by Dreams End » Tue Aug 02, 2005 9:19 pm
This book came up but there wasn't much discussion. I thought I'd start a thread for those who've read it. The last one, if I remember, several had just received a copy but hadn't finished it.<br><br>It was an interesting and sometimes fascinating book. I think that Levander makes it quite clear that "occult" practices, meaning magic of any variety (typically Rosicrucian or Golden Dawn type) was common among the ruling classes in America from the gitgo. And he doesn't characterize this as a conspiracy, it was out in the open. It was acceptable even for ministers to dabble in this sort of magic. He also gives a history of Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, and demonstrates how Smith utilized magic, learned from his dad, to find treasure. Instead, he "found" golden plates and encountered "angels."<br><br>The book is carefully footnoted, but without access to the original material I still can't gauge the validity of some of the really interesting stuff on American pre-history. He cites numerous cases where archaeologists (often amateur) have turned up tablets or glyphs or various other types of writing in languages that simply had no business being here according to the consensus view of american history...such as Ogam, used by the Celts, I think. <br><br>His point is that all kinds of folks, including Europeans, got here much earlier than Columbus and were, in fact, part of what makes up the population of the "Native Americans". <br><br>interestingly, Smith's view was that Native American's were a "lost tribe of ISreal" which I always took to be silly, but at least some of these "epigrams" were of semitic languages. <br><br>His source on most of this seems to be one particular book, so if that book is full of baloney, then I fear for this line of reasoning. But it was fascinating.<br><br>The whole point of his "pre-history" is that he seems to be developing a thesis that somehow, more modern rituals and magical workings may have awakened all kinds of forces. Perhaps they weren't "evil" to begin with (his tone kinda shifts about this, it seems to me) but now they cause some Chaos. The point is not well supported, as far as the pre-history stuff, but volume one just sorta stops midstream so I 'll have to wait for 2 and 3 to see where all this goes.<br><br>The last part is really interesting, though sometimes confusing. The subtitle is: The Nine, which relates to a group of really well connected people in government and high society who meet with this Indian fellow who channels "entities" calling themselves "the nine". They have a plan for the world and I think he's suggesting that much of that plan began to come to fruition. (It is certainly more convincing than I just made it sound.)<br><br>His Oswald stuff is really interesting. He gets into Bluebird/MKULTRA stuff (though it seems really important to him that we be convinced the name "Bluebird" came from a rather strange play from the turn of the century...presses that point really hard though I wasn't convinced and wondered why it really mattered.)<br><br>A lot of this is probably old hat to many of you. I didn't know, for example, that the night before he was shot by probable "Manchurian candidate" Sirhan Sirhan, Robert Kennedy was dining with the director of the movie, the Manchurian Candidate. <br><br>And his section on all of these "breakaway" Orthodox churches in the US, and their overlap with Golden Dawn and Rosicrucianism was fascinating. A sociologist could spend years trying to sort it all out. <br><br>Levander looks at a wild variety of coincidences and he suggests that a conspiracy theory that tries to take into account all of these weird coincidences simply gets stretched way too thin. He views it as multiple layers of reality somehow overlapping. The point is not completely clear yet, but it's really an interesting idea. You'll have to read the book to get the flavor of it. It really is a different take on the high weirdness factor that accompanies a lot of "history."<br><br>I had some frustrations with the book that I'll share.<br><br>First off, all three volumes are really one book, so there's no closure really, in book one. You are simply left with a lot of interesting strands. I think a little summary chapter and then a preview of book 2 would have been helpful.<br><br>The writing style is tough as well. For one thing, he shifts back and forth from the past to present tense within a particular narrative. I'm not sure why...but it's confusing sometimes. Also, he tends to introduce all the interesting characters that are going to figure in a section at one blow rather than as they come into the story. This makes it hard to remember, amidst a very large number of names, exactly who people are. With as much info as he packs in, I think a different structure would have helped keep it clearer.<br><br>I wasn't sure what I was expecting with this book and I got exactly what I was expecting. That is, I'm still not sure what to make of it. His point is not, really, that there is an evil, underground occult movement behind everything. But there is an occult underground. And it does have impact on history...sometimes dramatically so. I didn't know, for example, to return to Sirhan, that he had Rosicrucian connections. I don't mean secret...I mean pretty obvious. <br><br>And beware any hypnotists you meet...that's certainly a lesson I got from this book.<br><br>Not a thorough review at all. I'm sorry. But I'd be interested in the thoughts of others. <br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
