The Secret History of the World

If we can’t see this ancient wisdom, it is because we have been conditioned not to. We have been bewitched by materialism.

Science sees idealism as having dominated history up until the seventeenth century when the process of discrediting it began. Science assumes materialism will remain the dominant philosophy until the end of time. In the view of the secret societies, materialism will come to be seen as a mere blip.

THE TEACHINGS OF THE SECRET SOCIETIES have here been pulled out into the light of day for the first time. Readers may find them laughable — but at least on the basis of knowing what they really are. Other readers may sense something in them, even though they seem completely incompatible with the great scientific certainties of our age.

This has been a visionary history, history as it is retained in the human psyche, a night history preserved by adepts able to slip from the material dimension into another one. It might seem incompatible with the history you have been brought up to believe in, but maybe it is true in other dimensions?

Perhaps we should end by considering the musings of a great scientist? The physicist Niels Bohr said, ‘The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement, but the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.’

We have seen that if we try to peer back into the past beyond 11,451 BC there is very little evidence that science can properly count as hard. Vast, airy constructions of interpretation are balanced precariously on the tiniest bits of data. And, of course, the same is true if we try to gaze far into the future, beyond AD 11,451 . The truth is that we must use our imagination. When we travel any distance in either direction, when we leave the confines of this little island of matter, we cannot but enter the realms of imagination.

Of course materialists tend to distrust the imagination, associating it with fantasy and illusion.

But the secret societies hold an especially exalted view of the imagination. Each individual mind is a protrusion into the material world of one vast cosmic mind, and we must use the imagination to reach back into it and to engage with it.

It was using the imagination in this way that made Leonardo, Shakespeare and Mozart god-like.

Imagination is the key.

Acknowledgements

I thank Sarmaurin, Kszil and Aaron. I have been helped in the thinking and writing by Hannah Black, Jane Bradish Ellames, Jamie Buxton, Kevin Jackson, Kate Parkin and Paul Sidey. I am blessed to have such kindred spirits. I have the best agent and the best publisher. Jonny Geller is all deft action like a Zen archer and Anthony Cheetham is a unique combination of intellectual clout and commercial nous. As soon as I saw he was setting up a new publishing company, I knew I wanted to be published by it. I wish to thank Sue Freestone, my editor and Publisher of Quercus, and also the exceptionally able Charlotte Clerk. Thanks, too, to Patrick Carpenter, Nicolas Cheetham, Caroline Proud, Lucy Ramsey, Emma Ward, Andrew Sydenham, Doug Kean, Paul Abel and also to Elaine Willis for researching some really obscure pictures. Thank you, Betsy Robbins and Emma Parry for wonderful foreign rights sales, and I’m really glad to have the legendary Peter Mayer as my publisher in the States. Fred Gettings and Lorna Byrne Fitzgerald have, I know, been looking after me from afar. My mother, Cynthia, and Terry provided a peaceful haven when it was needed. My family have had to put up with a lot in the past eighteen months. My daughter Tabitha has also helped by drawing some brilliant illustrations in cases where permissions have been beyond reach, and my son Barnaby is always ready to lighten the mood with his subversive jokes. I thank my wife, Fiona, for all the love and dedication she has shown throughout the writing of this book — and this I now wish to repay.

Illustration Acknowledgements

The publishers would like to thank the following for source material and permission to reproduce copyright material:

Private Collection Pages 15, 21, 23, 34, 36, 37, 38, 43, 48, 49, 50, 52, 54, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 79, 82, 84, 85, 86, 91, 92, 96, 97, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 111, 114, 116, 119, 124, 125, 126, 131, 133, 134, 136, 138, 140, 144, 145, 148, 155, 156, 158, 160, 162, 165, 166, 171, 172, 173, 179, 181, 184, 187, 188, 193, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 205, 207, 213, 216, 218, 220, 221, 222, 223, 225, 233, 235, 244, 249, 252, 253, 256, 261, 264, 267,275, 277, 278, 280, 282, 286, 288, 296, 297, 298, 308, 311, 312, 319, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 329, 335, 337, 338, 339, 342, 346, 347, 348, 352, 353, 356, 361, 366, 370, 372, 375, 377, 378, 385, 388, 394, 398, 403, 407

Bridgeman Art Library/Private Collection/Photo Boltin Picture Library © Succession Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2007 Page 24

Bridgeman Art Library/Private Collection Page 56

Bridgeman Art Library/Giraudon/Louvre, Paris Page 284

Tofoto/Fotomas Page 9, 27, 295

Topfoto/Charles Walker Page 55

Topfoto/Picturepoint Page 332

Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Published in English 1943 Page 141

National Gallery, London Page 212

Corbis/Philadelphia Museum of Art © Succession Marcel

Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2007 Page 230

Corbis/Alinari Archives Page 401

Martin J Powell © Martin J Powell, Page 131

COLOUR SECTION

Plate 1: Top: The Kobal Collection/Warner Bros, Left: Bridgeman Art Library/Washington University, St. Louis, USA/Lauros/Giraudon © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, Right: Bridgeman Art Library / Prado, Madrid, Spain.

Plate 2: Top: AKG Images, Bottom: Corbis/ Sygma.

Plate 3: Top: Bridgeman Art Library/Peter Willi/Goethe Museum, Frankfurt, Bottom: AKG Images.

Plate 4: Top: The National Gallery of Ireland, Bottom: Corbis/Philadelphia Museum of Art © Succession Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2007. Plate 5: Private Collection. Plate 6: Top: Art Archive/Musee du Louvre Paris/Gianni Dagli Orti, Left: Bridgeman Art Library/Musee d’Unterlinden, Colmar, France/Giraudon, Right: Bridgeman Art Library/Prado, Madrid, Spain. Plate 7: Private Collection. Plate 8: Private Collection. Plate 9: Top Left: The British Museum, London, Top Right: Private Collection, Bottom: The Kobal Collection/NERO. Plate 10: Top: Bridgeman Art Library/Musee d’Unterlinden, Colmar, France/Giraudon, Bottom: Private Collection. Plate 11: Top: Bridgeman Art Library/Giraudon/Lauros/Ste. Marie Madeleine, Aix-en-Provence, France, Bottom: Private Collection. Plate 12: Top: Bridgeman Art Library/Giraudon/Louvre, Paris, France, Bottom: Bridgeman Art Library/Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna, Austria. Plate 13: Top: Bridgeman Art Library/Giraudon/Prado, Madrid, Spain. Bottom: Bridgeman Art Library/Alinari/Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, Italy. Plate 14: Top: Art Archive/Museum der Stadt Wien/Alfredo Dagli Orti, Bottom: Private Collection. Plate 15: Top: Bridgeman Art Library/ Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA, Bottom: Bridgeman Art Library/Duomo, Orvieto, Umbria, Italy. Plate 16: Top: Corbis/Christine Kolisch, Bottom: Corbis/Francis G.Mayer

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders. However, the publishers will be glad to rectify in future editions any inadvertent omissions brought to their attention.