Papus (Gérard Encause (1865-1916)) is the next 19th century esotericist that I read a text of. It proves that both the series with the typical cover you can see on the right and the books of Alex Bushman are Martinists ‘opening up’. “Martinism without mysteries” you can see on the right.
I find the book of Papus not too interesting. It is a fairly Theosophy-type account which blends Theosophical esotericism with science of its day. Just as the other book from these series, it begins with an introduction with exercises, etc. and only after a while the actual translation follows.
Astral bodies, reincarnation, etc. these are the subjects at hand. Nothing too interesting. Perhaps I should try Papus’ more specific texts, such as his Kabbala book first.
Catching up on the actual writings of 19th century esotericists, I took a stab at Stanislas de Guaita (1861-1897). De Guaita is mostly known as a poet, but he was involved in neo-Rosicrucian and Martinist organisations such as that of Joséphin Péladan (1858-1918), he was a familiar of Papus (Gérard Encausse (1865-1916), etc.
Au seuil du Mystère (1886) proves to be a highly interesting collection of essays. The book itself it not too long, but the publisher (Alex Bushman) added some extra material which is even more interesting.
The main book is a bit of a history of Western esotericism. There are more such books, but now at least I know that De Guaita was very well read. He works towards the time and traditions in which he himself was involved and other systems such as Theosophy, Mesmerism and the like.
In the appendices there are two detailed decriptions of two emblems from Khunrat’s Amphitheatrium and texts about Martinism.
This book caught my attention because of the subtitle: “The Original American Illuminati Loge de Parfaits d’ Écosse ™- 1764”. That sounded like a reference to early ‘high degree’ Freemasonry in America. Connected to Rosicrucianity? In a way yes.
It is now generally accepted that this Rite of twentyfive “haut or hautes” or high degrees was compiled by Estienne Morin with help from Henry Francken, and these lessons are today titled “The Rites of the Royal Secret”.
Not entirely. Morin took his collection of degrees to America, where he tried to organise an Order of the Royal Secret. Francken translated the documents to English. These degrees would form the basis for the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
Mentz sets out to prove that this early high degree Freemasonry was somehow Rosicrucian. The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite does indeed have a “Knight Rose Croix” degree (the 18th), but there is no degree with that name in the Morin/Francken manuscript! The predecessor “Knights of White Eagle or Pelican” is there though and already as the 18th degree.
Masonic Rose Croix and The Orders of Rosicruciana / Rose Cross philosophies attempt to gather and harvest the most valuable, mystical, and “life expanding” philosophies that can allow individuals to grow on a spiritual and mental level.
I think even the most esoterically inclined Freemason sees this a bit differently.
Traditional Rosicrucian and Masonic teachings also include many mental exercises and for the practitioner.
I have read one or two (early) Masonic rituals, but I have never encountered any “mental exercises”. Also not in the Morin/Francken texts.
It seems that the author has heard of an early lodge of high degree Freemasonry and used the name to make his book more interesting. Knights Templar are dragged in, he calls the lodge “Societe des Illumines”, but fails to give any information about the lodge or its alleged workings. Also there is little traditional Rosicrucianity in the book.
After the introduction Mentz quickly goes into some sort of “positive thinking” type writing. The “law of attraction”; even the “Kybalion” is used. All kinds of ‘will yourself rich’ type of phrases and countless of exercises in which I miss every connection to either Rosicrucianity or Freemasonry. Towards the end the Confessio Fraternitatis is translated and that is about it.
In spite of all the writing that is not really my cup of tea, I would have hoped for at least a bit more of information about the “Lodge of Parfaits from 1764”, what texts they used, etc. Nothing of all that. The author has just pulled up a few vague references to present his own system.
In the 18th and 19th century there have been many authors about whom many have heard, but not many have read their texts. Only relatively recently texts of such thinkers have become available in English and often these translations are not academic publications. Where is the ‘serious’ interest in people who have helped shape the (esoteric) world?
So here we have a translation of Des erreurs et de la vérité (1775) of Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin (1743-1803). Some Martinists decided to make some of the basic works of their system available to the general public. An interesting idea.
Charles Lucien de Lièvre is the translator of the book and he wrote the preface. At least the Kindle version turned to be a strange book. It seems that Lièvre wrote most of the book with only here and there a quote of Saint-Martin. He speaks of people who have not understood Martinism, there is a biography of sorts, he speaks of real and false Martinism, etc.
After about 60 pages a translation of the book of Saint-Martin follows. Short chapters in which Saint-Martin mostly reacts to scientific findings of his time. The book is not really ‘spiritual’ or even ‘esoteric’.
The introduction is too much ‘I know it all, everybody else knows nothing’ and the text of Martin is … can I say: “dated”?
I applaud the effort that was made to make texts such as this available to an audience that does not master French, though.
The second and revised edition is starting to have the price of the original edition. Good that there is also a Kindle version with a normal price.
“The Myth and Reality of Nazi Occultism” is the subtitle of the book and this is also the theme of the introduction, the most interesting part in my opinion. Michael Moynihan and Stephen Flowers describe how the myth of Nazi occultism took root and how it developped. Basically, there is but one person to whom the myth can be acribed: Karl Maria Willigut (1866-1946), also known as Weisthor, Jarl Widar and Lobesam.
Here we have a high ranking person who actually experimented with the occult. He was also a fairly active author. There is an interesting history why Willigut thought he stood in a long, magical tradition, his theories, alleged troubles between “Irminists” and “Wotanists”. At the end of the book there is an interview of Manfred Lenz with Gabriele Dechend who knew Willigut when she was young. The interview has some interesting details, such as that the symbol of the Wewelsburg (see cover of the book) was only called “black sun” in hinsight.
Between these introductions and appendices, there are translations of texts of Willigut. He had a very messy, inpenetrable, tickly layered writing style with all kinds of mythological and occult references. Hard to read, hard to follow. The texts do contain writings such as Gotos-Kalanda and the Halgarita Charms.
I found the texts of Willigut the least interesting part of the book.
In February 2025 Volume II of Passages was published. Again it is an almost 400 page journal. 12 Authors contributed their essays. Many have been translated to English by Prav owner Jafe Arnold.
The authors include familiar names such as Evgeny Nechkasov (Askr Svarte) and Alexander Dugin. The only other name that is familiar to me is Veleslav Cherkasov. Of the rest I may or may not have read something before.
The theme for Volume II “the language of Tradition”, a subject familiar to Nechkasov and Dugin, but obviously also to other authors. Another theme is contemporary Traditionalism. In more than one essay critique is expressed on Traditionalism as it was presented a century ago (but also praise), so you not only get repetitions of familiar themes, but also ‘updates’ of Traditionalistic thinking so to say.
As with most Prav publishers, the level is academic, subjects often difficult yet mostly interesting. Symbols, language, music, theology, but also native faith, metaphysics and critique on the modern world. It is all here. Less ‘political’ than the first volume too.
Certainly an interesting publication, but not exactly easy reading.
Another Prav book. Shinzhensky wrote an academic book about Slavic paganism “between ideas and practice” in Russian and Prav director Jafe Arnold translated it to English, so that also the non-Russian-speaking audience can learn about the current state of academic interest in “Rodnoverie”.
The book is fairly dry and academic, especially towards the end. Sure, you will learn about the many different heathen groups in Russia, their founders, their histories, some of their ideas, their sizes and celebrations, but often academics seem to be more interested in statistics. How many attendees of a “Kupala” festival see which God as their main God? How many are members of other groups than the organising party? How do they explain certain terms?
Shinzhensky often summarises the findings of colleagues, refers to all kinds of academic inquiries, but he also sifted through the sometimes voluminous bibliographies of some of the big names of the “Rus” scene. You get histories, learn about umbrella organisations (the World Congress of Ethnic Religions is frequently mentioned) and not just in contemporary Russia, but also in countries such as Lithuania and Baltic countries.
What annoys me a bit is that (this is the same in other Prav books btw.) the author quite forcibly tries to avoid using the same words too often, so when a chapter is about a certain person, he is one time mentioned by name, then a “our author” (or some similar term), “Volkhv”, but also a word such as “polytheist” is often used, while it is clear that not all pagans are polytheists. Also the term “proselyte” is used too often in my opinion.
All in all the book gives a nice look into (larger) Russian paganism. It is interesting to see how many things are similar to Western countries, while other things are much different. The book is not a handbook to learn about “Rodnoverie” from, but if you are interested in an academic approach of the ‘scene’, this book might be of interest.
This is weird. I found this book because it is published by Prav Publising, but there is also a book with a similar title (The Return of Myth) available from Manticore Press (2016) which I could have read for that very reason, but apparently missed.
Boris Nad is a Serbian author, born in 1966. This collection of “meditations on Myth” (sometimes) has that ‘Russian tone’ and subjects of other Prav books.
It is a bit of an odd book. The texts vary wildly in subjects and tone. Some texts are well written and interesting, but there is also a lengthy piece of fiction and chapters that I find not very interesting.
The book opens with short chapters about mythology and mythologies. A red thread appears to be myths of Hyperborea. This culminates halfway in a lengthy “tale of Agartha”, a long piece of apparant fiction about a man who has visited the underground realm of the “king of the world”.
The latter is of course a theme that we find with René Guénon and Nad refers to Guénon and other Traditionalists more often. One of the more interesting texts of this book is a critique on Guénon though. Nad goes from comparitive myth, which can be interesting, to more speculative texts. Present is a hard view of modern life and “the crisis of the Western world”.
All in all I have to conclude that the book contains more texts that I found not too interesting and only a few that I did.
This is suprising. This book had been on my wish list for many years. Recently I ran into it while not looking specifically. Happily I read this little book of the eminent Masonic scholar Joannes Augustinus Maria Snoek (1946-) and while writing this review I find out that Salier Verlag has republished the book in June 2024 and it is now quite easy to obtain. (I got a first print.)
Snoek was born in Amsterdam, originally a biologist and chemist, he later studied comparative religion and he was the first professor to tutor Freemasonry in the Netherlands, but he also did the same in Germany.
Initiated in the Netherlands in 1971, Snoek became an avid scholar of Freemasonry both within and without Freemasonry. He is a member of (virtually?) every lodge of investigation in Europe and an active writer, publishing through academic publishing houses, but also Masonic publishers.
The Swiss lodge Modesta Cum Libertate (Alpina) in Zürich, asked Snoek to write an “introduction into Western esotericism, for Freemasons”. Snoek complied and wrote a 270+ page book which is published nicely with a linnen hardcover and with colour plates. A luxury small edition! Since the audience was probably small (members of the lodge?) the book was not easy to find, until recently.
As the title suggests, Snoek wrote an introduction to Western esotericism. After a general introduction, starting with the 2010 problems of the Dutch Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, Snoek sets out to shortly introduce astrology, neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Alchemy, Kabbalah, Hermetism, the Astrea cult, Rosicrucianity, stone masons and occultism. As these are no new subjects to me (only Astrea I never really looked at), there is little really new here. Perhaps a bit too little, the author uses ‘the Masonic angle’, details of particular interest to Freemasons. The last chapter “Freemasonry and Western esotericism” is what the reader has been waiting for. Unfortunately Snoek does not really say howsome elements found their way into Freemasonry.
All in all the book is exactly what the title promises: an introduction. I am glad that it is now available to a larger audience. An English edition would be even better as the book indeed is a basic introduction into Western esotericism for Freemasons and I think it might benefit a larger audience.
2011 Freimaurerloge Modestia Cum Libertate, republished 2024 Salier Verlag, isbn 3962850686
I was looking what other books Askr Svarte‘s publisher Prav Publising has available and I ran into Eschatological Optimism. The name of the author did not yet ring a bell.
From the introduction of translator and owner of Prav, Jafe Arnold, it soon became clear to me: here we have a book of Darya Aleksandrovna Dugina (1992-2022), the daugher of Alexander Dugin (1962-) who died in a car crash before she turned 30. The book is introduced by Arnold and Alexander Dugin himself.
Daria had studied philosophy and was so ‘Plato minded’ that she used the pseudonym “Platonova”. Obviously she was massively influenced by her father and the circle around him. I see several similarities with the writings of Askr Svarte (or would that be because they have the same translator?).
Dugina appears to have been an avid writer and lecturer and the book is a collection of lectures and essays. The book is divided in four parts. Two first two are -even though very philosophical- quite interesting. The last two interest me less. These last to parts are -very shortly- about the political side of Platonism and later philosophy.
The first part gave the book its title:
eschatological optimism is the consciousness and recognition that the material world, the given world which we presently take to be pure reality, is illusory: it is an illusion that is about to dissipate and end.
“Eschatology” is the acknowledgement that the material world is finite. The “optimism” part of the concept is not so much the being happy about that, but more the ‘riding the tiger’ attitude of Julius Evola: we are going down, let us make the best of the time that is left (but also: “live a life of unhappiness”).
Julius Evola represents an authentic revolt within Postmodernity. Guénon is even more fundamental. They show us the paths we can take. For myself, this path is, without a doubt, Orthodoxy and Edinoverie.
Explaining the latter term later in the book.
I belong to Edinoverie. This Edinoverie Church is somwhere between the Old Believers’ Rite and the ruling Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.
So quite like her father, Dugina is interested in philosophy, Traditionalism, politics and Russian Orthodoxy. Different from her father, Dugina was also a feminist, but I must say: of a very specific type that is completely different from our Western view of feminism and so we see that Dugina was also a thinker of her own.
Just like Svarte, Dugina’s writing frequently goes over my head, but it makes an interesting and often non-Western way of thinking inspite of being too philosophical for my liking. She sure was a thinker with great potential, so her early passing is certainly a shame. With an afterword of Daria’s mother Natalya Melentyeva the book has a tragic opening and closing, but it is good that also the Western audience now has a chance to read this young philosopher.
