Secret History of the World

Jonathan Black is the nom de plume of Mark Booth. He was educated at Ipswich School and Oriel College, Oxford, where he studied Philosophy and Theology. He has worked in publishing for over twenty years. The Secret History of the World is the outcome of a lifetime spent reading literature in this area, publishing many of the leading authors in the field and hanging around antiquarian bookshops.

'Dan Brown's non-fiction source for The Lost Symbol might well be Jonathan Black's The Secret History of the World' Roger Lews, Daily Express.

• Preface. Introduction. In The Beginning: God Peers at His Reflection; The Looking-Glass Universe. A Short Walk in the Ancient Woods: Imagining Ourselves into the Minds of the Ancients. The Garden of Eden: The Genesis Code; Enter the Dark Lord; The Flower People. Lucifer, the Light of the World: The Apple of Desire; A War in Heaven; The Secrets of the Days of the Week. The Gods who Loved Women: The Nephilim; The Genetic Engineering of Humankind; The Fish Gods; The Original History of the Origin of the Species. The Assassination of the Green King: Isis and Osiris; The Cave of the Skull; The Palladium. The Age of Demi-Gods and Heroes: The Ancient Ones; The Amazons; Enoch; Hercules, Theseus and Jason. The Sphinx and the Timelock: Orpheus; Daedalus, the First Scientist; Job; Solving the Riddle of the Sphinx. The Neolithic Alexander the Great: Noah and the Myth of Atlantis; Tibet; Rama's Conquest of India; The Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali. The Way of the Wizard: Zarathustra's Battle Against the Powers of Darkness; The Life and Death of Krishna the Shepherd; The Dawn of the Dark Age. Getting to Grips with Matter: Imhotep and the Age of the Pyramids; Gilgamesh and Enkidu; Abraham and Melchizedek. The Descent into Darkness: Moses and the Cabala; Akhenaten and Satan; Solomon, Sheba and Hiram; King Arthur and the Crown Chakra. Reason - and How to Rise Above It: Elijah and Elisha; Isaiah; Esoteric Buddhism; Pythagoras; Lao Tzu. The Mysteries of Greece and Rome: The Eleusian Mysteries; Socrates and his Daemon; Plato as a Magus; The Divine Identity of Alexander the Great; The Caesars and Cicero; The Rise of the Magi. The Sun God Returns: The Two Jesus Children; The Cosmic Mission; The Crucifixion in South America; The Mystic Marriage of Mary Magdalene. The Tyranny of the Fathers: The Gnostics and the Neoplatonists; The Murder of Hypatia; Attila and Shamanism; A Touch of Zen. The Age of Islam: Mohammed and Gabriel; The Old Man of the Mountains; Haroun al Raschid and the Arabian Nights; Charlemagne and the Historic Parsifal; Chartres Cathedral. The Wise Demon of the Templars: The Prophecies of Joachim; The Loves of Ramon Lull; St Francis and the Buddha; Roger Bacon Mocks Thomas Aquinas; The Templars Worship Baphomet. Fools for Love: Dante, the Troubadours and Falling in Love for the First Time; Raphael, Leonardo and the Magi of Renaissance Italy; Joan of Arc; Rabelais and the Way of the Fool. The Green One Behind the Worlds: Columbus; Don Quixote; William Shakespeare, Francis Bacon and the Green One. The Rosicrucian Age: The German Brotherhoods; Christian Rosencreutz; Hieronymus Bosch; The Secret Mission of Dr Dee. Occult Catholicism: Jacob Boehme; The Conquistadors and the Counter-Reformation; Teresa, John of the Cross and Ignatius; The Rosicrucian Manifestos; The Battle of White Mountain. The Occult Roots of Science: Isaac Newton; The Secret Mission of Freemasonry; Elias Ashmole and the Secret Chain of Transmission; What Really Happens in Alchemy. The Age of Freemasonry: Christopher Wren; John Evelyn and the Alphabet of Desire; The Triumph of Materialism; George Washington and the Secret Plan for the New Atlantis. The Mystical-Sexual Revolution: Cardinal Richelieu; Cagliostro; The Secret Identity of the Comte de St Germain; Swedenborg, Blake and the Sexual Roots of Romanticism. The Illuminati and the Rise of the Unreason: The Illuminati and the Battle for the Soul of Freemasonry; Occult Roots of the French Revolution; Napoleon's Star; Occultism and the Rise of the Novel. The Mystic Death of Humanity: Swedenborg and Dostoyevsky; Wagner; Freud, Jung and the Materializing of Esoteric Thought; The Occult Roots of Modernism; Occult Bolshevism; Gandhi. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: The Anti-Christ; Re-entering the Ancient Wood; The Maitreya Buddha; The Opening of the Seven Seals; The New Jerusalem. Postscript. Acknowledgements. Illustration acknowledgements. A Note on Sources and Selective Bibliography. Index.