The Lost Pillars of Enoch: When Science and Religion were One

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. The biblical Enoch, also known as Hermes Trismegistus, Thoth, or Idris, was considered the guardian of this sacred knowledge, written on pillars known as the pillars of Enoch or Seth.

Considering the idea of the lost pillars of pure knowledge, the sacred science behind hermetic philosophy, Tobias Cherton studies the contradictory Jewish and Egyptian origins of the famous story of Josephus that the descendants of Seth wrote knowledge on two pillars to save him from a global catastrophe. He traces fragments of this sacred knowledge, transmitted over the centuries, in the 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 in the Sethian Gnostics, in Kabbalah and in the medieval mystic Raymond Lulli.

He studies the appearance of hermetic manuscripts in Renaissance Florence, the philosophy of Copernicus, Pico della Mirandola, Giordano Bruno, as well as 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.