For more than a decade, I spent time in scholarly research, exploring the history of various societies that have encouraged self-improvement, self-responsibility, and spiritual development. Most of the societies I explored have a history going back at least a century, with most being more than two or three-hundred years old. These include the Freemasons, Rosicrucians, and Zuzimites, as well as non-Western societies, such as the Sufis.
My writing has been published in the academic Journal of Indo-European Studies, favorably reviewed in the academic journal Correspondences, and has been cited in books published by Oxford Univerity Press and De Gruyter.
Note: The books below are purely historical studies and do not give any practical lessons.
The Crescent and The Compass: Islam, Freemasonry, Esotericism, and Revolution in The Modern Age (Torazzi Press, 2017 — previously published by Numen Books, Australia, 2015)
The Crescent and the Compass explores numerous previously unknown connections between Muslim intellectuals and Western spiritual practitioners from approximately 1850 to the middle of the twentieth century.
Praise for The Crescent And The Compass:
“A Pioneering study” — Andrei Znamenski, author of Red Shambhala: Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia.
“A highly significant work.” — New Dawn magazine.
“Millar’s […] understanding of his chosen subjects is deep. I can recommend this book wholeheartedly as an example of scholarship and research in the interest of making clearer Freemasonry’s tangled relationship with little-understood trends and figures in the modern world” — The Plumbline (Scottish Rite Research Society).
“… an excellent reminder of the wisdom that can come studying the intersections of cultures, people, and places” — Aimee E. Newell, The Northern Light.
Freemasonry: Foundation of the Western Esoteric Tradition (Salamander and Sons, Australia/Thailand, 2014).
In the early 18th century, Freemasonry emerged, changing the shape of the Western esoteric tradition forever. Within a few decades, the fraternity had spawned numerous esoteric societies that claimed to teach the secrets of alchemy and to perform rituals of healing. During the next century, the still-surviving Masonic Rosicrucian society was established, attracting the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn – William Wynn Westcott and S.L. MacGregor Mathers – and Theodor Reuss, co-founder of the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), among others.
This book explores the history of Western esotericism, beginning with the early Masonic Ritual, and its symbolism of natural law and death, essential to understanding the Craft, high-Degree Freemasonry, and the contemporary Western esoteric tradition.
Freemasonry: Foundation of the Western Esoteric Tradition includes reproductions of twelve rarely-seen etchings by Hejonagogerus Nugir, originally published in Freymäurerische Versammlungsreden der Gold- und Rosenkreutzer des alten Systems (Amsterdam, 1779). Fifteen chapters. Illustrated, with two appendices, plus bibliography.
Freemasonry: A History (Greenwich Editions (UK) and Thunder Bay Press (USA), 2005).
Freemasonry: A History explores the history of the fraternity from its origins as Lodges of the stonemasons’ guild in medieval and early modern Britain to its development into various (often competing) societies conferring philosophical and mystical teachings through rituals and symbolism.
Contains well over 150 photographs, many of them of artifacts never seen before. These include rare textiles, paintings, chinaware, etchings, and more.
A Polish edition, Masoneria: Zarys Dziejow, was published in 2006 through Elipsa.