Printed in the Summer 2023 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Johnson, Zane, "The French Connection: Louis Claude de Saint-Martin and the Martinist Tradition" Quest 111:3, pg 38-40
By Zane Johnson
In the blue light of today’s multimedia landscape, nothing, not even the so-called occult, is secret. The once high arts of esoteric tradition have become household items. We have seen television series on formerly remote occult figures, and the sigils of Solomonic grimoires are routinely displayed in horror films.
Yet the mystique of the occult in the modern media machine has reproduced only the shells of the Western tradition’s living symbols. At this point, we must find a deeper connection to our heritage. In my view, that can come from the European continent: a French connection, the subterranean stream upon which the modern Anglophone tradition rests.
I am referring to Martinism, the West’s own way of the heart. Though named after the French mystic Louis Claude de Saint-Martin (1743‒1803), its roots go back a few centuries further and cross the eastern border into Germany in the works of Christian theosophists Jacob Boehme, Paracelsus, and the original Rosicrucian manifestos. I will briefly review the landmarks along the mighty stream of the Martinist tradition and argue that a reengagement with this tradition is vital to rediscovering ourselves on the path of the adepts.
Louis Claude de Saint-Martin was born to a noble family in Amboise, Touraine, France in 1743. He begrudgingly trained in law before accepting a military commission as a lieutenant, which he just as quickly abandoned for the life of a bourgeois renunciate. While on tour, he was taken under the wing of Martinez de Pasqually (1727?‒1774), a Spanish-born Frenchman of possibly Sephardic Jewish heritage (although Saint-Martin said he was Portuguese).
Though little is known of Pasqually, he has been acknowledged as a Christian adept using a theurgic method—that is, ceremonial magic—to achieve reintegration with God. He is described by the British occultist A.E. Waite (1857‒1942) as “an initiate of the Rose Cross, a transfigured disciple of Swedenborg, and the propagator and Grand Sovereign of a rite of Masonic Illuminism which probably was of his own foundation, namely, the Order of the Elect Cohens” (Waite, 22). The latter refers to the Ordre des Chevaliers Maçons Élus Coëns de l’Univers (Order of Knight-Masons Elect Priests of the Universe), known as the Élus Coëns, which Pasqually founded in 1767.
Pasqually’s organization was unusual among the occult societies of the period in that it was Roman Catholic in character and intention. As Jason Louv argues in his masterful John Dee and the Empire of Angels, the Western esoteric tradition has largely been a Protestant one, with Masonic lodges springing up to fill the void left by the violent exit of Catholic holy orders in England and parts of Germany (Louv, 30‒35).
Yet Pasqually’s order displays a harmonious continuity of ancient tradition, both Hermetic and Christian, with the innovation of lodge style Masonry and magic. It embraced the rigorous purity of the Solomonic grimoires, insisting on the regular observance of the Eucharist and adherence to the doctrines of the Roman Catholic church. Nevertheless, its theology approximated a Hebraic emanationism, beginning with God’s first emanation of spirits and their seduction by Satan, and going on to humanity’s abnegation of its redemptive work on this plane, and through to the operations of the Hebrew patriarchs to restore humans to their first estate, which, Pasqually held, was fulfilled in the advent of the Christ.
Man’s initial task, according to Pasqually, was to educate the first spirits who turned from God after succumbing to the temptation of the dark powers. However, man himself fell victim to this seduction and attempted to usurp the power of the Creator for himself, seeking to create only from his own reserves of energy, abnegating his godlike power as steward of the universe and becoming a slave to it in a material body. Martinist texts refer to this as the “prevarication.” Once exiled, Adam begins an operative work of reconciliation that is disrupted by his progeny in the slaying of Abel. It proceeds onwards down the line of the prophets, who performed their exorcisms of the material plane despite the caprice of fallen humanity, which inevitably deepened the bondage to materiality. This image of involution and evolution is easily recognizable to students of Theosophy: wisdom’s first deprivation in duality, its secondary purification through performance of the Great Work, and the resultant nondual union with God that was and is and will be forever.
What void was Pasqually’s order and its successors trying to fill? The disruptions posed by the Reformation, which were to a certain extent antagonistic to mysticism, were not felt in France nearly to the same degree as in the Anglophone world. The void was likely caused by waning confidence in the Catholic church itself, particularly after the French Revolution of 1789, leading to more heterodox explorations—though paradoxically within the symbolic language of Rome.
Saint-Martin, after rising through the ranks of his master’s Élus Coëns, broke with both the theurgic tradition of the former and what Saint-Martin deemed to be “churchism”: the deadly formalism of religious ritual devoid of religious feeling. He advocated a way of the heart, a completely internal path to reintegration. Though not categorically rejecting the theurgic way of ceremonial magic, he opted for the contemplative path, to seek man’s reintegration with his first estate wholly within. It is worth quoting Saint-Martin at length on this point:
The only initiation which I preach and seek with all the ardour of my soul, is that by which we may enter into the heart of God, and make God’s heart enter into us, there to form an indissoluble marriage, which will make us the friend, brother, and spouse of our divine Redeemer. There is no other mystery, to arrive at this holy initiation, than to go more and more down into the depths of our being, and not let go till we can bring forth the living vivifying root, because then all the fruit which we ought to bear, according to our kind, will be produced within us and without us, naturally; as we see is the case with our earthly trees, because they are adherent to their own roots, and incessantly draw in their sap. (Saint-Martin, 304)
Saint-Martin’s efforts were renewed by his encounter with the works of the “Teutonic philosopher” Jacob Boehme (1575‒1624), the great fount of Christian theosophy. Saint-Martin’s professed spiritual project was “marrying our first school”—that is, Pasqually’s—“to friend Boehme” (Saint-Martin, 259).
Though Saint-Martin conferred simple initiations in his lifetime, the actual Martinist Order was established in 1884 by the French occultist Papus (Gérard Encausse; 1865‒1916). The order’s Masonic three-degree structure had been preserved by Saint-Martin’s classmate in his “first school”—Jean-Baptiste Willermoz (1730‒1824), who reconstituted the Rectified Scottish Rite of continental Freemasonry under the theurgical framework of Pasqually’s Élus Coëns, with an addition of Templar mysticism. These are the three great luminaries of the Martinist tradition, which combines the esoteric chivalry of Willermoz, the theurgy of Pasqually, and Saint-Martin’s way of the heart. Different orders have emphasized different aspects of this triune heritage. Although some have emphasized theurgy, most place Saint-Martin’s way of the heart at the center.
Much of the obscurity of the Martinist tradition in the English-speaking world is simply due to a lack of good translations. Compounding this difficulty is the fact that Martinez de Pasqually himself was not a native French speaker, so his original writings have the added obfuscation of being written in the author’s second language. Willermoz’s works are practically unavailable in English. Saint-Martin has fared better, largely thanks to the scholarly efforts of A.E. Waite, who has provided readable English translations of his major works. The inspiration for the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, to which Waite belonged, doubtless came from its founders’ contacts with the French fin de siècle occult scene. There are even rumors that the founders of two Anglo-Saxon Neopagan revivals, Druidry and Wicca, were Martinists.
Soon after its founding, the ecclesial wing of the Martinist Order became incorporated in the Gnostic Church, constituted in 1890 by Jules Doinel (1842‒1902), which provided a unifying framework for the disparate esoteric currents. This organization was founded when Doinel, by his own account, conducted a ritual in which the spirit of Guilhabert de Castres, a bishop of the persecuted Cathar sect of the Middle Ages, and forty other high bishops communicated a message to him: “We came to you from the most distant of the two Empyrean circles. We bless you. That the principle of good, God, be eternally praised and blessed, glorified and adored. Amen. We came to you, our dear ones. You Valentin will establish the Assembly of the Paraclete and you will call it the Gnostic Church” (Churton, 350). Doinel was then consecrated as Tau Valentin, the first bishop of the Gnostic Church. Though it is still an obscure tradition in the Anglophone world, this structure of ecclesial Gnosticism and the clandestine workings of the Martinist Order has remained largely intact and has been duplicated by those who wish to follow in the path of the French luminaries.
With the historical groundwork established, it is time to return to the value of the Martinist tradition, which can be discerned in its three primary symbols, the vestments of the Martinist initiate: the mask, the cloak, and the cordelière or cord belt, worn over a white alb.
The mask is key to understanding the difference between the Martinist stream and orthodox Christian mysticism. The mask is our barrier to the world and its demands, expectations, and designs for us, but it also allows us to operate successfully in both the spiritual and material worlds. Placing oneself behind the mask calls us to pursue the work in silence without falling into the trap of spiritual materialism: a purely exterior adornment of spirituality. We are called to differentiate ourselves from “men of the stream”—those dominated by their sensual appetites and the demands of the waking world—with acts of extraordinary beneficence.
The mask hides us from our pretensions and ego gratification. Thus freed, we may pursue the stellar course ordained for us by our spiritual “major” (to use the language of the Coëns), which may be likened to a guardian angel or tutelary spirit. Said boldly, “If man avoids regarding himself as the king of the universe, it is because he lacks courage to recover his titles thereto, because his duties seem too laborious, and because he fears less to renounce his state and his rights than to undertake the restoration of their value” (Waite, 373). This is the real fruit not only of Martinism but of the Western traditions in general: the point is not dissolution either in the morass of nature or in the divine light, but the perfection of the individual that heralds the New Jerusalem. Man is in harmony with the cosmos insofar as he is master of his earthly existence, the microcosm to macrocosmic nature, which falls or is redeemed according to his own trajectory. The goal is the realization of our spiritual kingship, though in a beggar’s guise.
The cloak plays a similar role: it insulates the purity of the true Self, represented by the white alb, from the contamination of the profane world and maintains the boundary between God and self that allows for a relationship of love. It is reminiscent of the nonduality of the Heart Sutra of Mahayana Buddhism: emptiness is form; form is emptiness; yet form is only form, emptiness only emptiness. In Christian terms, the soul is divine, but the soul is the soul and God is God. Beneath the cloak, we become who we really are in a cocreative dance with the divine immensity. Divinization is self-actualization in communion.
The cloak also evokes the prophet Elijah’s bequeathing of his mantle to Elisha (2 Kings 2:13), perpetuating the initiatory chain. One feature of the Martinist tradition is deference to the “past masters”: those who have initiated us into a succession that harks back to the Logos’ original ordinations of his disciples. This link is underscored by the cordelière, which binds us to the chain of initiation but also serves as a placeholder for the spiritual sword and scabbard, which hang at our side as reminders of our dual roles as priests and knights for the world. Thankfully, we have the continual prayers of our past masters to aid us on the battlefield.
Martinism is particularly well suited to heal the spiritual lineages of the West and to guide our individual paths through the wilderness of ignorance into the active service of God, Self, and nature. As a modern Martinist text eloquently asserts, beneficence is the equivalent of theurgy (Boyer, 55). The Western esoteric tradition has always focused on the redemption of both the macrocosm and the microcosm and, indeed, human society. Though one might find reasonably accessible Martinist orders in one’s own geographic area, those seeking true initiation are advised to seek the One who alone is worthy and capable of conferring such initiation. His calling card is the same in all ages: a heart enflamed by ardent prayer.
Sources
Boyer, Rémi. Mask Cloak Silence: Martinism as a Way of Awakening. Bayonne, N.J.: Rose Circle, 2021.
Churton, Tobias. Occult Paris: The Lost Magic of the Belle Époque. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2016.
Louv, Jason. John Dee and the Empire of Angels: Enochian Magick and the Occult Roots of the Modern World. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2018.
Martinez de Pasqually. Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings in their First Spiritually Divine Property, Virtue, and Power. San Jose, Calif.: Traditional Martinist Order, 2018.
de Saint-Martin, Louis Claude, and Kirchberger, Baron de Liebistorf. Theosophic Correspondence: 1792‒97. Translated by Edward Burton Penny. Pasadena, Calif.: Theosophical University Press, 1991 [1863].
Waite, Arthur Edward. The Life of Louis Claude de Saint-Martin: The Unknown Philosopher and the Substance of His Transcendental Doctrine. London: Phillip Welby, 1901.
Zane Johnson is a writer, scholar, and Christian esotericist. Recent essays of literary criticism, spiritual inquiry, and historical excavation can be found in Quest, Jesus the Imagination, George Herbert Journal, and elsewhere. He can be reached online at zanewrites.com.