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Welcome to the Helian Way Wiki, a sourced reference on world history, comparative religion, Gnosticism and the Western esoteric traditions, studied as the history of ideas.
We describe what people believed, practised, wrote and argued, and what the evidence shows. We do not teach practice and we do not advocate. Every substantive claim carries a label:
- Established broad scholarly consensus
- Scholarly debate specialists disagree; both positions are named
- Tradition / belief what a tradition teaches about itself, reported and not endorsed
- Speculation fringe, popular or unfalsifiable claims, with the best counter-evidence
Read the editorial policy, Help:Claim labels and Help:Citing public-domain texts.
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- Gnostic and related traditions
- Gnosticism · Nag Hammadi library · Pistis Sophia · Gospel of Thomas · Valentinianism · Sethian Gnosticism · Simon Magus · Manichaeism · Mandaeism · Hymn of the Pearl
- Hermetic and Platonic traditions
- Corpus Hermeticum · Hermes Trismegistus · Emerald Tablet · Neoplatonism · Iamblichus · Pythagoreanism
- Mysteries and ancient religions
- Orphism · Eleusinian Mysteries · Mithraic mysteries · Zoroastrianism
- The study of religion
- Comparative religion · The Golden Bough · Dying-and-rising gods
- Jewish, Christian and Renaissance esotericism
- Kabbalah · Christian Cabala · Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa · Western alchemy and Paracelsus · John Dee and Edward Kelley · Rosicrucian manifestos · Freemasonry: documented origins and legends · Grimoires · Theosophy · Book of Enoch
- Evidence and myth
- Library of Alexandria · Council of Nicaea and the biblical canon · Suppressed knowledge claims
Independent educational project. Not affiliated with the Latin Mass Society (UK) or any church body. The site name echoes the domain and implies no link to any religious organisation.