Sometimes it takes a chapter or two
to settle yourself into a book. “Get to chapter three,” a librarian might urge
you, “then you’ll be hooked.” In the case of Howard Bloom, author of “The Lucifer
Principle, A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History,” it takes seven
chapters and 224 pages before you’ll be hooked, but hooked you will be.

The first six sections take the
reader deep into the nature of evil through a mildly intriguing summary of
evolution and genetics, mildly interesting history lesson since before time
began and then an almost irrational expounding on example after example of Mother
Nature as a “bloody bitch.” The very premise of existence, the author writes,
is built upon savagery, brutality, and aggression.

Bloom has a point. Bloom makes a
point. Bloom beats the point to death. Yet, he categorically substantiates
every point made. I was surprised when
the book, although drawn out, seemed to end abruptly at page 331. His notes and bibliography extended into the
next 117 pages. Whereas authors who base their presentations on unsubstantiated
claims lose my respect and authors who spin the studies to “prove” their own
agendas earn my wrath, Bloom has invented a new category: authors who drown the
reader in information so they are not sure if it’s disrespect, wrath,
recrimination, or respect that has been evoked. The reader doesn’t have to take
Bloom’s word for anything. Nor would
they want to, for the first six sections reveal a vile and unredeeming view of
mankind.

Every point is overstated and no
curiosity left unexplained. The reader will get a condensed lesson in biology,
sociology, sexology, physiology, the history of man, the history of God and the
history of all his ambassadors. The unrelenting descriptions of man’s
inhumanity to man (not to mention beast, insect, amoeba, and molecule) made me
sick to my stomach. It was probably the author’s intention and yet he tells us
the “brain searches for what it wants to believe in” and that makes me wonder
what Bloom’s brain is searching for.

In the section “How Hatred Builds
the Walls of Society’s Bungalow,” we learn that hatred, frustration, anger,
hostility, and jealousy are the building blocks of nature. He gives us a
blueprint whereby men take their roles in groups and bond in order to clash
with other groups and become more powerful. These groups develop into super social
organisms whose only goal–like the amoeba—is to absorb its neighbors
resources, multiply, and consume, at whatever cost to its members. The more
aggressive, the more inhumane, the greater the chance of success, the author writes.
We are, the book explains, preprogrammed by natural selection to be savage—the
rip-their-tongues-out, lop-their-heads-off, slay-their-babies, kind of brutal.

Nothing is sacred. Moslems, Buddhists,
Hindus, Christians, agnostics, atheists, philanthropists—all of our ideas and
ideals are defiled. Religion is the voice of a super hungry organism that
absorbs by force or faith its neighbors, we read in the section “Righteous
Indignation=Greed for Real Estate.” Ideology is often what allows a super
organism, be it a religion, country, or political party, to gobble up the
resources of its neighbors (competitors).

It is only after life as we know it
is totally horriblized, with not a shred of virtue as its own reward nor a drop
of serotonin in a biological reward system, that the reader ultimately gets a
glimpse of hope. In section seven, “Who are the Next Barbarians?”, subsection
“Are there Killer Cultures?” Mr. Bloom attacks himself before any peacenik can
discredit him by stating the obvious, “How dare I regard any group as barbaric-
what appalling ethnocentrism!…there are simply cultures we haven’t taken the
time to understand {…} beneath the skin, all men and women are the same.” Well,
Bloom says NO! “But there are barbarians,
people whose cultures glorify the act of murder and elevate violence to a holy
deed.”

Startled after reading this, I sat
bolt upright. The book, at this juncture, takes a dramatic turn and begins to
deliberate on Islamic societies, with example after example of a society of assassins,
who slaughter tens of thousands of disagreeing dissidents, leaders in the
middle east who murder, lie, and purposely train children to be killers.

None of this is stereotypical
rhetoric, as everything Bloom writes is over-documented. He points out, that
although Moslems praise Mohammed as a man of peace, that Mohammed himself spoke
of instilling terror in all the non-believers, “slaying them wherever ye catch
them.”—Mohammed.

Although the author does touch on
Allah’s truth and do-good-deeds philosophy, the darker side of Islam cannot be
ignored, “And the percentage of modern Islamic adherents who have focused on
Allah’s calls to combat is dismaying.”

Did Bloom write the book yesterday?
Post 9/11? I groped for the beginning pages. It was written in 1995! He is
either psychic or his grasp of the jihadic beast is visionary. Bloom tells the
reader that the Ayatollah Khomeini sums up the duty of all Moslem men to
conquer the infidel because “every part of a non-Moslem is impure in the same
way as are excrement, urine, dog, and wine. Islam does not allow peace between
a Moslem and an infidel.”

From that quote on, Howard Bloom
writes of the future we live in today. He tells us why, given current
circumstances, the Moslems will not stop, why they are such a dangerous super
organism, how they excuse their atrocities, and deny their darkness, just like
all of nature’s savage children. Why then are they the barbarians and not us? “It’s a question of degree,” he
explains. Some of us are far more barbarous than others. Some cultures idealize
carnage. Some cultures stress conflict resolution while others cry for blood.

We must not be compliant, he warns.
We (the less barbarous) have to help reshape the radical; we must turn the
barbarians to Mohammed’s words of peace, not war. But how? Bloom gives us some
insight into this, too. Teach them to touch, he advises. Teach them to hug.
Islamic families seem to be devoid of close warm relationships, especially in
adulthood. People are expected to be aloof and uncaring, showing little to no
affection between sexes. Affection and caring is a sign of weakness quickly
eradicated from boys by their fathers. We cannot afford to be blind. We cannot
let the peacekeepers blame ourselves for
the Moslem’s way of life and revenge on the infidel. There is a super organism
pecking order and whoever is on top will always be threatened by those on the
bottom. It is the way of Mother Nature. We will not be free of savagery if we
let the savage win. Nature is on the savage side of humankind; we have to make
nurture make up for it.

Buy this book. Read it more than
once. This book tells our story. It
is the blueprint of our past and the justification of our presence in
Afghanistan and Iraq. “The Lucifer Principle” is the Bible of anyone who wants
to know what in the hell is going on.