Ian Lawton’s book Genesis Unveiled contains much of interest to those wishing to learn more about the place of the Watchers and Nephilim in a historical and archaeological context.

In a fundamental reappraisal of the ancient texts and traditions from around the world, Ian concludes they retain traces of the lost wisdom of a forgotten race. Among those he examines are those which refer to the punishment of the rebel Watchers after their transgressions at the time of the ‘fall’, and the subsequent destruction of the Nephilim in the flood of Noah.

Although agreeing in principal (after much debate by email) with my proposed connection between the Watchers and Nephilim of Judeo-Christian tradition and the human driving force behind the Neolithic revolution, which sprang into life overnight in eastern Anatolia (Turkey) and northern Syria around 9500-9000 BCE, Ian sees a spiritual dimension to the ancient texts.

In his opinion, the story of the Watchers and Nephilim represented the Near Eastern perspective on the destruction of an antediluvian race of high spiritual and karmic background which existed prior to the cataclysms which brought to a close the last Ice Age – their survivors going on to recreate the genesis of human intellect and finally civilisation itself.

Yet he does not believe this earlier race reached a state of high civilisation, purely a superior state of mind. They were a people who possessed a perfect understanding of their spiritual roots, but became obsessed with the material world and progressively lost their awareness.

Moreover, it seems the karmic price they paid for their debasement was annihilation by natural catastrophe, or certainly that was the way post-diluvian myths and legends portrayed their fall from grace.

In addition to the subjects already reviewed, Ian Lawton’s ground-breaking work concludes that:

• The ancient texts and traditions from around the world contain consistent references to a “golden race” that became debased and was destroyed. These can only be properly interpreted in spiritual terms, as a loss of spiritual roots that had universal karmic consequences.

• The traditions of the supposed “creation” of the original golden race merely reflect the reality of advanced spiritual entities incarnating in human form for the first time, this acting as a spur to human evolution. This is how a spiritual and a scientific worldview can be logically combined.

• The consistent symbolism used in the accounts of the creation of the universe from a “void” that contains the “potential” for all the “forms” in both the ethereal and physical dimensions reveals a previously unsuspected depth of esoteric insight into various “universal truths” in the earliest cultures right across the globe.

• These truths were brought to mankind when the earliest advanced souls incarnated on Earth. They have not only been repeatedly reinforced ever since by similar advanced souls who have chosen to reincarnate to assist mankind’s development, but are also eternally accessible to any seeker who attempts to reconnect to the universal consciousness by meditative contemplation.

• These truths can be extended to include the concepts of reincarnation and karma; of a framework of ethereal realms inhabited by entities in various stages of karmic advancement; and of the karmic aim of transcending the purely physical world and reuniting with the original source.

• Modern theoretical physics has reconfirmed various postulates that have always formed part of an esoteric worldview: for example, everything is energy; matter is an illusion; everything is interconnected; everything has consciousness; the part is the whole; all time is relative; there are other dimensions; and vibration and harmony rule.

• If the human race of the twenty-first century fails to wake up to these spiritual rather than material and commercial realities en masse, there is every likelihood that universal karma will once again force our hand with mass destruction – just as it did that of our forgotten ancestors.

In order to prove key elements of his thesis, Ian had first to provide convincing scientifically-accepted evidence that consciousness survives the physical death of the body, and that past-lives and reincarnation exist. This was at the insistence of the publisher, Virgin Books, who took a bold step in agreeing to publish such a controversial book.

– Reviewed by Andrew Collins in New Dawn No. 97