It is the contention of the author that the major events of the past, the wars, the depressions and the revolutions, have been planned years in advance by an international conspiracy. This view is called the Conspiratorial View of History, and is definitely not the view held by the majority of historians today. The more traditional view is called The Accidental View of History, and it holds that no one really knows why events happen--they just do.
Ralph Epperson started researching this book 20 years before it was published even though he didn't realize it at the time. He graduated from the University of Arizona.
Ralph Epperson is an historian, author, and lecturer who has been researching the CONSPIRATORIAL VIEW OF HISTORY (the view that the major events of the past have been planned years in advance by a central conspiracy) for 50 years. He has written or produced four "best selling" books entitled THE UNSEEN HAND, THE NEW WORLD ORDER, MASONRY: CONSPIRACY AGAINST CHRISTIANITY, JESSE JAMES, UNITED STATES SENATOR, six booklets, and 15 DVDs.
He is a graduate of the University of Arizona, but freely admits that what he has learned since graduation has taught him that most of what he learned in college in History and Political Science simply is not true. He proudly states that his research has proven to him that there has been an active conspiracy in the world planning major wars, depressions, and inflations years in advance.
Many of those who have read his material and viewed his DVDs state that they are the best in the market on this subject. If you want to know how this conspiracy has operated in the world from one of the theory's best teachers and writers, you will want to obtain some or all of his materials.
I'm not going to take a stand on conspiracy here. I have a close friend who is exceedingly intelligent and she has believed to some extent in conspiracy theory for years. I was one who said things like... "Oooookay" and changed the subject. Now, I'm 66 and history looks a lot more planned than it used to. The continual creep away from personal freedom and responsibility toward a cradle to grave "baby-sitter' government. The press moving from watch-dog for government corruption to mouthpiece for the Democratic party (read political left). The growing willingness of the west to let their borders melt away and give up their (our/my) independence to multinational power...
Look I know most will now dismiss me as fading into "crackpotism" but I repeat. I don't really know but things just look too fishy somehow. I'm just saying keep an open mind and think about it.
And also ask why all conspiracy theories seem to get lumped together... Weird ones to sane ones all just labeled "conspiracy theories" with an eye-roll and maybe a sneer????
Anyway, just think about it, open minds and such.
*** update 6/16/2020:
I'm 68 now and the current "state of affairs" makes me even more suspicious... just sayin'.
One of the best books ever written, shows how manipulated US history is, most of what we are taught is flat-out wrong. History textbooks never follow the money or the power and assume events are mainly accidental, and what the Unseen Hand shows and backs-up is that we are the victims of historical propaganda in the public Pavlov training centers we call public, and even private, schools. For example, the Civil War was funded (both sides) by one European banker family. The Communists in Russia were saved from collapse many times over the last century by JD Rockefeller, so he could get his foot in the oil-door of Russia, and by the international bankers so they could create a "balance of power" political system to inflate big government programs and thus spending via those programs. Probably the most important topic, and covered in many other books as well, is the Federal Reserve was a central bank in the works for over a century before 1913, created by a handful of elite bankers to control the United States, Russia, Germany, England, France, and others. The central bank loans us money at interest and creates wars to increase military spending fast, and boom-bust cycles in which the Insiders profit on the way up, get out before the crash, and buy up dirt-cheap assets at fire-sale prices at the bottom. There is too much in this book to get into here, but for anyone who wants to unplug from the propaganda matrix and see who the wizard behind the curtain is, this is one of several essential books to read.
Loved this book. It makes John A. Stormer's book, None Dare Call It Treason, look like a sunday school lesson by comparison. I generally do not believe in "conspiracy" as many do... I think Epperson is misled that conspiracy is so prevalent on a human level. To me it seems more plausible that human collaborators and useful idiots are really in fact just marionettes organized and manipulated from a spiritual plain. Also, I think Epperson is mistaken that destruction can be averted... Perhaps for a couple decades. But the fat is going to hit the fan and this government could not have done worse if it planned to do so... All said, this book is a great resource to see that there are nefarious things a foot. Some of it is a bit dated but the impact of reading in and thinking about the actualities and what they mean will not be...
Very interesting book-- content wise. The ebook I bought was full of errors, either from converting to an e-format or contained in the source material. Since I don't own the fossil-copy, I can't say.
This book offers a very concise introduction to the conspiratorial view of history and really kicks the shit out of the current model of history: Everything that's happened just sorta happened.
If you study much history at all, it's absurd to think things just happened and no one willed events into place. In fact, it's beyond absurd to think rich and powerful people are ineffective in maintaining power through conspiracies. The current world offers too much in the way of evidence to allow this kind of vacuous thinking and examination of the past to continue.
I would challenge the modern reader to see the 2008 banking crisis as something not fully detailed, step-by-step in this book. In fact, the inflation of the dollar is still happening with Quantitative Easing (printing money) and we're going to get the crunch sooner than later. And what's funny: Its the same cast of people involved now, that were involved then.
And while I don't agree with a lot of what's in the book, Epperson does back his statements with endless endnotes. The research done is impeccable.
In short, this book makes a great case for a new pedagogical paradigm within historical disciplines when examining the past and the reasons behind certain events. It, combined with Frank Dittoker's "Mao's Great Famine", will change how you view communism and socialism.
I very much recommend this read even with all the errors.
An excellent read for a devil's advocate, and to know extremes. His arguments are similar to Ron Paul, in the sense that what he says makes a decent amount of sense, yet are still quite crazy.
One of the best books I've ever picked up!.. And for this book to have been published in 1985, it still makes sense of what's happening in 2012.. Amazing!
I have read some weird books, and this is one of the crown jewels in the odd collection. I read it a long time ago, so I'll write a few thoughts on the conspiratorial mindset instead.
Conspiracy theorists need a few conditions to exist: they have to be isolated from the halls of power, live in a society where PR blandishments are the primary mode of communication from the corporate world to the general public, lack a unified vision of normal society and be exposed to social dysfunction. Thus, the people they tend to attract are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder; though their ideas are utterly wrong and often ridiculous, scorn is not the appropriate response.
I'm sure conspiracy theorists have always existed, but it seems to me that perspectives like this book are distinctly modern. It is a feature of modernity that there is no order to the world; utility is the only ordering principle, which turns out to be highly subjective one in an individualistic society. As a result, academic disciplines are fragmented; modernity has no way to connect physics and art. When taken with the fact that we live in a highly complex, pluralistic society, it is no mystery that some people find it difficult to see how our society is ordered. This is especially true for people who lack community, and whose experience of home is that broken families are normal. To these people, society lacks coherence, and yet they cannot turn off that part of them which insists there is meaning to the events that occur. Perhaps too, because they cannot see order in the ordinary things of life, and yet are so desperate to find meaning, their faculty for seeing patterns channeled exclusively into areas in which they have little direct experience, and thus appears overactive.
Yet, there are many people who experience disorder in their lives, but choose to believe the explanations of politicians (though perhaps with some cynicism), and just accept that the world is a tragic place. Thus, an essential part of a conspiracy theorist's mindset is that they must also believe that they are being lied to - it's no mistake that paranoia is highly associated with conspiracy theory belief. Social dysfunction probably contributes to this problem, by reducing trust, especially in those that were supposed to be nearest to you. I think there are at least two additional components, however. One is that the way corporate and political culture communicates is often self-evidently PR friendly, and will sometimes keep things 'in the family' (that is, until their adversaries extract it from them). The second is that media technology, especially television, is viewed cynically, as a means to manipulate the public. Or, as George Orwell put it, all art is propaganda. Unlike other modes of artistic expression, however, everyone acts on camera; to the paranoid mind, everything on screen can be read as an illusion.
The one instinct I think they have correct is that there is a larger meaning to historical events. Ordinary people may see this in terms of battling ideologies, or the heroism of man in a tragic world, or as a religious struggle to reach God. In a materialist, secular society the powers that be cannot be located in the spiritual world. In the medieval ages, it was still possible to attribute events to the creatures of folklore, or to the devil. Instead, in our world, it must be real people who have done real things (though conspiracy theories often refer to the occult). Thus, because everything that is plain is a lie, we have elaborate explanations for how the Illuminati and Co. run the world. Everyone has a story of why the world is the way it is; conspiracy theories are among the less credible versions.
It seems the scene has shifted since this book was published. Research (talk about a word with a double meaning here!) indicates that some conspiracy theories have become mainstream in American culture - they are no longer fringe beliefs. This seems partly due to new media, which has little means of controlling what gets shared. But perhaps this also spells the end for such conspiracy theories, because they require that only a minority can know the truth. As the proverb goes, if everyone believes it, is it still a conspiracy?
I found this book deeply interesting. Though I take issue with the Jewish conspiracy. For a short period of my life I had the wonderful experience of living amongst orthodox Jews and found them to be much like my own people. While Ralph Epperson brings some interesting facts to light, something that I think everyone should learn, I would tread lightly on his conclusions. If there is a dark evil conspiracy, and history teaches us that there is always one to be had, I don't think you can pin it on one religion. The bigger the conspiracy, the more fingers you have in the pie. I recommend the read, but think and question. Lean on facts, not conclusions. K. Lazarus
This is another book that explains what was and is really happening in history and today. Things don't happen by accident, and if you follow the money, you will find some of the same characters before and after a particular event (like WW1, the Great Depression, WW2, the fall of Russia, China, and the rest to communism, the Federal Reserve....) profiting greatly at the outcome. This book turns public school's history upside down, and one comes away with an understanding of why something happen, and the awful feeling and knowledge that some people really are evil. Wake up America!
It is the contention of the author that the major events of the past, the wars, the depressions and the revolutions, have been planned years in advance by an international conspiracy. This view is called the Conspiratorial View of History, and is definitely not the view held by the majority of historians today. The more traditional view is called The Accidental View of History, and it holds that no one really knows why events happen--they just do. The author presents an interesting way of looking at history that you may agree with, or not.
Just a great book chalk-full with good data. Looking at everything through the Mason V Fake Mason (True New Age V Fake New Age) lens is narrow but with the right wide-angle lens and zoom it gets some better results than most people’s perspective lenses. And this guy really shows that. He gets the dates, figures and quotes for his facts really straight.
For example, something from p. 84 =
“In 1798, shortly after the publication of Professor Robinson’s work on the Illuminati, American minister Reverend G.W. Snyder sent a copy of the book to President George Washington, who was a very visible member of the Masonic Order. On September 25, 1798, President Washington wrote a letter to Rev. Snyder: “I have heard much of the nefarious and dangerous plan and doctrines of the Illuminati, but never saw the book till you were pleased to send it to me. It was not my intention to doubt that the doctrine of the Illuminati had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more satisfied of this fact than I am...”
Brilliant. So our Founding Father and First President over here in the “Wild and Wooly West” was a full blown conspiracy theorist in the most plain cloth way, love it.
One sees this as plain though when one sees who exactly Napoleon was having to defeat at these times and also when one sees how the coiffed cuff Ropespierre skeptico federali then in their faked enlightenment mimickry, monkey armed on to the world popularist movement of the Rainbow Brotherhood of Masons all working together like Mesmer, Cagliostro, the Martinists, De Gebelin, Jefferson and the Founding Fathers to make our world great for a moment; then hollowed out and reversed it...but wait you won’t see that cause that is “conspiracy”...nevermind. That is the mystery, the skeptic are the most asleep and hide under a rock yet are led by such types unwittingly and easily, almost gladly.
This remarkable book was published in 1985, before personal computers and the internet put information of every kind at our fingertips. Working mostly with print media sources, A. Ralph Epperson was able to compile and document a thorough survey of the powerful but often unrecognized political and economic network behind major world events, "The Unseen Hand." The book is well organized in 41 brief chapters (488 pages), each addressing a specific period, event, or agency, beginning with America's founding principles on one hand, and the secret societies of Europe on the other hand. Epperson traces these two schools of thought as their institutions unfold in revolutions, government policies and institutions, civil wars and world wars, and the growing control of power players beyond the scrutiny of the people of the world. What Epperson laid out in his 1985 book we can see playing out openly on the world stage today. The push for globalism and a "Reset" of the international world order are pushing aggressively to take down national borders and culture. In this book, we can see the groundwork for the new globalism planted in 18th and 19th century. And with this knowledge we must rally to the restoration and defense of our Americanism, taking it back from the Universalist forces that have infiltrated and displaced it.
My first thought about conspiracy is that it's far-fetched, but when you look closely at the events that have happened or are happening, what's written in the book makes more sense than what the "mainstream" system tells the public. Sadly, more people don't care to get educated about what happened in history and what's going on now. For example, the outcome of the Korean War and Vietnam War just doesn't make sense to me. America won the battle in the Pacific in WWII while fighting another battle in Europe. China couldn't even defend herself against Japan. And then only one year after the communist China was founded, they were able to put up a fight against the U.S. and achieve armistice? Does it make sense to you?
Also, the book mentioned the plans to increase government spending from Report from Iron Mountain. Keep in mind the book was published in 1985. The first plan in that "Report" was "Complete government guaranteed health care for all". Does it ring a bell? The book mentioned "international nuclear blackmail". At the time the book was written, it was Soviet Union. Now you have North Korea and Iran.
I read this book in 1999 and I have literally watched as events that were basically prophesied in this book have come true time and time again. It's astonishing and a little bit scary every time I see something happening in the news that I read about in this book over twenty years ago. Everything the author foretold about globalization and the rise of socialism in America has not only come true but the steps that are outlined in the book that were supposed to lead this country to the socialist, authoritarian nation it is becoming, were right on the money. From the mass influx of illegal aliens to the takeover of mainstream media by leftist ideology and the indoctrination of our children. This book lays it all out step by step. If you really want to know what is happening in America today and why it's happening, read this book!!!!!!! It's listed as conspiratorial but there's nothing conspiratorial about it. It's all true and it's scary as hell unless you are a member of the liberal left . This book is a must read for patriotic Americans.
High levels of intrigue while reading this book, as well as disgust! Lol! But really, what’s the difference between “conspiracy” and “strategy”. Books like this arent gonna give you as much perspective if you havent done a LOT of “prerequisite” reading into a myriad of topics (history, psychology, politics, religion, etc..) I find that the more Ive been reading up to this point, the more books like this at least make sense. Easy to read and fascinating stuff.
Amazing and outstanding research on an alternative view of history! I highly recommend this read to anyone around the world who is in search of the truth.
“Someone once wrote: “God cannot alter the past, only historians can! It is certainly not possible for historians to know about the “smoke-filled” rooms where the future is planned unless they are made privy to the future history being planned there. Therefore, most historians report the historical events without really knowing how the events were created. In addition, those who plan the wars, depressions and other human calamities do not want the truth about their planning activities known. So the Revisionist Historians (those who seek the true causes of the historical events) must pursue the truth through the concealed accesses to the events of the past as seen by those who were there and have recorded their knowledge of the event as they remember it. These sources are generally hidden from the general public, but they do exist” – A. Ralph Epperson
This book is important to me. I met the author at a forum in Albany...but its a hard read. Factual, historical content is not my thing. However, its very intruiging stuff if you're into conspiratorial views. I'm still reading it...
This collection of thought, insight, and enlightenment is one of the most accurate accountings of HISstory which shall elevate ones knowledge into FOKISD clarity...
This is an interesting and worthwhile read. I read it many years ago and reread it recently. It is just as relevant now (maybe more so) as it was upon the first reading.
Even if it from the id eighties you can pretty much read this today and see that the inimitable research of mr Epperson has not aged much, the events of the day, over three decades hence are chisled out here. It deals with a great many topics concerning the ruling elites, their practices, schems and ties together a whole string of events, readily available in common history books, but this takes all these seemingly disparate events and ties them together. Full of choice uotes and references from the horses mouth. Strange to think, but seemingly there is an unseen hand behind it all. Highly reccomended reading for anyone who wants to delve a little deeper beyond the narrative in the dross commercial books to be found readily on dispaly wherever, this is back of the shelf material
An excellent presentation of the logical conspiratorial view of history,, that cause and effect don't just disappear when its convenient to ignore them. I would contend that the coincidental or accidental view of history is immature and almost childlike in its naivety. Epperson does an excellent job of citing documenting examples of conspiracy through hermetic orders that have influenced wars and revolutions for centuries and I would contend millennia as the mystery schools were initially formed in antiquity.
I heard of this book as part of a radio segment and found the premise fascinating. Whether you agree with his interpretations or not, it's clear that the author did his homework. And despite being written in 1985, he's eerily prescient in that his conspiracy-minded viewpoint is very much at the heart of our political discourse. Recommend for political junkies and the intellectually curious.