TRANSMISSION
BY FIRE, OR LIGHT...THE LIGHT OF WISDOM
“In the same strain wrote Giordano Bruno: "I am displeased
with the bulk of mankind; I hate the vulgar rout; I despise the authority of
the multitude, and am enamoured with one particular Lady. 'Tis for her that I
am free in servitude, content in pain, rich in necessity and alive in death. .
. . Hence it is even for my passion for this beauty that, as being weary, I
draw not back my feet from the difficult road, nor, as being lazy, hang down my
hands from the work that is before me : I turn not my shoulders as grown
desperate, to the enemy that contends with me, nor, as dazzled divert my eyes
from the divine object. . . . 'Tis for the love of True Wisdom and by the
studious admiration for this Mistress that I fatigue, that I disquiet, that I
torment myself."
Harold Bayley, p. 61 –
62.
Michael Maier gives us a direct clue in the
following quotation from his `Themis Aurea':
"There were
certain rites and Ceremonies done at Athens in honour of Prometheus, Vulcan and
Minerva after this manner: many were appointed to run into the City with
lighted torches, and he whose light was out, gave place to the others, so that
the victory was obtained by him who could come first at the goal with his
flaming torch: The meaning was to express the propagation of secrets for the
putting out of a torch is the death of a Predecessor, so that another living
with his lighted torch succeeds him, by which means the rare mysteries of
Chemistry come safe to after generations."
Michael Maier, Themis Aurea.
As
evidence of the deep materialism and spiritual poverty our civilization has
fallen into - we can see this esoteric transmission of the Light of Wisdom, has
now degenerated into the Olympic Games.
In
his `Arcana Arcanissima', Michael Maier amplifies this Hermetic view of
the transmission of the ` rare mysteries of Chemistry":
"Perhaps the Lampadephoria are
illustrative of our "work". These games were used in this manner.
Runners carried a lamp or torch from one point to another in a chain of
competitors, each of whom formed a successive link. The first, after running a
certain distance, handed the lamp or torch to the second, and so on until the
point proposed was reached. Herototus uses the games as a comparison to
illustrate the living image of successive generations of men. The action of
carrying an unextinguished light from the Cerameicus to the Acropolis is a
lively symbol of the benefit conferred by the Titan (Prometheus) upon man, when
he bore fire from the habitations of the gods, and bestowed it upon man. But
the gratitude to the giver of fire passed to Hephaestos, who taught men to
apply it to melting and moulding of metal. Other writers hold that the game had
an inner significance, "alluding to the inward fire by which Prometheus
put life into man." One symbol on a coin referring to these games shows a
serpent surrounding in a circle. Reference is also made to the common altar of
Vulcan and Pallas, to the fire of Vesta, to the chief place which Vulcan held
amid the Egyptian gods, and to the Germanic races."
On the left we see the actual Lamp used in the Lampadephoria, and on right and below, two examples of the races from Greek Vases
