Since 1996, however, my continuing investigations have persuaded me that a deeper level of meaning lies behind the ancient depictions of human-like gods. This deeper symbolic meaning first became apparent during the research for my book on ancient Egypt, The Phoenix Solution, published in 1998. Then I began to look once again at the Sumerian legends of the gods, which only reinforced my suspicions that there was a hidden dimension to the mystery. April 2000 saw the publication of my third book, When The Gods Came Down, in which I disclosed the full extent of the dramatic U-turn in my way of thinking.

It was at this time that I began to wonder what should be done with this, my first book, Gods of the New Millennium. On the one hand, it contains ideas and theories to which I no longer subscribe. On the other hand, however, it still contains much that is of value.

The centrepiece of this book has always been the scientific anomalies of human evolution and the utter failure of Darwinian theory to explain where we came from. Here, the case for some kind of outside intervention remains as strong as ever, and deserves to be recognised as a scientific rival to Darwinism. The summary of ‘Man the Evolutionary Misfit’ – chapter two of this book – is as valid today as it was when I wrote it in 1996, and it needs to be read by as wide an audience as possible. Meanwhile, chapters three to five have also stood the test of time, by and large, and contain a great deal of valuable information.

It is towards the end of chapter six, in my opinion, that this book begins to drift wide of the mark, with theories and speculations which cause me no little embarrassment today. But to rewrite these chapters might be seen as an attempt to ‘cover up’ the mistakes of the past, when it is surely better to preserve past mistakes and learn from them. One of the values of this book, ironically, is that it exposes some of the flaws in the ‘ancient astronaut’ theory by taking that theory to its utmost logical limits.

In view of all these factors, I have decided to keep this book in unaltered form, albeit with the addition of a new foreword. Readers are hereby forewarned that I no longer subscribe to many of the ideas expressed in chapters six to sixteen. The problem lies not so much in the validity of the scientific facts but rather in the interpretation of the ancient legends, where I have taken the anthropomorphic forms of the gods at face value – a questionable interpretation with hindsight. Readers are requested to reserve judgement concerning the meaning of these legends, and to give greater weight to the scientific merit of the respective arguments. Inevitably this weakens the strength of many arguments, in most cases causing a ‘probable’ to become merely a ‘possible’.

Above all, I urge readers not to regard this book as de facto proof of the extraterrestrial hypothesis, nor to regard it as the final word on the subject of the ancient gods. On the contrary, I recommend that it be regarded as merely providing an ‘entry level’ to a much more complex subject.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is now possible to view Gods of the New Millennium as the first level of a three-stage ‘initiation’ into the ancient mysteries, although this was certainly not the intention when I wrote it. I hope that readers will be intrigued by the legends of the gods recited in this book, and will thus continue their research into this ultimate Mystery of mysteries. As I see it, my later U-turn concerning the gods, and the reasons for my U-turn, are an important part of the story which must unfold. Intriguingly, we begin our quest in this book with a congenial idea, namely that the gods were ‘ancient astronauts’, and we proceed in later books towards a revelation which will overturn both this idea and all of our other preconceptions. In so doing, we will tread a path which was once trod by all initiates in the great Mystery traditions of the ancient world.

I invite readers to join me on the Quest of all quests. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.