The Wild Card Score and Final Look
Hello friends and gentle readers,
This blog post brings us to an end on the five part posts series dedicated to reviewing the Martinist Order, concluding one segment of my Reviews of the Rosicrucian Orders.
The reviews so far have achieved a generally warm reception and for that I’m grateful for your participation, your comments and shares, and especially for the new found friendships.
Some expressed surprise that the Martinist Order would be considered within the Rosicrucian Reviews at all. Other more occult thought leaders have expressed how they had somehow looked down upon the M.O, seeing it as a basic Order, instead of recognizing the great diversity it offers.
Other more mystically minded students, such as AMORC folk, largely consider, on the other hand that the M.O is a ‘Christian mystical side order’ to their own Rosicrucian Order, and yet it came as surprise to them that within the original scheme of initiation; the Martinist Order was in fact designed to serve as an outer court to yet higher Rosicrucian societies. The problem here is that the highest Order of AMORC turns out to be the lowest ranking Order in the realm of French Rosicrucian initiation.
My thoughts are somewhere in the middle on that one.
While the M.O has hidden Orders veiled behind it, truth in point, all the teachings associated in the higher classes can also be found within some standard Martinist Orders themselves.
By this I mean there are M.O bodies out there that work the main Martinist degrees and yet they contain most if not all of the higher teachings often issued within higher sections stacked above other M.O bodies. Thus some M.O bodies have the cream of European occultism within just three degrees.
Some Martinist Orders just do it their own way, the oral teachings and papers being given, along with the empowerment in the M.O degrees vary. Some Free Initiators have taken it upon themselves to utilize the M.O as a body for dispending very potent and unpublished Rosicrucian teachings.
This kind of diversity and potency is what makes the M.O quite powerful. The quality thus depends upon the branch and the teacher. This means you can’t just say ‘the Martinist Order teaches…’
And this is where the occultists miss the mark in failing to recognize the M.O’s power.
And make no mistake. The Martinist Order is a Rosicrucian Order.
We’ve already seen the traditional history concerning the R.C d’Orient; that within oral teaching LCM (founder of the Martinists) was a member of the R.C d’Orient himself, and that this was the same movement that empowered not only him but also his previous master Pasqually.
Thus the M.O in its oral teachings claims a Rosicrucian origin.
Here, we are drawn near to the notion of the ‘Secret Chiefs’ of the Golden Dawn, seeing that it is thought that Unknown Superiors have quietly worked behind Martinism to support the movement, guiding, as they did, the hand of LCM, and all its leaders, all the way to Papus and present.
One of your associations might be an Unknown Superior, never revealing his identity.
I would actually go so far to say that it is more Rosicrucian than many Orders calling themselves ‘Rosicrucian.’ Certainly here I mean the Martinist Order is more Rosicrucian than Amorc!
As scandalous as that might sound, point in fact, my earlier Amorc review revealed that Amorc lacks a Trinosophia score, teaching next to nothing of the magic, alchemy and kabbalah mentioned in the manifestos. Amorc also failed to deliver anything resembling the brilliance of Pansophy, a movement tied to the Rosicrucian phenomena inextricably. In contrast the M.O teaches Trinosophia in many forms, has strong alchemical traditions and is very Pansophic through its Reintegration mythos.
This is not to say that Amorc is not a good Order. It is very good as a mystical Order.
But the scoring system I use on this blog approaches the Orders in terms of Rosicrucian tradition.
We are looking through a specific lens, one curved and molded through the teachings of the manifestos and early Rosicrucian documents. We are not questing for ‘purity,’ that would miss the spirit.
But within the realm of these Orders, many of which may be spurious if not scandalous, with each claiming a ‘inherited secret tradition from the original Rosicrucians’ we should be adamant and examine how substantiated those claims really are.
We cannot do this through examining their lofty claims, which are at times beyond bold, but instead we can let the teachings of those Orders speak for themselves. By their works you shall know them.
In this manner we come to find the true essence of an Order.
The manifestos are inspiring, and impregnated with influences drawn from great philosophers such as Paracelsus, Bruno and Khunrath, and cleverly expand upon earlier works such as the Campanella’s City of the Sun, the King Arthur legends, as well we find that the Fama is an answer to the Italian ‘Reformation of the Whole Wide World by Order of Apollo’ and the Chemical Wedding is a Rosicrucian rendition of the ‘Hypno-eroto-machia Polohilii’ by Colonnas.
One would expect, that if any of the Orders truly do have ‘ancient Rosicrucian origins’ then whatever they write today would also be multi layered, and similarly draw upon many such influences, blending them together in a Hermetic treatise that speaks with more meaning than its single words can carry.
Such a work speaks as a mouth piece for all the treatises it draws from.
I was going to review Amorc’s ‘New Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz.’ However in comparison to the brilliance of the authentic manifestos – Amorc’s new book is a sad joke, a premature ejaculation of an inferior mind, a depressing feeble attempt not worthy of the title ‘Rosicrucian.’
It even goes so far as to claim that it is written by the reincarnation of C.R.C. as if somehow we are to believe that this great initiate, today, has returned to us with the writing ability of a B score teenager.
The poor sod who wrote it even mixed up their planetary associations.
That concludes my review of it, only given in passing.
We are left then to think for ourselves. And compare, and dwell upon the seeds planted by truly brilliant works, and the spirit suggested within the manifestos.
In the process we are also graduating towards an ideal; an IDEAL IMAGE of what a TRUE Rosicrucian Order should in fact look like, in keeping with the outlines of the Manifestoes.
The Martinist Order so far does very well here and will lend ideas to the final ideal picture.
Wild Car Score for the Martinist Order
In my reviews each Order has the chance to win an extra twenty points based upon any additional elements that help strengthen its Rosicrucian traditional value. Beyond the Scoring System of the Rosicrucian Pillars there are still aspects of the manifestos one could potentially draw upon to help establish an even more traditional basis to one’s Order. These qualities are not ‘required’ within my scoring system, but several Orders touch upon several ideas that other Orders skip over.
The BOTA for example really focuses the idea that the Tarot truly is Book T mentioned in the Fama.
The Martinist Order does something extremely well with one particular quality contained within the manifestos. Better I would say, than any other Order. It has something to do with invisibility.
Consider how Saint Martin wrote his books under the pseudonym ‘the Unknown Philosopher.’
The highest degree of the Martinist Order is ‘Unknown Superior.’
Why is this at all relevant?
Most Martinists learn that this title, coupled with a mask, are provided to conceal our identities, which in turn helps suppress the ego, seeing that our persona becomes less important than the actual work at hand, along with the current being transmitted. Ego is minimized.
Yet for our review there is another layer to this, a very traditional one.
When the Rosicrucians announced themselves – no one knew who they were.
They were hidden, concealed and their invisible brotherhood transcended the limits of nature. They said that people would not need to find them if they wish to apply, because ‘we will find you.’
By their very publications, they possessed some sort of psychic power.
The titles Unknown Superior and Unknown Philosopher
perfectly embody the Rosicrucian ideal of being a Master.
A Master does not wish to be known, other than through WORKS
In keeping with the hidden identity concept the M.O succeeds here in manifesting another traditional element from the original founding Rosicrucian declarations. The very idea of being an ‘Unknown Adept’ is completely different from the Golden Dawn’s ‘Adeptus Major’ or its highest grade Ipsissimus, meaning ‘His Most Selfness’ which sounds more akin to megalomaniac. No one likes a try-hard so I’m banking on using more of Martinism towards the refinement of my own Rosicrucian grades.
The Martinist Order receives 13/20 for its Wild Card Score.
Final Total Score of the Martinist Order
Looking over the previous four posts in this series here are the final scores of the M.O Review:
Christosophia Score: 17/20
Trinosophia Score: 16/30
Pansophia Score: 17/30
Wild Card Score: 13/20
TOTAL M.O ROSICRUCIAN TRADITION SCORE: 63/100
This concludes the Martinist Order Review. The score is ‘about right’ in my books. You’ll need to provide feedback and further points to help justify alternative views. I welcome any discussion and feedback. Bear in mind however that this is a ‘Rosicrucian Score’ and only gauges its ‘traditional value.’
Amorc did terribly in its traditional score, amounting to only 29/100. Yikes. Yet I feel this is fair. This does not state that Amorc is somehow a ‘bad order’ but only that it does not follow the Rosicrucian tradition very carefully and seems to have nearly all but unhinged itself from our lovely tradition.
Thus if you’re looking for a more traditional Rosicrucian Order, I recommend all AMORC members to join the TMO section at Amorc, or another Martinist Order with stronger alchemical teachings. I always recommend the Rose Croix Martinist Order but there are tons to choose from.
Hope you enjoyed the read. If not, tough luck, I’m not going away.
Samuel Robinson.
Thought Leader and General Pain in the Bum.
P.S, don’t forget if you want a Rose Cross to wear for ritual purposes our community’s very own Stephen Murtaugh makes the best ones. Check out these prices below. Contract him HERE to order.
Well done!