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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 NOVIEMBRE DE 1942 Nº 7 La Venerable personalidad del Maestro Papus.
2Por Jehel, S. I.
3En el artículo anterior, dedicado al V :: M :: PAPUS, os describí, muy sumariamente, el curso de su vida.
4Volvamos atrás para examinar ahora las características fundamentales del “camino” hecho por el Maestro, especialmente en la parte intelectual.
5Ya os dije que era médico; pero es bueno destacar que al recibirse, lo hizo con brillantísimas calificaciones y que, como profesional, obtuvo muy honrosos títulos, como por ejemplo: laureado de los Hospitales de París, externo de los Hospitales y del Bureau Central, jefe del Laboratorio de Hipnoterapia del Hospital de la Charité y otros análogos.
6Sus méritos científicos se pusieron en evidencia, al hacer, en el campo médico, estudios muy interesantes sobre el hipnotismo, sobre la aplicación clínica de la teoría de los cuatro temperamentos y al tentar presentar de manera occidental y científica la fisiología oculta del hombre, con su libro “Ensayo de Fisiología Sintética”.
7En el campo de la homeopatía y de la curación por absorción “simpática” de los medicamentos, reeditó trabajos de su padre, químico de valor, que ya había preconizado el tratamiento de ciertas enfermedades mediante la colocación de remedio apropiado sobre la cabeza del paciente, paso éste más “sutil” que la propia homeopatía y que recuerda la medicina espagírica de Paracelso.
8En sus obras se encuentran numerosas partes que ponen en evidencia sus trabajos como alquimista práctico, y hallamos confirmación de ello en sus títulos iniciáticos que podemos clasificar así: Presidente del Grupo Independiente de Estudios Esotéricos.
9Presidente del Supremo Consejo de la Orden Martinista.
10Presidente de la Orden Kabalística de la Rosa Cruz.
11Doctor en Kábala.
12Consejero de Sociedad Alquímica de Francia.
13Miembro del Comité de la Unión Idealista Universal.
14Miembro de las Fraternidades H. B. of L. y H. H. F. T. L.
15Miembro de las Sociedad de Ciencias Psíquicas.
16Presidente de la Sociedad Magnética de Francia, etc., etc.
17Su labor intelectual, es, pues, muy considerable y, cosa que debemos tener en cuenta muy especialmente, para ser el secreto de su éxito, fue constantemente orientada hacia un espíritu de síntesis, de unión y de colaboración entre todas la sociedades, fuesen de búsqueda, de divulgación, de iniciación real…
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 · NOVEMBER 1942 · Nº 7 — The Venerable Personality of the Master Papus.
2By Jehel, S. I.
3In the previous article, devoted to the V∴M∴ PAPUS, I described to you, very summarily, the course of his life.
4Let us go back to examine now the fundamental characteristics of the “road” taken by the Master, especially in its intellectual part.
5I have already told you that he was a physician; but it is well to point out that he qualified with most brilliant marks, and that as a professional he obtained very honourable titles, such as: laureate of the Hospitals of Paris, extern of the Hospitals and of the Bureau Central, head of the Laboratory of Hypnotherapy at the Hospital of la Charité, and others of the kind.
6His scientific merits were made evident when he carried out, in the medical field, very interesting studies on hypnotism, on the clinical application of the theory of the four temperaments, and when he attempted to present the occult physiology of man in a Western and scientific manner, with his book “Essay of Synthetic Physiology”.
7In the field of homeopathy and of healing by “sympathetic” absorption of medicines, he reissued the works of his father — a chemist of standing — who had already advocated the treatment of certain illnesses by placing the appropriate remedy upon the patient's head: a step subtler than homeopathy itself, and recalling the spagyric medicine of Paracelsus.
8In his works are found numerous parts that make evident his labours as a practical alchemist, and we find confirmation of this in his initiatic titles, which we may classify thus: President of the Independent Group of Esoteric Studies.
9President of the Supreme Council of the Martinist Order.
10President of the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross.
11Doctor in Kabbalah.
12Counsellor of the Alchemical Society of France.
13Member of the Committee of the Universal Idealist Union.
14Member of the Fraternities H. B. of L. and H. H. F. T. L.
15Member of the Society of Psychic Sciences.
16President of the Magnetic Society of France, etc., etc.
17His intellectual labour is therefore very considerable; and — a thing we must bear especially in mind, for it is the secret of his success — it was constantly oriented towards a spirit of synthesis, of union and of collaboration among all the societies, whether of research, of divulgation, or of real initiation…
Our translation, period-faithful. Citable as our translation, never as the source.
Papus's initiatic titles include Member of the Fraternities H. B. of L. and H. H. F. T. L. This is direct documentary confirmation of what Nº 5 implied by naming Peter Davidson as his master of practice: the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor is not an influence on this transmission but a body Papus belonged to. Burgoyne's Light of Egypt, held in the library and cited across twelve issues, is that Brotherhood's own text.
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