Peter Thompkins, it seemed, set out to prove, in an Egyptological fashion the old truism that the truth is stranger- and more glorious- than fiction. He does so in a way unlike I have ever seen or read before. He makes it so clear that science, technology and the quest of man to understand his world and himself need not look the way it was taught to us in any schools we have attended- and in reality often isn't.
In simply documenting the history and evolution of "Pyramidology", the science of studying the qualities, possible meanings and actual purposes of the great Pyramids of Giza, Thompkins allows the unfolding of the unpredicatble- and uncontrollable- nature of both scientific discovery and cultural transformation to become fully visible to us in ways the mainstream establishment in any of the traditional fields could never allow. At one point in the survey you will see the study of the Pyramids devolve into cults; all documented evidence becomes at one time or another a metaphor for a specific culture or sub-culture's socio-political agenda or quasi-religious beliefs. At other times, a prophet of science like the English astronomer Lockyer- and his antecedents- will show up and flip the world as you know it on its head. Traditional Egyptology will at times look even more cultish than the Pyramid watchers, with the revealing of its willful ignorance of obvious scientific evidence that not just obliterates but reveals the hidden psychology behind many of their long cherished theories.
This seminal book, before you even get into the postscript section with Livio Stechini's theory of ancient mathematics, is a lesson in what it has been to be a citizen of Western culture as much as it is the most eye-opening and thorough study of both Pyramidology and the Pyramids I have ever read.
I have already read it twice, and can never seem to stop getting more and more out of it. SECRETS OF THE GREAT PYRAMID is a far-reaching, important book of history and science that reads like a novel and never stops making you say "wow".