The Secret History of the World

A Note on Sources and Selective Bibliography

The moment it all came together was when in Hall’s second hand bookshop in Tunbridge Wells, I found a copy of Jacob Boehme’s Mysterium Magnum translated in two volumes by John Sparrow. Written in 1623, before the great influx of esoterica from the East that would result from European empire-building, this book showed me was that there really was a genuine Western esoteric tradition connecting the Mystery schools of Egypt, Greece and Rome with the assertions of modern visionaries like Rudolf Steiner.

Around the same time I also chanced upon Boehme’s The Signature of All Things, Paracelsus’s The Archidoxes of Magic, and Paracelsus: Life and Prophecies, a collection of his writings edited and with a short biography by Franz Hartmann, and The Works of Thomas Vaughan, the English Rosicrucian, edited by A.E. Waite — in a beautiful glowing gold cover. Rich pickings indeed, these books provided further confirmation of this tradition. A modern book, Joscelyn Godwin’s Robert Fludd: Hermetic philosopher and surveyor of two worlds actually contained a picture of the earth separating from the Sun. I knew there was an esoteric tradition of this as a historical event, but previously I had only read about in Steiner.

Some writers, including Valentine Tomberg and Max Heindel, have been accused of not sufficiently declaring their debt to Steiner. Let me do so now. Steiner is a colossal figure in arcane circles, bestriding the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, much as Swedenborg bestrode the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He has done more than any other teacher to illumine the difficult and paradoxical world of esoteric philosophy. There are apparently some six hundred volumes of Steiner’s work, mostly collections of lectures. I must have read thirty of these, at the very least.

Although he has done so much to illumine, his books are by no means an easy read. Steiner’s aim is not to be as clear as possible in the way of Anglo-American academia. His aim is to work on his listeners by a sort of weaving together of themes — the historical with the metaphysical with the moral with the philosophical. There is no structure in the conventional way, and no narrative. Things come round and round again rhythmically, some in larger cycles, some in smaller ones. Many readers will quickly lose patience, but if you persist there are always fascinating nuggets of information — and my own book is as full of these Steinerian nuggets as a plumb pudding.

All idealistic philosophy, (which is to say philosophy that proposes mind came before matter and that matter was precipitated out of a cosmic mind in some way), accounts for this precipitation in terms of a series of emanations from the cosmic mind. The higher science of idealism always — esoteric philosophy in all traditions — relates these emanations to the heavenly bodies in a quite systematic way. The different traditions show some variations, and where they do I have not only simplified for the sake of clarity, I have taken Steiner as my guide. The key texts here are: Theosophy, Occult Science, The Evolution of the World and Humanity and Universe, Earth and Man.

(I have stayed away from disputes between different schools of thought, such as the anthroposophists, the theosophists and the followers of Keyserling — about the chronology of these events — because they are abstruse and on the grounds that, as I argue in my text, time as we understand it today did not exist then. I think such discussions sometimes veer dangerously towards the meaningless, but for an intelligent discussion of these issues I recommend the Vermont Sophia web page and the Sophia Foundation website of Robert Powell. Many works by Keyserling are also available online. Incidentally, I have in one instance — on the question of whether or not stories of two Krishnas should be disentangled, preferred Keyserling to Steiner.)

Steiner is a visionary, and rarely sources his teachings. Much of what he says is in principle unverifiable in any academic or scientific sense, but a lot is verifiable and that has almost always checked out. There are only a handful of exceptions, I believe.

I think a problem with Steiner is that he is such a great figure that people who follow in his footsteps find it hard to think freely and independently. Steiner’s shadow can inhibit originality. Partly because I have worked for so long in publishing, where a pig-headed certainty that you are right is indispensable if you are to enjoy any success, and partly because my research has ranged so widely that I have been able, to some degree at least, to see Steiner in context, I have not felt him in any way a burden — rather as an inspiration.

Among other modern teachers G.I. Gurdjieff means to tease and bemuse in his writings, but his gigantic, ten volumes All And Everything also contain astonishing nuggets that confirm ancient, esoteric teaching. His protégée, Ouspensky, had a gift for reframing ancient wisdom in what we might without being too cute call a modernist idiom in In Search of the Miraculous and Tertium Organon. Likewise immersed in the Sufi tradition René Guénon is the image of Gallic intellectual rigour, and I have used his Man and his Becoming, and The Lord of the World, and Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrine, not only as sources of information but as models of good discipline.

The Secret Wisdom of Qabalah is a wonderfully concise yet illuminating guide. In terms of a specifically Christian esoteric tradition, The Perfect Way by Anna Bonus Kingsford and Edward Maitland, written in 1881, is difficult to find, but I chanced upon a ring-bound photocopy. Written by a High Church Anglican, C.G. Harrison, The Transcendental Universe was published in 1893, causing a furor in esoteric circles both inside and outside the Church, because it revealed things the secret societies thought better kept secret. From the Orthodox Perspective, the small library of books by Omraam Mikhal Aïvanhov represent a tradition of nurturing the ancient Sun mysteries and Christian esoteric teachings on love and sexuality. Mentioned in the text, Meditations on the Tarot was published anonymously in Paris in 1980, it was written by a former disciple of Steiner’s, Valentin Tomberg, who later became a Roman Catholic. (For a fascinating account of the fallout, I recommend The Case of Valentin Tomberg by Sergei O. Prokofieff.) Meditations on the Tarot is a treasure trove of Christian esoteric lore. The Zelator by David Ovason is a neglected classic of modern esoteric writing. It draws on the wisdom of several schools but has a Christian message at its heart. Rudolf Steiner’s books on Jesus Christ have been invaluable, especially on the Sun-Mystery central to esoteric Christianity: Christianity as a Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity, The Spiritual Beings in the Heavenly Bodies and in the Kingdoms of Nature, Building Stones for an understanding of the Mystery of the Golgotha, the Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman, From Buddha to Christ, his various commentaries on the gospels, including the so-called fifth gospel and The Redemption of Thinking (on Thomas Aquinas). I have also tracked down some works excluded from the various extensive Steiner publishing programmes, including his early, theosophical work on Atlantis and Lemuria, and more importantly for my text, Inner Impulses of Evolution: The Mexican Mysteries and the Knights Templar. I have made much use of the biblical commentaries of Steiner’s friend Emil Bock from Genesis to The Three Years and Saint Paul. I have also used Lore and Legend of the English Church by G.S. Tyack, and Good and Evil Spirits by Edward Langton.

The great masterpieces of alchemy in twentieth century writing are, of course, Le Mystère des Cathédrales and Les Demeures Philosophales. Not only do they offer clues to understanding, but they are also brilliant guides to tracking down esoteric sites in France. I recommend Paul Sedir’s History of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood, which contains an excellent, illuminating account of the greatest flowering of Christianized alchemy. The Zelator by David Ovason is good on this subject, as is Steiner’s The Mysteries of the Rosicrucians. To anyone wishing to research alchemy further, I recommend the writing website of Adam Maclean, a fascinating archive of historical documents.

Steiner’s predecessor, Madame Blavatsky, is a bit of a problem, if only because her anti-Christian animus seems in retrospect a bit impish and perverse. I prefer to see Blavatsky as an exemplar of a splendid Victorian tradition — the writing of monstrously large rag bags of books packed with strange ideas and obscure but often fascinating erudition. With the possible exception of Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough — which is at least permanently in print — these books are hardly read at all now. In fact I sometimes wondered whether I was the first person to read some of these pages for perhaps over a hundred years. Their wisdom has become discarded wisdom, but there is wisdom to be found, and I have had a lot of fun rummaging around in the following: The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled by Madame Blavatsky, Theosophy and Psychological Religion by F. Max Muller. Fragments of a Faith Forgotten and Orpheus by G.R.S. Meade, The Egyptian Book of the Dead and Gnostic and Historic Christianity by George Eliot’s friend, Gerald Massey, Ancient Theories of Revelation and Inspiration by Edwyn Bevan, Oedipus Judaicus by William Drummond, The Lost Language of Symbolism, and Archaic England by Harold Bayley, The Canon by William Stirling, Architecture: Mysticism and Myth by William Lethaby, Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter, Introduction to Tantra Sastra and The Serpent Power by Sir John Woodroffe, The History of Magic by Eliphas Levi, The Kabbalah Unveiled by S.L. Macgregor Mathers, Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill, Studies in Mysticism and Certain Aspects of the Secret Tradition by A.E. Waite, Cosmic Consciousness by Richard Bucke, The Initiates by Eduard Schure, The Eleusian and Bacchic Mysteries by Thomas Taylor, The Veil of Isis by W. Winwood Reade.

Occult physiology is a key part of this book. I have used The Occult Causes of Disease by E. Wolfram, The Encyclopedia of Esoteric Man by Benjamin Walker, Occult Principles of Health and Healing by Max Heindel, Occult Anatomy and the Bible by Corinne Heline and An Occult Physiology, Initiation and its Results, Occult Science and Occult Development by Steiner. The Parable of the Beast by John Bleibtreu, while not framed in esoteric philosophy, has fascinating information, especially on the Third Eye.

Occult art is also key. I have used Symbolists and Symbolism by Robert L Delevoy, Legendary and Mythological Art by Clara Erskine Clement, Hieronymus Bosch by Wilhelm Fraenger, Symbols in Christian Art by Edward Hulme, Three Lectues on Art by René Huyghe — particularly good on El Greco — The Occult in Art by Fred Gettings, The Two Children by David Ovason, Marcel Duchamp by Octavio Paz on Marcel Duchamp, John Richardson’s three volume biography, A Life of Picasso and Mark Harris’s insightful essay on Picasso’s Lost Masterpiece, The Foundations of Modern Art by Ozenfant, Sacred and Legendary Art by Mrs Jameson, Surrealism and Painting by André Breton, Surrealism and the Occult by Nadia Choucha.

The books of Albert Pike and A.E. Waite on Freemasonry fall into the baggy Victorian monster category. Together with Manly Hall these men are established as the great writers on the Freemasonic mysteries, and I have used their Morals and Dogma, History of Freemasonry and Secret Teachings of All Ages, as well as The Temple Legend by Rudolf Steiner. I’d like to mention in the same breath, The Secret Zodiacs of Washington DC by David Ovason and The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro by Ian McCalman. I’d also like to credit the independent-minded research of Robert Lomas, who has co-written with Christopher Knight several bestselling books on the origins of Freemasonry — including The Hiram Key, The Second Messiah and Uriel’s Machine. Like another bestselling writer in the alternative history field, Robert Bauval, Lomas is an engineer, and so able to see things that more theoretically-minded writers have missed. Something I’ve tried to insist on in my own book is that the fact that esoteric teachings have useful, practical application makes them much more likely to be true. A.E. Waite’s The Hidden Church of the Holy Grail is the best account of the various sources of the Grail legend.

The great figure in esoteric Egyptology is Schwaller de Lubicz. He represents a major impulse to understand the consciousness of the ancient world. I have taken insights from The Temple of Man, Sacred Science and The Egyptian Miracle. I have also had the pleasure of sailing up the Nile to visit the major Egyptian sites with many of the most popular modern writers in the field, including Robert Bauval, Graham Hancock, Robert Temple and Colin Wilson. On one occasion I found myself exploring a secret passageway behind the altar of one of the great temples of Egypt in the company of Michael Baigent. Of particular relevance to this work is Bauval’s latest book, The Egypt Code, referenced in the text. There, I believe, he finally cracks the numerical, astronomical code behind Egyptian architecture. Robert Temple is someone who can certainly access supernatural levels of intelligence. The Sirius Mystery, The Crytsal Sun and Netherworld are authoritative texts on astronomical symbolism in myth and initiation lore. See also The Mysteries by Ita Wegman, Mystery Knowldege and Mystery Centres by Rudolf Steiner, In the Dark Places of Wisdom by Peter Kingsley. I first read Colin Wilson’s The Outsider at the right age — 17 years old — and was introduced to Rilke and Sartre. Later my philosophy tutor — sometimes talked of as the cleverest don in Oxford — dismissed Sartre’s work as not being real philosophy, and I’ve no doubt he’s say the same of Wilson. But I see Wilson as an intellectual in the highest sense, in that he struggles to understand the great questions of life and death and what it means to be alive now with complete intellectual honesty and remarkable intellectual energy. His intellectual heirs in the next generation were Michael Baigent and Graham Hancock. Baigent co-wrote with Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail the book that created the cultural climate into which any book on the subject of the secret societies must emerge. I explain in my text where I believe it is wrong, giving a materialistic interpretation of a genuine but more spiritual tradition regarding the relationship between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Like Baigent and Leigh, Hancock is adept at using the techniques of suspense fiction to pull readers through quite difficult ideas. His books, particularly Fingerprints of the Gods, have begun to shift the paradigm, to convince a mass readership that they should question the version of history handed down to them by their elders and betters. His latest book, Supernatural, takes extraordinary intellectual risks, but is written with all the rigour you would expect from a man who was formerly one of Britain’s top financial journalists.

The archeologist David Rohl would perhaps slightly distance himself from some of those I have just mentioned, as he is an academic as well as the bestselling writer of A Test of Time, Legend: the Genesis of Civilization and The Lost Testament. His arguments on dating, particularly as they relate to the area where Egyptian archeology matches biblical texts, will, I believe, come to be accepted by his elders in the academic establishment over the next ten years.

Something that has struck me during the writing of this book is just how many academics working in their separate fields are coming up with results which are anomalous as regards the ruling paradigm, both in terms of the materialistic hegemony and the conventional view of history. One of the things I’ve tried to do in this book is to bring together many different groups of anomalies to create a complete, anomalous world-view. Some of the senior academics mentioned in this book I know personally, but most I do not, and I have no way of knowing if they have, or had any private interest in the esoteric. The important point is this: no esoteric allegiances are evident in their texts, but their books bolster the esoteric world-view: The Origin of Consciousness in the breakdown of the Bi-Cameral Mind by Julian Jaynes, The Wandering Scholars by Helen Waddell, Les Troubadors et le Sentiment Romanesque by Robert Briffault, The Art of Memory, The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition by Frances Yates, Shakespeare and the Invention of the Human and Where Shall Wisdom be Found? by Harold Bloom, Why Mrs Blake Cried by Marsha Keith Suchard, Isaac Newton, the Man by John Maynard Keynes, Name in the Window by Margaret Demorest (on John Donne), The School of Night by M.C. Cranbrook, Hamlet’s Mill by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, The Roots of Romanticism by Isaiah Berlin, Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas, Church And Gnosis by F.C. Burkitt, Emperor of the Earth by Czeslaw Milosz, The Double Flame: Love and Eroticism by Octavio Paz, John Amos Comenius by S.S. Laurie, Meditations on Hunting by Jose Ortega y Gasset.

Other key sources include:

The Book of the Master by W. Marsham Adams

The Golde Asse of Lucius Apuleius translated by William Adlington

Love and Sexuality by Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Francis of Assissi: Canticle of the Creatures by Paul M Allen and Joan de Ris Allen

Through the Eyes of the Masters by David Anrias

The Apocryphal New Testament edited by Wake and Lardner

SSOTBME an Essay on Magic by Anon

Myth, Nature and Individual by Frank Baker

Les Diaboliques by Jules Barbey D’Aurevilly

History in English Words by Owen Barfield

Dark Knights of the Solar Cross by Geoffrey Basil Smith

The Esoteric Path by Luc Benoist

A Rumour of Angels by Peter L Berger *

A Pictorial History of Magic and the Supernatural by Maurice Bessy

The Undergrowth of History by Robert Birley

Radiant Matter Decay and Consecration by Georg Blattmann

The Inner Group Teachings by H.P. Blavatsky

Studies in Occultism by H.P. Blavatsky

A Universal History of Infamy by Jorge Luis Borges

Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair by John Bossy

Letters from an Occultist by Marcus Bottomley

The Occult History of the World Vol 1 by J. H. Brennan

Nadja by André Breton

Egypt Under the Pharaohs by Heinrich Brugsch-Bey

Hermit in the Himalayas by Paul Brunton

A Search for Secret India by Paul Brunton

Egyptian Magic and Oriris and the Egyptian Resurrection by E.A. Wallis Budge

Legends of Charlemagne by Thomas Bulfinch

Studies in Comparative Religion by Titus Burckhardt

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino*

Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

Rediscovering Gandhi by Yogesh Chadha

Life Before Birth, Life on Earth, Life After Death by Paul E. Chu

The True Story of the Rosicrucians by Tobias Churton

The Dream of Scipio by Cicero, translated by Percy Bullock

On the Nature of the Gods by Cicero, translated by C.M. Ross

The New Gods by E.M. Cioran

Europe’s Inner Demons by Norman Cohn

The Theory of the Celestial Influence by Rodney Collin

Ka by Roberto Calasso

The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Colasso*

A Road to the Spirit by Paul Coroze

The Mysteries of Mithras by Franz Cumont

The Afterlife in Roman Paganism by Franz Cumont

Valis by Philip K. Dick

The Revelation of Evolutionary Events by Evelynn B. Debusschere

Mystical Theology and Celestial Hierarchy by Dionysius the Aropagite, translated by the editors of the Shrine of Wisdom

Atlantis: the Antediluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly

The Erotic world of Faery by Maureen Duffy

Les Magiciens de Dieu by François Ribadeau Dumas

Chronicles volume One by Bob Dylan*

Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

The Book of Enoch edited by R.H. Charles

The Sacred Magician by Georges Chevalier

Life’s Hidden Secrets by Edward G. Collinge

Conversations with Goethe by Eckermann*

A New Chronology of the Gospels by Ormond Edwards

Zodiacs Old and New by Cyril Fagan

On Life after Death by Gustav Theodor Fechner

Ecstasies by Carlo Ginzburg

Once upon a fairy tale by Norbert Glas

Snow-White put right by Norbert Glas

Magic and Divination by Rupert Gleadow

Maxims and Reflections by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Hara: the vital centre of man by Karlfried Graf Dürckheim

The Greek Myths by Robert Graves

M.R. James’ Book of the Supernatural by Peter Haining

Cabalistic keys to the Lord’s Prayer by Manly P. Hall

Sages and Seers by Manly P. Hall

The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall

The Roots of Witchcraft by Michael Harrison

The Communion Service and the Ancient Mysteries by Alfred Heidenreich The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception by Max Heindel

The Hermetica in the edition edited and translated by Walter Scott

The Kingdom of Faerie by Geoffrey Hodson

The Kingdom of the Gods by Geoffrey Hodson

Myth and Ritual by Samuel H. Hooke

Vicious circles and infinity by Patrick Hughes and George Brecht

The Way of the Sacred by Frances Huxley

La Bas by J.K. Huymans

Vernal Blooms by W.Q. Judge

Eshtetes et Magiciens by Philippe Jullian

The Teachings of Zoroaster by S.A. Kapadia

The Rebirth of Magic by Francis King and Isabel Sutherland

Egyptian Mysteries New Light on Ancient Knowledge by Lucy Lamy

Transcendental Magic by Eliphas Levi

The Invisible College by Robert Lomas

The Book of the Lover and the Beloved by Ramon Lull

Lynch on Lynch, edited by Chris Rodley

An Astrological Key to Biblical Symbolism by Ellen Conroy McCaffrey

Reincarnation in Christianity by Geddes MacGregor

The Great Secret by Maurice Maeterlinck

Experiment in Depth by P.W. Martin

The Western Way by Caitlin and John Matthews

Simon Magus by G.R.S. Mead

The Secret of the West by Dimitri Merezhkovsky

The Ascent of Man by Eleanor Merry

Studies in Symbolism by Marguerite Mertens-Stienon

Ancient Christian Magic by Meyer and Smith

Outline of Metaphysics by L. Furze Morrish

Rudolf Steiner’s Vision of Love by Bernard Nesfield-Cookson

The Mark by Maurice Nicoll

The New Man by Maurice Nicoll

Simple explanation of work ideas by Maurice Nicoll

The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto

The Secrets of Nostradamus by David Ovason*

Metamorphoses by Ovid translated by David Raeburn

Gurdjieff by Louis Pauwels

Les Sociétés Secretes by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier

Select works of Plotinus edited by G.R.S Mead

The Double Flame: Essays on Love and Eroticism by Octavio Paz

The Cycle of the Seasons and Seven Liberal Arts by Sergei O. Prokofieff

Prophecy of the Russian Epic by Sergei O. Prokofieff

The Golden Verses of Pythagoras and Other Pythagoran Fragments translated by Florence M. Firth

The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus

King Arthur: the true story by Graham Philips and Martin Keatman

Freemasonry by Alexander Piatigorsky

Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais, translated by J.M. Cohen

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones by Paul Reps

Letters to a young poet by Rainer Maria Rilke*

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke

The Followers of Horus by David Rohl

Dionysius the Areopagite by C.E.Rolt

Pan and the Nightmare by Heinrich Roscher and James Hillman*

Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age by Richard Rudgley

The Philosophy of Magic by Eusebe Salverte

The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria by W. Scott-Elliot

Studies in comparative religion by Frithjof Schuon

The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald

Annotations of the sacred writings of the Hindus by Edward Sellon

Lights Out For The Territory by Iain Sinclair

The Sufis by Idries Shah

Esoteric Buddhism by A.P. Sinnett

Man, creator of forms by V. Wallace Slater

Jesus the Magician by Morton Smith

The Occult Causes of the Present War by Lewis Spence

Egypt, myths and legends by Lewis Spence

Epiphany by Owen St. Victor

The Present Age by W.J. Stein

The principle of reincarnation by W.J. Stein

Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky by George Steiner

Atlantis and Lemuria by Rudolf Steiner

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.