Customer Reviews

Secret Societies of America's Elite: From the Knights Templar to Skull and Bones

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I started reading this book with great interest but when I was told on page 42 that England was Protestant at the time of Joan of Arc and that Louis XVI was Napoleon's archenemy on page 46, I just put it aside...
Joan of Arc: 1412-1431
Hundred Years War: 1337-1453
Martin Luther: 1483-1546
Henry VIII: 1491-1547

Napoleon's enemy was Louis XVIII and Malta was taken by him in 1798 and not in 1789, as the author claims on page 46. 1789 is the year when the French revolution broke out.

If Mr.Sora can't his facts right on matters everybody knows about how can we trust him when he writes about secret dealings and societies?

One wonders how this book could get the green light.Shameful...

I am fearful that the historical accuracy of some of the statements made by this author are in question. I found the work to be rather poorly footnoted and some of the author's conclusions quite questionable. I also found that the work was quite repetative and that much of what the author had to tell us could have been presented in about one fourth of the pages actually used. After reading the book, I certainly would not try passing myself off as an expert on "secret societies" and their impact on our present time. Do some home work on your own before reading this one, and as I said, becareful of this one!

I have seen a variety of negative and positive reviews, and I tend to agree with Jed Schlackman's assessment. But I am giving it a higher rating because of the essential message that I got from reading this book: The elites who built this nation were nothing more than an extension of the ruthless, genocidal, avatars of avarice and greed from early European times to the establishment of the colonies and on through the expansion of the nation state of America.

As colonists, they achieved enormous wealth and power by driving off native Americans through genocidal terrorism and warfare, stealing their land, controlling a large share of the slave trade, dealing drugs internationally (opium), and privateering aka pirating. All of those activities involved extremely low overhead and investment. So the accumulation of vast wealth was rapid. With wealth comes political power. The American "revolution" was incited by and for the elites merely to keep the English Monarchy from getting a piece of the action and giving the noveau riche elites their opportunity to build their own empire. Most of the colonial family names behind the killing, plundering, and illicit, criminal activities for wealth and power are still among the wealthy elite families who have control and power over American policy today. Our accepted historical mythology is bogus.

To paraphrase Rousseau, law and order is the effort of the elites to ensure that others do not take away their wealth by the same means from which it was obtained. So, though not perfect, and not an easy read, anyone who does not have a vested interest in maintaining the lies, propaganda, and factual exclusions of our written history, i.e., a real truth seeker, will benefit from reading this book and keeping it as a reference.

In this book, which examines the historical period ranging from the medieval beginnings of the Templars to the present occupant of America's White House, the author looks at how elite families, secret societies, and corrupt business activities (piracy, drug trade, slavery, smuggling, etc.) have intertwined in guiding political affairs. His research is broad but careless in places, and there are relatively few footnotes and citations for the many pieces of information that Sora presents. This book covers details of history that have been skipped by most other authors who examine similar topics, while Sora does an excellent job at presenting general themes of how secret societies have functioned and the importance of illicit business and financial activities in building the power of the elite families in our civilization. This book is a valuable read for history buffs seeking out suppressed themes and facts, but may be tedious in places for people who are bored by details. The author has tackled a large topic in a medium sized text, which leaves certain flaws evident in this book.

I was anxious to get my copy of this, as I completely enjoyed his last book, Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar.
This one begins rather similarly to the last, there's a decent portion on the origins of the Knights Templar, their rise to power and eventual downfall. It also then documents the beginning of Freemasonry from the remnants of the Knights. This is where the two seperate, with this one following the Masons and their web from old Europe to the new world, and shows how a web of conspiracies all seem to, at times, point back to master plans laid out. Secret Societies also delves into the way America's wealthiest elite seem to have formed a somewhat closed circle, not all that different from the aristocracy of old.
The book shows us how many of these familes and many of our modern corporations have their beginning in such things as the slave trade and the opium trade, and how history has, at times, been selectivly re-written to remove some of that stain from the past of our wealthiest. Since I'm not a student of history, there are times in this book where the pace slows down and the geneaologies are laid out, however, it definatly goes much quicker and easier at certain points, most notably the major influences secret societies and the Freemasons had on the birth of the United States and the Revolutionary War, and then especially at the end as modern history proves its not immune to the touch of these groups, as well. I have to say that I think this book fufilled one of its author's goals when I picked up a newspaper the day after finishing it and began to notice many names, all in positions of power, that I'd only just been familarized with from this book.

This is a book that will definatly pique the interest of those who are historians as well as the conspiracy minded.

1/30/05 Update: In our current times of trouble, when so many people are wondering about the state of our country, our adminstration, and corruption that this book should be given another glance... It definatly helps place some of the current goings-on into a historical perspective, and allows one to gain additiona insight to the people who are in some of the most powerful positions in America, the boardroom, and indeed the world.

A previous reviewer has noted some examples Sora's "liberties" with facts. For me it was page 39 where we are informed that in 1919 the German Fleet, hiding in Scapa Flow, scuttled its ships rather than "surrender from its hiding place". Mr. Sora is clearly not aware that Scapa Flow was home to the British Grand Fleet, some forty Battleships, Cruisers, Dreadnoughts and Destroyers and that the German High Seas Fleet was not hiding there, but had, in fact, surrendered there.

When basic, well documented, facts are ignored or distorted, how can the rest of this work be taken seriously?

I picked up this book thinking it would give at least a decent historical overview of secret societies in America and was fairly satisfied with it until I looked at the bibliography about halfway through and saw that Sora did not include a single primary source. Even I wasn't lazy enough to use no primary sources when I was writing halfassed research papers in college so I found it pretty much inexcusable that a published author did so. If he actually went to source material and found these facts I would recommend it, but I don't just want to see a rehashing of probably already dilluted conspiracy theory tripe. Don't waste your time or money.

Sora starts off with a lot of stories on the Knights Templars, with much truth mixed in, but throughout he focuses on stories of mafia-like intrigue where graft, murder, and all manner of nefarious ways are attributed. Sora lays low when he finally gets to the Skull and Bones. But for the entirety of the book his secret societies have been blood-thirsty pirates, slave traders, and the worst of the worse.

Worst of all, with so very much of "his" history on every page, his documentation of his hundreds of evil attributions is sorely and sourly lacking. When he says in one of his many infamous lines that the KKK is a Masonic organization, a good historian would have referenced and proved that. Goodness, did Sora just purpose to link many of history's legends to one of history's worst secret societies. The KKK is a separate org like a lot of corrupt orgs with prejudicial and evil ways, and Sora forgot or purposed to leave out numerous other corrupt organizations more like the KKK than real Freemasonry. The end line for Sora, is that Freemasonry is in the main tied to many of America's elite for 300+ years, and all of the elite--he mentions many early and only a few today--are somehow corrupt.

If so many of America's elite have been and are as corrupt as Sora's long story goes, well then, there would never have been an America founded, not like the one the Declaration and Constitution established in 1776+ or like we have today. The greatest deficit and piece of incredible license is how Sora expects his readers to take in his broad stroking theme: America was founded by evil pirates and continues to be controlled by pirates to this day.

Sora did not mention, quote, or reference a single Freemasonry scholar, not even those scholars of Masonry who are "not" Masons, like famed non-Mason historian Jasper Ridley. Any history like Sora's that links so many hundreds of pages to Freemasonry (making them "all" evil) is adolescent when it ignores or purposes to hide from Freemason scholars such as Allen E. Roberts, William r. Denslow, W.L. Wilmshurst, and Alphonse Cerza, Art DeHoyos, and S. Brent Morris. Without out a single reference to the well-referenced works of Allen E. Roberts alone, Sora is adrift in his own pirate fantasies. Without the mighty works of Denslow's "10,000 Famous Freemasons" and Cerza's mighty "Anti-Masonry," Sora is a little story teller with rocks in his mouth.

Not once in 300+ pages did Sora mention the cruciality of "honor" or "morality," and yet the Knights Templar and Freemasonry for 300+ years have been all about honor. You have to look over, pass over, and ignore how "honor" and "morality" have been an integral part of all of Freemasonry, published in the monitors by all of the Grand Lodges worldwide and on nearly every page of thousands of Freemasonry scholars for 300+ years.

What is truly scary about Sora's skull-and-bones' covered book is that it is selling, like a pirate booty being auctioned off to an innocent audience unawares of Sora's home port. See www.preciousheart.net for more bibliography on Freemasonry.
Sincerely, Dr. M.G. Maness

Mr. Sora's "Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar" was tedious and speculation filled with little primary evidence other than historical curiosities & anomalies, which like statistics can be manipulated to the compilers whim.
Now in "Secret Societies of America's Elite" we encounter more of the same literary techniques of Mr. Sora making his case. Which as an old debate instructor of mine characterized as the "shotgun" approach to a presentation, a lot of points scattered here & there, but no internal cohesion. There is little new here that can't be discovered in other much better works of the same genre.

Secret Societies Of America's Elite: From The Knights Templar To Skull And Bones is a crucial history of darkly shrouded societies, alliances, and elites who use their wealth to exert hidden influence. From secret Masonic cells that provided covert and overt inspiration for the American Revolution, to the murderous campaigns of terror perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan, Secret Societies Of America's Elite is a simply fascinating, authoritative, strongly recommended study of a metaphysical aspect of human history not shown in most textbooks.