Bertram's Blog

When I was eleven years old, I overheard my brother ask our dad if he believed in Atlantis, and something inside of me leapt with recognition. I knew, without any doubt, that there had once been a wondrous place called Atlantis, though I hadn’t any idea what or where that place might be. The very word seemed like a beacon, illuminating an incredible and mysterious past. Until then, I’d never heard of Atlantis, never even had a concept of lost civilizations, and yet, there it was . . . that instantaneous knowing.

(This recognition happened only one other time in my life, and that was when I met the man who would share more than three decades of my life, but that came years later, and only has a bearing on this story because he also shared my need for truth.)

I seemed to have an innate belief that great truths (and even lesser ones) were being kept from us, though this belief could have stemmed from my being a child, and much is kept from children, but still, I wanted to know. And so started a life-long quest for truth — the real truth, not the sketchy half-truths and self-serving lies we are taught to accept as fact, both in school and on the news.

There have been so many mysteries to study and to ponder: UFOs; the Kennedy assassinations; mysterious places such as the pyramids and Stonehenge; ancient, lost, and forgotten civilizations; the origins of mythology; historical truth; the war on gold; alchemy; who our true leaders are.

And there were many surprises. For example, when I first started delving into mysteries, I came across the idea of continental drift, that all the continents had once been connected and had drifted apart. At the time, it was only discussed in esoteric circles, because the scientific community did not recognize the validity of the theory. Years later, when revisiting the topic, I discovered that the theory of continental drift had become standard.

Another surprise came from the study of “The New World Order.” Those words have been bandied about for centuries, sort of a slogan for conspiracy researchers who were aware that the goal of many secret groups throughout the ages has been to develop a one world government — a new world order — and then George Bush used that very phrase. Shocked the heck out of me. But it shouldn’t have. Many once secret groups, such as the Council for Foreign Relations, have become mainstream.

But the biggest surprise came when all those mysteries, those fields of study began to converge. Some of the players in the Kennedy assassination drama, such as Guy Bannister and Fred Crisman, showed up in UFO literature. Modern technologies began to mirror mythological technology, such as plasma guns, fusion torches, weather manipulation.

The past emerged into the present, science merged into history and politics, and a larger picture took shape. Whether this big picture has any truth to it or is simply the result of a mind seeking patterns where none exist, doesn’t really matter, at least not to me, not any more. I never had an emotional stake in the resolution of the mysteries. I simply wanted to know the truth.

It does make a great story, though, the pattern of truth I found. At least, I hope it does. This lifetime of research into arcane subjects is the foundation of Light Bringer, my newest novel.

As for Atlantis, I have no idea if such a place by that name existed, but there is no doubt that civilization did not begin with us, that there have been many civilizations that rose to prominence and disappeared, leaving only traces of stone behind.