Q1

I am fascinated by your hypothesis in 'The Phoenix Solution', but the question which keeps coming to mind is this: who was around to record these events which supposedly occurred millions of years before the Egyptians (or even humans) existed?

A1

Several readers have gained the impression that 'The Phoenix Solution' required an eye-witnessing of the exploding planets. But this was never in my mind when I wrote the book. On the contrary, my assumption was that if scientific knowledge of exploded planets did exist, it had been acquired by similar means to those used in modern times, e.g. by the likes of Tom Van Flandern. In other words, the knowledge had been acquired retrospectively by studying meteorites, geology and astronomy. I wish with hindsight that I had emphasised this more clearly in the book.
Admittedly I did allow for the possibility that a race of ancient astronauts might have actually witnessed the disaster(s) long before mankind appeared on the Earth. But I did try to make clear that this was a speculative scenario and I agree that it would be almost incredible for such knowledge to have been passed down over such a long period of time.

Q2

I find your book disheartening. Are you saying that God was just a lump of rock?

A2

Not at all. Perhaps I might have given that impression by focusing on the Egyptian texts in the way I did, but there is much more to it than that. The ancient Egyptians believed in the separation of body and soul, and that went as much for planets as for human beings. So, rather like the modern Gaea Hypothesis, the Egyptians considered the exploded planet to have been a living being with a soul as well as a body. After the explosion of God's celestial body, his soul was said to have survived and resurrected itself to become the metaphysical God of Heaven. This spiritual side of the exploded planet religion is brought out most clearly in my fourth book ‘The Atlantis Secret’.

Q3

Having just read 'The Phoenix Solution' I can agree with you every step of the way but only by substituting the word 'comet' wherever I see the word 'planet'. Would you not agree that an exploding comet would make much better sense as a solution to the mystery, especially since an exploding comet could have been witnessed during historical times?

A3

Since writing ‘The Phoenix Solution’, I came across this exploding comet argument during a chance meeting with Victor Clube in Italy. And since then I have given a lot of thought to it. If we are talking of a witnessed catastrophe, then I would agree that an exploding comet would make better sense than an exploding planet. However, the ancient myths all confirm that the catastrophe occurred before the creation of man on the Earth and this indicates to me that we are dealing with a complex theology rather than a simple astronomical observation. In addition to which the ancient texts identify the exploding body unambiguously as a planet. Please see my books ‘When The Gods Came Down’ and ‘The Atlantis Secret’.

Q4

You have truly confused me. First the gods are flesh-and-blood spacemen, now they are just a bunch of flying rocks! How can you change your mind so radically from your first book? Have you been 'got at'?

A4

No I have not been 'got at'. My change of mind flowed from a close reading of what the ancient Egyptians actually said. I now feel that I got certain things wrong in my first book. And if I am wrong I change my mind. What would you do?

Q5

I bought 'The Phoenix Solution' expecting it to be a sequel, but it is completely different from your first book. I want my money back!

A5

I am sorry that you are disappointed. The problem is that we are all conditioned today to expect authors to dish up 'more of the same'. But this is actually a most unhealthy situation since it discourages researchers from changing their mind. And really there are bound to be a few mishaps when one is working at the cutting edge of research into a very uncertain past. In fact it is easier to get things wrong than it is to get things right.
Think about this. Why is it so difficult to find an author ever changing his or her mind about anything? Simply because readers such as yourself have been conditioned to whinge like mad if we don't tell you what you want to hear! And authors therefore have a huge financial incentive not to change their minds.
In any event, there is a strong theme running through my first two books and indeed my third book. That theme is 'the gods'. So the books are sequels of sorts even though the conclusion at the end is radically different from the conclusion at the beginning.

Q6

I enjoyed your first book, but I also saw the sense in your second. And I wonder if there is a way to reconcile the two viewpoints. For example, might it not be the case that there were flesh-and-blood gods, who associated themselves with the planetary deities in the exploded planet cult? Might the exploded planet gods be symbolic for the flesh-and-blood gods as well as the other way round?

A6

I see you wish to have your cake and eat it. It is a wonderfully appealing idea that both interpretations might be correct - it would save me from the embarrassment of admitting that I was wrong! But in my view I was wrong and there's no question about it. I can only suggest that you read my third book 'When The Gods Came Down' and then go back to the source material and reconsider the ancient myths for yourself.

Q7

I am very interested in your new theory that the gods were fragments of an exploded planet etc, but how can I trust your judgement on this? After all, you were wrong (by your own admission) in your first book so surely you can be wrong again. Basically I guess I would like to know how 10 years' research could have produced such a disastrous result (by your own admission), and yet a further 3 years' research somehow produced the 'holy grail'!

A7

The straight and honest answer is that the 10 years' research was part-time not full-time. Like the vast majority of unconventional thinkers, this quest began for me as a hobby and so I was not being deceitful when I plugged the fact that I had been researching the myths of the gods for 10 years. The change in my thinking occurred when - as a result of writing my first book - I got the opportunity to become a full-time researcher and writer. It was only then that I began to read the ancient texts for myself as opposed to relying on the interpretations of others, such as von Daniken and Sitchin. For me this made a world of difference.
As for whether I can be wrong again, well in principle yes but a mistake in the past does not automatically increase the likelihood of a mistake in the present. On the contrary, when you think about it, my experience with the von Daniken/Sitchin scenario puts me in a perfect position to weigh up the merits of the alternative interpretation of exploded planet cults. Frankly, one of the reasons that I'm so confident in the exploded planets interpretation is that it's difficult to see what other possible rational explanation there could be for 'the gods who came down from Heaven to Earth'.
So, in summary, the additional 3 years' research into the legends of the gods has been full-time and it has built upon a previous in-depth knowledge of alternative theories. So it is not all implausible that the 'holy grail' has indeed been won.

Q8

Since writing 'The Phoenix Solution', have you had any second thoughts about (a) the Giza pyramids and Sphinx; and (b) the exploded planet hypothesis?

A8

As regards (a), yes but only in so far as I now recognise the Great Pyramid to be symbolic of Heaven as well as of Earth (please see my third book 'When The Gods Came Down'). This is a subtle point but it needs to be thought through...
As regards (b), I am now less keen on the idea that the Egyptians had a 'scientific knowledge' of planetary explosions, although I am still favourably inclined towards Van Flandern's scientific hypothesis of exploded planets. Perhaps I was being deliberately controversial in 'The Phoenix Solution'. Anyway, in my third book, 'When The Gods Came Down', I have explored the much more reasonable possibility that the Egyptians (and the Sumerians) produced their exploded planet hypotheses through sheer guesswork, accompanied by a strong dose of armchair logic.
This means that I would now revise my comments on page 373 of 'The Phoenix Solution'. I do now consider that fireballs in the sky, accompanied by the spectacular fall of meteorites, would have been sufficient to trigger profound religious beliefs among our ancient ancestors. And I do now consider it both reasonable and logical that the ancients would have linked the hypothesised death of a planet in the heavens to the rebirth of life on Earth.

Q9

How do your conclusions in 'The Phoenix Solution' answer such questions as the building of Baalbek, or the famous wall in Sacsayhuaman, Peru?

A9

The first part of 'The Phoenix Solution' suggests that certain artefacts in Egypt were built by a lost race from a pre-dynastic era. Perhaps this same lost race built Baalbek too. As for the South American structures, I would now suggest the same explanation, i.e. a lost race, though not necessarily the same lost race as the one in Egypt.

Q10

Is there any corroboration yet for the importance of the date 10500 bc?

A10

On the contrary, Bauval & Hancock seem to have abandoned their claim that the lock-in between stars and pyramids at that date is accurate. And Hancock's stuff on Angkor Wat was just ridiculous. So the answer is a definitive 'no'.

Q11

Have you had any further thoughts on where the knowledge of the ancient Egyptians came from?

A11

As I said in 'The Phoenix Solution', the Egyptians seem to have inherited certain things as a legacy from an earlier culture. In the book I explained what type of culture we should be looking for but, beyond that, I haven't managed to make any further progress.
On the other hand, this is not something we should expect to solve overnight...

Q12

On pages 374 & 397 of 'The Phoenix Solution' you suggest that ancient astronomers might have been 'less sceptical' and 'less dogmatic' than modern astronomers and you suggest that they might also have had a greater intuitive insight into celestial dynamics. Would you also be prepared to consider a metaphysical solution to the mystery? Specifically, would you consider it possible that the ancients might have acquired their 'knowledge' directly from the living being of Gaia - Mother Earth - herself?

A12

That is an intriguing suggestion, and yes such a scenario did occur to me after I finished writing the book - I think it was when I was delving into an unusual book about the channelling sessions of Victor Hugo.
The answer depends, of course, on how one views the Gaia hypothesis. If you accept the Gaia hypothesis, then this is a very exciting solution to the mystery. Personally, I would have to say that I am keeping an open-mind on this possibility.

Q13

Surely you insult the ancient Egyptians when you refer to their religion as an exploded planet 'cult'. Was it your intention to trivialise their beliefs by using the word 'cult'?

A13

On the contrary. The first definition of 'cult' which appears in my Collins English Dictionary is: 'a specific system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and deity.' I had no intention of using the word 'cult' in a demeaning sense.

Q14

You propose that, at the time of Zep Tepi, the Earth had a perfect 360-day orbit as opposed to 365.25 days today. Is this merely a metaphysical wish on behalf of the ancient priests or is it your contention that it has some basis in fact?

A14

I am fairly certain that this was 'a metaphysical wish' as you put it. It makes sense from an Egyptian perspective that the explosion of a planet brought chaos into a perfect universe (of Heaven and Earth) and thus extended the year by five days. Hence the legend of Nut giving birth to her five children of chaos.
Readers are reminded that '5' was the number of the Egyptian Duat. The whole point of Egyptian religion was to go back in time, undo the act of creation, and restore perfect order. Symbolically, this involved eliminating the five days of imperfection and restoring the imagined perfect year of 360 days.

Q15

In 'The Phoenix Solution' you speculated that there might be a lost city in Egypt at a latitude of 27 degrees 30' N, symbolising a second planet in the Egyptian exploded planet cult. How certain are you that the Egyptians did indeed worship two exploded planets? And have you made any progress in identifying this 'lost city of Isis'?

A15

I am absolutely certain that the Egyptians worshipped two exploded planets. Sometimes they were known as Osiris and Isis. Sometimes they were known as Re and Hathor. I have also found an equivalent belief system in ancient Mesopotamia - please refer to my third book 'When The Gods Came Down'.
Also in 'When The Gods Came Down' I reveal that there was a second Nile-based scheme in which Elephantine rather than Abydos symbolised the Earth. In this scheme both of the exploded planet cities were preserved, at Dendera and Heliopolis respectively. Amazingly these two cities correspond to the co-ordinates of 1.6 AU and 2.8 AU given for the exploded planets by Van Flandern.
By the way, this does not invalidate the Abydos-based scheme at all but only strengthens my conviction that a lost city of Isis should indeed exist at latitude 27 degrees 30' N.