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Order of Essenes group
Mar. 2nd, 2022 10:25 pm
Some of my readers will remember the Order of Essenes, a New Thought school founded by Burks L. Hamner in the 1930s. I received, via my teacher John Gilbert, a complete set of the Order of Essenes correspondence lessons, and put it online here, with a few volunteers to mentor students through the lessons. It attracted a certain number of students, a few of whom worked through the complete course, and then wound down in the usual way of such things. One of the more enthusiastic students of the course was a young rap artist who goes by the stage name Joe Limitless, who put Essene concepts into his rap numbers -- longtime readers may recall a post about him here., complete with an Essene rap piece. He's just as inspired by the Essene course as he was a year ago, and he's now launched a Facebook group for students of the lessons; you can find it here.
The Essene lessons may be old-fashioned but there's a lot of meat on those old bones. Writes Hamner at the beginning of the first lesson:
"Only a few have discovered the key to greatness, and yet it may be seized and used by millions. It is the purpose of the Order of Essenes to furnish the key to unlock the slumbering powers within you. You must open the door and enter the great treasure house of being -- the YOU of your being."
One of the many things I received by way of my friendship with John Gilbert was an old correspondence course in New Thought from the Order of Essenes, an American occult organization founded in the 1930s by a Florida businessman turned spiritual teacher named Burks Hamner. The order was long defunct by the time I was initiated by John, but its traditions and some of its teachings were taken up by the Order of Modern Essenes, one of the organizations of which John was the custodian. I found the course much more practical than I expected -- I shouldn't have been surprised, because Hamner was a very successful real estate promoter who taught classes in business to young people during the Great Depression, but there it is. When I had the chance a few years ago, I put the course up online 
