Now, in this 'deluxe edition,' Hall's earliest work, The Initiates of the Flame, is reborn with a full complement of historical introductions.Ī definitive edition of the symbolist classic by the author of The Secret Teachings of All Ages Hall is widely recognized as the preeminent voice of occult scholarship in the twentieth century, famous for his esoteric masterpiece The Secret Teachings of All Ages.

Like spirit of which it is the essence, it cannot die, because it is life, and life cannot cease to be.Manly P. 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.

The priests lost the Word, the name of the Flame. When the light was taken from the altar, the temple was no longer the dwelling place of a living God.ĭegeneracy, 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. When the flame within the body is withdrawn, the body is dead. If we turn again to the races now dead, we shall, if we look, find the cause of their destruction. 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. A great hand reaches out from the unseen and regulates the affairs of man. Purified ones they are, who have renounced the life of this sphere in order to guard and protect the Flame, that spiritual principle in man, now hidden beneath the ruins of his fallen temple.Īs we think of the nations that are past, of Greece and Rome and the grandeur that was Egypt's, we sigh as we recall the story of their fall and we watch the nations of today, not knowing which will be the next to draw its shroud around itself and join that great ghostly file of peoples that are dead.īut everywhere, even in the rise and fall of nations, we see through the haze of materiality, justice everywhere we see reward, not of man but of the invincible One, the eternal Flame. Few realize that even at the present stage of civilization in this world, there are souls who, like the priests of the ancient temples, walk the earth and watch and guard the sacred fires that burn upon the altar of humanity.

Manly p hall initiates of the flame