We had intended to write a follow-up to our 1997 book The Templar Revelation, which argued that Christianity was essentially an offshoot of the ancient Egyptian religion of Isis and Osiris — meaning that our culture is not Judaeo-Christian at all, but Egypto-Christian. The implications were astonishingly far-reaching, but we also disclosed the most carefully hidden of all the secrets of the heretical Knights Templar in the most controversial revelation of the book — namely, that they believed that John the Baptist was the true Messiah, and that Jesus was, to say the very least, his usurper.

Wanting to learn more about our civilisation’s Egyptian roots, we researched further into the ancient religion, and found ourselves examining the Pyramid Texts and the origin of the Hermetic writings. The more we progressed, the more we realised the ancient Egyptians possessed astonishing knowledge, far beyond that generally accepted by modern academics. We discovered that those far-off people had an understanding of cosmology unequalled until our own century, and even now perhaps they still have something to teach us. But in the end even the largely unknown and unacknowledged genius of the ancient Egyptians was not to be the subject of this book.

As non-academics researching ancient Egypt we could not remain unaware of the upsurge of interest in the ‘alternative Egypt’ of Andrew Collins, Colin Wilson and others, whose books challenge the often rather complacent ‘certainties’ of mainstream Egyptology. Above all three authors have become associated in the public mind with radical new ideas about ancient cultures, particularly Egypt: Robert Temple, author of the seminal The Sirius Mystery (1976); Robert Bauval, co-author with Adrian Gilbert of The Orion Mystery (1994); and Graham Hancock, whose runaway success was established with The Sign and the Seal (1992). Since then Hancock has gone on to entrance huge audiences worldwide with Fingerprints of the Gods (1995) and, with his wife Santha Faiia, Heaven’s Mirror (1998), and also collaborating with Robert Bauval to produce Keeper of Genesis (1996) and (together with John Grigsby) The Mars Mystery (1998). These books encompass a vast range of fascinating and radical new ideas, many of which have now become so entrenched among their readers as to be accepted as hard fact. And, like most of their readers, we, too, began as enthralled admirers.

After many months of researching and writing this book, we still admired those authors’ energy and commitment, but as we stood back from their work, we have perceived a new and considerably larger pattern taking shape. Whether or not those authors are aware of it, their work forms an intrinsic part of what amounts to an orchestrated campaign.

And the matter does not end there. The bitter controversy surrounding the idea of a long-dead civilisation on Mars has also been absorbed into this campaign and - like the mysteries of Egypt — has been pressed into service to present a carefully stage-managed message. Essentially, it proposes that the ancient gods were extraterrestrials - and they’re back. But the subtext is very clever: only certain, chosen people hear their words, and only certain, chosen people will be part of the revelations to come. We can hazard a guess at the identity of some of the chosen, but the others may be rather surprising.

This is the well-worn tactic of ‘divide and rule’, and has worrying, quasireligious overtones. And it is no obscure and tiny cult, but a massive phenomenon that, in one shape or form, has infiltrated much of the West’s cultural and spiritual life. But who lies behind it? And what on earth would anyone hope to gain by it?

We certainly considered the idea that we may have developed into sad cases of paranoia - the thought was to recur several times as we plunged deeper into this investigation — but the evidence remains, staring us all in the face, and there is no doubt in our minds that a huge conspiracy is trying to make us think in certain ways. And for such a global plot to work, it requires teams of fellow conspirators, whose participation may be unwitting or otherwise. These groups, we were to find, not only included, rather predictably perhaps, intelligence agencies such as the CIA and MI5, but also less obvious candidates, from New Age gurus to cutting-edge physicists, top-level scientists and multimillionaires.

Cynically exploiting our fin de siècle hunger for signs and wonders, and our ongoing love affair with the mysteries of ancient Egypt, the conspirators are in the process of creating a massive, insidious belief system that feeds on millennium fever, though perhaps not blossoming properly until the first years of the twenty-first century.

The fact that modem man’s craving for contact with the numinous and the ineffable is being cynically exploited on a vast scale does not mean that there are never genuine paranormal phenomena or mystical experiences. Nor do we suggest that there are no mysteries about man’s ancient past or his place in the universe. While we are critical of certain beliefs and claims to have solved some of those mysteries, it is because we find fault with them, not because we have a ‘skeptical’ bias. What disturbs us greatly is the use to which many otherwise innocent or uplifting beliefs and concepts are being put.

Even the lives of those with no interest in such subjects will inevitably be touched by this campaign to have us believe and be persuaded to think in a certain way. We came to realise, with heavy hearts, that part of this plot is to prepare us to accept certain ideas that we would normally find unacceptable, perhaps even repugnant. Make no mistake, this amounts to cultural and spiritual brainwashing on a lavish scale.

This story is so challenging that we can only ask for a willing suspension of disbelief, and for our readers to follow our detective work step by step, abandoning preconceptions and personal biases along the way. At the end, perhaps the thought might be allowed: what if this book is right? What if there really is a ‘stargate conspiracy’ eating away at the heart of democracy, human autonomy and decency itself? What if we are being prepared for the acceptance of something that we would normally find, to say the least, disturbing?

This book is not an attempt to rally the masses or create some kind of political backlash against the conspiracy. Perhaps, in any case, those with the vested interests would ensure that such an attempt would be doomed to ignominious - and immediate — failure. Yet we believe that successful opposition is possible, beginning with the realisation that, perhaps like the stargate itself, true resistance is in the mind.