Sinister Forces-The Manson Secret: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft (Bk. 3) [Hardcover]

Peter Levenda (Author), Paul Krassner (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: The Manson Secret | Publication Date: June 21, 2006

The roots of coincidence and conspiracy in American politics, crime, and culture are investigated in this examination of the connections between religion, political conspiracy, and occultism. Readers are presented with startling connections between Nobel Prize–winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli, Carl Jung, and synchronicity; serial killers, multiple personality disorder, and demonic possession; and magic, surrealism, and mind control. Not a work of speculative history, this exposé is founded on primary source material and historical documents. Fascinating secrets are divulged involving Hollywood icons such as Marilyn Monroe, David Lynch, and Jane Fonda as well as links between the Cotton Club murders, the Bluegrass conspiracy, and the Son of Sam cult.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Peter Levenda has researched the material for this book over the course of 25 years, visiting more than 40 countries and gaining access to temples, prisons, military installations, and government documents. He is the author of Sinister Forces—The Nine, Sinister Forces—A Warm Gun, and Unholy Alliance. He lives in Miami, Florida.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Trine Day (June 21, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0975290649
• ISBN-13: 978-0975290644
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,234,847 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peter Levenda was born in the Bronx and lived in New York, Indiana, Chicago, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island before going to Malaysia where he lived for seven years. He has an MA in Religious Studies and Asian Studies, and has worked as an IT executive in China, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Europe (he became involved in China trade in 1984). He is a member of the American Academy of Religion, the T.E. Lawrence Society, and is a charter member of the Norman Mailer Society.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mindbending Worldview Warfare, September 13, 2007

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The Dilettante "Dilly!" - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Sinister Forces-The Manson Secret: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft (Bk. 3) (Hardcover)

Rumor has it that Peter Levenda is the author of the 'Simon' Necronomicon and that anyone who reads THAT book is cursed for seven years. I think that book was a bald-faced hoax, but it is fitting that the same author was involved here, because THIS book is genuinely dangerous. If you have any paranoid tendencies, any mental imbalance, you should probably leave the entire Sinister Forces trilogy alone.

In brief, the author argues that "mind-control" (in the form of propaganda, subtle persuasion, psychedelic drugs, terrorism, and...well...mind control) is an essential component of modern politics. And mind control is the same phenomenon the world once understood as witchcraft. We in the modern West may believe we are not susceptible to these irrational compulsive forces but, in fact, we are UNIQUELY vulnerable. Our societies have marginalized and devalued the traditional shamanistic encounter with unreason, and as a result we have a very unhealthy relationship with it. Intelligence operators, in the quest for tools of political influence, have rediscovered shamanistic practices and the forces that underlie them. These forces are "sinister" in a value-neutral sense; they are forces of the "left-hand path" - antinomian and awe-inspiring, but not necessarily evil. In proper context they can be beneficial to the individual and the community. But by implementing these practices alone, stripped of any spiritual significance, we have corrupted them. Both the serial killer and the fascist, he argues, are failed shamen.

Of course, Levenda does not state this explicitly until page 362 of volume III. And, even then, I hesitate to take him at face value; to bury "the point" so deeply within a work like this is audacious. It may indicate that the subject matter is exceptionally subtle and must be teased out with care. It may indicate an intentional esotericism (as Nietzsche put it: "a book for all and none"). Or, it may indicate the active hypnotic manipulation of the reader - a sort of literary "look into my eyes." Here, I would argue, we have all three - and they take almost a thousand pages to fully manifest. And yet, Levenda never loses our attention. Like a fairytale warlock, he charms and coaxes the reader down this dark forest path.

Ok, not "like" a warlock. He IS a warlock, and this is what makes his exposition of political witchcraft so compelling. His approach to the DETAILS of political history is remarkably sober - the text is exhaustively footnoted and bibliographied. But he recognizes patterns in these data that would be apparent only to a serious occultist.

Indeed, some of these patterns are clearly faces in the clouds, but that's beside the point. The 'big picture' is not the main attraction. Read this book for the parade of oddball facts the author has marshalled together. Read it for thrills and chills and extreme thought-provocation. Prepare yourself for suspense, intrigue and intiatory terror on the threshold of spiritual enlightenment. Just be careful to come back in one piece...

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Easy Going but AWESOME, November 9, 2006

By 

Sherry Baker - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sinister Forces-The Manson Secret: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft (Bk. 3) (Hardcover)

WHEW! This is a complicated book, complicated subject.. imagine layer upon layer, detours here there and everywhere meeting up where you never expected it. Levenda has done a brilliant job going where most of us would never dare.If you think the world is as it seems... think again. And read this book. It is NOT for the dumb, intellectually lazy -- or anyone who scares easily.... An important book.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Coincidences and synchronicity, March 21, 2007

By 

Cathleen M. Walker "geminiwalker" (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Sinister Forces-The Manson Secret: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft (Bk. 3) (Hardcover)

This is an excellent book, and should be THE text for American History courses, uncovering as it does the layers of mystery beneath the layers of "history" we are taught to simply accept on faith. Well researched, thoroughly documented, Sinister Forces takes us on a whirlwind tour of current events past and present and shows us how they dovetail, weave and underscore one historical tragedy after another - while at the same time letting us know that there is hope if we are willing to become aware of what is currently being swept under the rug.

I issue two concerns: first, the consistent usage of run-on sentences that make finding the point a treasure hunt in material that is already complex; and second, there are way too many typos for a book of this calibre. I don't fault the author for that, I fault the publisher - and I hope the next printing is treated with more respect.