Gods, Genes, and Consciousness: Nonhuman Intervention in Human History

"Gods, Genes & Consciousness" is the most amazing and satisfying book I've read since Walsch's "Conversations" series. I smile and shake my head in wonderment every time I sit down and read or re-read any part. Von Ward has managed a Herculean task of assimilating and organizing mountains of scholarly information from dozens of areas and half a dozen millennia, and then has gracefully expressed, with scientific reasonableness, the most 'Copernican' ideas of our time: We are indeed the children of the gods, and the gods are ETs, a rainbow range of ETs from caring to controling. There is something even Pogo-esque here: We have met the gods, and they are us. At least, we're in the same family. Truly world-view shaking, paradigm shaking, orthodoxy shaking. In that mind-stretching class that includes Velikovsky and Sitchin, Von Ward is at the head of that class.

Extra-terrestrials, gray aliens, advanced beings (AB's) ... You believe in them, or you don't, or there's a plot, or you're sceptic. Me? It's extremely unlikely humans are alone. Aliens don't exist? Ha! But we don't have to believe in order to learn something from this book. It doesn't fit the mold in the way that so much of the "alien intervention" quasi-religious literature does. Some 22 pages of endnotes and 8 pages of suggested reading are food for thought alone. The index is less comprehensive than it should be, though. So let's get this straight; if our beliefs in one of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions are strong and exclusive, we have to draw a deep breath and acknowledge our ability to pre-judge. The book isn't anti-religion so much as it shines a light under the bed of our religiousness. The preface introduces our relation to God and asks some questions. It asks us to think about answers, and gives some possible ones. Not all of them involve AB's, for - although it's about AB's - the book is less about AB's than it is about us. I lent the book to someone. They complained that Von Ward slips too easily from a theory about AB intervention into stating it to be a fact. That may be true from one point of view, but the book wouldn't be so readable if he treated us like idiots and felt the need to keep on stating that AB intervention was a theory. Enough of the book concerns the way AB's might have influenced life here, and there are several echoes of the Stargate movie in it. But it's not all about alien rule over earthling subjects. There's less justification for fearing what AB's can do to us as there is for fearing what we can do to ourselves. For me, the most insightful parts of the book for me were not so much about AB's. How necessary - for some - kingships and priesthoods are in particular societies. The differences between the supernatural and the magical approaches to interpreting events and the path of our individual lives. And some comparisons that you might not have thought of ... for example: how Americans, Turks, Indonesians, and Iranians are similar, and how Europeans differ from them. If you stand on the periphery, or outside the willingly circular logic, of some religions, you'll either have your eyes opened, or you'll be comforted that you aren't alone in your wonderings. So, be prepared to waken and re-think some of your attitudes to religion (as distinct from spirituality). Those of us who follow a particular religion will find that the later parts of the book are less difficult. The book doesn't only encourages public debate about AB's, it asks us to think about religion and our place in it. Although the book is about AB intervention, it also lets us take another look at religion to see what we have put there ourselves. Human intervention, if we want to, on our own terms.

I own all of Zacharia Sitchin's books, and wanted to read something along the same lines, but from another author's perspective. I was very glad that I did, because Paul Von Ward was able to fill in some of the gaps, and add to wealth of knowledge about the ancient past. One good example was to describe the time line of when each human blood type came about, which was every informative in how it related to other theories about advanced beings' involvement in our creation. He also does a very good job describing psychological reasons why we still think in a supernatural mindset, instead of the viewpoint that everything is a part of the natural world. There were a few very minor inaccuracies that I found in reference to Sitchin's work, but it did not take away from the overall worth of the book. Well worth the read for those with an open mind, and for those who are ready to move forward in how we view the world.

Author Paul Von Ward and 33% of the American public believe that extra-terrestrials have set foot on planet Earth, but you don't have to credit that idea to get something out of Gods, Genes, and Consciousness, which entertains as it educates. This book, an alternative history of Western Civilization, asserts that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition is based on a mistake. Von Ward argues that "Sin" and "Satan" were originally good (for humans, anyway), while the authoritarian JHVH (Jehovah, Yahweh) was not-so-good. An engaging writer, Von Ward relates the consequences of human contact with ABs (Advanced Beings) as if it were a rousing science fiction tale--but he feels it isn't. The author's goal is to end religiocide (the killing of the members of one religion by the adherents of another), to return human consciousness to naturalism (as opposed to the misguided notion that gods exist in an other-worldly dimension--supernaturalism), and to harmonize human activity with the needs of other species and the Earth. This is a tall order, for which he proposes a "new mythology" debunking allegiance to individual gods such as YHVH, Christ and Allah. Von Ward espouses the "perennial philosophy," spirituality even a scientist can endorse, based on the concept that the Creative Forces which spawned the universe are manifest in each and all and everything. No review can do justice to the breadth of Von Ward's reach. His book may become as popular as Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision or Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. It is certainly as radical. Whether or not you wind up agreeing with his point of view, you will find it impossible to forget, impossible to entirely discount, and it will change your way of looking at God, and gods-and your own consciousness.

[and some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth...] (The Fellowship of the Ring) -- and so I was reminded as I read every word (even the Endnotes) of this latest, quite excellent book by Paul Von Ward. The author used various resources (different sciences, religious and cultural accounts, translations of ancient texts and tablets, etc.) to research, examine and assess a more truthful account of the history of humans and society than what we've been led to believe. Von Ward's ecclectic, impressive background and his ability to ask questions others either fear to ask or never think to ask, only increase the compelling nature of the content. And the content, akin to the Red Pill of the Matrix, will indeed give readers an idea of how deep the rabbit hole goes.