Magi: The Quest for a Secret Tradition

by Adrian Geoffrey Gilbert

Written by the co-author of "The Orion Mystery" and "The Mayan Prophecies", this book takes the reader through the past, revealing how secret knowledge was both preserved in the East in the form of monumental architecture and at the time of the Crusades, passed westwards to the fledgling states of Europe. One of the best known stories of the Bible is the journey of the Magi as witnesses of the Nativity of Jesus, yet who were these "wise men"? Where did they come from and what could possibly have been their motive in making their journey to Bethlehem? In this book, such questions are answered in an exploration of the Magi legend. Threaded into an epic story are the results of Adrian Gilbert's extensive research. The author claims the truth is that not only was the birth of Jesus widely expected throughout the Middle East, but that Christianity itself has its deepest roots in the "pagan" mysteries of Egypt, Persia and Mesopotamia.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Astrology, Religion, Spirituality

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Adrian Gilbert is a bestselling British author and independent publisher who lives in England. His books are centred on investigations into ancient Esoteric knowledge and religious Mysteries.Adrian was born in Beckenham, Kent, England. His primary school was Bishop Challoner School, Shortlands, Beckenham, and for secondary education he went to St Edmund's College, Ware, Hertfordshire. He read Chemistry at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Whilst at university he took up yoga and had several mystical experiences that changed the course of his life. His first job after leaving university was as a pharmaceutical representative, but he left this after less than a year on ethical grounds. After travels in Europe, to Israel and the US, he took up a post as sales and marketing manager with Turnstone Press, a publisher of esoteric books. Leaving Turnstone, he worked for a time as postal sales manager for Watkins Books, London's oldest esoteric bookstore. In 1978 he changed career entirely and retrained as a computer analyst/programmer. He returned to publishing in 1986, working as a representative for Element Books Ltd as a preparation for setting up his own publishers, Solos Press, in 1991. This specializes in the publication of books concerning Gnosticism, Christian mysticism and Hermetic Philosophy. He is mainly known for his books The Orion Mystery, which was co-authored by Robert Bauval in 1994, and The Mayan Prophecies, which was co-authored with Maurice Cotterell in 1995. Both these books were Sunday Times Top-Ten best-sellers. To date his books have been translated into some twenty languages, including German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Russian, Greek, Turkish, Chinese, Korean and Japanese

Reviews

[Nev Percy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love the cover, with its depiction of (presumably) the Three Wise Men on their camels. On a closer look, the last one is flanked by a fourth camel-rider who's giving a cheery wave to the camera!
But beware non-fiction which pitches itself as "a quest" ("The Quest for a Secret Tradition") -- if it says it's a quest, that's kind of admitting it doesn't reach a destination!

_Magi_ is an overly marketable title for what is in fact a meander through 'mysteries', sometimes upon relatively untrodden ground in Mesopotamia (the city of Edessa), but also much regurgitating of familiar material on the Holy Grail (actually a piece of cloth?!), the Templars and the geometry of French cathedrals.

The 'questing' author's sense of imminent enlightenment is ever present, but in between his retelling of some Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, some Biblical and Crusader history, and some Egyptian and Middle-eastern mythology, his actual 'discoveries' are meagre and couched in new interpretations of astrological conjunctions that seem pretty spurious. Point a star-charting computer program anywhere/anywhen, and you're going to find it lines up with _something_...

It's cool to learn that some bloke called Charpentier identified (and published in 1966) that a bunch of cathedrals are sited to form a massive earthly representation of the stars in the constellation of Virgo. But this book's addition is weak: Reims Cathedral isn't aligned eastwards as a church should be, but points at where the star Regulus would have risen at the birth of Christ in 7 BC. At right-angles to this, the south transept was aligned with the rising of a star in the tail of Sagittarius in 1211 AD, when the Cathedral was founded. This is underwhelming sacred geometry, even if the fact that they put the statue of an archer on the south end of the roof does suggest the cathedral-building masons to have been surprisingly keen and knowledgeable astronomers.

We don't really get anything more than speculation about a purported secret tradition of astrologers maintaining the lore of the Magi into the modern day. Christ's birth may have had more astrological significance than is generally recognised, and half the Bible, Mithras, and a fair smattering of mythological Greek heroes -- plus Robin Hood(!) -- might all play into a single archetype represented by Orion (about which the author wrote another book); amazingly they all have hunting in common.

The book identifies a load of parallels and tenuous possible connections between various things, but they don't really pull together into anything cohesive. It will please only the already-converted.

[Christa Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my second time around! Love it and believe every word about this age old history Gilbert Adrian G. wrote about. It took him on a journey for 25 years. Very very interesting stuff.......

[Penny · Rating 2 out of 5]

For me this book just suffers the progress of time, and not quite getting to the answers I was looking for (most probably not its own fault of course). I found the astrological finds very intriguing and go a step further in the wonderings of it all...it wasn't an easy read with all the endnotes to flip backwards and forwards to read.

[David Stewart · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bullshit.

[David Sheldon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book, as other people have said though , it does start off on a good premise of being a detective work about the real possibility of who the three wise men were. It then looks at what if they had occult or hidden knowledge about the world and if so, then who they could have been in this light. All in all a good read but not long enough for the subject matter, nor does it come to an satisfying conclusion.

[Sonny · Rating 3 out of 5]

What starts off as a promising journey to discover the real roots of the Magi ends up unravelling on a course of obscure Armenian history. It somehow manages to fall short of true esoteric meaning of "The Magi" and hinges almost entirely on a long-forgotten kingdom that has less to do with the history of Jerusalem and Christ than Ethiopia.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

some interesting astrological stuff near the end. not sure I'll keep it or read it again, but glad I read it once.

[Liam O'nade]

Written by the co-author of The Orion Mystery and The Mayan Prophecies, this book takes the reader through the past, revealing how secret knowledge was both preserved in the East in the form of monumental architecture and at the time of the Crusades, passed westwards to the fledgling states of Europe.