What do you think?
Rate this book
The Carnivals of Life and Death: My Profane Youth: 1913-1935
James Shelby Downard, who died at the age of eighty-three in 1996, is one of the most compelling conspiracy theorists of the twentieth century.
Robert Anton Wilson wrote that Downard’s “King-Kill” essay, regarding the involvement of Freemasons in the murder of John F. Kennedy, is “the most incredible Illuminati theory of them all.” Marilyn Manson wrote a song based on “King-Kill 33°,” and even two rock bands, one in Atlanta and the other in Seattle, named themselves after Downard’s piece.
The Carnivals of Life and Death is James Shelby Downard’s thrilling life story, detailing the skullduggery and ritualism of the KKK and Freemasonry and how they imposed themselves on the young Downard and his family in Depression-era Deep-South America in the 1930s.
Editor Elana Freeland writes in her introduction, “Downard’s tale is a piece of the puzzle of a very important period when networks of fraternal orders were front and center in consolidating techniques of sociopolitical control.”
Interest in the hidden aspects of Freemasonry is reaching boiling point today, and James Shelby Downard’s eagerly awaited contribution to this secretive and little-known aspect of American culture will be widely read and discussed.
Robert Anton Wilson wrote that Downard’s “King-Kill” essay, regarding the involvement of Freemasons in the murder of John F. Kennedy, is “the most incredible Illuminati theory of them all.” Marilyn Manson wrote a song based on “King-Kill 33°,” and even two rock bands, one in Atlanta and the other in Seattle, named themselves after Downard’s piece.
The Carnivals of Life and Death is James Shelby Downard’s thrilling life story, detailing the skullduggery and ritualism of the KKK and Freemasonry and how they imposed themselves on the young Downard and his family in Depression-era Deep-South America in the 1930s.
Editor Elana Freeland writes in her introduction, “Downard’s tale is a piece of the puzzle of a very important period when networks of fraternal orders were front and center in consolidating techniques of sociopolitical control.”
Interest in the hidden aspects of Freemasonry is reaching boiling point today, and James Shelby Downard’s eagerly awaited contribution to this secretive and little-known aspect of American culture will be widely read and discussed.
280 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2006
7 people are currently reading
309 people want to read
About the author
James Shelby Downard
4 books30 followersJames Shelby Downard was an American conspiracy theorist whose works, most of which have been published in various anthologies from Feral House, examined perceived occult symbolism, twilight language and synchronicity behind historical events in the 20th century. Shelby is known for his addition to Masonic conspiracy theories with his belief that the Freemasons were responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy through a ritual known as "Killing of the King".
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
November 11, 2018
How does one go about rating a book like this? The opening chapters concern the author's childhood confrontations with villainous Freemason and Klan agents, listing the countless evildoers that he has shot, stabbed, and blown up by the age of ten; and it only gets more unbelievable from there. The memoirs of a conspiracy theorist renowned for his erudition as well as the outreness of his ideas, Downard's book comes off as a rather more lucid and literate version of Francis E. Dec's 'gangster computer god' rants, as he witnesses Alexander Graham Bell (or a double) engage in sex magic, meets with and receives a million dollar check from FDR, is embroiled in innumerable Masonic mindgames, and escapes death more frequently than a dozen silent film serial heroes. The very likely possibility of mental illness explains much, but as others have pointed out, a number of historical details correspond with Downard's narrative, which makes one wonder what the real story behind all this might be. Downard himself mentions that these 'true' memories of his youth didn't appear until much later, and the dream logic and salaciousness of his stories made me think almost immediately of the accounts of the children involved in the so-called 'satanic panic'. However, Downard's tale feels like the product of someone who has constructed an elaborately nightmarish fantasyland in order to protect themselves from an even more unbearable truth; but who can say? In any event, those who enjoy 'outsider' artistic productions will certainly appreciate this unclassifiable work, which reads like Horatio Alger as re-imagined by Henry Darger.
July 28, 2010
This book reads like those Home Alone movies, you know the ones. A precocious kid with questionable parents keeps finding himself in violent situations wherein he bests his attackers. Imagine those movies except Kevin gets stalked and attacked by Freemasons and the Klan and you pretty much have the gist of this book. According to Downard, he was set up as a scapegoat (pharmakos) or symbolic whipping boy, presumably by his criminally negligent and downright weird parents, and spent his entire life standing up for the American Way by thwarting attack after attack after attack and witnessing unspeakable acts while besting the worst evil there is. Read my entire review here.
May 1, 2018
Sometimes I wonder if John Shelby Downard even existed and is not actually a secret creation of conspiracy theorists as a private joke shared between them. In fact, a number of biographical details about Downard are similar to William Burroughs.
In any case, this book was definitely not what I was expecting. This is probably one of the most absurd and bizarre books I have ever read. It is also incredibly silly. It is essentially written like an episodic adventure story for boys in which the pre-pubescent main character finds himself in each chapter in suspenseful situations in which he has to use his wits to thwart one-dimensional, bumbling halfwit satanic Freemasonists and Ku Klux Klanners who repeatedly attempt to torture, rape, and kill our boy hero Downard. Along the way Downard makes friends with giant pythons and man-eating pigs, freely handles dynamite, shotguns, and handguns, has encounters with FDR, and has parents that seem to be in some never explained way in collaboration with his would be assassins. Did I mention all this starts at the age of five?
By turns amusing, ridiculous, and silly, I seriously considered throwing it to the side unfinished, but decided to treat it like a fictional account. By doing so I actually began to enjoy it, but I don't think I would recommend this to anyone except for maybe as a gag gift.
In any case, this book was definitely not what I was expecting. This is probably one of the most absurd and bizarre books I have ever read. It is also incredibly silly. It is essentially written like an episodic adventure story for boys in which the pre-pubescent main character finds himself in each chapter in suspenseful situations in which he has to use his wits to thwart one-dimensional, bumbling halfwit satanic Freemasonists and Ku Klux Klanners who repeatedly attempt to torture, rape, and kill our boy hero Downard. Along the way Downard makes friends with giant pythons and man-eating pigs, freely handles dynamite, shotguns, and handguns, has encounters with FDR, and has parents that seem to be in some never explained way in collaboration with his would be assassins. Did I mention all this starts at the age of five?
By turns amusing, ridiculous, and silly, I seriously considered throwing it to the side unfinished, but decided to treat it like a fictional account. By doing so I actually began to enjoy it, but I don't think I would recommend this to anyone except for maybe as a gag gift.
March 21, 2018
Downard was a very sick man. Mentally disturbed. He is a perfect example of the paranoid delusional disorders.
Downard believes himself to be under constant persecutory (i.e., belief that one is going to be harmed by an individual, organization or group) activity. He is consistently kidnapped, abducted, or otherwise transported by nameless men to secret chambers. He believes his mom conspires against him, prodding him into dire and life threatening situations where, Downard is subject to human sacrifice of magickal murder.
Downard is particularly obsessed with a set of grave objects, including a set of books that were authored by someone with his own name. Additionally, his referential (i.e., belief that gestures, comments, or environmental cues are directed at oneself) delusions include nearly constant information being communicated to and about him by strangers, random men in cars, and specific symbols that mark him for the attention of Freemasons and KKKers.
Downard harbors several grandiose (i.e., belief that the individual has exceptional abilities, wealth, or fame) ideas, namely that he is pals with FDR, industrialists like Firestone, Graham Bell, Proctor of Proctor and Gamble. He maintains that he was in possession of several Million Dollar Gold Certificates that somehow granted him access to these famous men. All he needed to do was flash one at the White House gate and he was ushered right in to see the President, who instantly recognized him as the special person Downard was.
Downard is somatic (i.e., beliefs focused on bodily function or sensation), often after being abducted he is drugged, felated, sodomized, or brought to orgasm by nefarious means. He complains about missing time, hallucinary states, and other false memories brought on by electric manipulations and other sorts of bodily horror manipulations.
One of the strangest things about Downard's insanity is the sheer amount of violence he inflicts upon his enemies. Early in his life he expertly handles pistols, shotguns, dynamite, and gas explosions to escape his tormentors. As he enters his teens he is still killing random men out to get him on an abnormal scale. It isn't until his 20s that he learns that he can fight his persecutors through influence and cunning. But still manages to explode a few hotels and shotgun down a few Klansmen.
All this is not to say that Downard was a civil rights proponent. He was not. He was racist as the next, but felt that the "greasers" and "negroes" were useful tools in thwarting the machinations of his enemies.
Downard's book is a clear eyed example of mental illness and for that reason is highly informative and important. The counter-cultural impact cannot be downplayed, either. In the pre-internet world, these sorts of conspiratorial nutjobs were like finding a motherlode of inspiration. His closed system world where he held secret knowledge and personal importance bordered on a sort of art form. Today, we would just dismiss Downard as a troll. Either option fully ignores the very real and constant personal pain he must have lived.
Downard believes himself to be under constant persecutory (i.e., belief that one is going to be harmed by an individual, organization or group) activity. He is consistently kidnapped, abducted, or otherwise transported by nameless men to secret chambers. He believes his mom conspires against him, prodding him into dire and life threatening situations where, Downard is subject to human sacrifice of magickal murder.
Downard is particularly obsessed with a set of grave objects, including a set of books that were authored by someone with his own name. Additionally, his referential (i.e., belief that gestures, comments, or environmental cues are directed at oneself) delusions include nearly constant information being communicated to and about him by strangers, random men in cars, and specific symbols that mark him for the attention of Freemasons and KKKers.
Downard harbors several grandiose (i.e., belief that the individual has exceptional abilities, wealth, or fame) ideas, namely that he is pals with FDR, industrialists like Firestone, Graham Bell, Proctor of Proctor and Gamble. He maintains that he was in possession of several Million Dollar Gold Certificates that somehow granted him access to these famous men. All he needed to do was flash one at the White House gate and he was ushered right in to see the President, who instantly recognized him as the special person Downard was.
Downard is somatic (i.e., beliefs focused on bodily function or sensation), often after being abducted he is drugged, felated, sodomized, or brought to orgasm by nefarious means. He complains about missing time, hallucinary states, and other false memories brought on by electric manipulations and other sorts of bodily horror manipulations.
One of the strangest things about Downard's insanity is the sheer amount of violence he inflicts upon his enemies. Early in his life he expertly handles pistols, shotguns, dynamite, and gas explosions to escape his tormentors. As he enters his teens he is still killing random men out to get him on an abnormal scale. It isn't until his 20s that he learns that he can fight his persecutors through influence and cunning. But still manages to explode a few hotels and shotgun down a few Klansmen.
All this is not to say that Downard was a civil rights proponent. He was not. He was racist as the next, but felt that the "greasers" and "negroes" were useful tools in thwarting the machinations of his enemies.
Downard's book is a clear eyed example of mental illness and for that reason is highly informative and important. The counter-cultural impact cannot be downplayed, either. In the pre-internet world, these sorts of conspiratorial nutjobs were like finding a motherlode of inspiration. His closed system world where he held secret knowledge and personal importance bordered on a sort of art form. Today, we would just dismiss Downard as a troll. Either option fully ignores the very real and constant personal pain he must have lived.
June 16, 2021
Many grimoires and occult books contained nonsense to discourage the uninitiated from reading deeper. I think there's something encoded in this book, but I don't know what.
November 28, 2015
This is one of the kookiest pieces of crap I have ever read. There are probably some pearls of truth buried in the muck, but I found much of this book very hard to take. A six year-old with a gun? Million Dollar Gold Certificates? Stacks of books written by someone with James Shelby
Downard's name? Close personal friend and issuer of the million dollar check, Franklin Delano Roosevelt? No wonder his father went crazy and his mother set him up to be killed multiple times.
And yet... Mansions built by millionaires on the Georgia Lowcountry coast are still there. The Klan was engaging in the type of psychodrama with which it is charged in these pages. The class and racial strife Downard explicates were certainly real.
I love a good crank, and Downard is a crank of the first order. Read him if you dare.
Downard's name? Close personal friend and issuer of the million dollar check, Franklin Delano Roosevelt? No wonder his father went crazy and his mother set him up to be killed multiple times.
And yet... Mansions built by millionaires on the Georgia Lowcountry coast are still there. The Klan was engaging in the type of psychodrama with which it is charged in these pages. The class and racial strife Downard explicates were certainly real.
I love a good crank, and Downard is a crank of the first order. Read him if you dare.
May 5, 2020
A quirky pastiche of three of America's quirkiest fictional genres - 1. the tall tale; 2. the conspiracy theory; and 3. the recovered memory. And even that makes it sound more sensible than it is.
September 14, 2016
Part Brer Rabbit Stories, Part Tall Tales, all Southern-style Paranoia with the Klu Klux Klan and Freemason as ubiquitous baddies. It lies somewhere in that twilight zone between hogwash and an earnest chronicle of a life obsessed with the esoteric and occult.
July 23, 2009
If even an iota of what is written in this book actually occurs... wow.
June 18, 2025
We walked uneventfully for a block and a half, until she said she didn’t want to walk any further. I asked her if she was tired or her feet hurt and she said no. I asked if she was afraid and she said no, she just didn’t want to walk any further.
April 11, 2024
At times it was sort of entertaining but not even really as much as it should have been considering this book is completely over the top bullshit from cover to cover. It's not just that you are expected to believe the bullshit in this book it's that most of this stuff happens when Downard was from 8 to 16 years old. So while it's obviously not believable I've heard speculation that Downard was not a real person and was a totally made up character by Adam Parfrey who is the real author of this book. Parfrey had a great publishing house but was known to be a real dodgy unethical person so I think it's at least possible that Downard never actually existed much less that the contents of this book being legit.
I'd recommend the King Kill/33 essay on the JFK assassination which was allegedly written by Downard but this one is just insulting to my intelligence to expect me to believe stories about eight year olds getting in gangster shoot outs with the KKK and Masonic assassins and having face to face meetings with FDR.
2.5 out of 5 stars for the occasional entertainment value herein.
I'd recommend the King Kill/33 essay on the JFK assassination which was allegedly written by Downard but this one is just insulting to my intelligence to expect me to believe stories about eight year olds getting in gangster shoot outs with the KKK and Masonic assassins and having face to face meetings with FDR.
2.5 out of 5 stars for the occasional entertainment value herein.
September 15, 2022
Downard's biography is almost certainly the result of him kidding himself - but what a wild ride it is. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...
December 29, 2023
Adventure story.
May 11, 2024
This is a terrible, awful piece of writing, but an interesting book. Clearly the ramblings of an insane person.
January 19, 2010
I wanted to love this book. After reading a review in Paranoia Magazine, this seemed like it would be full of interesting things... and it was. My problem was with the patchy and verbose writing style. Despite how interested I was in the topics and events that James Shelby Downard had written in his journal, it never turned into the page-turner I was hoping for. This ended up taking much longer to read than I had planned on, and I unfortunately found myself struggling to finish it.
Aside from the writing style, the journal skips from one date to another, leaving immense gaps and unfinished stories. Of course, all of this could be expected from an unfinished journal that was just turned into a book.
Looking beyond all of the faults of this book, there is still an unbelievable story within. It's a shame that Downard died before he was able to finish the closest thing he had to a biography.
Aside from the writing style, the journal skips from one date to another, leaving immense gaps and unfinished stories. Of course, all of this could be expected from an unfinished journal that was just turned into a book.
Looking beyond all of the faults of this book, there is still an unbelievable story within. It's a shame that Downard died before he was able to finish the closest thing he had to a biography.
September 1, 2011
This book was incomplete at the time of the author's death, which might be a blessing as fragmented and rambling as it is. His tales are too bizarre to be made up, but some of these events don't seem possible, even to the way out. I can't even recommend it for conspiracy students, but its shock value is off the charts. Too bad more of this can't be substantiated. Better reading in the same vein might be The Way Out of Hell or Suffer the Child by Judith Spencer.
February 25, 2015
Even in the vast world of "conspiracy" literature this book is a deep shade of weird. It seems more like a series of parables than an actual memoir. I couldn't possibly write a better review than Anita Dalton (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) so I'll just link to her complete, excellent review here:http://ireadoddbooks.com/the-carnival...
August 29, 2012
Very hard to believe. Full of sexuality.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews