From the esoteric account of the evolution of the species to the occult roots of science, from the secrets of the Flood to the esoteric motives behind American foreign policy, here is a narrative history that shows the basic facts of human existence on this planet can be viewed from a very different angle. At the heart of The Secret History of the World is the belief that we can reach an altered state of consciousness in which we can see things about the way the world works that are hidden from us in our everyday, commonsensical consciousness. This history shows that by using secret techniques, people such as Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton and George Washington have worked themselves into this altered state - and been able to access supernatural levels of intelligence. By the end of the book the reader will see the world differently. It will be evident that a secret philosophy is encoded in the world around us, in public buildings and monuments, in great art and literature, in the arrangement of the pips in an apple, in the names of the days of the week, even in the very stories we tell our children.