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Book of the Month

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The Lost Pillars of Enoch:

When Science and Religion Were One
by Tobias Churton

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Explores the unified science-religion of early humanity and the impact of Hermetic philosophy on religion and spirituality

• Investigates the Jewish and Egyptian origins of Josephus’s famous story that Seth’s descendants inscribed knowledge on two pillars to save it from global catastrophe

• Reveals how this original knowledge has influenced civilization through Hermetic, Gnostic, Kabbalistic, Masonic, Hindu, and Islamic mystical knowledge

• Examines how “Enoch’s Pillars” relate to the origins of Hermeticism, Freemasonry, Newtonian science, William Blake, and Theosophy

Esoteric tradition has long maintained that at the dawn of human civilization there existed a unified science-religion, a spiritual grasp of the universe and our place in it. The biblical Enoch--also known as Hermes Trismegistus, Thoth, or Idris--was seen as the guardian of this sacred knowledge, which was inscribed on pillars known as Enoch’s or Seth’s pillars.

Examining the idea of the lost pillars of pure knowledge, the sacred science behind Hermetic philosophy, Tobias Churton investigates the controversial Jewish and Egyptian origins of Josephus’s famous story that Seth’s descendants inscribed knowledge on two pillars to save it from global catastrophe. He traces the fragments of this sacred knowledge as it descended through the ages into initiated circles, influencing civilization through Hermetic, Gnostic, Kabbalistic, Masonic, Hindu, and Islamic mystical knowledge.

He follows the path of the pillars’ fragments through Egyptian alchemy and the Gnostic Sethites, the Kabbalah, and medieval mystic Ramon Llull. He explores the arrival 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 Masonry’s Scottish Rite.

He reveals the centrality of primal knowledge to Isaac Newton, William Stukeley, John Dee, and William Blake, resurfacing as the tradition of Martinism, Theosophy, and Thelema. Churton also unravels what Josephus meant when he asserted one Sethite pillar still stood in the “Seiriadic” land: land of Sirius worshippers.

Showing how the lost pillars stand as a twenty-first-century symbol for reattaining our heritage, Churton ultimately reveals how the esoteric strands of all religions unite in a gnosis that could offer a basis for reuniting religion and science.

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About the Author

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Tobias Churton (born 1960) is a British scholar of Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Gnosticism, and other esoteric movements. He is a lecturer at Exeter University, and author of Gnostic Philosophy, The Magus of Freemasonry, and Freemasonry, and numerous other works on esotericism.

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Churton has made several television programs, including Gnostics, a 4-part drama-documentary series made for Channel 4 (UK) by Border TV (together with an accompanying book) which was broadcast in 1987 and repeated in 1990. Churton's studies include a critique of heresiologists' perceptions on the role of women in these "unorthodox" Christian movements.

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He has also written about John T. Desaguliers, Rosicrucianism. 

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Churton's biography of Aleister Crowley was released in 2011. Subsequently, he has published four more biographical volumes on Crowley - The Beast in Berlin, Aleister Crowley in America, Aleister Crowley in India, and Aleister Crowley in England: The Return of the Great Beast. The latter biography is due for official release on 7 December 2021

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ISBN-10 : 1644110431

ISBN-13 : 978-1644110430

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