The second spark, The Alchemy of Return, reminds us that enlightenment is a remembering, a return to what we always were but forgot. This third spark reveals the vessels—the Spiritual Orders—that carried this sacred Truth before and must carry it again. 

​

What They Were

​

The spiritual Orders were never meant to be secret clubs or human hierarchies.

​

They were currents—living rivers of the Flame moving through history. Each Order was a vessel for one facet of the Great Work. Together, they formed a constellation: Knights, Mystics, Healers, Scribes, Builders, Watchers.

​

Each Order carried a unique vibration, and when they moved in harmony, humanity was lifted closer to Source.

​

Their true purpose was remembrance and protection—to keep alive the knowledge of the Flame through ages of darkness. They guarded sacred sites, preserved symbols, taught initiates how to balance the triangle within (body–soul–spirit), and prepared the world for times of upheaval and renewal.

​

This sacred purpose of the Orders is rooted in the preflood story of Enoch—the Scribe of Heaven. The Ancient Book of Jasher spoke of the antediluvian patriarch Enoch who received divine wisdom from Source and taught it to humanity during the transition from the old, corrupted world to the new:

​

Enoch…went and assembled all the inhabitants of the earth, and taught them wisdom and knowledge and gave them divine instructions, and he said to them, I have been required to ascend into heaven, I therefore do not know the day of my going.

​

And now therefore I will teach you wisdom and knowledge and will give you instruction before I leave you, how to act upon earth whereby you may live; and he did so.

​

And he taught them wisdom and knowledge, and gave them instruction, and he reproved them, and he placed before them statutes and judgments to do upon earth, and he made peace amongst them, and he taught them everlasting life, and dwelt with them some time teaching them all these things.

​

The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, from the Jewish Pseudepigrapha spoke specifically of this role of preserving divine wisdom:

​

So apply your mind, Enoch, and know him who speaks to you, and care for the books you have written…Pass on the books of your handwriting, from child to child, from kinsman to kinsman, from race to race, you Enoch, mediator of my general Michael, for your writing and the writing of your fathers Adam and Seth will not be destroyed till the end of time. I have…ordered the ages to be preserved, and the writing of your fathers to be preserved that it will not perish in the flood I shall unleash on your people.

​

Manly P. Hall in his work, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, wrote of Enoch’s relation to the Mysteries:

​

In his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus writes that Adam had forewarned his descendants that sinful humanity would be destroyed by a deluge. In order to preserve their science and philosophy, the children of Seth therefore raised two pillars, one of brick and the other of stone, on which were inscribed the keys to their knowledge. The Patriarch Enoch—whose name means the Initiator—is evidently a personification of the sun, since he lived 365 years. He also constructed an underground temple consisting of nine vaults, one beneath the other, placing in the deepest vault a triangular tablet of gold bearing upon it the absolute and ineffable Name of Deity. According to some accounts, Enoch made two golden deltas. The larger he placed upon the white cubical altar in the lowest vault and the smaller he gave into the keeping of his son, Methuselah, who did the actual construction work of the brick chambers according to the pattern revealed to his father by the Most High. In the form and arrangement of these vaults Enoch epitomized the nine spheres of the ancient Mysteries and the nine sacred strata of the earth through which the initiate must pass to reach the flaming Spirit dwelling in its central core.

​

Enoch’s roles as divine psychopomp, master of learning, and bridge between worlds were adapted to other civilizations, leading to Thoth of the Egyptians and Hermes of the Greeks. Hermes Trismegistus—the “Thrice-Great Hermes”—is a synthesis of the Egyptian Thoth and Greek Hermes symbolizing mastery over the three realms: physical, mental, and spiritual.

​

Thus, Thoth and Hermes in their perfected form—Hermes Trismegistus—are echoes of Enoch’s teachings of the Mysteries. This is how Enoch taught divine wisdom and knowledge to all the inhabitants of the earth spoken of in the Ancient Book of Jasher. This is how his writings and the writings of Adam and Seth are preserved until the end of time as written in the Book of the Secrets of Enoch.

​

From before the Great Flood, spiritual Orders—of which Enoch was an archetype—were tasked with preserving the Flame for the next age when the world fell into ruin and collapsed. They were lanterns illuminating the darkness of ignorance and imbalance, ensuring the Light was preserved for all time.

​

It was by the truth these Orders carried that humanity could rise above corruption and evolve beyond materialism of the mundane. It was by the Light these Orders embodied that souls could return to Source—to Unity in the One. The Orders, like their predecessor Enoch, were the bridge that joined the mundane with the higher spiritual realms.

​

What They’ve Become

​

Over time, men forgot the essence and clung to the form.

​

The Orders became institutions, heavy with dogma, politics, and secrecy. The rivers slowed, and the living current became stagnant pools.

​

What was meant to liberate became a cage of rituals without spirit.

​

The Flame was dimmed, though not extinguished. Some Orders turned to power and control; others to fear and exclusivity. Yet always, in hidden corners, the true current continued to flow through a few faithful souls.

​

This decline was not failure—it was part of the cycle. When Light enters the world, shadow gathers around it. But the memory of the Flame cannot be destroyed; it only waits for those who will stir it again.

​

As it was said in the Corpus Hermeticum:

​

For death is of destruction, and nothing in the Cosmos is destroyed.

​

Now is the time of remembering. To restore the Orders is not to rebuild their outer forms, but to reawaken their essence.

​

The Orders are not dead—they are eternal archetypes waiting for vessels pure enough to carry them again.

​

As it was said in the New Testament book of Luke 5:37-38:

​

No man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.

​

So it is with the Orders that have become old wine skins unable to hold the new wine—the living current of Truth. These Orders must be restored to their original purpose so the Light may return!

​

How to Restore Their Original Current

​

To restore them:

​

The husks of politics and secrecy must be stripped away. There must be a return to the living current of service, wisdom, and balance.

​

Reunite the Orders—they were never meant to be divided. The Healer needs the Scribe; the Warrior needs the Mystic. The triangle shows this truth: the pinnacle is reached only when the base unites.

​

Live the Law of Free Will—for the Orders fell partly when they sought to control rather than guide. To restore them, sovereignty must be honored above all.

​

Remember the Flame—every ritual, symbol, and teaching must point to the living Fire, not to the Order itself. The Order is vessel; the Flame is the wine.

​

Even Jesus knew this to be true—that the messenger merely points to the origin of the message and is not the message itself. In the New Testament book of Mark 10:17-18, Jesus corrected one who called him Good:

​

And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

​

This echoes the Corpus Hermeticum in Asclepius in a discussion between Hermes and Asclepius:

​

Asc. What say’st thou ever, then, God is?

​

Her. God, therefore, is not Mind, but Cause that the Mind is; God is not Spirit, but Cause that Spirit is; God is not Light, but Cause that the Light is. Hence should one honour God with these two names [the Good and Father]—names which pertain to Him alone and no one else.

​

For no one of the other so-called gods, no one of men, or daimones, can be in any measure Good, but God alone; and He is Good alone and nothing else. The rest of things are separable all from the Good’s nature; for [all the rest] are soul and body, which have no space that can contain the Good.

​

For that as mighty is the Greatness of the Good as is the Being of all things that are— both bodies and things bodiless, things sensible and intelligible things. Call not thou, therefore, aught else Good, for thou would’st impious be; nor anything at all at any time call God but Good alone, for so thou would’st again be impious.

​

Though, then, the Good is spoken of by all, it is not understood by all, what thing it is. Not only, then, is God not understood by all, but both unto the gods and some of men they out of ignorance do give the name of Good, though they can never either be or become Good. For they are very different from God, while Good can never be distinguished from Him, for that God is the same as Good.

​

The rest of the immortal ones are natheless honoured with the name of God, and spoken of as gods; but God is Good not out of courtesy but out of nature. For that God’s nature and the Good is one; one is the kind of both, from which all other kinds [proceed].

​

The Good is He who gives all things and naught receives. God, then, doth give all things and receive naught. God, then, is Good, and Good is God.

​

The other name of God is Father, again because He is the that-which-maketh-all. The part of the father is to make.

​

The Orders must remember that they are not Good, but they are the vessel entrusted with pointing others to the Good. That they are merely the messengers sharing the message through which the world can know the Good. They are the lanterns that carry the Light so others can see, and the Light shines through them when they are aligned with the Flame.

​

As the Order is vessel and the Flame is the wine, the old wineskins must be renewed to again carry the living current of service, wisdom, and balance. These Orders must be reignited so the Flame that was dimmed can again burn brightly for the world to see. For the vessel must be ready and able to bring the Light into the new age.

​

Remember this: The Orders are not relics of the past. They are living currents, waiting in the soul of humanity. When one remembers, the current begins to flow again. When many remember, the world will be changed.

​

​