From Egyptian mythology to Jewish mysticism, Rome and Greece to the druids and
the gnostics, Tim Wallace-Murphy exposes a fascinating lineage of hidden
mysteries and secret societies, continuing through the Templars, Rosicrucians,
and Freemasons to our modern visionaries. This hidden stream of spirituality and
that of sacred knowledge are inseparably entwined to form the single most
important continuous strand in the entire Western esoteric tradition.
This tradition exerted a seminal influence on the thinking of the builders of
the great cathedrals; leading teachers in ecclesiastical schools; philosophers;
playwrights; poets such as Shakespeare, Goethe, Blake, and W. B. Yeats; and on
artists and Renaissance giants such as Leonardo da