In my book, The Devil You Don't, I have used the tag line, 'The Ultimate Conspiracy is Spiritual', because there is a conspiracy going on. The same conspiracy demonstrated above - and its source is not easily exposed. But, don't be mistaken! We're not talking about human beings, or aliens from outer space, here - we're talking about something extra-dimensional, perhaps pan-dimensional, interlacing with what we call reality. Something - or things - are exerting control over us, and we must be mindful of them just to minimize their effects.

Would it be unfair to say that Hollywood often misleads rather than informs? The goal is to make money. To make money, you must have a product that will sell. If selling a product means the product must be imbued with desirable elements and if those elements necessarily take away from actuality, so sad too bad: the real goal was met - you move on to the next sale. This is why we can't necessarily believe everything we are told - the agenda is not what is being said, it is what is being done. Ergo, The Media is the Message.

Hollywood, and its international variations, what we call the Movie industry; television; publications, the news media; radio; the internet, but more obtrusively the advertisements - bend or spin what they must in order to make money. A little tired of this state of affairs, I decided to write a book about The Devil. But, rather than sell the myth that we are all aware of, I wanted to review the entity's biblical origins, something uncommercial.

The book started in 1995 with my brother asking me to write something he could sell on his commercial BC web site. I had this picture of Satan in the Garden of Eden. But I was in transition and had no time for it until I found myself in Japan. In Japan, I wrote about the Lake of Fire. There are so many interesting ideas in the Judeo-Christian Bible. So many dangling concepts just begging to be tied together. I was a big fan of the whole Norman Jewison Jesus Christ Superstar production, a big fan of all of the creative elements that were brought together to tell a remarkable story about what happened 2,000 years ago. Especially, Tim Rice's lyrics. So compressed and so full of implication. I was also a big, big fan of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice with Michael Keaton and Jeffrey Jones' comedy but most importantly the story, including work done by Michael McDowell and Larry Wilson - coming up with a plausible explanation for the haunting phenomenon. I wanted to tie biblical elements together. There is so much in there that we miss it. Some very interesting problems: If the spirit of man is not allowed to come back from the grave in order to warn the living, then what are ghosts? What are these mythical monsters eluded to in the Bible? How old are the origins of life on this planet? And, most importantly, what are the limitations set around non-biologic beings, if any? All of this pointing to What can we expect from our Creator (if He exists)?

It is important to keep an open mind. However, when writing, it is equally important not to lose the thread of the idea you started with. Nothing would get written if we didn't keep a theme in place. In 2001, needing counsel, I enrolled in Quality of Course's Novel writing program and proceeded with their tutelage. I also kept up my reading. Counterbalancing my style and impetus were the creative works of Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child and Charles de Lint. Preston and Child have collaborated on a huge array of titles which I, in large measure, could not find a genre to fit them in. We will have to dump them in the Mystery section, I think, but it is amazing how hard they are to locate in book stores. They also tie supernatural elements into their scientific quests for truth. Why they haven't won a Poe for their work is beyond me, so like the master they are. De Lint, too, seems to be in his own class - constantly looking at our perception of what reality really is. Extremely impressive.

So, the question is, if there is a devil, moreover a master devil, how has he come to be? If he did not exist before our genesis, who was the Serpent? If he did, why was he interested in subverting us? We are told that Satan means 'adversary' and that this being stands against Mankind - why would he want to and what would he gain by it? To answer this question, I have taken another mysterious concept from the Bible - the entity called the Bride and used Her to cross-examine our nemesis. The results are 423 pages of story in a 6x9 inch format plus appendicies (Note: the e-Book version does not come with appendicies). I hope that you enjoy it!