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1“Mystical theology embraced the whole body of the revelations and the explanation of the mysteries.
2This branch of the ancient theology has remained secretly honoured among us.
3Jacob Boehme, Swedenborg, Martines de Pasqually, Saint-Martin, Molinos, Madame Guyon, Bourignon and Krüdener, the great sect of the Ecstatics, of the Illuminated, have at different epochs worthily preserved the doctrines of this science, whose end has in it something terrifying and gigantic.
4Today, as in other times, it is a question of giving man wings to penetrate into the sanctuary where God hides himself from our gaze.”
5Let us note, first of all, that Balzac speaks to us of the “mystical theology” which “embraced the whole body of the revelations and the explanation of the mysteries” — that is, not of an esoteric doctrine presented, as in various other esoteric organisations of the period, in the most diverse aspects and in different forms, but of a “mystical theology”, that is, of that same doctrine presented “mystically”; and mysticism is, as we know, the predominant characteristic of Martinism in the second half of the eighteenth century, a characteristic owed to the deep influence of Saint-Martin in the Chapters of the Elect Cohens, founded, as is known, by Martines de Pasqually.
6Moreover, Balzac knew perfectly the kabbalistic construction of this “mystical theology”, exactly as it was taught in Martinism, because he adds: “embraced the whole body of the revelations and the explanation of the mysteries”.
7Indeed, it is the Kabbalah alone that can “embrace the whole body of the revelations” and “explain the mysteries”.
8On the other hand, Balzac affirms categorically that “this branch of the ancient theology has remained secretly among us”.
9“Ancient theology”, because it is the one that, in all times and among all peoples, has been taught in every initiatic community; “and has remained secretly honoured”, because only in secrecy can so transcendent a doctrine be transmitted among the initiates of secret societies; and “among us”.
10Who were these “us”?
11Balzac does not say.
12One might think that by the word “us” he meant to allude to spiritualist circles in general; but one might also believe, as I believe, that Balzac meant to refer to the intimate circle of initiates of which he formed part.
13What was this circle of initiates?
14Balzac does not tell us clearly that it was the one the Martinists constituted, but he does tell us that “the doctrines of this science have, at different epochs, been worthily preserved by Jacob Boehme, Swedenborg, Martines de Pasqually, Saint-Martin, Molinos, Madame Guyon, Bourignon and Krüdener, the great sect of the ecstatics and of the illuminated”.
15Now then, if we set aside Miguel Molinos, founder of quietism, who died in Rome in 1692; Madame Guyon, Bourignon and Krüdener, who were quietists; and the sect of the ecstatics, who had very close relations with the Martinists — who was Boehme but that illuminated cobbler who died in 1624 and whose works had a great influence on Saint-Martin?
16Who was Swedenborg but the one who, as many students and especially Papus, Mercier and Besuchet affirm, initiated Martines de Pasqually in London?
17Who were Martines de Pasqually and Saint-Martin but the founder and the continuer, respectively, of Martinism?
18And, finally, was the sect of the Illuminated not that which, under the name of the Illuminated of Avignon, the Martinist Dom Pernety founded?
19Despite having named some who, at “different epochs”, have worthily preserved “the doctrines of this science” — and this while taking care not to be too clear, · 15
Our translation, period-faithful. Citable as our translation, never as the source.
The promise made in Nº 10 is kept here. That number could carry only five lines on Cedaior's death because it was already at press; this one opens with the life, written by his son. Read the two together: Nº 10 p. 1 announces, Nº 11 pp. 1–3 accounts for.
The author states his double position plainly — first Master and father — and it is the reason this biography is worth more than a memorial. Jehel is Leo Costet de Mascheville; Cedaior is Albert Raymond Costet de Mascheville. The magazine's editor is writing about his own father.
An unusual admission for a commemorative piece: there are reserves, and the reason is given — people are still alive whose work is bound to the Master's, and the rule forbids exposing them "while the actors of the Silent Service are alive". The gaps in this biography are declared rather than concealed.
1 September 1872, Valence, in the house that had been Bayard's. The date and place are consistent with the caption on p. 4 and with every later reference in the run. "saens peur et sans reproche" is a compositor's slip for sans peur et sans reproche — Bayard's standing epithet — and is marked in the translation.
Charles Dancla (1817–1907) was a real and eminent French violinist and pedagogue whose methods were indeed in worldwide use; free lessons from him to a nine-year-old is the kind of claim that is checkable in principle. The Press has not found independent confirmation.
The hinge of the whole life, stated in one sentence: the passage through Lyon "was the awakening of his initiatic career, for it was there that he came to know Master Amo." Amo is Maître Philippe of Lyon — Philippe Nizier, named in full at Nº 10 p. 5 and listed at Nº 10 p. 17 among the Masters most often seen by members of the Order. Three issues now converge on him; he remains the outstanding gap in the Press's holdings.
A detail that earns the reader's trust: to the despair of his professors he played nights in a second-rank orchestra to feed himself. Hagiography does not usually record that its subject disappointed his teachers.
1895, Egypt, on official mission from the French government — officially to study ancient instruments and the acoustics of the primitive civilisations. The article then says outright that a mission of the Orders took him there too, and defers it. The military service of 1891–1895 ends exactly where this begins.
His reason for leaving Europe in 1910 is given as disgust at European life "and at the racial hatreds already showing themselves". The statement is a repudiation, not a doctrine — and it is worth recording that the founder's stated motive for crossing the Atlantic was revulsion at racial hatred, four years before the first war and thirty before the second.
*1919: The Laws of Vayú.* The Press holds a complete English translation of this work; here is its author dating its publication himself, in the same sentence in which he breaks up his household and leaves alone for the Andes. The book and the rupture are the same event in the telling.
The "naturist and olympic colonies" are the practical arm of The Laws of Vayú — "on the basis explained in his book". The caption on p. 4 lists him as founder of the "Olympic Family". Every attempt failed, and the article says so without softening it.
"From 1924 to 1942 (note the inversion of the figures)." The numerological aside is the writer's own; the dates are ordinary. The same habit appears at Nº 10 p. 11, where 1,122 documents are read for "the influence of the numbers 11 and 22". Marked because the arithmetic elsewhere in both issues is careful.
The date is impossible as printed. "In 1921 he fixes his residence definitively in Porto Alegre" — but p. 2 has him arriving at Mendoza in 1921 and staying until 1924, when a mission takes him to Brazil; and p. 2 also gives the last ten years of his life in Rio Grande do Sul, which from a death in 1943 means from about 1933. Porto Alegre is in Rio Grande do Sul. The figure is most likely 1931 or 1933 with a digit dropped.
Reported as spoken a few days before his death, in good health: "I have finished what I had to do this time round; I am going to take a look up there and will come back presently to continue." The article dates the sequence precisely afterwards — instructions on the 12th, first symptoms on the 14th — which makes the claim checkable in structure even where it is not verifiable in substance.
16.55, 22 January 1943. Nº 10 gave only the day; here is the hour. Pulmonary congestion, then uraemia, at the Quinta de Boa Saúde under Dr. Pereirinha. The heavy rain at the burial is offered as fulfilling his remark that he would "stir things a little up above, to break the drought" — reported by the magazine, not evidenced.
The five Masters he is said to have served: AMO – PAPUS – VAYÚ – SATTVA – SEDIR. Compare Nº 10 p. 17, where the five most often seen or felt by members are Amo, Maharshi, Papus, Subrahmaniayananda and Aurobindo. Amo and Papus stand in both lists. Sedir — Yvon Le Loup — was a real member of Papus's circle, and a book of his is on sale from the Order on the back page of Nº 29.
The portrait plate, and the densest single line of evidence in the issue. The caption lists him as President of the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross, Bishop of the Gnostic Church, Honorary President of the Martinist Order of South America, founder of the "Olympic Family and College of the Gy", and — printed without comment among the rest — M∴S∴T∴, O∴T∴O∴, Neo-Pythagorean, 33∴. The O.T.O. attribution is the magazine's own claim about its founder and is recorded here as such; the Press has not corroborated it.
Three sourcing threads in one parenthesis: Saint-Yves d'Alveydre (1842–1909), whose synarchic writings are the source of the "Sacred Empire" language; Archytas of Tarentum, the Pythagorean; and "the history of RAM", the legendary legislator of Saint-Yves's own reconstruction. The first is public domain and not yet held.
The three ruffians of the masonic legend — Jubelas, Jubelos, Jubelum — are read here not as villains but as models: they call for their own punishment, and the reader is told he must come to do the same, seeing reparation "no longer as an unavoidable evil but as a desirable good". The moral inversion is the point of the article.
The best-argued passage in the commentary: the nine Masters find the Truth, measure it, mark it with acacia — and then do not touch it. They veil it again and report to the one who may authorise its use. Discovery is separated from authority as a matter of discipline, not of secrecy for its own sake.
The raising of Hiram is read as requiring collaboration between the poles — "of Strength and of Beauty, of the Mind and of the Heart, of Man and of Woman" — before the Spirit of Truth may enter the work. Set this beside Nº 10 p. 4, where the magazine defends the initiation of women, and p. 11 of this issue, where it does not.
A table error caught by the table itself. The exaltation list prints "ASCENDING Node… in SAGITTARIUS" and then "ASCENDING Node… in GEMINI"; the second must be the descending node, because the debility table lower on the same page gives the ascending node its fall in Gemini and the descending node its fall in Sagittarius. Falls are opposite exaltations, so the two halves of the page contradict each other unless the second heading is a misprint.
A course in judicial astrology admitting that it does not know something: the degrees of maximum exaltation for Uranus and Neptune "have not yet been determined with precision", and the table prints question marks rather than filling them in. Uranus and Neptune were the two planets unknown to the tradition the rest of the table comes from.
The instruction to build from 5 or 10 seconds to 27 minutes in a forward bend held with the breath retained, and the warning that failing to increase gradually "could produce serious disorders", are reproduced as printed and are not endorsed. The posture is Janu Sirsasana and is correctly described; the duration is not a modern recommendation.
The course is building deliberately: this asana is said to make Paschimottanasana easier, and Paschimottanasana was the subject of Nº 10 p. 8. Eight postures in, the sequence is cumulative rather than miscellaneous.
Claims of restoring a person of 70 to the appearance of 40, with regeneration of tissue and correction of physical defects, are reproduced as printed and are not endorsed. They are offered as a trailer for a series on rejuvenation, and the writer grounds them on "venerable Gurus who KNOW" rather than on any record.
This passage is at odds with the magazine's own stated position. Here the mission of woman is "to beautify the life of man"; feminine charm is called a duty and a sacred law, and the pages that follow tell a story of a wife who gains weight and loses her husband. Yet Nº 10 p. 14 lists among the Order's directives a welcome "without the predominance of one sex over the other", and Nº 10 p. 4 defends the initiation of women against the branch that excluded them. The Press publishes the passage as printed and records the contradiction rather than resolving it: a body can hold a stated principle and a house prejudice at once, and the run shows both within four weeks.
"Weary of learning, wish at last to know" is quoted here as Papus's. It is the masthead motto of the magazine itself, printed on the cover of every number — see the cover of Nº 29, where it stands under the title. The Press has traced the line to L'Initiation in 1889, where it is attributed to Morin rather than to Papus.
The list of definitions of matter is a genuine and rather good piece of argument: Lavoisier, Le Bon, C. G. Darwin, Sullivan, Eddington (printed "EDDIGTON"), Puig and Einstein are set side by side to show that they do not agree. "Einstein: a form of energy" beside "Le Bon: not eternal, and may disappear for ever" is a fair statement of a real disagreement of the period.
The sharpest sentence in the philosophical article, and it cuts both ways: "The materialists ask of religion: 'Show us God'; religion replies: 'Show us matter.'" The author's point is that neither survives the demand for experimental proof.
The works cited are real and the argument is not absurd: Louis Lambert, La Peau de chagrin, La Recherche de l'Absolu and Les Proscrits do carry Swedenborgian and illuminist material, and Balzac's interest in Saint-Martin and Swedenborg is documented. What is asserted beyond that — a formal Martinist initiation — the article itself admits rests on "relative proofs" and no original document. "Ursule Mirodet" is a misprint for Ursule Mirouët.
Balzac's own roll of the mystical tradition, quoted from Les Proscrits: Jacob Boehme, Swedenborg, Martines de Pasqually, Saint-Martin, Molinos, Madame Guyon, Bourignon and Krüdener. The Press holds Boehme's Aurora; the passage is a direct bridge from the Lycaeum's shelf to this run.
The dates given in passing are right: Molinos died in Rome in 1692, Boehme in 1624. The claim in the next line — that Swedenborg initiated Martines de Pasqually in London — is chronologically very hard, and the article attributes it to Papus, Mercier and Besuchet rather than asserting it directly. Recorded as the magazine's citation, not as fact.
A prose poem by MAYA, dedicated "to the much-loved Vyasa, blue messenger of the year 1935". Maya and Vyasa are both house sigils; the masthead of Nº 29 identifies Maya as a writer and Vyasa as kabbalist, mystic and mathematician. The dedication dates their association to at least 1935, seven years before the magazine began.
The closing image sets Gautama beneath the Bo tree and the Christ beside the Cross reading the same book — Nature. It is the magazine's eclecticism stated as an image rather than as a policy, and it is the more persuasive for it.
This review completes the exhibition Nº 10 p. 15 reported. Where that number gave counts and names, this one gives the works: the Martinist Order present "only through its marvellous symbol", suspended above the Picture of the Adept. Two issues, two halves of one record.
The titles of Sadananda's pictures, which Nº 10 could only count: "The Etheric Temple", "The Midnight of the Yogi", "The Adoration of the Portal", "The Full Moon of Vaysak" — Wesak — and "The Birth of the Inner Christ in the Heart of Man". With Jemard's "Smile of the Clay", the "Deva in the Hospital" and the "Deva of the Peace of the Fields", this is the fullest inventory of GIDEE artwork in the run. None of it is known to survive.
"ORA et LABORA", attributed to "the great Kunrath" — Heinrich Khunrath (c. 1560–1605), whose Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae carries the words in its celebrated engravings. The same spelling recurs at Nº 29 p. 7, where Khunrath is called "the Rosicrucian Emperor", so it is the magazine's house form rather than a single slip.