Secret Behind Secret Societies, The (Revised and Updated Edition)

There is another way, another tradition, more invisible, more powerful. This book is about these two avenues. It is amazing, at this late date, that so many people think power is merely a cake of clay that six billion of us are beating at with hammers. It is astonishing that so many people think power is a mound of lumps and dust that six billion of us are fighting over.

Power has been taken by very well-run organizations. Major power.

On the other side of the coin, there is a growing crowd that thinks we must invoke fire-eating lizards or Satan to explain how power has been stolen from us.

This is a book about the organizations that have carted off something very vital in the middle of the night-and how to get it back. More than that, it is about the exact methods used to unhook us from all that we are.

Excerpt

There are nine official choirs of angels. For each of these types, we have various artistic depictions. The nine choirs are divided into three groups, each of which has three sub-types.

The main branches of angels are the Counsellors, the Governors, and the Messengers. Under the Counsellors are the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. The Governors include Dominions, Powers, and Virtues. The Messengers contain the Principalities, Archangels and Angels. Each of these nine groups has its own named leader, style of dress, and symbols. The Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church, eight of them, " figure very prominently in Christian art . . ." I find 10 symbols for these men.

As for the Church itself, symbols abound. The ark, the ship, the ark of the covenant, the rock, the candelabra, wheat and tares, the mustard seed, and so on. I have counted 20 symbols. Furthermore, through displayed art, there is an ingenious typing of stories within the Church, in which a key tale is not only pictorialized, but also symbolized by showing other versions of it. For example, the specific type of story known as The Epiphany might be referred to by art showing the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon-not a Christian adventure at all-or by the non-Christian Abner coming to see David, King of the Hebrews, or by Joseph's Hebrew brothers bowing down to him in Egypt. The Church holds that the real story behind all of these is: the Magi coming to see the Infant Lord.

In Church art, you would see all of these tales depicted- and all but one, the Real One, would have a symbolic meaning. How many such official archetypes of Church stories exist? Well, there is The Annunciation, The Incarnation, The Nativity, The Presentation, The Holy Innocents, The Holy Family in Egypt, The Return From Egypt, St. John the Baptist, Our Lord's Baptism, The Temptation, The Sermon on the Mount, The Raising of Lazarus, The Transfiguration, The Triumphal Entry, Our Lord Weeps Over Jerusalem, Cleansing the Temple, The Last Supper, The Traitor Revealed, Our Lord in Gethsemane, The Betrayal, The Accusation before Pilate, The Crowning With Thorns, Our Saviour Mocked, The Scourging, Bearing the Cross, The Sacrifice on Calvary, The Seamless Coat (taken from Jesus by soldiers at the cross), The Pierced Side, The Virgin Mother's Sorrow, the Descent from the Cross, The Entombment, the Descent Into Hell, The Resurrection, The Woman at the Tomb, The Appearance to Mary, The Appearance to the Disciples, Thomas, The Ascension, Pentecost, The Second Coming, the Unbelievers, The Believers, The Church, Holy Baptism, The Holy Eucharist.

Again, each one of these story-types would be illustrated directly in Church art, but also symbolized by art which depicted other Biblical, historical, or mythological " versions" of them-which now would be co-opted and folded into the universe of the Church. A brilliant strategy to recast major events of history and pseudo-history: Call them SYMBOLS, and take them over. A rerouting of time into the One Major Train Station, the Church.

When I say a cult pre-defines a space and then claims that it is run by Someone Else, that the space contains a Pattern which must be studied-when I say a cult gives you an " elite special history" or " inner mysterious truth" as justification for its supreme elevation, this is what I mean. This is what I am talking about. This is the prime historical example. This is how the citizen signs on to the idea that his own creation and creative imagination are not even important, or at best are bounded by the space set up by an elite.