The Kabbalistic Order of the Rose Cross:
Regarding the Essence of the Rose Croix and the Resignation of Josephin Peladan
Written by the Supreme Council of the Rose Croix: Stanislas De Guaita, Gerard Encausse (Papus), Charles Barlet, Paul Adam, Julien Lejay, Oswald Wirth
1891
Translated By: Alex Bushman 2017
Translator’s Note: As a student on the Rosicrucian path I find the works of the ancestors in our spiritual filiation to be of great inspiration. While this article may seem to paint a negative view of Josephin Peladan, it is important to note that the authors had great respect for him and held him in the highest regard even if they did not agree with him on all aspects of the tradition. In this article the High Council of the OKRC attempt to express the essence of their expression of the Rosicrucian tradition and highlight the fact that there are certain “landmarks” or key points that one must adhere to in order to consider an expression as being truly “Rosicrucian”. So long story short, you can’t just do whatever you want and call it Rosicrucian. – Alex
The Supreme Council of the Rose + Croix
Whereas a resigning member of the said Council, Mr. Joséphin Péladan, founded a schismatic sect in August 1890 under the name of the Tiers-ordre intellectual de la Rose-Croix catholique (intellectual Third Order[1] of the Catholic Rose-Croix) R+C+C+.
Considering that this sect, of which Mr. Péladan has proclaimed himself the Grand Master and the Archmage, displays principles of uncompromising ultramontanism[2], of infidelity to the Holy See, etc…, diametrically opposed to all that professed by the illumined Brothers of the Rose + Croix.
It is sufficient, in fact, to be convinced, to reread the Manifesto and the Confession symbolic of the Brothers of the R + C, such as those found in the Latin book published in Frankfurt in 1615, by F .·. Valentin Andrea, “Fama Fraternitatis Rosae-Crucis”, etc., and in the French book published in Paris in 1623 under the title “Instruction à la vérité de l’histoire des Fréres de la Roze-Croix” (by Gabriel Naudé, Julliot) or in the “Traité méthodique de science occulte” (Paris, 1891), where Papus reproduced them in extenso.
If the ultramontane doctrines of the R + C + C+ are contradictory to those of the ancient and authentic Rose + Croix, they are no less in opposition to those of his direct heir, the Rose + Croix rénovée, as appears from the Concordat published on pages 159-161 of the “Seuil du mystére” (Threshold of the Mystery), by Stanislas De Guaita (Paris, 1890, in-8).
Considering that Mr. Péladan himself took care to proclaim in his “Lettre á Papus” (Letter to Papus), printed at the end of his novel “Coeur en peine” (Heart in Pain): “I separate myself from everything that is not my R + C + C + of which I am the Archmage… Not wanting to interrupt a fine friendship with these gentlemen of the Rose + Croix Kabbalistique, I must break all doctrinal and solidary relations with them. And none can belong to my works that is from theirs [organization], etc…” (Coeur en peine, pages 323-324, passim).
Whereas, in spite of this declaration, Mr Péladan and his people have publicly expressed themselves in ambiguous terms capable of establishing confusion between the Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose + Croix orthodox (R+C, א) and their schismatic sect (R+ C+ C+): See “Salon de Josephin Péladan (Paris, May 1890, in-12) where the author goes so far as to promulgate “mandements” under these titles: “Acta Rosae Crucis (page 51) and “Parole du Sar de la Rose-Croix á ses pairs (page 53; also see Eôraka, by the Count of Larmandie and the Imprimatur du Grand Maître du Temple de la Rose-Croix.
Whereas such expressions are proper to keep the public in deplorable error, and to perpetuate a misunderstanding that lasted only too long:
For these reasons,
The Supreme Council of the Rose + Croix,
Believing that it is its duty to put an end to such a state of affairs, clarifying a question that interests the occultists of all schools,
Summons and Order:
Article I. – A short note will be written, specifying the essence of the Rose + Croix and the trends of Rosicrucian teachings of all eras. It will be joined by a precise summary of the circumstances that motivated the retirement of Mr. Péladan and the foundation of his R + C + C +.
Article II. – This note will be given the necessary publicity, so that it will fall under the eyes of all concerned.
Made Statute in Paris, 5th of August 1891
By the Supreme Council of the Rose + Croix
And by the Order of:
Notes on the Rose + Croix
I
ELIAS ARTISTA
When, towards the end of the reign of Henri IV, the profane world heard talk for the first time of a very occult association of theosophists-thaumaturgists, the Rose + Croix dated back more than a century. They drew their name from a pantacular emblem in their tradition, the same that Valentin Andrea, the grand master then, had the picture engraved on his coat of arms: a cross of Saint John, whose austere nudity was enlivened by the smile of the four roses, blossoming at its angles.
Much has been said that the order did not go beyond this Valentin Andreae; an obvious error. If we invoke, to fight it, this article of statutes which ordered to conceal for one hundred and twenty years the existence of the mystic fraternity, one might estimate insufficient evidence. Other arguments are of better value. Long before the year 1615, when the manifesto of the Rose + Croix appeared, and even before 1604, when the world began to suspect their existence, we find here and there unequivocal vestiges of their association: They abound, for those who know how to read, in the writings of the adepts of time.
Do we want examples? All the Rosicrucian arcana are represented in the pantacles of the “Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae[1], where Khunrath drew a Christ, arms in a cross in a rose of light. Now the book of Khunrath bears an imperial approval dated 1598; but it is above all Paracelsus, who died in 1541, that one must call on for decisive proof of a latent Rose + Croix in the XVIth century. One can read in his treatise “De Mineralibus” (volume II, pp. 341-350 of the Geneva edition) the formal announcement of the miraculous event which was to confuse the next century: “Nothing hidden (he said) that shall not be revealed. It is thus that after me will appear a prodigious being who will reveal many things (De Mineralibus, 1).” A few pages later, Paracelsus clarifies his thought, predicting certain discovery “which must remain hidden until the advent of Elie – Artiste (De Mineralibus, 8).”
Elias Artista! Genius[2] rector[3] of the Rose + Croix, symbolic personification of the Order, ambassador of Saint Paraclet! Paracelsus the Great predicted thy coming, o collective Breath of the generous claims[4], Spirit of liberty, of science and of love which must regenerate the world!…
Elsewhere, Paracelsus is more formal yet. Let’s open his stunning Pronostication[5], a collection of prophecies printed in 1536. What do we see there, in figure xxvi? A rose bloom in a crown, and the mystic digamma[6] (F), emblem of the double-cross, grafted on this rose. Now, here is the legend that one reads at the bottom: “The Sibyl[7] prophesied of the Aeolian digamma. So it is rightly, O double cross, that you were entered on the rose, you are a product of time, come to maturity early. All that the sibyl has predicted of you will be infallibly fulfilled in you, even before the summer has produced its roses… In truth, ours is a sad era, where everything is turned upside down! This disorder is the most evident symbol of human inconstancy. But You! Constantly in agreement with yourself, all of your affairs will be stable; for you have built on the right stone, such as the mountain of Zion, nothing can ever shake you; all favorable things will arrive as you wish. So that the confused men will cry out for a miracle. But the propitious time and age will bring these things with them; when the hour will strike, it will have to be fulfilled, and that is why He comes.”
Who should come? He, the Radiant Spirit of the integral teaching of the Rose + Croix: Elie-artiste!
We would have no difficulty in producing if need be, other texts no less formal, contrary to the widespread opinion that Andreae was the inventor of the Rose + Croix.
The Rosicrucian traditions will not stop us. It is not the place to dispute if the history of the founder Christian Rosenkreutz is purely legendary, or if he is a gentleman of flesh and bone, born in Germany about 1378, then after a long journey to the countries of the Orient, to open the sanctuary of the Kabbalah by the sages of Damcar (probably Damas); And so, returning to Germany, having transmitted to some faithful the deposit of the arcana, He became the hermit of the mystery and spent a long old age in the depths of a cavern, where death forgot it until 1484. For the last three centuries the controversy on this point has never ended; we have no vocation to pile new futile pages on the heap of the old… That this cave, the sepulcher of Rosenkreutz, was only discovered in 1604, one hundred and twenty years after the death of the mage, conforms with the strange prophecy which we read, engraved on the rock wall “After 120 years, I will be discovered” – That does not matter to us at the moment. All of these legends have their interest, without a doubt, and their Kabbalistic raison d’être. The same can be said of the thousand and one marvels which (it is assured) the spiritual heirs of Rosenkreutz discovered anew in the spelunque[8] of the mystery. The latitudes of a larger cadre would be required in any case to draw up this inventory and to reveal the intimate and profound meaning of these multiple symbols; perhaps we shall consider it someday.
What we can say right now is that the Rose + Croix, whose constitutive emblems refer us to the poems of Dante and Guillaume de Lorris, worked for a long time in the shadow, before manifesting itself by works of open day.
Today, fantasists in magic dare to push mystification up to overlaying the ultramontane label on the Rose + Croix, restored (they profess) back to the purity of its glorious origin. It may seem poignant to transcribe two paragraphs of the Manifesto[9] of the Order, published by the grand master in 1615. The brothers proclaim, says the contemporary Naudé[10],
“That by their means the triple diadem of the pope will be reduced to powder;
That they confess freely and publish without fear of reprisal, that the pope is the Antichrist.”
Three lines later, they express the wish that we return to the dogmatic and ritualistic simplicity of the primitive Church.
Without a doubt these paragraphs, like all of the others in their Manifesto, are intentionally exaggerated, notoriously pushed to the marvelous, sometimes to the absurd. Many extraordinary phenomena are announced, many of which, taken literally (which kills, says St. Paul), run up against physical impossibility. But in this paradoxical form, these ingenious Theosophists have taken care to conceal from the eyes of fools and to designate to the sagacity of the wise the most precious luminaries of traditional occultism.
Thus the Rose + Croix never denied Catholicism in the splendid meaning of its true etymology, revealer of a superior esotericism; they were very inspired by the Spirit who vivifies, to ever attempt to the gnostic hierarchy. They, (so attached to the Christian symbols, that they named their supreme college Chapel of the Holy Spirit, and Liberty of the Gospel one of their most occult manuals), they were careful not to ignore in the sovereign pontiff the incarnate principle of living unity, and in the spiritual papacy the keystone of the temple synthesis where the pontiffs, teachers of the universal wisdom religion, will one day officiate. Moreover, many of the Brothers, born in Protestantism, proclaimed themselves to be highly Catholic, following the example of their illustrious patron Khunrath, of Leipsig.
Will we recall again that Valentin Andreae created, in 1620, a Christian Fraternity, which later dissolved itself into the Mother Fraternity of the Rose + Croix?
But the abuses of the temporal papacy found them pitiless, and they were flogged in ridicule, withered away with intrigue, without respite as without mercy.
Our eminent brother Roca, who is not a Rose + Croix by name, is never the less perhaps, at the present moment, is the most powerful apostle in thundering the anticlerical verb of the Rose + Croix. Anti-clerical, we say, not anti-Catholic or anti-Christian; it would be wrong to confuse these. In the pope, the Rose + Croix distinguished two powers, embodied in one flesh: Jesus, Cesar; and when calling Peter’s successor the Antichrist, threatening to break his triple crown, they aimed only at the temporal despot of the Vatican.
It was in all their system, to exaggerate the formulas until paradox, to distort the works unto miracle. They had borrowed this method from their masters, the Kabbalists. To give the allegories such an impossible twist, that only imbeciles take interest in the apparent meaning, and that all others guess at first glance the intimate value of a hidden meaning, if they are not stupid. Thus they displayed in Paris, in the year 1622, the proclamations which we are about to read, well suited, it will be admitted, to intrigue the subtle spirits by repelling the louts:
First Notice: “We, deputies of the principal College of the Brothers of the Roze-Croix, sojourn visible and invisible in this city by the grace of the Most High, towards whom the heart of the faithful turns. We show and teach without books nor signs to speak all kinds of languages of the countries where we want to be, to draw our fellow men from error and death.”
2nd Notice: “If you desire to see one of us, for curiosity only, you will never communicate with us; but if the will is pure and of faith to be inscribed upon the registry of our confraternity, we who judge the thoughts will let him see the truth of our promises: As such, we do not identify the place of our abode, since the thoughts, joined to the real will of the reader, will be able to make us known to him and him to us.”
We shall not astonish the students, even those who are not very advanced in occultism, if we proclaim here that the statement of these prerogatives, of which the Brothers were parading, conceals, under the appearance of an incurable madness, the meanings of the most perfect wisdom. The last of the pretensions to which they pride themselves, that which may be considered exorbitant among all, is precisely the only one which can be taken literally. It recalls the express condition of admission to the highest rank of a very occult and little known Fraternity in the supreme aréopage[11] of which the postulant is required to present himself in the astral body…
The illumined brothers of the Rose + Croix were obliged by their commitments to practice occult medicine, everywhere in their passage, without ever receiving any remuneration, under any pretext whatsoever. Psychurgy, vital mastery, Hermetic, Theurgy and Kabbalah had hardly any secrets for the more advanced among them. An article in their profession of faith enjoined them to “believe firmly that, if their company should fail, it could be reintegrated in the sepulcher of their first founder.” That is to say: if the Brothers are compromised in the world, the Order which they have imperfectly manifested in action will re-emerge in power; evidently, it will become hidden again… No man is perfect, no society is unfailing. The order failed, and about 1630 it returned – as a regular association – to the occult darkness from whence it had come some twenty years before[12]. Only isolated Rose + Croix appeared from time to time. Collective unity seemed to slumber for a long time in the silence of the cave from which it emerged again in 1888.
Men are subject to error, to malice, to blindness, and the Rose + Croix are men; but their faults cannot be attributed to the abstract of the Order. Elie-artist is infallible, immortal, inaccessible moreover to the imperfections as to the defilements and the ridiculousness of the men of flesh who offer to manifest Him. A spirit of light and progress, He is incarnated in the beings of good will who evoke Him. Do they come to stumble on the way? Already the artist Elie is no longer in them.
To make the superior Verb[13] lie is an impossible thing; even though one can lie in his name. For sooner or later he finds an organ worthy of him (even if only for a minute), a faithful and loyal mouth (even if only for the time to speak a word). By this organ of election, or by that mouth of encounter – what does it matter? – his voice is heard, powerful and vibrant with that serene and triumphant authority which the inspiration of Above lends to the human verb. Thus are executed on earth those whom His justice had condemned in the abstract.
Let us not distort the traditional spirit of the Order: Rejected up there on the hour, sooner or later we would be denied here below the mysterious demiurge whom the Order greets by this name: Elias Artista!
He is not the Light, but like St. John the Baptist his mission is to bear witness to the Light of Glory, which must radiate from a new heaven on a rejuvenated earth. That He manifests himself by counsels of strength and that He excavates the pyramid of the holy traditions, disfigured by these disparate layers of trash and rubble, which twenty centuries have accumulated in it. And that finally, by Him, the ways will be open to the coming of the glorious Christ, in the major nimbus of which he will vanish – his work being accomplished – The precursor of the times to come, the human expression of Saint Paraclete, the daemon[14] of Science and Freedom, the Wisdom of Integral Justice: Elie-artist.
II
SAR PÉLADAN
The word Rose-Croix does not bring happiness to the ultramontanes: for prudence, at least, they should refrain from touching it…… The Jesuits are not the authors of the Masonic grade of R ∴ C ∴ (18˚ of the Scottish Rite)? – That is a known fact. By this innovation, and a few others, the Jesuits hoped, by giving the change over their intentions, to corner indirectly the living forces of a flourishing order. But the abstract of the name thus prostituted was stronger than these sly policies; this occult agent took possession of their work and he turned it around: So that the Masonic ∴ Rose-Croix grade, founded by the Jesuits in the last century, now starred in its symbolic catalog the chest of their worst enemies! And since it is a law of nature, that the reaction is inversely proportional to the action, the ultramontane agnosticism of the founders has given place to the materialistic agnosticism of their heirs today.
Without knowing it, the Jesuits had evoked the distant phantom of Elie-artist. Elie-artist appeared for a moment, returned their institution as one returns a glove, then disappeared immediately, leaving the work of these fanatics prey to the invasion of opposing fanaticism. Despite this failure, a new effort was recently made to inflict an ultramontane label on the recently renovated Rose-Croix. On the 14th of May, 1890, a flashy pamphlet appeared, under the title: la Décadence esthétique (théophanie) XIX. Le Salon de Joséphin Péladan… etc., followed by Trois Mandements de la Rose-Croix catholique à l’ artistie (Paris, in-12).
SYNCELLI ACTA: I. Mandate to those of the arts of design. – II. Letter to the Archbishop of Paris. – III. Excommunication of the lady Rotschild[15] (sic). – Such was the title of the three mandates, promulgated in the name of the Rose + Croix, and signed: Sar Mérodack (Joséphin Péladan).
Now, who is Mr. Péladan, to pontificate in the name of the order? – One of the members of the Council of Twelve of the Rose + Croix, renovated in 1888 by Stanislas de Guaita and his occultist friends. Did the Sar consult his colleagues?… Let us open Coeur en peine[16] to page 322: “Before I launched my Acta syncelli (he wrote to Papus), I had informed you of the necessity of us meeting and understanding each other.” Mr. Péladan displaces the question: the fact is that, having consulted no one, he assumed the right to speak on behalf of all. It is true that, in the name of Rose-Croix, Mr. Péladan had, for the occasion, attached the epithet of Catholic, which, taken in the ultramontane sense, made the effect of a chasuble on the shoulders of a Quaker or a Masonic triangle on the neck of a capuchin [monkey][17].
But what distinction could the profane public make between the real Rose + Croix and this Rose + Croix Catholique, springing suddenly like a jack-in-the-box, and whose sole member – Péladan – proclaimed, prophesied, excommunicated, gesticulated in the name of an imaginary Order?… Inevitable was the confusion, and Mr. Péladan ought to have foreseen it. In fact, everybody remained convinced that Sar Merodack – occult grand master, apparently – fulminated all these bizarre anathemas with the consent of his colleagues of the Supreme Council.
Even if these acts, promulgated in the name of all with such carelessness, would have had common sense! … But the Sar had risen to the empyrean of the grotesque, and, more serious, lowered himself, without more effort, to the most prosaic invectives[18].
He insulted the whole world, from the administrators of the Fine Arts, whose crude insolence he denounced, to L’Univers[19], that immorality; From the Freemasons, whose imbecility he despises, to the lady Rotschild whom he proclaims sacrilegious and iconoclastic.
“For these crimes (he concludes, as regards the latter), we, the Vehmic[20] Tribunal, declare this woman infamous, her name infamous, unless those who bear it publicly disavow the culprit.
The R.-C. objurgates[21] those of the Rochefoucault, as well as those of the Uzés and other people of name[22], that they can no longer receive the lady Rotschild…
The R.-C. objurgates the men of letters and art, that they may not even greet the lady Rotschild …
In the name of all religions and all the arts, this is the decree of the R.-C. …, etc.”
It was rude and could not be allowed to pass as such. For a long time, however, M. Péladan was the friend of several of us; from the first hour, his novels had contributed much to the diffusion of the magical idea… Even so, we loved him, in spite of his escapades, that terrible child of mystery, the Panurge[23] of occultism. In short, he was forgiven for his indulgence. We maintain that at a minimum these retractions are necessary: three letters collectively, to the archbishop, to the freemasons, to Madame Rotschild, to disavow the mandates made in the name of the Order; and that is all.
As for a certain letter to the Figaro, to protest that the Rose-Croix catholique had nothing to do with the authentic Rose + Croix, we would pass it over in silence, since it was not published, if it did not matter to contradict a serious mistake made by Mr. Péladan. In his Lettre à Papus, he insinuates that the Figaro refused the insertion. This is so false that Mr. Magnard, finding our laconic note not explicit enough, wrote to Mr. Maurice Barrès: we can produce the letter. Mr. Magnard asked for a detailed article on the motive of our grievances, and the retirement of Mr. Péladan. We decided not to publish, at the request of a third party, sent to us by the resigning Sar.
This was good thinking because the first step available was to ask Mr. Péladan to resign. He even wrote a long factum, amphigoric[24] and solemn, which we made the great error of publishing at his request in the Initiation. The insertion of this ridiculous piece, the last tip of the hat to the vanity of he who resigned, had a deplorable effect. He presented his R + C + C + as a kind of annex of the Rose + Croix, and spoke of his “exodus, unanimously consented by our supreme counsel.” This erroneous assertion deserves the most formal denial.
These are the conditions under which Mr. Péladan founded his R + C + C+[25]. We find it unnecessary to go into further details. Mr. Péladan has since done nothing but childishness on childishness, always in the name of his Rose-Croix catholique, which he often calls Rose-Croix in short.
All of this … fantasies discrediting serious researchers, decrying occultism, and ridiculing the name of Rose – Croix. That is why we have not been able to remain silent any longer.
No one, better than we, appreciates the very original talent of Mr. Péladan, and the seductive veneer of occultism which he makes sparkle in his novels, excellent mirrors to attract and dazzle the lark of the ideal. We are careful not to disregard the services which he has been able to render, by forcing public attention to an unpopular science and its decried problems. To each according to his works.
But by multiplying the paradoxes, and exhausting his ingenious flexibility in various funambulisms[26] – archaic exhibitions, truculent[27] poses, Chaldean attitudes, he thinks, meridional[28], we say – the Sar has decidedly passed any measure.
Now it is time to say: justice rendered to the novelist, the stylist, the critic of art; In spite of those very distinguished and precious qualities which we shall always be the first to applaud, what remains in Mr. Péladan? – A good fumist.
[1] Hanoviae, 1609, in-folio, fig.
[2] Génie in French has connotations that are not similar in English terms such as genius or even genie
[3] The head of a college or university
[4] revendications
[5] S.L., 1536, in-4, fig.
[6] the sixth letter of the early Greek alphabet ( Ϝ , ϝ ), pronounced as “w.” It became obsolete in many Greek dialects before the Classical period.
[7] a woman in ancient times supposed to utter the oracles and prophecies of a god.
[8] To explore a cave
[9] Fama Fraternitatis Roseae-Crucis; Frankfurt, 1615, in-8
[10] Instruction à la France sur la vérité de l’histoire des fréres de la Roze-Croix, Paris, 1623, petit in-8
[11] Assembly of savants, of judges
[12] Around this time, a fraternity derived from the Rose + Croix emerged, under the title of Association of Unknown Philosophers, whose followers were mainly concerned with alchemy. One can read these Statues in the “Traittez du Cosmopolite nouvellement descouverts”. Paris, 1691, in-12.
[13] Jesus Christ
[14] a divinity or supernatural being of a nature between gods and humans
[15] Adèle von Rothschild, wife of Baron Salomon James de Rothschild
[16] Paris, 1890, in-18
[17] We challenge the R + C + C + to show us, either in history or in ancient books or manuscripts, the slightest vestige of a Papist Rose-Croix.
[18] insulting, abusive, or highly critical language.
[19] A French newspaper
[20] Vehmic courts are “proto-vigilante” tribunal systems.
[21] To scold or reprimand
[22] Gens de nom – aristocracy, nobility, people from well-known/well to do families; e.g. “the Kennedy’s”
[23] Panurge is one of the principal characters in Gargantua and Pantagruel, a series of five novels by François Rabelais.
[24] a meaningless or nonsensical piece of writing, especially one intended as a parody
[25] The R + C + C + is really not happy in its attempts of traditional restitution! On the one hand, in his Acta Rosae Crucis (Roseae, displeases him), Péladan declares himself “in Roman Catholic communion with Hugues de Payens and Rosenkreutz” : Rosenkreutz, founder of the Rosicrucians, who, in their Manifesto (Frankfurt, 1615, in-8), “freely confess and publish without fear of being reproved, that the Pope is Antichrist”; Hugues des Payens, founder of the Templar Order, who were Manichaeans, misogynists, and recognized the occult supremacy of the patriarch of Constantinople over the pope. All this does not prevent the Sar from vaticinating later “in the name of Jesus, only God, and Peter, only king.” He does not look closely. He does not exhume as far as the Templar oriflamme, that Beauséant des chevaliers (an unfortunate name, apparently a symbol of their eccentric mores). On the other hand, doubtless ignoring the authentic motto of the Rose + Croix: In cruce sub sphoera came Sapientia vera, M. Péladan inaugurated a baroque charade (“Cicero, block your ears!”): “Ad rosam per crucem, ad Crucem per rosam, in ea, in eis gemmatus resurgeam. ” (We would resurgam, if it did not matter to him).
[26] Tight-rope walking
[27] Picturesque, comic
[28] of, relating to, or characteristic of people living in the south especially of France
[1] an organization composed of lay people living in secular society under a religious rule and directed by a religious order
[2] favoring greater or absolute supremacy of papal over national or diocesan authority in the Roman Catholic Church
