The World's Most Mysterious People

By Lionel Fanthorpe and Patricia Fanthorpe

Book Overview

Did Rasputin, the mad monk of Tsarist Russia, possess supernatural powers? Who was the mysterious prisoner in the Bastille who has gone down in history as "The Man in the Iron Mask"? Did he possess a priceless secret which Louis XIV desperately wanted to learn? Victorian Britain was terrorized by a weird super-athlete known to the popular press of those days as "Spring-heeled Jack." Was he just an eccentric gymnast, or could he have been an alien? Who or what was the mysterious man known as the Count of St. Germain whose abnormal powers seemed to defy both time and space - and is he still with us today? What strange powers of prophecy did Coinneach Odhar, the famous Brahan Seer, really possess? Was B renger Sauni re, the enigmatic Priest of Rennes-Le-Ch teau, one of the last guardians of a secret older than the Sphinx? Could the sinister Aleister Crowley have been merely a pathetic victim of self-deception and his own inflated ego, or did he really possess magical powers? What amazing secrets did electrical engineer Nikola Tesla control? Gurdjieff - one of the most amazing men of his time - has never been fully understood: what was the true meaning behind his strangely ambivalent messages? Was Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky a genius with strange paranormal powers, or merely a charlatan and a sensation-seeker? Francis Dashwood of Medmenham Abbey, leader of a sect of the wildest debauchees who roared their way across the eighteenth century, was an expert in the Black Arts. All of these strange, mysterious, and intriguing characters - and many others - are described, examined, and analyzed in The World's Most Mysterious People.

This is a collection of remarkable and mysterious people, from all ages and places - including our own. Some the authors have met, others were researched carefully from reliable archives. Some are Canadian, others are from the US, the UK, and all over the world. All are mysterious; all are intriguing; all are worth studying. Can anyone learn to use mysterious powers like theirs? To update what a great thinker once said: "The proper study of people is other human beings." And the more mysterious those human beings are, the more we shall learn from studying them.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0888822022
• ISBN13: 9780888822024
• Release Date: October 1998
• Publisher: Dundurn Press
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Some fascinating and exceptional individuals

Described as being "among the best researchers in the business" by Colin Wilson, author and world authority on unexplained phenomena, the writers of this intriguing book on people with exceptional and, sometimes, seemingly supernatural abilities certainly live up to his claim. Each arcane, unusual or enigmatic being who is featured in their book, together with his or her life and deeds, is examined with a refreshing openness and spirit of unbiased zeal. Herein lie the legendary exploits of King Arthur and his mystical mentor Merlin and the fate of the old Hebridean seer who lives on in the fulfilment of his prophecies, together with the incredible lifestyles, ideas and abilities of more contemporary and documented mystics and uncanny individuals such as Rasputin - the sex crazed but charismatic healer and favourite of the fated Russian royals - a man who was almost impossible to kill. Aleister Crowley, self-styled magician and witch, is examined in the light of his singular manipulation of arcane 'law'; while the extensive works and travels of Madame Helena Blavatsky, forerunner of modern spiritualism and theosophy, leave us wondering whether she was indeed a gifted magician and medium, a charlatan, or, at the very least, imaginative if deluded. Is the ubiquitous Count of Sainte-Germaine still living after two and a half centuries? Who was the Man In The Iron Mask? Did he 'know too much' for King Louis X1V to either kill or free? Who or what was the depraved leaping creature known as Spring-heeled Jack who terrorised the streets of Victorian London? Where and how did the French priest Berenger Sauniere suddenly acquire his untold wealth at Rennes-le-Chateau? Was this through being in league with demons or via old manuscripts or maps which 'marked the spot'? Could the cross-fertilisation between the genes of humans and those of an alien race account for the spontaneous type of brilliance that seems to occur in some exceptional human beings? Sustenance for the enquiring mind indeed! All these questions and many more are wholeheartedly embraced and investigated by the Fanthorpes. Travelling extensively and researching rigorously, they have (quite literally) left no stone unturned in their quest for information and answers to the world's most tantalising and perplexing mysteries. Always prepared to offer a possible logical explanation when one is feasible, their minds are, nevertheless, never closed to the possibilities that deeper, older or more arcane treasures of truth might lie at the end of each investigative path. The questions that become generated from within the depths of their enquiries and investigations into enigmas old and new become yet another source of energy, providing the reader, and, I am certain

Mysterious People Revealed

From Rasputin to Nikola Tesla, to The Man in the Iron Mask, The Fanthorpe's have a wonderful and clever book here. Written with great wit and charm this title takes the reader into the lives of many interesting characters. Some famous and others infamous. The chapters are short but exceptionally done. It's a great book to take on an outing, trip, whatever. I found it wonderful to read over my lunch hour. All in all I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in mysterious personages or just mysteries in general. You won't be disappointed here. Do yourself a favor: Buy it!