History and Meanings of the sigil with the bee at the centre.
Our school sigil has been a symbol of our work for decades, since the Servants of the Light School evolved from the Helios Practical Course on the Mystical Qabalah in the early 1970s.
The hexagram is used in several mystical and esoteric systems in its various forms.
Here are a few reflections on some, but not all, of the meanings associated with our school sigil and its practical use in the school.
The central figure of the bee in our sigil symbolises how the individual can serve the whole, and it is a reminder of the intention that opens the door to all the teachings we represent and share: “I want to know in order to serve.”
The bee has been a sacred symbol in many ancient cultures, including in the Egyptian magical tradition. Bees dance to communicate; they create sound and vibrate that has been used to represent work with sonics that impact the etheric and other subtle bodies that are vehicles of our awareness; bees are also producers of honey, which is connected with legends about Melchizedek, who is said to have gifted humanity with honey, wheat and knowledge of the eternal flame.
You will notice in the sigil that there is a hexagon within a hexagon in the encircled hexagram. Other geometric configurations and triangulations may also be discerned and indicate, as all sacred geometry does, the complexity of relationships and the various harmonics that connect inner and outer patterns of existence.
A Registered Trade Mark
Our school sigil and the words Sigilum Sanctum Alexandriae Fraternitatis (The Sacred Sigil of the Alexandrian Fraternity) and the name “Servants of the Light” are registered trademarks.
This was done to ensure that the symbol is only used to authorise the genuine work of the School and its Director of Studies.
It might seem strange that a mystery school should need to legally register one of its magical sigils as a trademark. However, legally protecting our identity and the authenticity of school teachings and copyright is a necessity that the SOL takes seriously as part of our work in the modern world.
Our school sigils and the name “Servants of the Light” may not be used outside the context of our work and must be used with the permission of the Director of Studies.
We also use this sigil sometimes
The above school sigil was created by the Director of Studies, Dr Steven Critchley, as a symbol of aspects of the next phase of the SOL’s work and teaching of the mysteries. In the school the symbols of the honey bee, the wheat sheaf and the eternal lamp have been used for many years. The familiar sigil with the bee in the centre, is still used by the school in some contexts and remains a registered trademark of the school.
The new school sigil presents seven lamps that serve seven flames arranged within the circled hexagram.
The central flame represents The Light.
The Hebrew letters emblazoned on the lamp are:
Yod Heh Shin Vav Heh יהשוה
This sequence of letters were used in the Hermetic Qabalah after the Renaissance and they represent the fire of spirit, the Hebrew letter Shin, suffused in the elements and through all the four worlds of the Qabalah. Indeed, The Adam Kadmon – the totality of the cosmic and prototype human form divine is considered to be a fifth world in Qabalistic teaching.
י Yod – represents the world of Atziluth – the Divine Source world (Fire)
ה Heh – represents the world of Briah – the archetypal world (Water)
ש Shin is the fire of Spirit that permeates one and all
ו Vav – represents the world of Yetzirah – the world of formation (Air)
ה Heh (final) – represents the world of Assiah – the World of enactment (Earth)
Sometimes alchemical or Neo-Pagan elemental attributions associated with the ‘levels of being’ are confused with the Qabalistic system so the sequence earth, water, air and fire is used. However, this is not correct when projected onto the Four Worlds of the Qabalah and leads to difficulties in understanding Qabalistic teaching on many levels.
If one attributes the element of “air” to the world of Briah imagining the eagle soaring in the clouds then the image is misleading because “water” is properly assigned to Briah in Qabalah (think of the waters above the firmament referred to in Genesis) and of course the eagle is one of the symbols of Scorpio (fixed water) in its higher aspect along with the scorpion and serpent (and some attribute the phoenix too).
Of course, different systems may be adopted in study but it is important not to mix them in a way that leads to confusion.
The letters are sometimes represented in this form: YHShVH
This combination is not the personal name ישוע (Yeshua) that is transliterated into Latin and English as “Jesus.” Rather, it is a Qabalistic representation of the oneness of all worlds and the Presence of the Divine that is in and through all worlds within worlds.
The Name, and its permutations, have long been associated with healing as it represents harmonic balance that is the key to all rebalance. It is in this Light, that some may call the Cosmic Christ or even the Horus Child, that we work.
The mystical Qabalah, as taught by Dion Fortune, W.E. Butler and Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki in our historical ‘stream’ is a syncretic tradition in many ways that values philosophical, religious and cultural pluralism.
The Name YHShVH is not from the early, purely Hebraic, Kabbalah, but is part of the later Christian Hermetic Qabalah that synthesises many influences from the Western Esoteric Tradition, including Rosicrucianism. The name features in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn’s Rose Cross Ritual. It is a living symbol rather than a personal name and should be worked with as such.
When symbols are interpreted dogmatically or literally, then many misunderstandings can occur. We use the Name YHShVH in the light of our school’s traditional understanding, and many of our students will remember performing the Rose Cross Ritual and using the name YHShVH in the earlier part of the Butler Course.
We are a school that values all religious paths and philosophies that are beneficial to human progress and evolution serving what we call “the Light.” We are not a Christian or a Pagan School; rather, we teach the Qabalah as a kind of mystical language through which students can explore many traditions, as well as develop their own unique Qabalah, as each is called upon to build their own system based on what they receive and build with as initiates.
