Talisman: Sacred Cities, Secret Faith

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, But . . .
Review: Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval have produced a number of books, separately and together, on various subjects of esoteric interest, primarily dealing with the possibility of a hitherto unknown civilization having existed before the last Ice Age. These books are usually diverting and often thought provoking, as is Talisman, even when the reader fails to be convinced of the overall thesis of the authors.

Talisman supposedly describes the centuries old history of a secret faith which has surfaced time and again in human history. The sections which deal with the early Christian gnostics and the Cathars are very well done and provide some intriguing information about the parallels between those groups of which I had not previously known. I also found the segments dealing with the Templars and their links to the Freemasons intriguing, as will other readers who have enjoyed such books as Holy Blood, Holy Grail, The Messianic Legacy, and others of that ilk.

Where I found my interest and credulity flagging were the sections dealing with the numerous references to Ancient Egyptian religion to be found among the French Revolutionaries and in the supposed Masonic symbolism to be found in cities like Washington and Paris. Egyptian references during the French Revolution make sense when you remember that the Catholic Church was considered an arm of the French monarchy, and that therefore anti-monarchists would also be anti-Church and seek to replace it with symbols of other faiths. Also it is well known that Freemasons were actively involved in the Enlightenment Period and that many early US leaders were (and continue to be in the present era) Masons. However, I tend to be skeptical of maps detailing straight lines linking different sites. (It has always been my observation that if you draw lines long enough and in enough directions you can link up just about anything you want to.)

I was also somewhat puzzled by the references to 9/11 that are tagged on at the end of the book. While Al Qaeda members certainly appear to be gullible enough to swallow the idea of a huge Jewish/Masonic conspiracy against them, I don't believe that Osama bin Laden chose to destroy the World Trade Center because the towers had Masonic significance!

All in all I can say that this is an entertaining book which will provide a lot of interesting information about Gnosticism, Catharism, and other assorted heresies and the Catholic Church's responses to them, but unfortunately mixed in with this material is a lot of poorly sorted out and ultimately irrelevant data.

Rating:
Summary: Talisman
Review: I've been reading works on contemporary gnosticism for the past 5 years. I believe that one cannot possibly understand Western Civilization without understanding Egyptian, Greek and French gnosticism/esoterica.

I couldn't wait until this book was published in the US, so I purchased it from amazon.uk.

In my opinion, this is the best work to date that traces the thread of ancient gnostic "heresy" from Egypt to the contemporary West. Some books are better at individual case studies (e.g., the Cathars), but none have done as well as providing a coherent thread for an underground movement. The book is at its best in illuminating spiritual and esoteric aspects of the French Revolution that many others overlook.

The work has some redundancies and some weak arguments (e.g., I'm not convinced that Penn laid out Philadelphia [me: "Love of Delphi?"] to model ancient Babylon), but I rate it with 5 stars because overall I haven't seen anything better.

Hopefully this work has been published soon enough to assist Dan Brown in the writing of his next novel (yes, Dan Brown fans, read this book first!). For instance, I think it is a much better work than Ovason's work on Washington, DC symbology.

I am convinced that there are hundreds of books yet to be written on this subject. Bauval and Hancock has taken us another giant step forward. There should be little faultfinding if they have not achieved hermetic perfection with this work. They are pioneers in this field. After all, Lewis and Clark did not lay any railroad tracks.

Rating:
Summary: Invented history.
Review: Off all the mysteries in this book, the greatest is why Hancock and Bauval bothered to write it in the first place. There is almost nothing new. Anyone with the slightest interest in the subject knows that the Cathars of 12th-century Languedoc had dualist beliefs (some would argue that Christianity as a whole, believing in good and evil, heaven and earth, is dualistic). We also know about the Corpus Hermeticum, the basis of much of so called 'Hermetic' philosophy, the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, the Freemasons. There are shelves of books covering these, and the possible links between them, but the authors present it all as a new discovery.

Then there are the factual errors page by page, a cause to doubt the reliability of this sample of occult history . Hancock and Bauval are indiscriminate in their source material, only quoting what fits their as it appears pre-conceived scenario, with respectable historians nestle side by side with speculative cult-historians. In the chapters on the Cathars for example, sources include Arthur Guirdham, who relied on dreams, visions and instruction from "discarnate entities" for his books.
Talisman is poorly argued and disjointed. So much undigested information is poured on the page that the thrust of the arguments is lost. The authors pursue a thread on Gnostic beliefs and the Cathars, dropping hints (with no evidence) of a secret society dedicated to preserving these beliefs through the ages. They bring in the Knights Templar, everywhere. There are odd chunks on Ancient Egypt, leading to the fairly unconvincing argument that the layout of Paris mirrors Luxor.

It's a mish-mash of badly-connected, half-argued theories. Only in the last chapter, and the misleadingly-titled Appendix, does the authors' purpose become clear. They suddenly start promulgating a version of the old Jewish-Masonic plot so beloved by ultra-right-wing conspiracy theorists. This is a deeply troubling end to a mess of a book. With luck, most readers won't get that far.

As for "The Gnostic Myth" (http://sociologyesoscience.com ), in spite of the fact that since 1985 an increasing amount of books by archeologists have been written to dispel the legend created by a priest who was the first and for many years the only, `researcher' in the 1950s, to have looked at the actual Qumram site.

That is they came to the conclusion that concluded that Qumran was "an ordinary settlement, with another book coming up by archaeologist Yuval Peleg and his team (2004), secret tradition inventers Hancock/Bauval in Talisman instead refer to "a Gnostic Secret Society" in the Nag Hammadi documents they write that it is:

"usually referred to as`the Organization' Part of its mission, is to build monuments `as a representation of the spiritual places' (i.e., the stars)."(Talisman p.90)

Rating:
Summary: And you wondered who ruled the world
Review: Sometimes you wonder , how on earth could the world be left to be managed by the free hand or whatever economic theories you believe in . Although i would not like to give away the whole idea behind the book ,i found it full of interesting historical stories on how a secret sosciety evolved through the ages till today, and how a great bunch of politicians , scientists , artists and others adhered to it's concepts. The world is ruled by theese people . It is a fascinating book although the link at the end with the third building of the temple in Jerusalem , make you think that it was added by somebody else for whatever unknown secret reason . I recomend this book because it gave me a new perspective on who was really governing the earth .


Rating:
Summary: Invented History.
Review: Talisman constitutes Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval's attempt to construct what Rene Schwaller de Lubicz referred to as la Symbolique, a purported system of knowledge transmission, de Lubicz considered to be primarily visual, and secretly encoded in the shapes of various mystical buildings.

It is only via this `la Symbolique' method, as a source of knowledge, often also including numerology, that we can in fact understand such claims in Talisman that the so-called 32 Paths or `degrees' of enlightenment were associated with the `rebuilding' of `Solomon's Temple' as well as with the idea of the Masonic `Blazing Star' or pentagon. We have seen how this `star' was also linked to the Egyptian five-pointed symbol of Sirius, especially in the Tarot card called the `Star' and represented by a woman wearing a star on her head. Often the Sephiroth or Tree of Life, with it's distinct 22 `paths' and 10 `emanations' is also shown next to the woman with the star. `The Star' is card numbered 17 and is preceded by cards 16, known as `The Tower', and then card 15 known as `The Devil'. `The Tower' card, which is thus in the middle of this series, depicts a gruesome scene showing a very tall building whose top part has been struck by lightning and has caught fire, and with people falling off the building. Often next to this burning tower is shown the Sephiroth. Card 15, `The Devil', shows the so-called `goat of Mendes' (i.e. Satan) on whose forehead is placed a five-pointed star `Blazing Star' or pentagon, and so on...

In the 2003 book "Benjamin Franklin" rather than having 'started the French Revolution' as Hanckock/Bauval suggest in Talisman, Walter Isaacson stated that "The Nine Sisters Lodge" was modelled similar to Benjamin Franklin's "Philosophical Society Apolloniene".

The "King of France, Louis the Sixteenth, himself a Freemason, arranged for Franklin to be Grand Master of the "Nine Sisters Lodge." (Walter Isaacson "Benjamin Franklin" 2003, p. 356).

As suggested `evidence' Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval,use interpretations of the "occult Tarot" first presented by Eliphas Levi in La Clef des grands mysteres. (1861) It only became known in English due to Aleister Crowley at the time 'Granmaster' of a newTemplar group called "Ordo Templi Orientis" founded by Theodor Reuss.

Playing cards during the time of Court de Gebelin, the latter wrongly interpreted them to come from Egypt whereas they came from 15th Century Italy. See: Decker, Depaulis & Dummett: A Wicked Pack of Cards: the Origins of Tarot Occultism, London, 1996. Hancock/ Bauval (completed end March, 2004 according to the postcript in the book) fail to mention however the total change from the Swords, Batons, Cups and Coins, and four co-suit being composed of ten numeral cards from Ace to 10 and four court cards - Jack, Knight, Queen and King that Court de Gebelin was referring to, and had nothing to do with the 'Cabalah'(Kabbalah).

In fact it was a fortune-teller named Etteilla in the 19th century that first came on the idea for a greatly altered type of Tarot pack now, it was Eliphas Levi father of the French Occult revival, repudiating Etteilla's theories, who not only associated the pack, quite erroneously, with the Christian Cabala(spelt many ways including Kaballah), he also added magicians, alchemists, and Templars. By this means, a pack of playing cards was integrated into a whole system of modern occult theory.

So, Talisman by Hancock and Bauval is a typical example of a "constructed tradition" ('invented history') the above simple can't be true.

Or to give another example it is not only because the Innunadation did not coincide with the helical rising of Sirius, the Nile flood comes with variables, also "Hermes Trismegistus" -as "the revered patron Freemasonry" is not true. Masonry according to its own 1723 statutes had noting to do with "Hermes Trismegistus" or/and Egypt.

Most historians today agree that the myth of an Egyptian star cult, or/and "initiations" in the grand Pyramid,started with the "Egyptian" initiation novel by a Catholic Priest named Jean Terrasson. His novel was published anonymously in 1731, after which it was widely reprinted and translated. As a young man of sixteen, the hero of the novel is initiated into the Isis mysteries inside the Great Pyramid of Giza; midway, he passes through all four elements (Hancock/Bauval instead claim four shafts), which are elaborately staged inside the pyramid. This trial by the elements renders Sethos worthy of participating in the "mysteries" of the great goddess Isis.

In contrast the first Masonic Grand Lodge (founded 1717) in 1723 clearly stated that Freemasonry started with King Athelstan in ninth-century York, period, and Knights Templar, Egyptian priests, the Druids and so on, where later inventions which seem to be ongoing.

It is well known also that initially there were only two degrees in Freemasonry, and it is only in the later added 3e degree, that Hiram Abif is mentioned, leading later to presumptions about the "temple of Salomon" whereas the Freemasonry of 1723 only spoke about the tower of Babel indicating an initial interest by Masons for some sort of philology(http://www.epwijnants-lectures.com).

Devoid of any documentary evidence, the medieval-builder theory particularly started to take hold. At the time Freemasons revealed themselves in London in 1717 however, there was no documentary record of Masonic symbols: The square and compasses do not appear in Masonic writings until a generation later. The use of masons' tools to teach moral lessons appears to be also a later addition, if one requires written evidence for proof of existence. If that's true, then the day came when the theory that had produced the symbols was said to be proven by the symbols it had created.

Some asserted that the fraternity had been born in the ancient British Druid religion. Others claimed origins in the steinmetzen (stonemasons) of Germany, the Roman Collegia, and the Compagnage. Some even held out for the Culdees, an ancient order of monks which existed in Ireland and Scotland in the eighth century. The order did not find favor with the Church and died out during the tenth century, before the era of Gothic architecture. (John Robinson "A Pilgrim's Path, p.115)

But if numerology as a prime method of research in Talisman is somewhat questionable, Talisman incorporates as fact a number of other unhistorical myths as long they are convenient. For example Marconis de Negre (member of a small fringe Masonic group called Rite of Mizraim in Paris) to justify starting his own group called "Rite of Memphis", claimed to be initiate of a Masonic Lodge called "Isis" as founded by the famous Napoleonic General Kleberon the orders and instructions" of "unknown superiors".

Others of course said that this was just a ruse of Marconis to be able to sell diplomas for not just six degrees as constituting Cagliostro's rite, but via "Kleber" now were suddenly ninety-six (96) degrees that needed to be paid for.

The most typical trait of Talisman is its combination of eclecticism and pattern recognition. Creating an emic historiography or mythic history, the transformation of fiction into alleged fact. This includes the reworking of existing traditions, like in this case Cathars, Knights Templar, and Freemasonry. The emic sense, i.e. as perceived by writers of the occult, however is a constructed tradition. It often diverges greatly from ethic historiography, sometimes to the point of incorporating elements from fictional literary devices.

Hancock/Bauval's Talisman implies a world based on intentionality, from which accident and coincidence have been removed. Anything that happens occurs because it has been willed. Thus indicating Albert Pike was aspirator for the US Pentagon, Al Qaeda is suggested to see the USA as a "Masonic power" who's occupying force is Israel.

To fit their agenda however , Hancock/Bauval in Talisman pick and choose only very isolated symbols and often, as in case of the Pentagon, Albert Pike's Rite, quote them entirely out of context.

On the one hand, doctrinal and ritual elements are taken from the most diverse sources. On the other, considerable effort is spent on showing that these seemingly disparate elements in fact point to the same underlying reality.

Two pages before the end of the book, they than ask the reader to "recall" the intense (untrue as it is) "Judaic" characteristics of the "Scottish Rite" proceeding in one and the same sentence with: " -the oppression of the Palestinian people and the political and military support that the superpower extends to the State of Israel. Could there have been more to Roosevelt's-and Truman's -involvement in the affair of the US Pentagon and the date of 11 September than at first meets the eye?" (Talisman, p. 478)

Note that the writers here jump from asking the reader to recall the "intense Judaic" Scottish Rite, next adding "the Superpower". Thus it is hard for the reader to miss the suggestion that "the Superpower" and "intense Judaic" are bonded together by Talisman.