Pagan and Christian traditions of spirituality and their covert forms of interaction over several millennia make up the substance of Michael Howard’s book.
     In the process of his exploration, he reveals much about human nature, its inherent restlessness, its spiritual aspirations and its material ambitions.
     He concludes by putting contemporary suspicions about the activities of the Illuminati, the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations and other such groups into context.
     Simply put, they are seen as the latest representation of the perennial instinct of powerful members of society to organise, consult and plan for the future.
     Howard discusses the constant flux between pagan and Christian inspiration in Western secret societies, against the background of a relentless struggle over almost two millennia to assert the freedom and dignity of humanity.
     Often, the antipathy of an institutionalised Church, driven by its own political and other ambitions, worked assiduously to blacken the reputation of the secret societies.
     Howard summarises the influence of secret societies in passages like:
     “Originally, Utopian and libertarian concepts were promoted by the medieval Freemasons and Rosicrucians. The occult adepts who operated at the highest levels in these societies were genuinely concerned with the progress of humanity on both the material and spiritual levels… Secret societies advocated the reform of those social conditions that imprisoned the soul, universal education for the masses, and civil liberty… A very important aspect of the work of these secret societies has been the ultimate unification of world religions.”
     Howard has chapters headed German Nationalism and the Bolshevik Revolution, Nazism and the Occult Tradition and Secrets in the Vatican.
     He has a balanced and informed approach to all these subjects and often surprises with instructive, but unfamiliar, facts and insights.
         One clear lesson from the account of secret societies in the West is the role of the Church in forcing underground many aspects of spiritual life that might well have made a positive social contribution.
        If the dogma of institutionalised religion had not become such a central and critical mobilising force in the politics of Europe, a very different and perhaps richer spiritual life may have been possible.
     Howard remarks that, even in 2003, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, as head of the Holy Office for the Propagation of Faith (formerly the Inquisition) publicly attacked Wicca and neo-paganism, the Chinese practice of feng shui, spiritual healing and the use of crystals. He notes, however, that yoga and astrology were deemed unlikely to lead to eternal damnation.
     Secret Societies: Their Influence and Power from Antiquity to the Present Day is a most valuable contribution to contemporary understanding of the role played by many covert forms of spiritual and political activity.
     While these can be used to serve ends that may be rejected by society if done openly, they can be and often have been used to serve ends that are suppressed by less than enlightened forces in mainstream political institutions.
     (Note: Secret Societies: Their Influence and Power from Antiquity to the Present Day is the updated edition of The Occult Conspiracy.)