George Robert Stow Mead (1863-1933) is a key figure in the revival and interpretation of Gnosticism and indeed the entire western esoteric tradition. He joined the Theosophical Society after graduating from Cambridge in 1884, and five years later became the private secretary of the Society's founder, H. P. Blavatsky, editing most of her published works and her magazine 'Lucifer'. He also followed his own lines of research, resulting in books such as 'Plotinus', 'Pistis Sophia' and the present work, each of them scholarly, comprehensive in scope, and eminently readable. Mead shows 'The Chaldean Oracles' to be the remains of a mystery-poem forming part of the inner initiation of a School or Order, and with painstaking scholarship he interprets the fragments into a cohesive pattern.

The 'Pistis Sophia' is arguably the most important Gnostic document we possess. Dated as early as the second century AD, this Coptic manuscript was found in Egypt and, until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, constituted the major source of unbiased knowledge on the Gnostic faith. This ancient text relates that Jesus remained in the world for a further eleven years after his resurrection, and taught his disciples the secret doctrine of initiation, in obedience to the Divine Will, which instructed Him to reveal the highest mysteries of salvation to humanity. The book is remarkable for its deeply mystical teaching, its description of the spiritual hierarchies, its belief in reincarnation, and the comprehensive account it gives of the ascent and descent of the human soul. It is an extraordinarily comprehensive body of doctrine and, among a host of other insights, grants us a new perspective on Baptism, the Psalms, the role of women in the church, and the basic teachings of the New Testament.