Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Poor, October 19, 2007
The physical book itself is very nice and well made with a fascinating cover image. The inside front and back covers are entirely black which further ads to the mystery.
While the subtitle of this book promises to reveal "the world's most powerful secret society", surprisingly, less than 20 pages of this book deal with the present-day power players. The majority of this book deals with history, prehistory, and myth covering Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Palestine. However, the individuals that are the Shining Ones neither form a society nor do they act in secret or are unknown. One would be inclined to think that the authors will reveal some secret group one has never heard of or will shed light on some of the better known secret societies and unmask them as the most powerful one. But none of this happens. Near the end of the book the authors do single out one group as being particularly powerful and I was surprised at their choice because it doesn't come up anywhere else in the book. But it is also somewhat of an obvious and bad choice really, as that particular group continues to lose power and members over time. Morover, once identified, the authors don't spend more than a small paragraph mentioning it. But the present is only a concern as symbols remaining of the Shining Ones's activity in the past.
As with all these type of works, connections are made too easily and too quickly, which is a problem here since the authors emphasize events that took place and characters that may or may not have lived millennia ago. Recurring themes are shamanism, kundalini, and altered states of consciousness. So any mention in history of light, serpents, wisdom is taken to be evidence of the Shining Ones.
The writing style is utterly boring. Perhaps this is due to intellectual honesty that the authors know that they're standing on shaky ground that they can't get themselves to be more enthusiastic about the issue, but if they have a thesis and they think that they can provide some reasons for it, they might as well just run with it.
The worst is the lack of scholarship. Things start off problematally from the beginning. Early on there's a quotation from the Bagavat Gita referring to the Shining Ones. However, if you were to pick up the BG, you wouldn't find such a quotation where the authors claim it is. Unless, their translation is so utterly different from the more accepted translations. There are far too many Internet sources of dubious origin. On top of that the authors frequently fail to cite their sources. It's not uncommon to read things like "...it is said by some that..." or "...as many believe..." etc. we never find out who it is that is making these claims.
I can't recommend this book for anyone other than someone starting to be interested in mysterious aspects of the ancients and even then, there are better works out there.
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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Abysmally poor, December 22, 2007
If I could give the book a negative rating I would.
It is probably the worst book on the subject that I have ever read. The authors make huge leaps of logic (and I don't feel inclined to spend time elaborating simply because it is not worth it) and make unfounded assumptions linking kundalini, kabbalah, shamanism, rehashed Zacheria Sitchin material, Rosicrucian concepts, near-death experiences etc, etc, in spurious links to their 'shining ones'. I got the impression that they were pandering to a 'new-age' market and that the idea was conceived simply to sell a book.
Don't buy the book. If the kind of concept the book purports to deal with interests you, read "The Monkey and the Tetrahedron" by David M Jinks
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
"Druids", September 21, 2009
The Star of David or Seal of Solomon that is on the cover of the book is a much older symbol than when the Jews started using it. And knowledge handed down orally was also a practice of pre-Jewish peoples, notably of the "Druidic" designation. The term, now used with a limited definition of white-hooded faeries from Ireland, is a historical misstatement. You will find that it was not a racial or ethnic designation at all, but designated "the learned". And it was they who had set up or assisted in instructing those that created the early colleges and universities. It wasn't until their persecution and elimination that later groups, like the Jews, merely adopted their ways as their own and falsely claimed they were its originators. As did Christianity also adopt and morph many of the pagan and gnostic beliefs into its new paradigm of belief. The Jews, or the original "Yews", as there is no letter "J" in the Hebrew alphabet, were an earlier people prior to the Jews known as the people of the Tree (as in Yew Tree). These would be the pre-Celtic "Druids" or "learned Shining Ones" and one can begin to access into their worldwide spread and influence by studying those that regarded a tree or the "World Tree" in their writings. Many different stories will include "The Tree" or Yggdrasil. You will also find connections that the Kabbalah, thought to be Jewish in origins, is older and ascribed to an earlier people who were not Semitic in their origin. Much of this gnosis was actually acquired, and sometimes stolen, during the elimination of these "Shining Ones" by Rome and then acquired by Rome's court "Jews". What was "Druidic", a term needing to be restored to its rightful and accurate meaning, was then absorbed into that which is now considered Judaism. Much was done to cover up the influence of these originators, so that no historical connections or credit could be given them for the contribution. You will find that modern freemasonry is a Judaic institution and was first set-up in the United States by Jews with Bnai Brith also being an apex organization. Freemasonry is Judaic with, sometimes Christian overtones, and therefore utilizes much of the knowledge and secrets of the pre-Judaic "Druids". These "Druids" were the original keepers of the gnosis and transmitted it orally. There is even debate that some of the Essenes were not necessarily Jewish. One may also consider that Jesus may not have been a Jew as was later defined, but a "learned one". The later, Rabbis, or Koanim priesthood, are a group that sequestered and hoarded the gnosis for themselves through the conquering vehicle of Rome, claimed they were its originators and then further altered the teachings to be strictly for ethnic and religious "Jews" also referred to as "God's Chosen". And a monopoly on the gnosis kept from those who are now considered non-Jews by this very definition. If you think the Kabbalah, the real Kabbalah in its entirety, is something you can acquire through books, videos or classes outside the inner portico of the Rabbis...you are sadly mistaken. And there is not access to those who are non-Jews to its inner meaning. As far as this book, I have not read it. Should you wish to understand the perspective I have presented above...then check out the Irish Origins of Civilization by Michael Tsarion. You will find accompanying appendices and information to the book on his website.
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by Philip Gardiner
by Philip Gardiner
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