Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/133640
art & soul BOOKS Mickael Taddeo Gabriel's Mountain T his fast-paced sci-fi/spiritual novel retells the Armageddon tale of Archangel Gabriel, now in the character of a brilliant and tortured Montreal homeless man on the run from the CIA in a different era. Clearly, you haven't heard this perspective on the story before. The story is set in a future in which military training includes high tech remote viewing and time-travel skills, and airline companies compete for first scheduled round-trip flights to the Moon. New Agers and indigenous shamans ally their greatly enhanced psychic abilities against the sophisticated psychological warfare of psi-corp CIA in an epic battle of good vs. evil. In a protracted climax, the good guys invoke Earth's deepest powers and mysteries, the CIA mounts a massive and destructive offensive, and a magical and high-tech war of words (both sides employ sacred incantations as weaponry) ensues. All of this makes for a rollicking blockbuster of a tale, but truly, the story's background digs much deeper. As a profoundly prescient young scholar, Gabriel had accelerated through an ancient history and archaeology curriculum. Lured by power and opportunities afforded by the CIA, he became pivotal in their drug and neo-tech time travel experimentation until, disil- lusioned, he had broken away— losing in the process decades of memory and the "habit" of aging. Throughout, our hero's personal saga is wrought with tenderness and believability. Gabriel struggles not just to overcome world domination by evil neo-cons, but also to recapture his own past and the source of his powers. As he rediscovers himself, he shares wise counsel with a fascinating cast of loosely wired homeless people. There is action across the veil of usual space-time and mind, but as presented by Taddeo, it reads less as esoteric paranormality and more as fun and liberating to the ego-illusion that binds us to our joys and woes. No self-respecting Armageddon would bring to bear anything less than the mightiest weapons of Good (capital G) and Evil (capital E), and Taddeo rises to the occasion. New consciousness evolution and mass spiritual renewal join the military and tech holocaust, as hell breaks loose. As for the promise of resurrection? You'll have to read it for yourself. (Friesen Press, Victoria, BC) —Mac Graham Jim Marrs Our Occulted History Do the Global Elite Conceal Ancient Aliens? I n his sixth and latest book, celebrated journalist and author Jim Marrs reveals archeological discoveries and welldocumented geological data that not only support the notion that human civilization originated from extraterrestrials, but also that advanced civilizations, humans or otherwise, made Earth their home long before the recorded dates in our history books. Marrs has done an easy-to-follow job of walking us through the relationship between the Annunaki of ancient Sumeria, the UFO phenomenon and current geo-politics, particularly, the war in Iraq. His basic thesis agrees with Zechariah Sitchin's work, which propounds that ancient aliens from a distant orbiting planet came to earth hundreds of thousands of years ago and created man as a hybridized version of themselves, and put him to work mining for gold and farming the land. Broken up into four sections, the book spans the history of time and includes origins of the solar system, the ancients, the Middle Ages, and the modern era. Marrs discusses how conventional science and perhaps even institutions run by the federal government or funded by wealthy elite may have worked to occlude our possible true heritage. The author questions many aspects of our history, including mysteries of the moon, Mars probe failures, the Smithsonian's role in controversies surrounding discoveries that go against conventional history, antiquities that indicate an advanced civilization existed on Earth long before what we commonly accept, signs pointing to a past cosmic war, dominant figures of control and manipulation in the financial world, and the highly organized looting of at least 50,000 artifacts and tablets from the Iraq National Museum after American troops entered Iraq in 2003. Most conventional scientists are bound by institutional viewpoints and won't risk being ostracized by questioning textbooks or the government. Marrs goes out on a limb asking pertinent questions and offering abundant illustrations that point to a gaping hole in our collective knowledge concerning our origins. (William Morrow/HarperCollins) —Paul Andrews june / july 2013 FINAL REDESIGN WLT-5-27-11pm.indd 31 31 5/28/13 11:12 AM