DURING the second half of the eighteenth century it may be
said without exaggeration that the intellectual, historical and
political centre of all things was in the kingdom of France. The
statement obtains not only because of the great upheaval of
revolution which was to close the epoch, but because of the
activities which prepared thereto. I know not what gulfs dispart
us from the scheme and order of things signified by the name of
Voltaire, by Diderot and the Encyclopaedists at large, or what
are the points of contact between the human understanding at this
day and that which was conceived by Condorcet in his memorable
treatise. But about the import and consequence of their place and
time I suppose that no one can question. The same land and the
same period were the centre also of occult activities and occult
interests, which I mention at once because they belong to my
subject, at least on the external side, since it happens quite
often that where occultism is about on the surface there is
mysticism somewhere behind. We may remember in this connection
that a Christian mystical influence had been carried over in
France from the last years of the seventeenth century through
certain decades which followed: it was that of Port Royal,
Fenelon and Madame Guyon, owing something - almost unawares - to
the Spanish school of Quietism, as this in its turn reflected,
without being aware of the fact, from preReformation sources.
As regards occult activities, if I say that their seeds were sown
prior to 1750, it will be understood that I am speaking of
developments which were characteristic in a particular manner of
the years that followed thereon. Occultism is always in the
world, and among the French people especially there has been
always some disposition to be drawn in this direction. In the
eighteenth century, however, the sources for the most part are
not to be found in France. The persuasive illuminations of
Swedenborg the deep searchings of Jacob Bohme into God, man and
the universe, the combined theosophy and magic represented by
earlier and later kabalism, and a strange new sense of the
Mysteries coming out from a sleep of the centuries with the
advent of Symbolical Freemasonry these and some others with a
root of general likeness were foreign in respect of their
origins, but they found their homes in France. So also were
certain splendid historical adventurers who travelled in the
occult sciences, as other merchants travel in the wares of the
normal commercial world. I refer of course to Saint-Germain and
Cagliostro, but they are signal examples or types, for they did
not stand alone. There were men with new gospels and revelations
of all kinds; there were alchemists and magi in the byways, as
well as on^ the public roads and in the King's palaces. Perhaps
above all there were those who travelled in Rites, meaning
Masonic Rites, carrying strange charters and making claims which
had never been heard of previously in the age-long chronicle of
occult things.
When one comes to reflect upon it, the great, many-sided Masonic
adventure may be said to stand for the whole, to express it in
the world of signs, as actually and historically speaking there
came a day, beforethe French Revolution, when it seemed about to
absorb the whole. All the occult sciences, all the ready-made
evangels, all philosophies, the ever-transpiring new births in
time ceased to be schemes on paper and came to be embodied in
Grades.
So also the past, though it may be thought to have buried its
dead, began to give them back to the Rites, and not as sheeted
ghosts, but as things so truly risen and so much affirming life
that they denied their own death and even that they had fallen
asleep. Of such was the Rosy Cross. It came about in this manner
that our Emblematical Institution, which was born, so to speak,
at an AppIe- Tree Tavern and nursed in its early days at the
Rummer and Grapes or the Goose and Gridiron, may be said to have
passed through a second birth in France. It underwent otherwise a
great transformation, was clothed in gorgeous; vestments and
decorated with magnificent titles. It contracted in like manner
the adornment of innumerable spiritual marriages, which were
fruitful in spiritual progeny. I have pronounced its encomillm
elsewhere and that of the Rites and Grades, the memorable Orders
and Chivalries which came thus into being. (1) More numerous
still were the foster sons and daughters, being things connected
with Masonry but not belonging thereto, even in the widest sense
of its Emblematic Art. Of illegitimate children by scores, things
of rank imposture or gross delusion, I do not need to speak. It
is sufficient to say that Holy Houses of Masonry were everywhere
in the land of France, and everywhere also were its royal
standards unrolled. There is no question, from one point of view,
that all the claims belonged to a world of dreams, that from
old-world history they drew only its fables, from antique science
its myths, that the dignities conferred in proceedings were
delivered in a glass of faerie, and that the emblazoned
programmer of high intent and purpose were apt to fade strangely
and seem written in invisible ink under the cold light of fact.
But the reality behind the dreams must be sought in the spirit of
the dreamers, for whom something had happened which opened all
the the doors and unfolded amazing vistas of possibility on every
side about them.
The man who held the keys and indeed had forged them was no other
than Voltaire, who in this connection stands of course for an
intellectual movement at large, which movement meant emancipation
from the fetters of thought and action. To summarise the
situation in a sentence, apart from the Church and its dogma, all
things looked possible for a moment. The peculiar Masonic
"system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by
symbols," might lead humanity either back to the perfection
which it had lost or forward to that which it desired and could
in mind descry dimly, however far away. The new prophets and
their vaunted revelations might have God behind their gospels,
and the darkness of the occult sciences might veil unknown
Masters, rather than emissaries of perdition. Condemned
practices, forbidden arts might lead through clouds of mystery
into light of knowledge, and in this light history might call to
be written out anew. We know at this day that Masonic legends are
matters of fond invention, but some of them are old at the root,
and we can understand in the eighteenth century how they came to
pass as fact, more especially since the root of some was a Secret
Tradition in Israel. When it came about, under cirellmstances
which cannot be recited here, that Masonic attention was drawn to
the old Order of Knights Templar, which had been brought to the
rack and the faggot as possessors of a strange knowledge drawn
from the East, a Rite or a budget of Rites which claimed that the
Order had never passed out of being was like a fortune to those
who devised.
It is from this point of new that we must survey the amazing
growth of Masonry in all its multitude of forms. We shall
conclude that it was pursued zealously, with a heart turned
towards the truth, and as one who believes that he may not stand
alone, I am not unprepared to think that some of the traditional
histories, to us as monstrous growths, represented to the makers
their views on the probability of things presented in the guise
of myth. It was saved in this manner for them from the common
charge of fraud. This is my judgment of the time, and there is
one thing more on the wonderside of the subject, the expectations
and the vistas seen in front. As the time drew on for Voltaire to
be called away and when the chief High Grades of Masonry connoted
a reaction from much that is typified by his name, there rose up
another personality holding one key only, but it looked like
clavis abeconditorum a constitutione mundi. This was Anton
Mesmer, prominent in Parisian circles, a Mason like the rest of
them, and destined presently to have more than one Grade
enshrining his discovery and designed for the spread of its
tenets. Granting the fact of his unseen but vital fluid, there
was a root of truth at least in the long past of Magia, in the
entrancements of vestal and pythoness, above all in occult
medicine. So opened some other doors, and when Puysegur
discovered clairvoyance again as it might be for a moment - the
mystery of all the hiddenness looked on the point of unveiling.
But the doors shut suddenly, the dreams and the epoch closed in
the carnage of the French Revolution, and thereafter rose the
baleful cresset of Corsica.
I have dwelt upon French Freemasonry because it is impossible to
pass over it in presenting a picture of the period, but more
especially because the life of the mystic Saint-Martin is bound
up therewith for a certain number of years. Among the Rites which
mattered at the moment his name connects with two, being the
glory of the Strict Observance and the problematical Order of
Elect Priesthood.(1) Behead the first there lies the mystery of
its Unknown Superiors, but this, when reduced to its equivalent
in simple fact, means the circumstances under which and the
people by whom its root-matter was communicated in France to
Baron von Hund, who returned with it to his German Fatherland and
there formed it into a Rite, whoss advent marked an epoch for
evermore ill Masonry. But in respect of the second there lies
behind it the claim of Pasqually's apostolate in that for which
it stood and whence, if from anywhere, he derived on has own part
- as, for example, the Rosy Cross. I cannot trace here the
history of the Strict Observance: it claimed to represent a
perpetuation in secret of the Knights Templar and to be ruled by
a hidden headship appertaining to that source. It may almost be
said that it took Masonic Germany by storm, and planted its
banners triumphantly all over Europe, save only in those British
Isles where the Art and Craft of Emblematic Freemasonry rose up
in 1717 among the taverns of London. It fell to pieces ultimately
because it was in no better position to prove its claims than was
the Craft itself to justify its recurrent appeals to the hoary
past. But the point which concerns, us is that before its karma
overtook it the Rite was domiciled in France and had headquarters
at Lyons under the government of a Provincial Grand Prior of
Auvergne. It was transformed under these auspices from a Holy
House of the Temple into a Spiritual House of God, in the keeping
of a sacred chivalry pledged to the work of His glory and the
promotion of peace on earth among all men of goodwill. It is the
Apex of Masonry or the diadem of this Daughter of the Mysteries.
As regards Martines de Pasqually and his Rite des Elus Coens, or
Order of the Elect Priesthood, he would seem to have been of
Spanish descent or extraction, though he was born in Grenoble,
and he is said to have been a coach-builder by trade - a piece of
information which comes, however, from a hostile source. It may
stand at its value and in any case does not signify, for it must
be admitted, I believe, that he was of comparatively humble
origin, and has extant letters swarm with orthographical errors,
all has intellectual gifts notwithstanding and also has spiritual
dedications. Whatever has been said to the contrary, it is quite
certain - so far as there is endence before us that he emerged
into the light of his Masonic career for the first time in 1760
and that the place was Toulouse, where he presented himself at a
certain Lodge, bearing a hieroglyphic charter and laying claim to
occult powers. A year later he emerged again at Bordeaux where he
appears to have been recognized on his own terms by another
Lodge, which he had satisfied in respect of has claims. In 1766
he proceeded to Paris and there laid the foundations of a
Sovereign Tribunal, which included several prominent Masons. He
was again at Bordeaux: in 1767, and three years later there are
said to have been Lodges of his Rite not only at that city but at
Montpellier, Avignon, La Rochelle and Metz, as well as at Paris
and Versailles. The Temple at Lyons was founded a little later.
Such is the external story of the Rite in bare outline, up to the
time when for my present purpose - it can be merged in that of
Saint-Martin. And now as to that for which it stood. I have
intimated that Martines de PasqualIy pretended to occult powers,
and that there was at least one Lodge which held that he had
proved his claim. I shall show later on the extent of our present
Imowledge respecting the content of his Rite. It had a certain
ceremonial procedure, which - like all Ritual - must have been
sacramental in character, or with a certain meaning implied by
its modes and forms; but only to the least extent was it
otherwise veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols. On the
contrary, it was concerned with the communication of a secret
doctrine by way of direct instruction and with a practice which
must be called secret in the ordinary sense which attaches to the
idea of occult art or science. The kind of practice was that
which endeavours to establish communication with unseen
intelligence by the observances of Ceremonial Magic. There was
procedure of this kind in the course of the Grades, or of some at
least among them, and Pasqually, the Grand Sovereign, was also
Grand Magus or Operator. It will be seen in a word that the Rite
of Elect Priesthood had a very different undertaking in hand from
anything embraced by the horizon of Craft Masonry or the rank and
file of High Grades. The doctrine embodied a particular view
concerning the Fall of Man and of all animated things belonging
to the material order, it looked for the restoration of all, and
on man as the divinely appointed agent of that great work to
come.
LOUIS CLAUDE DE SAT MARTIN belonged to the French nobility, as
indicated by has armorial bearings and the coronet superposed
thereon, but I have not come across his genealogy in any extant
memorial. He was described very often in the past, and even by
early French biographers, as the Marquis de Saint-Martin, but
this is a mistake and has been rectified some time since: it does
not appear that there was any title in has branch of the family.
Though he suffered little inconvenience when the French
Revolution came, he was included among the proscribed, meaning
the noble classes. He was of Touraine stock, and was born at
Amboise in that district on January 18, 1743. It is said that his
mother died soon after and that the father married again. We have
his own evidence that filial respect was a sacred sentiment of
his infancy; that all his happiness was perhaps due to has
stepmother; that her teaching inspired him with love for God and
man; and that the intercourse of their minds took place in
perfect freedom. (1) There are various indications of his
delicacy in early years, as when he tells us that he changed
skins seven times in babyhood; that has body was a rough sketch;
that he had very little "astral," meaning psychic
force; that he could play passably on the violin, but that owing
to physical weakness his fingers could not vibrate with
sufficient power to make a cadence. (1) I mention these points to
show that, albeit Saint-Martin attained a fair age, he seems to
have been always physically frail, amidst great mental
activities. For the rest, there is no need to dwell upon his
youth, as regards external facts, nor have many transpired. He
was educated at the college of Pont-Leroy, was designed for the
career of the law and entered thereupon, but it proved so
entirely distasteful that his father allowed him to exchange it
for the profession of arms, he being then about twenty-two years
of age.
On the inward side, or as regards his early dedications, we have
the benefit of his own intimations, too brief and few as they
are. There is a work of the past, by a writer named Abadie, on
The Art of Self-Knowledge, and though on my own part I have not
brought away from it any striking recollections, it had a certain
repute in its day. Saint-Martin tells us that he read it with
delight in his youth, though he recognized later that it was
characterised by sentiment rather than depth of thought. It was
instrumental probably ill disposing him towards the life of
contemplation and the following of the mystic path. There was
also Burlamaqui, to whom he says that he owed his love for the
natural basis of reason and human justice. So far as regards
books, but beyond these there were the promptings of his own
spirit, and in respect of these he tells us (1) that at the age
of eighteen, amidst all the confusions of philosophy, he had
attained certitude as to God and his own soul; (2) that the
seeker for wisdom had need of nothing more; (3) that the
foundation of all his happiness must be in contentment only with
the truth; (4) that absorption in material things was
incomprehensible for those who knew the treasures of reason and
the spirit; (5) that human science explained matter by matter,
and that after its putative proofs there were other
demonstrations needed; (6) that the inmost prayer of his soul was
for God to abide therein to the exclusion of all else, in which
manner he came to see, thus early, that Divine Union is the true
end of man; for I find this further thought set down as belonging
to has first spiritual years, namely, (7) that we are all widowed
and that we are called to a second marriage.
The influence of the Duc de Choiseul secured a commission for
Saint-Martin in the regiment of Foix. The next three years of his
life, which are practically a blank, so far as memorials are
concerned, have been filled up by biographers, following on
obvious lines and those of least resistance. His occupations, in
a word, were the duties of his profession and the study of
religious philosophy. There is of course no question, and so far
from the life of a soldier offering any barrier to his
dedications, they opened a path before him which he followed with
advantage for a certain distance and remembered his experience
therein with unfailing affection and reverence. As we learn by
his correspondence, Martines de Pasqually had married the niece
of a retired major in the regiment of Foix, and he was known
personally by the brother-officers of Saint- Martin, De
GrainvilIe among others, and in the end by Saint-Martin himself.
De Grainville, De Balzac and Du Guers were initiates of the Elect
Priesthood, and at some uncertain date between August 13 and
October 2, 1768, Saint-Martin was received into the Order.
According to his own testimony he had taken the first three
Grades en bloc, apparently by verbal communication. They were
conferred on him by M. de Balzac. (1) There is no record as to
how they impressed him, but among several references to the Grand
Sovereign of the Rite on the part of his disciple for a period
there is one which appertains more especially to the initial
stage of their connection. "It is to Martines de
Pasqually," says Saint-Martin, "that I owe my
introduction to the higher truths." (1a) This sentence was
written either on the eve of the Revolution or soon after, and
having regard to the spiritual distance travelled already by the
witness it is pregnant testimony.
As regards the Ritual-content of the Elect Priesthood, we know
certainly about seven Grades, being (1) Apprentice Elect Priest;
(2) Companion Elect Priest; (3) Particular Master Elect Priest;
(4) Master Elect Priest; (5) Grand Master Priests, otherwise
Grand Architects; (6) Grand Elects of Zerubbabel; and (7) a Grade
of Rose Croix, not otherwise and more fully particularized,
though it is a subject of frequent allusion in the correspondence
of Martines de Pasqually and SaintMartin. In the year 1895 Papus,
otherwise Dr. Gerard Encausse, testified that the "Rituals
of the Elect Priests," with other numerous and important
archives, had been transmitted as follows: (1) To J.B. Willermoz,
a merchant of Lyons, circa 1782. He was one of the successors of
Pasqually and Grand Prior of Auvergne in the Strict Observance.
(2) From Willermoz to his nephew. (3) From this nephew to his
widow. (4) From her to M. Cavernier, an unattached student of
occultism. There are other documents held by the descendants of
M. Jacques Matter, one of the early and most competent
biographers of Saint-Martin. By the mediation of M. Elie Steel, a
bookseller of Lyons, Papers was placed in communication with
Cavernier, and was enabled to copy "the principal
documents." (1a) Whether these included the Rituals does not
appear, nor is it possible to indicate the present locality of
the originals. It is certain, however, that Papus transcribed the
Catechisms attached to six out of the seven Grades, as he
published them at the date mentioned, (2a) and I have full
evidence also that he conferred the Grade of Rose Crois on at
least one occasion, some years subsequently, as we shall see more
particularly at the close of the present monograph.
In the absence of the Rituals, which have never been printed,
while I have failed to find manuscript copies in England, either
in private hands or in any Masonic or other library, our
available knowledge of the Grades is confined to the Catechisms
and to the correspondence mentioned above. I will take these
sources separately, as the first is concerned with the doctrine
and symbolism of the Rite, and the second with its peculiar
practices. (1) Apprentice Elect Priest. - The instruction of this
Grade imparted perfect knowledge - en hypothesi - on the
existence of the Grand Architect of the Universe, on the
principle of man's spiritual emanation and on has direct
correspondence with his Master. It is obvious that the knowledge
in question was conveyed dogmatically. As regards the origin of
the Order, it derived from the Creator himself and had been
perpetuated from the days of Adam, that is to say, from Adam to
Noah, from Noah to Melchisedek, and afterwards to Abraham, Moses,
Solomon, Zerubbabel and Christ. The meaning is that there has
been always a Secret Tradition in the world, and its successive
epochs are marked by successive custodians. It is in this sense
also that the purpose of the Order is said to be the maintenance
of man in his primeval virtue, his spiritual and divine powers.
(2) Companion Elect Priest. - Having been told of our "first
estate" in the previous Degree, the Candidate hears in the
next concerning the Fall of Man and personifies it in his own
case. He has passed from the perpendicular to the triangle, or
from union with his First Principle to the triplicity of material
things. The Grade of Companion typifies this transition. The
Candidate is engaged to counteract the work of the Fall, in which
has own spirit has been undone, and his whole world is in travail
thereupon, to "acquire the age of perfection." The root
of all is in a living realization of what is implied by the first
estate of man, his ambition, his lapse and his punishment. There
is one allusion to the pouring out of a more than human blood,
but this subject is reserved to some later stage of advancement
in the Order. (3) Particular Master Elect Priest. In the
conventional symbolism, the Candidate passes from the triangle to
the circles: he is at work in the circles of expiation, which are
said to be six and in correspondence with six conceptions
employed by the Great Architect in constructing the Universal
Temple. The symbolism of the Temple of Solomon is explained in
this Degree, and its members are called to the practice of
charity, good example and all duties of the Order, for the
reintegration of their individual principles, their Mercury,
Sulphur and Salt, in that unity of Divine Principles from which
they first came forth. Here is the only distinct Hermetic
reference found in the memorials of the Rite. (4) Elect Master. -
The Candidate enters the circle of reconciliation, and in common
with his peers is engaged henceforward in warfare with the
enemies of Dinne Law and of man at large on earth. We hear also,
but vaguely, concerning One Who is the Elect of God, Who has
reconciled earth with man and all with the Grand Architect of the
Universe. It is to be noted that in references of this kind we
are left to infer that the Reconciler is Christ, for He is not
mentioned by name. The Resurrection of Easter morning is referred
to in similarly unprecise terms, and so also the sacrifice on
Calvary. It transpires, however, that the warfare of the Grade is
against the enemies of the Christian Religion. The initiations
and adornments of Craft Masonry have been stigmatised as
apocryphal in the first Grade, and yet they were sufficiently
essential to be conferred invariably in summary form on every
Candidate for the Elect Priesthood - presumably in cases where
they had not been taken previously. In the Grade of Elect Master
he is warned to cut himself of from all clandestine secret
societies, communicating apocryphal instructions, which are
" contrary to Divine Law and to the Order." (5) Grand
Master Priests, surnamed Grand Architects. - The Candidate was
thirty-three years old in the fourth Grade and he has now
attained the age of eighty. It would seem that he receives some
kind of ordination. It is a Grade of light and the Temple is
ablaze with light. There are four Wardens, who represent the four
symbolical Angels of the four quarters of heaven, recalling the
occult mystery of the Enochian Tablets, according to the
memorials of Dr. John Dee in The Faithful Relation. The
ordination whatever its form - is said to be operated by the
thought and will of the Eternal, and by the power, word and
intention of His deputies. The members of this Grade are occupied
with the purification of their physical senses so that they may
participate in the work of the spirit. They are engaged otherwise
in constructing new Tabernacles and rebuilding old. There are
said to be four kinds of Tabernacles in the Universal Temple,
being (1) the body of man, (2) the body of woman, (3) the
Tabernacle of Moses, and (4) that of the Sun, or the
"temporal spiritual" Tabernacle which the Great
Architect of the Universe "has destined to contain the
sacred names and words of material and spiritual reaction,
distinguished by wisdom as by a torch of universal temporal
life." There is no further allusion to this Spiritual Sun.
The Candidate now hears the Name of Christ, apparently for the
first time in his progress through the Rite. It must be said that
the Catechisms are rather obscure documents, and inferences drawn
therefrom as to procedure in the Rituals are therefore
precarious, but it would seem that the Candidate in this Degree
begins to take part in those magical operations which are the
chief concern of the Rite, as we shall see. (6) Grand Elect of
Zerubbabel. - The Prince of the People is represented as a type
of Christ and his work as typical of redemption. In the Masonic
Grade known as the Royal Arch the Candidate testifies that he
belongs to the tribe of Judah, but a Grand Elect on the contrary
protests against such an imputation. He is of the tribe of
Ephraim, described as (1) that which has always enjoyed freedom,
and (2) the last of the tribes of Israel but the first of the
Elect. His earthly age is defined to be seventy years, while that
of his spiritual election is seven. The seventy years of
captivity are those of material life, or life apart from election
and from the ordination of true priesthood. The election attained
by the Candidate imposes on him the spiritualization of his
material passions, the conquest of the enemies of truth and those
also of liberty. His rank is friend of God, protector of virtue
and professor of truth. It is to be noted that he has had no part
in the building of the Second Temple, because it was a type only
of that Temple of our humanity which none but the Spirit can
rebuild. This being so, it is difficult to see why members of the
Grade are called Grand Elects of Zerubbabel. (7) Grade of Rose
Croix - particulars of which are wanting, as already seen, there
being no Catechism extant. But the true Rose Croix is of Christ,
and without it Pasqually's Rite would have been left at a loose
end, for it looked through all its Grades to that Divine Event
which ushered in the Christian Era.
In the above enumeration respecting the content of the Rite I
have taken its Catechisms as my gliide, but it remains to add
that there is some confusion on the subject. A letter of the
Grand Sovereign has been quoted under date of June 16, 1760, in
which the Grades are set out according to the following list: (1)
Apprentice, (2) Companion, (3) Particular Master, (4) Grand Elect
Master, (5) Apprentice Priest, (6) Companion Priest, (7) Master
Priest, (8) Grand Master Architect. (1a) To these Ragon added a
Grade of Knight Commander, (2a) which Papus seeks to identify
with that of Rose Crois. I find no trace of the letter in
published Pasqually memorials, and the date is certainly wrong.
As regards Ragon, his mammoth lists of Degrees, Rites and Orders
are utterly uncritical, but the fact that in this case he
produces an enumeration which is corroborated somewhere in the
unpublished correspondence of the Grand Sovereign may justify us
in thinking that there is authority for the ninth item and that
the entire scheme may have represented an early state of
Pasqually's Masonic plan. There is in any case the fullest
evidence that his Rite was at work when several of its Ceremonies
were only in an embryonic stage. I observe also that in a letter
of SaintMartin dated May 20, 1771, (1a) there is reference to a
Degree under the initials G.R., which corresponds to no title
extant in either scheme, as it is certainly not Rose Croix, this
being always represented by R (picture of Cross) in
Saint-Martin's correspondence. Amidst variations and
uncertainties, we are, I think, justified in regarding the
Grade-Names at the head of the several Catechisms as those
appertaining to the Rite in its completed form.
On the surface of these documents there is nothing to suggest
that the Grades to which they are attributed were connected with
Ceremonial Magic. They belong to the part of doctrine and the
part also of symbolism, the latter including official secrets
signs, tokens, words and similar accidents of purely Masonic
convention. For the practical part we must have recourse to the
correspondence of Pasqually (2a) and - as it may seem, perhaps
curiously to that of Saint-Martin. The letters of both were
addressed to Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, the merchant of Lyons, who
appears to have held the rank of Inspector- General in 1767,
though more than a year later he is denominated Apprentice Rose
Croix: it would seem therefore that the jurisdiction implied by
the broader title could have been exercised only over lower
Grades of the Order. On August 13, 1768, the Grand Sovereign
began to instruct Willermoz in occult or magical procedure, and
continued to do so at long intervals until 1772, the
communications in all being ten in number, so far as they have
become available in published works. The operations imposed were
to be performed by Willermoz in the solitude of a private room,
and have therefore nothing to do with ceremonial observance in
Lodge or Temple. The practice in these - for it appears that
there was a practice - seems to have been performed by Pasqually
himself, looking forward presumably to that time when some of his
disciples would have developed occult powers under his tuition
and would be qualified to operate on their own part in public, so
to speak, with some assurance of success.
The Ceremonial Magic was Christian and presupposed throughout the
efficacy of religious formulae consecrated from time immemorial
by the usage of the Latin Church. The instructions reduced into
summary form may be presented thus: (1) The Novice was covenanted
to abstain from flesh meat, apparently of all kinds, for the rest
of has life. (2) As an Apprentice Rose Croix he was forbidden
occult work except for three days in succession at the beginning
of either equinox, meaning three days before the full moon of
March and September. (3) As regards spiritual preparation, he
must recite the Office of the Holy Spirit every Thursday at any
hour of the day; the Miserere mei, standing in the centre of the
room at night before retiring, facing East; and the De Profundis
on both knees and with face bowed to the ground. (4) The clothing
prescribed is elaborate, including all insignia of the Order that
the Novice was entitled to wear, but here it will be sufficient
to say that as he must be deprived of all metals, even pins, he
removed his ordinary clothing except vest, drawers, socks and
felt slippers. Over these he placed a white alb, with broad
flame-coloured borders. (5) He described the segment of a circle
on the East side of the room and a complete circle of retreat on
the West side, placing the proper inscriptions at the proper
points, with the symbols and wax tapers. (6) These arrangements
completed, he prostrated himself at full length within the
western circle in complete darkness, for a space of six minutes,
after which he arose and lighted all the tapers belonging to that
circle. (7) He then prostrated himself within the eastern
segment, pronouncing one of the Names inscribed thereon and
supplicating God, in virtue of the power given to His servants
here reciting all the inscribed angelic names - to grant that
which was desired by the Novice with humble and contrite - heart.
(8) The Novice again rose up and performed other operations,
including the lose of a particular kind of incense and the
recital of certain invocations which are not given in the text.
(9) The operation was to last one hour and a half, onward from
midnight, no food having been taken since noon. There are other
directions, not always in harmony with those which preceded, but
the instruction is left unfinished, and as regards these initial
operations we do not know what purpose they served or what
manifestations characterised success therein.
About two years later Pasqually supplied further directions of a
more advanced or at least more elaborate kind, the circle of
retreat being now located in the centre of the room; but again
the procedure depends on particulars which have been sent
previously and the nature of which is unknown. We hear also of
visions, described as white, blue, clear ruddy white, and so
forth; of visible sparks, of goose-flesh sensations, as of things
seen and felt by mere novices of the Order. As to purpose,
however, and result there is still nothing that transpires,
except indeed the complete failure of Willermoz to obtain any
satisfaction. The letters of Saint-Martin to the same
correspondent on the same subject may be said practically to
begin as those of Pasqually ended, and they are models of clear
exposition, compared with those of the Grand Sovereign. (1a) They
endeavour in the first place to encourage Willermoz and dissuade
him from supposing either that he is himself to blame or that the
occult ceremonies are invalid. At an early stage one of them was
accompanied by "the grand ceremonial" of the Grand
Architects, a complete plan of this Grade and a prayer or
invocation for daily use. We hear also of a "simple form of
ordination" under the initiats G.R., to which I have alluded
previously; of extended and reduced versions of some Grades; of
Elect and Priestly Grades. There are references to Latin
originals of certain workings; to procedure with Candidates, on
their reception as Grand Architects, evidently magical in
character; forms of conjuration and exorcism of evil spirits
which do not differ generically from those of historical Rituals;
and much on the formation of circles, with their proper modes of
inscription. These things do not extend our knowledge, except
upon points of detail, and after midsummer, 1773, the character
of the correspondence changes. Saint-Martin had supplied for a
period the place, as it were, of a secretary to his occult
Master, but Pasqually was called to St. Domingo in 1772 on
"temporal business" of his own and was destined never
to return.
It follows that the Ceremonial Magic of the Elect Priesthood is
by no means fully available from published sources; but so far as
the procedure is before us it does not differ, as I have
intimated, from the common records of the art except as these
records differ one from another. This being the case, and as most
of us are acquainted with the preposterous concerns of Art Magic
in the past, we have, in the next place, to account as we can for
an opinion on has early school expressed by Saint-Martin long
after he had abandoned it and all its ways: "I will not
conceal from you that in the school through which I passed, now
more than twenty-five years ago, communications of all kinds were
numerous and frequent, that I had my share in these like all the
others, and that every sign indicative of the Repairer was found
therein." (1a) He said also: "There were precious
things in our first school, and I am even disposed to believe
that M. Pasqually, to whom you allude and who, since it must be
said, was our Master, had the active key of all that our dear
Bohme sets forth in his theories, but that he did not regard us
as fitted for such high truths." (2a) In the peculiar
terminology of Saint- Martin, the Repairer signified Christ, and
what therefore were those "communications" obtained as
the result of invocations recited in magical circles drawn with
chalk on the floor and inscribed, as in the devices of old
sorcery, with more or less unintelligible names? After what
manner precisely did they manifest or at least indicate the
presence of Christ? For an answer to these questions we depend on
the accuracy of a single witness who was either in possession of
many priceless unpublished documents or had access thereto as
President of the Martinist Order - the late Gerard Encausse,
otherwise Dr. Papus - to whom my notes have referred already. He
presents us with further extracts from the letters of Martines de
Pasqually, who affirms therein (1) that if the thing - La chose -
were not as I have certified and had it not been manifested as it
was, not only in my own presence but in that of so many others
who desired to know it, I should have abandoned it myself and
should have been in conscience bound to dissuade those who
approached it in good faith; (2) that ill respect of the failure
of Willermoz there was no gound for surprise because "the
Thing is sometimes severe towards those who desire it too
ardently before the time." (1a) One would think that La
chose signified simply the subject or matter in hand, but
according to Papus it was the Intelligence or Mysterious Being
which manifested in response to the invocations. We are to
interpret the reference in this sense when Saint-Martin says, in
his communication to Willermoz of March 25, 1771, that he was
"convinced concerning the thing before having received the
most efficacious of our ordinations." I do not know how
Papus satisfied himself respecting this forced and arbitrary
construction, but whether it is correct or not, there is no
question as to the fact that a Mysterious Being manifested by the
evidence of the archives or that it was called subsequently by
other names, such as "the Unknown Agent charged with the
work of initiation," an expression of Willermoz.
It follows that ure have good ground for accepting the view of
Abbe Fournie, another disciple of the Rite, when he said that
Pasqually had the faculty of confirming his instructions by means
of "external visions, at first vague and passing with the
rapidity of lightning, but afterwards more and more distinct and
prolonged." (1a) Having established this point of fact,
which sufficiently distinguishes the Grand Sovereign from other
purveyors of High Masonic Grades in France of the eighteenth
century, and his Rite also from many scores of contemporary
institutions, we have to ascertain - if we can - what
characterized the manifestations, so that they justified
Saint-Martin in the extraordinary view which he held concerning
them, not in the first flush of occult experiences, but at a
mature period of life.
Meanwhile I have sketched his position and environment at the
beginning of his intellectual career. As a result of exchanging
the profession of law for that of arms, he had entered a circle
which brought him to the gates of certain Instituted Mysteries,
then at work about him; he had been initiated, passed and raised
in the parlance of Blue Masonry; he had received the ordination
of the Elect Priesthood; and had attained its highest Grade,
being that of Rose Croix. It remains to add that he had left the
army and was now approaching a point where the road which he had
travelled divided: he had therefore to choose a path.
THE correspondence between Saint-Martin and Willermoz had
continued for two years and five months, but they had never seen
one another. In the early part of September, 1773, Saint-Martin
repaired to Lyons and was domiciled in that town for something
approaching a year, during part of which he was apparently the
guest of his rich Masonic brother. His own resources were small,
and there are indications that he was not on the best terms with
his father, no doubt owing to the fact that for the second time
he had abandoned a career in life. We have seen that there was a
Temple of the Elect Priesthood at Lyons, which was also an
historically important centre of Freemasonry in France, and
Willermoz was an active member and officer of all the Rites.
Saint-Martin, on the other hand, cared little or less than
nothing for ceremonial procedure, for Ritual which he found empty
and for the hollow pomp of titles. By his own evidence, the
offices of Ceremonial Magic were only less distasteful,
notwithstanding his high opinion of the influences at work among
them in the circle to which he belonged. He affirms that he had
no "virtuality" in activities of that kind; that he had
little "talent" for its operations; that he
"experienced at all times so strong an inclination to the
intimate secret way that this external one never seduced me
further, even in my youth"; and that he exclaimed more than
once to has Master: "Can all this be needed to find
God?" (1a) Such being the case, there need be no cause for
surprise that Saint-Martin put on record long after has opinion
that the "first sojourn at Lyons in 1773" was not much
more "profitable" than others which he made later and
especially in 1785. (2a) It was important, however, in another
and very different way, for it marked the beginning of his
literary life. "It was at Lyons," he tells us,
"that I wrote the book Des Erreurs et de la Verite, partly
by way of occupation and because I was indignant with the
philosophers so called, having read in Boulanger that the origin
of religions was to be sought in the terror occasioned by the
catastrophes of Nature. I wrote some thirty pages at first, which
I showed to a circle that I was instructing at the house of M.
Willermoz, and they pledged me to continue. It was composed
towards the end of 1773 and at the beginning of 1774, in the
space of four months and by the kitchen-fire, for there was no
other at which I could warm myself.
He was not therefore in residence during those months with his
Masonic friend: he was probably en pension somewhere, and not too
well situated because of his means. The task was executed with
great expedition, having regard to its subject and the deep
searching demanded throughout its length: indeed, his application
must have been unremitting, the result comprising nearly five
hundred pages. The next point which it is requisite to note, for
reasons which will appear immediately, is that it is written in
the first person, which indeed recurs continually, so that the
Philosophe Inconnu whose name appears on the title is with the
reader from beginning to end. The individual note was
characteristic of Saint-Martin's writings throughout his literary
life, but it is to be observed that though ever present it was
never insistent and was never touched by egotism. He spoke from
the fullness of the heart, as from an unfailing fountain, and has
even put on record his feeling that there was not enough paper in
the world to contain all that he had to deliver, could he only
reduce it to writing. He had also a certain sacred tenderness
towards the children of his mind, even when he dwelt on their
imperfections. In a word, he was a typical literary man of the
better kind, as well as a true mystic.
We are told elsewhere that his works, and especially the earliest
in time, were the fruit of his affectionate attachment to man,
and that as regards Des Errears et de la Verite, being concerned
only with making war on materialistic philosophy, he could not
permit the reader to see precisely where he was being led,
because it would have set him at once in opposition, "the
Scriptures having fallen into such discredit among men."
(1a) It follows not only that they are not quoted in the work;
but that Christ Himself is referred to in a veiled manner, as the
Active and Intelligent Cause, the Agent, Guide of Man, etc. It
would be easy to enumerate other points, showing that
Saint-Martin's first work was schemed and excogitated and written
from has own basis, under one reserve only, that the root-matter
of its doctrine is presented as coming from a secret source, that
he was under pledges concerning it and that owing to these a
reservation was imposed upon him, so that his elucidations could
be carried only to a certain point. Here is a clear issue, and as
regards the source itself we are not in doubt concerning it,
since the year 1899, when Martmes de Pasqually's important Traite
de la Reintegration des Etres was published for the first time in
France. It is practically possible to check every point of
reticence registered by Saint-Martin and to see what lies behind
it by reference to this treatise, it being understood that
Pasqually on his own part derived from other teachers, to us
unknowns with whom he seems to have been in personal
communication, but whether in the body or out of the body we
cannot tell.
Having presented the literary history of Des Erreurs in this
manner, I have now to contrast with it the counter-view put
forward by Dr. Papus on the alleged authority of his Martinistic
archives. He affirms, (1) that the book Des Erreurs was due
almost entirely to an "invisible origin"; (2) that the
being whom in 1895 he had certified as "always designated
under the enigmatic name of La chose" was called the Unknown
Philosopher; (3) that it was he who gave forth the work as
regards the major part; (4) that he dictated 166 cahiers
d'instruction; (5) that some of these were transcribed by
Saint-Martin; (6) that the "Unknown Philosopher" gave
orders for Saint-Martin to assume this name; and that (7) the
said "Agent" himself destroyed about eighty cahiers in
1790 to prevent them falling into the hands of Robespierre's
emissaries, "who were making unheard-of efforts to acquire
them." It follows that Saint- Martin has given an altogether
misleading account of his first book, and that in spite of its
strong and prevailing personal note it cannot be called his work.
I have, however, collated his statements, and those who know him
are likely to prefer his version of the matter to archives
largely unpublished and not available for inspection, as Dr.
Papus refers expressly (1a) to documents reserved for the sole
use of the directing Committee at the head of his Supreme
Council. When, therefore, he states further that the archives
include various sheets of instructions communicated by "the
Unknown Agent" and annotated by the hand of Saint Martin we
have to regard it in the light of later revelations supplied by
the President of the Martinist Order, remembering that in 1899 he
promised to produce proofs in a volume devoted to the mystic.
That volume appeared in 1902 and contained fifty unpublished
letters of Saint-Martin, to some of which I have referred. They
are prefaced by a biographical summary written around the
documents. In neither one nor the other is any ray of light cast
upon the previous claims: they are indeed the subject of allusion
only in a single sentence. But we obtain unexpected enlightenment
in other respects. Whereas there is no evidence whatever of
communications dictated by the Unknown Agent during the life of
Pasqually or for over ten years after his death, we are told by
Dr. Papus, though there is no allusion to the fact in
Saint-Martz's letters, that in 1785, the Agent in question, who
seems to have remained in abeyance since the death of the Grand
Sovereign, began to manifest at Lyolls, where he dictated
"nearly one hundred folios," being those precisely of
which the majority were burned in 1790. The archives of the
Order, it is added, include the bulk of those that were saved. In
place, moreover, of leaving seen, transcribed and annotated a
mass of written instructions prior to 1785, we are told only of
teachings that are likely to have been "heard" and to
have been incorporated into his work by the author of Des
Erreurs.
It will be seen that the ground vs changed completely and that we
are getting nearer to the probable facts of the case. I do not
doubt that Willermoz and his circle received psychic
communications in one or another psychic condition, induced by
prolonged operations inspired by that intent, or with the aid of
"lucids," the intervention of whom is admitted. (2a) I
do not doubt that they were reduced into writing, and as the news
of what was takings place brought Saint-Martin to Lyons with all
possible speed, it is certain that he read, he may well have
transcribed and annotated, but all this was years subsequently to
the publication of Des Erreurs et de la Verite. I am preferring
no charge whatever against Dr. Papus, who sealed a laborious life
by a heroic death in the cause of the sick and wounded during the
Great War. We were, moreover, personally acquainted, and our
relations were always cordial. But he was unfortunately a most
inaccurate writer, and the present monograph might be extended to
twice its size if I analysed the errors which fill his three
books dealing with Martinistic subjects. As regards the archives,
he tells us in 1895 that he had been permitted to see those which
were in the possession of a certain M. Cavernier and had
transcribed some of them, devoting one week to the task. (1a) In
1899 it looks as if some originals had come into his possession,
though he does not explain how. I conceive that in this year he
was in confusion as to the dates, extent and precise nature of
the psychic communications. By 1902 he had made better progress
with them and modified his affirmations accordingly, but without
overtly withdrawing anything. I conceive that in this manner the
question may be permitted to rest, unless and until the present
custodians of the archives may decide to proceed further with the
work of their publication. It seems to me that I have adopted a
reasonable and middle ground which accounts for the facts without
accusing anyone. Under the aegis of Pasqually the Rite of the
Elect Priesthood was one of occult instruction as well as occult
practice and the pageant - such as it may have been - of
cumulative Grades. The teaching was of course under pledges, and
that part of it which Saint-Martin felt permitted to unfold was
put forward in his first book. La chose may refer to Pasqually's
Guide in the unseen, howsoever communication was established
-supposing that Papus is correct in his understanding of this
term. But the pledges may have covered also instruction from
other sources, the "Predecessors" about whom Pasqually
we ote to Willermoz on April 13, 1768. (1a) I take it that the
sum of instruction received from all sources is enshrined in the
Grand Sovereign's Treatise on Reintegration.
We have seen that it is reflected also into the first work of
Saint-Martin, as through the alembic of an original mind,
disposed already to the higher elections of the human soul. A
work of collation would bear this fact in mind, but there is no
opportunity to attempt it in the present place. Saint-Martin's
theory of good and evil is based on the doctrine of two unequal
principles, between which there is no co-operation and no
analogy. Of these two the inferior became evil by the sole act of
its own will, being one of opposition to the Eternal Will of
Goodness, wherein is essential unity. Man in his primal estate is
the most ancient of all beings in that which is understood as
Nature, but he was the last which entered into its scheme. He
came forth from the centre, that is to say, from the Divine
Goodness, but abode in the presence thereof, and his function was
intended to be that of leading all things back into unity. But he
fell from this high estate, was deprived of all his ancient
rights, while another Agent was commissioned to take his place.
This Agent is the Active and Intelligent Cause, and thereunto, as
the Great Chief and Guide, is committed the order of the
universe. The inference is that this order was intended
originally to have been in the hands of man until ad that is in
separation shall have been reconciled with its one and only
source. It is to be inferred that He or That which has been
called to rule in substitution for man has become the Leader into
unity, otherwise the Reconciler and Repairer, while His most
important charge since that which is termed the Fall is the
reconciliation of our fallen race. We have passed from unity into
separation by the work of our own will, have renounced our own
vocation and forfeited all our titles; but He who repairs
restores, in virtue of a capacity for restoration which has
always remained with us. It follows that at the time of
reintegration the estate of man will be in virtual unity smith
that of the Repairer, Whose true name is Christ, whereas
Saint-Martin says that in respect of our potencies we are all
Christs. (1a) Saint-Martin's expositions are like Craft
Freemasonry, "veiled in allegory and illustrated by
symbols." The nature of the Fall is clouded in this manner,
for it is said that man descended into the region of fathers and
mothers, otherwise into the circle of physical generation, in
place of those generations which are spiritual. It is a parable
of original unity and subsequent divorce, of the separation
between subject and object, or of the lover and beloved in
another form of imagery. Now, the way of division is the way of
errors, but that of truth is the way of union, or this at least
is how I understand Saint-Martin in the testimonies which he
bears to reality. In a sense his first work is de omnibus rebus,
but here is the root of all. Having regard to its suggestive
presentation, to its originality of thought and style, and - not
least of all - to its studied reservations and allusions to a
hidden source of knowIedge, I can understand its extraordinary
effect upon prepared minds of France in the year 1776.
WE have seen that Saint-Martin completed his literary
experiment in the early part of 1774, and in the autumn of that
year he paid a short visit to Italy, in the company of a brother
of Willermoz. They returned apparently to Lyons, where
Saint-Martin must have been occupied for some time in seeing his
work through the press. It appeared in 1775 under the pseudonym
of "the Unknown Philosopher," and bearing the imprint
of Edinburgh, which, however, must be understood as Lyons. We do
not know when he left that city, but he was in Paris at the end
of July, at Lyons again in the autumns at Tours on a flying
visit, and then at Bordeaux in 1776. He had returned to Paris in
March 1777. Pasqually had died at Port- au-Prince on September
20, 1774, having nominated Caignet de Lestere as his successor,
he also being resident in the West Indies. The Temples of the
Elect Priesthood were left to their own devices, and the mighty
pageant of the Strict Observance drew several under that
obedience. Willermoz becames - as stated previously - Grand Prior
of Auvergne, and having profited nothing in attempting to follow
Pasqually's instructions concerning Ceremonial Magic, he was
presumably more and more immersed in Masonry, especially its High
Grades. Whatever sympathy may have existed originally between him
and Saint-Martin when they were merely correspondents - their
paths were now dividing, and the born mystic was disposing of the
occult yoke placed upon him by his early Master. There is
evidence of strained relations when Saint- Martin wrote from
Paris on JuIy 30, 1775, to dissuade WilIermoz from supposing that
he was seeking the latter's conversion to his own views or was
presuming to pronounce judgment upon him. At the same time
certain matters, the nature of which does not emerge in the
letter, made it necessary for the peace of both that he should no
longer be a guest of has friend, though for the sake of the Order
and its - members he must return to Lyons and remain there a
given time. It should not appear, in other words, that there was
estrangement between himself and Willermoz. When, therefore, he
took a lodging in isolation, it would be explained that he was
following up chemical experiments. Whether the device served its
purpose we do not know, but after it reached a term the two
correspondents do not seem to have met one another for ten years.
They continued to write occasionally, and they remained friends.
It has been suggested that Des Erreurs filled the purse of Saint-
Martin, but the evidence of his improved position cannot be
accounted for by reference to that source its considerable
measure of success notwithstanding. On the contrary, there are
indications that he was on better terms with his father, and I
infer that thenceforward he was not without modest means. It has
been suggested also that the authorship of the book was kept a
profound secret. this is unlikely in the nature of things, for it
was obviously well known at Lyons prior to publication. It has
been said by one of his biographers that he "became known
widely and was in request everywhere." His own memorial
notes bear witness to the distinguished circle of his
acquaintance, and so also do his letters. It is unnecessary to
labour the point, and as, for the rest, his life in social and
intellectual circles during the seven years between 1775 and 1782
has left little trace behind it, I pass on to the latter date, to
which his second book belongs. In one of those unconverted
intimations which seem to open for a moment his whole heart of
purpose, Saint-Martin says that his work has its fount and course
in the Divine.(1a) He is alluding to work of life rather than
books, but it is true of all that he wrote, and the Tableau
Naturel des Rapports qui existent entre Dieu, I'Homme et Univers
was assuredly undertaken for the justification by means of their
unfoldment of the ways of God to man. It was written at Paris, as
he tells us, partly in the Luxembourg at the house of the
Marquise de Lusignan and partly in that of the Marquise de Ia
Croix. (1a) Publication took place in two parts appearing, as
previously, in one volume elated 1782 - at the symbolical
Edinburgh, which on this occasion is more likely to mean Paris
than Lyons though the latter place is understood by
bibliographers. We have seen that Des Erreurs confessed to
recurring reservations, and it has all the atmosphere of a
truncated document issued from a Temple of the Mysteries, or at
least a Secret College. The - Natural Scheme of Correspondences,
on the surface, withholdi nothing, yet it adopts another air of
mystery. The entirely anonymous publishers state in a prefatory
note (1) that they received the MS. from an unknown person; (2)
that it had numerous marginal additions in- a different hand; (3)
that they seemed different from the rest of the work; and (4)
that in printing they had been placed in quotation commas, to
distinguish them from the rest of the text. When tased on the
subs ject by Baron de Liebistorf, Saint-Martin admitted (1) that
the passages referred to were his; (2) that the publisher
regarded them as out of keeping with the rest of the work; (3)
that he gave the explanation which he did to prepare readers; and
(4) that he was allowed to have his way. It happens that the
paragraphs in quotations are the most enigmatical parts of the
work, and suggest derivation from Pasqually's occult
instructions; it happens also that Saint-Martin was replying to a
correspondent who was not initiated; and if, therefore, what he
says does not quite cover the facts, we may take it as the best
that he could do without discovering his source. In any case, the
paragraphs were written - i.e. expressed - by himself, and, for
the rest, their consequence is not in proportion to their
obscurity.
The Tableau compares the universe to a great temple: "the
stars are its lights, the earth is its altar, all corporeal
beings are its holocausts, and man, who is priest of the Eternal,
offers the sacrifices." It follows from the logic of the
symbolism that he himself is the chief holocaust, and this must
be the sense in which it is said also that the universe is
"like a great fire lighted since the beginning of things for
the purification of all corrupted beings." Finally, it is
"a great allegory or fable which must give place to a grand
morality." When it is affirmed elsewhere that the external
world is illusory, the reference presumably is to its surface
sense, apart from the inward meaning. God is the meaning and God
the grand morality; creation is not merely His visible sign, but
a channel through which His thoughts are communicated to
intelligent beings. Here is the only mode of communication for
fallen man, namely, through signs and emblems. But these and the
whole signifying universe are earnests of God's love for
corrupted creatures and endence that He is at work unceasingly
"to remove the separation so contrary to their
felicity." As it is certain that He does not world in vain,
it follows that a day will come when there shall be no
separateness thenceforward. So does the end emerge with all true
thought implying - when it does not express - the doctrine of
unity, all true paths being paths that lead thereto, and God
Himself - One, Immutable and Eternal - the Witness from
everlasting to this our end of being. Here is the Great Work, and
it is to be performed "by restoring in our faculties the
same law, the same order, the same regularity by which all beings
are directed in Nature," or, in other words, by acting no
longer in our own name, but in that of the living God. It is a
work of the will in its redirection, for this is "the agent
bar which alone man and every free being can efface within them
and round them the traces of error and crime. The revindication
of the will is therefore the chief work of all fallen creatures.
The same Iesson is conveyed in symbolical language when it is
said that "the object of man on earth is to employ all
rights and powers of his being in rarefying as far as possible
the intervening media between himself and the true Sun, so that -
the opposition being practically none there may be a free
passage, and that the rays of light may reach him without
refraction." It will be seen that, as in Des Erreurs, the
instrument by which we fall is that-also by which we must rise:
the evil in man originated in the will of man, and thereby it
must be stamped out His "crime" is defined as "the
abuse of the knowledge he possessed concerning the union of the
principle of the universe with the universe." His penalty
was the privation of this knowledge. The definition is dogmatic,
and it is obvious that Saint-Martin can throw no light on the
real nature of the alleged knowledge: otherwise he must have
undone the crime in his own person. He is least convincing when
discussing the legendary Fall, and most when conveying his own
thoughts apart from any formal system. When he tells us that
truth is in God, that it is written in all about us, that its
messages are meant for our reading, that the light within leads
to the light without; that the principle of being and of life is
within us, that it cannot perish, that the regeneration of our
"virtues" is possible; and that we can ascend to a
demonstration of the Active and Invisible Principle, from which
the universe derives its existence and its Iaws: we are then in
the presence of the mystic who is speaking on the warrants of his
proper insight
AFTER the publication of Le Tableau Naturel Saint-Martin
remained less or more at Pares, and his intermittent
correspondence with Willermoz is at times scarcely intelligible
in the absence of the latter's communications. Willermoz
evidently was passing through a strenuous period, connected
perhaps with embroilments consequent on the Masonic Convention of
Wilhelmsbad, held in 1782, and the fate of the Strict Observance.
There is one allusion which suggests vaguely the his torical
transformation of that Rite at Lyons prior to 1778, and the
creation thereby of the Knights Beneficent of the Holy City. But
there is no certainty on the subject, and for the rest we learn
only of Saint-Martin's brief interest in the discovery of Mesmer,
hts con nection with a society instituted by that great comet of
a season, and his presence at certain cures operated magnetically
by Puysegur. A single remark informs us that he would take no
part in the Convention of Paris, summoned by the Rite of the
Philalethes. We reach in this manner the month of April, 1785,
when Saint Martin had received such news from Willermoz that in
his reply of the 29th (1) he expresses his rapture on learning
that the sun has risen on Israel; (2) he affirms that the man so
chosen is for him henceforward a man of God whom he will venerate
as the anointed one of the Saviour; (3) he entreats him to pardon
whatever wrongs he may be thought to have committed against him
on his own part; (4) he ascribes all differences which have
arisen between them to his own ignorance (5) he condemns himself
for his temerity in having published anything; ( 6) he asks
Willermoz to intercede for him with something which appears to be
called La chose, whose place he has taken unasked; (7) he prays
to be enlightened on the faults of his own heart the errors of
his mind and of his works, (8) he places himself under has orders
and terms him has master, holy friend, father in God and Christ
Jesus.
It looks evident in a word that Saint-Martin stood ready to set
aside all his previous views and inferentially those which had
always disposed him towards the inward way of the mystics rather
than that of his first Master What, therefore, had occurred ? I
have forestalled the event unavoidably in my third chapter.
According to Dr. Papus, the archives in his possession show that
after prolonged failure Willermoz reached the end of his labours,
that he obtained "phenomena of the highest importance,"
which culminated in 1785, or "thirteen years after the death
of his initiator Martines de Pasqually." More explicitly,
the Being who is said to be described by Willermoz as "the
Unknown Agent charged with the work of initiation" -
otherwise, perhaps, La chose - materialised at Lyons and gave
instructions which - as we have seen were reduced to writing.
Occurrences of this kind being innumerable at the present day, I
suppose that we are not in a position to sympathize with the
raptures of Saint-Martin, his tears or his changing front. His
next letter, dated May 13, indicates that he had been reassured
and consoled by Willermoz, for which he praises God. He waits now
on a summons to Lyons, that he may see and hear for himself.
Meanwhile he and his correspondent will remain united through
time and eternity. On June 30 he has made preparations for the
journey and is looking to greet Willermoz soon after the letter
under that date. Of what followed we know little and nest to
nothing, except that fifteen months later Saint-Martin is at
Paris, bewailing his imprudence in having spoken too freely to
certain brethren and thus prejudiced the "enjoyments"
of has friend. (2a) In January, 1787, he is in London, where he
remained for some six months, making the acquaintance of William
Law and the astronomer Herschel, the Comte de Divonne, Dutens and
the Russian Prince Galitzin, with whom he was domiciled. It was
in London also, as he tells us, that he wrote his third book,
L'Homme de Desir, though it was not published till 1790, and then
at Lyons. It is important not only in itself, as one of
Saint-Martin's most inspired writings, but as showing beyond
debate that, whatever experiences had awaited him at Lyons, they
cooled the ardour kindled by their first indications, and he had
returned to his own path with an increased sense of declication.
I can say only that the hunger and thirst after God are in all
its pages. This is not, however, to suggest that he is denuded of
all interests in the Lyons phenomena: his only letter written to
Willermoz while in England offers a contrary indication; but the
interest appears detached.
In July, 1787, Saint-Martin passed through Paris on has way to
Amboise, where his father had been stricken with paralysis. In
September he was again at Lyons, but it was in the absence of
Willermoz. Thereafter he paid a second visit to Italy, visiting
Siena and Rome. In the early part of 1788 Papus reports that the
apparitions of the Agent had ceased, according to a letter of
Willermoz. (1a) In April of that year Saint-Martin is at Paris
and about to visit his father, who is still alive, at the native
place of both. In June he proceeded to Strasbourg, where he
resided for three years, the happiest of all his life. As I said
long ago: "It was here, under the auspices of Rodolphe
Salzmann, also mystically disposed, and of Madame de Boecklin,
his most intimate and cherished woman friend, that he made his
first acquaintance with the writings of Jacob Bohme; here he
became intimate with the Chevalier de Silferhielm, a nephew of
Swedenborg; and all his horizon widened under the influence of
the Teutonic theosopher. On December 16, 1789, he asked Willermoz
whether he could participate in the "initiation"
attached to the Regime Rectifie without belonging to its
Symbolical Lodge. I do not think that Papus knew what this meant,
and therefore wisely offered no word of comment. But the Regime
Ecossais Ancien et Rectifie was the Strict Observance as
transformed at Lyons and ratified at Wilhelmsbad; more especially
it was the Craft Degrees of this Rite and their supplement the
Grade of St. Andrew. Beyond it were the novitiate and chivalry of
the Holy City, and these again beyond were two final Grades,
which I do not propose to specify by name, as they were and are
in the hiddenness. It is to these that Saint-Martin refers under
the vague title of "initiations." He did not apparently
get a straight answer, and on July 4, 1790, he asked Willermoz to
advise the proper quarter of his resignation from the Interior
Order - i.e., the novitiate and chivalry - and from all lists and
registers in which his name may have been inscribed since 1785.
He points out that in the spirit he had never been integrated
therein. His intention apparently was to remain among the Coens -
i.e., the EIect Priesthood - but how nominally we call imagine
from the utter detachment of his letter, (1a) the references to
his simple mode of life, and above all his closing words, in
which he registers a hope that he has separated for ever from
those complicated paths which had always wearied him. It is an
eloquent commentary on the manifestations of Lyons, the dictated
instructions of La chose, the astral travellings of D'Hauterive,
and the clairvoyances of the "lucids" who seem to have
assisted at the operations. There are no further letters from
Saint-Martin to Willermoz, and already during this year, in some
early month, the Agent had received "on demand" and had
destroyed "more than eighty folios" of his dictated
instructions, the same not having been " published," as
Willermos states in a letter quoted by Papus.
It follows that ''the Unknown Agent charged with the work of
initiation" had undone that work, and whether or not, as
suggested- but Papus seems doubtful - the manifestations
continued at intervals till 1796, it would seem that there is no
record of proceedings, and the whole thing sagged out. The Elect
Priesthood missed its mark; with all his ceremonial, all his
occult powers, PasqualIy scored a failure, and the Master who
emerged from the unseen, carrying such high ascribed warrants,
permitted himself, through sheer lack in resources, to be
circumvented by as the emissaries of Robespierre." Meanwhile
the star of Saint-Martin's influence grew from more to more.
L'Homme de Desir was reprinted several times, and in the highest
circles of society, at Strasbourg and Paris, in the palace of the
Duchesse de Bourbon, amidst the convulsions of the revolutions he
taught the way of the mystics.
IT was at Strasbourg and, I think, towards the end of his
sojourn in this city of blessed memories that Saint-Martin wrote
another of his most suggestive treatises, Le Nouvel Homme,
"the aim of which," as he tells us, "is to
describe what we should expect in regeneration." (1a) It
presents three epochs of symbolism: the first corresponds to the
history of Israel, regarded as that of universal election, man's
own nature being the Promised Land, whence it is necessary to
cast out the wicked and idolatrous nations that have ruled
therein, after which the altars of the Lord must be set up
instead and the Law proclaimed by the higher part of our nature.
The second epoch is that of the Christ-Life, which must be
conceived and born within us for the work of our redemption. All
stages of the Divine Life in Palestine are marshalled to
illustrate the story of the New Man from the moment of His birth
within us to that of mystical death, and from the descent into
the underworld to the last and greatest mystery on the Mountain
of Ascension. To the Second Advent belongs the third epoch of
symbolism, being that of the Apocalypse, the new heaven and the
new earth declared within us, the tabernacle of God with men, the
Celestial Jerusalem built up into our spiritual being.
The sojourn at Strasbourg came to an end in 1791, and for perhaps
a year Saint-Martin was chiefly at Paris, where he wrote his neat
book, entitled Ecce Homo; "to forewarn people against the
wonders and prophecies of the time," to indicate the
"degree of abasement" into which man has fallen and of
which the passion for lower marvels, like those of somnambulism,
appears to be the prime example. The thesis in this sense is a
strange but pregnant commentary respecting the transmutation of
interests on the part of one who for a moment was integrated in a
school of Mesmer and was a friend or fellow-worker of Puysegur.
Ecce Homo was partly written as a counsel for the Duchesse de
Bourbon and very likely in her own house. It appeared prior to
Le. Nouvel Homme, though composed subsequently: both worlds,
however, were published in 1792, the Reign of Terror
notwithstanding. Saint-Martin was still in Paris during that
dread ordeal. "The streets near the house I was in were a
field of battle; the house itself was a hospital where the
wounded were brought and, moreover, was threatened every moment
with invasion and pillage. In the midst of all this I had to go,
at the risk of my life, to take care of my sister, half a league
from my dwelling." (1a) It is to be inferred from a later
record that the "dwelling" was that of the Duchesse.
There is no space here to speak of Saint-Martin's political
theories, of his feelings towards the French Revolution, of
certain things without importance or consequence which occurred
to him therein. I am concerned only with the deeper issues of his
life and thoughts. A writer on errors and truths had obviously
something to say on the basis of governments, the authority of
sovereigns and on jurisprudence, while a searcher of religion and
theosophy, who had passed through the world-crisis at the end of
the eighteenth century at its very heart and centre, could
neither fail to have his part therein nor to leave us reflections
thereon. We have Philosophical and Religious Considerations on
the French Revolution, Light on Human Association and a few other
pamphlets which do not call to be named.
Saint-Martin had also some actinties of another kind imposed upon
him, as, e.g., when he was called to the Ecole Normale,
instituted to train teachers for public instruction. These things
did not last and left no mark behind them. In September, 1792,
the health of has father called him again to Amboise, where he
remained for a year, or a considerable time after the father's
death. We hear of him then at Petit Bourg, a country house of the
Duchesse de Bourbon, and afterwards at Paris till the spring of
1794, when "a decree against the privileged and proscribed
classes, amongst which it was his lot to be born, enforced his
return to Amboise till it was cancelIed in his respect in
January, 1795, when the.work of L'Ecole Normale brought him back
to the capital for a period. His time appears to have been
divided between Paris and his native town till the end of 1799,
and I mention this year because on December 24 Saint-Martin lost
so much by the death of the Baron Kirchberger de Liebistorf, a
kindred spirit with whom he had maintained for five years what I
described long ago as "the most memorable, the most
beautiful, the most fascinating of all theosophical
correspondences. (1a) It became available in English so far back
as 1863, but the edition has been out of print for decades, and I
question whether there could be a better gift than an annotated
translation at the present day by one who knows Saint-Martin, his
work and has period. It contains the true marrow, spirit and
quintessence of the French mystic, and has been referred to often
in my notes.
His devotion to Jacob Bohme was the chief mental characteristic
of his later life; it is ever present in his correspondences
above described, but I have never been able to see that it
changed his own views: it may be true to Say that it deepened
them, but he.was on sure mystic ground already before the
Teutonic theosopher gave him has own light.
I do not think that it would have helped him to alter for the
better one line of L'Homme de Desir, though he has left it on
record that in the light of Jacob Bohme he should have written Le
Nouvel Homme differently, or psrhaps not at all. In the year 1800
L'Esprit des Choses appeared at Paris in two volumes, with a
Latin epigraph on the title in which it was affirmed that
"man is the mirror of the totality of things."
Concerning this suggestive work Saint-Martin has offered three
points of information: (1) That it was projected originally under
the title of Natural Revelations, collected from original notes,
with additions thereunto; (2) that it embraces the whole circle
of things physical and scientific, spiritual and Divine; (3) that
it is a kind of introduction to the works of Jacob Bohme. The
last in its final reduction must be called indicative of
intention, and Saint-Martin, I do not doubt, was conscious that
his own intimations were in bonds of spiritual espousals with his
great German peer, but in their contributions to.the higher
literature of the soul there are no two mystics so utterly unlike
each other in all their former and modes. It is a question,
therefore, of penetrating below the surface, when that which we
reach is the heart of union common to all who have followed the
great quest of experience in God. It is certain that Saint-Martin
grew daily in the consciousness of such union with Bohme, and
when he continued in his own manner to deliver his own message it
seemed to him doubtless that he was, following the message of his
precursor. For L'Esprit des Choses, man is the organ of Divine
Order, man is the mirror of all things. Nature is in somnambulism
and we are involved therein, whence I suppose it may be inferred.
that she waits on our awaking and passes out of sleep in us.
These things and.many others are notions which were with
Saint-Martin from the beginning. Occasionally there are higher
and deeper things than those which we have heard previously, but
they are not of Bohme nor of any other than the French mystic
himself - as, e.g., that the soul becomes the Name of the Lord, .
and the Name is declared within it.
There.are practically no materials for the external life of
Saint- Martin after the year 1799; the Portrait Historique
tells.us practically nothing, and we know of him only by his
books. In the closing years of his life he was.working zealously
at translations of Bohme, Aurora, The Three Prfruciples, Forty
Questions and Threefold Idle of Man, but he. had made a beginning
much earlier. We are not.concerned with these versions, but Le
Ministere de l'Homme-Esprit, (1a) published in 1802, his last
original work, is in some respects the most important of all and
from his own-point of view was written more clearly than the
rest, though he felt its remoteness from common human notions and
human interests It has been held to illustrate his intention of
marrying his "first school" to the Teutonic theosopher,
but again the kind of marriage is that of the amity at the root
of all the great mystics and their great subjects. For the rest,
the book is built on the basis of his own anterior writings, the
substance of which he presents in the opening pages, as he gives
also a summary of Bohme and indicates unawares certain salient
points of doctrinal correspondence between the latter and
Martines de Pasqually exhibited in La Reintegration des Etres.
Apart from all systems and all authorities, the ministry is a
book of innumerable detached lights, some of which belong to the
order of first magnitude. It is possible to name only its
"intimations of immortality," of death and the gate of
life, of the path which is opened in regeneration, of spiritual
life and its communication, of the Sabbath attained by Nature,
the Sabbath of the soul and the Sabbath of the Word. There is
also the doctrine of the Eternal Word, as it passed through the
alembic of the French mystic's mind, its relation to the universe
and man, how it is the measure of all things and is the very Word
of Life, in opposition to that which Saint-Martin calls the Word
of Death.
The Ministry has been termed his swan's song, but it is rather
his last contemplation, in which he opened many wells of thought
and looked across many paths of vision. On January 18, 1803, he
recorded in his notes that this date completed his sixtieth year
and that it had opened to him a new world. "My spiritual
hopes proceed in growth continual. I advance, thanks be to God,
towards those great beatitudes which were shown forth to me long
ago, and shall crown all joys with which I have been encompassed
continually in my, earthly life." (1a) A note added in the
summer says that he had received certain warnings of a physical
enemy and thought that it would carry him of as it had done with
his father before him. He asked only the help of Providence, that
he might hold himself prepared for the event. (2a) On October 13,
1803, at Aulnay, near Sceaux, in the house of a friend - Comte
Lenoir La-Roche - after an apoplectic stroke, he passed
painlessly away in a final act of prayer.
IT will be seen that I have depended throughout on printed
documents, no others being avail able to research in England, but
that the sources of many which have been quoted are in the
archives of the Martinist Order. They would appear to form,
however, comparatively a small part of those which have been
certified as extant at different periods. We are told (1a) (1)
that thearchives of the Elect Priesthood were deposited in 1781
with Savalette de Langes, who was the President of the
Philalethes; (2) that after his death they were sold
indiscriminately, together with those of the Philalethes and the
Rite Ecossais Philosophique, and were purchased for next to
nothing by three Masonic Brethren, who returned them to the
proper quarters, two of them retaining these of the Elect
Priesthood, as they had been members of the Rite; (3) that this
restitution took place in 1806; (4) that the two custodians
delivered them in 1809 to another member, named Destigny, on his
return from St. Domingo,. he being a legatee of Pasqually, and
having otherwise a greater claim upon them; (5) that Destigny was
already in possession. of the surviving West Indian archives; (6)
that in 1812 his collection was enriched by those of the Orient
of Avignon, which had been taken into Italy prior to the
Revolution; (7) that the whole remained in his keeping till 1868,
when he transferred them to M. Villarial, a year before his
death, in whose possession they continued at least till the end
of 1899. They comprised the records of eleven Orients - otherwise
Lodges - of the Order, those of Leogana in the West Indies having
been lost in a fire, and those of Lyons having come into the
hands of Papus otherwise of the Martinist Order.
As regards-the archives of Lyons we are told by Papus whence and
how they or their transcripts were derived by him. His account
has been summarised in my second chapter. I have specified also
the documents in the hands of M. Matter's descendants, he being
himself a descendant of Rodolphe de Salzmann, whom I have
mentioned previously as one of the Strasbourg circle. They are
said to include the correspondence of.Saint-Martin with Salzmann
himself, with Mme de Boecklin, the Comte de Divonne. and others,
as also that of Salzmann. But there are owners of other
collections D'Effinger, Toumyer, Munier (1a) - who are not even
names to us. Of eech and all it has to be said that nothing has
been heard of them for over twenty years and that the Great War
has intervened. We have been promised for the same period a
Histoire Generale de l'Ordre des EIus Coens and a study of
Willermoz based on the archives of Lyons, but they have not
appeared and we are not likely to see them. In view of the wealth
of material it may well be that the definitive life of
Saint-Martin and of has earlier if not later concerns still
remains to be done. I have presented a mere outline, and in some
sense a supplement to my former extended work.
It remains to speak briefly of L'Ordre Martiniste. We learn from
Camille Flammarion that between 1860 and 1870 he was acquainted
with a litterateur named Henri Delaage, who is mentioned also by
Eliphas Levi; that he heard much from Delaage concerning M. de
Chaptal, his grandfather, who knew Saint-Martin, apparently
fairly well. (1a) These are the bare facts, to which it may be
added that at the beginning of his occult life Papus seemingly
got to know Delaage and received from him, some months before the
latter's death, what is termed a pauvre depot (2a), constitue par
deux lettres et quelques points in fact, the modern Martinist
cipher S I which is rendered Silencieux Inconnus, other wise the
Unknown Silent Ones. Delaage had written in his time two or three
occult books which were fantastic in matter and impossible in
style. They do not suggest his connection with any society for
the exposition of Saint-Martin's mystical teaching, either
secretly or in public, and so far as Papus is concerned he fails
to explain why the cipher was communicated or what it signified
to the previous custodian. It led him, however, to believe and
proclaim in terms of certitude that Saint-Martin had himself
initiated M. de Chaptal and to establish or reconstitute L'Ordre
Martintiste in 1884. (1a) Between 1887 and 1890 he produced
Rituals for the Order, arranged in three Degrees, which I have
praised on several occasions for their sincerity, simplicity and
reserve in respect of claims. They were termed (1) Associate, (2)
Initiated Martinist, and (3) Initiator, the lastes implied by its
title - conveying a licence for the propagation of the Order by
all who had attained this its highest rank. Every person who held
the Third Degree could thus constitute a new centre. The mode
adopted was usually that which is known technically as
"communication," that is to say, personally and not in
Lodge or Temple. To my certain knowledge reception was arranged
even by post. It is obvious that after this manner a vast
membership could be secured in a very short space, assuming any
reasonable zeal among the workers and something colourable or
attractive on which they could act. Moreover, there were no fees
of any kind. There is no question that L'Ordre Martiniste spread
rapidly in France, and in addition to the delegates constituted
automatically by the Third Degree there were Lodges in various
towns. There was membership also in other countries, England
itself not excepted, while the Order was specially successful in
North and South America. We hear also of propagation in Egypt and
even Asia.
In 1891 a Supreme Council was constituted at Paris and ruled the
whole Order. It became a centre also for numerous collateral
interests, all carefully organised, including esoteric groups and
Faculties of Science and Philosophy, which held examinations
apparently and granted degrees at their value. Papus was an
indefatigable worker, and before the century was out it must be
acknowledged that he was at the head of a movement which may be
almost called colossal in respect of its magnitude. The reasons
are not far to seek: it was a form of initiation and it made no
claim on Masonry; it receded both sexes; it had a distinct
religious side, apart from dogmata and - outside all sectarianism
it was in some sense a Christian thing. As such, it must have
appealed to multitudes in France who had lost faith in the Latin
Church and yet had spiritual interests. Moreover, it carried the
seals and talismans of occult sciences, which it claimed' to
teach and also to reconcile with the regnant science of the day.
As such, its apparent justifications, if not its warrants, were
in Spiritism, Psychical Research, the Schools of Nancy and
Salpetriere not to speak of the less recognized though not less
momentous school of Animal Magnetism. But having offered this
appreciation I have virtually set L'Ordre Martiniste at the poles
asunder from Saint- Martin the mystic. In late and early writings
Papus affirmed continually that when the disciple of Pasqually
followed his own path, having left that of his Master, he not
only established a Masonic Rite, as others had said previously,
but also an Order of his own which spread even into Russia. Now,
has so-called evidences are out of court in every case. I have
examined them long since and set them utterly aside: there is no
need to retrace the ground. The Masonic historians were
blundering over terms and titles when they foisted a Rite on
Saint-Martin, and Papus was reading in a glass of vision whence
saw the mystic at the head of an Order propagated like his own. I
leave it at this, though it is difficult to understand how he
could have deceived himself. He has not escaped criticism of a
rougher kind, but to me it seems that he had a constitutional
incapacity for pronouncing validly on questions of evidences and
that anything passed for proof in respect of has own bias.
The fact remains that in 1899 or thereabouts L'Ordre Martiniste
may be said to have reached its zenith, but it had sown, I think,
already the seeds of its own destruction. It had begun to
encroach on the Masonic field, and was approaching perilously the
position of an unauthorised aspect of the Craft. Practically the
entire branch of the Order in North America, extending to
thousands, broke away from the Supreme Council at Paris and
reincorporated independently on this account alone. A few only
continued under the old obedience, among others the novelist
Margaret B. Peeke, who was rewarded by Papus with the Grade of
Rose Crois. (1a) There are no statistics before me, but it seems
certain that in France - where Freemasonry, such as it is, must
be called exceedingly strong the course taken could have been
scarcely less than disastrous; yet it was not amended in
consequence. The years went on, and I think that L'Initiation, an
official Martinist publication, came to an end before the War.
But the Great War came, which broke up everything belonging to
occult interests of the organised kind. The Grand Master Papus
died in the course of it, in the heroism of a physician's
service. The peace of Versailles was at last signed, and at no
long time thereafter the old interests began to lift up their
heads: it seemed also as if the relased tension itself gave birth
automatically to new adventures by the score in thought and
dream. Occultism in Paris was characterized by activities of
every kind - new movements, new associations, new periodicals,
including many official organs for one or another dedication, but
most of them mushroom growths. We can imagine that L'Ordre
Martiniste did not remain in abeyance, but it seems now a shadow
of its former self, is split up by rival obediences and has
entered into union with decried Masonic Rites. Whether it will
emerge into clearer light no one remote from the centre can dare
to say, but to all appearance at Ieast its time is over. Once at
the head of most French movements of the occult kind, it is now
but one of a score; and I do not know in what sense the gracious
spirit of Saint-Martin can be said to abide therein. If ever a
time shall come when those who move in its circle and those who
rule at its centre will have realized that he left for ever the
occult and Masonic sanctuaries for the Church Mystic of Christian
Theosophy, they may find his directing light shining towards the
end of true Mysticism; but in the Orients of Memphis never, and
never in those of Mizraim, or in any substituted form of
Freemasonry which is without God in the world. Meanwhile I tend
to believe that men and women of spiritual mind in France, who
are not under the obedience of Rome, will remember Saint-Martin
as one who after his own manner belongs to that great chain which
began in the Christian world with Dionysius the Areopagite and
added link to link through all the ages subsequent.