A widely acknowledged truism is that knowledge is power. Significantly, secret knowledge or teachings held by a limited elite may constitute the potential for even greater power. It is apparently for this reason that the world history of the last several thousand years has had embedded in its scope the underlying theme of the struggle for control and power based on esoteric (“for the few”) knowledge, understandings, and wisdom.
From the mystery schools of ancient Egypt and Greece, to the Jerusalem treasures uncovered by the Knights Templar, to the holdings of knowledge and ancient records by ultra secret societies in the Middle Ages (such as the Priory Notre Dame de Sion), to the modern day guarded secrets of Freemasonry, the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, and a host of other alleged conspiracy-laden organizations -- the greatest heritage of the human race has been carefully and studiously withheld from the mainstream of society. Understandings and techniques which afforded the potential for enormous enlightenment and evolution of the individual have been held for the exclusive use of those in power.
At the same time, such secrecy may have been warranted (and still may be) as a means of preserving the knowledge during times of inquisitions, book-burnings, and when the mainstream of society was still unprepared (for whatever reason) for the reality of truth. It is this motive which has distinguished the access to such things as the Tree of Life to groups belonging to the esoteric (“for the many”) and esoteric (“for the few”) camps.
The fact that there have been many forces (particularly religions) which have made every effort (moral and immoral) to attack truth as a means of preserving their own view of the universe is perhaps the primary case in point. Curiously, the quest for the outright destruction (as in the case of the burning of the Library of Alexandria,) or the placing of severe limitations on the dissemination of knowledge is also based on control and power issues. Within the confines of this world-class power struggle, much esoteric wisdom and knowledge has been kept from public view both as a means of protecting the underlying truths, as well as using them (or eliminating them) in order to profit thereby.
Clearly, much of what is known today derives from the normally open process of learning and discovery down through the ages. Historically, we have the dissemination of knowledge via apprenticeship, where the holder of the knowledge (the Master) shares his understanding with someone (the Apprentice) who has earned the “rights” to such knowledge through years of labor and the demonstration of his or her worthiness to be gifted the right the learn and pass on the knowledge. Schools have also existed to disseminate wisdom and knowledge, with such schools ranging in size from those carefully limited mystery schools to schools for the greater elite and thence to public education. (Predictably, the quality and extent of such teachings have, in general, been inversely proportional to the size or selection of the student body.)
But the fundamental question concerning esoteric knowledge is whether such teachings are simply the human heritage derived from masters and schools, or instead, is due to some form of “granting access to esoteric knowledge” by some external agency. Such an external agency might be ancient terrestrial civilizations which are no longer extant (e.g. Atlantis), members of extraterrestrial civilizations communicating with or visiting Earth, or divine intervention by a genuine deity or deities.
The Sumerian Civilization constitutes the earliest record of human endeavor which is amply supported by physical evidence in the form of writings and artifacts. Particularly striking is the apparent fact that, quite suddenly in historical terms, civilization blossomed in the Tigris-Euphrates valley (“the land between the rivers”) with all manner of new and heretofore absent innovations and aspects of civilization. Suddenly there was writing, animal husbandry, irrigation for farming, temples for worship, and so forth and so on. (Library of Halexandria)
