Customer Reviews

Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more (Vintage)

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The lengthy title and subtitle of Arthur Goldwag's book, "Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more," belies the brevity with which he addresses most of the myriad subjects between the book's covers. It's true even a mildly avid researcher can find on the Internet or in a public library or well-stocked bookstore vast amounts of exhaustively detailed material devoted to each of the subjects Goldwag surveys in his book. This is the advantage, rather than disadvantage, of Goldwag's approach. Goldwag's book supplies only the tantalizing breadcrumbs. He leaves it for the reader to follow the trail if she's hungry to find more information on the matters that interest her, many of which she may never had known of before exploring Goldwag's work. Goldwag's writing is savvy, crisp and clean, often tongue-in-cheek, and he's not afraid to voice his personal opinion on some of the wackier Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies featured in his book. It's a quick, informative and entertaining read, which I believe is exactly what the author intended.

People who criticize this book are not "conspiracy nuts." That kind of blanket prejudice reflects one of the problems with Goldwag's book: it encloses such a wide range of groups within its narrow binding and slaps a provocative label on them. Given this pattern, why not include the Catholic church? Obviously, the book caters to the reader who sees any kind of secretive society as weird or "fringe" and loves having a new gossip partner in Goldwag. The book has no index, and it's definition of cults is simplistic and overly brief. At least, Goldwag acknowledges--or hints at--the legitimacy of the skepticism MANY have felt about 9/11 and the government's failure to prevent these attacks (after so many warnings). Instead of just listing all these societies and giving such brief, thumbnail descriptions of their, in some cases, long histories, why not include a sociological study of why people, being social creatures, form groups that in some cases devolve into "cults" or "secret societies"? Why group conspiracy thinkers, who may not even be "groups" in any formal sense of the term, with cults and secret societies? Are those who think Oswald may have been, as he himself said, a "patsy" or pawn conspiracy nuts? The gov't committee that reviewed the case in the 70's left open that possibility while supporting the Warren Commission's findings. The founding fathers were skeptical of big government AND of corporations. Were they a cult as well?

Part of my gripe with this book is its quick-read, throwaway packaging. A provocative title is slapped on an orange cover, all the indexing is in the table of contents for fast and thoughtless perusal, and the whole shopping bag of groups totals 384 pages. It's an airport purchase, designed to seduce us with its catchy, seemingly investigative title and subtitle. Notice how quickly they are being recycled into the "used" category. Is it possible that readers have found it lacking in substance? This book preaches to its choir of pragmatist readers, and the author gleaned his "information" from, of all sources, the internet, making this another quick-buck deal for the author and publisher.

This book delivers what it promises. It's an entertaning, thoughtfully written compendium of the major groups, people, and ideas that have attempted to explain and/or manipulate this complex, mysterious, fascinating world we live in.

I've known about many of these cults, conspiracy theories and societies since I was a kid. Others have sprung into being during the half century that's elapsed since then. Still others are new to me. The wealth of information in these pages and the new details that Goldwag has unearthed on even familiar topics make this book a valuable resource here in 2009.

Some might quibble at the alphabetical organization within each of the book's three sections; I found it a bit odd at first. However, I'm hard pressed to come up with a better structure. It allows Goldwag to tell the full story of each topic he addresses, whether it stretches over tens or hundreds of years. It also makes it easy to zero in on items that might hold particular interest, and to find your way back to them later. Sources are cited frequently throughout the text for anyone interested in delving more deeply into a particular area.

Goldwag clearly is writing from the perspective of an interested rationalist. That's bound to push the buttons of some folks who hold certain notions as articles of faith. A few of the reviews here are evidence of that. For me, there's something intruiging and thought-provoking on every page. That's exactly what I want from a book of this sort.

Lots of great information in this book, and it is quite broad in scope, while not as in-depth as I would have liked. I would also have liked a bibliography and/or some references, but this book was meant to be general information. For those seeking general information about a variety of groups and societies, this is a good starting point.

To be fair, this is a survey book, one that introduces the reader to a plethora of the strange, bizarre, and violent, and to slowly introduce evidence of a mind-set that can lead a person into true belief. The section on Prem Rawat was interesting to me personally, since I know several followers of this individual, but had no idea as to the extent of his cult.

Goldwag repeats the heinous lie that 900 of Jim Jones's followers committed suicide in the jungles of Guyana. This is false on its face. Over 400 of those who died that day were children--minors. How do minors commit suicide? Answer: they don't. They were murdered. To call it suicide is to disrespect the dead and reveal a shallowness of thinking about the topic at hand. Nor does Goldwag mention Jones' trips to Cuba, his mysterious sojourn in Argentina in the 60s, and his relationship with Dan Mitrione, who was a CIA asset.

I try to maintain a skeptic's distance from this material (which Goldwag does very well). While I enjoyed Goldwag's DSM-IV diagnosis of David Icke's possible mental illness, it is against medical ethics to diagnose a person you have not personally interviewed. While a journalist isn't under the same constraint as a psychiatrist in this regard, Goldwag uses the DSM-IV when it suits him, but doesn't mention that what he's doing is against the ethics of the profession that produced the book.

All in all this is better than a blog. However, there are no citations, no research, nothing that proves Goldwag is the authority he purports to be. But Goldwag's authority grows as the book progresses. Of the three subjects at hand, I got the impression that Goldwag is most knowledgeable about secret societies, and that he rejects conspiracy theories out of hand, while he thinks that both those who create and those who belong to cults demonstrate organic brain disease or psychosis.

To be fair I didn't read the whole book, I only read the first 50 pages. I was expecting a historical or philosophical recounting of the subject matter. Instead this is an alphabetical arranged listing of short description of cults and conspiracies. There don't seem to be any overarching theme or conclusions being drawn. Just know what you're getting into.

"How many of these books do you need to read, to know that people who believe in grand conspiracies are nuts?" -- It's a fair question I thought when asked by a work colleague.

This book is not something you want to trot out as the ultimate source on conspiracy theories. It is short, not too well organised, and carries a lot that should perhaps not be in a book this size, e.g. it contains a lot of groups that fit neither conspiracy theories, nor cults, or secret societies -- how does the mafia and Oddfellows rate in this book?

Although the book does include all the regular icons of kooky thinking, Masons, the Illuminati, and a supposed Jewish mastermind behind most conspiracies, it does not describe the strange mindset that links them together as well I would like to have seen: people who believe in conspiracy theories are as passionate about them as you can imagine and have a classic close-looped thinking contruct like religious fundamentalists. Although most people dismiss conspiracists out of hand (they should be dismissed out of hand!), what is happening at a psychological level is even more disturbing -- and therefore I would have liked to see more on this subjectin this book.

I will say that the book is engaging, well-written and keeps you very interested in the subject matter. It is a very good read for a long plane ride and that is a good accomplishment of Goldwag. Also, in all fairness, it is hard to describe all of the minutea and permutations conspiracy theorists have afflicted the world with -- from so-called 9/11 truthers, to holocaust deniers who see hidden hand of International Jewry in the running of the world.

Ultimately the wierdos and wackos have always been with us. But now they are more connected and able to articluate their message (ie. the internet). In addition they can reach out and hurt you in the case of the extreme rightist movements and religious fundamentalist in the middle east (where the idea of a World-wide Jewish conspiracy has wide currrency). Goldwag does cover the paranoid elements in society, from "black helicopters" and those who think that NAFTA is really an attempt by Canada and Mexico to take over the US. But how such wierdness gets telegraphed into the so-called mainstream press such as the Fox News Network and CNN's Lou Dobbs infantile ideas of the NAFTA "super-highway", need more analysis.

Also there is the wierd alignment between those conspiracy theorist advocates on the left (eg. 9/11 Truthers) and the patriot movement in the US. These confreres in wierd ideas and crooked thinking need to be explained. Conspiracy theory is also like a new religion and you will see a very odd, yet predictable conflation of extreme rightists and leftists believing the same pablum mush about an international conspiracy.

I wish Mr. Goldwag success on his journey to write the ultimate guide to the study of this truly modern-day disease of Conspiracy Theory. But this text is not it.

I will side with the author that most conspiracies are insanely ridiculous and that people need to believe stuff in order to balanced out the mostly uncontrolled reality we live in. He is however, too opinionated for true objective exploratory writing of this subject matter. He is at the very opposite end of the spectrum of the lunatic fringe he is writing about. While conspiracies for the most part, (I agree with him here) may fill a void in our lives to explain otherwise chaotic incidents, they can not all be fabrications. Sure we landed on the moon, sure aliens and UFOs are nuts, but economic, political, and government back room chess games can not be so easily dismissed and lumped together with every other nut job concept. There is no index in the book. I am sure the author would argue that he put it all in the front so he saw no need to put it in the back. I think it's just laziness. Any non fiction book worth its salt should have an word index. A section for further reading would be helpful too. He does put many sources right in the book but indexing these should have been done.

Ultimately this is a book that very briefly touches all the topics listed on the books cover and inner chapter list. It is written by a writer who considers himself a true rationalist. He is a common-sense pragmatist, to a fault, since he considers any conspiracy, back room surreptitious plotting or hijinks all on, or above the surface, and mostly as isolated incidents. He sees no far reaching conspiracies at all. To show him different facts in any way would undermine his reality just as much as truth that UFOs and real nut bag alien conspiracies are false would undermine the very fringe people he so eagerly writes to debunk. The writer and the fringe he is "setting straight" are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. There is no middle ground in this book. Also, the books cover and title, with it's old world news design, is misleading as to its contents. The author should have titled this book: "My opinions on Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies and how I think all of it is Nonsense and can be Easily Explained."

Anyone looking for any enlightening info, or even just a rational educated approach to these topics for well read people with any dots connected or even speculated about beyond the muck that can be sifted through online should skip this book. This writer sees nothing odd going on. I am not sure which is more frightening, the fringe nuts who think everything is a alien conspiracy, or this guy, who thinks there are no real secrets, or hidden cloaked sinister agendas out there floating through our present. I myself see too may coincidences for it all to have been mentally fabricated as a human need for explanation of world events or chaos.

This is the non-fiction version of Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum," a wild compendium of the odd (sometimes REALLY odd) beliefs that have held sway over the last few centuries. To these add the Birthers and you have a full house of entertainingly paranoid factoid-salad. As a book at bedside, it entertains no matter where you open it, though frequently I find myself going to the Web seeking further info on some particular group or belief-- Goldwag is good, but here's no room here for him to go into much detail. Still, this is a "Greatest Hits" of logic-and-lunacy. As Alfred Lawson used to say, "Unless you know these things, you are not educated!" Read it and be enlightened.

Reality is a hard master for some, even for the brightest, and best educated, as Goldwag demonstrates in his most helpful introduction to very and less familiar fantastical beliefs. Some question his three broad classifications; however, they work well, for the most part. In any case, it's the content that matters and his descriptions of everything noted in the 19th century-style title, and much more, is on the money. In certain instances, he skillfully weaves many related items together into lengthier and revealing histories -- revealing in the sense you see how a kernel of truth becomes distorted, spreads, and grows until it is a lush, full field of corn. An example is his treatment of Area 51, Stealth Blimps, Majestic-12, Alien Abductions, and Divine Revelations that encompasses Groom Lake, current colonies on the Moon and Mars, Roswell, Barney and Betty Hill, Carl Jung, Gloria Lee, the Trilateral Commission, and the biggest bugaboo of them all, the omnipresent Illuminati -- a 22-page head-spinning web of delusion.

If you shake your head in disbelief and wonder how people can possibly believe the above, or in any of the other cults, conspiracies, and secret goings Goldwag recounts, test yourself. Tune into an episode of a program running on the History Channel titled "Ancient Aliens," featuring the thinking of what the announcer intones as Ancient Alien Theorists. You'll find the show entertaining and seductive, and illustrative of how a fact can be morphed into what might strike you as a plausible alternative to actual historical fact, and scientific theories and conclusions. Particularly fascinating is the episode entitled "Aliens and the Founding Fathers," wherein you learn of George Washington's possible encounter with aliens (in addition to the Hessians) at Valley Forge, secret communications in Washington D.C.'s architecture and, indeed, in the layout of the city itself.

Goldwag also provides a useful general introduction, as well as prefaces to each of the book's three sections that aid you in understanding who are susceptible to the scores of fantasies referenced.