It would be worse than useless to publish in these pages even those portions of the esoteric teachings that have now escaped from confinement, unless the genuineness and authenticity, or at any rate the probability, of the existence of such teachings were first established. Such statements as will now be made, have to be shown as warranted by various authorities, such as ancient philosophers, classical writers and even certain learned Church Fathers, some of whom knew these doctrines because they had studied them, had seen and read works written upon them; and some of whom had even been personally initiated into the ancient Mysteries, during the performance of which the arcane doctrines were allegorically enacted. The writer will have to give historical and trustworthy names, and to cite well‐known authors, ancient and modern, of recognized ability, good judgment, and truthfulness, as also to name some of the famous proficients in the secret arts and science, together with the mysteries of the latter, as they are divulged, or rather partially presented before the public in their strange archaic form. How is this to be done; what is the best way for achieving such an object, has been the ever‐recurring question. To make our plan clearer, an illustration may be attempted. When a tourist, coming from a well‐explored country, suddenly reaches the borderland of a _terra incognita_, hedged in, and shut out from view by a formidable barrier of impassable rocks, he may still refuse to acknowledge himself baffled in his exploratory plans. Ingress beyond is forbidden. But if he cannot visit the mysterious region personally, he may still find a means of examining it from as short a distance as can be arrived at. Helped by his knowledge of the landscapes left behind, he can get a general and pretty correct idea of the transmural view, if he will only climb to the loftiest summit of the altitudes in front of him. Once there, he can gaze at it at his leisure, comparing that which he dimly perceives with that which he has just left below, now that he is, thanks to his own efforts, beyond the line of the mists and the cloud‐capped cliffs. Such a point of preliminary observation, cannot in these two volumes be offered to those who would like to get a more correct understanding of the mysteries of the pre‐archaic periods given in the texts. But if the reader has patience, and will glance at the present state of beliefs and creeds in Europe, compare and check it with what is known to history of the ages directly preceding and following the Christian era, then he will find all this in a future volume of the present work.