This is a special podcast recording of Manly P. Hall's, "What The Ancient Wisdom Expects Of Its Disciples."
This is a study concerning the mystery schools. A practical guide for those who wish to avoid the many pitfalls that can occur on the path of discipleship. It also shows how enlightenment is earned by personal dedication to a spiritual code of conduct.
Like Hall has done many times in my life, he helped answer many of the questions I have had about the secret mysteries and the path.
Manly P. Hall gives great advice to the student of the Ancient Wisdom with practical advice and insight. Hall explains the basic three grades of the Student, Disciple and Initiate. He suggests that that path is a long and arduous one, fraught with suffering and difficult lessons, where one's hope lies in one's sincere labor and dedication to truth, courage, love and egoless silence.
But the student must always remember that without labor, there is no inspiration, and none can do our work for us but ourselves. The Ancient Wisdom demanded many years of purification and preparation before the adepts were willing to instruct in even the simplest things.
Here are some great quotes from this podcast.
We may say the the Mystery Schools interpret truth along the lines of the familiar, clothing wisdom in symbol and allegory familiar to those who are supposed to receive it.
Each one of these Mystery Schools is invisible and unknown. They can only be found after long searching and repeated disappointment.
The seven schools, each composed of twelve initiates and their disciples surrounding a thirteenth exalted brother, are the God-ordained perpetuators of the Ancient Wisdom as it has come from the dawn of the world when the gods descended from the nebula of the sun and took up their dwelling place on the sacred island at the north polar cap.
The ability of the Mystery Schools to communicate with the invisible worlds is the basis of their power; for all the creative hierarchies dwell in the unseen worlds, and there the disciple must go in order to consult them. The reason for this is that the human race is the only one in our scheme of things that is equipped with both a physical and a mental body. The gods, so-called, have never descended into physical substance. Consequently, having no body composed of dense chemical elements, they are incapable of manifesting here.
In order to communicate with them, man must, therefore, learn to function consciously in his own invisible bodies. When he is capable of doing this, he can communicate with the spiritual beings who dwell in similar superphysical substances. Thus, while religion deals only with fancies, theorems, and beliefs, the initiates of the Ancient Wisdom go straight to the fountainhead of wisdom and, learning the will of the gods, make that will the law of their lives. The initiate does not guess, wonder or soliloquize; he labors with facts for he is one with the truths of Nature.
But man was never left to wander alone in ignorance. When the ties connecting him to the unseen worlds were broken, certain methods were established whereby the will of the gods could be made known. To this end, a certain number of men and women were instructed how to bridge the chasm which then separated the gods from men. The method of establishing this communication was the greatest of all the secrets of ancient occultism.
This secret has been preserved for the race, for at a later time all human beings will be able to communicate directly with the gods once more. During the great interval of ages, this wisdom has been perpetuated in the Mystery Schools, and a few chosen disciples in each generation have been given the sacred privilege of knowing the gods. This wisdom and the power and knowledge they have gained they in turn impart to a few chosen and beloved disciples. Thus the work is carried on.