The initiates of the flame

by Manly P. Hall

A great hand reaches out from the unseen and regulates the affairs of man. It reaches out from that great spiritual Flame which nourishes all created things, the never dying fire that burns on the sacred altar of Cosmos—that great fire which is the spirit of God.

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 When the flame within the body is withdrawn, the body is dead.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.

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.

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.

THERE IS BUT S 10 H 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.

Upon the altar of this Flame, to the true creator of this book, the writer offers it, and dedicate^it to the one Fire which blazes forth from God, and is now hidden within each living thing.

The Cube Altar: Of the elements of the earth is this altar composed. It is the great cube of matter. On or in this altar bums 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.

Among the followers of Zoroaster, the Persian Initiate,

The Everburning Lamp: 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.

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.

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.

as a deck of playing cards, we find a very wonderful symbolism. Of all the suits of cards, that of the spade is the only suit in which all the court cards face away from the pip. In all the other kings and queens, the faces are looking at the little marker in the corner of the card, but in the spade suit, they look away from it. Now it is said that the spade has been taken from the acorn, but the occult student has a different idea. He sees in the spade, which has for ages been the symbol of death, a certain part of his own anatomy.

The centering of thought or emotion upon higher or lower things, as the case may be, determines where this life energy will be expended. If the lower emotions predominate, the flame upon the altar burns low and flickers out, because the forces which feed it have been concentrated upon the lower centers.

Thus we see why it was a great sin to let the lamp go out, for the pillar of flames which hovers over the Tabernacle, purified and prepared after the directions of the Most High, is the Spiritual Flame that, hovering above man, lights his way wherever he may go. The sun of our solar system, that is, the Spiritual Sun behind the physical globe, is one of these Flames.

It began no greater than ours, and through the power of attraction

and the transmuting of its ever increasing energies it has reached its present proportions. This flame in man is the "light that shineth in darkness." It is the Spiritual Flame within himself. It lights his way as no exterior light can. This radiating out from him brings into view, one by one, the hidden things of ffl Efil The Initiates of the Flame the cosmos, and his ignorance is dispelled in exactly the same proportion as his light is spread, for the da...

This is the Lamp of the Philosopher, which he carries through the dark passageways of life, and by the light of which he walks among the stones and along the narrow cliff edge without fear. But although he gain all other things and have not this light within himself, he cannot know where he goes; he cannot...

Therefore let each student watch the fire that bums upon his altar. Let him also make that altar, his body, as beautiful and harmonious as possible, and let him also sacrifice upon that altar the frankincense and myrrh, his actions and his deeds.

As in the Tabernacle he offers all upon the altar of divinity, so let him day by day dispel the symbols of mortality—the coffin and the open grave by which he prepared himself through the mastery of the lower emotions within himself— and recognize that no

matter how crystallized or dead his life may be, the fact that he exists at all proves that the sprig of acacia, the promise of life and immortality, is somewhere within himself; and although the flame of life may appear faint or cold, if he will supply the fuel by his daily actions, he will kindle the altar flame once more within himself, which, shining forth, w...

There are many sacred places to which pilgrims go, even as the Templars went in our Christian religion to the Sepulcher of Christ. Few see in this anything more than an outward symbol, but the true student recognizes the great esoteric truth contained therein.

The spiritual consciousness in man is a pilgrim on the way to Mecca. As this consciousness passes upward through the

centers and nerves of the body, it is like the pilgrim, climbing the heights of Sinai, or the Knight of the G...

In the spreading of the bone between the eyes called the frontal sinus, is the seat of the divine in man.

There, in a peculiar gaseous material, floats, or rather exists, or is, the fine essence which we know as the Spirit.

When any other thing governs man, he is not attuned to his own higher self, and it is only when the gods, representing the higher principle, come down the Rainbow Bridge and labor with him, teaching him the arts and sciences, that he is truly receiving his divine birthright.

Let the student remember that all of these things must first happen within himself before he can find them in the universe without.

The Philosopher's Stone: This is the true stone of the philosopher, which gives him power over all created things. This stone is himself. The experiences of his evolution have cut and polished the rough stone until in the Initiate it reflects the light of creation from a thousand different facets.

The world laughs at him, but he goes on in silence, really doing the things the world believes impossible.

The alchemist realizes that he himself is the Philosopher's Stone, and that this stone is made diamondlike when the salt and the sulphur, or the spirit and the body, are united thorugh mercury, the link of mind.

The Five Pointed Star: This picture, known to all Masons, is that of the Soul. It is the Star of Bethlehem, which heralds the coming of the Christ within. The two clasped hands are the spirit and body united in the marriage of the Lamb. It is from the union of the higher with the lower that the Christ is bom.

But it was upon the principle that all things contain some part of everything else; in other words, every grain of sand or drop of water has in some proportion every element of the universe therein.

Man can create nothing from nothing, but he does contain within, in potential energy, all things; and like the alchemist with his metals, he is simply working with that which he already has.

The Marriage of the Sun and Moon: This takes place in man when the heart and mind are joined in eternal union. It occurs when the positive and negative poles within are united, and from that union is made the Philosopher's Stone.

As the moon in the zodiac touches off like a fuse

the happenings of life, so his own desires and wishes touch off the powers of his soul, and the experiences may be transmuted into soul qualities when he has developed the

eye which enables him to read the simplest of all books—everyday life.

Where now test tubes and bottles are his implements, then worlds and globes he will study, and as a silent watcher will learn from that Divine One, who is the Great Alchemist of all the universe, the greatest alchemy of all, the creation of life, the maintenance of form, and the building of worlds.

The Serpent: This is the serpent crown of the ancient Gods. It shows that the two paths or parts of the spirit fire have been united. This crown is the symbol of mastery and the union takes place within the student when the life forces are lifted to the brain.

In the triangle we see spirit descending into the square of matter. Let us so purify matter that spirit may shine through it and make of us lights to guide the footsteps of humanity.

An imposing spectacle it was: the gigantic frame of the later Atlantean, robed in gold and priceless jewels; on his head the crown of the North and South, the double empire of the ancient; on his forehead the coiled serpent of the Initiate, the serpent which was raised in the wilderness that all who looked upon it might live; that sleeping serpent power in man, which coiled head downward around the tree of life, drove him from the garden of the Lord, but which raised upon the Cross, became the symbol of the Christ.

There he sat upon the cube altar throne, indicating his mastery over the four elements of his physical body—a judge of the living and of the dead, who in spite of all his power and glory, having about him the grandeur of the world's greatest empire, still bowed in humble supplication to the will of the gods. In his hands he carries the triple sceptre of the Nile, the Shepherd's Crook, the Anubis-headed Staff and the Flail or Whip. These were the symbols of his work. They represent the powers which he had mastered. With the whip he had subjugated his physical body; with the Shepherd's Crook he was the guardian and keeper of his emotional body; with the Anubis-headed Staff he was master of his mind and worthy to wield

the powers of government over others, because, first of all, he obeyed the laws himself.

Although his sceptre is gone, and his priestly vestments have moulded away, the Priest King still walks the earth with the dignity and the power and the childish simplicity that before made him great.

whisper words of strength when he needs them. Have you seen people that somehow you liked regardless of appearances? Have you seen other charming people whom you hated in spite of their charms ? Have you seen learned people who were fools or impressed you as such, or people who knew little and yet you felt were wise? Those are the insignia of rank, which the loss of title or position cannot destroy. Kings with or without crowns they were—not puppets dressed in tawdry tinsel. And they still are kings and will be to the end of time, and they still manifest their rank, not by their superiority, and their high-headedness, but by the soul qualities which they radiate from themselves.

The purity of their lives still radiates outward from those who wore the apron of the Initiate, for while that triangular apron with its serpent drawn upon it has long since rotted away, still the spiritual counterpart of that symbol radiates in their daily lives, proving beyond all dispute that they were Priest Kings and are today. We find them in every walk of life—in high places and down in the mire of life.

Still in the pyramid of Gizeh, the initiations continue; still the Initiate receives the insignia of his rank. Before that Fire within himself he makes his vows, and upon the burning altar of his own higher being he lays his crown and his sceptre, his robes and his diamonds, his hates and his fears, and sanctifies his life as a Priest King, and swears to serve none but his own higher self, the god within.