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Sinister Forces-The Manson Secret: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft

By: Aaron Newcolm

Rumor has it that Peter Levenda is the author of the 'Simon' Necronomicon and that anyone who reads THAT book is cursed for seven years. I think that book was a bald-faced hoax, but it is fitting that the same author was involved here, because THIS book is genuinely dangerous. If you have any paranoid tendencies, any mental imbalance, you should probably leave the entire Sinister Forces trilogy alone.

In brief, the author argues that "mind-control" (in the form of propaganda, subtle persuasion, psychedelic drugs, terrorism, and...well...mind control) is an essential component of modern politics. And mind control is the same phenomenon the world once understood as witchcraft. We in the modern West may believe we are not susceptible to these irrational compulsive forces but, in fact, we are UNIQUELY vulnerable. Our societies have marginalized and devalued the traditional shamanistic encounter with unreason, and as a result we have a very unhealthy relationship with it. Intelligence operators, in the quest for tools of political influence, have rediscovered shamanistic practices and the forces that underlie them. These forces are "sinister" in a value-neutral sense; they are forces of the "left-hand path" - antinomian and awe-inspiring, but not necessarily evil. In proper context they can be beneficial to the individual and the community. But by implementing these practices alone, stripped of any spiritual significance, we have corrupted them. Both the serial killer and the fascist, he argues, are failed shamen.

Of course, Levenda does not state this explicitly until page 362 of volume III. And, even then, I hesitate to take him at face value; to bury "the point" so deeply within a work like this is audacious. It may indicate that the subject matter is exceptionally subtle and must be teased out with care. It may indicate an intentional esotericism (as Nietzsche put it: "a book for all and none"). Or, it may indicate the active hypnotic manipulation of the reader - a sort of literary "look into my eyes." Here, I would argue, we have all three - and they take almost a thousand pages to fully manifest. And yet, Levenda never loses our attention. Like a fairytale warlock, he charms and coaxes the reader down this dark forest path.

Ok, not "like" a warlock. He IS a warlock, and this is what makes his exposition of political witchcraft so compelling. His approach to the DETAILS of political history is remarkably sober - the text is exhaustively footnoted and bibliographied. But he recognizes patterns in these data that would be apparent only to a serious occultist.

Indeed, some of these patterns are clearly faces in the clouds, but that's beside the point. The 'big picture' is not the main attraction. Read this book for the parade of oddball facts the author has marshalled together. Read it for thrills and chills and extreme thought-provocation. Prepare yourself for suspense, intrigue and intiatory terror on the threshold of spiritual enlightenment. Just be careful to come back in one piece...