Reading List: Source Material for The Invisible College
The following is a selection of sources of material for the trilogy.
Religions of Rome: Volume II, A Sourcebook, Cambridge University Press 1998, by Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price
The translation of the Aretalogy of Isis is reproduced by kind permission of Mary Beard and John North.
How To Lie With Maps by Mark Monmonier
A thorough, entertaining account of how maps are constructed and can misrepresent the landscape deliberately or unintentionally. It describes how maps can mislead or misinform the reader, whether to sell ideas, deceive enemies, or hide or relocate real-world geography. Such deceptions lie at the heart of The Invisible College Trilogy on a grand scale.
Teutonic Mythology by Viktor Rydberg
You would need a lot of time and a strong constitution to read the whole of Viktor Rydberg’s Teutonic Mythology. Published in the last decade of the 19th century, it is occasionally fanciful and speculative. It nevertheless provides valuable material on the world-mill and its associated characters. The concept was dismissed when the book was published but is now thought to have similarities to ideas found in Chinese, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Amerind folklore.
The Ancient Mysteries by Marvin W Meyer
In this source, I first found the Aretalogy of Isis, one of the texts quoted in my novel, that the protagonists discover in the Hidden Book. The document provides numerous phrases relevant to the prophecy. It hints at the historical continuity of the conspiracy that is slowly uncovered. The Ancient Mysteries led me to The Refutation of All Heresies by Hippolytus of Rome. This, too, provided consistent pointers to the conspiracy. A very readable and interesting book.
The Gnostic Bible by Willis Barnstone and Marvin W Meyer
The Gnostic Bible provides a wealth of excerpts from texts originating in Egypt, the Greco-Roman world, the Middle East, China and France, with expressions of Gnostic spirituality from Christian, Cathar, Islamic, Jewish, Manichaean, Hermetic and Mandaean persuasions. This an excellent book for those looking to identify wider sources of belief.
The Refutation of All Heresies, Volume I, by Hippolytus translated by John Henry MacMahon
A 19th century translation of a work examining philosophical and theological ideas that influenced early Christian heresies and challenged orthodox Christianity. It examines the beliefs of natural and moral philosophers and logicians and analyses Gnostic traditions and other competing ideologies of the time.
The Book of Revelation by Ben Witherington III
The Book of Revelation is a key text to The Invisible College. This clear and detailed verse-by-verse examination assisted me greatly in understanding the text and developing my own ideas for its relevance and application to my own book. Of interest to anyone, regardless of faith or personal beliefs.
The Voynich Manuscript by Gerry Kennedy and Rob Churchill
The Voynich Manuscript is good fun. The manuscript, discovered in an Italian monastery by an antiquarian bookseller, is written in a curious script that may conceal an unknown language or indecipherable code. It contains hundreds of illustrations of weird plants, bizarre cosmological diagrams and inexplicable scenes of naked nymphs bathing in a strange green liquid. The book describes the history of the text and how it has defied the attempts of numerous scholars and professional codebreakers to decode it.
The Templars In Britain by Evelyn Lord
In The Invisible College, the Templars play a walk-on historical part, being a historical incarnation of the Sect responsible for the conspiracy. Dr Evelyn Lord’s work is invaluable for its detailed description of the rise and fall of the Templars in Britain.
Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening by David Hendy
The effects of music, chanting and other sounds on our thinking and emotions form a key element of the plot of The Invisible College. David Hendy’s eclectic book provides numerous examples. These include memorable passages describing the manipulation of the acoustics in enclosed spaces, such as burial chambers, creating movement and the illusion of the origin of sound. These induce a state in the human brain ‘halfway between wakefulness and sleep – the state that prompts our strongest moments of vivid mental imagery and hallucination’.
Images: The Piano Music of Claude Debussy by Paul Roberts
This excellent book is a valuable resource for musicians, teachers and listeners of Debussy’s piano music. Scholars, teachers and musicians. It offers detailed technical analysis and laces the music into a historical context with other arts in a holistic fashion. It deals with a wide range of topics, including interpretation, challenges for performers and synaesthesia.