Five years ago, we published Light Bearers of Darkness, largely based on articles appearing in the Patriot from 1925 to 1930, being the result of our own experiences and investigations into various individual secret societies, their affiliations, their occult practices, their pseudoreligious and political activities. Today, in The Trail of the Serpent; we issue a further instalment of these researches, built up almost wholly from contributions to the Patriot from 1930 to 1935. Going back to Patriarchal times, we attempt to trace, step by step, the worship of the ancient Serpent, the Creative Principle, the God of all initiates, from the early Cabiri, through Paganism to the pseudo-Christianity of the Gnostics and Cabalists, these latter largely emanating under the influence of the Hellenised Jews of Alexandria.