The narrator, Owen Aherne, recounts a chance meeting with Michael Robartes, a long-lost acquaintance from the past. Their meeting is set against the backdrop of the National Gallery. Robartes seems unchanged by the 30 years that have passed since their last encounter. The two discuss the transformation in art over the years, with Robartes lamenting the loss of passion in modern works. Aherne is taken aback when Robartes asks for the address of Yeats, given their shared disagreement with the poet who fictionalized their lives in his writings. Despite this, Robartes is grateful to Yeats for starting the rumors of his death that allowed him solitude. Robartes then recounts his travels after their last meeting, detailing his journey across Europe and the Middle East. This journey led him to an old book, Speculum Angelorum et Hominorum, and subsequently to the Judwali tribe, whose doctrines echo those in the book. Robartes believes these doctrines have ancient origins, possibly in Syriac traditions. He alludes to the Great Wheel, a symbol of cyclical history and life, hinting at Yeats’s larger metaphysical system explored in the text.

Robartes presents bundles of notes and diagrams that detail various philosophical concepts, including the mathematical law of history and the interaction between the living and the dead.