“Mythology and ancient esoteric beliefs are finally found in cutting-edge science.”—Rick Rubin, bestselling author of The Creative Act

From the author of the global bestseller The Secret History of the World comes an epic new history of the relationship between spiritual belief and cutting-edge science. Includes beautiful black-and-white illustrations throughout.

Human beings have a deep-rooted desire to find something worth believing in. But there is a widespread assumption that science is at odds with spiritual belief and offers the only intelligent way to think about the universe.

In this epic new history, Mark Booth offers an alternative view, showing us how the great geniuses of modern science, from Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla, and Albert Einstein to today’s architects of AI, turned instead to secret, mystical, and “higher” teachings, including Indian mysticism and Freemasonry, to make sense of the strange phenomena they were encountering. Experimenting with alternative states of consciousness, they risked isolation and even madness.

Here then is the dark, dramatic story of modern science—of love, betrayal, attempted murder, multiple suicides, sexual experimentation, and transgression—from which unfolds the awe-inspiring discoveries which have transformed our lives for good, and potentially for evil. For just as the work of J. Robert Oppenheimer and others ended the Second World War but brought humanity to the brink of extinction, so, too, has the spectacular growth of AI.

The result of many years of research, and deep conversations with prominent academics in the field, this book takes us on an exhilarating journey, in the company of some of the greatest minds of our age, toward a deeper understanding of our place in the cosmos.