The word Sarmoun itself means ‘bee’. The Sarmouni (the bees) were reputed to have teachings which pre-dated the Flood. We here again encounter the Ark metaphor, and it is certainly possible that there never was a physical flood and that the Sarmoun were referring to their responsibility of maintaining the Ark of Ancient Wisdom through the floods of time.
They taught that objective knowledge is a material substance that can be collected and stored like honey. The Sarmoun Brotherhood apparently had memory of the periodic destructions and renewals of humanity, and they believed their tradition represented an eternal unchanging core of wisdom to which mankind should always have access.
At critical junctures in history, the Sarmoun distributed their ‘honey’ throughout the world by means of specially trained agents. The symbol of the enneagram, the knowledge of the law of seven, and the doctrine of reciprocal maintenance came from the Sarmoun Brotherhood.
Some time after 1500 the Sarmoun became connected to the Naqshbandi Sufi tradition. The Naqshbandi Sufis worked in a ‘fourth way’ style: they were quite undogmatic, and their work was always connected to fulfilling particular historical tasks. While the Naqshbandi Sufis and the Sarmoun were not one organisation, individual Naqshbandi teachers were probably associated with the Sarmoun Brotherhood. It seems likely that the Sarmoun inseminated the best of the Naqshbandi teachers with some of their understandings. We find the idea of the ‘celestial hierarchy’ or ‘inner circle of humanity’ in the Naqshbandi Sufis, which likely derives from their connection to the Sarmoun Brotherhood....read more>>>...
