The Torch: The Symbolism of the Transmitted Fire
A flame can be given away without being lessened. Light one torch from another and the first burns as before, while now there are two. Perhaps this is why so many peoples, in so many ages, made the torch a symbol of teaching, of memory and of life passed from hand to hand.
It is a humble thing, a stick with a burning head, and yet poets, priests and athletes have carried it for three thousand years.
Fire in a Stalk
The oldest story belongs to Prometheus. In Hesiod's account, the Titan stole fire from the gods and carried it to mortals hidden in a hollow stalk of fennel. The giant fennel plant has a dry, pithy stem that smolders slowly, and it was used for carrying embers in ancient Greece.
Zeus punished Prometheus by chaining him to a rock, where an eagle tore at his liver each day. The myth treats fire as the first gift that made human arts possible, and as a gift that cost its giver dearly.
Notice that the fire in the story is not made but transmitted: it comes from somewhere and is passed on. This is the heart of the torch as an image.
The Torches of Eleusis
At Eleusis, a town near Athens, the Mysteries of Demeter were celebrated for roughly two thousand years. The founding myth, told in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, says that the goddess wandered the earth with burning torches in search of her lost daughter Persephone.
In the rites, initiates carried torches in a procession by night from Athens to Eleusis, and the ritual included a priest called the dadouchos, the "torch-bearer," second in rank to the hierophant.
What happened inside the hall of initiation was kept secret, and the ancient writers who knew it did not tell. We know the torches, the night and the promise of a better fate after death, but we do not know the details, and anyone who claims to are guessing.
The Torch Race
The Greeks also made a sport of it. In the lampadedromia, teams of runners carried a lit torch in relay, and a team lost if the flame went out. Such races were held at festivals in Athens in honor of Prometheus, Hephaestus and Athena.
The opening scene of Plato's Republic mentions that there would be a torch race on horseback that evening, in honor of a Thracian goddess, Bendis.
The relay also lent philosophers a phrase. In his Laws, Plato compared the generations of mankind to runners handing on a torch of life. The Roman poet Lucretius wrote of the same thing in his poem De Rerum Natura: "like runners, they pass on the torch of life." In this image, the torch became a figure for the way each generation hands on what it has received.
Sacred Fires
Fire was tended as a sacred thing in many cultures. In Rome, the Vestal Virgins kept the hearth fire of the city burning in the Temple of Vesta, and its extinction was taken as an evil omen. The Zoroastrians keep temple fires that, in the highest grade, are said to have been burning for centuries.
In the Hebrew Bible, a flame appeared in the bush before Moses, and a lamp was kept alight in the sanctuary. In Christian churches, the paschal candle is lit at Easter from a new fire, and the flame is passed along the congregation, one candle at a time.
Esoteric writers add a further reading. They see the torch as a small image of a person: the staff is the body, the resin the soul and the flame the spirit. They also speak of a "transmitted fire" passed from master to disciple through a chain of teachers.
This is an idea of the tradition, and it cannot be confirmed by any record, but it explains why the torch became a favorite emblem of initiation.
The Modern Torch
The Olympic torch relay is a modern invention. It was first used in 1936 for the Berlin Games, with the idea credited to the sports official Carl Diem, and the flame is lit at ancient Olympia with a mirror that gathers the rays of the sun.
The ancient Greeks held torch races, but they did not run a torch from Olympia to the games, so the link to antiquity is more a matter of inspiration than of continuity.
Another famous torch is the one raised by the Statue of Liberty, dedicated in 1886. The statue's formal name is Liberty Enlightening the World, and the torch carries the old idea of light given to others.
A Word of Care
Real fire is dangerous, and open flames in crowds, in dry places or near children cause burns and wildfires every year. Anyone who wants to try a torch for a ceremony should use a safe venue, a proper fuel and a way to put it out.
Be wary, too, of groups that claim a secret "transmission" from a master and ask you to pay for it or to trust them unquestioningly.
Closing
The torch has no secret except the one that every teacher knows: what is given away is not lost. A flame carried from hand to hand crosses a dark road, and it burns no less for being shared. Prometheus, the priests of Eleusis and the runners of Athens each held the same small light, and the old poets said that each of us is a runner too, waiting for the torch.
Related Esoteric Inquiries
- The 12 Gates of Ripley: Calcination
- The Myth of Prometheus: The Theft of the Solar Fire
- The Lamp: The Symbolism of the Guided Light
Lux Esoterica.
2026.
Comments