What do you think?
Rate this book
Opus Dei: The Secret History: Exploring the Mysteries of One of the Most Controversial and Powreful Forces in World Religion.
Investigates the secret world of the Opus Dei and details its humble beginnings in Spain nearly 80 years ago to its unique status as a powerful autonomous entity at the very heart of the Catholic church today.
96 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2009
About the author
Maggy Whitehouse
42 books14 followersRev. Maggy Whitehouse teaches Kabbalah, Bible Metaphysics, Soul Wisdom, Abundant Living and HeartWork: Spiritual Marketing in workshops across the UK, USA and Europe. She is the author of 16 published books including ‘Total Kabbalah, ’ ‘From Credit Crunch to Pure Prosperity’ and the best-selling 'Miracle Man' (O-Books), a novel about a modern-day messiah who is a judge on the US X Factor. Imagine a Simon Cowell figure as Christ!
Her other fiction and non-fiction books include practical and easy-to-understand guides to Kabbalah, the Spiritual Laws of Prosperity and the life and times of women in Biblical times.
Maggy trained as a journalist and has worked in print media, radio and television including the BBC World Service. She was the UK's second female breakfast DJ on local radio and an assistant producer on the fabled Pebble Mill at One.
She wrote her first book, China By Rail, in 1987 after spending six summers travelling around China - and met her first husband while filming two ITV documentaries in China a year later. Henry Barley died a year after their wedding in 1990 and it was the hospital chaplain who told Maggy that, as an atheist, Henry could not go to heaven, who inspired her to start investigating alternatives to her previous 'armchair Christianity.'
This search was intensified after she came out the winner in a brief encounter with an eight-foot barracuda off the Barrier Reef in Australia...
Maggy is a qualified teacher of healing in two disciplines and studied Kabbalah with Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi for sixteen years. She has written three Kabbalistic novels, ‘The Book of Deborah,’ ‘ Into the Kingdom’ and ‘Leaves of the Tree’ about a fictional adopted sister of Jesus of Nazareth, and is an acknowledged expert both on the life and times of women in Biblical times and also in Kabbalistic interpretations of the New Testament.
She teaches seminars and workshops in the UK, USA and Europe and is just as happy speaking to Masons in Washington DC as to congregations of traditional and New Thought Churches and local holistic fairs. In 2011 she is teaching in the UK, USA, France, Czech Republic and Romania.
Maggy is consultant editor of the Midlands holistic magazine, The Tree of Life, and has taught workshops in Kabbalah, Prosperity Consciousness and Comparative Religion in the UK, USA, Europe, Russia and Israel since 1993. She was the founder-producer of the BBC's now-defunct spirituality website, which was morphed into the corporation's Religion & Ethics site.
In 2007 she was ordained into The Apostolic Church of the Risen Christ, an independent sacramental church. She is now visiting lecturer in Judaism and Kabbalah for the UK Interfaith Seminary.
Maggy lives in Birmingham, England, with her husband, Peter Dickinson.
Her other fiction and non-fiction books include practical and easy-to-understand guides to Kabbalah, the Spiritual Laws of Prosperity and the life and times of women in Biblical times.
Maggy trained as a journalist and has worked in print media, radio and television including the BBC World Service. She was the UK's second female breakfast DJ on local radio and an assistant producer on the fabled Pebble Mill at One.
She wrote her first book, China By Rail, in 1987 after spending six summers travelling around China - and met her first husband while filming two ITV documentaries in China a year later. Henry Barley died a year after their wedding in 1990 and it was the hospital chaplain who told Maggy that, as an atheist, Henry could not go to heaven, who inspired her to start investigating alternatives to her previous 'armchair Christianity.'
This search was intensified after she came out the winner in a brief encounter with an eight-foot barracuda off the Barrier Reef in Australia...
Maggy is a qualified teacher of healing in two disciplines and studied Kabbalah with Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi for sixteen years. She has written three Kabbalistic novels, ‘The Book of Deborah,’ ‘ Into the Kingdom’ and ‘Leaves of the Tree’ about a fictional adopted sister of Jesus of Nazareth, and is an acknowledged expert both on the life and times of women in Biblical times and also in Kabbalistic interpretations of the New Testament.
She teaches seminars and workshops in the UK, USA and Europe and is just as happy speaking to Masons in Washington DC as to congregations of traditional and New Thought Churches and local holistic fairs. In 2011 she is teaching in the UK, USA, France, Czech Republic and Romania.
Maggy is consultant editor of the Midlands holistic magazine, The Tree of Life, and has taught workshops in Kabbalah, Prosperity Consciousness and Comparative Religion in the UK, USA, Europe, Russia and Israel since 1993. She was the founder-producer of the BBC's now-defunct spirituality website, which was morphed into the corporation's Religion & Ethics site.
In 2007 she was ordained into The Apostolic Church of the Risen Christ, an independent sacramental church. She is now visiting lecturer in Judaism and Kabbalah for the UK Interfaith Seminary.
Maggy lives in Birmingham, England, with her husband, Peter Dickinson.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 19, 2024
I was surprised to see this glossy full colour publication on Opus Dei - how things have changed since I knew the organisation in London in the 1970's and all this openness has to do with Dan Brown's execrable da Vinci code! Let me be clear Dan Brown wouldn't recognise a fact or truth if it was buggering him. Does it need to be said that everything Dan Brown wrote was wrong if not totally made up? There are many reasons to dislike Opus Dei but none of them have anything to do with Dan Brown.
There is nothing particularly inaccurate in this book but I have no doubt that while its author may not be a member of Opus Dei the inspiration and finance came from those close to Opus Dei. I was going to go into details but have decided not to because everything that is wrong with Opus Dei can be said about the Catholic Church. Opus Dei follows all the beliefs of the Catholic Church as defined by its theology, catechism and traditions. If you have problems with what Opus Dei believes in, does or teaches then you probably have problems with what the Catholic Church believes in, does or teaches. Personally I have grave problems with everything to do with Catholic Church - as an institution or moral authority I consider it ridiculous. How can anyone follow it when it managed to completely fail to face up to, challenge, or deal with the two great moral crisis thrust on it during the 20th century - the rise of Fascism/Nazism and the clerical abuse scandals within its ranks?
There is nothing particularly inaccurate in this book but I have no doubt that while its author may not be a member of Opus Dei the inspiration and finance came from those close to Opus Dei. I was going to go into details but have decided not to because everything that is wrong with Opus Dei can be said about the Catholic Church. Opus Dei follows all the beliefs of the Catholic Church as defined by its theology, catechism and traditions. If you have problems with what Opus Dei believes in, does or teaches then you probably have problems with what the Catholic Church believes in, does or teaches. Personally I have grave problems with everything to do with Catholic Church - as an institution or moral authority I consider it ridiculous. How can anyone follow it when it managed to completely fail to face up to, challenge, or deal with the two great moral crisis thrust on it during the 20th century - the rise of Fascism/Nazism and the clerical abuse scandals within its ranks?
June 21, 2026
This book is such absolute shit and it won't even count towards my yearly goal cuz I got so pissed off I had to skim it
1. Wild oversimplifications of Catholic beliefs.
2. Statements that were just objectively untrue about Catholic beliefs
3. Things said to be uniquely 'opus dei' and were just Catholic
4. Things said to be sketchy about opus dei that were just Catholic (like gurl, just criticize the source at that point) this was done SO MANY FUCKING TIMES OMG
5. Did not even get into the actual scandals much.
Thanks babe, what a fuckin waste of time
1. Wild oversimplifications of Catholic beliefs.
2. Statements that were just objectively untrue about Catholic beliefs
3. Things said to be uniquely 'opus dei' and were just Catholic
4. Things said to be sketchy about opus dei that were just Catholic (like gurl, just criticize the source at that point) this was done SO MANY FUCKING TIMES OMG
5. Did not even get into the actual scandals much.
Thanks babe, what a fuckin waste of time
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews