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Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton
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Accessed: 11/3/19

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-- Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, by Wikipedia

-- Edith Bulwer-Lytton, Countess of Lytton [Edith Villiers], by Wikipedia

-- Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton, by Wikipedia

His Excellency, The Right Honourable, The Earl of Lytton, GCB GCIE PC
Earl of Lytton, photo by Nadar
British Ambassador to France
In office: 1887–1891
Monarch: Queen Victoria
Preceded by: The Viscount Lyons
Succeeded by: The Marquess of Dufferin and Ava
Viceroy and Governor-General of India
In office: 12 April 1876 – 8 June 1880
Monarch: Queen Victoria
Preceded by: The Earl of Northbrook
Succeeded by: The Marquess of Ripon
Personal details
Born: 8 November 1831
Died: 24 November 1891 (aged 60)
Nationality: British
Political party: Conservative
Spouse(s): Edith Villiers
Children: 7
Parents: Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton; Rosina Doyle Wheeler
Education: Harrow School
Alma mater: University of Bonn

Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, GCB, GCSI, GCIE, PC (8 November 1831 – 24 November 1891) was an English statesman, Conservative politician, and poet (who used the pseudonym Owen Meredith). He served as Viceroy of India between 1876 and 1880—during his tenure Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India—and as British Ambassador to France from 1887 to 1891.

His tenure as Viceroy was extremely successful, but controversial for its ruthlessness in both domestic and foreign affairs: especially for his response to the Great Famine of 1876–78, and the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Lytton's policies were alleged to be informed by his Social Darwinism. His son Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton, who was born in India, later served as Governor of Bengal and briefly as acting Viceroy, and he was the father-in-law of the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, who designed New Delhi.

Lytton was a protégé of Benjamin Disraeli in domestic affairs, and of Richard Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons, who was his predecessor as Ambassador to France, in foreign affairs. His tenure as Ambassador to Paris was successful, and Lytton was afforded the rare tribute – especially for an Englishman – of a French state funeral in Paris.

Childhood and education


Harrow School

Lytton was the son of the novelists Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton and Rosina Doyle Wheeler (who was the daughter of the early women's rights advocate Anna Wheeler). His uncle was Sir Henry Bulwer. His childhood was spoiled by the altercations of his parents,[1] who separated acrimoniously when he was a boy. However, Lytton received the patronage of John Forster - an influential friend of Leigh Hunt, Charles Lamb, Walter Savage Landor, and Charles Dickens - who was generally considered to be the first professional biographer of 19th century England.[2]

Lytton's mother, who lost access to her children, satirised his father in her 1839 novel Cheveley, or the Man of Honour. His father subsequently had his mother placed under restraint, as a consequence of an assertion of her insanity, which provoked public outcry and her liberation a few weeks later. His mother chronicled this episode in her memoirs.[3][4]

After being taught at home for a while, he was educated in schools in Twickenham and Brighton and thence Harrow,[5] and at the University of Bonn.[1]

Diplomatic career

Lytton entered the Diplomatic Service in 1849, when aged 18, when he was appointed as attaché to his uncle, Sir Henry Bulwer, who was Minister at Washington, DC.[6] It was at this time he met Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.[6] He began his salaried diplomatic career in 1852 as an attaché to Florence, and subsequently served in Paris, in 1854, and in The Hague, in 1856 .[6] In 1858, he served in St Petersburg, Constantinople, and Vienna.[6] In 1860, he was appointed British Consul General at Belgrade.[6]

In 1862, Lytton was promoted to Second Secretary in Vienna, but his success in Belgrade made Lord Russell appoint him, in 1863, as Secretary of the Legation at Copenhagen, during his tenure as which he twice acted as Chargé d'Affaires in the Schleswig-Holstein conflict.[6] In 1864, Lytton was transferred to the Greek court to advise the young Danish Prince. In 1865, he served in Lisbon, where he concluded a major commercial treaty with Portugal,[6] and subsequently in Madrid. He subsequently became Secretary to the Embassy at Vienna and, in 1872, to Richard Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons, who was Ambassador to Paris.[6] By 1874, Lytton was appointed British Minister Plenipotentiary at Lisbon where he remained until being appointed Governor General and Viceroy of India in 1876.[6]

Viceroy of India (1876–1880)


Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton


The Delhi Durbar of 1877 at Coronation Park. The Viceroy of India, Lord Lytton is seated on the dais to the left

Midway on his journey [to India] he met, by prearrangement, in Egypt, the Prince of Wales, then returning from his tour through India. Immediately on his arrival in Calcutta he was sworn in as Governor General and Viceroy, and on 1 January 1877, surrounded by all the Princes of Hindustan, he presided at a spectacular ceremony on the plains of Delhi, which marked the Proclamation of her Majesty, Queen Victoria, as Empress of India. After this the Queen conferred upon him the honor of the Grand Cross of the civil division of the Order of the Bath. In 1879 an attempt was made to assassinate Lord Lytton, but he escaped uninjured. The principal event of his viceroyalty was the Afghan war. (The New York Times, 1891)[6]

After turning down an appointment as governor of Madras,[5] Lytton was appointed Viceroy of India in 1875 and served from 1876 to 1880.[1] His tenure was controversial for its ruthlessness in both domestic and foreign affairs.[1] In 1877, Lord Lytton convened a durbar (imperial assembly) in Delhi that was attended by around 84,000 people, including Indian princes and noblemen. In 1878, he implemented the Vernacular Press Act, which enabled the Viceroy to confiscate the press and paper of any Indian Vernacular newspaper that published content that the Government deemed to be "seditious", in response to which there was a public protest in Calcutta that was led by the Indian Association and Surendranath Banerjee.

Lytton's son-in-law, Sir Edwin Lutyens, planned and designed New Delhi.

Indian Famine

Main article: Great Famine of 1876–78

Lord Lytton arrived as Viceroy of India in 1876. In the same year, a famine broke out in south India which claimed between 6.1 million and 10.3 million people.[7]

His implementation of Britain's trading policy has been blamed for increasing the severity of the famine.[7] Critics have contended that Lytton's belief in Social Darwinism determined his policy in response to the starving and dying Indians. He did, however, establish a commission to recommend ways to mitigate the threat of future famines, and he supported its recommendations when they were made in 1880.[5]

Second Anglo-Afghan War, 1878–1880

Main article: European influence in Afghanistan

Britain was deeply concerned throughout the 1870s about Russian attempts to increase its influence in Afghanistan, which provided a Central Asian buffer state between the Russian Empire and British India. Lytton had been given express instructions to recover the friendship of the Amir of Afghanistan, Sher Ali Khan, who was perceived at this point to have sided with Russia above Britain, and made every effort to do so for eighteen months.[5] In September 1878, Lytton sent the general Sir Neville Bowles Chamberlain as an emissary to Afghanistan, but he was refused entry. Considering himself left with no real alternative, in November 1878, Lytton ordered an invasion which sparked the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Britain won virtually all the major battles of this war, and in the final settlement, the Treaty of Gandamak, saw a government installed under a new amir which was both by personality and law receptive to British demands; however, the human and material costs and relative brutality of the brief guerrilla war (the war resulted in great loss of life on all sides, including civilians) provoked extensive controversy.[1] This, and the subsequent massacre of the residents of the Kabul representative Sir Louis Cavagnari and his staff,[5] contributed to the defeat of Disraeli's Conservative government by Gladstone's Liberals in 1880.[8]

The war was seen at the time as an ignominious but barely acceptable end to "the Great Game", closing a long chapter of conflict with the Russian Empire without even a proxy engagement. The Pyrrhic victory of British arms in India was a quiet embarrassment which played a small but critical role in the nascent scramble for Africa; in this way, Lytton and his war helped shape the contours of the 20th century in dramatic and unexpected ways. Lytton resigned at the same time as the Conservative government. He was the last Viceroy of India to govern an open frontier.

Commemoration

A permanent exhibition in Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, is dedicated to his diplomatic service in India.

Domestic politics

In 1880, Lytton resigned his Viceroyalty at the same time that Benjamin Disraeli resigned the premiership. Lytton was created Earl of Lytton, in the County of Derby, and Viscount Knebworth, of Knebworth in the County of Hertford.[6] On 10 January 1881, Lytton made his maiden speech in the House of Lords, in which he censured in Gladstone's devolutionist Afghan policy. In the summer session of 1881, Lytton joined others in opposing Gladstone's second Irish Land Bill.[9] As soon as the summer session was over, he undertook "a solitary ramble about the country". He visited Oxford for the first time, went for a trip on the Thames, and then revisited the hydropathic establishment at Malvern, where he had been with his father as a boy".[10] He saw this as an antidote to the otherwise indulgent lifestyle that came with his career, and used his sojourn there to undertake a critique of a new volume of poetry by his friend Wilfrid Blunt.[11]

Ambassador to Paris: 1887–1891

Lytton was Ambassador to France from 1887 to 1891. During the second half of the 1880s, before his appointment as Ambassador in 1887, Lytton served as Secretary to the Ambassador to Paris, Lord Lyons.[12] He succeeded Lyons, as Ambassador, subsequent to the resignation of Lyons in 1887.[12][6] Lytton had previously expressed an interest in the post and enjoyed himself "once more back in his old profession".[13]

Lord Lytton died in Paris on 24 November 1891, where he was given the rare honour of a state funeral. His body was then brought back for interment in the private family mausoleum in Knebworth Park.

Writings as "Owen Meredith"


The Right Honourable The Lord Lytton

When Lytton was twenty-five years old, he published in London a volume of poems under the name of Owen Meredith.[1] He went on to publish several other volumes under the same name. The most popular is Lucile, a story in verse published in 1860. His poetry was extremely popular and critically commended in his own day. He was a great experimenter with form. His best work is beautiful, and much of it is of a melancholy nature, as this short extract from a poem called "A Soul's Loss" shows, where the poet bids farewell to a lover who has betrayed him:

Child, I have no lips to chide thee./ Take the blessing of a heart/ (Never more to beat beside thee!)/ Which in blessing breaks. Depart./ Farewell! I that deified thee/ Dare not question what thou art.

Lytton underesteemed his poetic ability: in his Chronicles and Characters (1868), the poor response to which distressed him, Lytton states, 'Talk not of genius baffled. Genius is master of man./Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can'.[1] However, Lytton's poetic ability was highly esteemed by other literary personalities of the day, and Oscar Wilde dedicated his play Lady Windermere's Fan to him.

Lytton's publications included:[6]

• Clytemnestra, The Earl's Return, The Artist and Other Poems (1855)[1]
• The Wanderer (1859), a Byron-esque lyric of Continental adventures that was popular on its release[1]
• Lucile (1860). Lytton was accused of plagiarizing George Sand's novel Lavinia for the story.[14][15]
• Serbski Pesme (1861). Plagiarized from a French translation of Serbian poems.[16][17]
• The Ring of Ainasis (1863)
• Fables in Song (1874)
• Speeches of Edward Lord Lytton with some of his Political Writingss, Hitherto unpublished, and a Prefactory Memoir by His Son (1874)
• The Life Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton (1883)
• Glenaveril (1885)
• After Paradise, or Legends of Exile (1887)
• King Poppy: A Story Without End (partially composed in early 1870s: only first published in 1892),[1] an allegorical romance in blank verse that was Lytton's favourite of his verse romances[1]


Vanity Fair Print 1875 editors text

Further reading

There is a detailed biography of Lytton by A. B. Harlan (1946).[1]

Marriage and children


Edith Villiers, Countess of Lytton

On 4 October 1864 Lytton married Edith Villiers. She was the daughter of Edward Ernest Villiers (1806–1843) and Elizabeth Charlotte Liddell and the granddaughter of George Villiers.[18] In 1897, she was one of the guests at the Duchess of Devonshire's Diamond Jubilee Costume Ball.[19]

They had at least seven children:

• Edward Rowland John Bulwer-Lytton (1865–1871)
• Lady Elizabeth Edith "Betty" Bulwer-Lytton (12 June 1867 – 28 March 1942).[18] Married Gerald Balfour, 2nd Earl of Balfour, brother of Prime Minister Arthur Balfour.
• Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton (1869–1923)[18]
• Hon. Henry Meredith Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1872–1874)
• Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton (1874–1964). Married Edwin Lutyens. Associate of Krishnamurti
• Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton (1876–1947)[18]
• Neville Bulwer-Lytton, 3rd Earl of Lytton (6 February 1879 – 9 February 1951)[18]

References

1. Birch, Dinah (2009). The Oxford Companion to English Literature; Seventh Edition. OUP. p. 614.
2. Birch, Dinah (2009). The Oxford Companion to English Literature; Seventh Edition. OUP. p. 385.
3. Lady Lytton (1880). A Blighted Life. London: The London Publishing Office. Retrieved 28 November 2009. Online text at wikisource.org
4. Devey, Louisa (1887). Life of Rosina, Lady Lytton, with Numerous Extracts from her Ms. Autobiography and Other Original Documents, published in vindication of her memory. London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co. Retrieved 28 November 2009. Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org)
5. Stephen, Herbert (1911). "Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 186–187.
6. New York Times, 25 November 1891, Wednesday, Death of Lord Lytton—A Sudden Attack of Heart Disease in Paris—No Time for Assistance—His Long Career as a Diplomat in England's Service—His Literary Work as Owen Meredith
7. Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts. 1. Verso, 2000. ISBN 1-85984-739-0pg 7
8. David Washbrook, 'Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer-, first earl of Lytton (1831–1891)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 29 September 2008
9. Balfour, Lady Betty, ed. (1906). Personal & Literary Letters of Robert First Earl of Lytton. Vol.2 of 2 (2nd ed.). London: Longmans, Green & Co. pp. 225–226. Retrieved 27 November 2009. Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org)
10. Balfour, Lady Betty (1906) p.234
11. Balfour, Lady Betty (1906) pp.236–238
12. Jenkins, Brian. Lord Lyons: A Diplomat in an Age of Nationalism and War. McGill-Queen’s Press, 2014.
13. Balfour, Lady Betty (1906) pp.329–320
14. Bulwer-Lytton, V.A.G.R. (1913). The Life of Edward Bulwer: First Lord Lytton. 2. Macmillan and Company. p. 392.
15. "Mr. Owen Meredith's "Lucile"". The Literary Gazette. New Series. London. 140 (2300): 201–204. 2 March 1861.
16. "Owen Meredith". The Illustrated American. 9: 165. 12 December 1891.
17. "Robert Bulwer Lytton". The Brownings' Correspondence.
18. David Washbrook, 'Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer-, first earl of Lytton (1831–1891)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 2 Nov 2015
19. Walker, Dave. "Costume Ball 4: Ladies only". Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Lytton
• Works by Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton at Internet Archive
• Works by Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• The LUCILE Project an academic effort to recover the publishing history of Lucile (which went through at least 2000 editions by nearly 100 publishers).
• His profile in ancestry.com

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Edith Bulwer-Lytton, Countess of Lytton [Edith Villiers]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/10/21


The Right Honourable, The Countess of Lytton
Portrait by George Frederic Watts (1862)
Born: Edith Villiers, 1841
Died: 17 September 1936 (aged 94–95)
Resting place: Knebworth[1]
Nationality: British
Other names: Edith Bulwer-Lytton, Lady Lytton
Known for: Vicereine of India
Spouse(s): Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton
Children: 7
Parent(s): Edward Ernest Villiers; Elizabeth Charlotte Liddell
Relatives: Villiers family

Edith Bulwer-Lytton, Countess of Lytton (née Villiers; 15 September 1841 – 17 September 1936) was a British aristocrat. Wife of Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, she led the Indian Imperial court as Vicereine of India. She was later a court-attendant of Queen Victoria. Her children included the suffragette Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton.

Life

Edith Villiers was born on 15 September 1841, into the aristocratic Villiers family. She was the daughter of Edward Ernest Villiers (1806–1843) and Elizabeth Charlotte Liddell. She was the granddaughter of George Villiers,[1] and the niece of George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon. The Pre-Raphaelite portrait of her by George Frederic Watts was painted when she was 21.[2] She was then the only unmarried daughter as her twin sister Elizabeth had married Henry Loch, 1st Baron Loch in 1862. (There is a tale that Henry proposed to the wrong girl by mistake and then refused to admit it.[2]) Edith was living with her widowed mother at the home of her uncle, the Earl of Clarendon. She had been trained in dancing, music and art, but she had not received a structured education.[2]

Villiers married Robert Bulwer-Lytton (later 1st Earl of Lytton) on 4 October 1864. She brought her new husband an income of £6,000 per year. Robert, an aspiring diplomat, was relatively poor for a member of the British upper classes, although his father Edward Bulwer-Lytton was a well-known writer and was raised to the peerage in 1866. His father controlled his son and it was his choice for his son to become a diplomat. Having previously broken up a match between Robert and another girl, he also disapproved of the marriage to Edith. For the first year he refused to speak to her but eventually warmed to the marriage.[3]

Edith accompanied her husband during his diplomatic career, and several of their children were born abroad. The children were:

• Edward Rowland John Bulwer-Lytton (1865–1871)
• Lady Elizabeth Edith "Betty" Bulwer-Lytton[1] (12 June 1867 – 28 March 1942) who married Gerald Balfour, 2nd Earl of Balfour
• Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton, born at Vienna (1869–1923),[1] British suffragette activist.
• Hon. Henry Meredith Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1872–1874)
• Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton (1874–1964) who married the architect Edwin Lutyens.
• Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton, (1876–1947)[1]
• Neville Bulwer-Lytton, 3rd Earl of Lytton (6 February 1879 – 9 February 1951)[1]

India


The Delhi Durbar of 1877. The Viceroy of India is seated on the dais to the left.

Her husband served as Viceroy of India between 1876 and 1880.[4] Edith would be the Vicereine.[5] In 1876 she gave birth at Shimla to her son Victor. He was the third of her sons but Edward and Henry had died as infants in 1871 and 1874. Victor and her last child Neville who was born in 1879 would in time inherit the Earldom.[1]

The Delhi Durbar of 1877 was held beginning on 1 January 1877 to proclaim Queen Victoria as Empress of India. The following year Edith, as Vicereine, was invested in the Imperial Order of the Crown of India.[6] Edith was also decorated with the honorific Lady, Royal Order of Victoria and Albert. Edith and her daughters restyled the court which they considered inferior to the courts of Europe. Fashions were ordered from Paris. Edith was noted for her support of the education of women in India.[1] Her daughter Emily retained an interest in Indian culture after the family's return to England and was converted to theosophy. When Edith's husband resigned in 1880 he was made an Earl by Benjamin Disraeli.[4]

Paris


Lady Edith Villiers dressed as Lady Melbourne for a costume party at Devonshire House[7] (1897)

Edith's husband became the British Ambassador in Paris in 1887 although he was weakened by heart disease. He seemed to make a good impression as when he died suddenly in Paris in 1891 he was given, unusually, a state funeral in France. Edith was the chief mourner along with her surviving five children. The funeral was attended by ministers of state and the French government arranged for 3,500 soldiers to serve at the funeral, before his body was taken by rail to England.[4]

At court

Edith had a much reduced income. She became Queen Victoria's Lady-in-Waiting (Lady of the Bedchamber) in 1895 taking the post left vacant by Susanna, Duchess of Roxburghe. She was asked personally by the Queen and she received £300 per year and served with eight other aristocratic maids of honour.[8] In 1897, she was one of the guests at the Duchess of Devonshire's Diamond Jubilee Costume Ball on 2 July 1897.[7]

When the Queen died, Edith rode with the body on the funeral journey from London to Windsor.[9] She then held the office of "Lady of the Bedchamber" to Queen Alexandra until she retired in 1905.[1]

Retirement

Her retirement lasted more than thirty years. She lived at Homewood, a dower house on the family estate at Knebworth, Hertfordshire. The house was designed c. 1901 by her son-in-law Sir Edwin Lutyens, in Arts and Crafts style.[10] Her daughter Constance suffered a stroke in 1912 and returned to live at Homewood,[11] remaining there until shortly before her death in 1923.[12]

Bibliography

Her granddaughter Mary Lutyens published a book Lady Lytton's Court Diary, based on Edith's experiences at the court of Queen Victoria.[13] Mary's other publications include The Lyttons in India: An account of Lord Lytton's Viceroyalty, 1876–1880.[14] Another granddaughter, Elisabeth Lutyens, mentioned Edith's life at Homewood when recalling her own childhood in her autobiography A Goldfish Bowl (1972).

Legacy

Edith and Robert had five children, who led influential lives. She also sat for the noted painting by George Frederic Watts. Some have deprecated her contribution as she had no formal education and her husband's biographers have thought her lightweight.[2]

References

1. Washbrook, D. (2008, January 03). Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer-, first earl of Lytton [pseud. Owen Meredith (1831–1891), viceroy of India and poet]. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 6 Mar. 2020. Subscription or UK public library membership required.
2. Lyndsey Jenkins (12 March 2015). Lady Constance Lytton: Aristocrat, Suffragette, Martyr. Biteback Publishing. pp. 24–. ISBN 978-1-84954-892-2.
3. Leslie George Mitchell (2003). Bulwer Lytton: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Man of Letters. A&C Black. pp. 81–82. ISBN 978-1-85285-423-2.
4. Obituaries of Lord Lytton, Lucille Project, Retrieved 3 November 2015
5. Vicereine, Definition by OxfordDictionaries, Retrieved 3 November 2015
6. "No. 24539". The London Gazette. 4 January 1878. p. 113.
7. Walker, Dave. "Costume Ball 4: Ladies only". Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
8. Greg King (4 June 2007). Twilight of Splendor: The Court of Queen Victoria During Her Diamond Jubilee Year. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 79–. ISBN 978-0-470-04439-1.
9. Votes for Women By June Purvis, Sandra Stanley Holton
10. Homewood, Knebworth http://www.parksandgardens.org.
11. Jenkins (2015), pp. 195–6.
12. Jenkins (2015), pp. 228–30.
13. Lady Lytton's Court Diary, 1895–1901. R. Hart-Davis. 1961.
14. London: John Murray, 1979, ISBN 0-7195-3677-4

External links

• Edith Bulwer-Lytton, ODNB (subscription or UK public library membership required)

Gerard Encausse [Papus]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/3/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

-- A Short Definition of Synarchism, by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

-- Synarchy Against America, by Anton Chaitkin

-- Synarchism, Martinism, and Satanism, by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

-- Synarchism: The Fascist Roots Of the Wolfowitz Cabal, by Jeffrey Steinberg

-- Manifestations of the Martinist Order, by Milko Bogaard

-- The Occult Establishment, by James Webb

Papus

Gérard Anaclet Vincent Encausse (July 13, 1865 – 25 October 1916), whose esoteric pseudonym was Papus, was the Spanish-born French physician, hypnotist, and popularizer of occultism, who founded the modern Martinist Order.

Early life



Gerard Encausse was born at A Coruña in Spain on July 13, 1865, of a Spanish mother and a French father, Louis Encausse, a chemist. His family moved to Paris when he was four years old, and he received his education there.

As a young man, Encausse spent a great deal of time at the Bibliothèque Nationale studying the Kabbalah, occult tarot, magic and alchemy, and the writings of Eliphas Lévi. He joined the French Theosophical Society shortly after it was founded by Madame Blavatsky in 1884–1885, but he resigned soon after joining because he disliked the Society's emphasis on Eastern occultism.

Career

Overview



In 1888, he co-founded his own group, the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix. That same year, he and his friend Lucien Chamuel founded the Librarie du Merveilleux and its monthly revue L'Initiation, which remained in publication until 1914.

Encausse was also a member of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn temple in Paris, as well as Memphis-Misraim and probably other esoteric or paramasonic organizations, as well as being an author of several occult books. Outside of his paramasonic and Martinist activities he was also a spiritual student of the French spiritualist healer, Anthelme Nizier Philippe, "Maître Philippe de Lyon".

Despite his heavy involvement in occultism and occultist groups, Encausse managed to find time to pursue more conventional academic studies at the University of Paris. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1894 upon submitting a dissertation on Philosophical Anatomy. He opened a clinic in the rue Rodin which was quite successful.

Encausse visited Russia three times, in 1901, 1905, and 1906, serving Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra both as physician and occult consultant. It has been incorrectly claimed that in October 1905, he conjured up the spirit of Alexander III (father of Tsar Nicholas), who prophesied that the Tsar would meet his downfall at the hands of revolutionaries. Encausse's followers allege that he informed the Tsar that he would be able to magically avert Alexander's prophesy so long as Encausse was alive. Nicholas kept his hold on the throne of Russia until 141 days after Papus' death.

Although Encausse seems to have served the Tsar and Tsarina in what was essentially the capacity of a mediumistic spiritual advisor, he was later curiously concerned about their heavy reliance on occultism to assist them in deciding questions of government. During their later correspondence, he warned them a number of times against the influence of Rasputin.

Involvement and influences

Levi, Tarot, and the Kabbalah



Encausse's early readings in tarot and the lore of the Kabbalah in translation was inspired by the occult writings of Eliphas Lévi, whose translation of the "Nuctemeron of Apollonius of Tyana" printed as a supplement to Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855), provided Encausse with his nom de plume. "Papus" is the name of a Genius of the First Hour in the Nuctemeron, and is translated in the text as "physician."

1891 l'Ordre des Supérieurs Inconnus

In 1891, Encausse claimed to have come into the possession of the original papers of Martinez Paschalis, or de Pasqually (c. 1700-1774), and therewith founded an Order of Martinists called l'Ordre des Supérieurs Inconnus. He claimed to have been given authority in the Rite of Saint-Martin by his friend Henri Vicomte de Laage, who claimed that his maternal grandfather had been initiated into the order by Saint-Martin himself, and who had attempted to revive the order in 1887. The Martinist Order was to become a primary focus for Encausse, and continues today as one of his most enduring legacies.

1893-1895 Bishop of l'Église Gnostique de France

In 1893, Encausse was consecrated a bishop of l'Église Gnostique de France [Gnostic Church of France] by Jules Doinel, who had founded this Church as an attempt to revive the Cathar religion in 1890.

Most important, the central doctrine of nazism, that the Jew was evil and had to be exterminated, had its origin in the Gnostic position that there were two worlds, one good and one evil, one dark and one light, one materialistic and one spiritual.... The mystical teachings of Guido von List, Lanz von Liebenfels, and Rudolf von Sebottendorff were modern restatements of Gnosticism.

When the apocalyptic promise of Christ's resurrection was broken, the Gnostics sought to return men to God by another route, more Oriental than Hellenist. They devised a dualistic cosmology to set against the teachings of the early Christian Church, which, they claimed, were only common deceptions, unsuited for the wise. The truth was esoteric. Only the properly initiated could appreciate it. It belonged to a secret tradition which had come down through certain mystery schools. The truth was, God could never become man. There were two separate realms -- one spiritual, the other material. The spiritual realm, created by God, was all good; the material realm, created by the demiurge, all evil. Man needed to be saved, not from Original Sin, but from enslavement to matter. For this, he had to learn the mystical arts. Thus Gnosticism became a source for the occult tradition.

A famous medieval Gnostic sect, the Cathars, came to identify the Old Testament god, Jehovah, with the demiurge, the creator of the material world and therefore the equivalent of Satan. Within Gnosticism, then, existed the idea that the Jewish god was really the devil, responsible for all the evil in the world. He was opposed to the New Testament God. The Cathars tried to eliminate the Old Testament from Church theology and condemned Judaism as a work of Satan's, whose aim was to tempt men away from the spirit. Jehovah, they said, was the god of an earth "waste and void," with darkness "upon the face of the deep." Was he not cruel and capricious? They quoted Scripture to prove it. The New Testament God, on the other hand, was light. He declared that "there is neither male nor female," for everyone was united in Christ. These two gods, obviously, had nothing in common.

The synagogue was regarded as profane by Christians. The Cathars -- themselves considered heretical by the Church -- castigated Catholics for refusing to purge themselves of Jewish sources; Church members often blamed the [Cathar] Christian heresy on Jewish mysticism, which was considered an inspiration for Gnostic sorcery.

But Gnostic cosmology, though officially branded "false," pervaded the thinking of the Church. The Jews were widely thought to be magicians. It was believed that they could cause rain, and when there was a drought, they were encouraged to do so. Despite the displeasure of the Roman Popes, Christians, when they were in straitened circumstances, practiced Jewish customs, even frequenting synagogues.

This sheds light on an otherwise incomprehensible recurring theme within Nazi literature, as, for example, "The Earth-Centered Jew Lacks a Soul," by one of the chief architects of Nazi dogma, Alfred Rosenberg, who held that whereas other people believe in a Hereafter and in immortality, the Jew affirms the world and will not allow it to perish. The Gnostic secret is that the spirit is trapped in matter, and to free it, the world must be rejected. Thus, in his total lack of world-denial, the Jew is snuffing out the inner light, and preventing the millennium:

Where the idea of the immortal dwells, the longing for the journey or the withdrawal from temporality must always emerge again; hence, a denial of the world will always reappear. And this is the meaning of the non-Jewish peoples: they are the custodians of world-negation, of the idea of the Hereafter, even if they maintain it in the poorest way. Hence, one or another of them can quietly go under, but what really matters lives on in their descendants. If, however, the Jewish people were to perish, no nation would be left which would hold world-affirmation in high esteem -- the end of all time would be here.

... the Jew, the only consistent and consequently the only viable yea-sayer to the world, must be found wherever other men bear in themselves ... a compulsion to overcome the world.... On the other hand, if the Jew were continually to stifle us, we would never be able to fulfill our mission, which is the salvation of the world, but would, to be frank, succumb to insanity, for pure world-affirmation, the unrestrained will for a vain existence, leads to no other goal. It would literally lead to a void, to the destruction not only of the illusory earthly world but also of the truly existent, the spiritual. Considered in himself the Jew represents nothing else but this blind will for destruction, the insanity of mankind. It is known that Jewish people are especially prone to mental disease. "Dominated by delusions," said Schopenhauer about the Jew.

... To strip the world of its soul, that and nothing else is what Judaism wants. This, however, would be tantamount to the world's destruction.

This remarkable statement, seemingly the rantings of a lunatic, expresses the Gnostic theme that the spirit of man, essentially divine, is imprisoned in an evil world. The way out of this world is through rejection of it. But the Jew alone stands in the way. Behind all the talk about "the earth-centered Jew" who "lacks a soul"; about the demonic Jew who will despoil the Aryan maiden; about the cabalistic work of the devil in Jewish finance; about the sinister revolutionary Jewish plot to take over the world and cause the decline of civilization, there is the shadow of ancient Gnosticism.

-- Gods & Beasts: The Nazis & the Occult, by Dusty Sklar

In 1895, Doinel abdicated as Primate of the French Gnostic Church, leaving control of the Church to a synod of three of his former bishops, one of whom was Encausse.

1895 - 1888 The Golden Dawn; Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix

In March 1895, Encausse joined the Ahathoor Temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in Paris.

Although Encausse claimed as his "spiritual master" the mysterious magician and healer known as "le Maitre Philippe" (Philippe Nizier), his first actual teacher in the intellectual aspects of occultism was the marquis Joseph Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre (1842 - 1910). Saint-Yves had inherited the papers of one of the great founders of French occultism, Antoine Fabre d'Olivet (1762 - 1825), and it was probably Saint-Yves who introduced Papus to the marquis Stanislas de Guaita (1861 - 1897).

In 1888, Encausse, Saint-Yves and de Guaita joined with Joséphin Péladan and Oswald Wirth to found the Rosicrucian Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix.

1901 Questionable Anti-Semitic writings

In October 1901 Encausse collaborated with Jean Carrère in producing a series of articles in the Echo de Paris under the pseudonym Niet ("no" in Russian). In the articles Sergei Witte and Pyotr Rachkovsky were attacked, and it was suggested that there was a sinister financial syndicate trying to disrupt the Franco-Russian alliance. Encausse and Carrère predicted that this syndicate was a Jewish conspiracy, and the anti-Semitic nature of these articles, compounded by Encausse's known connection to the Tsar of Russia, may have contributed to the allegation that Papus was the author who forged The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[citation needed]

1908 - 1913 Encausse, Reuss and paramasonry

Encausse never became a regular Freemason. Despite this, he organized what was announced as an "International Masonic Conference" in Paris on June 24, 1908, and at this conference he first met Theodor Reuss, and the two men apparently exchanged patents:

Reuss elevated Encausse as X° of the Ordo Templi Orientis as well as giving him license to establish a "Supreme Grand Council General of the Unified Rites of Ancient and Primitive Masonry for the Grand Orient of France and its Dependencies at Paris." For his part, Encausse assisted Reuss in the formation of the O.T.O. Gnostic Catholic Church as a child of l'Église Gnostique de France, thus forming the E.G.C. within the tradition of French neo-gnosticism.

When John Yarker died in 1913, Encausse was elected as his successor to the office of Grand Hierophant (international head) of the Antient and Primitive Rites of Memphis and Mizraim.

Death

When World War I broke out, Encausse joined the French army medical corps. While working in a military hospital, he contracted tuberculosis and died in Paris on October 25, 1916, at the age of 51.

Partial bibliography

The written works of Papus (Gerard Encausse) include:

• Papus (Gerard Encausse). L'Occultisme Contemporain. 1887. PDF scans (État HTTP 404 – Not Found) from Gallica
• Papus (Gerard Encausse). L'Occultisme. 1890.
• Papus (Gerard Encausse). Traité méthodique de Science Occulte. 1891. PDF scans from Google Books
• Papus (Gerard Encausse). La Science Des Mages. 1892. PDF scans from Gallica
• Papus (Gerard Encausse). Anarchie, Indolence et Synarchie. 1894. PDF scans from Gallica
• Papus (Gerard Encausse). Le Diable et l'occultisme. 1895.
• Papus (Gerard Encausse). Traite Méthodique De La Magie Pratique. 1898. PDF scans from Gallica
• Niet (Gerard Encausse and Jean Carrère). La Russie Aujourd'hui. 1902.
• Papus (Gerard Encausse). La Kabbale. 1903.
• Papus (Gerard Encausse). Le Tarot Divinataire. 1909. PDF scans from Internet Archive

External links

• Media related to Papus at Wikimedia Commons
• T. Apiryon, brief biography
• Complete bibliography of the writings of Papus (in French).

Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/3/19


Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross
Ordre kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix
OKRC.gif
Modified version of the emblem of O.K.R.C. from a 19th-century occultistic/mystical work.
Formation 1888 in Paris (France)
Type Christian-Cabbalistic organisation
Headquarters Las Vegas
Location
NV, USA
Leader
Viscount Louis-Charles-Edouard de Lapasse (1850–1888)
Stanislas de Guaita (1888–1897)
...

Jean-Louis de Biasi (1999–Current head)
Website Https://www.okrc.org

The Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross (French: Ordre kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix – O.K.R.C.) is the first occult society in France at the end of the 19th century.[1] The order was founded by Stanislas de Guaita and Joséphin Péladan in 1888. The structure and teaching of the order in many respects had similarities and intersections with the Martinist Order of Papus (Ordre des Supérieurs Inconnus), and has an emphasis on Christian Kabbalah as its domain of study and direction of spiritual work.[2]

Teaching and structure

The OKRC conducted classes on Christian Kabbalah, an esoteric form of Christianity, the goal of which is to reveal the hidden mystical ability to ‘penetrate the essence of the Bible and the Divine’. Also, the order conducted examinations and awarded grades that named after the academic degrees in universities. This feature favourably distinguished the order from the bulk of the secret societies of its time.[1]

Degrees of the O.K.R.C.

1. Bachelor of Kabbalah
2. Licence of Kabbalah (Master of Kabbalah)
3. Doctorate of Kabbalah

The structure of the degrees was created in the form of the University, they were awarded only to those who attend lectures and pass examinations.[1]

Brief history

In 1890–1891, Joséphin Péladan—one of the founders—abandoned the OKRC and established his own Ordre de la Rose-Croix catholique du Temple et du Graal which included many of the prominent Symbolist artists of the period. The reason for the split is that Péladan ‘refused to associate himself with spiritism, Freemasonry or Buddhism’.[3] Stanislas de Guaita, on the contrary, said that he doesn’t want to turn the order into a salon for artists.[4]

After the sudden death of Stanislas de Guaita in 1897, Papus succeeded him as Grand Master of the OKRC, he was the ‘Délége General de l’Ordre kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix’ until his death in 1916.[5]

Today, the order still operates in several countries in the world and in several languages.[1] The French published author and spiritual teacher Jean-Louis de Biasi is the current head (as of 2019) of the Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix. He lives in Las Vegas.[6]

References

1. Greer, John Michael (2006). The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies. pp. 252–253.
2. Caillet, Serge (2003). La Franc-maçonnerie égyptienne de Memphis-Misraïm (in French). p. 200.
3. Churton, Tobias (2005). Gnostic Philosophy: From Ancient Persia to Modern Times. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions. p. 322. ISBN 9781594777677.
4. Billy, André (1971). Stanislas de Guaita (in French). p. 37.
5. Roggemans, Marcel (2009). History of Martinism and the F.U.D.O.S.I. Translated by Bogaard, Milko. Morrisville, North Carolina: Lulu Press. p. 36. ISBN 978-1-4092-8260-0.
6. "Jean-Louis de Biasi". http://www.debiasi.org. Retrieved 17 April 2018.

External links

• Official website

Lucien Chamuel
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/3/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Lucien Chamuel, pseudonym of Lucien Mauchel, (18? - November 22, 1936 ) was a French publisher, Rosicrucian, Martinist and Occultist.

Chamuel was from Vendée and studied law. He was a friend of Papus (Gerard Encausse). One day Papus said to him: A few notes of 1000 francs are enough to open a publishing house for books on occultism. Shortly thereafter, Chamuel rented a building on Rue de Trévise, 29 in Paris. Together with his friend Papus, he founded La Librairie du Merveilleux in 1888. The publishing house with bookstore and conference rooms quickly achieved success. It became a meeting place for everyone who was interested in Hermetism. Young poets, writers, artists, doctors and others also visited the bookstore.

The publishing house was sold to Henri Chacornac in 1901. In 1895, the bookshop moved to Faubourg Poissonnière, 79. From 1896 to 1898, the bookshop moved into the building on rue de Savoie, 5, in the 6th arrondissement. This building was then occupied by the Amitiés Spirituelles, the spiritual association of Paul Sédir.

Joséphin Péladan, Stanislas de Guaita, Albert Poisson, (Charles Barlet) Albert Faucheux, Georges Polti, Emille Gary, Colonel de Rochas, Paul Adam, Lemerle, Paul Sédir (Yvon Le Loup), Marc Haven (dr. Lalande), Abel Haatan and Jean Chaboseau were some of those visitors.

In 1888, Chamuel, together with Papus, founded the monthly magazine L'Initiation. Papus became director, George Montière was editor-in-chief, assisted by Charles Barlet and Julien Lejay. The monthly magazine was open to topics such as freemasonry, martinism, spiritualism, theosophy, but also to poetry and literature. Later this monthly magazine became the magazine of the Martinist Order.

Chamuel was a member of the Martinist order. In 1891, the first Supreme Council, under the name L'Ordre des Supérieurs Inconnus, was founded by Papus. Chamuel became a member of this Supreme Council.

Lucien Chamuel and Victor-Emile Michelet were martinists of the first hour. Various groups of martinists had emerged over the years. Chamuel, Michelet and Augustin Chaboseau met in 1931. They wanted to bring new life to the traditional Martinist order that they had started with Papus and proclaimed themselves the only successors to the original Martinist order. The order of this order was on July 24, 1931 under the name Ordre Martiniste Traditionnel.

Chamuel was also a member of the L'Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose Croix, founded in 1888 by Marquis Stanislas de Guaita. In 1920, Chamuel became grandmaster of this order.

In 1890, Jules Doinel founded l'Eglise Gnostique. He dedicated Chamuel under the name Tau Bardesane, bishop of La Rochelle and Saintes in 1892. Other martinists were then initiated: Papus as Tau Vincent, bishop of Toulouse and Paul Sédir as Tau Paul, bishop of Concorezzo. These three initiates formed the core of the newly established Eglise Universelle Gnostique. In 1932 Chamuel became the patriarch of the church.

In 1893 he received from Baron Spedalieri a thousand original letters from Eliphas Levi, which together form a kabbalah course .

According to Sédir, a friend of Chamuel, he was a very calm and warm personality. With determination, he helped his friends and interested parties and assisted the young seekers of truth with advice and action.

Paul Sedir [Yvon Le Loup]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/3/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Paul Sedir

Paul Sédir, pseudonym of Yvon Le Loup, ( Dinan, 2 January 1871 - Paris, 3 February 1926) was a French publicist, mystic, kabbalist, rose crosser and martinist.

Course of life

Sédir was born as son of Hippolyte Le Loup and Séraphine Foeller. The family moved from Brittany to Paris at a very young age. His parents had a very difficult time. This had consequences for the small Le Loup. Because of deprivation he had a hidden tuberculosis, broke a leg and got Pott disease (tuberculosis of vertebral bodies).

As a child he wanted to become a shepherd. He once wrote a book about the shepherd dog. He later had another wish and wanted to become a handyman.

Le Loup already had a very young hand, a beautiful handwriting and he would keep that for the rest of his life. In 1882 he got the chance to take violin lessons.

He followed Catechese in the church of Saint-Augustin and in the school of François-Bourgeois; he attended primary school with the brothers of the Christian Doctrine. On July 10, 1883 he obtained the higher education diploma.

In a very unfortunate fall he broke his leg for the second time. During this forced rest period he read many books and developed his drawing talent.

It was a time when he was worried about his situation. He found a job as a clerk at an office. An old friend of the family gave him the opportunity to take the entrance exam at a bank. On October 28, 1892 he joined the Banque de France as an assistant. During the lunch break, which was just over an hour, he always walked along the banks of the Seine, always looking for old books in the stalls of the booksellers.

Only with his perseverance, his intelligence and with the books he could have bought with his small budget, Le Loup had studied esotericism for about two years. He decided to contact the esoterics living in Paris.

In 1888, Papus (Dr. Gerard Encausse), together with Lucien Chamuel, had founded La Librairie du Merveilleux. This publishing house with bookstore and conference rooms was a meeting place for everyone who was interested in Hermetism. At the end of 1889, Le Loup visited this bookstore and said to Chamuel: "I want to do occultism." Papus who was also present said: “That is very good my boy. Come to me next Sunday.” That Sunday Papus informed the newcomer how to keep the valuable library in order. This is how the Breton boy who called himself Yvon Le Loup began his studies in occultism.

Le Loup immediately became a contributor to the magazine L'Initiation, founded by Papus in 1890. Sédir published his first article in October 1890: Expériences d'occultisme pratique, under the name Yvon Le Loup. It is in L'Initiation of October 1891 that one can find the name Sédir for the first time. Sédir is an anagram of désir (desire). This was an allusion to L'homme de désir or The Man of Desire, an expression of Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin to describe a phase in the spiritual evolution of man.

By the power of will we project an idea through the mind, where it takes concrete shape as a thought-form by drawing mind-stuff around itself from the Region of Concrete Thought. The mind ... projects the image in one of three directions, according to the will of the thinker, which ensouls the thought-form. It may be projected against the desire body in an endeavor to arouse feeling which will lead to immediate action. If the thought awakens Interest, one of the twin forces, Attraction or Repulsion, will be stirred up.

If Attraction, the centripetal force, is aroused, it seizes the thought, whirls it into the desire body, endows the image with added life and clothes it with desire-stuff. Then the thought is able to act on the etheric brain, and propel the vital force through the appropriate brain centers and nerves to the voluntary muscles which perform the necessary action. Thus the force in the thought is expended and the image remains in the ether of the vital body as memory of the act and the feeling that caused it.

Repulsion is the centrifugal force and if that is aroused by the thought there will be a struggle between the spiritual force (the will of the man) within the thought-form, and the desire body. This is the battle between conscience and desire, the higher and the lower nature. The spiritual force, in spite of resistance will seek to clothe the thought-form in the desire-stuff needed to manipulate the brain and muscles. The force of Repulsion will endeavor to scatter the appropriated material and oust the thought. If the spiritual energy is strong, it may force its way through to the brain centers and hold its clothing of desire-stuff while manipulating the vital force, thus compelling action, and will then leave upon the memory a vivid impression of the struggle and the victory. If the spiritual energy is exhausted before action has resulted, it will be overcome by the force of Repulsion, and will be stored in the memory, as are all other thought-forms when they have expended their energy....

Where no immediate action is called for by the mental images of impacts from without, these may be projected directly upon the reflecting ether, together with the thoughts occasioned by them, to be used at some future time. The spirit, working through the mind, has instant access to the storehouse of conscious memory, and may at any time resurrect any of the pictures found there, endue them with new spiritual force, and project them upon the desire body to compel action. Each time such a picture is thus used it will gain in vividness, strength and efficiency, and will compel action along its particular line grooves, and produces the phenomenon of thought, "gaining" or "growing" upon us by repetition.

A third way of using a thought-form is when the thinker projects it toward another mind to act as a suggestion, to carry information, etc., as in thought-transference, or it may be directed against the desire body of another person to compel action, as in the case of a hypnotist influencing a victim at a distance. It will then act in precisely the same manner as if it were the victim's own thought.

When the work designed for such a projected thought-form has been accomplished, or its energy expended in vain attempts to achieve its object, it gravitates back to its creator, bearing with it the indelible record of the journey. It success or failure is imprinted on the negative atoms of the reflecting ether of its creator's vital body, where it forms that part of the record of the thinker's life and action which is sometimes called the sub-conscious mind.

This record is much more important than the memory to which we have conscious access, for the latter is made up from imperfect and illusive sense-perceptions and is the voluntary memory or conscious mind.

-- The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception: An Elementary Treatise Upon Man's Past Evolution, Present Constitution and Future Development, by Max Heindel

Papus had also introduced Sédir to other esoteric groups, where Sédir included Paul Adam, F.-Charles Barlet, F.-R. Gaboriau, Emile Gary de Lacroze, Julien Lejay, Jules Lermina, Victor-Emile Michelet and René Philipon met.

It was also the period in which Stanislas de Guaita founded L'Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose + Croix. Papus had just founded his Martinist order. Sédir became a member of L'Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose + Croix and became a doctor at Kabbala. In the Martinist order, of which Sédir also became a member, he made it a member of the Supreme Council.

Through Barlet, Sédir became a member of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor.

With Philipon he renewed the Freemasonry of Misraim and became a Councilor of the Société Alchimique de France, of Jollivet-Castelot.

Auguste Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Flaubert, Honoré de Balzac, Laurent Tailhade and Joséphin Péladan were other important people in Sédir's life.

Between 1894 and 1898 the first articles and the first works of Sédir were published by La Librairie du Merveilleux.

Between 1894 and 1906, Sédir also published the first translations into French of authors such as Jacob Boehme, Gichtel, Jeanne Leade, William Law. He also wrote a preface or introduction to reprint works by Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, Isaac Loriah, Salzmann. He also published his own work in which he explained the results of his research.

Sédir marries Alice, Estelle Perret-Gentil on 13 June 1899. A sweet woman who was the ideal partner for Sédir. Ten years later Alice would die.

Sédir was always very careful when he spoke about the invisible. One day this caution changed. He spoke and responded with authority and with certainty. He suddenly spoke as a wise man. He left many of his friends behind and devoted himself exclusively to the Gospel. This evolution surprised his old friends.

Sédir only had one doctrine: loving fellow human beings and that combined with the search for the Kingdom of God.

In recent years, Alfred Haehl, who was a dear friend of Sédir, had spoken openly about l'Inconnu: Maître Philippe Nizier Anthelme. A healer and spiritual teacher from Lyon. Sédir therefore had the privilege of meeting his ideal, not in the abstract worlds of ideas, but in a living person. A Sunday in July 1897 on the platform of the Gare de Lyon in Paris, Sédir was accompanied by Papus and met Monsieur Philippe for the first time. Papus called Mr Philippe the father of the poor. Monsieur Philippe was his spiritual teacher for Papus. Sédir called him, in his novel Initiations: Andréas.

That first meeting was very short. Sédir could only have spoken a few words to this man. Sédir, however, saw him several times in Paris. Sédir, accompanied by Jean Chapas, also stayed at Monsieur Philippe's house in L'Arbresle. Here the most loyal students met, such as Jean Chapas, Marc Haven, Alfred Haehl, etc.

In May 1905, at the request of Alice Le Loup, Sédir stayed longer in L'Arlresle. Alice Le Loup was incurably ill. She had expressed the wish to stay a few days longer with the Master. It was the last visit because the Master died on 2 August 1905.

The death of Alice Le Loup, on April 23, 1909, changed the life of Sédir. He left the bank.

His friends insisted that he become the leader of a spiritual group. Sédir did it but couldn't. He only wanted to follow the circumstances, be an instrument of the will of God.

He was asked to give lectures; Sédir did it. He was asked to give his lectures; Sédir did it. He was asked to gather all the benevolent ones who had gathered around him; Sédir did it. He rented a room where the friends of the Amitiés Spirituelles met. The remarkable knowledge that Sédir put at the service of the Gospel brought together a lot of new interested people. The room became too small and Sédir had to find a larger location. Finally, the Marius et Ary Leblond brothers' secretary obtained an apartment in Rue du Cardinal-Lemoine. The La Vie magazine was developed there.

Only God knows how much Sédir loved his friends. For many years he helped many, he listened with patience to the suffering of others. For years he provided education, support, comfort.

Sédir was mobilized from 1915 to 1918. He worked at l'Ecole de Guerre (Office for Information on Prisoners of War).

After the war, Sédir resumed his normal duties, meetings, and journeys. He gathered around him many people of goodwill. They insisted on publishing a magazine as a means of keeping in touch with sympathizers in the province and abroad. The first issue of the Bulletin des Amitiés Spirituelles was published in February 1919.

It was later decided to set up an association according to the law. On July 16, 1920, the journal Officiel published the announcement: Les Amitiés Spirituelles, Christian association, free and charitable.

On 30 May 1921, Sédir married Marie-Jeanne Coffineau (Jeanne Jacquemin), who died in October 1938.

For years following the creation of the Amitiés Spirituelles, the activities of Sédir continued their normal course within the association: letters, articles, meetings, lectures in Paris and in various French cities and abroad, mainly Poland. Groups of sympathizers had formed everywhere.

The last public presentation that Sédir gave was on November 17, 1925 at the Université Alexandre-Mercereau, boulevard Raspail.

In January 1926 Sédir went to a friend in L'Arbresle. They were welcomed by Jean Chapas, the great servant of God who humbly continued the work of him whom they called their Master.

Sédir had announced three lectures on Le Sacrifice before February 1926 (Le sacrifice antique, le sacrifice de Jesus-Christ, le sacrifice du disciple).

Sédir died after a few days of illness on 3 February 1926. The three lectures were later published by Albert Legrand.

A church service was dedicated in the church of Notre-Dame de la Miséricorde. Sédir rests on the Saint-Vincent cimetière.

Sédir has put his life at the service of God. He was a witness of Christ, a messenger of the Gospel. His life and his teaching were a testimony from Him who filled his life, enlightened his life. A Protestant lady of the higher social class stated: When Sédir speaks about Christ, Christ is present.

Just as Christ was all his thoughts, all his love, all his hope, so was the Gospel all his faith, all his teaching. In the Light of the Gospel, he answered all questions, gave confidence and hope, turned uncertainty into certainty.

Emile Besson wrote: The works and books Sédir wrote about the Gospel are the most beautiful, the most moving, the most comforting I have ever read.

Working

Sédir published in French. All his works have been translated into English and Polish. Some in German and Italian. Only The prayer was issued in Dutch.

• Les Amitiés Spirituelles
• Les lettres magiques (1903)
• Les miroirs magiques (1907)
• Les plantes magiques (1907)
• Initiations
• Histoire des Rose-Croix
• Méditations pour chaque semaine
• Les Forces mystiques and conductor de la Vie
• La dispute de Shiva contre Jésus
• Martyr de la Pologne
• La guerre de 1914 selon le point de vue mystique
• Les sept jardins mystiques
• Le sacrifice
• Essai sur le cantique des cantiques (1906)
• Les guérisons du Christ
• Quelques Amis de Dieu
• Le courronement de l'oeuvre
• La Voie Mystique
• Mystique chrétienne
• Le Royaume de Dieu
• L'Éducation de la volonté
• Le sermon sur le montagne
• Les lettres mystiques
• L'Énergie ascétique
• L'Enfance du Christ
• Le devoir spiritualist
• La Prière (in Dutch: Prayer, Baarn, Hollandia, 1949, translation: Carel Vorsterman)
• La charité
• Le Fakirism Indou et les yogas (1911)
• Bréviaire mystique (1909)
• Le bienheureux Jacob Boehme (1901)
• Bibliographie méthodique et illustrée de la science occult (1912)

Nizier Anthelme Philippe
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/3/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Anthelme Nizier Philippe (25 April 1849, Le Rubathier, Loisieux, Savoy, France – 2 August 1905, L'Arbresle, Rhône, France) was a reputed healer and miracle worker.

Family background

Philippe was born the son of peasants. He was also known as "Maître Philippe" or "Maître Philippe de Lyon". His mother was Marie Vachod (1823–1899) and his father was Joseph Philippe (1819–1898). From the age of fourteen he stayed with his uncle Vachod, a Butcher in Lyon. He gained a reputation as a healer by the age of thirteen.

He married Jeanne Julie Landar (1859–1939) on 6 October 1877 in L'Arbresle. He had a daughter, Jeanne Marie Victoire born on 11 November 1878. She died on 29 August 1904 aged 25, just before her seventh wedding anniversary. He refused to heal her, saying that it was Heaven's wish that she should go on ahead, and predicted the precise course of her illness and death. "This death," he said, "has for me been a living crucifixion."

Career

He gained a reputation as a miracle worker amongst Paris occultists. Having been harassed for practicing medicine without a license, he went to St Petersburg where he was awarded his Doctor's Diploma in recognition of extraordinary feats of remote healing conducted in St Petersburg.

Grand Duchess Militza Nikolaevna of Russia later introduced Philippe to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia in 1901, and Philippe enjoyed a brief influence over the imperial couple, until he was exposed as a charlatan in 1903 and was expelled from Russia.[1]

In October 1884 he presented a paper (published in French) entitled "Principles of Hygiene applicable in Pregnancy, Childbirth and Infancy" at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio. In recognition of this the University conferred a Doctorate of Medicine on him. Many other academic and social honours were conferred on him during the 1880s and 1890s in France and Italy.

Philippe died on 2 August 1905 at the age of 56, in L'Arbresle, Rhône, France where he was living. He was buried in the cemetery of Loyasse, in Lyon, France. Jean Chapas (1863–1932), the beloved disciple of Master Philippe, is also buried in the cemetery of Loyasse.

Books

Alfred Haehl wrote a well documented biography Vie et Paroles du Maître Philippe (Life and Words of the Master Philippe).

Maître Philippe collection:

• Claude Laurent, Guérisons et enseignement de Maître Philippe, Le Mercure Dauphinois, Collection Autour de Maître Philippe de Lyon, 2003
• Sédir, La vie inconnue de Jésus-Christ, Le Mercure Dauphinois, Collection Autour de Maître Philippe de Lyon, 2003
• Auguste Jacquot, Auguste Philippe, Les réponses de Maître Philippe - Suivies des enseignements recueillis par son frère Auguste, Le Mercure Dauphinoism Collection Autour de Maître Philippe de Lyon, 2004
• Phaneg, L'Esprit qui peut tout, Le Mercure Dauphinois, Collection Autour de Maître Philippe de Lyon, 2004
• Jean Baptiste Ravier, Confirmation de l'Evangile par les actes et paroles de Maître Philippe de Lyon, Le Mercure Dauphinois, Collection Autour de Maître Philippe de Lyon, 2005
• Philippe Collin, Monsieur Philippe de Lyon - Album souvenirs, Le Mercure Dauphinois, Le Mercure Dauphinois, Collection Autour de Maître Philippe de Lyon, 2005
• Philippe Collin, Vie et enseignements de Jean Chapas Le disciple de Maître Philippe de Lyon, Le Mercure Dauphinois, Collection Autour de Maître Philippe de Lyon, 2006
• Les carnets de Victoire Philippe, Le Mercure Dauphinois, Collection Autour de Maître Philippe de Lyon, 2006
• Vandekerkhove, Christian: Het Paranormale is onder ons: De Wonderen van Meester Philippe, Mens & Cultuur Uitgevers nv, ISBN 978-90-77135-19-8.

References

1. King, Empress, 153

External links

• Association Maítre Philippe FR
• Quotes of Maïtre Philippe FR
• Alfred Haehl's book - in French La Vie et les Paroles du Maître Phillippe FR

*****************************

Nizier Anthelme Philippe
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/3/19


Master Philippe
Biography
Birth: 1849 or April 25, 1849, Savoy
Death: August 2, 1905, Lyon
Buried: Loyasse Cemetery
Nationality: French
activities: Magician, medium, fortune-teller

Nizier Anthelme Philippe, sometimes referred to as Monsieur Philippe, Maître Philippe or Maître Philippe de Lyon, born on April 25, 1849 in Loisieux and died on August 2, 1905 to Arbresle, is a mystic and healer French.

Biography

He is the son of Joseph Philippe (1819-1898) and Marie Vachot (1823-1899). A few months before his birth, his mother, pregnant with Nizier Philippe was visiting Vianney (a saint named John Vianney) who revealed to him that his son would be a very high one. He was above all a living example of charity. He was four times tried for illegal practice of medicine between 1887 and 1892 and was acquitted, he was no longer worried from that date 1. His family described him as a miracle worker and a representative of Divine Providence 2.

Master Philip cared for thousands of people for free, without asking anything; except efforts to do good 1. Many of his healings were considered miracles. He said he was healed by the power of prayer and command 3. Master Philip explained that he was using a force absolutely unknown on Earth, a force exceeding all understanding, that Christ himself employed for many of his miracles 4. He called this force "the 4th magnetic pole" and described it thus: "It is not a stream, but a light, it represents the union of" Love one another ". "..." No initiate knows it " 4.

Mr. Philippe has received various attacks from the media, doctors and politicians in France and Russia; some of his detractors accused him of using witchcraft to heal people. However, it aroused admiration and received the friendship of Tsar Nicholas II, the King of Italy, the Emperor of Austria, the German Emperor William II, the King of the United Kingdom Edward VII and others, and also several of the most important members of the esoteric scene of the early xxth century, including Dr. Gerard Encausse (Papus) and Dr. Emmanuel Lalande (Dr. Marc Haven), George Descormiers (Phaneg) and Yvon Leloup (Sedir).

Youth

Nizier Anthelme Philippe was born on April 25, 1849, in a hamlet of Loisieux, district of Chambéry 5, 6, in the kingdom of Sardinia, which will not be attached to France until 1860. Eldest of a family of five children, his parents are Joseph Philippe, a small farmer owner, and Marie Vachod 6, 7. According to legend, Philippe would have healed and relieved from an early age. According to his own testimony to a journalist in 1905, he would have made his first healing at the age of thirteen 5, 8.

After her first communion in May 1862, his parents send the work Arbresle as boy-tripe 6. A few months later, he became a butcher's apprentice at a maternal uncle at Croix-Rousse, a hill in Lyon 8, 9. He stays little but heals him from a serious injury. His reputation as a healer in Lyon will soon spread [ref. necessary]. The money he earns allows him to register at the institution Sainte-Barbe held by the Abbe Chevalier and he obtains a certificate of grammar 6, 7. In 1870 During the war between France and Prussia, Philippe relieved the sick he received in Perrache district in Lyon. From that time on, police reports describe sustained surveillance [unclear] 5. During this same period, he would have saved the young Jean Chapas, 7 years old and victim of a meningitis, who will become his disciple in 1883 10.

Studies and marriage

In 1872, Nizier Philippe opens a consulting room in the district of Brotteaux 9. From November 1874 to July 1875, he deposited four registrations of health officer at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of Lyon. He was denounced for care activities deemed illegal and fifth registration is denied in 1875. His studies are interrupted after one year 8, 6. After this failure, it becomes " chemist " autodidact. It appears that his laboratory activities are primarily related to dyeing for the silk industry then they evolve towards the creation of " remedies ". In 1879, his first patents relate to the Philippines, a water and ointment to keep his hair, and Philippe toothpaste, powder and liquid 8.

On October 6, 1877, Philippe married Jeanne Julie Landar, a former patient and the daughter of a wealthy Lyon industrialist who died. This union brings him financial comfort 5, 11, 8. November 11, 1878 is born Victoire Jeanne Philippe. A second child, Albert born February 11 the 1881 but died only a few months old 7.

In 1884, he obtained a correspondence degree of Doctor of Medicine from the American University of Cincinnati in the Ohio. His thesis focuses on the principle of hygiene to be applied in pregnancy, childbirth and the duration of diapers and uses the pseudonym Philippe d'Arbresle. It seems that the Radiers, father and son, two health officers in his service, intervened in the drafting of manuscript 5, 8.


The doctor and occultist French Papus considers Philip as his spiritual master.

The Lyon Cabinet

From 1883, Nizier Philippe opened a cabinet of magnetism in his mansion at 35 rue Tête-d'Or in Lyon 11. Every day he would have cared for the souls and bodies of dozens of people came to ask healing and relief 5. Rich and poor would have benefited from his services for more than 20 years. Philippe has the same behavior with everyone. Whether one is easy or in precariousness, he asks all efforts not to speak ill of his neighbor or "to do good for evil" 3.

From 1882 to 1888, Philippe is involved in the social life of the municipality of l'Arbresle where his in-laws live. He is a municipal councilor, deputy mayor. He is appointed fire captain of the commune, a title he keeps although he is not re-elected. The press at the time publishes hostile articles [ ref. desired].

One of her admirers, Mathilde Encausse, introduces her husband, Papus, pseudonym of Gérard Encausse, doctor and occultist. The two men became friends and Papus who was soon regarded as his spiritual master 11, introduced him to the most important occultists and esotericists of the time, some also become Philippe disciples.

In 1894, that his disciples call him Master Philip, would have presented Jean Chapas session and announced that he will be his successor in the healing 10. Chapas becomes his assistant in the service to the sick 12. The prediction would have happened the following year when John Chapas have developed healing abilities 10. Papus, who is deputy director of the practical school of magnetism and massage of Paris founded and directed by Hector Durville, proposes to Nizier Philippe the direction of a branch in Lyon. The Lyon branch was created in March 1895 5, 13. with classes on Sunday, in his mansion.[Ref. necessary]

In 1896, Papus proposed to his friend Emmanuel Lalande, better known as Marc Haven, to come to Lyon to assist Philippe. Impressed by the healer, Emmanuel Lalande married his daughter Victoire, 2 September 1897 14. That same year, Philippe and his son-in-law set up a laboratory in rue du Bœuf in Lyon, where they would have developed several drugs. In 1899, Philippe would have saved a second time the life of John Chapas, a victim of typhoid fever 10.

Living in Russia


Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna, born Princess of Hesse, granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom


In the early 1900s, Nizier Philippe went to Russia to advise Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and the imperial family. Earnest Lipgart painting dating from this time.

The notoriety of Philippe comes to the knowledge of princesses Anastasia and Militza of Montenegro who make him meet the Russian imperial couple during his official trip to France in 1901, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna then despair of not having of male heir. Philippe, who gave a favorable impression, is invited twice to stay in Russia 6, 11, 8. His status as a healer is respected, the Tsar awarded him the title of Doctor of Medicine of the Imperial Academy of Military Medicine in St. Petersburg, with the rank of general in 1901 and the covers of gifts 8. His influence on the Romanov remains mysterious, we will assign him later falsely of séances with members of Russian high society and with the Tsar himself 6. After being slandered by the Church and the Russian police, Philippe returns to France 11, 9.

The French government does not recognize this last title of doctor anymore. The press publishes hostile articles and the police exert increased surveillance over it. In 1903, the Master Philippe announces in the sessions that his disciple Jean Chapas will succeed him, in cures until 1922.

The last years

Master Philippe had a daughter, Jeanne-Marie-Victoire Philippe (named Victoire Philippe), born November 11, 1878 15. She dies brutally August 25, 1904. She is buried in Lyon's Loyasse Cemetery, near the Basilica of Fourviere. Master Philippe does not recover from this disappearance that he experienced as "a living crucifixion" and dies in turnAugust 2, 1905at Arbresle 5.

The day after his death, La Depeche de Lyon announced: "Philippe was a good man, who, if he did not always recover, did much good around him. His liberality was proverbial, and many of the disinherited of fortune will mourn him. " 5, 8 His body was buried in Loyasse alongside her daughter. The tomb of the family Philippe is since then continually flowered 5, 11.

It was only after his death that Master Philippe was found to pay the rent of 52 families who were too poor to live. After this discovery, John Chapas, his faithful disciple and successor, continues to pay all rents until he himself dies 16. One of his relatives, Claude Laurent, described Master Philippe as being unclassifiable, as belonging to any initiatory society, as remaining an enigma for all 3.

"I am nothing, absolutely nothing" said the Master Philippe 2.

Jean Chapas

Jean Chapas is his closest disciple 17. Coming from a family of fishermen of the terminals of the Saone, he was born the February 12, 186312.

In 1870, Mr Philippe would have saved the life of Jean Chapas died when he was only 7 years 10. Jean-Baptiste Ravier, a close disciple of Master Philippe, reported the resurrection of Jean Chapas by Master Philippe as follows 4.

After Jean Chapas was pronounced dead by two doctors and just before the burial, Master Philippe was taken to the deceased's house, which was full of family members and friends. On entering the room of the deceased where Jean Chapas had been dressed for his burial, Maître Philippe tried to find Jean Chapas' mother and then asked him "Madame Chapas, do you give me your son?" "; not sure what was happening Mrs. Chapas answered "Yes", so Master Philippe went to the edge of the bed where the body of Jean Chapas was lying and raised him by saying "John, I give you back your soul » 1, 10.

His studies allow him to obtain a certificate of navigation captain.

In 1878, at the age of fifteen, Jean Chapas is called by Philippe to join Lyon and it becomes a privileged disciple 12.

In 1895, in the school of magnetism directed by Nizier Philippe, he is lecturer in charge of the course of history of magnetism 12, 18. He stays away from the occult practitioners who gravitate around his spiritual guide.

In 1897, Jean Chapas wife Louise Grandjean daughter of a carpenter 12.

In 1903, he took over from Nizier Philippe and officiated in the mansion of Tête-d'Or 10.

In 1907 he was tried for illegal practice and was acquitted. A few years later, he transformed the closed Santa Maria, located in l'Arbresle, into a military hospital, to receive the wounded of the First World War (1914-1918) 12.

On September 2, 1932, Jean Chapas died 10. He rests in the Loyasse cemetery, two alleys behind the tomb of Master Philippe 10, 19.

Decorations and Titles

• Officer of the Order of Nicham Iftikar, by the Bey of Tunis, February 22, 1881 1.
• Captain of the firefighters of L'Arbresle in 1884 by decree of the Minister of the Interior 1.
• Doctorate in Medicine by the University of Cincinnati conferred on October 23, 1884 1, 5.
• Honorary citizen for his scientific and humanitarian merits of the city of Acri on April 28, 1885 1.
• Honorary Officer of the French Red Cross, inscribed on the guestbook (No. 13b) on January 15, 1886 1.
• Protective Member of the Mont Real Academy of Toulouse, appointed on April 20, 1886 1.
• Honorary Doctor of Medicine of the Royal Academy of Rome May 12, 1886 1, 6.
• Director of the School of Magnetism and Massage in Lyon, approved by the Academy of Medicine and the French State on March 26, 1895 1.
• Doctor of Medicine at the Imperial Academy of Military Medicine (in) of St. Petersburg, with the rank of General in 1901 1, 8.

Bibliography


The renovators of the Martinist order, such Papus, Sédir and Marc Haven, Philippe Nizier consider as their master and remains still revered by the followers of Martinism 20. Seal of this esoteric stream of thought.

The bibliography on Nizier Philippe is important, they are generally sets of favorable testimonials, written by his entourage or followers. There are also works of his opponents, including doctors, who are trying to thwart what they see as a sham 5, 8.

Books or articles on Nizier Anthelme Philippe

• Serge Caillet, Monsieur Philippe the friend of God: Follow-up of the Collection of Papus and a diary of sittings, Dervy,2013, 330 p. (ISBN 9782844549594)
• Jean-Pierre Chantin, Nizier Philippe, healer Lyonnais", Politica hermetica, The age of man, n o 18,2004, p. 65-73 (ISBN 978-2825119518, read online [ archive ])
• Philippe Collin, Master Philippe de Lyon: Souvenir Album 1905-2005, Grenoble, The Mercure Dauphinois, coll. "Around Master Philippe",2005, 93 p. (ISBN 978-2913826557)
• Philippe Encausse, The master Philippe, of Lyon: Thaumaturg and "Man of God", Saligny, Traditional publishing,1997, 408 p. (ISBN 978-2713800443)
• Renée-Paule Guillot, Philippe de Lyon: Doctor, thaumaturge and adviser of the Tsar, Paris, The Two Oceans,2001, 207 p. (ISBN 978-2866810535)
• Alfred Haehl, Life and words of the master Philippe, Paris, Dervy, coll. "Being and the Spirit",1995, 357 p. (ISBN 978-2850766800)
• Guy Moyse, Philippe: The mystery of Lyon, Lyon, ELAH,2005, 171 p. (ISBN 978-2841471621)
• Léon Weber-Bauler, Philippe Healer of Lyon at the Court of Nicolas II, La Baconnière,1944, 218 p.
• Claude Laurent, My memories: healings and teaching of Master Philippe, Grenoble, Le Mercure Dauphinois, coll. "Around Master Philippe",2003, 136 p. (ISBN 978-2913826281)

Books on the teaching of Nizier Anthelme Philippe

• Sri Sevananda, Philippe Encausse and Philippe Nizier Anthelme, The Master Philippe de Lyon: Speech and gesture, Paris, Cariscript, coll. "Speech and gesture", 1998, 195 p. (ISBN 978-2876010918)
• G. Phaneg, The spirit that can do everything: The action of the mind on matter according to the Gospel and Master Philippe de Lyon, Grenoble, Le Mercure Dauphinois, coll. "Around Master Philippe",2004205 p. (ISBN 978-2913826458)
• Jean-Baptiste Ravier, Confirmation of the Gospel by Master Philippe de Lyon, Grenoble, The Mercure Dauphinois,2005, 153 p. (ISBN 978-2913826540)
• Gil Alonso-Mier, Oral Teachings of Mr. Philippe de Lyon, Marseille, Arqa, coll. "Hermetica",2013, 266 p. (ISBN 2755100613)
• Ed. Bertholet, The reincarnation after the master Philippe de Lyon, Lausanne, Pierre Genillard,1960
• Victoire Philippe, The Victory Notebooks Philippe, Grenoble, The Mercure Dauphinois, coll. "Around Master Philippe",2006, 109 p. (ISBN 978-2913826823)
• Auguste Jacquot, The Answers of Master Philippe: Followed by the teachings collected by his brother Auguste, Grenoble, Le Mercure Dauphinois, coll. "Around Master Philippe",2004, 139 p. (ISBN 978-2913826403)
• Michel de Saint Martin, Revelations: Spiritual Conversations on the Master Philippe de Lyon, Dangles,1955, 214 p.

Other works

• Michèle Brocard, Lights on Sorcery and Satanism, Editions Cabedita, coll. "Living archives", 2007, 182 p. (ISBN 978-2882954879, read online [ archive ]), p. 66
• Richard Raczynski, A dictionary of Martinism, Paris, Dualpha ed., 2009, 685 p. (ISBN 9782353741267)

Documentary films

• Master Philippe de Lyon, the dog of the Shepherd, made in 2005 on the occasion of the centenary of the death of Nizier Philippe by the Lyonnais Bernard Bonnamour 21.
• The Enigma Philippe, docu-fiction directed by Christel Chabert, broadcast onAugust 13, 2008 on France 322.

Related Articles

• Papus
• Arbresle
• Auguste Henri Jacob

External links

• Authority records:
o Virtual International Authority File
o International Standard Name Identifier
o National Library of France (data)
o University Documentation System
o Library of Congress
o Gemeinsame Normdatei
o WorldCat
• Master Philippe Association [ archive ]
• Documents relating to Maître Philippe [ archive ]
• 1st Biography of Master Philippe [ archive ]

Notes and references

1. Alfred Haehl, Life and words of the Master Philippe, Dervy,1 st January 1994 (ISBN 9782850766800, read online [ archive ])
2. Philippe Encausse, The Master Philippe de Lyon and miracle worker "Man of God", his wonders, healings, teachings, Traditional Publishing,1 st January 1985 (read online [ archive ])
3. Claude Laurent, Healings and Teachings of Master Philippe: "My memories", The Mercure Dauphinois (read online [ archive ])
4. Reference error: <ref>Incorrect tag : no text was provided for named references:3
5. Serge Caillet, Philippe the friend of God: Monitoring the Code of Papus and a session log, Publishing Dervy, 2013, 330 p. (ISBN 9782844549594).
6. Marie-France James, Esoteric Christianity and around Rene Guenon: esoteric, occult Freemasonry and Christianity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; bio-bibliographic explorations, Fernand Lanore,2008, 730 p. (ISBN 9782851573766, read online [ archive ]), p. 208-210.
7. Eric Seveyrat, " The Enigma of Philippe, the anti-guru healer," L'Essor, n o 17507,August 30, 2013, p. 28-30.
8. Jean-Pierre Chantin " Nizier Philippe Lyon healer " Politica hermetica, The manhood, n o 18,2004, p. 65-73 (ISBN 9782825119518, read online [ archive ]).
9. Anthony Serex, Dictionary of Lyon (with maps and photos), Petit Futé, 2012 (ISBN 9782746965232, read online [ archive ]), p. 272.
10. Philippe Collin, Life and teaching of Jean Chapas: The disciple of Master Philippe de Lyon, Grenoble, The Mercure Dauphinois, coll. "Around Master Philippe",2006, 151 p. (ISBN 9782913826656).
11. Michele Brocard, Lights on witchcraft and Satanism, Editions Cabedita, coll. "Living archives",2007, 182 p. (ISBN 9782882954879, read online [ archive ]), p. 66.
12. Jean-Pierre Chantin, religious world in contemporary France Dictionary, Editions Beauchesne, 112 p. (ISBN 9780701014186, read online [ archive ]), p. 46.
13. Jean-Pierre Brach, " History of the esoteric currents in modern and contemporary Europe conferences of the year 2011-2012 " directory of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes Sections of Religious Studies, vol. 120,2013, p. 193-200 (read online [ archive ]).
14. Marie-France James, Esoteric Christianity and around Rene Guenon: esoteric, occult Freemasonry and Christianity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; bio-bibliographic explorations, Fernand Lanore,2008, 730 p. (ISBN 9782851573766, read online [ archive ]), p. 165.
15. Victory Philippe, Notebooks Victory Philippe, Mercure dauphinois (ISBN 9782913826823, read online [ archive ])
16. Philippe Collin-Dugerey, Life and Teaching of John Chapas: The disciple of Master Philippe de Lyon, Mercure Dauphinois1 st January 2000 (ISBN 9782913826656, read online [ archive ])
17. Arbresle and its region, vol. 13, Union of Historical Societies of the Rhone, coll. "Acts of the study days",1997, 153 p. (ISBN 9782906998117), p. 111.
18. Christine Berge, Afterlife and Lyon: magicians, psychics and Freemasons of the XVIIIth to XXth century, Lugd,1995, 158 p. (ISBN 9782910979256), p. 106.
19. "The Grave Of Master Philippe, The Tomb Of Jean Chapas? | Master Philippe De Lyon" [ archive], on http://www.philippedelyon.fr (accessed March 3, 2016)
20. Marie-France James, Esoteric Christianity and around Rene Guenon: esoteric, occult Freemasonry and Christianity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; bio-bibliographic explorations, Fernand Lanore,1 st January 2008 (ISBN 9782851573766, read online [ archive ])
21. " Master Philippe de Lyon, the dog shepherd " [ archive ], on filmsdocumentaires.com, Films & Documentaries (accessed 16 November 2013).
22. " Enigma Philippe " [ archive ], on France3.fr, France 3 (accessed November 16, 2013).

Henri Delaage
by Jehan Valter
Le Figaro
Sunday, July 16, 1882

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

It is - in its genre - a Parisian figure that disappears. Small figure of a small world, but original and fine figure in the middle of a group of comparses. It was felt that a few drops of an illustrious blood still flowed in the veins of this mystic dreamer who made journalism in spirit, and spiritualism in journalism, who attended with the same conviction churches and theaters, and who supped with actresses after having dinner with abbots.

Henri Delaage was the grandson of the famous chemist Chaptal. Born in Paris in 1825, he died yesterday morning at five o'clock in the little furnished room he had occupied for nearly forty years, in the rue Duphot, No. 6. He succumbed after a few days of illness to the triple infection of which he was suffering: a dropsy, a hypertrophy of the heart and an inflammation of the bladder. His last moments were only a long crisis.

He is not a Parisian who does not know or have known Delaage. For many years, we met him everywhere, almost always accompanying our colleague Henri de Pène, who loved him very much. At the first performances he had a place in his box and his cover was put at his house every night. Because Delaage had a particular way of life. Every morning, when he left his house, he always had a cup of coffee and a cigar. It was enough for him to wait for dinner, and he almost always had to choose between two or three invitations. After dinner, he would go strolling behind the scenes of some small theater, then at half-past twelve he would come to his journalist's friend at Penne, tell him the little gossip of the day, and come back to Rue Duphot only after having previously accompanied by Pene to his door.

Delaage would have been astonished had he been told that he must be bored with his idleness. No one thought himself busier and no one was more busy, indeed. His great preoccupation, his great vanity, was to make him believe that he was connected with personalities, honorable or otherwise, of all worlds. And in fact, one could almost certainly turn to him for the most diverse information. He just knew the name we were looking for unnecessarily, he even had anecdotes interesting, to group around; if need be, moreover, he was a man to invent them.

By reciprocity, nothing irritated him like an unknown face, of a man or a woman, and he never ceased that he would have in turn learned about the name that belonged to this face and the peculiarities that could to relate to it.

The good weather of Delaage was from 1850 to 1870. During these twenty years he was really an influence in the middle of a brilliant and noisy fraction of the world of letters and theaters. The young beginners were addressing him to open the doors of a newspaper, the beautiful girls ignored seeking his support to enter the theater. It would be long and curious to publish the list of celebrities of all kinds who came out of this little room on Rue Duphot. It is true that, if he protected easily, he forgot not less easily those he had protected. From the day that the author and actress recommended by him ceased to be successful, he ceased to know them. It was in a way the barometer of public favor. When Delaage came to you first, on the boulevard or in a theater, and held out your hand, it was because someone had told him in the morning or the day before: Do you know that Thing had talent, he will go far away that boy; but when he affected to turn away to no not to see you, it is because someone, on the contrary, had told him: "Machin" is going down well, it's a decidedly emptied boy.

And yet Delaage had not always lived that way. For a moment he had dreamed, too, of making a name for himself in letters. He has many works written and published in the period from 1845 to 1855; but of all this jumble of mystic philosophy, posterity will keep nothing. Who remembers today his latest book just two months ago?

It is about 1846 or 1847 that Delaage had come to live in the small room of the rue Duphot, where he died. At that time he was very close to the men who later made the revolution. Friend of Esquiros and Sobrier, he collaborated for a while, in 1848, at the famous Commune of Paris. Under the Empire his political opinions had softened, and he did not go much beyond the relations of Viscount Arthur de la Gueronniere.

From twenty-five francs a month, which originally cost him his room, the rent had increased a little over the years, but Delaage had never wanted to move.

It's not that his furniture would have been long to take away.

Apart from a bed, a dresser, a table, and two armchairs belonging to the hotel, there were scarcely any books, newspapers, linen, and clothes in the room. This destitution would have saddened anyone other than Delaage, who would not return home except to go to bed, and would at once get up and dress. He enjoyed himself in this small and modest place and that came to cheer and populate every morning many visits.

There are very few literary and dramatic celebrities who have not climbed, at least once, the three floors of Delaage's little staircase to come and ask for support or service. The most beautiful actresses of Paris have passed - chastely - by this room, whose key was still on the door. Delaage received the visitors and even the visitors without getting out of bed. He listened to everyone, promised everyone and often spoke.



That's what he called cheerfully his little lift.

The Delaage's neglected attire was legendary. He never brushed his hat, and his frock coat always looked ragged and dusty; in spite of this, I remember having heard him say one day - it was some time after the war of 1870 - that he owed a thousand francs to his tailor.

Without being embarrassed, Delaage was not rich. It is said that after the Revolution of 1848 he had, for all fortune, a sum of 60,000 francs about. Instead of placing it in annuities or railway bonds, which at least gave him a small annual income, he preferred to convert this sum into pieces of 20 francs, which he piled up in the depths of a ___. It was there that he drew every time he needed a louis, which, moreover, rarely happened to him, since he spent almost nothing.

The funeral of Henri Delaage will take place tomorrow Monday, at noon very precise, at the church of the Madeleine.

If everyone he has forced during his life, the church will be full.

Gnostic Church of France
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/3/19

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Gnostic Church of France
Église gnostique de France
Episcopal Seal of Jules Doinel
Type Gnosticism
Founder Jules Doinel
Origin 1890

The Gnostic Church of France (French: Église gnostique de France) is a neo-Gnostic Christian organisation formed by Jules Doinel in 1890, in France. It is the first Gnostic church in modern times.

History


Jules Doinel, the founder and first patriarch of Église gnostique de France.



Léonce Fabre des Essarts as the second patriarch of Église gnostique.

The esoteric Freemason Jules Doinel, while working as archivist for the library of Orléans in France, he discovered a medieval manuscript dated 1022, which had been written by Stephen, a canon of the Orléans Cathedral, burned at the stake in 1022 for his pre-Cathar Gnostic doctrines (see Orléans heresy).[1] Doinel founded the Gnostic Church in 1890, a date which opened for him and his followers ‘the 1st year of the Restoration of Gnosis’.[2] Doinel claimed that he had a vision in which the Aeon Jesus appeared, He charged Doinel with the work of establishing a new church. When Doinel attended a séance in the oratory of the Countess of Caithness, it appears that the disembodied spirits of ancient Albigensians, joined by a heavenly voice, laid spiritual hands on Doinel, creating him the bishop of the Gnostic Church.[1]

As patriarch of the new Church, Doinel took the mystical name ‘Valentinus II, Bishop of the Holy Assembly of the Paraclete and of the Gnostic Church’, and nominated eleven titular bishops, including a ‘sophia’ (female bishop), as well as deacons and deaconesses. The Symbolist poet Léonce Fabre des Essarts [fr] was named bishop of Bordeaux.[2] The dress of Gnostic bishops is characterized by purple gloves and the use of Tau symbol, a Greek letter which is also used before their names.[3]

In 1892, Doinel consecrated Papus—founder of the first Martinist Order—as Tau Vincent, Bishop of Toulouse. Other Martinists, such as Paul Sédir [fr] and Lucien Chamuel [nl] were also consecrated by Doinel. At the end of 1894, Doinel abjured his Gnostic faith and converted to Roman Catholicism due to the Taxil hoax. He returned to Gnosticism five years later under the mystical name Simon and the title ‘Primate of Samaria’.

In 1908, a schism occurred when the Gnostic bishop of Lyons, Jean Bricaud, renamed his branch as Église gnostique catholique (E.G.C.; Catholic Gnostic Church). Then it changed again becoming the Église gnostique universelle (E.G.U.; Universal Gnostic Church) and became the official church of Papus’ Martinist Order. The patriarch Bricaud claimed the spiritual heritage of John of Patmos.[4] The E.G.U. later changed its name to Église gnostique apostolique (E.G.A.; Apostolic Gnostic Church).[1] Meanwhile, the original Église gnostique in Paris had been taken over by Léon Champrenaud (Théophane), it later disintegrated under Patrice Genty (Basilide) in 1926.[1]

Église Gnostique Catholique Apostolique

The Église Gnostique Catholique Apostolique (E.G.C.A.), in Latin Ecclesia Gnostica Apostolica Catholica (not to be confused with Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica), or known as the Gnostic Catholic Apostolic Church of North America, which operates in New York, claims the heritage of Église gnostique de France.[5] This church is in a state of fraternal alliance (concordat) with the Ecclesia Gnostica.[6] Like the latter, it also accepts the ordination of women and same-sex marriage.[7]

In addition, the E.G.C.A. has affiliation with two other initiatic organisations: the Ordre Martiniste of North America and the Aesthetic Rose+Croix Order of the Temple and the Grail. The latter is a reconstitution of Joséphin Péladan’s Ordre de la Rose ✠ Croix Catholique et Esthétique du Temple et du Graal.

Église Gnostique, Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, and Ecclesia Gnostica Universalis

The Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (E.G.C.) descended from a line of the 19th-century French Gnostic revival churches (Église Gnostique) mentioned above (see Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica#History). These Églises Gnostiques plus the contemporary Église Gnostique Catholique Apostolique are essentially Christian in nature. Although Gnosticism is seen as heresy in an orthodox Christian sense, the E.G.C. goes even further by worshipping such figures like Babalon, Baphomet, et cetera. Interestingly, also in this Thelemic-Gnostic milieu an Ecclesia Gnostica Universalis eventually rose, in reaction to the Patriarch of E.G.U. binding the clergy of the church to advancement into the degrees of Ordo Templi Orientis, in strict opposition with the original plan laid out by the Prophet of Thelema, Aleister Crowley.

References

1. Roggemans, Marcel (2009). History of Martinism and the F.U.D.O.S.I. Translated by Bogaard, Milko. Morrisville, North Carolina: Lulu Press. pp. 37–38. ISBN 978-1-4092-8260-0.
2. Fabre des Essarts, Léonce-Eugène-Joseph (1899). L’Arbre gnostique. Paris: Librairie Chamuel. pp. 67–69.
3. Jean Kostka (Jules Doinel) (1895). Lucifer démasqué (in French). pp. 139–141.
4. "Title unknown". Le Matin (in French). 8 November 1910. pp. 1–2.
5. "The Gnostic Catholic Apostolic Church of North America". http://www.apostolicgnosis.org. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
6. "ECCLESIA GNOSTICA: Relation to other Churches and Organizations". gnosis.org. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
7. "Bishop Robert Cokinis - Tau Charles Harmonius II". http://www.apostolicgnosis.org. Retrieved 19 April 2018.

External links

• Gnostic Catholic Apostolic Church of North America
• History of the Gnostic Catholic Church
• Ecclesia Gnostica Universalis
• ECCLESIA GNOSTICA: Église Gnostique de France (in English)
• The Structure and Liturgy of the French Gnostic Church of Jules Doinel

Part 1 of 2

Catharism
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/3/19

Most important, the central doctrine of nazism, that the Jew was evil and had to be exterminated, had its origin in the Gnostic position that there were two worlds, one good and one evil, one dark and one light, one materialistic and one spiritual.... The mystical teachings of Guido von List, Lanz von Liebenfels, and Rudolf von Sebottendorff were modern restatements of Gnosticism.

When the apocalyptic promise of Christ's resurrection was broken, the Gnostics sought to return men to God by another route, more Oriental than Hellenist. They devised a dualistic cosmology to set against the teachings of the early Christian Church, which, they claimed, were only common deceptions, unsuited for the wise. The truth was esoteric. Only the properly initiated could appreciate it. It belonged to a secret tradition which had come down through certain mystery schools. The truth was, God could never become man. There were two separate realms -- one spiritual, the other material. The spiritual realm, created by God, was all good; the material realm, created by the demiurge, all evil. Man needed to be saved, not from Original Sin, but from enslavement to matter. For this, he had to learn the mystical arts. Thus Gnosticism became a source for the occult tradition.

A famous medieval Gnostic sect, the Cathars, came to identify the Old Testament god, Jehovah, with the demiurge, the creator of the material world and therefore the equivalent of Satan. Within Gnosticism, then, existed the idea that the Jewish god was really the devil, responsible for all the evil in the world. He was opposed to the New Testament God. The Cathars tried to eliminate the Old Testament from Church theology and condemned Judaism as a work of Satan's, whose aim was to tempt men away from the spirit. Jehovah, they said, was the god of an earth "waste and void," with darkness "upon the face of the deep." Was he not cruel and capricious? They quoted Scripture to prove it. The New Testament God, on the other hand, was light. He declared that "there is neither male nor female," for everyone was united in Christ. These two gods, obviously, had nothing in common.

The synagogue was regarded as profane by Christians. The Cathars -- themselves considered heretical by the Church -- castigated Catholics for refusing to purge themselves of Jewish sources; Church members often blamed the [Cathar] Christian heresy on Jewish mysticism, which was considered an inspiration for Gnostic sorcery.

But Gnostic cosmology, though officially branded "false," pervaded the thinking of the Church. The Jews were widely thought to be magicians. It was believed that they could cause rain, and when there was a drought, they were encouraged to do so. Despite the displeasure of the Roman Popes, Christians, when they were in straitened circumstances, practiced Jewish customs, even frequenting synagogues.

This sheds light on an otherwise incomprehensible recurring theme within Nazi literature, as, for example, "The Earth-Centered Jew Lacks a Soul," by one of the chief architects of Nazi dogma, Alfred Rosenberg, who held that whereas other people believe in a Hereafter and in immortality, the Jew affirms the world and will not allow it to perish. The Gnostic secret is that the spirit is trapped in matter, and to free it, the world must be rejected. Thus, in his total lack of world-denial, the Jew is snuffing out the inner light, and preventing the millennium:

Where the idea of the immortal dwells, the longing for the journey or the withdrawal from temporality must always emerge again; hence, a denial of the world will always reappear. And this is the meaning of the non-Jewish peoples: they are the custodians of world-negation, of the idea of the Hereafter, even if they maintain it in the poorest way. Hence, one or another of them can quietly go under, but what really matters lives on in their descendants. If, however, the Jewish people were to perish, no nation would be left which would hold world-affirmation in high esteem -- the end of all time would be here.

... the Jew, the only consistent and consequently the only viable yea-sayer to the world, must be found wherever other men bear in themselves ... a compulsion to overcome the world.... On the other hand, if the Jew were continually to stifle us, we would never be able to fulfill our mission, which is the salvation of the world, but would, to be frank, succumb to insanity, for pure world-affirmation, the unrestrained will for a vain existence, leads to no other goal. It would literally lead to a void, to the destruction not only of the illusory earthly world but also of the truly existent, the spiritual. Considered in himself the Jew represents nothing else but this blind will for destruction, the insanity of mankind. It is known that Jewish people are especially prone to mental disease. "Dominated by delusions," said Schopenhauer about the Jew.

... To strip the world of its soul, that and nothing else is what Judaism wants. This, however, would be tantamount to the world's destruction.

This remarkable statement, seemingly the rantings of a lunatic, expresses the Gnostic theme that the spirit of man, essentially divine, is imprisoned in an evil world. The way out of this world is through rejection of it. But the Jew alone stands in the way. Behind all the talk about "the earth-centered Jew" who "lacks a soul"; about the demonic Jew who will despoil the Aryan maiden; about the cabalistic work of the devil in Jewish finance; about the sinister revolutionary Jewish plot to take over the world and cause the decline of civilization, there is the shadow of ancient Gnosticism.

-- Gods & Beasts: The Nazis & the Occult, by Dusty Sklar

7. Lucifer's Quest for the Holy Grail

As long as I live I will think of Sabarthes, of Montsegur, of the Grail castle, and of the Grail itself that may have been the treasure of the heretics spoken of in the Records of the Inquisition. I haven't been fortunate enough, I admit, to discover it myself! [1]

-- SS-OBERSTURMFUHRER OTTO RAHN

Probably one of the most outlandish -- yet somehow oddly grand, strangely cosmic -- endeavors of the Third Reich in general, and of the SS in particular, was Himmler's search for the Holy Grail. This was an actual program of the SS, a program which has since been immortalized in the first and third films of Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones trilogy. The author is not aware of the degree to which Spielberg was cognizant of actual SS operations designed to acquire such legendary treasure, but there is enough fact in the fiction to warrant serious consideration in this chapter.

In order to understand what Himmler was up to, we will have to look at the climate surrounding the Ahnenerbe and at what many readers probably think of as being a purely Christian symbol: the Holy Grail. As we do so, we will come across a fascinating individual whom history has treated rather shabbily, the young SS officer and historian, Otto Rahn (1904-1939).

It was, after all, Otto Rahn who helped popularize the notion that the Grail was not the special property of the Catholic Church (should it actually exist, and should it ever be found). For Rahn, the Grail was an emblem set up in opposition to the established Church -- indeed, was a Luciferian symbol -- and for this the Nazis were grateful; for, if Rahn's conclusion was correct, it gave them a philosophical and historical edge over organized Christianity.

The Crusade against the Grail

Rahn's first published work, Kreuzzug gegen den Graal (Crusade Against the Grail), was devoted to a study of what is sometimes referred to as the Albigensian Crusade: a war that took place between the Roman Catholic Church and a Christian cult known alternatively as the Albigensians (after the town of Albi in southern France) or the Cathars: "the Pure." The Cathars were a type of fundamentalist Christian sect that enjoyed enormous popularity in thirteenth-century Europe, even among the nobility. They were opposed to the materialism of the Catholic Church and what they perceived to be the corruption of Christ's teachings by the Church. In many of their beliefs, they were closer to the Gnostics and Manichaeans than to Roman Catholics; indeed, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that they might have been a Manichaean survival. Regardless of their actual origins, however, they began attracting converts in large numbers, particularly in France.

Their beliefs included the doctrine that Christ was pure spirit and had never inhabited a human -- that is, a material -- form; that the dead will not be resurrected in the body, since the body was made of matter, which the Cathars viewed as Satanic; that there were two forces in the universe, one of good and the other of evil; that procreation was evil, as it increased the amount of matter in the world and trapped souls within material forms.

That death was good, and not a time for mourning; that there was no particular reason why the bodies of the dead should be revered since the bodies were the evil part of the human constitution.

Naturally, they were branded as heretics by the Church and eventually Catholic armies were sent to destroy them under order of Pope Innocent III in 1209. It was from a Catholic commander -- a Cistercian abbot, no less -- surrounding a French town composed of both Cathar and Catholic civilians (men, women, and children) that we receive the immortal line: "Kill them all. God will recognize his own."

The belief of the Cathars -- and of their close relatives, the Albigensians or Albigeois of the Languedoc region of France -- that matter was essentially impure and evil, and that only spirit was pure and good is a patently Gnostic doctrine. The belief in two gods -- one evil, the other good -- is both Gnostic and Manichaean. Hence, it has been argued that the Cathars were an extension of a Middle Eastern sect of Manichees or of Gnostics in possession of a "secret tradition" concerning the life and death of Christ and the origins of Christianity. The Cathars claimed that the Bible (particularly the Old Testament) was full of references to an Evil God -- Jehovah -- even as they insisted that the Bible was either full of errors or had been interpreted incorrectly by generations of self-serving Roman Catholic theologians. (One should remember that in 1209 the Gutenberg press had not been invented and that Bibles were in scarce supply. Those that existed were in the dead tongues of Latin and Greek, and in the possession of the Church. The average person knew very little of what was in the Bible, except for what he or she was told by a priest.)

Another Cathar peculiarity is that -- perhaps late in their tragic story -- they legitimized a form of ritual suicide, called the endura: one simply starved oneself to death, or was poisoned, or was strangled or suffocated by the brethren. They also rejected most of the sacraments of the Church as so much superstitious nonsense. In their anti-Papal stance they were close to the rather more Calvinist Waldensians with whom they have been frequently -- and erroneously -- linked.

At dinner ... he spoke of India and Indian philosophy. This led him to speak of a subject which was a hobbyhorse of his: in a lively manner he described to me the result of researches in German witchcraft trials. He said it was monstrous that thousands of witches had been burned during the Middle Ages. So much good German blood had been stupidly destroyed. From this he began an attack on the Catholic Church, and at the same time on Calvin; before I had caught up with all this he was discussing the Spanish Inquisition and the essential nature of primitive Christianity. [2]

-- SCHELLENBERG

These words from Foreign Intelligence Chief Walter Schellenberg's memoirs concerning a meeting with Himmler in the Ukraine in the summer of 1942 indicate just how interested the Reichsfuhrer-SS was in such philosophical and metaphysical questions, including early Christianity, Calvinism, the Inquisition ... even the witch trials, on all of which Himmler considered himself something of an expert.

The Cathar ideology must have appealed to him and the other Nazis in a profound way. After all, the very word "Cathar" means "pure," and purity -- particularly of the blood as the physical embodiment of spiritual "goodness" -- was an issue of prime importance to the SS. The Cathars railed against the gross materialism of the Church; the Nazis viewed themselves as inherently anti-Capitalist, even though they were forced to deal with large industrial concerns in order to obtain absolute power in Germany. (To Hitler and his followers, Capitalism was immoral and they equated it with the excesses of the Jewish financiers that -- they said -- had brought the nation to ruin during the First World War and the depression that followed.)

The Cathars, in denying the value of the Old Testament and in attacking Jehovah as a kind of Satan, naturally seemed to be in perfect agreement with Nazi ideology concerning the Jews and, as we shall see, with the current incarnation of neo-Nazi ideologues in the Christian Identity movement and in the Process Church of the Final Judgment.

Further, the Cathars were fanatics, willing to die for their cause; sacrificing themselves to the Church's onslaught they enjoyed the always enviable aura of spiritual underdogs. There was something madly beautiful in the way they were immolated on the stakes of the Inquisition, professing their faith and their hatred of Rome until the very end. The Nazis could identify with the Cathars: with their overall fanaticism, with their contempt for the way vital spiritual matters were commercialized (polluted) by the Establishment, and with their passion for "purity." It is perhaps inevitable that the Cathars should have made a sacrament out of suicide, for they must have known that their Quest was doomed to failure from the start. They must have wished for death as a release from a corrupt and insensitive world; and it's entirely possible that, at the root of Nazism, lay a similar death wish. Hitler was surrounded by the suicides of his mistresses and contemplated it himself on at least one occasion before he actually pulled the trigger in Berlin in 1945. Himmler and other captured Nazi leaders killed themselves rather than permit the Allies to do the honors for them. Haushofer committed suicide. Even Sebottendorff plunged himself into the Bosporus. Perhaps the passionate desire of concentration camp survivors to see all Nazi war criminals executed for their crimes -- even at this late date -- represents an unconscious realization that suicide (like a natural death) is too good for the monsters of the Reich; that, like the Cathars whom they admired, the Nazis saw in suicide that consolation and release from the world of Satanic matter promised by this most cynical of Cathar sacraments.

For some reason, it became popular to assume that these same Cathars were in possession of a mysterious sacred object and that, on the eve of destruction of the last major Cathar opposition at the fortress of Montsegur in southern France on March 14, 1244, some Cathars managed to escape with this object down the side of their mountain citadel (then under siege by Catholic troops). This sacred object has been identified by later generations of amateur historians as nothing less than the Holy Grail. [3]

Before the collapse of Montsegur, as some (mostly French) authors have proposed, the Grail was in the possession of the infamous Order of the Knights Templar, the Order after which von Liebenfels and Kellner named their respective cults; the same Order that was created by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the famous abbot of the Cistercian Order. Depending on whom one reads, the Templars were believed to have discovered either the Grail or the Ark of the Covenant (or both?) during their sojourn in Palestine at the site of Solomon's Temple. Several studies have been made of the Templar cathedrals -- Chartres in particular -- to prove that the Templars left a coded message in stone revealing that they brought a sacred object of great value back with them from the East, an object whose tremendous, otherworldly power enabled them to finance, design, and build a series of magnificent churches all over France in an amazingly short period of time. Indeed, the time line is suggestive for, according to an authoritative work on the subject by Henry Adams, during the space of one hundred years (from A.D. 1170 to A.D. 1270) the Church built eighty cathedrals in France and hundreds of other "cathedral-class" churches at an estimated cost of one billion in 1905 U.S. dollars. [4]

The pseudonymous author on alchemy and architecture, Fulcanelli, contributed to this idea of a Templar secret tradition in his Le Mystere des Cathedrales, first published in 1925. It has been translated into English and forms the core of yet another mystical tradition. [5]

Just why the Cathars should then have found themselves in possession of the Grail remains something of a mystery. Certainly there is a robust literature concerning the Grail -- known as Grail Romances to the historians -- that identify it as anything from a sacred stone that fell from the sky (the lapis exilis or lapis ex coelis) to the actual cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and which was used to catch drops of his blood during the crucifixion. Indeed, Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival depicts the Grail as a stone and not as a cup; the older romance by Chretien de Troyes depicts the Grail as a cup and not as a stone, and this image is perpetuated in Malory's Le Marte d'Arthur. As if to compromise on this controversy, one of the carved figures on the north door of Chartres Cathedral -- that of the Old Testament High Priest Melchisedek -- is shown holding a Cup from which the Stone rises.

And from time to time various objects have been found which their owners claimed to be the Grail but none of these have stood up to even cursory scrutiny.

Recently, the writing team of Walter Birks and R. A. Gilbert have conspired to put an end to all the speculation. [6] Birks served with the British Army in the Middle East during the war with the rank of major, prior to which he had been involved in esoteric and spiritualist circles in England; Gilbert is an historian of occultism, most notably of the Golden Dawn. Together, they denigrate the writings of Rahn as "tortuous reasoning and linguistic lunacy" [7] and the book by Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln (Holy Blood, Holy Grail) as evidence of a "lunatic theory" supported by an "inchoate mass of irrelevancies." [8]

For Birks and Gilbert, the treasure of Montsegur "never was": it was not the Grail, not a cache of Templar gold, not the bloodline of Jesus, but "the power to transmit the apostolic succession, the seed perhaps of a higher form of Christianity to be revealed when the world is ready to receive it." [9] They base this theory on Biblical exegesis, interpretations of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the writings of Josephus and others, and on what remains of Cathar ritual and theology. Birks was present at a Cathar research site at Ussat-les-Bains in the late 1930s (although too late to have met Rahn, who also researched and lived at the site) and was friendly with one Antonin Gadal, about whom more later. Birks himself states that it was during conversation with a member of the Nosairi sect in the Middle East that he realized the Cathar treasure was not a material Grail at all, but the "Light-filled vessel": i.e., a purely metaphorical image based on the cup of sacramental wine which the Nosairi use to drink "to the Light": an emblem of the true teaching of Christianity before it became confused and bowdlerized by the Evangelists and the various Councils. This is all involved with a Nosairi tradition of the "way of the Stars," that a human soul, after death, proceeds up a ladder of lights, of stars, to heaven. Birks was satisfied with that, and the doctrine of Light provided him with a great illumination (no pun intended); but we have come full circle, for the way of the Stars and the doctrine of the Light are amply represented by the myths of the Celts, the Nordic peoples, and many others in whom Rahn discovered the scattered fragments of a lost mystical tradition, and the "Light-filled vessel" may be an entirely appropriate reference to Rahn's rediscovered doctrine of Lucifer, the Light-Bearer.

SS-Obersturmfuhrer Parzival

As mentioned, one of the most famous Grail romances is that composed by Wolfram von Eschenbach, entitled Parzival. It is this particular romance that has remained the authoritative word on the subject for many people, and which was the work that inspired Otto Rahn in his researches (and Richard Wagner in his famous opera by the same name).

Rahn was an impoverished scholar of history whose soul became inflamed by equal doses of Wagner and von Eschenbach in his youth. The beneficiary of a classical education in both literature and philology, he spent five years traveling throughout Europe in search of myths, legends, and the records of heretical cults, all of which he believed would point to the existence of a native, crypto-pagan, Gnostic-type religion in Europe. Finding mythological and philological links between such varied phenomena as the troubadours, the Grail legends, European paganism, and the heretical sect known as the Cathars, Rahn felt he had discovered evidence of an ancient German religious tradition that had been suppressed by the Church.

Identifying the pure knight Parzival as a Cathar or Cathar manque, Rahn went on to write a history of the Cathar rebellion from the point of view of Grail Romance. Although this sounds like pure Guido von List or Lanz von Liebenfels, Rahn was a scholar of somewhat greater integrity who based his work on accepted primary sources (such as the records of the Inquisition, the poems and songs of the troubadours, and the medieval Grail legends) and on his own, on-the-scene research.

He arrived in the Languedoc region of France in 1931 and there met a gentleman well-known in Grail circles, Antonin Gadal. [10] Gadal maintained a private Cathar museum at the small town of Ussat-les-Bains, a tourist attraction and spa in the Pyrenees with an allegedly Cathar connection. He also had an extensive library on the subject of the Cathars and the Grail, from which Rahn probably derived much benefit. Gadal was a member of a society called The Friends of Montsegur and the Grail, of which the noted historian Rene Nelli was vice president (it was Nelli who would translate Rahn's work into French). [11] The society -- as its name implies -- believed that a connection existed between the Cathar movement and the Grail Romances. This concept had been broached in 1906 by the popular French author Josephin Peladan in Le Secret des Troubadours. Former Golden Dawn member Arthur Edward Waite had discounted the theory that the Grail legend had anything to do with either Cathars or Albigensians in a book published three years later (The Hidden Church of the Holy Grail), but then Waite was in a state of apostasy from the Golden Dawn as he had denied their occult rituals as essentially evil and replaced them with Christian versions, forming his own rather boring occult order in the process.

In May of 1932 Rahn decided to become an innkeeper to support his researches and invested in a local establishment at Ussat. By September he was bankrupt, and disappeared from France only to reappear shortly thereafter in Germany. By then, he had accumulated quite enough information to write his own book on the subject of the Cathars and the Grail, Kreuzzug gegen den Graal, which was published in 1933 and translated into French the following year as Croisade contre le Graal (Crusade Against the Grail).

Although the book did not earn Rahn a lot of money, it eventually came to the attention of no less an admirer than Heinrich Himmler.

According to one version of the story, [12] the Reichsfuhrer-SS personally invited the author to meet him at his Prinz Albrechtstrasse headquarters in Berlin. There, he offered Rahn a commission in the SS and virtually unlimited resources for which Himmler expected Rahn to continue his research into the Grail legends, the Cathars, and related subjects of Aryan interest.

According to another version, [13] Rahn was a personal friend of volkisch "channeler" Karl Maria Wiligut -- also known as SS-Oberfuhrer Weisthor -- a gentleman who had once been certified insane but who nonetheless claimed that he had perfect recall of the entire ancient history of the Teuton peoples going back over 200,000 years, a kind of ancient racial memory upon which he could call at any time. This was, of course, a very handy ability to possess and Himmler considered himself fortunate to have access to the services of a man who could fill in those great gaps of Teutonic history that result when a master race proves rather lax in developing a written language. Wiligut's ability was, he claimed, due to the fact that his family's lineage had been kept pure at every generation down the millennia from that time in the misty past when the gods of air and water mated in humid embrace to produce the milky Wiligut bloodline. Wiligut, another of Germany's rune scholars, clairvoyants, and Teutonic mystics, held salon-type meetings at his home on arcane Aryan topics at which Himmler and the young Otto Rahn were said to be frequent guests.

Wiligut insisted that Christianity was really a German invention; that Christ was really the ancient Teutonic god Baldur, who was crucified by a schismatic group of Wotan-worshiping thugs. Baldur, however, managed to escape to the Middle East and ... and ... well, the rest is New Testament. His remaining followers in Germany built a cult center sacred to their faith at the prehistoric site of Externsteine, which was to become the subject of much discussion and excavation by the Ahnenerbe. (See Chapter Six.)

Of course, like most other occult theory, Wiligut's cross-eyed thesis is based on a number of verifiable historical traditions that can be found in a careful reading of ancient texts, in this case of the Eddas and other Scandinavian and Gothic lore that predate the Christian conversion of these peoples by hundreds (and not hundreds of thousands) of years. Baldur, for instance, was a slain and resurrected god like many other agricultural deities of many other lands. The Norse Creation story is remarkably similar to that of ancient Sumeria, with the known universe created out of the corpse of another slain god. That Christianity adopted pagan ceremonies, cult centers, holidays, and myths is by now well known; in fact, it becomes increasingly difficult to identify just what a "pure" form of Christianity would look like. However, Wiligut's problem -- and the problem of many amateur historians in his class -- is that he took the myths and legends of the ancient European peoples and blended them together with theosophical and other newly coined mystical beliefs with little or no historical basis. The commonality of motifs in these various myths from widely divergent sources may best be explained by the type of research undertaken by MIT Professor de Santillana (as mentioned in a previous chapter) and others who see in these stories a coded form of astronomical observations. The relatively new sciences of epigraphy and paleoastronomy may answer many questions previously considered the domain of occultism.

Yet, on the basis of this and related historical fantasies, Wiligut was made the head of the Department of Prehistory at the Race and Settlement Office (RuSHA) of the SS, and eventually attained the exalted rank of SS-Brigadefuhrer, or Brigadier, on Himmler's Personal Staff. It was Wiligut who designed the Schutzstaffel's special Death's Head (totenkopf) ring, a device replete with runic symbols including the inevitable swastika as well as those of Wiligut's personal armorial design. The latter detail implied that somehow Wiligut was, himself, the last and sole physical repository of glacially pure Teutonic blood; a claim that was the cornerstone of his philosophy and which gave him that unique unbroken memory which made him so valuable to those lesser mortals who could only prove their racial purity back to the year 1750 (as required of SS recruits) and whose race memory had therefore fallen victim to the ravages of ancient couplings with diseased and drooling subhumans, such as Hungarians.

It has been said that Rahn was introduced to Himmler by Wiligut himself, and that Himmler accepted the young scholar into the SS on Wiligut's personal recommendation. Wiligut then kept in constant touch with Rahn as the latter went about on his travels through France, Germany, and Iceland, hot on the very cold trail of the mysterious Cathar treasure he believed was the Grail. He communicated his findings to Wiligut periodically in letters that were to be shared with no one else but Himmler, so secret and so important were their contents. One wonders what these secrets were, for they are certainly not to be found in Rahn's second book, a work published under Nazi supervision. However, some letters from Rahn to Wiligut have survived, [14] marked "extremely confidential," dealing -- for instance -- with linguistic evidence of pagan sites concealed within modern German place names, and begging the Seer to communicate his findings with "the Reichsfuhrer-SS only." As these letters are dated as early as 1935 -- and signed with a hearty "Heil Hitler!" -- we can see that Rahn was intimate with the highest circles of the SS hierarchy by this time. Rahn's friend Paul Ladame, however, insists that when he ran into Rahn in July, 1936, on the Joachimstaler Strasse in Berlin, Rahn was resplendent in full SS uniform, bearing the flashes of the Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler and, when asked how he had come to be wearing such a thing, replied "My dear Paul, a man has to eat!" [15]

Whether or not Rahn was any kind of real Nazi, his two books do reveal, however, that he believed the Catholic Church had all but destroyed essential elements of a secret German religious tradition, a tradition whose persecution began with the Cathars in the thirteenth century and which ended, triumphantly, with the destruction of the Templar Order a hundred years later. The German tradition was not a Christian one in the generally accepted sense. Rather, it was a pagan religion whose elements were appropriated by the Church as a means of diluting it of its power: the Grail, the knightly Orders, the sacred Quest, and the eternal struggle between Light and Darkness. Except, for the Cathars as filtered through the meditations of Rahn, Light in this case was represented by -- not Jesus or Jehovah -- but by another spirit, the "Light-Bearer." To Rahn, this Entity represented the highest good. To Rahn (at least officially), the Nazi Reich in general -- and the SS in particular -- became the servitors of an ancient pagan cult whose god was known to the medieval Christians not as Jesus but as Lucifer.

Lucifer's Servants

As we saw in the preceding chapter, Himmler's personal agenda was to amass enough data -- archaeological, historical, cultural, religious, and occult -- to prove that the Aryan "race" was superior to all other races on earth and that the Germans were the inheritors of the Aryan bloodline. He also had to prove that, at some point in history, what are now the German peoples owned virtually all the real estate in Europe. This would not only seem to legitimize Hitler's Drive to the East, but might prove useful in establishing that the Germans had an historical right to do whatever they wanted with whatever inferior, mongrel races they found there.

Proving the existence of a hitherto unknown German religious tradition that predated Christianity and which was more in tune with the German Volk would go a long way toward propping up Himmler's other theories and give substance to the twin policies of Aryan racial superiority and German claim to the land. It would provide the necessary philosophical underpinning for an occult renaissance in Europe and prove stronger than the various Christian sects that had arbitrarily divided the race along ideological lines. A German spiritual tradition that transcended Christian history would provide a blood religion that could unit the racially pure peoples of Europe -- Aryans in diaspora -- and thus erase national boundaries and Christian sensitivities in one blow.

(To those readers of today who find this mission a trifle weird, might the author be permitted to remind them that no less a modern state than Israel was founded along pretty much the same lines? Jewish claims upon the territory are based upon religious scriptures, and citizenship in the State of Israel is limited to those who can prove they are Jews. One may remember the difficulty Ethiopian Jews had in emigrating to Israel. The author does not point this out in order to devalue Jewish claims upon the territory known as Palestine before 1948, but to illustrate a point: that great nations -- and national agendas -- are sometimes erected on such weak timber as a human-interpreted word of God or on the blood of the "Aryans." If it could have been proven that the so-called Aryan peoples were at one time in the distant past in control of vast amounts of European, American, and Asian real estate ... so what?)

In this dubious endeavor, Himmler had two distinct sets of ideological opponents. First of all, there were the genuine scientists who disparaged such canonical Nazi claims as Aryan racial purity and the prevalence of an Aryan cult or proto-Christian society over all of Europe and Asia in the distant past. For these, Himmler hoped to provide concrete evidence that Aryans (and, hence, Germans) had established communities in such remote locales as Minsk in Russia, northern India, and Tibet. The Deutsche Akademie and later the Ahnenerbe were both heavily involved in the archaeological work necessary to buttress this argument.

His second opponent was the established Christian Church itself. Himmler's dream was to create, out of the SS, a new religion based on the pagan elements of what he perceived to be the original, Ur-Aryan religion of ancient India and Europe. However, many Germans were devout Christians. Hitler himself realized this, and knew that he had to play politics with them for as long as the churches held power and as long as the people felt they owed spiritual allegiance to the churches and what they represented. In this he was as cynical in his dealings with the Church as he was pragmatic with the Capitalists.

Himmler, on the other hand, wanted nothing so much as the destruction -- not only of the organized Church -- but of Christianity itself. And, with the assistance of Wiligut and other like-minded individuals, Himmler drew up new ceremonies and a new liturgical calendar to thoroughly replace Christian versions. He was dealing Judaism the death blow in the camps and with his roving bands of death squads, the Einsatzgruppen, under the command of such men as Theosophist and convicted war criminal Otto Ohlendorf and the notorious Dr. Six. The Church was next on the list. How better to capture the attention and imagination of the pious than to appropriate the Grail as a purely pagan and Aryan symbol, actually restoring to the Grail its original character and identity? The Grail figured prominently in European folklore as a powerful occult symbol, and was also the basis for a Wagnerian opera that was just as powerful, just as compelling. It was assumed that Wagner, an admitted anti-Semite who provided the sound track for the Third Reich, would not have wasted his time writing a Christian or Jewish propaganda tract. Therefore, Wagner's own take on the Grail must be consistent with rest of the Aryan operatic canon that included, of course, the Ring Cycle. It was all Aryan myth and, therefore, part of a single, continuous epic story.

Rahn's thesis went a long way to establishing just that. Based on research undertaken in the Languedoc region of southern France and especially at fabled Montsegur, site of the Cathars' last stand, Rahn believed he had acquired enough evidence to repudiate any Christian claim to the Grail. The Grail of von Eschenbach and Richard Wagner was redeemed as the ultimate Aryan relic around which Himmler would build his pagan Temple. The castle at Wewelsburg, with its Round Table for himself and the members of his Inner Circle, would be the heart of a new metropolis; the chamber containing the Round Table and the crypt below it would be the precise geographical center of the new city, the Aryan Camelot, and of the New World itself. And what is King Arthur, a Round Table, and Camelot without a Grail?

Initially, Rahn did not seem to hold pro-Nazi ideas in the least. According to his friend, the French author Paul Ladame, [16] Rahn thought the Nazis faintly ridiculous. But he was starving. He could not turn down a lucrative offer of employment with Himmler, and so he eventually donned the black uniform of the SS and continued his researches better fed and more warmly (if somewhat ostentatiously) clothed.

He may not have had much of a choice in the matter, but it was a decision that nevertheless proved his downfall. As Himmler encountered more and more difficulty in finding hard evidence to prove his Aryan thesis, he became increasingly disillusioned with Rahn and his ilk. Finally, according to Ladame, he gave the frightened young scholar an ultimatum: he would finish his next book by October 31, 1936 -- the pagan festival of Samhain -- and provide it to the Nazi editors for approval. Or else.

This, Rahn managed to do. According to one source, he was then sent to Dachau for the four months of scheduled military training required of all SS men (as was Adolf Eichmann at the same camp several years earlier). That would have been sometime in the last half of 1937. [17]

He resigned his commission in the SS sometime after leaving Dachau.

Then, in 1939, at the age of thirty-five, he was dead.

The book that resulted from this relatively unknown Nazi project was entitled Luzifers Hofgesind or Lucifer's Servants, sometimes translated as Lucifer's Court. [18] It reads quite differently from Rahn's first book, which was at least sincere in its effort to portray a kind of occult underdog group of purists who held the secret of the ages in their hands if only the rest of us would pay attention. Lucifer's Servants, on the other hand, is at least partly a genuine Nazi propaganda tract and several passages make a good case for the worship of Lucifer, if one follows (and credits) Rahn's exegesis on several ancient sources including Parzival and the surviving texts of troubadors, Cathars, and even Persian mystics. Indeed, this idea of Lucifer as a benign or divine being was familiar and congenial to the "white light" Theosophists of the 1920s who, after all, entitled one of their official German publications Luzifer.

The following citations should adequately illustrate this claim (all translations by the author, all emphasis by Rahn):

It was necessary, in effect, to be faithful to God until death, "and God will give to his servant the crown of eternal life," as it is written in the Bible. Having established that, for the Church of Rome -- the sole repository of "Truth" in the eyes of its faithful -- the troubadors were members of the servants of the Devil; having also established that they were faithful to the God of Love; and finally having established that they celebrated -- as numerous examples have proved -- the marvels of the crown of Lucifer, it is permitted to believe that they had faith in the existence of a Luciferian crown of eternal life (to speak Biblically). And if we follow this thought to its logical conclusion, we will say that, for them, the God of Love was none other than Lucifer in person.

This hypothesis will become certain if we allow our thought to range more widely: the god Amor is the god of Spring, as is Apollon.... Apollon brought back the light of the Sun: he is a light-bearer, or "Lucifer." According to the Apocalypse of John, Apollyo-Apollon was equated with the Devil, and according to the belief of the Roman Church ... Lucifer is Satan. Consequently, the god of Spring Apollon-Amor is, according to the doctrine of the Church, the Devil and Satan. [19]

In a further ferverino on the subject of Lucifer, he writes in the same chapter:

There is much more [Light] than in the houses of God -- cathedrals and churches -- where Lucifer neither is able nor wishes to enter due to all the somber, stained glass windows wherein are painted the Jewish prophets and apostles, the Roman gods and saints. The forest, that, that was free! [20]

As the above two passages indicate, Rahn is using Biblical and Patristic writings to support his thesis that the Cathars and the troubadors were, in a sense, Devil worshipers ... but only so far as they worshiped pagan gods whom the Church had demonized. In an earlier chapter Rahn notes that Esclarmonde, a famous Cathar saint, "one of the noblest women of the Middle Ages" and heretic of the highest rank, believed that Jehovah -- the Old Testament God of the Jews -- was none other than Satan himself; that Christ never died on the cross and that, therefore, his suffering and death do not redeem the lives or souls of his followers. (This idea that Christ did not die on the cross is one possible reason why Templar postulants were to trample a crucifix underfoot during their initiation ceremony into the Order, and may be the reason there were no crucifixes at Chartres.) "Cursed by the Pope, detested by the King of France, she thought -- until her dying breath -- of nothing other than the religious and political independence of her country." [21] These ideas -- Jehovah the "god of the Jews" as the real Satan, inherent falsehoods in the Gospel account of Christ's life, and dying for the religious and political independence of the state -- all had a receptive audience among the scholars of the Ahnenerbe and of the SS in general, and still does among the racist and anti-Semitic Christian Identity movement today. The Cathars had represented a pure form of Christianity that denied even large portions of the Bible, and they were a political threat to the established Church; certainly, Himmler could approve of this point of view married, as it was, to the idea of a pagan Grail and of the Cathars as "guardians of the Grail." Characterizing Jehovah as an evil demon tallied nicely with the mass destruction of his followers in the camps, and made the extermination of the race of Jehovah an even greater spiritual necessity. Now they were no longer simply members of an inferior race that conspired to rob good Germans of their money, their pride, and their birthright; they were also the children of Satan.

Further, and perhaps even more importantly, as the Old Testament Jews were worshipers of Satan, then Christ could not possibly have been Jewish. Strip away the Jewish content of the New Testament and -- relying on the Biblical "revisionist" scholarship of generations of genuine German academics who cast doubt on the validity of the Gospels themselves -- you are well on your way to accepting Wiligut's thesis that Christ was Baldur, and a Teutonic Sun God!

The "Crusade against the Grail" -- subject and title of Rahn's first book -- was that undertaken by the Catholic Church during its vicious assault on Catharism, in which hundreds of thousands were brutally murdered. To Rahn, the Church was the Enemy both during the time of the Cathars in the thirteenth century and right up to the present day. Worse, it was the enemy of all that was pure, and noble, and good in the world, ideals represented by the Grail: centerpiece of Parzival, of Wagner's operas, of the Morte d'Arthur, and the entire Camelot mystique. The idea of the virgin knight, on a mystic quest throughout Europe for the Sacred Cup, must have appealed enormously to the young, virtually penniless scholar. Himmler referred to his SS men as the knights of a new Order, and one must wonder if Rahn felt -- in his heart of hearts -- somehow at home in his elegant black uniform with the silver runes, a new Teutonic Knight on the same sacred quest for the Grail. In his introduction to the French translation of Luzifers Hofgesind (La Cour de Lucifer), Paul Ladame insists that Rahn joined the SS because there was no option: Himmler offered him a salary, perks, and the freedom to conduct his own academic research unhindered. To refuse would have seemed like madness, and perhaps would have resulted in Rahn's eventual imprisonment anyway.

Other scholarship on the question provides a somewhat different perspective. Evidence from the Nazi side depicts Rahn as an enthusiastic Grail scholar, an admirer of WiIigut (a man who claimed that the Bible was a German creation; a man whom anyone in his or her right mind must have known was a lunatic), and an eager member of the SS.

At first glance this is consistent with Rahn's introduction to Lucifer's Servants, which ends with the proud and defiant claim "My ancestors were pagans. My forebears were heretics." [22] Yet, there is a mystery surrounding Rahn's sudden and unexplained resignation from the SS, a resignation that took place a little over a year after his leave from military service at Dachau.

He resigned his commission in February 1939.

He died less than a month later, on March 13 of that same year, supposedly from exposure while hiking in the mountains. This, from a seasoned traveler, and a trained survivalist (as all SS men were), at an altitude of less than 2,000 meters a week before spring! As Ladame puts it, "to die of cold the 13th of March at less than 2,000 meters, one needs a lot of patience, a strong will ... and time ... perhaps one or two weeks." [23]

Thus Ladame disputes the dating, insisting that his friend died in 1937, shortly after finishing Lucifer's Servants. [24] Ladame claims that Rahn was no Nazi, and no racist. He insists that the Nazi elements in Lucifer's Servants were not of Rahn's making or, if they were, they were inserted at the command or instigation of the SS. And, not surprisingly, Ladame implies that Rahn was murdered; executed by his former colleagues for reason, or reasons, unknown.

Unfortunately, there is some documentary evidence that Otto Rahn was alive and well at least as late as January 1938, when he gave a lecture -- based on Luzifers Hofgesind -- to the Dietrich Eckart Society at Dietrich Eckart House in Dortmund, in Westphalia ... a lecture that was reported upon in the local newspaper. From the tone of the review, Rahn was in fine form that evening:

The Albigensians were exterminated. 205 leading followers of Lucifer were burnt on a huge pyre by Dominicans in the South of France after a large-scale priestly Crusade in the name of Christian clemency. With fire and sword, the Lucifer doctrine of the Light-Bearer was persecuted along with its followers. The Albigensians are dead, but their spirit lives on and has an effect today through new devotion and rejuvenated enthusiasm. The Vicar of Christ could truly burn men; but he was mistaken if he believed that he burned along with them their spirit, devotion and longing. This spirit became alive again before many men yesterday, powerfully and visibly, in Otto Rahn, a descendant of the old Troubadours. [25]

Could someone as intelligent as Rahn's published writings indicate he was, a scholar for whom medieval legend and lore came alive only through careful research and study, have willingly taken up with a character like Wiligut, who claimed that the Teutonic tribes had a verifiable history going back to the year 228,000 B.C.... when the Earth had an embarrassment of three suns? As much as one may wish to argue with the thesis of Crusade against the Grail or Lucifer's Servants, there is nothing of the raving mystagogue about Rahn. One likes to think that his period of obligatory military service at Dachau opened his eyes to the horror of the Reich, and that -- in a final, doomed but proud gesture of dignity -- he resigned his commission in the SS in outrage and disgust at the atrocities he may have witnessed at the death camp associated with the SS base there; and was then murdered for his insubordination a month later.

Then, too, the fact that both Wiligut and Rahn retired from the SS at the same time -- in the same month -- is suggestive of some collusion between the two mythologians: the one elderly and quite insane, the other young and quite intelligent. Rahn's exploits and the mystery surrounding his resignation and subsequent death have received a great deal of attention in European circles over the years, although they are little known in America. His unusual life story has led to considerable speculation that Rahn actually did discover something in his travels, and that since he seemed to confide in Wiligut they both had to be gotten out of the way to protect the secret. That, in fact, they "knew too much." Wiligut was kept under SS lock and key for some time until the end of the war, and died in 1946; he was eighty years old and, with his background of mental illness, hardly a serious threat to the Reichsfuhrer-SS. Rahn, on the other hand, was a bit more of a liability and -- so the theory goes -- he had to be killed.

Either that, or Himmler decided to can them both at the same time when reports of Wiligut's earlier hospitalization for mental illness became common knowledge within the SS. But why would news of Wiligut's infirmity have jeopardized Rahn's career?

There is an intriguing note in the definitive study of Wewelsburg by Prof. Dr. Karl Huser [26] to the effect that Rahn was kicked out of the SS because of his homosexuality. Himmler had a rabid dislike of homosexuals, and through the auspices of Nazi psychiatrists at the Goring Institute tried to have several SS men "cured" of this "malady." [27] Many homosexuals, of course, wound up in concentration camps themselves. Although that was probably not an option with an SS man as relatively well known as Rahn, he was possibly looking at some sort of reprisal in the future, either professionally or in some other way. Unfortunately, we shall never know.

One final possibility -- though there is no evidence to support it -- is that Rahn himself was the first of the SS men to take refuge in that sad Cathar rite, allowed only to the privileged few, the Perfect; that, in the mountain snows above Kufstein, and on the anniversary of the destruction of Montsegur, the miserable scholar exchanged the secret of the long-sought-after Grail for that other treasure of the Cathars: the consolation of a noble death.

Holy Blood, Holy Grail

If the Cathars and troubadors -- heirs of a Gnostic tradition in Europe, possibly brought over from the Middle East from whence the Templars had brought their own mysterious rites -- were crypto-pagans as Rahn believed, and if the set piece of their mythology was the Holy Grail, then it follows that the Grail is not a Christian symbol at all but a purely pagan one. And if the Grail is a pagan ikon, then the Nazis -- overt pagans as they were -- saw in the Grail a sacred instrument of divine power that they could use for their own ends. As the inheritors of the pagan traditions in Europe (at least in their own eyes) the Grail belonged to them. After all, were they not the spiritual descendants of the Teutonic Knights, a chivalric Order that pressed Germany on in a Drive to the East centuries before Hider's invasion of Russia? Were they not the people of the Runes? The people of the Pure Blood?

Messrs. Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln might have been more correct than they realized when they entitled their famous book Holy Blood, Holy Grail. For them, the Grail was in reality the bloodline of Jesus Christ, preserved down through the millennia and safeguarded by yet another secret society, the Priory of Zion, which the authors link to an underground tradition of Freemasonry and Templarism spanning the centuries and which finds its modern manifestation in the Knights of Malta, Italy's P-2, and other such groups.

Part of the problem lies in the term "holy grail," and in the word "grail" itself. Messrs. Baigent et. al. consider that the term sangreal as found in Le Morte d'Arthur and other Grail Romances is really composed of two words: sang and real, that is, blood and royal. (The term sangreal is usually interpreted to mean san greal, "holy grail.") It is an attractive theory and to an extent linguistically satisfying since no two authorities can agree on where the term "grail" comes from and what it means. By denying that such a word really has any meaning at all -- that it is merely the result of misunderstanding the syllable break in sangreal -- we have neatly solved the problem of the Holy Grail by revealing its true nature as Royal Blood. After all, the Grail makes its appearance to Parzival alongside a lance that is dripping blood onto the floor. This scene is presented wordlessly, without comment, as if in a dream. Was the intention of the author to communicate the fact that sangreal really does indicate "royal blood"? This would have pleased the Nazis enormously if the story had been current at the time, for the Nazis were nothing if not Blood enthusiasts after the Foucault model introduced in Chapter One, and -- if they could have somehow linked the concept of "royal blood" with a Teutonic Christ and the Aryan race -- they would have had the basis for a new religious synthesis that could have brought together all acceptable Christians and pure-blooded Aryans in one, big, happy (if rather inbred) family.

By claiming the Grail as their own the Nazis rob Christianity of a huge chunk of its popular mythology. The chalice a Catholic priest raises during the Mass becomes a pagan cauldron; the mystery of the Blood of Christ becomes a hollow echo of pagan sacrifice. Appropriation of the Grail symbolism then becomes an assault on Christian faith itself; at least, on the popular faith of the lumpenproletariat of Europe, from the Pyrenees to the Alps to the Caucasus.

That the Grail was originally a pagan symbol is today virtually beyond debate; that it was appropriated by romantic elements within the Christian world (as was much pagan iconography) is certain. However, had Himmler succeeded in producing an actual "Grail" during the war, the effect on the Christian populations of Europe might have been traumatic. Depending on the spin, it would have signaled either the divine mission of the Nazi Party as true inheritors of the ultimate representation of occult power ... or the need for a holy war against the black-clad SS, the satanic monsters who had "stolen" God's sacred Cup from the righteous.

As it is, history records no such discovery of the Grail by the Nazis, or by anyone else. Birks and Gilbert claim that there is no evidence that Nazi hierarchs had any interest at all in the Cathars or in Montsegur. [28] Yet, Himmler had enlisted the talents of a young Grail scholar in a search for the perfect centerpiece for his secret cult headquarters at Wewelsburg, and put his favorite prehistorian, SS-Brigadier Karl Wiligut, in charge of the project. Whether Cathar or Templar, sacred stone or golden cup, finding the Holy Grail was certainly a dream of Himmler's; his Wewelsburg center was beyond any doubt a reverent shrine to the legend of the Round Table. If he eventually gave up on the search, one imagines he did so only with the greatest reluctance.

A final word on Montsegur -- this time by Sabine Baring-Gould, an author who wrote extensively on history and travel at the turn of the century -- is in order, for it shows how Rahn's feelings were shared by a great many people on both sides of the Channel:

The treasures of the Albigenses ... have never been recovered; but the true treasure, for which they fought and for which they died, the emancipation of the human soul from the fetters of slavery in which it had been bound by Rome, has been won by nearly all Europe. [29]

-- Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement With the Occult, by Peter Levenda

Alfred Schuler (* 22 November 1865 in Mainz; † 8 April 1923 in Munich) was a religious founder, a gnostic, a mystic and a visionary. Franz Wegener has called Schuler the last of the German Cathars. Schuler saw himself as a reborn Roman of the late imperial era. Also a neopagan, he was the spiritual focus of the "Munich Cosmic Circle."

-- Alfred Schuler, by Wikipedia

The Occitan cross, a "Cathar rallying symbol".[1]

Catharism (/ˈkæθərɪzəm/; from the Greek: καθαροί, katharoi, "the pure [ones]")[2][3] was a Christian dualist or Gnostic revival movement that thrived in some areas of Southern Europe, particularly what is now northern Italy and southern France, between the 12th and 14th centuries. The followers were known as Cathars and are now mainly remembered for a prolonged period of persecution by the Catholic Church, which did not recognise their belief as being Christian. Catharism appeared in Europe in the Languedoc region of France in the 11th century and this is when the name first appears. The adherents were sometimes known as Albigensians, after the city Albi in southern France where the movement first took hold.[4] The belief system may have originated in Persia or the Byzantine Empire.[citation needed] Catharism was initially taught by ascetic leaders who set few guidelines, and, thus, some Catharist practices and beliefs varied by region and over time. The Catholic Church denounced its practices including the Consolamentum ritual, by which Cathar individuals were baptized and raised to the status of "perfect".[5]

Part 2 of 2

Catharism may have had its roots in the Paulician movement in Armenia and eastern Byzantine Anatolia and certainly in the Bogomils of the First Bulgarian Empire,[6] who were influenced by the Paulicians resettled in Thrace (Philipopolis) by the Byzantines. Though the term Cathar (/ˈkæθɑːr/) has been used for centuries to identify the movement, whether the movement identified itself with this name is debated.[7] In Cathar texts, the terms Good Men (Bons Hommes), Good Women (Bonnes Femmes), or Good Christians (Bons Chrétiens) are the common terms of self-identification.[8]

The idea of two gods or principles, one good and the other evil, was central to Cathar beliefs. This was antithetical to the monotheistic Catholic Church, whose fundamental principle was that there was only one God, who created all things visible and invisible.[9] Cathars believed that the good God was the God of the New Testament and the creator of the spiritual realm. They believed the evil God was the God of the Old Testament, creator of the physical world whom many Cathars identified as Satan. Cathars thought human spirits were the sexless spirits of angels trapped in the material realm of the evil god, destined to be reincarnated until they achieved salvation through the consolamentum, when they could return to the benign God.[10]

From the beginning of his reign, Pope Innocent III attempted to end Catharism by sending missionaries and by persuading the local authorities to act against them. In 1208, Innocent's papal legate Pierre de Castelnau was murdered while returning to Rome after excommunicating Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, who, in his view, was too lenient with the Cathars.[11] Pope Innocent III then abandoned the option of sending Catholic missionaries and jurists, declared Pierre de Castelnau a martyr and launched the Albigensian Crusade which all but ended Catharism.[11][12]

Origins


Paulicianism and Europe

The origins of the Cathars' beliefs are unclear, but most theories agree they came from the Byzantine Empire, mostly by the trade routes and spread from the First Bulgarian Empire to the Netherlands. The name of Bulgarians (Bougres) was also applied to the Albigensians, and they maintained an association with the similar Christian movement of the Bogomils ("Friends of God") of Thrace. "That there was a substantial transmission of ritual and ideas from Bogomilism to Catharism is beyond reasonable doubt."[13] Their doctrines have numerous resemblances to those of the Bogomils and the Paulicians, who influenced them,[14] as well as the earlier Marcionites, who were found in the same areas as the Paulicians, the Manicheans and the Christian Gnostics of the first few centuries AD, although, as many scholars, most notably Mark Pegg, have pointed out, it would be erroneous to extrapolate direct, historical connections based on theoretical similarities perceived by modern scholars.

John Damascene, writing in the 8th century AD, also notes of an earlier sect called the "Cathari", in his book On Heresies, taken from the epitome provided by Epiphanius of Salamis in his Panarion. He says of them: "They absolutely reject those who marry a second time, and reject the possibility of penance [that is, forgiveness of sins after baptism]".[15] These are probably the same Cathari (actually Novations) who are mentioned in Canon 8 of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in the year 325, which states "... [ i]f those called Cathari come over [to the faith], let them first make profession that they are willing to communicate [share full communion] with the twice-married, and grant pardon to those who have lapsed ..."[16]


A map signifying the routes of the Cathar castles (blue squares and lines) in the south of France around the turn of the 13th century

The writings of the Cathars were mostly destroyed because of the doctrinal threat perceived by the Papacy;[17] thus, the historical record of the Cathars is derive primarily from their opponents. Cathar ideology continues to be debated, with commentators regularly accusing opposing perspectives of speculation, distortion and bias. Only a few texts of the Cathars remain, as preserved by their opponents (such as the Rituel Cathare de Lyon) which give a glimpse into the ideologies of their faith.[14] One large text which has survived, The Book of Two Principles (Liber de duobus principiis),[18] which elaborates the principles of dualistic theology from the point of view of some Albanenses Cathars.[19]

It is now generally agreed by most scholars that identifiable historical Catharism did not emerge until at least 1143, when the first confirmed report of a group espousing similar beliefs is reported being active at Cologne by the cleric Eberwin of Steinfeld.[20] A landmark in the "institutional history" of the Cathars was the Council, held in 1167 at Saint-Félix-Lauragais, attended by many local figures and also by the Bogomil papa Nicetas, the Cathar bishop of (northern) France and a leader of the Cathars of Lombardy.

The Cathars were largely local, Western European/Latin Christian phenomena, springing up in the Rhineland cities (particularly Cologne) in the mid-12th century, northern France around the same time, and particularly the Languedoc—and the northern Italian cities in the mid-late 12th century. In the Languedoc and northern Italy, the Cathars attained their greatest popularity, surviving in the Languedoc, in much reduced form, up to around 1325 and in the Italian cities until the Inquisitions of the 14th century finally extirpated them.[21]

General beliefs

Theology


War in heaven. Illustration by Gustave Doré.

Cathar cosmology identified two twin, opposing deities. The first was a good God, portrayed in the New Testament and creator of the spirit, while the second was an evil God, depicted in the Old Testament and creator of matter and the physical world.[22] The latter, often called Rex Mundi ("King of the World"),[23] was identified as the God of Judaism,[22] and was also either conflated with Satan or considered Satan's father, creator or seducer.[6] They solved the problem of evil by stating that the good God's power to do good was limited by the evil God's works and vice versa.[24] All visible matter, including the human body, was created by this Rex Mundi; matter was therefore tainted with sin. Under this view, humans were actually angels seduced by Satan before a war in heaven against the army of Michael, after which they would have been forced to spend an eternity trapped in the evil God's material realm.[6] The Cathars taught that to regain angelic status one had to renounce the material self completely. Until one was prepared to do so, they would be stuck in a cycle of reincarnation, condemned to live on the corrupt Earth.[25] Zoé Oldenbourg compared the Cathars to "Western Buddhists" because she considered that their view of the doctrine of "resurrection" taught by Christ was similar to the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth.[26][self-published source]

Cathars venerated Jesus Christ and followed what they considered to be his true teachings, labelling themselves as "Good Christians."[8] Cathars denied the physical incarnation of Jesus.[27] Authors believe that their conceptions of Jesus resembled docetism, considering him the human form of an angel,[28] whose physical body was only appearance.[29] This illusory form would have possibly been given by the Virgin Mary, another angel in human form.[24] Most did not accept the normative Trinitarian understanding of Jesus, instead resembling nontrinitarian modalistic monarchianism (Sabellianism) in the West and adoptionism in the East, which might or might not be combined with the mentioned docetism.[30] Bernard of Clairvaux's biographer and other sources accuse some Cathars of Arianism,[31][32] and some scholars see Cathar Christology as having traces of earlier Arian roots.[33][34] In any case, Cathars firmly rejected the Resurrection of Jesus, seeing it as representing reincarnation, and the Christian symbol of the cross, considering it to be not more than a material instrument of torture and evil. They also saw John the Baptist, identified also with Elijah, as an evil being sent to hinder Jesus's teaching through the false sacrament of baptism.[6]


St. Paul, by Valentin de Boulogne.

However, those beliefs were far from unanimous. Some Cathar communities believed in a mitigated dualism similar to their Bogomil predecessors, stating that the evil God, Satan, had previously been the true God's servant before rebelling against him.[24] Others, likely a majority given the influence reflected on the Book of the Two Principles, believed in an absolute dualism, where the two Gods were twin entities of the same power and importance.[24] In the same line, some communities might have believed in the existence of a spirit realm created by the good God, the "Land of the Living", whose history and geography would have served as the basis for the evil God's corrupt creation. Under this view, the history of Jesus would have happened roughly as told, only in the spirit realm.[22] The physical Jesus from the material world would have been evil, a false messiah and a lustful lover of the material Mary Magdalene. However, the true Jesus would have influenced the physical world in a way similar to the Harrowing of Hell, only by inhabiting the body of Paul. [22] Cathars also possibly believed in a Day of Judgement that would come when the number of just equated that of angels who fell, in which the believers would ascend to the spirit realm while the sinners would be thrown to everlasting fire along with Satan.[24] 13th century chronicler Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay recorded those views.[22]

The alleged sacred texts of the Cathars, besides the New Testament, included the previously Bogomil text The Gospel of the Secret Supper (also called John's Interrogation) and the Cathar original work The Book of the Two Principles.[35] They regarded the Old Testament as written by Satan except for a few books which they accepted.[6]

Sacraments

Cathars, in general, formed an anti-sacerdotal party in opposition to the pre-Reformation Christian Church, protesting against what they perceived to be the moral, spiritual and political corruption of the church.[14] In contrast to the them, the Cathars had but one central rite, the Consolamentum, or Consolation. This involved a brief spiritual ceremony to remove all sin from the believer and to induct him or her into the next higher level as a perfect.[36]

Many believers would receive the Consolamentum as death drew near, performing the ritual of liberation at a moment when the heavy obligations of purity required of Perfecti would be temporally short. Some of those who received the sacrament of the consolamentum upon their death-beds may thereafter have shunned further food or drink and, more often and in addition, expose themselves to extreme cold, in order to speed death. This has been termed the endura.[37] It was claimed by some of the church writers that when a Cathar, after receiving the Consolamentum, began to show signs of recovery he or she would be smothered in order to ensure his or her entry into paradise. Other than at such moments of extremis, little evidence exists to suggest this was a common Cathar practice.[38]


Painting by Pedro Berruguete portraying the story of a disputation between Saint Dominic and the Cathars (Albigensians), in which the books of both were thrown on a fire and Dominic's books were miraculously preserved from the flames.

The Cathars also refused the sacrament of the eucharist saying that it could not possibly be the body of Christ. They also refused to partake in the practice of Baptism by water. The following two quotes are taken from the Inquisitor Bernard Gui's experiences with the Cathar practices and beliefs:

Then they attack and vituperate, in turn, all the sacraments of the Church, especially the sacrament of the eucharist, saying that it cannot contain the body of Christ, for had this been as great as the largest mountain Christians would have entirely consumed it before this. They assert that the host comes from straw, that it passes through the tails of horses, to wit, when the flour is cleaned by a sieve (of horse hair); that, moreover, it passes through the body and comes to a vile end, which, they say, could not happen if God were in it.[39]

Of baptism, they assert that the water is material and corruptible and is therefore the creation of the evil power, and cannot sanctify the spirit, but that the churchmen sell this water out of avarice, just as they sell earth for the burial of the dead, and oil to the sick when they anoint them, and as they sell the confession of sins as made to the priests.[39]

Social relationships

Killing was abhorrent to the Cathars. Consequently, abstention from all animal food (sometimes exempting fish) was enjoined of the Perfecti. The Perfecti avoided eating anything considered to be a by-product of sexual reproduction.[36] War and capital punishment were also condemned—an abnormality in Medieval Europe. In a world where few could read, their rejection of oath-taking marked them as social outcasts.

To the Cathars, reproduction was a moral evil to be avoided, as it continued the chain of reincarnation and suffering in the material world. It was claimed by their opponents that, given this loathing for procreation, they generally resorted to sodomy. Such was the situation that a charge of heresy leveled against a suspected Cathar was usually dismissed if the accused could show he was legally married.

When Bishop Fulk of Toulouse, a key leader of the anti-Cathar persecutions, excoriated the Languedoc Knights for not pursuing the heretics more diligently, he received the reply, "We cannot. We have been reared in their midst. We have relatives among them and we see them living lives of perfection."[40]

Organization

It has been alleged that the Cathar Church of the Languedoc had a relatively flat structure, distinguishing between the baptised perfecti (a term they did not use; instead, bonhommes) and ordinary unbaptised believers (credentes).[36] By about 1140, liturgy and a system of doctrine had been established.[41] They created a number of bishoprics, first at Albi around 1165 [42] and after the 1167 Council at Saint-Félix-Lauragais sites at Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Agen, so that four bishoprics were in existence by 1200.[36][41][43][44] In about 1225, during a lull in the Albigensian Crusade, the bishopric of Razès was added. Bishops were supported by their two assistants: a filius maior (typically the successor) and a filius minor, who were further assisted by deacons.[45] The perfecti were the spiritual elite, highly respected by many of the local people, leading a life of austerity and charity.[36] In the apostolic fashion they ministered to the people and travelled in pairs.[36]

Role of women and gender


Cathars being expelled from Carcassonne in 1209. In this group, women appear to be nearly as numerous as men.

Catharism has been seen as giving women the greatest opportunities for independent action since women were found as being believers as well as Perfecti, who were able to administer the sacrament of the consolamentum.[46]

Cathars believed that one would be repeatedly reincarnated until one commits to the self-denial of the material world. A man could be reincarnated as a woman and vice versa, thereby rendering gender meaningless.[47] The spirit was of utmost importance to the Cathars and was described as being immaterial and sexless.[47] Because of this belief, the Cathars saw women as equally capable of being spiritual leaders, which undermined the very concept of gender as held by the Catholic Church.[48]

Women accused of being heretics in early medieval Christianity included those labeled Gnostics, Cathars, and, later, the Beguines, as well as several other groups that were sometimes "tortured and executed".[49] Cathars, like the Gnostics who preceded them, assigned more importance to the role of Mary Magdalene in the spread of early Christianity than the church previously did. Her vital role as a teacher contributed to the Cathar belief that women could serve as spiritual leaders. Women were found to be included in the Perfecti in significant numbers, with numerous receiving the consolamentum after being widowed.[46] Having reverence for the Gospel of John, the Cathars saw Mary Magdalene as perhaps even more important than Saint Peter, the founder of the church.[50]

The Cathar movement proved successful in gaining female followers because of its proto-feminist teachings along with the general feeling of exclusion from the Catholic church. Catharism attracted numerous women with the promise of a leadership role that the Catholic Church did not allow.[10] Catharism let women become a perfect of the faith, a position of far more prestige than anything the Catholic Church offered.[51] These female perfects were required to adhere to a strict and ascetic lifestyle, but were still able to have their own houses.[52] Although many women found something attractive in Catharism, not all found its teachings convincing. A notable example is Hildegard of Bingen, who in 1163 gave a widely renowned sermon against the Cathars in Cologne. During this speech, Hildegard announced a state of eternal punishment and damnation to all those who accepted Cathar beliefs.[53]

While women perfects rarely traveled to preach the faith, they still played a vital role in the spreading of the Catharism by establishing group homes for women.[54] Though it was extremely uncommon, there were isolated cases of female Cathars leaving their homes to spread the faith.[55] In Cathar communal homes (ostals), women were educated in the faith, and these women would go on to bear children who would then also become believers. Through this pattern the faith grew exponentially through the efforts of women as each generation passed.[54] Among some groups of Cathars there were more women than there were men.[56]

Despite women having an instrumental role in the growing of the faith, Catharism was not completely equal, for example the belief that one's last incarnation had to be experienced as a man to break the cycle.[40] This belief was inspired by later French Cathars, who taught that women must be reborn as men in order to achieve salvation.[10] Another example was that the sexual allure of women impeded man's ability to reject the material world.[40] Toward the end of the Cathar movement, Catharism became less equal and started the practice of excluding women perfects.[10] However, this trend remained limited (Later Italian perfects still included women.[10])

Suppression


Cathars being burnt at the stake in an auto-de-fé, anachronistically presided over by Saint Dominic, as depicted by Pedro Berruguete

In 1147, Pope Eugene III sent a legate to the Cathar district in order to arrest the progress of the Cathars. The few isolated successes of Bernard of Clairvaux could not obscure the poor results of this mission, which clearly showed the power of the sect in the Languedoc at that period. The missions of Cardinal Peter of St. Chrysogonus to Toulouse and the Toulousain in 1178, and of Henry of Marcy, cardinal-bishop of Albano, in 1180–81, obtained merely momentary successes.[14] Henry's armed expedition, which took the stronghold at Lavaur, did not extinguish the movement.

Decisions of Catholic Church councils—in particular, those of the Council of Tours (1163) and of the Third Council of the Lateran (1179)—had scarcely more effect upon the Cathars. When Pope Innocent III came to power in 1198, he was resolved to deal with them.[57]

At first Innocent tried peaceful conversion, and sent a number of legates into the Cathar regions. They had to contend not only with the Cathars, the nobles who protected them, and the people who respected them, but also with many of the bishops of the region, who resented the considerable authority the Pope had conferred upon his legates. In 1204, Innocent III suspended a number of bishops in Occitania;[58] in 1205 he appointed a new and vigorous bishop of Toulouse, the former troubadour Foulques. In 1206 Diego of Osma and his canon, the future Saint Dominic, began a programme of conversion in Languedoc; as part of this, Catholic-Cathar public debates were held at Verfeil, Servian, Pamiers, Montréal and elsewhere.

Dominic met and debated with the Cathars in 1203 during his mission to the Languedoc. He concluded that only preachers who displayed real sanctity, humility and asceticism could win over convinced Cathar believers. The institutional Church as a general rule did not possess these spiritual warrants.[59] His conviction led eventually to the establishment of the Dominican Order in 1216. The order was to live up to the terms of his famous rebuke, "Zeal must be met by zeal, humility by humility, false sanctity by real sanctity, preaching falsehood by preaching truth." However, even Dominic managed only a few converts among the Cathari.

Albigensian Crusade

Main article: Albigensian Crusade


Pope Innocent III excommunicating the Albigensians (left), massacre of the Albigensians by the crusaders (right)

In January 1208 the papal legate, Pierre de Castelnau—a Cistercian monk, theologian and canon lawyer—was sent to meet the ruler of the area, Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse.[60] Known for excommunicating noblemen who protected the Cathars, Castelnau excommunicated Raymond for abetting heresy following an allegedly fierce argument during which Raymond supposedly threatened Castelnau with violence.[61] Shortly thereafter, Castelnau was murdered as he returned to Rome, allegedly by a knight in the service of Count Raymond. His body was returned and laid to rest in the Abbey at Saint Gilles.

As soon as he heard of the murder, the Pope ordered the legates to preach a crusade against the Cathars and wrote a letter to Philip Augustus, King of France, appealing for his intervention—or an intervention led by his son, Louis. This was not the first appeal but some see the murder of the legate as a turning point in papal policy. The chronicler of the crusade which followed, Peter of Vaux de Cernay, portrays the sequence of events in such a way that, having failed in his effort to peaceably demonstrate the errors of Catharism, the Pope then called a formal crusade, appointing a series of leaders to head the assault.

The French King refused to lead the crusade himself, and could not spare his son to do so either—despite his victory against John, King of England, there were still pressing issues with Flanders and the empire and the threat of an Angevin revival. Philip did sanction the participation of some of his barons, notably Simon de Montfort and Bouchard de Marly. There followed twenty years of war against the Cathars and their allies in the Languedoc: the Albigensian Crusade.


Cité de Carcassonne today

This war pitted the nobles of France against those of the Languedoc. The widespread northern enthusiasm for the Crusade was partially inspired by a papal decree permitting the confiscation of lands owned by Cathars and their supporters. This angered not only the lords of the south but also the French King, who was at least nominally the suzerain of the lords whose lands were now open to seizure. Philip Augustus wrote to Pope Innocent in strong terms to point this out—but the Pope did not change his policy. As the Languedoc was supposedly teeming with Cathars and Cathar sympathisers, this made the region a target for northern French noblemen looking to acquire new fiefs. The barons of the north headed south to do battle.

Their first target was the lands of the Trencavel, powerful lords of Carcassonne, Béziers, Albi and the Razes. Little was done to form a regional coalition and the crusading army was able to take Carcassonne, the Trencavel capital, incarcerating Raymond Roger Trencavel in his own citadel where he died within three months; champions of the Occitan cause claimed that he was murdered. Simon de Montfort was granted the Trencavel lands by the Pope and did homage for them to the King of France, thus incurring the enmity of Peter II of Aragon who had held aloof from the conflict, even acting as a mediator at the time of the siege of Carcassonne. The remainder of the first of the two Cathar wars now focused on Simon's attempt to hold on to his gains through winters where he was faced, with only a small force of confederates operating from the main winter camp at Fanjeaux, with the desertion of local lords who had sworn fealty to him out of necessity—and attempts to enlarge his newfound domains in the summer when his forces were greatly augmented by reinforcements from France, Germany and elsewhere.

Summer campaigns saw him not only retake what he had lost in the "close" season, but also seek to widen his sphere of operation—and we see him in action in the Aveyron at St. Antonin and on the banks of the Rhône at Beaucaire. Simon's greatest triumph was the victory against superior numbers at the Battle of Muret—a battle which saw not only the defeat of Raymond of Toulouse and his Occitan allies—but also the death of Peter of Aragon—and the effective end of the ambitions of the house of Aragon/Barcelona in the Languedoc. This was in the medium and longer term of much greater significance to the royal house of France than it was to de Montfort—and with the Battle of Bouvines was to secure the position of Philip Augustus vis a vis England and the Empire. The Battle of Muret was a massive step in the creation of the unified French kingdom and the country we know today—although Edward III, Edward the Black Prince and Henry V would threaten later to shake these foundations.

Massacre


Massacre of the Albigensians by the crusaders

The crusader army came under the command, both spiritually and militarily, of the papal legate Arnaud-Amaury, Abbot of Cîteaux. In the first significant engagement of the war, the town of Béziers was besieged on 22 July 1209. The Catholic inhabitants of the city were granted the freedom to leave unharmed, but many refused and opted to stay and fight alongside the Cathars.

The Cathars spent much of 1209 fending off the crusaders. The Béziers army attempted a sortie but was quickly defeated, then pursued by the crusaders back through the gates and into the city. Arnaud-Amaury, the Cistercian abbot-commander, is supposed to have been asked how to tell Cathars from Catholics. His reply, recalled by Caesarius of Heisterbach, a fellow Cistercian, thirty years later was "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius"—"Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own".[62][63] The doors of the church of St Mary Magdalene were broken down and the refugees dragged out and slaughtered. Reportedly at least 7,000 men, women and children were killed there by Catholic forces. Elsewhere in the town, many more thousands were mutilated and killed. Prisoners were blinded, dragged behind horses, and used for target practice.[64] What remained of the city was razed by fire. Arnaud-Amaury wrote to Pope Innocent III, "Today your Holiness, twenty thousand heretics were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex."[65][66] "The permanent population of Béziers at that time was then probably no more than 5,000, but local refugees seeking shelter within the city walls could conceivably have increased the number to 20,000."[67][self-published source]

After the success of his siege of Carcassonne, which followed the Massacre at Béziers in 1209, Simon de Montfort was designated as leader of the Crusader army. Prominent opponents of the Crusaders were Raymond Roger Trencavel, viscount of Carcassonne, and his feudal overlord Peter II of Aragon, who held fiefdoms and had a number of vassals in the region. Peter died fighting against the crusade on 12 September 1213 at the Battle of Muret. Simon de Montfort was killed on 25 June 1218 after maintaining a siege of Toulouse for nine months.[68]

Treaty and persecution


The burning of the Cathar heretics

The official war ended in the Treaty of Paris (1229), by which the king of France dispossessed the house of Toulouse of the greater part of its fiefs, and that of the Trencavels (Viscounts of Béziers and Carcassonne) of the whole of their fiefs. The independence of the princes of the Languedoc was at an end. But in spite of the wholesale massacre of Cathars during the war, Catharism was not yet extinguished and Catholic forces would continue to pursue Cathars.[58]

In 1215, the bishops of the Catholic Church met at the Fourth Council of the Lateran under Pope Innocent III; part of the agenda was combating the Cathar heresy.[69]

The Inquisition was established in 1233 to uproot the remaining Cathars.[70] Operating in the south at Toulouse, Albi, Carcassonne and other towns during the whole of the 13th century, and a great part of the 14th, it succeeded in crushing Catharism as a popular movement and driving its remaining adherents underground.[70] Cathars who refused to recant were hanged, or burnt at the stake.[71]

On Friday, 13 May 1239, 183 men and women convinced of Catharism were burned at the stake on the orders of Robert le Bougre. Mount Guimar was already denounced as a place of heresy by the letter of the bishop of Liège to Pope Lucius II in 1144. Augustine, bishop of Hippo Regius, had expelled from the city a Fortunatus who had fled Africa in 392; he is a Fortunatus who is reported as a monk from Africa and protected by the lord of Widomarum.[72][73][74]

From May 1243 to March 1244, the Cathar fortress of Montségur was besieged by the troops of the seneschal of Carcassonne and the archbishop of Narbonne.[75] On 16 March 1244, a large and symbolically important massacre took place, where over 200 Cathar Perfects were burnt in an enormous pyre at the prat dels cremats ("field of the burned") near the foot of the castle.[75] Moreover, the church decreed lesser chastisements against laymen suspected of sympathy with Cathars, at the 1235 Council of Narbonne.[76]


Inquisitors required heretical sympathisers—repentant first offenders—to sew a yellow cross onto their clothes.[77]

A popular though as yet unsubstantiated theory holds that a small party of Cathar Perfects escaped from the fortress before the massacre at prat dels cremats. It is widely held in the Cathar region to this day that the escapees took with them le trésor cathar. What this treasure consisted of has been a matter of considerable speculation: claims range from sacred Gnostic texts to the Cathars' accumulated wealth, which might have included the Holy Grail (see the Section on Historical Scholarship, below).

Hunted by the Inquisition and deserted by the nobles of their districts, the Cathars became more and more scattered fugitives: meeting surreptitiously in forests and mountain wilds. Later insurrections broke out under the leadership of Roger-Bernard II, Count of Foix, Aimery III of Narbonne, and Bernard Délicieux, a Franciscan friar later prosecuted for his adherence to another heretical movement, that of the Spiritual Franciscans at the beginning of the 14th century. But by this time the Inquisition had grown very powerful. Consequently, many presumed to be Cathars were summoned to appear before it. Precise indications of this are found in the registers of the Inquisitors, Bernard of Caux, Jean de St Pierre, Geoffroy d'Ablis, and others.[58] The parfaits it was said only rarely recanted, and hundreds were burnt. Repentant lay believers were punished, but their lives were spared as long as they did not relapse. Having recanted, they were obliged to sew yellow crosses onto their outdoor clothing and to live apart from other Catholics, at least for a while.

Annihilation

After several decades of harassment and re-proselytising, and, perhaps even more important, the systematic destruction of their religious texts, the sect was exhausted and could find no more adepts. The leader of a Cathar revival in the Pyrenean foothills, Peire Autier, was captured and executed in April 1310 in Toulouse.[78][79] After 1330, the records of the Inquisition contain very few proceedings against Cathars.[58] The last known Cathar perfectus in the Languedoc, Guillaume Bélibaste, was executed in the autumn of 1321.[80][79]

From the mid-12th century onwards, Italian Catharism came under increasing pressure from the Pope and the Inquisition, "spelling the beginning of the end".[81] Other movements, such as the Waldensians and the pantheistic Brethren of the Free Spirit, which suffered persecution in the same area, survived in remote areas and in small numbers into the 14th and 15th centuries. Some Waldensian ideas were absorbed into other proto-Protestant sects, such as the Hussites, Lollards, and the Moravian Church (Herrnhuters of Germany). Cathars were in no way Protestant, and very few if any Protestants consider them as their forerunners (as opposed to groups like Waldensians, Hussites, Lollards and Arnoldists).

Later history

After the suppression of Catharism, the descendants of Cathars were discriminated against, at times required to live outside towns and their defences. They retained their Cathar identity, despite their reintegration into Catholicism. As such, any use of the term "Cathar" to refer to people after the suppression of Catharism in the 14th century is a cultural or ancestral reference, and has no religious implication[citation needed]. Nevertheless, interest in the Cathars, their history, legacy and beliefs continues.

Pays Cathare


The castle of Montségur was razed after 1244. The current fortress follows French military architecture of the 17th century.

The term Pays Cathare, French meaning "Cathar Country", is used to highlight the Cathar heritage and history of the region where Catharism was traditionally strongest. This area is centred around fortresses such as Montségur and Carcassonne; also the French département of the Aude uses the title Pays Cathare in tourist brochures.[82] These areas have ruins from the wars against the Cathars which are still visible today.

Some[who?] criticise the promotion of the identity of Pays Cathare as an exaggeration for tourism purposes. Many of the promoted Cathar castles were not built by Cathars but by local lords and later many of them were rebuilt and extended for strategic purposes.[original research?] Good examples of these are the magnificent castles of Queribus and Peyrepertuse which are both perched on the side of precipitous drops on the last folds of the Corbieres mountains. They were for several hundred years frontier fortresses belonging to the French crown and most of what is still there dates from a post-Cathar era. Many consider the County of Foix to be the actual historical centre of Catharism.

Interrogation of heretics

In an effort to find the few remaining heretics in and around the village of Montaillou, Jacques Fournier, Bishop of Pamiers, future Pope Benedict XII, had those suspected of heresy interrogated in the presence of scribes who recorded their conversations. The late 13th- to early-14th-century document, discovered in the Vatican archives in the 1960s and edited by Jean Duvernoy, is the basis for Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's work Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error.[21]

Historical scholarship

The publication of the early scholarly book Crusade Against the Grail by the young German Otto Rahn in the 1930s rekindled interest in the connection between the Cathars and the Holy Grail, especially in Germany. Rahn was convinced that the 13th-century work Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach was a veiled account of the Cathars. The philosopher and Nazi government official Alfred Rosenberg speaks favourably of the Cathars in The Myth of the Twentieth Century.[83]

Academic books in English first appeared at the beginning of the millennium: for example, Malcolm Lambert's The Cathars[84] and Malcolm Barber's The Cathars.[24]

Starting in the 1990s and continuing to the present day, historians like R. I. Moore have radically challenged the extent to which Catharism, as an institutionalized religion, actually existed. Building on the work of French historians such as Monique Zerner and Uwe Brunn, Moore's The War on Heresy[85] argues that Catharism was "contrived from the resources of [the] well-stocked imaginations" of churchmen, "with occasional reinforcement from miscellaneous and independent manifestations of local anticlericalism or apostolic enthusiasm".[86] In short, Moore claims that the men and women persecuted as Cathars were not the followers of a secret religion imported from the East, instead they were part of a broader spiritual revival taking place in the later twelfth and early thirteenth century. Moore's work is indicative of a larger historiographical trend towards examination of how heresy was constructed by the church.[87]

In art and music

The principal legacy of the Cathar movement is in the poems and songs of the Cathar troubadors, though this artistic legacy is only a smaller part of the wider Occitan linguistic and artistic heritage. Recent artistic projects concentrating on the Cathar element in Provençal and troubador art include commercial recording projects by Thomas Binkley, electric hurdy-gurdy artist Valentin Clastrier and his CD Heresie dedicated to the church at Cathars,[88] La Nef,[89] and Jordi Savall.[90]

The Cathars are depicted in Jacques Tissinier's cement sculpture Les Chevaliers Cathares, along l'autoroute des Deux Mers in Narbonne.[91]

In recent popular culture, Catharism has been linked with the Knights Templar, an active sect of monks founded during the First Crusade (1095–1099). This link has caused fringe theories about the Cathars and the possibility of their possession of the Holy Grail.[citation needed]

See also

• Antonin Gadal
• Crusades
• Edmund Hamer Broadbent—The Pilgrim Church

References

Notes

1. La vie quotidienne des cathares du Languedoc, René Nelli.
2. OED (1989), "Cathar".
3. καθαροί. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project.
4. Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel (1990). Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village. London: Penguin. pp. vii. ISBN 978-0-14-013700-2.
5. Lambert, Malcolm (1998). The Cathars. Oxford: Blackwell. p. 21. ISBN 0-631-14343-2.
6. Peters, Edward, ed. (1980). "The Cathars". Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 108.
7. Pegg (2001a), pp. 181 ff.
8. Théry (2002), pp. 75–117.
9. See: Nicene Creed
10. Schaus (2006), p. 114.
11. Sumption (1999), pp. 15–16.
12. Madaule (1967), pp. 56–63.
13. Lambert (1998), p. 31.
14. Alphandéry (1911), p. 505.
15. John of Damascus (2012), p. 125.
16. Schaff & Wace (1994), p. 20.
17. Murphy (2012), pp. 26–27.
18. Dondaine (1939).
19. Wakefield & Evans (1991), pp. 511–515.
20. See especially R. I. Moore's The Origins of European Dissent, and the collection of essays Heresy and the Persecuting Society in the Middle Ages: Essays on the Work of R.I. Moore for a consideration of the origins of the Cathars, and proof against identifying earlier heretics in the West, such as those identified in 1025 at Monforte, outside Milan, as being Cathars. Also see Heresies of the High Middle Ages, a collection of pertinent documents on Western heresies of the High Middle Ages, edited by Walter Wakefield and Austin P. Evans.
21. See Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie's Montaillou: the Promised Land of Error for an analysis of the social context of these last Languedoc Cathars, and Power and Purity by Carol Lansing for a consideration of 13th-century Catharism in Orvieto.
22. Sibly, W. A.; Sibly, M. D. (2002). The History of the Albigensian Crusade. Boydell Press. pp. 10–11. ISBN 9780851158075.
23. Jeffrey J., Butz (2009). The Secret Legacy of Jesus: The Judaic Teachings That Passed from James the Just to the Founding Fathers. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781594779213.
24. Barber (2000).
25. O'Shea (2000), p. 11.
26. Maseko (2008), p. 482: "In the book 'Massacre at Montsegur' (a book widely regarded by medievalists as having a pronounced, pro-Cathar bias) the Cathars are referred to as 'Western Buddhists' because of their belief that the Doctrine of 'resurrection' taught."
27. Butz (2009).
28. Townsend (2008), p. 9: "The Cathars did not accept the Church doctrine of Jesus being the 'Son of God'. Cathars believed that Jesus was not embodied in the human form but an angel (Docetic Christology), which echoed back to the Arian controversy."
29. "Albigensians", Encyclopaedia 2, The Free dictionary
30. "Cathari", Columbia Encyclopedia, Columbia University Press, 2007.
31. Lambert (1998), p. 41: "Bernard's biographer identifies another group in Toulouse which he calls Arians, who have sometimes been identified as Cathars though the evidence is scant. It is most likely that the first Cathars to penetrate Languedoc appealed..."
32. Luscombe & Riley-Smith (2004), p. 522: "Even though his biographer does not describe their beliefs, Arians would have been an appropriate label for moderate dualists with an unorthodox Christology, and the term was certainly later used in Languedoc to describe Cathars."
33. Johnston (2011), p. 115: "However, they became converts to Arian Christianity, which later developed into Catharism. Arian and Cathar doctrines were sufficiently different from Catholic doctrine that the two branches were incompatible."
34. Kienzle (2001), p. 92: "The term 'Arian' is often joined with 'Manichean' to designate Cathars. Geoffrey's comment implies that he and others called those heretics 'weavers', whereas they called themselves 'Arians'."
35. The Gnostic Bible, Google Books.
36. Johnston (2000), p. 252.
37. Murray, Alexander. Suicide in the Middle Ages. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-820539-2.
38. Barber (2000), pp. 103–104.
39. Burr (1996).
40. O'Shea (2000), p. 42.
41. Sumption (1999), pp. 49–50.
42. O'Shea (2000), pp. 2–4.
43. Lambert (1998), p. 70.
44. Lambert (2002), p. 140.
45. Moore (1995), p. 137.
46. Ward (2002), pp. 241–42.
47. O'Shea (2000), pp. 10–12.
48. O'Shea (2000), pp. 25–26.
49. Clark (2001), p. 412.
50. O'Shea (2000), pp. 80–81.
51. O'Shea (2000), pp. 40–43.
52. Kaelber (1997), p. 120.
53. Newman (1998), pp. 753–755.
54. O'Shea (2000), p. 41.
55. Weis (2001), p. 122.
56. Walther (1965), p. 167.
57. Alphandéry (1911), pp. 505–506.
58. Alphandéry (1911), p. 506.
59. Johnson (1976), p. 251.
60. Sumption (1999), pp. 68–69.
61. Sumption (1999), pp. 72–73.
62. of Heisterbach, Caesarius (1851), Strange, J (ed.), Caesarius Heiserbacencis monachi ordinis Cisterciensis, Dialogus miraculorum, 2, Cologne: JM Heberle, pp. 296–8, Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eis. Caesarius (c) was a Cistercian Master of Novices.
63. Moore (2003), p. 180.
64. Johnson (1976), p. 252.
65. Innocent III (1855), Vol. 216.
66. Sibly & Sibly (2003), p. 128.
67. Maseko, Achim Nkosi (2008). Church Schism and Corruption. Durban, South Africa. p. 485.
68. Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise laisse 205.
69. Sumption (1999), pp. 179–81.
70. Sumption (1999), pp. 230–232.
71. Martin (2005), pp. 105–121.
72. fr:Mont Aimé[circular reference]
73. «Ce lieu est terrible, le Mont-Aimé en Champagne », père Albert Mathieu
74. "Albert Mathieu". BnF. Retrieved 16 September 2019.
75. Sumption (1999), pp. 238–40.
76. Innocent IV (1252), Ad extirpanda (Bull).
77. Weis (2001), pp. 11–12.
78. O'Shea (2000), pp. 237–38.
79. Sumption (1999), pp. 242–43.
80. O'Shea (2000), pp. 239–46.
81. O'Shea (2000), p. 230.
82. "Pays Cathare".
83. Rosenberg, Alfred (c. 1980). "Myth of the 20th century". p. 93. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
84. Lambert (1998).
85. R. I. Moore, War on Heresy. New York: Belknap Press, 2012.
86. Moore, R. I. (2012). "L. J. Sackville. Heresy and Heretics in the Thirteenth Century: The Textual Representations" (PDF). H-France Review. 12 (44). Retrieved 11 June 2018.
87. Biller, Peter. "review of The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe, (review no. 1546)". Reviews in History. Retrieved 9 October 2015, with R. I. Moore's response.
88. L'Agonie du Languedoc: Claude Marti / Studio der frühen Musik – Thomas Binkley, dir. EMI "Reflexe" 1C 063-30 132 [LP-Stereo]1975
89. La Nef. Montségur: La tragédie cathare. Dorian Recordings.DOR-90243
90. Savall The Forgotten Kingdom: The Cathar Tragedy – The Albigensian Crusade AVSA9873 A+C Alia Vox 2009
91. "Narbonne: les chevaliers cathares de Pech Loubat dans le top 15 des aires autoroutières 'immanquables'!". L'Indépendant(in French). Pyrénées-Orientales. 3 May 2016. Retrieved 19 February 2019.

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• Moreland, Miles (1992), Miles Away: A Walk Across France, New York: Random House, ISBN 0-679-42527-6
• Murphy, Cullen (2012), God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World, Houhton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN 978-0-618-09156-0
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External links

• Ce lieu est terrible [Texte imprimé] : le Mont-Aimé en Champagne [Forgotten Story of France: Northern Cathar in Champagne]
• Cathar texts, The Gnostic Society Library, including the Lyon Ritual.
• Cathars Today: Official website of the Cathar Temple
• Catharism on In Our Time at the BBC
• "Catharism and the Cathars of the Languedoc", Castles & Manor Houses, archived from the original on 7 June 2011: History, origins, theology and extirpation.
• Cathar castles, catharcastles.info: details, histories, photographs, plans and maps of 30 Cathar castles.
• Cathar castles (interactive map), Aude‐Aude.
• Perrottet, Tony (9 May 2010), "The Besieged and the Beautiful in Languedoc", The New York Times
• "Des hérétiques dans les Pyrénées catalanes à la fin du XIe siècle?" ["Heretics in the Catalan Pyrenees at the end of the 11th century?"] (article), Paratge, 2013.
• Pegg, Mark Gregory (2008), A Most Holy War: The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom (book), Oxford – via Google Books.
• Cathars, http://www.cathar.info: Cathar history & theology
• Mark, Joshua J. (2 April 2019), "Cathars", Ancient History Encyclopedia