Initiates of the Flame by Manly P. Hall

Author:Manly P. Hall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

The mystic realizes that he himself is the Philosopher’s Stone, and that this stone is made diamond-like when the salt and the sulphur, or the spirit and the body, are united through mercury, the link of mind. Man is the incarnated principle of mind as the animal is of emotion. Man stands with one foot on the heavens and the other on the earth. His higher being is lifted to the celestial spheres, but the lower man ties him to matter. The philosopher builds his Sacred Stone by harmonizing his spirit and his body. The hard knocks of life chip this stone away and facet it until it reflects lights from a million different angles. The ultimate achievement is the Philosopher’s Stone.

The Elixir of Life is once again the Spirit Fire, or rather the fuel which nourishes that fire, and the turning of the base metal into gold is accomplished when he transmutes the lower man into spiritual gold. This he does by study and love. Thus he is building within himself the lost panacea for the world’s woe.

The changing of base metals into gold can be called a literal fact, for the same chemical combination which produces spiritual gold will also produce physical gold. It is known that many of the ancient alchemists really did create the precious metal out of lead, alloy, etc. This was upon the principle that all things contain some part of everything else. In other words, every grain of sand or drop of water has in some proportion every element of the universe therein. Therefore, the alchemist did not try to make something from nothing, but rather to extract and build that which already was, and this the student knows is the only possible course of procedure. Man can create nothing from nothing. He does, however, contain within, in potential energy, all things and, like the alchemist with his metals, he is simply working with what he already has. The living Philosopher’s Stone is a very beautiful thing. Indeed, like the fire opal, it shines with a million different lights, changing with the mood of the wearer. The transmuting process whereby the spiritual essences, passing through the furnace of purification, radiate from the physical form as the soul-body of gold and blue is a indeed a beautiful one.

The Masons have among their symbols that of a five-pointed star with two clasped hands within it, and in that we have the mystery of the Philosopher’s Stone. The clasped hands represent the united man in which the higher and the lower are working for their mutual betterment, by a cooperative rather than a competitive system. The five-pointed star is the soul body, born of this cooperation; it is the living Philosopher’s Stone, more precious than all the jewels of earth. From it pour the rivers of life spoken of in the Bible; it is the Star of the Morning that heralds the dawn of Mastery, and is the reward that comes to those who follow in the footsteps of the ancient alchemist.

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