It began with the kidnapping of a college professor during a lecture attended by Lt. Col. Rene Garcia and her father. Twenty-four hours later, the professor’s mutilated body is discovered hanging from a cross.
Meanwhile, 100 miles to the South, Homicide Lieutenant Pamela Scott investigates the suspicious deaths of four ministers.
Garcia discovers her computers and phones are being hacked by people threatening to kill her father. These events appear to be related to domestic terrorism.
Can Garcia’s team infiltrate the shadowy group in time to avoid a possible mass casualty event?
“Do you think Atlantis really existed?” The question from my grandson caught me off guard. “I don’t know,” I replied, probably sounding rather weak.
“Well, Grandpa, you need to read about Atlantis and what’s going on in archeology today.”
So I read the books he suggested, and found that an array of nanodiamonds and other minerals point toward the possibility of a comet exploding in Canada around twelve centuries ago, its fragments spreading across the Atlantic Ocean to the European ice cap.
Many scientists speculate this disaster wiped out not only a primitive hunter-gatherer population, but also an advanced civilization—one that could be the lost civilization of Atlantis.
The archeology community does not unanimously agree, but these intriguing facts certainly account for the opinions of a growing number of scientists.
Another thought-provoking issue came up as I continued to read. Could the legends of human pre-history religions be shared across distant civilizations?
For example, Egyptian, Mayan and Mississippian (North America) cultures all have legends about a perilous afterlife journey the soul must travel to enter the spirit world by ascending to the Milky Way, then making a jump to Orion specifically at dawn.
How did these three communities so far apart so long ago end up worshipping the same religious paths? It doesn’t seem possible unless a legacy group taught these ideas to people in each of these distant locations. Could that group have been the Atlanteans?
As I continued my research, I further thought about how these recent discoveries could have inflamed religious zealots by, for example, shifting focus from traditional creation narratives such as the origin story of the Garden of Eden.
This led me to an ideology known as the Christian Identity. The movement first received widespread attention in 1984, when a terrorist group called The Order embarked on a murderous crime spree before its members were arrested by the FBI.
They gained greater attention in 1992 and 1993, in the wake of the Ruby Ridge confrontation. Newspapers discovered that former separatist Randy Weaver had a loose association with the Christian Identity movement.
As you read Toxic Pulpit, think about the facts I found while researching my story within a story. Can you see how I connected the dots? And more importantly…
Was my grandson on to something?
