"The Ascent of Man" offers an overview of the spiritual development of humankind. Merry applies her wide-ranging knowledge of esoteric wisdom to assert that the world's past ages must be reviewed before the significance of the our own age can be understood.
Her grand survey covers the major ancient civilizations, religions and thinkers, including India, Persia and Zarathurstra, Egypt, Greece, Hibernia, Krishna and Buddha, Heraclitus and Aristotle, Melchisedek, and Zion and Gnosis. She then turns to the Middle Ages and to the Renaissance before finishing with twentieth-century philosophy and materialism.