Description
Howard, Maude. Myriam And The Mystic Brotherhood. Chicago: Occult Publishing Company, 1915. Second Edition of the scarce original initiatory novel about a secret society of Ascended Masters.
Similar in some ways to the earlier “The Coming Race” or certain interpretations of Theosophy, Myriam and the Mystic Brotherhood is a novel that depicts the take over of the modern (1910s) United States by a mysterious, vaguely Tibetan-themed mystical order of Ascended Masters.
Told from the perspective of the two St. Clair siblings, Harold and Myriam who encounter an order of alchemical monks living in underground caves in the American West before becoming initiates into their secret mystery traditions. In addition to providing mankind with untapped mystical knowledge, they also present new technology, combining science-fiction, occult fantasy, and utopian literature, as they guide humanity into a new material and spiritual golden age.
Arguably groundbreaking in several other respects, Myriam and the Mystic Brotherhood also has the dubious distinction of serving as one of the major plagiarized “sources” for “I AM” founder Guy Ballard’s supposed memoir “The Magic Presence.”
A Theosophist and self-described mystic in his own right, Ballard’s I AM Activity movement grew to enormous popularity in the 1930s and 1940s, centers on following the teachings of ascended masters like Jesus Christ, the Comte de Saint-Germain, and, eventually, both Ballard and his wife Edna after their deaths, according to believers.
According to Ballard’s book, he met with 200 members of a “Great White Brotherhood”, operating a blast furnace in a cave of symbols before being initiated by the Comte de Saint Germain. The scene describing Ballard’s initiation ceremony with the Ascended Masters is literally taken word for word from this novel, something noticed by critics as early as 1937.
An ex-library copy, this was formerly owned by the Blue Triangle Hospitality House charity in Burlington, Vermont, which provided lodging and meals for independent young women.
Originally a private home, by the outbreak of World War I, the Hospitality House was Burlington’s first “day nursery” before transforming into the “Patriotic League” in 1917 to organize young women to help in the war effort, and finally a transition home for newly arrived French “war brides”. Opened as the Blue Triangle Hospitality House in December 1919, the organization maintained separate status before being folded into the broader Young Women’s Christian Association in 1921.
If you liked this book, you may also like this copy of Picturesque America from the infamous Hartford County Jail.
