at once rather than evolving slowly. Finally, again in contrast to Plato, he claimed that a few survivors had escaped the destruction of the island, taking their advanced culture and the story of the destruction with them (James, 1995; Jordan, 2001).

[8] Donnelly's book was shortly followed in 1888 by the first volume of another work that has proved important for the diffusion of belief in Atlantis, namely Madame Helene B. Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy. Blavatsky situated the history of humanity within an evolutionary sequence of seven historical cycles, during each of which a different "Root Races" predominates. The fifth Root Race is humanity; the fourth were the Atlanteans. Blavatsky herself had relatively little to say about Atlantean society, but subsequent writers influenced by her–such as Arnold P. Sinnett, Annie Besant, Rudolf Steiner and Manly P. Hall–have greatly elaborated on this theme, often ascribing advanced technological capacities, occult powers, and philosophical wisdom to the denizens of the island (de Camp, 1970, 60-70). One important later figure was Edgar Cayce, the "sleeping prophet." Over the period 1923 to 1944, Cayce produced over 700 clairvoyant accounts of what he claimed to be the lives of individual Atlanteans (subsequently collected by his son in Cayce, 1968). Cayce too described an highly advanced Atlantean society, and like Donnelly he suggested that Atlantis had a central role in the cultural development of the known civilisations; however, the singular importance of Cayce lies less in any originality in his description of Atlantis than the resources employed to diffuse that account. Cayce's work has been preserved and promulgated by the Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE), a non-profit corporation with headquarters in the United States. ARE's activities have been extensive. By the early 1960s, it had 90 study groups and 2,500 members within the United States (Lucas, 1995, 355). By 1970, there were 1,023 groups and 12,000 members (Lucas, 1995, 355). By 1981, the ARE boasted 1,784 groups (now including groups outside the United States), 32,000 members, 146 paid staff, and an operating budget of $3,916,000; and it was running some 24 international lectures workshops and conferences each month (Lucas, 1995, 356, 358). Subsequently, ARE has expanded still further with membership reaching 90,000, and visitors to the corporation's headquarters numbering over 40,000 (Lucas, 1995, 359). It may reasonably be suspected that this considerable body of organised effort has had some effect in popularising occult ideas about a sophisticated and seminal civilisation in a lost continent of Atlantis, especially among those with an interest in the paranormal.

[9] The work of ARE in relation to Atlantis has been complemented by several generations of authors. For example, Kukal (1984), writing almost two decades ago, estimated that over 3,600 works of "popular science" had been written on the topic, 85% of these being written in the twentieth Century. These have included hypotheses concerning Atlantis' current location; its role as the "cradle of humanity"; comparisons of the destruction of Atlantis with the Biblical deluge; and even channelled messages from Atlanteans. Foremost, however, among the contemporary exponents of modern Atlanticism is the British author Graham Hancock.

Graham Hancock

[10] Hancock was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Following his graduation from Durham University with a First Class Honours degree in Sociology, he went on to pursue a career in "quality journalism," writing for The Times, The Sunday Times, The Independent, and The Guardian. He also served as co-editor of New Internationalist magazine in East Africa between 1976 and 1979, and as a correspondent for The Economist from 1981 to 1983. Consequently, Hancock's earliest books were on travel and developmental issues, and included such now out-of-print titles as Journey Through Pakistan (1982), Under Ethiopian Skies (1983), Ethiopia (1985), Ethiopia: The Challenge of Hunger (1985), AIDS: The Deadly Epidemic (1987) and Lords of Poverty: The Freewheeling Lifestyles, Power, Prestige and Corruption of the Multi-Billion Dollar Aid Business (1989). However, beginning with his 1992 bestseller The Sign and the Seal: A Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant, Hancock has largely dedicated his public efforts to expounded unorthodox theories of ancient history and other scientific matters. His work in this vein includes the multi-million selling books Fingerprints of the Gods (1995), Keeper of Genesis (1996), Mars Mystery (1998) and Heaven's Mirror (1998), the television/video series Quest for the Lost Civilization, public lectures, and more recently, Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilisation (2002) (Hancock, n.d. "Biography").

[11] Broadly speaking, the thesis developed by Hancock in the late-1990s comprised six key elements;

• A Lost Civilisation: While not speaking of Atlantis by name, the central dramatis personae in Hancock's narrative is a lost civilisation with advanced scientific, technological and spiritual knowledge that existed down to some 12,500 years ago.
• Cultural Diffusion: Following the destruction of this civilisation (in Fingerprints of the Gods, he initially located it in Antarctica) at the time the last Ice Age, Hancock claimed that a small number of refugees fled with their advanced knowledge and colonised ancient "primitive" cultures. When the colonists left, the cultures returned to their former, "savage" state.
• Myths as Historical Narrative: Hancock claims that this momentous contact between advanced and primitive societies is recalled through the latters' myths and religious narratives in the stories of "Gods" visiting the earth, myths of Golden Ages, the Biblical Deluge and so on
• Earth/Sky Alignments: The most important manifestation of the technological prowess imparted by the lost civilisation to the ancient cultures they colonised is the ability to construct giant monuments, such as the Pyramids of Geza, the temples at Angkor Wat in Cambodia or the Mayan temples in South America. Borrowing from archaeoastronomy the idea that archaeological inferences can derived from alignments between elements of archaeological sites and astronomical phenomena, and drawing upon the earlier work of fellow popular authors Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert (1995), Hancock suggests that these monuments revealingly correspond with certain constellations. For example, he claims that when the locations of certain selected aspects of the Geza pyramid complex are joined together on a map, they form a shape that resembles the constellation Orion as it would have appeared in 10,500 BCE. Similarly, he argues, if the locations of some of the temples in Angkor Wat in Cambodia are joined, the shape that emerges is that of Draco as it would have appeared in 10,500 BCE.
• A Message: Encoded in the alignments of these monuments, Hancock claims, is a message that only modern civilisation can decode. The content of this message, however, changes over the course of Hancock's books from an apocalyptic warning in Fingerprints of the Gods and The Mars Mystery to a more Gnostic one in Heaven's Mirror.
• The Arrogance and Narrow-Mindedness of "Experts": Finally, Hancock claims that Egyptologists are too conservative to entertain new, radical theories which would overturn their cherished theories and undermine their privileged status. As a result they are dismissive of the ideas of Hancock and his fellow authors. For example, in an essay on his website, Hancock refers to "the almost pathological eagerness of intellectuals to disparage any intelligent interest in the unexplained puzzles of the past as 'mystery fever' and to persuade us that any opposition to the dominant historical paradigm must be the work of 'archaeological dreamers'" (Hancock, 2003).

Hancock and the Spiritual Supermarket

[12] Looking at Hancock's work through the analytical lens of the "spiritual supermarket," four key points may be drawn out. First, at the obvious level, Hancock's ideas are something one buys/consumes and, by extension, are part of a larger fringe archaeological market comprising books, television series, videos, lecture tours, magazines, internet sites and chatrooms. Clearly, then Hancock's work is perfectly consistent with the commodity relations and the privative consumption that characterises advanced capitalism. But, going further, it is important to stress that Hancock's ideas are something that one only consumes. They do not, for example, affect the customers' social identity; unlike normative religion, they do not impose burdens on the reader with moral prescriptions, duties, rituals, obligations, a socio-political agenda or plans for action. In this regard, they are rather different from the nationalism that creates nations and causes wars, but are remarkably similar to the ideas about reincarnation that are typically embraced in the West. As Walter and Waterhouse (1999,195) note in their recent study on reincarnation belief, "entertaining the idea of reincarnation is rather like being a nominal Christian–a part of one's belief system, but with no great effects on one's life." Consistent with this, surveys of US undergraduates have found that while around 30% express belief in Atlantis, only 5-10% believe strongly (Feder, 1984; Eve and Harrold, 1986). Likewise, a 1994 American telephone survey that enquired as to what elements of the past were important to a nationally representative sample of 808 persons, respondents elicited no obvious spontaneous references to Atlantis in general or the ideas of Graham Hancock in particular. In fact only 11 respondents referred to ancient history (including ancient Egypt and Greece) as being "very important" to them (Rosenzweig and Thelen, 1998).

[13] Second, Hancock's ideas are also by their very nature eclectic and global in their content, emphasising both an amorphous lost, ancient culture and (by way of evidence) extant sites in Egypt, Mexico, Cambodia, the Pacific, Peru, Bolivia and, more recently, Japan. As with the New Age Movement more generally, within Hancock's writings these sites become divested of their "Otherness" and effectively become a blank canvas or "virtual reality world" that the spiritual consumer re-populates and re-invests with meaning. Thus, in the case of Egypt, its modern, indigenous culture is stripped of its religion, history, culture and so on until all that remains are ancient monuments–the Pyramids and the Sphinx–and a small number of (translated) religious texts such as the Book of the Dead. Viewed in this way, Hancock's work may be seen as but a new example of a Western appropriation of history that has, in various times and places, reinvented the histories of non-Western peoples and cultures so that they accord with the material interests and perspectives of Western imperialism (see, for example, Trigger, 1984). Indeed, at a deeper level, perhaps in keeping with its Victorian origins, the Atlanticism promoted by Hancock would appear implicitly (and most likely unwittingly) to draw on ideas and images bound up with the imperialistic notion of the "White Man's Burden"; as noted earlier, a central theme in Hancockism is of an advanced people bringing "Culture" to a primitive one, who later, once the colonists leave, revert back to their former state.

[14] Third, Hancock's writings emphasise the consumer's hermeneutic authority: the (spiritual) customer, in other words, is always right. Indeed, this in many ways is the chief rhetorical form that Hancock deploys in his books. Thus, he presents the reader with his interpretation of the evidence (which, it is believed, largely speaks for itself), rhetorically offers a possible, tentative conclusion but then, most importantly, leaves the question in the hands of the reader as the ultimate arbiter of truth. For example, in Fingerprints of the Gods, after comparing the theories of plate-tectonics and earth-crust displacement theory he asks, "Continental Drift? Earth-crust displacement? Both? Some other cause? I honestly don't know. Nevertheless, the simple facts about Antarctica are really strange and difficult to explain without invoking some notion of sudden, catastrophic and geologically recent change" (Hancock, 1995, 474). He then goes on to list fourteen "exhibits" pointing to the conclusion that Antarctica has not always been a glacier.

[15] Finally, and related to the last point, Hancock's work is characterised by an ambivalence towards those explanations associated with established voices of authority. Hancock does not condemn or reject science and rationality per se, but rather utilises the popular ambivalence toward science by selectively drawing on the findings of scientific research while simultaneously playing on the issue of scientific self-interest. To quote again from his website:

There exists a vast array of academic "experts," on comfortable and secure salaries [sic], with the resources of full university departments behind them, whose life's work is to churn out endless refinements and confirmations of the orthodox theory of prehistory. These scholars, and their many fans and chums in the quality media, do not hesitate to mount Doberman-like attacks on any who try to argue in favour of a lost civilisation. The Dobermans also systematically ignore all forms of evidence that cast doubt on the established view (for example the implications of the astronomical alignments of the Pyramids of Giza) while at the same time accusing us "alternative historians" of being "pseudo-scientists" who dishonestly "select" only evidence that supports our case and who ignore or even misrepresent contradictory data (Hancock, 2003).

Thus, he challenges one set of experts while invoking the academic credentials of another set of experts. In his discussion of the age of the Sphinx, for example, he draws on the authority of the geologist Robert Schock (representing a rigorous, hard science) to attack the claims of (traditionalist) Egyptologists over the dating of the Sphinx (see Bauval and Hancock, 1996). Moreover, while expressly denigrating established experts, he appears in the guise of an expert published by several respectable non-fiction publishing houses and, in doing so, implicitly relies upon the trust afforded to such experts in a complex world that cannot be independently investigated and understood by the single individual (see, for example, Sztompka, 1999).

Conclusion: The Appeal of Hancockism

[16] What, then, does Hancock offer his audience? In the absence of direct evidence relating to Hancock's readers and viewers, we can only advance some plausible hypotheses. This is perhaps best approached by looking at what Hancock offers on both mundane and spiritual levels. At the mundane level, Hancock may be consumed as just another populariser of the past, picked up and perused by the casually curious layperson seeking information about ancient history. Equally, the reader may approach his books for the pleasure derived from their narrative, which is part history, part mystery, part popular-science in style. Alternatively, or in addition, his readers may even gain a sense of aesthetic gratification from his books. Hancock's chosen sites are often grand and beautiful, and increasingly his books are lavishly illustrated. Hancock's Heaven's Mirror: Quest for the Lost Civilisation (1998) is a case in point, illustrated as it is throughout by his wife, the photographer, Santha Faiia (see Jordan, 2001). On this basis, they may have the same appeal as another coffee-table book. They may even serve as "alternative guidebooks" to the various sites.

[17] Turning next to the spiritual level, what should have become clear is that Hancock's work does not offer any overt agenda, whether spiritual or otherwise. Rather, at most it may be seen to offer two things to the spiritual consumer. First, it hints at what we would term Transcendental Exemplars: actual persons (albeit vaguely described) who have purportedly attained a status beyond the quotidian (albeit, again, vaguely described). In a secular world where rational-empirical forms of thought are common, such exemplars serve the purpose of providing seemingly concrete proof to those disinclined to use mere faith as a basis of belief. In effect, Hancock's shadowy lost civilisation stands as a concrete instance of human beings in possession of knowledge and techniques that somehow transcend the limitations of the ordinary human being at the start of the twenty-first century. The existence of such phenomena is not a matter of arcane philosophical or theoretical speculation, and knowledge of them does not require arduous discipleship or faith in spiritual hierarchies of dubious integrity and invalidated insight; it is all simply a brute historical fact. Second, and more importantly, it hints at what we would term Transcendental Possibilities: it creates a blank canvas on which the spiritual consumer constructs their own spiritual universe, utilising both Hancock's historical foundation and other products of the Spiritual Supermarket.

[18] The ideas of Graham Hancock build upon a long tradition of notions about the existence of an ancient advanced civilisation destroyed by catastrophic events yet still detectable amid the detritus of history. In common with nationalists and other manipulators of the past, he shapes and presents a historical narrative as part of an appeal to the present. The past, we are told, has a message for us. But Hancock's audience is not burdened with specific programmes of social change or social action. The individual buys or views his work, and he or she does so largely alone. The individual is left with the final say as to whether Hancock is right in his views, and he or she does so largely alone. The individual even decides what the ultimate message of the past happens to be, and he or she does so largely alone. All in all, Hancockism provides a mass-market consumable product that can be transmitted through the ordinary commercial mechanisms of advanced capitalist society and that can be consumed by individuals without important social consequences and in accordance with their own subjective preferences and desires. It is an ideal product on the shelves of the spiritual supermarket.

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