Public-domain ebook
The Initiates of the Flame
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In: Mythology, Legends & Folklore·Philosophy & Ethics·Religion/Spirituality
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #55687.
About this book
The work is an occult treatise that frames human history as a series of cycles in which a spiritual fire, identified with the divine Flame, rises, wanes, and is reborn in new peoples. It opens with a sweeping meditation on the loss of that fire in ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt, then declares that the Flame endures through “Initiates of the Flame,” a lineage of mystics that includes Orpheus, Hermes, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and others. From this panoramic opening the author moves into a foreword that casts the world itself as a school of God, before launching into Chapter I, which surveys fire’s ritual role in every major religion and links it to alchemical symbols such as the ever‑burning lamp, the Masonic censer and the spade of the grave‑digger. The text proceeds in a didactic, almost sermon‑like tone, weaving together myth, symbolism and esoteric doctrine to argue that the true religion is the worship of the universal fire.
Written in the early twentieth‑century language of Manly P. Hall, the book combines lofty, poetic prose with dense symbolic exposition. Its voice is that of a lecturer‑prophet, invoking ancient sages and secret societies while urging the reader to awaken the inner flame through self‑sacrifice and service. Readers who appreciate the syncretic blending of Christianity, Eastern mysticism, Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, particularly those drawn to ceremonial magic, alchemical symbolism, or the history of esoteric thought, will find this volume a rich, if demanding, source of inspiration.
Characters in The Initiates of the Flame
- OrpheusYouthful Greek bard with long dark hair, flowing white robe, holding a lyre
- HermesAthenaic youth in winged sandals and helmet, caduceus in hand, light tunic
- JesusMiddle‑Eastern man, beard and long hair, simple brown robe, serene expression
The opening · free to read
If we turn again to the races now dead, we shall, if we look, find the cause of their destruction. =The light had gone out.= When the flame within the body is withdrawn, the body is dead. When the light was taken from the altar, the temple was no longer the dwelling place of a living God.
Degeneracy, lust, and passion, hates and fears, crept into the souls of Greece and Rome, and Black Magic overshadowed Egypt; the light upon the altar grew weaker and weaker. The priests lost the Word, the name of the Flame. Little by little the Flame flickered out, and as the last spark grew cold, a mighty nation died, buried beneath the dead ashes of its own spiritual fire.
But the Flame did not die. Like spirit of which it is the essence, it cannot die, because it is life, and life cannot cease to be. In some wilderness of land or sea it rested once again, and there rose a mighty nation around that flame. So history goes on through the ages. As long as a people are true to the Flame, it remains, but when they cease to nourish it with their lives, it goes on to other lands and other worlds.
Those who worship this Flame are now called heathens. Little do we realize that we are heathen ourselves until we are baptised of the Holy Spirit, which is Fire, for fire is Light, and the children of the Flame are the Sons of Light, even as God is Light.
There are those who have for ages labored with man to help him to kindle within himself this spark, which is his divine birthright. It is these who by their lives of self-sacrifice and service have awakened and tended this fire, and who through ages of study have learned the mystery it contained, that we now call the “Initiates of the Flame.”
For ages they have labored with mankind to help him to uncover the light within himself, and on the pages of history they have left their seal, the seal of Fire.
Unhonored and unsung they have labored with humanity, and now their lives are used as fairy stories to amuse children, but the time will yet come when the world shall know the work they did, and realize that our present civilization is raised upon the shoulders of the mighty demigods of the past. We stand as Faust stood, with all our lore, a fool no wiser than before, because we refuse to take the truths they gave us and the evidence of their experiences. Let us honor these Sons of the Flame, not by words, but by so living that their sacrifice shall not be in vain. They have shown us the way, they have led man to the gateway of the unknown, and there in their robes of glory passed behind the Veil. Their lives were the key to their wisdom, as it must always be. They have gone, but in history they stand, milestones on the road of human progress.
Let us watch these mighty ones as they pass silently by. First, Orpheus, playing upon the seven stringed lyre of his own being, the music of the spheres. Then Hermes, the thrice greatest, with his emerald tablet of divine revelation. Through the shades of the past we dimly see Krishna, the illuminated, who on the battlefield of life taught man the mysteries of his own soul. Then we see the sublime Buddha, his yellow robe not half so glorious as the heart it covered, and our own dear Master, the man Jesus, his head surrounded with a halo of Golden Flame, and his brow serene with the calm of mastery. Then Mohammed, Zoroaster, Confucius, Odin, and Moses, and others no less worthy pass by before the eyes of the student. They were the Sons of Flame. From the Flame they came, and to the Flame they have returned. To us they beckon, and bid us join them, and in our robes of self-earned glory to serve the Flame they love.
They were without creed or clan; they served but the one great ideal. From the same place they all came, and to the same place they have returned. There was no superiority there. Hand in hand they labor for humanity. Each loves the other, for the power that has made them masters has shown them the =Brotherhood= of all life.
In the pages that follow we will try to show this great thread, the spiritual thread, the thread of living fire that winds in and out through all religions and binds them together with a mutual ideal and mutual needs. In the story of the Grail and the Legends of King Arthur we find that thread wound around the Table of the King and the Temple of Mount Salvart. This same thread of life that passes through the roses of the Rosicrucians, winds among the pedals of the Lotus, and among the temple pillars of Luxor. THERE IS BUT ONE RELIGION IN ALL THE WORLD, and that is the worship of God, the spiritual Flame of the universe. Under many names He is known in all lands, but as Iswari or Ammon or God, He is the same, the Creator of the universe, and fire is His universal symbol.
We are the Flame-Born Sons of God, thrown out as sparks from the wheels of the infinite. Around this Flame we have built forms which have hidden our light, but as students we are increasing this light by love and service, until it shall again proclaim us Suns of the Eternal.
Within us burns that Flame, and before Its altar the lower man must bow, a faithful servant of the Higher. When he serves the Flame he grows, and the light grows until he takes his place with the true Initiates of the universe, those who have given all to the Infinite, in the name of the Flame within.
Let us find this Flame and also serve it, realizing that it is in all created things, that all are one because all are part of that eternal Flame, the fire of spirit, the life and power of the universe.
Upon the altar of this Flame, to the true creator of this book, the writer offers it, and dedicates it to the one Fire which blazes forth from God, and is now hidden within each living thing.
The Greatest of Mystery Schools
The World is the schoolroom of God. Our being in school does not make us learn, but within that school is the opportunity for all learning. It has its grades and its classes, its sciences and its arts, and admission to it is the birthright of man. Its graduates are its teachers, its pupils are all created things. Its examples are Nature, and its rules are God’s laws. Those who would go into the greater colleges and universities must first, day by day, and year by year, work through the common school of life, and present to their new teachers the diplomas they have won, upon which is written the name that none may read save those who have received it.
The hours may seem long, and the teachers cruel, but each of us must walk that path, and the only ones ready to go onward are those who have passed through the gateway of experience,
GOD’S GREAT SCHOOL FOR MAN.
Of the elements of the earth is this altar composed. It is the great cube of matter. On or in this altar burns a Flame. It is this Flame that is the spirit of all created things. =Man, know thyself.= Thou art the Flame, and thy bodies are the living altar.]
The Fire Upon the Altar
As far back as our history goes we find that fire has played an important part in the religious ceremonial of the human race. In practically every religion we find the sacred altar fires, which were guarded by the priests and vestals with greater care than their own lives. In the Bible we find many references made to the sacred fires which were used as one form of devotion by the ancient Israelites. The Altar of Burnt Offerings is as old as the human race, and dates from the time when the first man, lifting himself out of the mists of ancient Lemuria, first saw the sun, the great Fire Spirit of the universe. Among the followers of Zoroaster, the Persian Initiate, fire has been used for centuries in honor of the great Fire God, Ormuzd, who is said by them to have created the universe.
Know that the Flame that burns within thee and lights thy way is the ever burning lamp of the ancients. As their lamps were fed by the purest of oil, so thy spiritual Flame must be fed by a life of purity and altruism.]
There are two paths or divisions of humanity whose history is closely related to that of the Wisdom Teachings. They embody the doctrines of fire and water, the two opposites of nature. Those who follow the path of faith or the heart, use water, and are known as the Sons of Seth, while those who follow the path of the mind and action are the Children of Cain, who was the son of Samael, the Spirit of Fire. Today we find the latter among the alchemists, the hermetic philosophers, the Rosicrucians, and the Freemasons.
It is well for us to understand that we ourselves are the cube altar upon which and in which burns the altar fire. For many centuries the Initiate of fire has been nourishing and guarding the Spiritual Flame within himself, as the ancient priests watched day and night the altar fires of Vesta’s temple.
The ever burning lamp of the alchemist, which having burned thousands of years without fuel in the catacombs of Rome, is but a symbol of this same spiritual fire within himself. In the picture we see the ever burning lamp which was carried by the Initiate in his wandering. It represents the spinal column of man, at the top of which is flickering a little blue and red flame. As the lamp of the ancients was fed and kept burning by the purest of olive oil, so man is transmitting within himself and cleansing in the laver of purification the life essences, which, when turned upward, provide fuel for the ever burning lamp within himself.
As the perfume rising from the incense burner was acceptable in the sight of the Lord, so may our words and actions ever be a sweet incense acceptable in the sight of the Most High.]
Upon the altars of the ancients were offered sacrifices to their gods. The ancient Hierophant offered up sacrifices of spices and incense. The Masonic brother of today still has among his symbols the incense burner or censer, but few of the brothers recognize themselves in this symbol. The ancients symbolized under such things as this the development of the individual, and as the tiny spark burning among the incense cubes slowly consumes all, so the Spiritual Flame within the student is slowly burning away and transmuting the base metals and properties within himself, and offering up the essence thereof as the smoke upon the altar of Divinity. It is said that King Solomon, when he completed his temple, offered bulls as a sacrifice to the Lord, by burning them upon the temple altar. Those who believe in a harmless life wonder why so many references are made in the Bible to animal sacrifice.
The student realizes that the animal sacrifices are those of the celestial zodiac, and that when the Ram or the Bull was offered upon the altar, it represented the qualities in man which come through Aries, the celestial Ram, and Taurus, the Bull in the zodiac. In other words, the Initiate, passing through his tests and purification, is offering upon the altar of his own higher being the lower animal instincts and desires within himself. Among the Masonic brothers we also find what is called the Symbol of Mortality. It is a spade, a coffin, and an open grave, while upon the coffin has been laid a sprig of acacia, or evergreen. In the picture we see the spade of the grave digger, which has been considered the symbol of death for centuries.
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