There is a lot of information in this book. The first half in particular does a great job of explaining the esoteric history of the world as it progressed from mineral, vegetable and animals states and also idealism transitioning into materialism. The second half becomes more difficult to follow as it progressed through history. There are so many names of artists, philosophers, leaders, scientist that were involved in esoteric thought, secret societies and the movements of the world that is is difficult to keep things straight at times. Although it is all great information, it makes for something that really needs to be studied and dissected to fully understand, it is not information you can just casually read and expect to understand or recall fully ( )

Insane book must have been written during a series of drug-induced hallucinations, or perhaps the author is just insane from the start. Presenting disproven theories as fact and combining every religion into a single narrative of human consciousness is a bit of an achievement, I guess. Sort of a "Theory of Everything" for esoteric beliefs. But while you can't read this book as a source of actual fact, it does meander around and introduce a number of interesting tidbits, such as the "Two Jesus" story. In fact, as a source of what really strange deluded people have believed for the last two millennia, this book is somewhat entertaining. I don't find it to be as badly written as some reviewers, but its assertion after assertion of pure nonsense does get a bit old after a while. Only by misinterpreting one thing after another does the author get his "coherent" history. I certainly don't know all of the subject matter he draws upon, but anyone who knows anything about how the bible was written and how the perception of Jesus's divinity changed over the centuries immediately sees that Black's interpretation of things is ridiculous. Can he actually believe this, or is it just a (rather hard, I would say) way to make money? Two stars for ambition and shamelessness, at least. ( )

Started out interesting, went off-rails around midway. It touches on a lot of the esoteric details, without getting into detail on any of them, or making any good comments on what it touches on.

Overall, not a good book to re-read as it does not give any new information on the "secrets" that it purports to expose. ( )

Not my thing... Not really a history book. Not particularly well written either. You might enjoy if you like mystical info.

Narrator just do-so, kinda sleepy ( )

I tried to like this book, I really did. Maybe it gets better later, but I can only take so much. I tried to finish it, but the first 100 pages simply follow the same formula over & over:

1) Describe part of human evolution as seen by secret societies.
2) Fail to explain or back up exactly what was just described.
3) Explain how mind-blowing what was just described is.
4) Point out that ancient man perceived the world differently from us and therefore was totally cool with what was just described.
5) Scoff at modern science for making our lives too rigid to allow us to believe what was just described.
6) Rinse
7) Repeat

Perhaps I would have made it through this had the writing been slightly better than a Vampire Hunter D novel, but sadly, no. At least [b:Vampire Hunter D|190361|Obsidian Butterfly (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Book 9)|Laurell K. Hamilton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172551780s/190361.jpg|2477403] books have cool things like cyborg horses and giant spiders attacking flying cities--all this book is a somewhat interesting creation story and an author constantly telling me how TRULY AMAZING AND INCREDIBLE it all is.

Guess I'll try reading the next secret society history book that comes out, hopefully by someone who hasn't guzzled the Kool-Aid.
( )