Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Introduction Chapter - In The Beginning God Peers at His Reflection • The Looking-Glass Universe Chapter - A Short Walk in the Ancient Woods Imagining Ourselves into the Chapter - The Garden of Eden The Genesis Code • Enter the Dark Lord • The Chapter - Lucifer, The Light of the World The Apple of Desire • A War in Chapter - The Gods who Loved Women The Nephilim • The Genetic Engineering of Chapter - The Assassination of the Green King Isis and Osiris • The Cave of Chapter - The Age of Demi-Gods and Heroes The Ancient Ones • The Amazons • Chapter - The Sphinx and the Timelock Orpheus • Daedalus, the First Chapter - The Neolithic Alexander the Great Noah and the Myth of Atlantis • Chapter 10 - The Way of the Wizard Zarathustra’s Battle Against the Powers of Chapter 11 - Getting to Grips with Matter Imhotep and the Age of the Pyramids Chapter 12 - The Descent into Darkness Moses and the Cabala • Akhenaten and Chapter 13 - Reason - and How to Rise Above it Elijah and Elisha • Isaiah • Chapter 14 - The Mysteries of Greece and Rome The Eleusian Mysteries • Chapter 15 - The Sun God Returns The Two Jesus Children • The Cosmic Mission • Chapter 16 - The Tyranny of the Fathers The Gnostics and the Neoplatonists • Chapter 17 - The Age of Islam Mohammed and Gabriel • The Old Man of the Chapter 18 - The Wise Demon of the Templars The Prophecies of Joachim • The Chapter 19 - Fools for Love Dante, the Troubadors and Falling in Love for the Chapter 20 - The Green One behind the Worlds Columbus • Don Quixote • William Chapter 21 - The Rosicrucian Age The German Brotherhoods • Christian Chapter 22 - Occult Catholicism Jacob Boehme • The Conquistadors and the Chapter 23 - The Occult Roots of Science Isaac Newton • The Secret Mission of Chapter 24 - The Age of Freemasonry Christopher Wren • John Evelyn and the Chapter 25 - The Mystical-Sexual Revolution Cardinal Richelieu • Cagliostro • Chapter 26 - The Illuminati and the Rise of Unreason The Illuminati and the Chapter 27 - The Mystic Death of Humanity Swedenborg and Dostoyevsky • Wagner Chapter 28 - Wednesday, Thursday, Friday The Anti-Christ • Re-entering the Acknowledgements A Note on Sources and Selective Bibliography Index This edition first published in the United States in 2008 by The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc Woodstock & New York WOODSTOCK: One Overlook Drive Woodstock, NY 12498 www.overlookpress.com [for individual orders, bulk and special sales, contact our Woodstock office] NEW YORK: 141 Wooster Street New York, NY 10012 Copyright © 2008 by Mark Booth All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress eISBN : 978-1-590-20380-4 http://us.penguingroup.com Frontispiece of Sir Walter Raleigh’s The History of the World, 1614 Introduction THIS IS A HISTORY OF THE WORLD that has been taught down the ages in certain secret societies It may seem quite mad from today’s point of view, but an extraordinarily high proportion of the men and women who made history have been believers Historians of the ancient world tell us that from the beginnings of Egyptian civilization to the collapse of Rome, public temples in places like Thebes, Eleusis and Ephesus had priestly enclosures attached to them Classical scholars refer to these enclosures as the Mystery schools Here meditation techniques were taught to the political and cultural elite Following years of preparation, Plato, Aeschylus, Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Cicero and others were initiated into a secret philosophy At different times the techniques used by these ‘schools’ involved sensory deprivation, breathing exercises, sacred dance, drama, hallucinogenic drugs and different ways of redirecting sexual energies These techniques were intended to induce altered states of consciousness in the course of which initiates were able to see the world in new ways Anyone who revealed to outsiders what he had been taught inside the enclosures was executed Iamblichus, the neoplatonist philosopher, recorded what happened to two boys who lived at Ephesus One night, lit up by rumours of phantoms and magical practices, of a more intense, more blazingly real reality hidden inside the enclosures, they let their curiosity get the better of them Under cover of darkness they scaled the walls and dropped down the other side Pandemonium followed, audible all over the city, and in the morning the boys’ corpses were discovered in front of the enclosure gates In the ancient world the teachings of the Mystery schools were guarded as closely as nuclear secrets are guarded today Then in the third century the temples of the ancient world were closed down as Christianity became the ruling religion of the Roman Empire The danger of ‘proliferation’ was addressed by declaring these secrets heretical, and trafficking in them continued to be a capital offence But as we shall see, members of the new ruling elite, including Church leaders, now began to form secret societies Behind closed doors they continued to teach the old secrets This book contains an accumulation of evidence to show that an ancient and secret philosophy that originated in the Mystery schools was preserved and nurtured down the ages through the medium of secret societies, including the Knights Templar and the Rosicrucians Sometimes this philosophy has been hidden from the public and at other times it has been placed in plain view - though always in such a way as to remain unrecognized by outsiders To take one example, the frontispiece of The History of the World by Sir Walter Raleigh, published in 1614, is on display in the Tower of London Thousands file past it every day, missing the goat’s head hidden in its design and other coded messages If you’ve ever wondered why the West has no equivalent to the tantric sex on open display on the walls of Hindu monuments such as the temples of Khajuraho in central India, you may be interested to learn that an analogous technique - the cabalistic art of karezza - is encoded in much of the West’s art and literature We will see, too, how secret teachings on the history of the world influence the foreign policy of the present US administration regarding Central Europe Is the Pope Catholic? Well, not in the straightforward way you might think One morning in 1939 a young man aged twenty-one was walking down the street when a truck drove into him and knocked him down While in a coma he had an overwhelming mystical experience When he came round he recognized that, although it had come about in an unexpected way, this experience was what he had been led to expect as the fruit of techniques taught him by his mentor, Mieczlaw Kotlorezyk, a modern Rosicrucian master As a result of this mystical experience the young man joined a seminary, later became Bishop of Cracow, then later still Pope John Paul II These days the fact that the head of the Catholic Church was first initiated into the spirit realm under the aegis of a secret society is perhaps not as shocking as it once was, because science has taken over from religion as the main agent of social control It is science that decides what it is acceptable for us to believe - and what is beyond the pale In both the ancient world and the Christian era, the secret philosophy was kept secret by threatening those who trafficked in it with death Now in the post-Christian era the secret philosophy is still surrounded by dread, but the threat is of ‘social death’ rather than execution Belief in key tenets, such as prompting by disembodied beings or that the course of history is materially influenced by secret cabals, has been branded as at best crackpot, at worst the very definition of what it is to be mad In Mystery schools candidates wishing to join were made to fall down a well, undergo trial by water, squeeze through a very small door and hold logic-chopping discussions with anthropomorphic animals Ring a bell? Lewis Carroll is one of the many children’s writers - others are the Brothers Grimm, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, C S Lewis and the creators of The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins - who have believed in the secret history and the secret philosophy With a mixture of the topsy-turvy and child-like literalness these writers have sought to undermine the common sense, materialistic view of life They want to teach children to think backwards, look at everything upside down and the other way round, and break free of established, fixed ways of thinking Other kindred spirits include Rabelais and Jonathan Swift Their work has a disconcerting quality in which the supernatural is not made a big issue of - it is simply a given Imaginary objects are seen as at least as real as the mundane objects of the physical world Satirical and sceptical, these gently iconoclastic writers are undermining of readers’ assumptions and subversive of down-to-earth attitudes Esoteric philosophy is nowhere explicitly stated in Gargantua and Pantagruel or Gulliver’s Travels, but a small amount of digging brings it into the light of day In fact this book will show that throughout history an astonishing number of famous people have secretly cultivated the esoteric philosophy and mystical states taught in the secret societies It might be argued that, because they lived in times when even the best educated did not enjoy all the intellectual benefits that modern science brings, it is only natural that Charlemagne, Dante, Joan of Arc, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Milton, Bach, Mozart, Goethe, Beethoven and Napoleon all held beliefs that are discredited today But then isn’t it rather surprising that many in modern times have held the same set of beliefs, not just madmen, lone mystics or writers of fantasies, but the founders of the modern scientific method, the humanists, the rationalists, the liberators, The Book with Fourteen Seals by Rudolf Steiner The Concepts of Original Sin and Grace by Rudolf Steiner The Dead Are With Us by Rudolf Steiner Deeper Secrets of Human History in the Light of the Gospel of St Matthew by Rudolf Steiner Egyptian myths and mysteries by Rudolf Steiner The Evolution of Consciousness, and The Sun Initiation of the Druid Priest and his Moon-Science by Rudolf Steiner From Symptom to Reality in Modern History by Rudolf Steiner Inner Impulses of Evolution by Rudolf Steiner The Karma of Untruthfulness vols I and II by Rudolf Steiner Karmic relationships Vols I and II by Rudolf Steiner Life Between Death and Rebirth by Rudolf Steiner Manifestations of Karma by Rudolph Steiner Occult History by Rudolf Steiner The occult movement in the nineteenth century by Rudolf Steiner* The Occult Significance of Blood by Rudolf Steiner The Origins of Natural Science by Rudolf Steiner Reincarnation and Karma by Rudolf Steiner Results of spiritual investigation by Rudolf Steiner The Temple Legend by Rudolf Steiner Three Streams in Human Evolution by Rudolf Steiner Verses and Meditations by Rudolph Steiner Wonders of the World by Rudolf Steiner The World of the Desert Fathers by Columba Stewart Witchcraft and Black Magic by Montague Summers Conjugal Love by Emanuel Swedenborg Heaven and Hell by Emanuel Swedenborg Conversations with Eternity by Robert Temple* He Who Saw Everything - a translation of the Gilgamesh epic by Robert Temple Mysteries and secrets of magic by C.J.S Thompson The Elizabethan World Picture by E.M.W Tillyard Tracks in the Snow - studies in English science and art by Ruthven Todd The Tragic Sense of Life by Miguel de Unamuno Primitive Man by Cesar de Vesme Reincarnation by Guenther Wachsmuth Raymund Lully, Illuminated Doctor, Alchemist and Christian Mystic by A.E Waite Gnosticism by Benjamin Walker Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon by Peter Washington Tao, the Watercourse Way by Alan Watts Secret Societies and Subversive Movements by Nesta Webster The Serpent in the Sky by John Anthony West The Secret of the Golden Flower by Richard Wilhelm Witchcraft by Charles Williams The Laughing Philosopher: a life of Rabelais by M.P Willocks Are These the Words of Jesus? by Ian Wilson Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda* Mysticism sacred and profane by R.C Zaehner This book is the result of some twenty years of reading Often I’ve read a book which has yielded only a sentence in my own So the above is a selective biography I should perhaps declare a small interest here In the case of some of these books, I have not only read them, I have commissioned and published them too I had originally intended that the notes would be almost as long as the text, but then the text is twice as long as intended Perhaps it’s for the best One more tiny, wafer-thin bit of information and this book might have exploded like Mr Creosote in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life It’s a peril of writing a book so wide-ranging that even as you’re going to press, new books are published which you need to read and take into account I’d just like to mention Philip Ball’s brilliant The Devil’s Doctor , a biography of Paracelsus and The Occult Tradition by David S Katz Both these books show great ‘negative capability’ when it comes to the question of whether or not occult phenomena are real Barry Strauss’s recent book on The Trojan War bolsters the idea that it was a real historical event I’ve put an asterisk by the books - not the obvious ones, not The Brothers Karamazov, for example - that I recommend as giving the reader a vertiginous sense of plunging into whole new worlds of thought I’ve chosen books that are easy to read - and also, I imagine, relatively easy to find Discography: De Occulta Philosophia, J.S Bach is performed by Emma Kirkby and Carlos Mena Beethoven spoke of the Appassionata as his most esoteric work, but for me it is his last piano sonata, no 31 in A flat major opus 110, in the course of which, suddenly he jumps forward to the music of a hundred years later the prophesied jazz Esoteric pop music is made by the pataphysicist Robert Wyatt, and the deftest of Donovan Mountain No Mountain Index Aaron Abraham Abulafia, Abraham Achilles Adam and Eve Adepts (Indian) Aeschylus Agamemnon Agrippa, Cornelius Ahab Ahriman Akhenaten Alberti, Leon Battista Albertus Magnus alchemy Alexander the Great Amazons Andrae, Valentine Angels Aphrodite Apollo Apuleius Archangel Gabriel, Archangel Michael Aristedes Aristotle Arjuna Ark of the Covenant Artapanus Arthur, King Asclepius Ashmole, Elias Asoka, Emperor Astarte Asuras Aten Athena Atlantis Attila the Hun Augustine Aurelius, Marcus Baal Bach, J.S Backhouse, William Bacon, Francis Bacon, Roger Bartolomeo, Fra Bauval, Robert Beatrice Beethoven, Ludwig van Bell, Alexander Graham Berkeley, Bishop Bernini, Gianlorenzo Berosus Blake, William Boehme, Jacob Book of Enoch Bosch, Hieronymus Botticelli, Sandro Breton, André Brockmer, John Paul Bronte, Emily Bruce, James Bruno, Giordano Buddha Buddhism Burton, Robert Byrne, Lorna Cabala Cadmus Caesar, Julius Cagliostro, Count Cain Calasso, Roberto Caligula Cathars Centaurs Cerberus Cervantes, Miguel de chakras Charlemagne Charon Chartres Cicero Circe Cleito Clement, Bishop of Alexandria Columbus, Christopher Comenius, John Comma of Pythagoras Commodorius Confucius Constantine, Emperor Copernicus, Nicholas Corbin, Henri Cortés, Hernando Crick, Francis Cupid Cybele Cyron Da Vinci, Leonardo Daedalus Dagon Daniel, Arnaud Dante Gabriel Rossetti Dark Side of the Moon Darwin, Charles Dawkins, Richard Ddantgwynne, Owain de Graaf, H.W de Lubicz, R.A Schwaller de Payens, Hugo de Santillana, Giorgio Dechend, Hertha von Dee, Dr John Desaguliers, John Théophile Descartes Deucalion Devaki Devil see Lucifer Dick, Philip K Dickens, Charles Dionysus Dionysus the Younger Don Quixote Dorn, Gerard Dostoyevsky du Val, Aaron Duchamp, Marcel Dürer, Albrecht Durkheim, Emile Eckartshausen, Karl von Eckhart, Meister Edison, Thomas Ego Eightfold Path El Dorado Elijah Eliot, George Eliot, T.S Elisha Elohim Eluesis Emboden, William Emmerich, Anne-Catherine Endymion Enkidu Enoch Epicureans Eros Eshcenbach, Wolfram von Euripides Eurydice Fall, the Fibonacci sequence Ficino, Marsilio fish gods Fitzgerald, Lorna Bryne Fludd, Robert Four Cherubim Fraenger, William Franklin, Benjamin Frazer, Sir James Freemasonry Freud, Sigmund Fulcanelli Fuseli, Henry Galileo Galilei Gandhi Garden of Eden Garibaldi Gasset, José Ortega y Genesis giants Gilgamesh Gnostic texts Goethe Golden Proportion Grace Great Flood Greater Mysteries Green Language Guillaume, Count of Poitiers Guinevere Gurdjieff, G.I Hagar Hancock, Graham Haroun Al Raschid Hassan-I Sabbah Helmont, Jan Baptiste van Helen of Troy Heraclitus Hercules Hermes Hermeticism Herodotus Hiram Abiff, Holy Grail Homer Horus eye of Hume, David Hypatia Icarus Idris Iliad Illuminati Imhotep Isaac Isaiah Isis Jacobs, Gregg James, M.R Jason Jaynes, Julian Jehovah Jesus Christ Jethro Joachim Joan of Arc Job Johnson, Dr Jonson, Ben Julian, Emperor Jung, Friedrich Jupiter Kali Yuga Kansa Kelley, Edward Kenta, Rebecca Kepler, Johannes Keynes, John Maynard Kipling, Rudyard Klee, Paul Kliuv, Nikolai Knight, Christopher Knights Templar Koenig, William Koran Krishna Language of the Birds Lantern of Osiris Lao-Tzu Lapiths Latini, Brunetto Lazarus Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm Lenin Lewis, C.S Liddell, Alice Loki Lomas, Dr Robert Loyola, Ignatius Lucifer Lull, Ramón Luria, Isaac Luther, Martin Maier, Michael Malevich, Kazimir Manetho Manichaeism Marcellus Marco Polo Mars Mary Magdalene Mary, mother of Christ Maslow, Abraham Massey, Gerald Matsya Medea Medusa Melchizedek Menippus Mercury Merlin Mersenne, Marin Michelangelo Mithraism Modernism Mohammed Mona Lisa monotheism Moon Moses Mother Goddess Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus Müller, Friedrich Max Napoleon Bonaparte Nepthys Newton, Isaac Nietzsche, Friedrich Nimrod the Hunter Noah Nonnus O’Keefe, Georgia Oannes Odysseus Oedipus Origen Orpheus Osiris Ouspensky,P.D Ovason, David Ovid Pacioli, Luca Pallas Pan Pandira, Jesus ben Pantanjali Paracelsus Parsifal Pascal, Blaise Perseus Pessoa, Fernando Philip the Fair Philo of Alexandria Picasso Pindar pineal gland Pistis Sophia Pizarro, Francisco Plato Plethon, Gemistos Plotinus Plutarch Polycrates Porphyry Poseidon Priscus Proclus Psellus Psyche Pyramid Great Step Pythagoras Quetzal Coatl Rabelais, Franỗois Raleigh, Sir Walter Rama Ramalinga Swamigal Ramasees Ramayana Ramsay, Chevalier Rasputin Rees, Sir Martin Richard the Lionheart Richelieu, Cardinal Rilke, Rainer Maria Rishis Robespierre, Maximilian Rohl, David Romulus and Remus Rosenkreuz, Christian Rosicrucian Rumi Sadducees Sai Baba Sarai Sartre, Jean-Paul Satan see Lucifer Saturn Saul Schliemann, Heinrich Schonfield, Hugh Schrödinger, Erwin Schwaller, R.A Scott stones Semele Seneca Seth Shakespeare, William Shamanism Shambala Sheba, Queen of Siddhartha Signorelli, Luca Silenus Sita Smith, Dr Morton Socrates Solomon Sophocles Sothic cycle Spencer, E Baldwin Spenser, Edmund Sphinx St Augustine St Bernard of Clairvaux St Dionysus St Francis St Germain, Comte de St John St John of the Cross St Martin St Michael St Patrick St Paul St Philip St Teresa of Avila St Thomas St Thomas Aquinas Steiner, Rudolf Stoicism Stoyanov, Yuri Strabo ‘string theory’ Suchard, Marsha Keith Sufism Sun god Swedenborg, Emmanuel Swift, Jonathan Tauler, John Telamones Temple, Robert Ten Commandments Tertullian Tesla, Nicholas Theodosius, Emperor Theopompus of Chios Theseus Third Eye Thom, Alexander Thomas Aquinas, Thoth Tillich, Paul Titans Tolkien, J.R.R Tomberg, Valentine Tower of Babel Trismegistus, Hermes Troubadors Troy, siege of Tutenkhamun Typhon Uitzilopotchli Usher, Bishop Vedas Venus , Virgil Vital, Rabbi Hayyim Voraigne, Jacobus de Wallace, A.E Warwick, Kevin Washington, George Watchers Weishaupt, Adam Wilde, Oscar Wisdom, John Woodruffe, Sir John Wordsworth, William Wright, Frank Lloyd Xerxes Yate, Frances Yeats, W.B Yima yoga Yogananda, Paramahansa Zarathustra Zen Zend-Avesta Zeus ziggurats Ziusudra Zizendorf, Count zodiac Zoroastrianism ... 16 - The Tyranny of the Fathers The Gnostics and the Neoplatonists • Chapter 17 - The Age of Islam Mohammed and Gabriel • The Old Man of the Chapter 18 - The Wise Demon of the Templars The. .. into the Chapter - The Garden of Eden The Genesis Code • Enter the Dark Lord • The Chapter - Lucifer, The Light of the World The Apple of Desire • A War in Chapter - The Gods who Loved Women The. .. from the Library of Congress eISBN : 97 8-1 -5 9 0-2 038 0-4 http://us.penguingroup.com Frontispiece of Sir Walter Raleigh’s The History of the World, 1614 Introduction THIS IS A HISTORY OF THE WORLD