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THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 (love, god) 
 
 SYMBOL OP FIRE 
 
 BY DR. R. SWINBURNE CLYMER 
 
 Author of " The Eosicrucians; their teachings ^'^^ ^^ Ancient 
 
 Mystic Oriental Masonry^\ ^^True Spiritual- 
 
 isMj^^ ^^ Divine Alchemy, ^^ etc. 
 
 REVISED EDITION. COPYRIGHTED. 
 
 Published by 
 
 Thb Philosophical Publishing Co. 
 
 Allkntown, Pa. 
 
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 \ OCT 29 ^^e^ 
 
 '^^''^v^I^ Entry 
 
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 DEDICATION 
 
 To her who must be NAMELESS but 
 who has so faithfully stood by me in all 
 my sorrow and trouble and who is still 
 the Guiding Spirit of my work, and also, 
 to all such who are working for the good 
 of ALL and the Universal Brotherhood 
 of Man, is this work Lovingly dedicated. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
1907 
 
 POINTED AND BOUND 
 
 FOR THE PHILOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 BY THE OCCULT PUBLISHING CO, 
 
 BATTLE CMEEK, MICH. 
 
 U, S, A. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 {Second and Enlarged Editimi.) 
 
 When, less than a year ago, the first edition of 
 the "Philosophy of Fire " was issued, we had feared 
 that the whole edition could never be sold, knowing 
 how slowly books of this nature sell. What then 
 was our surprise when we found that some of those 
 who first subscribed to the book would order as 
 many as six copies to present to their friends, and 
 what still more surprised us was that many of the 
 Occult Orders would order many copies for their 
 members. And now, all within one short year, the 
 whole edition of the book is sold, and not a single 
 letter of criticism has been received except in a few 
 instances where the purchasers thought the appear- 
 ance could be better. Nor can we blame them for 
 it was far from perfect although we had ordered, 
 and been promised, the best possible work. 
 
 Now that the opportunity is presented to issue 
 another edition, I have taken time to enlarge the 
 work and have added a large chapter on the Rosi- 
 crucian Fire-Philosophy, ma^inly from the work 
 "The Rosicrucians, their Rites and Mysteries" by 
 Hargrave Jennings, and which is a work that is not 
 to be had at the present time, and therefore gives 
 greater value to the present edition of this work. 
 1 I 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 With this addition to the work and the far more 
 perfect workmanship, we beheve that it will sell 
 even faster than did the first edition, and, from the 
 way orders are coming in at this present time, we 
 have no doubt but that another edition will be needed 
 within the year. For all this we beg to thank our sub- 
 scribers and to assure them that we more than appreci- 
 ate their effort to spread this great Doctrine^ the funda- 
 mental principle of All Religion, 
 
 R. SWINBURNE CLYMER. 
 
 Allentown, Pa., February 10, 1907. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 *' There is nothing neio under the sun *' 
 
 Thus has a wise man said in the long ago and 
 Marie Corelli, the most justly famous authoress of 
 the present day, in her beautiful book, ''A Romance 
 of Two Worlds," says: "Yours? Why, what can 
 you call your own? Every talent you have, every 
 breath you draw, every drop of blood flowing in 
 your veins, is lent to you only; you must pay it all 
 back. And as far as the arts go, it is a bad sign of 
 poet, painter, or musician, who is arrogant enough 
 to call his work his own. It never was his and 
 never will be. It is planned by a higher intelli- 
 gence than his, only he happens to be the hired lab- 
 orer chosen to carry out the conception ; a sort of 
 mechanic in whom boastfulness looks absurd; as 
 absurd as if one of the stone-masons working at 
 the cornice of a cathedral were to vaunt himself as 
 the designer of the whole edifice. And when a 
 work, any work, is completed, it passes out of the 
 laborer's hands ; it belongs to the age and the peo- 
 ple for whom it was accomplished, and, if deserving, 
 goes on belonging to the future ages and future 
 peoples." So with the book that is now being 
 placed before the reader, I wish him to remember 
 that it is not my own. I have taken the works of 
 
 7 
 
8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 many of those before me and have tried to choose 
 therefrom such material as has appealed to me. I 
 have taken this material and have tried to arrange 
 it so as to form one harmonious whole. I wish the 
 reader to understand that even this material was 
 not original with the authors from whom I quote. 
 For instance, the Secret Doctrine has come down 
 to us from the Temples of Atlantis and no one is 
 able to tell us how long ago that may have been. 
 The Ancient Mysteries also were handed down by 
 Initiate to Initiate from that same time. The ques- 
 tion may weU be asked by the reader why it is nec- 
 essary to again repeat the things that have already 
 been written? It is a fair question and deserves a 
 fair answer. It is for the reason that these authors 
 stated thefoMs here set forth ^ in the negative form. It 
 is my desire to state that they are positive facts. Facts 
 that can he verified by ^^ Him who truly seeks in earnest. " 
 In many cases, these authors state the things that 
 they had read, and, not belonging to any Fraternity 
 that can give them the positive facts, and not having 
 access to the secret records, are unable to say that 
 these things are true. Knowing the interest taken 
 in the Higher Science, Occultism, Mysticism and 
 the True Initiation, and having the records at my 
 command which prove that the things herein writ- 
 ten are true, is my excuse for the compilation of 
 the presest work. I do not wish to be accused of 
 plagiarism and therefore the foregoing. I do not 
 claim that a single line in this book is my own. I 
 claim nothing, but give the credit to those who have 
 gone before me. If you find anything original, 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 give the credit to those who have taught me and not 
 to me. By doing this, you vv^ill not give me credit 
 for that which does not belong to me. One thing I 
 wish the truly interested reader to remember — 
 whatever is herein written is absolutely true and 
 if you are willing to so change your life as to be 
 worthy, there are those who are ever ready to teach 
 you and show you the Path that leads to Initiation 
 — The finding of the Christ 
 
 History informs us that: "As soon as mankind 
 recognized the relation between themselves and a 
 Creator, and acknowledged moral responsibility to a 
 Supreme Moral Government, then Religion became 
 a pertinent fact, and systems of religion were intro- 
 duced, whereby, in an objective form, their subjec- 
 ivity could be outwardly made manifest. 
 
 "These systems are divided into monotheism and 
 Polytheism: the latter includes Dualism andTrithe- 
 ism. The lowest grade of Polytheism is Fetichism, 
 or idolatry, which teaches the worship of inanimate 
 nature, stocks and stones, and the work of the hands 
 of men. Next is Pyrolatry, or worship of Fire; and 
 Sabaeism, worship of the sun. 
 
 "The first step of each Master or Reformer was 
 to receive a mission and revelation from some God: 
 thus — Amasis and Mneves, Lawgivers of the Egyp- 
 tians, received their laws from Mercury (Thoth); 
 Zoroaster of the Bactrians, and Zamolxis, lawgiver 
 of the Getes, from Vesta; Zathraustes, of the Arm- 
 aspi, from a good Spirit or Genius : and all progaged 
 the doctrine of the "Law of Karma." There is no 
 doubt but that all of them were Initiates of the 
 
10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Secret Orders then existing and which Orders 
 taught the Secret Doctrine and Ancient Mysteries 
 — as well as the Mystery of the Fire. That this is 
 true will be shown farther on. 
 
 Rhadamanthus and Minos, lawgivers of Crete, 
 and Lycaon of Arcadia, had intercourse with Jupi- 
 ter; Triptolemus of Athens was inspired by Ceres, 
 Pythagoras and Zaleucus, for the Crotonians and 
 Locrians, ascribed their institutions to Minerva, 
 Lycurgus of Sparta acted by direction of Apollo, 
 and Komulus and Numa of Rome put themselves 
 under the guidance of Consus and the goddess 
 Egeria. 
 
 The first Chinese monarch was called * 'Fag-Four" 
 — ''The Son of Heaven." Tuesco, the founder of 
 the German nations, was sent to reduce mankind 
 from their savage and bestial life to one of order 
 and society, as appears from his name, which sig- 
 nifies the "interpreter of the gods." Thor and 
 Dgin, the lawgivers of the Western Goths, laid claim 
 to inspiration and to divinity, and they have given 
 the names to two of the days of the week. 
 
 Plato makes legislation to have been derived from 
 God, and the constant epithets to kings in Homer 
 are Dio-geneis, "born of the gods," and Dio-trepheis, 
 "bred or or tutored by the gods. " When true Ini- 
 tiation is once understood by scholars they will no 
 longer deny that man can be taught by God or by 
 the Supreme Intelligence, for such a thing is pos- 
 sible, and Divine Revelations to man or to the mind 
 and soul of man, is not so hard or impossible a 
 thing. That these Masters and Reformers received 
 
INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 their instructions direct there is no doubt. Man 
 can come into direct communication with his God if 
 he is wiUing to hve such a hfe as will make this pos- 
 sible. In the following work, both proofs of this 
 fact and instructions are given. No one may say 
 that he did not know. 
 
 Plutarch, in "Isis and Osiris," says: "It was a 
 most Ancient opinion, derived as well by lawgivers 
 as divines, that the world was not made by chance, 
 neither did one cause govern all things without 
 opposition." 
 
 This is the doctrine of Zoroaster, in which were 
 taught two opposite principles by which the world 
 was governed. 
 
 The first Religion or Mysteries were those of 
 Atlantis and known as the Hermetic Philosophy. 
 Later, we have the Oriental Mysteries of Isis and 
 Osiris in Egypt. These Mysteries are the same as 
 the Hermetic Philosophy of Atlantis and are but 
 known under another name. The study of the 
 Mysteries of Isis and Osiris will prove to the stud- 
 ent that this was a pure Fire Philosophy and this 
 is proven in the pages that are to follow. 
 
 Zoroaster brought these Mysteries into Persia; 
 Cadmus and Inachus, into Greece at large, Orpheus, 
 into Thrace, Melampsus, into Athens. 
 
 As these Ancient, — '*Atlantian Mysteries" — 
 they should be called, — were to Isis and Osiris in 
 Egypt; so they were to Mythras in Asia; in Samo- 
 thrace, to the Mother of the Gods ; in Boeotia to 
 Bacchus; in Cyprus to Venus; in Crete to Jupiter; 
 in Athens to Ceres and Proserpine; in Amphura to 
 
12 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Castor and Pollux; in Lamnos to Vulcan. The 
 most noted of these were the Orphic, Bacchic, Eleu- 
 sinian, Samothracian, Oabiric, and Mithriac. It 
 was agreed by Origen and Celsus that the Myster- 
 ies taught the future life, the Law of Karma, and 
 the Law of Reincarnation. It was taught that the 
 Initiated would be happier than other mortals 
 because they lived so in this world as to learn in 
 the present incarnation what it would take the pro- 
 fane many incarnations to learn. Plato taught that 
 it was the design of Initiation to restore the soul to 
 that state from whence all fell, as from its native 
 seat of perfection. And Epictetus taught that: 
 ^'Thus the Mysteries become useful, thus we seize 
 the true spirit of them, when we begin to appre- 
 hend that everything therein was instituted by the 
 ancients for instruction and amendment of life." 
 
 Allpersons who were candidates for Initiation into 
 any of these Mysteries were required to produce 
 evidence of their fitness by due inquiry into their 
 previous life and character. The Eleu sinian stood 
 open to none who did not approach the Gods with a 
 pure and holy worship, which was originally an 
 indispensible condition observed in common in all 
 the Mysteries, and instituted by Bacchus or Osiris, 
 himself who initiated none but virtuous and pious 
 men, and it was required to have a prepared purity 
 of mind and disposition, as previously ordered in 
 the sacrifices, or in prayers, in approaching the 
 Mysteries. 
 
 It was Max MuUer who wrote that: "In the lan- 
 guage of mankind, in which everything new is old^ 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 and everything old is neiv, an inexhaustible mine 
 has been discovered for researches of this kind. 
 Language still bears the impress of the earliest 
 thoughts of man; obliterated, it may be, buried 
 under new thoughts, yet here and there still recov- 
 erable in their sharp original outline. The growth 
 of language is continuous, and by continuing our 
 researches backward from the most modern to the 
 most ancient strata, the very elements and roots of 
 human speech have been reached, and with them 
 the elements and roots of human thought. What 
 lies beyond the beginnings of language, however 
 interesting it may be to the physiologist, does not 
 yet belong to the history of man, in the true and 
 original sense of that word. 3Ian means the thinker, 
 and the first manifestation of thought is speech. 
 
 ''But more surprising than the continuity of the 
 growth of language is the continuity in the growth 
 of religion. Of religion, as of language, it may be 
 said that in it everything new is old^ and everything 
 old is neiv, and that there has been no entirely new relig- 
 ion since the beginning of the world. The elements and 
 roots of religion were there as far hack as we can trace 
 the history of man, and the history of religion, like 
 the history of language, shows us throughout a 
 succession of new combinations of the same radical 
 elements. An Intuition of God, a sense of human 
 weakness and dependence, a belief in the divine 
 government of the world, a distinction between good 
 and evil, and a hope for a better life — these are 
 some of the radical elements of all religions. 
 Though sometimes hidden, they rise again and 
 
14 INTRODUCTION 
 
 again to the surface. Though frequently distorted, 
 they tend again and again to their perfect form, 
 though pJways under another name. 
 
 St. Augustine himself, in accordance with this 
 idea, said: '*What is now called the Christian relig- 
 ion has existed among the ancients, and was not 
 absent from the beginning of the human race, until 
 Christ came in the flesh, from which time the relig- 
 ion which existed already, began to be called 
 Christian." 
 
 As will be proven in the work now before the 
 reader, that the underlying principles in all true 
 religions or sects, is the Philosophy of Fire. No 
 matter what the system may be, it is always the 
 same. The very foundation of the Secret Doctrine 
 and the Ancient Doctrine is the Philosophy of Fire 
 — Love, In the work before the reader, quotations 
 have been made from the Secret teachings of the 
 greater sects of those Fraternities and Orders who 
 were most instrumental in shaping the Religious 
 beliefs of the people. The only one not so dealt 
 with is Zoroaster. 
 
 Before the time of Zoroaster the Persians, like 
 the early Egyptians, worshipped in the open air, 
 long after other nations had constructed temples, 
 as they considered the broad expanse of heavens as 
 the sublime covering of temples devoted to the wor- 
 ship of Deity. Their places of sacrifice were much 
 like those of the northern nations of Europe, com- 
 posed of circles of upright stones, rough and 
 unhewn. They abominated images, and worship- 
 ped the Sun and Fire^ as Bep7^esentatwes of the Omni- 
 
INTRODUCTION iS 
 
 present Deity, The Jews, even though they did not 
 belong to the Inner Circle of any Order and thus 
 only followed the exoteric religious ceremonies, 
 were not exempt from the worship of Fire, saying, 
 God appeared in the Cherubim, over the gate of 
 Eden, as a Flaming Sword^ and to Abraham as Flame 
 of Fire, to Moses as a Fire in the bush atHoreb, and 
 to the whole assembly of the people at Sinai, when 
 he descended upon the mountain in Fire. Moses 
 himself told them that their God was a Consuming 
 Fire, which was reechoed more than once, and thence 
 the Jews were weak enough to worship the mater- 
 ial substance, in lieu of the Invisible and Eternal 
 God. Zoroaster succeeded in persuading them to 
 enclose their sacred fire altars in covered towers, 
 because, being on elevated and exposed hills, the 
 fire was liable to be extinguished by storms. These 
 were circular buildings, covered with domes, hav- 
 ing small openings at the top to let out the smoke. 
 ... .A Jew entered a Parsee temiple and beheld 
 the Sacred Fire. ''What," said he to the priest, 
 "do you worship the fire?" "Not the fire," ans- 
 wered the priest, ^^it is to us the emblem of the Sun 
 andof his genial heat^^ "Do you then worship the 
 sun as your God?" asked the Jew. "Know ye not 
 that this luminary also is but a work of the Almighty 
 Creator?" "We know it," replied the priest, "but 
 the uncultivated man requires a sensible sign in 
 order to form a conception of the Most High, and 
 is not the sun, the incomprehensible source of light, 
 an image of that invisible being who blesses and 
 preserves all things?" "Do your people, then," 
 
16 INTRODUCTION 
 
 rejoined the Israelite, "distinguish the type from 
 the original? They call the sun their God, and, 
 descending even from this to a baser object, they 
 kneel before an earthly flame. Ye amuse the out- 
 ward but blind the inward eye ; and while ye hold 
 to them the earthly, ye draw from them the heav- 
 enly Light! Thou shalt not make unto thyself any 
 image or likeness." "How do you designate the 
 Supreme Being?" asked the Par see. "We call him 
 Jehovah Adonai; that is, the Lord who is, who was, 
 and who will be," answered the Jew. "Your appel- 
 lation is grand and sublime," said the Parsee, "but 
 it is awful too." A Christian then drew nigh and 
 said, "We call him Father." The Pagan and the 
 Jew looked at each other and said, "Here is at once 
 an image and a reality, it is a word of the heart." 
 Therefore they all raised their eyes to Heaven, and 
 said, with reverence and Love (Fire), "Our Father," 
 and they took each other by the hand, and all three 
 called one another "brother. " 
 
 Thus, as has already been stated, the names of 
 religious systems may be different, but the under- 
 lying principle is ever the same. No matter what 
 exoteric systems of religion may be studied, it will 
 always be found that God is d^'' Consuming Firey 
 In the teachings of the Ancient Mysteries this is 
 much more true for the reason that in these Mys- 
 teries we are taught what this living fire is. 
 
 " Ever since the most ancient times Divine Wis- 
 dom has taught the same doctrines through the 
 mouths of the wise. Hermes Trismegistus, Con- 
 fucius and Zoroaster, Buddha and Jesus the Christ, 
 
INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 Plato and Socrates, Saint Martin and Jacob Boeli- 
 men, Theophrastus ParacelsUvS, Cornelius Agrippa, 
 Shakespeare and Shoppenhauer, P, B. Randolph 
 and Freeman B. Dowd, and others have taught the 
 same truths, more or less complete, because thej 
 were all from the same school of philosophy. Each of 
 these teachers clothed them in a form most suitable 
 to his own understanding or adapted to the compre- 
 hension of his disciples. 
 
 No one can claim that any of these teachings are 
 their own. The Christ said; ''The doctrines which 
 I teach are 7iot my owri^hut it is the Truth which 
 teaches them through me. He that teaches his own 
 doctrines and theories speaketh of himself, he is 
 acting under the impulse of earthly ambition and 
 seeketh his own glory and not the glory of God, but 
 he that seeks to glorify — not himself, but God — 
 by giving expression to the truth of which he is 
 conscious, is true, and no evil can be in him. Live 
 so that you may knoio the truth; not by external appear- 
 ances and argumentatiGn, but by itsoton inherent power. 
 Be true, and you will know the truth. 
 
 ''The organism of ry?a?i,"he said, "resembles a 
 kingdom, its capital is the Mind, and its temple the 
 Soul. In that capital and temple there are many 
 false prophets, as there are in Jerusalem. There 
 are the Pharisees of sophistry and false, logic, cre- 
 dulity, and scepticism, and the 'scribes' are the 
 prejudices and erroneous opinions engrafted upon 
 the memory. Do not listen to what these false 
 prophets say, but listen to the voice of wisdom that 
 speaks in your heart) iov verily I say unto you, the 
 
Ji IMTEODUGTIOM 
 
 temple, built of speculations which the scribes hav© 
 greeted, will be destroyed, and not one of the dog- 
 fnas and theories of which it hag been constructed 
 will remain, when the day of judgment appear^. 
 
 **See the ti-uth enters your heart, bearing the 
 palm leaf, the gymbol of peace. Let it abide in you, 
 p,nd abide yourself in the truth. There i§ no other 
 worship acceptable to the Uniyergal God, but to 
 keep his conimandments, which he reveals to you 
 through the power of Divine Wisdom, whose voice 
 speaks in your Higher Oonsciousness. Love one 
 another; and as you grow in unselfish love^ so will 
 you grow in wisdom. 
 
 Open your hearts and see the image of the true 
 God within them. He is not to he found in mcin-made 
 ohurches; aiid if any one tells you, Ohrist is in this 
 ohuTch, or he i^ in that one, do not believe it, but seek 
 for God witliin your ovjn lieart. Let not the Phari- 
 sees and the scribes and the intellectual powers of 
 your own mind mislead you, but listen to the divine 
 voice of Intuition, which speaks at the center of 
 your Soul.^' 
 
 Tlius, Ohrist agrees with the fundamental doc- 
 trine of the Higher Occult Science taught by our 
 true Fraternities of the pregent day, i. e., that man 
 is the product of his own thoughts, he is that which 
 he makes himself by the way he thinks and acts, 
 for his external form is nothing but an outward 
 symbol of his internal character, modified by the 
 want of plasticity of the gross matter composing 
 his body, for gross matter is not sufficiently plastic 
 to change in form as rapidly as his thoughts. The 
 
iJTTfiobucl'ie^ li 
 
 fn?.tter composing tlie soul is* iiiofe plastic. If ouf 
 thoughts are cotitinually low aiid vulgar^ it will be- 
 come corresporiditigly degf aded, but if we are con- 
 tinually thinking of a high Ideal, our Ideal will tak^ 
 forffi loithin ourgeives. If we are satisfied with st 
 belief in an historical Christ without seeking tc^ 
 Cause ol' enable a Christ to grow luitliin ourselves ^^ 
 such a belief will not be merely useless, but it will 
 be an impediment in our way to perfection. 
 
 IPhe object of the Higher Occult Science ; the An- 
 cient Mysteries; the Secret Doctrines; of true Ini-^ 
 tiation^ and of all True Religion is one and the same 
 thifig, i. e., to ennoble mankind and to awaken mei4 
 to a realization of the divinity of the Spirit within 
 themselves. Religion rn its theoretical aspect means 
 a feal knowledge of the relations which exist be- 
 tween nian and the external Source from which his 
 Spirit emanated iii the begiiiliing, religion in it^ 
 practical aspect means the iiiiioti of man with God, — • 
 a uiiion that caiinot be effected throtigh the extern 
 iial intetference of permission of a clergyman, but 
 must be effected by the power of the IMernal loilli 
 There is no real JcnoiMedge to be attained bi/ merely learn- 
 ing a theory^ there is no real Imowledge unless the theory 
 is confirmed by practice^ 
 
 This knovvledge is acquired Mither by the study^ 
 of theology aiid philosophy, nor by moralizing. If 
 does not depend on any theoretical infof matioii iii 
 regard to terfestial of celestial things, nof can spif'- 
 itual regeneration be attained by leading a vif tuOti^ 
 life for fear of the consequences that are likely t^ 
 follow if we indulge in evil^ it can only be acq^uirM 
 
20 INTRODUCTION 
 
 by a realization of the truth within (mv own selves. 
 There is nothing to prevent any man from arriving 
 at such a realization, except the lower tendencies 
 of his mortal nature. The process of spiritual 
 regeneration or Initiation, therefore involves a con- 
 tinual battle with the lower self, and unceasing 
 fight between spiritual aspirations and earthly 
 desires, in which the Spirit must gain the victory 
 over Matter. 
 
 All the boasted knowledge of the science learned 
 m schools contains no ?^6a^ knowledge whatever. It 
 knows nothing of absolute truth. It is merely rela- 
 tive knowledge, and refers to the relations which 
 external objects bear to each other, and all this 
 knowledge, however useful it may be as long as we 
 live in this world of external illusions and ''objec- 
 tive hallucinations," will be entirely useless to us 
 when we enter that state in which those illusions 
 do not exist. The only true science^ which is really 
 useful to us in time and eternity^ in our present con- 
 dition, not less than in the hereafter, is the practical 
 knowledge of the regeneration of man. 
 
 If the reader will carefully note all words and 
 sentences that appear in italics, he or she will get a 
 far better understanding than could otherwise be 
 had. 
 
 Throughout the work, authors quoted from have 
 not been given credit, because it has been my desire 
 to bring forth a work, giving the teachings of the 
 Masters without any interruptions. The authors 
 quoted from are Dr. Paschal Beverly Randolph; 
 Dr. Frantz Hartmann; Dr. J. D. Buck; Hargrave 
 
INTRODUCTION 21 
 
 Jennings ; E. Shure, and Dr. P. H. Phelon. Each 
 
 one of these great teachers has been of as great 
 importance to this work as has the other and equal 
 credit is therefore due to them all. 
 
 If the work will be the means of opening the eyes 
 of a few and influence them to try and ''find their 
 own Soul," I shall be well satisfied. 
 
 THE COMPILER. 
 
The Ancient Mysteries. 
 
 THE belief in a Supreme Power is inherent in 
 every human being; and, so thoroughly 
 interwoven with our nature is this sentiment, that 
 it is impossible for anyone, at any period of lifej 
 wholly to divest himself of it. 
 
 *' When the reflecting man looks around upon all 
 the objects about him, the question naturally arises ; 
 'Wha.t has called this world into existence? Wliy 
 does it exist, and what is its ultimate destiny? 
 Why do I exist, and what will become of me after 
 death? The a^nswers to these questions can only 
 be given by and through a long course of Philoso- 
 phical investigation. It is these questions that 
 have been the study of the ablest men from the 
 earliest ages, and have given rise to all the various 
 systems of philosophy and religion, which have pre^ 
 vailed in all times, beginning with the first man, 
 and coming down to our ov^n day and generation; 
 
 *'0f one thing we are certain, the first religion 
 that we ha.ve any account of, was far superior to 
 any of those formulated in late centuries / refer 
 to the Philosophy of the Atlantiaiis. Theirs was the 
 Pure Fire Philosophy, and not onlj was it a pure 
 and absolute religion but, at the same time^ it gave 
 them the power that true religion should give to its 
 Masters. This the Fire Philosophy of the Atiaii- 
 tians did, and we find, throughout aU ages, that 
 
24 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 those Philosophies, under whatever name, y/hich 
 were founded on the Fire Philosophy, always gave 
 this power to its Initiates. It is only with these 
 Philosophies that I will deal at the present and set 
 forth the history, in compact form, of those sj^s- 
 tems of Philosophy which worshipped at the Shrine 
 of Fire — Love, and believed this to be all potent. 
 The Philosophers of these systems do not worship 
 the Fire as the profane suppose, hut they take Fire 
 as a symbol of that Supreme Poiver ivhich they believe in 
 and Know to be all powerful and Absolute, 
 
 An author has said: "It is to be presumed that 
 when the minds of men were directed to the sub- 
 ject of the mysterious things of nature which they 
 could not apprehend, they were forced to conceal 
 their ignorance of the ultimate causes for all the 
 phenomena by which they were constantly sur- 
 rounded, and as constantly ceJled upon to explain, 
 that then, as well as at present, their inventive tal- 
 ents were exercised to conceal their ignorance by 
 systems of terminology." This is not true, the 
 Mj^steries did not have their origin in such a man- 
 ner, but rather, because men who were Masters of 
 these Mysteries, knew that it would not do to let 
 the masses know the true meaning of these mys- 
 teries and therefore invented symbols and ceremo- 
 nies in order to teach those who were prepared to 
 know the truth. 
 
 '' It is, however, conceded that the rites and cere- 
 monies were originally of a pure character and had 
 a tendency to impress the minds of the Initiates 
 with a suitable feeling of awe and reverence for the 
 
THE PHIL OS OP HY OF FIRE 25 
 
 society, and to benefit their lives in all particulars-. 
 
 An author who claims to be an authorit^T- on the 
 subject, has said: "It is impossible to definitely 
 assert in what country the Mysteries were first 
 introduced. Authors differ very materially upoii 
 that question. It is, however, very certain that 
 while there are various changes to be found in the 
 Mysteries of the different nations of the Orient, it 
 is also as certain that there was a great similarity 
 in them all ; so much so that we mxay conclude that 
 either they were all independent copies from a 
 great original system, or that they were propaga- 
 ted one from, another, until they were spread over 
 the whole of Asia, Europe, and that part of Africa, 
 peopled from Asia and inconstantintercoursethere- 
 with. The fixrst wave from that region, now known 
 as Arya Varta, was to the Southeast, and across 
 the grea.t rivers, and into that part of India where 
 they found a people descended from the Turanian 
 families, v/ho had come from the north and north- 
 east. We are informed that, when the Ayybjis en- 
 tered the country of India, they carried with them 
 traditions, manners, and customs, and religious 
 ideas, which differed ver;/ materially from those 
 possessed by the first inhabitants, who w^ere, no 
 doubt, of Turanian descent." 
 
 The author is mista^ken in some respects. We 
 7c7ioiv absolutely that these mysteries came from 
 Atlantis and that initiation into these Mysteries 
 were first had there. We kridiv that in the Temples 
 of Atlantis these Mysteries were first taught to the 
 Neox^hytes and we knoiv that these Mysteries werfe 
 
26 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 brought into Asia and India and later, into Egypt, 
 by the Initiates of Atlantis. These things we of 
 the Ancient Orders know from records now in our 
 hands and hidden in our Sacred and Secret 
 Archives. 
 
 The author may well say that it is very certain 
 that while there are various changes to be found in 
 the Mysteries of the different nations of the Orient, 
 it is also as certeJn that there was a great similarity 
 in them all. Why should they not be alike in their 
 spirit if not entirely in ttieir form since they are 
 all from the same tree? True, changes have been 
 made in both form and name, but this has onlv 
 been done in order to meet the demands of the 
 time. All Orders founded on the Fire Philosophy 
 come from one great tree, and it has been found 
 that in their spirit they are the same, simply exist- 
 ing under different names, the same as the Order 
 now known as the Rosy Cross was once known as 
 the Paracelsians. It is ever the same Order under 
 a different name. Truly Shakespeare said that a 
 Rose was just as prettj^ under another name. 
 
 The Great Lodge of the Magi, the Adepts, and 
 the Perfect Masters, known and designated also by 
 many other names, has never for a moment ceased 
 to exist; this Lodge has often, though secret and 
 unknown, shaped the course of the very empires 
 and controlled the fate of Nations. France and Na- 
 poleon Marleon is a good example, for without Wiq 
 Secret Lodge Np.poleon could never have been the 
 mightj^ Master he was. 
 
 These Adepts and Masters, knowing always the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 27 
 
 line of least resistance, and when and how to act, 
 and having always in vi^w only one object, i.e., the 
 Progress of Humanity and the Universal Brother- 
 hood of Man; despising fame and worldly honors, 
 and working ''without the hope of fee or reward.'' 
 they have concealed their labors, and either influ- 
 enced those who knew them, not to do their work, 
 or worked through agents pledged to conceal their 
 very existence. 
 
 As these lines are being penned, the news comes 
 before the world that peace has been declared be- 
 tween Japan and Russia, at the same time, there 
 comes a letter from one of the truly great on earth 
 and in which are found these lines: ''Looking at 
 these principle events of today, the concluding of 
 peace between Japan and Russia, I am given to 
 know, that the Great White Brotherhood is the real 
 Peace-maker and that President Roosevelt is their 
 Instrument," 
 
 To the public generally, this may be a m.atter of 
 little interest or impoitance, as thecharacter of the 
 work done must be the sole criterion by which that 
 work is to be measured. To the Mystics and Initi- 
 ates, it should be of interest, as showing what it is 
 to be, indeed, a Master of the Brotherhood. It will 
 reveal to them the meaning and goal of human evo- 
 lution, and give them the unqualified assurance 
 that that evolution is being aided hy those who Jcnoiv, 
 as it has not been for many centuries. Such work 
 has now become possible, because of a cycle of lib- 
 erality and enlightenment, when the workers are 
 not likely to be sacrificed by an Inquisition, although 
 
28 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 they may be persecuted for their teachings. Such 
 Masters do exist, and they are truly possessed of 
 profound knoY/ledge, they are ready to help the 
 world, but the world must be ready and willing to 
 receive such help, if it is to be benefited by it. It 
 must not stand ready to destroy both the teachings 
 and its agents. Guided by a complete Philosophy; 
 armed with a key to Symbolism, and aided by these 
 Masters, the Lost Mysteries may be restored and 
 made to tell their story for the benefit of the com- 
 ing race. 
 
 Mere vulgar curiosity and secrecy alone have 
 never, and will never be the password to the adytum 
 of real Initiation. It will take something more than 
 curiosity to find the Gate to the Path that leads to 
 the true Initiation. It will take a heart that throbs 
 for the welfare of humanity. A Love for a Univer- 
 sal Brotherhood of Man. He alone who seeks In- 
 itiation because he desires to help his fellow man 
 can ever hope to be admitted to the Path. 
 
 An history of those who have become Initiates 
 would necessarily be tinged with a touch of pathos, 
 on account of the many sorrowful disappointments 
 it would have to record, in the case of earnest souls 
 peeking, with sincerity and in truth, for the "Lost 
 Word of the Master," (the finding of the Christ), 
 only to be publicly executed as malefactors and ene- 
 mies of State or Church as most of them have been 
 in the past. None have sought Initiation in Love 
 but that they have found the Path and the Christ. 
 That such organizations and Masters should exist 
 through all time and yet be without a history seems 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 29 
 
 at first a strange paradox. The enemies of Mystir 
 cism and Philosophy will urge this fact as a reason 
 for rejecting all that is herein contained, ignorant 
 of the fact that few histories of any people or any 
 epoch are better founded. Foremost among these 
 detractors or deniers will be found the bigoted sec- 
 tarian and the modern materialist. ¥/ith each of 
 these, the real genius of Mysticism, is in perpetual 
 conflict. For the first, the universal and unquali- 
 fied Brotherhood of Man, is a dead letter, for he 
 believes that only himself and his chosen associates 
 can be saved. For the second, the materialist, the 
 recognition of the Divine Principle in Man, and be^ 
 lief in the Immortahty of the Soul, will prove an 
 equal stumbling block. Fortunately, the number 
 of bigoted sectarians and out-and-out materialists 
 is few but those few seem to be in authority and 
 able to persecute all those who may not be of their 
 way of thinking. The historical deficiency referred 
 to is by no means without a paralleL That super- 
 structure known as Christianity has, it is true^ 
 many historical phases ; of dogmas the m.ost contra- 
 dictory; of doctrines promulgated in one age, and 
 enforced with vice-regal authority, and severe pen- 
 alties for denial and disbelief, only to be denied and 
 repudiated as ''damnable heresy" in another age. 
 In the meantime, the origin of these doctrines and 
 the personality of the Man of Sorroivs around which 
 these traditions cluster receive no adequate sup^ 
 port from authentic history. 
 
 Because there is no true history of the Christ to 
 be had, or because orthodox Churchanity has not 
 
30 THE PHILOSOPHY OB* FtUM 
 
 been able to produce such a Ms^torj Of wboffi they 
 make pretensions of following^ btit wbota tBey have 
 never really Jcnoivn, must we conclude that it is all 
 a fable, that there was no Jesus of Nazareth, but 
 that it was put forth and kept alive by designing' 
 men, to support their pretensions to authority? 
 Are historical facts and personal bic^raphy alone 
 entitled to credit? While everlasting prineiples^^ 
 Divine Beneficence, and the laying down of one'^ 
 life for another are of no account? Is that which 
 has inspired the hope and brighteneei the lives of 
 the down-trodden and despairing for ages a meref 
 fancy, a designing lie? Tear every shred of history 
 from the life of the Christ, today, and prove beyond 
 all controversy that he never existed, a^d Humani- 
 ty, from its heart of hearts, would create him again 
 tomorrow and justify the creation by every intui- 
 tion of the human soul and by every need of the 
 dptily life of man. The historical contention might 
 be given up, ignored, and the whole character, gen- 
 ius and mission of Jesus, the Christ, be none the less 
 real, beneficent, and eternal, with all of its human 
 and dramatic episodes. Explain it as you will it 
 can never be explained away; the character remains; 
 and whether Historical or Ideal, it is real and eter- 
 7iaL The Christ was no myth. 
 
 This digression serves to illustrate a principle of 
 Interpretation. The Traditions and Symbols of 
 Mysticism and the Philosophy of Fire do not derive 
 their real value fi'om historical data, but from the 
 universal and eternal truths which they embody, and all 
 Orders and Fraternities are founded on these symbols of 
 
THE PHII.OSOPHY OF FIRE SI 
 
 My^tieism and there is no Order, Masonry not excepted, 
 but that is founded on the Philosophy of the Living Fire, 
 Witliout Love no Ch^der could exist Love is the only 
 bond tfmt can hind men Eternally together. Were 
 they historical episodes only, the world in its cyclic 
 revolutions would long ago have swept by them and 
 buried them in Eternal oblivion. They are facts, 
 imparted by Initiate to Initiate, from time out of 
 memw^y, until the pi^esent time. These great truths, 
 obscured and lost in one age by misinterpretation 
 or persecution, rise. Phoenix-like, rejuvenated in 
 the next, I should not say lost, they are simply 
 held in the secret Archives of the great Orders to 
 be given out again when the time is ripe. They are 
 immortal truths, knowing neither decay nor death. 
 They are like Divine Images concealed in a block of 
 stone, which many artists assail with mallet and 
 chisel, square and compass, only, perchance, to re- 
 lease a distorted idol. Only the Master workman, 
 the Adept, can so chip away the stone as to reveal 
 in all its grandeur and beauty the divine ideal, and 
 endow it with the breath of life. Such is the builder 
 of character. Ceremonial Initiation will never make 
 either a Master or an Adept. Any man or set of 
 men can carry on Ceremonial Initiation. No Mas- 
 ter can be made in this way. It takes a Master to 
 take man in his crude or materialistic state, and 
 make a Master out of him, and this can only be 
 done by a process of growth and a rigid system of 
 training. 
 
 No genuine Mystic, imbued with the spirit of lib- 
 erality, and aU Mystics are liberal, wiU treat any 
 
82 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 religion with derision or contempt, or exclude from 
 fellowship any Brother w^ho believes in the exis- 
 tence of God, the Urjiversal Brotherhood of Man, 
 and the Immortality of the Soul. This spirit is the 
 very foundation of Mysticism, and any departure 
 from it is un-Mystical and directly against the 
 spirit of Universal Brotherhood. True Mysticism 
 has, for ages, held aloft the torch-light of Toleration, 
 Equity, and Fraternity. The bigoted sectarian, who- 
 ever he may be, divides the world into two classes ; 
 those who, with zeal and blind faith, accept his dog- 
 mas and those who do not. The first he calls **broth- 
 er,''and the second class he regards as enemies 
 w^ho must be persecuted. Mysticism, no matter 
 what the school, while adopting no religion and no 
 form of doctrine or creed, as such, or as formula- 
 ted by any one religion, recognizes certain basic 
 principles embodying the ethics taught in all relig- 
 ions. No religion., no matter lioiv fanatical it may be, 
 L'ould exist unless there was some truth in it. Every 
 Mystic formulates his own creed to suit himself and 
 according to the Light tmthin his Soul, and may 
 Institute such forms of worship, /or himself, as may 
 seem to him desirable or beneficient. As he grows 
 in wisdom he will give up the old forms for others 
 until at last, he will worship at the very throne of the 
 Living Fire — Love — God, 
 
 The distinction between the esoteric and exoteric 
 doctrines was always and from the very earliest 
 times preserved among the Initiates. It came from 
 Atlantis up to the time of Alexander and after that 
 they resorted for instructions, dogmas, and mys" 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PIRE 33 
 
 teries, to all the schools; to those of Egypt, and 
 Asia, as well as those of ancient Thrace, Sicily, 
 Etruria, and other countries. 
 
 The real source from whence the Ancient Wis- 
 dom came was Atlantis, thence to Egj^pt and old 
 India, the Mother of Civilizations and Religions, 
 and the esoteric or concealed wisdom. 
 
 The most profound secrets of Mysticism are not 
 revealed or taught in any Ceremonial Initiation. 
 They belong only to a few. These secrets must be 
 sought by the individual himself, and the Neophyte 
 is debarred from possessing them solely by his own 
 inattention to the hints everywhere given by the 
 Masters of the Fraternities. If he prefers to treat 
 the whole subject with contempt, and to deny that 
 any such real knowledge exists, it becomes evident 
 th8.t he not only closes the door against the possi- 
 bility of himself possessing such knowledge, but he 
 also becomes impervious of any evidence of its exis- 
 tence that might come to him at any time. He has 
 no one but himself to blame if he is left in darkness. 
 "Seek and ye shall find, Knock and it shall be 
 opened unto you." 
 
 *' So long as the struggle for bare existence in- 
 volves, as it does today, the greater part of the 
 energy, time, and opportunities of man, he will 
 never discover the real meaning of Life, or the pur- 
 pose of human existence. Even this much may be 
 discerned from physical evolution alone ; from the 
 study of the human brain, in which there is a con- 
 tinually increasing portion of gray substance set 
 free from the functions incident to the preserva- 
 
 V 
 
84 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 tion of the physical structure, and evidently de- 
 signed to be appropriated to separate and Higher 
 use. Mere intellectual activities alone, connected 
 with the physical plane, with the maintenance and 
 enjoyment of life will not explain the philosophy of 
 cerebral development. It is largely for this reason 
 that the offices of the encephalon are so little 
 known today. 
 
 There are latent 'powers and almost infinite capa- 
 bilities in man, the meaning of which he has hardly 
 dreamed of possessing. Nor will leisure and intel- 
 lectual cultivation alone reveal these powers. It is 
 only through a complete philosophy of the entire 
 nature of man and the capacities and destiny of the 
 human soul supplemented by the use of such knowl- 
 edge, that man will eventually come into possession 
 of his birthright and begin the journey to perfec- 
 tion. It is the work of the Masters to show man 
 the Path to such development and the Masters of 
 all ages and Fraternities have faithfully performed 
 this great work. 
 
 Two conditions at the present time stand squarely 
 in the way of such achievements : first, anarchy and 
 confusion, the result of selfishness in all social 
 relations. This condition can be overcome in but 
 one way, viz: by the recognition of the unqualified 
 Brotherhood of Man; not as a theory, a religious 
 duty, or a mere matter of sentiment; but as a fact 
 in nature; a Universal and Divine Law; the penalty 
 for the violation of which is precisely the conditions 
 under which humanity now struggles and suffers. 
 
 The second condition, which has given rise to 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 35 
 
 '^Confusion among the Workmen "in building the 
 socieJ temple and the individual habitation of man, 
 is false ideals; inefficient methods of education; and 
 almost total ignorance of the existence and the 
 nature of the Soul. The result of this ignorance 
 may be seen in the fact, that not one individual in a 
 million who has both leisure and opportunity^ 
 makes any real advancement in the evolution of the 
 higher powers or is even cognizant of the fact that 
 he is a living soul. 
 
 These things ought not to be so, nor need they 
 longer be, if earnest men and women would seek 
 diligently, first for the cause of all our ills, and 
 second, for a sufficient remedy. This remedy is to 
 be found., first, in Jcnoivledge. Second, in service of 
 the Truth. 
 
 If real knowledge of the nature of the Soul and 
 the destiny of man had never existed, our present 
 condition would be pitiable in the extreme; but 
 when we demonstrate that this knowledge once 
 existed, that it still exists, and that it always ex- 
 isted, even though only in the Secret Archives of 
 the Orders, that it was first degraded by selfishness 
 and then lost by design, and that for centuries 
 designing Priests, many of whom would have dis-^ 
 graced a scaffold, but who have been canonized as 
 saints, have done their utmost to deprive humanity 
 of this knowledge, what shall humanity say? Shall 
 he preach Universal Brotherhood and Toleration^ 
 and yet seek revenge on the priesthood? A thous- 
 and times, no! but rather leave priest and prole-- 
 tariat to settle their own affairs and go their own 
 
36 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 way, and go to work ourselves to recover the lost 
 knowledge^ and when recovered devote it absolutely 
 to Humanity. Knowing these things as we do, can 
 we condemn the Arch Fraternities who have ever 
 been the guardians of this Secret Knowledge? 
 Should we not rather be thankful to them for keep- 
 ing it in its virgin purity? In all our popular pres- 
 ent religious instructions, from childhood, and 
 through all the ministrations of religion in after 
 life, we are taught to look very sharp after the sal- 
 vation of our souls ; and this in \hQ face of the state' 
 ment that a very large proportion of the human 
 race will eventually be utterly lost, or damned, for 
 all eternity! Science (?) completes the picture by 
 trying to demonstrate that the struggle for exist- 
 ence is a necessary condition for all improvements; 
 and that only the sharpest tooth and longest claw 
 can survive. The ideal thus held aloft by both 
 religion and science, of the present time, is pure 
 selfishness. Self-preservation is regarded as the 
 ^' First Law of Life,'^^ The result is Materialism in 
 the strictest and broadest sense, and this has para- 
 lyzed wheie it has not utterly destroyed, all higlier 
 ideals. ¥/Tiat are the results? In Science it leads 
 to the horrible crime of Vivisection, with its Serum 
 Therapy and demand for human beings for exper- 
 iment, and in Religion we have a pure materialism. 
 Man for himself, while the Law teaches us to givQ 
 life and thereby wm it. 
 
 Is it not reasonable to suppose that if humanity 
 were possessed of real knowledge it might govern 
 its actions, and so shape their lives as to avoid the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 37 
 
 pitialls of ignorance, and set its feet on the line of 
 the Higher Evolution? Religion, true religion, that 
 which comes from the hee,rt, offers Faith, and in 
 Faith ail things are possible. Such religion is pure 
 Mysticism. 
 
 There is but one source of real knowledge, viz; 
 Mysticism a,nd Philosophy. The twain are one, and 
 these have taken their rise directly, from the An- 
 cient Mysteries. The Universal Brotherhood of 
 Man must be, and is, the only basis of true Ethics, 
 and the Great Republic is the Ideal State. If these 
 concepts were accepted and acted upon, there would 
 result, time, opportunity, a.nd the power to appre- 
 hend the deeper and higher problems of the origin, 
 nature, Pvnd destiny of man. "Man is not man as 
 yet, and will not be until he has found his Soul." 
 What he may be or vvhat he might do, under favor- 
 able conditions, is very seldom dreamed of by 
 humanity and is only shown to us by the lives of 
 the few Masters. 
 
 There is a widespread and increasing conviction 
 that true Education would prove a panacea for all 
 our evils ; and that if we could begin with the train- 
 ing of children, we could eventually reform society, 
 even the children of vicious parentage might be 
 reformed. 
 
 This is true but it will not be enough to follow the 
 lines of education as at present used. We must 
 have a real, an Higher education, the education of 
 the Soul. The bringing out of the Highest in man. 
 Only by teaching the child the truth, not as sup- 
 posed to be by material or theological educators, 
 
$8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 but as the Soul teaches man what is right. Selfish- 
 ness or material gain, is the key-note of the present 
 day education and it is for this reason that it has 
 failed so miserably. Nothing so shrouds the Higher 
 Belf (the Soul) in man as selfishness, and this is the 
 reason why so few persons are possessed of the 
 direct perception. What is true, is True, and what 
 5s false, is False. 
 
 It is this Higher knowledge toward which all use- 
 ful and rational acquirement tends ; and why should 
 our eiforts cease short of the very Highest? All 
 education that does not tend in this direction, with 
 the final goal consistently and continually in view, 
 is false, and is necessarily a failure. This Higher 
 knowledge or Philosophy, is a knowledge of the 
 Soul; of its origin, nature, powers, and the laws 
 that govern its evolution; and this is precisely the 
 knowledge which modern science fails to afford, but 
 which Ancient Science taught in the Mysteries of 
 Antiquity which was nothing short of the Philoso- 
 phy of the Living Fire (Soul). All preliminary 
 ^tudy and training led up to this — '*The real meas- 
 ure of a man. " Just as all life is an evolution, so is 
 all real knowledge or Philosophy an Initiation ; and 
 it proceeds in a Natural order, and advances by 
 specific *' degrees." These "degrees" are now 
 materiahzed in the Modern Masonic Fraternity, an 
 Order that has all the material and hidden wisdom 
 of the Mysteries of Antiquity, but which has lost 
 the key, excepting in a few instances. In the true 
 Initiation, the candidate must always be worthy and 
 well qualified, duly and truly prepared. That is, 
 
THE P £[ I L 6 S OP H Y 6 IB" F I H £ 89 
 
 he must perceive that such knowledge exists; must 
 desire to possess it, and must be wiUing to make 
 whatever personal sacrifice is necessary for its 
 acquirement. He must have passed beyond the 
 stage of blind belief or superstition ^ the bondage of 
 fear, the age of fable, and the dominion of appetite 
 and sense. This is the meaning of being ''duly and 
 truly prepared." He must have proved his fitness 
 in these directions, no less than the absence in him 
 of that subtler form of intellectual selfishness which 
 comes from the possession of knowledge, and th6 
 desire for dominion through it over others less 
 highly endowed, for selfish purposes of his own* 
 His motive, therefore, alone, can determine that he 
 is ''worthy and well qualified." 
 
 It is true on every plane of life, that in the pro- 
 cess by which knowledge is acquired — always by 
 experience — man becomes the thing which he 
 knows. That is, knov/ing is a progressive becoming; 
 There results, therefore, a continuous transforma- 
 tion of the motives, ideals, and perceptions of the 
 individual, whenever in his daily experience in life 
 he is placed on the lines of least resistance or the 
 Natural Order of Evolution. This is the really Sci- 
 entific and Philosophical meaning of all true 
 Initiation. 
 
 There is, at present, so much of the commonplace 
 that passes as knowledge, and which is accepted as 
 such by worthy, though unthinking students, and 
 this is so utterly void of comprehension, that 
 unless one is familiar with this line of thought h^ 
 wiU not really see the truth and bearing of the 
 
40 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 statement, that man always becomes that which he 
 really knows. Here lies the reason why the mere 
 inculcation of moral precepts so often fails entirely 
 in transforming character ; and w^hy there is so 
 much lip-service. When men once understand this, 
 then they will understand the Mystery of Alchemy, 
 the Transformation or Transmutation of baser 
 metals into the pure and shining gold. For once 
 they understand, once the Conscience has become 
 awakened and they have learned to know, then they 
 will have become, for in the process of truly learning 
 to know, they will have become. 
 
 Conscience is the struggle of the understanding 
 in assimilating experience ;it is the effort of the indi- 
 vidual to adjust precept with practice, or in other 
 words, Conscience is that living, active process, 
 resulting in the growth of the Soul, and in the 
 increase of man's power to apprehend the truth. 
 Thus, while he is learning he is avotually growing or 
 Transmuting, and the process will be finished ere 
 he knows it. 
 
 In the Ancient Mysteries, Life presented itself 
 to the candidate or Neophyte, as a problem to be 
 solved, and not as certain propositions to be memo- 
 rized and as easily forgotten. The solution of this 
 problem constituted all genuine Initiation, and at 
 every step or ''degree" the problem expanded. 
 For this reason was ''Man, Jcnoiv thy self ^^ written 
 above the door of every temple of Initiation. As 
 the vision of the Neophyte enlarged in relation to 
 the problems and meaning of life, his powers of 
 apprehension and assimilation also increased pro- 
 
thS philosophy op fire 4i 
 
 portionately. This was also an evolution. The 
 lower degrees of such Initiation concerned the 
 ordinary p.ffairs of life, viz : a knowledge of the laws 
 and processes of external nature; the Neophyte's 
 relation to these through his physical body, and his 
 relations, on the physical plane, through his Pvniinal 
 senses and social instincts, to his fellow men. 
 These things being learned, not memorized, the 
 Neophyte passed on to the next degree. He here 
 learned the nature of his Soul: the process of its 
 evolution, and began to unfold those finer instincts 
 that have been so often referred to in works dealing 
 with Initiation. If he was found capable of under- 
 standing these, and kept his vow in the preceding 
 degrees, he presently discovered the evolution 
 icithin him of senses and faculties pertaining to the 
 ''soul-plane." His progress would be instantly 
 arrested, and his teachers would refuse all further 
 instructions, if he was found negligent of the ordi- 
 nary duties of life ; those to his family, his neigh- 
 bors, or his country. All these must have been 
 fully discharged before he could stand upon the 
 threshold of the Greater Mysteries ; for in these he 
 came to be an unselfish servant to Humanity as a 
 whole; and no longer the right to bestow the gifts 
 of knowledge or power that he possessed, upon his 
 own kinsmen, or friends, in preference to strangerSi 
 In the higher degrees, he might be precluded from 
 using these powers even to preserve hig own lifes 
 Both the Master and his powers belongs to Hu^ 
 manity. If the reader will but considei* how the 
 Jews called upon the Christ to "save himself and 
 
42 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 come down from the cross," if he were the Christ, 
 it may be seen that this doctrine of Supreme Self- 
 ishness ought, long ago, to have been apprehended 
 by the Christian world; for while it is a Divine 
 Attribute, the Synonym of the Christ, it is latent 
 in all humanity, and must be evolved as herein 
 given. 
 
 That which makes such an evolution seem to 
 modern readers impossible, is, that it cannot be 
 conceived as being accomplished in a single life, nor 
 c§jPLib^^^ It is the result of persistent effort ^«ded 
 b^ High Ideals throu gh many li ve^ Miose who 
 deny Pre-exist^nce may logicaffy 3ehy all such evo- 
 lution. There must, however, come a time when 
 the consummation is reached in one life; and this 
 is the logical meaning of the saying of the Christ 
 
 At this day, even many of those who have not the 
 honor to belong to any of the Higher Secret Fra- 
 ternities, know that there was both an exoteric and 
 an esoteric doctrine with the early Christians ; that 
 the esoteric doctrines were communicated orally in 
 the Mysteries of Initiation; and that these Mys- 
 teries conformed to and were originally derived 
 from those of the so-called Pagan world. The Mys- 
 teries of Christ received a new interpretation after 
 the first Nicene Council, and as the Church sought 
 dominion, it lost the Great^ Sepx^t, and since then 
 has denied that it ever existed, and has done all in its ! 
 power to obliterate all its records and monuments. 
 
 That this is absolutely true, we can prove, not 
 alone by the Secret Manuscripts which we, of these 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 43 
 
 Orders hold, but by history. TertuUian, who died 
 about A- D. 216, says in his apology: '*None are 
 admitted to the religious Mysteries without an oath 
 of Secrecy. We appeal to your Thracian and Eleu- 
 sinian Mysteries ; and we are specially bound to 
 this caution, because if we prove faithless, we 
 should not only provoke Heaven, but draw upon our 
 headg the utmost rigor of human displeasure." 
 
 Archelaus, Bishop of Oascara in Mesopotamia, 
 the year 278, said: *'These mysteries the church 
 now communicates to him who has passed through 
 the introductory degree. These are not explained 
 to the Gentiles at all; nor are they taught in the 
 hearing of the Catechumens, but much that is spo- 
 ken is in disguised terms, that the Faithful, who 
 possess the knowledge, may be still more informed, 
 and those who are not acquainted with it may suffer 
 no disadvantage." 
 
 The Council of Nice had not taken these Secret 
 Fraternities into consideration, nor did they know 
 much of these Fraternities. They had knowledge 
 of such Orders but were under the impression that 
 they were only for the purpose of Pagan Initiations. 
 They did not know that these Orders had records 
 that would be handed down from Initiate to Initi- 
 ate for all times to come, and that the Keys to these 
 Sacred Mysteries could never be lost to these Fra- 
 ternities. Had they known of this, they might 
 have made different changes. Again, we find that 
 St. Basil, the great Bishop of Caesarea, says : 
 
 *'We receive the dogmas transmitted to us by 
 writing, and those which have descended to us from 
 
44 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRIE 
 
 the Ar ostles, and beneath the Mystery of Oral tra- 
 ditioE ; for several things have been ha^nded to us 
 without v^riting, lest the vulgar, too lamiliar v^ith 
 our dogmas, should lose a due respect for them. 
 This is v^hat the UninUiated are not permitted to 
 contemplate; and how should it ever be proper to 
 write and circulate among the people an account 
 of them." 
 
 The men who composed the Council of Nice knew 
 that there were those, Priests, who claimed to know 
 these Secret Mysteries but they were called more 
 mad than anything else, exactly as our Churchmen 
 think of the greater Mystics of our day. 
 
 The Universal Science and the Sublime Philoso- 
 phy, once taught by the Atlantians, later in the 
 Greater Mysteries of Egypt, India, Chaldea, Asia 
 and Persia, and among many other nations of antiq- 
 uity, is neither known to Modern Christianity, Ma- 
 sonry or any of the other Exoteric Orders. They 
 may be Initiators of Ceremonial degrees but the 
 Mystic Fraternities alone have preserved the Key 
 to these Initiations and have kept the teachings in 
 their purity. 
 
 The Ancient Mysteries, or Mysteries of Antiq- 
 uity were first taught in the Temples of Atlantis and 
 spread from thence as has already been stated. 
 These Mysteries were taught, under ma.ny different 
 names, up to the time of the Initiation of Christ into 
 the Essenian Order or Fraternity. After this date 
 they naturally took the name of Christian Mys- 
 teries. For the very reason that Christ was one of 
 their Arch-Initiates. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 4S 
 
 In the year 525, B. C; Cambj^ces, called *'the 
 mad," led an army into Egypt, overran the country^ 
 destroj^ed its cities, palaces and temples, scattered 
 its Priest-Initiates (pJl Priests of the temples "were 
 not only Initiates into these Vysteries, but were 
 Masters since they were the appointed teachers of 
 the Neophytes), and reduced the country to a Per* 
 sian province. Many of its priests took refuge in 
 Greece, and conveyed thither the Egyptian Mys- 
 teries (these Mysteries should really have been 
 called the Atlantian Mysteries), which Pythagoras 
 bad journeyed to Egypt to obtain half a century 
 earlier. In the time of Plato, a century later, the 
 Mysteries were in a flourishing condition, and in. 
 them he learned his sublime Philosophy. At the 
 beginning of the Christian era, the mysteries werd 
 known only to the Initiates and Priests and the 
 masses were in ignorance as to their existence. 
 There remained, at the time, the Essenian Ordei^ 
 and also the Gnostics, the latter being an Inner 
 Circle of the Essenes. The Therapeutiae of Alex^ 
 andria was simply another name for a Circle of the 
 Essenian Fraternity. Today the Order then known 
 as the Essenes is known as the Fraternity of the 
 Rosy Cross. There has never been any interrup- 
 tion of the Secret Order. It has changed its name 
 many times since it was founded on the Atlantis^ 
 but its teachings are the same. Thus, from thes^ 
 Orders the Christian Mysteries were derived and 
 are preserved in the Secret Archives of all true 
 Occult Orders, known only to the Initiates of the 
 Higher Degrees. The Neoplatonists, headed by 
 
46 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 Ammonius Saccus, undertook to preserve tlie primi- 
 tive relation, and the utterances of the Christian 
 Bishops to which reference has been made, shov^ 
 how the Secret Doctrine was adopted from the ear- 
 her mysteries by the primitive Christirms during 
 the first three centuries of our era. After the first 
 Council of Nice, A. D., 325, which was presided over 
 by none other than Exoteric Christians looking for 
 power and authority, little more was heard of the 
 earlier doctrines, and with the burning of the Great 
 Library of Alexandria, Catholic supremacy and the 
 dark ages obliterated the primitive Vv^isdom of West- 
 ern Europe, so far as the masses were concerned, 
 as it was overrun by hordes of Barbarians from the 
 north. The principal seats of learning were the 
 convents. Coming now to the dawn of the 16th 
 century, and the greatest Protestant and Rosicru- 
 cian Reformation, we find Johann Trithemius, Ab- 
 bott of St. Jacob, at ¥/urtzburg, celebrated as one 
 of the greatest Alchemists and Adepts; and Cor- 
 nelius Agrippus and Paracelsus were his pupils. 
 We must not forget Christian Rosencreutz, the Re- 
 founder of the Rosicrucian Fraternity, and the pow- 
 erful influence his works had on the reformation of 
 those times. John Reuchlin, a famous Kabalist, of 
 that time, and counted as one of the most learned 
 men of his day in Europe, was the friend and pre- 
 ceptor of Luther, and Luther's first public utter- 
 ances were a course of lectures on the Philosophy 
 of Aristotle. What effect the Rosicrucian Reforma- 
 tion had on Luther is not positively known. How- 
 ever we do know that Luther used as his private 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 47 
 
 seal the Rose and the Cross. A strong effort was 
 made to revive the Ancient Wisdom among those 
 outside of the Inner Circle 'of the Secret Fraterni- 
 ties, but the age was too gross and superstitious, 
 and the reformation resulted in centuries of blind 
 belief, and the suppression of the Secret Doctrine. 
 However, the Universal Reformation had accom- 
 plished one of its purposes, it had drawn to itself 
 those who were truly ready to be received by the 
 Mighty Secret Fraternity. Our records show us 
 that this is an absolute fact. 
 
 Students should always bear In mind the fact 
 that in all the truly Secret Fraternities, there has 
 always been, and will ever be, an Exoteric portion 
 given out to the world, to the Vnitiated, and an Eso- 
 teric portion reserved for the Initiate^ and revealed 
 by degrees, according as the Neophyte demonstrates 
 his fitness to receive, conceal, and rightly use the 
 knowledge so imparted. Few professed Christians 
 are, perhaps, aware that such was the case with 
 Christianity from its earliest times up to the pres- 
 ent and that such must continue to be the case for 
 all times to come, until men reach perfection. 
 
 All true Occult Fraternities recognize the whole 
 world as but one Republic, of which each Nation is 
 a family, and every individual a child, not in any 
 wise derogating from the differing duties which the 
 diversity of states requires, tends to create a new 
 people, which, composed of many nations and 
 tongues, shall be bound together by the bonds of a 
 true Science, the belief of the Fatherhood of an All- 
 wise Being and the Universal Brotherhood of Man. 
 
48 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 Therefore, the real object of these Orders, be they 
 Mystic Masonry or mij other Mystic or Occult Fra^- 
 teriiities, may be summed up in the following: To 
 efface from among men the prejudices of caste, the 
 conventional distinctions of color, origin, opinion, 
 nationality ; to annihilate fanaticism and supersti- 
 tion, extirpate national discord and with it extin- 
 guish the firebrand of wa.r;in a word — to arrive, 
 by free and pacific progress, at one formula or 
 model of eternal and universal right, according to 
 which each individual human being shall be free to 
 develop every faculty with Y/hich he may be en- 
 dowed, and to concur heartily and with all the full- 
 ness of his strength, in the bestowment of happi- 
 ness upon all, and thus to make of the whole human 
 race one family of brothers, united by Love, Wis- 
 dom and Science. 
 
 In order to do this, a true and beautiful Philoso- 
 phy must be taught. True Science and Religion 
 must be wedded together and the Key to both Sci- 
 ence and Religion or Philosophy must be God — 
 Love. Such a Philosophy are we ever ready to 
 teach and only by so doing can a Universal Brother- 
 hood of Man be founded. 
 
 The essential form or idea of all things; the 
 potency or force ; and tbe matter as we now discern 
 it, must have existed in primordial space. There- 
 fore, these two always exist, viz: the inner potency, 
 and the outer act ; the concealed Idea, and the outer 
 form ; the inner meaning and the outer event. Each 
 in turn a symbol of the other. Hence the saying 
 on the Smaragdine Table of Hermes, as above, so 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 4? 
 
 Jbelpw. All outward things are therefore symbols, 
 or embodiments of pre-existing Ideas, and out of 
 this subjective Ideal realm all visible things have 
 emanated. This doctrine of emanations is the key 
 to the Philosophy of Plato, and that of the Gnostic 
 and Essene sects from which the early Christians 
 derived their Mysteries, 
 
 There is a Grand Science known as Magic^ and every 
 Real blaster of any Order must be a Magician. Feared 
 by the ignorant^ and ridiculed by the supposedly ^Uearn- 
 ed, " the Divine Science and its Masters have, nevertheless, 
 existed in all ages, and exist today as surely as the Or- 
 ders or Fraternities exist in which they are the Masters, 
 Occultism in its deeper meaning and recondite mysteries 
 constitutes and possesses this Science, and all genuine 
 Initiation consists in an unfolding of the natural j^owera 
 of the Neophyte, so that he shall become the very thing he 
 desires to possess. In seeking Magic, he Anally becomes 
 the Magi. All genuine Initiation is like evolution and 
 regeneration from icithin. Devoid of this Inner mean- 
 ing and power, all Rituals and Ceremonial Iniiiaticms 
 are but foolish jargon and without meaning to the Initia- 
 ted. That the Ghristlife and power that made Jesus to 
 be called Ghristos, blaster, whereby he healed the sick 
 cast out devils, and foretold future events, is the 
 same Life revealed by Initiation in the Greater 
 Mysteries of Antiquity, is perfectly plain. The dis- 
 repute into which the Divine Science has fallen has 
 arisen from its abuse and degradation. 
 
 There are dangers inseparable from Symbolism 
 and Mysticism, which afford an impressive lesson 
 in regard to similar risks attendant on the use of 
 
P THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 secret forces. The ImagiDation called in to assist 
 the i-eason usurps its piace^ or leaves its ally help- 
 lessly entangled in its vveb. Names which gtand for 
 tluiigs are eonfonnded with them; the means are 
 mistaken for the ends; the instrument of interpret 
 iation for the object; and thus s:ymbols come to 
 iisurp an independent character as truths and per- 
 sons. Though perhaps a necessary path, they are 
 fi dangerous one, by wluch to approach the Deity; 
 in which many, says Plutarch, mistaking the sign 
 for the thing signified, fell into a ridiculous super- 
 3tition, while others, in avoiding one extreme, 
 plunge into the no less hideous gulf of irreligion 
 p^nd impiety, 
 
 It is through the Mysteries, Cicero sa5^s, that v/e 
 have learned the first principles of Life, wherefore 
 the term "'Initiation" is used with good reason. 
 
 To emiiloy Nature's Universal Symbolism instead 
 of the technicalities of language, rewards the hum- 
 blest inquirer and discloses its secrets to everyone 
 in proportion to his preparatory training to com- 
 prehend thern. If their Philosophical mepming was 
 g^bove the comprehension of some, their moral and 
 political m^eanings are within the reach of all. 
 
 In every age there have been dabblers in magic 
 as there are at the present time; sorcerers and nec- 
 romancers, w^ho, possessing some of the secrets, 
 and imbued with none of its beneficence, have used 
 this knowledge and power for purely personal and 
 selfish ends. Hypnotism and Phenomenal Spiritu- 
 alism are sufficient illustrations of the power 
 referred to, and the abuse to which it may be put. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE M 
 
 Magic^ per se, is pJways aii absolute Science, and 
 tip to a certain point it may be cultivated withouf^ 
 regard to its use, or the well-being of man ;■ aitliougli 
 any a.buse of it will prove fatal to the magiciaii 
 sooner or later and the black Magician will eventu- 
 ally destroy himsell 
 
 The popular idea i^ that education consists largely* 
 in the cultivation of the intellectual powers. An 
 averp.ge standard of morals is always recommended 
 by educators, and its outer form is ihustrated by 
 religious ceremonies. But intellectual cultiva^tioii 
 alone, no matter to what extent it may be carried—^ 
 and the further it goes on in this one-sided way th^ 
 worse for all concerned— is in no sense an evolu^ 
 tion, as such one-sided education is the cause of our 
 present day bigotism and extreme narrow-minded^ 
 ness. Perfect intellectual development^ without' 
 spiritual discernment and m.oral obligation, is thet 
 sign-manual of Satan: Intelligence^ without good- 
 ness, lies athwart the Divine Pla,n in the evolution 
 of Cosmos* Intellect and Altruism by no mean.^ 
 necessarily go hand in hand. One ma.y have a very 
 clear intellect, have quick perceptions, and be a 
 good reasoner, and 5^et a perfect scoundreL On the? 
 other hand, the one may be very dull intellectually ,- 
 and yet be kind, brotherly and sympathetic to the iasf 
 degree. A world made up of the former v/ould be a 
 bad place to live in ; if of the lalterj a thousand time^ 
 to be preferred. Magic contemplates thatalharound 
 development which, liberating the intellect from 
 the dominion of the senses and illuminating th^ 
 Spiritual Perceptions, places the individual on th# 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 52 
 
 lines of least resistance with the Inflexible Laws of 
 Nature, and he becomes Nature's co-worker or 
 hand-maid. To all such, Nature mptkes obeisance, 
 and delegates her powers, and they become Mas- 
 ters. The real Master conceals his power and uses 
 it only for the good of others. He works '* without 
 the hope of fee or reward, " knowing that God is just. 
 
 Knowing that "Knowledge is Power," designing 
 and evil men desire to possess both knowledge and 
 power for entirely selfish purposes. It may be 
 readily understood that the more knowledge and 
 power a purely selfish man possesses, the more 
 inimical to humanity he becomes. He can do less 
 harm if kept in ignorance. This is especially the 
 case with those Deeper Sciences which deal with 
 Mind, and influence the thoughts and actions of 
 others. Modern Science^ purely materialistiG ia its 
 aims and condasions, has always ridiculed the idea em- 
 bodied in Magic^ for materialism can never recognize 
 the Spiritual, 
 
 The traditional Lost Word of the Master is a key 
 to all the science of Magic, but it must be remem- 
 bered that the Lost Word is not a Word, but refers 
 to Spiritual Awakening; Spiritual Development; 
 the finding of the Christ within the heart of man. The 
 knowledge of the Master is not empirical. It does 
 not consist of a few isolated formulas by which cer- 
 tain startling or unusual effects can be produced. 
 Formulas have nothing to do with this knowledge. 
 J fe has found and knows Ids oivn soul, he has purified 
 the heart so that it throbs with Love for Humanity and 
 through the re-awakening of Instinct and Intuition^ he 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 53 
 
 holds the key to the Universe and therefw^e uses Na- 
 ture'^s Laws ivhereby to do his ivork. Be does not work 
 contrary to Natural Laivs, but in harmony with them. 
 The Magician's art is th,erefore based on a Science 
 far deeper and more exact than modern physical 
 science has yet dreamed of, and back of this science 
 Hes a Philosophy as boundless as the Universe, as 
 inexhaustible as Time, and as beneficent as the 
 "Father in Heaven." 
 
 Such men, such Masters — of themselves, have 
 always existed, and no book or record v^orth pre- 
 serving or in any way necessary for the good of 
 man is ever lost. In the secret Crypts, alike inac- 
 cessible to the hands of Uninitiated man, and the 
 corrosion of time and decay, these Records are well 
 preserved and can only be made use of by those 
 who are truly prepared and are fit to make use of 
 their teachings. 
 
 All human progress runs in cycles. Modern 
 materialistic science has had its brief day and must 
 gradually give way. True philosophy has already 
 undermined its foundations. The new age will show 
 a genuine revival of Philosophy and true Science. 
 
 The immortal principles enunciated by Plato, 
 clothed in modern garb of thought, less involved 
 and dialectical, will again command the attention of 
 the thinking world. Every one is aware that the 
 source of Plato's knowledge was the Mysteries; he 
 was an Initiate, and on almost every page reveals 
 the obligation he is under not to betray to the com- 
 mon people the secrets taught only to Initiates 
 under the pledge of secrecy. 
 
64 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 There is in Nature one most potent force, by 
 means of wliicb, a single man, who could possess 
 himself of it, and should know how to direct it, 
 could revolutionize and change the whole face of the 
 world. This force was known to the Ancients and 
 the secret is still held by the true Mystic Fraterni- 
 ties of this day. It is a Universal agent, whose 
 supreme law is eqnilibriiim; and whereby, if sci- 
 ence can but learnTiow to control it, it will be pos- 
 sible to change the order of the Seasons ; to produce 
 in night the phenomena of day; to send a thought 
 in an instant around the world ; to heal or slay at a 
 distance; to give our words universal success, and 
 make them reverberate everywhere. 
 
 There is a Life Principle of the world, a universal 
 agent, yvherein are two natures and a double cur- 
 rent of love and wrath. This ambient fluid pervades 
 everything. It is a ray detached from the glory of 
 the Sun, and fixed by the weight of the atmosphere 
 and the central attraction. It is the body of the 
 Holy Spirit, the Universal Agent, the Serpent 
 devouring his own tail. 
 
 With this electro-miagnetic ether, this vital a^nd 
 luminous caloric, the Ancients and the Alchemists 
 were familiar. Of this agent, that phase of modern 
 ignoreince termed physical science, talks incoher- 
 ently, knowing nothing of it save its effects ; and the- 
 ology might apply to it all its pretended definitions 
 of spirit. 
 
 Quiescent, it is appreciable by no human sense; 
 disturbed, or in movement, none can explain its 
 mode of action except a real Master, and to term it 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 55 
 
 a '* fluid" and speeik of its "currents," is but to veil 
 a profound ignorance under a cloud of words. 
 
 The Bible, with all the allegx>ries it contains, ex 
 presses, in a veiled and incomplete manner only, the 
 religious science of the Hebrews. The doctrines of 
 Moses and the prophets, identical at bottom with 
 that of the ancient Egyptians, also had its outer 
 meaning and its veils. The HeV^rew books were 
 w^ritten only to recall to memory/ the traditions ; and 
 they were written in Symbols unintelligible to the 
 Profane, The Pentateuch and the prophetic poems 
 were merely elementary books of doctrines, morals 
 or liturgy; and the true secret and traditional phil- 
 osophy was only written afterwards, under a veil 
 still less transparent. This was a second Bible 
 born, unknown to, or rather uncomprehended by^ 
 the Christians of later times, "a collection, they say^ 
 of monstrous absurdities; a monument, the Adept 
 says, wherein is everything that the genius of Phil-^ 
 osophy and that of religion ha.ve ever formed or im- 
 agined of the Sublime; a treasure surrounded by 
 thorns ; a diamond concealed in a rough dark stone. " 
 
 The KPtbalah then, alone consecrates the alliance 
 of the Universal Reason and Divine Word; it estab== 
 lishes, by the counterpoise of two forces apparently 
 opposite, the eternal balance of being; it pJone rec^ 
 onciles Reason with Faith, andPower with Liberty^ 
 Science with Mystery; it has the keys of the Pres- 
 ent, the Past, and the Future. 
 
 One is filled with admiration on penetrating into 
 the Sanctuary of the Kabalah, at seeing a doctrine 
 so logical, so simple and at the same time so abso- 
 
56 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 lute. The necessary union of ideas and signs, the 
 consecration of the most fundamental realities by 
 the primitive characters ; the Trinity of Words, Let- 
 ters and Numbers; a Philosophy simple as the alpha- 
 bet, profound and infinite as the World; Theorems 
 more complete and luminous than those of Pythago- 
 ras; a theology summed up by counting on one's 
 fingers ; an Infinite which can be held in the hollow 
 of an infant's hand, ten ciphers and twenty-two let 
 ters, a triangle, a square and a circle — these are 
 all the elements of the Kabalah. These are the ele 
 mentary principles of the written Word, reflection 
 of that spoken Word that created the world. 
 
 Life may be represented by a Triangle, at the 
 apex of which is God. Of this triangle the two sides 
 are formed by two streams, the one flowing out- 
 wards, the other upwards. The base may be taken 
 to represent the material plane. Thus, from God 
 proceed the Gods. Prom the Gods proceed all the 
 Hierarchy of heaven, with the various orders from 
 the highest to the lowest. Here again we have the 
 Doctrine of Hermes. 
 
 The Kabalah of the ancient Hebrews, which 
 Moses derived by Initiation into the Mysteries of 
 Egypt and Persia, was identical among the He- 
 brews, the Egyptians, Hindus and other nations of 
 antiquity, was known as the Secret Doctrine, 
 
 Initiation is knowledge unfolded by degrees in an 
 orderly^ systematic way^ step hy step, as the capacity to 
 ajpprehend opens in the Neophyte. The result is not a 
 possession, hut a growth, an evolution. Knowledge is 
 7iotamere sum in oMition; something added to some- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE Zf 
 
 thing that already exists; but rather such a progressive 
 change of transformation of the original struGture as ta 
 make of it at every step a New Being, Real Knoivledge^ 
 or the growth of Wisdom in Man, is an Eternal Beconi- 
 ing; a progressive transformation into the likeness of th6 
 Supreme Goodness and Supreme Power, 
 
 The Sacred Books of all religions, including thos0 
 of the Jews and the Christians, were and are nc^ 
 more than parables and allegories of the real Secret' 
 Doctrines, transcribed for the ignorant and super-^ 
 stitious masses. All commentaries written on thes0 
 Sacred Books, whether on those of Moses, the^ 
 Psalms and the Prophets of Judaism, the Gospels 
 of the Gnostics and Christians, or those written or^ 
 the Sacred Books of the East — the Vedas, Puranas^- 
 and Upanishads — all either make confusion more^ 
 confounded when written by one ignorant of the? 
 Secret Doctrine, or, when written by Initiates, but* 
 bring the changes on, or further elaborate the para- 
 bles and allegories. 
 
 It is easily demonstrable that the Secret Doctrine^ 
 came originally from Atlantis, and is the Primitive 
 Wisdom Religion. Its earlier records are now 
 found in Asia, Egypt, and India and from thence' 
 carried through other countries. 
 
 Underlying this Secret Doctrine is a profound 
 philosophy of the creation or evolution of worlds and 
 of man. The present humanity in many quartern 
 of the globe, has evolved on the intellectual plane 
 so far that there now exist a very large number of 
 personscapableof apprehending this old philosophy^ 
 and, at the same time, capable of understanding the 
 
58 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 responsibility incurred in niisusing or misinterpret- 
 ing it. A large number of persons have reached, on 
 the intellectual plane, the state of manhood ; and are \ / 
 capable of partaking of the "fruit of the tree of \/ 
 knowledge of Good and Evil. " There is, therefore, | 
 no reason why this old philosophy should be longer j \ 
 concealed. On the other hand, there are reasons / 
 whj^ it should be known. Enipirical knowledge has 
 adva.nced in certain directions into tlie realm of 
 Psychism, and the arts anciently designated by 
 the term Magic, and it is imperative that the dan- 
 gers that attend these pursuits should be pointed 
 out and demonstrated, in order that they may be 
 avoided by the beneficent, and that the igno- 
 rant or innocent may be afforded protection. 
 How far these modern inroads into Occultism 
 or ancient Magic extended very few persons seem 
 to realize. It is therefore high time that the Phil- 
 osophy of the East should iJiumine the science of 
 the West, and thus give the death blow to that Intel- j 
 lectual diabolism, and spiritual nihilism, known as 
 Materiahsm, and this only the. Secret Doctrine can 
 accomplish. Grave responsibility, however, is in- 
 curred by such a revelation. Those who, like the 
 professional Hypnotist and the Vi visectionists, have 
 sinned, perhaps ignorantly, and thus have been 
 unconsciously "Black Magicians," will eventually 
 find no avenue of escape. 
 
 As I am preparing the above, I receive a clipping 
 entitled "The Mystic Side of the Bacillus Theory," 
 by that Master of both Medicine and the Secret 
 Doctrine, Dr J. R. Phelps. Since Serum Therapy 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 59 
 
 and Vivivseclion go hand in hand, I think it well to 
 reproduce the article as it will show tha,t we are 
 reaching a state where true knowledge is dema^nded. 
 
 ''The man who has the temerity to question, or 
 even discuss in a questioning way, the generally 
 accepted basic principles that underlie his profes- 
 sion, is apt to find himself set down a heretic, and 
 invites the sneers and inuendoes, if not crucifixion, 
 of those who accept the deductions of scientists, 
 and deny the right of speech to anyone who dares 
 to be wise above what is written. Not that it fol- 
 lows, by a.ny means, that the heretic is necessarily 
 right any more than it follows that the human sci- 
 entist is always right For science has a large rub- 
 bish-heap in its back yard, on which may be found- 
 many a discarded pla.nk that once formed part of 
 its infallible platform. 
 
 "A scientist once told me that a drop of nitric 
 acid applied to a piece of freshly broken granite re- 
 vealed, under the microscope, numerous living 
 things similar to animalculae found in stagnant 
 water. 'This,' he asserted, 'proves that the solid 
 rock is full of life!' I fail to see that it proves any 
 such thing. It simply shows that the action of the 
 acid produced a form of motion there, and wherever 
 there is Inotion there is a magnetic current, and 
 forms having life spring into existence — not that 
 they were anj^ more in the rock than in the acid, or 
 that necessarily they were in either. 
 
 "After all, is there not as much mystery about the 
 manifestation of life in matter as there is about 
 thought action? Things become perceptible to us 
 
00 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 when they come within the range of the senses, but 
 liave they no form of existence before they come 
 Into this Y^lane? Or do things spring from nothing? 
 
 "It has become the fashion, when there is a dis- 
 eased bodily condition, to go on a hunt for the bacil- 
 lus that is one of the manifestations of that condi- 
 tion. I have nothing to say against this proceed- 
 ing, but it is a mistake to allow this research to 
 4close up every other avenue of investigation, and 
 assume, offhand, that the bacillus is the creator of 
 the disease, rather than its creaUo/i. And there are 
 fnany of our profession who are thinking along this 
 :Same line. 
 
 If we read of the cures effected by the Divine 
 Master (call him 'The Nazarene,' if you please, I 
 don't care for names), we find His cures almost 
 invariably prefixed by the words, 'Thy sins be for- 
 given thee;' and this declaration was always an 
 offense to the pharasaical beholder. They could 
 recognize the fact that a paralytic had been strangely 
 healed, a leper cleansed, when the paralyzed man 
 walked off with his bed on his back, or the hue of 
 health came back to the pallid, ulcerated counte- 
 nance; but the word of j^oiver that reached beyond 
 their vision, and changed the mental condition that 
 produced the disease, was too much for their com- 
 prehension. 
 
 "Let me quote from a writer on Mystical sub- 
 jects : 'Disease does not enter in any manner from 
 without. That which is external, simply awakens 
 that which is already within us. Disease is not a 
 thing — it is simply a depolarization. That sights 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 6i 
 
 and sounds lure the imagination into activity, t 
 claim, and in this faculty of the mind depolariza" , / 
 
 tion of the spirit's action -takes place, which caused 
 a sudden condensation of spirit in some parts of 
 the system, to the damage of other parts left desti- 
 tute. Thus the system is all thrown out of har- 
 mony, because the normal action of spirit i^ 
 disturbed. 
 
 '*Now, belief being the fundamental principle oi 
 power, and man being more physical than mental^ 
 his belief is more readily aroused and sustained hf 
 physical substances than by ideas; hence, the Magi 
 used charms, amulets and talismans to inspire th0 
 belief of the ignorant and ma^terial. -— — 
 "^^''Purthermore, who can doubt for a moment thaf 
 drugs, metals, vegetable substances, etc., have 0- 
 peculiar affinity for, or are antipathetic to, that 
 department of the spiritual nature which we calf 
 the Imagination? 
 
 All action is dual — direct and reflex* If material 
 substances act and create mental conditions — whiclf 
 I do not deny — then mental conditions act on and 
 create material things. The impure, diseased im^ 
 agination, finding in the physical organism soil 
 suitable for the purpose, impregnates it and gener*' 
 erates bacilli. To deny this hypothesis does not dl§^ 
 prove it. The bacteriologist, with his microscope^ 
 discovers bacilli, and assumes that they are self^ 
 created or produced by material, chemical action 
 of the phj^sical atoms. This may answer as expM- 
 nation of maggots in rotten cheese, but the hous# 
 of an immortal thing, which we call soul or spirili 
 
 V 
 
62 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRU 
 
 is something different. There is no motion of miis- \ 
 cles, tendon or ligament that is not started first by I 
 mental action and will, through^ (not oy) the ^ 
 brain. And there is not a bacillus or microbe 
 infesting the blood or tissues, that did not have a 
 definite, positive existence before it became mani- 
 fest to the microscope ; and if we understand the 
 workings of mind as well as we do the anatomy of 
 the body (and there are some facts regarding thisj 
 even, that we are ignorant of), we might get more 
 control over disease than we now seem to possess. 
 And even with this influence over the mind, what 
 do we do when an epidemic of cholera breaks out? 
 We set people to cleaning out their back yards, dis- 
 posing of rubbish, and, more important still, try to 
 teach them to keep themselves clean, and this occu- 
 pation tends to produce a (temporary, at least), 
 condition of mentaJ cleanliness. Washing the out- 
 side of cup and platter is something in the way of 
 removing filth, and it is an accomplishment of some 
 moment to teach some men the religion of a clea;n 
 shirt. Mental uncleanliness is apt to generate 
 bodily uncleanliness, and then the bacillus is a logi- 
 cal sequence. 
 
 "There is much attention being directed of late 
 to prophylactic treatment. Would it not be as well 
 to extend this system a little further, and see if it 
 is not possible to pass over the border a little way 
 — cross the fence which science has erected be- 
 tween the realm of matter and the realm of the im- 
 ponderable, and see if, after all, there may not be 
 something to be accomplished in the way of regu- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 63 
 
 lation of disease before the enemy effects his inva- 
 sion of the land? I believe we can meet v^ith some 
 measure of success, if we divest ourselves of some 
 of our preconceived notions, and cease to take coun- 
 sel of our denials, our limitations, our fears. It 
 may be that there is something to be learned by 
 looking at the ba^cilTus theory from the Ivlystic side. 
 For, let the materialist doubt, a,nd scout, and deny, 
 as he will, there is that side of the question, and it 
 is every day forcing itself more and more into rec- 
 ognition. 'There are more things in heaven and 
 earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy,' aiid 
 there always will be. " 
 
 This then, is Science and Religion wedded. Had 
 we miore such teachers we would soon have a true 
 Science but we m.ust wait a little vv^iile longer. 
 There can be no lines drawn as to where m^aterial 
 science ends and Spiritual science begins. There- 
 fore, the two should be as one. 
 
 They know little of the forces at work, or the 
 principles involved, who imagine that there is suffi- 
 cient force in dissolving creeds, or in the dying 
 throes of mpoterialism, to greatly retard the prog- 
 ress of these truths by sneers or ridicule, or to pre- 
 vent their triumph by any opposition that can 
 bring to bear ptgainst them. 
 
 The Secret Doctrine was the universally diffused 
 religion of the ancient prehistoric world. Proof 
 of its diffusion, authentic records of its history, a 
 complete chain of documents, showing its charac- 
 ter and presence in every land, together with the 
 teachings of all its great Adepts or Masters, exist 
 
#4 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 to this day in the secret crypts of hbraries belong- 
 ing to the Occult Fraternities. 
 
 The days of Constantine were the last turning 
 point in history. The period of the Supreme strug- 
 gle that ended in the Western world throttling the 
 old religions in favor of the new ones, built on their 
 bodies. From thence the vista into the far distant 
 past, beyond the ''Deluge" and the ''Garden of 
 JEden," began to be forcibly and relentlessly closed 
 hy every fair and unfair means against the indis- 
 rcreet gaze of posterity. Every issue was blocked 
 pp, every record that hands could be laid upon, 
 destroyed. 
 
 This same Constantine who, with his soldiers, 
 environed the Bishops at the first Council of Nice, 
 A. D., 325, and dictated terms to their delibera- 
 iions, applied for Initiation into the Mysteries, and 
 was told by the officiating priest that no purgation 
 ^ould free him from the crime of putting his wife 
 to death, or from his many perjuries and murders. 
 Every careful and unbiased student of history 
 knows why the Secret Doctrine has been heard of 
 so little since the days of Constantine. An exoteric 
 religion, and belief in a personal God blotted it out 
 of self -protection ; and yet, the very Pentateuch 
 £!onceals it, and for many a student of the Kabalah, 
 of the coming century, the seals will be broken. 
 
 There are three fundamental propositions that 
 underlie the Secret Doctrine. ( 1. ) ''An omni- 
 present, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable Prin- 
 ciple on which aU speculation is impossible, since 
 it transcends the power of human conception, and 
 
THE PHII.OSOPHY OP FIRE 65 
 
 could only be dwarfed by tmj human expression or 
 similitude. It is beyond the range and reach of 
 human thought — in the words of Mandyky a, ''un- 
 thinkable and upspeakabie, " This Infinite and 
 Eternal Cause — dimly formulated in the '"Uncon- 
 scious" and "Unknowable" of current European 
 Philosophy — is the rootless root of ''all that was, 
 is, or ever shall be, " In Sanskrit it is " Sat. " This 
 *'Beness" is symboii^^d in the Secret Doctrine 
 under two aspects. 
 
 On the one hand, Absolute abstract Space, rep- 
 resenting bare subjectivity, the one thing which no 
 human mind can either exclude from any concep- 
 tion or conceive of by itself. 
 
 On the other hand, Absolute abstract Motion rep- 
 resenting "Unconditioned Consciousness. " Spirit 
 (or Consciousness) and Matter are, ho vv ever, to be 
 regarded, not as independent realities, but as the 
 two facets or aspects of the Absolute, which con- 
 stitutes the basis of conditional Being whether sub- 
 jective or objective. "Considering this metaphysi- 
 cal triad "(the one realit^^. Spirit and Matter) "as 
 the root from which proceeds all manifestation, the 
 'Great Breath' assumes the character of precosmic 
 Ideation." 
 
 (2) The second of the three postulates of the 
 Secret Doctrine is : "The Eternity of the Universe 
 in toto as a boundless plane: periodically^ 'the play- 
 ground of numbeiless Universes incessantly m^ani- 
 festing and disappearing,' cpJled 'the manifesting 
 stars ' and the ' sparks of Eternity. ' ' The Eternity 
 of the Pilgrim ' (the Monad or Self in man) is like a 
 
 5 
 
66 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 wink of the Eye of Self -Existence. 'The appear- 
 ance and disappearance of worlds is like a regular 
 tidal ebb of flux and reflux.' " 
 
 (3 ) "The fundamental identity of all Souls with 
 the Universal Over- Soul, the latter being itself an 
 p^spect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory 
 pilgrimage for every Soul — a spark of the former — 
 through the Cycle of Incarnation in accordance 
 with Cyclic and Karmic law, during the whole 
 term." ''The pivotal doctrine of the Eastern Phil- 
 osophy admits no privileges or specific gifts in man, 
 save those won by his own Ego through personal 
 effort and merit through a long series of Metempsy- 
 chosis and Reincarnations." 
 
 Souls are reincarnated hundreds and thousands 
 of times; but not the person (which implies the body), 
 for the body perishes. These things were taught 
 by the Essenes, Gnostics, Therapeutae and Jesus; 
 and the doctrine is embodied in the parable of the 
 Talents, as thus explained: — Into the soul of the 
 individual is breathed the Spirit of God, divine, 
 pure, and without blemish. It is God. And the 
 individual has, in his earth-life, to nourish that 
 Spirit and feed it as a Flame with Oil. When you 
 put oil into a lamp, the essence passes into and 
 becomes flame. So is it with the soul of him who 
 nourishes the Spirit. It grows gradually pure, and 
 becomes the Spirit. By this means the Spirit be- 
 comes the richer. And, as in the parable of the 
 Talents, where God has given five talents, man pays 
 back ten; or he returns nothing, and perishes. 
 
 When a soul has once become regenerate, it 
 
THE PXILOSOPXY OP FIRE 6f 
 
 returns to the body only by its own free will, and 
 as a Redeemer or Messenger. Such a one regains 
 in the flesh the memory of the past. Regeneration 
 or Transmutation may take place in an instant; but 
 it is rarely a sudden thing, and it is best that it 
 come gradually, so that the '^Marriage" of the 
 Spirit be only after a prolonged engagement. 
 
 The doctrine of ^'Counterparts," so familiar to 
 certain classes of ^^Spiritualists," is a travesty, due 
 to delusive spirits, of the "Marriage of Regenera- 
 tion." Regeneration does not affect the interior 
 man only. A regenerated person may have his 
 body such that no poison will cause death. ( ''Za^ 
 noni," in Lytton's story, "drinking the poisoned 
 wine.") 
 
 At death, a portion of the soul remains uncon^ 
 sumed — Untransmuted, that is, into spirit. The 
 soul is fluid, and between it and vapor is this anab 
 ogy. When there is a large quantity of vapor in a 
 small place it becomes condensed, and is thick and 
 gross. But when a portion is removed, the rest 
 becomes refined, and is rare and pure. So it is 
 with the soul. By the transmutation of a portion 
 of its material the rest becomes finer, rarer and 
 purer, and continues to do so more and more until 
 — after many incarnations, made good use of — the 
 whole of the soul is absorbed into the Divine Spirit, 
 and becomes one with God. 
 
 Every soul must work out its own salvation. Sal- 
 vation by Faith and the vicarious atonement were 
 not taught, as now interpreted, by Jesus, nor are 
 these doctrines taught in the exoteric Scriptures. 
 
68 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 They are later and ignorant perversions of the 
 original doctrines. In tiie Early Churchy as in the 
 Secret Doctrine, there was not one Christ for the 
 whole worldj bat a potential Christ in every man. 
 Theologians first made a fetish of the Impersonal 
 Omnipresent Divinity; and then tore OJiristos from 
 the hearts of all humanity in order to deify Jesus; 
 that they might have a God-man peculiarly their 
 own! 
 
 How much one's idea of God colors all his 
 thoughts and deeds, is seldom realized. The ordi- 
 nary crude and ignorant conception of a personal 
 God more often results in slavish fear on the one 
 hand, and Atheism on the other. It is what Car- 
 lyle calls *'an absentee God, doing nothing since the 
 six days of crea;tion, but sitting on the outside and 
 seeing it go!" This idea of God carries with it, of 
 course, the idea of creation, as something already 
 completed in time; when the fact is that creation is 
 a process without beginning or end. The world — 
 all worlds — are being "created" today as much as 
 at any period in the past. Even the apparent de- 
 struction of worlds is a creative, or evolutionary 
 process. Emanating from the bosom of the all, and 
 running their cyclic course; day alternating with 
 night, on the outer phj^sical plane, they are again 
 indrawn to the invisible plane, only to re-emerge 
 after a longer night and start again on a higher 
 cycle of evolution. Theologians have tried in vain 
 1 3 attach the idea otimmano nee to that of personality, 
 and ended in a jargon of words and utter confusion 
 of ideas. A personal Absolute is not, except in 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 69 
 
 potency. God does not thinks but is the cause of 
 Thought. God does not love, He is Love, in the 
 perfect or absolute sense ; and so v/ith all the Divine 
 Attributes. God is thus the concealed Logos, the 
 *' Causeless Cause." God never manifests Himself 
 (to be seen of men). Creation is His manifestation; 
 and as creation is not complete, and never will be, 
 and as it never had a beginning, there is a concealed 
 or unrevealed potency back of and beyond all crea- 
 tion, v^hich is still God. 
 
 All men are brothers by all the laws of Nature 
 and hj the very being of God. But so long as Re- 
 ligion defines Heresy as a crime, or imagines a God 
 with human attributes, "man's inhumanity to man" 
 will continue to m.ake "countless millions miOurn," 
 and find vent for all evil passions justified by their 
 idea of God. 
 
 The Christ is no less Divine because all men may 
 reach the same Divine perfection. It will be urged 
 that "there is no other name given under heaven or 
 amongst men whereby we can be saved." This is 
 the Ineffable Name, which every Master is to pos- 
 sess and become^ and salvation and perfection are 
 synonomous. Every act in the life of Jesus, and 
 every quality assigned to Christ, is to be found in 
 the life of Krishna and in the legend of all the Sun- 
 Gods from the remotest times. 
 
 That which the orthodox Christian will find to 
 oppose to this view is not that it dethrones or de- 
 grades Christ, but that it disproves the idea of 
 Christ as their exclusive possession, and denies 
 that all other religions are less Divine than their 
 
to THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 own. The same selfishness is brought into religion 
 that is indulged in regard to other possessions, 
 such as wife and children, and other possessions 
 that are valued; and the same partisan spirit that 
 is in politics, and this more than anything else 
 appears to justify selfishness in general, militates 
 against the Universal Brotherhood of Man, and pre- 
 vents the founding of a Great Republic composed 
 of all nations and all people. This idea of Universal 
 Brotherhood was the cardinal doctrine in the An- 
 cient Mysteries. There are no favorites in the 
 Divine Conception. Ju s tice regards each individual 
 of all the myriads constituting Humanity with equal 
 favor. Justice of God toward all implies Justice 
 toward each other among men. This principle of 
 Justice is Law Universal, and this principle of 
 Brotherhood and the perfectibility of man's nature 
 through evolution necessitates Reincarnation. The 
 number of souls constituting Humanity, thoiagh 
 practically innumerable, is, nevertheless, definite. 
 Hence the doctrine of pre-existence taught in all 
 the Mysteries applied to ** every child of woman 
 born ; all conditions in each life being determined 
 by previous lives. (This is fully dealt with in 
 the ''Beautiful Philosophy" by Count St. Vincent, 
 which is only open to Initiates.) Thus the Father- 
 hood of God in the personification of Divinity in 
 Humanity includes the Universal and Unqualified 
 Brotherhood of Man. 
 
 The real Masters in all ages, knowing this from 
 the lessons taught in the Mysteries of Initiation, 
 have ever been the foes of Autocrats, Oligarchies, 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 71 
 
 and Oppression in every form, whether ecclesiasti- 
 cal or Political. Initiates are taught to obey the laws 
 of the country in which they live. They are not 
 agents of Revolution, but of Evolution. By enlight- 
 enment and persuasion they may strive to reform 
 a nation or a church. The true Republic is the out- 
 growth of Brotherhood, and a jealous monarch in 
 Church or State will naturally oppose the diffusion 
 of doctrines that tend to the liberation and enlight- 
 enment of the people. 
 
 Mysticism does not preach a new religion, it but 
 reiterates the New Commandment announced by 
 the Christ, which was also announced by every 
 great reformer of religion since history began. 
 Drop the theological barnacles from the Religion of 
 Jesus, as taught by Him, and by the Essenes and 
 Gnostics of the first centuries, and it becomes true 
 Mysticism again. Mysticism or Occultism, is not 
 derived from the Ancient Religion, Secret Doctrine 
 of the Kabalah, but is the Secret Doctrine. Mason- 
 ry and all other Orders founded on the Mysteries 
 is derived from it and Mysticism is therefore noi 
 indebted to Masonry, but Masonry is indebted to 
 Mysticism, because if it had not been for the Secret 
 Doctrine, Masonry could not have existed, in fact, 
 it would never have been founded. 
 
 The old Hebrew Kabalah as part of the Great 
 Universal Wisdom-Religion of Antiquity, stands 
 squarely for the Universal Brotherhood of Man, and 
 has stood thus in all ages. To Christianize Mysti- 
 cism or Occultism is an impossibility. It cannot be 
 bound by any Creed or any Government ; it is free. 
 
72 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 "The thinnest veil over the Sublime Mystery of 
 the Ineffable Name is Brotherhood and Love! The 
 gross darkness that hangs like a black veil over the 
 SheJcinah, is Selfishness and Hate. Even so hath it 
 ever been; and so will it ever be till Brotherly Love, 
 Relief, and Truth reign universally in the hearts of 
 all Humanity. The refinements of so-called Civili- 
 zation do not change the essential nature of ma,n. 
 Beneath all these there sleeps or v^akes a demon or 
 an angel, and one of these is ever in chains, for no 
 man can serve two masters. " Dr. J. D. Buck never 
 wrote truer words than these. 
 
 The Science and Religion of the West are in per- 
 petual conflict. The genius of this religion discerns 
 Faith and Miracle as its foundation. Science holds 
 as its ideals Pact and Law. Thus religion is neces- 
 sarily illogical, while science is materialistic to the 
 extreme, and, thanks to both, mankind is as far 
 from any real knowledge of the nature and destiny 
 of the soul as it was a thousand years ago. The 
 conflict has long been maintained ; it is a war to the 
 death ; both religion and science are being reformed, 
 and long before the battle ceases, neither of the origi- 
 nal champions will be found to exist, except in their 
 progeny of Eastern parentage. 
 
 The Western world laughs at this, for looking at 
 the Secret Doctrine and the mighty religions of 
 India, Egypt, Greeee, and Judea only from the out- 
 side, nothing but discord, superstition, and chaos 
 can be seen. But if one examines the symbols, 
 questions the Mysteries, and searches out the root- 
 idea of the founders and of the prophets, harmony 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE fS 
 
 will be seen througiiout. Along divers and often 
 winding paths, one will ever reach the same point, 
 so that penetration into the Arcanum of one of these 
 religions means entrance into the secrets of the 
 rest. Then a strange phenomena takes place. By 
 degrees, but in a widening circle, the Doctrine of 
 the Initiates is seen to shine forth in the Center of 
 the rehgions, like a Sun clearing away its nebula; 
 Each religion appears as a different planet. With 
 each we change both atmosphere and celestial ori- 
 entation, still it is always the same Sun which illu- 
 mines us. India, the mighty dreamer, plunges ui 
 along with herself into the dream of eternit3^ 
 Egypt, sublime and imposing, austere as death, in- 
 vites us to the journey, beyond the grave. Enchant- 
 ing Greece sweeps us along to the Magic feasts of 
 Life, and gives to her Mysteries the seduction of 
 her form, charming or terrible in turn, and of her 
 ever-passionate soul. Finally, Pythagoras scientifi- 
 cally formulates the Esoteric Doctrine, gives it the 
 most complete and concise expression it has ever 
 had. From these, then, will come our Science-Reli^ 
 gion. The two in one. 
 
 The Western theory of Religion is that of a Per^ 
 sonal God and an arbitrary and equally mechanical, 
 though miraculous creation; of a Revelation equally 
 miraculous; of souls created as by arbitrary capricd 
 of Deity, with the accidental co-operation of man^ 
 even in violation of Divine Law. It talks of Laws^ 
 but admits their abrogation through the Will (ca= 
 price) of God. It is true that neither Science nor 
 Religion has openly formulated the foregoing creeds, 
 
74 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 but they are fair deductions from the postulates as- 
 sumed, the logical results of a Nature without In- 
 telligence; and a God who creates Laws only to an- 
 nul them at his own good pleasure! Reconciliation 
 between Science and Religion thus becomes impos- 
 sible, because each is a contradiction to itself. How 
 different this from the Doctrine taught by the Initi- 
 ate Orpheus: 
 
 ^'God is one and eternally unchangeable. He reigns 
 over all. Ihe Gods are diverse and innumerable, for 
 Divinity is eternal and infinite. The greatest are 
 the souls of the constellations. Each constellation 
 has its own suns and stars, earths and moons, and 
 all issue from the Celestial Fire of Zeus, from the 
 Initial Light. Half-conscious, inaccessible, and un- 
 changeable, they govern the mighty whole by their 
 unvarying movements. Each revolving constella- 
 tion draws along in its ethereal sphere phalanxes of 
 demi-gods or radiant souls who were formerly hu- 
 man, and who, after descending the scale of king- 
 doms, have gloriously ascended the cycles, and 
 finally issued from the round of generations. It is 
 through these divine spirits that God breathes, acts, 
 and manifests himself; or, rather, these form the 
 breath of His living soul, the rays of His eternal 
 
 consciousness. They rule over armies of lower 
 spirits which govern the elements ; they control the 
 universe.* Par and near, they surround us, and, 
 
 * Those who are on the Path and desire to know more of 
 how things are ruled and brought about by the Masters, es- 
 pecially those of the Third Degree, should gain access to the 
 Mss. "Beautiful Philosophy" by the Count St. Vincent. This 
 Mss. is only to be had by Neophytes and Initiates. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 75 
 
 although of immortal essence, they assume ever- 
 changing forms, according to nation, epoch or 
 region. The impious man who denies their exist- 
 ence still dreads them; the pious man worships 
 without knowing them; the laitiate knoivs, attracts, 
 and sees them. I struggled to find them, braved 
 death, and, as is said, descended into hell to tame 
 the demons of the abyss, to summon the gods from 
 on high to my beloved Greece, that lofty heaven 
 might unite with earth, listening with delight to 
 strains divine. Celestial beauty will become incar- 
 nate in the flesh of women, the Fire of Zeus will run 
 in the blood of heroes, and long before mounting to 
 the constellations the sons of the Gods will shine 
 forth like Immortals." 
 
 It will be seen that there is nothing Negative in 
 the Secret Doctrine, nor in the Doctrines of Krish- 
 na, Orpheus, Buddha and the other Gods. All they 
 taught was of a Positive nature. It is only in the 
 Western religion, which are mere forgeries of the 
 Eastern Doctrines that we find everything Negative. 
 A lie can never be Positive, because the positive 
 element is missing. 
 
 Krishna, an Initiate as mighty as Orpheus, taught 
 the doctrine of the immortal soul, its rebirths and 
 mystical union with God. The body, he taught, 
 envelopes the soul, which makes therein its dwell- 
 ing, is a finished thing, but the indw^eiling soul is in- 
 visible, imponderable, incorruptible, eternal. This 
 latter became the doctrine of Plato. "The earthly 
 man is threefold, like the Divinity of which he is the 
 reflection: intelligence, soul and body. If the soul 
 
76 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 is united with the inteUigence it attains to Sattva — 
 Wisdom and Peace ; if it remains uncertain, between 
 the intelligence and the body, it is dominated by 
 rajas — passion, and turns from object to object in a 
 fatal circle; if it abandons itself to the body it falls 
 into tamas — want of reason, ignorance, and tempo- 
 rary death. This every man may observe in and 
 around himself. 
 
 *'The soul never escapes the law, but always 
 obeys it. This is the Mystery of Rebirths. As the 
 depths of heaven are laid bare before the starry 
 rays, so the depths of life light up beneath the glory 
 of this truth. When the body is dissolved, when 
 sattva is in the ascendant, the soul flies away into 
 the region of those pure beings who have knowl- 
 edge of the Sublime. When the body experiences 
 this dissolution whilst rajas dominates, the soul 
 once more comes to live amongst those who have 
 bound themselves to things of earth. Again, if the 
 body is destroyed when tamas dominates, the soul, 
 whose radiance is dimned by matter, is again 
 attracted by the wombs of irrational beings. 
 
 ''The devout man, surprised by death, after 
 enjoying for several centuries the due reward of his 
 virtues in superior realms of bliss, finally returns 
 again to inhabit a body in some holy and respecta- 
 ble family. But this kind of regeneration in this 
 life is very difficult to attain. The man thus born 
 again finds himself possessed of the same degree 
 of application and advancement, as regards the 
 intellect, as he had in his first body, and he begins 
 to work afresh perfection in devotion. " 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP^ FIRE 7i 
 
 "The mighty and profound secret, the sublime 
 and sovereign mystery, is that: To attain toperfec= 
 tion one must acquire the knowledge of unity, which 
 is above wisdom : one must rise to the divine Being 
 who is above the soul, above the inteUigence. This 
 divine Being, this subhme 'Friend is in each one of us i 
 God dwells witMn each man, though few can find hinii 
 This is the Path of salvation. Once thou hast per^ 
 ceived the perfect Being who is above the world and 
 within thyself, do thou decide to abandon the enem_y ^ 
 which takes the form of desire. Control thy pas= 
 sions. The joys afforded by the senses are like 
 wombs of future sufferings. Not only do good, but 
 be good. Let the motive be in the action, not in its 
 fruits. Adandon the fruits of thy works, but let 
 each action be as an offering to the Supreme being. 
 The man who sacrifices his desire and works to the 
 Being whence proceed the beginnings of all things^ 
 and by whom the universe has been formed, attains 
 to perfection by this sacrifice. One in spirit, he 
 acquires that spiritual wisdom which is above the 
 worship of offerings, and experiences a feJicity 
 divine. For he who ivithin himself finds his happi^ 
 ness, his joy, and light, is one with God. Know 
 then that the soul which has found God is freed 
 from rebirth and death, old age and grief. Such a 
 soul drinks the waters of immortality. " 
 
 Thus Krishna explained his doctrine, which was 
 really the Secret Doctrine of the Ancients, to his 
 disciples; by inner contemplation he gradually 
 raised them to the sublime truths which had been 
 opened out to himself in the lightning-flash of his 
 vision. 
 
78 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 . The old universal Wisdom Religion or Secret 
 Doctrine is scientific to the last deg^ree ; for beneath 
 both Science and Religion is the Philosophy which 
 discerned the ordinary process of Eternal Nature, 
 with no ' 'missing links " in evolution, and no caprice 
 or contradictions anywhere in Cosmos. This is the 
 Science-Religion that is being implanted in the 
 Western world and as it grows, so will the so-called 
 Science and Religion of the present day fade away. 
 
 The Perfect Man is Christ; and Christ is God. 
 This is the birthright of every human soul. It was 
 taught in all the Greater Mysteries of Antiquity, 
 but the Exoteric creeds of Christendom derived 
 from the parables and allegories in which this doc- 
 trine was concealed from the ignorant and the pro- 
 fane, have accorded this Supreme Consummation 
 to Jesus alone, and made it obscure to all the rest 
 of humanity. In place of this, the grandest doc- 
 trine ever revealed to man, theologians have set up 
 Salvation by Faith in a man-made Creed, and the 
 Authority of the Church to ''bind or loose on Earth 
 or in Heaven. " Law is annulled ; Justice, dethroned; 
 Merit, ignored; Effort discouraged; and Sectarian- 
 ism, Atheism, and Materialism are the result. 
 
 All real Initiation is an internal, not an external, 
 process. The outer ceremony is dead and useful 
 only so far as it symbolizes and illustrates, and 
 thereby makes clear the inward change. In many 
 of the Greater Orders, Ceremonial Initiation is 
 entirely dispensed with, as it clouds, in many cases, 
 the mind that would otherwise be clear. In true 
 Initiation no ceremonies are needed. To Initiate 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 79 
 
 truly, means to transform ; to transform means to 
 regenerate; and this comes only by trial, by effort, 
 by seZ/'Conquest, by sorrow, disappointment, /aiZ- 
 ure; and a daily renewal of the conflict. It is in 
 this that man must '* work out his own salvation." 
 The consummation of Initiation is the Perfect Mas- 
 ter, the Ghristos, for these are the same. They are 
 the goal, the perfect consummation of human evo- 
 lution. 
 
 By constant struggle and daily conflict the Mas- 
 ter has conquered self. Life after life he has gath- 
 ered experience. Truly hath he been a *'man of 
 sorrows and acquainted with grief." He has as- 
 sailed all problems; studied all science; exhausted 
 all litanies ; apprehended all Philosophies; practiced 
 all arts. At every step he has loved and helped 
 humanity more and more, and sought his own de- 
 sires less and less. Grown familiar thus with aU 
 planes of life by sore trial, by bitter conflict, by 
 frequent defeat, by hope deferred, almost despair- 
 ing, he has at last renounced self utterly, and so 
 became **dead to the world. " 
 
 The Initiate of the highest grade — one who has 
 power to command the elemental spirits, and there- 
 by to hush the storm and still the waves — can, 
 through the same agency, heal the disorders and 
 regenerate the functions of the body. And this he 
 does by an exercise of his will which sets in motion 
 the magnetic fluid. 
 
 Such a person, an Adept or Hierarch of magnetic 
 srience, is, necessarily, a person of many Incarna- 
 tions. And it is principally in the East that these 
 
go THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 are to be found. For it is there that the oldest 
 30uls are wont to congregate. It is in the East that 
 human Science first arose ; and the soil and astral 
 fluid there are charged with power as a vast battery 
 of many piles. So that the Hierarch of the Orient 
 both is himself an older soul and has the magnetic 
 support of a chain of older souls, and the earth be- 
 neath his feet and the medium around him are 
 charged with electric force to a degree not to be 
 found elsewhere. It is for this reason that the East 
 is far more enlightened than the West. 
 
 How can man become such a Master according 
 to the Doctrine? The man who is without fear and 
 without concupiscence; who has courage to be ab- 
 3olutely poor and absolutely chaste. When it is all 
 one to you whether you have gold or whether you 
 have none, whether you have a house and lands or 
 whether you have them not, whether you have 
 worldly reputation or whether you are an outcast, 
 - — then you are voluntarily poor. It is not neces- 
 sary to have nothing but it is necessary to care for 
 nothing. When it is all one to you whether you 
 have a wife or husband, or whether you are a celi- 
 bate, then you are free from concupiscence. It is 
 not necessary to be a virgin; it is necessary to set 
 no value on flesh. There is nothing so difficult to 
 attain as this equilibrium — the Double Triangle. 
 The White interlaced with the Black. When you 
 have ceased both to wish to retain and to burn, then 
 you have the remedy in your hands, and the remedy 
 is hard and a sharp one, and a terrible ordeal. 
 Nevertheless,, be thou not afraid. Deny the five 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 81 
 
 senses, and above all the taste and the touch. The 
 power is within you if you will to attain it. Eat no 
 dea.d thing. Drink.no fermented drink. Make 
 living elements of all the elements of your body. 
 Take your food full of life, and let not the touch of 
 death pass upon it. Remember that without self- 
 immolation there is no power over death. 
 
 When a man has attained power over the body, 
 the process of ordeal is not longer necessary. The 
 Initiate is under a vow ; the Hierarch is Free. Jesus, 
 therefore, came eating and drinking; for all things 
 were lawful to him. He had undergone, while a 
 Neophyte with the Essenes, and had freed his will. 
 For the object of the trial and the vow is polarisa- 
 tion. When the fixed is volatilised, the Magian is 
 free. But before Christ was Christ he was subject ; 
 and his Initiation lasted thirty years. All things 
 are lawful to the Hierarch; for he knows the nature 
 and value of all. 
 
 By evolution man is continually climbing upward 
 to higher planes. His five senses are adjusted to 
 observations and experiences of the physical plane; 
 but he has other experiences. The senses are nar- 
 now and circumscribed; yet even these become 
 refined. His tastes alter, his tendencies ascend. 
 He is reaching outward as his sympathies expand, 
 and upward, as his ideals become higher. There 
 is revealed to him a whole world of experience in 
 which the lower senses play no part; a world of 
 aspiration in which Self is not the goal. The very 
 physical bounds of self are loosening, expanding, 
 and disappearing. Hitherto he has been conscious 
 
82 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 of flashes in intuition; of knowing things he has 
 seemingly never learned. He sees inner meanings, 
 and senses subtler powers. Not only in visions and 
 intuitions of the day, but in dreams of the night he 
 has experiences beyond the bounds of sense. He 
 learns the power of Thought. By conquering Self, 
 his V/ill becomes strong. By subduing passion, 
 his mind becomes clear. He has premonitions of 
 coming events; for all events and thoughts and 
 things exist first on higher planes, and are precipi- 
 tated thence into matter. He becomes clairaudient 
 and clairvoyant. He has broken the bonds of Self 
 and now functions on higher planes. As his senses 
 and organs on the physical plane made him Master 
 there of brutes, and of physical nature, even so 
 on the higher plane, the senses and organs evolve 
 by the same Evolutionary Law of experience and 
 choice, make him, on the higher plane. Master of 
 men and of Higher Nature. 
 
 The problem of genuine initiation, or training in 
 Occultism, consists in placing all the operations of 
 the body under the dominion of the Will; in freeing 
 the Ego from the dominion of the appetites, passions, 
 and the whole lower nature. The idea is not to de- 
 spise the body, but to purify it: Not to destroy the 
 appetites, butto elevate and control them absolutely. 
 This mastery of the lower nature does not change 
 the Key of the physical nature as such ; but subor- 
 dinates it to that of a higher plane. Without this 
 subordination, the clamorous lower nature drowns 
 out all higher vibrations : as if in an orchestra, the 
 bass-viols and the drums only could be heard; and 
 noise rather than harmony would result. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 83 
 
 The first point to be made in real Initiation is for 
 the Thinker to control his thoughts. Instead of 
 passively and helplessly receiving all suggestions 
 that come from the physical sense, or appetites ; or* 
 all that come from ambition, selfishness and pride; 
 he selects, and chooses, and Wills what thoughts 
 shall come. In this manner he acquires mastery 
 over his own mind, and frees his wiU from the do- 
 minion of Desire; or rather elevates and purifies 
 Desire. 
 
 In the Ancient Mysteries not every Initiate be- 
 came a Master. There were the Lesser and the 
 Greater Mysteries. To the Lesser all were eligible ; 
 to the Greater, very few; and of these few, fewer 
 still were ever exalted to the sublime and last de- 
 gree. Some remained for a lifetime in the lower 
 degrees, unable to progress further on account of 
 the constitutional defect or mental and spiritual in- 
 capacity. Thus it is now. The Mysteries unfolded 
 the Building of Worlds, the Religion of Nature, the 
 Universal Brotherhood of Man, the Immortality of 
 the Soul, and the Evolution of Humanity. No cere- 
 mony was artificial and meaningless; no symbol, 
 however grotesque to the ignorant, was merely 
 fanciful. 
 
 Thales and Pythagoras learned in the Sanctuaries 
 of Egypt that the Earth revolved around the Sun, 
 but they did not attempt to make this generally 
 known, because to do so would have been necessary 
 to reveal one of the great Secrets of the Temple, the 
 double law of attraction and radiation, or of sym- 
 pathy and antipathy, or of fixedness and movement, 
 
84 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 which is the principle of creation and the perpetual 
 cause of life. The truth was ridiculed by Lactanius, 
 as it was long after sought to be proven a falsehood 
 by persecution of Papal Rome. 
 
 The Ideal in Church and State, the motive for the 
 Ecclesiastical and Political Hierarchies, has been 
 in all ages to govern men professedly for their own 
 good. The Secret Doctrine teaches man to govern 
 himself. So long as Hierarchies subordinate all 
 things to the real benefit of man, and give Light and 
 Knowledge to all in such measure as they can re- 
 ceive, they are a blessing and not a curse. When, 
 however, the Potentiate suppresses Knowledge, 
 claims power by Divine Right, or by inheritance, 
 rather that by proof of knowledge and by service 
 done to man; when ignorance or disbelief is punished 
 as a crime and men torture the body, or agonize the 
 mind under the devil's plea— "to save the soul"— 
 then does the Hierarchy become an enemy of both 
 God and Man. Freedom and Enlightenment are 
 the only real Saviors of Mankind; while ignor- 
 ance is the father of Superstition, and Selfishness 
 the parent of Vice. 
 
 The Ancient Mysteries were organized schools of 
 learning, and knowledge was the signal of progress 
 and the basis of Fellowship. The doors of real Ini- 
 tiation were open to women as to men. Such is the 
 case at the present time. The lUuminati and the 
 Rosicrucians both admit women to their Initiation 
 on equal footing with men. Masonry at one time 
 also admitted them, until the Fraternity was be- 
 trayed by her. Since then she has been excluded. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 85 
 
 The time will come again when Masonry will put 
 aside most of its Ceremonialism and teach the pure 
 Secret Doctrine, then will women again be admit- 
 ted as of yore. 
 
 The Ancient Wisdom concerned itself largely, as 
 it does at present, with the Souls of men, and un- 
 dertook to elevate the earthly life by purifying the 
 Soul and exalting its Ideals. It teaches that souls 
 are sexless ; and that the sex of the body is an inci- 
 dent of gestation. No civilization known to man 
 has ever risen to any great heights, or long main- 
 tained its supremacy, that debased woman. The 
 Secret Doctrine demonstrates with unmistakable 
 clearness that sexual debasement in any form is 
 the highway of degeneracy and destruction of both 
 man and woman ; and of Nations quite as certainly 
 as of individuals. 
 
 Ever since the time of Atlantis, the true Adepts 
 and Masters have been the keepers of the Great 
 Lodge. These Masters have taught the Secret Re- 
 ligions and true Science. The ancient governments 
 were Par tiarchal; (See History of Atlantis by Dr. 
 Phelon) the Ruler was also a Master Initiate, and 
 the people were regarded as his children. In those 
 days a Reigning Prince did not consider it beneath 
 his dignity to go into the desert alone, and sit at 
 the feet of some inspired recluse, in order that he 
 might receive more light, which he would dispense 
 to those that were ready to receive such teachings. 
 Instead of teaching superstition and idolatry, when 
 the real meaning of symbolism is revealed, it will 
 be found to be the thinnest veil ever imposed be- 
 
86 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 tween the sublime Wisdom and the apprehension 
 of men. The old gods were the symbolical or per- 
 sonified a^ttributes of Nature, through which man 
 was taught to apprehend the existence of the Su- 
 preme Spirit. This was not Polytheism, nor idola- 
 try, but a system of teaching that which could not 
 be altogether defined, and of pointing to that which 
 must forever remain unknown, and Unknowable, 
 by the aid of symbol, parable, and allegory. No 
 word painting known to man seems half so beauti- 
 ful as some of these ancient parables and allegories. 
 Not only was every oblation to love and duty por- 
 trayed, and every joy of home and affection illus- 
 trated, and the most common duties of life, feats of 
 valor, devotion, and self-sacrifice depicted, but in a 
 language so musical, and in rhythm and meter so 
 perfect, as to make the whole recital more like a 
 symphony than a poem. 
 
 The parables were not invented to conceal the 
 truth from those who could apprehend it, or to keep 
 the people in ignorance in order that the Priests 
 or Ruler might preserve their power, for no Initi- 
 ate cares for power except that he may do good to 
 humanity. No Initiate seeks to control any people 
 or office, the people seek the Initiate. "We seek 
 no man, but man seeks us. " Power came not from 
 the people but from the possession of supreme 
 knowledge, and this knowledge, continually exer- 
 cised and exemplified, was the badge of office and 
 the sign of authority. To such a Priesthood the 
 people rendered most willing obedience. The doors 
 of Initiation were open, then as at this time, to all 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 8? 
 
 who had evolved the capacity to "Know, to Dare 
 to Do, and to Keep Silent," in regard to that which 
 should not be prematurely revealed. 
 
 With the Light of the Great Lodge standing in 
 the midst, the Religion of the people was a perfect 
 representative of Science and Philosophy, in which 
 superstition and idoJatry found no place, hence 
 the symmetry in all the Old Wisdom Religions. 
 There was reeJly but one Secret Doctrine, but in 
 later times, miany Nations had the same Philosopher^ 
 but each Nation has its own Grand Suprem.e Lodge, 
 
 The religions of Egypt and Clialdea, as has been 
 stated, had back of them the same Secret Doctrine^ 
 or Mysteries ; as had been ta^ught in the Great Lodge 
 of Atlantis, for it was from there that they were 
 transplanted to Egypt, India, Asia and other coun- 
 tries. This religion was both Scientific and Philo^ 
 sophical. Egypt and Chaldea repeated the folly of 
 India, and perished, with the exception of a few 
 Initiates who remained true, with the degradation 
 of their rehgion. The few who remained true to 
 their vows kept the Secret Doctrines in the Secret 
 Archives of the Temples and Masters likeHermies, 
 Zoroaster, Confucius, and others were secretly 
 taught the Secret Doctrines and revived the old 
 religion under new names, and often under a dif- 
 ferent form of symbohsm. Pythagoras and the 
 Schools of the Persian Ma.gi for many centuries 
 kept the true light burning and it could always be 
 found by those who were truly seeking for it. 
 
 The conquest of Egypt by Cambyses completed 
 the ruin cf the land of Pharaohs, and Pythagoras 
 
88 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 and Plato became the links between the old philos- 
 ophy and the Christian Mysteries, together with 
 the Jewish Kabalah, derived jointlj^ from the Mys- 
 teries of Atlantis, Egypt and Asia. 
 
 From the Essenes, the Schools of Alexandria 
 then in all their glorv, from the Kabalah and the 
 philosophy of Plato, the Christian Mysteries were 
 derived. In fact, the Christian Mysteries were 
 none other than the Ancient Mysteries or Secret 
 Doctrine, but became known as the Christian Mys- 
 teries after the Initiation of Christ by the Essenes. 
 During the first three centuries of the present era 
 these doctrines flourished openly ; but were finally 
 forced to be taught secretly through the conquest 
 of Constantine, and then came the dark ages for 
 the people. 
 
 The Religion of Jesus was therefore that of the 
 Mysteries; it was the same Wisdom -Religion, 
 though perhaps the ethical features were more 
 pronounced, as being needed among what was called 
 "a generation of vipers. " The ethical teachings of 
 Jesus in time gave place to Priest-craft and Sacer- 
 dotalism; to worldly power, and conquest; and the 
 religion, or rather, ceremonialism of Constantine 
 was finally succeeded by the '*Holy Inquisition," a 
 religion of torture and bloodshed. History is full 
 of pretenders in Occultism and Mysticism. Pre- 
 tension alone is a sign of ignorance, and the propo- 
 sition to "sell the truth " is always a sign of fraud. 
 "Every man is worthy of his hire," the teacher 
 must be paid for his work. The publisher for his 
 books, but for the teachings no price can be paid 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE %9 
 
 in current coin. There P.re many names in history 
 that have been covered with obloquy, a,nd their pos- 
 sessors charged with fraud and imposition, who 
 were genuine Adepts. The seeker should distin- 
 guish between self -conviction that comes from tlie 
 pretender's own mouth and those accusations that 
 come from others and are unsupported by evidence. 
 As a fact, the true Master or Initiate, never, under 
 any circumstances, makes the claim that he is 
 such. The man or icoman that openly claims to be 
 either an Initiate^ an Adepts or a Master^ is never 
 such, but is simply a pretender. The pretender is 
 usually loaded with honors and found rolling in 
 wealth, as the reward of deceit and lying, of fraud 
 and corruption, which he is shrewd enough to 
 conceal from the masses but which he can never 
 hide from an Initiate or Master. Man betraj^s his 
 character, his heredity, his ideas, and all his past 
 life in every lineament of his face, in the pose of his 
 body, in his gait, in the lines of his hands, in the 
 tones of his voice and in the expression of his eye 
 especially. No man possesses character. Charac- 
 ter is that which he is, and not something apart 
 from himself. One need not be a Master to dis- 
 cover all this; he needs only to observe, to think, 
 and to reason on what he sees. The individual who 
 is really sincere and devout will not fail to recognize 
 sincerity and true devotion in an acquaintance or in 
 any character in history that possessed these vir- 
 tues. Hence the Student of the Sacred or Occult 
 Science, though not himself an Adept, learns to 
 recognize by unfailing signs those in the present 
 
90 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 or past who were really Masters and who knew 
 the True Wisdom. 
 
 The real Master is often gibbeted by the populace 
 and anathematized by the church, because he is 
 neither time-serving nor willing to barter the truth 
 for gold. 
 
 All along the line of history, from the foundation 
 of Atlantis to the present time, may be found those 
 who possessed the true Light. Masters who con- 
 cealed both their Wisdom and their own identity 
 from vulgar notice and foolish praise, they walked 
 the earth in the past as now, unseen and unknown 
 to the many, but always known to their fellows, 
 and to all real seekers after true wisdom. 
 
 These Adepts, or Masters, have, in every age, as 
 at the present time, constituted the Great Lodge. 
 They were, and are, the Masters of the Fraterni- 
 ties. For be it Jcnoion to all those ivho would find the c^ 
 LigJit, to all those who would trod' the Path, these Gh-eat " ' 
 Lodges exist to-day as they did in the past and Initiates 
 Jcnoia that there are more real Masters to-day than ever 
 before. Whether they congregate benep^th vaulted 
 domes, or meet at stated times, no one would be 
 likely to know unless he belongs to the same degree ; 
 but one thing is very certain, and that is, that they 
 help and bring knowledge to the world when most 
 needed and often shape the destinies of Nations. 
 They are working to-day in the Vf est as they have 
 never done before. They are enabled to work now, 
 because the ground has been prepared for them by 
 
 *Se8 the "Beautiful Philosophy of Initiation " by Count St. Vincent, 
 for full information concerning this point. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 91 
 
 "He who knoias,^^ and Masonry, although it has 
 lost the Key to its own Mysteries, has done much 
 to bring this about. HoYf much more could Ma- 
 sonry do should it find the Key to its Mysteries? 
 Truly, no one would be able to guess. 
 
Fire-Philosophy 
 
 The Foundation of all True Initiation and all Mystic 
 and Occult Fraternities^ as well as the Secret Doc- 
 trine and the Ancient Mysteries, 
 
 (^F all the Secret Orders, there is probably more 
 J known concerning the Fraternities of the Rosy 
 Cross than of any other Order. This is not because 
 the Fraternity itself has given so much of its teach- 
 ings to the profane world, but on account of the 
 writings of Hargrave Jennings, Paschal Beverly 
 Randolph, Lord Bulwer Lytton, Honore de Balsac, 
 Freeman B. Dowd and others. In one of the Mani- 
 festoes issued in the year 1871, by the then Supreme 
 Master of the Fraternity— Dr. P. B. Randolph, it 
 is admitted that the very foundation of the Frater- 
 nity is the Philosophy of Fire. He says : 
 
 " .... It is urged against us that we 'Believe in. 
 and Practice Magic;' we admit the fact: we cer- 
 tainly do,— the pure white, bright, effulgent, radi- 
 antly glorious Magic of the Human MZ^,— through 
 and by which alone^ human passions are made to 
 correct themselves, and by which alone, otherwise 
 defenseless Woman is fully armed against the 
 coarse brutality of thousands of misnamed 'men 
 and husbands;' and this is a purely Christie power 
 too, an integrant of the early Christie faith,— dead 
 
94 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 here, and buried nearly everywhere else, beneath 
 mountams of gabble-dust, deserts of error. It is 
 further charged that we have 'certain quite extra- 
 ordinary Esoteric, or Secret Doctrines.' We ad- 
 mit the fact, and the animus is apparent from that 
 other fact, namely, 'that these Secret Doctrines 
 are only divulged to the pure, virtuous, and worthy. ' 
 Our assailants /a^iZe(i in all their schemes to pene- 
 trate these Mysteries, and the inference is plain, 
 nor can even the disaffected fail to see ' the reason 
 why!' Now, however, we herewith present some 
 of these 'Secret Doctrines.'" 
 
 Holding as we do, that Deity dwells within the 
 cryptic portals of the luminous worlds, and that the 
 lamp that lights it is Love Supreme. 
 
 We hold that no poiver ever comes to man through 
 the intellect .... That Goodness alone is Power, 
 and that that pertains to the heart only, hence that 
 Power comes only to the Soul through Love (not 
 lust, mind you, but Love), the underlying, Primal 
 Fire-Life, sub-tending the bases of Being, — the for- 
 mative flowing floor of the worlds, — the true sensm^ 
 of which is the beginning of the road to personal 
 power. Love lieth at the foundation, and is the 
 synonym of life and strength and clingingness. . . . 
 
 Holding, as we do, that Deity dwells within the 
 Shadow, behind the everlasting Flame, — the amazing 
 glories of which minds have confounded with the 
 very God, — we declare All things, especially the hu- 
 man Soul, to he a form of Fire : that man is not the only 
 intelligence in nature, but that there are, and the 
 aerial spaces abound with, multiform intelligences, 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 95 
 
 having their conscious origin in Aeth^ as man has his 
 in matter; and that there are grades of these, tower- 
 ing away in infinite series of hierarchies, human, and 
 ultra-human, to an unimaginable Eterne. We hold 
 that the soul is a polar world of White Fire within the 
 human body; that its negative only resides within 
 the brain as a general dwelling; that in dreamless 
 sleep it goes to the solar plexus to impart stores of 
 Life-Fire to the body; in dream it visits (by sight 
 and rapport) other scenery, and that all dreams 
 have a determinate meaning and purpose 
 
 We hold that the other pole of the soul is situated 
 
 within the genital system The superior pole 
 
 of the soul is in direct magnetic and Ethereal con- 
 tact with the Soul of Being; the foundation- Fhx of 
 the Universe; with all that vast domain underlying 
 increase, growth, emotion, beauty, power, heat, 
 energy; the sole and base of being, the subtending 
 Love^ or Fire-iioor of Existence. Hence through 
 Love man seizes directly on all that is, and is in 
 actual contact and rapport with all and singular 
 every being ih^t feels and Loves within the confines 
 of God's habitable universe 
 
 " . . Declaring that true manhood is more or less 
 en rapport with one or more of the Upper Hierar- 
 chies of Intelligent Potentialities, earth-born and 
 not earth-born,t^e believe there are means ivhereby a per- 
 son may become associated ivith, and receive instructions 
 from them. More than that ; we believe in talismans ; 
 that it is possible to construct and wear them, and 
 that they emit a peculiar light, discernable across 
 the gulfs of Space by these intelhgent powers, just 
 
96 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 as we discern a diamond across a playhouse; that 
 such signals to the beholders, and that they will, 
 and do cross the chasmal steeps to save, succor, 
 and assist the wearers, just as a good brother here 
 flies to the relief of him who shall give the grand 
 hailing- signs of distress 
 
 '' . . God, the Soul of the Universe, is positiveheat, 
 Celestial Fire; the aura of Deity (God-od) is Love, the 
 prime element of all power, the external i^?:r6-sphere, 
 the iuforming and formative pulse of matter. The 
 induction is crystalhne; for it follows that whoso 
 hath most love. —whether its expression be coarse 
 or fine, cultured or rude,— hath, therefore, most of 
 God in him or her; the element of time being com- 
 petent to the perfection of all refining influences 
 over the ocean, if not upon the hither side. ..." 
 
 From the quotations made of the Rosicrucian 
 Manifesto, it will be plain to the student that the 
 Fire-Philosophy is the very foundation of the Fra- 
 ternity which was founded in the Temple of Atlan- 
 tis and has continued, under various names, up to 
 the present time. An Rosicrucian says :— 
 
 ''Justice is so late of arrival to all original think- 
 ers— the terms of prejudice, and of astonishment 
 (not in the good sense), are so long in falling off 
 fi^om profound researches — that even now, the 
 Rosicriicians — in other words, the Paracelsians or 
 Magnetists — are totally ignored as the arch-chem- 
 ists, to whose deep thoughts, and unrelaxing labors, 
 modern science is indebted for most of its truths. 
 
 As astrology (not the juggles of the stars, but the 
 true exploration, seeking the method of being, and 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 97 
 
 of working, of the glittering habitants of space): 
 as astrology was the mother of astronomy, so is 
 the lore of the Hermetic Brethren (miscalled in 
 only one of their names — and that the popular 
 Rosicrucians) — the groundwork of all present 
 philosophy. On its applied side, Rosicrucianism is 
 the very science which is so familiar and so valuable. 
 But as the Hermetic (Rosicrucian) Beliefs are a 
 great religion, they of course, have their popular 
 adaptations; and, in consequence, there is a myth- 
 ology to them. There must always be a machinery 
 (symbolism) to every faith, through which ^ it may 
 be known; and the mistake of people is in accepting 
 the, childish machinery and the coarse (but fitly) 
 colored mythology of a religion for the religion 
 
 itself, and all of it. " 
 
 *',Mystical, fantastical, and transcendental— nay, 
 impossible — as the studies and objects of the Rosi- 
 crucians seem in these modern, ^ ultra-practical 
 days, it is forgotten that the truths of contemporan- 
 eous science are all based on the dreams of the old 
 thinkers. Out. of natural philosophy, the occult 
 brethren sought th§ spirits of natural philosophy, 
 and to this inner heaven— so unlike ordinary life — 
 through, purifications, through invocations, through 
 humbling and prayers, through penances to break 
 the terms of body with the world, through fumiga- 
 tions and incensing to rise up another world about 
 them, and to place themselves en rapport with the 
 inhabitants of it, through the suspension of the 
 senses, and thereby to the opening of other senses 
 — to the shutting-out of one state, in order to the 
 7 
 
98 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 passing into another state, — ^to all this the Rosicru- 
 cians sought to reach." 
 
 What is now known as Hermetic Doctrine is but 
 a part of the Rosicrucian system, a branch of that 
 Fraternity. Their teachings concerning Fire are 
 identical with the Rosicrucian Doctrine concerning 
 same. There is but a slight difference in the foun- 
 dation of these Orders and that difference is to be 
 found in their doctrine of "Conservation of Energy," 
 according to their teachings: "Fire is at once the 
 great purifier and separator of elements. It is hell 
 for devils, but on the pure spirit it works no injury. 
 For pure spirit is also the spirit of the Fire. The 
 whole world must be purified by Fire or the inten- 
 sity of true Love for the new dispensation. When 
 we recall the fact that Pure Spirit is also icwe, we 
 see what love really is, and will be to us and the 
 whole world. 
 
 "Like all other things he touches, the undevel- 
 oped man has constantly acted to draw down every- 
 thing belonging to the higher conception of sex. 
 He forgets it is the direct emanation of the Divine 
 creative thought. All the highest, purest, and 
 sweetest thought leads up to the manifestation of 
 the sex condition and sex forces, as the Alpha 
 and Omega of both desire and fulfillment. It holds 
 within itself, the whole Divine statement of Being: 
 "and God said: Let there be and there was." In 
 it there are life and death ; the out-putting and in- 
 drawing." 
 
 "All the great lessons of living and acting are 
 held in this three-lettered word of unperfected ac- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 99 
 
 tivity. The Law of Love — God expression in man, 
 holds its basis of manifestation on the health activi* 
 ty of the sex function. The beginning and the end 
 of life, if we so will it, is held here. The moment 
 of conclusion is the beginning of life. It is also the 
 moment of death — the dead point at which the 
 whole organism enters into the realms of dissolu^ 
 tion, as it is ever striving to do. But the great sex- 
 force and body of life carries always forward and 
 beyond^ so there shall be no dwelling within the 
 House of Death. 
 
 "It is in this ^ House of the Fire of Life^ wherein is 
 manifested the completion of the Divine plan. It 
 is there the Was becomes the Is, and the is — U 
 passes into the ShaU Be. It is through this differ- 
 entiation, that the great trinity manifests itself un- 
 to itself. Verily, the kingdom of Heaven — the 
 Power of God — ^lies within us, for the Transmission 
 of Life. His knowledge of its origin is the point, 
 at which His Supremacy assumes for itself un- 
 questioned authority — the Omnipotence of the One 
 only Unity. Zove, Sex^ and Fire are one. The 
 Three in One."* 
 
 At the present day in Sweden, on the first of 
 May — the opening or germination of the the year — 
 the peasantry, as they do all over the North at cer^ 
 tain times, light fires. A candle is lighted by all 
 devout Catholics on Christmas Eve, and is kept 
 burning, in memory and reminder of the mysteri- 
 ous Incarnation, until the dawning of the real day 
 
 ♦See, "Divine Alchemy." 
 
100 THE PHILOSOPHYOF FIRE 
 
 of the Blessed Nativity. The Yiile-Log, whose 
 bright blazing is of so much moment, and with the 
 last brand of which, most carefully and supersti- 
 tiou sly laid aside for the pui-pose, the next year's 
 Christmas i^i?^e is to be lighted, follows the same 
 rule. The Christrbas Tree, th^ drigin of which is 
 lost in the 'inists of tradition, and which Teutonic 
 emblem (time out of mind employed ih Germany) 
 is^ now transposed into 'England^' thou^ witihoiirt 
 the slightest suspicion of its Pagan mfea-ning, is thB; 
 Mystic Northern sacrifice, and the attfestatibii^ In 
 its multitudinous blazing candles, to the Genius -or- 
 God of the Fire,'' The toys representing all the 
 things of man, and of the earth, which are suspend- 
 ed among the boughs, in its mystic light, are the 
 sacrifice of all the good things of the world, and all 
 the products of the Creative Fiat, as in surrender 
 and acknowledgement, back to the UfiMown Living 
 Spirit, or ImmortalProdu^er, who hath chosen i^ire 
 as his symbol and his shadow. ' 
 
 ■ ' If the reader will refer to the crest of His Royal 
 Highness Prince Albert, he will find the Mystic, 
 Magic horns distinctly set up. The reproduction 
 of the ever-recurring symbol which is recognizable 
 as horns, wings, or otherwise in the head-pieces of 
 his ancestors of the North. The rough Runic Sol- 
 diers who, in their barbarian incursions, overturned 
 (in the Roman beliefs), and buried in the ruins of 
 the Empire, a faith identical, in its secrets, with 
 their own. All-ignorant of the fact that the sym- 
 bols of both spoke but the same tale, the original, 
 Magic, Fire-Faith. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 101 
 
 **The laurel- wreath around the head of heroes and 
 emperors^ — accorded alone to the great conquerers, 
 the Imperator, or the poet (majestic Triplicate!), 
 not only mark out the line, and denote the place of 
 the organs of the highest intellectual and god-like 
 faculties in the brows of the human being, but prove 
 the knowledge of the ancients of phrenology, and 
 represent the original starry radius — that which 
 symbohcally invests the head of all the Gods. It 
 speaks the Spirit- Flame or radius — magnetic and 
 supernatural — intensifying to its real magico-gen- 
 erative power in a circle of intolerable light, about 
 the head : in which Mystic Light all Magic and sor- 
 cery, as well as all Sainthood, was supposed, by 
 the Rosicrucians, to be possible, in accordance with 
 the laws of the super-natural Pire-World. Crowns, 
 garlands, wreaths, all the insignia of dignity that 
 encircle the head ; and all passing, be it remarked, 
 over the physico-phrenological places of the facul- 
 ties of '* causality, comparison, wonder, and imagi- 
 nation," and in tracing them along, disclosing and 
 glorifying all the bodily points of the means of the 
 greatness of man, — mitres and priestly head cover- 
 ings, the tonsure of the sacredotes, freeing the 
 sacred circle of the intellect (within which may the 
 terrifically grand, very apprehension of God, him- 
 self, be realized): from the barbarian and the de- 
 graded — nay, brute-like growth of hair, the very 
 investiture and most closely branding confession, 
 and the complete and irresistible conviction, of the 
 beasts — most abundant, and the grossest, there 
 were, in the scale, lowest ; — sceptres, wands, priest- 
 71 
 
102 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 ly staves or crosiers, batons and maces: — all these 
 marks of rank, with the original disk, orb, mound, 
 surmounting, with the Mystic symbol of the Cross, 
 the loyal rods or sceptres of the European mon- 
 arch s : — o2l these fm^ms are hut the changes and repro- 
 ductioa of the rod of the Magtcian, He whose creed was 
 the Fire-creed^ and whose secret means of working upon 
 nature ivas the mysterious ^^ Sorcerer^ s Sign,^^ displayed 
 upon, and through which stretched — he declared — the 
 ^^ shows ^^ of the worlds, and converse with the real Sub- 
 strata of which ^ he pronounced^ laas by spells, as spirit- 
 visages ivere only to be won to the sight, or through en- 
 chantments. 
 
 It has already been shown that both Krishna and 
 Orpheus taught the Christian Mysteries. Buddha, 
 another founder of Religion, also taught these Mys- 
 teries and the Secret Doctrine, and Buddhism is 
 nothing short of Fire Philosophy. 
 
 "The subject of Buddhism is the obscurest in the 
 whole round of learned inquisition." Says Har- 
 grave Jennings: "This old, and (beyond all meas- 
 ure) the broadest and the sublimest of all the re- 
 ligions of the East; — this ancient and really philo- 
 sophical belief — demands a capacity to grasp ab- 
 stractions before its principles can be understood. 
 Men who argue from effect to cause — men who ap- 
 prehend cause at all — that is, cause as gathered 
 from an experience derivable from being; — ca^nnot 
 but fail in attaining to the disclosure of it. Materi- 
 a^lism is a constant charge urged upon the Budd- 
 hist. In one sense, materialism is correctly as- 
 sured of him. For Buddhism denounces all being, 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 103 
 
 apart from form, as impossible. It is the purest 
 Spinozism. It is identical with it. As all forms 
 of true philosophy — whether Grecian, Egyptian, 
 Eastern — all that rest upon a truth that, in this 
 sense is truer than nature, — must rest upon Spin- 
 
 ozism 
 
 Accepted with the literal eye, the tenets of the 
 Indian theology, in reference to its Buddhist ground- 
 work, appear to present the usual average of myth- 
 ologic fabling. But we judge upon the means of ex- 
 pression, not upon the thing expressed. That, in 
 the very terms of expression, has escaped. As the 
 reconcilement of that which 'knows no sense, ' with 
 apprehension through the means of sense alone, 
 must always be impossible. Man's very being — 
 that is the laws by which he is, or his mind, shut 
 him up, as it were, within themselves (or itself), as 
 in a prison. And all his knowledge of things comes 
 from that Light shining ivithin his prison — his mind. 
 Within that radius, the Light is perfect and he him- 
 self perfect. But what guesses he, or can he know, 
 of the great Light without? That light, to him^ 
 may be no light. Light is material. Being, itself, 
 only necessary to matter, and the life of it, or the 
 soul of the world. 
 
 ''So taught the Persian believers in the one Uni- 
 versal groundwork of light — the soul, or ultimate 
 principle of everything to be known — which is the 
 religion of the Magi, of Zoroaster, of the Guebres, 
 of the modern Indian Par sees as of the middle a^ge 
 European Bohemians; the remains of whose Fire- 
 Palaces, or Fire-Temples, are yet to be seen, crumb- 
 
104 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 ling, indeed, into their own god, light, around the 
 reverend ?ind time-battered, as well as war bat- 
 tered, Prague. 
 
 " Man is the center to himself in his light of mind, 
 shining as in his castle and prison of body. The 
 forceful outer day — the god of the universal circle 
 of things -once, in its violent inquest, fixed of a 
 cranny and penetrating, would annihilate the tem- 
 porary possessor of the tenement, and absorb all 
 within (that is, him), to itself— laws to light; organ- 
 ism to broad being. Until reincorporate; that is 
 concrete. 
 
 "The whole round world is as a microcosm, whose 
 wonders are exhaustless; whose beauties are be- 
 yond expression; whose changes, whose decay, 
 whose recommitment into new forms is as the 
 ceaseless revolvement of the Inexpressible Glory. 
 Through the sea floors and their multitudinous 
 mimic continents, fruitful of moving life, fecund 
 with their tree-growths and their semi sylvan, semi- 
 oceanic vegetation; through the clouds of the seas 
 that rest or roll over them, through which speed 
 the winged ships as golden (sunlighted) specks; 
 through the hollow-crusted earth and its rigid rocks 
 —earth torn and battered like a battle-beaten man 
 of Eternal War, as it circles its resounding way 
 amidst the roads of the lighted stars, 'baring' to 
 the changing Sun, and to the cold, renewing moon, 
 its ploughed side, globing up, still defiant, with the 
 wounds of the contentions of the centuries and with 
 the retardation of the space-forces;- -through the 
 'built- work' of Nature, in short runs the ever cour- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 105 
 
 sing Inner Spirit, which forces, in its stupendous 
 track (comet-Hke) the bordering matter into Flame 
 —to Life, 
 
 ''Is not all the world a woven tissue— wizard-col- 
 ored— of which the creative sun strikes the spangles 
 into sparkling; stains, prismatically, with the rose- 
 hues of being, or the blues of decay— or, rather^ 
 change? Roars not old ocean with his caves; as 
 the Nereid music swelleth or sinketh, to fascination, 
 loudly or faintly through its shell? Fires, and 
 smokes, and springs, and steam attest the attenuate 
 bulk, spun through the hands of the Great Mag- 
 netic Life, or by the power of the Earth-God, into 
 tissues. What is as the core, and the mighty heart 
 of the great world, but the spouting Fire? What 
 are the magnificent air-shapes of our atmosphere; 
 what the crossed cloud-platforms of our sky; what 
 the reduplicate and multiplicate fog- work and floc- 
 culence of the Western or the Eastern Heavens, 
 when the golden or the burning light is poured 
 through the heaped wonder-worlds of the Magician 
 of the Great Air;— what should be all the cloud-set- 
 tings or our sky, but as the precipitate, and dress, 
 of the mere 'used-up-matter;'— glorious to our sen- 
 ses, as even all the refuse is? And if Fire be, in its 
 own nature— so to speak— but the roaring-back ^ 
 Illuminate, of Nature from the real unto the unreal 
 (as which the Magi teach, and as which the worshippers 
 of the element of Fire believe), then the very excess of 
 material light shall be but as the very excess of the 
 dense matter, remonstrating (as it were), itself the 
 brighter as it is, in itself, the blacker. Nor are 
 
106 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 these the vagaries of Philosophers, but the world- 
 old persuasions, when the vanity of knowledge had 
 not made a base 'machine of wheels' of the world! 
 
 "Let us rest with this sublime assurance. That 
 the Kingdom of God iieth much nearer to us than 
 consists in our vain imagination of possibilities. 
 Yea, is at our door! God on our Threshold! We 
 all the while— Peter-like— denying him. Denying 
 the Spirits because we cannot feel the Spirit!" 
 
 "The Old Buddhists— as equalJy as the ancient 
 believers in the Doctrine of the Universal Spiritual 
 Fire— held that Spirit Light was the floor or basis 
 of all created things. The material side or com- 
 plement of this Spiritual Light being Fire, into 
 which element all things could be rendered; and 
 which (or Heat) was the motive of all things that 
 are. They taught that matter or mind— as the su- 
 perflux— as the sum of sensations, or as natural 
 and unreal shows of their various kinds— were 
 piled, as layer on layer, or tissue on tissue, on this 
 immutable and Immortal floor or ground- work of 
 Divine Ilame, the soul of the World. 
 
 Such is the magnificent view of the Buddhists 
 of Creation. Is it any wonder that it has more vo- 
 taries than any other system of Religion? Fire, 
 Love— God, is the foundation of this Philosophy, as 
 of all other true Philosophies and it is for this rea- 
 son that it must endure forever, until Universal 
 Brotherhood is a fact. 
 
 The emotion, intensity, mind-agitation, thought, 
 
 ccording to the powers of the unit or the lifting 
 
 heavenward:— or as the dots or dimples in the ever- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 107 
 
 flowing onwave of being: were— to speak in the 
 familiar sense— "as impressions down," perhaps 
 through and through its covers, upon this hving 
 floor of Spiritual Flame, The escape of which was 
 the magnetism— magnetism oi the body: supersen- 
 tial force, or miracle, of the spirit. 
 
 "The Paracelsists or Theosophists of the six- 
 teenth century were also Pire-Philosophers and 
 were known as such. Theosophy we have at the 
 present day although their teachings may be slight- 
 ly changed at this time. 
 
 "The Fire-Philosophers, or PMlosophi per ignem^ 
 were a sect of Philosophers who appeared towards 
 the close of the sixteenth century. They were 
 known throughout every country of Europe and 
 declared that the intimate Essenes of natural things 
 were only to be known by the trying effects of Fire, 
 directed in a chemical process. The Theosophists, 
 also, insisted that human reason was a da^ngerous 
 and deceitful guide; that no real progress could be 
 made in knowledge, or in religion, by it, and that 
 to all vital, that is, supernatural purpose, it was a 
 vain thing, they taught that Divine and supernat- 
 ural exaltation was the only means of arriving at 
 Truth.* Their name of Paracelsists was derived 
 from Paracelsus,** the eminent physician and chem- 
 ist, who was the chief Philosopher of this sect. In 
 England, Robert Pludd was their great advocate 
 
 ^Seethe " B<^aiitiful Philosophy of Initiation." 
 
 ** After the '• r'ama Frsterrjitj^i is : oi . a DiFcoTery of the Frarernity o 
 the n;c;St L;iu;dab!e Ordrr of the Vio'^y Cross "' was Is^^iicd by Chrisiian 
 Rosencrutz, they became kiiown as RoFiciucitDF. See "The Rosicrii- 
 ciaus ; their Teachings," 
 
108 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 and exponent. Rivier, who wrote in France ; Severi- 
 nus, an author of Denmark; Kunrath, an eminent 
 physician of Dresden; and Daniel Hoffman, profes- 
 sor of Divinity in the University of Helmstadt, have 
 also treated largely on Paracelsus, and on his sys- 
 tem. 
 
 "Akin to the school of the Ancient Fire Believers, 
 and of the Magnetists of a later period," says Dr. 
 Ennermoser, "of the same cast as these speculators 
 and searchers into the mysteries of nature, draw- 
 ing from the same well, are the Theosophists of the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These prac- 
 ticed chemistry, by which they asserted that they 
 could explain the profoundest secrets of nature. 
 As they strove, above all earthly knowledge, after 
 the divine, and sought the Divine Light and Fire^ 
 through which all men can acquire the true wisdom, 
 they were called the Fire-Philosophers. As a great 
 general principle, the Theosophists called the Soul 
 a Fire, taken from the eternal ocean of Light. " 
 
 Hargrave Jennings, the Rosicrucian and Philoso- 
 pher, says : "We may thus sum our historical exami- 
 nation. That, at every turn of our inquiry, we 
 meet Light. At every cross-road, as it were, of 
 our laborious journey — of our philosophical pil- 
 grimage—we encounter this pertinacious and ever- 
 following Light. Not only at birth, but as taking a 
 prominent part in the torch-celebration at marriage, 
 and again, and more impressively, at death and in 
 the ceremonials of sepulture, the panthom of Light 
 never fails. It is the more dimly or the brighter— 
 the more gloriously and the more cheerfully celeb- 
 
THE PHILOSOPilY OF PtIe 
 
 rant, or the more awfully full everywhere disclosed* 
 As everything, it must — though disguised— be 
 everything? What may mean this concentrate^ 
 Resplendent Fifure? This ever-following myth? 
 This terrible, and yet this Grand Angel, found at 
 the couch-side at our bith, accompanying us, as the 
 best and most distaut sacrifice, to the altar of pres- 
 entation, where pur mother Ipows in hfer thtoksgiv" 
 ings to the Holy God who has helped her in her time 
 of need; aiid who has equally made birth^und life, 
 aiid deathjand as equally vouchsafed safety in mch 
 and all? What is this that presseth in — chief est bf 
 guests— at our marriages, in all the splendor of his 
 yellowest glow ; and waiting, with his face shrouded, 
 with his pale lights and abounding in glipstly tapers 
 —though in the glory of the hope of heaven!— at 
 that last, solemn scene, where the very cause of the 
 sable royalties— black (imperial, then, alike to poor 
 and rich in the common Spirit-threshold upon 
 wiiich we all stand)— is as the smallest, and very 
 often the least thou ght-of, of all the show? What, 
 to conclude, is this Fire which is so constantly 
 about us, and of which we think so little and know 
 so little, but which seems over-whelmiiigly much? 
 What is this wondrous, universal Element, or least 
 proveable Soul of the World, which hath been so 
 significantly, and yet so unsuspectedly, mythed, 
 universally, through the intelligent ages? What is 
 this Magic reflection which is glassed through 
 Time. We ask thinkers for an answer. But only 
 out of their meditations— only out of the im- 
 possibility of denial— do we hope to wring the 
 
110 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 confession of the Divine Spirit that is in the Fire. 
 
 '*0f course we mean not, in this Real Fire, but a 
 something of which the Beat Fire is an Image. Being 
 the imparticled spirit, in which everything is at one, as 
 in which everything is possible. In this sense, real things 
 (in the World) are the things only unreal. And unreal 
 things (out of the World) are the only real. 
 
 Through two baptismals must the Initiate pass. 
 Through the baptism of both Fire and Water. The 
 mysterious meaning of baptism by water is a sym- 
 bolism prevailing through all faiths, Heathen and 
 Christian. It is that of the earliest traditional or 
 the Pythagorean Transmigration, not abjudged as 
 by its vulgar reading, but as signifying the onward 
 dissolution, into nothingness, of being, that is, of 
 this being, through the farthest separated (save air, 
 in which man always is, and therefore always is 
 baptised) matter— water! This, therefore, is the 
 only element for a rite. Holy water, and ablution, 
 also signify the same although the church has lost 
 the meaning. Thence, as from that next-loosest of 
 matter— water, the only possible symbol for a rite. 
 Man is delivered into the farther, supernatural, 
 airy changes, where matter ceases— loosening ut- 
 terly from above him. And, then, the Spirit of 
 Fire, begins, taking up the matter-undulations. 
 This is the freedom into the foundation, or inspir- 
 ing Light;— the Nirvana of the Buddhists;— the God 
 Flame of the Magi;— the Holy Spirit of the Christ- 
 ians;— the everything, out of this state, and the 
 nothing in it, of all religions. Life— nay, all exist- 
 ence—being considered as a Purgatory of a severer 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 111 
 
 or a more assuasive order. And, therefore, being 
 evil— or God's Shadow— for the very reason of its 
 being Life— or consciousness at all. All conscious- 
 ness being defect— all the outside world being evil. 
 This is the Mystic meaning of that text in the 
 Holy Testament where St. John declares: *'I indeed 
 baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that 
 comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I 
 am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with 
 the Holy Ghost, and with Fire. " 
 
Fire-Phi!osophy 
 
 The Foundation of all True Initiation and all Mystic 
 and Occult Fraternities, as well as the Secret Doc- 
 trine and the Ancient Mysteries, 
 
 (concluded.) 
 
 Sacred Fire 
 
 THE appearance of God to mortals seems al- 
 ways to have been in brightness and great 
 glory, whether He was angry and in displeasure, 
 or benign and kind. These appearances are often 
 mentioned in Scriptures. When God appeared on 
 Mount Sinai, it is said, ''The Lord descended upon 
 it in Fire" (Exodus xix. 18). And when Moses re- 
 peats the history of this to the children of Israel, 
 he says: ''The Lord spake unto you out of the 
 midst of the Fire" (Deuteronomy iv. 12). So it 
 was when the Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses 
 in a flame of fireoutof the midst of the bush: "The 
 bush burned with Fire, and the bush was not con- 
 sumed" (Exodus iii. 3). The ax)pearance of the 
 Angel of God's presence, or that Divine Person who 
 represented God, were always in brightness; or, in 
 8 
 
114 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 other words, the Shechinah was always surrounded 
 with glory. This seems to have given occasion to 
 those of old to imagine fire to be what God dwelt in. 
 ''Whether it was that any fire proceeded from 
 God, and burnt up the oblation in the first sacrifices, 
 as some ingenious men have conjectured, we know 
 not. It is certain that in after ages this was the 
 case. We are sure that a fire from the Lord con- 
 sumed upon the altar the burnt offering of Aaron 
 (Leviticus ix. 24); and so it did the sacrifice of Gide- 
 on, "both the flesh and the unleavened cakes" 
 (Judges vi. 21). When David built an altar unto 
 the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace-of- 
 ferings, and called upon the Lord, He answered 
 him from heaven by Fire, upon the altar of burnt 
 offerings" (Chronicles xxi. 26). The same thing 
 happened at the dedication of Solomon's temple: 
 *'The Fire came down from heaven, and consumed 
 the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory 
 of the Lord filled the house" (2 Chronicles vii. 1). 
 And much about a hundred years afterwards, when 
 Elijah made that extraordinary sacrifice in proof 
 that Baal was no god, '*The Fire of the Lord fell 
 and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, 
 and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the 
 water that was in the trench" (1 Kings xviii. 38). 
 And if we go back long before the times of Moses, 
 as early as Abraham's days, we meet with an in- 
 stance of the same sort: "It came to pass that 
 when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a 
 smoking furnace and a burning lamp, that passed 
 between these pieces " (Genesis xv. 17). 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE ll5 
 
 '*The first appearance of God, then, bein^ in 
 glory — or, which is the same thing, in hght or fire 
 — and He showing His acceptance of sacrifices in 
 so many instances by consuming them with fire, 
 hence it was that the Eastern people, and particu' 
 larly the Persians, fell into the worship of fire itself, 
 or rather they conceived fire to be the symbol of 
 God's presence, and they worshiped God in, or by^ 
 fire. Prom the Assyrians, or Chaldaeans, or Per- 
 sians, this worship was propagated southward 
 among the Egyptians, and westward among the 
 Greeks; and by them it was brought into Italy, 
 The Greeks were wont to meet together to worship 
 their Prytaneia, and there they consulted for the 
 public Good; and there was a constant fire kept up- 
 on the altar, which was dignified by the name of 
 Vesta by some. The fire itself was properly Vesta ; 
 
 and so Ovid : 
 
 "Nee te aliud Vestam, quam vivatn intelli^ere flammam." 
 
 The Prytaneia were thea^r^a of the temples, where- 
 in a fire was kept that was never suffered to go out* 
 On the change in architectural forms from the pyra- 
 midal (or the horizontal) to the obeliscar (or the up- 
 right, or vertical,) the flames were transferred from 
 the altars, or cubes, to the summits of the typical 
 uprights, or towers; or to the tops of the candles, 
 such as we see them used now in Catholic worship, 
 and which are called "tapers," from their tapering 
 or pyramidal form, and which are supposed always 
 to indicate the Divine presence of influence. This, 
 through the symbolism that there is in the Living 
 Light, which is the last exalted show of fluent or of 
 
116 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 inflamed brilliant matter, passing off into the un- 
 known and unseen world of celestial light (or Occult 
 Fire), to which all the forms of things tend, and in 
 which even idea itself passes from recognition as 
 meaning, and evolves- — spring up, as all flame doeSj 
 to escape, and to WING away. 
 
 '* Vesta, or the fire, was worshiped in circular 
 temples, which were the images, or the miniatures, 
 of the "temple" of the world, with its dome, or cope, 
 of stars. It was in the ATRIA of the temples, and 
 in the presence of and before the above-mentioned 
 lights, and the forms of ceremonial worship were 
 always observed. It is certain that Vesta was 
 worshiped at Troy; and Aeneas brought her into 
 Italy: 
 
 " maDibus vittas, Vestamque potentem, AEternumque adytis 
 effert penetralibus Ignem. ' — AEneid^ ii. 298. 
 
 Numa settled an order of Virgin Priestesses, 
 whose business and care it was constantly to main- 
 tain the Holy Fire. And long before Numa's day, 
 we find it not only customary, but honorable, among 
 the Albans to appoint the best-born virgins to be 
 Priestesses of Vesta, and to keep up the constant, 
 unextinguished fire. 
 
 It is from this that sprang the Catholic Vestals so 
 well known throughout all civilized nations. This 
 worship was all purity in its beginning but like 
 many other pure Religions, it has been abused to 
 such an extent that the underlying principle is not 
 recognizable. The foundation of Fire worship is 
 in God and no man can say that it is a heathen re- 
 ligion. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 117 
 
 '*When Virgil speaks (AEbeid, iv. 200) of larbas, 
 in Africa, as building a hundred tempMs and a hxm- 
 dred altars, he says: 
 
 "vigilemquesacraverat fngjem,Excubian Divum aeternas" — 
 that he had *'concentratf^d a fire that never went 
 out." And he calls these temples and these lights, 
 or this fire, the ^'Perpetual Watches,'' of ''Watch- 
 Lights,'' or proof of the presence, of the Gods, By 
 which expressions he tneans, that the places and things 
 were constantly protected and solemnized where fiuch 
 lights burned, and that the celestials, w angel-defertders, 
 ''camped," as it were, and were sure to be met with 
 thickly, where these flames upon the altars, and these 
 torches or lights about the temples, ivere studiously atid 
 incessantly maintained, ^ ^ 
 
 There is a mighty truth in this and the Occultist 
 or Mystic should profit by these things. It is his 
 duty while in "practice" to have not only a small 
 light burning but incense as well for where the 
 light and incense is, the impure spirits or Elemen- 
 tals will not enter while it is undergoing the "driU" 
 that leads towards to the Development. Again, 
 "when you see the Light Listen to the Voice of the 
 Light " has a great meaning. The Catholic Church 
 has a mighty truth in its burning candles and man- 
 kind will learn the truth of this in the coming ages. 
 
 "Thus the custom seems to have been general 
 from the earliest antiquity to maintain a constant 
 fire, as conceivirg the Gods present there. And 
 this was not only the opinion of the inhabitants in 
 Judaea, but it extended all over Persia, Greece, 
 Italy, Egypt, and most other nations of the world. 
 
 i I 
 
118 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 Even Masonry of the present age will have no Initiation 
 without its Lighted tapers. WHY? 
 
 "Porphyry imagined that the reason why the 
 most ancient mortals kept up a constant, ever-burn- 
 ing fire in honor of the immortal Gods was because 
 Fire was most like the Gods. He says that the an- 
 cients kept an unextinguished fire in their temples 
 to the Gods because it was most like them. Fire 
 was not like the Gods, but it was what they ap- 
 peared in to mortals. And so the true God always 
 appeared in brightness and glory ; yet no one would 
 say that brightness was most like the true God, 
 but was most like the Shechinah, in which God ap- 
 peared. And hence the custom arose of keeping 
 up an unextinguished fire in the ancient temples. 
 
 "God, then, being wont to appear in Fire, and 
 being conceived to dwell in Fire, the notion spread 
 universally, and was universally admitted. First, 
 then, it was not at all out of the way to think of en- 
 gaging in friendship with God by the same means 
 as they contracted friendship with one another. 
 And since they to whom God appeared saw Him ap- 
 pear in Fire, and they acquainted other with such 
 His appearances, He was conceived to dwell in Fire. 
 By degrees, therefore, the world came to be over- 
 curious in the fire that was constantly to be kept up, 
 and in things to be sacrificed; and they proceeded 
 from one step to another, till at length they filled 
 up the measure of their aberrations, which were in 
 reality instigated by their zeal, and by their intense 
 desire to mitigate the displeasureof their divinities 
 — for religion was much more intense as a feeling 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 119 
 
 in earlier days — by passing into dreadful ceremon- 
 ies in regard to this fire, which they reverenced 
 as the last possible physical form of divinity; not 
 only in its grandeur and power, but also in its pur- 
 ity. It arose from this view that human sacrifices 
 came to be offered to the deities in many parts of 
 the world, particularly in Phoenicia, and in the col- 
 onies derived from thence to Africa and other places. 
 In the intensity of their minds, children were sac- 
 rificed by their parents, as being the best and dear« 
 est oblations that could be made, and the strongest 
 arguments that nothing ought to be withheld from 
 God. This was expiation for that sad result, the 
 consequence of the original curse, issuing from the 
 fatal curiosity concerning the bitter fruit of that 
 forbidden "Tree," 
 
 "whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all 
 our woe, With loss of Eden," 
 
 according to Milton. That, sense of shame in all 
 its forms lesser and greater, and with aU the refer- 
 ^^ ences inseparably allied to propagation in all its 
 multitudinous cunning (so to speak), wherever the 
 condemned material tissues reach, puzzled the 
 thoughtful ancients. This they considered the con- 
 victed "Adversary," or "Lucifer," "Lord of Light" 
 — that is, material light — "Eldest son of the Morn- 
 ing." Morning, indeed! dawning with its beams 
 from behind that forbidden Tree of Knowledge of 
 good and Evil. What is this shame, urged the phil- 
 osophers, this reddening, however good and beauti- 
 ful, and especially the ornament of the young and 
 of children, who are newest from the real, glowing 
 
120 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 countenance of Deity, with the bloom of the first 
 angehc world scarcely yet fading frorn off their 
 cherub faces, gradually darkening an€ -hardening 
 in the degradation and iniquity of being here as 
 presences in the world, although the most glorious 
 amidst the forms of flesh? What is this shame, 
 which is the characteristic singly of human crea- 
 tures? All other creatures are sinless in this re- 
 spect, and know not the feeling of that— correctly 
 looked at— strange thing which men call '^shanie,-' 
 something which it is not right that th^ sun ever 
 should see, and therefore stirring the blood, and 
 reddening the face, and confusing the speech^ and 
 causing man to hang down his head, and to hide 
 himself, as if guilty of something; even as our guil- 
 ty first parents, having lost the unconsciousness of 
 their child-like, innocent first state — ^that of sinless 
 virginity — hid themselves in the umbrage of Para- 
 dise, all at once conTicted to the certainty that they 
 must hide, because they were exposed in the face 
 of that original intention regarding them having 
 been broken. 
 
 '* Suffer little children to come unto Me, and for- 
 bid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. " 
 
 **That is, the innocent children should come up 
 for salvation, who, though suffering under the mor» 
 tal liability incurred by all flesh in that first sin 
 (and incident in the first fall, which has empoisoned 
 all nature), are yet free by the nature of that un- 
 grown possibility, and from their immature state. 
 They know not the shame of that condition adult, 
 and therefore they bear not the badge of men. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE l2£ 
 
 "The pyramidal or triangular form which Fire 
 assumes in its ascent to heaven is in the monohthie 
 ty]bology used to signify the great generative power/ 
 We have only to look at Stonehenge, Eliora, the 
 Babel- towers' of Central America, the gigantic ruins 
 scattered all over Tartary and India, to see how 
 gloriously they symbolised the majesty of the Su- 
 preme. To these upright, obelisks, or LITHOI, of 
 the old world, including the Bethel, or Jacob's Pil- 
 lar, or Pillow, raised in the plain of "Luz," we will 
 add, as the commemorative or reminding shape of 
 the Fire, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Millenarius^ 
 Gnomon,Mete-Stone,orMark,called London-Stone,'* 
 all Crosses raised at the junction of four roads, all 
 Market-crosses, the Round-Towers of Ireland, and. 
 in all the changeful aspects of their genealogy, all 
 spires and towers, in their grand hieroglyphic 
 proclamation, aU over the world, 
 
 Fire-Philosophy of the Persians 
 
 "As a great general principle, the Theoso* 
 phists caUed the Soul a Fire, taken from the eter- 
 nal ocean of Light. 
 
 *'In regard to the supernatural — using the word 
 in its widest sense— it may be said that "all the 
 difficulty in admitting the strange things told us 
 lies in the non-admission of an internal causal world 
 as absolutely real: it is said, in intellectually admitting, 
 because the influence of the arts proves that man's 
 feelings always have admitted, and do stiU admit, 
 this reality. 
 
122 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 "The Platonic philosophy of Vision is, that it is 
 the view of objects really existing in interior Light, 
 which assume form, not according to arbitrary laws, 
 but according to the state of Mind. This interior 
 light, if we understand Plato, unites with exterior 
 light in the eye, and is thus drawn into a sensual or 
 imaginative activity; but when the outward light 
 is separated, it reposes in its own serene atmos- 
 phere. It is, then, in this state of interior repose, 
 that the usual class of religious, or what are called 
 inspired, visions, occur. It is the same light of 
 eternity so frequently alluded to in books that treat 
 of mysterious subjects; the light revealed to Piman- 
 der, Zoroaster, and all the sages of the East, as the 
 emanation of the Spiritual Sun. Bohmen writes 
 of it as his Divine Vision of Contemplation^ and Moli- 
 nos in his Spiritual Guide, — whose work is the 
 ground of Quietism: Quietism being the foundation 
 of the religion of the people called Friends or Quakers^ 
 as also of the other Mystic or meditative sects. We en- 
 large from a very learned, candid, and instructive 
 book upon the Occult Science. 
 - ''Regard Fire, then, with other eyes than with 
 those soul-less, incurious ones, with which thou hast 
 looked upon it as the most ordinary thing. Thou 
 hast forgotten what it is — or rather thou hast never 
 known. Chemists are silent about it; or, may we 
 not say that it is too loud for them? Thelrefore shall 
 they speak fearfully of it in whispers. Philoso- 
 phers talk of it as anatomists discourse of the con- 
 tinents (or the parts) of the human body — as a piece 
 of mechanism, wondrous though it be. Such the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 123 
 
 wheels of the clock, say they in their ingenious ex- 
 pounding of the "whys" and the **wherefores" 
 (and the mechanics and the mathematics) of this 
 mysterious thing, with a supernatural soul in it, 
 called world. Such is the chain, such are the bal- 
 ances, such the larger and the smaller mechanical 
 forces; such the "Time-blood," as it were, that is 
 sent circulating through it; such is the striking, 
 
 with an infinity of bells. It is made for man, this 
 world, and it is greatly like him — that is, mean, they 
 
 would add. 
 
 "Note the goings of the Fire, as he creepeth, 
 serpentineth, riseth, slinketh, broadeneth. Note 
 him reddening, glowing, whitening. Tremble at 
 his face, dilating; at the meaning that is growing 
 into it, to you. See that spark from the black- 
 smith's anvil! — struck, as an insect, out of a sky 
 containing a whole cloud of such. Rare locusts, of 
 which Pharaoh and the Cities of the Plain read of 
 old the Secret! One, two, three sparks; — dozens 
 come: — faster and faster the fiery squadrons fol- 
 low, until, in a short while, a whole possible army 
 of that hungry thing for battle, for food for it- 
 Fire— glances up; but is soon warned in again!— 
 lest acres should glow in the growing advance. 
 Think that this thing is bound as in matter-chains. 
 Think that He is outside of all things, and deep in 
 the inside of all things ; and that thou and thy world 
 are only the thing between: and that outside and in- 
 side are both identical, couldst thou understand 
 the supernatural truths! Reverence Fire (for its 
 Meaning), and tremble at it; though in the Earth it 
 
124 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 be chained, and the foot of the Archangel Michael 
 — like upon the Dragon— be upon it! Avert the 
 face from it, as the Magi turned, dreading, and (as 
 the symbol) before it bowed askance. So much for 
 this G^rea)^ thing— Fire! 
 
 'Observe the multiform shapes of fire; the flame- 
 wreaths, the spires, the stars, the spots, the cas- 
 cades, and the mighty falls of it; where the roar, 
 when it grows high in Imperial masterdom, as that 
 of Niagara. Think what it can do, what it is. 
 Watch the trail of sparks, struck, as in that spout- 
 ing arch, from the metal shoes of the trampling 
 horse. It is a letter of the great alphabet. The 
 famihar London streets, even, can give the 
 Persian's God: though in thy pleasures, and in 
 thy commerce-operations, thou so oft forgettest 
 thine ovm, God. Whence liberated are those 
 sparks?— as stars, afar off, of a whole sky 
 of flame;— sparks, deep down in possibility, though 
 close to us;— great in their meaning, though smaU 
 in their show;— as distant single ships of whdle 
 fiery fleets;— animate children ot, in thy human 
 conception, a dreadful but, in reality, a great world, 
 of which thou knowest nothing. They fall , f oodless, 
 on the rejecting, barren, and (on the outside) the 
 coldest stone. But in each stone, fence flinty and 
 chilling as the outside is, is a heart of fire^ to strike 
 at which is to bid gush forth the waters^ as it were, 
 c^ every fire, like waters of the rock! Truly, out of 
 sparks can be displayed a whole acreage of fire- 
 works. Forests can be conceived of flame — palaces 
 of the fire; Grandest things — Soul-things — last 
 things — all things! 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 125 
 
 '* Wonder no longer, then, if, rejected so long as 
 an idolatry, the ancient Persians, and their Masters 
 the Magi, — concluding that they saw *'AH" in 
 this supernaturally magnificent element, — fell 
 down and worshipped it; making of it the Visible 
 representation of the very truest; but yet, in man's 
 speculation, and in his philosophers, — nay, in his 
 commonest reason, — impossible God: God being 
 everywhere^ and in us, indeed, us, in the God-lighted 
 man; and impossible to be contemplated or. known 
 outside, — being All! 
 
 ^'Lights and flames, and the torches, as it were, of 
 fire (all fire in this world, the last background on 
 which all things are painted), may be considered as 
 "lancets" of another world — the last world: circles ^ 
 enclosed by the thick walls (which, however, by the 
 Fire are kept from closing) of this world. As fire 
 and brandishes, wilJ the walls of this world wave, 
 and, as it were, undulate from about it. In smoke 
 and disruption, or combustion of matter, we wit- 
 ness a phenomenon of the burning as of the edges 
 of the matter-rings of this world, in which world 
 is fire, like a spot; that dense and hard thing, mat- 
 ter, holding it in. Oxygen, which is the finest of 
 air, and is the means of the quickest burning out, 
 or the supernatural (in this world) exhilaration of 
 animal life, or extenuation of the Solid; and, above 
 all, the heightening of the capacity of the Human, 
 as being the quintessence of matter: this oxygen 
 is the thing which feeds fire the most overwhelm- 
 ingly. Nor would the specks and spots and stars 
 of fire stop in this dense world-medium, — in this 
 
126 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 tissue or sea of things, — could it farther and far- 
 ther fasten upon and devour the sohds: eating, as it 
 were, through them. But as this thick world is a 
 thing the thickest, it presses out, thrusts, or gravi- 
 tates upon, and stifles, in its too great weight; and 
 conquers not only that livJiest, subtlest, thinnest 
 element of the solids, the finest air, by whatever 
 chemical name — Oxygen^ Awte, Azone, or what not — 
 it may be called; which, in fact, is merely the nom- 
 enclature of its composition, the naming of the in- 
 gredients which make the thing (but not the thing). 
 The denseness of the world not only conquers this, 
 we repeat; but, so to figure it, matter stamps upon, 
 effaces, and treads out fire: which, else, would burn 
 on, back, as in the beginning of things, or into itself, 
 — consuming, as in its great revenge of anything 
 being created other than it, all the mighty worlds 
 which, in Creation, were permitted out of it. This 
 is the teaching of the ancient Fire-Philosophers 
 reestablished and restored, to the days of compre- 
 hension of them, in the conclusions of the Rosicru- 
 cians of later times), who claimed to have discovered 
 the Eternal Fire, or to have found out ''God" in the 
 "Immortal Light."* 
 
 "There are all grades or graduations of the den- 
 sity of matter; but it all coheres by the one law of 
 gravitation. Now, this gravitation is mistaken for 
 a force of itself, when it is nothing but the sympathy, 
 or the taking away of the supposed thing between two 
 other things. It is sympathy (or appetite) seeking 
 
 ♦See "Divine Alchemy" for the mystery of Fire— Sex. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 127 
 
 its food, or as the closing together of two things. 
 It is not because one mass of matter is more pond- 
 erable or attractive than another (out of our senses, 
 and in reality), but that they are the same, with 
 different amounts of affection, and that like seeks 
 like, not recognizing or knowing that between. 
 Now, this thing which is, as it were, slipped be- 
 tween, and which we strike into show of itself, or 
 into fire — surprised and driven out of its ambush--- 
 is Fire. It is as the letter by which matter spells 
 itself out— so to speak. Now, matter is only to be 
 finally forced asunder by heat; flame being the 
 bright, subtle something which comes last, and is 
 the expansion, fruit, crown or glory of heat: it is 
 the vivid and visible soul, essence, and spirit of heat 
 —the last evolvement before rending, and before 
 the forcible closing again of all the center-speeding 
 weights, or desires, of matter. Flame is the ex- 
 panding out (or even exploding) flower to this grow- 
 ing thing, heat: it is at the bubble of it— the fruit 
 (to which before we have likened it), or seed, in the 
 outside Hand upon it. Given the super-natural 
 Flora, heat is as the gorgeous plant, and flame the 
 glorifying flower; and as growth is greater out of 
 the greater matrix, or matter of growing, so the 
 thicker the material of fire (as we may roughly fig- 
 ure it, though we hope we shall be understood), so 
 the stronger shall be the fire, and of necessity the 
 fiercer will it be perceived to be— result being ac- 
 cording to power. 
 
 ''Thus we get more of fire— that is, heat— out of 
 the hard things: there being more of the thing Fire 
 in them. 
 
128 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 *'But Fire disjoints, as it were, all the hinges of 
 the house — laps out the coherence of it — sets ablaze 
 the dense thing, matter — makes the dark metals 
 run like waters of light — conjures the black devils 
 out of the minerals, and, to our astonishment, 
 shows them much libelled, blinding, angel- white! 
 By Fire we can lay our hands upon the solids, Part 
 them, powder them, melt them, fine them, drive 
 them out to more and more delicate and impalpable 
 texture — firing their invisible molecules, or impon- 
 derables, into clouds, into mist, into gas: out of see- 
 ing, into smelling; out of smelling into nothing — 
 into real nothing— not even into the last blue sky. 
 These are the potent operations of Fire— the cruci- 
 ble into which we cast all the worlds, and find them, 
 in their last evolution, not even smoke. These are 
 physical and scientific facts which there can be no 
 gainsaying—which were seen and found out long 
 ago, ages ago, in the reveries first, and then in the 
 practice, of the great Magnetists (Rosicrucians), 
 and those who were called the Fire-Philosophers, 
 of whom we have spoken before. 
 
 "What is that mysterious and inscrutable opera- 
 tion, the striking fire from flint? Familiar as it is, 
 who remarks it? "Where, in that hardest, closest 
 pressing together of matter— where the granula- 
 tion compresses, shining even in its hardness, into 
 the solidest Laminae of cold, darkest, blue, and 
 streaky, core-like, agate-resembling white--lie the 
 seeds of fire, spiritual flame-seeds to the so stony 
 fruit? In what folds of the flint, in the block of it 
 — in what invisible recess — speckled and spotted, in 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 129 
 
 what tissue — crouch the fire-sparks? — to issue, in 
 showers, on the stroke of iron — on the so sudden 
 clattering (as of the crowbars of man) on its stony 
 doors: Stone craving the thing Fire, unseen, as its 
 sepulchre; Stroke warning the magical thing forth. 
 Whence comes that trail of fire from the cold bosom 
 of the hard, secret, unexploding flint? — Children as 
 from what hard, rocky breast; yet hiding its so 
 sacred, sudden fire-birth! Who — and what science- 
 philosopher— can explain this wondrous darting 
 forth of the hidden something, which he shall try 
 in vain to arrest, but which, Uke a spirit, escapes 
 him? If we ask what fire is, of the men of science, 
 they are at fault. They will tell us that it is a phe- 
 nomenon^ that their vocabularies can give no further 
 account of it. They will explain to us that all can 
 be said of it is, that it is a last affection of matter, 
 to the results of what (in the world of man) they 
 can only testify, but of whose coming and of whose 
 going — of the place from which it comes, and the 
 whereabouts of which it goeth— they are entirely 
 ignorant,— and would give a world to know. 
 
 '*The foregoing— however feebly expressed— are 
 the views of the famous Rosicrucians* respecting 
 the nature of this supposed familiar, but yet puz- 
 zling, thing- Fire. We will proceed to some of their 
 further Mystic reveries. 
 
 * For the real Mystery of the Fire Philosophy of the true Rosicrucians, 
 see '^Divine Alchemy." 
 
 9 
 
180- THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 Ideas of the Rosicrudans as to the Character 
 
 of Fire 
 
 *' Spark surrenders out of the world, when it dis- 
 appears to us, in the universal ocean of Invisible 
 Fire. That is its disappearance. It quits us in 
 the supposed light, but to it really darkness— as 
 fire-born, the last level of all— to reappear in the 
 true light, which is to us darkness. This is hard to 
 understand. But, as the real is the direct contrary 
 of the apparent, so that which shows as light to us 
 is darkness in the supernatural; and that which is 
 light to the supernatural is darkness to us: matter 
 being darkness, and Soul light. For we know that 
 light is material, and, being material, it must be 
 dark. For the Spirit of God is not material, and 
 therefore, not being material, it cannot be light to 
 us, and therefore darkness to God. Just as (until 
 discovered otherwise) the world it is that is at rest, 
 and the sun and the heavenly bodies in daily motion 
 —instead of the very reverse being the fact. This 
 is the belief of the oldest Theosophists, the found- 
 ers of magical knowledge in the East, and the dis- 
 coverers of the Gods, also the doctrine of the fire- 
 Philosophers, and of the Rosicrucians who taught 
 that all knowable things (both of the Soul and of 
 the body) were evolved out of Fire, and finally re- 
 solvable into it; and that Fire was the last and only- 
 to be-known God: as that all things were capable 
 of being searched down into it, and all things were 
 capable of being thought up to it. Fire, they found, 
 when, as it were, they took this world, solid, to 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE '131 
 
 pieces (and also, as metaphysicians, distributed and 
 divided the mind of man, seeking for that invisible 
 God-thing, coherence of ideas)- -fire, these thinkers 
 found, in their supernatural light of mind, to be the 
 latent, nameless matter started out of the tissues- - 
 certainly out of the body, presumably out of the 
 mind— with ^roan, disturbance, hard motion, and 
 Jlash (when forced to sight of it), instantly disap- 
 pearing, and relapsing, and hiding its Godhood in 
 the closing- violently-again solid matter— as into the 
 forcefully resuming mind. Matter, the agent 
 whose remonstrance at disturbance out of its Rest 
 was, in the winds, murmur, noise, cries, as it were^ 
 of air; in the waters, rolling and roaring; in the 
 piled floors of the sky, and their furniture, clouds, 
 circumvolence, contest, and war, and thunders (de* 
 fiant to nature, but groans to God), and intolerable 
 lightning-rendings, matter tearing as a garment, 
 to close supernaturally together again, as the Solid, 
 fettered and chained— devil-bound- -in the Hand 
 upon it, "To Be!" In this sense, all noise (as the 
 rousing or conjuration of matter by the outside 
 forces) is the agony of its penance. All motion is 
 pain, all activity punishment; and Fire is the secret, 
 lowest— that is, foundation-spread— thing, the ulti- 
 mate of aU things, which is disclosed when the 
 clouds of things roll, for an instant, off it,— as the 
 blue sky shows, in its fragments, like turquoises, 
 when the canopy of clouds is wind-torn, speck-like 
 from off it. Fire is that floor over which the coats 
 or layers, or the spun kingdoms of matter, or of 
 the subsidences of the past periods of time (which 
 
132 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 is built up of objects), are laid; tissues woven over 
 a gulf of it: in one of which last, We Are. To which 
 Fire we only become sensible when we start it by 
 blows or force, in the rending up of atoms, and in 
 the blasting out of them that which holds them, 
 which then, as Secret Spirit, springs compelled to 
 sight, and as instantly flies, except to the immortal 
 eyes, which receives it (in the supernatural) on the 
 other side. 
 
 '*The Fire-Philosophers maintained that we trans- 
 cend everything into Fire, and that we lose it there 
 in the flash, the escape of fire being as the door 
 through which everything disappears to the other 
 side. In their very peculiar speculations, and in 
 this stupendous and supernatural view of the uni- 
 Terse, where we think that fire is the exception, 
 and is, as it were, spotted over the world (in reality, 
 to go out when it goes out), they held that the direct 
 contrary was the truth, and that we, and all things, 
 were spotted upon fire; and that we conquer patches 
 only of fire when we put it out, or win torches out 
 of the great flame, when we enkindle fire, — which is 
 our master in the truth, making itself, in our be- 
 liefs (in our human needs), the slave. Thus fire, 
 when it is put out, only goes into the underworld, 
 and the matter-flags close over it like a grave-stone. 
 
 "When we witness Fire, we are as if peering 
 only through a door into another world. Into this, 
 all the (consumed into microscopical smallness) 
 things of this world, the compressed and concen- 
 trate matter-heaps of defunct tides of Being and 
 Time, are in combustion rushing: kingdoms of the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 133 
 
 floors of the things passed through — up to this 
 moment held in suspense in the invisible inner 
 worlds. All roars through the hollow. All this is 
 mastered in the operations of this Fire, and that is 
 rushing through the hollow made by it in the par- 
 tition-world of the Knowable — across, and out on 
 the other side, into the Unknowable — seeks, in the 
 Fire, its last and most perfect evolution into absolute 
 nothing^ — as a bound prisoner urges to his feet, in 
 his chains, and shrieks for freedom when he is smit- 
 ten. In Fire, we witness a grand phenomenon of 
 the subsidiary (or further, and under, and inner, 
 and multiplied) birth and death, and the supernat- 
 ural transit of microscopic worlds, passing from 
 the human sense-worlds to other levels and into 
 newer fields. Then it is that the Last Spirit, of 
 which they are composed, is playing before us; 
 and playing, and playing, into last extinction, out 
 of its rings of this-side matter: all which matter, 
 in its various stages of thickening, is as the flux of 
 the Supernatural Fire, or inside God. 
 
 *'It will appear no wonder now, if the above ab- 
 stractions be caught by the Thinker, how it was 
 that the early people (and the founders of Fire-Wor- 
 ship) considered that they saw God, standing face 
 to face with Him — that is, with all that; in their in- 
 nermost possibility of thought, they could find as 
 God — in Fire. Which Fire is tiot our vulgar, gross 
 fire; neither is it the purest material fire, which 
 has something of the base, bright lights of the 
 world still about it — brightest though they be in 
 the matter which makes them the Lightest to the 
 
1|84 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 ipaterial sight; but it is an occult, mysterious, or 
 inner — not even magnetic, but a supernatural — Fire: 
 a real, sensible, and the only possible Mind, or God, 
 as containing all things, and as the soul of all things; 
 into whose inexpressible intense, and all-devouring 
 and divine, though fiery, gulf, all the v^orlds in suc- 
 cession, like ripe fruit to the ground, and all things, 
 fall, — back into whose arms of Immortal light: on 
 t^e other side, as again receiving them, all things, 
 thrown off as the smoke off light, again fall! 
 
 *'At the shortest, then, the theory of the Magi 
 ipay be summed up thus. When, as we think, fire 
 is spotted over all the world, as we have said, it is 
 v^e who make the mistake, necessitated in our man's 
 i^ature, and we are that which is spotted over it; — 
 just as, while we think we move, we are moved; and 
 we conclude the senses in us, while we are in the 
 aenses: everything — out of the world— being the 
 v.ery opposite of that which we take it. The views 
 qf these mighty thinkers amounted to the suppres- 
 sion of human reason, and the institution of Magic, 
 qr God-head, as all. It will be seen at once that 
 this knowledge was possible but for the very few. 
 It is only fit for men when they seek to pass out of 
 tjie world, and to approach— the nearest according 
 to their natures— God. 
 
 "The hollow world in which that essence of things, 
 qalled Fire, plays, in its escape, in violent agitation 
 --to us, combustion,— is deep down inside of us:* 
 that is, deep-sunk inside of the time-stages of which 
 
 *8ee "Divine Alchemy." 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 135 
 
 rings of being (subsidences of spirit) we are, in the 
 flesh,— that is, in the human show of things, --iA 
 the outer. It is exceedingly difficult, through lan- 
 guage, to make this idea intelligible; but it i^ the 
 real Mystic dogma of the ancient Guebres, or the 
 Fire-Believers, the successors of the Buddhists, or^ 
 more properly, Bhuddists, 
 
 "What is explosion? It is the lancing into the 
 layers of worlds, whereinto we force, through turn- 
 ing the edges out and driving through; in surprisai 
 of the reluctant, lazy, and secret nature, exposing 
 the hidden, magically microscopical stores of things; 
 passing inwards out of the accumulated rings of 
 worlds, out of the (within) supernaturally buried 
 wealth, rolled in, of the past, in the procession of 
 Being. What is smoke but the disrupted vapor^ 
 world to the started soul-fire? The truth is, say 
 the Fire-Philosophers, in the rousing of fire we 
 suddenly come upon Nature, and start her violently 
 out of her ambush of things, evoking her secret- 
 est and immortal face to us. Therefore is this 
 knowledge not to be known generally to man; and 
 it is to be assumed at the safest in the disbelief 
 of it: that disbelief being as the magic casket iii 
 which it is locked. The keys are only for the Gods, 
 -or for godlike Spirits. 
 
 "We imagine that it will be said that it is impos- 
 sible that any religionists could have seriously en- 
 tertained such extraordinary doctrines; but, incred- 
 ible as it may seem, — because it requires much 
 preparation to understand tHem; — it is certainly true, 
 that it is only in this manner the idfeas of the Di- 
 
136 THE PHILOSOPHY OFFIRE 
 
 vinity of Fire, which we know once prevailed large- 
 ly, can be made intelligible, — we mean to the phil- 
 osopher, who knows how properly to value the an- 
 cient Thinkers, who were as giants in the earth. 
 
 "Obelisks, spires, minarets, tall towers, upright 
 stones (Menhits), monumental crosses, and archi- 
 tectural perpendiculars of every description, and, 
 generally speaking, all erections conspicuous for 
 height and slimness, were representatives of the 
 sworded, or of the pyramidal Fire. They bespoke, 
 wherever found, and in whatever age, the idea of 
 the First Principle, or the male generation Emblem.'^ 
 
 "Having given, as we hope, some new views of 
 the doctrine of Universal Fire, and shown that 
 there has been error in imagining that the Persians 
 and the Ancient Fire- Worshippers were idolaters 
 simply of fire, inasmuch as, in bowing down before 
 it, they only regarded Fire as a Symbol, or Visible 
 Sign, or thing placed as standing for the Deity, — 
 having, in our preceding lines, disposed the mind 
 of the reader to consider as a matter of solemnity, 
 and of much greater general significance, this 
 strange fact of Fire-Worship, and endeavored to 
 show it as a portentous, first, all-embracing as all- 
 genuine principle, — we will proceed to exemplify 
 the wide-spread roots of the Fire-Faith. In fact, 
 we seem to recognize it everywhere. 
 
 "Instead of, in their superstition — making of fire 
 their God, they obtained Him — that is, all that we 
 can realize of Him; by which we mean, all that th^ 
 
 *See both "Divine Alchemj," and "Ancient Mystic Oriental Maionry.'^ 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 137 
 
 human reason can find of the Last Principle — out 
 of it. Already in their thoughts, had the Magi ex* 
 hausted all possible theologies; already had they, 
 in their great wisdom, searched through physics — 
 their power to this end being much greater than 
 that of the modern faith-teachers and doctors; al- 
 ready, in their reveries, in their observations (deep 
 with their deep souls) upon the nature of them-^ 
 selves, and of the microcosm of a world in which 
 they found themselves, had the Magi transcended. 
 They had arrived at a new world in their specula- 
 tions and deductions upon facts, upon all the things 
 behind which (to men) make these facts. Already^ 
 in their determined climbing into the heights of 
 jhought, and these Titans of mind achieved, past 
 the cosmical, through the shadowy borders of Real 
 and Unreal, into Magic. 
 
 *'Passing through the mind- worlds, and coming 
 out, as we may figure it, at the other side, penetrat- 
 ing into the secrets of things, they evaporated all 
 Powers, and resolved them finally into the Last 
 Fire. Beyond this, they found nothing; as into 
 this they resolved all things. And then, on the 
 Throne of the Visible, they placed this — in the 
 world Invisible — Fire: the sense- thing to be wor- 
 shipped in the senses, as the last thing of them, and 
 the king of them, — that is, that which we know as 
 the phenomenon. Burning Fire,— ^the Spiritual Fire 
 being inpalpable, as having the visible only for its 
 shadow; the Ghostly Fire not being even to be 
 thought upon; thought being its medium of appre- 
 hension when itself had slipped; the waves of ap- 
 
138 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 prehension of it only flowing back when it — being 
 intuition — had vanished. We only know that a 
 thought is in us when the thought is off the object 
 and in us: another thought being, at that simultan- 
 eous instant, in the object, to be taken up by us 
 only when the first has gone out of us, and so on; 
 but not before to be taken up by us, — that thought 
 being all of us, and a deceptive and unreal thing to 
 pass at all to us through the reason, and there being 
 no resemblance between it and its original; the true 
 thing being "Inspiration," or "God in us," exclud- 
 ing all matter or reason, which is only built up of 
 matter. It is most difficult to frame language in 
 regard to those things. Reason can only inmake 
 God; He is only possible in His own development, 
 or in His siezing of us, and "in possession. " Thus 
 Paracelsus and his disciples declare the Human 
 Reason become our master, that is, in its perfection, 
 —but not use as our servant,— transforms, as it 
 were into the Devil, and exercises his office in lead- 
 ing us away from the throne of Spiritual Light- 
 over, and, in the world, seeming better; in his false 
 and deluding World-Light, or Matter-Light, really 
 showing himself God. This view of the Human 
 Reason, intellectually trusted, transforming into 
 the Angel of Darkness, and effacing God out of the 
 world, is borne out by a thousand Texts of Scripture. 
 It is equally in the beliefs and in the traditions of 
 all nations and of all times, as we shaU by and by 
 show. Real Light is God's Shadow, or the soul of 
 matter; the one is the very brighter, as the other is 
 the very blacker. Thus, the worshippers of the Sun^ 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 139 
 
 or Lights or Fire^ — otheriuise they loould have wor- 
 shipped the Devil, he being all conceivable Light: but 
 rather they adored the Unknown Great God, in the last 
 image that was possible to man of anything — the Fire. 
 
 And they chose that as His shadow, as the very- 
 opposite of that which He really was: honouring the 
 Master through His Servant; bowing before the 
 manifestation, Eldest of Time, for the Timeless; 
 paying homage to the spirit of the Devil- World, or 
 rather to Beginning and End, on which was the 
 foot of ALL, that the All, or the LAST, might be 
 worshipped; propitiating the Evil Principle in its 
 finite shows, because (as they that alone a world 
 could be made, whose making is alone Comparison) 
 it was permitted as a means of God, and therefore 
 the operation of God Downwards, as part of Him, 
 though Upwards dissipating as before Him, — be- 
 fore HIM in whose presence Evil, or Comparison, 
 or Difference, or Time, or Space, or anything, 
 should be Impossible: real God being not to be 
 thought upon. 
 
 "But it was not only in the quickening Spirit of 
 Divinity that these teachings could be seen. Other- 
 wise than in faith, we can hope that they shall now 
 — in our weak attempts to explain them — be gath- 
 ered as not contradictory, and merely intellectual, 
 and seen as vital and absolute. They need the ele- 
 vation of the mind in the sense of "Inspiration," 
 and not the quickening and sharpening of the Intel- 
 lect, as seeking wings — devil-pinions — wherewith 
 to sail into the region only of its own laws, where, 
 of course, it will not find God. Then step in the 
 
140 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 mathematics, then the senses, then the reasons- 
 then the very perfection of matter-work, or this 
 world's work, sets in,— engines of which the Sa- 
 tanic Powers shall realize the work. The evil Spir- 
 it conjures, as even by holy command, the trans- 
 lucent sky. The Archangelic, clear, child-like 
 rendering-up in intuitive belief, — intense in its own 
 sun, -is Faith. Lucifer fills the scope of belief with 
 imitative, dazzling clouds, and built splendours. 
 With these temptations it is sought to dissuade, 
 sought to rival, sought to put out Saints' sight- 
 sought even to surpass in seeming a farther and 
 truer, because a more solid and a more sensible, 
 glory. The apostate, real-born Lucifer, is so named 
 as the intensest Spirit of Light, because he is of the 
 things that perish, and of the things that to Mind— 
 because they are all of Matter— have the most of 
 glory! Thus is one of the names of the Devil, the 
 very eldest-born and brightest Star of Light, that 
 of the very morning and beginning of all things— 
 the clearest, brightest, purest, as being soul-like, 
 of Nature; but only of Nature. Real Law, or Na- 
 ture, is the Devil; real Reason is the Devil. 
 
 ''Now we shall find, with a little patience, that 
 this transcendental, beyond-limit-or-knowledge an- 
 cient belief of the Fire-God is to belaid hand upon— 
 as, in a manner, we shall say— in all the stories (and 
 they, indeed, are all) where belief has grown,— yea, 
 as a thing with the trees and plants, as out of the 
 very ground,— in all the countries and continents— 
 and in both worlds. And out of this great fact of 
 its universal dissipation, as a matter of history the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE l4l 
 
 most innate and coexistent, shall we not assume 
 this fire-doctrine as being of truth?--as a thing 
 really, fundamentally, ancj vitally true? As in the 
 East, so in the West; as in the old time, so in the 
 new; as in the pre- Adamite and post-diluvian worlds^ 
 so in the modern and latter-day world; surviving 
 through the ages, buried in the foundations of em* 
 pires, locked in the rocks, hoarded in legends^ 
 maintained in monuments, preserved in beliefs, 
 suggested in traditions, borne amidst the roads of 
 the multitude in emblems, gathered up—as the re* 
 curring, unremarked, supernaturally coruscant, 
 and yet secret, evading, encrusted, and dishonored 
 jewel— in rites, spoken (to those capable of the com- 
 prehension) in the field of hieroglyphics, dimly 
 glowing up to a fitful suspicion of it in the sacred 
 rites of all peoples; figured forth in the religions, 
 symbolized in a hundred ways: attested, prenoted, 
 bodied forth in occult body, as far as body can;— 
 in fine, in multitudinous fashions and forms forci- 
 bly soliciting the sharpness of sight directed to its 
 discovery, and spelt over a floor as underplacing all 
 things, we recognize, we spy, we descry, and we 
 may, lastly admit the mysterious sacredness of 
 Fire. For why should we not admit it? 
 
 Monuments Raised to Fire-Worship in all 
 
 Countries 
 
 ''We think that we shall be able fully, in our suc- 
 ceeding pages, to place beyond contradiction an 
 extraordinary discovery. It is that the whole 
 
142 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 round of disputed emblems which so puzzle anti- 
 quaries, and which are found in all countries, point 
 to the belief in Fire as the First Principle. We 
 seek to show that the Fire-Worship was the very 
 earliest, from the immemorial times,— that it was 
 the foundation religion,— that the attestation to it 
 is preserved in monuments scattered all over the 
 globe,— that the rites and usages of all creeds, down 
 even to our own day, and in every-day use about us, 
 bear reference to it,— that problems and puzzles in 
 religion, which cannot be otherwise explained, 
 stand clear and evident when regarded in this new 
 light,— that in all the Christian varieties of belief— 
 as truly as in Bhuddism, in Mohammedanism, in 
 Heathenism of all kinds, whether eastern, or west- 
 ern, or northern, or southern— this ''Mystery of 
 Fire" stands ever general, recurring, and conspic- 
 uous,— and that in being so, beyond all measure, 
 old, and so, beyond all modern, or any idea of it, 
 general,— as universal, in fact, as man himself, and 
 the thoughts of man,— and as being that beyond 
 which, in science and in natural philosophy, we can- 
 not further go,— it must carry truth with it, how- 
 ever difficult to comprehend, and however unsus- 
 pected: that is; as really being the manifestation 
 and Spirit of God, and — to the confounding and 
 annihilation of Atheism — Revelation. 
 
 "Affirmatively we shall now, therefore, offer to 
 the attention of the reader the universal scattering 
 of the Fire-Monuments, taking up at the outset 
 certain positions about them. 
 ''Narrowly considered, it will be found that all re- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 143 
 
 ligions transcend up into this spiritual Fire-Floor, 
 on which, to speak metaphysically, the phases of 
 Time were laid. Material Fire, which is the bright- 
 er as the matter which constitutes it is the blacker, 
 is the shadow (so to express, or to speak, neces- 
 sarily with "words," which have no meaning in the 
 spirit) of the '* Spirit-Light," which invests itself 
 in it as the mask in which alone it can be possible. 
 Thus, material light being the very opposite of 
 God, the Egyptians — who were undoubtedly ac- 
 quainted with the Fire-Revelation — could not repre- 
 sent God as light. They therefore expressed their 
 Idea of Deity by Darkness. Their chief adoration 
 was paid to darkness. They bodied the Eternal forth 
 under Darkness. 
 
 *' Stones were set up by the Patriarchs: the Bi- 
 ble records them. In India, the first objects of 
 worship were Monoliths. In the two peninsulas 
 of India, in Ceylon, in Persia, in the Holy Land, in 
 Phoenicia, in Saramathia, in Scythia, everywhere 
 where worship was attempted (and in what place 
 where man exists is it not?), everywhere where 
 worship was practiced) and where, out of fear, did 
 not, first, come the Gods, and then their propitia- 
 tion?) — in all the countries, we repeat, as the earli- 
 est of man's work, we recognize this sublime, mys- 
 teriously speaking, ever-recurring monolith, mark- 
 ing up the tradition of the supernaturally real, and 
 only real, Fire-dogma. Buried so far down in time, 
 the suspicion assents that there must somehow be 
 truth in the foundation; not fanciful, legendary, 
 philosophical creed-truth, unexplainable (and only 
 
144 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 to be admitted without question) truth: but truth, 
 however mysterious and aweing, yet cogent, and not 
 to be of philosophy (that is, illumination) denied. 
 
 ''The death and decent of Balder into the Hell of 
 the Scandinavians may be supposed to be the pur- 
 gatory of the Human Unit (or the God-illuminate), 
 from the Light (through the God-dark phases of 
 being), back into its native Light. Balder was the 
 Scandinavian Sun-God, and the same as the Egyp- 
 tian Osiris, the Greek Hercules, Bacchus, and Phoe- 
 bus, or Apollo, the Indian Krishna, the Persian 
 Mithras, the Aten of the Empires of Insular Asia; 
 or, even of the Sidonians, the Athyr or Ashtaroth. 
 The presence of all these divinities — indeed, of all 
 Gods — were of the semblance of Fire; and we rec- 
 ognize, as it were, the mark of the foot of them, or 
 of the Impersonated Fire, in the countless uprights, 
 left, as memorials, in the great ebb of the ages (as 
 waves) to nations in the later divisions of that great 
 roll of periods called Time: yet to totally unguess- 
 ing of the preternatural mystery — seeming the key 
 of all belief, and the reading of all wonders — which 
 they speak. 
 
 "It is to be noted that all the above religions — 
 all the Creeds of Fire — were exceedingly similar in 
 their nati:ire; that they all fortified by rites, and 
 fenced around with ceremonies; and that, associat- 
 ed as they were with mysteries and initiations, the 
 disciple was led through the knowledge of them in 
 stages, as his powers augmented and his eyes saw, 
 until, towards the last grades (asif he himself grew 
 capable and illuminate), the door was closed upon 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE MS 
 
 all after-pressing and unrecognized inquirers, and 
 the Admitted One was himself lost sight of. 
 
 "There was a great wave to the westward €fPWt 
 knowledge, all cultivation of the arts, all tradition, 
 all intellect, all civilization, all religious belief. The 
 world was peopled westward. There seems some 
 secret, divine impress upon the world's destinies — 
 and, indeed, ingrained in cosmical matter — in these 
 matters. All faiths seem to have diverged out, the 
 narrower or the wider, as rays from the great cen- 
 tral Sun of this tradition of the Fire-Original. It 
 would seem that Noah, who is suspected to be the 
 Po, Poh, or Fohi, of the Chinese, carried it into the 
 farthest Cathay of the middle ages. What is the 
 Chinese Tien, or Earliest Fire? The pagodas of 
 the Chinese (which name. Pagoda^ was borrowed 
 from the Indian; from which country of India, in- 
 deed, probably came into China its worship, and its 
 Bhuddist doctrine of the exhaustion back into the 
 divine light, or unparticled nothingness, of all the 
 stages of being or of Evil), — the Chinese pagodas, 
 we repeat, are nothing but innumerable gilt and 
 belled fanciful repetitions of the primeval mono- 
 lith. The fire, or light, is still worshipped in the 
 Chinese temples ; it has not been perceived that, in 
 the very form of the Chinese Pagodas, the funda- 
 mental article of the Chinese religion — transmigra- 
 tion, through stages of being, out into nothingness 
 of this world — has been architecturally emblemed 
 in the diminishing stories, carried upwards, and 
 fining away into the series of unaccountable discs 
 struck through a vertical rod, until all culminates? 
 
 10 
 
146 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 and — as it were, to speak heraldically of it — the 
 last achievement is blazoned in the gilded ball, which 
 means the final, or Bhuddist, glorifying absorption. 
 Buildings have always telegraphed the Insignia of 
 the mythologies; and, in China, the fantastic speaks 
 the sublime. We recognize the same embodied 
 MytJiosiYi dl\ architectural spiring or artistic dim- 
 inution, whether tapering to the globe or exaltation 
 of the Egyptian Uraeus, or the disc, or the Sidonian 
 crescent, or the lunar horns, or the Acroterium of 
 the Greek temple, or the pediment of the classic 
 Pronaos itself (crowning, how grandly and suggest- 
 ively, at solemn dawn, or in the ^'spirit4usyres" 
 of the dimming and still more than dawn, solemn 
 twilight, the top of some mountain, an ancient of 
 the days). Here, besetting us at every turn, meet 
 we the same mystic emblem; again, in the crescent 
 of the Mohammedan fanes, surmounting even the 
 Latin, and therefore the once Christian St. Sophia. 
 Last, and not least, the countless ''churches" rise, 
 in the Latter-Day Dispensation, sublimely to the 
 universal signal, in the glorifying, or top, or crown- 
 ing Cross: last of the Revelation! 
 
 ''In the fire-towers of the Sikls, in the dome- 
 covered and many-storied spires of the Hindoos, in 
 the vertically turreted and longitudinally massed 
 temples of the Bhudds, of all the classes and of all 
 the sects, in the religious building of the Cingalese, 
 in the upright flame-fanes of the Parsees, in the 
 original of the Campaniles of the Italians, in the 
 tower of St. Mark at venice, in the flame- shaped or 
 pyramidal {Pyr is the Greek for Fire) architecture 
 
tHE PHILOSOPHY OB^ flRE 14? 
 
 of the Egyptians (which is the parent of all that is 
 called architecture), we see the recurring symboL 
 All the minarets that, in the eastern sunshine^ 
 glisten through the Land of the Moslem; indeed* 
 his two-horned crescent, equally with the moon, 
 or disc, or twO'^pointed globe of the Sidonian Ash^ 
 taroth (after whose forbidden worship Solomon, 
 the wisest of mankind, in his defection from the God 
 of his fathers, evilly thirsted); also, the mystic dis- 
 cus, or ''round," of the Egyptians, so continually 
 repeated, and set, as it were, as the forehead-mark 
 upon all the temples of the land of soothsayers and 
 sorcerers, — this Egypt so profound in its philoso- 
 phies, in its wisdom, in its magic-seeing, and in its 
 religion, raising out of the black Abyss a God to 
 shadow it, all the minarets of the Mohammedan^ 
 we say, together with all the other symbols of moon 
 or disc, or wings, or of horns (equally with the 
 shadowy and preternatural beings in all mytholo- 
 gies and in all theologies, to which these adjuncts 
 or Insignia are referred, and which are symbolized 
 by them), — all these monuments, or bodied mean^ 
 ings, testify to the Deification of Fire. 
 
 ''What may mean that "Tower of Babel" and its 
 impious raising, when it sought, even past and ovei* 
 the clouds, to imply a daring sign? What portent 
 was that betrayal of a knowledge not for man,— ^ 
 that surmise forbidden save in infinite humility, 
 and in the whispered impartment of the further 
 and seemingly more impossible, and still more 
 greatly mystical, meanings? In utter abnegation 
 of self alone shall the mystery of fire be conceived. 
 
148 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 Of what was this Tower Belns, or the Fire, to he 
 the moniiment? When it soared, as a Pharos, on 
 the rock of the traditionary ages, to defy time in its 
 commitment, to ''form'^ of the tinpronounceable 
 secret,— stage on stage and ^tory on story, though 
 it chffibed the clouds, and on its top should shine 
 the ever-burning Fire,— first idol in the worlds 
 "dark save with neglected stars, "—what was the 
 Tower of Babel but a gigantic monolith? Perhaps 
 to record and to perpetuate this ground-fire of all; 
 to be worshiyjped, in idol, in. its visible form, when 
 it should be alone taken as the invisible thought: fire 
 to be waited for (spirit possession), not waited on 
 (idolatry.) Therefore was the speech confounded^ 
 that the thing should not be; therefore, under the 
 myth of climbing into heaven by the means of it, 
 was the first colossal monolithic temple (in which 
 the early dwellers upon the earth sought to enshrine 
 the Fire) laid prostrate in the thunder of the Great 
 God. And the languages were confounded from 
 that day, — speech was made babble — thence its 
 name,~that the secret should remain a secret. It 
 was to be only darkly hinted, and to be fitfully dis- 
 closed, like a false-showing light, in the theosophic 
 glimmer, amidst the world's knowledge-lights. It 
 was to reappear, like a spirit, to the ''initiate," in 
 the glimpse of reverie, in the snatches of sight, in 
 the profoundest wisdom, through the studies of all 
 ages. 
 
 *'Wefind, in the religious administration of the 
 ancient world, the most abundant proofs of the 
 secret fire-tradition. Sehweigger shows, in his 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 149 
 
 ^^Introduction into Mythology^ ^ (pp. 132, 228), that the 
 Phoenician Cabiri and the Greek Dioscuir, the 
 Curetes, Corybantes, Telchini, were originally of 
 the same nature, and are only different in trifling 
 particulars. All these symbols represent electric 
 and magnetic phenomena, and that under the an- 
 cient name of twin-fires, hern;iaphrodite fire. The 
 Diescuri is a phrase equivalent to the Sons of Heav- 
 en: if, as Herodotus asserts, "Zeus originally rep- 
 resented the whole circle of Heaven." 
 
 '*From India into Egypt was imported this Spir- 
 itual Fire-Belief. We recognize, again, its never- 
 failing structure-signal. Rightly regarded the 
 great Pyramids are nothing but the world-enduring 
 architectural attestation, following (in the pyramid- 
 al) the well-known leading law of Egypt's templar 
 piling mound-like, spiry — of the Universal Flame- 
 Faith. Place a light upon the summit, star-like 
 upon the sky, and a prodigious altar the mighty 
 Pyramid then becomes. In this tribute to the 
 world-filling faith, burneth expressed devotion to 
 (radiateth acknowledgement of) the immortal magic 
 religion. There is little doubt that as token and 
 emblem of Fire-worship, as indicative of the adora- 
 tion of the real, accepted Deity, these Pyramids 
 were raised.* The idea that they were burial places 
 of the Egyptian monarchs is untenable when sub- 
 mitted to the weighing of meanings, and when it 
 comes side by side with this better fire-explanation. 
 
 *See *'Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry" regarding the use the Fire 
 Monuments were put to. 
 
 10 I 
 
150 THE PHILOSOPHY Ol^ PIBJB 
 
 Cannot we accept these Pyramids as the vast altars 
 on whose top should burn the^ame^ — flame commem- 
 orative, as it were, to all the v^prld, Cannot we see 
 in these pilps, liter aUy-, and really. Transcendental 
 in origin, the Egyptian reproduction, and; .a . hiero- 
 glyphical signalling on, pf> special truth, eldest of 
 time? Do we not recogni^^ . in the .Pyr^niid:,) the. 
 repetition of the first monolith?— rail :th€5: uprights 
 constituting the grand attesting pillar to the super- 
 natural traditions to a Pire-Forn, World? 
 
 The ever-recurring Globe with Wing$, so fre- 
 quent in the sculptures of the Egyptians, witness 
 to the Electric Principle. It embodies the trans- 
 jnigration of the Indians, reproduced by Pythago* 
 ras. Pythagoras resided for a long period in 
 Egypt, and acquired from the priests the philo- 
 sophic "transition" — knowledge, which was after- 
 wards doctrine. The globe, disc, or circle of the 
 Phoenician Astarte, the crescent of Minerva, the 
 horns of the Egyptian Ammon, the deifying of the 
 ox, — all have the same meaning. We trace, among 
 the Hebrews, the token of the identical mystery in 
 the horns of Moses, distinct in the sublime statue 
 by Michael Angelo in the Vatican; as also in the 
 horns of the Levitical altar: indeed, the use of the 
 *' double Hieroglyph" in continental ways. The 
 volutes of the Ionic column, the twin stars of Castor 
 and Pollux, nay, generally, the employment of the 
 double emblem all the world over, in ancient or in 
 modern times, whether displayed as points, or radii^ 
 or wings on the helmets of those barbarian chiefs 
 who made war upon Rome, Attila or Genseric, or 
 
THE PffILO§OPa¥ tyf^ FIRE loi 
 
 broadly sliown upontlie liead-piece of tlieFrankisb 
 Glovis; whether emblemed In the rude and, as it 
 were, savagely, mystic horns of the Asiatic Idols, 
 or reproduced in the horns of th6 Runic Hammerer 
 (or Destroyer), or those of the' Gothic Mars, or of 
 the modern Devil— All this d6uble-spreading from 
 a common point (or this figure of ITOi^iVSO speaks 
 the same story. 
 
 "TheGolossus of Rhodes W8LS a monolith, in the 
 human form, dedicated to the Sun, or the Fire^ 
 The Pharos of Alexandria was a fire-monuments 
 Heliopolis, or the City of the Sun, in Lower Egypt 
 (as the name signifies), contained a temple, wherein^ 
 combined with all the dark superstitions of the 
 Egyptians, the flame-secret was preserved. In 
 most jealous secrecy was the tradition guarded ^ 
 and the symbol alon^ was presented to the worlds 
 Of the Pyramids^'^s prodigious- Pire-MonumentSj 
 we have before spokeft.^^ Magnfficent as the princi- 
 pal Pyramid still is^' it- TsstatM by an ancient his- 
 torian that it originffly ''formed, at the base, ''a 
 square^'eight hundred^eet^'&d that it was eight 
 hundred' feet high' ;" Ano^h^f liiforms that * 'three 
 hundred:and'stx%-six'thous&]tid m 
 twen;ty.years is lt:!i'%i^eet3on.'' Its' hdght is now 
 s^ipposed to'bBi'siixdkiundred feet. Have historians 
 r^^^&^^niiq'uslvies^^i^^ th'e' fact (even in 
 
 th^'nam.eoi.t^&^M^WMMs^ Pur\ in the 
 
 ..Greek, ''m:@ari^r:Mr^-/'!^^ We would argiie that that 
 0boect,in.>tihfcfirreat Pyramid,' whic^ bfeen mis- 
 taken; for- a r:tcTO:te(and which- iS,'mbr6bver, rather 
 fasbipneft Hke^sfejMtai^^^moetb'^^ ^laM, t^thout 
 
152 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FlR^ 
 
 aiiy earned work), is, in reality, the va^e, urn, ot 
 depository, of the sacred, ever-btirningi^/i?j5: of the 
 existence which everJi^ing, inextinguishable fire^ 
 to be fonnd at some period of the World's history, 
 there is abundant tradition. This view is fortified 
 by the statements of Diodorns, who writes that 
 "Cheops, or Chemis, who founded the principal 
 Pyramid, and Ohephren, or Oepherenus, who built 
 the next to it, were neither buried here, but that 
 they were deposited elsewhere. 
 
 "It is evident from their hieroglyphics that the 
 Egyptians were acquainted with the wonders of 
 magnetism. By means of it (and by the secret 
 power which lie in the hyper-sensual^ "heaped floors* 
 of it), out of the every-day senses, the Egyptians 
 struck together, as it were, a bridge, across which 
 they paraded into the supernatural:, the Magic por- 
 tals receiving them as on the other and armed side 
 of a drawbridge, shaking in its thunders in its rais- 
 ing (or in its lowering), as out of flesh. Athwart 
 this, in TRANCES, swept the Adepts, leaving their 
 mortality behind them. All^ and their earth-sur- 
 roundings, to be resumed at their reissue upon the 
 plains of life, when down in their humanity again. 
 
 "In the cities of the ancient world, the Palladium, 
 or Protesting Talisman (invariably set up in the 
 chief sqvare of place), was — there is but little doubt 
 — the reiteration of the very earliest monolith. All 
 the obelisks, — each often a single stone, of prodi- 
 gious weight, — all the singular, solitary, wonderful 
 pillars and monuments of Egypt, as of other lands, 
 are, m it were, oaly tombstpx^es of the F^re! AU 
 
THE I^fllLO&OPHV 0^ 5^!RE 159 
 
 testify to the great, so darkly hinted secret. In 
 Troy was the image of Pallas, the myth of knowl- 
 edge, of the world, of manifestation, of the Fire. 
 SonL In Athens was Pallas^Athene, or Min. 
 erva. In the Greek cities, the form of the deity 
 changed variously to Bacchus, to Hercules, to Phoe- 
 bus-Apollo; to the tri-formed Minerva, Dian, and 
 Hecate; to the dusky Ceres, or the darker Cybele. 
 In the wilds of Sarmathia, in the wastes of North^^ 
 ern Asia, the luminous rays descended from heaven, 
 and, animating the Lama, or "Light-Born," spoke 
 the same story. The flames of the Greeks, the 
 towers of the Phoenicians, the emblems of the Pe-^ 
 lasgi; the story of Prometheus, and the myth of his 
 stealing the fire from Heaven, wherewith to ani-^ 
 mate the man (or enSoul the visible world); th^ 
 forges of the Cyclops, and the monuments of Sicily} 
 the mysteries of the Etrurians; the rites of the 
 Carthaginians; the torches borne, in all priestly 
 demonstrative 'pi'ocessions, at all times, in aU coun^ 
 tries; the Vestal Fires of the Romans, the very 
 word Flamen^ as indicative of the office of the o^ 
 ficiating sacerdote; the hidden fires of the ancieni 
 Persians, and the grimmer (at least in name)Gueb^ 
 res; the whole Mystic meaning of flames on altars^ 
 of the ever-burning tomb4ights of the eairllex^ peo- 
 ples, whether in the classic or in the bat*batian 
 lands, — everything of this kind was intended to slg** 
 nify the deified Fire. Fires are lighted in the tMh^ 
 0ral ceremonies of the Hindoos and of the Moham^^ 
 medans, even to this day, though the body be com'- 
 mited whole to earth. Wherefore fire, then? Cre» 
 
154 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 mation and urn-burial, or the burning of the dead 
 — practiced in all ages — imply a profounder mean-^ 
 ing than is generally supposed. They point to the 
 transmigration of Pythagoras, or to the purgatorial 
 reproductions of the Indians j among whom we the 
 earliest find the dogma. The real signification of 
 fire-burial is the commitment of human mortality 
 into the iast-of -all matter, overleaping the inter- 
 mediate state; or the delivering over of the man-* 
 unit into the Flame- Soul, past all intervening 
 spheres or stages of the purgatorial: the absolute 
 doctrine of the Bhudds, taught, even at this day, 
 among the Initiates 3li over the East. Thus we see 
 how classic practice and heathen teaching may be 
 made to reconcile,-^how even the Gentile and He- 
 brew, the mythological and the (so-called) Christian, 
 (doctrine harmonize in the general faith-^founded 
 in Magic. That Magic is indeed possible is the 
 moral of our work. 
 
 - "We find, therefore, in the earliest ages, an 
 AEth'er (spiritual fire) theory, by which many mod- 
 ern theorislJs endeavor to explain the phenomena 
 6f rQagnStiBm% This is the "'AEthemem'' of , Robert 
 Fludd^ tberSo^icrucian. - , 
 
 , ^'Pire,iiiid^edv would appear to "have been the 
 chosen eteii&t' of God' ^ In the ^f ot of a flaming 
 ^'bush^'- Be5:mpfpeal^ed t^y- MoseS bri M Sinai. 
 
 His pi^eitode :^Wa^^'- denbtM-^ H^ torrents • of flame, 
 and- in the?. form of fire He^ preceded the band of 
 Israelites^6y' naght' thrbugB^%lie<&eary wilderness; 
 which is '^eiJhiapstheorigiri of the present custom 
 oi:i]ie Atd^^'dit^^ carry fire iii front of 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 155 
 
 their caravans, " — (Reade's Veiloflsis), All the early 
 fathers held God the Creator to consist of a **subtle 
 fire." When the Holy Spirit descended upon the 
 Apostles on the Day of Pentecost, it was in the 
 form of a tongue of fire, accompanied by a rushing 
 
 wind. ,.-■..:. ,^ : ,_ - -^ .':- '■.: 
 
 *'The personality of Jehovah is, inScripture, rep- 
 resented by the Material Trinity of Nature:, which 
 also, like the Divine antitype, is of one substance. 
 The primal, scriptural type of the Father is Fire; 
 of the Word, Light: and of the Holy Ghost, Spirit, 
 or Air in motion.* This Material Trinity , as a type, 
 is similiar to the material trinity of Plato; as a type, 
 it is used to conceal the "Secret Trinity." Holy 
 fires, which were never suffered to die, were main- 
 tained in all the temples: of these were the fires in 
 the Temple of the Gaditanean Hercules at Tyre, in 
 the Temple of Vesta at Rome, among the Brah- 
 mans of India, Among the Jews, and principally 
 among the Persians. 
 
 '*As soon as Jesus was born, according to the 
 Gnostic speculative view of Christianity, Christos, 
 uniting himself with Sophia (Holy Wisdom); des- 
 cended through the seven planetary regions, as- 
 suming in each an analogous form to the region, 
 and concealing his true nature from its genii 
 whilst he attracted into himself the sparks of Di- 
 vine Light they severally retained in their angelic 
 essence. Thus Christos, having passed through 
 the seven Angelic Regions before the ''THRONE," 
 
 *See "Divine Alchemy." 
 
156 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 entered into the man Jesus, at the moment of his 
 baptism in the Jordan. From that time forth, be- 
 ing supernaturally gifted, Jesus began to work 
 miracles. Before that, he had been completely 
 ignorant of his mission. When on the cross, Chris- 
 tos and Sophia left his body, and returned to their 
 own sphere. Upon his death, the two took the man 
 **Jesus," and abandoned his material body to the 
 earth; for the Gnostics held that the true Jesus 
 did not (and could not) physically suffer on the cross 
 and die, but that Simon of Gyrene, who bore his 
 cross, did in reality suffer in his room: "And they 
 compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, com- 
 ing out of the country, the father of Alexandria 
 and Rufus, to bear his cross" (St. Mark xv. 21.) 
 
 The Gnostics contended that a portion of the real 
 history of the Crucifixion was never written. 
 
 Asserting that a miraculous substitution of per- 
 sons took place in the great final act of the "Cruci- 
 fixion," the Gnostics maintained that the "Son of 
 God" could not suffer physically upon the cross, 
 the apparent sufferer being human only. 
 
 "At the point of the miraculous transference of 
 persons, Christos and Sophia (the Divine) left his 
 body, and returned to their own heaven. Upon 
 his death on earth, the two withdrew the "Being" 
 Jesus (spiritually), and gave him another body, 
 made up of ether (Rosicrucian AEtheraeum), Thence 
 forward he consisted of the two Rosicrucian prin- 
 ciples only, soil and spirit; which was the cause that 
 the disciples did not recognize him after the resur- 
 rection. During his sojourn upon earth eighteen 
 
f&fe PHILOSOIF^HV OF FIRE iBf 
 
 months after he had risen, he received from Sophia 
 {Soph^ Suph,) or Holy Wisdom, that perfect knowl- 
 edge or illumination, that true '^Gnosis," which he 
 communicated to the small number of the Apos^ 
 ties who were capable of receiving the same. 
 
 ''As the Son of God remained unknown to the 
 World, so must the disciple of Basilides also remain 
 unknown to the rest of mankind. As they knoW 
 all this, and yet must live amongst strangers, there- 
 fore must they conduct themselves towards the 
 rest of the world as invisible and unknown. Hence 
 our motto, "Learn to know all, but keep thyself un-- 
 known. ' ' {Irenaeus.) 
 
 ''Though fire is an element in which eveything 
 inheres, and of which it is the life, still, according 
 to the Rosicrucian idea, it is itself another element, 
 in a second non-terrestrial element, or inner, non= 
 physical, ethereal fire, in which the first coarse fire, 
 so to speak, flickers, waves, brandishes, and spreads 
 floating — like a liquid — now here, now there. The 
 first is the natural, materialj gross fire^ with which 
 we are familiar, contained in a celestial^ unparticledi 
 and surrounding medium (or celestial fire), which 
 is its MATRIX, and of which, in this human body, 
 we can know nothing.* 
 
 "Ptha is the emblem of the Eternal Spirit from 
 which everything is created. The Egyptians rep- 
 resented it as a pure ethereal fire which burns for^ 
 ever, whose radiance is raised far above the plan^ 
 ets and stars. In early ages, the Egyptians wor- 
 
 ♦See "Divine Alchemy." 
 
158 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 shipped this highest being under the name of Athor, 
 He was the Lord of the Universe. The Greeks 
 transformed Athor into Venus, who was looked 
 upon by them in the same hght as Athor. "Ac- 
 cording to the Egyptians," says Jablonski, "Mat- 
 ter has alway® been connected with the mind. The 
 Egyptian priests also maintained that the gods ap- 
 peared to man, and that spirits communicated with 
 the human race. " The Souls of men are, accord- 
 ing to the oldest Egyptian doctrine, formed of 
 Ether, and at death return again to it," 
 
 "The saffron robe of Hymen is of the color of the 
 Flame of Fire. The Bride, in ancient days, was 
 covered with a veil called the ^' Flammeun;^^ unless 
 made under this, no vow was considered sacred. 
 The ancient swore, not by the altar, but by the 
 flame of fire which tvas upon the altar. Yellow, or 
 Flame-colored, was the color of the Ghebers, or 
 Guebres, or Fire-Worshippers. The Persian lilies 
 are yellowy and here will be remarked a connection 
 between this fact of the yellow of the Persian lilies 
 and the Mystic symbols in various parts. Mystic 
 rites, and the symbolical lights which mean the 
 Divinity of Fire, abound at Oandlemasday, (Feb- 
 ruary 2nd), or the Feast of Purification; in the tor- 
 ches borne at weddings, and in the typical flame- 
 brandishing at marriage over almost all the world; 
 in the illumination at feasts; in the lights on, and 
 set about the Christian altar; at the festival of the 
 Holy Nativity; in the ceremonies at preliminary 
 espousals; in the Bale, or Baal, fires on the sum- 
 mits of the mountains; in the watch-lights, or votive 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 159 
 
 sanctuary-lights, in the hermitage in the lowest 
 valley; in the Ghapelle Ardente^ in the Romish funer- 
 al observances, with its abundance of silent, touch- 
 ing lights around the splendid Catafalque, or twink- 
 ling, pale and ineffectual, singly at the side of the 
 death-bed in the cottage of the peasant. Starry 
 lights and innumerable torchesat the stately funeral, 
 
 -or at any pompous celebration, mean the same. In 
 short, light all over the world, when applied to re- 
 
 'ligious rites, and to ceremonial, whether in the an- 
 cient or in the modern times, bespeaks the same 
 origin, and struggles to express the same meaning, 
 which is Parseeism, perseism, or the w;orship of 
 the Deified fire, disguised in many theological or 
 theosophic forms. It will, we trust, never be sup- 
 posed that we mean, in this, real fire, but only the 
 inexpressible something of which real fire, or rath- 
 
 ver its flower or glory (bright Light), is the farthest 
 off— because, in being visible at all, it is the gross- 
 
 ,est and most inadequate image. 
 
 *'The Rosicrucians held that, all things visible 
 
 ' and invisible having been produced by the conten- 
 tion of light with darkness, the earth has dense- 
 
 - ness in its innumerable heavy concomitants down- 
 wards, and they contain less and less of the origin- 
 al Divine Dight as they thicken and solidify the 
 grosser and heavier in matter. They taught never- 
 theless, that every object, however stifled or de- 
 layed in its operation, and darkened and thickened 
 in the solid blackness at the base, yet contains a 
 certain possible deposit, or jewel, of light, — which 
 light, although by natural process it may take ages 
 
160 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 to evolve, as light will tend at last by its ow^n native, 
 irresistible force upward (when it has opportunity), 
 can be liberated; that dead matter will yield this 
 spirit in a space more or less expeditious by the 
 art of the Alchemist. These are worlds within 
 worlds, — we, human organisms, only living in a de- 
 ceiving, or Bhuddistic, **dream-like phase" of the 
 grand panorama. Unseen and unsuspected (be- 
 cause in it lies magic), there is an inner magnetism, 
 or divine aura^ or ethereal spirit, or possible eager 
 fire, shut and confined, as in a prison, in the body, 
 or in all sensible solid objects, which have more or 
 less of spiritually sensitive life as they can more 
 successfully free themselves from this ponderable, 
 material obstruction. Thus all minerals, in this 
 spark of light, have the rudimentary possibility of 
 plants and growing organisms; thus all plants have 
 rudimentary sensitives, which might (in the ages) 
 enable them to perfect and transmute into locomo- 
 tive new creatures, lesser or higher in their grade, 
 no nobler or meaner in their functions; thus all 
 plants and vegetables might pass off (by side-roads) 
 into more distinguished highways, is it were, of 
 independent, completer advance, allowing their 
 original spark of light to expand and thrill with 
 higher and more vivid force, and to urge forward 
 with more abounding, informed purpose — all 
 wrought by planetary influence, directed by the 
 unseen spirits (or workers) of the Great Original 
 Architect, building His microcosmos of a world from 
 the plans and power evoked in the macrocosm, or 
 heaven of first forms, which in their multitude and 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 161 
 
 magnificence, are as changeable shadows cast off 
 from the Central Immortal First Light, whose rays 
 dart from the centre to the extremest point of the 
 universal circumference. It is with terrestrial fire 
 that the alchemist breaks or sunders the material 
 darkness or atomic thickness, all visible nature 
 yielding to His furnaces, whose scattering heat 
 (without its sparks) breaks all doors of this world's 
 kind. 
 
 *'It is with immaterial fire (or ghostly fire) that 
 the Rosicrucian loosens contradiction and error, 
 and conquers the false knowledge and the deceiving 
 senses which bind the human soul as in its prison. 
 On this side of his powers, on this dark side (to the 
 world) of his character, the alchemist (rather now 
 become the Rosicrucian) works in visible light, and 
 is a Magician. He lays the bridge (as the Pontif ex, 
 or Bridge-Maker) between the world possible and 
 the world impossible; and across this bridge he 
 leads the votary out of his dream of life into his 
 dream of temporary death, or into extinction of the 
 senses and of the powers of the senses; which 
 world's blindness is the only true and veritable 
 life, the envelope of flesh falling metaphorically off 
 the now liberated glorious entity — taken up, in 
 charms, by the invisible fire into rhapsody, which 
 is at the gate of Heaven. 
 
 ''Now a few words as to the theory of Alchemy. 
 The alchemists boasted of the powers, after their 
 elimination and dispersion of the ultimate elements 
 of bodies by fire (represented by the absent differ- 
 ence of their weights before and after their disso- 
 
 11 
 
162 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 lution), to recover them back out of that exterior, 
 unknown world surrounding this world: which 
 world men reason against as if it had no existencej 
 when it has real existence. It is this other world 
 (just off this real world) into which the Rosicru- 
 cians say they can enter, and bring back, as proofs 
 that they ha^e been there, the old things (thought 
 escaped), metamorphosed into new things. This 
 act is traasmutation. This product is Magic gold, 
 or "fairy gold," condensed as real gold. This 
 growing gold, or self -generating and multiplying 
 gold, is obtained by invisible transmutation (and in 
 other light) in another world out of this world; im- 
 material to us creatures of limited faculties, but 
 material enough, farther on, on the heavenly side, 
 or on the side opposite to our human side. In other 
 words, the Rosicru cians claimed not to be bound 
 by the limits of the present world, but to be able 
 to pass into this next world (inaccessible only in 
 appearance), and to be able to work in it, and to 
 come back safe out of it, bringing their trophies 
 with them, which were gold, obtained out of this 
 master-circle, or outside elementary circle, differ- 
 ent from ordinary life, though enclosing it; and the 
 elixir vitae, or the means of the renewal or the per- 
 petuation of human life through this universal, im- 
 mortal medicine, or Magisterium, which being a por- 
 tion of the light outside, or Magic, or Breath of the 
 Spirits,* fleeing from man, and only to be won in 
 the audacity of alchemical exploration, was inde- 
 pendent of those mastered natural elements, or 
 nutritions, necessary to common life. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 163 
 
 *'The Vedas describe the Persian religion (Fire- 
 worship) as having come from Upper Egypt. "The 
 mysteries celebrated within the recesses of the 
 "hypogea" (caverns or labyrinths) "were precisely 
 of that character which is called Fremasonic* or 
 Cabiric. The signification of this latter epithet is, 
 as to written letters, a desideratum. Selden has 
 missed it; so have Origen and Sophocles. Strabo, 
 to, and Montfaucon, have been equally astray. 
 Hyde was the only one who had any idea of its com- 
 position when he declared that "It was a Persian 
 word^ somewhat altered from Gdbri, or Guebri, sig- 
 nifying FIRE- WORSHIPPERS. " Pococke, in his 
 '''India in Greece^^^ is very sagacious and true in his 
 arguments; but he tells only half the story of the 
 myths in his supposed successful divestment of 
 them of aU unexplainable character, and of exterior 
 supernatural origin. He supposes that all the 
 mystery must necessarily disappear when he has 
 traced and carefully pointed out, the identity and 
 transference of these myths from India into Egypt 
 and into Greece, and their gradual spread west- 
 ward. But he is whoUy mistaken; and most other 
 modern explainers are equally mistaken. 
 
 "This is not an attempt to restore to Superstition 
 its dispossessed pedestal, but to replace the Super- 
 natural upon its abdicated throne. Also to discover 
 what the nature of this Fire should be, which seems 
 to have, been the thing earliest worshipped in the* 
 world, and continued traces of which worship sur- 
 vive not only over all Europe, but in all other coun- 
 tries. Fire Philosophy is the foundation of all relig- 
 ions, it is the very philosophy of the Soul, of Love 
 and of God. Without Fire there could be no exist* 
 ence. God, Love and the Soul are all the one and 
 same thing — the Living Fire. 
 
Atlantis 
 
 Its Beauty, Its Fall, 
 
 N that portion of the maps of the earth's sur- 
 face named the Western Hemisphere can be 
 found an immense island-studded sea, and an almost 
 land-locked gulf. Into this gulf stretches a nearly 
 perfect parallelogram, the peninsula of Yucatan. 
 
 *'Solong ago that history fades into the hoary 
 mists of tradition, the gulf was an inland lake. 
 Where the islands now show themselves amid the 
 blue waters, a continent sunned itself in the light 
 of blazing days. 
 
 ''This continent was peopled by the Aryan race. 
 Its latitude teemed with all needed conditions to 
 make exoticlife most desirable, whether suchlife was 
 on the animal or vegetable plane. The population in- 
 creased and multiplied until the whole broad land 
 became one vast city. Temples and palaces, works 
 of skill and art, abounded everywhere. These did 
 not there represent the slow toil of human sweat 
 and agony, of brute force tyrannized into sulky 
 compliance. Brilliant in design and bold in execu- 
 cution, they were the manifestation of soul-power 
 over Elemental force. The worship of the one God 
 was taught. To those who desired, training for 
 the acquisition of the most Occult and Mystical 
 knowledge ever known to men was possible. 
 
166 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 "They who had charge of these departments as 
 Keepers of the Keys and treasuries of knowledge 
 were neither unaware or regardless of the fact of 
 other planes of existence upon the earth. For 
 thousands of years they strove earnestly to better 
 all states of their fellowmen by imparting a knowl- 
 edge of the truth. 
 
 "By the silent thought the whole people were lifted 
 grade by grade as rapidly as they could assimilate 
 the instructions which are of so much influence and 
 assistance in the duties and pleasures of life. Just 
 as fast as they could be educated to perceive these 
 facts, they were advanced in the scale of existence. 
 
 "It is true of all peoples, nations, kindreds and 
 tongues, that in proportion as the lower classes rise 
 from a given starting point towards the Light, the 
 force generated (vibrations set in motion) by their 
 action will lift those who are sensitive and fit still 
 farther above them. It is better to be the wise 
 men of a nation of Philosophers than the learned of 
 a race of cringing slaves. 
 
 "It is not strange, therefore, that these of whom 
 I speak should have held the mightiest secrets of 
 the universe in their keeping. It was not strange 
 that the trackless waste of water in unknown seas 
 became to them familiar paths, nor that the mys- 
 teries of the earth, of the air and of all Nature were 
 at their command. The archives of all ancient na- 
 tions, carved in their books of stone, speak clearly 
 and truly of them. In Egypt, in Assyria, in India, 
 are found the same inscriptions, conveying the 
 same knowledge, that is to-day locked up in the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PikE, l6? 
 
 ruined cities covered by the forests of thousands 
 of years in Yucatan. 
 
 *'The western lamp of knowledge was never light' 
 ed from the east. From the proud seagirt conti- 
 nent of Atlantis went forth, as from the sun, to all 
 parts of the earth under the heavens, the Illumina* 
 tion of truth and knowledge. 
 
 ''The old Atlantians, going forth in their galleys 
 hither and yon, so controlled the Elementals by 
 their knowledge of the Hidden Laws of Nature that 
 they had no need to wait for the moving of the 
 winds nor tides. Like Ohristos, who, in the storm ^ 
 stilled the waves and bade them be at peace, and 
 immediately they were at the place whither they 
 were going, so the Atlantians moved over the widd 
 wilderness of waters on earth, scattering the seeds 
 of their knowledge along the shores they visited. 
 The seeds fell into good ground in Egypt, Caldea 
 and India. 
 
 "It can be noted wherever the pressure of thd 
 ever-recurring demands of the physical — that 
 never-yielding circle of necessity-^^-was least on the 
 matter over which the spirit sought to maintain 
 dominion, meanwhile sinking deeper and deeper 
 into its illusions with the downward rush of the 
 cycle, there the seeds of Truth took root and greW 
 most vigorously. At such points were more leisurei 
 strength and purpose to bring forth, as fruity the 
 knowledge of the unseen in its greatest perfection 
 and abundance. Spirit domination is a tropical 
 fruit reaching mature perfection only in those 
 countries where the bountiful earth ministers vol- 
 
168 THE PHILOSOPHY OF PIKE 
 
 untarily, always anticipating man's physical neces- 
 sities, sun-cooked food does not stimulate groveling de- 
 sires, 
 
 ''The dwellers in more rigorous latitudes, who, 
 in spite of opposing force^ still gain spiritual eleva- 
 tion for themselves^ are richer in strength and 
 force. This is the result of the discipline acquired 
 in the overcoming of the natural obstacles of their 
 environment. The harder the battle the more important 
 the victory. So long as Atlantis obeyed the law that 
 makes all men gods in wisdom, so long it prospered 
 mightily. But there came at last a time Vv^hen they 
 who had the knowledge only in trust, permitted 
 themselves to think, to wish and to plan for grasp- 
 ing the absolute control of the ivhole ivorld. In this 
 they sought to climb into the seat and place of the 
 Supreme. Beyond the earth lies only the universe,. 
 The lesser is but the result of the greater, 
 
 *'The One denies no one knowledge. Whoever 
 seeks to take from it, its authority, its supremacy, 
 thus attempting arrogation or absorption into the 
 Oneness in amy other than the appointed ways which 
 lie open to all created^ beings^ shoivs atoAnt of grossness 
 inspiring the desire,, surely j^rovocative of sivift destruc- 
 tion. They who thus planned were powerful far 
 beyond the conception of the mortal, holding at 
 their option all the secrets of Nature save one, 
 that one embracing the Infinite supremacy of the 
 one, 
 
 ''These leaders had freely scattered knowledge 
 abroad upon the earth. By self denial and long train- 
 ing they had attained, and yet at almost the su- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PIRE 169 
 
 preme moment, dazzled by the brightness of the 
 Illumination, they looked once again toward. self. 
 From their memories faded out the unchanging 
 law; ^ Thus far and no farther^ shalt thou go.' The 
 ceaseless breaking of the waves of the mighty sea 
 against the silent resistance of rock-bound coasts, 
 ceased to utter its warning to dazed mentality. 
 The on-coming day, beginning of the end to those 
 who had forgotten the very life and essence of the 
 One, was at hand» The proud city of Atlantis, city 
 and continent one, sitting as a queen upon the 
 throne of the waters, had, by arrogant presump; 
 tion, filled full the cup of wraith, for which expiation 
 must be made. They — masters of all the Elements 
 and all lawful knowledge of the Unseen — ^now 
 sought the forbidden, as if the part should demand 
 equality with the whole. Step by step they had 
 reached the veil separating them from the white-- 
 ness of the Immediate Presence; and now, as the 
 last /a^aZ step, they had determined by the exercise 
 of their most potent skill to rend the veil and come 
 unheralded and unsummoned before the fact of It 
 whom no man hath seen at any time. 
 
 * 'Carefully -were their prepara^tions made, most 
 accurately were the sacred computations wrought 
 out to decide the auspicious hour, .... Panoplied 
 with the consciousness of previous achievement! 
 their call to the embattled hosts of the universe 
 rang out along the astral currents. Confidently 
 the word of power was spoken in all the pride of 
 human will. The expected accomplishment did not 
 follow. To their amazed horror they discerned a 
 
170 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 new vibration, a resultant of creative thought in 
 its own defence. To this they had no key, and 
 first bewildered, then terrified, they perceived 
 that the immense force momentarily by their own 
 act, had destroyed the accurate balance and adjust- 
 ment of Nature's laws. Utterly without resource^ 
 they waited for the outcome. 
 
 ''Thus knowing the inner, behold the outer. The 
 sun rises in its eastern splendor. The mighty mil* 
 lions who dwell in palaces and temples, in luxury 
 and frugality, dream not of nor can they understand 
 the word of the Omnipotent, already spoken and 
 gone forth whereunto it was sent. They awake to 
 their life of ease and pleasure with the self-assur- 
 ance that the thing existing hitherto will still con- 
 tinue to be. In their hearts they say: 'Have we 
 not compelling power and force? Sufficient for the 
 day is the evil thereof.' They pass on, without 
 concern, to their usual affairs. Clouds begin to in- 
 terrupt the clearness of the sky. They deepen 
 and darken. The uncontrollable, elemental storm 
 of the tropics, after years of durance, has burst 
 its prisoning fetters. The people are awed by the 
 terrific intensity of the outburst, but comfort their 
 hearts with the idea that it will pass on as it has 
 hitherto done. They know not that the sceptre 
 had slipped from the hands of the former rulers, 
 who, within the chambers of the Three, Five and 
 Seven, in the great tower of the temple, now lie 
 prone upon their faces, heroically awaiting the un- 
 rolling of the book of just judgement. The cyclone 
 becomes a continuous storm of day after day. The 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PIRE 171 
 
 rocking earth vibrates beneath their feet, and 
 trembles with each new blast of the mighty forces 
 of Nature, wind-enveloped, drawn here by human 
 will, and now uncontrolled. The waters of the sea 
 invade the land. Lashed on by the fierce currents 
 upon their surface, the tides seem to be mounting 
 higher and higher. It is now known that it was 
 the sinking of the the land, and not the rising of 
 the water, which for ages has hidden from investi- 
 gation the abodes of the richest and most powerful 
 nation ever dwelling upon the earth. Foot by foot 
 all that had ever been given to us by the waters 
 was again demanded, and returned to its origin. 
 The records of thousands of years were buried be 
 neath the storm-tossed waters — buried, but not 
 destroyed. Only the mountain-tops and the high- 
 est plateaus now known as islands, remained of all 
 the vast continent. The inland lake mingled its 
 waters with the incoming torrent from the salty 
 ocean, and a great gulf waters the southern shore 
 of the country, where now live in peace and won- 
 der, over the hidden past, the same remcaraated 
 mighty race. A few scattered books, written in 
 stone, were saved, and a wall invisible and imperme- 
 able, was built around the indestructible manu- 
 script. Unseen and Infinite Power has thus pre- 
 served useful knowlede until the times for the re- 
 vealing shall have come. 
 
 ''Fear and dread for ages and ages after the aw- 
 ful cataclysm, detained within the boundaries of 
 their own country, the feeble remnant of a people 
 once so invincible and venturesome. The rest of 
 the world passed on and forgot them. 
 
172 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 ''The story of the Light bearer who fell from 
 heaven is the story of lost Atlantis. The legend of 
 the great flood is the true narrative of facts of whose 
 p.wfulness only the Atlantians had experience. 
 They were forbidden to return to earth until the 
 impetus of their knowledge should in some manner 
 have spent itself, lest recurring memory tempt 
 them to their own future pain. Thanks to the 
 Ruler of Men, they are again to be permitted to 
 pass out of the valley of that shadow into the possi- 
 bility of new experience, life and knowledge. None 
 but he who has lived under the awful shadow can 
 understand what it is to exist outside of the Love 
 currents of the universe, enveloped in the separat- 
 ing displeasure of the Almighty. Such is the con- 
 dition of those ivho seek selfish interest in 2^'^''eferenGe to 
 the good and pleasure of others. 
 
 "Such is the story of the lost Atlantis, a world 
 in which men had reached earthly perfection, in 
 which all power was given to them but the power 
 to stand face to face with God. This they could 
 not do nor can any man. They were not satisfied 
 with their mighty power and as is the case with 
 many Masters of the present day, they try to rend 
 the veil that separates them from the mighty pres- 
 ence of God, and — ruin and absolute loss of power 
 is the result. The story of Atlantis is to be a warn- 
 ing to all of those who would travel the Occult pass. 
 *Thus far and no farther, may thou go.' It is well 
 that all men should be careful for what purpose 
 they use the power after they are once master of 
 it, once they use it for selfish purposes, all is lost. 
 
THE PIilLOSOt»HV OP PlRE lT3 
 
 **ln our present incarnation we study to recall 
 the ancient teachings and methods of use in ouf 
 unfolding, knowing that we gathered from out the 
 *Golden Age' the 'One Word, One Principle, One 
 Truth,' which will last as long as Eternity. Yett 
 in each incarnation, we must recall the wisdom al- 
 l^eady gained, and add new experiences as we con- 
 tinue in the grand march of evolution. Therefore 
 the new is built out of the oZd, and who knows but 
 what we shall find some things that will prove the 
 part we played in the drama of life on the stage 
 Where the light first appeared in Atlantis, and 
 where it disappeared to reappear in Egypt, flour- 
 ishing for a time, but finally disappearing in India, 
 leaving that great nation and its people in darkness^ 
 
 Who knows but in turning to the great Pastf 
 studying the ancient people and religions, we may 
 regain some forgotten knowledge to give us the 
 power to reach the place that God intended, when 
 the * Word became flesh. ' 
 
 *'Thereis but little revealed concerning the Art 
 of Atlantis. A great deal can be said of the arts of 
 ancient Egypt. Indian history tells us that the de- 
 gree of excellence attained by that grand nation 
 was of the most exalted kind. 
 
 **Art as well as nations^ plays a part in the his- 
 tory of progress, and we might say, in many res* 
 pects of the human mind; for the mode of expres- 
 sion is at all times a type, or symbol, of the tone or 
 feeling which suggests it. In this, the Past isi 
 linked with the present. Many consider all efforts 
 in Art or life a sort of influence toward the perfect 
 
174 THfi FHILOSO^HY OF FIH© 
 
 ideal. Therefore, the genius displayed in those 
 days exhibits results more beautiful and perfect 
 than that which came after that era. 
 
 "All nations have their Arts, Sciences, and Re- 
 ligions. They display magnificent temples, and 
 palaces where the multitude can gather, giving of- 
 ferings of physical, as well as spiritual nature to 
 the Deity. The Arts of the ancients were con- 
 trolled by, or dependent upon, their respective re- 
 ligions, and flourished more or less according to 
 the liberty allowed the Artist and the state of re- 
 spect in which he was held by his fellowman. 
 
 "Little can be traced concerning the Arts and 
 Sciences of Atlantis, therefore allow me to quote 
 something that has been revealed. Our own race, 
 the Aryan, has naturally achieved far greater re- 
 sults in almost every direction than the Atlantians. 
 Where they failed to reach our level, the records of 
 what they did accomplish are of interest as repre- 
 senting the high- water mark which their tide of 
 civilization reached. On the other hand, the char- 
 acter of the scientific achievements in which they 
 did outstrip us are of so dazzling a nature that we 
 are bewildered by such unequal development. 
 
 "The Arts and Sciences, as practiced by the first 
 two Races, were, of course, crude in a degree. The 
 history of the Atlantians, as of the Aryan race, was 
 interspersed with periods of progress and decay. 
 Eras of culture were lost in lawlessness, during 
 which their artistic and scientific development was 
 lost; being succeeded by civilization reaching to 
 still higher levels. 
 
'the philosophy of fire 1^5 
 
 ''Architecture, sculpture, painting and music 
 were all cultivated in Atlantis. From what has 
 been gathered from nations in the near Past in re- 
 S:ard to the development of Music, we cannot ex- 
 pect that the Atlantians reached to any degree oi 
 perfection. Their instruments undoubtedly were 
 of the most primitive type; the music at the be^t 
 was crude. 
 
 **One thing is certain, that the Atlantians were 
 fond of color, and brilliant hues decorated both in- 
 side and outside of their buildings, but painting 
 as we know it to-day as a fine art could hardly have 
 been established. As time brought forth develop- 
 ment of a love for studying Nature and depicting 
 her beauties upon paper, or whatever material they 
 used, drawing and painting must have formed a 
 part of their school studies. 
 
 ** Sculpture, on the other hand, was most certain- 
 ly taught to a very great extent and widely prac- 
 ticed. It reached great excellence^ becoming in a 
 religious way the custom for the rich to place in 
 some of the temples an image of themselves. These 
 were usually carved in wood, or a black stone. The 
 wealthiest had their statues cast in one of the prec- 
 ious metals, gold, silver, or aurichalcum. This 
 metal was made from a yellow copper ore. Its 
 lustre is pearly; its color pale green, sometimes 
 azure. 
 
 "Architecture was naturally widely practiced* 
 as manifesting their respect and devotion to their 
 religious beliefs, if we were to judge, believing a| 
 we do that the Atlantians in fleeing from their di^= 
 
176 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 appearing country, found a resting place in Egypt, 
 The Atlantians must have built massive structures 
 of gigantic proportions. Their temples were be- 
 yond description, but some of the buildings in the 
 last World's Fair in Chicago v^ere built from some 
 remaining memory in the minds of the architects, 
 The future still holds the reproduction of other 
 great temples. As time rolls on and the human 
 family becomes more harmonious and cultured by 
 the refining process of the Spirit, again the *One 
 Word, One Principle and One Truth' shall dominate 
 forcing through the spirit of harmonious vibration 
 the desire for one Church or Temple, the Temple of 
 Universal Brotherhood. This would call for the 
 magnificent structures of the far distant Past, 
 But a greater sens© of beauty would be marked as 
 a gift from the ages of training, and simplicity 
 would be the key note. 
 
 "The history of Art in Egypt, which is a continU'- 
 ing history of Atlantis, may be divided into two 
 periods, each subject to various changes and revo- 
 lutions. What took place during the reign of Hyk- 
 sos, or Shepard Kings, and during the period of the 
 Israelites' captivity, or the immediate generations 
 preceding the eighteenth dynasty, or that of Rame- 
 ses the Great, who lived about fourteen centuries 
 before the birth of the Master, Jesus of Nazareth, 
 may be considered the first beginning of Egyptian 
 Art, of whice we know nothing beyond what is said 
 in the book of Genesis and the account in Exodus. 
 Both must be understood in their literal sense. 
 
 ■^Pliny tells us, according to their own accounts. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 177 
 
 the Egyptians were masters of painting full 6,000 
 years before it passed from them to the Greeks. 
 The Art of Egypt was purely symbolic in its 
 principles and historic in its practice; and was the 
 tool of a hierarchy and its artists the slaves of super- 
 stitions. Egyptian hieroglyphics appear to be 
 simply records, social, religious, and political. 
 Egyptian painting was accordingly more of a sym- 
 bolical writing than a liberal art. 
 
 '*The architectual remains that have attracted so 
 much notice in Egypt during the last century are 
 scattered along both sides of the Nile, for a distance 
 of nearly a thousand miles. They consist of tem- 
 ples, pyramids, obelisks and monoliths or large 
 stone pillars. Very discordant opinions have been 
 expressed as to the periods when these various 
 monuments were built, but it is generally agreed 
 that their construction must have embraced the 
 long period of at least 2,000 years. Some, situated 
 near the mouth of the Nile, having been construct- 
 ed after the commencement of the Christian era; 
 while others, high up in the country toward Abys- 
 sinia, are believed to have been built nearly 2,000 
 years before the Christian era. Whatever may be 
 the difference of opinion on these conjectural points, 
 it is agreed by those who know^ that Egypt disple.yed 
 the most mighty examples of structures which 
 were built ages before Greece and Rome were num- 
 bered among the nations of the world, and that all 
 other ancient structures may be best viewed by 
 comparing them with those of Egypt. 
 
 *'At a short distance from Denderah, now called 
 
 12 
 
178 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 tipper Egypt, is the most extraordinary group of 
 architectural ruins presented in any part of the 
 world, known as the Temples of the ancient City 
 of Trebes. Trebes in its prime occupied a large 
 area on both sides of the Nile. This city was the 
 center of a great commercial nation of Upper Egypt, 
 ages before Memphis was the capital of the second 
 nation in Lower Egypt; and however grand the ar- 
 chitectural monuments of the latter may have been, 
 those of the former must have surpassed them. 
 
 ''What sublime conceptions can be derived from 
 such magnificent specimens of man's creation in 
 architecture, not only in magnitude, but in form, 
 proportion, and construction. The portrayal by 
 pencil or brush can convey but a faint idea of the 
 perfected city. As the city stands to-day it is like 
 a city of giants, who after a long conflict, have been 
 all destroyed, leaving the ruins of their various 
 temples as the only proofs of their existence. 
 
 ''The Temple of Luxor (it was in this temple that 
 the Grand Lodge of Initiates always met) stands on 
 a raised platform of brickwork covering more than 
 2,000 feet in length and 1,000 in breadth. It is the 
 one that interests the members of all Ancient Or- 
 ders, especially so all the members of those Orders 
 that worshipped at the Shrine of the Secret Fire, 
 more than perhaps any otherj and stands on the 
 eastern bank of the Nile. It is in a very ruined 
 3tate, but records say the stupendous scale of its 
 porportions almost takes away the sense of its in- 
 completeness. Up to about a quarter of a century 
 ago, the greater part of its columns in the interior, 
 
1:he philosophy o^ fire lf§ 
 
 and part of the inner sanctuary remained, but thg 
 outer walls had been removed after falling, for use 
 elsewhere. 
 
 ''This Temple (which figures more or less in the 
 history of the different Occult or Mystical Orders 
 as all originally come from one source and that 
 source Atlantis, from the Atlantian Fire Worship- 
 pers), was founded by Amenothis III, who con- 
 structed the southern part, including the heavy 
 colonnade over-looking the river; but the world is in- 
 debted to Rameses II for the remaining portion^ 
 but destruction unfortunately conceals this fact. 
 The chief entrance to the Temple looked to the East; 
 while the Holy Chamber at the upper end of the 
 plan approached the Nile. As mighty as the Tem- 
 ple of Luxor^ seems to have been, it was exceeded 
 in magnitude and grandeur by that of Carnak. 
 The distance between these two great structures 
 was a mile and a hall Along this avenue was a 
 double row of Sphinxes placed twelve feet apart 
 and the width of the avenue was sixty feet. When 
 in perfect state, this avenue must have presented 
 the most extraordinary entrance that the world has 
 ever seen. If we had the power to picture from 
 the field of imagination the grand processions of 
 Neophytes that were constantly passing through 
 and taking part in the ceremonies of Initiation, we 
 would be powerless to produce the grandeur of the 
 surroundings and the imposing sight of color and 
 magnificent trappings of those who took part; 
 Neither can we produce the music that kept the 
 vast number of people in steady marching order* 
 
180 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 Crude it may have been to the cultivated ear of the 
 twentieth century. But could not the palpitating: 
 strain sung by massed voices on the lapse of time^ 
 v^hose history touches the profoundest aspirations 
 of the human heart, like the trend of a mighty river, 
 become the grand currents of Universal Lav^, im- 
 parting the desire of that shadov^y Past, as it steps 
 forth from the pages of a history dim with age? 
 
 ^'Egypt must have been, when these Temples 
 were builtj a material nation; for records of its war- 
 like deeds are perpetuated in deeply engraved tab- 
 lets, which even now, excite the admiration of the 
 best judges of archaeological remains. It was also 
 a highly civilized nation and of a nature that could 
 bear the expenditure which always attends the cul- 
 ture of the Arts. Yet, as strange as it may seem, 
 we do not know with any certainty, either its his- 
 tory or its chronology. It surpassed, in its aston- 
 ishing architecture, all other nations that have ex- 
 isted upon the earth and yet the greater power and 
 beauty which belongs to intellect was scarcely to 
 be traced. 
 
 "In those times, the armies of Egypt went forth 
 to conquer and subdue the known physical world. 
 But the knowledge and potency that found rest 
 and culture at Atlantis, Luxor, and Elephantis, so 
 permeated and controlled all nations that records 
 of experience, becoming knowledge, have been pre- 
 served even to the present day. So deeply were 
 they impressed upon the unseen^ that they return- 
 ing upon their cycles of development, have been 
 considered by our age, as original inventions and 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 181 
 
 discoveries. The earth-born forget nothing so 
 easily as wisdom, or its possession. The Thrice- 
 Wise said: 'There is nothing new under the sun.' 
 But in our day, when instead of the best men and 
 soldiers of a nationality coming forth from fair and 
 beaatiful cities, arrayed for the conquest, the arm- 
 ies of Egypt and Chaldea are swarming from out 
 the unseen. They are overruning all countries 
 where there is spiritual Light and Life enough to 
 give them assurance of sufficient advancement to 
 warrant their incarnation. They are hampered by 
 the customs and restrictions of the mortal laws, 
 and their own strict regard for all law. If there 
 was one thing more than another that an Egyptian 
 respected and venerated, it was the law under 
 which he lived; the symbols of authority upon the 
 throne; and the sign of Spiritual Presence in the 
 temple. Urged on, however, by the impulses of 
 the Higher Self, they are striving in this day and 
 generation to the best of their unfolding, for their 
 own progress, and for the consolidation of the 
 Brotherhood seen and unseen. They have per- 
 ceived it was absolutely necessary to rise above the 
 mental impediments of their environments, and the 
 ^^7156671 brotherhood who are not yet ready to sup- 
 port their colleagues, in manifestation, stand behind 
 them rank upon rank. The impulse and the vibra- 
 tion coming from these supporting columns, thrill 
 along the soul formations of the past. The vibra- 
 tions bring recurring memories, which whisper of 
 the One, the great God Om, and of His truth. 
 Everywhere, on all lines, these Ancient Ones are 
 
 12 1 
 
182 THE PHILOSOPHY OP PIRB 
 
 seeking to verify in the outer, what Cabalistic sym- 
 bols and signs are, the Hidden Truths of Being, 
 which from time to time have been whispered out 
 of the intelligence and knowledge locked up in the 
 Archives of the Astral Light library. 
 
 "'Oh! You Neophytes, listen to the Voice that 
 comes out of the Silence, and believe it for the 
 truth's sake. You have not yet concentrated 
 enough. Tlie Watch^Pire on the mountain top do 
 not yet break down the darkness. So separated 
 they contain within themselves, weakness. If they 
 can be brought together, knowing each other's feel- 
 ing and intensity of purpose, which demands sac- 
 rifice of the modes of expression, of the spirit of 
 the utterances, then it will be as if a thousand camp- 
 fires were massed in one, and it became the beacon 
 light of the world. The field is ripe for the harvest 
 and the stalks are falling on the ground from the 
 weight of the grain; will you save it? Will you ac- 
 complish for yourself that which shall make the 
 path of those who follow you easier? We have, in 
 our Archives, the Mysteries, are you ready to re- 
 ceive them? As Egypt in the olden time, when her 
 star of glory was the highest, was mistress of the 
 world, so now may you be full of potency and pow- 
 er. Masters of the good, ready to lead on and place 
 on record the conditions needed to bring about the 
 opening again of that which was lost to those who are 
 now crying, hungering, and thirsting for the truth. 
 
 '*The true Egyptian knows whatever was lost, 
 has not disappeared, in the sense of being destroyed, 
 but is simply veiled. The Veil of IsiS is throvnx 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 183 
 
 over it, and no arm since that time, has been strong 
 enough, potent enough, tvUl-ful enough to tear it 
 aside. The land of Egypt lies desolate, the strang- 
 er treadeth within her gates, desolation broods over 
 her temples, her palaces, her cities, and the Ar- 
 chives and treasures of Incomparable knowledge. 
 How long, O sons of Egypt! Brothers of the one 
 family! Sons of the One! will you refuse or think 
 it of little moment to take concerted and united ac- 
 tion, that there may come to Light once again all 
 the beauty and grandeur; all the potency and knowl- 
 edge that have been waiting thousands of years, 
 for the time and times when you should once more 
 be upon earth. TFe, in our Secret Archives hold the 
 documeats and the Mysteries of the temples. Are you 
 ready to receive these Mysteries? Shall the cydes move 
 071, and you having accomplished your pilgrimage, go 
 hence into the Unseen leaving all unrevealed that might 
 have come to you; and thus all the world to await the un- 
 folding of another cycle? Ton are face tofaee toith aU 
 that ever h^as been. The means are in your hands; the 
 world is before you; the potencies of the most ancient 
 knowledge with the direct influence of the search-light 
 pouring upon it is your birthright. Take o^nd use it. 
 Commence at once and persist, until you have reached 
 that point where you can say to the physical, stay, as I 
 shall have need of thee. 
 
 "Egypt has left us no memory of a Homer, a Peri- 
 cles, a Plato, or a Xenophon. A single Hebrew 
 writer, Moses, gives us a clearer insight, a more 
 exact and truthful view of the actual state of that 
 land than we can gain from any of its monuments. 
 
184 THE PHILOSOr^fft OP FIRE 
 
 or written remains,or from Herodotus or any other 
 Greek. The chief idea presented to us in the rapid 
 sketches of the book of Moses, is that of powe^i"— 
 absolute power. *I am Pharaoh, and with me none 
 shall lift up his hands or foot in all the laud of Egypt. ' 
 All travelers on their journeys stand amazed at all 
 the prodigies which surroud them on every side^, 
 but the chief fact is the same. Power, must 
 have created all these things; for, in the Twentieth 
 Century of the Christian era, to reproduce the 
 works which can be found even in the present, at 
 Luxor and Carnak would be utterly and entirely 
 impossible. 
 
 These powerful works should teach us that with- 
 out unity and Brotherhood nothing can be done. 
 
 So long as the Atlantians were united and obeyed the 
 Supreme Law, all was well, but no sooner did they fol- 
 loiv the flesh and become dis-united, when the fall came. 
 This is the history of not only the Atlantians^ but also of 
 the Egyptians. 
 
 So long as we are disunited and self-seeking, we 
 are creating both the visible and invisible realms, a 
 feeling of opposition that grows stronger and 
 stronger, as we increase our momentum of individ- 
 uality. To this condition, by the very essence of 
 its existence is necessarily drawn all other discord- 
 ant forces. Singly, they hold, perhaps, but little 
 energy, but like grains of sand, in united action, 
 can weigh tons. It is strange how long it has tak- 
 en man to learn this lesson of unity from the physi- 
 cal world; but as he will not let go of his physical, 
 and look towards the spiritual side of himself, he 
 
THE P H i JUO SOPHY OPPIRE ISS 
 
 must recMve the chastisements that are the inevita- 
 ble consequence. When he does come to the time 
 and place, where from the spiritual side of himself j 
 he perceives a new view from his contemplation. 
 This does not help self as a center of action or a 
 starting point of force;but it holds out; it makes 
 unity of harmonious action the main spring of all 
 life. 
 
 Ttie**words of the wise" to man, consequently 
 ring and echo with injunctions to him of the im- 
 portant import: "Obey the law — the word of the 
 Supreme Will." ^'Do the will of the Father." 
 These reiterated words of advice are forever rever^ 
 berating through the arches of space. The more 
 we declare we will not obey, but will follow our own 
 short-sighted inclinations in the direction of our 
 desire and pleasure, the more we shall be sure to 
 become tangled in savagery. Here we run against 
 the immutable law. bringing upon ourselves, the 
 condign punishment or pain, by which only our ani- 
 mality can be trained. It is we and aot God who is 
 benefitted by our conformity to law — that natural 
 order of things. Thus we as animals, have been 
 and are gradually forced to perceive that the por, 
 tency of united action is the only way by which we 
 may hope to succeed. To be eminently successful^ 
 is the only result if we are truly on the basis of Uni- 
 versal Law, the only right method of action. 
 
 Under the impress of the spirit, we become de- 
 sirous of being of some service to all our fellows^ 
 even if it is no more than to eat at the second table; 
 When we have come to this point, it is no longer 
 
186 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIBE 
 
 possible for us to hold enmity againt our fellows, 
 Qven in behalf of our most carefully cultivated feuds. 
 What others may do, often causes annoyance, but 
 never that unrelenting setness, we knovf as hatred, 
 which like the hardening of a plaster cast, binds 
 into an immovable and inflexible limitation, influenc- 
 ing even astral conditions to both the hater and 
 bated. 
 
 The reader may think that I am transgressing 
 by quoting from Secret records, but I am not. In 
 giving a history of a people or an order, it is neces- 
 pary to give the cause of their fall so that other Or- 
 ders or people may take warning from the past and 
 not fall into the same error as those people of the 
 past and also to point them the way as to what to do 
 in order to avoid the downfall. 
 
 '*It is a mistake to look at an Egyptian Temple in 
 the light of a Church, or even of a Greek Temple. 
 Here no public worship is performed; the faithful 
 do not congregate for public prayer; indeed, no one 
 }s or was admitted inside the Sanctuary except the 
 priest and the Initiates of the Order. In some, not 
 even the King, unless he was an Initiate, was al- 
 lowed at aU times. The Temple is a royal prosce- 
 nium, that is, a token of piety from the King who 
 erected it in order to deserve the favor of the Gods. 
 
 ^*The Egyptian Temples are always dedicated to 
 three Gods — a Triad. The first is the male princi- 
 ple. Second, the female principle. Third, the off- 
 spring of the two. Creator, creating, and creation. 
 Thus the three Deities are blended into one, expres- 
 sing no beginning or end. We thus prove that the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY O ^. PlRte 18? 
 
 Ancient Mysteries were taught and celebrated 
 First, in Atlantis; Second, in Egypt; Third, in Ele- 
 phantis. These proofs we have. In all of the Tem^ 
 pies of these places the Fire Philosophy was taught 
 a^ it has been throughout all the Secret Orders 
 since the time of Ancient Atlantis. Of the Fire 
 Philosophy of Atlantis^ Egypt and India, not much 
 can be said in a history as they are secret and not 
 to be divulged to the profane. Only a small part of 
 these instructions may be quoted from the secret 
 manuscript in order to prove that such was the 
 philosophy of the ancient Masters. 
 
 "Each spark contains the Hame consciousness 
 belonging to every soul, which evolves finally into 
 manifestation. In it, and under all, rests the eter^ 
 nal Essence, the Never-Dying Flame which once 
 lighted, (Soul awakened) bridges the Eternal Past 
 with the Eternal Future. It is the Life Existent, 
 the Soul of Fire. It is the Only True Way, the In» 
 finite God. 
 
 The Mighty Spirit of the Flame has no destruc- 
 tive essence tvithin itself. But it holds all powers 
 by Divine commission, to create the light that 
 glorifies and uplifts everything that it shineB upon; 
 The central Fire (God) radiates to the circumfei-- 
 ence and there touches the periphery of ail its ex- 
 istence. Again returning to the Center, it holds 
 ensouled within its vibrations, other souls to be il^ 
 luminated and become self -radiating from the sam^ 
 Great Fire. The fire of all the Gods is kindled from 
 and concentrated in one Great Grod! 
 
 "Since the beginning of days, sacrifices have 
 
188 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 been laid upon the altar of Fire. In all ancient 
 writings are we told of the common fire; the sacred 
 Fire and of Sacrificial Fire, What means the fire 
 upon the altar? What means the Mysterious Light; 
 the incense soaring in misty waves, as a Soul ex- 
 pands in exaltation; the air heavy with its exhaled 
 perfume: the solemn multitude of lamps, which 
 with their richly wrought golden arbra gleams 
 about Shrine and tabernacle? What? But that 
 Fire, ascending toward heaven in its pristine, blue- 
 ness and triangular shape, is the profoundest symbol 
 of the supreme life-giving power, 
 
 "Watching the leaping flame^ the Triangle plainly 
 manifests itself. The base below ^ the apex point- 
 ing up, is from the beginning put forth is symbolic 
 of the Unseen, the Unknown God, There is noth- 
 ing in all the world that holds so completely within 
 itself, all the attributes of the Supreme int.eliigence. 
 The point reaching upward is always the node of 
 superior energy, the Center of Life and sensation. 
 Hence, the apex of the fiery triangle must be the 
 Absolute, for the real j}o^e?ict/ of Fire appears at the 
 moment of contax^L . ■ ,. 
 
 ^' The spirit of tire we cognize as Life. Wherever 
 God is, there Fire, as the Holy Ghost, will, also be. 
 Wherever Fire is, there is Life, Wherever Fire rests, 
 there manifestation will be, 'IfFfreis Life, then it must 
 hold within itself tT}e _ Divine ^ Intelligence . Hence the 
 flame. The essential essence of the flame is Life— God, 
 If Fire is God and God is Love, the essential Fire must , 
 be Love and thus we can only find the fire, through Love 
 and God through the fire. The manifested fire can 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PIRE 189 
 
 siveep away all maii^s possession, and destroy his body, 
 but the Essence dropping into the. Secret Place of the Most 
 High, the maelstrom or vehicle, which holds Within itself 
 the Unseen charm of all existence, lights the ilame that 
 makes man Immortal, 
 
 ''Where man worships, the lights burning upon 
 the alter, are symbolical of the Divine Energy, of 
 generation and regeneration. These flaming lights 
 encircle the most holy point of the ancient mosques. 
 They glow in ambient beauty about the Shrine of 
 saints and the churches of the Eternal Cities. They 
 burn constantly in Mystic attestation before the 
 tombs of the Redeemers. Always and everywhere, 
 they are and always have been, a silent witness and 
 sign to the Initiate, of the origin and significance 
 of the Sun Worshippers. 
 
 Man seeing fire struck out from the cold, unyield* 
 ing flint, comes to believe, the coldest, hardest stone 
 must have a heart of fire. All Nature is built upon 
 the Divine Fire. The flagstone of matter shuts it 
 down, waiting for the great Central Sun to drop a 
 ray of fiery essence into the bosom of Mother Earth, 
 It thereby creates sufficient impulse to cause it to 
 stream forth, unwind its starry limbs, and step in- 
 to manifestation. This fire descending upon the 
 alter of Mother Earth holds concealed as its ulti^ 
 mate, the Secret of Life. 
 
 ''The lily bulb contains the same forceful fire^ 
 It possesses the Creative Energy to rise from the 
 lowest to the highest. The Lotus is the whole les- 
 son and law of transmutation. By its own function 
 and growth the law of the Creative Energy acts. 
 
190 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 The gross becomes the supernal. The supreme 
 atom of the hly and all else that is, has kindled, at 
 the base of this Altar of the Waters, the Eternal 
 Essence of Life, which is fire. When it reaches the 
 surface, in manifesting beauty, there burns vMMn 
 its bosom — White Chalice of the Gods, the Heart of 
 Fire~t\iQ tongue of flame of the Holy Spirit. Hav- 
 ing descended into matter for the purpose of taking 
 hold of the material, it converts the opaque into the 
 brilliant purity of the Highest Transmutation. The 
 Holy Spirit does not really descend, but only places 
 Itself in touch with that which is lower. What a 
 beautiful illustration of the True Initiation we have 
 here. The secret is so plainly unveiled that all who 
 have eyes may see, 
 
 "The fire springing out of the Etheric and Auric 
 vibrations, is the highest Esoteric Fire, born of the 
 spontaneous action of the positive and negative 
 forces. We gaze with awe upon its multiform 
 shapes; its trails of sparks; its flame wreaths; scin- 
 tilating, wavering arches and vortices, starting up 
 out of the matrix of apparent solidity, reducing its 
 source to its own ultimate invisibility. 
 
 Ilame is significant of rebirth and Resurrection; of 
 the Spiritual horn out of the material. It is sym.bol and 
 substance at once^ of the Immortality of the Ego. Hence 
 the Angel of Fire hath dominion. Above all, is the 
 glowing supernatural flower of Love, concealed in 
 the inanimate womb of matter. The great love of 
 the physical world, whose warmth and ardor des- 
 troys the material and perceptible form, is sym- 
 bolized by the enwrapping flame. Freed from its 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 191 
 
 prison of limitation and thus formless, it gives re- 
 birth to the spirit, in both the Seen and the Unseen 
 worlds. 
 
 '^Tlie Fire God^ the Beautiful^ the Resplendent! Con- 
 ceived in the Land of Silence! Born out of the ivomb of 
 Mystery! Thou art the Shadow of the Shadowless! 
 Thou art the Causeless Cause! The existent God, We 
 worship not the Fire., but that which represents the Fire 
 —^Love, 
 
 "There is no power but Love, strong enough to 
 hold through all the complex problems of earth life. 
 It is Love that meets us as we cross the threshold 
 of the narrow gate. It is Love that looks into 
 our eyes, as we close them in the last earthly sleep. 
 It is Love that greets us, when the Gates of Para- 
 dise swing inward for our reception, after onr long 
 or brief pilgrimage in the mortal realm. Love is 
 that which abides, and is as eternal as God. This 
 is the Love that dies not. They who love truly, can 
 easily and cheerfully put aside self for the Beloved. 
 Whoever returns to earth searching for who he seek, 
 can only find and rejoin them, by entering into this 
 realm of Omnipotence. Love is a guide which will 
 never fail. Love will restore the loved ones to each 
 other should they ever be lost. 
 
 "Love, the Law, in its fulfilling, must hold for it- 
 self, both an inflowing and an outflowing current. 
 The ebb and flow of the life blood, is symbolical of 
 the give and take of love in activity. He who loves, 
 lives in the highest realm of the alldife. He who 
 loves counts all things but loss, if he may but win 
 and hold the true love and real affection of the one 
 
192 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 loved. The true lover, takes labor and toil by the 
 hand, as benefactors and boon companions, leads 
 them into verdant pastures giving fresh hope to the 
 tired and overtaxed heart. Love tunes the Harp 
 of Life to the perfect vibration of the At-One-ment. 
 When played upon by the hands of Fate and Des- 
 tiny, and discord made thereby, may be harmon- 
 ized by the soft, lingering touch of Love, the Divine, 
 the Perfect Harper! 
 
 Listen! All social problems lie in the conquest 
 over the Natural and personal man. It is the con- 
 tinual protest over the Natural Law. Rising into 
 the v^orld of Love and self -consciousness, we rise 
 into a world of freedom and equality. A great 
 teacher has said: "Man is a composite being. In 
 him is the angelic and the animal. The spiritual 
 training of life means no more, than the subjugation 
 of the animal; and the setting free of the Angelic. "^^ 
 
 *'There is a great and wonderful epitome founded 
 upon having, and holding in our possession, the 
 key that unlocks all doors, and the knowledge of 
 how to use and handle it. That key is Love. He who 
 loves lives; he who loves not, is dead; he who loves 
 himself alone, lives in hell, because centering all the 
 essence of existence upon his own body, he burns 
 and shrivels under the intolerant intensity of its 
 force. He who loves others, lives in heaven, because the 
 desire to love and bring good, reacts and compels har- 
 mony. " 
 
 Such are the secret instructions that have come 
 down to us for ages from the grand temples that 
 once stood upon the shores of Atlantis. These are 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY O^ Pi RE 193 
 
 but few of the mighty secrets held in secret crypts 
 of our sacred Occult Libraries. 
 
 The Templars as Fire Philosophers. 
 
 The great men and inquiring spirits among the 
 Templars had penetrated to the very depth of the 
 mystery of the ever-living, supernatural Fire and 
 had taught it to their Initiates as they had been 
 taught by the Saracens. It is supposable that, at 
 the suppression of this grand, warlike, and monas- 
 tic Order — so bound by the injunctions of a secret 
 formula, which, in all the persecutions of the Camps 
 or Lodges, never appeared to the eyes of the world, 
 but was denied; — many of the things of which they 
 were accused, such as Magical ceremonies and so- 
 called Pagan rites, wizard-trances and sacrifices, 
 etc., were satisfactorily established (in their trials), 
 as matters of which they were indisputably guilty. 
 We know that they had their rites and ceremonies, 
 but we also know that these rites and ceremonies 
 had a different meaning from that interpreted by 
 religious fanatics and self-constituted investigators 
 who knew nothing of the Deeper Occult Sciences 
 and who must be called the real Pagans and wor- 
 shippers of Rome and the golden-calf. 
 
 We know that there was nothing more in the de- 
 nouncement and extinction, at the same time, all 
 over Europe, of these religio-knightly or monastic- 
 military orders — in whose ranks fought, and taught, 
 some men of the most powerful, and most daring, 
 understanding of the period — than the jealousy of 
 
 13 
 
194 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 their povrer, and fear of their influence and the de- 
 sire of their riches and worldly accumulation. We 
 know that secret and forbidden studies (as in all 
 Fraternities) were pursued by them; that under 
 the protection and yet in the refusal (as it seemed 
 to the profane and religious fanatics) of the Cross, 
 and as from behind their holy and militarily won- 
 drous character, the Arch-leaders among them 
 (whether chieftains of mind or of arms) closely hung 
 on the track of philosophy until it vanished into 
 transcendentalism, or the so-called (because so- 
 called religious beliefs were no more accepted by 
 them than they are at this time by the Members of 
 Mystic Fraternities) atheistic, and by Occult and 
 Cabalistic means established relations with the Un- 
 seen (as we do to-day), seeking to hold communica- 
 tions with the Spiritual world. 
 
 The round form of their Temples — as they were 
 styled by the Brotherhood; — their various insignia 
 and habits; their secret Book; — their rites — all seem 
 to bespeak a knowledge, and do so speak to the Ini- 
 tiate, of the true Fire-Philosophy: — misunderstood 
 and perverted in the hands of all hut those ^ who, of 
 the Order, had risen to the highest knowledge in it — and 
 who rose to truth — into the indulgence of sensual ap- 
 petites and the denial of the future life, and, con- 
 sequently, of the fullest and the morally darkest, 
 though the most worldly luscious epicureanism. 
 This was not the fault of the mighty Philosophy 
 known and taught by them, but the fault of those 
 would be followers who did not try to understand, 
 and who did not desire to follow the true teachings. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF P i tl E l95 
 
 but who only wanted an excuse for their miserable 
 outrages. 
 
 Whilst the chiefs of the Order of the Templars 
 had penetrated to truths the most astoi i*h'ng 
 though, necessarily, undivulgeable (especially in 
 that superstitious and ignorant age; of which, in- 
 contestably, they were far forward), the,y paid the 
 usual penality of their great knowledge in being de^- 
 cried, and burnt as magicians. Simply because the 
 time was not prepared — if, indeed, any time can be — 
 for that which they could tell. They, and their 
 whole body, therefore, appeared, in the exaggera- 
 tions of the Church, and in the magnifying m.edium 
 of the terror which their doings inspired, as thirst- 
 ing for seemingly impossible things. Climbing, as 
 in their cowls and mail, as a stormingladder of pre- 
 sumptuously supposed lightning-proof, steel, and 
 under the mask and shield of the Cross, into the 
 imagined, accursed (according to the profane) cham- 
 bers of the Magic, devilish Fire: the treasure house, 
 or home, or Hell of the forbidden gods, rich in all 
 possible Ethereal and human splendors! The Tem- 
 plars did only that which we, of the present school 
 are doing, only, the masses have become more en- 
 lightened and while we may be accused by the ig- 
 norant, persecutions are past and we have better 
 learned to be silent 
 
 The famous Beauseant, or banner of the Tern- 
 plars, was part-colored — that is, divided down the 
 centre, in two halves of "black and white." This 
 figuring- forth of the utterly opposed colors, is gen- 
 erally taken to signify the immitigable hatred of 
 
196 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIKE 
 
 the Templars for the Infidels, but their abiding love 
 and benignity towards the Christians, This total 
 friendship, or uncompromising abnegation would 
 be heraldically denoted in the perfect contrast of 
 the black and white halves, or "^fields/' of the Tem- 
 plars' ensign, divided parti-per-pae. But, when we 
 remember that the ^^-yptians my thed their Perfect 
 Divinity J or Cause of AU^ under (of this world) the 
 hopeless, empty color of Black, in opposition to 
 White, or Matter-Light which was taken to signify 
 "This World, and the Glory of this World;" and, 
 when we recall that the proper robes, or vestments, 
 or Magicians, when invested in their Cabalistic pan- 
 opy and armed for charms — as directed by the au- 
 thentic formula— are of the colors White and Black, 
 we grow into another sort of belief regarding the 
 meaning of this Templar banner, Mystic as it is, 
 and we conclude that it fell back, for its 7^eal hiero- 
 glyph, upon the Fire-Creed or Philosophy. This 
 faith of the fierce Deistical East, and of the Guef re; 
 Gubh, or Gaur. And this, surely, not without rea- 
 son. Nor does the Order of the Knights of St. John 
 of Jerusalem, who, in the grandeur of their stately 
 galleys, made of the Mediterranean a royal sea, 
 and elevated the Islands of Malta, and of Rhodes, 
 almost into the splendors of an empire set on the 
 water; nor does this Order escape the imputation 
 of wrong-doing — of being betrayed in the signs and 
 the hieroglyph of the secret, reprobated, Infidel 
 doctrine. Their colors, the fashion of their arms, 
 and their attire, in which — ^in priestly or any other 
 orders or communities — lies much of meaning, glanc- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 197 
 
 ingup to justifiable Christian suspicion in the wizard, 
 heretical half-light. In short, it is held that the 
 Teutonic Knights, or the soldier monks, of St. John 
 of Jerusalem, as equally as the Templars, as very 
 questionable Christians. Though this imagined in- 
 fidelity might be only confined to the Heads of the 
 Chapters: the great body of the Knights being 
 merely directed. 
 
 In the persecutions of the Knights Templars, 
 which are generally known, a certain mystification 
 and secrecy may be observed: as if the whole of the 
 charges against them were not brought out publicly. 
 This arose from various causes. The persecuted 
 were really very religious, and were bound by the 
 most solemn Masonic oaths (and Masonry was inti- 
 mately connected with these matters) not to divulge 
 the secrets of the Order. The impression is very 
 general that these persecutions were undertaken 
 for the sake of the wealth of the Order. This is 
 not the only reason, there were other, and deeper 
 reasons. Hate, jealousy and fear were of the great- 
 est reasons. 
 
 The so-called heathenish doctrines to which al- 
 lusion has been made, are visible everywhere in the 
 curious mystical figures always seen upon the mon- 
 uments of the Templars; in the fishes, bound to- 
 gether by the tails, in the tombs of Italy, and ap- 
 pearing on the vaulting of the Temple Church, Lon- 
 don; — in the astrological emblems on many chur- 
 ches, such as the Zodiacs on the floor of the Church 
 of St. Irenaeus at Lyons, and on a church at York, 
 and Notre Dame at Paris, and Bacchus, or the God 
 
198 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 1. H. S., filling the wine-cask, formerly on the floor 
 of the Church of St. Denis. Again, in the round 
 Churches of the Templars, in imitation of the round 
 church at Jerusalem, probably built by them in the 
 Circular, or Cyclar, or Gilgal form, in allusion to 
 various recondite subjects, and in the monograms 
 I H E and X H in thousands of places. We, of the 
 present day, know that these doctrines were not 
 heathenish in any sense but that they had and still 
 have, the most wonderful mystical meaning and 
 that they figure in all true Initiation and in all the 
 Philosophies. Symbolism has never been under- 
 stood by the masses and ever a strange and abso- 
 lutely false meaning will be given to these symbols 
 and ceremonies by those who do not, and never can 
 understand them. It is well that this is so. 
 
 At every turn we meet with some remnant of so- 
 called Paganism, It is a rather extraordinary 
 thing that the Christian Templars should call them- 
 selves Templars in honor of the Temple, the des- 
 truction of which all so-called Christians boasted of 
 as a miraculous example of Divine wrath in their 
 favor to Christians. This then, goes to prove the 
 Templars much older than the Crusades, and that 
 the pretended origin of these people is totally false. 
 There is a certain suspicion entertained, not with- 
 out reason, that the origin of this community may 
 be looked for in the College of Cashi, and the Tem- 
 ple of Solomon in Cashmere, or the lake, or mere, 
 of Cashi. The Gymnosophists, the Kasideans, the 
 Essenes (from whom the Christ received his Initia- 
 tion), the Therapeutae (later, and at present, the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 19^ 
 
 Rosicrucians), the Dionesians, the Eleusianians (fol- 
 lowers of the Essenes), the -Pythagoreans (who 
 were really Rosicrucians), the Chaldeans were, in 
 reality, all an order of religionists, who included 
 in their religion, both Philosophy and true Mysti- 
 cism. Including among them, who were, in fact, 
 the heads of the Societies. 
 
 The Teutonic Knights seem to have been the first 
 instituted. But it is thought that they were graf ten 
 upon a class of persons — charitable devotees — who 
 had settled themselves, as the historians say, near 
 the Temple at Jerusalem, to assist poor Christian 
 pilgrims who visited it; although the real temple 
 had dissappeared even to the last stone, for a thou- 
 sand years. This shows how little use these his- 
 torians make of their understandings. The Teu- 
 tonic Knights are said to have come from Germany^ 
 from the Teutonic tribes. Let us hasten to relieve 
 North Germany from the weighty and undeserved 
 honor. The word Teut is Tat, and Tat is Buddha. 
 The name of Buddha, with some of the German na= 
 tions, was Tuisto or Tuisco, derived from whose 
 name comes our day of the week — Tuesday. From 
 Tuisto or Tuisco came the Teutones, Teutisci, and 
 the Teutonic Knights, and the name of Mercury 
 Teusco. Perhaps, Mercury I'7^ismegitus. 
 
 The round church of Jerusalem, built by Helenai 
 the Mystic Helena (daughter of Coilus), mother of 
 Constantino, who was born at York, and the chap 
 ter-house at York, and at other cathedrals, were 
 reproductions of the circul^ar Stonehenge and 
 Abury. The choirs of many of the cathedrals in 
 
200 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 France and England are built crooked of the nave 
 of the church, for the same reason, whatever that 
 might be, that the Druidical temple is so built at 
 Classerniss in Scotland. All the round chapter- 
 houses of our Cathedrals were built round for the 
 same reason that the Churches of the Templars 
 were round. In these chapters and the crypts, till 
 the thirteenth century, the Secret Religion or true 
 Fire Philosophy was celebrated far away from the 
 profane vulgar. These buildings have been thought 
 to be the representative successors of the caves of 
 India, and afterwards of the cupola- formed build- 
 ings there, of the Cyclopean Treasury of Atreus at 
 Mycenae, and of the Labyrinths of which we read 
 in Egypt, Crete, Italy and other countries. These 
 labyrinths could be only for the purposes of relig- 
 ion, and, it is not to be doubted, of that religion of 
 the Cyclops which universally prevailed. The un- 
 der ground crypts of our cathedrals, with their for- 
 ests of pillars, were labyrinths in miniature. There 
 is something about the circular churches of the 
 Templars which seem very remarkable. We have 
 only four in England, we believe, of the churches of 
 the Templars, namely: those in London, at Maple- 
 stead in Essex, at Northampton, and at Cambridge 
 — and they are all round. This form, we are told, 
 was adopted in imitation of the round church at 
 Jerusalem. But how came the church at Jerusa 
 lem to be round? Perhaps Phallas Worship had 
 something to do with this form. We are led to be- 
 lieve so at least. Again, how came these Christian 
 Knights to be caUed by the name of the detested 
 Jewish Temple? 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 201 
 
 The Templars were divided into orders exactly 
 after the system of the Assassins, Knights, Es- 
 quires, and Lay-Brethren answered to the Refeck, 
 Fedavee, and Laseek of the Assassins; as the Prior^ 
 Grand-Prior, and Grand-Master of the former cor* 
 respond with the Dai, Dai-Al-Kebir, and Sheik of 
 the mountain of the latter. 
 
 As the Ishmaelite Refeck was cladia white, with a 
 red mark of distinction^ so the Knight of the Temple 
 wore a white mantle, adorned with a red mark of 
 distinction — the Bed Cro&s, It is remarkable that 
 they were called ^^Illuminators," And it is to be 
 suspected that the red mark of distinction, kept 
 back as common to both Templers and Ishmaelites, 
 was red eight-point cross, or a Red Rose on a Cross. 
 
 The Templars were accused of worshipping abe^ 
 ing called Bahumid and Bafomet, or Kharul Von 
 Hammer says that this word, written in Arabic, 
 has the meaning of *'Galf , " and is what Kircher calls 
 Anima MundL It is difficult not to believe that this 
 **Kharuf"is our "Calf." The Assassins are said 
 to have worshipped a Calf. If these latter have a 
 Calf in use as an emblem, it maj^ be justly consid- 
 ered as a proof that, contrary to the prevailing ideas 
 concerning them, that they are a tribe of extreme 
 antiquity; (a branch of the Atlantians) which, though 
 holding the doctrine of the Ten Incarnations, yet 
 still clings to the ancient worship of Taurus. There 
 is a picture, in Russia, of the Holy Family, in which 
 the Calf is found instead of the Ram. A learned 
 author pronounces that the doctrines of the Assas- 
 sins and the Templars were the same. 
 
202 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 All Temples were surrounded with pillars re- 
 cording the numbers of the constellations, the signs 
 of the Zodiac, or the cycles of the planets; and each 
 Templum was supposed^ in some way, to be a micro- 
 cosm, or symbol, of the Temple of the universe, or 
 of the starry vault called Templum, It was this 
 Templum of the universe from which the Knights 
 Templars took their name, and not from the indi- 
 vidual Temple at Jerusalem, built probably by their 
 predecessors, and destroyed many years before 
 the time alloted to their rise; but which rise, it is 
 suspected, was only a revivification from a state of 
 depression into which they had fallen. 
 
 Theatres were originally Temples, where the 
 mytJios was scenically represented. And until they 
 were abused they were intended for nothing else. 
 But it is evident that, for this purpose, a peculiar 
 construction of the Temple was necessary. When 
 Scaurus built a Theatre in Greece, he surrounded 
 it with 860 pillars. The Temple at Mecca was sur- 
 rounded with 360 stones. And, in like manner, 
 with the same number the Templum at lona, in 
 Scotland, was surrounded. The Templars were 
 nothing but one branch of Masons, perhaps a 
 branch to which the care of some peculiar part of 
 the Temples was entrusted; and there is probabil- 
 ity that the name of Templars was only another 
 name for Casideans. 
 
 In the Western part of Asia, in the beginning of 
 the twelfth century, the sect or religious tribe called 
 Ishmaelites, or Battenians, or Assassins, arose. 
 These ''Assassins" were first noticed, in the West- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 203 
 
 ^rn world, with their chief Hakem Bermrillah, or 
 Hakem-biamr-allah, who was held up, in Syria, as 
 the Tenth Avatar, or, as it is assumed, incarnation. 
 His ideas of God w^re very refined. The first of 
 the creatures of God, the only •pYoduction irmnediate 
 of His power, was the intelligence universelle^ which 
 showed itself at each of the manifestations of the 
 Divinity on earth; that by means of this minister, 
 all creatures were made, and he was the Mediator 
 between God and man. They called themselves 
 Ututarimis. This intelligen(ye ^/niverselle is the Logos, 
 Easir, or Buddha. 
 
 It would seem probable that the followers of Bem- 
 rillah were originally adorers of Tauras, or the Calf 
 of Calves, which they continued to mix with the 
 other doctrines of Buddha. It must be rem em- * 
 bered that this worship of the Calf is not to be tak- 
 en in its literal sense but is only a symbol of the 
 Lamb or Christos, The hidden. Living Fire indwell- 
 ing in all men and coming from God — Love, 
 
 Chaldean implies Sabaean. (Another sect of Fire 
 worshippers or Fire Philosophers.) The word 
 Chaldean is a corruption of the word Chasdim; and 
 this is most clearly the same as the Colida, and Col- 
 chida, and Colchis of Asia, and as the Colidei and 
 Culdees of Scotland. Now all this, and the circum- 
 stances relating to the Chaldees, often called Math- 
 ematici, to the Assassins, the Templars, Manicha- 
 eans, etc., being considered, the name of the Assas- 
 sins, or Hassessins, or Assanites, or Chasiens, or 
 Alchaschisin, will not be thought unlikely to be a 
 corruption of Chasdim, and to mean Chaldees or 
 
204 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 Culdees, and that they were connected with the 
 Templars. We can thus trace them as in no other 
 way. When the Arabic emplatic article AL is tak- 
 en from this hard word aZ-chas-chischin, it is Chas- 
 chis-chin. The Assassins, were, also, called Druses 
 or Druiseans. The learned author of the "Celtic 
 Druids" states that he has proved these Druses to 
 be both Druids and Culdees. In all accounts of 
 the Assassins, they are said to have existed, in the 
 East, in considerable numbers. They are, also, 
 stated to have been found numerous by B. de Tud- 
 ela not far from Samarcand or Balkh: — where he 
 also describes many great tribes of what he calls 
 Jews to live, speaking the Chaldee language^ occupying" 
 the country, and possessing the government of it. 
 He says that among these Jews are disciples of the 
 taise men. He tells us that they occupy the moun- 
 tains of Haphton, Here are, it is to be thought, the 
 Afghans^ and that too clearly to be disputed. Under 
 the word Haphton lies hid the word Afghan, and 
 the disciples of the wise man, Hakem, frequented 
 the Temples of Solomon in Cashmere, etc., and 
 were called Hakmites,Ishmaelians,and Battenians 
 that is Buddheans. The word Hakem is nothing 
 but the word HKN, which in the Chaldee means 
 wise. All physicians, in the East, are called Hakem. 
 All this goes to prove that not only did the Tem- 
 plars share doctrines with the Assassins and Ish- 
 maelians, but that they were much older than the 
 Crusades, and that the pretended origin of these 
 people is totally false. The Gymnosophists, the 
 Casideans, the Essenes, the Therapeuttae, the Dio- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 205 
 
 nesians, the Eleusinians, the Pythagoreans, the 
 Chaldeans, the Assassins, and the Buddheans were 
 all an order of rehgionists, including among them, 
 and consisting in great part, an Order of Monks, 
 who were, in fact, the heads of the Society. 
 
 There is no doubt but that all the Caliphs of the 
 Saracens were, secretly or openly, Sophees. The 
 Sophees are divided, at this day, into many sects, 
 and, in their four stages, they have a species of 
 Masonic, or Eleusinian, initiation from lower to high- 
 er degrees, and this Order, it may be truthfully 
 said, has some of the greatest Mysteries in their 
 possession, now held by any Order or Fraternity 
 in the world at this day. Sir John Malcolm says, 
 Hassan Sabah, and his descendents, were a race of 
 Sophees, and that they were of the sect of Battan- 
 eah, that is Buddha. They were Templars, or 
 Casi-deans, or Chas-di-im, or followers of Ras or 
 Masons. 
 
 The use of the Pallium, or sacred cloak, to convey 
 the character of Inspiration, was practiced by the 
 Imaums of Persia, the same as practiced by Elias 
 and Elishah (Eli-shah). And it is continued by 
 their followers to this day. When a person is ad- 
 mitted to the highest degree, he will receive the in- 
 vestiture with the Pallium and the Samach. When 
 the Grand- Seignior means to honor a person, he 
 gives him a pellise, a Pall, a pla^ a sacred cloak, a 
 remnant of the old superstition, the meaning prob- 
 ably being quite forgotten. Prom this comes the 
 word '*palls" at our funerals. 
 
 One of the names, which excites the greatest 
 
206 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 curiosity as to its meaning, of the chief of the As- 
 sassins, was "Old Man of the Mountain" — senex de 
 montibus. The Buddwa of Scotland was called *'old 
 man;" and Buddha, in India, means old man. The 
 opinion that the Assassins were Buddaists receives 
 confirmation, in part, from the idea that he was 
 reckoned as representative of the *'ancient of days. " 
 The representative idea, or form, or figure by which 
 the Prophet speaks of the Divine Intelligence — 
 "Ancient of days," whose hair was wool, of a white 
 color. But in Persia^n, according to Sir John Mal- 
 colm, the word sofee means both wisdom and wool. 
 It is possible that from this idea we obtain the white 
 goats' hair cloaks of the Albanians, with their 
 "snowy camese and their shaggy capote;^^ the white 
 bernoose of the Moors, the white robes of the Car- 
 melites: even the white uniforms of the Austrian 
 army — nay, the sacred acceptation, and the sup- 
 posed enchanted value, of the color white generally. 
 
 That the renowned and dreadful tribes of Assas- 
 sins, or Ishmaelites, whose history presents such 
 an inextricable connection with that of the Tem 
 plars, and also with that of the Hospitallers, were 
 acquainted with, if not professors of the Fire-Creed 
 of Zoroaster, (so little understood by the profane) 
 from which, indeed, they derived their atheistic 
 desperation, will be apparent when we examine 
 their belief. 
 
 What was really the object of the worship of the 
 Knights Templars, in their secret synods, none but 
 the Initiate may know. Whether, indeed, in their 
 intercourse with infidels, they had not imbibed 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 207 
 
 some of the ancient, traditionary ideas, and learned 
 the religion of the inhabitants of that part of Asia 
 bounded by Persia, on the one hand, and by the 
 Mediterranean on the other, seems a point more 
 readily settled in the affirmative. In this view, 
 Flame-worship would have passed a part of the 
 adopted rites. We are thus brought to contem- 
 plate the Templars not so much in the light of a 
 new superstition, as in the brilliaiiGy of the Philosoph- 
 ic position of the Magi in the old world of thought, 
 and of the Rosicrucians, Brethren of theRosy Cross, 
 or illumiaati, in the new. 
 
 Lamps and cloisters, lamps and altars, lamps and 
 shrines, lights and tombs, lights {Hre) everywhere, 
 are connected ideas. The romance lingering and 
 brightening about which strange subjects may have 
 its origin in the real, philosophic, unsuspected truth 
 which gives life to their meaning even for all time. 
 Romance never has life except for the truth which 
 underlies it. With these Fires among the graves — 
 with the ultimate and funeral burning — with the 
 2:)yre of the classics and the Fire-immolations of the 
 Orientals — with the Sacred Fire of the Magi, and the 
 cressets and the torches of the Christian Knightly 
 Fraternities, we connect the Ever-Burning lamps, 
 (always representing true Love and Immortality to 
 the Initiate but simply heathenism to the masses 
 and profane) of which we have archaeological 
 accounts, and the suspected, Ishmaelitish, Bohemi- 
 an or Fire- Worshipping Mysticism, which is noth- 
 ing but Fire, or Love (God) worship, Harbored as 
 the '^strange thing" among the cowles and stoles. 
 
208 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 amidst the crosses and the books, and glancing, as 
 the fiery crested snake (which is but a symbol of 
 Love or Fire Wisdom) from among the resplendent 
 arms of the supposed (by the profane) renegade 
 Templars. 
 
 To this striking object of tomb-Lights — incoher- 
 ent in any other view than as the attestation, through 
 the ages, of a Universal, though a Secret Faith, 
 Walter Scott accidentally (and unconsciously of its 
 meaning) makes reference when he adjures the dy- 
 ing lamps as burning — 
 
 "Before thy low and lonely urn, 
 
 O gallant chief of Otter bourne; 
 
 And thine, dark Knight of Liddesdale!" 
 
 Of the "grave of the mighty dead, " Michael Scott, 
 the wizard of such dreadful fame, he also says that, 
 within it — 
 
 "Burned a wonderous light; 
 
 Which lamp shall burn unquenchably;" 
 
 which means the Soul, the Fire, the Love in man. 
 The only serious hold which it is possible to gain 
 over the minds of men is through the influence of 
 the supernatural. It is absurd and inconsequential 
 to believe that all the wonderful effects which the 
 Templars and other Fraternities of Devotees, which 
 seemed bound by a religion produced in their time, 
 could have sprung from no higher motive than the 
 desire to aggrandise — to overpower — to rule — to 
 force. Wonderful things — unbelievable things — 
 miraculous things— impossible things— must have 
 been offered to the common-sense of the men of the 
 
THE PHI I. O SO PHY OF PIRB: 209 
 
 age, before they would have given in to the authority 
 which became to them as that of angels, of spirits, 
 and of the gods. It is no slight task to master the 
 resisting common-sense of the world. That which 
 is invincible, except at conviction. Instincts at de- 
 tection were as strong then as now. We are accus- 
 tomed, every day, to the infaliabie judgements of 
 common-sense. That decision as to what a thing 
 is, is as independent of us as the sense of light. 
 Quick wit, sharp wits, hardness of unbelief, sus- 
 picion, the same reason as is at work now— these 
 were identical in the dark ages— in any age that 
 man was man. Prophecy must have been wonder- 
 fully verified— the assumed magic must have been 
 demonstrated real— something not at all a fraud-- 
 first, before imaginative and enthusiastic men, 
 themselves, could believe it; second, before plain 
 men could accept that which sense assured was im- 
 possible. 
 
 There existed in those secret societies, the 
 dreams, trances, visions, magic-spells, magic-sight, 
 which made princes of the Seers. It is in this sec- 
 ret medium— whatever it may be— whether con- 
 jured out of the capacity of man in the intoxication 
 of narcotics, through fumes, anointings, training, 
 or lapsing put of the prisoned sense into the unim- 
 prisoned sense:— it is in their new world that the 
 explorers stumble upon unbelievable, though real, 
 things. Of a piece with the miraculous prevision 
 obtained by the Grand Master of the Templars, in 
 his agony, as noticed hereafter, was. the following 
 two instances of forecasting, which, as far as can 
 14 
 
210 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 be affirmed by records, are definitely established. 
 The Priestess Phoennis, the daughter of a Chaonic 
 King, foretold the devastating march of the Gauls, 
 and the course which they would take from Europe 
 to Asia, together with the destruction of the cities, 
 and this a generation before the event happened. 
 The King Phrrhus had received an oracular sen- 
 tence—that he was destined to die as soon as he had 
 seen a wolf fighting with a bull. The sentence was 
 fulfilled when in the market-place of Argos, he saw 
 a bronze group representing such a combat. An 
 old woman killed him by throwing down a tile from 
 a house. 
 
 The Assassins, as a secret sect, had a kind of Uni- 
 versity among them. The course of instruction in 
 this university proceeded, according to Macrisi, by 
 the following nine degrees. 
 
 The object of the first section of instruction, 
 which was long and tedious, was to infuse doubts 
 and difficulties into the minds of the aspirant, and 
 to lead him to repose, with a blind, admiring confi- 
 dence, in the knowledge and wisdom of the teach- 
 ers. To this end he was perplexed with extraordi- 
 nary, and seemingly unanswerable^ questions. 
 The absurdities of the literal sense of the Koran, and 
 its repugnance to reason, were studiously pointed 
 out. Dark hints were given that, beneath the shell 
 of the philosophy taught, lay a kernel sweet to the 
 taste and nutritive to the soul. But all further in- 
 formation was most rigorously withheld from the 
 inquiring mind until the disciple had consented to 
 bind himself , by a most solemn oath, to absolute 
 faith and obedience to his instructor. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 211 
 
 In the second place, when the aspirant had taken 
 the prescribed oath, be was admitted as a member 
 of the second degree, in which was inculcated the 
 acknowledgement of the particulars appointed by 
 God as the sources of all knowledge. This included 
 science, and the arts and truths of life. 
 
 The third degree included the knowledge of far- 
 ther important facts, and the connection, and suc- 
 cession, and power of those facts. It also informed 
 the student what was the number of the blessed 
 and holy imams. And this wa« the mystic seven; 
 for as God hath made seven heavens, seven earths, 
 seas, planets, metals, tones, and colors, so seven was 
 the number of the noblest angels, spirits, or attri- 
 butes of God. Religion, as yet, was not outstept. 
 
 In the fourth degree, the pupil learned that God 
 had sent seven lawgivers into the world, each of 
 whom was commissioned to alter and improve, or 
 rather to develop, the system of his predecessor: 
 that each of these had seven helpers, who appeared 
 in the interval between him and his successor; 
 these helpers, as they did not appear as public 
 teachers, were called the mute {samit), in contradis- 
 tinction to the speaking lawgivers. The seven law- 
 givers were Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus^ 
 Mohammed, and Ismail, the son of Jaaffer; the seven 
 principal helpers, called Seats (Soos), were Seth, 
 Shem, Ismael the son of Abraham, Aaron, Simon, 
 All, and Mohammed, the son of Ismail. It is just- 
 ly observed by the discerning Hammer that, as this 
 last personage was not more than a century dead, 
 
212 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIKE 
 
 the teacher had it in his power to fix on whom he 
 would as the mute prophet of the present time, and 
 inculcate the belief in, and obedience tOj him of all 
 who had not got beyond this degree. 
 
 The fifth degree taught that each of the seven 
 mute prophets had twelve apostles for the dissemi- 
 nation of his faith. The suitableness of this num- 
 ber also proved by analogy. There are twelve signs 
 of the Zodiac, twelve months, twelve tribes of Israel, 
 twelve joints in the four fingers of each hand, and 
 so forth. This all proves that this school was found- 
 ed on facts that were absolute and not to be contra- 
 dicted then or at the present time. 
 
 In the sixth place, the disciple being carefully led 
 thus far, and his mind being duly prepared for 
 what followed, the Koran, and the precepts con- 
 tained in that book of authority, were once more 
 brought under consideration, and he was told that 
 all the positive portions of religion, and all the facts 
 of faith, must be subordinated to the laws of nature 
 and reconciled to the lights of philosophy, or be re- 
 jected as perhaps necessary to the apprehension, 
 though intrinsically worthless. In fact, man here- 
 in was thrown back upon nature, and taught to dis- 
 cover the exterior influences alone in it. Then suc^ 
 ceeded, for a long space of time, instruction in the 
 systems of Plato and Aristotle. When esteemed 
 fully qualified, the scholar was admitted to the sev- 
 enth degree, in which knowledge was imparted in 
 that mystic Pantheism which is held and taught by 
 the sect of the Sofees. This was Buddhism, with- 
 out the supernatural light of Bhuddism. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 21 
 
 o 
 
 As an eighth step into the arcana of philosophy, 
 the positive doctrine of religion were considered in 
 their light as a necessity to man, and as resulting 
 from his position here in this world. All the com- 
 plicated knowledge which had now preceded was 
 declared, in the forward stage of the student's 
 progress, to be merely as the scaffolding by which 
 the pihng of the structure of real knowledge was 
 to be effected. All the builder's platforms and his 
 poles, his work being now complete, were to be 
 thrown down. Prophets and teachers, heaven and 
 hell, all the shows of life, its history, the machinery 
 of the world, the human soul, were nothing. Fu- 
 ture bliss and future misery, reckoning for evil, 
 conscience beyond the necessity of the maintenance 
 of regularity in the world, aspiration for good out 
 of the pleasant things of the world, justice and mod- 
 eration beyond that common-sense of economy for 
 the longer lasting, the intrinsic value of life, and the 
 detriment from the destruction of it other than in 
 the policy of a certain blank atheistic ''political econ- 
 omy " — all these were to be exposed as idle dreams, 
 having nothing to do with the philosopher, whose 
 sight had been cleared by a magic illumination, 
 darkening or eclipsing, or overpowering, or putting 
 out the false light of the world. Even as the light 
 
 of day is drawn over the stars like a curtain. 
 
 In this absolute laying-level of the barriers of 
 right and wrong, the point of view became consis- 
 tent as showing that all actions should proceed, 
 alone, from the center point of self -pleasure in them, 
 that power was right and that right was power, and 
 that all laws were imported only into the world as 
 
 U I 
 
214 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 securing the harmonious going on of it. That, in 
 the absolute sense, there could be no such thing as 
 sin; that therefore, in the absolute sense, there 
 could be no such thing as punishment for it. There- 
 fore, that nothing was to be feared on the score of 
 conscience. Life was as a weed. 
 
 The ninth and last degree was that into which 
 the disciple transcended (in this alarming sense), 
 as seeing that, as nothing was to be believed, every- 
 thing might be done. 
 
 Von Hammer argues an identity between the two 
 orders, as he styles them, of the Ishmaelites and 
 the Templars from the similarity of their dress, 
 their internal organization, and their secret doc- 
 trine. The color of the Khalifs of the house of 
 Ommiyah was white; hence the house of Abbas, in 
 their contest with them, adopted black as their dis- 
 tinguishing hue. Hassan Sabah, when he formed 
 the institution of the fedavee, or the "Devoted to 
 Death," assigned them a red girdle or cap. The 
 mantle worn by the members of the Hospital was 
 black. 
 
 The last Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques 
 de Molay, together with his companion, Guy, 
 brother to the Dauphin of Auvergne, were brought 
 forth and placed upon a pile erected upon that point 
 of the islet of the Seine, at Paris, where afterwards 
 was erected the statue of Henry .IV. It was a day 
 of March— the 19th, as it is stated by the historians 
 — 1314. The two unfortunate Templars suffered 
 with constancy, to the last asserting their inno- 
 cence. The spectators wept and shrieked at the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BURE 215 
 
 spectacle of their sacrifice. During the night their 
 ashes were gathered up to be preserved as rehcs. 
 
 Molay, ere he expired, summoned Clement, the 
 Pope who had pronounced the bull of abolition 
 against the Order and had condemned the Grand 
 Master to the flames, to appear, within forty days, 
 before the Supreme Eternal Judge, and Phillip to 
 the same awful but just tribunal within the space 
 of a year. Both predictions were f uUfilled and thus 
 was justice meted out. The Pontiff did actually 
 die of a colic on the night of the 19th of the following 
 month. More dreadful still, the church in which 
 his body was deposited in state, took fire, the flames 
 spread, and the corpse of Clement was half consum- 
 ed. The King, before the year had elapsed, by an 
 accidental fall from his horse, suffered such injury, 
 that he, also, died. The fuUfiUment of these two 
 prophecies showed to what extent the Masters of 
 the Order had developed and produced great effect* 
 The unfortunate Templars were justly regarded as 
 Matyrs. 
 
 We know that the general — nay, the universal be- 
 lief is to the contrary — but that the Order of the 
 Knights Templars, in certain forms, has continued 
 down to the present day. The King of Portugal, in 
 his dominions, formed the Order of Christ out of the 
 Templars. The Freemasons also were connected 
 with the ancient Templars; and there is a society^ 
 bearing the name of Brethren of the Temple, whose 
 chief seat is at Paris, and its branches extend into 
 various countries, and into England. Jacques de 
 Molay, in the year 1314, in anticipation of his speedy 
 
216 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 matyrdom, appointedJohannes Marcus Lormenius 
 to be his successor in his dig^nity , and there has been 
 an unbroken, though secret, succession of Grand 
 Masters down to the present time. The secret doc- 
 trines of the Templars were partaken of by the 
 Knights of the Order of St John of Jerusalem we 
 also have proof of. Signor Rossetti, who possessed 
 a very intimate acquaintance with the history of 
 the Hospitallers, maintains stoutly that there is 
 much in common between the doctrines taught in 
 the higher grades of the Freemasons — more, also, 
 that has been lost — and the views, formulae^ and 
 fashions of the Order of the Temple. True Masons, 
 who know the spirit of their Fraternity as well as 
 the rituals, know that Masonry sprung from the 
 Templars. 
 
 Lost in the clouds of antiquity, the dim forms 
 
 of the mailed Templars disappear. Their buildings, 
 their churches, their haunts remain. But the in- 
 habitants are passed into the shadows. Their re- 
 membrances and their secrets only survive in the 
 quaint courts of the Temples. The fact that their 
 dwelling-place was once within the present purlieus 
 of law — that the notes of their wild Eastern music, 
 and that the ceremonies of their strange, deeply 
 Occult worship, were in the time that has almost 
 become a dream, real matters in the story of those, 
 at present, so unromantic buildings — truths amidst 
 this wilderness of mechanical-law-spelling: — these 
 things of a life, so unlike our present life, lend an 
 interest to the very name of the Temples yet stand- 
 ing, holding their secrets as ever and defying the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 2l7 
 
 crude and unnatural investigations of the profane 
 but so well'known to the true Initiate. 
 
 There exist real personal memorials of this an- 
 tique and wonderful body of the Templars pre- 
 served, in secret at the present time, in Paris. 
 Some of the archives and statutes — portions of the 
 unexamined history — even some of the mystic ban- 
 ners, and an assortment of the arms of the broth- 
 erhood; still survive. These are kept in unknown 
 but not in obscure or dilapidated buildings as some, 
 for want of knowledge, seem to think. Strange 
 that the world should think that the secrets of such 
 a mighty sect of Fire Philosophers, once living, 
 should ever die. Such things cannot be, God 
 does not allow it to be. 
 
The Therapeutae and Essenes and 
 Their initiation 
 
 I^HE Order of the Essenes constituted in the 
 time of Jesus the final remnant of those 
 Brotherhoods of prophets organized by Sam- 
 uel. The despotism of the rulers of Palestine, the 
 jealousy of an ambitious and servile priesthood, had 
 forced them to take refuge in silence and solitude. 
 They no longer struggled as did their predecessors, 
 but contented themselves with preserving their tra- 
 ditions. They had two principal centres, one in 
 Egypt, on the banks of Lake Maoris, the other in 
 Palestine, at Engaddi, near the Dead Sea. The 
 names of the Essenes they had adopted came from 
 the Syrian word assaya, a physician — in Greek, 
 therapeutis ; for their only acknowledged ministry 
 with regard to the public was that of healing dis- 
 ease both physical and moral. They studied with 
 great diligence certain medical writings dealing with 
 the occult virtue of plants and mineral. 
 
 It is on account of the Syrian word ^^Assaya," that 
 the mistake is made in regard to the Essenes and 
 Therapeutse. The Therapeutse was only a branch of 
 the Essenes with but different duties. 
 
 The branch kno^^ai as the Therapeutse had their 
 home chiefly on the Lake Mareotis, near Alexandria, 
 but also had colonies in other places. Like the parent 
 Order — the Essenes, they lived unmarried, in mon- 
 
220 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 asteries, and were very moderate with regard to 
 dress and food; they prayed at sunrise having their 
 faces turned to the East; studied the Secret Doctrine 
 and Greater Mysteries of Antiquity. They differ- 
 ed from the Essenes in that they lived a contempla- 
 tive life, while the Essenes followed many occupa- 
 tions, such as agriculture, arts, sciences, etc. The 
 Essenes lived together in common; the Therapeutse 
 lived separately and alone. The Therapeutse, being 
 of the Outer Degree, knew none of the divisions 
 which marked the several degrees of Initiation of 
 the Inner Circle — the Essenes. Both Orders re- 
 sembles the Pythagoreans and the teachings were 
 identical. Neither used animal food, and both the 
 Inner and the Outer admitted women to their as- 
 semblies and Initiation. 
 
 The Essenes, living a more active life, bore a very 
 important, though secret part in the development of 
 Judaism. John the Baptist belonged to their ranks 
 before Christ was admitted. 
 
 Some of themi possessed the gift of prophecy, as, 
 Menahim, who had prophesied to Herod that he 
 should reign. They served God with great piety, not 
 by offering victims but by sanctifying the spirit; 
 avoiding towns, they devoted themselves to the arts 
 of peace; not a single slave was found to be among 
 them ; they were all free and worked for one another. 
 The rules of the Order were very strict as was neces- 
 sary in such times. In order to enter, a year's noviti- 
 ate was necessary. If one had given sufficient proofs 
 of temperance, he was admitted to the ablutions, 
 though without entering into relations with the Mas- 
 ters of the Order. Tests, extending over another 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 221 
 
 two years, were necessary before being received into 
 the Brotherhood, They swore ^'by terrible oaths'' to 
 observe the rules of the Order and to betray none of 
 its secrets. Then only did they participate in the 
 common repasts, which were celebrated with great 
 solemnity and constituted the Inner worship of the 
 Essenes. The garments they had worn during these 
 repasts they looked upon as sacred and to be re- 
 moved before resuming work. These fraternal Love - 
 feasts, primitive form of the Supper instituted by 
 Jesits,* l^egan and ended by prayer. The first inter- 
 pretation of the sacred books of Moses and the proph- 
 ets was here given. But the explanation of the texts 
 allowed of three significations. All this wonderfullly 
 resembled the organization of the Pythagoreans, but 
 it was almost the samie amongst all the ancient 
 prophets, for it is the same wlierever tr^e initiation 
 has ever existed. The Essenes professed the essential 
 dogina of the Orphic and Pythagorean doctrine ; that 
 of the pre-existence of the soul, the consequence and 
 reason of its Immortality. The soul descending from 
 the most subtle ether, and attracted into the body by 
 a certain natural charm, remains there as in a prison ; 
 freed from the bonds of the body, as from a long 
 servitude, it joyfully takes its flight. 
 
 Among the Essenes, as has been stated, the broth- 
 ers, properly so called, lived under a community of 
 
 * This Love-feast is kept up by many of the churches, es- 
 pecially those known as the *'Dunkards," "Methodists/' but 
 what a mockery it is. The Essenes and the Christ never even 
 tasted meat, much less used it at the Love-feast, but these 
 churches must have their Roasted meats in order to have the 
 Love-feast of the Christ. Blood! blood must be everywhere. 
 
222 THE PHILOSOPHY OW FIRK 
 
 property^ and in a condition of celibacy, cultivating 
 the grovind^ and, at times, educating the children of 
 strangers. The married Essenes^^ for there were 
 g^uch, formed a class aiSliated and under subjection 
 to the other. Silent, gentle, and grave, they were to 
 be met with here and there, cultivating the Arts of 
 Peace. Carpenters, weavers, vine-planters, or garden- 
 ers, never gunsmiths or merchants. Scattered in small 
 groups about the whole of Palestine, and in Egypt^ 
 even as far as Mount Horeb, they offered one another 
 the most complete hospitality. Thus we see Jesus 
 and his disciples journeying from town to town, and 
 from province to province, and always certain of 
 finding shelter and lodging. Thus it is ever with 
 the true Initiate. *^Do unto others as you would 
 that they should do unto you.'' 
 
 The Essenes, as all true Initiates, w^ere of an ex- 
 emplary morality, they forced themselves to suj> 
 press passion and anger; transmuiing it into Love. 
 Always benevolent, peaceable, and trustworthy. 
 Their Avord was more poAverful than an oath, w^hich, 
 in ordinary life, they looked upon as superfluous, 
 and almost a perjury. They endured the most cruel 
 of tortures, with admirable steadfastness of soul an<i 
 smiling countenance rather than violate the slighi- 
 est religious precept. Indifferent to the outward 
 pomp of worship at Jerusalem, repelled by the harsh- 
 ness of the Sadducees, and the prayers of the Phar- 
 isees, as well as by the pedantry of the synagogue, 
 Jesus was attracted towards the Essenes by natural 
 affinity. 
 
 From the Essenes, Jesus received what they alone 
 could give him : the Esoteric tradition of the proph- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PIRE 223 
 
 ets, and bj its means, his own historical and reli- 
 gious tendency or trend. He was taught how wide 
 was the gulf that separated the official Jewish doc- 
 trine from the Ancient Wisdom of the Initiates, the 
 veritable mother of religions, though ever persecut- 
 ed by Satan — by the spirit of evil, of egotism, hatred 
 and denial, allied with absolute political power and 
 priestly imposture. He learned that Genesis, under 
 the seal of its symbolism, concealed a theogony and 
 cosmogony as far removed from their literal signi- 
 fication as is the profoundest truth of science from 
 a child's fable. He contemplated the days of Aelo- 
 him^ or the eternal creation by emanation of the 
 elements and the formation of the worlds, the origin 
 of the floating souls, and their return to God by pro- 
 gressive existences or generations of Adam. He was 
 taught the grandeur of the thoughts of Moses, whose 
 intention had been to prepare the religious unity of 
 the nations by establishing the worship of the on-^ 
 God, and incarnating this idea into a people. 
 
 He was instructed in the doctrine of the divine 
 Word, already taught by Kmshna in India, by the 
 priests of Osiris, by Orpheus and Pythagoras in 
 Greece, and known to the prophets under the name 
 of The Mysteries of the Son of Man and of the Son 
 of God. According to this doctrine, the highest man- 
 ifestation of God is man, who, in constitution, form, 
 I organs and intelligence is the image of the Universal 
 / Being, whose faculties he possesses. In the earthly 
 devolution of humianity, however, God is scattered, 
 split up, and mfutilated, so to speak, in the multipli- 
 city of men and of the human imperfections. In it 
 he struggles, suffers, and tries to find himself, he is 
 
224 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 the Son of Map, the Perfect Man, the Man-Type, 
 the profoundest tlioiight of God, remaining hidden 
 in the infinite abyss of his desire and power. At 
 certain epochs, when humanity is to be saved from 
 some terrible gnilf, and set on a higher stand, a chos- 
 en one identifies himself with divinity, attracts it to 
 himself by strength, wisdom, and love, and mani- 
 feets it anew to men. Then, divinity, by the virtue 
 and breath of tlie Spirit, is completely present in 
 him: the Son of Man becomes the Son of God, and 
 his Living Word. In other ages and among other 
 nations, there had already appeared sons of God, 
 but since Moses, none had arisen in Israel. All the 
 prophets were expecting this Messiah. The Seers 
 even said that this time he would call himself the 
 Son of Woman, of the Heavenly Isis, of the divine 
 light which is the Bride of God, for the light of 
 Ix)ve would shine in him. 
 
 All these secrets which the patriarch of the Es- 
 senes unfolded to the young Galilean on the solitary 
 banks of the Dead Sea, in lonely Engaddi, seemed to 
 him wonderful, but yet known. It was with no ord- 
 inary emotion that he heard the chief of the Order 
 comment on the words still to be read in the Book 
 of Henoch : ^Trom the beginning the Son of Man Wjas 
 in the Mystery. The Father kept him near his 
 mighty presence, and manifested Mm to his elect. 
 But the Kings shall be afraid and shall prostrate 
 themselves to the ground with terror, when they shall 
 see the Son of Woman seated on the throne of his 
 glory. Then the elect shall summon all the forces 
 of heaven, all the saints from on high and the power 
 of God; and the Cherubim, the Seraphim^ the Opha- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 225 
 
 nim, all the angels of Might, all the angels of the 
 Lord, L e,, of the Elect, and of the othe?^ Might, serv- 
 ing on earth and above the waters, shall raise their 
 voices.'^ 
 
 I have thought best to give this much concerning 
 the Essenes and their teachings in order to make 
 plain what the Essenes were. Very little is know^ii; 
 of them in the Christian church although the Mas- 
 ter- — Christ was of them. The church even denies 
 that Christ was an Initiate and disbelieves that such 
 a thing as Initiation exists. It is strange that this 
 should be so and no one is to be thanked more for 
 this state than Constantine. 
 
 A history of the Philosophers would not be com- 
 plete without dwelling on the Essenian Order for the 
 reason that the Ancient Mysteries took another form 
 after the Initiation of Christ. Their teachings are 
 therefore of vital importance and show that the 
 Essenian Fraternity knew the teachings of all other 
 Orders or religious beliefs and that it was but a con- 
 tinuation of previous Orders under another name. 
 And what of the teachings concerning Initiation ? In 
 secret records we find the following: 
 
 "The union of God with the soul is the principle 
 of all Mystic life. But this union, the fulness and 
 final consummation of which cannot be experienced 
 till death has been passed through and eternity has? 
 been achieved, can be accomplished on this earth in 
 a more or less perfect manner, and the literature of 
 entire Mysticism has no other end than to unveil to 
 us, by a full and profound analysis of the different 
 stages of evolution in the spirit of man, the diverse 
 successive degrees of this Divine union. Seven dis- 
 15 
 
226 THE philosophy" OF FIRE 
 
 tinct stages of the soul's ascent towards God have 
 been recognized by Mystics^ and they constitute what 
 has been ejiiblematically called the Castle of the In- 
 terior man. They represent the seven absolute pro- 
 cesses of psychic transfiguration. The first link in 
 this Arcane sequence is called the state of prayer, 
 which, from the pneumatic standpoint, is the con- 
 centration of the intellectual energies upon God as 
 the object of thought, which is commonly assisted 
 by the ceremonial appeal made by religion of the 
 senses. It has, however, a higher aspect, comprised 
 in the second evolutionary process, and called the 
 state of mental prayer. Here the illusionary phen- 
 omena of the visible world, are regarded as informed 
 with the Inner pneumatic significance, to divine 
 which is a chief end of Mysticism. In order to make 
 progress therein, and so attain the third stage, it is 
 necessary that the Aspirant, shaping all practical 
 life in conformity with this theory, should perform 
 no outward act except with a view to its inward 
 meaning, all things which are of time and earth, and 
 man being simply figures and symbols of earth and 
 heaven and God. The postulant as he advances will 
 perceive that the inmost thoughts of his own con- 
 science being are only a limited and individual spec- 
 ulation of the speech or word of God, concealed even 
 in its apparent relevation, and itself a veil of the 
 Divine truth which must be removed for the con- 
 templation of the truth absolute, which is behind it. 
 When he has reached this point the Mystic will have 
 entered on the third stage of his illumination. This 
 is the iribst difficult of all. It is termed by Mystics 
 the obscure night, and here it is necessary that the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PIRE 227 
 
 aspirant should become stark naked, — should empty 
 himself completely, should be stripped of all his fac- 
 ulties, renouncing all his own predilictions, his own 
 thoughts, his own will — in a word, his whole self. 
 Aridity, weariness, temptation, desolation, darkness, 
 are characteristic of this epoch, (see Initiation of 
 Christ), and they have been experiences by all who 
 have ever made any progress in the Mysteries of 
 Mystical Love. The fourth condition is denominat- 
 ed the prayer of quietism. Complete immolation of 
 self and unreserved surrender into the hands of God, 
 have respose as their first result. Such quietism, 
 however, is not to be confounded with insensibility, 
 for it leads to the soul real activity, to that which 
 has God for its impulse. The fiftli degree in the 
 successive spiritualization of the human soul is called 
 the state of union, in which the will of man and the 
 will of God become substantially identified. This 
 is Mystical irrigation which fertilizes the garden of 
 the Soul. During this portion of his development, 
 the Neophyte, imbued with a sovereign disdain of 
 all things visible, as well as for himself, accomplishes 
 in peace, serenity, and joy of spirit, the will of God 
 supernaturally speaking within him. On the ex- 
 treme further limit of this condition, the Mystic en- 
 ters the sixth state, which is that of ecstatic prayer, 
 which is the soul's transport above and outside itself. 
 It constitutes a union with Divinity by the instru- 
 ment of positive love which is a state of Sanctifica- 
 tion, beatitude, and ineffable torrents of delight flow- 
 ing over the whole being. It is beyond description, 
 it transcends illustration, and its felicity is not to 
 be conceived. Love which is a potency of the soul, 
 
2^8 THfc pnitosopnY OP winn 
 
 or of the anima which vivifies our bodies, has passed 
 into the spirit of the soul, into its superior, divine, 
 and universal form, and this process completed com- 
 prises the seventh and final stake of pneumatic de- 
 velopment, which is that of ravishment. Renounc- 
 ing all that is corporeal about it, the soul becomes a 
 pure spirit, capable of being united, in a wholly ce- 
 lestial manner to the Uncreated Spirit, whom it be- 
 holds, loves, serves, adores above and beyond all 
 created forms, and this is the Mystic marriage,* the 
 perfect union, and entrance of God and Heaven into 
 the interior of man. 
 
 We have thus the teachings of the Essenes w^hich 
 show that they were but a continuation of the Secret 
 Doctrine and Mysteries of Antiquity. It proves that 
 true Initiation is to-day as it was in the time of the 
 Christ. Since then, the Mysteries are better known 
 as the Christian Mysteries. They are all the same 
 and will ever continue to be the same. Truth never 
 changes and no matter under what name, or by what 
 Order these Mysteries may be taught they are the 
 same as were taught at Atlantis and by all the great 
 Saviours since then. In order to more fully under- 
 stand this Initiation of man into the Mvsteries, we 
 will need to understand the Initiation of Christ by 
 the Essenes, more fully and as we find them given 
 to us in ^The Life of Jeh^abjia (Jesus), the Prophet 
 of Nazareth," by Dr. Hartmann. 
 
 '^After Jesus had entered the Essenian temple, he 
 was led into the presence of the assembled priests. 
 They questioned him in regard to his object in de- 
 
 * See *The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz.'* 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 229 
 
 siring to enter tlieir Order, and admonished him to 
 desist; warning him of the dangers that he would 
 incur, if he insisted in pursuing his way to obtain 
 knowdedge of the Secret Science and to come in pos- 
 session of the powers which such knowledge con- 
 veyed. They told him that if he were once admitted, 
 there could he 7io possibility to retreat, as he mould 
 have to succeed or lose his freedom and perhaps eveu 
 his life; for powers of evil ivhich would be aroused 
 would conquer him, unless he were strong enough to 
 conquer them. 
 
 Jesus was not to be intimidated; he desired to 
 obtain knowledge and considered wisdom to be more 
 valuable than life. He insisted upon being admitted. 
 He received the blessings of the Brothers, and as 
 each of these venerable men laid his hand upon his 
 head, he felt an electric thrill pass through his frame, 
 that seemed to invigorate him and to give him a 
 power sufficient to overcome all dangers. After this 
 he was given over to a guide called Thesmophores, 
 who blindfolded him and led him away. 
 
 He went with his guide through several long cor- 
 ridors, from whose walls the echoes of their steps re- 
 sounded, and they descended a flight of stairs until 
 at last they arrived at the place of their destination. 
 When the hood was removed, Jesus found himself in 
 a cave hewn in the solid rock. It was a high arched 
 vault with massive pillars, cut in a manner to repre- 
 sent figures of men and fabulous animals. The only 
 light which entered into the vault came through a 
 round opening far up in the roof^ where a small part 
 of the clear sky could be seen. Upon the walls of 
 that prison were written proverbs and mottoes, con- 
 15 I 
 
230 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 sisting of extracts from the books of the Egyptian 
 and Indian sages who may have lived in the far-dis- 
 tant past, perhaps even in prehistoric times, when 
 that which we now call Europe formed the bottom of 
 the sea, and another continent — Beautiful and 
 Glorious Atlantis — was at the height of its civiliza- 
 tion at a place where now the ocean rolls its waves. 
 
 The room was furnished in the most primitive 
 fashion, containing merely the most necessary requis- 
 ites. The Thesmophores told the Neophyte — ^for 
 such Jesus had become — that he would have to re- 
 main here in solitude for an indefinite period of 
 time. He advised him to occupy himself with think- 
 ing of the nature of man and his destiny and to 
 meditatiC about his own self. — ^^Man, Know Thy- 
 self." He gave him some writing material and re- 
 quested him to write down the thoughts that would 
 enter his mind and seem important to him, and after 
 taking leave of the prisoner and wishing him good 
 success, the guide went away. 
 
 Thus ivhen the free spirit seeking for knowledge 
 sends its feelers into the tomb of living clay, blindly 
 following the Law of Reincarnation ^ he finds him- 
 self alone ivithout a guide, left to his own thoughts, 
 and with only a faint light above coming from his 
 former home^ while on the walls of the prison house 
 called the Mind, he finds dim recollections of the 
 teachings of wisdom acquired in previous lives. 
 
 Jesus was now alone. There is nothing more ter- 
 rible than isolation and solitude to those who know of 
 no other life but that of external sensation and who 
 cannot create their own thoughts; especially if there 
 is no change in their surroundings, to attract their 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 231 
 
 attention and to stimulate them to think. Thinking 
 is an Art, and few can think what they wish or hold 
 on to a thought. Men only thhik ivhat they must; 
 they feed on the ideas that enter their minds without 
 asking. Welcome and unvjelcome thoughts enter; 
 they neither come at our bidding nor go away when 
 they are not wanted; they are like disorderly guests 
 that do not obey the 7^ules which the landlord pre^ 
 scribes. 
 
 The monotony in which Jesiis lived remained un-^ 
 changed. There was no sound of any kind to be 
 heard; he was surrounded by silence; and if it had 
 not been for the small opening in the vault far above 
 his head^ he would not have known the change of 
 day and night. He studied the writings upon the 
 walls, and impressed them upon his memory, analyz- 
 ing their meaning; and the more he thought about 
 them, the more his mind seemed to expand and new 
 ideas entered. He could not tell from when they 
 came, but he ^vrote them down upon the tablets with 
 which he had been supplied; and often when in the 
 morning he awoke from his slumber, these tablets 
 had disappeared from his prison, and he knew not 
 what had become of them. He saw no one enter the 
 room, and yet somebody must have taken them away. 
 Likewise the food with which he was provided was 
 supplied by invisible hands. It was of the most 
 simple kind, consisting of bread, milk, fruit, and 
 water. It was daily brought to him in some inex- 
 plicable manner ; how or by what means he could not 
 tell, for it was put into his prison during his sleep. 
 However, he soon ceased to be astonished at such 
 strange occurrences and he began seriously the study 
 
232 THE PHILOSOPHY OT FIRE 
 
 of self* As he became accustomed to look within his 
 own soul^ a new world semed to open before him; 
 his imagination grew stronger ;, and the pictures pre- 
 sented before his inner eye became as objective and 
 real to him as the objects of the external world, only 
 more beautiful^ more ethereal^ and yet far more sub- 
 stantial than the latter. Visions of things which he 
 had formerly seen^ but which had apparently been 
 lost to his memory, appeared again^ vivid and real 
 with all their living details; desires entering his 
 heart immediately took objective forms in his mind, 
 representing in seemingly living forms the objects of 
 w^hich he thought^ and thus he saw many beautiful 
 things in his visions, but also many horrible sights, 
 for no man is without evil, and evil thoughts that 
 came to him were likewise represented in seemingly 
 real but horrible form. 
 
 What is this plastic power of the imagination, and 
 what do men mean by calling subjective images 
 ''merely works of imagination V^ Can we imagine 
 anything that does not exist? Are the creations of 
 our thoughts less real to us than the things which 
 the imagination of others created for us for all things 
 must exist first in the imagination ? Is not the uni- 
 verse itself a product of the imagination of God, and 
 are we not gods in our own Inner world, able to cre- 
 ate forms from the substance called the astral light? 
 
 Gradually Jesus began to love this inner life, 
 where he found a world as large as the outor world, 
 with a space as infinite as that of the latter, with 
 mountains and plains, with oceans and rivers, and 
 peopled with beings of various kinds that looked up 
 to him as their god, their creator, drawing life from 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 233 
 
 his Will, and nourishment from his Thoughts, in the 
 same sense as Man receives his will-power and ideas 
 from the God in the universe, - appearing to him in 
 his dreams while asleep, and in visions while awake* 
 Thus Jesus lived in the world of the Elemental Pow- 
 ers of Nature, and began to know the constituent 
 parts of that organism called the human soul. 
 
 Weeks, perhaps months, thus passed away. We 
 cannot say how long he remained in that tomb. He 
 kept no record of the days and nights since he had 
 entered there, and what is time and space, after all, 
 but merely mental conceptions by which we attempt 
 to measure the Infinite? But one day steps were 
 heard to approach, and the Thesmophores entered, 
 congratulating him on his success and inviting him 
 to come to the Portal of Man, to enter as a Neophyte 
 into the first degree of the Holy Brotherhood. 
 
 They entered a large park, through which they 
 passed, until they arrived at an entrance called the 
 Door of the Profane. There they found a great 
 miany people assembled who had been attracted by 
 curiosity to see the new candidate for initiation, for 
 such a rare event was not kept secret as it was de- 
 sired thatt he people should know that there were 
 still men to be found ready to dare all dangers in 
 search of the truth. They thronged the place in 
 front of the door through which Jesus passed with 
 his guide, on his way to the Temple of Wisdom ; they 
 shouted and made much noise, obstructing the way ; 
 but the Thesmophores drove them back, and they 
 passed safely through the crowd. (This must not 
 be understood in its literal sense. The people that 
 bad been assembled and who made noise and obstruct- 
 
234 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIKE 
 
 ed the way, must be understood as the lower Elemeii- 
 tals that have their being in all men until they are 
 overcome by Light and Love. This is also the mean- 
 ing of Transmuting the Baser^ or lower, metals into 
 the pure gold, or Higher nature). 
 
 Having entered the vestibule of the temple, the 
 candidate was taken to a Crypt, where he took a bath 
 (became purified), and received new garments, and 
 underwent the prescribed preparation to be intro- 
 duced to the assembly of Brothers. 
 
 The Portal of Man was guarded by the Pasta- 
 pliores, who, as they arrived, inquired about their 
 purpose and asked Jesus various questions. Hav- 
 ing received satisfactory replies, the door opened, 
 and he entered a large hall, wherein in a semicircle 
 were seated the Brothers, and in their midst the 
 Hierophant. Before this assembly Jesus again 
 passed an examination, answering numerous ques- 
 tions in regard to his subjective experiences during 
 his isolation. (The student will easily, comprehend 
 that it is from this part of Christ's Initiation that 
 the story of his being in the Temple before the 
 Priests, took form. Christ was certainly before the 
 Priests, and astonised them by his apt answers to 
 their questions, but the Bible story is but a legend 
 founded on truth as are all legends, no matter how 
 untruthful they may seem.) 
 
 He was then led around the Bisantha, and there 
 the strength of his narves and his physical courage, 
 by certain methods which cannot be made intelli- 
 gible to the modern reader, because they involve an 
 emj)loyment of certain forces of nature, the secret of 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 235 
 
 which was in the possession of the Atlai deans and 
 Egyptians, but whose very existence is as yet un- 
 known to western civilization. It may be sufficient 
 to say, that if claps of thunder resounded and bolts 
 of lightning seemed to strike the candidate, they 
 were not produced in the manner employed in thea- 
 trical performances upon the stage, but they were 
 the effects of natural forces, set into action by the 
 occult powers possessed by the Egyptian Adepts. 
 The most horrible spectres appeared, but Jesus was 
 not afraid. 
 
 Having successfully passed through this trial, he 
 was again taken before the assembly, and the Menis 
 read to him the laws of the Crata Repoa^ which after 
 due examination, he solemnly promised to obey. By 
 a certain process known to the Hierophant, his spir- 
 itual vision was then opened; that is to say, he v/as 
 endowed for a short time with the powers to see cer- 
 tain spiritual verities represented in allegorical 
 forms. He found himself standing between two 
 square columns, called Bestiles, and there was a lad- 
 der with seven steps and eight closed doors — the ex- 
 ternal senses. As he beheld that vision, its meaning 
 was at once clear to him, for spiritual visions differ 
 from mere dreams especially in so far as he who be- 
 holds a symbolical vision becomes at the same time 
 aware of its meaning, else it would be useless to show 
 such a vision to him. No vision is possible, nor will 
 the spiritual sight he opened to the initiate mdess he 
 first has learned, through long training and coricen- 
 tration, to silence the senses and passions of the moral 
 frame. In that short moment, during which his 
 inner sight was opened, Jesus learned to know tlie 
 
gSfi THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 fundamental principles of the Cosmos, a science 
 which would require manj- months of instruction to 
 be described in words and to be brought to the un- 
 derstanding of the not self-luminous intellect. Knowl- 
 edge cannot he gained by any outside teachings. We 
 can take a teacher s authority for what he may 
 tell us, hut we cannot know, or have knowledge unless 
 the inner perceptions, the veiy soul, tells us that it is 
 so and given the wherefore. From the inner heing— 
 the spirit, alone can come knowledge and under- 
 standing. 
 
 The Hierophant then spoke as follows: "I am 
 speaking only to you who have the right and the 
 power to hear me — the materialist has neither right 
 nor power to know inner truths, it is only he, who 
 through training and right living, has heen enabled 
 to aioaken the still small voice, the inner heing, who 
 can understand spiritual truths. Firmly close all the 
 doors— external senses — and exclude all the profane, 
 the sophists and scoffers — prejudices; but you, chil- 
 dren of the celestial labor — spiritual perception, hear 
 my words: Beware of passions and evil desires; 
 beware of erroneous opinions and intellectual preju- 
 dices. Keep your mind continually directed toward 
 the divine source of all existence, strive after a con- 
 tinual realization of the presence of the Supreme; 
 and if you desire to walk upon the Path of Light to 
 Eternal happiness, do not forget for even a moment, 
 that you are living in the consciousness of Him whose 
 power has created the world. He is all things and 
 all things are in Him. He is self-existent, pure 
 knowledge, pure wisdom; and although He is seen 
 
by no man, there is nothing within the Universe that 
 can hide itself from His sight" . 
 
 Jesus had now become a member of the Brother- 
 hood. He was taught the laws of Nature, and tnade 
 to see there is nothing dead in Nature, but that all 
 forms are manifestaitions of the one Universal power 
 of Life, He was t\aught the cause of the physical 
 phenomena occurring in the world of pheiiomena, 
 the nature of Light and Sound, of Heat and Elec- 
 tricity; and all other things. He was also instructed 
 in Astronomy and Medicine and in the science of 
 Hieroglyphics, 
 
 The spiritual nature of Man was explained to him 
 and the laws of Reincarnation. How the human 
 monad again and> again descends to build up a mortal 
 physical form and to evolve a new personality at each 
 of its visits upon this globe; that the human form, 
 which we knotv as men_, women and children, are not 
 the real Man, but merely ever-changing aggregations 
 of matter, endowed ivith an ever-changing conscious- 
 ness, unsubstantial although living illusions, doomed 
 to perish when the Spirit retires to its home, to rest 
 from its labor; while the substantial, indivisible, and 
 incorruptible SpiHt is the real Man, although invis- 
 ible to the perception of mortals. 
 
 He ivas taught the signification of the sacred syl- 
 lable aum and of certain, symbolical signs, including 
 the double-interlaced Triangle^ the Snake, and the 
 Tani, and his office was to guard the portals of nian, 
 so that nothing impure would enter; for no one was 
 ev£'CJidmLitted into the sanctuxiry of the^^^^^^^^ 
 unless he first proved himself a faithful guardian of 
 
238 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 that door by which evil thoughts and desires attempt 
 to enter the mind, 
 
 A year or more may have passed by^ when the new 
 Pastophores obtained permission to enter the second 
 degree, called Necoris. As a preparation for this 
 degree he had to undergo a severe fasting, after which 
 he was introduced into a grotto, called Endymion, 
 
 This grotto was furnished in a Inxnriant manner. 
 It was without windows, but lamps that were sus- 
 pended from the ceiling, and fed with perfumed oiU 
 shed a soft light through the room. Tlie richest 
 food and the most delicious wines were set before 
 the Neophyte, and he was invited to partake ; for now 
 — so they told him — ^he had won the victory, and he 
 might now indulge in sensual pleasures without any 
 risk of sin. The most beautiful maidens waited on 
 him, and their bewitching smiles told him that he 
 had onl}^ to mention a wish, to see it fulfilled. It 
 was evident that he was an object of admiration to 
 them, and that they were willing to be his slaves. 
 
 Bui Jesus resisted their tempting wiles. His aspi- 
 rations were for something far higher than the grati- 
 fication of sensual appetites; the beauty of the cor- 
 poreal form, however pleasing it may be to the eyes, 
 could not enslave him who has learned to hnow the 
 beauty of the Spirit, and as the evening approached, 
 the fair tempters, with looks full of disappointment 
 and unfulfilled desire, disappeared one after another, 
 and Jesus, after securely locking the door, threw 
 himself upon a couch. 
 
 While he was meditating there, a slight noise at- 
 tracted his attention, and he saw one of the most 
 beautiful females that mortal eye ever beheld, en- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 239 
 
 teriBg through a secret door, whose existence had 
 escaped his observation. She was of most noble 
 appearance and stately form, clad in loose, flowing 
 garments, and with a sparkling diadem upon her 
 head. Thus may have looked the chaste goddess 
 Diana^ when she watched the sleeping Endymion. 
 An expression full of pity and love rested upon her 
 face, as she approached the couch where Jesus rested. 
 
 ^^Fear nothing," she said ; ^^I do not come to tempt 
 but to save thee. T am the daughter of the guardian 
 of this temple, and I have learned the danger which 
 is threatening thee. Dost thou not know that these 
 villainous priests have resolved to kill thee ? for thou 
 hast forfeited thy life by learning some of their 
 mysteries. Thou, a foreigner, hast learned secrets 
 which no one but the Egyptians are permitted to 
 know. This evening they have resolved to kill thee, 
 and the murder is to be executed even to-night. I 
 have come to save thee ; I have made sure thy escape ; 
 rise and follow me, for I admire thy valor and I 
 do not wish thee to perish." 
 
 '^Beautiful one," answered Jesus^, ^^I will not dis- 
 pute they words; but if the priests have resolved to 
 kill me, let them do so; for I have promised to obey 
 the laws; of this brotherhood, and I have no right to 
 escape." 
 
 ^^Ts there not," answered the temptress, "a higher 
 law than the laws made by these priests ? Is tliere 
 not the law of nature, superior to all other laws? 
 Does not the law of they nature permit and command 
 thee to save thyself V' 
 
 ^^Spare thy words," answered Jesus. ''I hnow my 
 
240 THE PHILOSOPHY^ OF FIRE 
 
 duty, I shall remain and await whatever my fate 
 may he/' 
 
 'Then/' said the lady, ^'I must tell thee what my 
 modesty forbids me to say. It is not the life of a 
 fugitive that I came to offer to thee, but a life of un- 
 bounded love^ a life of Jiappiness and of luxury. 
 Yes/' she continued after a pause, drawing still near- 
 er to him and putting her soft white hand upon his 
 shoulder, ^'I love thee. Look into my eyes and see 
 whether or not what I am telling is true. Wilt thou 
 bury tliy manhood in these living tombs, to seek 
 after things which exist merely in thy imagination ? 
 Come with me, and I will give thee a substantial 
 happiness far superior to any that thou mayst find 
 within these gloomy walls. Can there be any great- 
 er happiness for a man than the love of a beautiful 
 woman ? 1 am rich, I am free, I am beautiful ; I 
 love thee with all the passionate love of which woman 
 is capable. Come with me, and thou shalt never 
 repent it.'' 
 
 'Tair one," answered Jesus, ''all the earthly ele- 
 ments of my material nature are striving to fly to thy 
 embrace; but they are held by the superior will of 
 the spirit. I do not seek for happiness within these 
 walls, nor could I find contentment in the tilings 
 which thou offerest me. I seek for happiness in that 
 which is not subject to change; that which thou 
 canst give is subject to decay. I reject thy offer." 
 
 ''Dare to reject it!" answered the woman. "Dost 
 thou know" what a woman whose love is spurned can 
 do? I shall not leave thee, for my soul clings to 
 thee; to be separated from thee would be death!" 
 As she spoke these words, she drew a dagger from 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 241 
 
 her belt and pointed it to her breast. ^^Spurn my 
 love/' she said^ ^^and this weapon will enter my 
 heart ! I will not live without thee ; hut if I die, my 
 death will also cost thee thy life ; for if my body is 
 found in this grotto to-morrow^^ thou wilt be accused 
 of being my murderer, and be executed for it.'' See- 
 ing that her threats had no effect upon the Neo- 
 phyte, she threw the dagger upon the floor, and, 
 sinking down at his feet^ implored him for his love. 
 She tore away her veil, and her beautiful hair drop- 
 ped over her shoulders ; tears streamed from her 
 eyes, and her appeals ended in sobs. 
 
 ^T)epart !" sternly answered Jesus, and the fair 
 one arose and retreated ; but as she disappeared from 
 sight, another door opened, and a stream of light 
 entered the room. The Hierophant and some of the 
 Brothers appeared at the entrance, and, congratulat- 
 ing him on his victory which he had gained, they 
 led him to a large hall, where, after submitting to 
 the ceremony of baptism, he was pronounced to be 
 w^orthy to be admitted to a higher degree. 
 
 Thus should he, who is the guardian of the door, 
 beware that no secret entrance is left open, by which 
 a favorite passion may enter, and if the temptress 
 should enter unaware, during his slumber, he should 
 call to his aid the superior power of his awakened 
 Will, and repel her. Then will the door of his soul be 
 open. Reason tuill enter and guide him by the light of 
 Divine Wisdom nearer to permanent Peace. 
 
 "To learn the mysteries of the Spirit, we must descend 
 into the subterranean caves where the treasures are hidden." 
 
 After a few days of rest and contemplation, Jesus 
 16 
 
242 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 was told that the time had arrived when his courage 
 and daring would have to undergo a severe trial. 
 His eyes were again blindfolded, and he was taken 
 to a subterranean cave, into which he had to descend 
 by means of a ladder. Having arrived at the bot- 
 tom, he removed the bandage from his eyes, accord- 
 ing to the directions he had previously received ; but 
 he could see no light. The cavern was dark, and at 
 first he could not discern any objects; but he heard 
 hissing sounds close by his side. He made a few 
 steps in advance, and stepped upon a living thing 
 that was gliding over the floor, and which immedi- 
 ately wriggled itself around his leg. Then the fact 
 immediately came to his consciousness that he was 
 in a den of serpents, and that to faint would mean 
 to be lost. Gradually his eyes became accustomed to 
 the deep darkness, and he discerned the eyes and 
 forms of the reptiles that lurked in all the comers. 
 The cavern seemed to be filled with snakes of all 
 kinds. Twisted together in disgnisting knots, some 
 were lying on the floor, and others wormed them- 
 selves over the rocks. He seated himself upon a 
 stone, and soon the snakes began to approach, as if to 
 resent his presence. They crawled over his legs, 
 twisted themselves around his arms and all over his 
 body. 
 
 At first Jesus was horrified; but his horror was 
 only of a moment's duration, for he immediately 
 called to his aid his higher consciousness and re- 
 membered that his terrestrial form, subject to the 
 disgusting embraces of the crawling reptiles, and 
 made of the same stuff as they, was not his real Self, 
 but merely a form to which he — ^the divine Man — 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 243 
 
 was for the time being attached. This thought en- 
 abled him to look upon everything that might happen 
 to his body as if he were an independent spectator. In 
 this way he appealed for aid to his own God, and 
 as he did so, a superior strength, a power unknown 
 before, seemed to pervade his whole body, and now 
 it seemed as if his power had invested him with some 
 property that made him repulsive to the serpents; 
 for soon the reptiles that were in contact with his 
 body left him and retired into their holes. 
 
 Thus if man descends to the innermost depths of 
 his soul, he may find it infested with poisonous ser- 
 pents and venomous reptiles^ the symbols of the brood 
 of passions and spirit of evil desires; but if he calls 
 to his aid the divine Wisdom^ the persecutions will 
 cease and peace will return. 
 
 After having passed through this severe trial, he 
 was released from his prison and led again to the 
 temple. 
 
 For a second time his spiritual eyes were opened 
 by the Magic power of the Hierophant, and he was 
 made to behold in his vision a Griffin and a turning 
 wheel with four spohes. Then the whole process of 
 Evolution became clear to his understanding, and he 
 saw how in the course of millions of ages, worlds 
 upon worlds had been evolved from the incomprehen- 
 sible centre. He beheld waves of Life passing from 
 planet to planet, arid each fiery orb, each globe, each 
 solar system, had peculiar forms of its own, and all 
 these various forms were manifestations of one and 
 the same Supreme Power, that men call "God/' and 
 formed out of its own substance. 
 
 The air, the earth, and the water were filled with 
 
244 THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 
 
 forms of life, having bodies of a kind of manner too 
 refined to be seen by mortal eyes. Some were lum- 
 inous, others dark, and the regions above the sphere 
 of the Earth were inhabited by beings of a seemingly 
 supernatural beauty. He saw :ihe Nature-spirits of 
 the four elements. He saw what Man had been in 
 the distant past and what he would be at a future 
 period of time far beyond the calculation of mortals. 
 He saw how the gross material elements of which 
 the Earth is now composed, would in the far-dis- 
 tant future be changed into a substance of a superior 
 and ethereal kind, so that what we now call ^^Earth'' 
 would be like water, and what we call ^^ Water" like 
 air, and what we call ^^Air" like the ether of space^ 
 and with the transformation of all beings, Man him- 
 self would enter into a silperior state of existence. 
 
 The science which deals with these problems is far 
 too grand and extensive to be more than merely 
 touched upon in these pages, nor would it benefit 
 the uninitiated reader, if we were to enter into its de- 
 tails ; for so long as the interior perception which en- 
 ables men to perceive these things is not opened, such 
 a discussion will be a mere matter of speculation, 
 serving more for amusement than for the attainment 
 of knowledge. 
 
 In this degree he was taught the great law of 
 Karma; that is to say, the law of Cause and Effect, 
 not merely upon the physical plane, where the law of 
 Mechanics exists, but in that higher realm, where di- 
 vine Justice rules supreme, where Good finds its own 
 reward, and Evil its own punishment. He saw that 
 whatever man may think or do, would produce a cor- 
 responding reaction upon himself, and that he who 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 245 
 
 benefits others is thereby benefiting himself, while he 
 who injures others is thereby decreeing his own pun- 
 ishment. He saw that the acts of men are the ex- 
 ternal symbols of their interior lives, and that every 
 thought and act has a tendency to repeat itself. 
 Thoughts seemed to him like beings struggling for 
 life, seeking to become embodied in acts ; and if they 
 were once thus embodied, they clung to .their life in 
 the same way as man clings to his, but the power 
 which invested these thoughts with life was the Will, 
 and unless man's thoughts were kept alive by his 
 Will, they died and putrefied like the corporeal 
 things upon the physical plane. "^ 
 
 The length of the time during which the Necoris 
 had to remain in the second degree^ before he was 
 permitted to enter the third, called MelanephoreSy de- 
 pended on his own progress. Many never attaind 
 any higher than the second degree; but those who 
 were permitted to advance higher had to pass through 
 the Portal of Death; for this was the name of the 
 door through which they who desired to obtain pow- 
 ers which belong to a higher than merely personal 
 existence had to enter, before they could acquire 
 them. 
 
 Without hesitation Jesus followed those who were 
 appointed to guide him. They descended into the 
 tombs, where the mummies were kept and which 
 were to be a living tomb to him, if he did not Succeed 
 in liberating himself therefrom by his own magic 
 power. The room which he entered was filled with 
 
 * See the secret instructions concerning the Elementals 
 in 'The Beautiful Philosophy of Initiation." 
 
 16 I 
 
246 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 corpses of the dead, while in the midst of the cham- 
 ber stood the sarcophagus of osiris still overflowing 
 with blood. The Paraskites — i, e., the men who 
 opened the bodies of the dead — and the Heroi — -who 
 attended to the embalming — ^were at their work. 
 From thence he entered into another room, where he 
 was met by all the Melanephores, dressed in black. 
 They took, him before the King, and the latter ad- 
 dressing him in a very kind manner, advised him to 
 desist from further attempts to penetrate still deeper 
 into the Mysteries, and to remain satisfied with that 
 which he had already gained. He praised the IsTeo- 
 phyte for his courage and virtues and told him that 
 it were better for him to remain contented and to de- 
 sist from further research. He told him that if he 
 would do so, he would be highly honored by all on 
 account of the knowledge he had already gained ; and 
 in token of the high esteem in which he held the 
 Neophyte, the king took his own golden crown from 
 his head and offered it to him. But Jesus, under- 
 standing the meaning of the symbol, threw the crown 
 down upon the floor and stepped upon it with his 
 foot, saying that it was not his object to be admired 
 and to gratify his ambition for fame or to be praised 
 by men; but that he desired wisdom and desired it 
 for its own sake alone. 
 
 As he did so, a cry of indignation arose from those 
 present and a ceremony took place which upon the 
 external plane represented the well-known internal 
 truth, that Ambition is the King of all passions and 
 that to give up one's Ambition is like giving up one's 
 own self ; for mans soul being made up to a great 
 extent of desires, dies the mystic death, when he hills 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP t^IRE 24? 
 
 his ruling desire. It is then ''as if the heart were 
 bleeding and the whole life of man seems to be 
 utterly dissolved/' 
 
 This was the terrible ordeal through which Jesus 
 had to pasSj and through which every other Neophyte 
 must pass if he desires Initiatioiij and before he can 
 enter the Temple of Wisdom. 
 
 The judgment of the departed soul before Pluto, 
 Mhadamantes, and Minos was then enacted ; for when 
 the king of ambition in the soul of man dies, his 
 daughter, Vanity, dies with him, and in his place 
 arises a sense of one's unworthiness. The accusing, 
 judging^ and revenging angels then appear in the 
 soul, until the tortured heart sends its despairing 
 cries to the Redeemer, the Truth; when the celestial 
 powers awaken within, to comfort the soul and guide 
 her to the harbor of peac€. 
 
 During this process of ceremony the whole of 
 Jesus'^ past life, with all tlie minutest details that 
 ever took place within his mental organization, ap- 
 peared before his vision; but when the initiation 
 was ended he knew that the lower elements within 
 his soul had died and that he himself had been 
 changed into another being. He then received the 
 special instructions belonging to this degriee, and he 
 was especially shown the sanctity of all life and the 
 full meaning of the words: ^^Thou shalt not kill/' 
 
 While he remained in this degree, the Hierogram' 
 matical art of writing, the history of Egypt, geog- 
 raphy, cosmology, and astronomy were taught hirii; 
 but his princi^l occupation, in this as in all other 
 degrees, was the cultivation of the power of Intuition, 
 by ivhich imm may know the truth and attuin wis- 
 
248 THE PHIIiOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 donij, independent of all books or external informa- 
 tion and without the necessity of adopting the opin- 
 ions of others. 
 
 For a long time Jesus remained in the tombs, at- 
 tending to the disposal of the bodies of the dead; 
 nor was any one of the members of this degree ever 
 permitted to leave them during the rest of their na- 
 tural lives, unless they attained that Magic Power, 
 known to the Adepts by which the Astral body of man 
 may leave at will the prison house of the terrestrial 
 body. Those who were not able to acquire this power 
 had to remain in their tombs, and their duty was to 
 attend to the embalming and the burial of the dead. 
 
 Thus the souls of those who are incapable of enter- 
 ing a higher state of consciousness during their terres- 
 trial liveSj will have to remain within their living 
 tombs of gross matter, overshadowed by the dark- 
 ness of ignorance, engaged in ministering to that 
 which is worthless and without eternal life, and to 
 preserve from decay useless memories of terrestrial 
 things. They will continue to follow their worth- 
 less occupations and be servants of empty forms and 
 illusions until the angel of death releases them from 
 their prisons, to lead them from the darkness of 
 matter into the eternal darkness beyond. 
 
 "He who thoroughly knows his own self, knows every- 
 thing." 
 
 "The fourth degree of the Essenian Brotherhood 
 
 was called 'The Baitles of the Shadows/ In this 
 
 degree the Christophores (Christos) — as he was now 
 
 called — was taught the nature of Good and Evil and 
 
 how to conquer Evil by Good. He was taught how 
 
 to cut off the head of the beautiful Gorgon^ without 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 249 
 
 hesitating on account of her almost supematurally 
 beautiful fomi. He was instructed in the art of 
 Necromancy, i. e., the art to deal with the astral 
 bodies of the dead and with those dangerous beings, 
 called Elementals/^' who inhabited the astral world, 
 and to make them subservient to their will. Woe 
 to him whom the power of spiritual Will deserted 
 even for one moment during these trials; the prin- 
 ciples of Evil which he attempted to subject to his 
 Will would then become his masters, and insanity or 
 death was the results 
 
 In attempting to describe some of the mysteries of 
 the Higher Degrees in the Essenian Brotherhood, we 
 are attempting to enter upon a field where only those 
 can enter who have themselves obtained some ex- 
 perience of practical Occultism; for how could the 
 magic processes that took place in the ''Battle of the 
 Shadows'' be described to persons whose knowledge 
 consists merely of the information they have received 
 from an age which denies that magic or spiritual 
 powers exist? It will require perhaps centuries of 
 scientific investigation before our sceptics will under- 
 stand the Magic power of the spiritually awahened 
 Will, and before they can be brought to a knowledge 
 that feats of Magic do not belong to the realm of the 
 fable, and it may require many centuries more, be- 
 fore such powers will become the property of the 
 manv. 
 
 And yet the world is still full of Magic. The 
 magic power of Love still exercises its influence over 
 the hearts; the magic of Imagination still makes 
 
 * See the "Beautiful Philosophy of Initiation." 
 
250 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRJS 
 
 men mournful or glad; the Will of the strong still 
 controls by its magic power the mind of the weak, 
 and the foolish are still ruled by the superior magic 
 power of the spirit of those who are wise; but such 
 wonders like that of the growth of a tree, do not sur- 
 prise us, merely because we are accustomed to wit- 
 ness them every day. 
 
 The Egyptian Adepts and Magicians may not have 
 been in possession of all that our modern science 
 knows in regard to the relations which exist between 
 external phenomena ; but they had a method, known 
 only to a few of our present age^ to develop the power 
 to look into that realm called the invisible, but which 
 is a world far more real and substantial than the so- 
 called visible world. Men are prone to jump at con- 
 clusions drawn from sensual observation and to re- 
 gard the visible side of nature as the actual world 
 and to reject that which is bieyond sensual percep- 
 tion ; but even, a superficial reflection will convince 
 mail that the terms ^Visible'' and invisible" are mere- 
 ly relative; for whether or not a thing may be seen 
 by us, depends not merely on its own nature, but 
 also on the construction and quality of the organs of 
 our perception. What may be seen by one, may be 
 invisible to another who is devoid of the organ of 
 sight; and what may be invisible to many, may ba 
 visible to those whose inner powers of perceptioji 
 have become open. 
 
 There i^ no relative Good without relative Evil. 
 There is no niah so pure, as not to have some animal 
 eleraents within his constitution, and tve^e there such 
 a man, he would not he able to develop higher; for 
 it is this very animal element from which the soul 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OP FIRE 251 
 
 of man draws its nourishment and strength to rise 
 higher and to become mo7'^ spirituaL Not to destroy, 
 but to make use of the elements of evil in man for 
 the purpose of accomplishing good, is the object of 
 the higher education. When the higher life begins to 
 awaken within the soul and the light of the Spirit 
 penetrates into the regions of the elementals, the ani- 
 mal egoes begin to revolt and to rise to the surface. 
 They may even appear in objective form and perse- 
 cute their creator. Then the dread dweller of the 
 threshhold may show his face. He is nothing else but 
 a product of mans own imagination, but nevertheless 
 living and as real as any other living thing among 
 the so-called realities of this world, a7id if the can- 
 didate for Initiation is subject to fear, he may be- 
 come its victim and insanity residt, for the Dweller 
 of the Threshold will then again and with increased 
 power take possession of his mind.^ 
 
 There is a region in the soul of man in which such 
 Divellers reside. In very degraded persons this re- 
 gion swarms with living, semi-developed or full- 
 grown animal principles and subjective monstrosities 
 of all kinds and under certain conditions, especially 
 if the physical organism is weakened by disease, they 
 may — so to say — step out of their centre, and assume 
 an objective form, clothing themselves in the grosser 
 elements of matter and becoming visible even to the 
 external senses. The Materialization of modei^n 
 Spiritualism furnishes an example of this. 
 
 If the candidate in that Brotherhood succeeded in 
 
 * See "History of the Rosicrucians/' and "Beautiful Phil- 
 osophy of Initiation." 
 
252 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 overcoming all these obstacles, he became a partaker 
 of the Demiurgos — the creative power in nature, and 
 in possession of absokite Truth. The bitter cup which 
 he was to drink, caused him to rise above all earthly 
 ills arising from his lower nature, and he received 
 his daily food from the King, His name was then 
 entered into the Book of Life — Immortality^ and he 
 became one of the judges of the country. His em- 
 blem was an Owl, representing I sis, the Goddess of 
 Nature; he was presented with a palm leaf and an 
 olive branch, the emblems of Peace. The ^^password^' 
 of that degree was ioa — Jehovah, and the under- 
 standing of its exoteric signification involved a 
 knowledge of the creative principle in Nature. 
 Henceforth he received his instructions from no man, 
 but from the Demiurgic — Spiritually Awakened — 
 Mind. 
 
 He who had attended the degree of Christophores 
 was entitled to apply to the Demiurgos for the still 
 higher degree of Balahate. In this degree he was 
 perniitted to see Typhoon — Divinity in his terrible 
 form; of endless extent, containing within himself 
 all that exists in the Universe; the All-creator and 
 All-destroyer. 
 
 "With eyes and faces, infinite in form. 
 
 The everlasting Cause, a mass of Light, 
 In every region hard to look upon; 
 
 Bright as the blaze of the burning lire and sun, 
 On every side, and vast beyond all bounds." 
 
 — Bhagavad Gita. 
 
 But the Balahate had awakeend to a full conscious- 
 ness of the Immortal principle within, and was no 
 longer terrified to see the destruction of all change- 
 able things. He now knew the nature of the secret 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 25^ 
 
 fire that regenerates the world and which renders 
 him who comes into its possession immortaL 
 
 In the sixth degree the Adept was instructed by 
 the Demiurges in all the secrets of Astrology ; that 
 is to say, in the science of the spiritual aspects of 
 the stars; he learned to loiow the directions of the 
 spiritual life-currents, pervading the Soul of the 
 Universe; he became even a being superior to the 
 Devas and Angels and in possession of all spiritual 
 powers. 
 
 The seventh and highest degree, called Paliclia, 
 could not be^applied for^ but was conferred by the 
 power of divine Grace upon those who were willing 
 to receive it. In this divine degree^ the holiest of 
 holies, the ultimate mystery was revealed to the 
 spiritual perception of the Adept. He received a 
 Cross, which he had to wear continually during his 
 terrestrial life^ the hair upon his head was cut off^ 
 he received the key to the understanding of all the 
 Mysteries, he obtained the privilege to elect the king 
 of the country, or — to speak in plain words and leave 
 off allegorical expressions — his soul became one with 
 the ruler of all and he entered into the essence of 
 Godr 
 
 Whether the events described in these pages ever 
 took place on the external or on the internal plane, 
 or on both, the reader may decide for himself. If 
 such things are enacted merely externally without 
 taking place internally, then they are mere shams. 
 Every external act which is not true representation 
 of internal life is a sham, and our modern civiliza- 
 tion is made up of such shams. Our secret societies 
 have come into possession of some of the forms and 
 
254 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIRE 
 
 ceremonies used by the Ancient Egyptians; but tliey 
 have merely the form; the spirit went away long 
 ago. Let him who would follow the path of true 
 Initiation remember this, that, if he desires to reach 
 and become an Initiate he must follow the Path so 
 plainly laid out 
 
 First comes thought, and afterwards comes that 
 interior Illumination by which men are baptized 
 with fire from the Holy Spirit of Truth, that de- 
 scends upon those who are pure in heart, like a white 
 dove descending from heaven. Man may be led up 
 to the truth by argumentation, but he can only be 
 saved by knowledge. Reason is the prophet, but 
 Wisdom is the Redeemer. Thought must precede 
 knowledge; but without the Light of Divine Wis- 
 dom thought is like a voice in the wilderness, calling 
 for help; an intellect without Love becomes easily 
 lost in the mazes of speculations and misleading 
 opinions. Therefore you, who desire to be saved, 
 repent of your errors ; give up your self fishness, that 
 causes you to seek for knowledge merely on account 
 of the benefits you hope to derive therefrom; open 
 your eyes to see the true saviour, the Light of Wis- 
 dom, which you may find below the dark clouds of 
 ignorance by which your heart is surrounded.'^ 
 
 THE END. 
 
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