The Initiates of the FlameHall, Manly P. (Manly Palmer)
Religion
The Initiates of the Flame
Hall, Manly P. (Manly Palmer)
Occultism; Symbolism
Out on the desert stands the Sphinx, the Guardian of the Threshold
mentioned by Bulwer Lytton. It stands for the bodies of man, and is that
strange being which must be passed before the student can go on in his
development. The four fixed signs of which the Sphinx is a symbol are
Taurus the Bull, Leo the Lion, Scorpio the Eagle, and Aquarius the Man,
or the human head.
[Illustration: The Sphinx:
This is that mysterious being suspended ’twixt heaven and earth, which
has the head of a human being and the body of an animal. In other words
the Sphinx symbolizes man.]
I have already given you some work on the sacrum bone, and I told you
that it was the grave digger’s spade. Here is a picture of the head of
the Sphinx, and the inverted sacrum bone when it has been turned upward.
We see the Sphinx in the inverted sacrum and also in it the inverted
Masonic keystone. All this is very interesting, but unless we realize the
inner meaning of it, its true value is lost. But it is not chance that
these things should be so.
You have most of you heard of the Dweller on the Threshold, that creature
built by our own actions and mistakes. Well out on Egypt’s desert it
stands and bars the way to the pyramid, the temple of the higher man. And
the message that it gives to the world is:
=“I am the bodies. If you would go on to the temple you must master me,
for I am within you.”=
The Sphinx again symbolizes man, with the mind and spirit of the human
rising out of the animal desires and emotions. It is the riddle of the
ages, and man is once more the answer.
It is said that in ancient times the Sphinx was the gateway of the
pyramid, and that there was an underground passage which led from the
Sphinx to Cheops. This would make the symbolism even more perfect, for
the gateway to the spirit is through the bodies according to the ancients.
Let us now enter the pyramid and passing through the corridors come
to the King’s Chamber as it is called. There are three great rooms in
the pyramid which are of great interest to the student. The highest is
the King’s Chamber, then below that is the Queen’s Chamber, and down
below the surface of the earth is the Pit. Here we again find the great
correlation between the pyramid and man. The three rooms are the three
great divisions in man which are the seats of the threefold spirit. The
lower room is the generative system under the control of Jehovah. The
center room or Queen’s Chamber is the heart, under the control of the
Christ; and the upper room or the King’s Chamber is the brain, which is
under the control of the Father. In this upper room is the coffer made
of stone, the meaning of which has never been explained, but which the
student recognizes as the third ventricle in the brain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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