Some Reflections on Masonry and its Infiltration into Mainstream “Catholic” Thought and Teaching Today
While the topic is complex, involving impromptu conversations and subterfuges, there are traceable open encounters between Masonic lodges and Catholic orders, especially the Jesuits, once the praetorian guard of the Papacy and the vanguard of the counter reformation, dating back to the late 19th century. I shall, in this paper, attempt to highlight these encounters within their historical framework and show the nefarious results of this infiltration. Before delving into the problem itself, however, I shall present a brief summary of Masonic history and thought.
Freemasonry, a.k.a. “the Brotherhood” or “the
Craft,” is a curious mixture of the medieval stonemasons’ guild and various
underground speculative currents of esoteric and occult thought, much of which
entered European thought during the High Renaissance and then blossomed
throughout
According to Albert Mackey’s authoritative History of Freemasonry, (fig. 1) the
roots of so-called “speculative” Grand Lodge masonry are to be found in the
secretive movements that had existed for centuries in Europe parallel to the
established order of Christendom. These include, among others, apocryphal
stories from the Old Testament such as, The
Legend of Solomon’s Temple, Druidic lore,
Eleusian and Pythagorean mysteries, as well as the Jewish theosophical Kabbalah,
Gnosticism, and Egyptian
Hermetecism.[1]
Along with English Grand Lodge Masonry, with
its “mystical” overtones, as described above, there also exists a distinct, but
linked, European Grand Orient Masonry, based on the “Deist” or even, since the
declarations of 1777, openly atheist philosophy of the French Enlightenment.
Virtually all the precursors of the French Revolution, Rousseau, Voltaire,
Diderot and Robespierre, were Grand Orient Masons. Generally speaking, the goal
of the Grand Orient Lodges, following their precepts of
While there is no doubt that the atheistic revolutionary goals of Grand Orient Masonry have done tremendous damage and are to be deplored, and fought against tooth and nail, it is in the religion of the Grand Lodge, especially that of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and the “illuminated” branch of the Grand Orient, that the real danger lies.
According to the first authenticated documents
of the “Speculative” Grand Lodge, The
Book of Constitutions, written by the Scottish “dissenting” Presbyterian
minister, James Anderson, published in 1723, “A Mason is obliged by his tenure
to obey the moral law, and if he rightly understands the Art he will never be a
stupid atheist, nor an irreligious libertine.” To better understand
Masonic author Albert Pike (Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, 1859-1891) sets the record straight in his authoritative Morals and Dogma of Freemasonry. As Pike explains to the Apprentice Mason, “The pavement (of the Lodge), alternatively black and white, symbolizes the Good and Evil principles of the Egyptian and Persian creeds. It is the warfare between Michael[4] (fig. 2) and Satan, Light and Darkness, Freedom and Despotism, Religious Liberty and the Arbitrary Dogmas of a Church [Roman Catholic] that thinks for its votaries and whose Pontiff claims to be infallible.” [5] In the final chapter of this book, entitled “Prince of the Royal Secret,” Pike presents the resolution of this conflict: “The primary tradition of the single revelation has been preserved under the name of the Kabbalah.[6]…. The Evil is the Shadow of the Good and inseparable from it. The Divine Wisdom limits by equipoise the Omnipotence of the Divine Will or Power, and the result is Beauty or Harmony.”[7]
Ostensibly, the goal of Masonry is “to take good men and make them better.” In reality, however, the “secret” for the individual Freemason is to work out for himself the balance or harmony of good and evil in his own life to achieve his own “divine” perfection: “Man is a God in the Making.”[8] ( The promise of Lucifer to Eve in the Garden)
Collectively, the external goal of Masonry is to
emancipate mankind from all tyranny and to rebuild “
The pre-Vatican II Church knew the pernicious character of Freemasonry and denounced it for what it was and is. According to the 1917 Code of Canon Law, article #2335, to belong to a Freemasonic Lodge was grounds for automatic excommunication Latae Sententiae (the act itself bringing the penalty without formal accusation). As explained by Pope Leo XIII:
The race of man, after its miserable fall from God, the
Creator and the Giver of heavenly gifts, “through the envy of the devil,”
separated into two diverse and opposite parts, of which the one steadfastly contends
for truth and virtue, the other of those things which are contrary to virtue
and to truth. The one is the
Given the unequivocal denunciation of
Freemasonry by this Pope and all others from the 18th century up to Pius XII in
the 20th, as well as the explicit prohibition under canon law, how could the
tenets of the condemned Masonic “Brotherhood” infiltrate the Mystical Body of
Christ? Perhaps the short answer is that, among the intelligentsia, prior to,
during and following the French Revolution, an overly exuberant understanding
of “the dignity of man” and the supremacy of “individual conscience”, based on
the Masonic principles of “
Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith, by James Billington, Librarian of Congress, Rhodes Scholar and Director of the Woodrow Wilson International Scholars of the Smithsonian Institute, is helpful in clarifying this paradigm shift. Billington begins by stating:
“The revolutionary faith was shaped not so much by the
critical rationalism of the French Enlightenment [as is generally believed] as
by the occultism and proto-romanticism of
Billington reiterates this proposition in Chapter 4, entitled “The Occult Origins of Organization”:
“The modern revolutionary tradition … grew out of occult Freemasonry; the early organizational ideas originated more from Pythagorean mysticism than from practical experience; and … their real innovators were not so much political activists as literary intellectuals, on whom German romantic thought in general—and Bavarian Illuminism in particular—exerted great influence.” [13]
These ideas affected the dissident clergy as well. Among them, Billington singles out the Abbé Fauchet, Abbé Cournand and the influential Père Felicité Lamennais, “who shed his Roman collar and went on to write his Book of the People in 1837
In fact, following the excesses of the
Revolution, many turned their minds to establishing a new Utopian social order
based on a vision or "religion" of
the future based on the "
By the end of the 19th century, however, the humanistic "Religion of Man" took on the spiritual overtones of occult Masonry in an attempt to subvert, rather than abolish the Catholic Faith. In his seminal work Mystère D’Inquité – Mysterium Iniquitratis, written more than forty years ago at the time of the Second Vatican Council, Pierre Virion opens with a quotation from Joseph Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, acknowledged occultist, freemason, kabbalist, Martinist and magician, (See appendices below) who proposed the formation of a new syncretistic religion under the banner of an entirely new political order, which he called Divine Synarchie. In 1882, speaking to the Catholics of his day, he wrote:
Fear not, you may become the soul of moral liberty, and universal tolerance, momentarily losing your doctrines and discipline, only to resurrect greater, and more glorious, as well as more religious and social.…. If masonry admits without distinction all races religions beliefs with fraternal assistance to all, from the Prince of Wales to an Indian pariah, it is more Christian, more orthodox in the eyes of Jesus Christ, than you when you anathematize these.[15]
To demonstrate the length or breadth of religious tolerance to which the ecumenism of d’Alveydre would stretch, I submit a brief extract from a poem, cited by Pierre Virion, from La Muse Noire, written by d’Alveydre’s close friend and fellow Kabbalist, Stanislas de Guaita: (See Appendix below: Stanislas de Guaita)
“ … Quant à toi, Lucifer, astre tombé des cieux, Splendeur Intelligente aux ténèbres jetée, Ange qui portes haut la colère indoptée, Et gonfles tous les seins de cris séditieux, …. On y soufre, il est vrai; l’on jouit quand meme puisqu’on y peut bave sa bile, O Lucifer, Mon bourreau de demain, je t’honore, je t’aime.”
(“… As for you
Lucifer, star fallen from the sky, Intelligent Splendor thrown into darkness,
Angel who holds on high untamed rage,
Breast inflated with seditious
cries, One suffers there, it is true,
One enjoys it just as well, as there
that one may slobber out ones bile, O Lucifer, my executioner of tomorrow, … I honor and love you.” [16])
An early apostle of d’Alveydre’s “divine synarchie,” friend of Stanislas de Guaita, and member along with him of the Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix, the apostate Abbé Roca, wrote the following in his 1889 Centenaire Glorieux, a veritable “Summa” of the doctrines proposed by the esoteric Masonic initiates of the time:
The New Gospel, that of the social(ist) Christ-spirit is preached to the people of our times by thousands of voices more or less faithful to the inspiration arising from men’s hearts in these times of regeneration that have arrived. (p. 38)[17] …. That which wishes to overcome Christianity is not a pagoda [false idol], but a universal religion in which all religions will be included.” (p. 77) …A new Christianity, sublime … Wide and deep, truly universal, absolutely encyclopedic… that will make the fullness of heaven descend upon earth, to suppress all boundaries, local churches and ethnicities. (p. 123) …
This new Church, albeit without its scholastic discipline nor the rudimentary shape of the old Church, will receive, none the less, Canonical Jurisdiction.. (p. 453)…. “The Christ is humanity itself in principle, divine humanity conceived by the Father of life in the same internal act of procession by which he continually engenders the unique Son of God. In the son is contained the power to become, not only Universal Humanity, but also annexed to it all creation. ... (p.518) …The incarnation of the Word is nothing other than the injection of the Divine into the human.” (p.537) .…I believe that the divine cult and existing liturgy will pass….The Pontiff will then be content to glorify the work of the Christ Spirit by declaring urbi et orbi that the present civilization is the legitimate daughter of the Holy Gospel of social Redemption.” (p. III) “All the precepts of the Roman Church will soon undergo, in an Ecumenical Council, a transformation that will bring a return to the venerable simplicity of the apostolic age that will harmonize with the new state of conscience and modern civilization. … a solemn Baptism of modern Civilization.”[18]
These are clearly prophetic words from a
practicing occultist who, along with de Guaita and fellow occultists Oswald
Wirth and Gêrard Encausse (also known as “Papus”) and Louis Claude de Saint
Martin, founder of Martinism,[19]
attended the séances of Maria de Mariartegui (Lady Caithness) and Jules Benoît
Doniel. Doniel the founder of the
19th-century revival of the
The question again comes back to how could
these visions of the “
By the end of the nineteenth century the plight of the “proletarian,” or working class, a byproduct of the industrial revolution, had become a legitimate concern of the Catholic Church as seen in the Social Encyclicals beginning with Rerum Novarum by Leo XIII In 1891. Following these directives, by 1910, in France, the workers movements had found a hero in the Abbé Lugan, an orthodox but socially-oriented priest, known for his saying, “You can’t preach to an empty stomach.” Abbé Lugan who founded the Mouvemont des idees et faits to back what he believed to be the Church’s position on social justice. The Abbé Lugan however, also collaborated intimately with Paul Vulliaud, an ostensible Catholic but secret Rosicrucian and Kabbalist:.[22] Here in the realm of social justice lies the incipient birth of Catholic and Masonic collaboration.
As early as 1907, tentative interaction had been established between high degree “speculative” or “spiritual” (those who believe in the immortality of the soul) Masons of both the Grand Lodge, as well as Grand Orient, and Catholic intellectuals led by Père Berteloot, S.J., and Père Desbuquois. S.J. , Director of Accion Populaire de Riems. By 1926, as reported in a 1928 article of the Frankfurter Zeitung, regular meetings were being held in Aix-La Chapelle dedicated to the rapprochement of the Catholic Church and Freemasonry, led by Fr. Gruber S.J. , and Fr. Mukerman S.J.[23] The ostensible reason given for these exploratory meetings was to combat the rising influence of Communism and atheistic materialism. In the words of Brother \ Curt Reichl, of the Austrian Grand Lodge, “Today, masonry conveys the desire to collaborate with the Church against the dangerous forces of the revolution which are now present in the radical parties, Anarchists, Nihilists, Bolsheviks.”[24]
Brother \ Brenier, president of the Grand Orient expressed an even more enthusiastic view: “For two centuries our most dangerous enemy was the Church; it appears now that she [the Church] recognizes that she was on the wrong road.” Attended not only by representatives of European Masonry but also by Brother \ Ossian Lang of the Grand Lodge of New York, these meetings arranged by Jesuits Gruber and Muckerman were not private initiatives. As Brother\ Lantoine, Secretary of the Grand Lodge of France explained:
Do not believe that Fr. Gruber, in his correspondence and
with his meetings with Freemasons at Aix-la Chapelle, were a personal
initiative. A Jesuit is never allowed such initiatives. He has behind him the
heads of his order, and I hope to believe, an even more astounding authority.
Actually, far from disavowing such a policy, the [Jesuit journals], “Civita Cattolica” in
That these bilateral talks between the Jesuits and Freemasonry were continuing into the 1980s was confirmed by Fr. John Hardon, S.J. (a personal friend and mentor). [26]
Although these misguided initiatives may well have been inspired by the Jesuit motto, “to go in their door and bring them out ours,” the reverse seems to have occurred, as it also did in the Jesuit rapprochement with Marxist Liberation Theology in the 1970s and 1980s.
While the corrupting inroads of Freemasonry
were certainly not confined to the Jesuits, I have followed this path for two
reasons: First, it was precisely to the Jesuits at the Lyon theologate of La
Fourvière that Père Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. directed his explosive 1946 article, “La
Nouvelle théologie, où-
The second reason for following Jesuit-Masonic interaction
is the tremendous negative influence that Jesuit theologians have exerted on
both the “progressive and “conservative” wings of the post-Conciliar Church.
Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., widely read in anonymous typewritten tracts at La Fourvière, has been and continues to
be the forerunner for the progressives (pantheists): “No Spirit (not even God
within the limits of our experience) exists, nor could structurally exist
without an associated multiple, any more than a center without a circle or circumference.
In a concrete sense there is not matter and spirit. All that exists is matter
becoming spirit.”[28]
While the sui generis theology of
Teilhard de Chardin is officially proscribed, it has had its promoters along
with its detractors in high
Karl Rahner, S.J., one of the most liberal of the Conciliar theologians, is not far behind Teilhard. As quoted by Bernhard Lakebrink in his book, Die Warheit in Bedrangnis, “God and the grace of Christ are in all things, as the secret essence of each reality.... He who accepts his own existence, and thereby his humanity, even though he doesn’t know it, says yes to Christ.”[29]
More disturbing is that two of the La Forvière Jesuits went on to become Cardinals, as well as the leading lights of post-Vatican II “conservative” thought: Henri de Lubac, S.J. and Hans Urs von Balthasar S.J [30] While, to the best of my knowledge, neither of these authors directly cites Masonic sources as such, they both showed interest in the same esoteric foundations of D’Alveydres’ Divine Synarchie and Roca’s neo-gnostic Catholicism based on the Christ-humanity model..
In June of 1950, as de Lubac himself said,
“lightning struck Fourvière.” He was removed from his professorship at Lyon and
his editorship of Recherches de
science religieuse
and required to leave the
Following
the above-mentioned books, de Lubac wrote an elegiac book on the 12th-century
monk and mystic Joachim da Fiore, entitled La
Posterité Spirituelle de Joachim de Flore. In this work, de Lubac speaks, enigmatically
but more or less favorably, of an 1884 speech to the College de France by the Polish historian of Slavonic literature
(Martinist and Freemason) Adam Mickiewicz, on his vision of the future Church:
Christmas. At
St. Peter’s in
“An ecumenism
without boundary stones, with a total opening to the future, still within the
Although
often at odds with de Lubac, von Balthasar, had his own vision of the Church of
the future. In an attempt to analyze the
thought of von Balthasar, I should like to refer to a book, originally
published in German in 1985 by an anonymous author, entitled Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into
Christian Hermeticism, to which von Balthasar wrote a foreword (afterword,
in the English edition). Lack of space prohibits a full treatment of this book,
which deserves a thorough review, but there are some salient quotes that will
give a quite accurate idea of the general tone of the work. The
“anonymous" author presents Gnosticism, Magic, Kabbalah and Hermeticism as
not only compatible, but essential to true Catholic belief. While he quotes St.
Paul and St John the Evangelist and extols the visions of such Catholic mystics
as St. John of the Cross, Theresa of Avila and St. Francis of Assisi, as well
as quoting from St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and St Bonaventure, he gives
equal coverage to the “initiated” Masons cited above: Papus, Louis Claude de
Saint Martin (Martinism), Saint Yves d’Alveydre, the acknowledged Luciferian,
Stanislau de Guaita, the Satanic Magician Elephias Lévy, as well as the
Kabbalistic false Messiah Sabbatai Zevi, Madam Blavatsky, Swami Vivekananda,
Rudolf Steiner, Teilhard de Chardin, Jacob Boehme, Swedenborg, Carl Jung, and a
host of others.
The
general premise of the book – dedicated to the Virgin of Chartres – is that
there is a general cosmic energy labeled egregore
[God] that runs through all religions, as well as Freemasonry.[34]
This unified energy is manifested in duality: light-dark, male-female,
good-evil, etc. which in Hinduism is called Advaita Vedanta, Monism to the
Spinozist, and in the Christian tradition (quoting St. John out of context),
are united by “Love” (p. 32). All spiritual masters enter mystically into this
cosmic spirituality by initiation, understood
as “the state of consciousness where all, eternity and the present moment are
one.”[35]
In this state of consciousness, magical powers are acquired (p. 87). Jesus was
an initiate, as were those who came before him, i.e. the Hebrew Moses and the
Egyptian Hermes Trismejistis, as well as such people as Eliphias Lévi,
Stanislaus de Gauita, and Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, etc. Reincarnation is “simply
a fact of experience” (p. 93), for example, Jesus was aware of his “magical”
powers and the theurgist Monsieur Philip “made himself an instrument of the
divine magic of Jesus Christ” (p. 193). The Holy Trinity is made up of the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit or, Father, Mother, and Son interchangeably. The
cross is the symbol of the marriage of opposites (p. 259) and the Virgin Mary
is “A cosmic entity, Wisdom, the “Virgin of Light of the [Gnostic] Pistis Sophia,… the Shekinah of the Cabbalists. (pp. 547-549, 582)[36]
“The great Many [founder of Manichaeism] taught a synthesis [that] the good
will of the whole of mankind – Pagan, Buddhist and Christian – for a single
concerted and universal effort of yes towards
the eternal spirit and no towards the
things of matter.” (p. 471)
The
author weaves these syncretistic, Gnostic, Kabbalistic and Manichean beliefs
together, while maintaining that all of the above conforms to his orthodox
Catholic Faith. Enough said. This book is a “Marriage of Heaven and Hell,”
giving praise to the minions of darkness alongside the Saints, the final fruit of the Catholic-Masonic
“spiritual” dialogue established to “counteract materialism” by the Jesuits
with Masonic initiates going back at least
to 1907.
Von Balthasar has nothing but praise for this
work. In his forward (German edition)/ afterward (English edition) has the
following to say:
“A thinking, praying Christian of unmistakable purity reveals to us the symbols of Christian Hermeticism in its various levels of mysticism, gnosis and magic, taking in also the Cabbala and certain elements of astrology and alchemy. These symbols are summarized in the twenty-two so-called “Major Arcana” of the Tarot cards. By way of the Major Arcana the author seeks to lead meditatively into the deeper, all-embracing wisdom of the Catholic Mystery.… The Church Fathers understood the myths born from pagan thought and imagination in a quite general way as veiled presentiments of the Logos, Who became fully revealed in Jesus Christ. …in the light of Biblical revelation, but also the “wisdom of the rulers of this world” (I Cor. ii,6), by which he meant the so-called “secret wisdom of the Egyptians” (especially the Hermetic writings supposedly written by “Hermes Trismegistus”. the Egyptian god Thoth). He also had in mind the “astrology of the Chaldeans and Indians. … Above all during the Renaissance, through the continuing influence of these conceptions, the best minds were occupied with accommodating the Jewish magical-mystical Cabbala into the Christian faith. As has now been observed, many of the Church Fathers had already attributed a place of honour among the heathen prophets and wise men to the mysterious Hermes Trismegistus. … Among those who later endeavored to understand these teachings were Reuchlin in Germany, Ficino and especially Pico della Mirandola[37] in Italy, whilst the extraordinary Cardinal Giles of Viterbo (1469-1552) wanted to explain the Holy Scripture with the help of the Cabbala. The Cardinal wrote his ebullient dissertation on the “Shekinah”[38], dedicated to Emperor Charles V.” … The first discussions for or against the secret teachings of the Cabbala go back to the converted or non-converted Spanish Jews of the twelfth century. There are other historical examples analogous to that of the gathering and accommodation of Hermetic and Cabbalistic wisdom into Biblical and Christian thought: above all, the transposition of Chassidism to a modern horizon of thought by Martin Buber (Chassidism is deeply influenced by the Cabbala).”
[While it is certainly true that many in the Church did fall prey to these alien spiritualities during the Renaissance, they were condemned by the Council of Trent, which insisted on the traditional sacramental nature of the Church and the philosophy of St, Thomas Aquinas.]
Professor Von Balthasar continues,. “… However, just as strong in its creative power of transformation is the incorporation of Jacob Boehme’s.[39] Christosophy into the Catholic world-conception by the philosopher Franz von Baader.”
“….A third, less clear-cut transposition will be referred to briefly: that of the ancient magic/alchemy into the realm of depth psychology by C.G. Jung.[40] The author’s “Meditations on the Major Arcana of the Tarot” are in the tradition of the great accomplishments of Pico della Mirandola. and Franz von Baader, but are independent of them.”
“….The mystical, magical, occult tributaries which flow into the stream of his meditations are much more encompassing; yet the confluence of their waters within him, full of movement, becomes inwardly a unity of Christian contemplation. .... Repeated attempts have been made to accommodate the Cabbala and the Tarot Catholic teaching. The most extensive undertaking of this kind was that of Élephias Lévi (the Pseudonyme of Abbé Alphonse-Louis Constant) whose first work (Dogma et ritual de la haute magie) appeared in 1854”.[41] (Fig. 4 )
Von Balthasar ends his afterward with the following words. “….The author is able to enter into all the varieties of the occult science with such sovereignty, because for him they are secondary realities, which are only able to be truly known when they can be referred to the absolute mystery of divine love manifest in Christ. … .” (Emphasis added)
This book,
though little known to the general public, has had a tremendous impact on Post
Vatican II Catholic thought. Following are some reviews as presented on the back
cover of the book itself:
“It is without doubt
the most extraordinary work I have ever read. It has tremendous depth and
insight.” - Trappist Abbot Basil Pennington, OCSO
“It is simply
astonishing. I have never read such a comprehensive account of the “perennial
philosophy.” – Father Bede Griffiths.
“This book, in my
view, is the greatest contribution to date toward the rediscovery and renewal
of the Christian contemplative tradition of the Fathers of the Church and the
High Middle Ages,” - Trappist Abbot Thomas Keating, OCSO
“The book begs not
only to be studied cover to cover, but also to be savored, meditated upon
assimilated into one’s life.” – Richard
One cannot but wonder as to how such obviously brilliant thinkers as De Lubac and von Baltahsar, able defenders of the Faith on so many fronts, could, via their collaboration with the “Enlightened” Brothers in their joint fight against atheistic materialism, fall into a trap that would lead them into accommodating the “Complete God” (Male-Female, Light-Dark, Good-Evil) of Gnosticism, the Kabbalah, and Freemasonry.[42]
While the pitfalls of “materialism”
and “secularism” are to be assiduously avoided, not all that is spiritual leads
us to God. In fact, as
Illustrations
|
Fig. 1
The cover of Albert Mackey’s History of Free Masonry displays the Masonic emblem, a large “Compass & Square,” above and dominating the over-turned,
smaller “Papal Keys” below. |
Fig. 2
The Masonic “Angel
Michael” has a “sun” face and stands to
the left (sinister L. ) – East – in worship of the
Sun-God, “Samael,” ( the Hebrew name for the
Devil), who according to the Kabbalah, will actually be, at the end of
time, one of the 72 names of God |
|
Fig. 3
Hexagram - The
Complete God, By Élephias Levy (light
& Dark) “So as above, so as
below – So as below, so as above”“Demon est Deus Inversus” |
Fig. 4
Baphomet
- The bi-sexual “Horned Goat, or
“Complete God” of Élephias Levy \(signed at
bottom)
|
http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/luciferquotes.html Visited Feb. 2
Appendix 1
19th Century French Occultism
(Some internet biographies, generally favorable, compiled from various
inter related sources)
Elephias Levi
From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia and other sources
Eliphias Lévi, born Alphonse Louis Constant
(February 8, 1810 - May 31, 1875), was a French occult author and
ceremonial magician.[1]
Lévi was the son of a shoemaker
in Paris;
he attended the seminary
of Saint Sulpice and began to study to enter
the Roman
Catholic priesthood.
However, while at the seminary he fell in love, and left without being
ordained. He wrote a number of minor religious works: Des Moeurs et des
Doctrines du Rationalisme en
In 1853, Lévi visited England,
where he met the novelist
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who was interested
in Rosicrucianism as a literary theme and was
the president of a minor Rosicrucian order.[2] Lévi's first treatise on magic
appeared in 1855 under the title "Dogme de la Haute Magie", followed
a year later in 1856, it's companion, "Ritual de la Haute Magie". The
two books were later combined under one book titled Dogme
et Rituel de la Haute Magie , and was translated into English by
Arthur Edward Waite as Transcendental Magic,
its Doctrine and Ritual in 1910. Its famous opening lines present the
single essential theme of Occultism and gives some of the flavor of its atmosphere:
"Behind the veil of all the
hieratic and mystical allegories of ancient doctrines, behind the darkness and
strange ordeals of all initiations, under the seal of all sacred writings, in
the ruins of Nineveh or Thebes, on the crumbling stones of old temples and on
the blackened visage of the Assyrian or Egyptian sphinx, in the
monstrous or marvelous paintings which interpret to the faithful of India the
inspired pages of the Vedas, in the cryptic emblems of our old books on
alchemy, in the ceremonies practiced at reception by all secret societies,
there are found indications of a doctrine which is everywhere the same and
everywhere carefully concealed." (Introduction)
Although famous, the
Introduction was not written until 1861 after the initial success of the first
edition.
Lévi began to write in succession
Historie de la Magie in 1860. The following year in 1861, he published a sequel
to 'Dogme et Ritual', La Clef des Grands Mystères (The Key to the
Great Mysteries). Further magical works by Lévi include Fables et
Symboles (Stories and Images), 1862, "Le Sorciere de
Meudon" ("The Witch of Meudon") 1865, and La Science des
Esprits (The Science of Spirits), 1865. In 1868, he wrote Le
Grand Arcane, ou l'Occultisme Dévoilé (The Great Secret, or Occultism
Unveiled); this, however, was only published posthumously in 1898.
Lévi's version of magic became a
great success, especially after his death. That Spiritualism was popular
on both sides of the
Bibliography
- Des Moeurs et des Doctrines du
Rationalisme en France (Of the Moral Customs and Doctrines of Rationalism in France),
1839
- La Mère de Dieu (The Mother of God), 1844
- L'Evangile du Peuple (The Gospel of the People)
1840
- Le Testament de la Liberté (The Testament of Liberty),
1848
- Dogme et Rituel de la Haute
Magie, (Transcendental
Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual), 1855
- Histoire de la Magie, (The History of Magic), 1860
- La Clef des Grands Mystères (The Key to the Great Mysteries),
1861
- Fables et Symboles (Stories and Images), 1862
- La Science des Esprits (The Science of Spirits),
1865
- Le Grand Arcane, ou l'Occultisme
Dévoilé (The
Great Secret, or Occultism Unveiled), 1868
- Magical Rituals of the Sanctum Regnum, 1892, 1970
- The Book of Splendours: The Inner
Mysteries of Qabalism
LOUIS
CLAUDE DE SAINT-MARTIN
THEOSOPHY, Vol. 26, No. 11,
September, 1938
(Pages 482-488; Size: 20K)
(Number 26 of a 29-part series)
Louis
Claude de Saint-Martin, the "unknown philosopher" of the eighteenth
century, was born in
Paschalis
was a Portuguese gentleman who had travelled extensively in the East and was
known as a Kabalist and Rosicrucian Initiate. Particularly interested in
Masonry, he founded a Masonic Order in
I will not conceal from you that formerly I walked
in this external way. Nevertheless I at all times felt so strong an inclination
to the intimate secret way, that the external way never further seduced me,
even in my youth; for at the age of 23 I had been initiated in all these
things.
In 1775 Saint-Martin published his first book, Des
Erreurs et de la Vérité, par un Philosophe Inconnu. The Masons in
After
travelling in
Immediately
afterward Saint-Martin departed for
Gérard
Encausse (Papus)
(multiple
sources)
Papus
seated in a Martinist Lodge
Gerard Encausse was born at
As a young man, Encausse spent a great deal of
time at the Bibliothèque Nationale studying the Kabbalah,
occult tarot,
magic, alchemy,
and the writings of Eliphias Lévi.
He joined the French Theosophical Society shortly after it was
founded by Madame Blavatsky in 1884 - 1885, but he
resigned soon after joining because he disliked the Society's emphasis on
Eastern occultism. In 1888, he co-founded his own
group, the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix. That same year, he and his
friend Lucien Chamuel founded the Librarie
du Merveilleux and its monthly revue L'Initiation, which remained in
publication until 1914.
Encausse was also a member of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
in Paris, as well as Memphis-Misraim and probably other esoteric or paramasonic
organizations, as well as being an author of several occult books. Outside of
his paramasonic and martinist activities he was also a disciple of the French
spiritualist healer, Anthelme Nizier Philippe, "Maître
Philippe de Lyon".
Despite his heavy involvement in occultism and
occultist groups, Encausse managed to find time to pursue more conventional
academic studies at the University of Paris. He received his Doctor of
Medicine degree in 1894 upon submitting a dissertation on Philosophical
Anatomy. He opened a clinic in the rue Rodin which was quite successful.
Encausse visited Russia three times, in 1901, 1905, and 1906, serving Tsar Nicholas
II and Tsarina Alexandra both as
physician and occult consultant. In October 1905, he allegedly conjured up the
spirit of Alexander III, the Tsar Nicholas's father, who prophesied that the
Tsar would meet his downfall at the hands of revolutionaries. Encausse's
followers allege that he informed the Tsar that he would be able to magically
avert Alexander's prophesy so long as Encausse was alive. Nicholas kept his
hold on the throne of
When World War I broke out, Encausse joined the
French army medical corps. While working in a military hospital, he contracted
tuberculosis and died on October 25, 1916, at the age of 51.
In 1891, Encausse claimed to have come into the
possession of the original papers of Martinez Paschalis, or de Pasqually (c.
1700-1774), and therewith founded an Order of Martinists called l'Ordre des Supérieurs
Inconnus. He claimed to have been given authority in the Rite of Saint-Martin
by his friend Henri Vicomte de Laage, who claimed that his maternal grandfather
had been initiated into the order by Saint-Martin himself, and who had
attempted to revive the order in 1887. The Martinist Order was to become a
primary focus for Encausse, and continues today as one of his most enduring
legacies.
In 1893, Encausse was consecrated a bishop of
l'Église Gnostique de France by Jules Doinel, who had founded this Church
as an attempt to revive the Cathar religion in 1890.
In 1895, Doinel abdicated as Primate of the
In March 1895, Encausse joined the Ahathoor Temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
in
Although Encausse claimed as his "spiritual
master" the mysterious magician and healer known as "le Maitre
Philippe," his first actual teacher in the intellectual aspects of
occultism was the marquis Joseph Alexandre Saint-Yves
d'Alveydre (1842 - 1910). Saint-Yves had inherited the papers of one
of the great founders of French occultism, Antoine Fabre d'Olivet (1762 - 1825), and
it was probably Saint-Yves who introduced Papus to the marquis Stanislas de Guaita (1861 - 1897).
In 1888, Encausse, Saint-Yves and de Guaita joined
with Joséphin Péladan and Oswald Wirth to found the Rosicrucian
Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix.
Encausse never became a regular (Grand Orient) Freemason.
Despite this, he organized what was announced as an "International Masonic
Conference" in
Reuss elevated Encausse as X° of the Ordo Templi Orientis ( “Do whatever you will is the whole of the law”) as well as
giving him license to establish a "Supreme Grand Council General of the
Unified Rites of Ancient and Primitive Masonry for the Grand Orient of France
and its Dependencies at
When John Yarker
died in 1913, Encausse was elected as his successor to the office of Grand
Hierophant (international head) of the Antient and Primitive Rites of Memphis
and Mizraim.
…. (The following is
taken from the web-site Société Périllos , Saunier and the
Occult, by Guy Patton) …
Although not
known by this name until much later, Martinism developed out of the
masonic-affiliated Order of the Elus Cohen founded by Martinez de Pasqually
around 1750. In 1768, Louis Claude de Saint Martin, known as the Unknown
Philosopher, became his secretary and eventually took over the Order after
Pasqually’s death. At this time there was no centralized administration but a
number of independent lodges practicing his system.
Pasqually’s book
“Traite de la Reintegration” explains his belief in the theory of
Reintegration. The central belief being that Man can return to the divine state
that he was assumed to have possessed before the 'Fall’; that is, he can become
closer to God. The system of ritual designed to achieve Reintegration employed
a specific style of magic called “theurgy”. Theurgy was the merging of personal
Will with God’s Will and was called in authentic Martinism `the
Saint-Martin rejected some of Pasqually’s
magical rites, which employed the intercession of spirit beings, as being
medieval, and substituted a more Christ- and God-centred Theurgy that he called
“Magism of God”. The ultimate aim as stated by Saint-Martin was to “restore
order, peace and life in the world”. He further claimed that it was the duty of
the individual to work for Reintegration: a reaffirmation of Pasqually’s
teaching if not his methods. There was a Gnostic dimension summed up by the
belief that Man’s wisdom (Sophia) blossoms when the individual recovers his
`sensitivity’, that is his spirituality which is normally submerged in his
inner darkness. Thus with the progress towards Reintegration came increased
spiritual knowledge: a greater understanding of Man’s divinity and God’s
purpose.
Saint-Martin
died in 1803; there were a number of attempts to reform and although many other
Rose-Croix and esoteric orders were formed at this time, it wasn’t until about
1890 that Martinism itself underwent a major revival in the form of the new
Ordre Martiniste. The Grand Council based in
“As a young man,
Encausse spent a great deal of time at the Bibliothèque Nationale studying the
Qabalah, (Kabbalah) the Tarot, the sciences of magic and alchemy, and the
writings of Eliphas Lévi ". Papus also studied material that came from
Charles Nodier, writer, occultist and chief librarian of the famous Arsenal
Library in 1824. Papus became acquainted with a circle of Gnostics,
Rosicrucians, and 'older' Martinists, all students of the late Eliphas
Levi. His meeting with M Philippe from
So what were the Martinists drawn to Papus, and then to his successors at the head of the Martinist Order, looking for?
It was the one, undivided Church, faithful to the Tradition of the Apostles and
the Fathers of the Church, and possessor and dispenser of the gnosis spoken of
by Clement of Alexandria. Since its origin, such a Church has remained alive in
the East, after having disappeared in the West in the Middle Ages, to the
advantage of Roman Catholicism. That is the “Orthodox Church.” Its providential
return in the West allows Martinists today to once again find an authentic
ecclesiastical practice, in parallel with those who follow the practice of the
few rare Gnostic Churches worthy of this name, where the faithful are often
hardly more numerous than the priests.
An
examination of the Creed of the Eglise Gnostique Universelle at
Extract
from the sermon of H. H. + Johannes Bricaud (Jean II) on the occasion of his
appointment as Patriarch of the
1. - That spoke to us through His mouth and taught us the
Gnosis and the true holy life, so that we shall be free from slavery of the
Demiurges and their earthly Archons, and as he made our return to the pneumatic
World from which we came possible, where He returned after his death.
2. - We believe in the Third Aspect of the Trinity, Life, which follows from
the Father as from the Son, and reveals itself in the Pneuma-Agion, the Holy
Ghost.
3. - Who gives us joy in life, and leads us on the Path of Truth and Holiness,
who unites all beings, who is worshipped in the Father as in the Son.
4. - We believe in a Pneumatic Universe, immeasurable Church of the Spirit, as
old as God Himself, and older than the Material [hylic] Universe, where our
globe finds itself as but a colony in the Perisphere, whereon we men descend as
spirits.
5. - We profess the two Baptisms, and the three other Mysteries of the
purification and conversion of mankind.
Amen.
Thus
we can see the attraction of Martinism and the
The one aspect of political philosophy common to these [esoteric] societies, movements and people, is their unswerving belief in Tradition and Hierarchy as the necessary path to social order.
This
focus on tradition was typified in the Rose-Croix Orders of Josephin Peladan,
who we must recall was a member of the original Martinist Grand Council under
Papus. Peladan had completed his
education in
In
1892, Peladan organised the first of his annual Salons de la Rose-Croix in
which his version of traditionalist art, closely linked to that of the
symbolist movement, was to be vigorously promoted. We know exactly what he approved
of from his own writings, including a set of rules to be rigidly adhered to. It
is clearly stated that Catholic Dogma and symbolism is to be given priority,
even if the execution was imperfect. He believed that the Catholic Church had
become a repository for ancient wisdom that could be rediscovered in its
symbolism. Although at times his writings verged on heresy, and some of his
former Rose-Croix Orders were later condemned for becoming overly influenced by
eastern mysticism, Peladan himself managed to escape censure by the Church.
However, in his mind, Peladan considered himself to be more Catholic than the apparently
liberal voices in the
A frequent visitor to Peladan’s salons was the composer Claude Debussy, a friend of the great esoteric writer, Stephane Mallarme, and other leading occultists. Following a break from Peladan in 1893, Antoine de Rochefoucauld set up a review and appointed a known satanist, Jules Bois, as editor.
Bois had a reputation as a Black Magician but was also closely connected with other notable occultists who claimed to be traditionalist Catholics and supporters of the Naundorff claim to the Monarchy.
But how can we reconcile the association of a so-called Black Magician with the world of Catholic Traditionalists?
Satanists (Black Magicians) are often confused with
Luciferians, the terms often erroneously being interchanged. Luciferians form
part of a tradition known as Promethian. Many of them recognized Christ as one
of the prophets in the sense that Christos (Greek) equates to Lucifer (Latin)
which signifies the “Bringer of Light”. Lucifer is to Luciferians the prophet
who will reveal the true message of the sacred texts (Gospels), obscured and
distorted by the Roman Catholic Church. This belief could well be seen as a
form of Gnosticism rather than the more popular perception of Devil worship. A
conclusion confirmed in the writings of the poet Stanislas da Guaita, who in
1887 had founded the Rosicrucian Cabalistic Order with Peladan and Papus. His
works show him to be a Gnostic but he also wrote about Satan and Black Magic.
It is surely no coincidence that the upside-down cross had been adopted by
French Catholic Occultists in representation of not only the martyrdom of St
Peter but more importantly, of the inner teachings/tradition of the Church. –
And key amongst these Catholic occultists was Eugene Vintras. A professed Catholic,
he formed his own
When
Vintras died in 1875 the Abbé Boullan, a defrocked priest, became his successor
at
His own writings show that Boullan was participating in depraved sexual activity that was found to be unacceptable to most of the occult world. In fact after a meeting with Boullan in 1886, Peladan’s colleague, da Guiata, reported that he (Boullan) had fallen deeply into error. But despite his reputation for sexual and other bizarre practices, Boullan is best known for his “Law of Sacred Regeneration”, which is more or less identical to the theory of Reintegration found at the heart of Martinism.
Boullan’s biographer, Joanny Bricaud, wrote “Since the Fall from grace resulted
from an illicit act of love, the Redemption of Humanity can only be achieved
through acts of love accomplished in a religious manner”. It was believed that “guilty love
must be combated through pure love, through a sexual approach, but in a
heavenly manner, to the spirits in order to raise onself: this is the union of
wisdom”. (Emphasis added –
H.R.A.- the “Sacred Sex” of Paganism, and the same concept as Zivug ha kadosh of the Kabalists )
Interestingly in 1908, Bricaud was appointed patriarch of the
So
we have seen that at their heart, Martinism, the
Is it not possible that they were imitating the ultimate relationship, as suggested in the Gnostic Gospels, that of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, His most beloved disciple and the repentant sinner?”
Bibliography
Symbolist Art Edward Lucie-Smith, Thames & Hudson,
1972 (1986)
The Occult Chambers Compact Reference, trans from French 1991
Dictionary of Art & Artists Peter & Linda Murray, Penguin, 1959 (1973)
The Rosy-Cross Unveiled, Christopher McIntosh, Aquarian 1980
Occult symbolism in France Robert Pincus-Witten, 1976
The Occult Establishment James Webb, 1976
Stanislas de Guaita
(Composite from different sources)
Stanislas de Guaita (6 April 1861 - 19 December 1897) was a
French poet based in Paris, an expert on esotericism
and European mysticism,
and an active member of the Rosicrucian Order. He was very celebrated and
successful in his time. He was an expert on magic and occultism. He had many disputes with
other people who were involved with occultism and magic. Occultism and magic
formed part of his novels.
De Guaita became interested in
occultism after reading a novel by Joséphin Péladan which was interwoven with
Rosicrucian and occult themes. In
In 1888, de Guaita founded the
Cabalistic Order of the Rose Croix. The
Rosicrucian Order is a legendary and secretive Order that was first publicly
documented in the early 17th century. Guaita's Rosicrucian Order provided
training in the Kabbalah
, an esoteric form of Jewish mysticism, which attempts to reveal hidden
mystical insights in the Hebrew Bible and divine nature. The order also
conducted examinations and provided university degrees on Kabbalah related topics He was nicknamed the
"Prince of the Rosicrucian" by his contemporaries for his broad
learning on Rosicrucian issues.
In the late 1880s, the Abbé Boullan,
a defrocked Catholic Priest and the head of a schismatic branch called the
“Church of the
By the 1890s, de Guaita, Papus,
and Péladan’s collaboration became increasingly strained by disagreements over
strategy and doctrines. Guaita and Papus lost the support of Péladan, who left
to start a competing order. De Guaita died in 1897 at the age of 36 of a drug
overdose.
Recently (March 2010) a Masonic
Lodge in
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Some writings by Stanislas de Guaita
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KABBALAH
Introduction
The Kabbalah centres on a complex
scheme of numerical symbolism and esoteric theology, influenced by
neo-Platonism, Hermetic literature and perhaps Sufism. It is elaborate and
bizarre, and sometimes seems as complex as Greek mythology. Kabbalists often
insist that the schemes are not meant literally: they are symbols of a
spiritual reality that is beyond human comprehension. Yet the detailed
discussion of the sefirot and the diagrams of their links often get so complex
and artificial that the word "Cabala" came to be a synonym for
obscurity and secrecy.
Underlying everything is Ein Sof,
the infinite, indefinable origin of all things, the cause of causes. Ein
Sof is often seen not as an old man with
a white beard, not as a personal God at all, but as an impersonal,
unnamable Being without qualities, thoughts or feelings, very similar to
Lao Tzu's Tao or Meister Eckhart's "simple
ground" beyond God. Everything
is one, nothing exists but the one divine being. This position is also very
similar to that of the Sufi philosopher Ibn Al'arabi.
The idea is sometimes so strongly
expressed that it seems pantheistic, yet there is still the insistence that
though everything that exists is God and is in God, God extends infinitely
beyond that. In this sense the kabbalah is panentheistic rather than truly
pantheistic.
(Paul Harrison,
World Pantheist Movement)
Selected passages.
Translations are
from Daniel Matt, The Essential Kabbalah, Castle Books,
Non-duality:
nothing exists but Ein Sof, the endless.
The essence of divinity is found in every single
thing - nothing but it exists. Since it causes every thing to be, no thing can
live by anything else. It enlivens them; its existence exists in each existent.
Do not attribute duality to God. Let God be solely God. If you suppose that Ein
Sof emanates until a certain point, and that from that point on is
outside of it, you have dualized. God forbid! Realize, rather, that Ein Sof
exists in each existent. Do not say "This is a stone and not God."
God forbid! Rather, all existence is God, and the stone is a thing pervaded by divinity.
Moses Cordovero, Shi'ur Qomah.
Before
anything emanated, there was only Ein Sof. Ein Sof was all that existed.
Similarly after it brought into being all that exists, there is nothing but it.
You cannot find anything that exists apart from
it . . . God is everything that exists,
though everything that exists is not God. It is present in everything, and everything
comes into being from it. Nothing is devoid of its divinity. Everything is
within it; it is within
everything and outside of everything. There is nothing but it. -- Moses Cordovero, Elimah Rabbati.
Everything
is linked
Everything is catenated in its mystery, caught in its oneness . . . The
entire chain is one. Down to the last link, everything is linked with
everything else, so divine essence is below as well as above, in heaven and
earth. There is nothing else. - Moses de Leon, Sefer ha-Rimmon.
God's presence maintains all things
Nothing is outside of God. This applies . . . to everything that exists,
large and small - they exist solely through the divine energy that flows to
them and clothes itself in them. If God's gaze were withdrawn for even a
moment, all existence would be nullified . . . Contemplating this, you are
humbled, your thoughts purified. -- Moses Cordovero, Or Yaqar.
Creation conceals and reveals God
When powerful light is concealed and clothed in a
garment, it is revealed. Though concealed, the light is actually revealed, for
were it not concealed, it could not be revealed. This is like wishing to gaze
at the dazzling sunn. Its dazzle conceals it, for you cannot look at its
overwhelming brilliance. Yet when you conceal it - looking at it through
screens - you can see and not be harmed. So it is with emanation: by concealing
and clothing itself, it reveals itself. -- Moses Cordovero, Pardes Rimmonim.
Ein Sof is beyond understanding or expression
Ein Sof cannot be conceived, certainly not
expressed, though it is intimated
in every thing, for there is nothing outside of it. No letter, no name, no writing, no thing can
confine . . . Ein Sof has no will,
no intention, no desire, no thought, no speech, no action - yet there
is nothing outside of it. Azriel of
According to Gershom Scholem, the world’s
greatest authority on the subject Kabbalah, simply stated, is a form of
Gnosis that underlies certain "Jewish mystical theology." The
Fundamental tenets of Kabbalah, according to Scholem, are as follows:
"Over and above disagreements on specific details that tend to reflect
different stages in the Kaballah's historical development, there exists a basic
consensus among kabalists on man's essential nature...At opposite poles, both
man and God encompass within their being the entire cosmos. However, whereas God
contains all by virtue of being its Creator and Initiator in whom everything is
rooted and all potency is hidden, man's role is to complete this process by
being the agent through whom all the powers of creation are fully activated and
made manifest. What exists seminally in God unfolds and develops in man…
Because he alone has been granted the gift of free will, it lies in his power
to either advance or disrupt through his actions the unity of what takes place
in the upper and lower worlds... his principal mission is to bring about Tikkun
Olam or restoration of this world and to connect the lower with the
upper." 1. The concept of tikkun, or
restoration, involves the problem of evil, and again according to Scholem,
"the root of evil resides within the Ein-Sof (hidden God)
itself." Evil, therefore, for the kabalist is simply the sitra ahra
or "emanation of the left" and at the end of time, through the
process of man's work of tikkun even the devil, "Samael will
become Sa'el, one of the 72 holy Names of God". ... "In Greek
this is called apokatasis (sic)"..."To use the neoplatonic
(Plotinus) formula, the creation involves the departure of all from the one and
its return to the one." 2.
A Brief History
Although many adepts claim that the Kabbalah,
or secret oral tradition, goes back to Moses or even Adam, Scholem places its
practical beginnings in the
Once again, according to Scholem, the development
of Kabbalah was coeval with Hellenistic syncretic religion and
Gnosticism. Both Hellenistic Gnosis and Rabbinical Gnosis were based on the
theory that there are spiritual emanations of God (Aeons and Archons
for the Greek, Sephirot for the Hebrew) which fill the primordial
cosmos. These, if properly understood and harnessed lead back to the deity.
Historically, the esoteric teachings contained in the Kabbalah passed
from such groups as the Essenes, or
The influence of the Kabbalah on segments
of Christian thinking has flourished since the Renaissance. It was openly
quoted in the works of such influential thinkers as Pico della Mirandola,
Johannes Reuchlin, Agrippa of Nettesheim, Cardinal Egidio da Viterbo, the
Franciscan Friar, Francesco Giorgio of
The Doctrine –
Dialectical Monism
In a much simplified exposition of the basic Kabalistic doctrine, all begins with Ein-Soph ( alt. Ayn- Soph, En-Soph) the infinite, or literally without measure. Like the Gnostic "God beyond god" or Pleroma, it contains within its essence both the active and passive ( male and female, good and evil) principles in their full potential. In the beginning, before there was anything, the eternal source, Ein-Soph contracted itself within and then filled the subsequent void with emanations of its own essence. This contraction and expansion is called the Zimzum. (See: Fig. 1,(Left) Illustrations - following the text)
According to the Zohar (Book of Splendor), what was engraved first on the void were the words: "Let there be light." in the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Subsequently, El Gadol (Great God) emerged from the primal ether on the right as the masculine principle and Elohim (Darkness) emerged on the left as the feminine principle. Then appeared the actual "Light" signifying "that the Left was included in the Right and the Right in the Left." 9. From the initial point of light streamed forth, in concentric circles, ten mystical numbers or paths known as Sephiroth. The names of these Sephiroth are as follows: Keter (Crown); Binah (Intelligence); Hokmah (Wisdom) Gevurah (Justice); Gedullah (Greatness); Tiferet (Beauty); Hod (Honor); Nezah (Victory); Yesod (Foundation); and Malkhut (Kingdom). These Sephiroth would come to form Adam Kadmon the celestial archetypal man.
Fig. 1
Adam
Kadmon
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The Kabbalistic representation of left and right is
confusing. If Adam Kadmon is facing
the onlooker then Binah, Gevurah
and Hod should be masculine as they
correspond to his right side and Hokhmah,Gedulah
and Netash„ should be feminine
as on the left. The Kabbalah
unanimously reverses this polarity in its exoteric or official writings.
There are two possible solutions to this problem. One is that we are
contemplating Adam Kadmon from his
back side or two; that a certain confusion is maintained on purpose to baffle
the uninitiated. As the study of the Kabbalah
has historically been reserved for the few, the latter option is more likely
the case |
This was not the Adam of the Bible but a
cosmic prototype for all of reality akin to the Neo-Platonic Demiurge.
The Sephiroth may also be displayed as the descending Azilut –"emanations"
- which form the "Tree of Life." (Fig. 2 –6, Illustrations)
The first three Sephiroth: Keter (Crown); Binah (Intelligence); and Hokhma (Wisdom) received the "Light" and contained it. (See the three faces in the diagram above) Thus the divine essence is preserved in a tripartite interrelationship, or immanent "Trinity" within the mind of Adam Kadmon, the macrocosm and within the mind of individual man, the microcosm. The following seven Sephiroth could not contain the light and shattered, forming shards of coagulated energy (matter) called Kelippot. Again, following the Neo-platonic or Gnostic doctrine, the farther the Sephirah lies from the center, the denser the matter. Malkhuth, therefore, as farthest away from the center, forms the earthly kingdom or the feet of Adam Kadmon. (See again: Fig.1, )
Through the break up of the Sephiroth, the equilibrium and unity of God has been destroyed. The "light" and the "dark" of the primal Light have been separated and it is the obligation of man to re-establish both his own inner unity or wholeness and the wholeness of God. To accomplish this project called Tikkun, The Jewish people as Knesset Israel have the predominant role. According to the Kabbalah, from the earliest Spanish manuscripts onward, the Jewish race has seen itself as the representative of the Shekhinah, ** (see below) the feminine principle split off from God, reminiscent of the Gnostic Sophia. 10. According to kabalistic (Hasidic) Tradition it is said: "Just because of this split, God needs man, whose task it is to reunite the riven opposites within the divine personality itself. From this point of view the exile of the Jewish people receives deep and special meaning. For this exile of the people corresponds in the `upper world, so to speak, to an exile of the Shekinah (supposed feminine half of God) who went into exile with them. The return of the Jewish people from exile therefore means, in Jewish mysticism, the redemption of the Jewish people; it is above all an earthly image, and likeness of an inner-divine drama of redemption, of the homecoming of the Shekhina to God... So while man needing redemption strives to restore the disturbed world order, he is at the same time working toward the redemption of God and his union with the Shekhinah and thus toward the restoration and realization of the wholeness of God." 11. A tradition also holds that the final Masiach, messiah, who will achieve Tikkun Olam, concordia discors or "world harmony," will be a manifestation of the Shekinah, i.e., female.
Within the overall historical perspective and purpose of the Kabbala i.e. the ultimate complete unity of God and creation, there are two fundamental problems to be resolved. First is the relationship of the individual human being to God and second the problem of evil.
For the Kabalistic initiate, while awaiting the
final restoration of history, there are various techniques available for
personal spiritual development. One is meditation on the mysteries of the Sephiroth
called Kavvanah and another involving numerology is called Gematria.
The technique of Kavvanah involves mental concentration on the combinations
of the sacred names which pave the way for ecstatic union with the divine
source, Metatron, (alternately known as the prince of God's countenance,
Prince of this world, Angel of light, or ones own true self). 12. This union is mystically known as Zivvug
ha-Kadosh, or coupling face to face, which is said to produce an internal
harmony of the restrictive (passive) powers of Din and the out flowing
(active) powers of Rahanim. Once again one finds Concordia Discors,
or Coincidentia Oppositorum, the fusion of opposites as object of the
endeavor. 13.
Seen in this light, the parallel between Kabbalah and the Eastern Religions is quite obvious. It is, of course, the resolution in harmony of the passive Yin and the active Yang according to the Tao which produces the "enlightened" state where "all duality merges into oneness, a noble path that leads to contentment and peace." 14. In reality, according to Gershom Scholem, "the Techniques of `prophetic Kabbalah' that were used to aid the ascent of the soul, such as breathing exercises, the repetition of the Divine Names, and meditation on colors, bear a marked resemblance to those of both Indian Yoga and Muslim Sufism." 15. Gematria on the other hand, involves the belief that the Hebrew alphabet is the first emanation of Ayn-Sof and that the arrangement of these 22 letters, according to their numerical value, make up the seventy-two sacred names of the All Holy as well as the cosmos. Gematria can be used for the concordance of Biblical texts and messianic prophecy as well as in calling up spirits. 16. This latter property may be employed, at least in theory, both for good and for evil. The manipulator of spirits, (good or evil) is called a Ba’al Shem or master of the divine names. 17. According to legend, in the 16th century, Rabbi Loewe used Gematria to create a fearsome creature called the Golem to protect the Prague Ghetto.
The problem of evil for the Kabalistic is
complex, as, if all comes from and is contained in the Ayn Sof, what man
calls evil must be intrinsic to the divine nature. What is it, then, in the
divine nature that may be called "evil"? Once again, according to
Scholem: "The determining factor is the estrangement of created
things from their source of emanation, a separation which leads to
manifestations of what appears to us to be the power of evil. But the other
[evil] has no metaphysical reality ... outside the structure of the Sephiroth
... the Sepher Gevurah as `the left hand of the Holy One blessed be He,'
and as `a quality whose name is evil' … has many offshoots in the forces of
judgement, the constricting and limiting powers of the universe"
Cutting through the flowery rhetoric, it would appear that Evil, for the Kabalist, is any force that restricts or limits (divine) human freedom and creativity. It [evil] reverts to that part of God which is designated, " Pure judgment, untempered by any mitigating admixture, [which has] produced from within itself the sitra ahra (the other side)… The `emanation of the left.' " 18. According to Nathan of Gaza, the grand apologist of 17th century Shabbetean Kabbalah The first light was entirely active [creative] and the second light entirely passive [restrictive] immersed in the depths of itself. "The root of evil is a principle within the Ayn-Soph itself which holds itself aloof from creation and seeks to prevent the forms of light which contain thought from being actualized, not because it is evil by nature but only because its whole desire is that nothing should exist apart from Ayn-Soph." For the Kabalistic, of whatever school, neither good nor evil, exist as such. Whatever meaning there is to existence involves Tikkun or the restoration of harmony and balance between the forces of expansive light and restrictive darkness until all is once again absorbed in the Ayn-Soph.
These speculations, it seems, are the inevitable result of dialectic opposition in a monistic system. The argument is as follows: If the universe is an overflowing or projection of God, (See Plotinus Ennead 5) and the universe contains what man calls "evil," then "evil" is contained in the nature of God. If, however, God is all good, then evil is not evil, it is but the dark side or foil of good. There is, in fact, no other possible logical solution to the problem of evil in a universe produced by emanation rather than creation from nothing. As man develops his own inner divine potential (individually and collectively) as an emanation of God there must be a balance of the progressive and the restrictive within the person and society to attain the ideal. This was, of course, the "enlightenment" proposed by Leibnitz in his Théodicée. 19. This form of thinking has impacted Western thought from the 16th century to the present.
In terms of eschatology, the imanentist theology
of the Kabbalah must inevitably lead to the doctrine of Apokatastasis
the reintegration of all spiritual emanations, active and passive,
"good" and "evil," into the divinity at the end of time. If
God is all, then God can not leave part of himself out side of himself forever.
This is precisely what the Kabbalah predicts with its doctrine of Tikkun
Olam. After myriad reincarnations, the souls of all men, * as well as
of angels and demons, will form once again the unity of God. As the forces of
creative light expand in man and dark judgment is absorbed, so also shall it be
with God. It is even said that the Arch Devil Samael will be transformed
at time's end to Sa’el one of the 72 holy Names of God.20
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*It should be noted that there is some dispute
among Kabalistic as to whether all sons of Adam or only Jews have within them
the "divine spark" or Neshama which would allow
re-incorporation to the Ein-Sof. According to the Zohar, only
Jewish people come from the "holy side" or sitra di-kedusha
from which the divine spark proceeds. Non Jewish people are products of the
"other side" or sitra ahra and do not have the
"divine" neshama but only the animal soul called nefesh
and a spirit of cognitive ability called the ruah. 21.
_ ** The word Shekinah, simply said, does not appear in the Hebrew Bible. The term MiShKaN, from which the word Shekinah is derived, refers to the Sanctuary in the wilderness not the being who dwells therein. As Feminist Hebrew scholar/Rabbi, Lynn Gottlieb in her book, She Who Dwells Within, points out, "The word Shekinah first appears in the Mishna and Talmud (ca 200 CE), where it is used interchangeably with WHVH and Elohim as names of God…. By 1000 CE, the very mythologies so suppressed in the Bible erupted in the heart of Jewish mysticism, known as the Kabul, and Shekinah became YHVH’ wife, lover and daughter." This word only entered into common usage among Jewish thinkers in Medieval Spain where "Kabalistic" (Gnostic) mysticism took root from the writings of Moses de Leon in the Sefer ha-Zohar or Book of Splendor (c. 1280 AD).
As explained by Daniel Matt in his Essential Kabbalah, "In
Kabbalah, Shekhinah becomes full-fledged She: …the feminine half of God."
This doctrine spread through Southern Europe to
An interesting addendum is that of Polish "convert" from Judaism to
Catholicism, Jacob Frank. Frank first claimed himself to be the Messiah in
Poland in 1756 as part of a Kabalistic Trinity made up of Attika Kadisha
(The Holy Ancient One), Melika Kadisha ( The Holy King –Messiah),
and the Shekhinah (feminine earthly half of the divinity). As he
was persecuted by the Orthodox Jewish community for his bizarre faith and
orgiastic initiations, he and many of his followers came into the Catholic
Church precisely to introduce a feminine, or earthly, element, the Shekhinah,
into the Christian Trinity under the guise of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
(Secretly present in his own daughter Eva, but to be made manifest in the last
days as a ultimate feminine Messiah) 22
NOTES
1. Gershom Scholem, Kaballah (New York: Dorset Press:1974) p.226,227
2. Ibid., 126-128, 227
3.Gershom Scholem Kabbalah (New York, Dorset Press, 1987) p. 3 -
5. The
- Ibid. pp. 5-12
- Ibid. Pp. 8-22 The book of Genesis, for example, is treated as an esoteric explanation of the entrapment of the soul in matter in its descent from the world of Azilut into the world of creation Beriah and the book of Exodus, by contrast, begins the work of liberation and re-ascent of the soul to the spiritual order.
- N.B. ibid. 284, 327 - 332 According to Scholem, after the false Messiah, Shabbetai Zevi converted to Islam in 1666 many of his followers (known as Doenmeh – apostates) did so as well. According to the 18th C. Polish Shabbatean, Jacob Frank, the raison d’être of these conversions would appear to be as follows: "under the `burden of silence' the true believer, who has God in his secret heart, should go through all religions, all rites, and established orders without accepting any and indeed annihilating all from within and thereby establishing true freedom. Organized religion is only a cloak to be put on and thrown away on the way to the `sacred knowledge,' the gnosis of the place where all traditional values are destroyed in the stream of `life'." In this regard it should be noted that the Doenmeh indulged in orgiastic sexual activity especially during the spring festival Hag ha-Keves. Scholem also acknowledges that this movement influenced the universal upheavals of the eighteenth century as for-runner of the Enlightenment, Jacobinism and Freemasonry. He cites as some of the acknowledged Doenmeh of history: the majority of Kemal Ataturk's `Young Turk' movement and the founder of Polish Messianism, the poet Adam Mickiewicz.
- Ibid. pp. 197 – 201
- Albert Pike .Morals and Dogma of Free Masonry (Charleston, Southern Jurisdiction Publication, 1871) pp.581-800
- The Zohar I Sperling
and Simon, trans. p. 70, cit. June Singer Androgyny Toward a New Theory
of Sexuality (New York: Anchor, 1977) p. 153 N.B. This concept
is fundamental to understanding of the Kabbalah as thus can be seen the
initial mixing of light and darkness, male and female, good and evil as
the initial act of the "One God," and the Kabalist can pronounce
with impunity the traditional Jewish Shema –"Shema Ysrael Adonai
Elehenu, Adonai Ehad" "The Lord is God, The Lord is One."
- Scholem pp. 88 –168
- Siegmund Hurwitz Psychological Aspects of Early Hasidic Literature Timeless Documents of Soul (Evanston, IL: North Western University Press, 1968) pp. 202 - 203 cit. Singer, p. 160
- Scholem p. 180
- Ibid. pp. 141, 143, 161, 162,, 167, 194
- Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai The Teaching of Buddha (Tokyo, Japan,1970 ) p. 62
- Ibid. p. 125, See also Malcolm Godwin Angels, An Endangered Species (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990) entry for Metatron pp. 59 –61
- Scholem p. 180
- Ibid. pp. 337 – 343
- Ibid. p. 310
- Ibid. p. 127
- Ibid. p. 128
- Bid. Pp. 156 – 157
- Genesis 1:1-2 "Berishit Barra Elohim" "In the beginning God created the heavens and earth…" The verb barra in Hebrew means to create from nothing. It is only used for the divine act at the beginning of time. From this Biblical account comes the traditional orthodox Jewish version of creation called Torah di – Beriah as opposed to the Kabalistic Torah de Azilut or world of emanations. In both traditional Jewish and Christian theology, God is worshipped as a personal, omnipotent, omniscient, creator who is other than his creation. For the Roman Catholic, the formula may be stated as follows: "(Deus) … est re et essentia a mundo distinctus, et super omnia praeter ipsum sunt aut concippi posunt ineffabiliter excelsus."Vatican I caps. I, ca 1-4) "(He …is really and essentially distinct from the world...and ineffably raised above all things which are outside of Himself or which can be conceived as being so."
- Scholem, p. 302