Talisman : Sacred Cities, Secret Faith (Hardcover)

The first section of this very weighty work is devoted to forms of Christianity which competed with Catholicism from the first centuries AD to the middle ages. Hancock and Bauval make a convincing case that a continuum exists between Gnostic thought in early Christian Egypt and the Cathars of 12th / 13th Century Languedoc via sects in Armenia, Turkey and the Balkans.

And while other books about the Cathars have placed the Albigensian Crusade in a political context (French King stirs up trouble to extend France southwards), Hancock and Bauval present it as a clash of cultures, values and religion.

Talisman presents both a very detailed and a very accessible explanation of what the Cathars actually believed. For that reason alone I found the book worth buying. Had the authors stopped their narrative in the early 14th century then Talisman for me would have been a hands down winner.

Where it loses its way is in the second half of the book, where Hancock and Bauval try to explain how Hermetic thought carried on through the middle ages and rennaissance. The second half does however include some some fascinating nuggets of information, for example the obsession French revolutionary leaders had with ancient Egyptian religion and symbolism and how they wove it onto their 'Cult of the Supreme Being', which was to replace Christianity.

Unfortunately the final few chapters seem almost rushed as if the authors wanted to finish up and move onto other projects.

For example the last few chapter on the state of Israel and Islamic fundamentalism is pretty random and reads as if it was tacked on from another book altogether. This leaves the authors open to being mis-interpreted. Another reviewer has said that Bauval and Hancock claim some sort of masonic conspiracy was behind the creation of Israel. In no way do they believe a 'way out' and downright theory like this.

As Robert Bauval says in the official website of the book, what they do believe is that there is much to support the contention that radical Arab and Judeo-Christian fundamentalists may actually believe is such a conspiracy. A crucial and a very big difference, but one that would have been clearer had they spent more time expanding on it, rather than adding it in the final section of Talisman almost as an afterthought.

First, it is a large book and quite heavy reading. Many different people, times, places, from 3000BC to present. It's a massive subject, and Bauval & Hancock have tried to tie together events right through, so its probably not surprising its so huge. I was pretty up on the subject already but still found it heavy going, and maybe because of the ease of Internet researching, it has a bit of a cut'n'paste feel about it.

I think there is a lot of info missed out, perhaps deliberately, to limit the subject.

Its also pretty much a summary of several other books such as those by Robert Lomas on the freemasons. Bauval does add some of his own new interpretations that seem accurate. The "Picatrix" text is also interesting.

So, all in all, I wasn't convinced of a direct link back to Gnostic Alexandria, but more a general survival of ideas of free thought through the dark ages of Christian suppression. I was however convinced that the secret societies were a direct result of repressive monarchs and religion, and that almost everyone of influence was connected to freemasonry in the 18-19th centuries.

On the subject of modern freemasonry, there is no doubt now about the direct influence on city plans, buildings, & policy, which continues today.

So, in summary, lots of good info if a bit selective, not Pseudo-History, but a difficult book to read

review of Talisman by Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval, Penguin/Michael Joseph

Talisman, by Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval
Penguin/Michael Joseph, £20

Review by Colin Wilson

Three years ago I attended a conference in Cagliari, in Sardinia, where writers like Erich von Daniken and Alan Alford explained their latest researches into the origins of civilisation. But the most remarkable event of that weekend was a talk by Robert Bauval about the discoveries that were the basis of his work-in-progress, Talisman.
Bauval is a speaker of amazing vitality and enthusiasm, and even though he was the final speaker of a long day, and we were all thinking longingly about dinner and Sardinian wine, we forgot that as Bauval produced an amazing fireworks display of ideas. And when dusk began to fall in the courtyard the of the conference centre and the chairman suggested bringing the talk to a close, there was a groan from the audience. At which point, the conference organiser, Sylvano Salvatici, suggested that those who wanted to hear more should go to a hall upstairs, while those who wished to leave could do so. Virtually whole whole audience of three hundred or so trooped upstairs, where Bauval spent another ninety minutes completing his exposition.
Ever since then I have been waiting to read the book. And when it arrived a month ago, a vast tome of 562 pages, I settled down to it immediately.
It is certainly one of the most remarkable works published in the 21st century, and throws a totally new light on the history of the past 2,000 years.
What Bauval told us that day in Cagliari was this.
When a French mob overthrew the Bastille and inaugurated the French Revolution on July 14, 1789, someone suggested the extraordinary idea that the stones of the ruined fortress should be used to build a pyramid dedicated to the Egypian goddess Isis. This was never carried out, but a statue of Isis was placed there instead.
Why Isis? The answer is that the goddess is closely associated with Freemasonry, and Freemasonry has played a central role down the ages, to such an extent that it has influenced the design of cities like Florence, Paris and Washington. The most impressive part of Bauval's lecture described how, standing at the Arc de Triomphe, gazing down the Champs Elyseé , he realised that the design of the avenues of Paris is basically the same as that of Luxor and Karnak in Egypt, with the Louvre in the place of the great temple of Karnak. And to underline that point, the French premier Mitterand commissioned the glass pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre.
George Washington was also a Freemason, as was Roosevelt. The Masonic symbol of the eye in the pyramid is incorporated in the seal of the United States, as well as on the dollar bill.
But what has Isis got to do with the idea of liberty, equality and fraternity?
This is what Bauval and his fellow-author Graham Hancock set out to tell us, in an amazing quest that takes us down some fascinating byways of history.
The story begins with the legendary founder of magic, Hermes Trismegistos, whose most famous saying, inscribed on an emerald tablet, is 'As above, so below'. This is usually taken to mean that man, the 'microcosm', is created in the image of the Universe, the macrocosm. But, as Bauval showed in his bestselling first book The Orion Mystery, it has another meaning. The Egyptians believed that the kingdom of the sky, the realm of the god Osiris, is literally reflected on earth, where the Nile is the image of the band of the Milky Way. The pyramids, Bauval argues, were built to reflect on earth the stars of Orion's Belt, Orion being Osiris. That mysterious shaft that runs from the Kings Chamber of the Great Pyramid was built as a kind of telescope focused on the dog star Sirius, the star of Isis, and when the pharaoh's body was placed in the King's Chamber, the shaft also served as a kind of gun to fire his soul at Sirius, his true home.
The works of Hermes were the basis of a philosophy called Gnosticism. Gnosticism and the mystical religion of Isis continued to exist alongside Christianity, and when Cosimo de Medici had the sacred books of Hermes translated in Florence, it appeared once more, now as a secret rival to the Christianity of the Catholic Church (which here, as in Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, emerges as the villain of the piece). Talisman devotes some of its grimmest pages to the Church's suppression of Gnostic heretical sects like the Bogomils and Cathars.
The Knight Templars also play a central part in the story, and emerge as the founders of what we know as Freemasonry.
Oddly, Hancock and Bauval have decided to omit the story of the mystery of Rennes le Chateau and the Priory of Sion, no doubt because it has now been told so many times. Thus the Templars have to take on that central role of connecting ancient Egypt and Solomon's Temple to Freemasonry.
In Washington, the Pentagon and Washington monument are the proofs of the connection between Ancient Egypt and modern Freemasonry. And this, the authors suggest, explains Al Quaeda's attack of September 1lth, 2001.
It can be seen that this is a highly controversial book. It also shares with Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods and Bauval's Orion Mystery their breathtaking sweep and bird's eye view of history. Talisman is the third step of the argument beyond these two books.