The Immortality Key: Uncovering the Secret History of the Religion with No Name
Brian C. Muraresku - 2020
In the tradition of unsolved historical mysteries like David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon and Douglas Preston's The Lost City of the Monkey God, Brian Muraresku’s 10-year investigation takes the reader through Greece, Germany, Spain, France and Italy, offering unprecedented access to the hidden archives of the Louvre and the Vatican along the way.In The Immortality Key, Muraresku explores a little-known connection between the best-kept secret in Ancient Greece and Christianity. This is the real story of the most famous human being who ever lived (Jesus) and the biggest religion the world has ever known. Today, 2.4 billion people are Christian. That's one third of the planet. But do any of them really know how it all started?Before Jerusalem, before Rome, before Mecca—there was Eleusis: the spiritual capital of the ancient world. It promised immortality to Plato and the rest of Athens's greatest minds with a very simple formula: drink this potion, see God. Shrouded in secrecy for millennia, the Ancient Greek sacrament was buried when the newly Christianized Roman Empire obliterated Eleusis in the fourth century AD.Renegade scholars in the 1970s claimed the Greek potion was psychedelic, just like the original Christian Eucharist that replaced it. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The rapidly growing field of archaeological chemistry has proven the ancient use of visionary drugs. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psycho-pharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. No one has ever found hard, scientific evidence of drugs connected to Eleusis, let alone early Christianity. Until now.Armed with key documents never before translated into English, convincing analysis, and a captivating spirit of quest, Muraresku mines science, classical literature, biblical scholarship and art to deliver the hidden key to eternal life, bringing us to what clinical psychologist William Richards calls "the edge of an awesomely vast frontier."Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the New York Times bestselling author of America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization.
Top Secret/Majic: Operation Majestic-12 & the United States Government's UFO Cover-up
Stanton T. Friedman - 1996
Friedman's twenty-one year search for the truth about the mysterious Operation Majestic 12, President Truman's top-secret UFO investigation team. In this updated edition of his landmark book, he tells the incredible tale of the July, 1947 recovery of a crashed flying saucer near Roswell, New Mexico, and the establishment by President Truman of a truly all-star cast to deal with the saucer and its non-human inhabitants. The first four Directors of Central Intelligence, the first Secretary of Defense, and several outstanding scientists and military leaders were part of the team. Through painstaking research and startling evidence—including documents that have never before been published—Friedman effectively exposes the U.S. government's biggest-kept secret: a fifty-eight year UFO cover-up.
Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah
Colm A. Kelleher - 2005
Vanishing and mutilated cattle. Unidentified Flying Objects. The appearance of huge, otherworldly creatures. Invisible objects emitting magnetic fields with the power to spark a cattle stampede. Flying orbs of light with dazzling maneuverability and lethal consequences. For one family, life on the Skinwalker Ranch had become a life under siege by an unknown enemy or enemies. Nothing else could explain the horrors that surrounded them -- perhaps science could. Leading a first-class team of research scientists on a disturbing odyssey into the unknown, Colm Kelleher spent hundreds of days and nights on the Skinwalker property and experienced firsthand many of its haunting mysteries. With investigative reporter George Knapp -- the only journalist allowed to witness and document the team's work -- Kelleher chronicles in superb detail the spectacular happenings the team observed personally, and the theories of modern physics behind the phenomena. Far from the coldly detached findings one might expect, their conclusions are utterly hair-raising in their implications. Opening a door to the unseen world around us, Hunt for the Skinwalker is a clarion call to expand our vision far beyond what we know.
Night Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings the Hudson Valley UFO Sightings
J. Allen Hynek - 1987
Now you can discover the truth that will rip open the entire UFO phenomenon, when you read "Night Siege" by Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Philip J. Imbrogno, and Bob Pratt. The late Dr. Hynek was a famous astrologer who was a consultant to the Air Force's "Project Blue Book" UFO investigation and later had a cameo in the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." He began the research that was continued by science educator Imbrogno and journalist Pratt. What they uncovered was that thousands of people have been seeing strange objects in the sky--and sometimes even contacting strange beings--in the Hudson Valley just north of New York City. -Seven thousand reported sightings -Witnesses from all walks of life -Reports from strangers corroborate what others saw -A huge object that hovers and floats through the sky almost silently -Encounters with entities who looked like they had gray skin . . . or were reptilian -Physical evidence that something strange took place The first edition of "Night Siege" is widely known as a classic in the UFO field for its in-depth reporting. It has now been updated to cover the latest sightings and close encounters. The book features sixteen photos, including one of a UFO taken by a law enforcement official. To this day, the military, the media, and scientists have remained silent about the Hudson Valley phenomenon. If you want to find out the amazing secrets of UFOs just minutes from New York City, you must get "Night Siege.
The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
Jeff Sharlet - 2007
They consider themselves the new chosen—congressmen, generals, and foreign dictators who meet in confidential cells, to pray and plan for a "leadership led by God," to be won not by force but through "quiet diplomacy." Their base is a leafy estate overlooking the Potomac in Arlington, Virginia, and Jeff Sharlet is the only journalist to have reported from inside its walls.The Family is about the other half of American fundamentalist power—not its angry masses, but its sophisticated elites. Sharlet follows the story back to Abraham Vereide, an immigrant preacher who in 1935 organized a small group of businessmen sympathetic to European fascism, fusing the far right with his own polite but authoritarian faith. From that core, Vereide built an international network of fundamentalists who spoke the language of establishment power, a "family" that thrives to this day. In public, they host Prayer Breakfasts; in private, they preach a gospel of "biblical capitalism," military might, and American empire. Citing Hitler, Lenin, and Mao as leadership models, the Family's current leader, Doug Coe, declares, "We work with power where we can, build new power where we can't."Sharlet's discoveries dramatically challenge conventional wisdom about American fundamentalism, revealing its crucial role in the unraveling of the New Deal, the waging of the cold war, and the no-holds-barred economics of globalization. The question Sharlet believes we must ask is not "What do fundamentalists want?" but "What have they already done?"Part history, part investigative journalism, The Family is a compelling account of how fundamentalism came to be interwoven with American power, a story that stretches from the religious revivals that have shaken this nation from its beginning to fundamentalism's new frontiers. No other book about the right has exposed the Family or revealed its far-reaching impact on democracy, and no future reckoning of American fundamentalism will be able to ignore it.
One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America
Kevin M. Kruse - 2015
But in One Nation Under God, historian Kevin M. Kruse reveals that the belief that America is fundamentally and formally Christian originated in the 1930s.To fight the “slavery” of FDR’s New Deal, businessmen enlisted religious activists in a campaign for “freedom under God” that culminated in the election of their ally Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. The new president revolutionized the role of religion in American politics. He inaugurated new traditions like the National Prayer Breakfast, as Congress added the phrase “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance and made “In God We Trust” the country’s first official motto. Church membership soon soared to an all-time high of 69 percent. Americans across the religious and political spectrum agreed that their country was “one nation under God.”Provocative and authoritative, One Nation Under God reveals how an unholy alliance of money, religion, and politics created a false origin story that continues to define and divide American politics to this day.
UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities
John B. Alexander - 2011
Vallee
Introduction by Burt Rutan
Commentary by Tom Clancy
A never-before-heard firsthand account of a government insider’s experience on the cutting edge of UFO exploration; includes a new afterword
“Forget everything you think you know about UFOs - this insider's account exposes the reality... Packed with top grade information, insightful analysis and fascinating anecdotes, Alexander's interesting and controversial book sets the gold standard for titles on this subject.†–Nick Pope, author of Open Skies, Closed Minds
“Changes the playing field for both true believers and skeptics alike. Alexander strongly warns, be careful what you wish for when asking for presidential intervention. Success could set the field of ufology back decades.†--George Noory, host of Coast to Coast AM
While still on active duty in the U.S. Army during the 1980s, Colonel John B. Alexander, Ph.D. created an interagency group to explore the controversial topic of UFOs. All members held Top Secret clearance. What they discovered was not at all what was expected. UFOs covers the numerous cases they saw, and answers questions like:
• What was really in Hanger 18?
• Did a UFO land at Holloman Air Force Base?
• What happened at Roswell?
• What is Majestic 12?
• What is the Aviary?
• What does the government know about UFOs?
• What has happened with disclosure in other countries?
• Has the U.S. reverse engineered a UFO?
• Why don’t presidents get access to UFO info?
UFOs is at once a complete account of Alexander’s findings, and a call to action. There are no conspiracy theories here—only hard facts—but they are merely the beginning.
Aliens Among Us
Ruth Montgomery - 1985
In these pages, you will learn: The secrets of real men and women (including a U.S. president) who have encountered aliens; the secrets of the psychic power centers both on the earth--and beyond it; the secrets about UFO phenomena our government has covered up for decades; and more.
Earth: An Alien Enterprise: The Shocking Truth Behind the Greatest Cover-up in Human History
Timothy Good - 2013
For the first time, a former member of MI6 reveals her conversation with Neil Armstrong at a NASA conference, when he confirmed that there were other spacecraft on the Moon when Apollo 11 landed in 1969. Armstrong also confirmed that the CIA was behind the cover-up. In a further admission in 12/2012, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev revealed that the president of Russia is given a special top secret folder that in its entirety contains information about aliens who have visited our planet. Along with this, the president is given a report of the Special Service that exercises control over aliens in our country. "I will not tell you how many of them are among us because it may cause panic."
The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim: The Untold Story of Fallen Angels, Giants on the Earth, and Their Extraterrestrial Origins
Scott Alan Roberts - 2012
Such tales are as old as humanity itself. These histories and accounts of visitations and subsequent mixed-blood, alien-human races comprise the bulk of the world's myths, legends, religions, and superstitions. The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim examines: Elohim and the Bene Ha Elohim--God and the Sons of GodThe Watchers: UFOs, extraterrestrials, angels, infiltrators, and impregnatorsBiblical and apocryphal sources from Enoch to MosesThe role of the Fae, Elves, Elementals, and ancient gods What if the old spiritualities and religions weren't just legends? What if there was something living and breathing beneath the surface, a tangible interlinking of religious thought and spirituality, science and myth, inter-dimensionality and cold, hard fact? The Nephilim walked among us... and still do today.
Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality
Paul Barber - 1988
From the tale of a sixteenth-century shoemaker from Breslau whose ghost terrorized everyone in the city, to the testimony of a doctor who presided over the exhumation and dissection of a graveyard full of Serbian vampires, his book is fascinating reading.
Sight Unseen: Science, UFO Invisibility & Transgenic Beings
Budd Hopkins - 2003
In Sight Unseen, Budd Hopkins and coauthor Carol Rainey show how fascinating discoveries in modern science support the plausibility of the UFO phenomenon. Featuring sixteen never-before-published cases, Sight Unseen probes two newly uncovered patterns in alien abduction: cases of UFO "invisibility" and reports of genetically altered alien beings who interact with humans during their routine lives. The "invisibility" accounts detailed by Hopkins include numerous daylight abductions in densely populated urban areas -- all apparently unseen and accomplished through a technology of invisibility.
Two air force non-coms are snatched from the tarmac of a busy military airfield.
An Australian family is levitated up into a hovering craft while the father remains paralyzed on the ground with a camera to his eye. The resulting evidence on film is discussed in terms of our own scientific advances. In the second series of cases, abductees report encounters with beings who appear human but apparently possess paranormal powers and stunted emotional ranges.
Three young women, unknown to each other, are mysteriously summoned to "job interviews." In ordinary office settings, they encounter human-looking beings who lead them into baffling UFO abduction experiences.
A Wisconsin farmer meets "Damoe," a man with odd behavior who closely resembles his son. Damoe eventually reveals himself as an accomplice of UFO occupants in a startling abduction of the farmer and his wife. Five-year-old Jen is abducted at night to a nearby playground. There she must teach the techniques and skills of "play" to twelve seemingly identical, quasi-human children. Along with these bizarre, first-person stories told by credible people, Hopkins and Rainey explore cutting-edge advances in our own technologies and scientific theories that show how these new UFO patterns could have a concrete basis in contemporary science. Included are an examination of cloaking devices for aircraft, mind-control technologies, and teleportation achieved in the lab. Perhaps the most compelling argument to support these cases lies in the startling and controversial new science of transgenics that actually allows for the creation of alien/human beings.
American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
Colin Woodard - 2011
North America was settled by people with distinct religious, political, and ethnographic characteristics, creating regional cultures that have been at odds with one another ever since. Subsequent immigrants didn't confront or assimilate into an "American" or "Canadian" culture, but rather into one of the eleven distinct regional ones that spread over the continent each staking out mutually exclusive territory.In American Nations, Colin Woodard leads us on a journey through the history of our fractured continent, and the rivalries and alliances between its component nations, which conform to neither state nor international boundaries. He illustrates and explains why "American" values vary sharply from one region to another. Woodard reveals how intranational differences have played a pivotal role at every point in the continent's history, from the American Revolution and the Civil War to the tumultuous sixties and the "blue county/red county" maps of recent presidential elections. American Nations is a revolutionary and revelatory take on America's myriad identities and how the conflicts between them have shaped our past and are molding our future.
Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy
Barbara Ehrenreich - 2006
Here, she explores the opposite impulse, one that has been so effectively suppressed that we lack even a term for it: the desire for collective joy, historically expressed in ecstatic revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing.Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture. Although sixteenth-century Europeans viewed mass festivities as foreign and "savage," Ehrenreich shows that they were indigenous to the West, from the ancient Greeks' worship of Dionysus to the medieval practice of Christianity as a "danced religion." Ultimately, church officials drove the festivities into the streets, the prelude to widespread reformation: Protestants criminalized carnival, Wahhabist Muslims battled ecstatic Sufism, European colonizers wiped out native dance rites. The elites' fear that such gatherings would undermine social hierarchies was justified: the festive tradition inspired French revolutionary crowds and uprisings from the Caribbean to the American plains. Yet outbreaks of group revelry persist, as Ehrenreich shows, pointing to the 1960s rock-and-roll rebellion and the more recent "carnivalization" of sports. Original, exhilarating, and deeply optimistic, "Dancing in the Streets" concludes that we are innately social beings, impelled to share our joy and therefore able to envision, even create, a more peaceable future.