The Secret Behind Secret Societies
Volume 1
© Jon Rappoport

Here are the chapters of Volume 1 of The Secret Behind Secret Societies They involve the beginning of my long journey (40 years) into this subject.  While these chapters are, in a real sense, autobiographical, there are many other chapters I will post later which are not, which are written from more objective research.

This book could not have been done except as a weave of my personal experiences and my more objective research.  The two areas run together.  They overlap and intertwine.  This is as it should be.

Since the book was published, several key paranormal researchers have obtained copies.  Their reaction has been interesting.  Frankly, they have been a bit overwhelmed by the range of the subjects covered.  I have thought about their response, and I must say it confirms for me what I have long thought: professionals of any sort who are completely and utterly and exclusively devoted to specialized areas find it very hard to make the stretch to the big picture; they want to stay in their comfort zone.

Why?  Aside from the usual and obvious reasons, they have a fear of coming up against the primal fact that our imagination and creation are the Great Fountains BEHIND EVERY HUMAN ENTERPRISE.  Seeing this would overturn too many applecarts.

I first learned this lesson when I was a student at Amherst College, majoring in philosophy.  When I had finally covered the whole waterfront of western philosophy, from start to finish, from its beginnings in Greece to its dead end in the universities of England in the 1950s, I thought to myself: more than anything, all these philosophical positions have been CREATED, just like art, by their authors; therefore, why not acknowledge that; why don't we look to the creative act itself if we want to grasp the whole basis of the human adventure and the human condition...

I said this to a professor of mine.  It was as if I had set off a bomb in his living room.  Stranger than that, it was as if he had somehow been waiting for me (or someone else) to make this point.  He started talking very rapidly.  He said my point was very CORROSIVE to the whole idea of philosophy.  He said that if people accepted this position, it WOULD THREATEN TO DESTROY ALL HUMAN CULTURE.  He said a lot more.  He urged me to forget my idea.

I went away from this conversation with the distinct feeling that he himself had entertained my idea before, and it had frightened him.  He wanted to escape from it.  He wanted to steer around it.

At that moment, I knew I would never occupy the academic mindset.  I knew my road would be different.  I knew I'd have to pay a price for my insight.  But I didn't know how different things would get for me.  Or how stubborn and loyal I would have to be to what I perceived.

Now I know.

JON RAPPOPORT
April, 2004
San Diego