This is the title that brought me to Nicola Bizzi, but the third one that I read. It was merely accidental that I read them in chronological order. In his other works, Bizzi also refers to Reghini, but I found the current title first because it has Reghini in the title.
The Initiatory Ecstasy is different from the other two books that I reviewed in that it is less about a specific theme. The book is about philosophy, initiation and ‘wisdom’ and -as we are used to by now- from the perspective of the still existing “Mother Eleusis” current of initiation (see my review of Reflections on the Origin of Freemasonry).
Bizzi shares some ideas with Julius Evola, but is also critical. One time he calls a view of Evola “essentially incomplete and misleading”. Also he is no uncritical follower of Reghini, but as you may guess, there are references here to more than one Italian thinker. Especially interesting are references to authors and titles that I am unfamiliar with.
With a lot of Plato and neo-Platonists, Bizzi sketches a nice picture of “Philo-Sophia”. Of the three books that I read, this one is the most interesting so far. Again, it is but a small book (98 pages), but there are also some larger titles available from Amazon.
Just as in the other two books that I just reviewed, I cannot follow, or even disagree with some things that Bizzi writes, but on the other hand, it is never a bad idea to take note of different opinions. The present title is somewhat less pedantic than the other two. It works better for me when an author just gives a view rather than telling that others are wrong.
In this little book (59 pages) Bizzi takes a stand against the Traditionalist idea that there is a “transcendent unity of religions; that there is one Source. He bluntly claims that:
the Mystery Traditions of the Eleusinian Mother branch has always vigorously opposed such a view. (Note: “Mother” means the purest and most original branch of the Eleusinian Mysterial tradition and its priesthood. Its derivations (such as, for example, the Orphic branch and the Samothracian branch) were conventionally called “Daughter”.
Yet, I find his reasoning unconvincing. It seems that Bizzi is of the opinion that long ago a rift occurred between “Titanic” and “Olympian” traditions. The “Olympian” version prevailed and Traditionalists talk about that “Olympian” source. Bizzi’s own Eleusinian organisation can be traced back to the “pre-Olympian, and therefor pre-Hellenic, Titanic” branch.
So yes, for us Eleusinians there is a Primordial and original Tradition.
Just not the same as that of the Traditionalists… They are talking about an “Olympian” tradition and Eleusinians are talking about a “Titanic” tradition.
In my opinion the entire discussion is flawed. When -with Traditionalists- you say that there is one Divinity (how can there be multiple?), then there is the one Source, is there not? Does it really matter if one or more traditions sprang from that Source, if these traditions split and split again or if at some point, there was a new, but direct link to the Source? So Bizzi’s Tradition is another (older) one than that of initiatic organisations or religious traditions of today, that does not really answer the question that is asked in the title.
That said, Bizzi’s approach to the subject is somewhat different and therefor ‘refreshing’. Even though I do not agree with everything he writes, the book is somewhat interesting.
It will be obvious what this little book (55 pages) is about. It is a bit odd that the back cover speaks of: “The historian, Freemason and Eleusinian initiate Nicola Bizzi” while in the book he only seems to say that his is an Eleusinian initiate (even though he does one time refer to “our Temples” in a Masonic context).
It is exactly because of that “Eleusinian” initiation that Bizzi claims that he knows the true origin of Freemasonry, while Masons and even Masonic scholars do not.
I agree with Bizzi that Freemasonry did not start in 1717, but in my view Bizzi is a bit too easy in concluding that the lodges formed the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster were part of a continuing esoteric tradition from times past and that later reforms continue to build thereon.
Apparently mostly based on the (in)famous The Temple and the Lodge (1989) of Baigent and Leigh, Bizzi sees the origin of Freemasonry in the Knight Templars. Following Thomas Paine (1737-1809) in a 1805 text (Origin of Freemasonry) the other origin is “Celtic-Druidic”. Does Bizzi really think that people interested in the history of Freemasonry do not know these works? Baigent / Leigh has been available for three decades by the time that Bizzi published his reflections; Paine’s text can be found online and much has been written since, but more debunking both claims that supporting them. It would have been nice had Bizzi presented something new to rekindle the theory that he puts forward.
All in all this publication only claims to know more than other publications, but there is nothing in it that helps people who are interested in the subject. It is somewhat refreshing to run into thinkers such as Guénon and Reghini, but claims such as: “But even with regard to the templar component of Freemasonry, as far as it is fully traceable and documentable” without adding anything to what is already publicly available is not really helpful.
Not a boring read, but also not something that ads anything to available literature.
In recent years a stunning amount of ancient Masonic archives have been made available to the public. Projects such as Latomia and libraries such as the Bibliotheque Nationale de France have been digitising archives. These archives usually contain hand-written, 18th century documents that are wildly interesting but hard to read. Fortunately, people took it upon themselves to transcribe and publish and sometimes even translate such old rituals.
So we have the three volume Les 81 grades qui fondèrent au siècle des lumières le Rite Français (2021) of Colette Leger containing 81 degrees that were compressed to the French Rite of seven degrees. With Quest for a Lost Rite I thought to have found something similar, but then for Memphis-Misraim.
This turned out to be only half true. What Ravignat did in his Quest for a Lost Rite: The Origins, High Degrees and Spiritual Practices of Traditional Egyptian Freemasonry was recreate what he calls “Traditional Egyptian Freemasonry” (TER). The documents for this project, he found in the “Fonds Gaborria” of the Bibliothèque Numérique Patrimoniale, also a digital, public archive. Ravignat aimed his arrows at ‘original Egyptian Freemasonry’, documents older than the rites of Memphis, Misraim and their combination. These are texts of (of course) Cagliostro (1743-1795), but also of Jean-Baptiste-Louis-Théodore de Tschudi (1734-1784) (Tschoudy in the book), Marc Bédarride (1776-1846) and … Jean-Baptiste Willermoz (1730-1824) and his brother Pierre-Jacques Willermoz (1735-1799).
The book opens with a fascinating history of “Egyptian Freemasonry” and its development towards several contemporary currents of Memphis-Misraim. The introduction alone makes the book worth buying. What follows after are the texts of 18 degrees. They are translated from the Gaborria archive, but Ravignat frequently felt he had to fill gaps using other texts. In the appendices there are five more degrees.
“Egyptian Freemasonry” is obviously much more esoteric than ‘Freemasonry proper’. The first degrees are recognisable, yet more elaborate, but as you go on, lessons about Alchemy (both physical and spiritual) start to appear, Theurgy (invocations of angels and spirits), John Dee-type ceremonies, etc. Some degrees have similarities to other old or still in use (for example in the Scottish Rite), other are nothing like anything I ran into so far. Some of the degrees are lengthy and elaborate, others are not much more than: ‘candidate enters, takes an oath, gets a catechism’. These catechisms are Q&A’s which can be between a few pages to 20+ pages in Ravignat’s book. These Q&A’s sometimes explain elements of the degree, symbols on the tracing board, but also complete lessons in Alchemy or Theurgy.
Towards the end of the book, the author reconstructs the “Traditional Egyptian Rite’s Spiritual Methods” with detailed lessons in both kinds of Alchemy, invocations, prayers and what not. His aim with the book is to present a manual that can be actually used by lodges and their members, hence the reconstructions, explanations, details, cross-references and use of images.
What is a bit odd is that Ravignat numbers his degrees differently from the texts in the Gaborria archives. Also he does not present a 90 or 99 degree system (which are not all worked in MM Freemasonry anyway), but he does seem to have used that numbering. Perhaps he could have just created an 18 degree “TER” rite, but I am sure he had his reasons. These non-matching numberings sometimes makes it hard to find the correct file in the Gaborria archive.
All in all Ravignat’s book is fascinating. Finally a descent history of Egytian-style Freemasonry and translations of old ritual texts are always welcome. I am not familiar enough with nowadays Memphis-Misraim to know how much Ravignat’s system differs from the various MM rites, so that I have to leave for people more familiar with MM.
As with several similar publications nowadays, the book is an Amazon printing-on-demand, friendly priced, available to anyone interested and a 500+ pages on A4 in a paperback (a bit difficult to handle). Recommended if you are interested in a much more esoteric approach to Freemasonry and/or the history of Egyptian themed Freemasonry in general.
I never really intended to read Evola’s early and what I expected to be his most political work. Then I noticed that a new English translation has been published and decided to read it after all. At least I would know what it is (all) about.
Evola (1898-1974) published this book as Imperialismo Pagano when he was 30, so not that young. In the few years before he had published a few other books.
It appears that the English translation that has been available so far, was a translation of the 1933 German edition Heidnischer Imperialismus. Here we have a brand new translation with an introduction plus at the end, responses of Evola to reactions he got to his book.
There are two points that bring this book a hurdle. For starters, the writing style is pretty polemical. Second is that Evola wrote it when he still had hopes that he could turn the new Italian fascist movement into a direction he preferred: away from ties with the Catholic church, more “imperial”.
As an example of the polemics, especially Christianity is frequently burned by Evola, with remarks such as: “In conclusion, we must absolutely end Christianity today.”
As the title of the book suggests, Evola posed a ‘pagan alternative’: “the pre-Christian, living, and creative Roman tradition”. Or even stronger: “we, who without dilution and without compromise, reclaim the imperial and initiatic conceptions of the ancient Roman and Mediterranean traditions.” But what exactly is this Roman tradition when Evola speaks of the “Roman gods, Mithras, Shiva and so forth” or “Mithras, Shiva, Plotinus, and Pythagoras”? Apparently mostly pre-Christian Indo-European religion and philosophy.
Pagan Imperialism is less (or perhaps just differently) ‘against the modern world’ than Evola’s later work. He does aim his arrows on the degradation of the West and especially the role that Christianity plays therein. As mentioned, at the time of writing this book, Evola still had hopes that he could turn the fascist movement in his preferred direction. The book is full claims about fascism, but also critical notes because of the Catholic link that was being established in his days.
I find this not the most interesting book of Evola, but more than a few things he says are still valid (and current). You do have to be able to wade through breast pounding politics and lengthy discussions about Christianity, but as the introduction says: Evola frequently is misquoted or quoted without context. Now you can read what he actually wrote in his younger days in a new English translation. It seems that the publishers did not tidy up the book for sensitive souls either.
We advocate a new classicism, a solar era of active and magical realism, an absolute integration of the physical and metaphysical, human and non-human.
Looking for contemporary Traditionalistic writings, I ran into a recently published (December 2023) first volume of a new journal. The editors have seen the coming and going of journals such as Luvah, Sophia, Sacred Web, Tyr and The Initiate. None of them is currently active, so it was high time for a new journal.
The foreword seems to promise a contemporary, spiritual approach to Traditionalism. The content is actually more political, Evola-like in approach with a lot of philosophy, mostly that of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), some psychology even.
The contributors are mostly from the Slavic and Italian ‘spheres’. Even though the chief editor is American and we run into Collin Cleary and Troy Southgate, most essays had to be translated to English. There are familiar and unfamiliar names (to me). Alexander Dugin is probably the most famous name, but we also find a text by Askr Svarte / Evgeny Nechkasov (not unexpectedly).
There is a lot ‘against the modern world’, Heidegger (philosophy), the social/political side of the ideas of Guénon and Evola and similar subjects. Not uninteresting, but I would not have minded to read more from and about Traditionalism today and/or the more religious side of it.
The journal has almost 400 pages. It makes an interesting read, it does indeed fill a gap, but I would like a wider (other?) approach to Traditionalism in a future volume.
With some excitement I ran into a “Élu Coën Library” on Amazon. Four Élu Coën source books that were recently (re)translated. One of them, I proved to already have in a Dutch translation.
The current volume is a massive 680 page book which presents the notes collected by Lieutenant-Colonel Pierre André de Grainville (1728-1794), that he gathered as a student of Martinez de Pasqually. Interestingly, the documents are from the same “Fonds Maçonnique” that is kept in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (and available online!) as the massive pile of ritual texts that form the basis of the Rite de France of Freemasonry. I suppose the documents are from the library of the Grand Orient de France.
the folios are not a complete Coen grimoire, but an incomplete and fragmentary snapshot of the original rituals in a state of rapid development.
Indeed. What you can find in this book are images of the pages of the notes, handwritten, hard to read and printed very small. On the opposite pages you will find English translations of these hand written texts. Thus, you have access to the original material and you do not even have to decipher the handwritten French.
“Élus Coëns Ritual and Instruction From the Eighteenth Century” does perhaps fit the bill, but I had some hope that there would be Masonic-like rituals here. Rather, there is a wild array of Theurgical and magical operations and invocations and only towards the end there are some Masonic-type questions-and-answers. Not really what I had hoped for.
It is great that this kind of material is more and more becoming available more easily, but I suppose this is a sourcebook for people with a more serious interest in the Élu Coën than myself. But, it was easier to read than De Pasqually’s text. The library contains two more books. I do not think I am going to try to read them.
Book 2 of 4 of the “Élu Coën Library” is most likely the most famous one. As a matter of fact, I also proved to have read a Dutch translation! After ordering the English translation I wondered: “Did I not already have a book of Martinez de Paqually?” Well, I did not, but my girlfriend did and it is a 2012 version of the Dutch Martinist Order of this very book… We both got stranded in the book too! I does not happen often that I do not manage to finish a book, but this is one of them and now I have two copies of it.
The new English translation claims to correct omissions of earlier versions. I suppose that includes the fact that the Dutch version has added headers in the text, which are included in the table of contents, while the English book is a massive wall of text. A few images were added to the English version to brighten things up a bit.
“Jacques de Livron Joachim de la Tour de la Casa Martinez de Pasqually (1727?–1774) was a theurgist and theosopher of uncertain origin”, according to Wikipedia. He not only forms the cradle of Martinism, but in his own time he was the founder of the Ordre des Chevaliers Maçons Élus Coëns de l’Univers, better known as the Élus Coëns, or -as it is called in the book- the order of the Réaux-Croix. That is actually a hard term to translate. It means something like “true cross”, but De Pasqually also uses the word “Réaux” to refer to Adam for example.
The book is presented as a source book for Martinism and -more generally- Western esotericism, including Masonic symbolism, but in fact it is a massive explanation of Biblical stories. To me, the book is rather a theological book, than an esoteric one. Only here and there is an interesting passage, but overall the book is so try and distant, that I again did not manage to get through it.
15 Years after the last Traditie magazine a few people picked up the idea to once again create a physical publication. Not a magazine, but a proper journal, one to publish annually. Here is the first issue of the new incarnation now called Traditie; jaarboek voor traditionele erfgoedbeleving in de Lage Landen, or ‘Tradition; yearbook for traditional living heritage in the Low Countries’. Like before, it is written in Dutch.
Like the publication of days past, the new journal has A4 size, but this time 120 pages. Within the covers you will find full colour glossy pages filled with 23 texts differing in size from half a page to 17 pages. For those who know (or remember) the previous incarnation, there will be some familiar names. Herman Vanhove (still chairman), Benny Vangelder and Koenraad Logghe, to name a few. Good to learn that there are also new names to be found.
The subjects go from the symbolism of the knot (Logghe), heralds and guardian spirits (of the late Aat van Gilst), building symbolism (Wolf Pyck), Midsummer and Midwinter (Axnot Wedasunu), fate and magic (Lianne Kooistra), sacred kingship (Vangelder) to interviews, poets and songs. I myself contributed a text prompted by the publication of the English translation of Arvid Ystad’s book The Freemasons in the Viking Age, but I enlarged the subject based on my Masonic Heathens website placing Ystad in the context of other authors who have dealt with similar themes.
As you can see, a varied publication, available for € 20,- plus shipping costs. Click on the cover to get your copy.
The incredably productive Svarte (1991-) wrote enough essays for yet another 380 page book. Again, the original texts were written in Russian (Приближение и окружение. Очерки о германском Логосе, традиции и Ничто (‘Approximation and Surrounding. Essays on the Germanic Logos, Tradition and Nothingness.’)) and published in English in the same year. He is not only very productive himself, but his publishers manage to keep up.
The subtitle goes: “Essays on Heidegger, the German Logos & the Germanic Myth” which covers the content of the book very well. The basis of most texts is the philosophy of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), but Svarte goes from Heidegger to Northern mythology, old and more recent history, Rhineland mystics and etymology of a variety of languages as if it is nothing. I am not very keen on (modern) philosophy, but with his cross references and explanations based on Norse myth and culture, Svarte managed to keep my attention. In one fascination essay Svarte looks for translations of Heideggers term “Dasein” in several old and contemporary Northern European languages.
The texts of Svarte sometimes go over my head, but he comes with enough interesting insights and ways of looking at and explaining things, that his difficult book makes a great read.
Northern mythology and Traditionalism already is an uncommon combination, but here we also have an author who makes the combination wonderfully and brings in a lot of other angles to make his points.
