SHADOWS AND OATHS

In 1614, a mysterious pamphlet appeared in the German city of Kassel. It described an invisible brotherhood of scholars who possessed secret knowledge that could transform the world. Nobody could find them. Everybody wanted to join. The Rosicrucian panic had begun — and the modern age of secret societies with it.

Volume 2 — THE AGE OF LODGES — covers the golden era of clandestine organizations, from the birth of Freemasonry in Scottish stonemason lodges to the revolutionary cells that reshaped the map of the world.

You’ll sit in the room when four London lodges create the first Grand Lodge in 1717. You’ll read the seized papers of the Bavarian Illuminati and discover what Adam Weishaupt actually planned — which is stranger than any conspiracy theory. You’ll follow the Carbonari through failed Italian revolutions, watch the Decembrists die on Senate Square in St. Petersburg, and track the Fenians from Dublin back rooms to dynamite attacks in London.

This volume spans the globe: Chinese Triads swearing blood oaths to overthrow the Qing dynasty. The Lautaro Lodge plotting the liberation of South America. The Young Turks meeting in secret before seizing an empire — and committing genocide. Japan’s yakuza emerging from Edo-period gambling dens. Iran’s Faramosh Khaneh importing Masonic ritual to the court of the Shah.

Twenty-two chapters covering the age when secret societies stopped guarding mystical knowledge and started making revolutions.

For readers who want to understand how a handful of people meeting in secret rooms changed the course of nations.