The esoteric tradition has long argued that at the dawn of human civilization there was a single science-religion as a way of spiritual comprehension of the universe and our place in it. Biblical Enoch, also known as Hermes Esoteric tradition has long argued that at the dawn of human civilization there was a unified science-religion as a way of spiritually comprehending the universe and our place in it. The biblical Enoch, also known as Hermes Trismegistus, Thoth or Idris, was considered the custodian of this sacred knowledge written on the pillars known as the pillars of Enoch or Seth.

Exploring the idea of ​​the lost pillars of pure knowledge, the sacred science behind Hermetic philosophy, Tobias Churton examines the conflicting Jewish and Egyptian origins of Josephus’s famous story that the descendants of Seth wrote down knowledge on the two pillars to save it from a global catastrophe. He traces fragments of this sacred knowledge, passed down through the centuries, in circles of initiates, and influencing civilization through Hermetic, Gnostic, Kabbalistic, Masonic, Indian and Islamic mystical knowledge. He finds traces of these fragments in Egyptian alchemy and among the Gnostic Sethians, in the Kabbalah and in the medieval mystic Raymond Lull. He studies the emergence of the Hermetic manuscripts in Renaissance Florence, the philosophy of Copernicus, Pico della Mirandola, Giordano Bruno, and the origins of Freemasonry, including the “revival” of Enoch in the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. It shows the significance of ancient knowledge for Isaac Newton, William Stukeley, John Dee and William Blake, as well as its appearance in the tradition of Martinism, Theosophy and Thelema.