Inventing History : forgery: a great British tradition (British History)

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

There is a quite a bit out there from "disreputable sources" about the Mithras Cult. Some appear to think that the Roman Catholic church is still a Mithras cult.

The more respectable sources point to various similarities, by drawing up lists from all ancient strands of of mithras worship and common christian beliefs.

Virgin birth
Twelve followers
Killing and resurrection
Miracles
Birthdate on December 25
Morality
Mankind's savior
Known as the Light of the world

There is then a bit of row about borrowings.... who came first. Mithras or Christ. What is the origin etc.

Wiley is going with the disreputables.

[Mick Harper]

The way to approach this is, I reckon, to look at Scientology. Take a dude or a bunch of dudes setting up a new religion with growth potential. They have various successful models to go on -- let's say, monotheistic Islam based on a book, Mithraism based on ceremony, Graeco-Roman-Scandi family-of-gods systems, dualistic ideologies like Zaroastrianism, the teachings of a wandering preacher like Buddhism -- and you make a composite.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Yes, it's arrived in the shops! Or at any rate on Amazon
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Meetings-Remarkable-Forgeries-M-Harper/dp/0954291123/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498910115&sr=8-1&keywords=m+j+harper
It goes without saying that you have to order a copy (one fulfils your obligatory membership requirement, two would be considered brown-nosing). Those on benefit are excused so we will be publishing a list of your names in case others want to send you a food parcel.

If you scroll down the Amazon page you will see the effect of your order as the numbers start rocketing up. They are currently somewhat lacklustre
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 64,602 in Books
o #14 in Books > Art, Architecture & Photography > Subjects within Art > Religious Subjects
o #116 in Books > History > Europe > Great Britain > The Plantaganets & Medieval England
o #334 in Books > History > Social & Cultural > Religious > Christianity

It is a fine thing being responsible for the 116th best selling book on Plantagenet & Medieval England but not, I feel, quite what I was put on God's earth to achieve. Top hundred -- well, nobody can argue with that. You may post comments in the section soon to be opened to demonstrate compliance.

[Grant]

Just bought my copy. Why will it take a month to deliver? Does it actually exist?

[Mick Harper]

For some baffling reason Amazon have posted this up in error and it takes an absolute age to get them to remove it -- if they ever do! It's completely ruining our initial sales since most people do not share your patient loyalty to the cause.

In theory you should get the book in a few days but please post up your experiences. You should be getting an Amazon confirmation first saying when they think it will be delivered. I'd be much obliged to hear details of this.

[Grant]

It says it will be with me between 19 July and 6 August.
And you're up to 263 in Plantagenets and Mediaeval England

[Mick Harper]

Let us know when it actually does arrive and any further info that comes your way in the meantime. The book itself is a quickie. As a reader of THOBR once wrote to me, "I was still standing up in the kitchen with the packaging all around me until I got to the bit about...." I can't remember what it was that outraged him but it was at least halfway through.

[Hatty]

Recently I posted about someone called Alcuin who is supposed to have invented 'Caroline miniscule' at Tours even though no monastery at Tours existed according to the (non)archaeology. Idly listening to the radio I heard an eminent somebody saying Alcuin was summoned to Aachen by Charlemagne. The greatest scholar enters the service of the greatest emperor.

But Aachen wasn't around in 800 AD or at least no-one has found 800 AD archaeology. Plenty of Roman, followed by the medieval in the course of excavations.

First the official version seamlessly connects the Carolingian period to the twelfth century and beyond, so for instance Aachen's town hall "stands on" Charlemagne's former council hall but the important bit, the palace, can only be "speculated on"

[Ishmael]

Congrats on the book! Can't wait to read it.

[Ishmael]

Charlemagne is yet another double of Henry 8. The biographical match-ups are overwhelming and obvious.

Charlemagne, however, I suspect of being closer to the real history--though shifted backward in time. My broad thesis is this: When the "historians" edited recent history, they generally stored a backup of the original in the distant past----typically about 1000 years earlier.

[Mick Harper]

You will all be pleased to hear (and will have no further excuse) that the book is now being 'dispatched within 2-3 days'. Those of you who have been promised a freebie for help over and above the normal call of duty will be receiving your copy within 3-5 days (UPS willing) unless you happen to live in Canada.