THE STORY OF MODERN MARTINISM Inspired BY ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE

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Catégorie : THE STORY OF MODERN MARTINISM Inspired BY ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE

Publié le Dimanche, 13 Mars 2011 16:28

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THE FRENCH MYSTIC AND THE STORY OF MODERN MARTINISM

Inspired BY ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE

Chap I

"(...)As regards Martines de Pasqually and his Rite des Elus Coens, or Order of the Elect Coenhood, 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 knowledge 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 Coenhood 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."

Chap II

Détails

Catégorie : THE STORY OF MODERN MARTINISM Inspired BY ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE

Publié le Dimanche, 13 Mars 2011 16:30

Écrit par Super User

Affichages : 70

Chap II

"(...)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 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 coen, 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 coen, we know certainly about seven Grades, being (1) Apprentice Elect Coen; (2) Companion Elect Coen; (3) Particular Master Elect Coen; (4) Master Elect Coen; (5) Grand Master Coens, otherwise Grand Architects; (6) Grand Elects of Zerubbabel; and (7) a Grade of Reaux Croix, not otherwise and more fully particularized, though it is a subject of frequent allusion in the correspondence of Martines de Pasqually and Saint-Martin. In the year 1895 Papus, otherwise Dr. Gerard Encausse, testified that the "Rituals of the Elect Coens," with other numerous and important archives, had been transmitted as follows: (1) To J.B. Willermoz, a merchant of Lyons, circa 1772. 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 Lyon, 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 Reaux Croix 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 Coen. - The instruction of this Grade imparted perfect knowledge - en hypothesis - 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 Coen. - 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 Coen. 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 imprecise 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 Coen - 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 Coens, 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 there from 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 coen. 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 Reau Croix - particulars of which are wanting, as already seen, there being no Catechism extant. But the true Reau 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 glide, 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 Coen, (6) Companion Coen, (7) Master Coen, (8) Grand Master Architect. (1a) To these Ragon added a Grade of Knight Commander, (2a) which Papus seeks to identify with that of Reau Croix. 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 Saint-Martin 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 Reau 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 Reau 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 initiate G.R., to which I have alluded previously; of extended and reduced versions of some Grades; of Elect and Coen 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 Coen 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 Boehm 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 ground 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 we have good ground for accepting the view of Abbey 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 Coen; 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."