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The Secret History of the World
 
 
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The Secret History of the World (Paperback)

by Jonathan Black (Author)
3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
RRP: £9.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 496 pages
  • Publisher: Quercus Publishing Plc (5 Jun 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1847243401
  • ISBN-13: 978-1847243409
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 2,026 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review
This book will take you on a jaw-dropping journey through the spiritual and mythological history of the world A... A wonderfully controversial read, which challenges the accepted view and spiritual history of human society - Soul and Spirit Magazine

Product Description
Here for the first time is a complete history of the world, from the beginning of time to the present day, based on the beliefs and writings of the secret societies. From the esoteric account of the evolution of the species to the occult roots of science, from the secrets of the Flood to the esoteric motives behind American foreign policy, here is a narrative history that shows the basic facts of human existence on this planet can be viewed from a very different angle. Everything in this history is upside down, inside out and the other way around.At the heart of "The Secret History of the World" is the belief that we can reach an altered state of consciousness in which we can see things about the way the world works that are hidden from us in our everyday, commonsensical consciousness. This history shows that by using secret techniques, people such as Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton and George Washington have worked themselves into this altered state - and been able to access supernatural levels of intelligence. There have been many books on the subject, but, extraordinarily, no-one has really listened to what the secret societies themselves say. The author has been helped in his researches by his friendship with a man who is an initiate of more than one secret society, and in one case an initiate of the highest level.

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Customer Reviews

57 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.3 out of 5 stars (57 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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51 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Esoteric Mind Gym, 19 Jun 2008
This review is from: The Secret History of the World: As Laid Down by the Secret Societies (Hardcover)
This is a certainly an unusual book and I found it a very stimulating read. It invites the reader to take part in an imaginative exercise, which involves having an artistic and emotional response to the book's ideas, as well as an intellectual one. In a way, it's an experiment to see if we can approach the same kind of consciousness as our ancestors, when people could be rational and mystical at the same time.

Pythagoras, Copernicus, da Vinci and Newton are some of the better known exemplars of this way of thinking, but the book draws its inspiration much more widely than the usual poster boys.

Comparisons between Lao-Tzu and Heraclitus are illuminated with comments on Confucius and Rudyard Kipling, for example. Creative artists as varied as David Lynch and Botticelli are shown to be nourished by the same ideas - as was P.L. Travers, creator of one the most famous children's magicians of all time: Mary Poppins.

The author explores the significance of certain archetypes and symbols down the ages - and personally I found the writing nimble and light of touch. Yes, it makes connections that are sometimes surprising, but that's the point. Ever wondered exactly what the difference is between Satan and Lucifer? Or why French revolutionaries adopted the Phrygian cap as their headgear of choice? Did you know that St Thomas Aquinas and St Francis of Assissi both claimed to have levitated?

What "The Secret History" never pretends to be is yet another conspiracy theory book, or an academic history. (A fact that seems to upset some of the other reviewers.) It would be better to think of it as an esoteric mind gym.

Sure, it structures itself as a "secret history" of how humanity and human consciousness developed but this is, after all, just a metaphor. The author has created that narrative form as a way to explore the ideas that have fascinated some of the greatest minds in the actual, real, (footnotable) history of the world.

Conspiracy theories close things down; this book is an ambitious, enjoyable attempt to open them up and offer a graspable alternative account of how human consciousness has developed - from the creation of the world through to dadaism and beyond.

Definitely worth a read, if you like ideas and knowledge and can cope with them being taken out of their boxes and shaken round a bit.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars fascinating, 10 Jan 2009
By J. Piatkus (London) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Secret History of the World: As Laid Down by the Secret Societies (Hardcover)
I have been interested to read the wide range of comments about this book which I personally found fascinating.

The Secret History of the World presents a different way of contemplating the world that we live in. Whether you agree or disagree with the author's ideas - and there are so many different ideas, links and connections here that why should you agree with all of them? - the book is about opening your mind to a radically new way of thinking about the mystical history of the world and about our own human consciousness.

It isn't necessary to agree with everything the author writes to find dozens of fascinating avenues to explore. The whole point of a book like this is to be an entertaining read and to raise the consciousness of the reader by presenting ideas that remind us that different civilisations did not regard or understand the world in the same way that we do.

We cannot assume that our thought processes and our attitudes to life are comparable to those of our ancestors who experienced their lives at different times and in different societies throughout the ages and had no knowledge of industry, science or technology as we understand it today.
Everything they believed in was based on the much more limited (in most cases)knowledge that was available to them at the time.

In the past twelve months people everywhere are seeing the collapse of so many organisations and systems in our society that they had assumed were fundamentally stable. The book is very timely because we are entering a new era in our civilisation where we will have no choice but to adjust our thinking about many different things. The Secret History of the World can be used to expand your mind introducing original and mystical concepts which have been common throughout many different civilisations in history and for that reason are worthy of consideration when our present-day globally linked and crowded world is heading towards its own tipping point.

What this book tells us is that things are not necessarily what they seem and that history and science and everything we think we know and understand can be turned on its head and seen from a different angle - if we choose to open our minds to other possibilities.

The concept of the book - a secret mystical history of the world in under 1000 pages - is huge and I do wonder how much material had to be left out. I would love to read more of the research because some of the sections are of necessity rather sketchy. I was also very much aware that so few women featured in it. But secret societies have tended to be for men and run by men.

While I was reading the book I thought of a lot of people who I would want to recommend it to. It is a love it or hate it book, arousing strong feelings in readers. I recommend it to everyone who is not afraid to accept that there is only a very thin veil between the world we think we are familiar with and the unseen and unknown worlds which lie just beyond our everyday thought-processes.
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28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars erudite but hugely readable, 17 Jun 2008
I am rather flummoxed by a few of the negative reviews of this book and do wonder whether some readers simply expected a book on entirely different subject matter - for example the reader who complained that it didn't mention the big crime families...this is a book about esoteric beliefs, not a book on conspiracy theories, although naturally the two occasionally coincide.
I am also puzzled by the assertion that the author's pen-name is a 'red flag' (to a conspiracy, maybe?!)since his identity is clearly outlined on the book jacket and, indeed, in the Amazon summary of contents.
Oh well. I thought it was great. I would never normally pick up something like this but fancied something different, that delved a bit deeper into the facts beneath the Da Vinci Code fiction, perhaps. That's exactly what this does. It is obviously the product of committed research,and occasionally one does need to stop and re-read if not familiar with this stuff, but I found it, overall, highly readable and enjoyable. He is very good, I think, at making difficult concepts understandable.
I guess this was always going to be a controversial book, given that people who are very into the subject matter tend to disagree with each-other as a matter of course about the true nature and origin of things that are, by definition, obscure or obscured!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars A complex subject not well explained
I did find this book very interesting but having said that the publisher was not making it easy for me. Read more
Published 15 days ago by Seamus Mcinerney

1.0 out of 5 stars Utter drivel of the first water
A handful of assertion, a pinch of myth, a bucket of unrelated anecdotes, whisked well and left to fester.

So badly writen and reserached it's not even funny.
Published 1 month ago by Annebythegate

1.0 out of 5 stars Utter Tosh
This book is the biggest load of rubbish I have ever read in my life (and I've read a lot of books). Read more
Published 1 month ago by Sgt Pinback

5.0 out of 5 stars A rollicking good read
This book is worthy of its title becasue it does go through all of our ancient history and re-write it with some good evidence. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Dan Taylor

4.0 out of 5 stars An Esoteric Jaunt through history.... but....
I enjoyed this book, and as the title says it does give a good exploration of esoteric ideas throughout history, working in the manner of a time line. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Magickal Spires

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening!
The Secret History of the World is the kind of book everyone should read. Whether you are questioning religion and spirituality, whether you believe in spirit worlds and parallel... Read more
Published 2 months ago by J. de Montmarin

2.0 out of 5 stars disappointed
some of the assertions in the book begged credability. I found it a difficult read.
Published 2 months ago by Esther W.

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read
I think this book needs to be compulsory, once you start to read the way Jonathan knits it all together, lights start to switch on inside. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Love to read

1.0 out of 5 stars How can people praise such dross?
I've often wondered, when reading the worst of the pseudo-historical, -archaeological and -cosmological books over the years, who on earth commissioned them, and how the authors... Read more
Published 4 months ago by DV Barrett

4.0 out of 5 stars Secret history indeed, but with a lot left out!
This is a very well written and thoughtful account of the esoteric history. However, the author seems to have either overlooked, or dismissed many important events in the... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Lawrence Bowen

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