BOOK REVIEW: 'Hidden Wisdom': Wisdom Not So Much Hidden As Repressed by Churches, Secular Regimes
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Tim Wallace-Murphy's "Hidden Wisdom: Secrets of the Western Esoteric Tradition" (The Disinformation Company Ltd., New York, 352 pages, index, bibliography, notes, $17.95) describes "wisdom" that isn't "hidden" so much as it has been repressed by religious and secular authorities.
For instance, there's plenty of information available for those seeking alternatives to established religion, from Egyptian mythology to Jewish mysticism, the druids and the gnostics and Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism -- all of which contributed, as Wallace-Murphy so accurately writes, to the thinking of the builders of the great cathedrals; leading teachers in ecclesiastical schools; philosophers; playwrights; poets such as Shakespeare, Goethe, Blake, and W. B. Yeats; and on artists and Renaissance giants such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. It is also the root from which sprang alchemy and modern science.
All religions have suppressed what they call "heresies," but the Roman Catholic Church is undoubtedly the grand champion suppressor -- and oppressor -- due to its great wealth and power in the countries of Western Europe that were conquered by the Romans and developed into major nations after the Roman Empire adopted Christianity and began suppressing previous beliefs.
In Chapter 11, beginning on Page 137, Wallace-Murphy describes the suppression of the Cathars, a group of Christians in southwestern France, who -- along with other groups who refused to accept the supremacy of the pope -- departed from Roman Catholic theology.
The chapter's title -- "The Crusade Against Fellow Christians; and the Founding of the Holy Inquisition" -- is startling, especially to those who mistakenly believe that the Crusades were directed solely against Islam, to free Jerusalem from the Muslim conquerors. In fact, in 1204, even before the Church brutally moved in earnest to wipe out the Cathars, Roman Catholic participants in the fourth crusade sacked Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire and the equivalent for the Eastern Orthodox Church of Rome for the Roman Catholics. The city is now called Istanbul. It was finally conquered by the Islamic forces of the Ottoman Empire in 1453.
By the 12th Century, the Occitan culture of the Languedoc area of southern France had developed many traditions which were in sharp contrast to the anti-democratic rule of the Roman Church -- a situation that Rome couldn't tolerate, the author said. Thus began the Albigensian Crusade, not long after the events of 1204 in Byzantium. It was a crusade against fellow Christians -- the Cathars believed in a "pure" form of Christianity, without the dogmas and doctrines of the Latin church. They lived in peace among Roman Catholics in many parishes, including Albi for which the Albigensian Crusade was named.
Thus, when the brutal suppression of the Cathars began, culminating in the siege of the city of Beziers in July 1209, the leaders of the "crusade" -- which notably didn't include the Knights Templar -- asked the papal legate what to do about the Roman Catholics who were probably in the majority in the area. He replied with a phrase that has come down to modern times: "Kill them all...God will know his own when they get to him!"
(For those interested in reading more about the Cathars, I recommend a book by Rene Weis that I read a few years ago, "The Yellow Cross: The Story of the Last Cathars").
In "Hidden Wisdom," Wallace-Murphy eloquently describes what he calls a hidden stream of spirituality that not only influenced literature, the visual and graphic arts and science, but which provides today alternatives to organized religion that so many seek.
It's a book that will appeal to followers of Dan Brown -- especially to readers of his bestselling book "The Lost Symbol" as it explains much of Brown's focus on the ancient mysteries. "Hidden Wisdom" will also find readers among those interested in Freemasonry; Sufism, Islamic mysticism; and the Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. At least today, we don't have to worry about "crusades," even though the current pope once headed the Inquisition, which survives today under the name "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."
Wallace-Murphy's first book, "The Mark of the Beast", was written in collaboration with Trevor Ravenscroft. He is the author of "An Illustrated Guidebook to Rosslyn Chapel" (1993) and "The Templar Legacy and The Masonic Inheritance Within Rosslyn Chapel" (1994), both published by The Friends of Rosslyn. A popular and fluent speaker, he lectures on Freemasonry and the Knights Templar.
Publisher's web site: www.disinfo.com