Palatine Chapter: Ordre de Rose-Croix d’Orient (RCO+)

Research Paper No. 1

Vernal Equinox 2017 Anno Domini+

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Editor's Note: After a long hiatus in publication, we are pleased to resume operations with the following original research paper by the Chevalier N:.M:.D:. which traces the mysterious filiation of the Rose Croix d'Orient and explores its profound  esoteric  and historical connections to the Elus Coens, the Primitive Rite of Narbonne, the Rite of Memphis and other Masonic and para-Masonic lineages.

Rose-Croix d’Orient:  the Magnum Rosarium & the Arcana Memphitica

by the Chevalier N:.M:.D:.

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The system of High Grade Masonry, from which our Antient and Primitive Rite derives its origin, had birth in this country before the establishment of Grand Lodges. In France it had developed, early last century, into several Rites which were distinguished as Primitive–notably the Rites of Primitive Philadelphes and Philalethes, which were the offspring of those of Martinez Paschalis, and Marquis de St. Martin, and which, with others, worked side by side with the Rites of Perfection and Knights of the Orient.--John Yarker, ‘The Kneph’ September 1^st. 1888.

Researches into the historical provenance of the filiation of the Rose-Croix d'Orient from its first appearance in French masonic texts around the 1830s lead tentatively to the conclusion that, while this mysterious confrerie may have preserved certain elements of  initiatory traditions from the ‘Perfect Brethren of Asia/ Brotherhood of St John in Asia & Europe’, another related lineage may be refracted from the Rite Primitif de Narbonne founded by the Marquis Francois de Chefdebien d’Armissan in 1779 (who was originally of Breton extraction, of the family name Penmadou). Specifically it seems to present an attenuated prolongation of the highest and inner degrees comprising 4 chapters culminating in the Rose-Croix du Grand Rosaire which was consecrated to the quest of the ‘occult sciences…ontology, pneumatology, the rehabilitation and reintegration of the spiritual man to his primitive rank and privileges’. The Rose-Croix du Grand Rosaire of the Rite Primitif de Narbonne was essentially Martinesiste/Martinist in inspiration and sought to perpetuate the work of the Elus Coens following the death of the chief of the Order, Martines de Pasqually – furthermore the Marquis de Chefdebien was himself an initiate of the Elus Coens and also of the Rite de Philalethes established by Savalettes de Lange as a kind of esoteric research lodge into which many Coens were initiated after the Souverain Maitre’s passing to the Great Orient in 1772 and which inherited the archives, doctrines and theurgical operative secrets of the Order of Elus Coens. Furthermore the Marquis de Chefdebien, in addition to being an ardent Elu Coen, cultivated  initiatic associations in alchemical-masonic circles of 18^th century Prague and also studied esoteric lore from Syrian, Armenian, Greek and Coptic sources which were incorporated into the Rose-Croix du Grand Rosaire. R. Ambelain in his book on the Rose-Croix and Knights Templar is fairly straightforward about the Rose-Croix of the Rite Primitifstating that ‘this particular lineage has given us what in some occult masonic circles is called the ‘Rose-Croix d’Orient’’which he himself received through George Lagreze. After the death of the Marquis de Chefdebien in 1814 the lineage and regime of the Rose-Croix du Grand Rosaire and the Rite Primitif de Narbonne was continued by some members of his lodge and so we find the earliest mentions of the mysterious Rose-Croix d’Orient in this milieu in the 1830s by Ragon and other writers on esoteric masonry. As an offshoot of the Elus Coen and the Rite de Philalethes the Rose-Croix d’Orient conserves the doctrine and theurgy of Reintegration inherited from Martines de Pasqually which is visible in its teachings and underpins its esoteric world-view. Thus we might appropriately define this filiation as the ‘Magnum Rosarium’ of the Rose-Croix d’Orient in the light of its roots in the milieu of Martinesiste ‘Vraie Maconnerie’ in 18^thcentury France. The elusive rumours of the mysterious ‘Brethren of the Rosy-Cross of the East’ and their chivalric manifestation as the fabled Johannite Templar-knighthood of the Chevaliers de Palestine ,  emerge from a quite complex web of interactions following in the wake of the demise of the original Order of Chevalier-Macons Elus Coens de l’Universin the latter 1770s…

At the disintegration of the Elus Coens in the late 1700s the esoteric legacy of Martines de Pasqually was transmitted via 3 channels: (1). The conservation of the doctrine of the Reaux Croix by Willermoz in the Secret Class of Profes andGrand Profes of the Chevaliers Beinfaisant de la Citee Sainte within the Regime Ecossais Rectifie, which was J.B Willermoz’s reform of the German ‘Rite of the Strict Observance’ announced in 1785 at the Convent of Wilehmsbad. (2) the theosophic teachings expressed by L.C de Saint-Martin, in particular his emphasis upon an interiorised or intra-cardial theurgy comprehending  certain key doctrines of Jacob Boehme (3) the last Substitut appointed by Martines de Pasqually, Sebastien de Las Casas, formally dissolved the Order of Elus Coens in 1781 and discreetly advised the Coens to become affiliated with the Rite de Philalethes, a 12-degree esoteric research lodge under the mastership of Savalette de Lange, and officially transferred all the Coen archives to the Lodge of the Philalethes. From the Philalethes, who still worked theurgical operations according to the Elu Coen way and conserved Martines de Pasqually’s doctrine of Reintegration, along with alchemical, theosophic and hermetic pursuits, derived the Rite Primitif de Narbonne in 1779, organised as the Lodge of the Philadelphes de Narbonne by the Marquis de Chefdebien, organised along a similar degree structure as the Philalethes, but with the highest initiatic deposit transmitted within the Chapter of the Rose Croix du Grand Rosaire (possibly conceived of as corresponding to the Elus Coens degree of Reau-Croix).  

It is to be noted that a significant connection with the Elus Coens is represented by the figure of Bacon de la Chevalerie,  who had previously been appointed Substitut Universel of the Order by Martines de Pasqually, who was an initiate of theRite Primitif de Narbonne and participated in the ‘Tres Reverende Loge de Saint Jean’ in 1780. Savalettes de Lange was also active in that lodge of the Rite Primitif convened at the ‘Orient of Narbonne’ and it is a matter of record that the Rite Primitif de Narbonne and the Rite de Philalethes issued a formal concordat in 1784-1785 affirming that their aims, means and objects were fundamentally and essentially one and the same.

The structure of the Rite Primitif de Narbonne was as follows:

1^st Class } 3 Blue Craft Degrees

2^nd Class } Maître Parfait, Elu et Architecte.

                     Sublime Ecossais.

                     Chevalier de l'Epée et de l'Orient et Prince de Jérusalem

3^rd Class }1er Chapitre symbolique   : (Knight Sovereign Prince of the Rose-Croix)

                2° Chapitre historique   : (Rose-Croix of the Round Table)

                3° Chapitre philosophique: (Rose-Croix of the Emerald Tablet)

                4° Chapitre of the ‘Fraternité Rose+Croix de Grand Rosaire’

                    (‘Freres Rose-Croix de la Table du Banquet des Sages, Mages, Theosophes’.)

The Rite Primitif de Narbonne was in fact a kind of high aristocratic ‘family lodge’ consecrated to perpetuating the Martinesiste esoteric program, established by the Marquis de Chefdebien, his father and five brothers. The initiates of the Rite Primitif consisted largely of Languedocian nobility, several of them members of the Knights of Malta – its doctrine was integrally Martinesiste, addressing the initiate as ‘Homme de Desir’ and dedicated to the ideal and  vision of Reintegration, transmitted in 10 degrees representing the sacred Denary.

One internal manuscript evokes a cosmic eschatological vision of the Order’s adepts who prophesied the ‘august and solemn day when matter having terminated its course, and this man finished his test, both will be shaken, the sea overpass its limits, the planets frozen in a  conjunction of disorder, the elements mingled and confounded will return forever into the night of chaos, the word of that which is, re-entering into the immeasurable vault of the abyss, and the temporal universe consumed by a deluge of fire, will vanish into the bosom of Immensity.’ Here, as Benjamin Fabre in1908 noted:

‘ the marquis, reiterates, in covert terms, dogmas bearing the imprint of the Kabbalistic system of the Jewish Martinez de Pasqualis, arranged by d’Hauterive, Savalette de Lange, Duchanteau  and Saint-Martin’.

Furthermore in keeping with the term Primitif  the idea was to re-connect with the primordial bases of the esoteric Tradition, whilst uniting the chivalric initiations of Arthurian lore and Graal-cycles with the Graeco-Egyptian ‘visio smaragdina’ of Thrice-Great Hermes, under the Theosophic aegis of a kind of ‘Universal Martinism’. The Order was said to be rooted in the legacy of mysterious magisterial adepts, the so-called Freres Anciens, and via these ‘Unknown Superiors’ are traced roots of the initiatic doctrine of Reintegration, extending far back into the primaeval world of distant antiquity. The initiatic mysteries of the Rite Primitif are said to originate from initiatic sanctuaries in Syria, Egypt and the East, ‘in the mysterious circles traced at the foot of the Blue Mountains’ where the Freres Anciens beheld, near the source of the Nile, the mystical sepulture of the ‘Grand Copt’ under his black veil and penetrated into secret crypts, crowned with laurels, presenting astonished mortals with the three keys which had been confided to them. ‘Finally, near the fortunate banks of the river of delights, exists eternally for them the Orient of all Orients’, the original centre from which the primitive and primordial gnosis emanated in the most archaic eras of the dawn of man. It is a dream-like, phantastick vision of the primal sanctuaries of occult science conveyed through the refined orientalist sensibility of 18^thcentury French Romantic esoterics.

As always in these masonic and para-masonic milieu certain key-words are coded signifiers: ‘Primitif’ indicating a vision of esoteric primordiality, Orient de tous les Orients symbolizing the imaginal domain of theosophic illumination and eternal gnosis…in the principal metaphysical sense the key-word Primitif is employed to denote the original paradaisical state of Adam, the Homme-Dieu. As a text of the ‘Rite Primitif’ states regarding man’s initiatic passage through the Mysteries: ‘..the instructions, the emblems and the allegories are the more properly the means to call him back to the means for his reintegration.’

The Rite Primitif de Narbonne and its inner chapter of the Rose-Croix du Grand Rosaire suffered the destruction of its archives during the turmoil of the August Revolution in 1792 but it seems possible that during the early 19^th century initiates associated with the Marquis de Chefdebien, who died in 1814, sought to implant this initiatory Martinesiste deposit within the fringes of mystical or occult Masonry. Thus we find Marconis de Negre in the 1830s citing the Rose-Croix d’Orient as the mysterious association which had conserved the arcane knowledge and acted as bridge between East and West. It may be opined that certain  initiates of the Rite Primitif preserved and relayed, it may be in the regimes of Egyptian Masonry, the initiatory degree of the Rose-Croix du Grand Rosaire under the form of the Rose-Croix d’Orientduring the 1800s-1830s.

This chain of Martinesiste, chivalric and esoteric masonic filiations in the 1760s to the 1800s we might speculatively trace thus:

Elus Coens > Philalethes> Rite Primitif de Narbonne> Rose-Croix du Grand Rosaire> Rose-Croix d’Orient

It has to be said that this impulse emerging from the Martinesiste milieu in the post-Coen era inevitably  combines its consistent theosophic-esoteric chain of transmission with expression from the Parfait Initiates d’Egypte, Chevaliers du Pyramids and Saint Jean Ecossais du Sphynx and the whole exotic panoply of multifarious and phantastical grades practised in ‘Egyptian Masonry’ which by the late 19^th century is dominated by occultist preoccupations typical of the ‘Belle Epoque’. It seems to be just after Marquis de Chefdebien died that the first lodge of the ‘Rite de Memphis’ is established at Montauban in 1815, called the ‘Pelerins du Memphis’. The Martinesiste teaching of the 18^th centuryillumines and theosophes is expounded in accordance with the model of a truly ‘universal’ (Catholic) esoterism, . TheRose-Croix d’Orient may from this perspective preserve a living scion from the original tree in promulgating an ethos of theurgical prayer.

Nevertheless careful sifting and evaluation of the literary documentation is instructive. In the 1838 book ‘The Sanctuary of the Rite of Memphis’ p.5 by Jacques Etienne Marconis de Negre one finds the account of the ‘Primitif’ antecedents who ‘were known under the name of Knights of Palestine or the Brethren of the Rose-Croix d’Orient: it is these that the ‘Rit de Memphis’ recognizes as its immediate founders’. In the ‘New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry’ Vol II p.241 A.E Waite considers the view that  ‘ the Rite of Marconis was an incorporation of various Primitive Rites which are heard of in the 18^th century, and especially that of Narbonne.’

By comparing these two statements one intuits what is actually being stated – that the elusive filiation which Marconis signifies by the Rose-Croix d’Orient is none other than the Rose-Croix du Grand Rosaire, innermost chapter of the Rite Primitif de Narbonne which was consecrated to the occult sciences, to secret knowledge and the spiritual Reintegration of Man regenerated to his pre-lapsarian estate of knowledge, purity and virtue.

In 1784 Baron Von Westerode, high initiate of the Golden-und-Rosenkreuz Orden and eminent within a ‘regime Hermetique’, the alchemically-orientated ‘Rite Ecossais Philosophique’, states (in a letter written at Ratisbonne and quoted in ‘Acta Latamorum’ by the French masonic writer Thory) that the mystic current of the Rose-Croix originated in the Orient – the Baron recounts a legend in which an Egyptian sage-priest of Alexandria, originally a mysteriarch of Serapis,  called Ormesius or Ormus was converted to the Christian religion by Saint Mark in the early Christian era: this Ormesius ‘purified the doctrine of the Egyptians through the precepts of Christianity’ and ‘la science Salomonique’ and his disciples were called the Sages de Lumiere and were the ‘Oriental’ predecessors of the Rose-Croix. Marconis and Ragon consequently link this esoteric foundation-legend explicitly with the appellation of the Rose-Croix d’Orient.

This 18^th century account of a ‘Primitif’ and ‘Oriental’ origin of the Rose-Croix is obviously not to be taken literally as a factual historical account but rather as a symbolic legendarium, from the 18^th century Golden und Rosenkreuz Order and Asiatic Brethren of Saint John: the name of the Egyptian Christian sage Ormesius or Ormus, master of the ‘Sages de Lumiere’, clearly a symbolic figure, contains the Hebrew element Aor – ‘Light’, the Chaldaean root Ur – ‘Fire’ and Latin Or– ‘Gold’. As one of the Freres Anciens his conversion by Saint Mark, founder of the ancient Church of Alexandria, the school of the Didaskeleion and the Coptic Church, seems to signify the warrant validating the primitive Christian religion as legitimate inheritor of the Primordial Tradition and successor to its ancient Egyptian forms. But it also seems to posit an ‘Oriental’ and ‘Orthodox’ Rose-Croix perhaps counterbalancing and complementing the ‘Occidental’ and Lutheran current. This ‘Oriental’ and ‘Primitif’ Rose-Croix conceived of the operative vehicle of the Martinesiste doctrine and theurgy of Reintegration is exactly what we see in the prayers and formulae of the ‘Sacramentaire de Rose-Croix’.

From the Elus Coens, Philalethes and Rite Primitif de Narbonne to the R+C d’Orient we gain glimpses of an obscure trajectory by which the esoteric-theosophic  teachings of Martines de Pasqually were constellated within an 18^thcentury quest for primaeval arcana and ‘universal wisdom’ and envisioned as an antediluvian legacy emanating from mysterious Freres Anciens and Sages de Lumiere, immortal unknown adepts, Silencieux Inconnus and superiores incognitidwelling in their hidden initiatic centre at the ‘Orient of all Orients’, as the Marquis de Chefdebien terms it. It belongs to the same intellectual-esoteric climate as that advanced in the encyclopaedic ‘Le Monde Primitif’ published in 1777 by Antoine Court de Gebelin who was an initiate of the Elus Coens and of the Philalethes, a quest for the ‘Prisca Theologia’ and the ‘universal wisdom’ sought by freemasons, scholars, antiquarians and savants (such as Jacob Bryant in England) via ancient hieroglyphs, emblems, linguistic studies and archaic myth-cycles, allied with the aesthetics of Gothick ‘Orientalism’ during the Romantic epoch.

George Lagreze by his own account received the initiatic transmission of the Rose-Croix d’Orient in Cairo in 1907 or 1908. A hypothetical line might be drawn here via the fact that the Rite Primitif de Narbonne was aggregated to the Grand Orient of France in the year 1806 and some accounts relate that initiates of this Rite were active in Egypt during the Napoleonic campaigns, officers of the French military in 1798 were active in Cairo  and were attached to the Loge d’Isis. It is a documented fact that a branch of the Rite Primitif des Philadelphes de Narbonne did during the 1790s-early 1800s spread rapidly through the French military, enjoying a great success as the so-called ‘Philadephes of the Army’ and without a doubt active in Egypt during the Napoleonic campaign. It is thought that Napoleon Bonaparte was himself initiated into a military lodge of the Rite Primitif de Narbonne in Cairo in 1798. It is related that these officers of the ‘Philadephes of the Army’ were active in the lodge called Les Disciples de Memphis in Cairo working a version of theRite Primitif de Narbonne. This masonic current being that which Marconis describes as being represented by Samuel Honis in the establishment of an ‘Egyptian’ lodge, ‘Disciples of Memphis’, at Montauban in 1815.  Thus the purported ‘Egyptian’ associations of the Rose-Croix d’Orient as an offshoot of the Rite Primitif des Philadelphes de Narbonne is elucidated:  along with speculative if mythical connections with Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, buttressed by mythic evocations of an ‘oriental’ (Coptic-Alexandrian or Byzantine-Constantinopolitan) stream of the Rose-Croix. The branch of the Rite Primitif des Philalèthes or Rite Primitif de Narbonne at Cairo in 1798 then provides a possible stem from which Marconis traces the masonic derivation of the ‘Disciples of Memphis’ and also presents a possible milieu surviving in some form or other between 1790 and 1907 in that city, perhaps under the auspices of or associated in some way with members of the Grande Loge d’Egypte. Other accounts talk of contacts with a native Coptic centre or school of Hermetism…

The Rose-Croix d’Orient, comprehended in the light of ancient Judaeo-Christian gnosis and Martines de Pasqually’s authentic teaching in the ‘Traite’ and other texts represents, according to these speculations, a late, albeit tangential, indirect and attenuated offshoot of the Martinesiste and chivalric program, refracted through the ‘universalizing’ and ‘orientalizing’ tendencies of the Philalèthes and the Rite Primitif de Narbonne; this movement would seem to have been borne of genuine attempts in the late 18^th century to incorporate the Martinesiste theosophy of Reintegration within a vision of ‘Primitif ‘ esoteric origins whose seekers explored the ruined monuments and emblematic sacred sculptures and temples of the ancient world for the secrets of the antique Mysteries of Isis, Horus and Serapis…

"THE INVISIBLE PRINCIPLE": Saint-Martin's Theosophick Hymns - Chant 10

"The Invisible Principle"

by Louis Claude de Saint-Martin

            The works of God become manifest quietly, and their Principle remaineth invisible.

            Take this model for thy wisdom: do not make this wisdom known except by the sweetness of its fruits; the sweet ways are the hidden ways.

            If the air was visible, like the substances which compose the body, would it hold such a marvelous rank in nature?

            What rapports are there between the life of the spirit, and the death of this deviated universe? Man promiseth more than he giveth, the Spirit shall one day give more than It doth promise.

            The Lord hath led His people by an obscure path, that His designs might be fulfilled. He hath spoken to His people in parables; without this the Jews could not have failed to recognize the Salvation of the nations,

            And then then they could not be excused for having sacrificed Him; and if they had not sacrificed Him, the nations had not received the inheritance.

            Veils of the prophecies, ye doth favor the ignorance of my people’s daughter; it is through this that the gate of mercy remaineth open to my people.

            God wished to suspend the Jews, and not to condemn them.

            Ah! What blood hath they required, which hath fallen back upon them and upon their children! This blood was spirit and life—could it ever give them death?

            The industrious charity of my God concerneth itself only with the means of saving His children.

            The ignorance of the peoples is the resource that He doth husband without cease in order to pardon them.

O what depths in the wisdom, the power, and the love of our God!

            Men, you condemn your fellows to tortures, when they are culpable according to your laws: are we not much more guilty according to the laws of the Lord?

            And yet we can satisfy His justice with a prayer. We can do it with a secret fervor, brought about in the depths of our being;

            And the more this fervor is concentrated, the more efficacy and power it shall have, because it shall have more of the character of the Unity, of the invincible and irresistible Unity.

            --Chant 10 from THE MAN OF DESIRE (L’HOMME DE DESIR) (1790)

translated by Seth Edwards, 2016

title by Robert Amadou

"THE PROPHETS": Saint-Martin's Theosophick Hymns - Chant 9

"The Prophets"

by Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin

            Who shall give to man the intelligence to understand the march of the Word?

God hath spoken with His mouth of His prophets: this is what ye shall know if the One who prophesies is true, or if He doth not speak with a lying spirit:

When what he telleth of doth come to pass, ye shall then believe in the truth of the prophet.

But hath He not consummated all the Law? And since the Great Sign,¹ have not all the old signs become fragile?

Must there not appear prophets of error and falsehood, who shall have even the power of seducing the elect?

I see them do marvelous works; I see them announcing events which shall occur.

I see them, like Elijah, make fire come down from Heaven.

Woe to future times, when falsehood will so well resemble the truth!

At all times, take precautions against imitators. Ever since man was sold to be subjugated unto sin, sin useth him as well as wisdom.

It will thus be necessary for man to dig more deeply into himself, so as to find new signs there.

The prophet, is he humble and sweet? Doth he preach the reign of God, and not his own?

Doth he manifest with his tears and his sobs the ardors of charity? Is he ready to give his life for his brothers? Doth he join to these virtues a doctrine, sound and well-tried?

Turn towards him, follow in his footsteps, attach thyself to his spirit; charity of  heart and soundness of doctrine are gifts which cannot be feigned.

Even though thou walkest in the midst of confusion and darkness, a luminous circle shall surround thee, and keep thee safe.

The more time advances towards the fullness of its disorder, the more man must move towards his consummation of light.

How can he advance to this term, if he doth not allow himself to penetrate the spirit of life, and rush with ardor towards it, as if compelled there by a devouring hunger?

No! There is no joy comparable to that of treading the paths of wisdom and truth!

--Chant 9 from THE MAN OF DESIRE (L’HOMME DE DESIR) (1790)

translated by Seth Edwards, 2016

title by Robert Amadou

NOTES: 

1. The Crucifiction, or perhaps the life and ministry of Christ in general.

"GOD THE BROTHER": Saint-Martin's Theosophic Hymns - Chant 8

Translator's Note: This marvelous hymn of Saint-Martin offers a particularly clear and lucid glimpse into the entire theosophical "way of the heart" advocated by the Unknown Philosopher. The path of Saint-Martinist inner theurgy, as a radical interiorisation (not "abandonment") of the theurgy of his "first school" (the Elus Coens), and insofar as it carries its own distinct emphases in juxtaposition with that school and with that of other theosophers, is all laid out here in condensed form, with Saint-Martin's characteristically bold and sometimes startling mode of delivery. It is well worth careful study for anyone interested in Saint-Martin's writings as delineating an actual "path" of spiritual ascent.

"God the Brother"

by Louis Claude de Saint-Martin

            The true manner of asking for help—is it not to go courageously to seek it where it is?

            And is it not through action that strength is nourished?

            Also, he only is great who struggles, because this is the sole means of enjoying our strength,

            And because the first secret to being raised above our darkness and our faults is to lift ourselves there.

            It is for the ordeals which God sends us that we have the right to pray, and not for the wrongs that we commit against ourselves by our cowardice.

            When thy heart is full of God, employ verbal prayer, which then will be the expression of the Spirit, as it must always be.

            When thy heart is dry and void, employ silent and concentrated prayer; it is this which will give to thy heart the time and means of warming and filling itself.1

            Thou shalt soon learn to know, through these simple secrets, what are the rights of the soul of man,

            When Living Hands, to press out its corruption, have squeezed it, and when it hath then regained its free range through its natural elasticity.

            Thou shalt soon learn to know what is thy soul’s authority over air, over sound, over light and over darkness.

            Watch! Watch as long as thou are in the midst of the sons of violence! They would persuade thee that they can do something, and they can do nothing.

            How could they be the friends of truth, when the comparisons that they present to us are always false?

            Within apparent beings there remains no impression of the action of true beings; that is why the darkness cannot comprehend the light.

            If thou wishest to comprehend this light, do not compare it to anything of what thou knowest.

            Purify thyself, ask, receive, act: all the work is in these four heart seasons.

            To purify oneself—is this not prayer, since it is a battle?

            And what man would dare march into battle without purifying himself, since he cannot take a step without placing his foot upon the steps of the altar?

            It is not enough to have no doubts about the power of the Lord--it is even more needful to not doubt thine own!

            For He hath given thee a power, since He hath given thee a Name, and He doth not ask more of thee than to make use of it.2

            Do not therefore leave the entire work to the charge of thy God, since He hath wished to leave something for thee to do!

            He is ready to pour all blessings without ceasing into thee; He asketh only that thou keep watch over the evils which surround thee, and to not suffer thyself to be surprised.

            His love, for thy sake, hath driven out these evils from the Temple; would thine ingratitude go so far as to grant them reentry?

            Man, man! Where is to be found a destiny which surpasseth thine, since thou art called to fraternal amity with thy God, and to work in concert with Him!

--Chant 8 from THE MAN OF DESIRE (L’HOMME DE DESIR) (1790)

translated by Seth Edwards, 2016

title by Robert Amadou

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES: 

1. Silent prayer has been well known among mystics and contemplatives--Catholic and Protestant--throughout the history of Christianity. For a classic theosophical account of the method, see Boehme's The Supersensual Life, as well as Johannes Kelpius' indispensable--and probably more immediately accessible--little treatise, A Short, Easy and Comprehensive Method of Prayer.

2. This would appear to be a reference to the ancient practice of invoking God's Name, which is indeed a magnificent form of "quitessential prayer" and high theurgy that is to be found in every major spiritual tradition in the world (japa in Hinduism, dhikr in Islam, nembutsu in Pure Land Buddhism, to name only three). In a Christian context the Name is usually that of Jesus, either in short or long formulas, i.e. the Name itself or the Name as embedded in a longer prayer, such as the Eastern Orthodox "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!" The use of the Name of Jesus is thought to contain infinite blessings, as the Name is not separate from the Named and its invocation can indeed be seen as Eucharistic. It has been known since at least the time of the Desert Fathers, in both Eastern and Western Christianity (and of course it has roots in the Bible itself), although it seems to have been more prominent as a spiritual method in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and specifically in Hesychasm (see The Way of the Pilgrim and the Philokalia for the Orthodox perspective). However, with the rise of Christian Kabbalism in the Renaissance, the Name of Jesus was manifested in a new form in the West as the "Pentagrammaton," IHShVH (the Hebrew Tetragrammaton IHVH with the addition of the letter Shin--see the black-and-white inverted heart image from Boehme above for a fine visual synthesis of this lore.) Saint-Martin has extremely interesting things to say about the Tetragrammaton, the Pentagrammaton, and God's Name in general in his writings. He speaks specifically of the practice of invoking of God's Name in his Theosophic Correspondence, with his own "rule" for its use, so it is clear that he was familiar with this method of prayer.

            

"LEARNED FOOLS": Saint-Martin's Theosophick Hymns - Chant 7

"Learned Fools"

by Louis Claude de Saint-Martin

            Interpreters of mythology, why do you say that it only veils the march of the stars and the laws of nature, material and corruptible?

            What proportion would be there, between the figure and the thing that is figured? Is allegory not useless when it is superior to its object?

            Does it not cease to be allegory? Yes. Then it is power, and it acts with open force.

            But even if you were raised to the level of the active principles of nature, of which the knowledge and employment must remain unknown to the vulgar,

            A new obstacle arises: mythology and physics would be in dispute.

            Mythology, in order to be admissible, ought at least to rest upon the active principles of nature;

            And physics scorns these principles--she wants everything to form by aggregates.

            Whereas if there is only a unity, with what would one arrive to the aggregate?

            Mythology, physics!--you cannot reconcile except in each abandoning your system, and in elevating yourselves at the same time to a more simple degree, where each shall find the key to its temple.

            When you have found it, use it, but prudently! All corruption is due to the putrefied source:

            All rectification is due to the pure source. Without the higher view, how will you apply your principles?

            What are you doing, ye learned fools, when you paint for us the laws of the formation of the world?

            It is with death that you compose life; you take all your physics from the cemeteries!

            With what are your scientific cabinets filled? With skeletons and cadavers, of which you take good care to preserve the form and colors, but whose principle and life are cut away.

            Did your thought not tell you that there was a better physics than this, where one is only concerned with principles, and from whence dead bodies are far removed?

            But no! You have cast this dead and destructive glance upon all the objects of your speculations.

            You have cast it upon the base of the isosceles rectangle which you have sought to know, because you have found some material rapports between its results and those of its sides;

            Whereas the number and the true rapport of that base shall never be entrusted to us, since if we knew them, we could create spirits!

            Does it not suffice you to calculate the base to two centers, you who have dared attempt to imitate it, and who open at the same time one inexhaustible source for your tears, your understanding and your admiration?

            You have cast this destructive glance upon a subject much nearer to you, since you've cast it upon speech.

            Supreme and distinctive faculty, for them thou art only the fruit of the accumulation of sensible signs!

            The languages are not for them more than an aggregate, instead of being the expression and fruit of life itself.

            Consequently, they do not seek the origin elsewhere than in our elementary rapports;

            Whereas they were taught openly that speech was necessary for the institution of speech,

            And they see how children learn languages, and how there is only one law which lends itself and its measure to all the needs of all needs and all ages.

            Matter, matter, what a catastrophic veil thou hast placed upon Truth!

            The Word hath only come upon the earth as by rebirth; It had been reduced for us initially.

            It could not be reborn except through seed, like the vegetation; but it was needful that It supply its own germ at first, so as to be able then to produce its fruits among the human species.

            Collapse upon yourselves, ye scaffolds of abusive science! Reduce yourselves into dust: for you cannot hold up against the least principle of light! 

--Chant 7 from THE MAN OF DESIRE (L'HOMME DE DESIR) (1790)

translated by Seth Edwards, 2016

title by Robert Amadou

"TOOTH FOR TOOTH": Saint-Martin's Theosophick Hymns - Chant 6

"Tooth for Tooth"

by Louis Claude de Saint-Martin

            If it be said: “Tooth for tooth, eye for eye,” in the rigors of the material order;

            Why, in the beneficent order of the Spirit, would this truth not have an application which was to our advantage?

Give thy life, if thou wouldst receive life.

Give thy life without reserve, if thou wishest that life be given to thee in the plenitude of its unity.

As long as thou dost languish in thy desires, or even stop to survey thy pleasures, life is not yet in thee in the plenitude of its unity.

When that term doth arrive for thee, thou shalt no longer have to ease thy trouble with sacrifices, nor take precautions against thy holy satisfactions.

The Spirit of Truth shall press thee; it shall torment thee, it shall drive thee into the desert;

And thou wilt say to the nations: Make straight the ways of the Lord!

Ye powers celestial, terrestrial and universal, respect the human soul: the Lord cometh to renew His alliance with it, He hath bound it to Him with a new treaty of peace.

He hath opened to it the divine archives; there it hath admired all the treasures prepared for the man of peace.

It hath contemplated there the torches of intelligence, ever alight, and the living springs of love, which never cut off their courses.

There it hath glanced through the books of life, whence are derived the laws of nations.

There it hath read the history of past, present and future peoples.

            There it hath inhaled the sweet vapor of balsams used daily to heal the wounds of mortals.

            There it hath seen the terrible weapons destined to mow down the enemies of the fatherland.

            The soul of man today can enter these diverse storehouses at will, according to its needs and those of its brethren.

            Soul of man, climb up towards thy God with humility and penitence. These are the routes which lead to love and light.

            Thou shalt come back down then filled with tenderness for thy brethren, and thou wilt come

to share with them the treasures of thy God.

            O people, you open your pecuniary treasures to the poor, but are you thinking more of the needs of his spirit than of those of his ephemeral envelope?

            Do you desire that he recover, with this relief, a part of his liberty and his activity that is taken away by his destitution?

            Do you desire that he recover through this liberty the means to praise his God more easily and more constantly, and to enrich himself with prayer?

            This is the true end of alms; this is how alms can advance the work of God.

            God is Spirit; He wants everything you do to be spiritualized!

            If in giving your alms you content yourselves with asking the poor to pray for you,

            You ask him for more than you give to him; you are thinking more of yourselves than of him!

            

            And yet he is less free than you to devote himself to prayer.

            Spiritualize your works if you wish that they be perfectly in accordance with justice!

--Chant 6 from THE MAN OF DESIRE (L'HOMME DE DESIR) (1790)

translated by Seth Edwards, 2016

title by Robert Amadou

  

"DEATH AND LIFE": Saint-Martin's Theosophick Hymns - Chant 5

"Death and Life"
by Louis Claude de Saint-Martin

            Thou hast not produced any being, O Wisdom profound, without giving it a measure of desire and strength with which to preserve itself.

            Thou hast established all the beings upon this foundation, because they are all a reflection of Thy power, and because Thou lovest to produce Thyself in all Thy works.

            Thou hast given to man the most abundant measure of this power.

            Ah! From whence would come to him this art of multiplying his pleasures, this ingenuity in repelling evils from himself, and in curing them,

            If this was not a supreme measure of that preservative desire and of that instinct which Thou hast allotted to all beings?

            Yet he alone doth join, to the supreme measure of this preservative desire, the supreme measure of the opposite power!

            And he alone can combat and suppress this perennial instinct, more imperious in him than in any other being!

            Finally, he alone can kill himself! He alone can combine and choose the means to end his life! . . . .

            Doctrine of falsehood, applaud thyself for thy triumph—thou hast completely blinded mankind!

            Thou hast made them see, in these two extremes, only one and the same principle:

            Thou makest them to wish that one and the same agent doth preserve and destroy himself:

            Thou makest them believe that death and life, production and destruction doth appertain to the same seed.

            In vain thou seekest wherewith to justify thyself in the examples of animals; thou findest nothing there which doth diminish to the eyes of thought this horrifying contradiction!

--Chant 5 from THE MAN OF DESIRE (L'HOMME DE DESIR) (1790)

translated by Seth Edwards, 2016

title by Robert Amadou