As explained in a previous essay, Martinist practice can cover a wide range of activities. After properly going through the Way of the Heart, a large vista of possibilities opens up to you. But what about dogma or creed? What is it that Martinists believe? Do they have a Confession of Faith? A creed?
Well, not in the traditional sense.
A little history
Martinism is a Mystery School, guiding candidates towards an encounter with the Royal Secret. As with other esoteric and religious schools, Martinism comes equipped with a Creation Myth, heavily based on those found in the first chapters of Genesis, but also significantly different. In fact, it is not just one such myth, but at least two. Maybe even as many as there are Martinists.
Pasqually
Historically, Martinez de Pasqually was the first person that could reasonably be referred to as a Martinist. Although he certainly would not have recognised the term, his work formed the basis of all subsequent developments. His “Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings” synthesised his spirituality in the form of a mythological retelling of the early history of humanity. He takes Genesis as a reference point, including many of its characters and tales, but is not afraid to add characters or warp stories almost beyond recognition to make them fit his spiritual message.
Adam is seen performing magic in the style of a Renaissance magician, with disastrous consequences for the Universe and for us. Cain and Abel have their role in the tale expanded well beyond the sixteen verses their story occupies in the Old Testament, including the addition of sisters who play a significant part in the plot.
His myth ends up including the majority of “the big players” from the Pentateuch, plotting a line directly towards the eventual incarnation of Christ. From this he developed the “Order of Knight-Masons Elect Priests of the Universe”, otherwise known as “Élus Coëns”, a magical system with a Masonic hint, where initiates follow the path of his grand myth.
Saint-Martin
Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin was one of his most devoted students. Although parting ways with Pasqually’s thinking as time moved on, it’s clear that the Martinezist myth was absolutely foundational for him. Even after pulling fully away from the Élus Coëns, and in fact all grade-based initiatory systems, the myth that he expressed was always very similar to that of his former master.
Due to his lack of interest in the magical progression of the Élus Coëns, the first part of the myth to fall away is the long progression of mytho-historical figures each performing their own acts of reconciliation and fall. No longer believing in the importance of those rites, he felt no need to justify them mythologically.
Aside from the point at which the two stories terminate, they are very similar with the exception of one important point. Pasqually and Saint-Martin each give very different reasons for why and how the material world was created.
The Myths
Before the Beginning was the All. Existing in a spacelessness and timelessness beyond concepts, this Neoplatonic One emanated pure beings for its glory. Saint-Martin rejects the comparison of emanation with a bifurating river or spreading fire. Instead he describes this emanation as being more akin to how a thought can be communicated from one person to another. The original thought is in no way lost, diluted, or reduced through the act of communication, but now finds itself in two heads instead of just one. God loses nothing by emanation.
These Beings were absolutely free, and so their actions and thoughts were not forcefully controlled by the Divine. Some of them conceived of the idea of their equality with their Father. According to Pasqually, God knew immediately which of these spirits would act on this rebellious thought and which would stay within their bounds. In order to protect the Divine Realms from this evil, He created a new realm into which he cast the rebellious spirits. This was a place of duality, and so incorporated the effects of time and space.
God, being the definition of goodness and justice, emanated another being to constrain, guide, and eventually reintegrate the fallen ones back into the One. This was the original Adam.
Tragically however, he also fell. He committed an act similar to that of the first fallen spirits. In Pasqually’s telling, by an ill-considered act of magic, or in Saint-Martin’s, by a misconception of his equality with his Father. Either way, Adam fell, and here we find ourselves, drowning in the chaotic and immutable mess of duality.
The world as cosmic prison
Note that what I have just described, in particular the creation of materiality, is Pasqually’s myth. For him the material world acts as a shield for the Divine, a prison for the fallen spirits, and, critically, a school of reintegration. A “prison of purification”, as my initiator once put it, deliberately created by the Father.
As an example of the pedagogical aspect of materiality, consider the apparent immutability of the laws of Physics or the solidity of the objects you interact with in your daily life. No matter how hard you will against it, a glass will shatter if dropped onto concrete. The “hard facts of life” seemingly cannot be avoided. This, for Pasqually, is a reflection of the unchanging Will and Justice of God.
Our job, in this framework, is to purify and educate ourselves on the Divine, while working magically for the reintegration of the entire Universe.
The Creation follows a different path when described by Saint-Martin.
The world as consequence of the first Fall
In turning their thoughts against the Divine, the rebellious spirits fell “into their own corruption”, and the appearance of this space was an automatic result of their rebellion. Due to the impossibility of the coexistence of the Truth with Confusion, the separation occurred automatically. That is, no action at all was taken by God. The creation of the realm of confusion was a natural consequence of the action of the fallen spirits. The result of something akin to a physical law rather than the decision of an all-powerful Being.
Instead of this purifying prison, we find ourselves in a pit of error and confusion.
But more than this, duality itself was the creation of the Fallen Spirits within this new space.
Within the depths of their own corruption, these Beings, according to Saint-Martin, split unity into duality and made material what was previously immaterial. That is, the material world is the result of the actions of spirits in rebellion against the Divine.
It is clear that Saint-Martin departed from his master on this point in order to preserve the Divine from any hint of having caused pain or misery to happen.
Reconciliation?
So Martinism’s foundational thinkers offer two different views of materiality. Either as a prison that protects the Divine Realms and offers rehabilitation to its inmates, or as a swamp in which we find ourselves tragically but necessarily distant from God. Either created by God to protect, punish, and rehabilitate, or created by the actions of evil spirits in a region distanced from the Divine.
As Myths, these are not to be taken as literal histories, but instead should be used as symbolic approaches to add meaning to the materiality we observe. They can also give us insight into the spirituality of the founders of our tradition.
From a certain perspective these myths give distinctly different ideas of God and Creation. But, as is often the case with esoteric pursuits, perhaps it is best to live in the liminal space between them. Lying between the black and white facts offered by a certain kind of knowledge is a deeper space where true wisdom grows.
Perhaps we can lift our understanding to a higher level where these distinctions evaporate.
To quote Reza Aslan,
“It is a shame that this word, myth, which originally signified nothing more than stories of the supernatural, has come to be regarded as synonymous with falsehood, when in fact myths are always true. By their very nature, myths inhere both legitimacy and credibility. Whatever truths they convey have little to do with historical fact.”
Before the flambeaux.
