Palatine Chapter: Ordre de
Rose-Croix d’Orient (RCO+)
Research Paper No. 1
Vernal Equinox 2017 Anno Domini+
***
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:.
*
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 1st. 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 18th 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 18thcentury
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:
1st Class
} 3 Blue Craft Degrees
2nd Class
} Maître Parfait, Elu et Architecte.
Sublime
Ecossais.
Chevalier
de l'Epée et de l'Orient et Prince de Jérusalem
3rd 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 18thcentury
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 19th 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 19th 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 18th 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 18th 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 18th 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 18th 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 18thcentury 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 18th 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…
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