This should be an interesting book. After all, Graham Hancock has written some deeply-researched bestsellers, including, Fingerprints of the Gods and Keepers of Genesis. It’s subtitled, Meetings With the Ancient Teachers of Mankind, suggesting a wide-ranging survey of “the” supernatural in the manner of Lyall Watson’s Supernature, or Colin Wilson’s The Occult.

Inexplicably, Hancock concerns himself mostly with that most tiresome of subjects, paleolithic cave paintings, a topic rendered tedious by the fact that even its greatest exponents have ceased drawing inferences from their rapidly-accumulating data mountains.

Hancock appears to have been dealt a body blow by a BBC investigation of his researches into a shadowy worldwide civilization he was convinced thrived around 10,000 years ago and which subsequently shaped the world as we know it. This was (presumably) Atlantis, and all data seemed to point to it.

The BBC checked it out and found most of it wanting. The hapless author was subjected to a remorseless grilling on the prestigious TV programme, Horizon. Not surprisingly, his sturdy defence wilted during the course of the show.

Now he’s back, determined it seems to prove his credentials as not only an accumulator of scientific data, but as an inference-creator of genius. Alas, he merely rediscovers Jung’s “collective unconscious”, largely through subjecting himself to harrowing episodes of drug-taking from shamans around the world. Interesting enough, but it’s been done better by others.

His conclusions: Could the “supernaturals” first depicted in the painted caves be the ancient teachers of mankind? (Oh, yawn).

He then discovers I.D. (Intelligent Design), a hot topic in the U.S.: “Could it be that human evolution is not just the ‘blind’, ‘meaningless’ process that Darwin identified, but something else, more purposive and intelligent, that we have barely even begun to understand?”

A below-par Graham Hancock, who should have spent more time in Zen monasteries instead of filling his body with toxic doses of poisons and listening to scientists who don’t even recognize the supernatural, so avoid the obvious conclusions of the data they study. These people refuse to make inferences because such conclusions would blow apart their tidy, material worldview from which they make a comfortable living from taxpayers who pay them millions to travel the world contributing nothing of note to it.

To be fair to Hancock, he has a go at some conclusions, but when you miss the point, you end up in an entirely different universe.

SUPERNATURAL is closing down for 7 days and will be back on Wednesday 28th. Urgent enquiries should be addressed to the email given in the sidebar.

All Syntagma Media blogs will be post-free until the same date. Some maintenance and enhancements will be carried out during this period, and our 9th blog, Vista Office, will be launched on the 28th.

In the meantime, have a very merry Christmas, Winter Solstice (Thursday), or whichever festival you celebrate at this time of year.

John Evans
Syntagma Media
Blog Network.

If you’re in the U.S. tomorrow, Tuesday, you may want to tune into ABC at 9pm EST to watch veteran broadcaster Barbara Walters in a two-hour special, “Heaven: Where Is It? How Do We Get There?”

“I think this is one of the most important pieces that I’ve ever done,” said Walters. “I hope it will be inspirational and to some degree educational. I hate to say that because I don’t want it to sound like Comparative Religion 101.”

Barbara has been mainly associated over the years with celebrity interviews on “20/20″, and latterly on “The View”.

The Miami Herald reports that, “Walters travels to India to meet the Dalai Lama and to a Jerusalem prison to interview a failed suicide bomber. She speaks to people about near-death experiences, including Elizabeth Taylor, to religious leaders and to authors Mitch Albom and Maria Shriver about their books on heaven. She poses some questions sure to become Walters legends: ‘Is there sex in heaven?’ and ‘Would you like me to go to hell?’ ”

Walters says she became interested in the subject “after reading a story about a doctor who worked with children who had undergone near-death experiences. She was struck by a survey that showed nearly nine in 10 Americans believe in an afterlife, and nearly as many believed a heaven exists.”

“Here we are at a time when we are so technically oriented, and we have a bigger and bigger spiritual need,” she said. The Dalai Lama, and follower Richard Gere, explained how they believe heaven is a waiting place for souls that are born again and again. The better a person’s behavior while on Earth, the better their next life will be.

In case you’re wondering, the name of this blog has been changed from “Paranormal Watch” to “Supernatural”. I think that reflects better what we intend it to be.

We’ll be giving it a bit of a makeover today and streaming out the new content soon.

So stay tuned for some serious supernatural events.