edition) In its introduction, Oliver claims that the book had been channeled through him via automatic writing, visions and mental "dictations", by a spirit calling himself Phylos the Thibetan who revealed the story to him over a period of three years, beginning in 1883.

His personal history and that of a group of souls with whom Phylos closely interacted is portrayed in the context of the social, economic, political and religious structures that shaped Poseid society.

In that incarnation (as Walter Pierson, gold miner and occult student of the Theo-Christic Adepts) he travelled to Hysperia in a subtle body while his physical form remained at the temple inside Mount Shasta.

His life story is written in personal testimony of the law: "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" and as a warning to this technological age to not repeat the mistakes of the past that led to the cataclysmic destruction of "Poseid, queen of the waves".

In a 2002 introduction, religious text expert John Bruno Hare says that it "is openly acknowledged as source material for many new age belief systems, including the "I AM" movement, the Lemurian Fellowship, and Elizabeth Claire Prophet."