Amazon.com
Welcome to Mystic, Georgia. This going-nowhere town hosts the annual Rattlesnake Roundup, which attracts thousands of visitors for a rough 'n' rowdy weekend of your basic primate behavior--hard drinking, ogling bikini-clad contestants in the Miss Mystic Rattle beauty contest, betting on dog fights, snake catching, and snake eating. Meet Joe Lon Mackey. He lives in a trailer in Mystic with his lumpy, devoted wife and two hollerin' young'uns. His days of glory as the Boss Snake of the Mystic Rattlers football team are over, and he didn't have the grades to go to college. He's just now realizing that his dreary business selling beer, bonded whiskey, and moonshine is all he's gonna get in the way of a destiny.
As the crowds for the Roundup start to overfill the camping area, Joe Lon feels on the inside like a barrel of snakes: "a writhing of the darkness, an incessant boiling of something thick and slow-moving." As he and his good ol' buddy get ready to wander around and check out the scene, Joe Lon says, "Just a bunch of crazy people cranking up to git crazier. But that's all right. Feel on the edge of doing something outstanding myself."
A Feast of Snakes is probably the most skillfully crafted and entertaining novel ever written in which a fed up person goes violently berserk. But Harry Crews belongs to the tradition of great Southern weird writers such as Flannery O'Connor, so A Feast of Snakes is richer than that: Crews serves up the reality of people's savage and unrelenting cruelty toward animals and toward each other, stark truths about human despair, male-female face-offs at their sexiest and most ruthless, and (here's his real genius) humor so powerful you can't help but laugh--even though it hurts when you do.
A Feast of Snakes, first published in 1976, is a dazzling and flawless horror novel. --Fiona Webster
Customer Reviews:
i read.......2006-04-19
this book in one sitting easting chunky chicken and listening to art farmer.
Took me HOME............2005-12-04
This novelist came into my world via Larry Brown..I stumbled upon LB by way of Goodwill actually..as LBs self-proclaimed "mentor"...and by all means a fantastic one..If you are southern and have nor read both of these writers, I believe you are missing 2 modern-day giants...Harry Crews, In Feast of Snakes, took me back to the wiregrass area of my childhood and adolescense..two great writers of 'Faulkneresk' familiarness, y
et possessing their own creative styles..enrichment abounds!! will undoubtedly be inclined to purchase all of his works..at least I was and thankful to have read them..
A feast of interest.......2005-11-22
The part of this book that will keep you interested are the charactors. The charactors in this book are interesting and down to earth unlike many books. The charactors can be portrayed as southern trailer trash in many ways such as the fact that there is no real honorable charactor in this book. There is a man who owns a liquer store, a man who trains fighting dogs, and a couple of people I portray as crazy in between. When looking for a good novel with a darker theme this is it, if you are looking for one with an amazing ending and you don't really care about the good or bad aspect of the book, this is definantly your book. If you are like me and have an inner drive for the good of man, this book may be painful to read. Overall I found this book very interesting and put together well but it was not for me.
Crews rocks........2005-09-18
If you like Southern Gothic, you will love this book, which is successfully horrifying, funny, energizing, and moving, not to mention brilliantly written. It's about violent drunk losers whose best days were in high school. It's a bit slim, and it was written in the 1970s, which I didn't realize till I was about 2/3 through. Also, if you're reading this to read about New Orleans because of the flood (and because "The Knockout Artist," which is also awesome, takes place there), you should know this book actually takes place in Texas. I picked it up for the N.O. connection but was not disappointed. Great book by a great writer.
Rises to the Mythical.......2005-06-10
Combing components of Faulkner (southern despair and alcoholism) and Dante's Inferno (a demonic obsession with snakes), Crews has taken a common premise and raised it to the mythical. The premise, a twenty-something Joe Lon Mackey is stuck in a trailer home with a woman he loathes and several hungry children while he escapes with recent memories of his glory football days, drinking moonshine, and helping the town with its annual snake festival. Vipers are a prominent image in this novel, which is, among other things, a refutation of unchecked masculinity. The men in this novel thrive on violence and primal expressions of masculinity to fill their void. It is this need to fill the void with a demonic energy that informs the novel's viper metaphor.
The plot is easy to follow enough. We watch Joe Lon Mackey and others go down a descent of debauchery as they seethe with rage and resentment, partly because they sense there is a better life out there and partly because they have no real vision of what that better life could be.
With a parallel to The Great Gatsby, we see Joe Lon Mackey long for his high school sweetheart, Berenice, a stuckup cipher who thinks she's superior to all the locals after she leaves to town to go to an elitist college in the north east. Her world becomes the chimera in the way that Daisey's became a chimera or a mirage to Gatsby.
For all its nihilitic despair and Dantean violence, there is enough humor in this novel to keep it bouyant. It is also a short, terse 175 pages, crammed with themes about the chimera, the lost American Dream, male violence, tribalistic bonding rituals, racism, and the need for some kind of "religion," even a venomous one, in order to fill the abyss.
Amazon.com
"Women are like golf courses," writes sex educator Lou Paget. "Even though you may have played a course a hundred times, chances are your approach shot rarely lands in the same place on the green." How to Give Her Absolute Pleasure was written for men who want to please women. Much of the book focuses on foreplay (Paget comments that we need to rename it) designed to "excite both her mind and her body." The author offers a variety of strategies for romancing and relaxing a woman and making her feel comfortable. If you don't, she claims, "nothing you can do can rev her engine". Then she describes ways of "kissing her, touching her, and teasing her." Paget includes "a topographical guide" of a woman's body, starting with the sensual areas of the head and face and moving down. She describes ways to massage, caress, lick, kiss, and otherwise excite all these regions. She also discusses lubricants ("slippery, slidy, marvelous stuff"), condoms, manual stimulation, "the art of tongue," sex toys, and a variety of positions (clearly illustrated) for everything you might do. The book is in no way formulaic--in fact, Paget continually stresses that some women love having a particular body part touched in a certain way, while others can't stand it. Whether you're a novice or consider yourself sexually sophisticated, you'll learn plenty from Paget. --Joan Price
Book Description
What, and where, is the G-spot? Where do women like to be touched, and how? For every man who's hungry to please the woman he adores, a refreshingly modern, tastefully explicit, and totally honest guide to giving your woman absolute pleasure.
Millions of men out there are looking for the real scoop on what women like, and want to learn how to really "rub them the right way," but are either afraid to ask or don't know where to look. And millions of women are looking for ways to tell men what really turns them on, but don't know how to put their desires into words.
Well, search no further!
How to Give Her Absolute Pleasure will take you to another level as a lover, providing you with the proven techniques and explicit advice that have made author Lou Paget one of the world's most respected and sought-after sexuality experts.
Based on the secrets shared by hundreds of men and women in Lou's enormously popular Sexuality Seminars,
How to Give Her Absolute Pleasure gives the true scoop on what women really like, and why, along with detailed surefire techniques guaranteed to drive any girl wild. Packed with little-known details and steamy tips and tricks--from the nooks and crannies of a woman's body to the fine "art of tongue"--
How to Give Her Absolute Pleasure removes the mystery from woman's sexuality and shows you how to enhance your bedroom expertise. With tips on creating the ideal romantic atmosphere, finding her elusive erogenous zones (there are more than you'd think), and mastering the delicate art of foreplay, Lou provides the down-and-dirty details on the ins and outs of amazing oral and manual sex, innovative intercourse positions, and most important, how to capture the big O.
Complete with over seventy step-by-step illustrations, as well as a catalog of sex toys and tips on how to use them,
How to Give Her Absolute Pleasure is a refreshingly straightforward, always stimulating guide that will take you and your partner to new levels of ecstasy and intimacy.
Customer Reviews:
For Real Men in Real Relationships!.......2007-05-10
This book is great for guys that truely want to learn how to give their soul mates "absolute pleasure"!
My husband is a conservative Christian man! (So, I'm writing this for him) We both kept our virtue until our wedding night... NOW WHAT DO WE DO? We knew the mechanics our mom/dad and sex ed. teachers taught us... but we quickly learned there must be more to it than that! Needless to say, my husband was embarrassed he wasn't a natual guru in this area. Since, neither of us felt comfortable sharing our confusion with family or friends, we went to the section of the book store we always avoided. We went hesitantly and with one eye closed. We wanted to find something informative, without being too ronchy. I wanted a book that I wouldn't mind leaving my husband alone with either, lol.
I love how Lou writes: informative and straight to the point. I love the experiences she shares (her own and those of her seminar students).
This book is great for guys that truely want to learn how to give their soul mates "absolute pleasure"!
Give This Book to Those You Love.......2007-03-20
Even if you mail it in a brown wrapper...without a name...they will be forever grateful...
We have given it as a wedding gift countless times, as well as to public libraries . . . it is truly a gift that keeps on giving.
Filled with good info........2006-08-27
I bought this book hoping to learn some techniques to rekindle the bedroom expereince. I have to say it has proven very fruitfull. The information here is very simple to understand and very simple to put into practice.
Matt
Wow!.......2006-03-17
That's all my girl friend had to say when I began using some of what I have learned from this wonderful book.
Good advice!.......2005-09-20
A lot of it was self-explanitory for anyone with much sexual experiance, especially if your spouse is very open, as mine is, but there were things in here that both me and my wife got really exited about and are now part of our common repretoir
Average customer rating:
- Ugh....
- didn't cure warts as promised
- No substance
- A Leisure Temptation.
- One of the worse books I've ever had the missfortune to read
|
Absolute Pleasure
Cheryl Holt
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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ASIN: 0312984596 |
Book Description
She Was A Complete Innocent....The lonely, never-married Lady Elizabeth Harcourt desperately longs for a distraction. She finds one when a chance encounter leads her to the lush studios of artist Gabriel Cristofore. Gabriel insists upon painting Elizabeth's portrait, vowing to do justice to her ravishing figure. But Elizabeth soon realizes that Gabriel's plans for her have little to do with painting-for his true passion in life is the art of seduction....Until He Showed Her The Most Irresistible Passion The first moment Gabriel sets eyes on Elizabeth, he can see she's not his usual mark. Her lush auburn locks, luscious skin, and ruby lips offer just a hint of the pleasure they promise. Despite his desire, he is torn between seducing her instantly and taking his time so that he can explore every aspect of her. But Gabriel is about to discover that some affairs cannot be so easily abandoned-especially when the heart of a rogue has been captured. . .
Customer Reviews:
Ugh...........2007-09-14
I have a weakness for reissued books only costing 4.99. I bought all of Cheryl Holt's book at one time and hoped beyond hope that i wouldn't feel let down. Well, I was let down on all of her books with the exception of "The way of the Heart". Excellent book!
What happened? Why can't all her books be that exceptional? I like a romping good time while reading and not really a stickler for little mistakes but this book was just too much.
First of all, Elizabeth like many of Ms. Holt's heroines are the most stupidest, naive and downright unbelievable characters I have ever read. I don't care how "sheltered" they are not knowing what a man's privates are is just stupid. Did her father keep her in a bubble? I mean to hear her ask "What's that?" and Gabriel answering had me rolling me eyes. Insulting my intelligence does not endear me to a book.
Secondly, I know i've written this in my other reviews of her books but what is it about repeating the same lines. "Bigger than most" COME ON! Obviously not...considering her other male leads are as well. Couldn't the author come up with another line?
It's really sad when the secondary romance overshadows the primary. I basically skipped through Gabriel and Elizabeth's mess and went right to John and Mary's.
I think I'll stick to Ms. Holt's earlier works and leave these alone. Please borrow or find it in a library but DO NOT buy this book. It is a waste of time and money.
didn't cure warts as promised.......2004-07-20
I thought reading this book would cure warts. I read it 7 times in the first month. I thought the warts were shrinking, but it turned out I just needed glasses.
What is wrong with me? Why am I afflicted with being "wart-face"??
No substance.......2004-06-28
I couldn't wait to finish this book - just so I could put it away. The characters had no substance, just physical attraction to each other. Even that seemed forced for the sake of having something to write about. The plot was too contrived, with appearances by outside characters thrown in an effort to move things along.
I didn't understand why these characters got together or why I should care about them. I just didn't see the point of Ms Holt writing this book.
I have not read anything else by Cheryl Holt, so I don't have other experiences to compare it with. I'm sure there are better books on the market.
A Leisure Temptation........2004-02-09
This is no "slam, bang, see you ma'am" project. This is seduction. The promise of pleasure is slow going, and the incentive to read is intense.
Lady Elizabeth Harcourt is a twenty-seven-year-old spinster, who has lived a ho-hum sedate lifestyle. As time slips away, Elizabeth's days are consumed with managing her papa's life. Suddenly things change, her father, the Earl of Norwich, marries an infantile, imprudent young lady. The grand old earl must sire a male child -- an heir to his title.
Handsome, Gabriel Cristofore is an extraordinary artist. He is also a con man. His confidence game -- he seduces lonely, wealthy women. Lady Elizabeth Harcourt just happens to be his next mark.
I liked Elizabeth Harcourt. She sprang from the pages as intelligent and wise. Even though she has lived a sheltered life, she seems to know the score; yet, is willing to take a chance to add a little spice to her life. However, Gabriel Cristofore is an enigma. He was a philanderer, a cad, and after his liaison with Elizabeth did he truly reform? When I finished the last page, I wasn't sure Elizabeth made the wise choice.
Also Elizabeth's father is a riddle, his character is bewildering. He seems kind and concerned with his daughter, when he ends her sexual affair; but he is so cruel to his child bride, Charlotte. If the author wanted us to truly despise this girl, she should have expanded further into the girl's persona. Charlotte's eavesdropping at an upstairs stovepipe might be immature, but it is not revolting.
Still Holt's art of seduction is wonderful and I read this book with great gusto.
Grace Atkinson, Ontario - Canada.
One of the worse books I've ever had the missfortune to read.......2003-12-26
I think this definitely does it for me. After this I won't be buying any more of Holt's books.
The "hero" was an insensitive, cruel, callous bastard, and as if this is not enough, a pimp. He seduces rich woman to swindle money out of them. Sorry, but after reading so many novels, that feature such wonderful heroes, I can't respect or like this one.
The heroine I think I could have liked, in a different book. In this one, all I could feel for her was pity.
Cheryl Holt has a very dislikable tendency to create male characters that behave in a completely and utterly dispicable way, but in the end, it is always the woman who comes back to him and seeks a reconciliation.
If you like books where the female characters are week and abused, and where women are treated like garbage, read this one.
Average customer rating:
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Absolute Pleasure
Manufacturer: St. Martin's press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0739431080 |
Product Description
Historical Romance, Good Book!
Average customer rating:
- Long time in the desert!!
- Hard to believe that I did not get around to reading this before now.
- Theres a lot more to this trilogy then just mri, friendship...
- A true space-opera
- The Faded Sun Trilogy
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The Faded Sun Trilogy
C. J. Cherryh
Manufacturer: DAW
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Cherryh, C.J.
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Cherryh, C.J.
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ASIN: 0886778697 |
Book Description
They were the mri-tall, secretive, bound by honor and the rigid dictates of their society. For aeons this golden-skinned,golden-eyed race had provided the universe mercenary soldiers of almost unimaginable ability. But now the mri have faced an enemy unlike any other-an enemy whose only way of war is widespread destruction. These "humans" are mass fighters, creatures of the herb, and the mri have been slaughtered like animals.
Now, in the aftermath of war, the mri face extinction. It will be up to three individuals to save whatever remains of this devastated race: a warrior--one of the last survivors of his kind; a priestess of this honorable people; and a lone human--a man sworn to aid the enemy of his own kind. Can they retrace the galaxy-wide path of this nomadic race back through millennia to reclaim the ancient world which first gave them life?
"This is a powerful story...inspiring in its determination and feeling of strange loyalties and stranger courage. It sticks in the mind long after the last page is finished."-- Analog
Customer Reviews:
Long time in the desert!!.......2007-02-28
This was the first C.J. Cherryh book that I bought and read. I really had to work at it and persevere to keep moving forward. The main characters seem to spend A LOT of time going across barren landscapes and talking without a while lot of action. This was an okay trilogy, but I personally think this could have been 1 book or 2, but really did not need to be 3.
Hard to believe that I did not get around to reading this before now........2006-07-09
Don't make the mistake that I did-- Cherryh's classic trilogy about cultural isolation and risk is a set that should be read sooner rather than later.
As the human-regul war draws to a close, the question of what to do with the mri remains. They were the fanatical and deadly mercenaries used by the regul to attack the humans, and most people find them to be too dangerous to permit to flourish. However, when the mri face extinction, it is a human named Duncan who sets him self the task of preventing genocide.
Set in the Union-Alliance universe, The Faded Sun trilogy is among Cherryh's best work. It is also among her earliest novels, originally having been published in the late 1970s.
Why do I like Cherryh so much? The way that she can manage complexity without either losing the reader or dumbing down the plot makes her virtually unique. In the hands of a lesser writer, the mri would have been moon-dancing innocents unjustly targeted for death. Cherryh presents a complex situation with high stakes for everybody involved, but still manages to come down against isolationism and final solution.
Excellent, and highly recommended.
Theres a lot more to this trilogy then just mri, friendship..........2006-06-19
Well, the title explains what I' m going to write about this review, so here it goes:
We know what the book is about:
Two mri and a human fleeing Kesrith which has been claimed by humans, and guided by the holy pan'en. They are followed by human war ships and rugal, and during many jumps Duncan is taught the ways of the mri by Niun. But this takes place in Shon'jir, the journey, landing, and exploring of the old, ancient world of Kutath. Where they find that there race is not extincted, and they are not the last. And they prepare for war against the rugal, and hope to form an allieance with humans.
But before that we go back to Kesrith. Duncan is Sur Tac, a warrior who works alone and travels alien lands. But, leaving the buildings, and away from the new govinor of Kesrith, he journeys out into the harsh land of Kesrith and comes upon a kel'en Niun. Niun, who had gone to the mri ship Ahanal, to see and welcome the she'pan there Esain. And to prepare to fight against the humans. The rugal had tried to intervene with the meeting and attack the ship and the last building of the mri on Kesrith. And Niun find himself dragging the dying Duncan through the land while being hunted by an regul aircraft.
Both come upon the place where the great mri tower used to stand and find Melein baried under the wreckage. And who is the new she'pan. Niun and Melein are the last of there kind on Kesrith.
The three journey arcross the waistland of Kesrith to find the pan'en, which would lead them to there ancient homeland of Kutath.
But after finding it they are intercepted by the humans, and Niun and Melein are taken aboard the human vessel and are drugged and studied by human scientist.
But soon Duncan has to take the mri, along with the dus away to flee from the rugal, who would surely kill the last of the mri. So taking the small ship Fox and the pan'en Duncan takes the mri away from Kesrith.
During Shon'jir Duncan and Niun form a strong friendship, more like 'brotherhood', while Niun teached Duncan the ways of the mri. For Duncan cannot live on Kutath if he is not mri.
And finally, ariving on Kutath they come upon an ancient structure where a system still runs and Melein is able to find if there are other mri on the land. Melein challenges a she'pan and recieves the mri of that world. And Melein, and Niun start to prepare for the oncoming humans and regul. Which the regula got to Kutath first and attacked Fox which had the peace signal. Humans start to envy the rugal, and Duncan warns them of the rugal treachary and ends up killing one of the rugal leaders.
Then Duncan has to journey back to the mri camped, and is presued by other mri who hunt him down...
The main thing I want to point out is the strong, unbreakable, brother-like friendship of Niun and Duncan. At first Niun hated Duncan, who he shall as an annoying, worthless human. But later on Niun protects Duncan-without-a-mother from the other mri of diffrent tribes. And that in the end, the two bonds between human and mri is the only hope for mri suvival...
A true space-opera.......2006-05-22
The complete faded sun trilogy - a good thing they all came together!!!
The mri are the best alien nation I've encountered lately, and the plot is really moving. I loved it!
"Kesrith": the mri are a fading race, stranded on one last planet about to be surrendered to the humans-victors in the regul-human wars. But the last she'pan of the warrior mri decides to take a last stand... that will destroy or save her people. Annihilated by their former masters, the regul, the mri are reduced to two persons: the kel'en Niun and his she'pan, Melein.They are the only hope of remembrance of the mri that left their homeworld so long ago they cannot even remember which is their own planet... Into this comes the human Duncan, a man that will be slowly seduced by the mri way of life and will fight with all his power for their survival.
"Shon'jir": in a strange mixture of treachery and real chances of a new life for the mri, Duncan accepts to join them in a long journey back to their own homeworld. In the long years of passage, he will renounce all his human interests and become a convert mri - thus betraying his own race. The dusei (a strange animal-like sentient race) that accompanied the mri on the way home form a strong link between themselves and the lonely kel'en. And on reaching the mri homeworld of Kutath, a dying planet - the wanderers face a new challenge: of uniting the mri tribes against the human and regul ships that followed them.
"Kutath": the mri face complete annihilation. The humans and the regul, allied against the most fearsome race in the known universe, start attacking the elee cities, the only permanent structures on the planet. Even with Duncan's desperate intervention, they gain only a respite until they chose between talk and attack. only the regul won't allow humans and mri to settle their problems, afraid of their former allies, and will try anything to stop the peace talks...
A definite "must read" for any sci-fi fan - and for most of the other readers - this is space-opera for real!
The Faded Sun Trilogy.......2006-04-30
This is true science fiction! Not only does C.J. Cherryh writes a story with a expansive backdrop, he delves into the development of a a complety alien race and the culture that drives their very being. It is an engrossing story as a misfit human is slowly accepted and indoctrinated into this alien society. Way Cool! I want to find it in hard back to add to my collection.
Book Description
Decodes the message inscribed on the Great Cross of Hendaye in France
• Uses the work of 20th-century alchemist Fulcanelli to predict the date of the fatal season of the apocalypse
• Shows how periodic galactic alignments may cause catastrophes on Earth
• Examines how the secret of the center of the galaxy reveals the true location of the lost civilization of Atlantis
• Reveals the alchemical secret of the imperishable Light Body of ancient Egypt deep within our DNA
The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye reveals one of Western occultism's deepest secrets: The alchemical transformation of base metal into gold is also the transformation of the current Iron Age into the Golden Age. Based on the work of the enigmatic 20th-century alchemist Fulcanelli, authors Weidner and Bridges show how the greatest alchemical secret is that of time itself and that coded into an obscure monument in southwestern France--the cross in the town square of Hendaye--is the imminent date of the apocalypse. The authors' explorations of this symbolism lead them from the cross of Hendaye to the western facade of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, the Pyrenees, ancient Egypt, and the secret origins of Atlantis in Peru, to reveal that we are indeed living in a "fatal season" and that this season is intimately connected to our solar system's alignment with the galactic center. The authors' in-depth examination of alchemy's connection with the coming end days also reveals that this astro-alchemical knowledge was part of the sacred science of the Egyptians and the Atlanteans, whose coded messages are, at last, deciphered to guide humanity to its future destiny.
Customer Reviews:
Don't waste your time.......2007-05-20
I had high hopes for this book. The author was featured on a radio program I listen to and gave a good interview, but on actually getting and reading the book I went from excited to mad in just a few chapters. Quite frankly, the author knows nothing about esotericism, to say nothing of a basic conceptualization of history. He starts out with talking about the book, then veers off into a discussion of Abraham, i.e. the mythical Patriarch, asserting that Abraham was given knowledge by god that the secret to the universe had to do with an alignment of the earth with the galactic center. Are you a little sceptical yet? You should be. After this revelation the author makes the assertion that the Tree of Life glyph in the Kabbalah actually refers to a constellation and that, moreover, when you fold it one way you get a mystical cube, which somehow has something to do with the galactic center. Absolutely no evidence is given for either one of these things.
It only gets better from there on. He goes on to talk about, for no obvious reason whatsoever, new age theories about how DNA generates photons.
The research, if there was any beyond an afternoon's worth, is terrible, the book makes no cogent arguments or presents any evidence to support the muddled assertions and in the end basically asks the reader to take it all on faith.
And because one permutation of the inscription on this cross at Hendaye yields the word "Urcos" and because the authors googled it, or looked it up in an Atlas I think they said, and found that there was a town named "Urcos" in Peru......suddenly Peru is the heart of an Atlantean civilization whose descendants are the Basque people of Spain and France, because Hendaye is close to the French Basque country.
The mind reels. It also reels at how exactly the authors can reconcile a literal belief in the existence of Abraham with a belief in some pre-cataclysmic civilization in South America.
Information filled!.......2007-05-12
This book held a lot of personal interest for myself, being Basque. I believe the Basque people are deeply involved in the "Salvation" of mankind and always have been.
DiaGnosis: Even more fascinating!.......2007-02-18
Un updated, much expanded edition of A Monument to the End of Time
In 1926, an enigmatic alchemist called Fulcanelli published a book called "Le Mystere des Cathedrales", or Mystery of the Cathedrals, which explains how Gothic cathedrals have hermetic and alchemical secrets encoded into their architecture and sculptures. In 1957, a second edition appeared, and included an extra chapter on the significance of a monument in the town of Hendaye in the Pyrenees. The monument - an engraved pedestal with a pillar and engraved cross - was built around 1680. The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye is a thorough exposition of the hidden meaning encoded into this Hendaye Cross.
The authors have traced the alchemical thread back to Egypt; to the first Gnostic groups, and re-exposed the fact that behind alchemy lies a triple transmutation - inner, outer and time. The inner transmutation is the refining of the psycho-sexual energies and fluids; the outer is using the inner change to transmute physical states; the third is the same transmutation applied to the whole Earth, changing the Age of Iron to the Age of Gold. The 4 ages - Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron relate to the 26,000-year cycle of precession, with the Fall occurring when the Tree (the celestial axis, or earth's rotational axis), points away from the centre of the galaxy. "Resurrection"or "redemption", occurs when the Tree points towards the centre of the galaxy. This is the point when the "sparks of light" - our souls as fragments of God - return to the source.
The thread is traced from ancient Egypt to the Coptic Church, the Gnostics, the Hebrews, Islaam (the Sufis), the Order of Sion, and the Knights Templar, the grail romances, the tarot, and, with increasing persecution of heretics, the engraving of cathedrals, and finally, the Rosicrucian movement.
The 4 engravings on the pedestal are found to refer to the 4 tarot trumps; The Star; The Moon; The Sun, and Judgement. The pillar is the Djed, or Earth's rotational axis ( Moira Timms has already pointed this out see Raising the Djed). The two "x" engravings refer to the winding of the ecliptic and the equinoctial points, plus trump 20, judgement. The "ocruxaves pesunica" engraving means "the secret concerns a cross and a snake which somehow measures the 12th part". When combined, these clues (along with clues from the kabbalistic Tree of Life, whose 22 paths correlate to the 22 tarot trumps), the authors conclude that half a precessional cycle ago, the spring equinox fell on the cusp of Leo/Virgo; 12,960 years later, in 2002, the autumn (fall) equinox will be in the same position. The planetary attributions of the tarot trumps, combined with the orientation of the faces of the monument confirms that 22 September 2002 is the date in question. Trump 14, temperance (Alchemy), correlates to the direction of Galactic centre, while trump 21, the World, correlates to the opposing Galactic edge.
Fulcanelli implies that the cross at Hendaye signifies a "fatal period" of a "double catastrophe". If autumn equinox 2002 is the mid-point of a 20-year period (the XX engraving implies this), this may imply the last katun of the Mayan "Great Cycle"(13-Baktun cycle), since this is the nearest autumn equinox to the katun mid-point (12 Feb 2003, Long Count date 12.19.10.0.0). The authors were stunned to discover that Paul LaViolette has been warning the world of just such a double catastrophe, in the form of a galactic core explosion, which he already tentatively linked to the 2012 end-point. The first effects would be "electromagnetic shifts...crustal torque, pole shifts, tidal waves and high winds", the second catastrophe would be "an explosion of the sun's corona caused by the influx of cosmic dust pushed by the galactic superwave".
Fulcanelli also said that the inscription "ocruxaves pesunica" revealed a place of refuge. By clues from Fulcanelli, the authors arrived at 2 anagrams: Inca cave, Cusco, Peru, and Hail to the Cross at Urcos. The authors were again amazed to find not only caves at Cusco, but a nearby town called Urcos with a cross. Sadly, the original cross had been destroyed, but they concluded that the place of refuge may be either the caves at Cusco, or the legendary tunnels under the Andes, if someone finds an entrance.
The authors suggest that we should learn to "weave" our "Bardo or transitional body into nicely fractal flows of self-awareness" simply by meditating on compassion, as suggested by the work of Itzhak Bentov (Bentov explains in Stalking the wild Pendulum p.33-36 & 54-56 that in meditative states, the breathing is so gentle that it no longer interferes with the feedback of the aorta, allowing the system to become resonant, allowing the whole body to resonate at the same frequency as the earth - 7.8 Hz. How this is affected by the increasing rate of Schumann resonance remains to be researched). We shall thus be ready to be "harvested", to become a soul inhabiting a star, like the pharaohs of Egypt (see Star Birth Bardo in the Body of Orion). The Paris Papyrus gives some clues that the transformational process may be triggered by the light from the glow of the exploding galactic centre, triggering a cerebro-chemical outpouring which fuels an internal light that externalizes as "the shining light or star body of imperishable quality". The authors suggest that we need to prepare by performing a ceremony every equinox, in which the kabbalistic tree of life is "projected onto the Celestial sphere", a technique developed by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
The original review with links can be found at the diagnosis2012 website.
WOW.......2006-07-28
I've read many books regarding the "2012 dilemma," but none were as researched as this one. Weidner and Bridges bring alchemy and the great mysteries to the average reader. There are no hidden meanings here folks, just plain see it as it is reading.
Hats off to these authors! Even they have left the questions at the end unanswered, leaving the reader to come to their own conclusions. They have given us all the clues and what they and others have interpreted from them and left the reader to believe or not.
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the "end times," the mysteries surrounding Fulcanelli, and alchemy!
Lord, what fools these mortals be..........2006-06-10
First, I paid full price for this hack piece that would make Llewellyn publications look like scholarly tomes. My primary reason for purchasing it was the endorsement blurb by Joselyn Godwin, a well respected esoteric scholar. And all I can ask is why? This convoluted piece of crazed analysis and manipulated gematria that is headache inducing, is a sad work indeed. Millenial nonsense is millenial nonsense no matter what guise it is under, be it a Meso-American calendar, the cryptograms of Nostradamus or Millerite blathering. This work is part of the cottage industry sprung up from the Rennes-le-Chateau, pseudo-Cathar, Fulcanelli "stuff". Any Occultist worth their alchemical salt will do well to avoid this numerological & laughable mishmash.
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