Adam Parfrey is one of the nations most provocative publishers.mdash;Seattle Weekly "Secret society historian Craig Heimbichner follows the Middle Path to wisdom. He works the graveyard shift in the secret lodge."mdash;Joan dArc; Paranoia magazine Secret societiesmdash;now a staple of bestseller novelsmdash;are pictured as sinister cults that use hooded albinos to menace truth-seekers. Some conspiracy books claim that fraternal orders are the work of serpentine aliens and interbred humans who wish to supplant earth of its energy; and later; its very existence. On the other side of the aisle; books by high-ranked Freemasonsmdash;skeptical in tone but no less partisan in approachmdash;protect their organizations public image by denying the existence of its most contentious ideas. Ritual America reveals the biggest secret of them all: that the influence of fraternal brotherhoods on this country is vast; fundamental; and hidden in plain view. In the early twentieth century; as many as one-third of America belonged to a secret society. And though fezzes and tiny car parades are almost a thing of the past; the Gnostic beliefs of Masonic orders are now so much a part of the American mind that the surrounding pomp and circumstance has become faintly unnecessary. The authors of Ritual America contextualize hundreds of rare and many never-before printed images with entertaining and far-reaching commentary; making an esoteric subject provocative; exciting; and approachable. Adam Parfrey is the author of Cult Rapture: Revelations of the Apocalyptic Mind and Its a Mans World: Mens Adventure Magazines; the Postwar Pulps. He is editor of the influential Apocalypse Culture series Love; Sex; Fear Death: The Inside Story of the Process Church of the Final Judgment. Craig Heimbichner has recently appeared on a National Geographic documentary about the Bohemian Grove; contributed to the Feral House compilation Secret and Suppressed II; and wrote about the famous occult order the O.T.O. in Blood and Altar.
#4451249 in eBooks 2011-11-04 2011-11-04File Name: B007O986DS
Review
