[.ca] The Secret History of the World: As Laid Down by the ... (ISBN 1590200314)

A Distraction:
I have managed to read this book (published in 2008) because I was curious about its content. But, then after reading it, I just had to ask myself why this book even bothers being published at all. Overall from reading this book, there was rather a sense of disdainful and opinionated tone from the author. I cannot help but agree with some of the reviewers here that this book is just utter nonsense. Throughout this book, there is rarely any citation at all and very few quotations (mostly from the "Book of Enoch" and the Bible). The book's "notes/bibliography" section is only five pages (p. 409-413), and they are in VERY small font. So, with a use of my magnifying glass, I have counted a roughly between 300 and 350 sources. First part of this section was the author's "opinionated" notes about the sources and the rest is the list of books (using just the title of the book and author's name; no other citations of the same). Some of the books listed were all the works of Rudolf Steiner, Robert Bauval, Graham Hancock, and Robert Temple. And, only one mention of Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous" and Gurdjieff's "All and Everything" series. Also, as I was going through the book, there were a few minor mentions of alchemist Fulcanelli and esoteric Gurdjieff here and there. Then, my eyes caught on this one and only paragraph about Gurdjieff himself: "Anyone with supernatural power is bound to suffer temptation. Perhaps the most charismatic and disconcerting initiate of the twentieth century was G.I. Gurdjieff. He deliberately presented his ideas in an absurd way. He wrote of an organ at the base of the spine that could enable everyone to see everything upside down and inside out, calling it the 'Kunderbuffer.' In this way he deliberately gave the power of the kundalini serpent, the reserve of unredeemed energy that lies coiled at the base of the spine, and which is central to Tantric practice, a laughable name. Similarly he wrote of gods in giant spaceships and that the surface of the sun is cool. Anyone who dismissed it showed himself unworthy. Anyone who persisted and was able to tune in found that Gurdjieff's spiritual disciplines worked. Since his death it has emerged that he sometimes used his undoubted powers of mind control to prey on vulnerable young women." (p. 358) The author's tone from above quote almost filled the entire book. And, he did not cite his source or where he gets the idea about Gurdjieff using his so-called "powers" to prey on young women. This is actually first time that I have read something about this regarding Gurdjieff himself. I have studied Gurdjieff's works and read biographies of him, and no where did it mentioned of Gurdjieff preying on "vulnerable young women." What source did the author inferred on this? He claimed to have studied the esoteric subjects, but this book is full of contradictions and of his own interpretations and beliefs. If you are a student of esoteric traditions, this book brought up very familiar topics (most of them are mixed truth with lies). However, there is nothing "secret" that came from this book. What was really suspicious about this book is the name of the author. This book has the name of "Mark Booth" for US, but "Jonathan Black" for UK. Pseudonym or not, it raised a red flag, one of so many. Besides his clearly lack of complete research, author's writing style and organization lacks attention and clarity in such a way that I had trouble staying awake while reading it. Since this book is clearly nonsense, I cannot help but wonder if this book has an agenda: to distract the readers from reading Knight-Jadczyk's "The Secret History of the World," which was published in 2005. In short, this book is a distraction.