Star.Ships: A Prehistory of the Spirits

It's hard to tell whether Mr White is an intellectual, pseudo-intellectual or both by turns. There is a lot of information in this book and some of it pretty hard to digest. I can accept that, but right in the middle of the book he says that Jesus never existed. Now it may be true that most of what people believe about Jesus has been glommed on after the fact, there really is no reason to believe he never existed. Most historians I've read had no problem with the idea that there was a real person by that name. Gordon White dismisses this with a wave of his hand. That's when I realized I was going to have to read the whole book with a grain of salt.This book is hard work and only worthwhile if you can trust the various building blocks.

This book is a high level overview of human history from 100,000 years ago up till when "history" starts 6,000 years ago. Gordon brings his magical perspective and his thoughts on human prehistory is provocative. I thought he was especially good on Gobkeli Tepe and recognizing our ancestors were as smart or smarter than us. Also his review of 3 meta-narratives across human myths was a useful tool.Annoying things:Gordon White wants you very badly to know that he is *not* a racist. I don't think he ever said a positive thing about Western culture and he seemed to write like this was some edgy take. Gordon everyone knows it's open season on the West, it's not brave or original to mock White People.I found his thoughts on the Great Pyramid to be very dismissive of the idea that the pyramid could have served a dual technological purpose in addition to a initiatory one. He passed over the evidence for high technology on the Giza Plateau and smugly put forward the geopolymer idea which has problems. Gordon talks about the humility needed in the field but I came away with a strong aversion to him as a person. He seems puffed up with his "secret knowledge" and easily dismisses authors across the many fields he dips into. I welcome debate in the field of human pre-history, but let's stop being so insecure and egocentric about it.The conclusion of the book is that extra dimensional entities have been giving humans a mixed bag of info, half helpful half unhelpful and if you want to talk to them go do magic. Since this is what Gordon does I was hoping for atleast another chapter on what he's found out about these entities through his magic. But the book just ends with -go do magic.

I've always enjoyed Gordon's work. This book can be particularly helpful from those trying to undo the "habit of scientism" that permeates so much of the study of the supernatural, magic and the like. The problem is the result of errors made by 18th - 20th century writers and self-styled messiahs who either did not have access to reasonably accurate historical information (many were probably too lazy to put their skin in the game), so they relied on force-fitting their "truths" into existing "scientific models" or poorly thought out views of Mythology. "Pythagorean Numerology" is one example, "Negative Energy" is another. A famous poet once said "the Universe is made of stories, not atoms" and this book illustrates clearly how subjective cosmologies can change as new stories are learned and old ones are carefully revised. Hopefully Academia catches up with the kind of thinking in this excellent work during the next few hundred years.I have both a hardcopy and a Kindle version - for me, that says a lot.

Gordon White is one of those people who makes me feel like I need an IQ infusion every time I read one of his books. I don't always agree with him but I can say that his thoughts are always well researched on both the academic and practical magic level. I am going to have to set this book aside and re-read it later just to begin to absorb the sheer volume of data contained in this tome. Please, please read this if you are at all interested in: advanced technology in ancient times, the connection of the stars to ancient sites, thoughts on the use of entheogens, grimoire spirits and where they come from, the ETH and so much more.

I am writing this review about 6 weeks after reading, so it isn't as sharp in my mind as it was. I salute anyone who can research, collate and present a synthesis of such a wide range of facts from recent science! I appreciated the potential usefulness of the theory of the mythologist Witzel's "Origins of the World's Mythologies for magical theorizing and model-making. Mr. White appears to dismiss powerful notions from depth psychology, but I don't think Witzels model necessarily excludes notions of archetypal dominants of the collective unconscious. Still, Jung-bashing is de rigueur these days and there it is. I loved the inclusion of archeoastronomy and I agree that if there is an "origin" of the primordial connection of humanity and the spirits, the stars and their location in story is "it". In fact, my personal takeaway is the primacy of stars, planets and constellations as the luminous background of the magical worldview. My reason for only four stars is the nearly overwhelming amount of data presented. I think this was 2 books. I also would have liked further fleshing-out of what felt like a new model of Western Magic (maybe that is coming later?) Thanks, Mr. White, for this massive tome.

Felt this book could have been half as long and contained just as much information. Still not entirely sure what the thesis is. Not sure if this book is about Archeoastronamy, or Geology. Definitely myth is important, but not discussed in great detail. Almost like 3 books waiting to happen, yet none fully realized. I was a bit disappointed as I enjoyed Mr. White's two other books, and his blog before he turned it into a podcast.

A very thought provoking book. Well researched and eloquently written. If you are interested in matters occult, buy this book, you will not regret it.

an open minded alternative view at the planet its inhabitants and their approach to the Universe

Wow! So many themes interwoven majestically through time and space. The Author shows how history makes sense of the modern.

Just read it. Take a little while, read his other stuff and then read it again. Enjoy, it will blow your mind.

Very mixed feelings about this one.Topic is fascinating and always has been, to me, and I bought this as a reference book for obscure facts on the earliest spiritual practices. So far, its apparent lack of references makes it pretty useless in that sense. I've no way of easily checking a single thing that's written here.Secondly, the quotations used are thus far just... Superfluous. They add very little to any of the chapters and seem to be chucked in there almost to fill space.Thirdly, the paragraphs are laid out chaotically, almost without any plan. They ramble and digress, and burden the reader with way too much extra detail and digression. Here's an example:"The Ice Age experienced its final death rattle in the Arabian Gulf, right beside the mysterious culture we most closely associate, correctly or incorrectly, with the rise of civilisation."Without even naming the culture, we're expected to decide, then and there, whether we associate it with the rise of civilization *and then* consider whether that assumption is false or true, and all that before we even get to read the main clause in full. An editor's hand is desperately amiss, here.The upsides are that White is a sympathetic and magically minded author, adamant that we should respect the past in its full esoteric, ethereal beauty and not cauterize its soul. It is gratifying to see a writer with such certainty in that holistic approach. Parts of it are also very quotable, and they almost make up for the draggy tangential parts. Maybe he just needs to get a new editor?I would pay to read his works again but, for me personally, 10 bucks on Kindle is kind of a lot of money for this quality.