The Mysteries of the Ancient Grecian religions; the cryptic teachings and occult interpretations of the popular religious beliefs communicated to disciples by the priests in the temples of ancient Egypt, Assyria, and India: the interesting, half fabulous, half historical episode of Pythagoras and the Pythagorean League in Magna Graecia; the mystic, ascetic, and semi-monastic communities of the Therapeutae and the Essenes in Palestine a century before the birth of Jesus Christ; the later developments of Mysticism in the time of the Roman Empire, as seen in the history of Apollonius of Tyana and in Isis worship, Mithras worship, worship of the Great Mother, etc.; the secret creed and rites of the Knights Templar and the usages of the lodges of the Stonemasons in the Middle Age; the constitution and procedure of the Femgerichte of Westphalia in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the origin and history and the aims of Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Illuminism, and a swarm of honest and fraudulent secret organizations in modern’ times: all these topics have before been made subject-matter of numerous learned tractates or of popular compends; but hitherto these doctrines, rites, associations, have not beea studied in their unity, in their mutual relation. One service which the author of this work renders to the student of this particular phase of human psychology the longing for mystery and secret associations is that he develops this relationship, thus enabling the reader to get  a clearer understanding of the whole subject.

But the author does very much more than to coordinate the facts of mystic associations. He is both a scholar and an artist. Having amassed whatever information regarding the Mysteries and allied phenomena is accessible in universal literature, he handles his materials with the skill of a consummate master of style and of the art of popular exposition. The result is a history of the ancient Mysteries and of their counterparts and imitations in later times, as authentic as the most painstaking research could make it, yet possessing all the charm and grace of a literary masterpiece.

Contents
PART FIRST. MYSTERIES OF THE EAST AND OF BARBAROUS NATIONS.

1. Introduction
2. The Gods
3- Egypt
4. The Higher Development of Egyptian Religion
5. A Reformation in the Land of Nile
6. The Egyptian Realm of the Dead
7. The Secret Teaching of the Priests of Nileland
8. Babylon and Ninive
9. Zoroaster and the Persians
10. B’rahmans andl :Buddhists
11. Secret Leagues of Barbarous Peoples

PART SECOND. THE GRECIAN MYSTERIES AND THE ROMAN BACCHANALIA. .
1. Hellas
2. Hellenic Divine Worship
3. The Hellenic Mysteries
4. Th’e Eleusinian Mysteries
5. The Mysteries of Samothrace
6. The Mysteries of Crete
7. The Dionysia
8. The Roman Bacchanalia
9. Debased Mysteries from the East

PART THIRD. THE PYTHAGOREAN LEAGUE AND OTHER SECRET ASSOCIATIONS.
1 . Pythagoras
2. The Pythagoreans
3. The Orphici
4. Mysterious Personages of Ancient Times

PART FOURTH SON OF MAN. SON OF GOD.
1. Hellenism and Judaism
2. The Essenes
3. Christianism
4. Jesus
5. The Early Christians
6. The New Testament
7. The Elements of the Church

PART FIFTH. A PSEUDO-MESSIAH. A LYING PROPHET.
1. Apollonius of Tyana
2. Alexander, the False Prophet

PART SIXTH. THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR.
1. The Middle Age
2. The Templars
3. The Secrets of the Templars
4. The Downfall of the Knights Templar

PART SEVENTH. THE FEMGERICHTE.
1. Courts of Justice in the Middle Age
2. The Secret Tribunal
3. The End of the Feme

PART EIGHTH. STONEMASONS’ LODGES OF THE MIDDLE AGE.
1. Medieval Architecture
2. The Stonemasons’ Lodges of Germany
3. French Craftsmen
4. The English Stonemasons
ASTROLOGERS AND ALCHEMISTS

PART NINTH. RISE AND CONSTITUTION OF FREEMASONRY.
1. Rise of Freemasonry
2. Constitution of the Order
3. The Lodge

PART TENTH. SECRET SOCIETIES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
1. Miscellaneous Secret Societies
2. Obscurantist Influences
3. The ”High Degrees” Swindle
4. Apostles of Nonsense
5. The Swedish Rite.
6. The New Rosicrusians

PART ELEVENTH. THE ILLUMINATI.
1. The Illuminati
2. Imitations of Illuminism

PART TWELFTH. SECRET SOCIETIES OF VARIOUS KINDS.
1. Societies of Wits
2. Imitations of Ancient Mystic Leagues
3. Imitations of Freemasonry