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Brothers From Another Mother The Historical Connection Between Martinism &

Freemasonry

Rev. Kevin L. Davis, PM, 32º, S:::I:::, Ep.Gn.

Martinism is the name given to a body of teachings and

succession originally deriving from the teaching of the late 18th-

century figure known as Martinez de Pasqually. It was not

known by that name, however, until the latter part of the 19th-

century when the focus seems to have shifted more to the

writings and letters of his secretary and student, Louis Claude de

St.-Martin as well as the later proponent and developer of the

teachings who went by the pen-name “Papus”, who developed

the system into the present-day three-degree system so

reminiscent of Craft Masonry.

It is my intent to explore the personalities involved in this

movement, their personal philosophies which fed into it, and

especially its seeming side-by-side development with

Freemasonry in one form or another throughout its existence. It

is also my intention to demonstrate the worth that Martinism

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might have for present-day Masons and its personal worth to

myself.

I should like to emphasize that so little of a definite nature

is known of the early years of the movement that there is very

little that I shall say that someone somewhere cannot dispute.

For every assertion there is someone, somewhere, who can

provide a counter to that assertion. Therefore I ask that you use

what I have to say here as a springboard for your own research,

and to forgive any errors that here and there may occur due to

the haste in preparing this presentation.

Fig. 1: Martinez de Pasqually Fig.2: Pasqually (from Taxil)

The original namesake of the Order (Jacques de Livron

Joachim de la Tour de la Casa Martinez de Pasqually1) was born

in Grenoble, France anywhere from 17092 to 17273, depending

upon the source, of a Spanish or Portuguese father. Although

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according to one source a coach-builder4, there seems to be very

little known about either his place of origin or even if he was or

was not Jewish, but it seems his father had received a Masonic

patent from Charles Stuart giving him powers as a “Deputy

Grand Master” with the power to establish lodges, and this

power was transferred to his son upon his death. Pasqually was

thus a Master Mason (of some sort!) at least by age 28.5

It seems to have been Pasqually’s goal to create not a

Masonic Rite as such, but an organization for fellow Freemasons

that would provide a more spiritual framework than the more

open and often secular environment of continental Masonry

which he would have known. To this end he created several

organizations, but the one that concerns us in this context is that

known as the “Ordre des Chevaliers Maçons Élus Coëns de

l’Univers” or “Order of Knight Masons, Elect Priests of the

Universe”, founded in Bordeaux around 17666. This Order

admitted only Freemasons, but from what is known practiced a

type of work far different from that which was and is practiced

within the confines of Masonic lodges: Medieval-style rites

involving angels and archangels, very Catholic-style forms of

ritual and prayer, as well as the magical and mystical use of the

psalms. The higher degrees of the Order taught such practices as

the invocation of various spirits, such as the ‘Shem ha-

Mephorash’ (שם המפורש) of the Qabalah, the so-called “divided

Name” as derived from Exodus XIV:19-21, celebration of the

Equinoxes, and similar highly ritualistic and time-consuming

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forms of ritual work. Central to this was Pasqually’s concept of

“Reintegration”7, a simple explanation being Man’s “salvation”

by theurgic work; a personal relationship with the Mystery

which he called simply “La Chose”. This is analogous, perhaps,

to today’s Christian arguments regarding “Grace” vs. “Works”,

as it proposed to achieve this reintegration through the

intercession of Christ.

Pasqually died in 1774 in Saint Domingue in modern-day

Haiti where his teachings, by many accounts, still have influence

today. Before this time, however, he initiated two individuals

who carried his work forward: Jean-Baptiste Willermoz and

Louis-Claude de St.-Martin.

Fig. 3: Jean-Baptiste Willermoz

Jean-Baptiste Willermoz was born on July 10, 1730 in

Lyon, France. He was admitted into the Order of Elect Cohens

as early as 1767, but prior to that had been admitted to an

unknown Masonic lodge in 1750. He would later go on to

affiliate with the Rite of the Strict Observance in 17738, and

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went on to found several lodges of various stripes, such as the

‘Grand Loge des Maîtres Réguliers de Lyon’ and a chapter of

the ‘Chevaliers de l’Aigle Noir et Rose-Croix’.9

The year following his admission in the Rite of the Strict

Observance he was made chancellor of the province of

Auvergne for the Rite and founded its Lyon chapter, which was

called ‘La Bienfaisance’.10 At around this time he began

working on a way to combine the teachings of Pasqually with

that of Freemasonry, and the Strict Observance seems to have

influenced this fusion rather heavily: It was founded by one

Baron Karl Gotthelf von Hund in 1749, claiming a direct lineage

going back to the Knights Templar, and was originally called

“rectified masonry”. His authority was based on an initiation he

received in Paris in 1742 from an “Unknown Superior” whom

he believed to be Charles Stuart, thus linking back again to the

father of Martinez de Pasqually and their mutual Masonic

heritage.11 All of these aspects would flow into the Martinist

stream of Willermoz and St.-Martin.

The Régime Ecossais Rectifi (Scottish Rectified Rite),

more commonly known as the Chevaliers Bienfaisant de la Cité

Sainte (C.B.C.S.) was founded by Willermoz in 1774 and at the

Convention of Wilhemsbad in 1782 replaced the older Rite of

the Strict Observance from which it took much of its

inspiration.12 Willermoz had struggled to preserve as much of

the Elus Cohens teaching and material as he could, as he could

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see from the dissension after the death of Pasqually that the

Order was likely doomed, as so often happens in similar

situations.13 This was supposedly preserved in the inner or

highest degrees of the C.B.C.S., which is probably responsible

for the modern claim that the Elus Cohens are “behind” the

C.B.C.S.14

Fig. 4: Louis Claude de St.-Martin

Louis Claude de St.-Martin came from a religious family of

minor French nobility (he is sometimes referred to as a

“marquis”). Born in 1743, he joined the Elect Cohens around

September of 1768 and soon became the personal secretary of

Martinez de Pasqually, serving as such from 1768 to 1771. It

was in this capacity that he came into contact with Willermoz

who was at that time head of the Elect Cohens body in Lyon at

that time, and the two seemed to have got on well together. St.-

Martin seems to have had trouble with the ceremonial magic of

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the Elect Cohens, among other things, and reportedly once asked

his teacher “But tell me, Master, are all these accessories

necessary to pray to God?”, to which Pasqually answered: “We

must be content with that which we possess.”15 St.-Martin’s

views were far more of an internal work than the way of

Pasqually, and he referred to it as the “vie cardiaque”, or way of

the heart. In his view, Christ was the Word as written in the

gospel of St. John, and this Word was with Man in the

beginning, but had been lost. Only through recovery of this lost

Word could Man be whole and “Reintegrated.”16 His writings

were published under the pseudonym “The Unknown

Philosopher”, under which name he is revered to this day within

Martinism.

While it is known that St.-Martin was a Mason (he was a

member of both the Elect Cohens and the Scottish Rectified

Rite), I cannot find when and where he first joined. There is,

however, strong evidence that he belonged to the Lodge La

Bienfaisance in Lyon, which was very likely the same Strict

Observance Lodge by that name founded by Willermoz.17 There

is also a letter of 1773 in which he refers to himself as a Rose-

Croix Mason.18

Just as St.-Martin came to have distaste for the highly

ritualized working of the Order of Elect Cohens of Pasqually, so

did he eventually come to have a similar feeling about

Freemasonry. In July of 1790 he asked that his name be

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removed from all Masonic registers, finally leaving the pomp

and ceremony of the Elect Cohens, C.B.C.S., and Freemasonry

for the contemplative “way of the heart” which was closer to his

nature.19 He died in 1803.

The French Revolution seems to have put a temporary stop

to the workings of both St.-Martin and Willermoz. While St.-

Martin reputedly had students that continued his work, little if

anything is known about them, though it is believed that he

transmitted authority in an almost “apostolic” manner: i.e.by the

laying on of hands he transmitted “The Initiation” as it was

called which he felt he had received from Pasqually.20

Fig. 5: Gérard Encausse, in a Martinist Lodge. Fig. 6: Augustin Chaboseau

It was not until 1891 that Gérard Encausse (1865-1916)21,

who wrote under the nom de plume ‘Papus’22, claimed to

“refound” the Order based on a succession of “L’Initiation”

from Augustin Chaboseau and Henri Delaage supposedly going

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back to St.-Martin himself. In fact, there does seem to be some

evidence that one M. de Chaptal, the grandfather of Henri

Delaage, was at least an acquaintance of St.-Martin.23 The

Initiation was not an initiation in the usual ceremonial sense,

but, in the words of Chaboseau it was “an oral transmission of a

particular teaching and a certain comprehension of the laws of

the Universe and of Spiritual life, which, in no case could be

regarded as an Initiation in a ritualistic form.”24

Originally called “L’Ordre des Supérieurs Inconnus”, it

later became known as “L’Ordre Martiniste”, or the Martinist

Order. It is at this point when Freemasonry and Martinism meet

up in a far greater way, as the “Initiation” (the holders of which

by this time had come to be called “Supérieurs Inconnus”, or

“Unknown Superiors”) had come to be the last in a series of

three degrees highly reminiscent of the Craft Degrees of

Freemasonry. Usually referred to as Associate, Initiate, and

S:::I:::25, though there are variations on these within different

variants of the Order.

Fig. 7: Designation of a Supérieur Inconnu (Serviteur Inconnu)

Encausse involved his newly-organized system of

Martinism with many other movements that were prominent at

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the time. The Gnostic Church of Jules Doinel became very

important to the Order, and was its “official” Church in all but

name. In fact, Martinism has long been associated with the

tradition of the ‘episcopi vagantes’ or “wandering bishops”, and

Encausse was most certainly made a bishop by Doinel or one of

his subordinates, and this passed on to such individuals as

Theodor Reuß and perhaps even Aleister Crowley! He also drew

members for the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor from among

his Martinist brethren, and seems to have “swapped initiations”

with more than a few occult and Masonic luminaries of the time,

including Theodor Reuß, who is today primarily known for his

work with John Yarker and the Ordo Templi Orientis. It seems

probable that Encausse also became the National Head for the

latter Order for France, and this may have led to the

development, in Haiti, of the Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua.

The three-degree system of modern Martinism is most

striking in its resemblance to modern Freemasonry in such

borrowings as that of the Two Pillars of Solomon’s Temple,

which, while paralleling in many ways the type of interpretation

given in the modern Craft degrees, in fact leads one to a deeper

understanding of the nature of Polarity as it occurs in both

Nature and the mind of Man, and via their reconciliation even

incorporates elements of the Mark degree which was, according

to some, at one time part of our modern Fellow Craft degree.

Through the Qabalistic emphasis of the Pillars as taught within

the Martinist Order one is better equipped to gain a deeper

appreciation of their meaning within the Craft, and by studying

the Qabalistic Tree of Life one is better able to see the True

Meaning of the Stone that the Builders rejected, and how it joins

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the opposed Pillars and simultaneously unifies and transcends

them.

My conclusion is simply this: Martinism is, in many ways,

an esoteric, more mystical take on the Masonic model itself

which has coexisted for so long and so unobtrusively with

Freemasonry that no one seems to have seriously, if ever, taken

it to be a form of clandestine Masonry. It complements it in so

many ways, while acknowledging both its debt and its near-

dependence that I feel that any Brother Mason could not help

but benefit from at least a basic study into the phenomenon. The

very origins of the movement were an attempt by a Freemason

to create a more spiritual system for his fellow Freemasons to

delve into a more personal, direct relationship with “God”,

though this was filtered initially through the Catholic imagery

with which the founder had obviously been immersed.

Even later this swung in the opposite direction with St.-

Martin, who eschewed all ritual whatsoever, even renouncing

Freemasonry itself in the end for that very reason. This

dichotomy mirrors in many ways both the all-accepting stance

of Craft Masonry as compared with the exclusive “Christian-

only” appendant bodies as well as the stance of modern regular

Freemasonry in comparison with the acceptance of atheists in

some European jurisdictions.

I hope this little talk has been informative, and has at least

stimulated interest in the phenomenon of the Martinist tradition.

Much can now be found online, and the assiduous student will

be able to easily distinguish the wheat from the chaff. À la

Gloire du Grand Architect de l’Univers!

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Bibliography Bogaard, Milko. 1891 Supreme Conseil de l'Ordre Martiniste. November 2003.

http://omeganexusonline.net/rcmo/supremecouncil.htm. 19 May 2014.

Bogdan, Henrik. Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation. Albany, NY: State University of New York

Press, 2007.

Cossey, Rene. "The Doctrine of Martines de Pasqually." The Martinist Tradition, vol. 1 (1987): 29-33.

Dachez, Roger. "Martinist Orders and Freemasonry in France since the Time of Papus." 24 April 2011.

Hermetic Order of Martinists. 13 May 2014. <http://www.glhom.org.uk/library/dachez.pdf>.

Garver, Philip. "Rectified Scottish Rite." n.d. Gnostique.net. 17 May 2014.

<http://www.gnostique.net/initiation/RER.htm>.

Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction. New York: Oxford

University Press, 2008.

Kaczynski, Richard. Forgotten Templars. Richard Kaczynski, 2012.

Lafontaine, H.C. de. "The Unknown Philosopher." Ars Quatuor Coronatorum Vol. XXXVII (1924): 262-286.

Levi, Eliphas. Transcendental Magic (trans. Waite). York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1992.

Restivo, Mike. "Martines de Pasqually and the Elus Cohens." n.d. Gnostique.net. 11 May 2014.

<http://www.gnostique.net/initiation/pasqually.htm>.

—. "Martinist Initiation." n.d. The Hermetic Library. 11 May 2014.

<http://hermetic.com/caduceus/martinism.html>.

Unknown. "Jean-Baptiste Willermoz." 23 March 2014. Wikipedia. 11 May 2014.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Willermoz>.

—. "Martinez de Pasqually." 30 July 2013. Wikipedia. 11 May 2014.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martinez_de_Pasqually>.

—. Shemhamphorasch. 13 May 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shemhamphorasch. 28 May 2014.

Waite, A.E. The Life of Louis Claude de Saint Martin. London: Philip Wellby, 1901. PDF.

Waite, Arthur Edward. "Saint Martin: The French Mystic and the Story of Modern Martinism." 21 July

2000. Hermetics.org. 13 May 2014. <http://www.hermetics.org/martinist.html>.

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1 "Martinez de Pasqually." 30 July 2013. Wikipedia. 11 May 2014.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martinez_de_Pasqually. 2 Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction. New York: Oxford University

Press, 2008. 3 "Martinez de Pasqually." 30 July 2013. Wikipedia. 11 May 2014.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martinez_de_Pasqually. 4 Waite, Arthur Edward. "Saint Martin: The French Mystic and the Story of Modern Martinism." 21 July, 2000.

Hermetics.org. 13 May, 2014. http://www.hermetics.org/martinist.html. 5 Restivo, Mike. "Martines de Pasqually and the Elus Cohens." n.d. Gnostique.net. 11 May 2014.

http://www.gnostique.net/initiation/pasqually.htm. 6 Goodrick-Clark, ibid.

7 Students of Carl Jung might be interested in this, for obvious reasons.

8 Goodrick-Clark, ibid.

9 Goodrick-Clark, ibid.

10 Goodrick-Clark, ibid.

11 Goodrick-Clark, ibid.

12 Bogdan, Henrik. Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press,

2007; Goodrick-Clark, ibid. 13

Garver, Philip. "Rectified Scottish Rite." n.d. Gnostique.net. 17 May 2014. http://www.gnostique.net/initiation/RER.htm. 14

Bogdan, ibid.; Goodrick-Clark, ibid. 15

Lafontaine, H.C. de. “The Unknown Philosopher.” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum Vol. XXXVII (1924): 262-286. 16

Goodrick-Clark, ibid. 17

Lafontaine, ibid. 18

Lafontaine, ibid. 19

Goodrick-Clark, ibid. 20

Restivo, Mike. "Martinist Initiation." n.d. The Hermetic Library. 11 May 2014. http://www.hermetic.com/caduceus/martinism.html. 21

Kaczynski, Richard. Forgotten Templars. Richard Kaczynski, 2012. 22

This name was that of one of the ‘Genii of the First Hour’ of the Nuctemeron, appended to Rituel et Dogme de la Haute Magie by the occultist Eliphas Levi (translated by A.E. Waite as “Transcendental Magic”). This spirit is referred to simply as “physician”, which was Encausse’s profession (see R. Kaczynski “Forgotten Templars”, Self-published, 2012). 23

Lafontaine, ibid. 24

Bogaard, Milko. 1891 Supreme Conseil de l'Ordre Martiniste. November 2003. http://www.omeganexusonline.net/rcmo/supremecouncil.htm. 19 May 28, 2014. 25

While usually explained as standing for “Supérieur Inconnu” (Unknown Superior), it is also said to mean “Serviteur Inconnu” (Unknown Servant).