If Kingsley is right, this is more than a little interesting. ( )

This book reminds me a bit of Kingsley's _Reality_ - they're both about ancient cultures, travel, and the mystical foundations. The present book takes us mainly to Mongolia and suggests how Greek civilization was seeded from shamanic sources there.

The structure of the book is quite peculiar. The main body of the book is 84 pages long, but that includes about 18 pages either blank or with simple illustrations or titles. The text on these pages is also relatively large font. The text reads almost like a fairy tale.

Then the notes run from page 89 to page 174, i.e. 85 pages. And these are at a significantly smaller font. There are only 33 notes - many run on for three or four pages.

The fairy tale main body of text will say something like "despite what scholars think" and then the note will go on for three pages listing those scholars and some of their opponents. The notes don't go too deeply into the minutiae of the debates - these are mostly sketched by way of references. These are commonly to collections of scholarly papers, generally quite up to date and of high academic standing.

Kingsley is connecting dots here in a rather bold and speculative way. It would be hard to prove that he is wrong, but he is a long way from proving his ideas correct either. The dots he connects are themselves quite well grounded in the academic literature.

On pg 74, Kingsley says that civilizations, "whether American or Tibetan or Persian or Greek, they never have the humility to identify the source of the life and oneness running through their veins" - which Kingsley seems to be telling us is Mongolian. I don't remember him telling us much about Persians. The focus of the main discussion is on the Greeks. He does trace American roots back through the Iroquois confederacy to their Mongolian roots. The Tibetans get more extensive treatment, especially in the footnotes. The tulku tradition, the recognition of reincarnations, goes back to the pre-Buddhist royal lineage of Tibet, we are told. But there are Mongolian roots here, too.

Kingsley seems to have missed a wonderful opportunity. He doesn't discuss Padmasambhava, Guru Rinpoche. Kingsley tells us how Abaris came from afar to circle Greece and subdue demons there. Just as Guru Rinpoche did in Tibet! If Tibetan civilization has ecstatic roots, can anyone doubt that it is Guru Rinpoche there?

If you want to read something that will sit comfortably as accepted truth, this book will frustrate you. If you want to open up doors to new visions of grand scale, where true versus false starts to collapse, you might like this book! It's a quick read and sure to send you off on further researches! ( )