Cris Putnam

As anyone who has looked through this library will know, I collect conspiracy theory books, books on the apocalypse, and old, failed books about people who predict the end of the world. This book is good, and fits right in with the above, in that it makes a three-prong, three wrong prediction: that pope Benedict xvi will abdicate at the beginning of 2012 (wrong), that the pope who follows Benedict, xvi will take the name Pius xiii (wrong) that he will be Italian (wrong). I could throw in a show more couple more, but I say three strikes and you're out. The book is interesting, though, for the ground it covers, and how the various biases of the authors warp their interpretation of various aspects of old, classic books about occult philosophy (Manly Hall, Albert Pike, etc. were inspired by demons, for instance).

They even get into the Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all those predictions and admonitions, and how the Vatican may be keeping some Fatima prophecy material out of public hands because it's too sensational. Also, someday anti-catholicism will be viewed as equivalent to antisemitism and racism. Petrus Romanus is an example of how this is not the case in America today, and of how far we have yet to go. In the end, these guys are selling fear, pretty much like any conspiracy theorist I have experience with. I give them: show less