20 CONCERNING THE UNKNOWN SUPERIORS AND THE ASTRAL
When writing our article 'The Strict Observance and the Unknown Superiors', in which we pointed out the singular obsession that led certain Masonic and occultist writers to see everywhere the action of the Jesuits in eighteenth-century High Masonry and Illuminism, we certainly did not think a similar obsession among anti-Masons themselves would be brought to our attention. But this is just what has turned up in an article that appeared in the Revue Internationale des Sociétes Secrètes in the section 'Antimaçonnique de l'Index Documentaire'[1] under the signature A. Martigue, an article in which we read this truly astonishing sentence:
In studying the Illuminati we must not forget that Weishaupt had been a pupil and then a teacher of the Jesuits, and that he was greatly inspired-of course bending them to the service of evil-by the methods that the Reverend Fathers of Ingolstadt formerly used for good with so much success . . . except when they used them to form Weishaupt and his first disciples!
Despite the care with which they are phrased, these insinuations take on a particularly serious character from the pen of an antimason; would Martigue then be able to justify them? Could he explain in what way the Reverend Fathers of the eighteenth century can be made even indirectly responsible for the revolutionary doctrines of
Brother Weishaupt and his adepts? Until this is demonstrated it seems to us that the Reverend Fathers of the nineteenth century are being held responsible for anarchist theories developed in our time by their ex-pupil and novice, Brother Sebastian Faure! One could certainly go far in that direction, but that would be neither serious nor worthy of a writer who claims to employ 'exact and rigorous methods.'
Here is what Martigue writes shortly before the sentence just cited regarding a study entitled 'Les Pièges de la Secte: le Génie des Conspirations', published in the Cahiers Romains of the Agence Internationale Roma:
The author seems familiar only with the works of Father Deschamps, Barruel, Claudio Janet, and Créatineau-Joly. This is a great deal, but not enough. And if these excellent works, which will certainly always be consulted with profit by students of antimasonry, were written by respectable masters whose efforts everyone must praise and recognize, we cannot fail to note that they date from an age when science and historical criticism had not been carried to the point at which we find them today. Our methods, further perfected each day, are rigorous and correct. From the point of view of scientific exactitude, this is why it is dangerous to neglect more modern works; it is even more regrettable to look down on them prejudicially.
One must be very sure of oneself and of all one is putting forward to accuse four authors who are among the undisputed masters of antimasonry of a lack of 'scientific exactitude'. Assuredly, Martigues has confidence in the 'progress of science and criticism,' but since this same 'progress' is used to justify such things as modernist exegesis and the so-called 'science of religions', we find it difficult to consider it a convincing argument. We did not expect to see Martigues make a declaration so... evolutionist, and wonder whether the methods he advocates, and which he opposes to 'the methods and defective habits of some' (to whom is he alluding?) do not rather closely approximate the 'positivist method' about which we have already spoken. Finally, if he is acquainted with 'the papers of Weishaupt himself,' as he gives us to understand, we hope he will not be long in
communicating to us the discoveries he must have made in them, notably as concerns the relations of Weishaupt with 'the Reverend Fathers of Ingolstadt'; nothing could better prove the value of his methods.
However, would it not be preferable to confine ourselves to the role the Jews could have played at the beginning of Bavarian Illuminism, as well as behind certain 'systems' of High Masonry? Let us quote this sentence from the study in Cahiers Romains:
The schemes of this genius [Weishaupt] were doubtless abetted by Jews, heirs to the implacable hatreds of the old Synagogue, for the famous Bernard Lazare did not shrink from making this avowal: 'There were Jews around Weishaupt' ('L'Antisémitisme, son histoire, et ses causes', pp339-340).
We mention this because we have already had occasion to speak of this Jewish influence, but there would be many other interesting things to point out in this work, against which the editor of the Revue Internationale des Sociétés Secrètes shows a bias bordering on partiality. After criticizing him for 'absence of variety in the documentation,' while nonetheless recognizing his 'real value', he adds: 'there is another very regrettable gap, if one wishes to study Illuminism; it is ignorance of mysticism and occultism.' We will come back to this point a little later, but for the moment wish only to point out that mysticism, which arises from theology, is one thing, and occultism is something altogether different: occultists are in general profoundly ignorant of mysticism, which has nothing to do with their pseudo-mysticism.
Unfortunately, something makes us fear that Martigues' criticisms are due above all to an outburst of ill humor brought on by the article in Cahiers Romains, which contains a criticism, a very fair one in our opinion, of the summary of Benjamin Fabre's book Un Initié des Sociétés Secrètes supérieurs: Franciscus, Eques a Capite Galeato given by Gustave Bord in the same Revue Internationale des Sociétés Secrètes. [2]
Speaking of some Masonic adventurers who tried to foist themselves on the 'fools' of the Lodges, flaunting themselves as authorized representatives of the mysterious 'S. I.' [Unknown Superiors], a restricted center of the whole Sect, Bord notes that these adventurers were merely boasting, from which he deduces that the 'S. I.' did not exist. This deduction is very risky. If the adventurers in question misrepresented themselves as missi dominici of the 'S. I.', not only is there nothing to prove that these latter did not exist, but rather it testifies to a general belief in their existence, for it would be very strange if these impostors had invented the mandates from start to finish. Their calculation of success must clearly have been based on this conviction, and the latter obviously does not testify against the existence of the Superiores Incogniti.
But this constitutes the very evidence for anyone unblinded by the preoccupation of upholding the opposed thesis at any price, for
is it not Bord himself who, in opposition to the masters of antimasonry, denies the evidence, and absolutely ignores [according to his own expressions] 'the location, the tactics, and the strength of the adversary'? . . there are some very strange antimasons.
Let us add that when we alluded to the 'positivist method' of certain historians, we were thinking precisely of this summary by Gustave Bord, no less impartial than is the estimation of Martigue. And now here is Martigue in turn accusing Benjamin Fabre and CopinAlbancelli of 'the desire to introduce an argument on a preconceived thesis as to the existence of the unknown directors of the Sect'; is it not rather Bord whom we could reproach for having a 'preconceived thesis' about the non-existence of the Unknown Superiors?
Let us see what Martigue has to say on this subject:
As for the thesis opposed to Bord regarding the Unknown Superiors, we must be clear that if the director of the Cahiers Romains means by the latter men of flesh and bone, we think he is in error and that Bord is right.
And after enumerating some of the eighteenth-century chiefs of High Masonry he continues:
If they presented themselves as authorized representatives of living men, one could with reason treat them as impostors, as one can rightfully to do in our time, for example, with Madame Blavatsky, Annie Besant, and the other leaders of Theosophy when they refer to Mahātmās residing in a lodge in Tibet.
To this we might very well object that the so-called Mahātmās were invented precisely on the more or less distorted model of the true Unknown Superiors, for there are few impostures that do not rely on mimicking some reality, and besides, it is the clever mixture of the true and the false that makes them the more dangerous and difficult to unmask. On the other hand, as we said, nothing prevents us from considering as impostors, in certain circumstances, men who could nevertheless really have been subordinate agents of an occult Power. We have offered reasons for this, and do not see any purpose in defending such persons from that accusation, even supposing the Unknown Superiors were not 'men of flesh and bone.' In that case, what were they then, according to Martigue? The rest of the citation will inform us, and this will not be the least cause of astonishment to be found in his article.
'But that is not what is in question [sic]; this is an altogether exoteric interpretation for the profane and non-initiated adepts.' Until now we had thought that the 'adeptat' was a higher stage of 'initiation'; but let us continue.
The esoteric meaning has always been different. The famous Unknown Superiors, the true initiates, certainly exist, but they live... in the astral. And it is from there, through theurgy, occultism, spiritualism, clairvoyance, etc., that they direct the heads of the Sects, at least according to what they say.
Is it, then, to conceptions as fantastic as these that knowledge of occultism, or at least a certain occultism, must lead, despite all the 'rigor' and 'exactness' of the scientific and critical methods and the 'indisputable historical proofs required today[!] from serious and erudite historians?'
Either Martigue admits the existence of the 'Astral' and of its inhabitants, Unknown Superiors or others, so that we are entitled to conclude that 'there are some very strange anti-masons' other than Gustave Bord; or he does not admit it, as we claim to believe according to the last restriction, in which case he cannot say that those who admit it are 'true initiates'. We think, on the contrary, that they are only very imperfect initiates, and even that it is only too obvious that the spiritists, for example, cant in no way be considered initiates. Nor should we forget that spiritism dates only from the manifestations of Hydesville, which began in 1847, and that it was unknown in France before Brother Rivail, better known as Allan Kardec. [3] It is claimed that the latter 'founded his doctrine with the help of communications that he obtained and that were collected, supervised, reviewed, and corrected by superior spirits. [4] Without a doubt, this would be a remarkable intervention of the Unknown Superiors, according to Martigue's definition, if unfortunately we did not know that the 'superior spirits' taking part in that work were not all 'disembodied', and that some are still not so: although Eugène Nus and Victorien Sardou have since then 'passed onto another plane of evolution,' to use spiritualist language, Camille Flammarion continues to celebrate the festival of the Sun at each summer solstice.
And so, for the chiefs of High Masonry in the eighteenth century there could be no question of spiritism, which did not yet exist any more than did occultism; for even if 'occult sciences' existed at that time, there was no doctrine called 'occultism'. It seems that Eliphas Lévi was the first to use that term, which was monopolized after his death (1875) by a certain school of which, from the initiatic point of view, it is better not to say anything. It is these same 'occultists' who currently speak of the 'astral world', which they invoke to help explain all things, especially those of which they are ignorant. It was Eliphas Lévi again who gave currency to the term 'astral', and although this word goes back to Paracelsus, it seems to have been
virtually unknown to the High Masons of the eighteenth century, who in any case would never have understood it as do present-day occultists. Is it because Martigue, whose knowledge of occultism we do not contest, is quite sure that this same knowledge does not precisely lead him to an 'altogether exoteric interpretation' not only of Swedenborg for example, but of all the others whom he quotes in comparing it, or almost so, to spiritist 'mediums'? Let us quote the text:
The Unknown Superiors are the Angels who dictate to Swedenborg his works, the Sophia of Gichtel, of Boehme, the Thing of Martinez Pasqualis [sic], the Unknown Philosopher of Saint-Martin, the manifestations of the École du Nord, the Guru of the Theosophists, the spirit incarnated in the medium who raises the foot of the turning table or dictates the wild imaginings of the planchette, etc., etc.
We for our part do not think that all this is the same, even with 'variations and nuances'; it is perhaps looking for the Unknown Superiors where there could be no reason to do so. We have just said what the spirits are, and as for the 'Theosophers' or 'Theosophists', we know what to make of their claims. Regarding these last let us note in addition that they announce the incarnation of their 'Great Teacher' (Mahāguru), which goes to prove that they do not expect to receive his teachings on the 'astral plane'. Moreover, we do not think Sophia (who represents a principle) ever manifested herself perceptibly to Boehme or Gichtel. As for Swedenborg, he has described symbolically some 'spiritual hierarchies' all of whose levels could very well be occupied by living initiates, in a way similar to what we find, in particular, in Islamic esoterism.
As regards Martinès de Pasqually, it is assuredly rather difficult to know exactly what he mysteriously called 'the Thing', but it seems that he employed this word whenever he did not wish to designate anything other than his 'operations', or what is ordinarily meant by Art. It is the modern occultists who have tried to see the latter as simple 'apparitions', in conformity with their own ideas; but Brother Franz von Baader warns us that 'we would be wrong to think his physics [that of Martinès] is confined to spectres and
spirits. [5] In all this, as in the basis of the High Masonry of this period, there was something much more profound and more truly 'esoteric' than the knowledge present-day occultism ever suffices to penetrate.
But what is perhaps most singular is that Martigue speaks of the 'Unknown Philosopher of Saint-Martin,' when we know perfectly well that Saint-Martin and the Unknown Philosopher were one and the same, the second being only the pseudonym of the first. We are of course acquainted with the legends current on this subject in certain circles, but here is something that settles the matter admirably:
The Superiors Incogniti or 'S. I.', have been attributed by a fanciful author to the Theosopher Saint-Martin, perhaps because the latter signed his works an Unknown Philosopher, which was the name of a grade of the Philalethes (an order to which, moreover, he never belonged). It is true that the same fantasist attributed the book Des Erreurs et de la Vérité, by the Unknown Philosopher to an Unknown Agent; and that he gives himself the title 'S. I.' When one takes from the unknown, one cannot take too much of it! [6]
From this we see how dangerous it can be to accept without verification the assertions of certain occultists; in such a case it is especially important to exercise prudence and, according to the advice of Martigue himself, 'not exaggerate anything.'
Thus, we would be very wrong to take these occultists seriously when they present themselves as the descendants and successors of ancient Masonry; and yet we find an echo of such 'fanciful' assertions in the following sentence of Martigue:
This question [of the Unknown Superiors] raises problems that we study in occultism, problems that Freemasons of the eighteenth century tried ardently to solve.
Not to mention that, if too literally interpreted, this sentence could cause the editor of the Revue Internationale des Sociétes Secrètes to
be taken for an 'occultist' in the eyes 'of superficial readers not having the time to go deeply into things.'
But, he continues, 'we can only see clearly into this question if we are thoroughly acquainted with the occult sciences and mysticism.' This is what he wanted to prove against the contributor to the Agence Internationale Roma; but has he not actually proved, against himself, that this knowledge ought to extend even further than he had supposed? 'This is why so few antimasons succeed in penetrating these mysteries, mysteries which those who claim to stay on positivist terrain will never know.' In our opinion this is much more justifiable than all that goes before; but does this not somewhat contradict what Martigue has said about his 'methods'? And then, if he does not adhere to the 'positivist' conception of history, why does he defend Gustave Bord against all comers, even when he is least defensible?
If one does not take the trouble to study both the language they speak and the subject they treat of in their letters and their works, it is impossible to understand the writings of men who live in the supernatural and let themselves be directed by it, such as the Swedenborgian Theosophists or Martinists of the eighteenth century. And even less so if, with one's mind is already made up, one denies the existence of the supernatural atmosphere into which they were plunged and which they daily breathed.
Yes, but apart from the fact that this rebounds on Bord and his conclusions, it is no reason for passing from one extreme to the other and to attribute more importance than one should to the 'wild imaginings' of spiritist planchettes or those of pseudo-initiates, to the point of reducing everything 'supernatural', whatever its quality, to a narrow astral interpretation'.
Another comment: Martigue speaks of 'Swedenborgian Theosophists or Martinists' as if these two were nearly equivalent. Would he therefore be tempted to credit the authenticity of a certain filiation that is however very far from any 'scientific fact' and from any 'positive basis'?
On this subject, we feel obliged to say that when Papus maintains that Martinès de Pasqually received initiation from Swedenborg in the course of a visit to London, and that the system he propagated under the name of rite of the Elect Cohens was only an adapted Swedenborgianism, the author is deluding himself or is seeking to delude his readers in the interest of a very personal thesis. To lend oneself to such assertions it is not enough to have read in Ragon (who himself had read it in Reghelini) that Martinès took the rite of the Elect Cohens from the Swedish Swedenborg. Papus could have refrained from reproducing and amplifying a valuation based on nothing serious. He could have researched the sources of his document and ascertained that there are very few connections between the doctrine and rite of Swedenborg, and the doctrine and rite of the Elect Cohens. . . . As for the alleged trip to London, it took place only in Papus' imagination. [7]
It is regrettable that an historian should let himself be carried away by his imagination... 'in the astral'; and unfortunately the same could be said of many other writers who try to establish most unlikely links 'in the interest of a very personal thesis,' often all too personal!
But let us return to Martigue, who informs us once again that without the help of these sciences, known as occult, it is completely impossible to understand the Masonry of the eighteenth century and even-and this will astonish the uninitiated-that of today.
Here, one or two examples would have helped us better grasp his meaning, but let us see what comes next:
It is from that ignorance [of occultism], shared not only by the profane but also by Masons, even those of high grades, that such errors as the one under consideration derive. This error has set antimasonry in search of Unknown Superiors who, according to
the pen of true initiates, are merely extra-natural manifestations of beings living in the Astral World.
As we have said, we for our part do not believe that those who can uphold such a thesis are 'true initiates', but if Martigue, who affirms it, really does believe it, we do not see why he should hasten to add: 'Which does not prejudge anything regarding their existence [of those Unknown Superiors], any more moreover than about the said Astral World', without seeming to notice that he thereby calls everything into question again. While 'only claiming to indicate what the High Masons of the eighteenth century thought', is he quite sure he is faithfully interpreting their thought and not simply introducing a new complication into one of the problems the solution of which these FF.'. 'passionately pursued,' because that solution could help them become the 'true initiates' they obviously were not so long as they had not found it? This is because 'true initiates' are still rarer than one thinks; but that does not mean none exist, or that they exist only 'in the Astral'; and why, although living on earth, would such 'adepts' in the true and complete sense of the word not be the true Unknown Superiors?
Accordingly, by writing the words Unknown Superiors, 'S. I.', the Illuminati, the Martinists, the members of the Strict Observance, and all the Masons of the eighteenth century indeed speak of beings considered as having a real higher existence, under the direction of which each Lodge and each initiated adept [sic] is placed.
To make the Unknown Superiors 'astral beings' and then to assign them such a role as 'invisible helpers', as the Theosophists say-is that not to wish to connect them rather too closely with 'spiritual guides' who from a 'higher plane' similarly direct mediums and spiritist groups? It is therefore perhaps not altogether 'in this sense that the Knight of Capite Galeato and his correspondents write,' unless one wishes to speak of a 'higher existence' able to be 'realized' by certain categories of initiates who are 'invisible' and 'astral' only to the profane and the pseudo-initiates already mentioned. Whatever Martigue may say, all contemporary occultism, including even spiritism, Theosophy, as well as the other 'neo-spiritualist' movements,
can still only lead to an 'altogether exoteric interpretation.' But if it so difficult to know exactly what the High Masons of the eighteenth century thought, and consequently to 'interpret their letters as they themselves understood them,' is it not indispensable that these conditions be integrally fulfilled in order not to 'be completely mistaken in pursuing these studies, which are already so difficult even when one is on the right track'? And is there anyone among the antimasons who can say of himself 'on the right track' to the exclusion of everyone else? The questions they have to study are much too complex for that, even without having the 'Astral' intervening where it has no right to. That is why it is always 'regrettable to look down on them prejudicially' even in the name of 'science' and of 'criticism', activities which, as the editor of the Cahiers Romains so well puts it, '[while] not definitive, does not prevent their being very important, such as they are.' Gustave Bord does claim impartiality, but does he really possess that quality to the degree required to realize the ideal of Martigue, 'the mature historian who knows how to find what he wants everywhere, and whose sound criticism allows to judge the value of documents'? Again, there can be several ways of being 'on the right track', and it is enough to be on it in one way or another, not to 'be completely deceived,' even without it being 'indispensable to light the right path in the murky lights[?!] of occultism,' which is hardly clear!
Martigue concludes in these terms:
While waiting, we will gladly acknowledge that, if he understands occult power in the sense we just indicated, the editor of the Cahiers Romains is correct in writing: 'We note that no convincing argument has until now been presented against the occult central power of the Sect.' But if, contrary to the initiated Freemasons of the eighteenth century, he means by this a committee of men of flesh and blood, we are obliged to turn back the argument and say: 'We know that no convincing document has until now been presented in favor of that unknown directing Committee.' And it is up to those who assert that existence to bring forth the decisive proof. We are still waiting. The question remains open.