Book excerpt: This book articulates a new research program, called “Ur-Illuminism,” which consists in an integrated and systematic study of humanity’s quest for “illumination,” namely, for the highest and noblest possible mode of being. Thus, it takes on the challenge of revising widely accepted ways of understanding and interpreting the ontological underpinnings of civilization and the ontological potential of humanity. It allows the reader to delve into a creative “rediscovery” of Platonism, medieval Christian mystics’ and scholars’ writings, and various “illuminist” systems, from the Orphic mystical cult to the European Enlightenment and thence to the eighteenth-century Illuminati fraternities and beyond. Moreover, the book studies major issues in the history of philosophy, politology, and esoteric systems (such as Hermeticism, the Kabbalah, alchemy, the Rosicrucian movement, Freemasonry, and the Bavarian Illuminati). It maintains that a postmodern “rediscovery” of premodern metaphysics, specifically, a postmodern esoteric theocracy (as distinct from old sacerdotalism and religious formalism), is the best bulwark against oppression and the ontological degradation of humanity, as well as the best path to the attainment of that wisdom and spiritual self-knowledge which constitute the existential integration and completion of the human being. In this context, it proposes a peculiar and intellectually fecund synthesis between Tory Anarchism, Libertarianism, Platonism, and Byzantine Hesychasm, as they are elucidated here.