The Initiates of the Flame

by Manly P. Hall

After the death of Christ it is said that Joseph of Arimathea took the sacred cup and the spear of the Passion and carried them into a distant land. He wandered with his sacred relics through Europe and is said to have finally died, and those who came after him after many centuries of tribulation carried the sacred relics to Mount Salvart in northern Spain where they remained until Parsifal finally took the grail and spear back to the East where it is to be now preserved.

It is around this cup and spear that the legends of Parsifal and King Arthur have been written, and it is through study of this fact that we are able to better understand the mystery of the Great White Lodge of which the Round Table of Arthur and the circular temple of the knights of the Grail is a symbol.

Although we no longer have the cup as a physical symbol, it is not gone from among us, and as in the days of old the brave knights of the Round Table went out to fight for right, so those knights of today who belong to the Great White Brotherhood go out into the world in the name of truth and labor with mankind and seek to right the wrongs of the world. It is said that the knights of Arthur’s court always fought for virtue and purity, and so did those who rode out of Mount Salvart.

The grail cup is the symbol of the creative force of nature; it is also the symbol of the human race which is slowly learning the mysteries of creation. Within the cup is the blood of Christ, that force which is transmuting the body into soul, fast or slowly as we give it greater or lesser opportunity.

In the sacred spear we find symbolized again the creative force, which in the hands of Klingsor, the evil one, wounds and causes suffering, but which when held by the pure Parsifal heals the very wound that it caused.

A great lesson is being taught to man through these allegories, but the average person is unwilling to stop and consider them. They do not realize that they themselves are the ones whom the Elder Brothers of humanity must use in the fight against the forces of evil. They do not realize that the dragons and ogres of the legends are their own lower natures which they must overcome. They do not see in the hand to hand combat of the knights of old for a lady’s hand the higher and lower man fighting for the soul within.

The knight of today does not realize that the white armor that he wears is his own purified body which is proof against all the attacks of vice and passion, but nevertheless this is the meaning of the legend. His shield is truth, which is a perfect protection to the inner man. His strong right arm is the knowledge and spiritual power he has developed within, and the sword that he uses is the spiritual light with which the pure flame of the spirit fire dispels the darkness of ignorance and the demons of lust.

The sacred spear and the cup which he serves are the two poles of the creative life force within, the development of which he gains as he daily serves his fellow men.

Far from the uninitiated the twelve Elder Brothers of mankind sitting around the circular table of the universe watch the knights in their battle of life, and the time comes when the student having finished his work here is liberated at the foot of the Grail. There the candidate stands robed from head to foot in the armor of spirit and in the pure white of a body that has been cleansed. Then the cloth is lifted from the sacred cup, and he is illuminated by the light which would have killed him had he seen it without purification. He then takes his place among the knights of the Round Table, and joins those who give up all and labor for humanity.