Book Reviews Perceptions Magazine, December 2019
TMysteries of the Tayos Caves:
The Lost Civilizations Where the Andes Meet the Amazon
By Alex Chionetti
Foreword by Javier Sierra
Inner Traditions
Bear & Company
One Park Street
Rochester, Vermont 05767
2019, 272 pages, 6 x 9 Paperback, US $20.00
ISBN: 978-1-59143-356-9 (print)
ISBN: 978-1-59143-357-6 (ebook)
Reviewed by Brent Raynes
The author, Alex Chionetti, is described as an award-winning journalist, explorer, and a filmmaker who has worked as a consulting producer for several seasons of the TV series Ancient Aliens, with his documentaries broadcast on Fox, NBC, A&E, the History Channel, and a variety of international networks. In addition, he is credited with the discovery of two lost cities in the Andean region of South America.
With more than three decades of research into the Cuevas de los Tayos cavern complex of the Amazon rain forest of Ecuador, Chionetti, described as a real-life Indiana Jones, shares a treasure trove of information on this site. He details his own personal explorations into the Tayos caves himself, the history of explorations there by others from the Mormon Church, astronaut Neil Armstrong, and others, as well as an examination into the incredible connections alleging these caves have had with Atlantis, aliens, ancient astronauts, the Hollow Earth, hermetic societies, and possibly the legend of El Dorado. The author also followed up on alleged finds of amazing discoveries like that of Hungarian explorer Janos “Juan” Moricz back in the 1960s of a library with books of gold, and other reports of gold statues, copper plates, a quartz sarcophagus, and more.
When God Had a Wife:
The Fall and Rise of the Sacred Feminine in the Judeo-Christian Tradition
By Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince
Inner Traditions
Bear & Company
One Park Street
Rochester, Vermont 05767
2019, 336 pages, 6 x 9 Paperback, US $16.00
ISBN: 978-1-59143-370-5 (print)
ISBN: 978-1-59143-371-2 (ebook)
Reviewed by Brent Raynes
The authors of this book, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, have previously authored such noteworthy titles as “The Stargate Conspiracy” and “The Templar Revelation,” which inspired the “The Da Vinci Code.”
No strangers to controversy, “When God Had a Wife” insists (contrary to what modern Jews and Christians will assert) that the ancient Israelites venerated a number of deities besides the Old Testament god Yahweh. Based on their research, goddess worship thrived in the early days of Judaism and they describe how Jesus and Simon Magus tried to restore the goddess worshipping religion of the Israelites. The authors point out how the goddess Asherah, who back then was seen as Yahweh’s wife, was worshipped openly by the Israelites in the Jerusalem Temple, pointing out how Yahweh alone came to be recognized following the reforms of King Josiah and the Prophet Jeremiah, and how the worship of Asherah and other goddesses became heresy.