The Shining Ones
Authors: Philip Gardiner and Gary Osborn
Watkins Publishing, 2006

Reviewer: Lee Paqui

The Shining Ones is an intense introduction to the secret societies that have covertly moulded the development of humanity throughout all of history, and starkly highlights how the world has slumbered while an elite few have held and wilfully kept hidden the secrets of the universe. This is a frightening notion, and it springs from the central premise of an elite priesthood – the mythical Shining Ones – an elite group that were and are the holders of a knowledge that we have yet to rediscover. A secret priesthood that has been extant since Sumerian times and appears to have spread itself across the entire planet.

The basis for this theory of a single shamanic origin for this group is compelling once it is gathered together as the authors of The Shining Ones have done. A thread of similarity runs through almost all religions of the world, a universal symbolism of mythology that contains encoded knowledge designed to be transmitted and preserved through the ages. Symbolism that only members of the Shining Ones may be able to accurately decipher. This symbolism is complex and includes common archetypes such as the tree, the snake, the phoenix, the flood, the numbers three and seven, the term ‘Shining Ones’ itself. These same beliefs were extant in numerous and geographically diverse cultures, a situation that cannot be, and in fact is not, explained within the traditional history of this planet and its civilisations.

What the authors make abundantly clear is that the Shining Ones have appeared all over the planet at different times during humanity’s development, and assert that this group were perhaps part of or descended from a great ‘source’ civilisation that preceded recorded human history, a civilisation that is now lost to us in time. Gardiner and Osborn posit that the Shining Ones did not emerge from the ruins of Atlantis or Lemuria, a common theory, but were a mobile priesthood that were born in Sumeria and spread outwards across Europe and Asia – a sophisticated culture that developed in isolation from the numerous indigenous peoples scattered across the globe

The Shining Ones explores this early priesthood and their nomadic origins, the shamanic experience, altered states of consciousness, sun-worship and solar gods, the kundalini experience, alchemy, the relationship between the chakra and endocrine systems and their precise correspondences. The authors also reflect upon use of narcotic substances to induce states whereby the shaman or priest is able to enter another level of consciousness – a shamanic practice still extant today – alternate realities where he or she might meet with gods or the spirits of those long dead. They contend that the root of the knowledge base of the Shining Ones was the attainment of higher states of consciousness and the ability to enter other realms. The Shining Ones may have been astral travellers, the first remote viewers.

Because the civilisation of Sumeria appeared so miraculously upon the Earth and in such a high state of development, many theories have been put forward as regards its true origins. Gardiner and Osborn provide yet another unique theory for the miraculous arrival of the Sumerians – not that they descended onto the Earth from places beyond our planet, but that they had perhaps descended from higher realms within, and were attainees of an enlightened state. In other words, that they originated from inner, and not outer, space. They formed a coherent organisation of individuals who were not only spiritually enlightened but were also adepts in the physical sciences – in mathematics, physiology, architecture and astronomy. Using these and their more esoteric abilities the Shining Ones were able to take advantage of the Earth’s magnetic fields (ley lines) and went on to found numerous civilisations across the globe.

These are the concepts that Gardiner and Osborn build upon as they explore the mysterious secret societies that currently dominate the modern world. The Shining Ones supposes that the reader possesses a basic knowledge of esotericism and ancient history before it launches headlong into an exploration of, among other things, geomancy, wave theory, trance states, snake mythology and sun worship. There is a sense that we are reviewing all this knowledge for a higher and greatly anticipated purpose, an overwhelmingly imminent sense of the grave secrets that Gardiner and Osborn are preparing to reveal. And there is indeed a purpose, for these concepts are precisely what Gardiner and Osborn believe the precepts of the priestly Shining Ones and the current guardians of their knowledge was built upon.

The Shining Ones makes a genuine case for the notion of the ‘primitive’ shaman as an enlightened being and holder of great knowledge, and for the cult of the Shining Ones as guides and guardians of human development. This presents a wholly different approach to our history, one that is strangely simple in its reality and yet more complex than could be imagined. This theory delves into the spiritual as opposed to the physical and takes the mysteries of the Shining Ones from the distant past to the present day, to the secret societies that have upheld these arcane traditions despite history’s best efforts to erase their reality.

What The Shining Ones demonstrates, and most succinctly, is that what we perceive as history, what we have been spoon-fed by a dogmatic academia and the history makers of our current paradigm, is a world that is predicated upon deliberate misinformation and manipulation. The Shining Ones gives us a closer look at these secret societies, such organisations as the Freemasons, the Bilderbergs, the Illuminati and the Rosicrucians, to name a few. We are shown their histories, their interconnections and the influences that they may exert on the world today.

And that’s where The Shining Ones challenges everything that we hold to be true. It demonstrates how our current societies and world events are manipulated on a global level by these societies and their influence in politics and religion. If knowledge is power, then the guardians of the knowledge of the Shining Ones have it all. It’s about keeping the knowledge, and keeping the power, and keeping them both in the hands of a very elite minority.

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