Empedocles played a decisive role in the development of Western culture; however, we still know little about the identity of the man who lived in Sicily in the fifth century BC. The reason for this is that his teachings were reconstructed by modern scholars based on information reported by his opponent Aristotle – resulting in a superficial, contradictory picture.

Kingsley, drawing on new evidence, places Empedocles’s writings in their original context of philosophy as a way of life, mystical religion and magic, and the desire to realize one’s own divinity. Author also reconsiders the interaction between ancient magic, science and religion. Thus, for the first time, he traces the line of tradition from Empedocles and the early Pythagoreans to Alexandria, and further to the Islamic world.

This is the first fundamental work of Peter Kingsley, in which he begins his path as an impartial researcher of the history of philosophy – a path that ultimately led him to discoveries that changed everything we knew about Antiquity.