Despite the pans of other reviewers, objectively, this book is very interesting on several levels.
One wonders if most of the other reviewers even bothered to read the book, or merely panned it on sight due to their personal hostilties with the author, admittedly a sometimes controversial figure in UFOlogy and the Occult.
This book concerns itself with the Georgia mystic society, the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light. It speculates quite successfully its possible connection with the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, briefly biographs its somewhat enigmatic founder, and prints several documents of the Brotherhood of Light, showing their derivation and indebtedness to from the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor and Dr. Paschal Beverly Randolph. Furthermore, it reprints Dr. P.B. Randolph's rarely seen "Ansairetic Mysteries", allowing the reader to contrast and compare them to the Brotherhood of Light's monographs. Such comparison is quite fascinating: one could hardly otherwise believe that the secrets of sexual magick taught by a mid-19th century mulatto were later promulgated (in a milder form) by a white rural Georgia secret society.
It also, interestingly, shows correspondence between Dr. Randolph's widow, and R. Swineburn Clymer, showing how little Clymer's claimed authorities from her actually amounted to, and that neither Clymer or Mrs. Randolph were in possession of Dr. Randolph's "word", the utterance of which caused him to be recognized as "Master of the Dome" during a European Roscicrucian Conference in 1852. While this document, probably due to its importance, has been transcribed, there are also several pages of handwritten letters and instructions reproduced in miniature that one wishes had been similarly transcribed. This is the *only* flaw in this otherwise fascinating history of this otherwise little-known secret society.
While his own editorializing and actual authorship in this book is fairly minimal, Bishop Greenfield is to be congratulated for introducing the world to the history and teachings of this society. One can only hope that further documents concerning its teachings may surface, and the origins, history and dogma of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light be further and more completely illuminated for posterity.
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