SHADOWS AND OATHS

A torchlit procession winds through the Greek night. Two thousand initiates march toward the sacred hall at Eleusis, where they will witness something so terrifying and beautiful that revealing it means death. For nearly two thousand years, no one broke the silence.

This is where SHADOWS AND OATHS begins.

Volume 1 — ANCIENT SHADOWS — traces the origins of secret societies from the first evidence of hidden rituals in prehistoric caves to the dramatic fall of the Knights Templar in 1314. Along the way, you’ll descend into underground Mithraic temples with Roman soldiers, follow the Assassins through the mountain fortress of Alamut, witness the Pythagoreans murder one of their own for a mathematical discovery, and stand beside Jacques de Molay as he burns at the stake and curses a king.

But this book reaches far beyond Europe and the Middle East. It uncovers the Poro and Sande societies of West Africa, where entire communities are governed by masked secret orders. It explores the Arioi of Polynesia, elite performers who practiced ritual infanticide. It separates Egyptian mystery school reality from centuries of fantasy.

Every chapter delivers named individuals, specific dates, documented rituals — and the dark side that most histories prefer to ignore. The Templars’ torture chambers. The Assassins’ suicide missions. The Thuggee stranglers of India. The Vehmic courts that hanged men in secret across medieval Germany.

Twenty chapters. Five continents. Five thousand years of hidden history.