16 ON THE 'LYONNAIS ROSE-CROSS'
Studies on Martines de Pasqually and his disciples are multiplying rather curiously: following Le Forestier's book, which we mentioned here last month, Paul Vulliaud has now brought out a volume entitled Les Rose-Croix lyonnais au XVIII siècle. [1] Here again the title does not seem well justified, for apart from the introduction this book does not deal with the Rose-Cross. Could it have been inspired by the famous term 'Réau-Croix', which moreover Vulliaud does not seek to explain? This is quite possible, but the use of this term does not imply any historical filiation between the socalled Rose-Cross and the Elect Cohens, and in any case there is no reason to include organizations such as the Strict Observance and the Rectified Scottish Rite, which certainly were not Rosicrucian in either spirit or form under the same heading. We shall go even further. The Masonic rites that include a 'grade of Rose-Cross' have borrowed nothing but a symbol from the Rosicrucians, and to label those holding the grade as 'Rose-Cross' without further explanation, would be an unfortunate ambiguity. The title Vulliaud has chosen for his work is similarly unfortunate. Vulliaud regards other terms as well, such as 'Illumined' for example, as having no precise meaning; they seem a little haphazard, one being indifferently substituted for the other, which can only create confusions in the mind of readers who already have quite enough difficulty getting their bearings among the multiplicity of Rites and Orders that existed at the time in question. We do not wish to believe, however, that
Vulliaud himself failed to recognize this, preferring to regard his inaccurate use of technical vocabulary as an almost inevitable consequence of the 'profane' attitude he takes pleasure in proclaiming, and which has not failed to surprise us somewhat, for to this point we had not met people who gloried in calling themselves 'profane', other than those in university and 'official' circles, for whom we believe Vulliaud has not much more esteem than do we.
As a further consequence of this attitude Vulliaud believed he had to adopt a rather annoying ironic tone throughout the book, which risked giving an impression of partiality which an historian should guard himself against at all cost. His Joseph de Maistre Franc-Maçon already gave rather too much this same impression. Should it be so difficult for a non-Mason (we do not say a 'profane' person) to discuss questions of this kind without employing a polemical language best left to specifically anti-Masonic publications? To our knowledge, Le Forestier is the only exception; and we regret not finding in Vulliaud another, since his accustomed studies should have disposed him to more serenity.
All this detracts nothing of course from the value or interest of the numerous documents Vulliaud presents, though some are not as unpublished as he believes; [2] nor can we help being astonished that he devoted a chapter to the 'Sleepers' without even mentioning that a work on this subject by Emile Dermenghem already exists, and with precisely this title. But we believe the extracts from the 'initiatic notebooks' transcribed by Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin had indeed never been published. The odd character of these notebooks raises many questions that have never been explained. We have seen some of these documents, and their many bizarre and unintelligible sketches gave us the distinct impression that the 'unknown agent' who authored them must have been a somnambulist (we do not say a 'medium', which would be a serious anachronism), in which case they would quite simply represent the result of experiences of the same kind as the 'Sleepers', which greatly diminishes their 'initiatic'
importance. What is certain in any case is that none of this has anything whatever to do with the Elect Cohens, who moreover at that time had already ceased to exist as an organization. And let us add that neither is there anything here that refers directly to the Rectified Scottish Rite, in spite of the fact that the 'Lodge of Charity' is frequently mentioned. For us, the truth is that Willermoz and other members of this Lodge interested in magnetism had formed themselves into a kind of 'study group', as such things are now called, which they gave the somewhat ambitious title 'Society of Initiates'; this title, which figures in the documents, cannot be otherwise explained, and the use of the word 'society' demonstrates clearly enough that the group in question, although composed of Masons, had no Masonic character. Even today it frequently happens that for one reason or another Masons form what can be called a 'fraternal group' whose meetings lack any ritual form; and that the 'Society of Initiates' was nothing more than this seems, at least to us, the only plausible solution to this obscure question.
We think that from the initiatic point of view the documents referring to the Elect Cohens have another importance, despite gaps that have always existed in this respect in Martines' teaching, which we pointed out in our last article. Vulliaud is quite right to insist on the error of those who would make Martines a Kabbalist; that he has an incontestably Judaic inspiration does not in fact imply any knowledge of what can be properly designated by the term Kabbalah, a term so often used without rhyme or reason. But on the other hand, Martines' poor spelling the defective style, which Vulliaud rather too complacently underlines, proves nothing against the reality of his knowledge in a certain order. Profane instruction and initiatic knowledge must not be confused; an initiate of a very high order (which Martines certainly was not) can even be quite illiterate, something witnessed often enough in the East. It seems moreover that Vulliaud may have taken some pleasure in presenting Martines' enigmatic and complex personage in its worst light; Le Forestier was certainly more impartial, but even so there still remain many points to elucidate.
Such persistent obscurities point to the difficulty of pursuing these studies of things that seem sometimes to have been intentionally
confused; thus we should be grateful to Vulliaud's for his contribution, and, although he refrains from formulating any conclusion, his work nevertheless provides much new documentation that is for the most part very interesting. [3] And since this work calls for a sequel, let us hope Vulliaud will not long disappoint his readers, who in this work will certainly find many curious things well worth their attention, and perhaps even a starting-point for reflections which, in his role as historian, the author may not himself wish to express.