The Secret History of the World

Factoid of the Day 28/07/08

Reincarnation plays a part in the secret teachings of all religions, including in religions like that of the Romans and Christianity in which the public teachings repudiate it.

Factoid of the Day 27/07/08

We can more or less pin point the time when humans gained a conscience. Aeschylus's play of 458BC the Oresteia showed wrongdoing punished by winged demons, the Furies. Then in Euripides's play of 428BC, Hippolytus, a word for conscience first appears.

Factoid of the Day 26/07/08

Socrates used to talk about his daemon, which guided him – in a way that may remind us of the novels of Philip Pullman. A follower of the Russian magus, Ouspensky, who was also a great influence on TS Eliot, also wrote about being guided in this way in the 1990s.

Factoid of the Day 25/07/08

The Wand of Hermes was used to strike the forehead of the candidate for initiation, and we still catch an echo of this in the ceremony in which the Queen creates new knights.

Factoid of the Day 24/07/08

The Greek philosopher Pythagoras was said to be able to be in two places at the same time and that he could remember all human history.

Factoid of the Day 23/07/08

In esoteric Buddhism, the Buddha is the spirit of Mercury. It is no co-incidence that the Celts called the planet Mercury 'Budh', meaning wise.

Factoid of the Day 22/07/08

The ancient temples of Egypt and India were built according to the proportions of the human body, and this was believed to be a magical process. If the overseer made a mistake in the construction of a particular part of a temple, he would suffer and illness of injury in the corresponding part of his body.

Factoid of the Day 21/07/08

The Ten Commandments were clearly influenced by the Egyptian Book of the Dead, where the individual has to swear to the 42 judges that he has not robbed, has not killed, has not born false witness and so on.

Factoid of the Day 20/07/08

In the TV series Lost, Jack Shepherd represents the scientific view of life, whilst John Locke represents the esoteric or occult view that life is controlled by supernatural forces. Esoteric philosophy is the key to understanding Lost.

Factoid of the Day 19/07/08

All megalithic monuments around the world are built according to a standard unit of measurement called 'the megalithic yard' to an astonishing degree of accuracy – as proved by Cambridge professor Alexander Thom.