The world has been ending ever since it began, and Susan B. Martinez can show you just about every instance of that. Using numerology and an in-depth knowledge of political history, Martinez points out how the entire world actually engages in cycles of belief – and how those cycles seem to lead to specific outcomes over time. From wars to emancipation, every world-changing action has traceable roots.
While the cycles of thought and action in and of themselves are convincing, Martinez’s use of numerology is confusing. She does offer a chart of reference that identifies numbers and a word for the cycle that those numbers indicate – for example, 33 is a “spell,” while 66 is a “beast” and 666 is a “Period.” Even though the names of these cycles are laid out in a convenient chart, it’s still unclear exactly what the numbers mean or how/why Martinez uses them in historic interpretation. Certainly the actions at one point in history led to the consequences sometimes hundreds of years later. The historical evidence is compelling, but the numerological mathematics appears wobbly.
Martinez’s historical research is strong, and it is only her attempts to apply numerology that confuse. All divination comes with a deep margin of error, and numerologists face the greatest difficulty in that respect, quite simply because with numbers there’s almost never room to fudge. Martinez’s deep criticism of Western culture, especially in recent turns towards deepening self-involvement, also seems necessary to discuss but fuzzy in terms of predicting what’s coming next.
Still, her final message is strangely optimistic: because we as species are so flawed, we have a long way to go before the world will end. According to Martinez, the world doesn’t end until we all get it right.
Recommended for the historical overview.
~ review by Diana Rajchel
Author: Susan B. Martinez, Ph.D.
Bear & Company, 2011
pp. 373, $20.00
