Nicholas Hagger

Nicholas Hagger

Cultural Historian

E-Mail:

info@nicholashagger.co.uk

1. The Fire and the Stones	3. The Secret History of the West
2. The Syndicate	4. The Light of Civilization

5. The Rise and Fall of Civilizations

6. The Secret Founding of America

7. The Revolution That Didn't Happen

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1. The Fire and the Stones

A Grand Unified Theory of World History and Religion

Published by Element in 1991

ISBN 1852302240

Price £39.95/$69.95 Hardback

The Fire and the Stones is Nicholas Hagger’s monumental Grand Unified Theory of world history and religion. Written in the tradition of Gibbon, Spengler and Toynbee, it demonstrates how all civilizations are born and grow by means of a vision of the metaphysical Fire or Light which created the Universe; and how, conversely, when the vision wanes and the culture turns secular, civilizations decline and their stones (temples, cathedrals, mosques) become mere tourist attractions.

In Part One Nicholas Hagger explores the Tradition of the Fire or Light as experienced and interpreted by mystics over a period of 5,000 years. (Experiences of spiritual illumination have been recorded since the beginning of history.) The book opens with the vision of the French philosopher Pascal, whose life-changing experience of the Fire on Monday 23rd November 1654 made such an impact that he sewed the date and time into his doublet and wore it for the rest of his life.

Part Two moves from religion to history and covers the growth and decay of the world’s civilizations from their origins in visions of the Fire or Light. It ends with a fascinating chapter on the future of Western civilization, in which Nicholas Hagger raises the theme of hidden history, in particular humanity’s age-old compulsive drive towards world government. A 7-foot long chart that accompanies the book shows 25 civilizations passing through 61 stages. The book predicted the end of Communism in Russia, and forecasts a United States of Europe.

In Greater Detail

Part One of The Fire and the Stones tells the fascinating story of man’s experience of the metaphysical Fire and of the temples, cathedrals and mosques – the stones – it inspired. Starting in early shamanistic times with Central Asia and the Indo-European Kurgans, and then proceeding chronologically through a 5,000 year long tradition, Nicholas Hagger gives a comprehensive account of all the best-known recorded experiences of the mystical Fire or Light, which is widely regarded as the vision of God. The Sumerian ziggurats, the Egyptian pyramids, the Greek mysteries, the Iranian Fire-temples and the Chinese cult of heaven, along with the Buddha’s Enlightenment, Christ’s Light of the World, the Quaker Inner Light and the esoteric spiritual sun are just some of the many expressions of the experience of the Fire which has been known in all cultures and civilizations at all times, and which has inspired the world’s religions.

In Part Two, Nicholas Hagger presents the vision of the Fire as the central idea of 25 civilizations. The Fire is seen by a contemplative mystic such as Mohammed and passes into a new religion such as Islam, which spreads as the civilization expands. Nicholas Hagger offers a Grand Unified Theory of world history and religion and a new explanation (Universalism) for the rise and fall of civilizations, a theme that has occupied Gibbon, Spengler and Toynbee. Quite simply, civilizations grow round a human response to the vision of God as the Fire, which passes into their religions, and they decline through progressively secularizing stages then their central idea of the Fire becomes lost. There are tables for each of the 61 stages which can be readily assimilated. The whole pattern can therefore be grasped rapidly at first reading, and detailed study of each table and stage can follow later. Because living civilizations follow the same stages that dead civilizations have been through, quite detailed predictions are possible. A free fold-out chart 2.5 metres long (possibly the longest ever such chart) accompanying the book shows 25 dead and living civilizations passing through 61 parallel Fire-based stages and enables the whole scheme to be absorbed at a glance.

The Fire and Stones shows that contemplative mystics, not generals or economists, are the true heroes of civilizations because they perpetuate and transmit the central idea of their civilizations, the Fire. The rediscovery of the existential experience of the metaphysical Fire in this work revives the metaphysical vision and effects a Metaphysical Revolution in our time.

Contemporary world history is in turmoil. The collapse of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe, America’s world dominance after the Cold War and the moves towards a United States of Europe all lead one to ask: is there a pattern in world history in terms of which such developments could have been anticipated? This profound, topical, enormously wide-ranging and prophetic book suggests that there is such a pattern, and that in the course of the past 5,000 years 25 Near Eastern, Eastern and Western civilizations have grown round the mystical vision of God as Fire which is found in all cultures, which is at the core of all religions and which has inspired their temples, cathedrals and mosques – the civilizations’ stones . Each channel the Fire or Light into its religion, and it declines in progressively secularizing stages as the Fire becomes forgotten.

All previous comparative studies of civilizations, for example by Gibbon, Spengler and Toynbee, have focused on their decline. This study focuses on their genesis in a central idea (the mystical vision of a universal God as Fire) which explains their growth and whose progressive weakening takes them through successive stages towards decay. This explanation for the rise and fall of civilizations embraces all mankind, and the author calls it Universalism. He employs a cross-disciplinary approach and a phenomenological method which allows him to investigate the reception of the Fire in consciousness without speculating about its origin, drawing together for the first time all the best-known recorded experiences of the Fire and offering a “Grand Unified Theory” of world history that integrates religion and which makes fascinating predictions for the coming stages of existing civilizations.

By dwelling on the experiences of the Fire Nicholas Hagger revitalises the metaphysical tradition which reached a dead-end with abstract rational speculation and the critical scepticism of the Vienna Circle philosophers. His study restores the metaphysical vision within all religions and disciplines, and effects a world-wide Metaphysical Revolution in our time. It has profound implications for philosophy: it lays the foundations for a new Existential Metaphysics, or Metaphysical Existentialism, and for a new philosophy. He transforms the philosophy of history by showing civilizations to be both within a world-wide civilization and common culture which can be achieved in the 21st century, bringing world peace.

Religious Expressions of the Fire or Light

The Palaeolithic shamans (p13); the Indo-European god Dyaeus Pitar, or “Shining Father” (p20); the founders of the Sumerian city-states, the Anannage or “Shining Ones” (pp21-4); the Sumerians’ Sacred Royal Marriage (pp26-8); the Egyptian “akh” or “shining spiritual soul” (pp30-7); the Indo-European and Egyptian bull-cults (p50); the Greek mysteries (pp51-4); the Jewish tabernacle (pp60-1); the Druid Light of Du-w (p65); the Zoroastrian fire-sacrifices to Ahura Mazda (pp70-1); the Hindu Brahman and Atman (pp74-6); the Yoga samadhi (pp76-7); the Enlightenment of the Buddha, the “Enlightened One” or Illuminator (pp78-9); the Mahayana “sunyata” (p221); the Jain “conquerors” (pp80-1); the Essenes, whose Sermon on the Mount begins “Blessed is the Child of Light” (p93); the parables of Jesus, the transfigured “Light of the World”, and St Paul’s blinding Light (pp100, 113-4); the Roman Sol and Isis (pp89, 137-8); Lucius, “The Great Light”, who established Christianity in Britain in 156AD (p118); Mani the Illuminator, the Manichaean “Apostle of Light” (p133); the gnosis of Gnosticism (p120); Alchemy’s gold and the Hermetic mysteries and the Tarot cards, (pp 128-9); the Sufi “fana” (pp160-1); Omar Khayyam’s intoxication in the tavern(pp165-6); the Grail, which symbolised the Cistercian Light of St Bernard, who wrote the Rule of the Templars (pp173, 195); the “Radiance” of the Kabbalah (p197); the Divine Light and “Fire of Love” of the Christian mystics, for example the Dominican “spark of the souls” (p208); the Clear Light of the Void, which the Tibetans saw at death (pp226-7); Siva’s lingam, which expresses detachment from the senses (pp231, 237); the Tantric diamond nature and the raising of the serpent Kundalini (p232); the Chinese “Golden Flower”, which hid the character for Light (p241); Zen satori (pp244-6); the Easter Island Polynesian “mana” (p247); Theosophy’s “hidden concealed spiritual Sun” and the Golden Dawn (pp300-1); many poets such as the Swedenborgian Blake, who experienced the Light c1784 but not again until 1804 after “twenty dark years” (p292).

Stones Inspired by the Fire or Light

The ziggurats, Sacred Mountains at which the Fire could be known, e.g. Etemenanki (p28); the sloping sides of the Great Pyramid which shone like an “akh” (pp33-5); the obelisk known as Cleopatra’s Needle (p35); the Alchemical Temple of Ptah at Karnak (p129); the British megaliths, which were probably of Kurgan Sumerian origin, including Stonehenge, whose trilithons embodied the Fire (pp40, 66); Solomon’s Temple, from which Freemasons derived the Light, a sacred grove of shamanistic World Trees in stone (p283); the South American temple-pyramids like the Huaca del Sol in Peru (pp45-7); the Delphic oracle to “phoibos” Apollo, the “Light-bearer” and Enlightener, and the Greek Parthenon (pp49-50); the Temple of Eleusis where there was a brilliant light (p52); the stone of Scone (p61); the stone Mithraeums in Rome and London where fire symbolised Mithra’s celestial light (p68); the Roman Temple of Vesta, temple of Sol Invictus and Temple of Isis at Corinth (pp89, 138); the Zoroastrian fire-temples such as Takt-i-Taqdis at Siz or Shiz and Naqsh-i-Rustam near Persepolis (p70); the clay jars filled with scrolls in the caves of Qumran (p89); the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, the observance of which illumined (p59); the erotic sculptures in the Hindu temples at Khajuraho and Konarak (p238); the Hindu Sacred Mountain in stone, like the representation of Mount Meru in Angkor Wat (p237); the Buddhist stupa at Sanchi and the pagoda at Peshawar, India (p230); the Jain temples and stone conqueror Gommatesvara, Stravana Belgola, South India (p81); the Taoist temples and the Chinese Temple of Heaven, Beijing (p86); the Temple of Serapis at Alexandria (p128); Islamic mosques and minarets (p337); Christian churches, cathedrals and spires (p326); the Byzantine Hagia Sophia, Church of the Holy Wisdom (p143); the Danish stone of Harold Bluetooth at Jelling (p153); the Gothic cathedrals with rose windows, like Chartres (pp176-80); the Lantern of the Dead at Sarlat, France (pp 181-2); the Golden Temple of the Sikhs at Amritsar (p239); the Templars’ Temple at Sion, Jerusalem (pp174-5); the Kabbalistic schools in South France (p197); the Tantric Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries at Lhasa (p224); the sun at the top of the west door of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge (p284); the Zen Ryoanji temple in Kyoto (pp222-3); the colossal Buddha at Nara, the “Great Illuminator” (p222); the Easter Island stone giants (pp248-9); the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Archangel in the Kremlin (p311); the vault in the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, London (p266).

"The book is the most powerful tour de force I have come across in my entire academic life..... Full of insights and understandings."

Asa Briggs, historian.

"An extraordinary book."

David Gascoyne.

"How much William James would have supported all those who value the quality and range of a truly comprehensive modern awareness as Nicholas Hagger does." Sir Laurens van der Post.

"I'm sure you've seen a genuine historical pattern and law."

Ted Hughes.

2. The Syndicate

The Story of the Coming World Government

Published by O Books in 2004

ISBN 1903816858

Price £11.99/$17.95 Paperback

The Syndicate describes how an American-led ‘Syndicate’ of bankers and industrialists, pursued ‘one-world’ policies. It takes us from the League of Nations via Hitler’s World Order, during which the US superseded Britain as the pre-eminent world power, to the United Nations, which now acts as a shadow world government and is the most likely organization to deliver the Syndicate’s New World Order. It describes how the Cold War led to the beginnings of the reunification of Europe and the world. The book demonstrates how the many revolutions of the 20th century have seized oil and levelled pockets of national self-interest in preparation for a coming world government.

The book describes the Syndicate’s attempts to control the world population and its reunification of Europe. It shows how the Syndicate have used the UN and NATO as a world army in the Gulf War, Serbia and other crises of the 1990s. It connects the events of September 11 to the global outlook of the Global Coalition and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. It shows how the Syndicate is setting up a political United States of the World which was originally set to have ten regions and will now have three regions, and considers how the coming world government will be consolidated.

The Syndicate demonstrates how the 20th century, under pressure of the millenarian New World Order, has been rocked by wave after wave of revolutions which are individual waves in a high tide of world revolution and precursors of a world government. The book originated in the treatment of world government in The Fire and the Stones.

The Epilogue explores the different forms the New World Order might take. Will it be benign and engender the abolition of war, disease and famine under the auspices of the UN, or will it be malevolent and so usher in an era of world dictatorship under a tyrant of the Hitler/Stalin type? How democratic will it be? Will it replace the North American civilization or be a phase within its development? Gathering up all the threads of the book, it asks whether the nation-state can survive and what the lessons for the future are.

The Back Cover Says

Is there a common thread behind globalization, the EEC, and war in the Middle East? Why did we invade Iraq when the reasons given – weapons of mass-destruction and links with Al-Qaeda – turn out to be wrong? Is it really the war on terror we should be most concerned about, or are we looking the wrong way?

Nicholas Hagger places these events in the context of the last 100 years, and in doing so provides a controversial and challenging re-reading of history. From the Russian revolution to the present day it is money and oil that have driven events, rather than random individual acts of evil and aggression on the one hand, or the pursuit of liberty and democracy on the other. And behind these events there is a pattern, an inexorable drive to world government. Behind the pattern there are shadowy interests and organisations that undermine the integrity of nation-states and threaten to usher in a new and frightening era.

In Greater Detail

We are living in a time when nation-states are working together to bring about a New World Order that will introduce a world government. A new spirit of globalism has gripped the earth. National boundaries and cultures are dissolving under pressure of the North American civilization, and nowhere is this more evident than in the now almost unitive Europe. Is this process evolutionary or revolutionary? Who are the architects of the New World Order? And are they committed to the welfare of humanity, or do they represent vested interests in the North American and European civilizations (i.e. the West) that seek to coerce mankind for their own ends?

The book shows that “the Syndicate” (the author’s term) is behind American internationalism and the new globalism, and has worked towards both throughout the 20th century. The Syndicate represents vested interests within the North American and European civilizations.

The Syndicate, like The Secret History of the West, draws on secret history. The Secret History of the West probes the influences of Grand Orient Templar Freemasonry in creating revolutions, and The Syndicate discusses the mysterious and influential Bilderberg Group, which conventional history books ignore. The New World Order cannot be understood without this secret history.

The world government was established at the UN in principle and in some secrecy in September 2000. The new structure will be formalised in the coming months and years. Proceeding chronologically, using a context of narrative to increase readability and accessibility, the book charts the world’s progress to the new structure or New World Order, and most of this material is new, extremely topical and potentially controversial.

For example, a world government is good for mankind if it can abolish famine, disease, war; but questionable if its main policy is to reduce the world’s population. Evidence is provided that the Global 2000 Report, published in 1980 and accepted by President Carter, anticipated a reduction of the world’s population of 170 (perhaps 350) million between 1980 and 2000, and up to some 2 billion by 2030. Was it a forecast or a policy? If this is a policy, it is deeply worrying and highly controversial. The book is thus innovatory, even ground-breaking.

The focus of the book is to ask questions as if in a court of law. The evidence for a century of progress towards a New World Order (i.e. world government) is presented and the reader is left to decide how compelling the evidence is.

This book is important as it accumulates the circumstantial evidence for the Syndicate’s activities and the behind-the-scenes workings of the New World Order throughout the 20th century. The cumulative effect of assembling all the evidence is devastating. The whole picture has never before been presented so compellingly. It draws together many books and offers an understanding of contemporary world events that has not appeared until now. It presents the facts (some overt, some hidden) that enable a reader to understand our present time, the new globalism, and the events of September 11 and the ‘war on terrorism’ to which it has given rise.

The book was written to correct the false media view of our time and to warn against the activities of the Syndicate which are behind American internationalism and globalism. These forces have been behind the First and Second World Wars and many events involving oil, and may have been behind the events of September 11 and the Iraq War. The book was written to question the received assumptions regarding the US war against terror in Afghanistan and Iraq; to connect the war against terror with the acquisition of oil; and to show that the aim of the Syndicate is global hegemony. The book represents an attempt to tell the true story of the events of our time, and present a picture very different from the one the media gives.

The book employs the new and completely original 4-part revolutionary dynamic developed in its companion volume The Secret History of the West (published in 2005) which shows that the revolutions of the last 550 years were waves in the same tide, and the New World Order Revolution is presented in terms of this dynamic. The events of September 11 have seen a Global Coalition make war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The new world situation and groupings are bewildering to very many people.

Appendices focus on the 20th century revolutions, the revolutionary dynamic of a New World Order, Islam and the global phase of the North American civilization.

There may be a sequel to The Syndicate.

3. The Secret History of the West

The Influence of Secret Organizations on Western History from the Renaissance to the 20th Century

Published by O Books in 2005

ISBN 1905047045

Price £16.99/$29.95 Paperback

About the Book

The Secret History of the West is a historical work (part one of a two-part work of which part two appeared as The Syndicate in October 2004) that examines the impact of recent organizations on revolutionary history from the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century to the end of the Russian revolution. It grew out of the treatment of “hidden history” in The Fire and the Stones.

The principal focus of the book is Western revolutionary history from c1453 to the Russian revolution.

The Introduction defines the theme of the book as the influence of secret organizations on a succession of revolutions that have eradicated the old Europe of nation-states and are bringing in a world government (the so-called New World Order). It also defines revolution itself and explains the revolutionary dynamic. Part One is entitled “The Protestant Revolution”, and starts with the Reformation as the foundation for its analysis of the Puritan Revolution of the 17th century and its successor, the Glorious Revolution. Part Two – ‘Towards a Universal Republic’ – describes and analyzes the revolutions (and new societies) that grew out of the Age of Reason. The two great Templar revolutions of the 18th century, the American and the French, are covered in chapters 4 and 5. Chapter 6 deals with the influence of Rothschildian capitalism and Mazzini’s revolutionary Marxism on the rise of the rival 19th century British and German Empires. Chapter 7 analyzes the Russian revolution.

The threads are drawn together in a Conclusion which establishes the links between the secret organizations and the revolutions and demonstrates how all the revolutions have prepared the ground for the New World Order in our own time.

Finally, at the end of the book, an appendix on "Civilisations and Revolutions; Two Dynamics" and a set of 10 appendices entitled “The Hidden Hand: The Kabbalistic Roots of Revolution” provide extra insights into the Kabbalistic and occult origins of revolutions, and draws some interesting parallels between the ancient and medieval heretical sects – both Jewish and Christian – and modern revolutionary groups. It also gives a full account of the Dutch Revolution of the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

In Greater Detail

The Secret History of the West reveals revolution’s roots in early attempts by heretical sects – Gnostics, Templars, Cathars, Kabbalists, Rosicrucians – to subvert Christianity. Their inspiration is traced to the Kabbalah, which links them to the Puritans and modern Freemasonry and is seen to provide the ideological foundations of the English, American, French and Russian revolutions.

The Secret History of the West is a narrative of the influence of secret organizations on all the revolutions from 1453 to the Russian revolution. The book proceeds chronologically through the world’s revolutions. No other work offers such a narrative. (Crane Brinton’s Anatomy of Revolution is aimed at postgraduates and assumes a thorough knowledge of the events of the main four revolutions.) All revolutions are found to begin with occultist dreams and to end in horror. The book thus appeals equally to left and right, and is highly educative for young idealists.

The four stages of the dynamic are exemplified by key historical figures, for instance:

		Revolutionary Dynamic
Revolution	Occult	Intellectual	Political	Physical
	*inspiration*	*expression*	*expression*	*consolidation*
English	Bacon/Andreae	Hartlib/Menasseh	Pym/Cromwell	Cromwell
American	Bacon/Weishaupt	Franklin/Jefferson	Washington	Jackson
French	Rousseau/Weishaupt	Mendelssohn/Mirabeau	Robespierre	Napoleon
Russian	Weishaupt/Hegel/ Marx/Engels	Herzen/Trotsky	Lenin	Stalin

Headings and sub-headings accompany the narrative treatment of each revolution in each chapter.

The Secret History of the West is the first book to explain revolutions by delving into the secret history of the West, which means probing into Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism and Adam Weishaupt’s Illuminati, occult organizations that most conventional history books ignore. There can be no satisfactory explanation for all the revolutions if this secret history is ignored, and the 4-part revolutionary dynamic is drawn in part from this secret history. It is because this secret history is admitted that the book’s “new view” is made possible.

The Secret History of the West is the first serious study of hidden organizations and revolutions as the driving force of modern history. The book traces the modern tide of world revolutions back to the Protestant revolution known as the Reformation which had its roots in the Cathar movement of medieval France.

While focusing on secret organizations, The Secret History of the West presents:

A narrative of all the revolutions from 1453 to the Russian revolution. Students in every country where there is civil unrest can read about Robespierre, Lenin and the like and see how Utopian visions of ideal societies end in massacres and guillotinings.

A completely new and original theory of why revolutions happen – a 4-part revolutionary dynamic: an idealist has an occult vision, which others state in intellectual terms; this becomes corrupted by a political regime, and results in physical suppression (e.g.. Stalin’s purge). The summary at the end of each chapter includes tables summarising this dynamic as it applies to each revolution.

An overview that all the revolutions during the last 550 years are individual waves in a high tide of world revolution.

The three books all complement each other. The second and third books have their origin in The Fire and the Stones, which identified revolutionary activity and the drive for world government but was not able to explore these themes in detail.

The Back Cover Says

Who was behind the Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance? Is there a hidden hand behind Western history? Is there a link between the revolutions in England (by Cromwell and William of Orange), America, France and Russia? Has a dynamic power shaped the French revolution, Imperialism and Lenin’s Russian revolution?

Nicholas Hagger focuses on the turning-points in the history of the North American and European civilizations – the revolutions. He shows that secret organizations intrigued them – first the heretical Kabbalists and Cathars and then the Freemasonic Rosicrucians, Sionists and Templars – in pursuit of the hidden Masonic agenda of world revolution which has been an ambition of Freemasonry for hundreds of years. He reveals the hidden dynamic of revolution and the pattern of individual revolutions. As the book’s companion volume, The Syndicate, explains, all the interventions of these shadowy organizations have culminated in one attempt to create a world government.

Catalogue Entry

The Secret History of the West traces the influence of secret organizations on history from the Renaissance to the 20th century and their role in fomenting revolutions.

The secret organizations are:

	the Kabbalists and Cathars, who influenced the development of Protestantism and the Reformation revolution;
	the Rosicrucians who shaped the Puritan Revolution - Dutch Rosicrucian exiles funded the Model Army so that Cromwell could readmit Jews to England - and also William of Orange's Glorious Revolution;
	the Templar Freemasons who inspired the American Revolution;
	the Priory of Sion who created the Illuminati who, when hidden within Grand Orient Templar Freemasonry, stirred up the French Revolution, and who, through the Rothschilds, influenced the Imperialist revolution that produced the European empires in the 19th century;
	Grand Orient Templar Freemasons who brought about the Russian Revolution.

All these revolutions were unleashed by the hidden hand of Freemasonry in its Rosicrucian, Sionist and Templar forms. This is the first book to have exposed the impact of these secret organizations so comprehensively, and in relating revolutions to the activities of factions within Freemasonry the book reveals the hidden dynamics of revolution and the pattern of individual revolutions. As the book's companion volume, The Syndicate, explains, in our time these revolutions have culminated in an attempt to create a world government. All the revolutions have advanced this hidden Masonic agenda of world revolution which has been an ambition of Freemasonry for hundreds of years.

This book can be ordered from Amazon.

4. The Light of Civilization

How the Vision of God has Inspired All the Great Civilizations

Published by O Books in May 2006

ISBN 1905047630

Price £24.99/$49.95 Paperback

The Back Cover Says

In the most monumental study of the history of civilizations for several generations, Nicholas Hagger describes the grand sweep of history in the style of Gibbon, Toynbee and Spangler. He looks for the underlying patterns rather than the shorter-term political, economic or social movements. His unique interpretation is, firstly, to see religion as the basis for civilization rather than one element in its cultural expression. Saints, mystics, gurus, prophets, religious founders – it is these that drive history rather than kings and politicians.

Secondly, it is to describe all religions as part of a common vision, that of the Light. The experience of the Light is described by mystics everywhere in the world, at all times. Over centuries it finds expression in laws, buildings, churches, religions, which in turn eventually crumble. The third element in Hagger's analysis is relating Light-inspired religions to their cultures and civilizations, tracing the process, common to all civilizations, where they decline as the original fire of the Light is lost. Finally, in this updated version of his thinking, he looks at the implications for Western civilization today, facing huge changes like the collapse of the Soviet empire and the hostility of much of the Muslim world, and offers pointers to the future.

Excerpt from a Review

At the source of civilisations can be found religions, and at the core of all religions and historical traditions is the experience of the Light, although it is interpreted differently in different religions. A former Professor of English Literature who has spent a number of years living in Asia and the Middle East, Hagger has excelled in The Light of Civilization with a unique stance that gives mystics, prophets, saints and shamans more credit than kings and politicians for driving history.

Hagger discusses the origin of the Light and the meaning of its experience. He elaborates on the tradition of the Light from 25 sources including the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Israelite, Celtic, Iranian, Andean, African and Chinese, explaining also how the experience of the Light in these regions helped shape these cultures and civilisations.

He then analyses a variety of subsets where "heretical" Light traditions have influenced Western civilisation, eg., the Essenes, the Templars, the Grail Knights, the Kabbalists, the Theosophists and the New Agers (whose origins and ascendancy he analyses). Finally, he discusses the philosophy of history and touches on the implications of this Light knowledge for the future of Western civilisation. Brilliant! Nexus

5. The Rise and Fall of Civilizations

Why Civilizations Rise and Fall and What Happens When They End

Published by O Books in February 2008

ISBN UK 9781846940101

ISBN US 9781846940109

Price £29.99/$59.95 Paperback

Rise and Fall of Civilizations, The

This is a popular new presentation of the conception of civilizations in The Fire and the Stones. While covering the genesis, progress and decline of 25 civilizations. It highlights the European and North American civilizations which together make up Western civilization, and answers the question, “Is Western civilization in terminal decline?” The events of Western civilization have been updated to 2007.

The Back Cover Says

The Rise and Fall of Civilizations is a sequel to The Light of Civilization, the most monumental study of the history of civilizations for several generations. Here, Hagger outlines the patterns of the civilizations themselves, providing a unique interpretation of the dynamics of their origin, rise and collapse, and how one civilization leads into the next. Essential reading for students of history, it will interest all seeking to understand historical patterns and where our civilization is headed today.

6. The Secret Founding of America

The Real Story of Freemasons, Puritans and the Battle for The New World

Published by Watkins on 14 April 2007

ISBN UK 978184293 118 9

ISBN US 978184293 140 0

Price £16.99/$24.95 (Can $32.95) Hardback

This book examines the founding of America from 1607 to 1787. Which group were the real founders - Puritans? Anglicans? Deists? Freemasons? An appendix brings together all the important constitutional documents for the first time.

The Front Inside Flap Says

The Freemasonic States of America? Thirteen years before the Mayflower made landfall at Plymouth Rock, another voyage brought a different sort of settler to America's shores: not the familiar Pilgrims of the schoolbooks, aiming to build their "City on a Hill" around the one true Puritan faith, but a complex company organized by a man named Bartholomew Gosnold, who died just weeks after their arrival, leaving John Smith to chart the colony's course and claim most of the glory. Now an eye-opening book reveals the hidden history of their community at Jamestown – the first English-speaking settlement in the New World, where Gosnold's remains are thought to have been unearthed in 2003 – and traces its legacy through to the present day.

The Secret Founding of America introduces two groups of founders – the Planting Fathers, who established the earliest settlements along essentially Christian lines, and the Founding Fathers, who unified the colonies with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution – and argued that the new nation, conceived in liberty, was the Freemasons' first step toward a New World Order. Drawing on original findings and an in-depth understanding of the political and philosophical realities of the time, historian Nicholas Hagger charts the connections between Gosnold and Smith, Templars and Jacobites, and secret societies and libertarian ideals; explains how the influence of the German Illuminati worked on the framers of the new republic, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine; and shows the hand of Freemasonry at work at every turning point in America's history, from the Civil War, through the Cold War to today's global struggles for democracy.

Carefully researched and compellingly reasoned, The Secret Founding of America brings new insight to bear on four centuries of history – and casts the contours of the American dream in a radical new light.

The Back Cover Says

A hidden history with far-reaching consequences – from the dream of a New Jerusalem to the shores of The New World

Every schoolchild knows the story of how America began: the Puritans set sail on the Mayflower in 1620, landed at Plymouth Rock... and the rest is history.

Or is it?

Now, for the first time, this authoritative and accessible book tells the real story. It is a story of struggle, as Anglicans, Catholics, Separatists, Dissenters, and Puritans all vied for control of America – and lost. It is a story of rebellion, revolution and secret currents of power concealed behind a veneer of Christianity, shaping the fate of a nation.

The Secret Founding of America

charts an earlier landfall – the 1607 founding of the Jamestown colony – that brought to the New World two radically opposed worldviews, the rural ethic of Elizabethan England, and the rationalist ideals of Freemasonry

reveals the real influences that forged the republic – from Scottish Templars to Enlightenment Deists to German Illuminati – and captured the minds of the Founding Fathers, including Franklin, Jefferson and Washington

raises provocative questions – Were the Templars looking for a new Atlantis? Was the Constitution a Freemasonic coup? Did the Civil War mean decisive victory for the Freemasons? Are today's leaders under their influence too?

explores the implications of this hidden history for 400 years of America's past, for the politics of the present, and for the world of our future

draws together all the key documents of America's origins – as no other book has done – in a single appendix for accessible, authoritative reference.

Promotional Text Says

Discover the truth behind the last four centuries of American history, from its genuine founding in1607

The founding of America is normally associated with the Mayflower bringing the first Europeans in 1620. It was thirteen years earlier , however, that the Jamestown landing became the first permanent English-speaking settlement to survive – and America's 400th Anniversary to be celebrated in 2007 is based on this earlier date. The Secret Founding of America introduces two groups of founders – the Planting Fathers, who established the earliest settlements along essentially Christian lines, and the Founding fathers, who unified the colonies with The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution – and argues that the new nation, conceived in liberty, was the Freemasons' first step toward a "New World Order." Drawing on original findings and an in-depth understanding of the political and philosophical realities of the time, historian Nicholas Hagger shows the hand of Freemasonry at work at every turning point in America's history, from the Civil War, through the Cold War to today's global struggles for democracy.

Inconsistencies in the Jamestown Story

Many have remarked that there is something we don't know about the Jamestown settlement which was responsible for the strange divisions and factionalism among the settlers. (Dr William Kelso, the discoverer of Jamestown, has been very exercised by this, and has looked for explanations involving Spain and internecine warfare, with some settlers shooting and possibly poisoning others, behaviour inconsistent with that of settlers who are all in the same boat.) Nicholas Hagger's research, conducted with a completely open mind, has offered a possible solution to this bizarre factionalism – hence the Freemasonic thread alongside the Christian one. Hagger is trying to give a consistent account of the 16th/17th century planting of the New World and 18th century founding of the United States that answers all the questions that still bother people who look into the establishment of America, and which is consistent with subsequent developments in the 19th/20th centuries and today. His book gives a consistent, coherent explanation for events that have never been fully explained and makes sense of all aspects of the planting and founding of America.

See press release at end.

7. The Revolution That Didn't Happen

To be published by O Books on 31 October 2009

This is being written. It will be a reflection on the miners' strike of 1984 to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Brighton bomb.

The Last Tourist in Iran can be regarded as cultural history but is dealt with under Literary Author/Man of Letters, Writer of Prose.