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Eight numbers, from May to December 1942, printed in Montevideo by a body calling itself the Grupo Independiente de Estudios Esotéricos. The name is not incidental. Papus had founded a Groupe Indépendant d'Études Ésotériques in Paris in 1888 and given it a review called L'Initiation; Nº 6 of this magazine names him as its president and founder in so many words. What you are reading is a deliberate re-founding of that institution on the other side of the Atlantic, half a century later, with the same name and the same title over the door.
The first number sets out what the review means to be: the organ of an independent society of thought, open to criticism from its readers, "not a business either, nor anyone's means of livelihood", falling into "no particularism, and still less into any personalism". That claim is worth holding onto, because the volume keeps testing itself against it. A commentary on masonic ritual praises the symbols and then says plainly that the institution has forgotten what they mean. An article on Schopenhauer complains that philosophers and occultists each miss half of him. A poem on the second page rebukes the very piety the editorial has just described.
Four long series run through the volume and none of them finishes: Jehel's commentary on the masonic degrees, which reaches the raising of Hiram; Surya's astrology course, which builds one real chart for one real birth in Montevideo across six instalments; Asuri Kapila's course in the postures, with a Sanskrit glossary that reaches its seventy-third entry; and a treatise on the planetary hours that does conclude, in Nº 8, with Saturn and Jupiter. Threaded between them is something stranger — a Uruguayan woman signing herself Maya, who went to India, sat on the floor of Sri Ramana Maharshi's hall, and wrote it down. He asked her, as she left, whether she would visit the temple at Madura. She said the chance had gone. A railway official then sent her eight hundred kilometres in the wrong direction and she arrived at Madura. The magazine gives that sequence three issues and lets the reader draw the conclusion.
The volume closes in French, with Saint-Martin's "Le Cimetière d'Amboise" — begun in Nº 6, continued in Nº 7, still unfinished at the end of Nº 8.
On the apparatus. Every page of this volume carries commentary: 392 notes across 179 pages, marked by evidence tier, saying where a claim has been checked against a text the Press holds and where it has not. Quotations have been verified where verification was possible. Dante is misquoted here — nostri for vostri, which turns a rebuke of humanity into a shared observation. The "Prayer of Saint Francis" on p. 9 of Nº 4 is not by Francis; it first appears anonymously in 1912. Three arithmetical faults in the astrology course are identified, including one that does not affect its result and is marked as such. Where a contributor is right, that is recorded too, and he often is: the Gita is quoted accurately, the elemental triangles are correctly assigned, Montevideo's coordinates are right, and the mean daily motion of the Sun is given correct to the arcsecond.
On what is withheld. Five passages in this volume are not reproduced, amounting to 1,153 characters — about two hundredths of one per cent of the text. Each is marked where it stood, with the reason. The Press does not reproduce racial theory, racial-improvement doctrine, or period race-language used in pseudo-historical claims. Nothing is removed silently and nothing else has been altered; passages that merely use the vocabulary of 1942 while arguing against racial distinction — and there are several — stand as printed.
On the medical claims. The courses in this volume promise cures: of sterility, of gallstones, of arteriosclerosis, of spinal deformity. Nº 7 prints two clinical reports describing a man whose grey hair, baldness and wrinkles are said to have reversed over eleven years. These are reproduced because they are what the magazine said, and they are endorsed by nobody. Read them as evidence of what this readership was invited to believe.
1AÑO 1 OCTUBRE DE 1942 Nº 6 La Venerable personalidad del Maestro Papus.
2Por Jehel, S. I.
3En las postrimerías del siglo pasado, dos figuras dominan incontestablemente el panorama iniciático por la magnitud de sus realizadores; Helena Petrova Blavatsky, animando con su sacrificio personal y su sabiduría toda la difusión de la doctrina oriental, y Papus, animando con los mismos medios, la divulgación de la doctrina occidental.
4Entre ambos hay más de un punto de semejanza: maravillosos poderes psíquicos y místicos, una enorme cultura, una extraordinaria fe en los Maestros y una inquebrantable VOLUNTAD de SERVIR, que ningún contratiempo, ninguna ingratitud, ninguna calumnia, ninguna incomprensión, detuvieron, ni habrían podido detener.
5Entre ambos casos hay de un punto de contacto; una enorme, admirable labor echa de trabajo social constante, de viajes incontables, de magnetismo verbal y activo y una producción literaria y didáctica asombrosa.
6En ambos, todavía, hay un lazo común: la admiración y respeto por el Maestro Eliphas Levi, que a ambos habría precedido en la comprensión y realización de la unión de la doctrina mística oriental con la mística gnóstica y cabalística de occidente.
7No obstante, todo lo dicho, al hecho de otros más ocultos, más desconocidos del público y hasta de muchos estudiantes hayan sido más elevados, quizás, en conocimiento o en espiritualidad.
8Pero, como REALIZADORES, Papus y la querida H. P. B., no tuvieron en esa época quien se les pudiera parangonar.
9Es necesario que todos nuestros hermanos martinistas conozcan bien al Maestro Papus, razón por la cual, he de dedicarle una serie de artículos que permitan dejar en suficiente luz el valor de su obra y los rasgos fundamentales del gran iniciador.
10Veamos en primer lugar, al hombre: nació en España, en la Coruña, el 13 de julio de 1865 bajo el Ascendente Escorpión).
11Era hijo de un químico francés y de una madre nacida en Valladolid.
12A los cuatro años de edad fue con sus padres a París.
13Hizo excelentes estudios secundarios, inscribiéndose luego en la Facultad de Medicina.
14Allí, los trabajos del Dr. Luys sobre hipnotismo y los “transfertes” de enfermedades ya habían ya había llamado poderosamente la atención.
15En 1883 a los 18 años de edad) tuvo el primer contacto con su iniciador, Henri Delaage, y tomó del “Nuctemerón”, de Apolonio de Tyana, el nombre simbólico de PAPUS, bajo el cual quedó posteriormente tan conocido.
16Sus dudas, sin embargo, eran grandes, pues su mentalidad poderosamente analista y lógica le impedía y le impidió siempre aceptar lo que no fuera prácticamente demostrable y rigurosamente lógico.
17Poco tiempo después, (Papus tendría unos 19 años) un acontecimiento decisivo se produjo, Papus tenía toda la impaciencia de un “Escorpión”, y sus conceptos del honor y del derecho a suprimir seres nocivos, hicieron que en determinada ocasión, esperara en el
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1YEAR 1 · OCTOBER 1942 · Nº 6 — The Venerable Personality of the Master Papus.
2By Jehel, S. I.
3In the closing years of the last century two figures dominate the initiatic panorama incontestably by the magnitude of what they accomplished: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, animating with her personal sacrifice and her wisdom the whole diffusion of the Eastern doctrine, and Papus, animating by the same means the divulgation of the Western doctrine.
4Between them there is more than one point of resemblance: marvellous psychic and mystical powers, an enormous culture, an extraordinary faith in the Masters, and an unshakable WILL to SERVE which no setback, no ingratitude, no slander and no incomprehension stopped, nor could have stopped.
5Between the two cases there is a further point of contact: an enormous, admirable labour made up of constant social work, of countless journeys, of verbal and active magnetism, and an astonishing literary and didactic output.
6In both, again, there is a common bond: admiration and respect for the Master Eliphas Levi, who had preceded them both in the understanding and accomplishment of the union of the Eastern mystical doctrine with the gnostic and kabbalistic mysticism of the West.
7Notwithstanding all that has been said, it is a fact that others more hidden, less known to the public and even to many students, may perhaps have been more elevated in knowledge or in spirituality.
8But as ACCOMPLISHERS, Papus and the dear H. P. B. had in that period no one who could be set beside them.
9It is necessary that all our Martinist brothers should know the Master Papus well, for which reason I shall devote to him a series of articles that may set in sufficient light the value of his work and the fundamental traits of the great initiator.
10Let us look first at the man: he was born in Spain, at La Coruña, on 13 July 1865 (under the Ascendant Scorpio).
11He was the son of a French chemist and of a mother born in Valladolid.
12At four years of age he went with his parents to Paris.
13He did excellent secondary studies, afterwards enrolling in the Faculty of Medicine.
14There the works of Dr. Luys on hypnotism and on the “transferts” of illnesses had already powerfully drawn attention.
15In 1883 (at 18 years of age) he had his first contact with his initiator, Henri Delaage, and took from the “Nuctemeron” of Apollonius of Tyana the symbolic name of PAPUS, under which he afterwards became so well known.
16His doubts, however, were great, for his powerfully analytical and logical mentality prevented him — and always prevented him — from accepting what was not practically demonstrable and rigorously logical.
17A little later (Papus would have been about 19) a decisive event occurred. Papus had all the impatience of a “Scorpio”, and his notions of honour and of the right to suppress harmful beings led him on one occasion to wait at the
Our translation, period-faithful. Citable as our translation, never as the source.
The biographical facts are accurate: Gérard Encausse was born at A Coruña on 13 July 1865 to a French father and a Spanish mother, and died on 25 October 1916. The name was taken from the Nuctemeron attributed to Apollonius of Tyana, and Henri Delaage was indeed his first initiator. The claim of a Scorpio ascendant is the review's own and is not checkable from the data given.