� Freemasonry's first American lodge included a young Benjamin Franklin among its members.
� The Knights Templar began as impoverished warrior monks then evolved into bankers.
� Groom Lake, Dreamland, Homey Airport, Paradise Ranch, The Farm, Watertown Strip, Red Square, �The Box,� are all
names for Area 51.
An indispensable guide, Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies connects the dots and sets the record straight
on a host of greedy gurus and murderous messiahs, crepuscular cabals and suspicious coincidences. Some topics are
familiar�the Kennedy assassinations, the Bilderberg Group, the Illuminati, the People's Temple and Heaven's Gate�and
some surprising, like Oulipo, a select group of intellectuals who created wild formulas for creating literary masterpieces,
and the Chauffeurs, an eighteenth-century society of French home invaders, who set fire to their victims' feet
�Arthur Goldwag is a shrewd, fair minded, learned and entertaining tour guide through a world that�s simultaneously
funny and frightening. Not a page goes by without some �I-didn�t-know-that!� nugget. Given what�s going on this
ever-more-paranoid society, a book like this becomes not only titillating but crucially important.��Steven Waldman,
Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of Beliefnet.com
�A great plum pudding of a book packed with nutty theories and fruity factoids. Goldwag navigates his way through
the wilder reaches of human belief with great urbanity.��Mark Booth, author of The Secret History of the World:
As Laid Down by the Secret Societies
�As entertainingly written as it is enlightening--I am struck by the calm, the humor, the aplomb with which the
author describes all these far-fetched notions and groups.��Phillip Lopate
�Goldwag is a colorful writer who makes good use of his material as he aims to explain, rather than debunk or expose,
a fascinating diversity of beliefs.��Boston Globe
�The answer to your burning questions about subjects from Area 51 to the Yakuza.��Details
�Marvelous.��Scientific American
�The author�s delivery is engaging and entertaining. The amount of research done in this book is astounding. .
. . An incredibly insightful, thoroughly enjoyable look at society�s shadow.��Armchair Interviews
�The kind of reference manual that the Internet cannot supplant�.Goldwag keeps the facts straight and gives the
rumors -- no matter how lurid and entertaining -- about as much respect as they deserve.��The
Washington Post
