When Jody Hanger and I were prowling around in the abandoned books in the archives, I found one that captured my attention with its title and pristine cover. I’m pretty sure this book had never been opened. And what were the “True Esoteric Traditions” that the title claimed?

I brought it home, listed it for sale, and opened it up. The subtitle is “A Search for the Source of Western Cultural Values.” Big topic. The author is M. Dale Palmer and the publisher is Noetics Institute, Inc. Plainfield, Indiana. It was copyrighted in October 1994. 

I hadn’t even read the Introduction and I was already curious about this book. I had to look up Esoteric and Noetic. Then I looked up M. Dale Palmer and the publisher. Here’s what I learned – some of which you may know. Esoteric means “knowledge, concepts, or interests intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with specialized knowledge or interest.” Noetic is an adjective “relating to, or involving the mind, intellect, or reason.” M. Dale Palmer was a lawyer and district attorney in Indiana. Noetics Institute was a company Mr. Palmer established to publish his book. 

Next, I wondered why it was in our archives. Mr. Palmer didn’t go to the University of Illinois. He never practiced law here, or ever lived here. Somehow we got a copy of this self-published – and probably short-run – book. Maybe one of you knows?? If so, please tell me.

Mr. Palmer’s Opening Statement (he’s a lawyer, remember), lists twelve thoughts he intends to share, including that God does exist; Atlantis did exist and it was where the British Isles are now and its inhabitants migrated to Egypt; Joseph from the Bible was prime minister of Egypt; the Hebrews of the Exodus went into Saudi Arabia not the Sinai; those Hebrews carried tons of gold with them, which was later used to build King Solomon’s Temple; the Bible was written by a politician named Ezra in 450 BCE to create a Jewish theocracy; Jesus was both a Freemason and a Rosicrucian; all religions were started by men for men, and women are degraded by all organized religions; and “the United States of America was designed by Freemasons and Rosicrucians as a defensive nation and based its government on its teachings until the 1960s.”

I really cannot begin to tell you how bizarre I found this book. The logic throughout rests on the order of: God exists because God exists. Mr. Palmer trods through energy, matter, mass, time, space, spirit, thermodynamics, Hindu Vedas, Law of Cycles, Newton, Einstein, Hawking, and wraps it all up with a Rosicrucian bow and declares, “God does exist.” 

His outline of Western history begins in 8500 BCE with a 400 year-long war in the Mediterranean region. In 3500 BCE, the Lesser Mysteries, AKA Freemasonry, AKA the White Lodge, come to Egypt. In 1495 BCE, Abraham and Sarah become initiates of the White Lodge in Thebes and Sarah marries the Pharaoh. Issac is the son of Sarah and the Pharaoh. Over the next 73 years, Issac, Jacob, Joseph, Essau, and Joseph are in the Egyptian royal family and members of the White Lodge. Jesus was run out of India in 14 CE, run out of Persia in 17 CE, and crucified in Israel in 33 CE … BUT, not really because he actually died in Srinagar, Kashmir, India in 74 CE at the age of 81. 

I’m skipping ahead now to 1626 CE, when Sir Francis Bacon (who actually wrote all the works credited to Shakespeare) faked his death in England, traveled first to Europe and then America, where he furthered the Rosicrucian efforts of Sir Walter Raleigh, including the groundwork for the American Revolution. 

Done with the history and want to know about ghosts? “So-called ghosts are simply persons who have passed through transition and, for one reason or another, are lost and cannot find their way into their own new reality. Other departed ones are held close to Earth dimension by the excessive grieving of loved ones. Obviously, one should never seek advice from ghosts because if the ghosts were evolved enough to give good advice they probably wouldn’t be captured between two competing dimensions of reality.”

I really don’t know what to think about this one. King Solomon had a negative attitude toward women because he “believed that females were the prisoners of their own sex organs and could not develop both good sex organs and good brains at the same time.” The Christians took that “one step further and added that a female could not develop good sex organs and develop morally at the same time.” Mr. Palmer thinks women have gotten a bad rap in Western Culture and compares the woman-baiting in the Bible, Plato, Roman Law, and the Koran with a quote he purports is from Pharaoh Akhnaton, “Remember thou are man’s reasonable companion, not the slave of his passions.”