Customer Reviews

Under the Inquisition: An Experience Relived

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I sympathize with those who couldn't finish this. It's VERY unfortunate that the author chose the "historical novel" format because it effectively destroys what could have been a serious work by a serious researcher. "Antonia," our heroine, revealed under hypnosis back in the 1970s and 1980s a mass of details concerning a past life during the Spanish Inquisition. The author, who was the second hypnotherapist to work with Antonia, spent years (including trips to Spain) to verify the details. Some of these could be verified only in genuinely obscure, non-English sources and are quite amazing. The effort that the author put into this, and the seriousness of her research, are apparent in the Introduction and the End Notes -- which, unfortunately, are the only parts of the book that I found interesting. She says that she chose the "historical novel" format because the events as described in the hypnosis sessions were disjointed and she didn't want to bore us with a series of verbatim transcripts as in The Search for Bridey Murphy. Unfortunately (I seem to be over-using that word), verbatim transcripts can be RIVETING while this reads like an inane Harlequin Romance (which I'm familiar with only because my wife was hooked on them until I told her I'd set fire to the house if she brought home one more; drastic problems call for drastic solutions). Anyway, if you can force yourself to wade through this, you can be assured that it's based on serious research and could have been a lot better. It reminds me of Mark Twain's comment about composer Richard Wagner: "Wagner's music is really a lot better than it sounds." Unfortunately, ...

I have bought many books off of amazon but have never felt fully compelled to write a review, this is the first case. This book sucked me in from the first chapter and I found it very hard to put down even though it was so late I could barely keep my eyes open. The story feels different to other stories, the attention to detail really makes you feel like you are there, or that the author was actually there witnessing everything that happened to this main character. I must admit that I am a believer myself in past lives and this is one of the most convincing cases that I have ever read! I didn't even need any convincing with the 3 year research that was done to validate all the tiny facts, I believed it just from reading it. With that said though whether you believe in past lives or not that should not deter you from reading this amazing adventure story that will keep you at the edge of your seat, and even having you holding your breath at some points. My only warning is that there is some parts in the story that are not for the faint-hearted and are explained in great detail. Overall, the best way I can summarize this book is that its an epic romantic/action/adventure/horror tale all rolled into one.

Whether or not you believe in reincarnation, it's a fantastic tale of what life might have been like during the Inquisition. Totally spell-bound by the tale.

Excellent book from all prespectives.
Although it appears readers either love the book or don't. I am reminded of the other truly great authors of our time that also evoke such extreme emotion! This book is in great company!

A terrific read! I could not put this book down. Wonderful character development and spectacular circumstance. The story is intriguing in its own right, but considering the historical background and the connection to past lives it is amazing. Highly recommeneded.

I, like some other reviewers, could not put this book down, either--except to throw it across the room a few times in exasperation at the mental and emotional control games of the two main characters. They both had flouncing down to such a dramatic science that I wanted to slap them both silly about 100 times. I am impressed with the work Linda Tarazi did to confirm obscure details of the reportage and while I feel that the format of "historical novel" probably did detract from its credibility in some minds, I still found it credible. I think it was done to make the narrative chronological. Simple transcripts can be confusing and boring. This was NOT boring.

The two main characters have some serious mental and emotional issues. I see why Laurel, the hypnotically regressed 20th century woman, could not shake memories and thoughts of a previous embodiment as a 16th century Spanish woman (Antonia) under the thumb of the Spanish Inquisition until she got this whole story out--there is no emotional closure. Any therapist worth his degree can attest that what is not resolved on the emotional level remains in the present moment. Past life experts have learned that "present moment" can last for many embodiments, until the issues are dealt with and defused.

As victims of the 16th century Spanish Catholic Church and its Inquisition, neither she nor her inquisitor lover had--nor ever would get-- the truth of their real situation. Courage to think outside that dogmatic box got people burned at the stake. Better to convince oneself of the "rightness" of the dogma and question nothing, if one wanted to live unmolested.

They demonstrate many clear signs of twin flames who were not ready to deal appropriately with their intense sexual, mental, emotional and spiritual connection. Even the after-death scene only hints at the truth. One would have had to do some serious reading on the subject of twin souls (something totally unavailable until the last 20 or so years) and reincarnation (also information not available in the West until the end of the 19th century) to understand what the loved ones who met her were trying to explain to her within her own very limited context. Their statements to her that she would never again be allowed to share an embodiment with her lover on the same plane "as long as she was an individual soul" because "they couldn't handle it this time" is in line with what most of us experience. It is too easy to become lost in each other and not develop one's own soul qualities as independent and complementary beings.

The story actually begins as an obsession on the part of the inquisitor, a control freak in a position of absolute unassailable social, religious and political authority--a VERY bad thing for anyone with an independent thought of her own. The machinations he used to lure her to Cuenca, Spain and the patience with which he spun his web over years--influencing her father to invite her to come where he could establish total control, and studying her carefully both from afar and up close for useful (to him) mental and emotional characteristics --would be prosecuted as felony stalking where I live and carry a prison term. He even had a copy of Titian's naked Mary Magdalene in his bedroom--with the narrator's face painted in. All these things she found out slowly.

His repeated insistence that his physical, mental and emotional cruelties were really kindnesses meant to "correct" her and her buying into that B.S. were probably the most maddening features of this tale. In a mental environment where black is white, up is down and wrong is right because the Church says so, he had bought into the big lie himself.

Every time she confronted him about the fallacies of his thought processes as a man, he accused her of flouting the "Holy Office" he served. He had a great deal of difficulty separating the role from the man, and the man frequently hid behind the role when he was mentally cornered, something he repeatedly denied. For all his faults, he was a highly accomplished, highly disciplined individual--brilliant, well educated, intuitive and a student of people.

She had been a well educated thinking woman with a compassionate heart, respect for the differences of others and a willingness to live and let live that he methodically set out to destroy in favor of the political correctness of an evil and dogmatic Church. And after he essentially raped her in the torture chamber, she tried, and generally succeeded, in surrendering herself on all levels. (He didn't have to be a heck of a great lover if he was her twin flame--some of the literature of twin flames who have found each other in the present day points to the fact that they can hardly keep their hands off each other.) Her masochistic tendencies were awakened by the incident and he had been long aware of and fearful of his own violent anger and sadistic inclinations, struggling to keep them under the control of his formidable will.

When she shed a few tears at an auto-da-fe in Lima for someone who reminded her of a much beloved agnostic uncle, he agreed with her real father, the inquisitor of Lima,("We all have our little secrets...") that she deserved 50 lashes for publicly embarrassing him. At this point, however, he knew better than to go along with that "correction". In fact, after a similar previous incident in the Canary Islands, when she caused a second public scene, he publicly took 10 lashes in her stead, something he would never have done even a year earlier.

Genuine compassionate love was just beginning to win out over the authoritarian mental coldness and rigid control he trained himself to adopt just to survive his life and which made him a feared inquisitor. What I saw happening was what one of my own mentors answered when I asked how Jesus healed. ("He simply loved that in them which was not being loved.")She loved him totally--even the parts he feared in himself. And her love was as vital to him as air and water. Having once had it, he couldn't live without it.

His darkened, frightened spirit that had never been loved by anyone since his mother died when he was 4 was just beginning to open to the sun. If they had had a longer time together, maybe enough of that would have been loved that he would have actually blossomed. He had already come to a willingness to renounce his vows (and the inquisitor's absolute authority that went with them) in order to live an ordinary life with her and their unborn child.

Unfortunately, their time together was ending, unknown to them. They only had a few weeks left together before she drowned in an attempt to escape from pirates on their way back to Spain. Antonia's loved ones on the other side told her he would be rescued and returned to Spain, and he apparently was. Antonia's life ended about 1588. I found some obscure Spanish records online, after a 4 day search, of inquisitorial proceedings in 1598 and 1599 in Cuenca, signed by him and 2 different inquisitors who apparently replaced Reynoso, his tribunal partner at the time of this story. Google's translation is awkward, but I was looking for historical evidence he existed and I found it. I have since found more references to him in scholarly materials,as well as references to Reynoso and de Mora, the man arrested by Arganda before he and Antonia sailed to Lima. There is plenty on Juan Ruiz de Prado, Antonia's real father, retrievable by Google in seconds. There are also documents signed by Arganda as late as 1618--30 years after Antonia's death. He was still the senior inquisitor of Cuenca and must have been pushing 80 by then.

I would have given this 5 stars for sheer gripping storytelling and psychological, spiritual and historical believability, but gave it 4 because it does read like a bodice-ripper. In fact, her bodice does get ripped on a regular basis. This book is not for prudes or apologists of the Inquisition.

Under The Inquistion has to be the most gripping book I have ever read. I have never had the words of a book reach down and grab my soul as much as this one did.

What a load of [junk]. I was written like a poor romance novel. I have never seen the words, "I'm sorry" or "Forgive me" used so many times in a novel. I simply could not get through it. I got bored reading the same stuff over and over and over and it was just too predictable, whether it was through regressive therapy or merely someone's erotic fantasies...and I have never seen so much joy expressed and using the whip over and over and over. I left it unfinished in my hotel room in Vancouver. It is just not plausible and too much fantasy and 'romantic' ~ and poorly written [junk] novel romance jargon thrown in there.... I am a student of the Inquisition and it is just does not make sense.

And when the Inquisitor says comments on how 'cute' something is. I don't think a) that would happen or b) cute was a term of the time.

Give me a break.

... I got bored reading the same stuff over and over and over and it was just too predictable, whether it was through regressive therapy or merely someone's erotic fantasies...