The Lost Pillars of Enoch

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

The Lost Pillars of Enoch 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. It reveals how this original knowledge has influenced civilization through Hermetic, Gnostic, Kabbalistic, Masonic, Hindu, and Islamic mystical knowledge. The book further 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 delves into the controversial Jewish and Egyptian origins of Josephus’s famous story. He traces the fragments of this sacred knowledge as it descended through the ages into initiated circles, influencing civilization through various mystical traditions. Churton follows the path of the pillars’ fragments through Egyptian alchemy and the Gnostic Sethites, the Kabbalah, and medieval mystic Ramon Llull. The narrative explores the arrival of the Hermetic manuscripts in Renaissance Florence, the philosophies of Copernicus, Pico della Mirandola, Giordano Bruno, and the origins of Freemasonry, including the “revival” of Enoch in Masonry’s Scottish Rite. Churton reveals the centrality of primal knowledge to figures such as Isaac Newton, William Stukeley, John Dee, and William Blake, illustrating how it resurfaced as the tradition of Martinism, Theosophy, and Thelema. He also unravels the mystery of what Josephus meant by asserting that one Sethite pillar still stood in the “Seiriadic” land, denoting the 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.