An Elus Coen Dream Vision

Translator's Note: In the Elus Coen manuscript called the Cahier Vert or the Grand Manuscrit d'Alger, which is a comprehensive collection of ceremonial operations of the Order written in the 18th century, probably for Martines de Pasqually by Andre Pierre De Grainville (it is held at the Bibliothèque nationale as Manuscrit des Élus Cohens [cote FM4 1282]), one finds a very curious phantastick interlude entitled 'Songe Singulier'.  It is a really weird little piece, a symbolic phantasy in the vein of Gothick-Romanticism expressing esoteric themes of the Elus Coens, the tenebrous bounds of privation, the prevaricated spirits and fall of man, the universal temple, the Bon Esprit Compagnon, the Hermetick Androgyne et al - I'm not sure who wrote it (Grainville or LCdSM?) but it is unusual and richly symbolic in regard to the pursuit of Christian Theosophia and has never before appeared in English.

--Nigel Jackson

A Singular Dream

from the Cahier Vert

translated by Nigel Jackson

I was, for a few days, sojourning in the most lonely area of the wood of Trifaven, meditating upon the causes of our degradation, when of a sudden my eyelids grew heavy. I was obliged to sit at the foot of a cedar tree and to submit to this sleepy inclination during which my heated imagination caused me to have this singular dream which you are going to hear and which all my life I have never forgotten.

It seemed to me that I was in an extremely sombre forest, overgrown with cypress, pines, ivy and other funereal trees, of which I could see no end. The ground was covered with hippomane, hemlock, mint, aconite, wormwood, rue, brambles, thistles, nettles, in all the most offensive, poisonous and bitter plants of which we know.  This place of sadness was litten by naught except lightning-flashes. A bituminous, sulphurous vapour, foetid and turbid, rose from a soil humid and corrupt, upon which the beams of the sun had never approached. The bat, the owl, the crow were the only birds to be seen and heard. The most redoubtable monsters, the most ferocious animals, the most dangerous reptiles, the most noxious insects seemed to be gathered from the corners of the world in that place. I walked slowly in the desire that I had to leave that horrible region. Terror froze me. I was without any pulse, any energy or breath. I fixed upon a high mound from which I hoped to penetrate more easily the shadowed obscurity which surrounded me. Hardly had I arrived at the summit when I heard pronounced  these words by someone I could not see : Watch, listen and take courage. Then the forest seemed to me to be all on fire and I saw that it was inhabited by an abominable people who, composed of all the nations of the world and divided under their different banners, offered to my view all the crimes which make nature moan since mankind blinded by pride abandoned truth for the allurements of his phantasy. This spectacle tore at me. I covered my face to give my spirit some respite from so many horrors. But the same voice which I had heard spoke anew and said to me : Look and console yourself. These words restored me to my first virtue. I looked with confidence and there was an enchanting aspect of which I was the witness.

I found myself in the midst of an edifice of alabaster, of an inexpressible majesty, grandeur and magnificence. I saw that this edifice had four doors which looked upon the east, the west, the north and the south, by each of which one came by columns of a divine architecture and each of which was a hundred rods in measure. The whole was of the greatest whiteness and of an unparalleled polish, without any gilding, without mosaics or paintings, all seeming to have been carven from the same block.

In the midst of this august temple was a platform of three steps, serving as the base of a tomb on which appeared an exact cube supporting a sepulchral urn of a triangular form from which continually issued a pure and bright fire. There were at the four corners of this superb mausoleum four statues upon pedestals and of an exquisite workmanship exciting one to no mean degree of admiration. These figures had faces covered with tears and their arms extended toward the heavens, which one saw to be open, because there was neither  vault nor dome nor ceiling in this place. The first figure among these statues had a flame upon its head, the second a radiant sun upon its breast, the third held a level in its right hand, the last one had a serpent around its waist.

The Genius-Protecter whom I had already heard two times manifested himself anew and I heard this mystic proclamation, of which I was able to understanding nothing :

The ages have elapsed. The temple of the profanation is destroyed. The principle of the shadows returns  into the breast of the Light. The feeble returns into its strength. It will be exposed no more. It will be unprotected no more. It is imperturbable, invulnerable, immutable in its particular unity, as nature in its plastic unity.

So the fire issued from the urn, ascending and extending itself into the form of a glory whose brightness caused the sun to disappear, as the sun causes the stars of the night to disappear. Little by little, the subtle and brilliant vapours reunited themselves at the centre where they composed themselves into a creature so beautiful, so perfect, so ravishing, that I would have taken it for the very divinity had I not been witness to its creation. It was naked. I observed that having no point of sex, in it were re-united to a sovereign degree of perfection all beauties, all graces, all the charms of a young virgin shaped by love, to all the male beauties of a perfect man. It was seated between the bases of two broken columns. I dared to gaze at this immortal and I saw in its eyes the character of a compassion so ardent that my own were filled with tears. I was no longer able to contain the excess of my ravishment, my heart was so very full. The shadows of death encompassed me. I lost consciousness. I fell, not in dreams, but very truly, and this awoke me.