Protocol of a damnation

the long version

"Jacob van Buren, strangely fascinated by the supernatural; Raymond Dell, cool and cynical about religious values; Herr Karstmann, still visibly tainted by Nazism; Karpistes and Langbein, cult leaders and rival claimants to the true understanding of the ancient Gnostic secrets; their followers in their various stages of fervor, fanaticism and frustration; Riggi, aspiring journalist whose ecumenical effort to unite the rival sects proves catastrophic. This is the cast of characters Berger welds together. But far from another charade of the diabolic and mystical based on the prevailing fads of the devil, exorcism and the supernatural, they are all unique creations, idiosyncratic, irreducible to patters, with roots in their separate cultures and memories in their conflicting histories. Berger has created a radically different novel of the transcendent of demonic evil and of the fallible and fragile good." -- Dust jacket.