I'm not one for conspiracy theories, I'm really not. Lights flying over Roswell, I don't think they were aliens. I don't think the US government has aliens sitting on ice in some freezer either, a' la Independence Day.(That's not to say I don't believe that aliens exist, just that if they do, I doubt they're interested in our sorry-ass planet.)

There were a million and one conspiracy theories that came about after 9/11, especially in this part of the world. Reports of dudes jumping out of the plane before it hit the towers (Like jumbo jets have ejection seats!)There was talk about how Israel was behind the attacks with Bushco approval... Whatever. I think that the events that happened that day are cheapened by conspiracy theorists who see demonic connections in everything from terrorist attacks to mass death by bad spinach.

However, that is not to say that I am not intensely curious about the hidden connections between events that appear to be mutually exclusive like the Knights Templar and the Ark of the Covenant/Holy Grail, or connections between biblical teachings and Bushs' foreign policy. These things I am an avid believer in, simply because they do not defy my God-given logic. They make sense. They may be a little difficult to comprehend, but no where near as difficult as comprehending a Bush/Israel backing of the 9/11 attacks.

Some people have called the authors of the book that I am currently re-reading conspiracy theorists. The book is Talisman. The authors, Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock. Now, I've been a fan of Graham Hancock for years and I've read everything he's written, as for Robert Bauval... the only work he's done that I've read is stuff he's done in conjunction with Hancock, namely Keeper of Genesis and Talisman.

As far as finding obscure connections between things, Graham Hancock takes the cake. In Keeper of Genesis (also known as Message of the Sphinx), which I have practically memorized, he draws connections between astrology, archeology, theology and practically every other -ology you can think of. It is a fascinating journey to figuring out when the Giza necropolis was really laid out and when the pyramids and Sphinx were actually built. It is a scintillating thesis and surprisingly easy to understand (regardless of the blank stares my colleagues at work gave me when I tried explaining it to them...)

Fingerprints of the Gods, another Hancock classic, is even more mind-boggling. It deals with absolutely anything and everything under the Mesoamerican sun. Nazca Plains, Machu Picchu, Viracocha, Olmec Heads, Chariots in the sky... I mean absolutely everything. I consider this book to be the bible of investigative journalism. The parallels he draws are seamless, the transition betweens thoughts is flawless, and his writing style is fluid and easy to understand.

Talisman, on the other hand, is a wildly gyrating piece of journalistic theater that takes you on more conspiring twists and turns than an Oliver Stone-on-crack flick would. He makes connections between Catharism, Giordano Bruno, Masonic Bibles, solar cities, Rosicrucians, French presidents, urban planning and the (apparently) low libido of Louis XIII. It is a fascinating book, to be sure, if a little hard to follow at times. Well worth the effort if you're into weird connections... This is my fourth time attacking the book and its making more and more sense each time around. Now, that may or may not be the kind of effort you want to put into a book, but I tend to keep at things till I understand them backwards and forwards so I'm not put off by it.

My point here (if I can even say that I have one..) is that reality tends to be much more interesting than fiction, there are things in this world that defy explanation, things that the mind reels at. These things, in my opinion, are worthier of our attention than, say, UFO's and little green men.

I've always found it fascinating that man tends to look into space, pushing frontiers out there, when there are so many unexplained things rooted right here on earth.


"All things on earth... are unreal; but some of them - not all, but some few only - are copies of reality... When the appearance flows in from above, it becomes an imitation of reality. But apart from the working of power from above, it remains an illusion; just as a painted portrait presents to us in appearance the body of the man we see in it, but is not in itself a human body."

- Discourses of Hermes to Tat

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