Since the invention of the European printing press the civilized world has been flooded with literature emanating from a large number and variety of societies, organizations, brotherhoods and lodges, each claiming to be the guardian of a “secret doctrine”, “a sacred wisdom” or an “ancient way”, which not only claimed to provide answers to many of the most difficult questions in Religion and Philosophy, and to confer certain magical powers on its initiates, but also usually claimed divine authority, oriental origin or great antiquity.