About the Book
Why do names like The Devil, Satan and Lucifer exist, who are they now, what new names have these symbols of evil taken on; who among us, have they seduced with promises of wealth and power to aid them in their bid to rule us all? The first of three books, The Second Conflict, is an epic story that occurs one thousand years after the first war that tore apart a perfect new world, where to begin with there is total harmony and plenty, until one of the triplet sons of The King of Kings, Satan, who is greedy for power loses patience. He is ruthlessly ambitious and impatient to rule the children of the four tribes, in place of his father and The Magii, who govern the four quarters of the East, South, West and North, where the tribes live. It is not just his father's power that Satan wants; he is also determined to obtain the secrets of the universe that the Magii possess. Satan and his followers, whose numbers and power grow, finally confront his father, however they are unprepared for his merciless response after a battle that destroyed the peace of Near Earth, where until then, the occupants had all lived in peace.
Satan's escapes his father's revenge, but not the traitorous angels who supported him and survived, who including Lucifer are incarcerated for a thousand years; while the members of the tribes who followed him are banished to The World of Men and became known as The Children of Adam. Their powers which had been much like those of The Magii are removed from them. But even then, the few who retained a memory of what once was, seek out their old master, who is hell bent on revenge. Satan remains patient, waiting for the 1000 years to end. During this time he makes plans to deceive The Guardians and cross The Rainbow Bridge linking The World of Men to Near Earth, so that he can release his angelic followers known as The Princes of Darkness. They too sleep with nothing but dreams of escape and revenge, but assume that Hermes, one of the brothers of Satan will be waiting for them when they are released, when he will give them one chance only to repent. Repentance however is not an option for Lucifer and The Princes of Darkness. Immediately they are released The Second Conflict commences and they are defeated once more.
The price of defeat this time is either death or incarceration forever. But there is deceit and trickery in the air; all is not what it seems. Time and space change. Knowing this, Hermes takes the precaution of sending The Magii across The Rainbow Bridge into The World of Men, just in case his brother Satan deceives him and releases Lucifer and his fellow Princes of Darkness into that precarious world. In this book as well as in the next book, The Final Rite, The Magii move backwards and forwards through time. We see them at the birth and death of Jesus Christ; with The Pope when the Knight Templars are persecuted; at The Yalta Conference when Stalin is warned by England and the USA to stop his advance across Europe. The Magii are also present when Tony Blair, the English Prime Minister decides to invade Iraq. They also appear when the elements fail to combine as expected, causing drone attacks and other weapons to fail, at a time when Putin along with The Chinese President and other world dignitaries' disappear without trace, which raises concerns about a global war. Throughout their travels and confrontations, The Magii suspect that they are being followed.
This means that they cannot meet, because they fear that they will be captured and the secrets they possess revealed and put together by Satan so that he can use them to rule in both worlds. As a precaution against their complete loss, the secrets that they have are separated and entrusted to the stone masons, who carve clues as to their whereabouts on the walls of churches and temples. These secrets then begin to appear within the many different ceremonies that exist in Freemasonry. Satan realises this and takes over as the head librarian at the headquarters of English Freemasonry where to this day, there is a library containing some of the oldest occult books in the world. Hermes watches all these developments from afar; he fears that even after defeating Satan's forces that his victory was not as complete as he thought. His brother, The Smith, who has forged new swords from the ore recovered from the mines of the Moon, wants to intervene, which Hermes wants to prevent, because of The Rules that exist between the two worlds, which means that if broken other unmentionable forces would be summoned, whose intervention would have calamitous consequences.
Hermes also fears for the four Lords of the Elements, who with him have seen the abuse of what between them they control, the most terrifying being the dropping of the first atom bomb at Hiroshima. They have reached a point, where they feel they must interfere in how we combine their elements and prevent any weapon or vehicle of war from working. But they too are bound by the rules; their quandary is that they are not even sure whether Hermes is telling the truth anymore, because that value appears to have changed in a way that means the Satan may not be as bad as he is being painted. The Lord of the Earth is Tristan. He governs The Trogs who have stored the metal from The Mines of the Moon, which is used by The Smith to forge the swords of vengence that he forsees will be needed by The Magii. The other Lords of The Elements are: Queen Cybeline who rules the Air and The Sylphs who inhabit that element. Vestas is The Lord of Fire and governs the fire breathing dragons, while Lord Aqua rules in waves of the sea and wherever else water runs free.
The Final Rite, the second book in the series, shows the Magii living in a modern world, where to begin with they do not know who they are because Hermes enforced a state of amnesia on them, so that they would not be trapped, when they were unarmed and vulnerable, having suffered terribly on their travels. Eventually they are given swords forged by The Smith which have been doused in the blood of the fallen angels, who once a long time ago had stood beside him in battle. Hermes also reveals himself, risking everything. Once they discover who they are The Magii's memories return and they too are confused about whose side they should be on and choices have to be made.
About the Author :
John T O'Halloran has been an English Freemason for over thirty five years. Having taken part in countless ceremonies, he became convinced they were incomplete and that the missing pieces had probably been hidden in other Masonic orders, which led him to explore his instinct. His search took him to the Rose Croix, where he became a Past Sovereign and a member of the 30th Degree. Eventually he became a High Priest in the mysterious order of Knight Templar Priests and a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. His discoveries made him certain there remains a silent but serious fight to bring peace back to this forlorn planet - the history and current threat to which he explores in this, his first novel in a series of three.
