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Cyvard MARIETTE

Louis-Claude Saint-Martin
The Decades
II

Texts in English

1912 - 1910
The books inform!

Edition du C R P Noeux les mines 2011

Introduction

In a world full of noughts comes a man who used the words of God to show us the life, the real life! Thus come to us the strange reappearance of initiations! What a word: initiation! A word with all its spires and gateways!

The doctrines and literature of initiations are offered here not to a silly approval, but for the use of some discernement! Is there a secret? Is there a secret tradition? If yes, what is the purpose? If no, why did they claim an oath! How dare any Grand Master to deal his personal reveries for Truth!

You have to be concerned with questions belonging to any critical scholarship! To read a text is not to swallow it! If you want to understand, you have to learn more and more, till you know it valuable! Valuable for you, at least!

The texts below represent the views of some writers of the 20th Century. It is their understanding of some facts. Is it more? You have to use your own mind and some Reason, no more, no less! Then, it is possible to learn from the way of the heart to marry Sophia! Cyvard MARIETTE-LENGAGNE

1912
A history of French literature? - Page 603 Charles Henry Conrad Wright - 1912 - 964 pages

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY France CHAPTER I THE EMPIRE THE liberator Napoleon soon proved a tyrant: literature and oratory languished under the censorship and threats of imprisonment. The discourses of politicians were no longer heard, and Napoleon alone was free to harangue his troops and tell them how "forty centuries looked down on them from the Pyramids," or disguise in the language of moderation and statesmanship the lawlessness of the usurper. One group of men Napoleon could not crush: these were the philosophers, the Ideologists, whom he scornfully called the ideologues. They were no new invention, but the successors and disciples of Condillac, Helvtius, and the philosophes; and Condorcet, and Volney, whom we have already studied, belong to the line of filiation. But under the new rgime, these "nebulous metaphysicians," as Napoleon also called them, still inspired by the principles of freedom which the Revolution had failed to establish, represented the spirit of liberal opposition in politics, literature, and philosophy, or the rights of reason untrammelled by imperial discipline. Their influence, too, made itself felt in many of the newly-established scientific schools and bodies: the Normal, Central, and Polytechnic schools, the Institute. At the Normal School, established under the Convention, the lecturers had included Volney, no less than Saint-Pierre and La Harpe, and the mathematicians Laplace, Lagrange, and Monge. The periodical of this school of thinkers was the Dcade philosophique, and the social centre was the group of Auteuil, gathered about the widow of Condorcet and her sister, the wife of Cabanis. The school, it may be seen, stands for the anti-religious attitude. [601]
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[page 602 vue 620] The chief Ideologists were Cabanis and Destutt de Tracy, Cabanis (1757-1808) a doctor, the friend of Franklin, the author of the Rapports du physique et du moral, far from being a ''nebulous metaphysician," swept away metaphysics, disclaimed any real knowledge of first causes, and devoted himself to physiology and psychology. Studying the relations between the body and "soul," with emphasis on the former as more accessible to direct experiment, he united them and made physiology and psychology one. He described the relation, by what was perhaps even to him only a figure of speech, in saying that "the brain digests impressions and secretes thought," and its function is to produce images and group them, just as the stomach acts and reacts on food for the production of tissues. Destutt de Tracy (1781-1864), of Scotch origin and a collateral descendant of the Jansenist Arnauld, had the hard-headed logical aptitudes of both origins. His interest is in logic and the problems of knowledge, in his Elements d'idologie, his Grammar, and his Logic, but he still rested philosophy on physiology. Cabanis and Destutt de Tracy are but the most prominent representatives of a whole scientific school occupied with the various divisions of the intellectual life, so that Daunou, Fauriel11, Ginguene, Raynouard in historical research, J.-B. Say in economics, helped to introduce a better method into their fields of study. The Ideologists are neglected today, but they belong to I the genealogy of positive science. Cabanis was the creator of physiological psychology in France, and he and De Tracy were the precursors, not merely of worn-out creeds, such as the phrenology of Gall and Spurzheim, but of more vital systems of evolution and of positivism. The Ideologists did not represent the only philosophical [603] school of their time. Without going so far as the mystic Saint-Martin, the philosophe inconnu as he called himself, the translator of Jacob Bohme and follower of Swedenborg, there were opposed to them those thinkers, critics more than
1 Daunou (1761-1840) initiated Sainte-Beuve into both the literary and the philosophical traditions of the eighteenth century, and Fauriel (1772-1844) into historical method and the widening of knowledge and sympathy of the nineteenth. Fauriel occupied somewhat the position of a French Herder. Cf . Portraits contemporains, Vol. IV.

men of science, called the Traditionalists. They stood for the reaction against the French Revolution and a return to the spirit of Catholicism. Like those French thinkers who at the end of the nineteenth century announced the bankruptcy of science, they proclaimed at its beginning the failure of eighteenth-century philosophism, but attacked it with its own tools of argumentation and reason. The chief of these thinkers were the comte Joseph de Maistre and the vicomte de Bonald, between whom there were great similarities, though their conclusions were independently reached. Joseph de Maistre (1754-1821), though a great name in French literature, was not a Frenchman and came to Paris only once in his life for a brief period. A native of Savoy and an official of the king of Sardinia, he spent nearly fifteen years as minister of his sovereign in Russia. His life was not a happy one: whether by his own fault or not, he was constantly struggling against injustice and lack of appreciation on the part of the king. He might seem to have about him something of the "man with a grievance," did not the brilliancy of his conversation and the amenity of his correspondence testify to wit and graces. His disappointments seem, however, to have soured his view of life, and his theory is one of cruelty and inhumanity. Maistre is the chief religious mediaevalist of modem times. To him, much as in the old allegorical interpretations, the world is a gross representation of the celestial reality. The spirit of modem times was to him anathema, and men of science called forth his curses. His treatise on Baconian philosophy is a mass of vituperation and abuse. An intellectual descendant of the old Scholastic and rigidly argumentative theologians, though his Soires de Saint-Ptersbourg take the form of fluid Platonic entretiens, he places religion above everything else. God rules the world by the principle of authority, not regulating [604] every action, but leaving to men a certain freedom that sins may be the better punished. For by chastisement men's sins are atoned. The individual may suffer unjustly, but he is a part of humanity undergoing retribution for collective misdeeds. And so Maistre comes to justify warfare and the executioner, as the agent of God, the judge, applying the lex talionis. As God is the source of authority, on him depend the representatives
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of sovereignty: the monarch in the temporal, the pope above the monarch in the religious sphere. Maistre is the firm partisan of kingship against any form of government which, like republicanism, implies a solution of continuity; he is in his treatise Du Pape the leader in doctrines of "ultramontanism" and papal infallibility. Thus Maistre is the great religious reactionary of modem times, and he did more than any one else to create the state of mind which resulted in the proclamation of papal infallibility in 1870. It is obvious how, at every step, Joseph de Maistre is opposed to the spirit of the eighteenth century: to the anti-religious Voltairianism, to Rousseau's doctrines of the independence of primitive man and the free contract. He is no less hostile to what seemed to him to verge on heresy in the Catholic church, Gallicanism (De l'glise gallicane), or the even worse Jansenism. The other important Traditionalist was Louis de Bonald (1754-1840), a cut and dried logician, who undertook to prove everything by a sort of rule of three in which the terms were cause, means, and effect. Bonald2 considers man as passive, a tabula rasa without innate ideas, just as the most pronounced Condillacian would have done, but the active cause is God instead of sensation. The world is created by God and in the image of God. Thus Bonald is nothing but an inverted eighteenth-century philosophe, replacing by the word "God" and thus ranging himself as a spiritualist, all that the others had attributed to matter. Under the Empire criticism had to be subordinate to the censorship. The reaction against the Revolution necessitated [605] conservative judgments and the rule of the old Classical spirit expressed in the grand style. Independence of mind, such as that of Mme de Stal, encountered persecution. Moreover, by a peculiar but not unparalleled manifestation, the fiercest political iconoclasts tended to be literary conservatives. Therefore, Marie- Joseph Ch6nier, the former Jacobin, was entrusted by the Academy with the drawing-up of an orthodox Tableau of literature since 1789. The legislative bodies were reduced to impotence, the bar and the pulpit had to re-echo the praises of Napoleon. The newspapers were closely watched and the Journal des Dbats, become Journal de l'Empire, was alone smiled upon by authority. Among critics occupied in rhetorical compositions on the
2 Passage comparer avec lcsm sur sa diffrenciation entre table rase et table rase.

beauties of the seventeenth-century literature, or in reviling the audacity of the scientists, only Geoffroy and Fontanes stand in the first rank, though Hoffman, Dussault, Feletz had reputation in their day. Julien-Louis Geoffroy (1743-1814), who had begun his career as the successor of Frron in the Anne littraire, became the dramatic critic of the Journal des Dbats and the founder of the feuilleton criticism of current dramatic literature. He was a dry and narrow as well as vicious critic, a partisan of the seventeenth century, and particularly of Corneille, perhaps partly because Voltaire had ventured to criticise that poet in his Commentaire.3 1 Louis Fontanes (1757-1821), who had begun his career by mildmannered but not immeritorious meditative poetry, became finally Grand Master of the University and dispenser of Napoleon's literary favors. Joseph Joubert (1754-1824), the friend of men like Fontanes and Chateaubriand, of women of talent like Mme de Beaumont and Mme de Vintimille, the valetudinarian and recluse, left at his death many papers, from which in 1838 a posthumous volume [606] of fragments afterwards enlarged, the Penses, was gathered. Joubert is but little read by the French, and is perhaps more appreciated by the cultivated English-speaking people as a result of Matthew Arnold's essay. But as a moralist be deserves a place after Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, and Vauvenargues, and his wise judgments place him high among the interpreters of literature. His preferences were for the seventeenth century, with reservations, as opposed to the eighteenth. The production of novels in the Empire days was large. Napoleon was a prolific reader of literature of a certain kind, Ossianesque in vagueness and sentimental in plot. He could not stand Mme de Stael or Chateaubriand for political reasons. "More novels ending in A!" he said when Atala appeared; "take it away!" But writers like Ducray-Duminil flourished. This author, after composing placid stories for the young, fell under the influence of translations of Mrs. Radcliffe's novels, such as the Mysteries of Udolpho. His chief books, Victor, ou l'enfant de la fort and Coelina, ou l'enfant du
3 1. Napoleon himself liked to lay down the law with regard to the drama besides listening to his favorite actor Talma, and would analyse the Cornelian heroes from the standpoint of the imperial usurper.

mystre, had tremendous vogue. Ducray-Duminil's stories had the usual paraphernalia of the English "School of Terror," ruined houses, mysterious bells, strange disguises, imprisoned heroines, murders, and the like, all embalmed in moralisings and virtuous instructions. Mme Cottin's no less eminently moral but calmer stories such as Elisabeth are still known to oldfashioned English readers. There were, however, novels of a different character. Pigault-Lebrun was the counterpart of Ducray-Duminil from the standpoint of popularity in "improper" literature. Mme de Krdener, the Russian Swedenborgian mystic, was the author of Valerie, published in 1803, and through her influence over the emperor Alexander of Russia, the instigator of the Holy Alliance. Xavier de Maistre, the brother of Joseph de Maistre and himself a general in the Russian service, wrote several works of fiction under the influence of Sterne, such as the Voyage autour de ma chambre, and the Lpreux de la valle d'Aoste. [607] Poetry and the drama ran in a very thin stream under the Empire. Mechanical tragedies patterned after Corneille and Voltaire were galvanised into life by Talma, or by Mlle Georges and Mlle Mars, and then only if they passed the censorship. They were of the type of literature that the irreverent Romanticists were to call "vieille perruque," because of the wigs of the old fogey conservatives faithful to the fashions of their youth, or "pompier," because the heroes of Classical painting and play, with their Greek or Roman helmets, fatally suggested a French fireman's headpiece. Npomucne Lemercier's Agamemnon in 1797 marked the real climax of the Classical school. But its mechanical side in its degeneracy may be seen in Brifaut's play, originally intended to be a Spanish drama named Don Sanche, and for political considerations due to the war in Spain, modified under orders from the censor, transferred to Assyria and changed without difficulty into Ninus II. The greatest popular success of the period was Raynouard's Templiers, in which the author drew his subject from French history instead of from antiquity. Luce de Lancival's Hector was another epoch-making play. Lemercier's Pinto is looked upon as a precursor of the historical comedy and Romantic drama, though he hated the Romanticists.
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His Christophe Colomb caused riots and deaths at the performance because of some bold rhymes and epithets. The specific comedy writers were Picard, Alexandre Duval, and Etienne. The poets were numerous and voluble: they had nothing to say, and said it at great length. The Classicists wrote solemn epics drawn from national history, as became the bards of imperial heroism, or poured forth verses to order for state functions. Delille and his school gave out their descriptive poetry and drawing-room treatises on agriculture. In lyric and elegiac verse, though there was little vigor and originality, there was less pretence. The dreamy sentiment of Millevoye, already discussed, and of Chnedoll (1769-1833), precursors of Lamartine, was in vogue. Chateaubriand complained of the way [608] in which Chnedoll ransacked him for motives and inspiration. Often the lyricism found expression in the genre troubadour, ballads and songs of pseudo-mediaevalism, of which we have an example in English in some of the songs of Thomas Haynes Bayly: Gaily the troubadour Touched his guitar, As he came riding Home from the war. One writer, the marquis de Surville, even tried the experiment of Chatterton and of Macpherson, and wrote a large collection of archaic stanzas which were published as the authentic productions of a fifteenthcentury ancestress, Clotilde de Surville, and caused great discussion. Macpherson's Ossian itself, still accepted without controversy, found a translator in Baour-Lormian (1770-1854), who likewise, in his Veilles potiques et morales, inspired by Young, developed the willow and cypress melancholy which was an element of the milder form of Romanticism. Fortunately all poetry was not given over to gloom. The witty Classicist Andrieux (1759-1833) wrote, among other things, comedies, verse stories, and fables, of which the Meunier de Sans-Souci remains in all anthologies. Arnault (1766-1834) was another ambitious playwright who
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won a name with posterity rather for his epigrammatic fables. The Caveau moderne a successor to the eighteenth-century associations, had as chief founder Dsaugiers (1772-1827), the greatest song writer along with Stranger; and his Monsieur et Madame Denis and Paris cinq heures du matin belong to the undying rpertoire of the French chanson.

CHAPTER III

CHATEAUBRIAND

CHATEAUBRIAND is, with Ronsard and Hugo, an example of the vicissitudes of literary renown. During his lifetime no one in the universe more nearly reached deification. Yet no sooner was he gone than unfortunate circumstances connected with the publication of his memoirs, and the unfavourable criticism of Sainte-Beuve, backed up by his insidious footnotes, destroyed a reputation which has only recently been recovered. Chateaubriand was, after all, the founder of Romantic literature and the most important figure of the first half of the nineteenth century. Chateaubriand was not a normal being, and Romanticism, which had its ultimate source in the lunatic Rousseau, had, as father, one whose melancholy, stamped on his school, came near being pathological. He was the son of a morbidly taciturn man, and one of his sisters became insane and probably committed suicide, Franois-Ren de Chateaubriand was born in 1768 at Saint-Malo in Brittany. When not at school at Dol, Dinan, or Rennes, he spent his time in the gloomy parental manor of Combourg, a prey to childish visions and dreams, oppressed by the melancholy and ennui from which he was never free, and which led him to think of suicide. His only consolation was the sympathetic companionship of his sister Lucile, a creature more morbid and unfit to live than he, but who awakened in him his literary taste. It was she who went insane. In 1786, just before his father's death, he became an
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officer in the army, but a few years later, restless and impatient and with something of [616] [vue 637 page 617] the wanderlust of Rousseau about him, he started in 1791 to America to discover the Northwest Passage. This journey to the United States lasted less than a year, including the sea voyages, but it is one of the great dates in French literature. It marked the true awakening of the man of letters; it disclosed a new source of local coloring which set the fashion and gave Chateaubriand material that lasted him through life. The whole trip has been the subject of harsh criticism : it has been incorrectly denied that he ever could have seen General Washington, and it is difficult to believe that he could have made the long expeditions he indicates to the West and the Mississippi valley. On the other hand, if he had remained near Niagara, as it has been suggested he did, he could have found there as much material for literary treatment as in the south where the scenes of his stories lie. As to his crazy American flora and fauna, he was no scientific observer but an imaginative writer who put into nature what he thought should be there. So Americans may smile in reading of the Meschacb (Mississippi) rolling past meadows where dwell green snakes, blue herons, and pink flamingoes, or on which young crocodiles go sailing down on floating islands of pines, oaks, and water-lilies, past forests with trees bound together by festooned creepers, where stagger bears drunk with grapes, or where green parrots with yellow heads mingle with cardinals, hununing-birds, and hissing serpents. The judicious will conclude that Chateaubriand's imagination, like his landscapes, was tropical, and will admire his descriptions, not for their exactness but for their beauty. The ferret-critic will also add that he had read the Pre Charlevoix's Histoire et description de la Nouvelle France, William Bartram's Travels, and Beltrami's Pilgrimage. One night in the wilderness Chateaubriand came upon a tattered newspaper in English, telling of the flight of the king and the incident of Varennes. A royalist nobleman and partisan of the king, he gave up his journey and returned at once to France, reaching home penniless. He soon let his family marry [618] him to a young woman for whom he felt no predilection, but who proved to be of the saintly type, and who lived almost as long as he did, forgiving his infidelities and neglect, the whims and manias of a man of genius. Within a few months Chateaubriand joined the
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army of the migrs, and before long, wounded and diseased, weakened by fever and smallpox, he found himself in 1793 a penniless refugee in London. There the proud aristocrat, sometimes actually hungry, made a precarious living by hackwriting, translating, or teaching, called "Shatterbrain4" by his pupils. Meanwhile he worked at the Natchez and the Essai historique sur les rvolutions, an attack on the Revolution and the doctrines of perfectibility, which was published in 1797. The Natchez, left for years in a trunk in London, at least so the author said, did not appear until long after. So far, Chateaubriand's philosophical attitude had verged on scepticism, and the last chapter of this book was entitled: Quelle sera la religion qui remplacera le Christianisme? But his pious mother's grief on reading the book, followed by her death and that of his elder sister Julie, caused an emotional crisis in him: "J'ai pleur et j'ai cru." As expiation, he wrote the Gnie du Christianisme, a panegyric of the moral and poetic beauties of Christianity. It appeared in 1802 on the eve of the establishment of the Concordat with the pope, and seemed the justification and consecration of the religious revival. It was well timed and from that moment Chateaubriand was the most famous man in France. He had already won much renown in 1801 by the episode of Atala, drawn from the as yet unpublished Natchez, and then incorporated in the Gnie du Christianisme. This was soon followed by Ren, of which the external history was similar. Napoleon, anxious to win over influential people, appointed Chateaubriand secretary of the embassy at Rome, and then minister to the Swiss Valais. At this moment took place the execution of the duc d'Enghien. Chateaubriand resigned and became Napoleon's fierce enemy. To occupy his leisure, he planned a sort of prose epic in glorification of Christianity. This [619] was the Martyrs , for the preparation of which he made a journey to the Orient, described in the Itinraire de Paris Jrusalem. The Aventures du dernier Abencrage, published much later, was another fruit of this journey. Chateaubriand again found a psychological moment for his political pamphlet De Bonaparte et des Bourbons, and became prominent in politics under the Restoration; he was peer of the realm, ambassador to Berlin, to London, delegate to the Congress of Verona, minister of foreign affairs, and responsible for the war of intervention in Spain, ambassador to Rome. But he never hesitated, with many varying moods, to follow the impulses of his conscience, if that can be distinguished from his vanity: Bourbon par
4 Brain cerveau shatter clat tte en l'air, tte de linotte, tourneau ?

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honneur, royaliste par raison et par conviction, je suis rpublicain par got et par caractre. So it came about that after many ups and downs, Chateaubriand faced an old age of comparative poverty, cheered not so much by the solicitude of his wife as by his intimacy with Mme Rcamier and by those friends of her salon at the Abbaye-aux-Bois who remained faithful in his declining years. He died in 1848. Years before he had begun the writing of the Mmoires d'Outre-tombe, intended for posthumous publication as his message to posterity. But much leaked out before his death, and the final piecemeal publication in a newspaper fell flat amid the stirring events of the Revolution of 1848. Chateaubriand was one of the great poseurs and one of the worst liars and plagiarists in literature, but he had qualities which partly justified him, and he influenced his times as perhaps no other man since Rousseau. He is the father of Romanticism and contributes to it a large part of its definite content: Le sachem du romantisme," this portrayer of the Indians has been called. Kindly and sociable in prosperity, yet haughty in adversity, with something of the English reserve acquired by his sojourn in England, suffering from an incurable ennui (" j'ai le spleen, vritable maladie, tristesse physique"), he seemed to take pleasure in his gloom; at one exceptional moment, after a [620] treatment at the baths of Cauterets, he wrote: "I did my best to be melancholy, but could not." Thus he seemed the type of the man destined to be the hero of the Romanticists, burdened with a curse, and drawing after him disaster. The story of Ren, who stands for Chateaubriand himself, and of the morbid love of his sister Amlie, in whom people recognised the unhappy Lucile, gave rise, under the name of mal de Ren or mal du sicle to the pessimism which stamped itself on the literature of the whole following generation, a melancholy much more acute than the sentimental meditations . hitherto in vogue. A kindred contribution of Chateaubriand was general emotionalism. This he was far from originating, but he gave it a greater place in literature. His perceptions were almost entirely aesthetic, the reaction from impression. There was little real reflection in his nature. This, combined with his artistic temperament, made his life a Series of emotional adventures, and his writings the expression of these experiences, sometimes magnified by the imagination. Ren wanders through Italy with a "sainte et potique horreur,''
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Chateaubriand responds in feeling to the majesty of primitive nature at Niagara, to the desolation of the Roman Campagna, to the glory of the Acropolis, the memories awakened by the Holy Land. The journey to America came, of course, at the most impressionable period of his life; it was, moreover, the discovery of a new world to imaginative and descriptive literature. Hence, Chateaubriand is, following Saint-Pierre, the most important author in the development of local coloring, so useful to the Romanticists, and of the communion with nature or conflicts between man and his sodal environment. As Chateaubriand's imagination roamed over time and space, and he felt the poetry of Gothic art and the beauty of cathedrals, he opened up by the Gnie du Christianisme the Middle Ages to the dramatists, the novelists and the historians. Finally, by his religious feeling, he inspired his fellow-countrymen weary of the unbelief of the eighteenth [621] century and disheartened by the failure of its substitutes for Christianity.5 Chateaubriand is the counterpart of the influence which in England, as mediaeval Romanticism, produced the Oxford Movement, High Church ritualism, and Puseyism. What more specifically differentiate Chateaubriand from many other great writers is that, instead of being a mere mouthpiece for the moods of his contemporaries, he was the leader and instigator. If we turn to a more direct consideration of the content of Chateaubriand's mind, our praise must be qualified. Intellectually considered, he was not remarkable. Consumed by an extraordinary vanity and the resulting self-assurance that imposes on so many people, he was gifted with a wonderful poetical expression, which found vent in prose, and has put his descriptions among the most beautiful in the French language. Moreover, coming with all their sonorousness and richness of coloring as a heightened contrast to the blank platitudes of a decayed Voltairianism, they were, to his contemporaries, vistas opened into a beautiful world of which persons had never suspected the existence, except in exotic works not accessible to all, like Ossian. Chateaubriand, as a disciple of Rousseau, was the example of the egoist who saw his life and the world-life as vast heroic poems. Not only is
5 1 The question of the sincerity or literary pose of Chateaubriand religious attitude has been the subject of much discussion. See the abb Bertrin's la Sincrit religieuse de Chateaubriand

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the Martyrs a prose epic, but the Mmoires d'Outre-tombe, and all the writings where the personal element so constantly enters, are a series of epic scenes of which Chateaubriand is the great hero. He exposes himself . in becoming draperies and suitable surroundings to the pity of all people, heedless of the suffering he may cause to the women who come under his influence, his wife, Charlotte Ives, the English clergyman's daughter, Mme de Beaumont, Mme de Custine, Mme de Duras, Mme de Mouchy, Mme Rcamier. His life was one of aesthetic self-preoccupation, not taking the form of rigid analysis [622] but merely of vague yearnings and waitings, in which he never lost sight of the stage-setting: he took much thought as to his own burial, whether it should be in a Roman sarcophagus, or, as he finally decided, on a storm-beaten island in Brittany; yet he never knew what became of his sister Lucile's body. In the same way the Mmoires d'Outre-tombe are not to be compared with the Confessions of Rousseau, since in them Chateaubriand appears only in his best light: I1 ne faut prsenter au monde que ce qui est beau. Taking, then, Chateaubriand's work as a whole, and disregarding slight differences of chronological periods, we may come to this judgment upon his achievements: He finally swept away the ideals of Classicism in form and content, and substituted for a literature of rationalised generalisations from the reading of ancient authors, a new literature, emotional and passionate, based on individual experience and on new sources of inspiration: the remote wilderness of distant continents or the remote days of past history. Rousseau and Saint-Pierre had pointed the way, but Chateaubriand won the victory. He rescued the French language from inanition and made it poetical and imaginative, bringing into it new figures and similes drawn from a wider field of vision and expressed in a less hackneyed vocabulary. Of the Itinraire he said: " J'allais chercher des images, voil tout." The "orage de mon coeur, est-ce une goutte de votre pluie ?" was to take the place of the "brl de plus de feux que je n'en allumai" of the Classical lover. He narrowed, it is true, almost to the one form of taedium miae the outlet of the poet and novelist, but he opened outlooks upon regions where men were seen suffering from the same sorrows. He not only stimulated the study of history, at least in its picturesque aspects, but disclosed the beauty and consoling power of a religion which had been scorned and neglected. There is much that is
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unnatural in Chateaubriand's nature: there is something theatrical, however chivalrous and even quixotic, in the actions of his own political career; his savages are sophisticated [623] beings voicing his own sentiments, and Chactas in Europe is no untutored barbarian ignorant of civilised feelings. The Natchez or Iroquois of Chateaubriand is as untrue as the Huron of Voltaire or the Inca of Marmontel. Not least among Chateaubriand's services was to show that the Christian faith need not be considered as either the teaching of knaves and fools or a tool for tyrannical oppression. His nature was fitted for this interpretation and the conciliation of the beautiful and the good: it was Sainte-Beuve who called him an epicurean with a Catholic imagination. Hence in the Gnie du Christianisme he proceeds, on the principle that "there is nothing beautiful which is not divine," to point out the beauties of the Christian faith, to show the poetry of its dogmas and ceremonies, and the relations of art and literature to religion: Sainte-Beuve calls him also the "avocat potique du christianisme." And Chateaubriand said himself: "Where Mme de Stael sees perfectibility, I see Jesus." In the Martyrs he writes the great Christian prose epic, as the Mmoires d'Outre-tombe are the lay epic of his own times, once again reacting against the trappings of Classicism by opposing the merveilleux chrtien to the merveilleux paen which the school of Boileau had admitted only. So he tells the story of the young lovers in the days of Diocletian, Eudore and Cymodoce, the one a Christian, the other daughter of a pagan priest, whose love ends in martyrdom. He accompanies their tale with semi-historical descriptions and episodes seemingly irrelevant but beautiful in themselves, as in Book VI. The result is a mixture of Homer and Milton, sometimes with Bossuet added, of history and of geography. It is often diffuse and verbose, but it has about it the glow of the sublime rhetorician. It should, however, be remembered that this aesthetic and sensuous glorification of Christianity did not add a particle to its moral strength, and Chateaubriand is the ancestor of those who found their faith not on religion but on religiosity, and to whom rites and ceremonials are the essence rather than the symbol of their belief. [624] Chateaubriand was a master of the art of writing. To the Classicist and to the unimaginative critic he seems lush, turgid, and bombastic, but to those who are susceptible to the harmony of words and who can visualise
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the scenes which his imagination called up, Chateaubriand will always be a great name. He was no slapdash writer; many of his passages were rewritten more than once, and some of the extant episodes are examples of overwrought literary method, a pseudo-epic verging on unconscious parody. There is no knowing how much Chateaubriand was indebted to the keen judgment of his faithful friends Fontanes and Joubert: perhaps to one of them was due the elimination of solecisms of taste, such as calling God in the early editions of the Gnie du Christianisme, the "ternel clibataire des mondes." It was Mme de Beaumont who said, however, and posterity can at least understand what she meant: "Le style de M. de Chateaubriand joue du clavecin sur toutes mes fibres." He was guilty of many lapses from good taste, and was responsible for ridiculous exaggerations on the part of his disciples, and Sainte-Beuve saw to it that these should not remain unknown. But, for good or evil, he was a Titan in his influence, and the time has passed when it is permissible to scoff at him. Not that he was pleased with his literary descendants of the Romantic school: he wanted to remain alone in his glory. Moreover Chateaubriand was, in reality, a traditionalist, and so, opposed to his disciples. His position in French literature is not unlike that of Byron with regard to Pope. A spirit kindred to Chateaubriand's world-weariness is to be found in Senancour's Obermann (1804), though its author was jealous of Chateaubriand and disliked him intensely. Etienne Pivert de Senancour (1770-1846) had many reasons for being unhappy, but he made himself more so. His sensitive youth was darkened by Jansenist family influences, he married unhappily, he was all his life a struggling writer and journalist, lonely, and, as is often the case, valuing least the book on which his fame now rests: for his Reveries sur la nature primitive de [625] l'homme are less important. Obermann can hardly even be called a novel, but in the form of letters, partly describing wanderings through Switzerland and the forest of Fontainebleau, the author pours forth his disenchantment and expresses the premature senile decay of the resolution. What plot it contains is probably in part fiction, in part a revelation of temperament and of feeling, rather than of incident. Yet, none the less, Senancour was not wholly pleased when, after long neglect, Obermann was "rediscovered" by leaders of the generation of 1830, like Sainte-Beuve, who wished to republish it unmodified. Only then did it have its true vogue, never a widely popular
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one. At his death Senancour was a quite forgotten man. 6 Disheartening and discouraging as the book is in itself to read, it is like Constant's Adolphe, which it preceded, an important human document and study of a type of mind, more rarely found now but none the less occasionally met, what Philarte Chasles is quoted as calling an "intellectual and moral eunuch." The names Senancour and Obermann are now used practically interchangeably. Senancour had the temperament of a Rousseau, from whom he got the title of his Reveries and similar egoism. His self loomed large and he magnified his sufferings: "Peut-tre quelques jours paisibles me seront-ils donns: mais plus de charme, plus d'ivresse, jamais un moment de pure joie, jamais! et je n'ai pas vingt et un ans 7!" He yielded to the cult of sensation, coffee, opium, reaping the corresponding fatigue. Intellectually he had inherited the destructive traditions of the eighteenth-century philosophers (going back beyond them to Montaigne), [626] including the irony8 of Voltaire and scorn for the current religion of the people, Catholicism. Senancour was a man of religious temperament left without a religion, and his struggles were often those between scepticism and religious feeling, as he hopelessly endeavored to create for himself a satisfactory creed, moral and social rather than metaphysical. His inclinations led him to a mystical Spinozistic pantheism, and he found a kindred feeling in Saint-Martin. But everywhere his mysticism left him disquieted, instead of resting, like many moral hedonists and epicureans, in a self-satisfied ataraxy. Thus Senancour is a connecting-link between such opposite tendencies as eighteenth-century philosophism and nineteenthcentury Romanticism.

Amiel represents among modem writers in French most truly the hundred paralysis of the will. Matthew Arnold has made Amiel almost as well known in England as in France. The type of personal narrative, half fiction, half truth, though with different postulates and environment, may be illustrated by Gissing's Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft. 7 Cf. quotation from Hugo's Marion Delorme p. 701 8 Irony was to Senancour the mark of the superior mind: "Le mpris du philistin l'amour du macabre, le dlire mtaphysique, toutes choses la mode dans les ateliers de 1830, Obermann en a pu tre pour sa bonne part responsable." J. Merlant, Senancour

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... An encyclopedia of freemasonry and its kindred sciences, comprising the ...? - Page 660 Albert Gallatin Mackey,
Edward L. Hawkins, William James Hughan 1912

[vue 100 page 75] Architect, Grand. (Architecte, grand) 1. The Sixth Degree of the Rite of Martinism. 2. The Fourth Degree of the Rite of Elect Cohens. 3. The Twenty-third Degree of the Rite of Misraim. 4. The Twenty-fourth Degree of the third series in the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

[Vue 447] Knight of the Holy City, Beneficent. (Chevalier bienfaisant de la Cit Sainte.) The Order of Beneficent Knights of the Holy City of Jerusalem was created, according to Ragon, at Lyons, in France, in 1782, by the brethren of the Lodge of Chevaliers Bienfaisants. But Thory (Acta Lat. i, 299) says it was rectified at the Congress of Wilhelmsbad. Both are perhaps right. It was probably first invented at Lyons, at one time a prolific field for the hauts grades, and afterwards adopted at Wilhelmsbad, whence it began to exercise a great influence over the Lodges of Strict Observance. The Order professed the Rite of Martinism; but the members attempted to convert Free-masonry into Templarism, and transferred all the symbols of the former to the latter system. Thus, they interpreted the two pillars of the porch and their names as alluding to Jacobus Burgundus or James the Burgundian, meaning James de Molay. the last Grand Master of the Templars; the three gates of the Temple signifies the three vows of the Knights Templar, obedience, poverty, and chastity; and the sprig of acacia referred to that which was planted over the ashes of De Molay when they were transferred to Heredom in Scotland. The Order and the doctrine sprang from the Templar system of Ramsay. The theory of its Jesuitic origin can scarcely be admitted. [305 vue 348]

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Grand Architect. A degree in several of the Rites modeled upon the Twelfth of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. It is, 1. The Sixth Degree of the Reform of St. Martin; 2. The Fourteenth (sic) of the Rite of Elected Cohens; 3. The Twenty-third of the Rite of Mizraim: and 4. The Twenty-fourth of the Metropolitan Chapter of France. [347 vue 392] Illuminati of Stockolm. An Order but little known; mentioned by Ragon in his Catalogue as having been instituted for the propagation of Martinism. [vue 443] Knight of Palestine. (Chevalier de la Palestine,) 1. The Sixty-third Degree of the Rite of Mizraim. 2. The Ninth Degree of the Reform of St. Martin. 3. One of the series of degrees formerly given in the Baldwyn Encampment of England, and said to have been introduced into Bristol, in 1800, by some French refugees under the authority of the Grand Orient of France.
[page 458 vue 17] ...

Maon du Secret. (The Mason of the Secret) The sixth grade of the reformed rite of Baron Tschoudy, and the seventh in the reformed rite of St. Martin. (Thory, Acta Lat.,I, 321.) [471 vue 30] ... Martinism. The Rite of Martinism. called also the Rectified Rite, was instituted at Lyons, by the Marquis de St. Martin, a disciple of Martines Paschalis, of whose Rite it was pretended to be a reform. Martinism was divided into two classes, called Temples, in which were the following degrees: I. Temple. 1. Apprentice. 2. Fellow-Craft. 3. Master Mason. 4. Past Master. 5. Elect. 6. Grand Architect. 7. Mason of the Secret. II. Temple. 8. Prince of Jerusalem. 9. Knight of Palestine. 10. Kadosh. The decrees of Martinism abounded in the reveries of the Mystics. (See
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Saint Martin.) Martin, Louis Claude de St. See Saint-Martin. ...


[472 vue 31] ...

Mason of the Secret. (Maon du Secret.) 1. The Sixth degree of the Rite of Tschoudy. 2. The Seventh Degree of the Rite of Saint Martin. [473 vue 32] Master, Ancient. (Matre Ancien.) The Fourth Degree of the Rite of Martinism. This would more properly be translated Past Master, for it has the same position in the rgime of St. Martin that the Past Master has in the English system. [546 vue 111] Past. An epithet applied in Masonry to an officer who has held an office for the prescribed period for which he was elected, and has then retired. Thus, a Past Master is one who has presided for twelve months over a Lodge, and the Past High Priest one who, for the same period, has presided over a Chapter. The French use the word pass in the same sense, but they have also the word ancien, with a similar meaning. Thus, while they would employ Matre pass to designate the degree of Past Master, they would call the official Past Master, who had retired from the chair at the expiration of his term of service, an Ancien Vnrable or Ancien Matre. Past Master. An honorary degree conferred on the Master of a Lodge at his installation into office. In this degree the necessary instructions are conferred respecting the various ceremonies of the Order, such as installations, processions, the laying of comer-stones, etc. When a brother, who has never before presided, has been elected the Master of a Lodge, an emergent Lodge of Past Masters, consisting of not leas than three, is convened, and all but Past Masters retiring, the degree is conferred upon the newly elected officer.
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Some form of ceremony at the installation of a new Master seems to have been adopted at an early period after the revival. In the ''manner of constituting a new Lodge," as practised by the Duke of Wharton, who was Grand Master in 1723, the language used by the Grand Master when placing the candidate in the chair is given, and he is said to use "some other expressions that are proper and usual on that occasion, but not proper to be written." (Constitutions, 1738, p. 150.) Whence we conclude that there was an esoteric ceremony. Often the rituals tell us that this ceremony consisted only in the outgoing Master communicating certain modes of recognition to his successor. And this actually, even at this day, constitutes the essential ingredient of the Past Master's Degree. The degree is also conferred in Royal Arch Chapters, where it succeeds the Mark Master's Degree. The conferring of this degree, which has no historical connection with the rest of the degrees, in a Chapter, arises from the following circumstance: Originally, when Chapters of Royal Arch Masonry were under the government of Lodges in which the degree was then always conferred, it was a part of the regulations that no one could receive the Royal Arch Degree unless he had previously presided in the Lodge as Master. When the Chapters became independent, the regulation could not be abolished, for that would have been an innovation; the difficulty has, therefore, been obviated, by making every candidate for the degree of Royal Arch a Past Virtual Master before his exaltation. [Under the English Constitution this practise was forbidden in 1826, but seems to have lingered on in some parts until 1850.] Some extraneous ceremonies, by no means to their inventor, were at an early period introduced into America. In 1856, the General Grand Chapter, by a unanimous vote, ordered these ceremonies to be discontinued, and the simpler mode of investiture to be used; but the order has only been partially obeyed, and many Chapters still continue what one can scarcely help calling the indecorous form of initiation into the degree. For several years past the question has been agitated in some of the Grand Lodges of the United States, whether this degree is within the
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jurisdiction of Symbolic or of Royal Arch Masonry. The explanation of its introduction into Chapters, just given, manifestly demonstrates that the jurisdiction over it by Chapters is altogether an assumed one. The Past Master of a Chapter is only a quasi Past Master; the true and legitimate Past Master is the one who has presided over a Symbolic Lodge. Past Masters are admitted to membership in many Grand Lodges, and by some the inherent right has been claimed to sit in those bodies. But the most eminent Masonic authorities have made a contrary decision, and the general, and, indeed, almost universal opinion now is that Past Masters obtain their seats in Grand Lodges by courtesy, and in consequence of local regulations, and not by inherent right. The jewel of a Past Master in the United States is a pair of compasses extended to sixty degrees on the fourth part of a circle, with a sun in the center. In England it was formerly the square on a quadrant, but is at present the square with the forty-seventh problem of Euclid engraved on a silver plate suspended within it. The French have two titles to express this degree. They apply Maitre pass to the Past Master of the English and American system, and they call in their own system one who has formerly resided over a Lodge an Ancien Matre. The indiscriminate use of these titles sometimes leads to confusion in the translation of their rituals and treatises. [545 vue 110] Paschalis Martinez. The founder of a new Rite or modification of Masonry, called by him the Rite of elected Cohens or Priests. It was divided into two classes, in the first of which was represented the fall of man from virtue and happiness, and in the second, his final restoration. It consisted of nine degrees, namely: 1. Apprentice; 2. Fellow-Craft; 3. Master; 4 Grand Elect: 5. Apprentice Cohen; 6. Fellow-Craft Cohen; 7. Master Cohen; 8. Grand Architect; 9. Knight Commander. Paschalis first introduced this Rite into some of the Lodges of Marseille, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, and afterward, in 1767, he extended it to Paris,
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where, for a short time, it was rather popular, ranking some of the Parisian literati among its disciples. It has now ceased to exist. Paschalis was a German9, born about the year 1700, of poor but respectable parentage. At the age of sixteen he acquired a knowledge of Greek and Latin10. He then traveled through Turkey Arabia, and Palestine, where he made himself acquainted with the Kabbalistic learning of the Jews. He subsequently repaired to Paris, where he established his Rite. Paschalis was the Master of St. Martin, who afterward reformed his Rite. After living for some years at Paris, he went to St. Domingo, where he died in 1779. Thory, in his histoire de la Fondation du Grand Orient de France (pp. 239-253), has given very full details of this Rite and of its receptions. [561 vue 128] Philalethes, Rite of the. Called also the Seekers of Truth, although the word literally means Friends of Truth, It was a Rite founded in 1773 at Paris, in the Lodge of Amis Runis, by Savalette de Lances, keeper of the Royal Treasury, with whom were associated the Vicomte de Tavannes, (Court de Gbelin, M. de Sainte-Jamos, the President d'Hericourt, and the Prince of Hesse. The Rite, which was principally founded on the system of Martinism, did not confine itself to any particular mode of instruction, but in its reunions, called "convents," the members devoted themselves to the study of all kinds of knowledge that were connected with the occult sciences, and thus they welcomed to their association all who had made themselves remarkable b;^ the singularity or the novelty of their opinions, such as Cagliostro. Mesmer, and Saint Martin. It was divided into twelve classes or chambers of instruction. The names of these classes or degrees were as follows: 1. Apprentice; 2. Fellow-Craft; 3. Master; 4. Elect; 5. Scottish Master; 6. Knight of the East: 7. Rose Croix; 8. Knight of the Temple; 9. Unknown Philosopher: 10. Sublime Philosopher; 11. Initiate; 12. Philalethes, or Searcher after Truth. The first six degrees were called Petty (sic), and the last six High Masonry. The Rite aid not increase very rapidly;
9 Quelle est la source de cette erreur , une de plus sur l'ensemble des erreurs de l'article? Reghellini donne cette information dans Esprit du dogme de la Franche-maonnerie. 10 Martins was unable to any translation from latin to french ! C'est Paris avec l'abb Fourni qu'il semble avoir traduit de latin franais des textes importants pour son rite!

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nine years after its institution. It counted only twenty Lodges in France and in foreign countries which were of its obedience. In 1785 it attempted a radical reform in Masonry, and for this purpose invited the most distinguished Masons of all countries to a congress at Paris. But the project failed, and Savalette de Langes dying in 1788, the Rite, of which he alone was the soul, ceased to exist, and the Lodge of Amis Runis was dissolved. [562 vue 129] Philosopher, Sublime. (Sublime Philosophe.) 1. The Fifty-third Degree of the Rite of Mizraim. 2. The tenth class of the Rite of the Philalethes. Philosopher, Sublime Unknown. (Sublime Philosophe Inconnu,) The Seventy-ninth Degree of the Metropolitan Chapter of France. Philosopher, The Little. (Le petit Philosophe,) A degree in the collection of Pyron. Philosopher Unknown. (Philosophe Inconnu,) The ninth class of the Rite of the Philalethes. It was so called in reference to St. Martin, who had adopted that title as his pseudonym, and was universally known by it among his disciples.

... Rite The Latin word ritus, whence we get the English rite, signifies an approved usage or custom, or an external observance. Vossius derives it by metathesis from the Greek ***, whence literally it signifies a trodden path, and, metaphorically, a long-followed custom. As a Masonic term its application is therefore apparent. It signifies a method of conferring Masonic light by a collection and distribution of degrees. It is. in other words, the method and order observed in the government of a Masonic system. The original system of Speculative Masonry consisted of only the three Symbolic degrees, called, therefore, Ancient Craft Masonry. Such was
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the condition of Free-masonry at the time of what is called the revival m 1717. Hence, this was the original Rite or approved usage, and so it continued in England until the year 1813, when at the union of the two Grand Lodges the "Holy Royal Arch'' was declared to be a part of the system; and thus the English Rite was made legitimately to consist of four degrees. But on the Continent of Europe, the organization of new systems began at a much earlier period, and by the invention of what are known as the high degrees a multitude of Rites was established. All of these agreed in one important essential. They were built upon the three Symbolic degrees, which, in every instance, constituted the fundamental basis upon which they were erected. They were intended as an expansion and development of the Masonic ideas contained in these degrees. The Apprentice. Fellow-Craft, and Master's degrees were the porch through which every initiate was required to pass before he could gain entrance into the inner temple which had been erected by the founders of the Rite. They were the text, and the high degrees the commentary. Hence arises the law, that whatever may be the constitution and teachings of any Rite as to the higher degrees peculiar to it, the three symbolic degrees being common to all the Rites, a Master Mason, in any one of the Rites, may visit and labor in a Master's Lodge of every other Rite. It is only after that degree is passed that the exclusiveness of each Rite begins to operate. There has been a multitude of these Rites. Some of them have lived only with their authors, and died when their parental energy in fostering them ceased to exert itself. Others have had a more permanent existence, and still continue to divide the Masonic family, furnishing, however, only diverse methods of attaining to the same great end, the acquisition of Divine Truth by Masonic light. Ragon, in his Tuileur Gnral supplies us with the names of a hundred and eight, under the different titles of Rites, Orders, and Academies. But many of these are unmasonics, being merely of a political, social, or literary character. The following catalogue embraces the most important of those which have hitherto or still continue to arrest the attention of the Masonic student.
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1. York Rite. 2. Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. 3. French or Modem Rite. 4. American Rite. 5. Philosophic Scottish Rite. 6. Primitive Scottish Rite. 7. Reformed Rite. 8. Reformed Helvetic Rite. 9. Fessler's Rite. 10. Schrder's Rite. 11. Rite of the Grand Lodge of the Three Globes. 12. Rite of the Elect of Truth. 13. Rite of the Vielle Bru. 14. Rite of the Chapter of Clermont. 15. Pemetty's Rite. 16. Rite of the Blazing Star. 17. Chastanier's Rite. 18. Rite of the Philalethes. 19. Primitive Rite of the Philadelphians. 20. Rite of Martinism. 21. Rite of Brother Henoch. 22. Rite of Misraim. 23. Rite of Memphis. 24. Rite of Strict Observance. 25. Rite of Lax Observance. 26. Rite of African Architects. 27. Rite of Brothers of Asia. 28. Rite of Perfection. 29. Rite of Elected Cohens. 30. Rite of the Emperors of the East and West. 31. Primitive Rite of Narbonne. 32. Rite of the Order of the Temple. 33. Swedish Rite. 34. Rite of Swedenborg. 35. Rite of Zinnendorf . 36. Egyptian Rite of Cagliostro.
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37. Rite of the Beneficent Knights of the Holy City. [627 vue 196] These Rites are not here given in the order of date or of importance. The distinct history of each will be found under its appropriate title. Rite des Elus Coens, ou Prtres. A system adopted in 1750, but which did not attain its full vigor until twenty-five years thereafter, when Lodges were opened in Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux, and Toulouse. The devotees of Martinez Pasqualis, the founder, were called Martinistes, and were partly Hermetic and partly Swedenborgian11 in their teachings. Martinez was a religious man, and based his teachings partly on the Jewish Kabbala and partly on Hermetic supernaturalism. The grades were as follows: 1. Apprenti; 2. Compagnon; 3. Matre; 4. Grand Elu; 5. Apprenti Coen; 6. Compagnon Coen; 7. Matre Coen; 8. Grand Architecte; 9. Grand Commandeur. Ritual The mode of opening and closing a Lodge, of conferring the degrees, of installation, and other duties, constitute a system of ceremonies which are called the Ritual. Much of this ritual is esoteric, and, not being permitted to be committed to writing, is communicated only by oral instruction. In each Masonic jurisdiction it is required, by the superintending authority, that the ritual shall be the same; but it more or less differs in the different Rites and jurisdictions. But this does not affect the universality of Masonry. The ritual is only the external and extrinsic form. The doctrine of Freemasonry is everywhere the same. It is the body which is unchangeable remaining always and everywhere the same. The ritual is but the outer garment which covers this body, which is subject to continual variation. It is right and desirable that the ritual should be made perfect, and everywhere alike. But if this be impossible, as it is, this at least will console us, that while the ceremonies, or ritual, have varied at different periods, and still vary in different countries, the science and philosophy, the symbolism and the religion, of Freemasonry continue, and will continue, to be the same wherever true Masonry is practiced.
11 Il est possible d'attribuer cette erreur une lecture papusienne d'informations.

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[660 vue 231] Saint Martin, Louis Claude. A mystical writer and Masonic leader of considerable reputation in the last century, and the founder of the Rite of Martinism. He was born at Amboise, in France, on January 18, 1743. being descended from a family distinguished in the military service of the kingdom. Saint Martin when a youth made great progress in his studies, and became the master of several ancient and modem languages. After leaving school, he entered the army, in accordance with the custom of his family, becoming a member of the regiment of Foix. But after six years of service, he retired from a profession which he found uncongenial with his fondness for metaphysical pursuits. He then traveled in Switzerland, Germany, Em^land, and Italy, and finally retired to Lyons, where he remained for three years in a state of almost absolute seclusion, known to but few persons, and pursuing his philosophic studies. He then repaired to Pans, where, notwithstanding the tumultuous scenes of the revolution which was working around, he remained unmoved by the terrible events of the day, and intent only on the prosecution of his theosophic studies. Attracted by the mystical systems of Boehme and Swedenborg, he became himself a mystic of no mean pretensions, and attracted around him a crowd of disciples, who were content, as they said, to hear, without understanding, the teachings of their leader. In 1775 appeared his first and most important work, entitled Des Erreurs et de la Vrit ou les Hommes rappels au principe universel de la Science. This work, which contained an exposition of the ideology of Saint Martin, acquired for its author, by its unintelligible transcendentalism, the title of the ''Kant of Germany." Saint Martin had published this work under the pseudonym of the ''Unknown Philosopher" (Philosophe inconnu) ; whence he was subsequently known by this name, which was also assumed by some of his Masonic adherents; and even a degree bearing that title was invented and inserted in the Rite of Philalethes. The treatise Des Erreurs et de la Vrit was in fact made a sort of text-book by the Philalethans, and highly recommended by the Order of the Initiated Knights and Brothers of Asia, whose system was in fact a compound of theosophy and mysticism. It was so popular, that between 1775 and 1784 it had been through five editions. Saint Martin, in the commencement of his Masonic career, attached himself to Martinez Paschalis, of whom he was one of the most prominent
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disciples. But he subsequently attempted a reform of the system of Paschalis, and established what he called a Rectified Rite, but which is better known as the Rite or system of Martinism, which consisted of ten degrees. It was itself subsequently reformed, and, being reduced to seven degrees, was introduced into some of the Lodges of Germany under the name of the Reformed Ecossism of Saint Martin. The theosophic doctrines of Saint Martin were introduced into the Masonic Lodges of Russia by Count Gabrianko and Admiral Pleshcheyeff, and soon became popular. Under them the Martinists Lodges of Russia became distinguished not only for their Masonic and religious spirit although too much tinged with the mysticism of Jacob Boehme and their founder -but for an active zeal in practical works of charity of both a private and public character. The character of Saint Martin has been much mistaken, especially by Masonic writers. Those who, like Voltaire, have derided his metaphysical theories, seem to have forgotten the excellence of his private character, his kindness of heart, his amiable manners, and his varied and extensive erudition. Nor should it be forgotten that the true object of all his Masonic labors was to introduce into the Lodges of France a spirit of pure religion. His theory of the origin of Freemasonry was not, however, based on any historical research, and is of no value, for he believed that it was an emanation of the Divinity, and was to be traced to the very beginning of the world. [747 vue 324] Swedenborg, Rite of. The so-called Rite of Swedenborg, the history of whose foundation has been given in the preceding article, consists of six degrees: 1. Apprentice. 2. Fellow-Craft. 3. Master Neophyte. 4. Illuminated Theosophits. 5. Blue Brother. 6. Bed Brother. It is said to be still practised by some of the Swedish Lodges, but is elsewhere extinct. Reghellini, in his Esprit du Dogme, gives it as consisting of eight degrees; but he has evidently confounded it with the Rite of Martinism, also a theosophic Rite, and the ritualism of which also partakes of a Swedenborgian character. [vue 363 782]
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Theosophists. There were many theosophists enthusiasts whom Vaughan calls noble specimens of the mystic -but those with whom the history of Masonry has most to do were the mystical religious thinkers of the last century, who supposed that they were possessed of a knowledge of the Divinity and his works by supernatural inspiration, or who regarded the foundation of their mystical tenets as resting on a sort of Divine intuition. Such were Swedenborg, who, if not himself a Masonic reformer, has supplied the materials of many degrees; the Moravian brethren, the object of whose association is said to have been originally the propagation of the Gospel under the Masonic veil ; St. Martin, the founder of the Philalethans: Pernetty, to whom we owe the Order of Illuminati at Avignon; and Chastanier, who was the inventer of the Rite of Illuminated Theosophists. The object proposed in all these theosophic degrees was the regeneration of man, and his reintegration into the primitive innocence from which he had fallen of original sin. Theosophic Masonry was, in fact, nothing else than an application of the speculative ideas of Jacob Boehme, of Swedenborg [vue 364 page 783] and other mystical philosophers of the same class. Vaughan, in his Hours with the Mystics (II, 46), thus describes the earlier theosophists of the fourteenth century: "They believed devoutly in the genuineness of the Kabbala. They were persuaded that, beneath all the floods of change, this oral tradition had perpetuated its life unharmed from the days of Moses downward even as Jewish fable taught them that the cedars alone, of all trees, had continued to spread the strength of their invulnerable arms below the waters of the deluge. They rejoiced in the hidden lore of that book as in a treasure rich with the germs of all philosophy. They maintained that from its marvelous leaves man might learn the angelic heraldry of the skies, the mysteries of the Divine nature, the means of converse with the potentates of heaven." Add to this an equal reverence for the unfathomable mysteries contained in the prophecies of Daniel and the vision of the Evangelist, with a proneness to give to everything Divine a symbolic interpretation, and you have the true character of those later theosophists who labored to invent their particular systems of Masonry. For more of this subject, see the article on Saint Martin. Nothing now remains of theosophic Masonry except the few traces
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left through the influence of Zinnendorf in the Swedish system, and what we find in the Apocalyptic degrees of the Scottish Rite. The systems of Swedenborg, Pernetty, Paschalis, St. Martin, and Chastanier have all become obsolete. [817 vue 400] Unknown Philosopher. One of the mystical and theosophic works written by Saint Martin, the founder of the Rite of Martinism, was entitled Le Philosophe Inconnu, or The Unknown Philosopher, whence the appellation was often given by his disciples to the author. A degree of his Rite also received the same name. Unknown Superiors. When the Baron Von Hund established his system or Rite of Strict Observance, he declared that the Order was directed by certain Masons of superior rank, whose names as well as their designs were to be kept secret from all the brethren of the lower degrees; although there was an insinuation that they were to be found or to be heard of in Scotland. To these secret dignitaries he gave the title of "Superiores Incogniti," or Unknown Superiors. Many Masonic writers, suspecting that Jesuitism was at the bottom in all the Masonry of that day, asserted that S. 1., the initials of Superiores Incogniti, meant really Societas Jesu, i. e., the Society of Jesus or the Jesuits. It is scarcely necessary now to say that the whole story of the Unknown Superiors was a myth.

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The Cambridge History of English Literature: From Steele and Addison to Pope ...? - Page 522
Sir Adolphus William Ward, Alfred Rayney Waller 1912

CHAPTER XII WILLIAM LAW AND THE MYSTICS To speak of mystical thought in the first half of the eighteenth century in England seems almost a contradiction in terms ; for the predominating character of that age, its outlook on life and its mind as expressed in philosophy, religion and literature, was in every way opposed to what is understood by mystical. In literature, shallowness of thought is often found combined with unrivalled clearness of expression ; in general outlook, the conception of a mechanical world made by an outside Creator; in religion and philosophy, the practically universal appeal to rational evidence as supreme arbiter. In no age, it would seem, have men written so much about religion, while practising it so little. The one quality in Scripture which interests writers and readers alike is its credibility, and the impression gathered by the student of the religious controversies of the day is that Christianity was held to exist, not to be lived, but, like a proposition in Euclid, only to be proved. This view, however, of the main tendency of the time, though representative, is not complete. There is also an undercurrent of thought of a kind that never quite disappears and that helps to keep the earth green during the somewhat dry and arid seasons when rationalism or materialism gains the upper hand. This tendency of thought is called mysticism, and it may be described in its widest sense as an attitude of mind founded upon an intuitive or experienced conviction of fundamental unity, of alikeness in all things. All mystical thought springs from this as base. The poet mystic, looking out on the natural world, rejoices in it with a purer joy and studies it with a deeper reverence than other men, because he knows it is not something called '
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matter ' and alien to him, but that it is as he is spirit itself made visible. The mystic philosopher, instead of attempting to reason or analyse or deduce, seeks merely to tell of his vision; whereupon, words [306] generally fail him, and he becomes obscure. The religious mystic has for goal the union of himself with God, the actual contact with the Divine Presence, and he conceives this possible because man is ' a God though in the germ,' and, therefore, can know God through that part of his nature which is akin to Him. There were many strains of influence which, in the seventeenth century, tended to foster this type of thought in England. The little group of Cambridge Platonists gave new expression to great neo-Platonic ideas, the smouldering embers of which had been fanned to flame in the ardent forge of the Florentine renascence121; but, in addition to this older thought, there were not only new influences from without but, also, new conditions within which must be indicated. A strong vein of mysticism had been kept alive in Amsterdam, whither the first body of exiled separatists had gone in 1593. Elizabeth, thinking to quell independent religious thought at home, had planted nurseries of freedom in Holland, which waxed strong and sent back over seas in the next century a persistent stream of opinion and literature132. To this can be traced the root-ideas which animated alike quakers, seekers, Behmenists, anabaptists, familists and numberless other sects which embodied a reaction against forms and ceremonies that, in ceasing to be understood, had become lifeless. They all agreed in deeming it more important to spiritualize this life than to dogmatize about the life to come. They all believed in the ' innerlight,' in the immediate revelation of God within the soul as the supreme and all-important experience. They all held that salvation was the effect of a spiritual principle, a seed quickened invisibly by God, and, consequently, they considered learning useless, or even mischievous, in dealing with the things of the spirit. So far, these various sects were mystical in thought; though, with the exception of familists, Behmenists and seekers, they cannot unreservedly be classed as mystics. Large numbers of these three sects, however, became ' children of
12 See vol. VIII, chap. x 13 2 For an interesting detailed account of this phase of religious life, with full references to original documents, see Studies in Mystical Religion, 1909, by Jones, K. M., chaps. XVI and XVII.

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light,' thus helping to give greater prominence to the strong mystical element in early quakerism. It only needed the release from the crushing hand of Laud, and the upheaval of the civil war, to set free the religious revival [307] which had long been seething, and to distract England, for a time, with religious excitement. Contemporary writers refer with horror to the swarm of ' sects, heresies and schisms ' which now came into being 14 1, and Milton alone seems to have understood that the turmoil was but the outward sign of a great spiritual awakening152. Unhappily, there were few who, with him, could perceive that the 'opinion of good men is but knowledge in the making,' and that these many sects were but various aspects of one main movement towards freedom and individualism, towards a religion of the heart rather than of the head. The terrible persecutions of the quakers under Charles II16 3 tended to withdraw them from active life, and to throw them in the direction of a more personal and introspective religion17 4 It was then that the writings of Antoinette Bourignon, Madame Guyon and Fnelon became popular, and were much read among a certain section of thinkers, while the teachings of Jacob Boehme, whose works had been put into English between the years 1644 and 1692, bore fruit in many ways185 Whether directly or indirectly, they permeated the thought of the founders of the Society of Friends196, they were widely read both in cottage and study20 7 and they produced a distinct Behmenite sect218. Their influence can be seen
14 See, for instance, Pagitt's Heresiography, 1645, dedication to the lord mayor ; or Edwards, who, in his Gangraena, 1646, names 176, and, later, 23 more, ' errors, heresies, blasphemies.' 15 Areopagitica, 1644 16 3 13,562 Friends suffered imprisonment during the years 1661 97, while 198 were transported overseas and 338 died in prison or of their wounds. See Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth, by Barclay, pp. 474 8. 17 For further observations on early quakerism in its connection with literature, see vol. VIII, chap. IV. 18 Charles I, who, shortly before his death, read Boehme's Forty Questions, just then translated into English, much admired it. See a most interesting MS letter in Latin from Francis Lee to P. Poiret in Dr Williams's library, C 5 . 30. 19 Jacob Behmont's Books were the chief books that the Quakers bought, for there is the Principle or Foundation of their Religion.' A Looking Glass for George Fox, 1667, p. 5. But Boehme was not wholly approved of even among the early quakers ; see Liner Life of the Religious Societies, p. 479. For the influence of Boehme on Fox and Winstauley, see Studies in Mystical Religion, pp. 4945; cf., also. Fox's Journal for 1648, 8th ed., vol. i, pp. 28 9, with Boehme's Three Principles, chap, xx, 39 42 ; also, life of J. B. in ' Law's edition,' vol. i, p. xiii, or the Signatura Rerum. 20 See Way to Divine Knowledge, Law's Works, vol. vii, pp. 84, 85 ; Byrom's Journal vol. I, part 2, pp. 560, 598 ; vol. II, part 2, pp. 193, 216, 236, 285, 31011, 328, 377, 380. 21 See Eichard Baxter's Autobiography, Reliquiae Baxterianae, 1696, part I p. 77.

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in the writings of Thomas Tryon, John Pordage, George Cheyne, Francis Lee, Jane Lead, Thomas Bromley, Richard Roach and others ; in the foundation and transactions of the [308] Philadelphian society; in the gibes of satirists221; in forgotten tracts; in the increase of interest in alchemy 232; in the voluminous MS commentaries of Freher, or even in Newton's great discovery ; for it is almost certain that the idea of the three laws of motion first reached Newton through his eager study of Boehme. The tracing of this mystical thought, however, during the period under discussion and later, mainly among obscure sects and little-known thinkers, would not form part of a history of English literature, were it not that our greatest prose mystic lived and wrote in the same age. William Law had a curiously paradoxical career. After graduating as B.A. and M.A. at Cambridge, in 1708 and 1712, and being, in 1711, ordained and elected fellow of his college (Emmanuel), he refused to take the oaths of allegiance to George I, and thus lost his fellowship and vocation. Though an ardent high churchman, he was the father of methodism. Though deprived of employment in his church, he wrote the book which, of all others for a century to come, had the most profound and far-reaching influence upon the religious thought of his country. Though a sincere, and, so he believed, an orthodox Christian, he was the classic exponent of Boehme, a thinker abhorred and mistrusted alike by eighteenth century divines and by Wesleyan leaders. About the year 1727, Edward Gibbon selected Law as tutor for his only son, the father of the historian, and, in 1730, when his pupil went abroad. Law lived on with the elder Gibbon in the ' spacious house with gardens and land at Putney,' where he was ' the much honoured friend and spiritual director of the whole family24 3' During these years at Putney, Law's reputation as a writer became assured. He was already known as the ablest defender of nonjuror
22 He Anthroposophus and Floud, And Jacob Behmen understood. Hudibras, i, canto 1, cf. A Tale of a Tub, sect, v, and Martinus Scriblerus, end of chap. I. 23 See Aubrey's Lives. 24 Gibbon's Memoirs, ed. Hill, G. B., 1900, p. 24.

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principles; the publication of A Serious Call in 1729 had brought him renown, and he was revered and consulted by an admiring band of disciples. His later life was spent at his birthplace. King's Cliffe, near Stamford. He settled there in 1737 or 1740, and was joined by Hester Gibbon, the historian's aunt, and Mrs Hutcheson, a widow with considerable means. This oddly assorted trio gave themselves to a life of retirement and good deeds, the whole being regulated by Law. With a united income of over 3000 a year, they lived in the simplest fashion. [309] They spent large sums in founding schools and almshouses, and in general charity, which took the form of free daily distribution of food, money and clothes, no beggar being turned away from the door, until the countryside became so demoralized with vagrants that the inhabitants protested and the rector preached against these proceedings from the pulpit251. The trouble, however, seems to have abated when the three kindhearted and guileless offenders threatened to leave the parish, and, possibly, it may have caused them to exercise a little discrimination in their giving. Here, at King's Cliffe, after more than twenty years of residence, passed in the strictest routine of study and good works, Law died, after a short illness, almost in the act of singing a hymn. Law's writings fall naturally into three divisions, controversial, practical and mystical. His three great controversial works are directed against a curious assortment of opponents: Hoadly, latitudinarian bishop of Bangor, Mandeville, a sceptical pessimist, and Tindal, a deistical optimist. These writers represent three main sections of the religious opinion of the day, and much light is thrown on Law's character and beliefs by the method with which he meets them and turns their own weapons against themselves. It was a time of theological pamphleteering, and the famous Bangorian controversy is a good specimen of the kind of discussion which abounded in the days of George I. It is, on the whole, good reading, clear,
25 1 See Walton's Notes, p. 499. The duty on which Law most insisted was charity ; see his defence of indiscriminate giving, in A Serious Call, Works, vol. iv, pp. 114 18.

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pointed and even witty, and, if compared with similar controversies in the reign of Charles I, presents an admirable object lesson as to the advance made during the intervening years in the writing of English prose. When queen Anne died, and the claims of the Stewarts were set aside in favour of a parliamentary king from Hanover, the church, committed absolutely to the hereditary, as opposed to the parliamentary, principle, found itself on the horns of a dilemma. High churchmen were forced either to eat their own words, or to refuse to take the oaths of allegiance to the new king and of abjuration to the pretender26 2. Law is a prominent example of this latter and smaller class, the second generation of non-jurors. Feeling naturally ran very high when, in answer to the posthumous [310] papers of George Hickes271, the nonjuring bishop, who charged the church with schism, Benjamin Hoadly, bishop of Bangor, the king's chaplain, came forward as champion of the crown and church. Hoadly was an able thinker and writer, and, in his Preservative against the Principles and Practices of the Non-Jurors, he attempts to justify the civil power by reducing to a minimum the idea of church authority and even that of creeds. He tells Christians to depend upon Christ alone for their religion, and not upon His ministers, and he urges sincerity as the sole test of truth. On this last point he dwells more fully and exclusively in his famous sermon. The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ, preached before the king on 31 March 1717. Hoadly's pamphlet and sermon raised a cloud of controversy282; but by far the ablest answer he received on the part of the nonjurors was that contained in Law's Three Letters to the Bishop of Bangor (1717 19). The bishop never replied to Law, and, indeed, he gave strong proof of his acuteness by leaving his brilliant young opponent severely alone29 3.

26 For an excellent illustration of the principles and arguments on both sides, compare Law's letter from Cambridge, written to his brother at the time, with that of his future friend Byrom at the same date. Both are quoted by Overton, J. H., William Law, Non juror and Mystic, 1881, pp. 13 16. 27 The Constitution of the Catholic Church, and the Nature and Consequences of Schism. 1716. 28 2 In the course of July 1717, 74 pamphlets appeared on the subject, and, at one crisis, for a day or two, the business of the city was at a standstill, little was done on the Exchange and many shops were shut. See Hoadly's Works, vol. ii, pp. 385, 429 ; also Sir Leslie Stephen's English Thought in the 18th Century, vol. ii, p. 156. 29 3 See Hoadly's Works, vol. ii, pp. 694 5, where he gives his reasons for not answering Law.

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Law instantly detected that Hoadly's arguments tended to do away altogether with the conception of the church as a living spiritual society, and his answer is mainly directed against the danger of this tendency 30 4. He begins by pointing out that there are no libertines or loose thinkers in England who are not pleased with the bishop, for they imagine that he intends to dissolve the church as a society ; and, indeed, they seem to have good grounds for their assumption, since the bishop leaves neither authorised ministers, nor sacraments, nor church, and intimates that 'if a man be not a Hypocrite, it matters not what Religion he is of315'. Law deals with church authority, and shows that if, as Hoadly says, regularity of ordination and uninterrupted succession be mere niceties and dreams, there is no difference between the episcopalian communion and any other lay body of teachers326. He demolishes Hoadly's remarks on the exclusion of the papist [311] succession, and he ends the first letter by refuting the bishop's definition of prayer, as a ' calm, undisturbed address to God33 1 in a passage which is one of the finest pleas in our language for the right use of passion, and which admirably sums up the fundamental difference of outlook between the mystic and the rationalist temper in the things of the spirit. Law's next work, Remarks on the Fable of the Bees (1723), is an answer to Mandeville's poem342, the moral of which is that 'private vices are public benefits,' and Law, characteristically seizing on the fallacy underlying Mandeville's clever paradoxes, deals with his definition of the nature of man and of virtue in a style at once buoyant, witty and caustic. The Case of Reason (1731) is Law's answer to the deists, and, more especially, to Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730). To reply to such arguments as those of Tindal and the deists in general was, to a man of Law's insight and intellect, an easy task. He brings out well the fundamental difference between his and their points of view. Deists saw a universe
30 4 For some of the side issues which were vehemently discussed by other writers, Bee Leslie Stephen, vol. ii, p. 157. 31 5 Works, vol. I, Letter 1, pp. 6, 7. 32 6 Ibid. pp. 14, 15. 33 1 So defined by Hoadly in his sermon The Nature of the Kingdom or Church of Christ, p. 7. 34 2 The Grumbling Hive, first printed 1705, republished with explanatory notes under the title The Fable of the Bees, 1714.

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governed by fixed laws, a scheme of creation which was 'plain and perspicuous353,' capable of accurate investigation, and they believed in a magnified man God outside the universe, whose nature, methods and aims were, or should be, perfectly clear to the minds of his creatures. Law saw a living universe, wrapped in impenetrable mystery, and believed in a God who was so infinitely greater than man, that, of His nature, or of the reason or fitness of his actions, men can know nothing whatsoever. Why complain of mysteries in revelation, he says, when 'no revealed mysteries can more exceed the comprehension of man, than the state of human life itself364' ? Tindal asserts that the ' fitness of things ' must be the sole rule of God's actions. ' I readily grant this,' says Law, 'but what judges are we of the fitness of things? ' We can no more judge the divine nature than we can raise ourselves to a state of infinite wisdom ; and the rule by which God acts 'must in many instances be entirely inconceivable by us . . . and in no instances fully known or perfectly comprehended37 5' In short, the fundamental assumption of the deists, that human reason is all-sufficient to guide us to truth, is the great error which [312] William Law and the Mystics Law, in his later writings especially, set himself to combat ; in his opinion, it is devilish pride, the sin by which the angels fell 38 1 . In the further development of his position in The Case of Reason, we can see many indications of the future mystic ; for the crudely material thought of his opponent seems to have called into expression, for the first time, many of Law's more characteristic beliefs. There is, throughout, a strong sense of man's capacity for spiritual development, and a settled belief that the human mind cannot possibly know anything as it really is, but can only know things in so far as it is able to apprehend them through symbol or analogy. Things supernatural or divine, he says, cannot be revealed to us in their own nature, for the simple reason that we are not capable of knowing them. If an angel were to appear to us, he would have to appear, not as he really is, but in some human bodily form, so that his appearance might be
35 36 37 38 Christianity as Old as the Creation, p. 20. 4 The Case of Reason, Works, vol. ii, p. 9. 5 Ibid, p, 7. 1 The Case of Reason, p. 3

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suited to our capacities. Thus, with any supernatural or divine matter, it can only be represented to us by its likeness to something that we already naturally know392. This is the way in which revelation teaches us, and it is only able to teach so much outward knowledge of a great mystery as human language can represent403 ; reason is impotent in face of it, and only by the spiritual faculty that exists in us can the things of the spirit be even dimly apprehended414. Law's practical and ethical works, A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection (1726) and A Serious Call (1728), have been more read and are better known than any other of his writings ; moreover, they explain themselves, being independent both of local controversies and of any special metaphysic. For these reasons, comparatively little need be said about them here. Both treatises are concerned with the practical question of how to live in accordance With the teachings of Christ, and they point out with peculiar force that the way consists, not in performing this or that act of devotion or ceremony, but in a new principle of life, an entire change of temper and of aspiration. Christian Perfection, though somewhat gloomy and austere in tone, has much charm and beauty ; but it was quite overshadowed by the wider popularity of what many consider Law's greatest work, A Serious Call, a book of extraordinary power, delightful and persuasive style, racy wit and unanswerable logic. Never have the inconsistency between Christian precept and practice been so ruthlessly exposed and the secret springs of men's hearts so [313] uncompromisingly laid bare. Never has the ideal of the Christian life been painted by one who lived more literally in accordance with every word he preached. That is the secret of A Serious Call; it is written from the heart, by a man in deep earnest; and in an age distinguished for its mediocrity and easygoing laxness, Law's lofty ideals acted as an electric current, setting aflame the hearts of all who came under their power. Few books in English have wielded such an influence. John Wesley himself acknowledged that A Serious Call sowed the seed of methodism421,
39 2 Ibid. p. 37 40 3 Ibid. p. 39. 41 4 Ibid. pp. 16, 17. 42 1 Sermon CVII, Wesley's Works, 11th ed., 1856, vol. VII, p. 194

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and, undoubtedly, next to the Bible, it contributed more than any other book to the spread of evangelicalism. It made the deepest impression on Wesley himself; he preached after its model43 2 ; he used it as a text-book for the highest class at Kingswood school ; and, a few months before his death, he spoke of it as 'a treatise which will hardly be excelled, if it be equalled, in the English tongue, either for beauty of expression or for justice and depth of thought.' Charles Wesley, Henry Whitfield, Henry Venn, Thomas Scott, Thomas Adam and James Stillingfleet are among other great methodists and evangelicals who have recorded how profoundly it affected them. But it did not appeal only to this type of mind. Dr Johnson, who praised it in no measured terms, attributes his first serious thoughts to the reading of it. 'I became,' he says, ' a sort of lax talker against religion, for I did not much think against it ; and this lasted till I went to Oxford443.' When there,
I took up Law's Serious Call to a Holy Life, expecting to find it a dull book (as such books generally are)... But I found Law quite an over-match for me; and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion.

Gibbon454 and the first Lord Lyttelton (who, taking it up at bedtime, was forced to read it through before he could go to rest) 465 are two among many other diverse characters who felt its force. Such, very briefly, were Law's views and writings until middle age. Although, before that time, they do not show any marked mystical tendency, yet we know that, from his undergraduate-ship onwards, Law was a 'diligent reader' of mystical books47 6 and, when at Cambridge, he wrote a thesis entitled Malebranche, and [314] the Vision of All Things in God. There is no question that he was strongly attracted to, and probably influenced by, Malebranche's view that all true knowledge is but the measure of the extent to which the individual can participate in the universal life; that, unless we see God in some measure, we do not see anything ; and that it is only by union with God we are capable of knowing what we do know481. On the other hand, there are points in Malebranche's philosophy which curiously
43 2 Letter to Law of 1738, quoted by Overton, p. 33. 44 3 Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Hill, G. Birkbeck, 1887, vol. i, p. 68, also vol. ii, p. 122 45 4 Gibbon's Memoirs, ed. Hill, G. B., 1900, p. 23. 46 5 Byrom's Journal, vol. ii, part 2, p. 634. 47 6 See Some Animadversions upon Dr Trapp's late Reply, Works, vol. vi, p. 319. 48 1 See Recherche de la Vrit, specially livre iii, chap, vi, Que nous voyons toutes choses en Dieu.

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stops short of its logical conclusion quite opposed to Law's later thought: more especially the belief, which Malebranche shared with Descartes on the one side and Locke on the other, that body and spirit are separate and contrary existences ; whereas, in Law's view, body and spirit are but inward and outward expressions of the same being492. Among other mystics studied by Law were Dionysius the Areopagite, the Belgian and German writers Johannes Ruysbroek, Johann Tauler, Heinrich Suso and others, and the seventeenth century quietists, Fnelon, Madame Guyon and Antoinette Bourignon. The last two were much admired by Byrom, who loved to recur to them in writing and in talk ; but they were not altogether congenial to Law ; they were too diffuse, sentimental and even hysterical to please his essentially robust and manly temper. When, however, he was about forty-six (c. 1733), he came across the work of the seer who supplied just what he needed, and who set his whole nature aglow with mystical fervour. Jacob Boehme (or Behmen, as he has usually been called in England), the peasant shoemaker of Gorlitz, is one of the most amazing phenomena in an amazing age. He was the son of a herdsman, and, as a boy, helped his father to tend cattle; he was taught how to write and read, was apprenticed to a shoemaker, married the daughter of a butcher and lived quietly and humbly, troubled only by years of bitter persecution from his pastor, who stirred up the civil authorities against him. This was his outer life, sober and hard-working, like that of his fellow-seer, William Blake, but, like him also, he lived in a glory of inner illumination, by the light of which he caught glimpses of mysteries and of splendours which, even in Boehme's broken and faltering syllables, dazzle and blind the ordinary reader. He saw with the eye of his mind into the heart of things, and he wrote down so much of it as he could understand with his reason. He had a quick and supple intelligence, and an intense power of [315] visualizing. Everything appears to him as an image, and, with him, a logical process expresses itself in a series of pictures. Although illiterate and untrained, Boehme was in touch with the thought of his time, and the form of his work, at any rate, owes a good deal to it. The older speculative mysticism which rather despised nature, and sought for light from within, coming down from Plotinus through Meister Eckhart and Tauler, had, in Germany, been carried on and developed by Caspar von Schwenckfeld and Sebastian Franck ; while a revival of the still older practical or ' perceptive mysticism of the east, based on a study of the
49 2 See The Spirit of Love, Works, vol. viii, pp. 31 and 33.

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natural sciences (in which were included astrology, alchemy and magic), had been brought about by Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus, both of whom owed much to the Jewish Cabbala. These two mystical traditions, the one starting from within, the other from without, were, to some extent, reconciled into one system by the Lutheran pastor Valentin Weigel, with whose mysticism Boehme has much in common. The older mystics eastern and western alike had laid supreme stress on unity as seen in the nature of God and all things. No one more fully believed in ultimate unity than did Boehme ; but he lays peculiar stress on the duality, or, more accurately, the trinity in unity, and the central point of his philosophy is the fundamental postulate that all manifestation necessitates opposition. He asserted the uniformity of law throughout all existence, physical and spiritual, and this law, which applies throughout nature, divine and human alike, is that nothing can reveal itself without resistance, good can only be known through evil, and weakness through strength, just as light is only visible when reflected by a dark body501 Thus, when God, the triune principle, or will under three aspects, desires to become manifest. He divides the will into two, the ' yes ' and the ' no,' and so founds an eternal contrast to Himself out of His own hidden nature, in order to enter into a struggle with it, and, finally, to discipline and assimilate it The object of all manifested nature is the transforming of the will which says 'no' into the will which says 'yes,' and this is brought about by seven organizing spirits or forms. The first three of these bring nature out of the dark element to the point where contact with light is possible. Boehme calls them harshness, attraction and anguish, which, in modern terms, are contraction, expansion, and rotation. The first two are in deadly antagonism, and, being [316] forced into collision, form an endless whirl of movement. These two forces, with their resultant effect, are to be found all through manifested nature, within man and without, and are called by different names : good, evil and life ; God, the devil and the world ; homogeneity, heterogeneity, strain, or the three laws of motion, centripetal and centrifugal force, resulting in rotation. They are the outcome of the 'nature' or 'no will,' and are the basis of all manifestation. They are the
50 1 'Without contraries is no progression,' as Blake puts it in his development of the same thesis in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

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'power' of God, apart from the 'love,' hence, their conflict is terrible. At this point, spirit and nature approach and meet, and, from the shock, a new form is liberated, lightning or fire, which is the fourth moment or essence ; in the spark of the lightning, all that is dark, gross and selfish in nature is consumed ; the flash brings the rotating wheel of anguish to a standstill, and it becomes a cross. A divine law is accomplished ; for all life has a double birth, suffering is the condition of joy and only in going through fire or the Cross can man reach light. With the lightning ends the development of the negative triad, and the evolution of the three higher forms then begins ; Boehme calls them light or love, sound and substance ; they are of the spirit, and, in them, contraction, expansion and rotation are repeated in a new sense511 The first three forms give the stuff or strength of being ; the last three manifest the quality of being, good or bad ; and evolution can proceed in either direction. These principles of nature can be looked at in another way. If they are resolved into two sets of three, in the first three the dark principle which Boehme calls fire is manifested, while the last three form the principle of light. These two are eternally distinct, and, whichever is manifested, the other remains hidden. This doctrine of the hidden and manifest is peculiar to Boehme, and lies at the root of his explanation of evil. A spiritual principle becomes manifest by taking on a form or quality. The ' dark ' or harsh principle in God is not evil in itself when in its right place, i.e., when hidden, and forming the necessary basis for the light or good. But, through the fall of man, the divine order has been transgressed, and the dark side has become manifest and appears to us as evil Many chemical processes help to give a crude illustration of Boehme's thought. Suppose 'water' stands for complete good or reality as God sees it. Of the two different gases, [317] hydrogen (= evil) and oxygen (= good) each is manifested separately, with peculiar qualities of its own, but, when they combine, their original form goes 'into hiddenness,' and we get a new body ' water.' Neither of them alone is water, and yet water could not be if either were lacking. In reading Boehme, it must not be forgotten that he has a living intuition of the eternal forces which lie at the root of all things. He is
51 1 Boehme refers to these seven forces in all his writings, but see his Threefold Life of Man, chap, i, 2332 ; chap, ii, 2736, 73 ; chap, ni, 1 ; chap, iv, 5, 12 ; or Signatura Rerum, chap, xiv, 10 15.

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struggling to express the stupendous world-drama which is ever being enacted, in the universe without and in the soul of man within ; and, to this end, he presses into his service symbolical, biblical and alchemical terms, although he fully realizes their inadequacy. 'I speak thus,' he says, ' in bodily fashion, for the sake of my readers' lack of understanding.' Unless this be remembered, Boehme's work, in common with that of all mystics, is liable to the gravest misunderstanding. He is never weary of explaining that, although he is forced to describe things in a series of images, there is no such thing as historical succession, 'for the eternal dwells not in time521 He has to speak of the generation of God as though it were an act in time, although to do so is to use 'diabolical' (i.e., knowingly untrue) language, for God hath no beginning. Everything he describes is going on always and simultaneously, even as all the qualities he names are in everything which is manifested. 'The birth of nature takes place today, just as it did in the beginning.' It would be impossible to give here any adequate account of Boehme's vision; but the four fundamental principles which he enunciated and emphasized may be thus summarized : will or desire as the original force; contrast or duality as the condition of all manifestation ; the relation of the hidden and the manifest ; development as a progressive unfolding of difference, with a final resolution into unity. The practical and ethical result of this living unity of nature is simple. Boehme's philosophy is one which can only be apprehended by living it Will, or desire, is the root-force in man as it is in nature and in the Godhead, and, until this is turned towards the light, any purely historical or intellectual knowledge of these things is as useless as if hydrogen were to study all the qualities of oxygen, expecting thus to become water; whereas, what is needed is the actual union of the elements. The whole of Boehme's practical teaching, as, also, that of Law, might be summed up in the story told of an Indian sage who was importuned by a young man as to how he could find God. For [318] some time, the sage did not give any answer ; but, one evening, he bade the youth come and bathe with him in the river, and, while there, he gripped him suddenly and held his head under the water until he was nearly drowned. When he had released
52 1 Mysterium Magnum, part i, chap, VIII.

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him, the sage asked, 'What did you want most when your head was under water?' and the youth replied, 'A breath of air.' To which the sage answered, 'When you want God as you wanted that breath of air you will find Him.' This realization of the momentous quality of the will is the secret of every religious mystic531; the hunger of the soul, as Law calls it542, is the first necessity, and all else will follow. Such was the thought of the writer who, spiritually, was closely akin to our two greatest English mystics. William Blake saw visions and spoke a tongue like that of the illuminated cobbler ; and of Law, who was not a seer553, we learn that, when he first read Boehme's works, they put him into ' a perfect sweat. ' Only those who combine intense mystical aspiration with a clear and imperious intellect can fully realize what the experience must have been. The two most important of Law's mystical treatises are An Appeal to all that Doubt (1740), and The Way to Divine Knowledge (1752). The first of these should be read by anyone desirous of knowing Law's later thought, for it is a clear and fine exposition of his attitude with regard more especially to the nature of man, the unity of all nature and the quality of fire or desire. The later book is an account of the main principles of Boehme, with a warning as to the right way to apply them, and it was written as an introduction to the new edition of Boehme's works which Law contemplated publishing. Law's later, are but an expansion of his earlier, views ; the main difference being that, whereas, in the practical treatises (Christian Perfection and A Serious Call), he urges certain temper and conduct because it is our duty to obey God, or because it is right or lawful, in his later writings Boehme having furnished the clue he adds not only the reason for this conduct being right, but the means of attaining it, by expounding the working of the law itself. The following aspect, then, of Boehme's teaching is that which Law most consistently emphasizes. [319] Man was made out of the breath of God ; his soul is a spark of the
53 1 Cf. St Augustine, ' To will God entirely is to have Him,' The City of God, book xi, chap. IV ; or Ruysbroek's answer to the priests from Paris who came to consult him on the state of their souls : 'You are as you desire to be.' 54 2 ' Hunger is all, and in all worlds everything lives in it, and by it.' See Law's letter to Langcake, 7 September 1751, printed in Walton's Notes and Materials, p. 541. 55 3 See Law's letter to W. Walker, Byrom's Journal, vol. i, part 2, p. 559.

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Deity. It, therefore, cannot die, for it ' has the unbeginning unending life of God in it.' Man has fallen from his high estate through ignorance and inexperience, through seeking separation, taking the part for the whole, desiring the knowledge of good and evil as separate things. The assertion of self is, thus, the root of all evil ; for, so soon as the will of man ' turns to itself, and would, as it were, have a sound of its own, it breaks off from the divine harmony, and falls into the misery of its own discord.' For it is the state of our will that makes the state of our life. Hence, by 'the fall,' man's standpoint has been dislocated from the centre to the circumference, and he lives in a false imagination. Every quality is equally good, for there is nothing evil in God, from whom all comes ; but evil appears to be through separation. Thus, strength and desire in the divine nature are necessary and magnificent qualities, but when, as in the creature, they are separated from love, they appear as evil. The analogy of the fruit is, in this connection, a favourite one with both Law and Boehme. When a fruit is unripe {i.e. incomplete), it is sour, bitter, astringent, unwholesome ; but, when it has been longer exposed to the sun and air, it becomes sweet, luscious and good to eat. Yet it is the same fruit, and the astringent qualities are not lost or destroyed, but transmuted and enriched, and are thus the main cause of its goodness56 1. The only way to pass from this condition of 'bitterness' to ripeness, from this false imagination to the true one, is the way of death. We must die to what we are before we can be born anew572; we must die to the things of this world to which we cling, and for which we desire and hope, and we must turn towards God. This should be the daily, hourly exercise of the mind, until the whole turn and bent of our spirit 'points as constantly to God as the needle touched with the loadstone does to the north58 3.' To be alive in God, before you are dead to your own nature, is 'a thing as impossible in itself, as for a grain of wheat to be alive before it dies594'. The root of all, then, is the will or desire605 It is the seed of everything that can grow in us ; 'it is the only workman in nature, and everything is its work ' ; it is the true magic power. And this will or desire is always active ; every man's life is a continual state [320] of prayer, and, if we are not
56 57 58 59 60 1 An Appeal to all that doubt or disbelieve the Truths of the Gospel, Works, vol. vi, pp. 278. 2 The Spirit of Prayer, Works, vol. vii, p. 24. 3 Ibid. p. 23. 4 Ibid. p. 20. 5 The Way to Divine Knowledge, Works, vol. vii, pp. 138 9.

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praying for the things of God, we are praying for something else 611 For prayer is but the desire of the soul. Our imaginations and desires are, therefore, the greatest realities we have, and we should look closely to what they are622. It is essential to the understanding of Law, as of Boehme, to remember his belief in the reality and actuality of the oneness of nature and of Law633. Nature is God's great book of revelation, for it is nothing else but God's own outward manifestation of what He inwardly is, and can do. The mysteries of religion, therefore, are no higher, and no deeper than the mysteries of nature644. God Himself is subject to this law. There is no question of God's mercy or of His wrath 65 5, for it is an eternal principle that we can only receive what we are capable of receiving ; and, to ask why one person does not gain any help from the mercy and goodness of God while another does gain help is ' like asking why the refreshing dew of Heaven does not do that to flint which it does to the vegetable plant666?' Self-denial and mortification of the flesh are not things imposed upon us by the mere will of God : considered in themselves, they have nothing of goodness or holiness ; but they have their ground and reason in the nature of the thing, and are as ' absolutely necessary to make way for the new birth, as the death of the husk and gross part of the grain is necessary to make way for its vegetable life677.' Law's attitude towards learning, which has been somewhat misunderstood, is a part of his belief in the ' Light Within,' which he shares with all mystical thinkers. In judging of what he says as to the inadequacy of book knowledge and scholarship, it is necessary to call to mind the characteristics of his age and public. When we remember the barren controversies about externals in matters religious which raged all through his lifetime, and the exaltation of the reason as the only means whereby man could know anything of the deeper truths of existence, it is not surprising
61 1 See The Spirit of Prayer, Works, vol. vii, pp. 150 1. 62 2 An Appeal, Works, vol. vi, p. 169. 63 3 Ibid. pp. 1920. 64 4 Ibid. pp. 69, 80 65 5 The Spirit of Prayer, Works, vol. vii, pp. 23, 27. 66 6 The Way to Divine Knowledge, Works, vol. vii, p. 60. 67 7 The Spirit of Prayer, Works, vol. vii, p. 68. See, also, ibid. pp. 91 2.

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that, with Law, the pendulum should swing in the opposite direction, and that, with passionate insistence, he should be driven to assert the utter inadequacy of the intellect by itself in all spiritual concerns688. [321] He, says Law, who looks to his reason as the true power and light of his nature, 'betrays the same Ignorance of the whole Nature, Power and Office of Reason as if he were to smell with his Eyes, or see with his Nose 69 1 ' All true knowledge, he urges, must come from within, it must be experienced ; and, if it were not that man has the divine nature in him, no omnipotence of God could open in him the knowledge of divine things. There cannot be any knowledge of things but where the thing itself is ; there cannot be any knowledge ' of any unpossessed Matters, for knowledge can only be yours as Sickness and Health is yours, not conveyed to you by a Hearsay Notion, but the Fruit of your own Perception70 2.' Law, liberal scholar, clear reasoner and finished writer, was no more an enemy of learning than Ruskin was an enemy of writing and reading because he said that there were very few people in the world who got any good by either. Their scornful remarks on these subjects often mislead their readers; yet the aim of both writers was not to belittle these things in themselves, but solely to put them in their right place713. Law is among the greatest of English prose writers, and no one ever more truly possessed than he ' the splendid and imperishable excellence of sincerity and strength.' Those who least understand his later views, who look upon them as 'idle fancies,' and on the whole subject of his mystical thought as 'a melancholy topic ' are constrained to admit, not only that he writes fine and lucid prose in A Serious Call, but that, in his mystical treatises, his style becomes mellower and rises to greater heights than in his earlier work724. The reason for this cumulative richness is that the history and development of Law's prose style is the history and development of his character. As applied to him, Buffon's epigram was strictly true. Sincerity is
68 69 70 71 72 8 See The Way to Divine Knowledge, Works, vol. vii, pp. 118 28. 1 See The Way to Divine Knowledge, Works, vol. vii, pp. 501. 2 Ibid. p. 127. 3 Ibid, p. 93. 3 See Bigg, Charles, in his introduction to A Serious Call, pp. xxv and xxviii; also, for a view of Law's later thought, Stephen, Leslie, English Thought in the 18th Century, vol. II, pp. 405 9

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the keynote of his whole nature, sincerity of thought, of belief, of speech and of life. Sincerity implies courage, and Law was a brave man, never shirking the logical outcome of his convictions, from the day when he ruined his prospects at Cambridge, to the later years when he suffered his considerable reputation to be eclipsed by his espousal of an uncomprehended and unpopular mysticism. He had a keen, rather than a profound, intellect, and his thought is lightened by brilliant flashes of wit or of grim satire. On this side, his was a true [322] eighteenth century mind, logical, sane, practical, with, at the same time, a touch of whimsey, and a tendency to a quite unexpected lack of balance on certain subjects. Underneath a severe and slightly stiff exterior lay, however, emotion, enthusiasm and great tenderness of feeling. When he was still a young man, the logical and satirical side was strongest; in later years, this was much tempered by emotion and tenderness. This description of Law's character might equally serve as a description of his style. It is strong, sincere, rhythmical, but, except under stress of feeling, not especially melodious. A certain stiffness and lack of adaptability, which was characteristic of the man, makes itself felt in his prose, in spite of his free use of italics and capital letters. Law's first object is to be explicit, to convey the precise shade of his meaning, and, for this purpose, he chooses the most homely similes, and is not in the least afraid of repetition, either of words or thoughts. A good instance of his method, and one which illustrates his disregard for iteration, his sarcastic vein and his power of expressing his meaning in a simile, is the parable of the pond in A Serious Call, which was versified by Byrom731
Again, if you should see a man that had a large pond of water, yet living in continual thirst, not suffering himself to drink half a draught, for fear of lessening his pond; if you should see him wasting his time and strength, in fetching more water to his pond, always thirsty, yet always carrying a bucket of water in his hand, watching early and late to catch the drops of rain, gaping after every cloud, and running greedily into every mire and mud, in hopes of water, and always studying how to make every ditch empty itself into his pond. If you should see him grow grey and old in these anxious labours, and at last end a careful, thirsty life, by falling into his own pond, would you not say, that such a one was not only the author of all his own disquiets, but was foolish enough to be reckoned amongst idiots and madmen ? But yet foolish and absurd as this character is, it does not represent half the follies, and absurd disquiets of the covetous man.
73 1 Cf. The Pond, in The Poems of John Byrom (Chetham Society, 1894), part i, pp. 196202.

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Law's use of simile and analogy in argument is characteristic. By means of it, he lights up his position in one flash, or with dexterity lays bare an inconsistency. His use of analogies between natural, and mental and spiritual, processes is frequent, and is applied with power in his later writings, when the oneness of law in the spiritual and natural worlds became the very ground of his philosophy. He had the command of several instruments and could play in different keys. Remarks upon the Fable of the Bees (1723), and The Spirit of Prayer (174950), while exhibiting different sides of the man, are excellent examples of the variety and [323] range of his prose. The earlier work is biting, crisp, brilliant and severely logical, written in pithy sentences and short paragraphs, containing a large proportion of words of one syllable, the printed page thus presenting to the eye quite a different appearance from that of his later work. Remarks displays to the full Law's peculiar power of illustrating the fallacy of an abstract argument, by embodying it in a concrete example. Mandeville's poem is a vigorous satire in the Hudibrastic vein, and, in Law's answer, it called out the full share of the same quality which he himself possessed. ' Though I direct myself to you,' he begins, in addressing Mandeville, ' I hope it will be no Offence if I sometimes speak as if I was speaking to a Christian.' The two assertions of Mandeville which Law is chiefly concerned to refute are that man is only an animal, and morality only an imposture. ' According to this Doctrine,' he retorts, ' to say that a Man is dishonest, is making him just such a Criminal as a Horse that does not dance.' This is the kind of unerring homely simile which abounds in Law's writing, and which reminds us of the swift and caustic wit of Mrs Poyser. Other examples could be cited to illustrate the pungency and raciness of Law's style when he is in the mood for logical refutation. But it is only necessary to glance at the first half page of The Spirit of Prayer to appreciate the marked difference in temper and phrasing. The early characteristics are as strong as ever ; but, in addition, there is a tolerance, a tender charm, an imaginative quality and a melody of rhythm rarely to be found in the early work. The sentences and phrases are longer, and move to a different measure ; and, all through, the treatise is steeped in mystic ardour, and, while possessed of a strength and beauty which Plotinus himself has seldom surpassed, conveys the longing of the soul for union with the Divine.
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In A Serious Call, Law makes considerable use of his power of character drawing, of which there are indications already in Christian Perfection. This style of writing, very popular in the seventeenth century, had long been a favourite method for conveying moral instruction, and Law uses it with great skill. His sketches of Flavia and Miranda, ' the heathen and Christian sister 'as Gibbon calls them, are two of the best known and most elaborate of his portraits. Law's foolish, inconsistent and selfish characters, such as the woman of fashion, the scholar, the country gentleman or the man of affairs, are more true to life, and, indeed, more sympathetic to frail humanity, than the few virtuous characters he has drawn. This is a key, perhaps, to the limitations of Law's outlook, [324] and, more especially, of his influence ; for, in his view, a man's work in the world, and his more mundane characteristics, are as nothing, so that one good person is precisely like another. Thus, a pious physician is acceptable to God as pious, but not at all as a physician74 1. A Serious Call, as a whole, is a fine example of Law's middle style, grave, clear and rhythmical, with the strong sarcastic tendency restrained ; not, on the one hand, so brilliant as the Remarks, nor, on the other, so illumined as The Spirit of Prayer. Yet, it throbs with feeling, and, indeed, as Sir Leslie Stephen himself not wholly in sympathy with it has finely said, its ' power can only be adequately felt by readers who can study it on their knees.' One can well imagine how repugnant it would have been to the writer that such a work should be criticised or appraised from a purely literary point of view; and yet, if William Law had not been a great literary craftsman, the lofty teaching of his Serious Call would not have influenced, as it has, entire generations of English-speaking people. On the whole, the distinguishing and peculiar characteristic of Law as a prose writer is that, for the most part, he is occupied with things which can only be experienced emotionally and spiritually, and that he treats them according to his closely logical habit of mind. The result is an unusual combination of reason and emotion which makes appeal at once to the intellect and the heart of the reader.
74 1 See Bigg's introduction to A Serious Call, 1899, p. xxix.

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Although Law's spiritual influence in his own generation was probably more profound than that of any other man of his day, yet he had curiously few direct followers. It is easy to see that he was far too independent a thinker to be acceptable even to the high churchmen whose cause he espoused, and, though he was greatly revered by methodists and evangelists, his later mysticism was wholly abhorrent to them752. The most famous members of the little band of disciples who visited him at Putney were the Wesleys, John and Charles, who, two or three times yearly, used to travel the whole distance from Oxford on foot in order to consult their 'oracle76 3' Later, however, there was a rupture between them, when Wesley, on his return from Georgia in 1738, having joined the Moravians, seems suddenly to have realized, and to have contended, in very forcible language, that, [325] although Law, in his books (A Christian Perfection and A Serious Call), put a very high ideal before men, he had, nevertheless, omitted to emphasize that the only means of attaining it was through the atonement of Christ77 1. This was largely the quarrel of Wesley, as, also, of the later methodists, with mysticism in general ; 'under the term mysticism,' he writes from Georgia, 'I comprehend those and only those who slight any of the means of grace782' George Cheyne, fashionable doctor, vegetarian and mystic, was another of Law's friends at this time ; but the most charming and most lovable of his followers was his devoted admirer, John Byrom. The relationship between these two men much resembles that of Johnson and Boswell, and we find the same outspoken brusqueness, concealing a very real affection, on the part of the mentor, with the same unswerving devotion and zealous record of details even of the frequent snubs received on the part of the disciple. Byrom, in many ways, reminds us of Goldsmith; he possesses something of the artless simplicity, the rare and fragrant charm, which is the outcome of a sincere and tender nature; he has many forgivable foibles and weaknesses, a delightful, because completely natural, style in prose and a considerable variety of interests and pursuits. He travelled
75 2 See Overton, chap, xxi, Law's opponents. 76 3 Works, vol. IX, Letter ix, p. 123. 77 1 For a full account of the relations of Wesley and Law, and the text of their two famous letters, see Overton, pp. 80 92, and see, also, the account in Byrom's Journal, vol. II, part 1, pp. 26870. 78 2 See Byrom's Journal, vol. ii, part 1, p. 181, and for later methodist views, The Life of the Rev. Charles Wesley, by Thomas Jackson, 1841, vol. i, pp. 52, 53, 112, 113.

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abroad and studied medicine, and, though he never took a medical degree, he was always called Doctor by his friends; he was an ardent Jacobite, a poet, a mystic and the inventor of a system of shorthand, by the teaching of which he increased his income until, in 1740, he succeeded to the family property near Manchester. Byrom, though a contemporary of Law at Cambridge, evidently did not know him personally until 1729, and his first recorded meeting with his hero, as, also, the later ones, form some of the most attractive passages of an entirely delightful and too little known book, The Private Journal and Literary Remains of John Byrom. It is from this journal that we gather most of our information about Law at Putney, and from it that, incidentally, we get the fullest light on his character and personality. On 15 February 1729, Byrom bought A Serious Call, and, on the following 4 March, he and a friend named Mildmay went down in the Fulham coach to Putney to interview the author. This was the beginning of an intimacy which lasted until Law's death, and [326] which was founded on a strong community of tastes in matters of mystical philosophy, and on the unswerving devotion of Byrom to his 'master79 1'. They met at Cambridge, where Byrom gave shorthand lessons, and Law shepherded his unsatisfactory pupil ; at Putney, in Somerset gardens and, later, at King's Cliffe802. Byrom, though scarcely a poet, for he lacked imagination, had an unusual facility for turning everything into rime. He sometimes wrote in very pleasing and graceful vein813, and he had an undoubted gift of epigram824; but he was particularly fond of making verse paraphrases of prose writings, and especially of those of William Law. His two finest pieces of this kind are An Epistle to a Gentleman of the Temple (1749), which versifies Law's Spirit of Prayer; and the letter on Enthusiasm (1752),
79 1 ' how much better he from whom I draw Though deep yet clear his system "Master Law." Master I call him...' (Epistle to a Gentleman of the Temple.) 80 2 See, for an example of their conversations, which, in the variety of its topics, and distinctive character of its sentiments, throws much light on Law's thoughts and ideals, that of Saturday, 7 June 1735. 81 3 Especially in his song 'Why prithee now' (Poems, i, 115), or his early pastoral, ' My Time, ye Muses.' 82 4 As in the famous lines upon Handel and Bononcini, often attributed to Swift (Poems, I, 35), and the Pretender toast (Poems, i, 572).

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founded on the latter part of Law's Animadversions upon Dr Trapp's Reply. This last poem is written with admirable clearness and point; Law's defence of enthusiasm is one of the best things he wrote, and Byrom does full justice to it. 'Enthusiasm,' meaning, more especially 'a misconceit of inspiration83 5' the laying claim to peculiar divine guidance or 'inner light,' resulting in anything approaching fanaticism or even emotion, was a quality equally abhorred and feared in the eighteenth century by philosophers, divines and methodists, indeed, by everyone except mystics. The first care of every writer and thinker was to clear himself of any suspicion of this 'horrid thing84 6' Law's argument, which is to the effect that enthusiasm is but the kindling of the driving desire or will of every intelligent creature, is well summarized by Byrom: [327]
Think not that you are no Enthusiast, then! All Men are such, as sure as they are Men. The Thing itself is not at all to blame 'Tis in each State of human Life the same, ... That which concerns us therefore, is to see What Species of Enthusiasts we be851.

Byrom hoped that, by turning them into verse, Law's later teachings might reach a larger public862, and, in this. Law evidently agreed with him, looking upon him as a valuable ally. Byrom's work certainly did not lack appreciation by his contemporaries; Warburton who had no cause to love him thought highly of it, and Wesley, who ascribes to him all the wit and humour of Swift, together with much more learning, says that in his poems are 'some of the noblest truths expressed with the utmost energy of language, and the strongest colours of poetry87 3.'
83 5 Henry More, Enthusiasmus Triumphatus, 1662, 2. 84 6 Bishop Butler, when talking once to Wesley, exclaimed, ' Sir, the pretending to extraordinary revelation or gifts of the Holy Ghost is a horrid thing, a very horrid thing.' For an admirable account of ' Enthusiasm,' see The English Church in the 18th Century, by Abbey and Overton, vol. i, chap, ix ; also a note by Ward, A. W., in Byrom's Poems, vol. ii, pt. 1, pp. 16979; and a note by Hill, G. Birkbeck, in Gibbon's Memoirs, 1900, p. 22. 85 1 Byrom's Poems, II, 1, pp. 190 1. 86 2 ' Since different ways of telling may excite In different minds Attention to what's right, And men (I measure by myself) sometimes, Averse to Reas'ning, may be taught by Rimes.' Poems, ii, 1, 164. 87 3 Wesley's Journal, Monday, 12 July 1773.

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Henry Brooke884 was another writer who was deeply imbued with Boehme's thought, and his expression of it, imbedded in that curious book The Fool of Quality (1766 70), reached, probably, a larger public than did Law's mystical treatises89 5. In many ways, Brooke must have been a charming character, original, tender-hearted, overflowing with sentiment, but entirely incapable of concentration or even continuity of thought. His book is a brave one, full of high ideals. It is an extraordinary mixture of schoolboy pranks, romantic adventures, stories ancient and modern ethical dialogues, dissertations on mystical philosophy, political economy, the British constitution, the relation of the sexes, the training of a gentleman and many other topics. Mr Meekly and Mr Fenton (or Clinton) are Brooke's two exponents of a very general and diluted form of 'Behmenism.' The existence of the two wills, the formation of Christ within the soul, the reflection of God's image in matter as in a mirror, the nature of beauty, of man and of God, the fall of Lucifer and the angels, and of Adam all these things are discussed and explained in mystical language, steeped in emotion and sentiment906.

[328] The Fool of Quality found favour with John Wesley, who reprinted it in 1781, under the title The History of Henry Earl of Moreland. In doing this, he reduced it from five volumes to two, omitting, as he says in his preface, ' a great part of the mystic Divinity, as it is more philosophical than Scriptural.' He goes on to speak of the book with the highest praise, 'I now venture to recommend the following Treatise as the most excellent in its kind of any that I have seen, either in the English, or any other language' ; its greatest excellence being 'that it continually strikes at the heart ... I know not who can survey it with tearless eyes, unless he has a heart of stone.' Launched thus, with the imprimatur of their great leader, it became favourite reading with generations of devout
88 4 The uncle of the Henry Brooke of Dublin, who knew Law and greatly admired him. 89 5 Brooke also wrote a large number of plays and poems, two of the latter being full of mystical thought. Universal Beauty (1735 (i) and Redemption (1772). As to Brooke's novels of. vol. x, chapter III, post. 90 6 See The Fool of Quality, ed. Baker, E. A., 1906, pp. 30, 31, 33, 39, 1336, 142, 25860, 32830, 336, 3679, 394.

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Wesleyans, and, in this form, passed through many editions91 1. Mystics, unlike other thinkers, scientific or philosophical, have little chronological development, since mysticism can neither age nor die. They rarely found schools of thought in their own day. It is, therefore, not surprising that, in spite of various strains of a mystic tendency, the mysticism of Law and his small circle of followers had no marked influence on the main stream of eighteenth century thought. The atmosphere of the age was antagonistic to it, and it remained an undercurrent only, the impulse given by Law in this direction spending itself finally among littleknown dreamers and eccentrics922. Later, some of the root - ideas of Boehme returned to England by way of Hegel, Schelling, Jung-Stilling and Friedrich Schlegel, or through Boehme's French disciple, Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin. They influenced Coleridge93 3, and profoundly modified nineteenth century conceptions, thus preparing the way for the better understanding of mystical thought. Blake's prophetic books are only now, after a hundred years, beginning to find readers, and, undoubtedly, Law's Appeal, if it were more widely known, would, in the twentieth century, win the response for which it has long been waiting.

91 1 Wesley's alterations in wording are most instructive and interesting, for he has not hesitated to alter as well as to omit passages. Cf. Clinton's account of the nature of man and God in Wesley, ed. of 1781, vol. ii, pp. 286 7, with Brooke, 1 vol. ed. 1906, p. 367. 92 2 As, for instance, Francis Okely, or, later, J. P. Greaves and Christopher Walton. There remains, however, to be traced an influence which bore fruit in the nineteenth century. Thomas Erskine of Linlathen was indebted to both Law and Boehme, and he, in his turn, influenced F. D. Maurice and others. 93 3 Coleridge also knew both Law and Boehme at first hand ; for his appreciation of them see Biographia Literaria, chap, ix. Aids to Reflexion, conclusion, and notes to Southey's Life of Wesley, 3rd ed., 1846, vol. i, p. 476. For his projected work on Boehme, and in connection with his philosophy, see letter to Lady Beaumont, 1810, in Memorials of Coleorton, ed. Knight, W., 1887, vol. ii, pp. 1057.

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History of the church? - Page 659 Johannes Baptist Alzog, Thomas Sebastian
Byrne - 1912

These enactments sufficiently show that the First Consul either would not or dared not adopt so liberal a policy toward the Church as had been anticipated. The Pope protested, but in vain, that these Laws had not been submitted to him. The Concordat was, however, executed all the same, and its promulgation was celebrated in the Church of France by a solemn feast, April 18, 1802. The Democrats and Napoleon's companions in arms sneered at this ceremony, which, they said, was the latest comedy, and boasted that the French flag had never been more glorious than since the day it had ceased to be blessed. Napoleon asked General Delmas how the celebration pleased him, and the latter is reported to have said "that it was a pretty capuchinade, and to complete it required only the presence of the two millions of men who had been sacrificed in pulling down what the First Consul was now engaged in building up." Still the purpose of Napoleon was unshaken, and that he was fully satisfied with what he had done is shown by his [ 890. Pontificate of Pius VII 659] words, uttered at St. Helena, when he had no longer any motive to disguise his real thoughts. " I have never regretted signing the Concordat," said he. " I had to have one of some kind, either that one or another. And had there existed no Pope, it would have been necessary to create one." The religious reaction setting in was everywhere visible. Its influence was marked on most of the literature of the day. It must manifested itself in the works of Saint-Martin (+ 1804), who, because the reveries of Jacob Boehm, Swedenborg, and Pordage had a greater fascination for his mind than the teachings of the Church, did not exert the influence that should be looked for from one of his high moral character and unusual intellectual gifts. He wove into grotesque and fantastical forms the mystical ideas of nature contained in the works of Boehm and others, thus piecing out a sort of mystico-theodophic system, which he propagated chiefly among the Free-masons of the higher degrees. 941 Martin Ducrey did good service in the cause of God by the school which he opened at
941 Des erreurs et de la vrit par un philosophe inconnu, Lyon, 1776 ; Tableau naturel des rapports qui existent entre Dieu, l'homme et l'univers, Lyon, 1782, owing that we must explain things by man and not man by things; L'Homme de dsir, Lyon, 1790; Ecce Homo, Paris, 1792, Lps. 1819 ; De l'esprit des choses Paris, 1800, 2 vol.; Oeuvres posthumes, Tours, 1807, 2 vol. (Tr.)

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Sattanches (after 1800), and still later by the Carthusian monastery founded by him at Malan. But the one who beyond I others contributed to the restoration of religion and the glorifying of the Christian name at this time was unquestionably Chateaubriand who, with his eloquent pen, touched the hearts of all Frenchmen, and enlisted them in a cause that id long since been set aside and made to give place to the subjects that filled the literature of the day. During the early days of his life he had drifted into scepticism and infidelity ; but, moved by the appeal of his dying mother, he returned to the faith of his youth, and, as an evidence of his sincerity, wrote the Genius of Christianity.

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the new Schaff-Herzog encyclopedia of religious knowledge: Embracing ...? - Page 173 Johann Jakob Herzog, Philip Schaff 1911 Notes sur l'article: vol. 10

SAINT-MARTIN, LOUIS CLAUDE DE: French mystic; b. at Amboise Jan. 18, 1743; d. at Paris Oct. 13, 1803. After studying law, he entered the army and at Bordeaux became acquainted with a Portuguese 95 Jew named Martinez de Pasqualis, whose freemasonry increased St. Martin's tendency to mysticism. At Lyons and Paris St. Martin communicated, in mysterious phraseology and ceremony, his revelation on God, the spirit world, the fall, and original sin. Among his hearers was a Count d'Hauterive, on whom St. Martin tried all sorts of experiments 96 at Lyons (1774-76) to gain fellowship with the Logos. Meanwhile, he gradually withdrew from Pasqualis and his followers, formed a cautious friendship97 with Cagliostro, and read Swedenborg. At this period he published his first work, under the pseudonym of un philosophe inc(onnu) Des erreurs et de la vrit, ou les hommes rappels au principe universel de la science (Lyons, 1775), a book which aroused the anger of Voltaire. To propagate his views St. Martin now removed to Paris, where he moved in aristocratic circles, writing his emanational tenets in his Tableau naturel des rapports qui existent entre Dieu, l'homme et l'univers (Lyons [ostensibly Edinburgh], 1782). His travels gained him new acquaintances. In England he met William Law and Best; he accompanied Prince Gallitzin to
95 Affirmation habituelle, non valide. 96 La source historique de cette donne pourrait tre intressante, mais d'o cela vient-il? Des leons aux lus cons, des sommeils selon le systme de Mesmer? 97 Lcsm semble ne jamais avoir apprci Cagliostro...

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Italy in 1787; in 1788 he resided in Montbliard with Duchess Dorothea of Wrttemberg. Until 1791 he lived in Strasburg, where he studied the writings of Jacob Bohme, but in the latter year his father's illness forced him to return to Amboise, where his theories found little sympathy. To this period of his career belong his L'Homme de dsir (Lyons, 1790), Ecce homo (Paris, 1792), and Le Nouvel Homme (1792). St. Martin's last close friendship was formed with Baron Kirchberger of Bern, through whom he was kept informed of mystic movements abroad during the French Revolution. This latter upheaval was greeted by him with joy, and after being appointed tutor, with Condorcet, Sieys, and Bemardin de St. Pierre, to the Dauphin in 1791, he became one of his jailers two years later. St. Martin himself was later imprisoned98 and exiled to Amboise. Before long, however, he was sent back to Paris as a teacher99 [178] at the new normal school there. This position he held until his death, and during his incumbency he wrote Lettre un ami, considrations politiques, philosophiques et religieuses sur la rvolution franaise (Paris, 1795); clair sur l'association humaine (1797); Esprit des choses ou coup d'oeil philosophiques sur la nature des tres et sur l'objet de leur existence (1800) ; Ministre de l'homme esprit (1802), besides translating a number of the works of Boehme. St. Martin's views, a mixture of cabalistic, Gnostic, and neoplatonic doctrines100 on a Christian basis, can scarcely be reduced to a system. At the same time, he bitterly hated101 the Church, yet fell into all sorts of clairvoyance, conjuring, and juggling with numbers and the tetragrammaton. His favorite sphere was anthropology; he held it the aim of man to be still higher than Christ, the highest type of humanity; in his daily life St. Martin sought simply to live like a pious Christian. For his following see Martinist Order. (C. Pfender.102)
98 Le terme emprisonn est inexact, les nobles taient loigns de Paris dcret du 24 germinal (16 avril 1794) 99 La dure de vie de l'cole normale fut courte, lcsm n'exera jamais, il ne fut donc jamais titulaire 100Donnes vhicules par l'ordre martiniste, encore faut-il prouver ces lments! 101Il me parat inexact de parler de haine, comme d'une utilisation superstitieuse des nombres... la suite de la phrase est particulire ! 102Pfender Charles, Pastor of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Paris pasteur luthrien, de l'exemple du Christ, facult de thologie de Strasbourg; la confession d'Augsbourg; Martin Luther; ...

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Bibliography : La Correspondance indite de L. C. de Saint-Martin . . . ed. L. Schauer and A. Chuquet, Amsterdam, 1862, cf. Mystical Philosophy and Spiritual Manifestations. Selections from the ... Correspondence between . . . Saint-Martin . . . and Kirchberger, Exeter, 1863; J. B. M. Gence, Notice biographique sur L. C. de Saint Martin, Paris, 1823; L. Moreau, Rflexions sur lee ides de L.C de Saint- Martin, ib. 1850; E. M. Caro, Du mysticisme au 18e sicle. Essai sur la vie et la doctrine de Saint-Martin, ib. 1852; J. Matter. Saint-Martin, le philosophe inconnu, ib. 1862; A. Franek, La Philosophie mystique en France la fin du 18e sicle. SaintMartin et son matre Martinez Pasqually, ib. 1866.

Volume 7 Martinist Order The : "A spiritualized freemasonry." The order was founded by Martinez de Pasqualis, a Portuguese emigrant to France at [217 vue 242] the end of the eighteenth century, who selected individuals, some of them of prominent position, who seemed to him adapted to the purpose and taught them by a severe, systematic, and persistent discipline to develop their inner and hidden powers. To his initiates Pasqualis applied the name elect priests." As he left the system it had seven degrees103. After his death two of his pupils, Jean Baptiste Willermoz and Louis Claude de SaintMartin (q.v.), assumed direction104 of the order and reduced the degrees to three105. Willermoz devoted his energies to founding lodges; Saint-Martin applied himself to personal development, and gave to the ritual the name of the rectified rite106 of St. Martin. There are two parts in the order107: the inner or spiritual, open to those who become adepts; and the exterior or practical and scientific, open to men of desire. The government is in five
103Le nombre de degrs semble avoir vari, toutefois on considre gnralement que l'ordre comptait 10 degrs. 104Ils n'ont jamais prsid l'ordre de Martins, lequel avait dsign Caignet de Lester mort en 1778 qui dsigne Las Casas dernier grand matre (officiel) clt les activits des 8 temples encore actifs en 1781. Une activit con persistera quelques temps, certains mules pouvant revendiquer une succession, mais ni lcsm, ni Willermoz. 105L'affirmation est de la responsabilit de Papus Teder et s'imprime dans le rituel martiniste de 1912. 106Ce n'est pas le Rgime cossais rectifi de Willermoz! est-ce un signe de plus sur la piste d'un rite cossais rform de Saint-martin... ? Les articles contiennent trop d'erreurs pour tre affirmatif! 107Cela rappelle les distinctions des annes 50 du 20e sicle par Philippe Encausse et Ambelain, et l'ordre selon Papus.

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degrees: the supreme council located at Paris, France; president. Dr. Grard Encausse); inspectors, appointed by the supreme council; delegates, appointed by the inspectors; lodges, and groups. It differs from freemasonry in that it admits men and women on equal footing; does not require fees for initiations, dues, or instruction; aims to bring man into pristine relations with God; and it receives orders from the unknown philosopher and thus depends from the invisible world. It was introduced into America in the year 1894, the government there being by an inspector- (inspectress-) general. Margaret B. Peek108 ?

108Edouard Blitz was the "Souverain Dlgate" for the 'Ordre Martiniste' in America; in 1902 Blitz broke with the Martinists in France and founded the "AMERICAN RECTIFIED MARTINIST ORDER. Margaret B. Peeke was chosen by the 'Supreme Council' to replace Blitz (it is said Blitz do not want to be associated with a clandestine masonic order!

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Secret societies and the French revolution: together with some kindred ...? - Page 248 Una Pope-Hennessy 1911 - 261 pages Saint Martin, L. C. de, 29, 30, 49, 51, 58, 61 Pasqually, M. de, 28

SECRET SOCIETIES AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION THE spiritual life of nations, if it could be fully revealed, would alter many of the judgments of posterity. New interpretations of ancient tragedies and crimes, new motives for speech and action, new inspirations for revolution and war might then present themselves for the consideration of the historian. If it needs divination to discern the aspiration and desire enclosed within the ordinary human soul, how much more does it need divination to read aright the principles and incentives that lay behind historic actions ? Diviners have not written history, and professional historians have generally chosen to deal with facts, rather than with their psychological significance. Because of this preference, certain conventions have grown up amongst the writers of history, and certain obvious economic and social conflicts and conditions have been accepted as the cause of events, at the cost of repudiating that mystical and vague, but ever constant idealism, - 3 - which spurs man on towards his unknown destiny. Especially has this been the case in dealing with the origin of the French Revolution. Nearly all secular historians have ignored the secret Utopian societies which flourished before its outbreak ; or have agreed that they had no bearing, direct or indirect, upon the actual subversion of affairs. Since the world has always been at the mercy of the idealists, and since human society has ever been the object of their unending empiricism, it is hard to believe that the greatest experiment of modern history was engineered without their co-operation. More than any other age does the eighteenth century need its psychologist, for more than any other age, if interpreted, could it illumine the horizons of generations to come.
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Amongst the historians who have attempted to explain the forces which brought about the great upheaval of the eighteenth century there have been priests of the Catholic Church. To the elucidation of the great problems involved they have brought to bear knowledge and diligent research, but we must recognise that the black cassock is the uniform of an army drilled - 4 and maintained for a specific purpose, and that purpose is war against much that the Revolution stood for. Two priests, Barruel and Deschamps, who feared the cryptic confederacies, wrote books to prove that the purpose of the secret societies before and after the great Revolution was not the betterment of the condition of the people, but the overthrow of the Church, the destruction of Christian society, and the re-establishment of Paganism. However much preparation may have been required to enfranchise thought, no great measure of organisation or mystery was or is needful to enable men to live as Pagans if they so desire, and little meaning is to be extracted from this theory unless it be realised that in some of these works freedom of thought and Paganism are interchangeable terms. Secular amateurs of the curious and unexplained have written desultory books on the same secret societies, and in the early nineteenth century the works of Mounier, de Luchet, and Robison attracted a good deal of attention ; but save for these special pleaders it has been accepted that there is little of practical moment to be noted of the connection between secret societies and the Revolution. In the - 5 - books which have appeared since that date there has been a conspicuous absence of any new material or of any fresh treatment of old theories. Many general histories of masonry have been published exalting masonic influences; but, speaking solely with reference to France, no effort has been made by any scientific or unprejudiced person outside masonry to explain the increasing membership of secret societies, the greater activity of lodges of all rites during the years that preceded the Revolution, and the sudden disappearance of those lodges in the early months of 1789. Nor has it been attempted to place these important factors in progress in right relation with the other inducements and tendencies which drove eighteenthcentury France to accomplish her own liberation. Le Couteulx de Canteleu, who wrote on the general question of the secret societies of the eighteenth century109,* professed to have access to
109* " Les Sectes et les Societes Secretes."

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documents that gave his words importance and weight, and his book, though slight in character, is one of the most interesting studies on the subject. Papus (Gerard Encausse) has written - 6 - on individual founders of rites and on some mystical teachers of the day, and Amiable, an eminent mason, has published a pleasant record of a particular lodge up till the year 1789, as well as a short summary of the influence of masonry on the great Revolution. The published information is fragmentary, as is to be expected in view of the nature of the subject, and the difficulty of grasping the work of the confederates as a whole is insurmountable until further light is cast upon their methods and instruments ; for though the general drift of the underground social currents has frequently been discussed, and though occasionally a microscopic inquiry has been made into ceremonial and the lives of individuals, owing either to lack of material or lack of sincerity, books dealing with these matters are incomplete and partial accounts of what, properly investigated, might prove to be a vast co-ordinated attempt at the reconstruction of society. It has been the convention for most historians to ignore such activities, just as it has been the practice of priests to recognise in them the destroyers of all morality. Louis Blanc and Henri Martin, in their respective histories, - 7 - each devote a chapter to the discussion of secret societies. The former speaks of masonry as "a denunciation indirect but real and continuous of the miseries of the social order," as " a propaganda in action," a living exhortation." With the exception of these and a few other authors who from time to time allude to the secret societies, historians have elucidated the crisis of the eighteenth century with no estimate of their influence. Taine, of whom it may be said that his thesis occasionally determined the choice of his facts, does not number them among the origins of the new conditions in France. The Great Revolution has been assumed to be a spontaneous national uprising against oppression, privilege, immorality in high places, and conditions of life making existence a burden for the proletariat. Such a theory would cover the rebellion that razed the Bastille and caused the clamour at Versailles, that destroyed the country houses and killed the nobles; but it does not cover the intellectual and social reforms which were the kernel of the Revolution, and its true objective. These, on the other
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hand, have been too easily attributed to the publication of the " Encyclopaedia," and of certain other volumes - 8 - by Beccaria, Rousseau, or Voltaire. Books were undoubtedly partially responsible for the awakening of the educated classes. The rationalist presses in Dublin, the Hague, and London, poured pamphlets into France to be sold by itinerant booksellers, who hawked them in country districts concealed beneath a thin layer of prayer-books and catechisms. But the pamphlets and books more often found their way to the public pyre than to the domestic hearth, and it can hardly be argued that these irregularly distributed volumes were directly responsible for the Revolution, though they too formed one of the contributory agencies of that cataclysm. Men have said that liberal ideas were in the air, and that no one could so much as breathe without inhaling them ; but this suggestion is meaningless, for to say ideas are " in the air " is to say many people hold them, which is hardly a way of accounting for their being held by many people. A suggestion so unsatisfying constrains us to seek the causes of contagion in a theory of more direct contact. If a book would not set a midland village on fire to-day, how much less would it have done so in the 9 - olden days when the poorest classes were completely unlettered ? The Encyclopaedia " and the works of economists and philosophers made their appeal in intellectual circles, and those words of reasonableness and light scarcely could have illumined the mental twilight of the lower bourgeoisie, much less have penetrated the darkness in which the peasant classes lived. Yet the Revolution, as its results testify, was a national movement towards a new order of affairs, and not a general declension towards anarchy. Therefore, since a spontaneous upheaval is unthinkable, and the history of smaller revolutions leads us to infer that revolution is always the result of associative agitation, it probably originated in a certain co-ordination or ideas and doctrines. These ideas and doctrines must have been widely diffused and widely apprehended, yet they could not have been spread by ordinary demagogic means ; for not only was freedom of speech prohibited, but it was illegal to publish unorthodox books. The publication of the " Encyclopaedia " was forbidden in 1759, and both Frederick the Great and Catherine of Russia offered asylum to its authors. Till a few years before the Revolution - 10 - it had been the custom to silence murmuring minorities by sword or fire. In 1762 the pastor Rochette died for his opinions, and the
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three Protestant brothers Grenier were decapitated, ostensibly for street brawling, but in reality for their faith. Monsieur de Laraguais was presented with a "lettre de cachet" for the citadel at Metz, for reading a paper in favour of inoculation before an assembly of the Academy in Paris. 110* His defence was that by his advocacy he hoped to preserve to France the lives of the fifty thousand persons who died annually of small-pox. So associated had imprisonment and execution become with the holding of liberal ideas that when Boulanger died almost coincidently with the publication of his book " Les Recherches sur le Despotisme Oriental," men speculated whether his death could be attributed to natural causes111. "Belisaire," a moral and political romance by M. de Marmontel, provoked a tumult. Bachaumont relates that the Sorbonne saw fit to protest against Chapter XV., "which treats of Tolerance."112 In consequence the book was suppressed. "La profession de 11 - Foi d'un Vicaire Savoyard " exerted an extraordinary influence in unseating existing authorities. It was what the publication of the Bible had been to Germany, an obligation to private judgment. The author of this book after this effort fell back on making laces since he could not take up his pen without making every power in Europe tremble. How is it possible that, when such penalties threatened the efforts of writers and speakers, ideas of progress could be cherished in thousands of minds, and the passion for social regeneration flame in countless souls ? Though there was no enunciation of liberal hopes in the market-places, yet an invisible hand, as in the day of Daniel, had written in flaming letters the word " brotherhood " across the tablets of French hearts. Was the dissemination of ideas, and the diffusion of enthusiasm, to be accounted for by the spirit of the age ; or did the theory of the modern State generate spontaneously in the minds of Frenchmen ? Was the great Revolution a mere accident, or was it the inevitable result of coordinated ideas in action ? Taine was of the opinion that the doctrines propagated themselves, carried like thistle-down upon the winds of chance. - 12 The obvious inference to be drawn from his opinion is that the social idealists of the eighteenth century lacked either the courage or the zeal to further their beliefs ; and that they, unlike their forerunners or their
110 Memoires Secret de Bachaumont," vol. i. p. 286 111 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 292. 112 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 168

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successors, were ready to entrust their hopes to the written word, and leave the rest to the gods. It is making too great a demand on human credulity to ask man to believe this, and many significant facts witness to the hitherto unestimated work of the secret societies in furthering the cause of popular emancipation. Ideas are not suddenly converted into swords. Men must have hammered patiently and hard upon the anvil of the national soul to produce the keen-edged, swift-striking blade of revolution. "The aim of all social institutions should be the amelioration of the physical, mental and moral condition of the poorest classes," said one whom Barruel alluded to as " a demon hating Jesus Christ." The speaker was Condorcet,113* a man acquainted with the ideals of the secret societies. In announcing the eventual publication of the " History of the Progress of the 13 - Human Mind," a work interrupted by his death, he spoke of the destruction of old authorities by invisible associations. " There are moments in history," said George Sand, "when Empires exist but in name, and when their only life lies in the societies that are hidden in their heart." Such a moment for France was the reign of Louis XVI. Legends of secret societies survived in every part of Europe at the opening of the eighteenth century. They existed for the prosecution of Theurgia as well as Goetia, for masonry as well as mystical philosophy. Speaking generally, their interest did not lie in the region of politics or polemics, but in that of study, experiment, and speculation ; and their chief care was the preservation and elucidation of ancient hermetic and traditional secrets. As a rule the Church had persecuted such societies, though her prelates had frequently condescended to the study of magic, and a few among them like Pope John XXII. had spent long nights in alchemical experiment. It remained for the Utopians of the eighteenth century so to interpret the symbolism of the secret societies, so to affiliate them, and so to organise the forces of masonry, mysticism and magic, as - 14 - for a few years to unite them into a power capable not only of inspiring but of precipitating the greatest social upheaval of Christendom. It is difficult to believe or understand, that bodies holding differing doctrines, adherents of many rites, disciples of divergent masters, ever
113 At the Loge des Philalethes, Strasbourg, p. 41. Robison.

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commingled for a day in their enthusiasm for the common cause ; yet this singular and Hegelian amalgamation seems in practice to have taken place.114 The principal force in the trinity of masonry, mysticism, and magic was masonry, and it, like many other innovations, was introduced into France from England. Just as Voltaire and Rousseau derived their philosophy from English sources, and applied the theories they absorbed in a direct manner to the life of their own country, so did the French people derive their masonic institutions from England, and apply them for purposes of social regeneration in a fashion never even contemplated in the land of their origin. The English Deists, Hume, Locke, and Toland, were responsible for the intellectual regeneration of France, just as the Legitimist lodges planted in that country after the Stuart downfall were responsible for the 15 - many lodges of tolerance, charity, truth, and candour which disseminated the seeds of the humanitarian movement on French soil. The Pantheisticon became the model of French societies. Until the sixteenth century masonic corporations in England and other countries consisted of three purely professional grades holding the secrets of the architectural craft, the mysteries of proportion, and the true canon of building. The epics in grey stone our cathedral towns enclose memorialise the tradition of the older masonry, and testify to the inviolability of its secret formulae. In every Catholic land, from Paris to Batalha, from Salisbury to Cologne, rise the superb conceptions of the masonic mind: serene, unchallengeable symbols of doctrines, mysteries, and myths, the venerable shrines of uncounted memories. During the sixteenth century England became the motherland of a newer masonry. Another spirit then permeated the craft; mysteries as ancient as the canon of building and the lost word of the Temple, Egyptian rites and Greek initiations, were blended with the purer traditions of the past. Rosicrucians, like Francis Bacon and Elias - 16 Ashmole, joined the hitherto exclusively professional body. Out of this marriage of thoughts and aims arose the modern masonic system, of which England at the end of the sixteenth century alone knew the secret. So thoroughly was the old system transfused with speculative ideas that by 1703 it had been decided that the antique guild model of masonry should be abandoned for a scheme of wider comprehension, embracing men holding certain common ideals and aspirations irrespective of craft or art. By this
114 p. 344, vol. iv. Barruel

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decision masonry became really free ; though the actual bases on which the future of the new " speculative," as the development of the old " operative" masonry, was to be established, were not laid down till 1717 by a commission of the Grand Lodge of London. Sir Christopher Wren, the last of the Grand Masters of the older organisation, was followed in his great office in two successive years by foreigners A. Sayer and Desaguliers, who inaugurated a more cosmopolitan era, and assisted in weaving the strands of brotherhood between England and foreign lands. Though legend ascribes the English Revolution and the ascendency of Cromwell to masonic - 17 - influence, records reveal and attest that the associative facilities masonic gatherings afforded were found favourable during the Civil War to the contriving of Royalists' plots rather than to the promotion of Republican schemes. Charles II. was a mason, James II. was championed by lodges, and both the Pretenders instituted rites with the object of accomplishing their own restoration. The Legitimists first introduced Freemasonry into France. Lord Derwentwater, the brother of the Lord Derwentwater who had been beheaded in 1716, was one of the earliest masonic missionaries. Together with Maskelyne, Heguerty, and others, he founded the first lodge in France at Dunkerque in 1721, the year in which the Regent died. Other lodges were inaugurated in Paris in 1725, all with the intention of rallying supporters of the Stuart cause. These were granted charters from London, and were ruled over by a Grand Master, called Lord Harnwester, of whom little is known. The most interesting personality among the Legitimist votaries was Andrew Michael Ramsay, commonly called the Chevalier. The son of a baker, he was educated at Edinburgh University, -18 - and became tutor to the two sons of Lord Wemyss ; then going to the Netherlands with the English auxiliaries, he made friends with the mystical theologist Poiret, and in consequence of the latter's quietist influence, gave up soldiering, and went to consult Fenelon about his future. He soon became the Archbishop's intimate friend, as well as a convert to his Church, and remaining with him till his death found himself the legatee of all his papers, and thus the designated chronicler of his life. This life was published at the Hague in 1723, and in the following year Ramsay went as travelling tutor to the two sons of James Francis Edward. On his return to Paris he continued his
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tutorial work in other families, combining it with the most strenuously active masonic life. He professed to have derived his elaborate and numerous rites from Godfrey de Bouillon, and managed to popularise masonry and exalt it into a fashionable pursuit. Gradually the English lodges in Paris became a subject of curiosity and conversation in society, and so long as they remained concerned with the affairs of a foreign kingdom they were left undisturbed by the officials of their adopted 19 country. When, however, Frenchmen began to enrol themselves as masons, and some exclusively French lodges were founded, the newspapers alarmed the public by announcing that Freemasonry had become the vogue. Police regulations were at once issued to prohibit meetings, and Louis XV. forbade gentlemen his Court, and even threatened with the Bastille those who attended lodge gatherings. A zealous commissary of police, Jean de Lespinay, spying on a meeting held at Chapelot's inn, ordered the assembly to dissolve ; but the Duc d'Antin responded by commanding the official interloper to retire. He went meekly enough, but Chapelot was deprived of his licence a few days later, and fined a thousand francs. Masons surprised at the Hotel de Soissons were imprisoned in Fort l'Eveque, and notice was given to innkeepers that on sheltering such gatherings they made themselves liable to a fine of three thousand francs. These edicts stimulated the curiosity of the public, and every one became inquisitive as to the aims and objects of the mysterious association. Mademoiselle Cambon, an operasinger, managed to extract a document from - 20 - her lover containing instruction on masonic ritual. It was easy then to parody their practices. Eight dancing-girls executed at her instigation a " Freemason ballet," while the Jesuits of the Dubois College at Caen made their rites the subject of a pantomime. In 1737 the old and amiable councillor of Louis XV., Cardinal Fleury, forbade good Catholics to attend at the lodges, and the next year Clement XII. condemned Freemasonry in a bull. Notwithstanding this opposition the craft grew numerically, and under the protective influence of the Grand Master, the Duc d'Antin, some of the educational work which forms their greatest claim to historic recognition was undertaken. In 1738 the Grand Master urged all masons to help in the work of the great Encyclopaedia, and to assist in forming " that library which in one work should contain the light of all nations." He alluded in his speech to the experiment made previously
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in London, and appealed for subscriptions for the furtherance of the French work. His secret correspondence with enlightened sympathisers in all parts of Europe enabled him to announce to the lodges in 1740 that the advent of the great 21 - work was eagerly awaited in every foreign land. Masonic subscription made possible the commencement of the work by Diderot in 1741. It proof were needed to show that in France, in its most corrupt days, men existed who were preaching brotherhood, love, equality, and freedom, the proof exists in the speeches of the Duc d'Antin, who was a Revolutionary half a century before the Revolution. A discourse delivered by him at the " Grande Loge solennellement assemble, Paris " reveals his attitude and that of his associates towards the feudal society of his day ; "Les hommes ne sont pas distingus essentiellement par la diffrence des langues qu'ils parlent, des habits qu'ils portent, des pays qu'ils occupent, ni des dignits dont ils sont revtus. Le monde entier n'est qu'une grande rpublique, dont chaque nation est une famille et chaque particulier un enfant. C'est pour faire revivre et rpandre ces essentielles maximes, prises dans la nature de l'homme, que notre socit fut d'abord tablie. Nous voulons runir tous les hommes d'un esprit clair, de moeurs douces, et d'une humeur agrable, non seulement pour 22 - l'amour des beaux-arts mais encore plus par les grands principes de vertu, de science et de religion, ou 1'intrt de confraternit devient celui du genre humain entier, ou toutes les nations peuvent puiser des connaissances solides, et ou les sujets de tous les royaumes peuvent apprendre se chrir mutuellement, sans renoncer leur patrie. . . . Quelle obligation n'a-t-on pas ces hommes suprieurs qui, sans intrt grossier, sans mme couter 1'envie naturelle de dominer ont imagine un tablissement dont 1'unique but est la runion des esprits et des coeurs pour les rendre meilleurs, et former dans la suite des temps une nation toute spirituelle ou sans droger aux divers devoirs que la diffrence des tats exige, on crera un peuple nouveau qui tant compos de plusieurs nations, les cimentera toutes, en quelque sorte par le lien de la vertu et de la science."115* A well-informed person revealed to the world some of the masonic secrets of equality and tolerance.116 The author, whose ladyhood was - 23 115 "Une Loge Maonnique d'avant 1789," p. II 116 La Franc-Maonnerie, ou rvlations des mystres des franc-maons." Par Madame * * *

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probably fictitious, was merely printing and making public the aspirations of all those who were longing to assist at the eventual social regeneration of France : " Il est trs naturel de deviner le secret des francs-maons par l'examen de ce qu'on leur voit pratiquer constamment. Ils entrent sans distinction les grands et les petits : ils se mesurent tous au mme niveau ; ils mangent ensemble ple-mle ; ils se rpandent dans le monde entier avec la mme uniformit. II est donc plus que probable, concluais-je, qu'il n'est question chez eux que d'une maonnerie purement symbolique, dont le secret consiste btir insensiblement une rpublique, universelle et dmocratique, dont la reine sera la raison, et le conseil suprme 1'assemble des sages." When the Duc d'Antin's grand mastership ceased, a temporary debasement of masonry resulted. Great abuses crept into the craft, for under his successsor, the Comte de Clermont, lodges were irregularly established, and dignities were sold. Androgynous societies, the cause of continual scandal, were established. The Society of Jesus also endeavoured to disrupt masonic - 24 - organisation, and very speedily the " Grande Loge " split up into factions. The Comte de Clermont possibly was the servant of the Church and the real promoter of the schisms of his society. He had blended the careers of cleric and soldier in a curious manner, for though tonsured at nine years old, and subsequently dowered with rich abbeys, he was enabled later, through a Papal dispensation, to enter the army, where he quickly rose to commanding rank, and showed himself as useless a general as he afterwards proved himself a Grand Master. As his working substitutes in the " Grande Loge de France " he nominated a financier named Baure, and a dancing-master named Lacorne. For eighteen years the " Grande Loge de France " was convulsed by discord and evil practice, justifying only too accurately the strictures of the Church. It obeyed with something like relief the order of the civil authorities in 1767 to hold no further meetings, and remained quiescent till the Comte de Clermont's death in 1771. In this year it was proposed to reform its organisation thoroughly. Emissaries were sent into all parts of France to take count of the situation, and to prepare reports for the - 25 - central committee. In consequence of these reports it was decided that the association should be reorganised on a more democratic
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basis, every office being made annually elective. The Duc de Chartres was chosen as Grand Master, and the Duc de Luxembourg as general administrator. As the Duc de Chartres did not at once accept the Grand Mastership, he never in point of action was Grand Master of the " Loge de France," though in 1773 an assembly met, which, after confirming the elections of 1771, installed him with great solemnity in his office as head of the " Grand Orient." The meeting convened for this occasion at Folie-Titon, a " maison de plaisance," constituted the parliament of masonry, though not all the lodges consented to send representatives to it. " Le Grand Orient n'est plus qu'un corps forme par la runion des reprsentants libres de toutes les loges : ce sont les loges elles-mmes, ce sont tous les maons membres de ces loges, qui par la voie de leurs reprsentants donnent les lois ; qui les font observer d'une part et qui les observent de l'autre. Nul - 26 - n'obit qu' la loi qu'il s'est impose luimme. C'est le plus libre, le plus juste, le plus naturel, et par consquent le plus parfait des gouvernements117."* The council of the new organisation sat in the former Jesuit novitiate of the rue Pot de Fer, and worked with increasing power and industry until the outbreak of the Revolution that was to realise their ideals. A section of the "Grande Loge de France" refused to obey the " Grand Orient," and continued to operate independently. The "Empereurs d'Orient et d'Occident" and the "Chevaliers d'Orient" also worked separately, nor would they take part in the amalgamation. Later on, however, great changes took place in masonic opinion, while bonds of common interest drew together lodges that would, without the political interest, always have been divided. Not only was France the home of many masonic lodges, but its social system was riddled with mystical societies which gathered their initiates from among the adepts of masonic grades, and owned allegiance to no supreme - 27 - council. Swedenborg and Martinez de Pasqually always regarded masonry as a school of instruction, and considered it the elementary and inferior step that led to the higher mysteries. In consequence of their teaching it came about that a great number of sects and rites were instituted in all parts of Europe, whose
117 Une Loge Maonnique d'avant 1789," p. 29

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unity consisted in a common masonic initiation, but whose aims, doctrines, and practices were often irreconcilable. The Martinezists, or followers of Martinez de Pasqually, were a distinctively French sect; they had lodges in Paris in 1754, and also at Toulouse, Poitiers, Marseille, and other places. The term " Illuminates " is applied to them equally with the Swedenborgians, Martinists, and several germane societies. Pasqually is said to have been a Rosicrucian adept. His teaching was theurgic and moral, and his avowed object was to develop the somnolent divine faculties in humanity, and to lead man to enter into communication with the invisible, by means of "La Chose," the enigmatic name he gave to the highest secret. He is chiefly interesting as having been the first to permeate the higher grades of French masonry with illuminism, an example followed afterwards - 28 - with conspicuous success by the disciples of Weishaupt. When Pasqually died in Haiti his teaching was taken up by Willermooz, a Lyonese merchant, also by the celebrated Louis Claude de Saint-Martin. Saint-Martin absorbed and developed his master's teaching in a peculiar and personal manner, and through his philosophy became an important influence on then current affairs. He had been an officer in the regiment of Foix at Bordeaux when he first became acquainted with Pasqually, and soon after meeting him he threw up his commission in the army with the object of devoting his life to meditation, and the study of Jacob Boehme. He became the mystical philosopher of the Revolution, and the book he published in 1775, " Des Erreurs et de la Vrit," produced an immense sensation, comparable to that created by the publication of " La Profession de Foi d'un Vicaire Savoyard." Like Rousseau, he believed in the infinite possibilities of man, holding that Providence had planted a religion in man's heart " which could not be contaminated by priestly traffic, nor tainted by imposture." Rousseau gave the name of conscience to " the innate principle of justice and virtue which, - 29 - independently of experience and in spite of ourselves, forms the basis of our judgments" ; Saint-Martin thought it the divine instinct. On the belief in man's essential goodness both founded their demand for social revolution, claiming an opportunity for men to be indeed men and not slaves, a chance for climbing back to that old God-designed level of happiness from which they had descended. SaintMartin saw in such a movement the awakening of men from the sleep of
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death, and with deep conviction he responded to the cry " All men are priests," uttered three centuries earlier by Luther, with the cry "All men are kings!" The answer to the social enigmas of the century was whispered by him in the " ternaire sacr " of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity ; and it echoed with reverberating clangor through all the lodges of France. Martinist societies were everywhere founded to study the doctrines contained in his book, and to expound the teachings of the mystical philosopher who, like Lamartine in a later day, contemplated the Revolution as Christianity applied to politics. A volume might easily be written upon the - 30 - lodges and rites in France during this time ; and their very number makes choice of those deserving peculiar mention bewildering. The well-known "Loge des Amis Runis," or " Philalthes," inaugurated by " the man of all conspiracies/' Savalette de Lange, and his friends, carried on an important correspondence with lodges in every quarter of Europe. Under the pretext of pleasant gatherings and luxurious dinners these " friends of truth " prosecuted the dark and dangerous work of preparing that reformation of society which in practice became Revolution. One of the most famous, if not the most interesting, of the intellectual lodges, was that of the " Neuf Soeurs " in Paris, founded in memory of Helvetius, which, if it held a secret, held the secret of Voltaire, " Humanity and Tolerance." It was intended to be an encyclopaedic workshop, a complement to the already existing Lodge of Sciences. Since all the secondary education in France was in the hands of a clerical corporation, and the Sorbonne was dedicated to theology, the " Neuf Soeurs " organised118 * " la Socit Apollonienne." This society arranged for courses of lectures - 31 - to be given by its more eminent members ; Marmontel and Garat, for example, lectured on history, La Harpe on literature, Condorcet and De la Croix on chemistry, Fourcroy and Sue on anatomy and physiology. The improvised college did not shut its doors during the Revolution, but changed its name to " Lyce Rpublicain." Its professors conformed to Republican usages, and La Harpe was to be seen lecturing in a red cap. Some useful institutions seem to have been evolved out of the conclaves of the " Neuf Soeurs," including the reformed laws of criminal
118 November 17, 1780.

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procedure embodied in the Code Napoleon.119* The Duc de la Rochefoucauld, translator of the American Constitution, was an associate of the lodge, so was Forster, who sailed round the world with Captain Cook; Brissot, who was later condemned as leader of the Girondins, Camille Desmoulins, Fauchet, Romme, Bailly, Rabaud Saint Etienne, Danton, Andre Chnier, Dom Gerle, Paul Jones, Franklin, Guillotin, Cabanis, Petion, Siys, Cerutti, Hanna, and Voltaire. Together they form an illustrious company who, all in their varying ways, took [32] conspicuous shares in the work of reformation. Commemorative assemblies and processions were organised by this lodge on the occasions of the deaths of Franklin, Voltaire, and Paul Jones, the liberators. The lodge has received historic consecration at the hands of Louis Blanc, Henri Martin, and Amiable. Having accomplished a great work, it disappeared, like all the other lodges, at the opening of the Revolution. The share that women took in promoting social changes has not received the attention it deserves. Readers of Dumas are familiar with the fact that in country districts fraternal societies welcoming members of both sexes met regularly in barns and farms ; but it does not seem to be usually recognised that apart from the " Loges de la Flicit," which had been the occasion of frequent scandal, many regular and well-conducted " lodges of adoption" for women were recognised by the " Grand Orient." The Duchess de Bourbon, Egalite's sister, was Grand Mistress of the adoptive lodge of " la Candeur " in 1775, and Princesse de Lamballe and Madame de Genlis also wielded the hammer. The work of these fashionable dames cannot, however, be taken seriously. It was a pastime - 33 - for them, just as were the decorous fetes held within the lodges in which both men and women participated. The entertainments were elegant and refined, often taking the form of the illustration of a virtue such as benevolence, or of homage to some humanitarian quality. For example, one day a lady discovered that a poor working woman with nine children had added to her burdens by adopting the orphan of a friend. The ladies of her lodge were enthusiastic at such generosity, and caused the poor woman to be exhibited at one of their reunions in a tableau surrounded by the ten children. After considerable acclamation she was allowed to go her way with clothes and money presented by her admirers. " Bienfaisance " was a paricularly fashionable
119 " Une Loge Maonnique d'avant 1789," p. 243.

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virtue. Women of society raised altars in their rooms dedicated to this quality. The tone of society, however, was not wholly sentimental ; it was also reasonable, and it became the vogue for ladies to attend scientific lectures ; classes in drawing-rooms on mineralogy, chemistry, and physics were well attended ; ladies were no longer painted as goddesses, but as students, in laboratories, surrounded by telescopes and retorts ; Countess Voyer attended - 34 - dissections, and one of her friends wielded the scalpel with grace ; Madame de Genlis, whose self-satisfaction is almost priggish, alludes in her memoirs to the intense pleasure she derived from some geological lectures. While the world of fashion was playing with science and masonry, the opinions and beliefs of its social inferiors were gradually crystallising into action. Serious women of the bourgeoisie and farmer classes attended meetings and discussions and taught their sons and their husbands what it meant to fight for an ideal ; and how the ternaire sacr could be translated into fact. At the lowest computation there were seven hundred lodges in France before the Revolution, and a very large proportion of them had acknowledged " lodges of adoption " for women. It is impossible from the material published on the subject, however, to form even an approximate estimate of the number of members of either sex belonging to these associations. It was very large, but the claim to a million adherents made by the " Loge de la Candeur " in 1785 is clearly greatly in excess of actual fact. At Bayonne "La Zle," at Angers the " Tendre Accueil," at Saint-Malo 35 - the Triple Esperance," at Reims the " Triple Union at Tours the "Amis de la Vertu" flourished. Poignant satires on credulity were delivered at the " Loge de la Parfaite Intelligence " at Liege to which the Prince Bishop and the greater part of his chapter belonged, and of which all the office-bearers were dignitaries of the Church. The system seems to have permeated every section of French national life. Pernetti, a Benedictine, librarian of Frederick the Great, had founded a Swedenborgian brotherhood at Avignon, in company with a Polish noble Gabrionka, who by some is supposed to have been Cagliostro, and Pernetti is but an example of dozens of other missionaries. Everywhere gatherings
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and associations existed, separated by rites and by practices, but united in intention by their common love for and faith in the creed of brotherhood. One thing only was needed to transform this heterogeneous collection of lodges, sects, and rites into a powerful political lever upon society, and that was a mind which could devise a common course of action or a common political understanding to unite them. Secret idealistic societies had done a wonderful work in fostering - 36 - principles and hopes and ideals, but in order to become effective in action transmutation of some kind was necessary. Masonic writers have of late made but little allusion to the influence of the German " illuminates " on the French lodges, and are disposed to detract from the reputation of the marvellous organiser Weishaupt, Professor of Canon Law at the University of Ingoldstadt. Barruel, Louis Blanc, and Deschamps unite, however, in regarding him as the most profound of conspirators. Le Couteulx de Canteleu considers the young professor of Ingolstadt as the originator of a remarkable system, of which Von Knigge was the most able missionary. With Weishaupt alone lay the credit not only of realising the cause of the ineffectiveness of societies upon society, but of elaborating an homogeneous scheme which was destined to embrace and eventually absorb all lodges and all rites. He was no free-mason when he invented his design, but in order to study masonic methods he was received as a mason in Munich, where one Zwack, a legal member of the lodge, afterwards one of Weishaupt's confederates, sold him the ultimate secrets of masonry. Equipped with this knowledge [37] he allied himself with Von Knigge of the "Strict Observance and caused all his own disciples to become masons. " Every secret engagement is a source of enthusiasm," said Weishaupt ; "it is useless to seek for the reasons ; the fact exists, that is enough." In conformity with this belief he recruited the new secret society which he intended should absorb all the others. In 1776 the order of the Perfectibilists was founded. They began by creating a new world, for they purposed to work independently of existing conditions. They invented their own calendar, with new divisions of time and new names for days and periods ; they took unto themselves the appellations of Greece and Rome. Weishaupt became Spartacus, after the
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leader of the servile insurrection in the time of Pompey ; Von Knigge became Philo ; Zwack, Cato ; Costanzo, Diomedes ; Nicolai, Lucian. The map of Europe was re-named ; in their correspondence Munich was Athens; Austria Egypt ; and France Illyria. The organisation of the Perfectibilists was designed to enlist all professions and both sexes. It consisted of two large classes, that of "preparations" and that [38] of " mysteries." In the former there were four grades : novice, minerval, illuminate minor, and illuminate major. In the latter there were also four grades : priest, regent, philosopher, and man-king. There was also a "plant-nursery for children, and a class in which women were trained to influence men. The associates who possessed the full confidence of Weishaupt were called Areopagites. The order was designed as the directing instrument of that social revolution which Weishaupt and many others knew to be imminent. France was the country selected for the great experiment, and Weishaupt faced with courage the problem that students of social questions realised in the latter half of the eighteenth century would be the difficulty in any revolution. He saw like them that the future class struggle for survival and supremacy in France would lie between the bourgeoisie and the people, that the nobles would count for nothing in the contest. He knew that the commercial classes were extremely rich, that in so far as the actual administrative work went it was in the hands of the third estate, that in the event of revolution it would become the - 39 - first and perhaps the only power in the country. A consideration of the representative institutions of France before the Revolution convinces us of the fact that the actual people were unrepresented, and moreover that it was unlikely that they would ever have a voice in the management of affairs, unless their claims were enforced by well organised and wide reaching secret societies. Weishaupt's scheme was intended to prevent the bourgeoisie reaping all the revolutionary harvest. As a disciple of Rousseau he did not favour the establishment of commercial supremacy as a substitute for the old system of autocracy. "Salvation does not lie where shining thrones are defended by swords, where the smoke of the censors ascends to heaven, or where thousands of starving men pace the rich fields of harvest. The revolution which is about to break upon us will be sterile if it is not complete." He feared that the concessions of kings, and the removal of food taxes, might delude the people into the belief that all was well, and he imparted his fear to his disciples. His object in establishing the
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Perfectibilists was the literal realisation of Rousseau's theories. He dreamt of and schemed for a day when the - 40 - abolition of property, social authority, and nationality would be facts, when human beings would return to that happy state in which they form but one family120.* Being an ex-Jesuit and acquainted with the organisation of that order, he determined to adapt its system to his own scheme, to make as it were a counter-society of Jesus. All the maxims and rules of Jesuit administration were to be pushed further and applied more rigorously than had been contemplated by their inventors. Passive obedience, universal espionage, and all the dialectic of casuistry were his chosen tools, and so successful was the undertaking that in four years a system of communication and information with every part of Europe had been established. The unseen hands of the society were in all affairs, its ears in the cabinets of princes and cardinals. The Church was regarded unrelentingly as a foe, for the Perfectibilists were the enemies of institutional Christianity, and represented themselves as professors of the purest Christian Socialism. Weishaupt classed the theological and sacerdotal systems among the worst enemies of man, and in his instructions to his disciples urged that - 41 - they should be contended with as definite evils. And the Church feared him, for did he not declare that men were still slaves because they still knelt ? Did he not command the people to rise from their knees ? Abb Deschamps, in " Les socits secrtes et la socit," expresses his dread of the machinations of so terrible an Order, and points out that "once dechristianised the masses will claim absolute equality and the right to enjoy life ! " Weishaupt, on the other hand, said: "He who would work for the happiness of the human race, for the contentment and peace of man, for the diminishing of discontent, should examine and then enfeeble the principles which trouble that peace, that content, that happiness. Of this class are all systems which are opposed to the ennobling and perfecting of human nature ; all systems which unnecessarily multiply the evils of the world, and represent them as greater than they really are ; all systems which depreciate the merit and the dignity of man, which diminish his confidence in his own natural forces, which decry human reason, and so open the way for imposture."
120 Letter of Spartacus to Cato, p, 160. Robison

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The candidate for the grade of epopt, or - 42 - priest, among the Perfectibilists was, before his initiation into the higher mysteries, introduced into a hall, wherin stood a magnificent dais surmounted by a throne. In front of the throne stood a table laden with jewels, gold coins, a sceptre, crown, and sword. " Look,' said the epopt chief, ' if this crown and sceptre, monuments of human degradation and imbecility, tempt thee ; if thy heart is with them ; if thou wouldst help kings to oppress men, we will place thee as near a throne as thou desirest ; but our sanctuary will be closed to thee, and we shall abandon thee for ever to thy folly. If, on the contrary, thou art willing to devote thyself to making men happy and free, be welcome here. . . . Decide ! ' After decision the would-be initiate had to make a frank and detailed confession of all the actions of his life. Weishaupt thought this a very important preliminary to higher knowledge, because it gave him cognisance of personal secrets which would make betrayal of the order on the part of the novice dangerous and often impossible. The verification of the confession was proceeded with in a dark room, decorated with symbols and emblems of mystery. A - 43 - book called the " Code Scrutateur " was opened, and all the faults of the candidate, his hates, loves, confidences, and fears were read out loud. These had been extracted from the unconscious victim, or from his friends, by the " insinuating brethren," whose business it was to find out everything about every member of their society. When all this was over a curtain was drawn aside, revealing an altar surmounted by a large crucifix. The candidate was tonsured, vested with sacerdotal garments, and given the red Phrygian cap of the epopt, with these words : "Wear this cap ; it means more than the crown of kings" a prophecy verified by the Revolution. In the lower grades of Illuminism recruits had no knowledge of such ceremonies. They were allowed to think that they were supporting orthodox Christianity and old authorities, and in this way time was gained for studying the character of recruits, and unsuitable members were weeded out. Later on, as they gradually climbed the ladder of initiation, it was revealed to them that Jesus had come to teach men reasonableness and not superstition, and that His only precepts were love of God and love - 44 - of humanity. Camilla Desmoulins invoked the "Sans-culotte Jesus " during the
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Revolution, claiming Him as the pattern Socialist. Jesus, the Illuminists said, came to dissipate prejudice, to spread light and wise morality, to show men how to govern themselves. He was the true liberator of man, and the teacher of equality and liberty. It has been argued with some plausibility that since such harmless and conservative people as the Duke of Sachs-Gotha and Prince August of Sachs-Weimar were illuminates, Louis XVI. and Frederick the Great masons, the secret societies could have had no direct influence on the social upheaval, and therefore are not worthy of the serious consideration of the historian. The study of the organisation of the great secret service reveals the reason of this contention and also its futility. The lower grades of masonry and Illuminism served a double-edged purpose : that of concealing the existence of the higher grades, and that of proving the worthiness of earnest searchers after social regeneration to enter those higher grades. Mystery of any kind always attracts the weak-minded, and Illuminism allured many dupes whom it was necessary to - 45 keep at arm's length from realities. The existence of serious purpose had also studiously to be concealed from royalties and prelates, for hierarchical religion is dear to all supporters of autocracy. Yet it was politic to lull the suspicions of the conservative and governing classes by admitting them with apparent freedom and joy into the Order. It was a policy of disarmament, and Weishaupt was quite candid as to this, for anything was better for the cause than open enmity. " If it is to our interest to have the ordinary schools on our side, it is also very important to win over the ecclesiastical seminaries and their superiors ; for in that way we should secure the best part of the country, and disarm the greatest enemies of all innovation ; and what is still better, in winning the ecclesiastics, we should have the people in our hands." To many Perfectibilists, illuminism and masonry were but charming social amusements, signifying nothing. The doctrines of social subversion, the creeds and dogmas of sudden death, all seemed but quaint and often crude allegories ; assemblies were but the occasion of [46] fun and feasting ; men played at the comedy of equality with zest and good temper, just because it was all so impossible and unlike life. And may not autocrats like
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Frederick the Great and the Emperor of Austria have blindly served the enterprise of the people and have assisted in converting their own comedy into tragedy ? Recruits for the secret service were not difficult to attract. The Lisbon earthquake had unsettled many minds. The theurgists Saint-Germain and Cagliostro flitted hither and thither like brilliant Oriental birds against the neutral background of a Europe at peace but in travail. Eagerly watched and eagerly worshipped, they performed miracles and cures that dazzled the imagination. Their magical shows, displaying sometimes conspicuous charlatanry, amazed the gaping crowds, and served to disguise their primary mission from the Courts and the governing classes. People of all classes became nervous and disturbed. Suzanne Labrousse of Perigord121,* being in chapel, threw herself at the foot of the Crucifix and announced precisely the date of the convocation of the StatesGeneral. The Queen - 47 - of Prussia and her waiting-women had seen " the white lady." Crowds in the market-place of Leipzig awaited the ghost of wonder-working Schroepfer, who had shown Louis XV. in a magic mirror his successor decapitated ; for had he not promised to reappear to his disciples at a given moment after death ? Interpretations of the Apocalypse were published, and it was asserted that yet more ancient prophecies were about to be fulfilled. Men asked themselves as they met in their lodges and their homes, or as they sat round the pool of Mesmer, or consulted Cazotte, " What would be the end thereof?" Great changes were in the air; men felt the fluttering of unseen wings and the breath of unrecognised forces, their expectations kept them restless and eager. One mind at least in France was able to contemplate with calmness the weaving of strange threads into the texture of society ; and in that mind was clearly reflected the spirit and tendency of the agitated world of action. Undismayed by portent or prophecy, the unknown philosopher meditated as he watched the shuttles darting through the giant loom of the social system, and gazed on that living tissue through [ 48 ] which in the weaving " shimmered unceasingly the irrefragable justice of God. " Saint-Martin122 had
121 En 1784. 122 No proof of such a thing in the known papers of Saint-Martin

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already formulated that ternaire sacr which many were diligently and in different ways seeking to attain. Men grasped eagerly after the fruit of the travail of his soul and were satisfied. By studying his doctrines their apprehension was quickened and their efforts enhanced and spiritualised. To a great extent he transfused the masonic thought with that faith which makes the movement of mountains no impossibility. The ternaire which proved the miraculous seed-corn of the revolutionary harvest had been scattered by him broadcast over the land to germinate in the furrows of France against the reaping-time. Meanwhile the ambassadors of Weishaupt surveyed the countries which were to be the stage of the great drama. Long before accredited Illuminist agents were sent to instruct the lodges of the Grand Orient, inaugural work seems to have been undertaken by Cagliostro and SaintGermain. Weishaupt was too shrewd an organiser to neglect any instrument of advantage, and, estimating justly the credulity of the day, he saw the extreme importance of - 49 - securing such men as the magicians for the furtherance of his purpose. One of his emissaries, Cagliostro, was known all over Europe as the" " Priest of Mystery," and nearly every one, however sceptical of his powers, fell before his personal charm. The Perfectibilists annexed him and initiated him into their ritual, as he himself describes, in an underground cave near Frankfort-on-the-Main. At the initiation he learnt that the first blows of the Illuminates would be aimed at France, and that after the fall of that monarchy the Church herself would be assailed. After receiving instructions and money from Weishaupt (a secret which he is said later to have confessed to the Inquisition), he proceeded to Strasburg, and there led a life of philanthropy, giving to the poor his money, to the rich his advice, to the sick his help. He was veritably adored by the people. When he went to Paris in 1781 his elegant house in the Rue Saint Claude was soon besieged by admirers. His portrait was in great request on medallions and fans, and his bust in marble and in bronze figured in the houses of the great with this inscription : "Le divin Cagliostro." He received his clients in a large room furnished with Oriental 50 - luxury, which contained the bust of Hippocrates, the " Universal Prayer " of Pope, together with objects of necromantic design and thaumaturgic virtue. His mysterious device L.P.D.
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(Lilia pedibus destrue) was reputed to be full of sinister meaning for the kings of France. Marie Antoinette was deeply interested in matters and men of this nature. De Rohan entertained her with tales of Cagliostro ; she consulted Saint-Germain, and was one of the visitors who clustered round the mysterious fluid of the hypnotic doctor Mesmer, which was calculated to heal all ills, and who listened to his dictum, " There is but one health, one illness, and one remedy." Though Mesmer's experiments were rejected by the French savants of the day as worthless, they were eagerly taken up in other parts of Europe. Mesmer enforced the law of mutual dependence and of unity in the natural world, as Saint-Martin enforced the laws of mutual dependence and of unity in the spiritual world. It might well have been Saint-Martin and not Mesmer who said, that the life of man is part of the universal movement for they were both exponents of the truth of the solidarity of the race. - 51 The Comte de Saint-Germain, another of Weishaupt's ambassadors, emerges at intervals upon the surface of affairs a brilliant and accomplished personage, and sinks again to work in the great secret service, or to sit, as tradition has it, upon his golden altar in an attitude of Oriental absorption. Saint-Germain was probably not only the secret missionary and entertainer of Louis XV., but also the agent of masonic and other societies working for the regeneration of humanity ; one life was probably only the cloak for the other. At the great Convention of Masonry held at Wilhelmsbad in 1782 the Order of the Strict Observance was suspended, and Von Knigge disclosed the scheme of Weishaupt to the assembled representatives of the masonic and mystical fraternities. Then and there disciples of Saint-Martin and of Willermoz, as well as statesmen, scientists, magicians, and magistrates from all countries, were converted to Illuminism. Perfectibilist doctrines percolated everywhere through the lodges of Europe, and when the " Philalthes," at the instigation of Mirabeau, became the missionary agents of Illuminism, they preached to already half- - 52 - converted audiences. The fact that Mirabeau had any connection with such schemes has been occasionally denied, partly on account of the bitter pamphlet he launched against Cagliostro and partly because in " La Monarchic Prussienne " he denounced all secret societies and asserted that they should be tolerated by
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no State. This proves no more than the work which Nicolai produced explaining that secret societies existed for no other purpose than to serve the Stuart cause, when all the while he was founding a club and gaining possession of newspapers, like the " Berlin Journal " and the Jena Gazette," to further the views of the initiates. It must be remembered that everything that conduced to the welfare of the society and the furtherance of the mission was justifiable, and that by subterfuges such as these Mirabeau and Nicolai sought to avert suspicion from themselves, and to obtain peace to work with greater efficiency and freedom. Mirabeau, owing to his friendship with Nicolai while in Berlin, is said to have been initiated into the last mysteries of the Perfectibilists at Brunswick. On returning to Paris he, together with Bonneville, introduced the German doctrines at the lodge of the " Amis - 53 - Runis."123* Among his auditors were the Duke of Orleans, Brissot, Condorcet, Savalette, Gregoire, Garat, Petion, Baboeuf, Barnave, Sieyes, Saint-Just, Camille Desmoulins, Hebert, Santerre, Danton, Marat, Chnier, and many other men whose names are immortalised in the annals of the Revolution. The charge of actually disseminating the doctrines throughout France was given to Bode (Aurelius) and Busch (Bayard). So well did the Perfectibilist missionaries work that by 1788 every lodge under the Grand Orient and they numbered in that year 629 is said to have been indoctrinated with the system of Weishaupt. From the time or the inoculation of the Grand Orient of France with the German doctrines, masonry, from being a simple instrument of tolerance, humanity, and fraternity, acting in a vague and general manner on the sentiments of its adherents, became a direct instrument of social transformation. Plans of the most practical nature were discussed. A scheme for recruiting a citizen army was drawn up, and Savalette de Lange, of the royal household, is said to have been responsible for [54] its execution. At the opening of the Revolution he appeared before the municipal councillors of Paris, followed by a few men crying, " Let us save the country," thereby exciting no little emulation. Messieurs," he said : " Voici des citoyens que j'ai exerces a manier les armes pour la dfense de la patrie ; je me suis point fait leur majeur ou leur gnral, nous sommes tous gaux, je suis simplement caporal, mais j'ai donne 1'exemple ; ordonnez que tous les citoyens le suivent, que la nation prenne les armes, et la libert est
123 Le Couteulx de Canteleu," p. 168.

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invincible.124"* The next day the army of the " gardes nationaux " was formed. Barruel relates that at the outbreak of the Revolution two million hands, holding pikes, torches and hatchets, were ready to serve the cause of humanity, and that this body of zealots had been created by the adepts. Whether this be a true estimate or not, many an arm which was ready in 1789 to strike a blow for liberty had been nerved by the teachings of the secret societies. Nearly all the masonic and illuminist lodges - 55 - shrank to their smallest esoteric dimensions in 1789, and expanded exoterically as clubs and popular societies. La Loge des Neuf Soeurs, for example, became La Socit Nationale des Neuf Soeurs," a club admitting women. The Grand Orient ceased its direction of affairs. The old theoretical discussions within the lodges as to how the Revolution should be conducted, produced in action the widest divergences, and Jacobins, Girondins, Hebertists, Dantonists, Robespierrists, in consequence destroyed each other. It has been the habit for so long to regard the Revolution as an undefined catastrophe that it is hardly possible to persuade men that at least some foreknowledge of its course and destination existed in the mind of the Illuminists. When Cagliostro wrote his celebrated letter from England in 1787 predicting for the French people the realisation of the schemes of the secret societies ; foretelling the Revolution and the destruction of the Bastille and monarchy ; the advent of a Prince Egalite, who would abolish lettres de cachet ; the convocation of the States-General ; the destruction of ecclesiasticism and the substitution of the religion of - 56 - Reason; he probably wrote of the things he had heard debated in the lodges of Paris. Prescience might also explain the remark attributed to Mirabeau, " Voil la victime," as he indicated the King at the opening of the States-General at Versailles125.* Two volumes of addresses, delivered at various lodges by eminent masons, prove how truly the situation had been gauged by Condorcet and Mirabeau. In fantastic phraseology the philosopher announced at Strasbourg that in France the " idolatry of monarchy had
124 Le Couteulx de Canteleu," p. 211. 125 Mmoires

de Weber," vol. i. chap, ix, p. 335


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received a death-blow from the daughters of the Order of the Templars," while the states-man uttered in the recesses of the lodge of the " Chevaliers Bienfaisants " in Paris, the levelling principles and liberal ideas which he afterwards thundered from the tribune of the Assembly.126 The path to the overthrow of religious authority had to a great extent been made smooth by the distribution, through the lodges, of Boulanger's "Origines du Despotisme Oriental," in which religion is treated as the engine of the State and the source of despotic power. " Des Erreurs et de la Vrit," springing as it did out - 57 - of the self-consciousness of the philosopher of the Revolution, represents, more than any other book, the feeling of the mystical aspirants after a reign of brotherhood and love. It became the Talmud of such people and the classic whence they drew their opinions. Religions ? their very diversity condemns them. Governments ? their instability, their foolish ways prove how false is the base on which they rest. All is wrong, especially criminal law, for it upholds the monstrous injustice of not only killing guilt but also repentance. Saint-Martin spoke to eager ears when he spoke thus to men, men willing to believe that man alone has created evil, that God at least must be exonerated from so monstrous a charge, men willing to work for that reign of brotherhood which meant the restoration of man's lost happiness. A very curious symbol is preserved in the National Library in Paris which illustrates the decline of the sentiment and principle and faith wherein the Revolution originated. It consists of a medal struck under the Convention in which two men regard each other without demonstration of affection, and all around runs the inscription : " Sois mon frre ou je te - 58 - tue." The doctrine of brotherhood can no further go. After considering presently available materials we must conclude that at the lowest estimate a coordinated working basis of ideas had been established through the agency of the lodges of France ; that thousands of men, unable to form a political opinion or judgment for themselves, had been awakened to a sense of their own responsibility and their own power in furthering the great movement towards a new order of affairs. It remains to the eternal credit of the workers in the great secret service to have elicited a vigorous personal response to the call of great ideals, and to have directed the enthusiasm excited to the welfare, not of individuals, but of society as a
126 p.

41. Robison.
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whole. The conjectural realm of the inception of political ideas is a morass into which few historians care to venture. Proved paths are lacking, the country is dark and unmapped, and a false step may ruin the reputation of years. It is to be hoped that one day a contribution to the spiritual history of the eighteenth century will be made which will neither ignore the Utopian confederacies nor attribute to them, as is the - 59 - habit of ecclesiastics, influences altogether malign. At the great Revolution the doctrines of the lodges were at last translated from the silent world of secrecy to the common world of practice ; a few months sufficed to depose ecclesiasticism from its pedestal and monarchy from its throne ; to make the army republican, and the word of Rousseau law. The half-mystical phantasies of the lodges became the habits of daily life. The Phrygian cap of the " illuminate " became the headgear of the populace, and the adoption of the classic appellations used by Spartacus and his Aropagites the earnest of good citizenship. Past time was broken with, and a calendar modelled on those in use among the secret confederates became the symbol of the new epoch. The ternaire Liberty, Equality, Fraternity instead of merely adorning the meeting-places of masonic bodies, was stencilled on all the public buildings of France ; and the red banner which had symbolised universal love within the lodges was carried by the ragged battalions of the people on errands of pillage and destruction. The great subversive work had been silently - 60 - and ruthlessly accomplished in the face of popes and kings. Though the Church spread the report that Illuminates worshipped a devil, and named it Christ, and denounced masonry as the " mystery of iniquity " ; though Saint-Germain and Saint-Martin were decried by the Jesuits; though Cagliostro died in the Inquisitors' prison of Sant Angelo, and Cazotte, Egalite, and many another agent of the secret service were guillotined ; though Weishaupt was persecuted and the German Perfectibilists suppressed ; yet the mine which had been dug under altar and throne was too deep to be filled up by either persecution or calumny. The true history of the eighteenth century is the history of the aspiration of the human race. In France it was epitomised. The spiritual life
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of that nation, which was to lift the weight of material oppression from the shoulders of multitudes, had been cherished through dark years by the preachers of Freedom, Equality, and Brotherhood. From the Swedenborgian stronghold of Avignon, from Martinist Lyons, from Narbonne, from Munich, and many another citadel of freedom, there flashed on the grey night of feudalism, unseen - 61 - but to the initiates, the watch-fires of great hope tended by those priests of progress who, though unable to lift the veil that shrouds the destiny of man and the end of worlds, by faith were empowered to dedicate the future to the Unknown God. End of chapter ... Both Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists have had recognition of men for the share which they took in destroying the prestige of the Church. Undoubtedly their work and influence were both serious and important; but beneath the philosophers and their works of light other nameless powers were striving toward enfranchisement. An attempt has been made in a previous essay to describe the extensive and intensive influence of the secret societies in France during the eighteenth century. The appeal of the Encyclopaedists was to the - 116 - educated, but the secret societies made their appeal to the uneducated and the poor, who were not for their ignorance or poverty debarred from comprehending the great belief, which inspired nearly all the mystical societies of the Middle Ages and modern days, the belief in the divinity of man and in the true brotherhood and unity of humanity symbolised in the triple watchword of the Martinists, " Liberty, Fraternity, Equality." Men have banded themselves together in all ages in order to attack tyranny by destroying the idolatrous esteem in which it was held ; for the effort to emancipate the human race and enable it to grow to the full stature of its manhood is an ancient endeavour, a divine fever laying hold of mystics, peasants, quakers, poets, theosophists, and all who cannot accustom themselves to the ugly inequalities of social life. Although nowadays men can further such ends openly, in other centuries they had to work stealthily in clandestine ways, and the generations of victims and martyrs who lie in the catacombs of feudalism could attest the danger of their enterprise. How many men have died in chains, how many crypts have concealed nameless cruelties from the sunlight, - 117 - how many redeemers have sacrificed the dear gift of life
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that tyrannies might cease, no man can tell ; but without that secret soul of progress, formed deep below the consciousness of political thought and action, history would have been but a monotonous record of military and monachal despotism. It has been thought strange that a powerful organisation like the Church fell so easily before the innovators. The secret societies, however, with their enthusiasm for humanity, were greatly responsible for the Church's temporary discomfiture, though they could not hold the advantage gained, since they had no definite new religion to substitute for the old creed. The reformers, realising that the only efficient destruction is reconstruction, made sundry attempts at civic and secular religion, which all proved too cold and unattractive to compete successfully with the warm humanity and familiar pageants of the Church's feasts. Long before the outbreak of the Revolution, the banners of secret societies working for the good of humanity bore the words : " Down with the double despotism of Priests and Kings," and in every important town in France, - 118 - as well as in many country districts, were to be found bands of men professing the new faith of brotherhood. Ecclesiastical edicts of the eighteenth century witness to the existence and spread of workmen's unions. Fraternal societies, admitting members of both sexes, met in country districts, and discussed the problems of the people. A network of freemasonry had been successfully established over the greater part of France a few years before the outbreak of the Revolution. That strong views were held on brotherhood by masons and members of other secret societies may be gathered from the terms of their members' obligation : " I, with all the possessions, rank, honours and titles which I hold in political society, am only a man. I enjoy these things only through my fellow men, and through them also I may lose them. . . . I will oppose with all my might the enemies of the human race and of liberty."

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- 229 Madame de Stal and Napoleon Back again at Coppet " in the prison of the soul, she was visited by the devout and fascinating Madame de Krdener and her fellow missionary Zacharias Werner, the Rosicrucian. Under their influence, she became extremely religious. Werner read " The History of Religion " by Stolberg with her, and when he left Coppet not only had Benjamin Constant come under his influence, but so also had William Schlegel : both contemplated writing religious works. Schlegel read Saint-Martin with deep attention. Madame de Stal plunged into the " Imitation of Jesus Christ." At the end of 1810, Coppet might have been the haven of a society of religious. ...

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The Encyclopdia britannica: a dictionary of arts, sciences, literature and ...? - Page 29 Volume 24
Hugh Chisholm - 1911 SAINT-MARTIN. LOUIS CLAUDE DE (1743-1803), French philosopher, known as " le philosophe inconnu," the name under which his works were published, was born at Amboise of a poor127 but noble family, on the 18th of January 1743. by his father's desire he tried first law and then the army as a profession. While in garrison at Bordeaux he came under the influence of Martinez de Pasquales, usually called a Portuguese Jew (although later research has made it probable that he was a Spanish Catholic), who taught a species of mysticism drawn from cabbalistic sources, and endeavoured to found thereon a secret cult with magical or theurgical rites. In 1771 SaintMartin left the army to become a preacher of mysticism. His conversational powers made him welcome in Parisian salons, but his real zeal led him to England, where he made the acquaintance of William Law, the English mystic, to Italy and to Switzerland, as well as to the chief towns of France. At Strasbourg in 1788 he met Charlotte de Boecklin, who initiated him into the writings of Jacob Boehme, and inspired in his breast a semi-romantic attachment. His later years were devoted almost entirely to the composition of his chief works and to the translation of those of Boehme. Although he was not subjected to any persecution in consequence of his [30] opinions, his property was confiscated after the Revolution because of his social position. He was brought up a strict Catholic, and always remained attached to the church, although his first work, Of Errors and Truth, was placed upon the index. He died at Aunay128, near Paris, on the 23rd129 of October 1803. His chief works are Lettre un ami sur la rvolution franaise, Eclair sur l'association humaine; de l'esprit des choses, Ministre de l'homme-esprit. Other treatises appeared in his oeuvres posthumes (1807).
127 Pauvre ? Qu'est-ce qu'un pauvre noble qui peut payer son fils une charge d'avocat Tours pour environ 1 million d'euro... 128 Aunay = Aulnay = Aulnay-sous-bois, nord est de Paris, prs de l'aroport de Roissy 129 Le 13 octobre 1803

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Saint-Martin regarded the French Revolution as a sermon in action, if not indeed a miniature of last judgement. His ideal society was a natural ans spiritual theocracy; in which God would raise up men of mark and endowment, who would regard themselves strictly as divine commissioners to guide the people. All ecclesiastical organisation, was to disappear, giving place to a purely spiritual Christianity, based on the assertion of a faculty superior to the reason-moral sense, from which we derive knowledge of God. God exists as en eternal personality, and the creation is an overflowing or the divine love, which was unable to contain itself. The human soul, the human intellect or spirit, the spirit of the universe, and the elements or matter are the four stages of his divine emanation, man being the immediate reflection of God, and nature in turn a reflection of man. Man, however, has fallen from his high estate, and matter is one of the consequences of the fall. But divine love, united to humanity in Christ, will work the final regeneration. See J. B. Gence, notice biographique (1824); Moreau, le philosophe inconnu (1850); Caro, Essai sur la vie et la doctrine de Saint-Martin (1852); Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi X 190; Matter, Saint-Martin, le philosophe inconnu (1862); Franck, la philosophie mystique en France la fin du dix-huitime sicle (1866), Waite, the life of Louis-Claude de SaintMartin (1901). there are English translations of the ministry of Man the Spirit (1864) and of Select Correspondence (1863) by E. B. Penny. .

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Mysticism: a study in the nature and development of man's spiritual ...? - Page 575 Evelyn Underhill - 1911 600 pages PREFACE THIS book falls naturally into two parts; each of which is really complete in itself, though they are in a sense complementary to one another. Whilst the second and longest part contains a somewhat detailed study of the nature and development of man's spiritual or mystical consciousness, the first is intended rather to provide an introduction to the general subject of mysticism. Exhibiting it by turns from the point of view of metaphysics, psychology, and symbolism, it is an attempt to gather between the covers of one volume information at present scattered amongst many monographs and text-books written in divers tongues, and to give the student in a compact form at least the elementary facts in regard to each of those subjects which are most closely connected with the study of the mystics. Those mystics, properly speaking, can only be studied in their works : works which are for the most part left unread by those who now talk much about mysticism. Certainly the general reader has this excuse, that the masterpieces of mystical literature, full of strange beauties though they be, offer considerable difficulties to those who come to them unprepared. In the first seven chapters of this book I have tried to remove a few of these difficulties ; to provide the necessary preparation ; and to exhibit the relation in which mysticism stands to other forms of life. If, then, the readers of this section are enabled by it to come to the encounter of mystical literature with a greater power of sympathetic comprehension than they previously possessed, it will have served the purpose for which it has been composed. It is probable that almost every such reader, according to [VII] the angle from which he approaches the subject, will here find a good deal which seems to him superfluous. But different types of mind will find this unnecessary elaboration in different places. The psychologist, approaching
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from the scientific standpoint, eager for morbid phenomena, has little use for disquisitions on symbolism, religious or other. The symbolist, approaching from the artistic standpoint, seldom admires the proceedings of psychology. I believe, however, that none who wish to obtain an idea of mysticism in its wholeness, as a form of life, can afford to neglect any of the aspects on which these pages venture to touch. The metaphysician and the psychologist are unwise if they do not consider the light thrown upon the ideas of the mystics by their attitude towards orthodox theology. The theologian is still more unwise if he refuse to hear the evidence of psychology. For the benefit of those whose interest in mysticism is chiefly literary, and who may care to be provided with a clue to the symbolic and allegorical element in the writings of the contemplatives, a short section on those symbols of which they most often make use has been added. Finally the persistence amongst us of the false opinion which confuses mysticism with occult philosophy and psychic phenomena, has made it necessary to deal with the vital distinction which exists between it and every form of magic. Specialists in any of these great departments of knowledge will probably be disgusted by the elementary and superficial manner in which their specific sciences are here treated. But this book does not venture to address itself to specialists. From those who are already fully conversant with the matters touched upon, it asks the indulgence which really kind hearted adults are always ready to extend towards the efforts of youth. Philosophers are earnestly advised to pass over the first two chapters, and theologians to practise the same charity in respect of the section dealing with their science. The giving of merely historical information is no part of the present plan : except in so far as chronology has a bearing upon the most fascinating of all histories, the history of the spirit of man. Many books upon mysticism have been based on the historical method : amongst them two such very different works [IX] as Vaughan's supercilious and unworthy " Hours with the Mystics" and Dr. Inge's scholarly Bampton lectures. It is a method which seems to be open to some objection : since mysticism avowedly deals with the individual not as he stands in relation to the civilization of his time, but as he stands in relation to truths that are
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timeless. All mystics, said Saint-Martin, speak the same language and come from the same country. As against that fact, the place which they happen to occupy in the kingdom of this world matters little. Nevertheless, those who are unfamiliar with the history of mysticism properly so called, and to whom the names of the great contemplatives convey no accurate suggestion of period or nationality, may be glad to have a short statement of their order in time and distribution in space. Also, some knowledge of the genealogy of mysticism is desirable if we are to distinguish the original contributions of each individual from the mass of speculation and statement which he inherits from the past. Those entirely unacquainted with these matters may find it helpful to glance at the Appendix before proceeding to the body of the work ; since few things are more disagreeable than the constant encounter of persons to whom we have not been introduced. The second part of the book, for which the first seven chapters are intended to provide a preparation, is avowedly psychological. It is an attempt to set out and justify a definite theory of the nature of man's mystical consciousness : the necessary stages of organic growth through which the typical mystic passes, the state of equilibrium towards which he tends. Each of these stages and also the characteristically mystical and still largely mysterious experiences of visions and voices, contemplation and ecstasy though viewed from the standpoint of psychology, is illustrated from the lives of the mystics ; and where possible in their own words. In planning these chapters I have been considerably helped by M. Delacroix's brilliant " tudes sur le Mysticisme," though unable to accept his conclusions : and here gladly take the opportunity of acknowledging my debt to him and also to Baron von Hgel's classic " Mystical Element of Religion." This book, which only came [X] into my hands when my own was planned and partly written, has since been a constant source of stimulus and encouragement. Finally, it is perhaps well to say something as to the exact sense in which the term " Mysticism " is here understood. One of the most abused words in the English language, it has been used in different and often mutually exclusive senses by religion, poetry, and philosophy : has been claimed as an excuse for every kind of occultism, for dilute transcendentalism, vapid symbolism, religious or aesthetic sentimentality,
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and bad metaphysics. On the other hand, it has been freely employed as a term of contempt by those who have criticized these things. It is much to be hoped that it may be restored sooner or later to its old meaning, as the science or art of the spiritual life. Meanwhile, those who use the term " Mysticism " are bound in selfdefence to explain what they mean by it. Broadly speaking, I understand it to be the expression of the innate tendency of the human spirit towards complete harmony with the transcendental order ; whatever be the theological formula under which that order is understood. This tendency, in great mystics, gradually captures the whole field of consciousness ; it dominates their life and, in the experience called mystic union," attains its end. Whether that end be called the God of Christianity, the World-soul of Pantheism, the Absolute of Philosophy, the desire to attain it and the movement towards it so long as this is a genuine life process and not an intellectual speculation is the proper subject of mysticism. I believe this movement to represent the true line of development of the highest form of human consciousness. It is a pleasant duty to offer my heartiest thanks to the many kind friends and fellow students, of all shades of opinion, who have given me their help and encouragement. Amongst those to whom my heaviest debt of gratitude is due are Mr. W. Scott Palmer, for much valuable, generous, and painstaking assistance, particularly in respect of the chapter upon Vitalism : and Miss Margaret Robinson, who in addition to many other kind offices, has made all the translations from Meister Eckhart and Mechthild of Magdeburg here given. [XI] Sections of the MS. have been kindly read by the Rev. Dr. Inge, by Miss May Sinclair, and by Miss Eleanor Gregory ; from all of whom I have received much helpful and expert advice. To Mr. Arthur Symons my thanks and those of my readers are specially due ; since it is owing to his generous permission that I am able to make full use of his beautiful translations of the poems of St. John of the Cross. Others who have given me much help in various directions, and to whom most grateful acknowledgements are here
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offered, are Miss Constance Jones, Miss Ethel Barker, Mr. J. A. Herbert of the British Museum who first brought to my notice the newly discovered " Mirror of Simple Souls " the Rev. Dr. Arbuthnot Nairn, Mr. A. E. Waite, and Mr. H. Stuart Moore, F.S.A. The substance of two chapters those upon " The Characteristics of Mysticism " and " Mysticism and Magic " has already appeared in the pages of The Quest and The Fortnightly Review. These sections are here reprinted by kind permission of their respective editors. E. U. Feast of St. John of the Cross 1910

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CHAPTER I THE POINT OF DEPARTURE The mystic type its persistenceMan's quest of Truth The Mystics claim to have attained it The foundations of experience The Self its sensations its concepts The sense-world its unreal character Philosophy its classic theories of Reality Naturalism its failures Idealism its limitations Philosophic Scepticism the logical end of Intellectualism Failure of philosophy and science to discover Reality Emotional and spiritual experience its validity Religion Suffering Beauty Their mystical aspects Mysticism as the science of the Real Its statements its practice It claims direct communion with the Absolute THE most highly developed branches of the human family have in common one peculiar characteristic. They tend to produce sporadically it is true, and usually in the teeth of adverse external circumstances a curious and definite type of personality ; a type which refuses to be satisfied with that which other men call experience, and is inclined, in the words of its enemies, to " deny the world in order that it may find reality." We meet these persons in the east and the west ; in the ancient, mediaeval, and modern worlds. Their one passion appears to be the prosecution of a certain spiritual and intangible quest : the finding of a " way out " or a " way back " to some desirable state in which alone they can satisfy their craving for absolute truth. This quest, for them, has constituted the whole meaning of life : they have made for it without effort sacrifices which have appeared enormous to other men : and it is an indirect testimony to its objective actuality, that whatever the place or period in which [3] [4] they have arisen, their aims, doctrines and methods have been substantially the same. Their experience, therefore, forms a body of evidence, curiously self-consistent and often mutually explanatory, which must be taken into account before we can add up the sum of the energies and potentialities of the human spirit, or reasonably speculate on its relations to the unknown world which lies outside the boundaries of sense. All men, at one time or another, have fallen in love with the veiled
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Isis whom they call Truth. With most, this has been but a passing passion : they have early seen its hopelessness and turned to more practical things. But there are others who remain all their lives the devout lovers of reality : though the manner of their love, the vision which they make unto themselves of the beloved object, varies enormously. Some see Truth as Dante saw Beatrice : a figure adorable yet intangible, found in this world yet revealing the next. To others she seems rather an evil yet an irresistible enchantress : enticing, demanding payment and betraying her lover at the last. Some have seen her in a test tube, and some in a poet's dream : some before the altar, others in the slime. The extreme pragmatists have even sought her in the kitchen ; declaring that she may best be recognized by her utility. Last stage of all, the philosophic sceptic has comforted an unsuccessful courtship by assuring himself that his mistress is not really there. Under whatsoever symbols they may have objectified their quest, none of these seekers Have ever been able to assure the world that they have found, seen face to face, the Reality behind the veil. But if we may trust the reports of the mystics and they are reports given with a strange accent of certainty and good faith they have succeeded where all these others have failed, in establishing immediate communication between the spirit of man, entangled as they declare amongst material things, and that " only Reality," that immaterial and final Being, which some philosophers call the Absolute, and most theologians call God. This, they say and here many who are not mystics agree with them is the hidden Truth which is the object of man's craving ; the only satisfying goal of his quest. Hence, they should claim from us the same attention that we give to other explorers of countries in which we are not competent to adventure ourselves; for the mystics are the pioneers [5] of the spiritual world, and we have no right to deny validity to their discoveries, merely because we lack the opportunity or the courage necessary to those who would prosecute such explorations for themselves. It is the object of this book to attempt a description, and also though this is needless for those who read that description in good faith a justification of these experiences and the conclusions which have been drawn from them. So remote, however, are these matters from our ordinary habits of thought, that their investigation entails, in all those who would attempt to understand them, a certain definite preparation : a purging of the
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intellect. As with those who came of old to the Mysteries, purification is here the gate of knowledge. We must come to this encounter with minds cleared of prejudice and convention, must deliberately break with our inveterate habit of taking the " visible world " for granted ; our lazy assumption that somehow science is " real " and metaphysics is not. We must pull down our own card houses descend, as the mystics say, " into our nothingness" and examine for ourselves the foundations of all possible human experience, before we are in a position to criticize the buildings of the visionaries, the poets, and the saints. We must not begin to talk of the unreal world of these dreamers until we have discovered if we can a real world with which it may be compared. Such a criticism of reality is of course the business of philosophy. I need hardly say that this book is not written by a philosopher, nor is it addressed to students of that imperial science. Nevertheless, amateurs though we be, we cannot reach our proper starting-point without trespassing to some extent on philosophic ground. That ground covers the whole area of first principles : and it is to first principles that we must go, if we would understand the true significance of the mystic type. Let us then begin at the beginning : and remind ourselves of a few of the trite and primary facts which all practical persons agree to ignore. That beginning, for human thought, is of course the I, the Ego, the self-conscious subject which is writing this book, or the other self-conscious subject which is reading it ; and which declares, in the teeth of all arguments, I AM.130 1 [6] Here is a point as to which we all feel quite sure. No metaphysician has yet shaken the ordinary individual's belief in his own existence. The uncertainties only begin for most of us when we ask what else is.
130 1 Even this I AM, which has seemed safe ground to most metaphysicians, is of course combated by certain schools of philosophy. " The word Sum," said Eckhart long ago, " can be spoken by no creature but by God only : for it becomes the creature to testify of itself Non Sum." In a less mystical strain Lotze, and after him Bradley and other modern writers, have devoted much destructive criticism to the concept of the Ego as the starting-point of philosophy : looking upon it as a large, and logically unwarrantable, assumption. 105

To this I, this conscious self " imprisoned in the body like an oyster in his shell,"131 1 come, as we know, a constant stream of messages and experiences. Chief amongst these are the stimulation of the tactile nerves whose result we call touch, the vibrations taken up by the optic nerve which we call light, and those taken up by the ear and perceived as sound. What do these experiences mean ? The first answer of the unsophisticated Self of course is, that they indicate the nature of the external world : it is to the " evidence of her senses " that she turns, when she is asked what that world is like. From the messages received through those senses, which pour in on her whether she will or no, batter upon her gateways at every instant and from every side, she constructs that senseworld which is the " real and solid world " of normal men. As the impressions come in or rather those interpretations of the original impressions which her nervous system supplies she pounces on them, much as players in the spelling-game pounce on the separate letters dealt out to them. She sorts, accepts, rejects, combines : and then triumphantly produces from them a "concept" which is, she says, the external world. With an enviable and amazing simplicity she attributes her own sensations to the unknown universe. The stars, she says, are bright; the grass is green. For her, as for the philosopher Hume, "reality consists in impressions and ideas." It is immediately apparent, however, that this sense-world, this seemingly real external universe though it may be useful and valid in other respects cannot be the external world, but only the Self's projected picture of it.132 2 It is a work of art, not [7] a scientific fact ; and, whilst it
131 1

Plato, Phaedrus, 250. 132 2 Thus Eckhart, "Every time that the powers of the soul come into contact with created things, they receive and create images and likenesses from the created thing and absorb them. In this way arises the soul's knowledge of created things. Created things cannot come nearer to the soul
than this, and the soul can only approach created things by the voluntary reception of images. And it is through the presence of the image that the soul approaches the created world : for the image is a Thing, which the soul creates with her own powers. Does the soul want to know the nature of a stone a horse a man? She forms an image." Meister Eckhart, Pred. i. (" Mystische Schriften," p. 15). 106

may well possess the profound significance proper to great works of art, is dangerous if treated as a subject of analysis. Very slight investigation will be enough to suggest that it is a picture whose relation to reality is at best symbolic and approximate, and which would have no meaning for selves whose senses, or channels of communication, happened to be arranged upon a different plan. The evidence of the senses, then, cannot safely be accepted as evidence of the nature of ultimate reality : useful servants, they are dangerous guides. Nor can their testimony disconcert those seekers whose reports they appear to contradict. The conscious self sits, so to speak, at the receiving end of a telegraph wire. On any other theory than that of mysticism, it is her one channel of communication with the hypothetical " external world." The receiving instrument registers certain messages. She does not know, and so long as she remains dependent on that instrument never can know, the object, the reality at the other end of the wire, by which those messages are sent ; neither can the messages truly disclose the nature of that object. But she is justified on the whole in accepting them as evidence that something exists beyond herself and her receiving instrument. It is obvious that the structural peculiarities of the telegraphic instrument will have exerted a modifying effect upon the message. That which is conveyed as dash and dot, colour and shape, may have been received in a very different form. Therefore this message, though it may in a partial sense be relevant to the supposed reality at the other end, can never be adequate to it. There will be fine vibrations which it fails to take up, others which it confuses together. Hence a portion of the message is always lost ; or, in other language, there are aspects of the world which we can never know. The sphere of our possible intellectual knowledge is thus strictly conditioned by the limits of our own personality. On [8] this basis, not the ends of the earth, but the external termini of our own sensory nerves, are the termini of our explorations : and to " know oneself" is really to know one's universe. We are locked up with our receiving instruments : we cannot get up and walk away in the hope of seeing whither the lines lead. Eckhart's words are still final for us : " the soul can only approach created things by the voluntary reception of images." Did some mischievous Demiurge
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choose to tickle our sensory apparatus in a new way, we should receive by this act a new universe. The late Professor James once suggested as a useful exercise for young idealists a consideration of the changes which would be worked in our ordinary world if the various branches of our receiving instruments happened to exchange duties ; if, for instance, we heard all colours and saw all sounds. Such a remark as this throws a sudden light on the strange and apparently insane statement of the visionary Saint-Martin, " I heard flowers that sounded, and saw notes that shone " ; and on the reports of certain other mystics concerning a rare moment of consciousness in which the senses are fused into a single and ineffable act of perception ; and colour and sound are known as aspects of the same thing.133 1 Since music is but an interpretation of certain vibrations undertaken by the ear, and colour an interpretation of other vibrations performed by the eye, all this is less mad than it sounds. Were such an alteration of our senses to take place the world would still be sending us the same messages that strange unknown world from which, on this hypothesis, we are hermetically sealed but we should have interpreted them differently. Beauty would still be ours, though speaking another tongue. The bird's song would then strike our retina as a pageant of colour : we should see all the magical tones of the wind, hear as a great fugue the repeated and harmonized greens of the forest, the cadences of stormy skies. Did we realize how slight an adjustment of our own organs is needed to initiate us into such a world, we should perhaps be less [9] contemptuous of those mystics who tell us that they apprehended the Absolute as " heavenly music " or " Uncreated Light * : less fanatical in our determination to make the "real and solid world of common sense" the only standard of reality. This " world of common sense " is a conceptual world. It may represent an external universe : it certainly does represent the activity of the human mind. Within that mind it is built up : and there most of us are content "at ease for aye to dwell," like the soul in the Palace of Art.
133 1

Thus Edward Carpenter says of his own experience of the onset of mystical consciousness, " The perception seems to be one in which all the senses unite into one sense " (quoted in Bucke's " Cosmic Consciousness," p. 198).
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A direct encounter with absolute truth, then, appears to be impossible for normal non-mystical consciousness. We cannot know the reality, or even prove the existence, of the simplest object : though this is a limitation which few people realize acutely and most would strenuously deny. But there persists in the race a type of personality which does realize this limitation : and cannot be content with the sham realities that furnish the universe of normal men. It is necessary, as it seems, to the comfort of persons of this type to form for themselves some image of the Something or Nothing which is at the end of their telegraph lines : some " conception of being," some "theory of knowledge." They are tormented by the Unknowable, ache for first principles, demand some background to the shadow show of things. In so far as man possesses this temperament, he hungers for reality, and must satisfy that hunger as best he can : staving off starvation, though he may not be filled. Now it is doubtful whether any two selves have offered themselves exactly the same image of the truth outside their gates : for a living metaphysic, like a living religion, is at bottom a strictly personal affair a matter, as Professor James reminded us, of vision rather than of argument.134 1 Nevertheless such a living metaphysic may and if sound generally does escape the stigma of subjectivism by outwardly attaching itself to a traditional School ; as personal religion may and should outwardly attach itself to a traditional church. Let us then consider shortly the results arrived at by these traditional schools the great classic theories concerning the nature of reality. In them we see crystallized the best that the human intellect, left to itself, has been able to achieve.

134 1

"A Pluralistic Universe," p. 10.


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CHAPTER IV THE CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM Mysticism and Magic Distinction between them The Way of Love and the Way of Knowledge Characteristics of Mysticism Difficulty of fixing them The Mystic has obtained contact with the Absolute He is a spiritual genius All men have latent mystical feeling Such feeling is the source of the arts Mystic and Artist Their likenesses and differences Difficulties of mystical expression Mysticism and music Richard Rolle Symbolic expression Vision An accident not an implicit or mysticism A method of communication Suggestive power of symbols Four characteristics of true mysticism It is (i) practical, (2) transcendental, (3) the mystic is a lover, (4) his object is union with the Absolute Mysticism defined First characteristic illustrated St. John of the Cross Theologia Germanica Second characteristic illustrated Tauler Plotinus Third characteristic illustrated Mystic love Rolle A Kempis Gertrude More Fourth characteristic illustrated Mechthild of Magdeburg The Mystic Way Unity of the mystical experience A fifth characteristic : disinterestedness Self-surrender Pure love Summary EVER since the world began, man has had two distinct and fundamental attitudes towards the unseen ; and through them has developed two methods of getting in touch with it. For the purpose of our present inquiry, I propose to call these methods the " way of magic " and the way of mysticism." Having said so much, one must at once add that although in their extreme forms these arts are sharply contrasted with one another, their frontiers are far from being clearly defined : that, starting from the same point, they often confuse the inquirer by using the same language, instruments, and methods. Hence it is that so much which is really magic is loosely and popularly described as mysticism. They represent as a matter of fact the opposite poles of the same thing : the transcendental consciousness of humanity. Between them lie the great religions, which might be described under this metaphor as representing the ordinarily habitable regions of that consciousness. Hence, at one end of the scale, pure [84] mysticism "shades off" into religion from some points of view seems to grow out of it. No
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deeply religious man is without a touch of mysticism ; and no mystic can be other than religious, in the psychological if not in the theological sense of the word. At the other end of the scale, as we shall see later on, religion, no less surely, shades off into magic. The fundamental difference between the two is this : magic wants to get, mysticism wants to give immortal and antagonistic attitudes, which turn up under one disguise or another in every age of thought. Both magic and mysticism in their full development bring the whole mental machinery, conscious and, subconscious, to bear on their undertaking : both claim that they produce in their initiates powers unknown to ordinary men. But the centre round which that machinery is grouped, the reasons of that undertaking, and the ends to which those powers are applied differ enormously. In mysticism the will is united with the emotions in an impassioned desire to transcend the sense-world in order that the self may be joined by love to the one eternal and ultimate Object of love ; whose existence is intuitively perceived by that which we used to call the soul, but now find it easier to refer to as the " Cosmic " or " transcendental " sense. This is the poetic and religious temperament acting upon the plane of reality. In magic, the will unites with the intellect in an impassioned desire for supersensible knowledge. This is the intellectual, aggressive, and scientific temperament trying to extend its field of consciousness, until it includes the supersensual world : obviously the antithesis of mysticism, though often adopting its title and style. It will be our business later on to consider in more detail the characteristics and significance of magic. Now it is enough to say that we may class broadly as magical all forms of self- seeking transcendentalism, w It matters little whether the apparatus which they use be the incantations of the old magicians, the congregational prayer for rain of orthodox Churchmen, or the consciously self-hypnotizing devices of " New Thought " : whether the end proposed be the evocation of an angel, the power of transcending circumstance, or the healing of disease. The object of the thing is always the same : the deliberate exaltation of the will, till it transcends its usual limitations and obtains for the self or group of selves something which it [85] or they did not previously possess. It is an individualistic and acquisitive science : in all its forms an activity of the intellect, seeking
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Reality for its own purposes, or for those of humanity at large. Mysticism, whose great name is too often given to these supersensual activities, is utterly different from this. It is non-individualistic. It implies, indeed, the abolition of individuality ; of that hard separateness, that " I, Me, Mine." which makes of man a finite isolated thing. It is essentially a movement of the heart, seeking to transcend the limitations of the individual standpoint and to surrender itself to ultimate Reality ; for no personal gain, to satisfy no transcendental curiosity, to obtain no other-worldly joys, but purely from an instinct of love. By the word heart, of course we here mean not merely " the seat of the affections," " the organ of tender emotion," and the like : but rather the inmost sanctuary of personal being, the synthesis of its love and will, the very source of its energy and life. The mystic is " in love with the Absolute " not in any idle or sentimental manner, but in that deep and vital sense which presses forward at all costs and through all dangers towards union with the object beloved. Hence, where the practice of magic like the practice of science does not necessarily entail any passionate emotion, though of course it does and must entail interest of some kind, mysticism, like art, cannot exist without it. We must feel, and feel acutely, before we want to act on this hard and heroic scale. We at once see that these two activities correspond to the two eternal passions of the self, the desire of love and the desire of knowledge : severally representing the hunger of heart and intellect for ultimate truth. The third attitude towards the supersensual world, that of transcendental philosophy, hardly comes within the scope of the present inquiry ; since it is purely academic where both magic and mysticism are practical, and in their methods strictly empirical. Such philosophy is often wrongly called mysticism because it tries to make maps of the countries which the mystic explores. Its performances are useful, as diagrams are useful, so long as they do not ape finality ; remembering that the only final thing is personal experience the personal exploration of the exalted and truth-loving soul. [86] What then do we really mean by mysticism? A word which is impartially
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applied to the performances of mediums and the ecstasies of the saints, to " menticulture " and sorcery, dreamy poetry and mediaeval art, to prayer and palmistry, the doctrinal excesses of Gnosticism, and the tepid speculations of the Cambridge Platonists even, according to William James, to the higher branches of intoxication135 1 soon ceases to have any useful meaning. Its employment merely confuses the inexperienced student, who usually emerges from his struggle with the ever-increasing mass of theosophical and psychical literature possessed by a vague idea that every kind of supersensual theory and practice is somehow "mystical." Hence it is necessary, if possible, to fix its true characteristics: to restate the fact that Mysticism, in its pure form, is the science of ultimates, the science of union with the Absolute, and nothing else, and that the mystic is the person who attains to this union, not the person who talks about it. Not to know about, but to Be, is the mark of the real practitioner. The difficulty lies in determining the point at which supersensual experience ceases to be merely a practical and interesting extension of sensual experience an enlarging, so to speak, of the boundaries of existence and passes over into that boundless life where Subject and Object, desirous and desired, are one. No sharp line, but rather an infinite series of gradations separate the two states. Hence we must look carefully at all the pilgrims on the road ; discover, if we can, the motive of their travels, the maps which they use, the luggage which they take, the end which they attain. Now we have said that the end which the mystic sets before him on his pilgrimage is conscious union with a living Absolute. That Divine Dark, that Abyss of the Godhead, of which he sometimes speaks as the goal of his quest, is just this Absolute, the Uncreated Light in which the Universe is bathed, and which transcending, as it does, all human powers of expression he can only describe to us as dark. But there is must be contact " in an intelligible where " between every individual self and this Supreme Self, this All. In the mystic this union is conscious, personal, and complete. More or less according to [87] his measure, he has touched the substantial Being of Deity, not merely its manifestation in life. This it is
135 1 See "Varieties of Religious Experience," p. 387, "The Drunken Consciousness is a bit of the Mystic Consciousness."

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which distinguishes him from the best and most brilliant of other men, and makes his science, in Patmore's words, " the science of self-evident Reality." Gazing with him into that ultimate Abyss, that unsearchable ground whence the World of Becoming comes forth " eternally generated in an eternal Now," we may see only the icy darkness of perpetual negations : but he looks upon the face of Perfect Love. Just as genius in any of the arts is humanly speaking the final term of a power of which each individual possesses the rudiments, so mysticism may be looked upon as the final term, the active expression, of a power latent in the whole race : the power, that is to say, of so perceiving transcendent reality. Few people pass through life without knowing what it is to be at least touched by this mystical feeling. He who falls in love with a woman and perceives as the lover really does perceive that the categorical term " girl " veils a wondrous and unspeakable reality : he who, falling in love with nature, sees the light that never was on sea or land a vaguely pretty phrase to those who have not seen it, but a scientific statement to the rest he who falls in love with invisible things, or as we say " undergoes conversion " : all these have truly known for an instant something of the secret of the world.136 1 . . . Ever and anon a trumpet sounds From the hid battlements of Eternity, Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again." At such moments "Transcendental Feeling, welling up from another ' Part of the Soul ' whispers to Understanding and Sense that they are leaving out something. What ? Nothing less than the secret plan of the Universe. And what is that secret plan ? The other ' Part of the Soul ' indeed comprehends it in silence as it is, but can explain it to the Understanding only in the symbolical language of the interpreter, Imagination in Vision."137 2 - Here, in this spark or " part of the soul " is the fountain [88] alike of the creative imagination and the mystic life. Now and again something stings it into consciousness, and man is caught up to the spiritual level, catches a
136 1 Compare above, pp. 24, 26, 57. 137 2 T. A. Stewart, "The Myths of Plato," p. 42.

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glimpse of the " secret plan." Then hints of a marvellous truth, a unity whose note is ineffable peace, shine in created things ; awakening in the self a sentiment of love, adoration, and awe. Its life is enhanced, the barrier of personality is broken, man escapes the sense-world, ascends to the apex of his spirit, and enters for a brief period into the more extended life of the All. This intuition of the Real lying at the root of the visible world and sustaining its life, is present in a modified form in the arts : perhaps it were better to say, must be present if these arts are to justify themselves as heightened forms of experience > It is this which gives to them that peculiar vitality, that strange power of communicating a poignant emotion, half torment and half joy, which baffle their more rational interpreters. We know that the picture which is " like a photograph," the building which is at once handsome and commodious, the novel which is a perfect transcript of life, fail to satisfy us. It is difficult to say why this should be so unless it were because these things have neglected their true business ; which was not to reproduce the illusions of ordinary men but to catch and translate for us something of that " secret plan," that reality which the artistic consciousness is able, in a measure, to perceive. " Painting as well as music and poetry exists and exults in immortal thoughts," says Blake.138 1 That " lifeenhancing power " which has been recognized by modern critics as the supreme quality of good painting,139 2 has its origin in this contact of the artistic mind with the archetypal or, if you like, the transcendental world : the underlying verity of things. A living critic, in whom poetic genius has brought about the unusual alliance of intuition with scholarship, testifies to this same truth when he says of the ideals which governed early Chinese painting, " In this theory every work of art is thought of as an incarnation of the genius of rhythm, manifesting the living spirit of things with a clearer beauty and intenser power than the gross impediments of complex matter allow to be transmitted to our senses in the visible world around us. A [89] picture is conceived as a sort of apparition from a more real world of essential life?140'1
138 1 "Descriptive Catalogue." 139 2 See Rolleston, "Parallel Paths," 1908. 140 1 Laurence Binyon, " Painting in the Far East," p. 9.

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That "more real world of essential life " is the world in which the " free soul " of the great mystic dwells ; hovering like the six-winged seraph before the face of the Absolute.141 2 The artist too may cross its boundaries in his brief moments of creation : but he cannot stay. He comes back to us, bearing its tidings, with Dante's cry upon his lips "... Non eran da cio le proprie penne se non che la mia mente fu percossa da un fulgore, in che sua voglia venne."1423 The mystic may say is indeed bound to say with St. Bernard, "My secret to myself." Try how he will, his stammering and awestruck reports can hardly be understood but by those who are already in the way. But the artist cannot act thus. On him has been laid the duty of expressing something of that which he perceives. He is bound to tell his love. In his worship of Perfect Beauty faith must be balanced by works. By means of veils and symbols he must interpret his free vision, his glimpse of the burning bush, to other men. He is the mediator between his brethren and the divine, for art is the link between appearance and reality.1434 But we do not call every one who has these partial and artistic intuitions of reality a mystic, any more than we call every one a musician who has learnt to play the piano. The true mystic is the person in whom such powers transcend the merely artistic and visionary stage, and are exalted to the point of genius : in whom the transcendental consciousness can dominate the normal consciousness, and who has definitely surrendered himself to the embrace of Reality. As artists stand in a peculiar relation to the phenomenal world,
141 2 " The Mirror of Simple Souls," f. 141 C. (B.M. Add. 37790) 142 3 Par. XXXIII. 139. 47. "Not for this were my wings fitted : save only that my mind was smitten by a lightning flash, wherein came to it its desire." 47. Ma non eran da ci le proprie penne; Se non che la mia mente fu percossa Da un fulgore, in che sua voglia venne' 47. Mais point n'auraient cela suffi mes propres ailes, si mon esprit n'et t frapp d'un clair par lequel s'accomplit son dsir. 143 4 In this connexion Godfernaux (Revue Philosophique, February, 1902) has a highly significant remark to the effect that romanticism represents the invasion of secular literature by mystic or religious emotion. It is, he says, the secularization of the inner life.

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receiving rhythms and discovering truths and beauties [90] which are hidden from other men, so this true mystic stands in a peculiar relation to the transcendental world ; there experiencing the onslaught of what must remain for us unimaginable delights. His consciousness is transfigured in a particular way, he lives at different levels of experience from other people : and this of course means that he sees a different world, since the world as we know it is the product of specific scraps or aspects of reality acting upon a normal and untransfigured consciousness. Hence his mysticism is no isolated vision, no arbitrary glimpse of reality, but a complete system of life a Syntagma, to use Eucken's expressive term. As other men are immersed in and react to natural or intellectual life, so the mystic is immersed in and reacts to spiritual life. He moves towards that utter identification with its interests which he calls " Union with God." He has been called a lonely soul. He might more properly be described as a lonely body : for his soul, peculiarly responsive, sends out and receives communications upon every side. The earthly artist, because perception brings with it the imperative longing for expression, tries to give us in colour, sound or words a hint of his ecstasy, his glimpse of truth. Only those who have tried, know how small a fraction of his vision he can, under the most favourable circumstance, contrive to represent. The mystic too tries very hard to tell an unwilling world the only secret. But in his case, the difficulties are enormously increased. First, there is the huge disparity between his unspeakable experience and the language which will most nearly approach it. Next, there is the great gulf fixed between his mind and the mind of the world. His audience must be bewitched as well as addressed, caught up to something of his state, before they can be made to understand. Were he a musician, it is probable that he could give his message to other musicians in the terms of that art, far more accurately than language will ever allow him to do : for we must remember that there is no excuse but that of convenience for the pre-eminence amongst modes of expression which we accord to words. These correspond so well to the physical plane and its adventures, that we forget that they have but the faintest of relations with transcendental things. Even the artist, before he can make use of them, is bound to re-arrange them in accordance with the laws of rhythm : obeying
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unconsciously [91] the rule by which all arts " tend to approach the condition of music." 123 So too the mystic. Mysticism, the most romantic thing in the universe, from one point of view the art of arts, their source and also their end, finds naturally enough its closest correspondences in the most purely artistic and most deeply significant of all forms of expression. The mystery of music is seldom realized by those who so easily accept its gifts. Yet of all the arts music alone shares with great mystical literature the power of waking us to response to the life-movement of the universe : brings us we know not how news of its exultant passions and its incomparable peace. Beethoven heard the very voice of Reality, and little of it escaped when he translated it for our ears.144 1 The mediaeval mind, more naturally mystical than ours, and therefore more sharply aware of the part which rhythmic harmony plays in the worlds of nature and of grace, gave to music a Cosmic importance, discerning its operation in many phenomena which we now attribute to that dismal figment, Law. "There are three kinds of music," says Hugh of St. Victor, " the music of the worlds, the music of humanity, the music of instruments. Of the music of the worlds, one is of the elements, another of the planets, another of Time. Of that which is of the elements, one is of number, another of weights, another of measure. Of that which is of the planets, one is of place, another of motion, another of nature. Of that which is of Time, one is of the days and the vicissitudes of light and darkness ; another of the months and the waxing and waning of the moon ; another of the years and the changes of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Of the music of humanity, one is of the body, another of the soul, another in the connexion that is between them.145" 2 Thus the life of the visible and invisible universe consists in a supernal fugue. [92] One contemplative at least, Richard Rolle of Hampole, " the father of
144 1 Since this passage was written M. Hebert's brilliant monograph " Le Divin " (1907) has come into my hands. I take from his pages two examples of the analogy between mystical and musical emotion. First that of Gay, who had " the soul, the heart, and the head full of music, of another beauty than that which is formulated by sounds." Next, that of Ruysbroeck, who, in a passage that might have been written by Keats, speaks of Contemplation and Love as " two heavenly pipes " which, blown upon by the Holy Spirit, play " ditties of no tone " {op. cit., p. 29). 145 2 Hugh of St. Victor, " Didascalicon de Studio Legendi."

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English mysticism," was acutely aware of this music of the soul, discerning in its joyous periods a response to the measured harmonies of the spiritual universe. In that beautiful description of his inward experience which is one of the jewels of mystical literature, nothing is more remarkable than his constant and deliberate employment of musical imagery. This alone, it seems, could catch and translate for him the wild rapture of Transcendent Life. The condition of joyous and awakened love to which the mystic passes when his purification is at an end, is to him, above all else, the state of Song. He does not " see " Reality : he " hears " it. For him, as for St. Francis of Assisi, it is a " heavenly melody, intolerably sweet.146" 1 " Song I call," he says, " when in a plenteous soul the sweetness of eternal love with burning is taken, and thought into song is turned, and the mind into full sweet sound is changed.147" 2 He who experiences this joyous exaltation "says not his prayers like other righteous men " but " is taken into marvellous mirth : and, goodly sound being descended into him, as it were with notes his prayers he sings.148" 3 So Gertrude More "O lett me sitt alone, silent to all the world and it to me, that I may learn the song of Love.149" 4 Rolle's own experience of mystic joy seems actually to have come to him in this form : the perceptions of his exalted consciousness presenting themselves to his understanding under musical conditions, as other mystics have received them in the form of pictures or words. I give in his own words the charming account of his passage from the first state of " burning love " to the second state of "songful love" from Calor to Canor when " into song of joy meditation is turned." " In the night, before supper, as I my psalms sung, as it were the sound of readers or rather singers about me I beheld. Whilst also, praying to heaven, with all desire I took heed, suddenly, in what [93] manner I wot not, in me the sound of song I felt ; and likeliest heavenly melody I took, with me dwelling in mind. Forsooth my thought continually to mirth of song was changed : and as it were the same that
146 1 "Fioretti." Delle Istimati. (Arnold's translation.) 147 2 Richard Rolle, "The Fire of Love "(Early English Text Society), bk. i. cap. xv. As the Latin version of the " Incendium Amoris" unfortunately still remains in MS., in this and subsequent quotations from Rolle I have adopted Misyn's fifteenth - century translation, slightly modernizing the spelling, and sometimes correcting from the Latin his somewhat obscure language. 148 3 Op. cit., bk. I. cap. XXIII. Compare bk. ii. caps. V. and VI. 149 4 " Spiritual Exercises," p. 30.

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loving I had thought, and in prayers and psalms had said, in sound I showed.150" 1 The song, however, is a mystic melody having little in common with its clumsy image, earthly music. Bodily song " lets it " ; and " noise of janglers makes it turn again to thought," " for sweet ghostly song accords not with outward song, the which in churches and elsewhere is used. It discords much : for all that is man's voice is formed with bodily ears to be heard ; but among angels tunes it has an acceptable melody, and with marvel it is commended of them that have known it." To others it is incommunicable. " Worldly lovers soothly words or ditties of our song may know, for the words they read : but the tone and sweetness of that song they may not learn.151" 2 Such symbolism as this a living symbolism of experience and action as well as of statement seems almost essential to mystical expression. The mind must employ some device of the kind if its transcendental perceptions wholly unrelated as they are to the phenomena with which intellect is able to deal are ever to be grasped by the surface consciousness. Sometimes the symbol and the perception which it represents become fused in that consciousness ; and the mystic's experience then presents itself to him as " visions " or " voices " which we must look upon as the garment he has himself provided to veil that Reality upon which no man may look and live. The nature of this garment will be largely conditioned by his temperament as in Rolle's evident bias towards music, St. Catherine of Genoa's leaning towards the abstract conceptions of fire and light and also by his theological education and environment ; as in the highly dogmatic visions and auditions of St. Gertrude, Suso, St. Catherine of Siena, the Blessed Angela of Foligno ; above all [94] of St. Teresa, whose marvellous self-analyses provide the classic account of these attempts of the mind to translate transcendental intuitions into concepts with which it can deal.

150 1 Op. cit. y bk. i. cap. XVI. 151 2 Op. cit. , bk. ii. caps. iii. and xii. Shelley is of the same opinion The world can hear not the sweet notes that move The Sphere whose light is melody to lovers (The Triumph of Life.)

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The greatest mystics, however Ruysbroeck, St. John of the Cross, and St. Teresa herself in her later stages distinguish clearly between the indicible Reality which they perceive and the image under which they describe it. Again and again they tell us with Dionysius and Eckhart, that the Object of their contemplation " hath no image " : or with St. John of the Cross that " the soul can never attain to the height of the divine union, so far as it is possible in this life, through the medium of any forms or figures. 152" 1 Therefore the attempt which has sometimes been made to identify mysticism with such forms and figures with visions, voices, and " supernatural favours " is clearly wrong. " The highest and most divine things which it is given us to see and to know," says Dionysius the Areopagite plainly, " are in some way the expression of all That which the sovereign Nature of God includes: an expression which reveals to us That which escapes all thought and which has its seat beyond the heights of heaven.153" 2 The mystic, as a rule, cannot wholly do without symbol and image, inadequate to his vision though they must always be: for his experience must be expressed if it is to be communicated, and its actuality is inexpressible except in some side-long way, some hint or parallel which will stimulate the dormant intuition of the reader, and convey, as all poetic language does, something beyond its surface sense. Hence the enormous part which is played in all mystical writings by symbolism and imagery; and also by that rhythmic and exalted language which induces in sensitive persons something of the languid ecstasy of dream. The close connection between rhythm and heightened states of consciousness is as yet little understood. Its further investigation will probably throw much light on ontological as well as psychological problems. Mystical, no less than musical and poetic perception, tends naturally we know not why to present itself in rhythmical [95] periods : a feature which is also strongly marked in writings obtained in the automatic state. So constant is this law in some subjects that Baron von Hgel, in his biography of St Catherine of Genoa, has adopted the presence or absence of rhythm as a test whereby to distinguish the genuine utterances of the saint from those wrongly attributed
1521 " Subida del Monte Carmelo," 1. II. cap. xvi. (Here and throughout I quote from Lewis's translation.) 1532 " De Mystica Theologia," i. 3.

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to her by successive editors of her legend.154 1 All kinds of symbolic language come naturally to the articulate mystic, who is usually a literary artist as well : so naturally, that he sometimes forgets to explain that his utterance is but symbolic ; a desperate attempt to translate the truth of that world into the beauty of this. It is here that mysticism joins hands with music and poetry : had this fact always been recognized by its critics, they would have been saved from many regrettable and some ludicrous misconceptions. Symbol the clothing which the spiritual borrows from the material plane is a form of artistic expression. That is to say, it is not literal but suggestive : though the artist who uses it may sometimes lose sight of this distinction. Hence the persons who imagine that the " Spiritual Marriage " of St. Catherine or St. Teresa veils a perverted sexuality, that the vision of the Sacred Heart involved an incredible anatomical experience, or that the divine inebriation of the Sufis is the apotheosis of drunkenness, do but advertise their ignorance of the mechanism of the arts : like the lady who thought that Blake must be mad because he said that he had touched the sky with his finger. Further, the study of the mystics, the keeping company however humbly with their minds, brings with it as music or poetry does but in a far greater degree a strange exhilaration, as if we were brought near to some mighty source of Being, were at last on the verge of the secret which all seek. The symbols displayed, the actual words employed, when we analyse them, are not enough to account for such effect. It is rather that these messages from the waking transcendental self of another, stir our own deeper selves in their sleep. It were hardly an extravagance to say, that those writings which are the outcome of true and first-hand mystical experience may be known by this power of imparting to the reader the sense of exalted and [96] extended life. " All mystics," says Saint-Martin, " speak the same language, for they come from the same country." The deep undying life which nests within us came from that country too : and it recognizes the accents of home, though it cannot always understand what they would say. Now, returning to our original undertaking, that of defining if we can
154 1 Von Hgel, " The Mystical Element in Religion," vol. i. p. 189.

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the characteristics of true mysticism, I think that we have already reached a point at which William James's celebrated " four marks" of the mystic state,155 1 Ineffability, Noetic Quality, Transiency, and Passivity, will fail to satisfy us. In their place I propose to set out, illustrate and, I hope, justify four other rules or notes which may be applied as tests to any given case which claims to take rank amongst the mystics. 1. True mysticism is active and practical, not passive and theoretical. It is an organic life-process, a something which the whole self does ; not something as to which its intellect holds an opinion. 2. Its aims are wholly transcendental and spiritual. It is in no way concerned with adding to, exploring, re-arranging, or improving anything in the visible universe. The mystic brushes aside that universe even in its most supernormal manifestations. Though he does not, as his enemies declare, neglect his duty to the many, his heart is always set upon the changeless One. 3. This One is for the mystic, not merely the Reality of all that is, but also a living and personal Object of Love ; never an object of exploration. It draws his whole being homeward, but always under the guidance of the heart. 4. Living union with this One which is the term of his adventure is a definite state or form of enhanced life. It is obtained neither from an intellectual realization of its delights, nor from the most acute emotional longings. Though these must be present, they are not enough. It is arrived at by a definite and arduous psychological process the so-called Mystic Way entailing the complete remaking of character and the liberation of a new, or rather latent, form of consciousness, which imposes on the self the condition which is sometimes inaccurately called " ecstasy," but is better named the Unitive State. [97] Mysticism, then, is not an opinion : it is not a philosophy. It has nothing in common with the pursuit of occult knowledge. It is not merely
155 1 " Varieties of Religious Experience," p. 380.

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the power of contemplating Eternity. It is the name of that organic process which involves the perfect consummation of the Love of God : the achievement here and now of the immortal heritage of man. Or, if you like it better for this means exactly the same thing it is the art of establishing his conscious relation with the Absolute.
CHAPTER V MYSTICISM AND THEOLOGY Mystic diagrams Theology as used by the Mystics Their conception of God Emanatio and Immanence Emanation discussed Dante the Kabalists Aquinas Its psychological aspect Immanence discussed the basis of introversion The "ground" of soul and universe Emanation and Immanence compared both accepted by the Mystics Objections to this answered Emanation and the Mystic Way Its reconciliation with Immanence Both describe experience are expressions of temperament Mystical theology must include both Theology is the Mystic's map Sometimes but not always adequate Christianity the best of such maps It combines the metaphysical and personal aspects of the Divine reconciles Emanation and Immanence provides a congenial atmosphere for the Mystic explains his adventures All Western mystics implicitly Christian Blake The dogma of the Trinity Division of Persons essential to the description of God The indwelling and transcendent aspects of the Divine St. Teresa her vision of the Trinity Father, Word, Holy Spirit Threefold division of Reality Neoplatonic trinities Lady Julian on the Trinity Its psychological justification Goodness, Truth, and Beauty Trinitarian doctrine and the Mystics Light, Life, Love The Incarnation its mystic aspect The Repairer The Drama of Faith The Eternal Birth of the Son The New Birth in Man Regeneration Conclusion

It is of course this quickening communication of grace to nature, of God to man this claim to an influx of ultimate reality, possible of assimilation by all which constitutes the strength of the Christian religion. Instead of the stony diet of the philosophers, it offers to the self hungry for the Absolute that Pants Angelorum, the vivifying principle of the world. That is to say, it gives positive and experimental knowledge of and union with a supreme Personality absorption into His mystical body instead of the artificial conviction produced by concentration on an idea. It knits up the universe ; shows the phenomenal pierced in all directions by the real, and made one with it. It provides a solid basis for mysticism : a basis which is at once metaphysical and psychological : and shows that state towards which the world's deepest minds have always instinctively aspired, as a part of the Cosmic return through Christ to God.
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[144] "Quivi e la sapienza e la possanza ch' apri le strade intra il cielo e la terra onde fu gia si lunga disianza."156 1 This is what the Christian mystics mean to express when they declare over and over again that the return to the Divine Substance, the Absolute, which is the end of the soul's ascent, can only be made through the humanity of Christ. The Son, the Word, is the character of the Father: that in which the Ineffable Godhead knows Himself, as we only know ourselves in our own characters. He is thus a double link : the means of God's self-consciousness, the means of man's consciousness of God. How then, asks mystic theology, could such a link complete its attachments without some such process as that which the Incarnation dramatized in time and space? The Principle of Life is also the Principle of Restitution ; by which the imperfect and broken life of sense is mended and transformed into the perfect life of spirit. Hence the title of Repairer applied by Boehme and Saint-Martin to the Second Person of the Trinity. In the last resort, the doctrine of the Incarnation is the only safeguard of the mystics against the pantheism to which they always tend. The Unconditioned Absolute, so soon as it alone becomes the object of their contemplation, is apt to be conceived merely as Divine Essence ; the idea of Personality evaporates and loving communion is at an end. This is probably the reason why so many of the greatest contemplatives Suso and St. Teresa are cases in point have found that deliberate meditation upon the, humanity of Christ, difficult and uncongenial as is this concrete devotion to the mystical temperament, was a necessity if they were to retain a healthy and well-balanced inner life. Further, these mystics see in the historic life of Christ an epitome or if you will, an exhibition of the essentials of all spiritual life. There they see dramatized not only the Cosmic process of the Divine
156 1 Par. xxxiii. 37. " Here is the Wisdom and the Power which opened the ways betwixt heaven and earth, for which there erst had been so long a yearning." L est la sagesse et la puissance si longtemps dsires, qui ouvrirent la route entre la terre et le ciel.

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Wisdom, but also the inward experience of every soul on her way to union with that Absolute " to which the whole Creation moves." This is why [145] the expressions which they use to describe the evolution of the mystical consciousness from the birth of the divine in the spark of the soul to its final unification with the Absolute Life are so constantly chosen from the Drama of Faith. In this drama they see described under veils the supreme and necessary adventures of the spirit. Its obscure and humble birth, its education in poverty, its temptation, mortification, and solitude, its " illuminated life " of service and contemplation, the desolation of that " dark night of the soul " in which it seems abandoned by the Divine : the painful death of the self, its resurrection to the glorified existence of the Unitive Way, its final reabsorption in its Source all these, they say, were lived once in a supreme degree in the flesh. Moreover, the degree of closeness with which the individual experience adheres to this Pattern is always taken by them as a standard of the healthiness, ardour, and success of its transcendental activities. "Apparve in questa forma Per dare a noi la norma." sang Jacopone da Todi. " And he who vainly thinketh otherwise," says the " Theologia Germanica157 " with uncompromising vigour, " is deceived. And he who saith otherwise, lieth." Those to whom such a parallel seems artificial to the last degree should remember that according to the doctrine of mysticism that drama of the self-limitation and self-sacrifice of the Absolute Life, which was once played out in the phenomenal world forced, as it were, upon the consciousness of dim-eyed men is eternally going forward upon the plane of reality. To them the Cross of Calvary is implicit in the Rose of the World. The law of this Infinite Life, which was in the Incarnation expressing Its own nature to a supreme degree, must then also be the law of the finite life ; in so far as that life aspires to transcend individual limitations, rise to freedom, and attain union with Infinity. It is this governing idea which justifies the apparently fanciful allegorizations of
157 Theologia Germanica, cap. xviii.

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Christian history which swarm in the works of the mystics. To exhibit these allegorizations in any detail would be tedious. All that is necessary is that the principle underlying [116] them should be understood, when anyone can make without difficulty the specific attributions. I give, then, but one example : that which is referred by mystical writers to the Nativity, and concerns the eternal Birth or Generation of the Son or Divine Word. This Birth is in its first, or Cosmic sense, the welling forth of the Spirit of Life from the Divine Abyss of the unconditioned Godhead. "From our proper Source, that is to say, from the Father and all that which lives in Him, there shines," says Ruysbroeck, " an eternal Ray, the which is the Birth of the Son.158" 1 It is of this perpetual generation of the Word that Meister Eckhart speaks, when he says in his Christmas sermon, " We are celebrating the feast of the Eternal Birth which God the Father has borne and never ceases to bear in all Eternity : whilst this birth also comes to pass in Time and in human nature. Saint Augustine says this Birth is ever taking place.' At this point, with that strong practical instinct which is characteristic of the mystics, Eckhart turns abruptly from speculation to immediate experience, and continues, " But if it takes not place in me, what avails it ? Everything lies in this, that it should take place in me.159" 2 Here in a few words the two-fold character of this Mystic Birth is exhibited. The interest is suddenly deflected from its Cosmic to its personal aspect ; and the individual is reminded that in him, no less than in the Archetypal Universe, real life must be born if real life is to be lived. "When the soul brings forth the Son," he says in another place, " it is happier than Mary.160" 3
158 1 " L'Ornement des Noces Spirituelles," 1. iii. cap. v. The extreme antiquity of this idea is illustrated by the Catholic practice, dating from Patristic times, of celebrating three Masses on Christmas Day. Of these the first, at midnight, commemorates the Eternal Generation of the Son, the second, at dawn, His incarnation upon earth ; the third His birth in the heart of man. See Kellner, " Heortology" (English translation, London, 1908), p. 156. 159 3 Eckhart, Pred. i., " Mystische Schriften," p. 13. Compare Tauler, Sermon on the Nativity of Our Lady (" The Inner Way," p. 167). 160 3 This idea of re-birth is probably of Oriental origin. It can be traced back to Egypt, being found in the Hermetic writings of the third century B.C. See Petrie, " Personal Religion in Egypt before Christianity," p. 167.

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Since the soul, according to mystic principles, can only perceive Reality in proportion as she is real, know God by becoming God-like, it is clear that this birth is the initial [147] necessity. The true and definitely directed mystical life does and must open with that most actual and stupendous, though indescribable phenomenon, the coming forth into consciousness of man's deeper, spiritual self, which ascetical and mystical writers of all ages have agreed to call Regeneration or Re-birth. We have already considered161 1 the New Birth in its purely psychological aspect, as the emergence of the transcendental sense. Here its more profound and mystical side is exhibited, its divine character revealed. By a process which may indifferently be described as the birth of something new or the coming forth of something which has slept since both these phrases are but metaphors for another and more secret thing the eye is opened on Eternity ; the self, abruptly made aware of Reality, comes forth from the cave of illusion like a child from the womb and begins to live upon the supersensual plane. Then she feels in her inmost part a new presence, a new consciousness it were hardly an exaggeration to say a new Person weak, demanding nurture, clearly destined to pass through many phases of development before its maturity is reached ; yet of so strange a nature, that in comparison with its environment she may well regard it as Divine. " This change, this upsetting, is called re-birth. To be born simply means to enter into a world in which the senses dominate, in which wisdom and love languish in the bonds of individuality. To be re-born means to return to a world where the spirit of wisdom and love governs and animalman obeys.162" 2 So Eckartshausen. It means, says Jane Lead, " the bringing forth of a new-created Godlike similitude in the soul 163." 3 This Godlike similitude," or New Man, is described by Saint-Martin as " born in the midst of humiliations, his whole history being that of God suffering within us.164" 4 He is brought forth, says Eckartshausen again, in the stable previously inhabited by the ox of passion and the ass of prejudice1655. His
161 1 Supra, p. 63. 162 2 The Cloud upon the Sanctuary," p. 77. 163 3 The Enochian Walks with God," p. 3 164 4 A. E. Waite, " Louis Claude de Saint- Martin," p. 263 165 5 Op. cit., p. 81.

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mother, says Boehme, is the Virgin Sophia, the Divine Wisdom, or Mirror of the Being of God. With the emergence of this new and sublime factor into the conscious field this spiritual birth [148] the mystic life begins : as the Christian epoch began with the emergence of Divine Spirit in the flesh. Paradise, says Boehme, is still in the world, but man is not in Paradise unless he be born again. In that case, he stands therein in the New Birth 166. 1 He has been lifted, as Eucken would say, to the " spiritual level," and there finds Paradise, the Independent Spiritual Life " not alien but his own.167" 2 Here then are one or two characteristics of the map which we shall find the Christian mystics most inclined to use. There are, of course, other great landmarks upon it: and these we shall meet as we follow in detail the voyages of the questing soul. One warning, however, must be given to amateur geographers before we go on. Like all other maps, this one at its best can but represent by harsh outline and conventional colour the living earth which those travellers have trod. It is a deliberately schematic representation of Reality, a flat and sometimes arid symbol of great landscapes, rushing rivers, awful peaks : dangerous unless these its limitations be always kept in mind. The boy who defined Canada as " very pink " was not much further off the track than those who would limit the Adorable Trinity to the definitions of the " Athanasian " Creed ; however useful that chart may be, and is, within the boundaries imposed by its form. Further, all such maps, and we who treat of them, can but set down in cold blood and with a dreadful pretence of precision, matters which the true explorers of Eternity were only able to apprehend in the ardours of such a passion, in the transports of such a union as we, poor finite slaves of our frittered emotions, could hardly look upon and live. "If you would truly know how these things come to pass," says St. Bonaventura, in a passage which all students of theology should ever keep in mind, " ask it of grace, not of doctrine ; of desire, not of intellect ; of the ardours of prayer, not of the teachings of the schools ; of the Bridegroom, not of the Master ; of God, not of man ; of the darkness, not of the day ; not of illumination, but of that Fire which enflames all and wraps us in God with great sweetness and most
166 1 " De Signatura Rerum," viii. 47. 167 2 " Der Sinn und Wert des Lebens," p. 90.

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ardent love. The which Fire most truly is God, and the hearth thereof is in Jerusalem.168" 3 But it is otherwise with the root idea whence these perverse activities most usually develop. This cannot be so easily dismissed, nor is it in our interest so to treat it ; for, as Reality is best defined by means of negatives, so the right doctrine is often more easily understood after a consideration of the wrong. In the case of mysticism, which deals largely with the unutterable, and where language at once exact and affirmative is particularly hard to find, such a course is almost certain to help us. Leaving therefore the specifically mystical error of Quietism until we come to the detailed discussion of the states of orison, we will consider some of those other super-normal activities of the self which we have already agreed to classify as magic : 1169 and learn through them more of the hidden forces which she has at her command, the dangerous liberty which she enjoys in their regard. The word " magic " is now out of fashion, though its spirit was never more widely diffused than at the present time. Thanks to the gradual debasement of the verbal currency, it suggests to the ordinary reader the art practised by Mr. Maskelyne. The shelf which is devoted to its literature at the London Library contains many useful works on sleight-of-[180]hand and parlour tricks. It has dragged with it in its fall the terrific verb "to conjure," which, forgetting that it once compelled the spirits of men and angels, is now content to produce rabbits from top-hats. This circumstance would have little more than philological importance, were it not that the true adepts of modern occultism annoyed, one supposes, by this abuse of their ancient title tend more and more to arrogate to their tenets and practices the name of " Mystical Science." Vaughan, in his rather supercilious survey of the mystics, long ago classed all forms of white magic, alchemy, and occult philosophy as " theurgic mysticism,170" 1 and, on the other side of the shield, the occultists display an increasing eagerness to claim the mystics as masters in their school.171 2 Even the " three-fold way " of mysticism has
168 3 De Itinerario Mentis in Deo," cap. vii. 169 1 Supra, p. 84. 170 1 R. A. Vaughan, " Hours with the Mystics," vol. i. bk. i. ch. v. 171 2 In a list published by Papus from the archives of the Martinists, we find such diverse names as Averroes, St. Thomas Aquinas, Vincent of Beauvais, and Swedenborg, given as followers of the occult tradition!

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been adopted by them, and relabelled " Probation, Enlightenment, Initiation.172" 3 In our search for the characteristics of mysticism we have already marked the boundary which separates it from magic : and tried to define the true nature and intention of occult philosophy173.4 Now, I think, we may usefully ask of magic in its turn what it can tell us of the transcendental powers and consciousness of man. We saw that it represented the instinctive human "desire to know more" applied to suprasensible things. For good or ill this desire and the occult sciences and magic arts which express it, have haunted humanity from the earliest times. No student of man dare neglect their investigation, however distasteful to his intelligence their superficial absurdities may be. The starting-point of all magic and of all magical religion the best and purest of occult activities is, as in mysticism, man's inextinguishable conviction that there are other planes of being than those which his senses report to him ; and its proceedings represent the intellectual and individualistic results of this conviction his craving for the hidden knowledge. It is, in the eyes of those who practise it, a moyen de parvenir: not the performance of illicit tricks, but a serious and philo-[181]sophic attempt to solve the riddle of the world. Its result, according to one of the best modern writers upon occult philosophy, " comprises an actual, positive, and realizable knowledge concerning the worlds which we denominate invisible, because they transcend the imperfect and rudimentary faculties of a partially developed humanity, and concerning the latent potentialities which constitute, by the fact of their latency the interior man. In more strictly philosophical language, the Hermetic science is a method of transcending the phenomenal world and attaining to the reality which is behind phenomena.174" 1 Though certain parts of this enormous claim seem able to justify themselves in experience, the whole of it cannot be admitted. The last phrase in particular is identical with the promise which we have seen to be characteristic of mysticism. It presents magic as a pathway to reality. We
172 3 See R. Steiner, "The Way of Initiation," p. in 173 4 Supra, loc. cit. 174 1 A. E. Waite, "The Occult Sciences," p. I.

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may as well say at once that this promise is not fulfilled ; for the apparent transcending of phenomena does not necessarily entail the attainment of the Absolute. Such an attainment must, as its first condition, meet and satisfy upon the plane of reality each activity of the self: Love, Will, and Thought. Magic at its best only satisfies two of these claimants ; and this by extending rather than escaping the boundaries of the phenomenal world. At its worst, it satisfies none. It stands for that form of transcendentalism which does abnormal things, but does not lead anywhere : and we are likely to fall victims to some kind of magic the moment that the declaration " I want to know " ousts the declaration " I want to be " from the chief place in our consciousness. The true " science of ultimates " must be a science of pure Being, for reasons which the reader is now in a position to discover for himself: but magic is merely a system whereby the self tries to assuage its transcendental curiosity by an extension of the activities of the will beyond their usual limits, obtaining by this means experimental knowledge of planes of existence usually but inaccurately regarded as " supernatural." Like the world which it professes to interpret, magic has a body and a soul : an outward vesture of words and ceremonies and an inner doctrine. The outward vesture, which is all that the uninitiated are permitted to perceive, is hardly attractive to the judicious eye of common sense. It consists of a series of confusing and often ridiculous symbolic veils : of strange words and numbers, grotesque laws and ritual acts, personifications and mystifications, wrapped one about the other as if the bewilderment of impatient investigators were its one design. The outward vestures of our religious, political, and social systems which would probably appear equally irrational to a wholly ignorant yet critical observer offer an instructive parallel to this aspect of occult philosophy. Stripped of these archaic formulae, symbols, mystery-mongerings, and other adventitious trappings, magic is found to rest upon three fundamental axioms ; none of which can be dismissed as ridiculous by those who listen respectfully to the amazing and ever-shifting hypotheses of fashionable psychology and physics. (1) The first of these axioms affirms the existence of an imponderable "
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medium " or " universal agent," which is described as beyond the plane of our normal sensual perceptions yet interpenetrating and binding up the material world. This agent, which is not luminous and has nothing to do with the stars, is known to the occultists by the unfortunate name of "Astral Light": a term, originally borrowed from the Martinists by Eliphas LeVi, to which the religious rummage-sales of current theosophy have since given a familiarity which treads upon the margin of contempt. To live in conscious communication with the " Astral Light " is to live upon the " Astral Plane," or in the Astral World : to have risen, that is to say, to a new level of consciousness. The education of the occultist is wholly directed towards this end. This doctrine of the Astral Plane, like most of our other diagrams of the transcendent, possesses not only a respectable ancestry, but also many prosperous relations in the world of [186] philosophic thought. Traces of it may even be detected under veils in the more recent speculations of orthodox physics. It is really identical with the " Archetypal World " or Yesod of the Kabalah the " Perfect Land " of old Egyptian religion in which exist the true or spirit forms of all created things. Perhaps it is connected with the "real world" described by such visionaries as Boehme and Blake. A persistent tradition as to the existence of such a plane of being or of consciousness is found all over the world : in Indian, Greek, Egyptian, Celtic, and Jewish thought. "Above this visible nature there exists another, unseen and eternal, which, when all things created perish, does not perish," says the Bhagavad Gita. According to the Kabalists it is " the seat of life and vitality, and the nourishment of all the world.175" 1 Vitalism might accept it as one of those aspects of the universe which can be perceived by a more extended rhythm than that of normal consciousness. Various aspects of it have been identified with the "Burning Body of the Holy Ghost " of Christian Gnosticism and with the Odic force of the old-fashioned spiritualists. According to the doctrine of magic the Astral Plane constitutes the " Cosmic Memory" where the images of all beings and events are preserved, as they are preserved in the memory of man.
175 1 A. E. Waite, " Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah," p. 48.

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The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky" all are living in the Astral World. There too the concepts of future creation are present in their completeness in the Eternal Now, before being brought to birth in the material sphere. On this theory prophecy, and also clairvoyance one of the great objects of occult education consists in opening the eyes of the mind upon this timeless Astral World: and spiritualists, evoking the phantoms of the dead, merely call them up from the recesses of universal instead of individual remembrance. The reader who feels his brain to be whirling amidst this medley of solemn statement and unproven fairy tale must remember that at best the dogmatic part of the occult tradition can only [187] represent the attempt of an extended consciousness to find an explanation of its own experiences. Further, in its strictly undenominational form, the Astral Light is first cousin to the intangible ether beloved of Sir Oliver Lodge and other transcendental physicists. In it our whole selves not merely our sentient selves are bathed ; and here again we are reminded of Vitalism, with its unresting River of Life. Hence in occult language the all-penetrating Astral is a " universal agent " : the possible vehicle of hypnotism, telepathy, clairvoyance, and all those supernormal phenomena which science has taken out of the hands of the occultists and renamed metapsychic. This hypothesis also accounts for the confusing fact of an initial similarity of experience in many of the proceedings of mystic and occultist. Both must pass through the plane of consciousness which the concept of the " Astral " represents, because this plane of perception is the one which lies " next beyond " our normal life. The transcendental faculties, once they are freed, become aware of this world : only, in the case of the mystic, to pass through it as quickly as they can. The occultist, on the contrary, is willing to rest in the "Astral" and develop his perceptions of this aspect of the world. It is the medium in which he works. From the earliest times, occult philosophy has proclaimed its knowledge of this medium : always describing its existence as a scientific fact, outside the range of our normal senses, but susceptible of verification by the trained powers of the initiate. The possessor of such trained powers,
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not the wizard or the fortune-teller, is to be regarded as the true magician : and it is the first object of occult education, or initiation, to actualize this supersensual plane of experience, to give the student the power of entering into conscious communion with it, and teach him to impose upon its forces the directive force of his own will, as easily as he imposes that will upon the " material " things of sense.176 1 (2) This brings us to the second axiom of magic, which also has a curiously modern air : for it postulates simply the limitless power of the disciplined human will. This dogma has been " taken over " without acknowledgment from occult philosophy [188] to become the trump card of menticulture, " Christian Science," and " New Thought." The preachers of " Joy Philosophy," and other dilute forms of mental discipline, are the true priests of transcendental magic in the modern world.177 1 Like St. Catherine of Siena, these three mystics and to them we must add St. Teresa's greatest disciple, the poet and contemplative St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) seem to have arisen in direct response to the need created by the corrupt or disordered religious life of their time. They are the " saints of the counter-Reformation ", and, in a period of ecclesiastical chaos, flung the weight of their genius and their sanctity into the orthodox Catholic scale. Whilst St. Ignatius organized a body of spiritual soldiery, who should attack heresy and defend the Church, St. Teresa, working against heavy odds, infused new vitality into a great religious order and restored it to its duty of direct communion with the transcendental world. In this she was helped by St. John of the Cross ; who, a scholar as well as a great mystic, performed the necessary function of bringing the personal experience of the Spanish school back again into touch with the main stream of mystic tradition. All three, practical organizers and profound contemplatives, exhibit in its splendour the dual character of the mystic life. They left behind them in their literary works an abiding influence, which has guided the footsteps and explained the
176 1 For a more detailed discussion of this subject the reader is referred to Steiner's exceedingly curious and interesting little book, " The Way of Initiation." 177 1 Compare the following : " Imagine that all the world and the starry hosts are waiting, alert and with shining eyes, to do your bidding. Imagine that you are to touch the button now, and instantly they will spring to do the rest. The instant you say, " I can and I will " the entire powers of the universe are to be set in motion" (E. Towne, "Joy Philosophy," p. 52).

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discoveries of succeeding generations of adventurers in the transcendental world. The true spiritual children of these mystics are to be found, not in their own country, where the religious life which they had lifted to transcendent levels degenerated as soon as their overmastering influence was withdrawn : but amongst the innumerable contemplative souls of succeeding generations who have fallen under the spell of the " Spiritual Exercises," the " Interior Castle," or the " Dark Night of the Soul." The Divine fire which blazed up and exhausted itself so quickly in Spain, is next seen in the New World : in the beautiful figure, too little [558] known to English readers, of St. Rose of Lima (1586-1617), the Peruvian nun. It appears at the same moment, under a very different aspect, in Protestant Germany; in the person of one of the giants of mysticism, the " inspired shoemaker " Jacob Boehme (1575-1624). Boehme, one of the most astonishing cases in history of a natural genius for the transcendent, has left his mark upon German philosophy as well as upon the history of mysticism. William Law, Blake, and SaintMartin are amongst those who have sat at his feet. The great sweep of Boehme's vision includes both Man and the Universe : the nature of God and of the Soul. In him we find again that old doctrine of Rebirth which the earlier German mystics had loved. Were it not for the difficult symbolism in which his vision is expressed, his influence would be far greater than it is. He remains one of those cloud-wrapped immortals who must be rediscovered and reinterpreted by the adventurers of every age. The seventeenth century rivals the fourteenth in the richness and variety of its mystical life. Two main currents are to be detected in it: dividing between them the two main aspects of man's communion with the Absolute. One, symbolic, constructive, activistic, bound up with the ideas of regeneration, and often using the language of the alchemists, sets out from the Teutonic genius of Boehme. It achieves its successes outside the Catholic Church : and chiefly in Germany and England, where by 1650 his works were widely known. In its decadent forms it runs to the occult : to alchemy, Rosicrucianism, apocalyptic prophecy, and other aberrations of the spiritual sense.

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The other current arises within the Catholic Church, and in close touch with the great tradition of Christian mysticism. It represents the personal and intimate side of contemplation : tends to encourage passive receptivity: and produces in its exaggerated forms the aberrations of the Quietists. It has its chief field in the Latin countries : France, Italy, and Spain. In the seventeenth century England was peculiarly rich, if not in great mystics, at any rate in mystically-minded men. Mysticism, it seems, was in the air; broke out under many disguises and affected many forms of life. It produced in George Fox (1624-1690) the founder of the Quakers, a "great active" of the first rank, entirely unaffected by tradition ; and in the Quaker movement itself an outbreak of genuine mysticism which is only comparable to the fourteenth-century movement of the Friends of God. At the opposite end of the theological scale, and in a very different form, it shows itself in Gertrude More (1606-1633) the Benedictine nun, a Catholic contemplative of singular charm. [559] Gertrude More carries on that tradition of the communion of love which flows from St. Augustine through St. Bernard and Thomas a Kempis, and is the very heart of Catholic mysticism. In the writings of her director, and the preserver of her works, the Venerable Augustine Baker (15 7 5-1 641) one of the most lucid and orderly of guides to the contemplative life we see what were still the formative influences in the environment where her mystical powers were trained. Richard of St. Victor, Hilton and the " Cloud of Unknowing "; Angela of Foligno ; Tauler, Suso, Ruysbroeck ; St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross ; these are the authorities to whom Augustine Baker most constantly appeals, and through these, as we know, the line of descent goes back to the Neoplatonists and the first founders of the Church. Outside that Church, the twins Thomas Vaughan the spiritual alchemist and Henry Vaughan, Silurist, the mystical poet (1622-1695) show the reaction of two very different temperaments upon the transcendental life. Again, the group of "Cambridge Platonists," Henry More (1614-1687), John Smith (1618-1652), Benjamin Whichcote (1609-1683), and John Norris (1657-1711) developed and preached a rational philosophy which is
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nevertheless deeply tinged with mysticism. In the saintly Bishop Hall (1574-1656) the same spirit takes a devotional form. Finally, in the crowd of Rosicrucians, symbolists, and other spiritually minded occultists above all in the extraordinary sect of Philadelphians, ruled by Dr. Pordage178 (1608-1698) and the prophetess Jane Lead (1623-1704) we find mysticism in its least balanced aspect, mingled with mediumistic phenomena, wild symbolic visions, and apocalyptic prophecies. The influence of these Philadelphians, who were themselves strongly affected by Boehme's works, lingered on for a century, appearing again in Saint- Martin the " Unknown Philosopher." The Quietistic trend of seventeenth-century mysticism is best seen in France. There, at the beginning of the century, the charming personality of St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) sets the key of the spiritual life of the time, with a delicate but slightly sentimental application of the principles of mystic love to popular piety. Under the brilliant worldly life of seventeenthcentury France, there was something amounting to a cult of the inner life. Such episodes as the careers of St. Jeanne Francoise de Chantal and St. Vincent de Paul, the history of Port Royal, the apostolate of Madame Guyon, the controversies of Bossuet and Fenelon, and the interest which these events aroused, indicate a period of considerable vitality. The spiritual life threatened to become fashionable. Hence, its most satisfactory initiates are those least in touch with the life of the time ; such as the simple [560] Carmelite, Brother Lawrence (1611-1691). Lawrence shows the passive tendency of French mysticism in its most sane, well-balanced form. He was a humble empiricist, laying claim to no special gifts : a striking contrast to his contemporary, the brilliant and unhappy genius Pascal (1623-1662), who fought his way through many psychic storms to the final vision of the Absolute. The earliest in date and most exaggerated in type of the true Quietists is the Franco-Flemish Antoinette Bourignon (1616-1680): a strong-willed and wrong-headed woman who, having renounced the world with Franciscan thoroughness, founded a sect, endured considerable persecutions, and made a great stir in the religious life of her time. An even
178 The philosophy of Pordage was founded on the writings of Jacob Boehme, whose notions he attempted first to systematize and arrange

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greater uproar resulted from the doctrinal excesses of the devout Spanish priest Miguel de Molinos (1640-1697); whose extreme teachings were condemned by the Church, and for a time brought the whole principle of passive contemplation into disrepute. Quietism, at bottom, was the expression of a need not unlike that which produced the contemporary Quaker movement in England : a need for personal contact with spiritual realities, evoked by the formal and unsatisfying quality of the official religion of the time. Unfortunately the great Quietists were not great mystics. Hence their unbalanced propaganda, in which the principle of passivity divorced from, and opposed to, all spiritual action was pressed to its logical conclusion, came dangerously near to nihilism : and resulted in a doctrine fatal not only to all organized religion, but to the healthy development of the inner life. Madame Guyon (1648-1717), the contemporary of Molinos and one of the most interesting personalities of the time, though usually quoted as a typical Quietist, taught and practised a far more balanced mysticism. Madame Guyon is an instance of considerable mystical genius linked with a feeble surface intelligence. Had she possessed the robust common sense so often found in the great contemplatives, her temperamental inclination to passivity would have been checked, I and she would hardly have made use of the unfortunate expressions which brought about the official condemnation of her works. In spite of the brilliant championship of Fenelon, and the fact that she really continues the tradition of feminine mysticism as developed by Angela of Foligno, St. Catherine of Genoa, and St. Teresa though lacking the wide, impersonal outlook of these mystics she was involved in the general condemnation of " passive orison" which the aberrations of the extreme Quietists had called forth. The end of the seventeenth century saw a great outburst of popular Quietism ; some within and some without the official Church. [561] Amongst the more respectable of these quasi-mystics all of whom appealed to the general tradition of mysticism in support of their one-sided doctrine were Malaval, whose "Theologie Mystique " contains some beautiful French translations from St. Teresa, and Peter Poiret (1646-17 1 9), once a Protestant pastor, then the devoted disciple of Antoinette
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Bourignon. Later generations owe a considerable debt to the enthusiasm and industry of Poiret, whose belief in spiritual quiescence was combined with great literary activity. He rescued and edited all Madame Guyon's writings ; and has left us, in his "Bibliotheca Mysticorum," the memorial of many lost works on mysticism. From this unique bibliography we can see how " orthodox " was the food which nourished even the most extreme of the Quietists : how thoroughly they believed themselves to represent not a new doctrine, but the true tradition of Christian Mysticism. With the close of the seventeenth century, the Quietist movement faded away. The beginning of the eighteenth sees the triumph of its "completing opposite"; that other stream of spiritual vitality which arose outside the Catholic Church and flowed from the great personality of Jacob Boehme. If the idea of surrender be the mainspring of Quietism, the complementary idea of rebirth is the mainspring of this school. In Germany, Boehme's works had been collected and published by an obscure mystic, John Gichtel (1638-1710); whose life and letters constantly betray his influence. In England, where that influence had been a living force from the middle of the seventeenth century, when his writings first became known, the Anglo-German Dionysius Andreas Freher was writing between 1699 and 1720. In the early years ot the eighteenth century, Freher was followed by William Law (1686-1761), the Nonjuror: a brilliant stylist and one of the most profound of English religious writers. Law, who was converted by the reading of Boehme's works from the narrow Christianity to which he gave classic expression in the " Serious Call " to a wide and philosophic mysticism, gave, in a series of writings which burn with mystic passion, a new interpretation and an abiding place in English literature to the " inspired shoemaker's " astounding vision of Man and the Universe. The latter part of a century which clearly represents the steep downward trend of the mystic curve, gives us three great personalities ; all of whom have passed through Boehme's school, and have placed themselves in opposition to the dry ecclesiasticism of their day. In Germany, Eckartshausen (1 752-1 803), in "The Cloud upon the Sanctuary " and other works, continued upon individual lines that [562]tradition of esoteric and
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mystical Christianity, and of rebirth as the price of man's entrance into Reality, which found its best and sanest interpreter in William Law. In France, the troubled spirit of the transcendentalist Saint-Martin (17431803), "the unknown philosopher," was deeply affected in his passage from a merely occult to a mystical philosophy, by the reading of Boehme and Eckartshausen ; and also by the works of the English " Philadelphians," Dr. Pordage and Jane Lead, who had long sunk to oblivion in their native land. In England, one of the greatest mystics of all time, William Blake (1757-1827), shines like a solitary star in the uncongenial atmosphere of the Georgian age. The career of Blake, poet, painter, visionary, and prophet, provides us with a rare instance of mystical genius forcing not only rhythm and words, but also colour and form, to express its vision of truth. So individual in his case was this vision, so strange the elements from which his symbolic reconstructions were built up, that he failed in the attempt to convey it to other men. Neither in his prophetic books "dark with excessive light," nor in his beautiful mystical paintings, does he contrive to transmit more than great and stimulating suggestions of " things seen " in some higher and more valid state of consciousness. An impassioned Christian of a deeply mystical type, Blake, like Eckartshausen and Saint-Martin, was at the same time a determined and outspoken foe of conventional Christianity. He seems at first sight the Ishmael of the mystics, wayward and individual, hardly touched by tradition j but as a matter of fact his spirit gathered up and expressed the scattered threads of that tradition, parted since the Reformation amongst divergent groups of explorers of the unseen. It is for this reason that his name may fitly close and complete this short survey of European mysticism. Whilst his visionary symbolism derives to a large extent from Swedenborg, whose works were the great influence of his youth, Blake has learned much from Boehme, and probably from his English interpreters. But, almost alone amongst English Protestant mystics, he has also received and assimilated the Catholic tradition of the personal and inward
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communion of love. In his stupendous vision of " Jerusalem," St. Teresa and Madame Guyon are amongst the " gentle souls " whom he sees guarding that Four-fold Gate which opens towards Beulah the gate of the contemplative life and guiding the great " Wine-press of Love " whence mankind, at the hands of its mystics, has received, in every age, the Wine of Life. Saint-Martin, 8, 96, 144, 147, 558 seq

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Cagliostro: the splendour and misery of a master of magic? - Page 99 de William Rutherford Hayes Trowbridge - 1910 - 311 pages

Eighteenth Century Occultism IV Nothing is more curious than to note the manner in which these descendants of the old alchemists, pioneers at one and the same time of modern Occultism and modern Socialism, while engaged in shadowing, so to speak, the unbelief of their century, conspired to put an end to the old regime. In spite of the disasters that dimmed the glory of the last years of Louis XIV's long reign, the immense prestige that France had acquired in le grand sicle remained unchallenged. Intellectually the influence [95] of France under his successors was so supreme that the decay of French civilization in the eighteenth century may be regarded as a sort of mirror in which the process of the disintegration of European society generally is reflected. Already as early as 1704, eleven years before the death of Louis XIV, when authority still seemed to be everywhere dominant, Leibnitz detected "all the signs of the general Revolution with which Europe is menaced." With the passing of Louis XIV respect, the chief stronghold of feudalism, surrendered to the cynicism of the Regency. In that insane Saturnalia chains were snapped, traditions shattered, old and worn-out conventions trampled under-foot. The Regency was but the Revolution in miniature. The orgy of licence passed in its turn, as the gloomy and bigoted hypocrisy of which it was the natural reaction, had passed before it. But the calm of the exquisite refinement that took its place was only superficial. Freedom conceived in the revels of the Regency yearned to be born. To assist at this accouchement was the aim of all the philosophical midwifery of the age. In 1734 Voltaire, physician-in-ordinary to the century, declared "action to be the chief object of mankind." But as freedom of action is impossible without freedom of thought Vauvenargues next demanded in clarion tones that "God should be freed." The idea of "freeing God" in order to free man was an inspiration, and Vauvenargues' magnificent phrase became the tocsin of the philosophers.
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But the chief effect of the Regency upon France, and thus indirectly upon Europe, had been to "free unbelief." Authority, which had feared faith when [96] alive and despised it when dead, crawled into the shell from which the snail of belief had departed and displayed the same predatory and brutal instincts as the intolerant religion in whose iron carapace it dwelt. To dislodge it was the first step towards "freeing God"; and all sorts and conditions of athletes entered the arena to battle with prejudice and injustice. In France, where the contest was destined to be decided, the Bastille or banishment was the punishment that brute authority awarded those who dared to defy it. But to crush the rebellion of intelligence against stupidity was impossible. The efforts of the philosophers were reinforced by sovereigns imbued with the spirit of the century. With Frederick the Great a race of benevolent despots sprang into existence, who dazzled by the refulgence of the philosophical light they so much admired did not perceive till too late that in igniting their torches at its flame they were helping to kindle a conflagration destined to destroy the system that would deprive them of the absolute freedom they enjoyed, and to a limited share of which they were willing to admit the nations they ruled. Nor for that matter did the philosophers themselves. To them as well as to their princely disciples "to free God" was another name for religious toleration. That was the revolution for which the Encyclopaedists worked, and which Frederick the Great and the sovereigns who shared his enlightened opinions desired. Nothing was further from their intention than that it should take the form in which it eventually came. It is impossible to believe that the Revolution which demanded the heads of a Lavoisier and a Bailly would have spared those of a Voltaire or a [97] Rousseau. Least of all would the stupid mob that watched the victims doomed to the guillotine spit into the basket," as it termed in ferocious jest the fall of the heads beneath the axe, have made any distinction between the virtuous and innocent Louis XVI and Joseph II, or the Empress Catherine, had it been possible to arraign them likewise at the bar of the Revolutionary Tribunal. The gratitude of the people is even less to be depended on than that of princes. But God was not to be "freed" in a day. Seventy-five years elapsed between Freedom's conception in the Regency and birth in the Revolution. During this long pregnancy the century which was to die in child-bed developed an extraordinary appetite for the supernatural. To the materialistic philosophy that analyzed and sought to control the process of decay which
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by the middle of the century had become visible, even to one so indifferent to "signs of the times" as Louis XV, the cult of the supernatural was an element unworthy of serious consideration. But though long ignored the time was to come when it obtained from the torch-bearers of reason a questionable and dangerous patronage. It was on the eve of the birth of Freedom that the century of Voltaire," as Henri Martin expresses it, "extended its hand to the occultists of the middle ages." Between Voltaire and cabalistic evocations, between the scepticism of the Encyclopaedists and the mysticism of Swedenborg who would believe there could be any affiliation? Yet the transition was natural enough. The philosophers in their abuse of analysis had too persistently sacrificed sentiment to reason. Imagination, which Louis Blanc has called the intoxication [98] of intelligence, had begun to doubt everything by the middle of the century. Reaction was inevitable The sneers of Voltaire were succeeded by the tears of Rousseau. The age of sensibility followed the age of unbelief. This was the hour for which a despised occultism had waited. It alone had a clear and definite conception of the Revolution. Patronized by philosophy, which vacillated between sentiment and reason, it imbued it finally with its own revolutionary ideas. The extent of their ascendency may be gauged by the declaration of Condorcet, "that volcano covered with snow," as he has been called, " that society must have as its object the amelioration, physical, intellectual and moral of the most numerous and poorest class." In his desire to escape from materialism the philosopher trained in the school of Voltaire had but taken the road to perfection along which the mystics were leading France and Europe. Strange to relate, the leader of the mystical movement in France to which philosophy was destined to attach itself, was himself the mildest and least revolutionary of men. Louis Claude de Saint- Martin might be described as the reincarnation of St. Francis of Assisi in the eighteenth century. Had he lived four hundred years earlier he would have passed his gentle flower-like life in the seclusion of some cloister, had beatific visions of the Saviour of the world, communed with the Virgin and Saints, worked miracles, founded a monastic order, and at his death been canonized by the Church, of whose faith he would have been the champion and of its tenderness the exemplar. Pure and meditative by nature he had been greatly [99] influenced when a boy by an ascetic book, The Art of Knowing Oneself, that he chanced to read. As his
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father, to whom he was deeply attached, intended him for the Bar he devoted himself to the study of law, and though he had no taste for the profession passed his examinations. But after practising six months he declared himself incapable of distinguishing in any suit between the claims of the defendant and the plaintiff, and requested to be allowed to exchange the legal profession for the military not because he had any liking for the career of arms, but in order that he might "have leisure to continue the study of religion and philosophy." To oblige his father the Due de Choiseul, then Prime Minister, gave him a lieutenancy in the Regiment de Foix, then in garrison at Bordeaux. Here he met one of those strange characters so common in this century, who, either charlatans of genius or dreamers by temperament, supplied with arms from the arsenal of the supernatural boldly asserted the supremacy of the occult and attacked science and philosophy alike. This particular individual was called Martinez Pasqualis, but as like so many of his kind he enveloped himself in mystery it is impossible to discover who or what he was, or where he came from. He was supposed to be a Christianized Jew from one of the Portuguese colonies in the East, which would account perhaps for his skill in the practice of the occult. At any rate, the strange secrecy he maintained in regard to himself was sufficient in the eighteenth century to credit him with supernatural powers. When Saint-Martin met him in Bordeaux he had [100] for ten years held a sort of school of theurgy. At Avignon, Toulouse, and other Southern cities his pupils or disciples formed themselves into a sect, known as Martinists after their master, for the practice of his doctrines, which though but vaguely understood were attractive from the hopes they held out of communicating with the invisible world. Saint-Martin was the first to grasp their meaning. He joined the Martinists, whose existence till then was scarcely known, and became their chief when the dissensions to which the private life of Pasqualis had given rise were healed by his sudden and singular departure for Haiti, where he died of yellow fever shortly after his arrival. Drawn from obscurity by the personal charm and high social position of its new leader, Martinism rapidly attracted attention. In a strange little book, Des Erreurs et de la Vrit par un philosophe inconnu, Saint-Martin endeavoured to detach himself and his adherents from the magic in which Pasqualis who practised it openly had involved this sect. But though
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he gave up the quest of supernatural phenomena as unnecessary to an acquaintance with the unseen, and wandered deeper and deeper into pure mysticism, he never wholly succeeded in escaping from the grosser influence of his first initiation in the occult. From the fact, however, that he called himself the "Robinson Crusoe of spiritualism," some idea may be gained of the distance that separated him from those who also claimed connection with the invisible world. He did not count on being understood. Of one of his books he said, "it is too far from ordinary human ideas to be successful. I have [101] often felt in writing it as if I were playing valses on my violin in the cemetery of Montmartre, where for all the magic of my bow, the dead will neither hear nor dance." Nevertheless, though philosophy failed to follow him to the remote regions of speculation to which he withdrew, it grasped enough of his meaning to apply it. And the Revolution, which before its arrival he had regarded as the lost word" by which the regeneration of mankind was to be effected, and when it actually came as '' the miniature of the last judgment," adopted his sacred ternary Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" the Father, Son and Holy Ghost of Martinism as its device. Saint-Martin was one of the few who strove to inaugurate it whom it did not devour. He passed through it unmolested, dying as he had lived gently. His only regret in passing from the visible to the invisible was that he had left "the mystery of numbers unsolved." V The influence of Saint-Martin, however, was passive rather than active. Though philosophy confusedly and unconsciously imbibed the Socialistic theories of mysticism, the French being at once a practical and an excitable people were not to be kindled by speculations of the intellect, however daring, original, and attractive they might be. The palpable prodigies of Mesmer appealed more powerfully to them than the vague abstractions of Saint-Martin. It was in Germany that revolutionary mysticism [102] found its motive power. Whilst Saint-Martin, proclaiming in occult language that all men were kings sought to efface himself at the feet of sovereigns, Adam Weishaupt was shaking their thrones. It would be impossible to find two men more unlike. Weishaupt was the very antithesis of Saint-Martin. He was
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not a mystic at all, and furthermore always professed the greatest contempt for "supernatural tricks." But consumed with an implacable hatred of despotism and with a genius for conspiracy he perceived in the widespread attraction and revolutionary tendency of the supernatural the engine of destruction he required. Born of Catholic parents at Ingolstadt in Bavaria, Weishaupt had been sent as a boy to the Jesuit seminary in that town, but conceiving a great dislike for the method of instruction employed there he left it for the university. On the temporary abolition of the Order of the Jesuits, having taken his degree, he was appointed to the professorship of jurisprudence till then held by a Jesuit. Though deprived of their functions the members of the suppressed Order still remained in the country, and posing as martyrs continued to exercise in secret their malign influence as powerfully as ever. Weishaupt naturally found in them bitter enemies; and to fight them conceived the idea of founding a secret society, which the great popularity he enjoyed among the students enabled him to realize. Perceiving the immense success that Gassner was having at this time by his cures, and fully alive to the powerful hold the passion for the supernatural had obtained on the popular imagination, he decided to give his society a mystic character as a means of [103] recruiting followers. As Weishaupt's object was to convert them into blind instruments of his supreme will, he modelled his organization after that of the Jesuits, adopting in particular their system of espionage, their practice of passive obedience, and their maxim that the end justifies the means. From mysticism he borrowed the name of the society: Illumines. From freemasonry, the classes and grades into which they were subdivided, the purpose of which was to measure the progress of the adept in assimilating the doctrine of the absolute equality of man and to excite his imagination by making him hope for the communication of some wonderful mystic secret when he reached the highest grade. Those who enjoyed the confidence of Weishaupt were known as areopagites. To them alone was he visible, and as he deemed that too many precautions could not be observed in concealing the existence of a society sworn to the abolition of the Christian religion and the overthrow of the established social system, he and his accomplices adopted names by which alone they were known to the others. Comprised at first of a few students at the University of Ingolstadt, the Illumines gradually increased their numbers and sought recruits in other
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places, special attention being given to the enlistment of young men of wealth and position. In this way, the real objects of Illuminism being artfully concealed, the society extended within the course of four or five years all over Germany. Its adepts even had a hand in affairs of State and gained the ear of many of those petty and picturesque sovereigns of the Empire who, catching the fever of philosophy from Frederick the Great and Joseph II, amused themselves in trying to [104] blend despotism, philanthropy, and the occult. As the Illumines were utterly unscrupulous, they did not hesitate to seek recruits in the Church of Rome itself, of which they were the secret and deadly enemy, in order by taking sides in the theological quarrels of the day to increase dissensions and weaken the power of the Pope. However, cleverly organized though they were, the Illumines, composed of very young and passionate men carefully chosen Weishaupt himself was scarcely twenty-eight when he founded the sect in 1776 did not make much progress, till Baron von Knigge joined them in 1780. He possessed the one faculty that Weishaupt lacked imagination. Young, monstrously licentious, irreligious and intelligent, he was consumed with an insatiable curiosity for fresh experiences. He had written a number of novels which had attracted some attention and certain pamphlets on morals that had been put on the Index. He had been admitted to most of the secret societies of the day, particularly that of the Freemasons. He had experimented in alchemy and studied every phase of occultism from the philosophy of the Gnostics to that of Swedenborg. Everything that savoured of the supernatural had a profound attraction for him; even sleight of hand tricks, it is said, had engaged his attention. At thirty he had seen, studied and analyzed everything, and still his imagination remained as untired and inquisitive as ever. An ally at once more invaluable and more dangerous it would have been impossible for Weishaupt to have procured. Admitted to the confidence of Weishaupt this young Hanoverian nobleman rapidly gained an [105] ascendency over him. It was owing to the advice of Knigge that Weishaupt divided the Illuming into grades after the manner of the Freemasons, and adopted the method of initiation of which the mysterious and terrifying rites were well calculated to impress the proselyte. With a Knigge to invent and a Weishaupt to organize, the Illuming rapidly increased their numbers and activities. Overrunning Germany they crossed the frontiers preaching, proselytizing, and spreading the gospel of the Revolution everywhere. But this rapid development was
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not without its dangers. Conscious that the existence of such a society if it became known would inevitably lead to its suppression, Knigge, who was nothing if not resourceful, conceived the idea of grafting it on to Freemasonry, which by reason of its powerful connections and vast proportions would, he trusted, give to Illuminism both protection and the means of spreading more widely and rapidly. The origin of this association, the oldest known to the world, composed of men of all countries, ranks, and creeds sworn to secrecy, bound together by strange symbols and signs, whose real mystic meaning has long been forgotten, and to-day devoted to the practice of philanthropy on an extensive scale has been the subject of much speculation. The theory, most generally accepted, is that which supposes it to have been founded at the time and for the purpose of building the Temple of Solomon. But whatever its early history. Freemasonry in its present form first came into prominence in the seventeenth century in England, whence it spread to France and Germany. It was introduced into the former country by the Jacobites early in the eighteenth century with the [106] object of furthering the cause of the Stuarts. On the extinction of their hopes, however, it reverted to its original ideals of equality and fraternity, and in spite of these democratic principles obtained a strong hold upon the aristocracy. Indeed, in France it was from the first a decidedly royalist institution and this character it preserved, outwardly at least, down to the Revolution, numbering nobles and clergy alike among its members, and always having a prince of the blood as Grand Master. In Germany, on the contrary, where since the Thirty Years' War popular aspirations and discontent had expressed themselves inarticulately in a multitude of secret societies, the principles of Freemasonry had a political rather than a social significance. The importance it acquired from the number of its members, its international character, and its superior organization could not fail to excite the hostility of the Church of Rome, which will not tolerate within it the existence of secret and independent associations. The Jesuits had sworn allegiance to the Pope and in their ambition to control the Papacy were its staunchest defenders. But the Freemasons refused to admit the Papal authority, and treated all creeds with equal respect War between the Church of Rome and Freemasonry was thus inevitable a, war that the Church in such a century as the eighteenth, permeated with scepticism and the desire
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for individual liberty, was most ill-advised to wage. For it was a war in which extermination was impossible and the victories of Rome indecisive. Anathematized by Clement XII, persecuted in Spain by the Inquisition, penalized in Catholic [107] Germany by the law, and its members decreed worthy of eternal damnation by the Sorbonne in France, Freemasonry nevertheless managed to find powerful champions. Entrenched behind the thrones of Protestant Europe, particularly that of Frederick the Great, and encouraged by the philosophers who saw in it something more than a Protestant challenge to the Church of Rome, it became the rallying ground of all the forces of discontent and disaffection of the century, the arsenal of all its hopes and ideals, the nursery of the Revolution. To render it, if possible, suspect even to its patrons Rome denied the humanity of its aims and the boasted antiquity of its origin. According to the stories circulated by the priests, which excited by their fears existed solely in their imagination, the Freemasons were the successors of the old Knights Templars sworn to avenge the abolition of that order by the bull of Pope Clement V and the death of its Grand Master, Jacques Molay, burnt alive by King Philip the Fair in the fourteenth century. But their vengeance was not to be limited to the destruction of the Papacy and the French monarchy; it included that of all altars and all thrones1791. This tradition, however, continually repeated and rendered more and more mysterious and alarming by rumour, merely helped to articulate the hatred of the enemies of the old regime who had flocked to Free-masonry as to a camp. As this association had at this period of its history no homogeneity, it was possible for [108] anybody with a few followers to form a lodge, and for each lodge to be a distinct society united to Freemasonry by the community of signs and symbols. It thus became a vast confederation of independent lodges representing all sorts of opinions, often hostile to one another, and possessing each its own "rite or constitution. Philosophy and occultism alike both found a shelter in it. Even Saint-Martin left his mystic solitude to found lodges which observed the "Swedenborg rite." To attach themselves to the Freemasons was therefore for the Illumines as easy as it was natural. Lodges of Illuminism were founded all
179 One of the symbols of the Masons was a cross on which were the letters L.P.D. which were interpreted by the priests to mean Lilia Pcdibus Destrue, Trample the Lilies under-foot.

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over Germany. The number and variety of sects, however, that had found an asylum in Freemasonry by the diversity of their aims tended to weaken rather than strengthen the association. At length, the discovery that impostors, like Schropfer, Rosicrucians and even Jesuits had founded lodges led to a general council of Freemasons for the purpose of giving the society the homogeneity it lacked. With this object a convention of Masons was held at Wilhelmsbad in 1782 to which deputies were sent from all parts of Europe. Knigge and Weishaupt attended and, perceiving the vast possibilities of the consolidation of the sects, they endeavoured to capture the whole machinery of the organization for the Illumines, much as the Socialists of to-day have endeavoured to capture the Trades Unions. The intrigue, however, not only failed, but led to a misunderstanding between the chiefs of Illuminism. Knigge definitely withdrew from the society, the existence and revolutionary aims of which were [109] betrayed two years later, in 1784, by a member who had reached the highest grade, only to discover that the mystic secrets by which he had been attracted to the Illumines did not exist This information conveyed to the Bavarian government was confirmed by domiciliary visits of the police who seized many incriminating papers. Weishaupt fled to Gotha, where he found a protector in the occultist Duke, whose friendship he had nursed for years in view of just such a contingency. But though the society he had formed was broken up, it was too late to stamp out the fire it had kindled. The subterranean rumblings of the Revolution could already be heard. Mysticism which had made use of philosophy in France to sap tyranny was in its turn in Germany turned to political account. From the seeds sown by the Illumines sprang that amazing crop of ideals of which a few years later Napoleon was to reap the benefit. Such, then, was the "curtain" of Cagliostro; woven, so to speak, on the loom of the love-of-the-marvellous out of mystical masonic principles and Schrpfer-Mesmer phenomena. And now let us turn once more to the personality of the man behind it.

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Text by Savalette de Langes lodge Amis Runis


http://books.google.fr/books?id=MHcLB9-R8KgC&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq= %22Savalette+de+langes%22+%22amis+r%C3%A9unis %22&source=bl&ots=3OqEgJeOkS&sig=R3Eeycxc5huMUATuUzLR9VWmxxE&hl=fr &ei=BKDgSqXBLNWH4gaL5r0P&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0 CAsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Savalette%20de%20langes%22%20%22amis%20r %C3%A9unis%22&f=false

From 1771 to 1791, this lodge was one of the most prestigious in Paris and was consecrated by the Keeper of the Royal Treasury Savalette de Langes. Initially formed abroad in Rumigny, a small town of Thirache, by a magistrate of the Parliament of Paris (banished by Chancellor Maupeou), in 1773 the lodge settled permanently in Paris. Savalette de Langes had made the inner circle of the Amis Runis the social center of modern Freemasonry and cosmopolitanism of the late Enlightenment. Here the elite and and the talented joined together. The orchestra of the Amis Runis was composed of six musicians of renown, like the composer [Isidore] Bertheaume, the Brothers Blasius, the Kings violinists, Boutray of the lAcadmie [Royale] de Musique, and either the brothers Breval or Louis Francoeur, the Kings Superintendent of Music. The Lodge utilized a large space in a house in the Rue Popincourt, built in 1708 by the architect Dulin for the supplier of arms [Nicholas?] Dunoyer. Upon his death in 1791, Les Amis Runis counted some 300 members with a further 37 casual brothers and brother servants. It comprised about 12% foreigners, such as the Baron de Beutz, chancellor of Saxony; the Baron de Gleichen, Minister of Denmark in Madrid, Naples and Paris; and Count Stroganoff, a Russian subject. A hundred senior officers or generals decorate the pillars, and about fifteen of their regiment. Painters and sculptors are well represented with a dozen doctors, all members of the Academy of Medicine or professors at the University of Paris Monge was an assiduous member of the lodge for some years. But the Amis Runis uniqueness is the significant number of its members who belonged to the world of finance: 37% of the Lodge in total, 84 people, were indeed financiers. We count no fewer than 15 bankers or speculators, 13 receiver generals, 7 tax collectors [fermiers gnraux], 7 general treasurers including those of the Navy and War, 4 general paymasters, 19 members of the Courts
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of Finances of Paris, 7 senior officials of the Royal treasury and finally, 11 brothers who were occupied with public finance. On the eve of the Revolution, the lodge of the Amis Runis had the highest concentration of financiers; a number of them met in groups, or independently, to engage in speculative ventures. We also find Lodge members as shareholders of the arms factory in Charleville, the Water Company in Paris, and the mines at Bagorry, Decize or Rueil. Another group actively participated in speculation about the dollars held by the bank St. Charles de Madrid. Others are shareholders of the Hudson Bay Company that traded with Canada. Many specialize in international commerce, and others with India or the islands trading sugar and rum, but also the slave trade. At the famous East India Company, one finds Lodge members as shareholders or as administrators. A last group is actively involved in real estate speculation in Paris. The success of the Amis Runis in the financial world may be explained by the fact that, in the latter third of the 18th-century, in the absence of public credit, only powerful financiers could undertake large scale financial transactions. Everything is then prefaced upon trust. This leads to the membership of professional lobbyists, and familial networks which are found in the Lodge. The trustworthiness of Masonic affiliation may result in more business, which enables both administrators and profiteers. The Lodge therefore offered a discreet setting for financial conversations and the development of protective relationships; philosophical bonds are then the natural extension in the world of finance. In regard to the entire milieu of high-grade Freemasonry during the Enlightenment, the Philalthes are as noteworthy as they come. The Rite itself - more of a regime - and the Lodge Amis Runis from which it was founded, constituted a clearing house for all things occult or esoteric on the continent and beyond; Savalette de Langes and the Marquis de Chefdebien may even be described as engaging in Masonic espionage. There isnt a single volume on 18th Century Freemasonry that doesnt give the major details of the Amis Runis and the Philalthes. Members of the rite came not only from France, but from Germany, England, Italy, Austria, Sweden and Russia (and as was shown with the publishing of J. J. C. Bodes diary in 1994, the Bavarian Illuminati had managed to officially join forces with it just two years before the revolution).
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Ive read more than a few accounts of the Philalthes over the years, but this report by Frick - about as complete an introduction as as youll find - is by far the best.

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To pray and study in Pontlevoy ? MARIETTE Cyvard in Pontlevoy's church

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