Joe Rogan Experience Review podcast - JRE 513 Classic Rogan Graham Handcock

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

By popular demand, we're going back to one of the true early classics: Graham Hancock's first appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience. This was the beginning of one of the most fascinating guest runs in Rogan history. Ancient civilizations, forgotten cataclysms, lost knowledge, and the big question underneath it all: how much of the human story have we got wrong? In this episode, we look back at where the Hancock-Rogan conversation started, what made it hit so hard, and why fans still come back to it years later. A proper classic. For more Rogan exclusives support us on Patreon patreon.com/JREReview www.JREreview.com For all marketing questions and inquiries: [e-mail] Please email us here with any suggestions, comments and questions for future shows.. [e-mail]

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Now with your host, Adam Thorn. This might be the worst podcast or the best one a whole time. One, go. Enjoy the show. Hello and welcome, guys, to another episode of the JRE review. Today we got a special Rogan Classic for you. It's episode 142, Graham Hancock, and Duncan Truzzle. Today, I'm joined by a buddy of mine, Koi.

How you doing, Corey? All right, so Koi picked this one, and I really liked that he did that because I feel like in a lot of ways, it was the first time Joe really took his interview style to like an next to another level, you know, a lot of times before this podcast way back when, this must have been, I don't know, 2010, 2011 maybe, maybe a couple of years in. What do you think? Yeah. Something like that.

And, yeah, before that was mostly comedians and him getting stoned. and this was more of a real interview. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, let's get started with it. He's the writer of the fingerprints of the gods. Is that what it's called? His book?

Yeah, fingerprints of the gods. And then before that, he actually wrote a book about the Ark of the Covenant, which is he was a journalist for several newspapers before that. But writing that book about the Ark of the Covenant and traveling to Ethiopia, you know, investigating where it might be. be, that is what pulled him out of journalism. Oh, nice. And I mean, that pretty much just made him fall in love with, you know, just ancient mysteries.

And after he wrote the Ark of the Covenant book is when he wrote fingerprints of the gods. Okay. So it kind of set him on that path. Like, he started to see some weird things and was like, maybe what we've been taught isn't really what the truth is. Exactly. Yeah. that and smoking a lot of weed it's always that right

the combination of the two now he talked a lot about what the arc was meant to be and I thought it was cool that he kind of mentioned that it was a weapon or like that's how it's dude yeah that was one of the more interesting things that they got into

is whenever they mentioned that it was maybe some kind of tech and that the Israel used it as a weapon and that they said that at some point they were following it through the woods and that the um the philistines had actually got the ark of the covenant and that they opened it up and then it killed a bunch of people like maybe some type of radiation or something that's just was insane for me to hear that the ark of the covenant could have maybe been some type of um you know super advanced tech or something right almost like

They found it. They could use it, but they didn't know how it worked. Yeah, exactly. And there was stories of this thing flying through the air. They would use it in war. It's insane stuff. That's wild. The thing about an idea like that is it does make you think, like, how did it not get, say?

You would have thought it would be so precious and so that worship, to which it sounded like it was, but like where the hell did it go? like why did we lose it? Does somebody have that fucking thing or what? Yeah, but well, Graham Hancock actually said that he went down to Ethiopia and he had a chance encounter with a monk and that monk was like, hey, I have the Ark of the Covenant and it's in this church.

And he was like, well, hey, can I go look at it? And he was like, no, you can't go in there. But he said that the Ark of the Covenant, there's a replica of it in every single church in Ethiopia. And Graham seems to think that it might actually really be inside that church, which is insane to think about that some, you know, the Ark of the Covenant could just be behind some monk that doesn't want to let us into his church. You know what I mean? Yeah, right.

But also, doesn't it make you think that the reason you can't see it is because that shit's not really there? That it'll kill you? Yeah, all that. I mean, there's a place in Sri Lanka. And I used to live in Sri Lanka when I was like 21. I lived there for almost a year when I was teaching English. And when I was young, there's a place called Candy, which is a city kind of centrally located in the country.

And a Buddhist temple there is supposed to have one of the Buddha's teeth. Right? And you can go worship it, but no one can look at it. And I always felt like that's the same thing. One of his teeth? Like a tooth. Yeah, like a tooth. Oh, wow.

Yeah. But no one can look at it. So I'm like, well, how the hell does anyone know it's there? Like to me, I'm like, if it's fucking there, show us. Like, come on. Yeah, dude, for real. Like, let us get in there. Just take a picture of it or something.

You know what I mean? Right. And you would think that, I mean, if you're a church and you have the Ark of the Covenant, like that would be a pretty big story, especially if you're an Ethiopian. like show it off so yeah man i mean can you imagine the people like how much money like some some people would pay to just like you know Elon musk or some private enterprise type people the amount of money they would pay just to get their hands on that oh of course if it was like legit and was old technology a hundred percent so i think it would be tough to tough to hide it was interesting

that they said that it also housed the ten commandments like maybe the that if it was this technology it brought these rules and information to us. I don't know. Those rules are kind of pretty simplistic, so I would imagine they would have a more detailed message than that. Like, don't kill your neighbor. Like, yeah, for sure. But who knows?

It was a wild time back then. Maybe they needed that. Yeah, imagine if it does have some type of message like that, it's probably been dumbed down over the years through, you know, translations in the Bible and whatnot. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. It was crazy that he was talking about all the people that got wiped out in the Ice Age. Like most of humanity was possibly destroyed during the Ice Age.

And that's when basically like a technological civilization was lost, right? Whether it's what did he say, the Atlantis, the people of Atlantis or, you know, like the pre-Egyptian empire. and that to me is just so wild to think but I mean it's totally plausible in a way I mean 5,000 years after something I don't know sank into the ocean there's not going to be a lot of it left yeah man I used to think that Atlantis was just kind of a fairy tale you know what I mean anytime it was brought up you know I I never really saw why people could take that serious but you know, listening to Graham talk and the more I, you know, kind of hear him talk about ancient, you know, cataclysmic events and stuff, it just seems more and more plausible that,

you know, in Plato, too, right? After Plato, when he started traveling the world, didn't he write about visiting Atlantis? Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, I mean, it just seems more and more plausible that Atlantis could have been some just advanced lost civilization that was just lost by rising, you know, sea levels. Yeah, I was really surprised almost on this podcast, just because it was, it's one of the older ones, like Joe's knowledge of, I mean, it was like when Graham was talking, it wasn't really like Graham was schooling Joe in the sense of like he had all the knowledge

and Joe was like, oh, okay, he'd heard of all the same writers, he knew the documentaries, he knew some of the people, like when he was talking, about the DMT studies. Yeah. He knew about Dr. Strassman out of UNM. And I think Joe even did a documentary called The Spirit Molecule with

that featured all the Dr. Strassman's work. So I guess he knew him then. But, you know, he's well versed in a lot of these ideas, which was really pretty cool. That's what I think was cool about this episode is it was one of the first episodes where, you know, like we said that Joe got a guess that he really looked up to. And it was one of the episodes where Joe kind of realized,

and you can kind of see him realizing it at the beginning, like, hey, you know, I can actually bring some heavy hitters in here maybe. And the more and more Joe gets these, you know, big-time names in, you can kind of see that he's a really smart guy, you know, but you can kind of see over the course of him bringing in these big names that, you know, that his, you know, intelligence is kind of, you know, verified, I guess, you know, and reassured that his intelligence could be up to par with these guys. This podcast is brought to you by Rocket Money. I used to spend many hours each month

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You know, like whenever he had like Neil Tyson on or Brian Cox, you know, that he's able to have intelligent conversations with these people. And you can kind of see through these episodes that, you know, that he's realizing that himself. Sure. I think that that's an important distinction as well because it's, like Joe always says, it's easy to just look at him, all the stuff that he's done, and just make assumptions. Like, oh, you're the fear factor guy or the way that he speaks loosely and he's a comedian.

So he says funny things in relaxed ways that, you know, he's a fair factor guy. that he's not going to have like a good conversation and I think even some of the guests that come on that maybe don't know him that well but he just wants to speak to them I'm sure almost all of them leave like surprised um with the conversation and like with a whole new respect for like his analysis of things for sure yeah for sure and I mean a lot of guests have even pointed that out in conversation you know what I mean I like that, so even back then, I think he was getting something like half a million downloads per episode of that time, which is still massive. That's massive for any podcast even today, but it's nothing. Yeah, they crashed Graham's website during this podcast. Yeah, I mean, he was the powerful Joe Rogan even back then. And that's a cool distinction, I think, for these types of guests coming on because then they realize, you know, there's, like, like a huge bump for them after they go on because people are searching them looking at their

website buying their books i mean after that point it was like pretty soon after that he must have known he could get pretty much any guess that he wanted yeah man he he brings up uh stephen pressfield's book uh the war of art which he's done many a time but he used to talk about it a lot more back in the day. And that's a great book. Have you read that, Koi? No, I haven't. Which one is that?

The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield. No, I haven't read it. It's a great book. He's had Stephen Presfield on, I think, a couple of times, at least once. And basically it's specifically for writers, because that's what Stephen does, but you can use it for anything. It's just about getting shit done, right? And not procrastinating.

Like getting your work done and the hurdles you have in front of you. And then it kind of moves. Kind of, yeah. But like less forceful more creatively. It's not about doing push-ups. It's about allowing what he calls the muse, which is like your inspiration and drive to like come forward. But getting all the other shit out of the way so you can do that.

And it really is an inspiring book. Like I see why Joe used to always hand that out to his guests. I bought a bunch of copies and handed them out to friends. And it always gets the same response. Like, people love that book. So you should definitely check that out if you haven't read it. That's cool. Yeah, I'll check that out.

But along with the same things, it's like, what is your creative inspiration? And I loved how Graham talked about when he wrote his book. He did that ayahuasca experience, that trip. Yeah. And it kind of gave him a vision to, like, write the book, like the inspiration. It gave him that message. It's so fascinating. I've never done that.

I haven't done an ayahuasca thing. I'd be totally open to it. But some of the stories that I've heard from people that have done it and then when guests on Rogan come on and talk, I'm like, it just, it seems so wild and unbelievable. I just can't relate it to anything. Dude, yeah. when Rashad Evans was on, did you ever listen to that episode,

Rashad Evans? Oh, yeah, yeah. He talked, his ego was like, he seemed like a completely different person when he was on the other than. But he talked about doing, yeah,

it was either that or mushrooms. I can't really recall which one it was. But dude, he talked about being in like this vast, open, like arena or like open space. And there was these two giant, like skyscraper-sized serpents

sitting next to him. And they were just kind of, next to him, like, letting him know, like, hey, everything's okay. And that just sounded absolutely insane to me that these, like, Thulu-ass serpent gods just sitting next to you. This has got to be an insanely wild experience. Right. And it's those descriptions.

Like, you see, you know, I have the one friend that saw this giant octopus. And, like, each of the list represented, like, parts of his life. And, yeah, he was actually a buddy of mine that did some stand-up. once and his stand-up routine was talking about the story and he did a great job doing it and he would like it would be funny but it's also like pretty close to what was happening for him and what it meant but the detail and description i just can't even fathom it you know i mean i've done some shrooms i've done some elucidigenetics i haven't seen i've only seen like vague like outlines of maybe shadows and shapes that I've probably just misunderstood as I'm like trying to figure out what it is and

it looks like something that moved. But I mean, to actually be sat talking to some creature just blows my mind. I'm like, what? This is a thing you can do? Like, man, I want to try that. Yeah, I've never, you know, I've done, you know, like some acid and some mushrooms, but I've never actually seen anything. But I imagine that ayahuasca and DMT is just.

just a whole new level man that's definitely something that you know probably everybody should you know if you're mentally ready for that should probably check off the bucket list oh yeah 100% and i think you know i mean portland just decriminalized everything i think maybe we're you know 2021 we're getting close who knows where we'll be in the next five or 10 years maybe that'd be a thing that's available to the masses and it the stigma be gone you know more people to do it they see the benefits it'd be seen more as like, yeah, this is really useful. You should try this. And then, you know, there's less kind of, I don't know, bullshit around it.

People are open to it. And I like that idea. I hope something comes of it. But with all this thinking and all the controversy of like his Graham's ideas and how he's like kind of really mixing up the historical record. and he's upsetting all these academics that are like coming after him and seeing all these biases. It's really sad to hear that that show BBC Horizon, which when I lived in England when I was younger, Horizon is like, it was like seen as a great show. They make really good documentaries and they get into things.

And it's really sad to see that they chose to make him look like a fall. When he's just asking questions. Did you ever watch that? No, did you watch it? No, I didn't watch it either, but, you know, I've heard Graham talk about it several times. And yeah, man, it just sucks. What Graham talks about it, you know, that looking back and, you know, at history, you know, universities have sort of a one-track mind that this is the way it was, you know,

and especially ancient history that this is the way it was. And anybody that thinks outside this box is, you know, shunned away. and it sucks, man. To some degrees, I get it, right? I mean, you look at science or medicine. So when I was in school doing biochemistry, we had to read a lot of papers, you know, peer-reviewed, and those are important.

I couldn't write papers based on non-peer-reviewed scientific journals. And there's a reason for that, because even though the idea might be close to something you're trying to prove, if it hasn't been peer-reviewed, then it doesn't have the validity. and that's the idea you have to create some sort of standard for it and you know that follows certain rules and it has to be tested and then retested to make sure that theories are sound and you know that's kind of a scientific approach in a sense the historical record it needs to be formulated right so you're like this is from this time this is from this time and this is what we know if somebody comes out of nowhere you're that's maybe not a high-level academic and is like, hey,

I think the Sphinx is 12,000 years old because of water erosion. I understand why people are skeptical, right? I understand why people would be like, well, wait a second, where are you getting this from? Why has no one else noticed this? And also this fucks up our timeline,

majorly. Yeah. But you shouldn't go at them, like they're a piece of shit. Yeah, I mean, we can have civil conversations, about it, you know what I mean? If he's wrong, then show him that he's wrong.

You know what I mean? Exactly. You don't have to. Yeah. And that's reasonable. The way he did it, the sort of vigilante geologists, you know what I mean? He was able to, aren't a lot of people now sort of starting to accept that the Sphinx is actually a lot older than we initially thought. I think many of his ideas.

I mean, he did say that Ma's book he wrote. Like, that's kind of seen as a bit way out there. but, you know, he probably just drove himself way out there in some ways. But, yeah, a lot of his ideas of being kind of backed up. And now they found Go Beckley Teppi, which is super fucking old. I mean, that changed the timeline. We're like, wow, actually people were doing shit way further in the past than we thought. So we can adjust just the timeline.

I think, you know, when it comes to the establish anything, they just move slower. Like, take the Catholic Church. How long did it take them before they decided Gallo? layer was actually correct. I mean, it took a while. So I get it. You know, I get it. You don't want to jump into things.

You don't want to be changing your paradigms like every day because you wouldn't even know what the hell is going on. But yeah, you're right. I mean, they didn't disprove him in a lot of areas. And when he comes on now, I mean, he's way more famous than he used to be. He's got a lot more money from his books and everything. And he's working with more serious people. people to come up with kind of, you know, better theories on things and, and, um, yeah, and if a guy like

Graham Hancock can come in and shake up geology like that, I mean, imagine, you know, what other secrets are buried in our history, you know what I mean? I mean, just Africa alone, dude, imagine what kind of secrets are just buried in Africa. Dude, 100%. Like the, the, the history there is immense. It goes back to the beginning of mankind. You know what I mean? So history isn't some type of a one track thing, you know, like history is super complex. You know, people back then didn't have Twitter and cell phones. So it's not down to an exact, you know, thing. You know, it's all dependent on what somebody decided to put on paper. You know what I mean? A hundred percent. So to have somebody like Graham come in and put forth these, you know, who cares of their crazy ideas? Let's look at them

seriously. You know what I mean? Let's take this series. This is our history that we're talking about. So I think hopefully in the future somebody like Graham comes in, who cares what, you know, department of history they're looking into? Let's look at it seriously, man, because, you know, we want to know what our history is. Yeah. I mean, it's all about. what is the actual truth. It's not about the truth that we just put forward. And, you know, I mean, there is some validity in like, I mean, if you're just a dude off the street and you were a plumber and all of a sudden you've got these theories,

well, all right, hold on. How much do we want to listen to this guy? But he was a serious reporter and journalist for a good amount of time. Yeah, he was. So his ability to collect data and information regurgitate it. is, you know, it's going to be better than a lot of other people. So that's a resume that should be exactly, exactly. It's things like, so the, what they, on the horizon show, he was saying that he was able

to kind of go after them and have them change something because they didn't represent it well. And it was to do with like the Orion belt and maybe the alignment of the pyramids and that stuff. Yeah. So that's legit. They've shown that the pyramids line up that way, and they're trying to tell us something, right? And then he gives the example of the end with a guy that built the Hoover Dam did the same sort of thing

with the same, with a notion that like if in 10,000 years we're all gone and no one knows how the fuck there's a damn got here, they're going to know when it was made. Like that's an important part of these massive structures. So there's no reason. that the Egyptians wouldn't have done that as well. I love that.

That's just cool fucking shit. Yeah. How heartbreaking is it that the library of Alexandria was burned down, man? Imagine the secrets that were in that library. We would probably know how the pyramids were built. Oh, no doubt. If time travel is ever made, even if it's just one of those things. I'm going to Egypt.

Right, you're going to Egypt. Yeah. But if you can just go back and maybe just be an observer, right? Maybe because of the way the system's set up, you can't interact because it's just like watching an old recording, you know, then that almost doesn't matter. Because the only place you want to be is the Library of Alexandria, I'd say, like, really, just trying to gather all the information from there because up until one point, that was like all the information we had. man how cool would it be if we could just send a text message to some aliens like 30 light years away to just hey use your telescopes look down at egypt and let us know what you see yeah yeah send us send us a DVD of all that stuff yeah man it's it's cool you know even look even if he's wrong it's just cool to start thinking in a different way now be careful you don't run yourself into a flat earth um yeah for sure conspiracy but at the same time it's nice to ask these questions and kind of open your mind to these ideas. Yeah, I really like that you pick this one, Coy, for sure.

This is a great one to run over. Yeah, thanks, man. If you guys haven't listened to this one, again, it's episode 142. Spotify has them all. And what's really nice about it is it even has the video from way back. So you can even watch the video of it, like, you know, if you like to do that. and it just makes for a great conversation. Obviously, Joe's different than he is now.

He talks a little bit differently, but, you know, he doesn't give himself enough credit. He talks about how the really old podcast used to suck a ton. I don't think that's necessarily true. He's always been a good interviewer. He's always kept the conversation going. And, yeah, they've always been entertaining, I think. Yeah, the old ones are, you know, some of the older ones are a little bit more. enjoyable sometimes.

Because it kind of felt like back then it was kind of like, uh, like you were in on something that, you know, like getting some secret information type thing. You know what I mean? Like it just kind of seemed like it was, um,

you know, like a secret or something, you know? Yeah, there was definitely less pressure on him. So he, he was freer just to be a bit sillier. But,

you know, he's still very good at doing that, which is excellent. The main difference is now he just has to talk about how big the podcast is, how he didn't know it was going to happen, and how it feels like this obligation that I think he's always trying to be careful of, so it doesn't change, you know, what his message is or how much he enjoys it, you know. Yeah. Anyway, that's a good wrap up for this week. Classic Rogan. We'll be doing more of these in the future.

would just be picking random ones, especially on slow weeks when maybe Joe takes a week off to go hunting or something, just so you guys have something to listen to. As always, contact us on Joe Rogan Experience Review. That's how Coy got a hold of me. You emailed me, right? That's how you got me? Yes, sir. Yep.

So always good for people to reach out and connect with them. And you can get us on Instagram too, the same handle there. Thanks for joining me today, Coy. and thanks everyone for listening. Yep, take care, guys.