Review: Occultism and Freemasonry in Eighteenth-Century Europe

Author(s): Mircea Eliade

Review by: Mircea Eliade
Source: History of Religions, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Aug., 1973), pp. 89-91
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1061953
Accessed: 21-08-2015 16:22 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to History of Religions.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 200.130.19.202 on Fri, 21 Aug 2015 16:22:36 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

History of Religions
AND FREEMASONRY
OCCULTISM
IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
EUROPE
La Franc-MaFonnerie Templiere et Occultisteaux X VIIIe et XIXe siecle. By
RENE LE FORESTIER.

Edited

by ANTOINE FAIVRE.

Paris:

Aubier-

Montaigne; Louvain: Editions Nauwelaerts, i970. Pp. 1,116. Fr. 150.

The publication of Auguste Viatte's two-volume work, Les sources
occultes du romantisme: Illuminisme-Theosophie (Paris, 1928), marked
an important date in the investigation of esoteric literature. It revealed
an unknown or perhaps carefully neglected dimension of the Enlightenment-the
religious concern of a great section of European intelligentsia, considered until that time antireligious or religiously indifferent.
Professor Viatte was the first savant to examine an immense number of
documents, mostly unpublished, buried in administrative and private
archives. The sensation caused by this work among literary historians
and critics as well as among historians of ideas stimulated a number of
researches on the esoteric and occult movements of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. One must name especially Gerard Van Rijnberk,
Un thaumaturge au 18e siecle, Martines de Pasqually, sa vie, son ceuvre,
son ordre (2 vols. [Paris and Lyon, 1935, 1938]); Alice Joly, Un mystique
lyonnais [Willermoz] et les secrets de la Franc-Maconnerie (Macon, 1938);
Jacques Roos, Aspects litteraires du Mysticisme philosophique au temps
du Romantisme (Paris, 1953); Leon Cellier, Fabre d'Olivet, contribution
a l'etude des aspects religieux du Romantisme (Paris, 1953); Louis
Guinet, Zacharias Werner et l'esoterisme maqonnique (La Haye, 1962);
Alice Joly and Robert Amadon, De l'agent inconnu au philosophe
inconnu (Paris, 1962); Max Geiger, Aufkldrung und Erweckung (Zurich,
1963); Paul Arnold, La Rosecroix et ses rapports avec la Franc-Ma9onnerie
(Paris, 1970; an earlier redaction appeared in 1955).
In 1914 the author of the present work, Rene Le Forestier (18681951), published his doctoral dissertation, Les illumines de Baviere et
la Franc-Maaonnerie allemande, a volume of 724 pages in quarto. This
was followed in 1928 by two equally large and erudite monographs,
L'occultisme et la Franc-Ma,onnerie ecossaise and La Franc-lMaonnerie
occultiste au dix-huitieme siecle et L'Ordre des Elus-Coens. From 1928 to
1950 Le Forestier concentrated exclusively on his opus magnum, but he
did not live to see it published. The work was brought out almost ten
years after his death by the untiring efforts of Antoine Faivre, who also
wrote a preface (pp. 7-19), compiled a bibliography (pp. 979-85), and
added a number of learned and illuminating supplementary notes
(pp. 987-1049).
The interest of such researches for the historian of religions cannot be
exaggerated. In his La Franc-Ma9onnerie occultiste au dix-huitieme
siecle, grounded on an enormous amount of material concerning the
secret life of the lodges, Le Forestier convincingly showed that in
the second half of the eighteenth century the "mystics" replaced the
former general interest in the virtues of the Aufkldrung. He showed also
89

This content downloaded from 200.130.19.202 on Fri, 21 Aug 2015 16:22:36 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Book Reviews
how the religious sentiment, repressed by the official ideology of the
epoch, reappeared under frustrated, almost psychopathic, expressions.
In the present work, Le Forestier confines his investigations to three
significant problems in the history of continental Freemasonry, namely
the legend of the Templar origins of the sect, the importance of occultism in Freemasonry, and the so-called Jacobite Enigma. On the basis
of his unrivaled knowledge of private archives plus a vast bibliography,
Le Forestier proves that the legend of the Templar descendance originated in Germany (pp. 64 ff.). With regard to the occult Freemasonry,
he strongly emphasizes the role of J. B. Willermoz, the founder of the
mysterious order of the Elus Coen of Lyon (pp. 275 ff.). No less significant are Le Forestier's contributions to the understanding of the socalled System of Wilhelmsbad (pp. 535 ff.) and the history of the "Last
Templars" in Germany, Italy, and Russia (pp. 709 ff.).
The author does not only endeavor to write the history (more precisely the "secret history") of all important continental Masonic
lodges and of the most significant schisms; he also describes with
accuracy and at great length their rituals and dogmas. The descriptions
of the Masonic and other secret ceremonials makes fascinating reading.
One is impressed by the decisive role of the initiation. In spite of many
differences, the central idea is the same: The initiatory rites effectuate
the "regeneration" of man in order that he recover the primordial
status that was his before the Fall. A number of legendary persons and
events (Hiram, the erection of the Temple, etc.) and theosophical
cosmogonies seem to inform the mythological scenario reenacted
during the initiation. The historian of religions will be particularly
interested in such "artificial" reconstruction of an initiatory pattern.
Although the possible sources can be detected in the Hellenistic
"Mystery-novel" (especially Appuleius' Metamorphosis)and the Renaissance hermetic reinterpretation of the "Egyptian Mysteries," the
consistency of such an initiatory pattern is nevertheless intriguing.
(One is reminded of Novalis trying to transform the death of his fiancee
in a mystery-type of religious experience, and succeeding; see Maryla
Falk, I "misteri"di Novalis [Napoli, 1939].) As Antoine Faivre rightly
notices (p. 10), Le Forestier did not grasp the profound analogy between
the Masonic initiation and the alchemical transmutation. (He dwelled
only on the "vulgar aspect" of the alchemists' extravagant claims.)
The chapter on Martines de Pasqually and his influence on Saint
Martin ("Le philosophe inconnu") is excellent. Such secret societies and
their esoteric lore present striking analogies with the religious milieu of
the eighteenth century, especially with the German pietism. We may
add that most of these esoteric groups and secret societies were animated
by a profound hope in an imminent renovatio.From a certain point of
view they prolong, on a different level, the prophetic and millenaristic
movements that periodically convulsed the Western Christendom,
especially since Gioachino da Fiore. The regeneration, that is, the
90

This content downloaded from 200.130.19.202 on Fri, 21 Aug 2015 16:22:36 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

History of Religions
"spiritual rebirth," was the Christian objective par excellence, but for
many reasons it was less and less present in the institutionalized
religious life. The nostalgia for an authentic "spiritual rebirth," the
hope in a collective metanoia and in the transfiguration of history,
inspired the popular millenaristic movements and many prophetic
theologies and mystical visions, as well as the hermetic gnosis and the
reinterpretation of the alchemical opus. Most of these medieval and
Renaissance spiritual crises express dissatisfaction with the existing
forms of Christian religious life. The Enlightenment, with its "culte
de la raison," supplied a new dissatisfaction, abundantly documented by
such worksas Le Forestier's. It should be added, however, that a number
of these secret societies and occult groups look more like ready-made
substitutes for a religious vacuum, thus increasing their interest for the
historian and the sociologist of religions.
It was a great chance that Le Forestier's summa could be edited by
a scholar of the rigor, erudition, and vision of Antoine Faivre, known
for his two massive doctoral theses: Kirchbergeret l'illuminisme du 18e
siecle (La Haye, 1966) and Eckartshausenet la theosophiechretienne
(Paris, 1969), and other studies on the eighteenth-century esotericism
and theosophy. Such contributions admirably illustrate the cultural
relevance of unraveling the "secret history" of the post-Enlightenment
era.
MIRCEA ELIADE

University of Chicago

91

This content downloaded from 200.130.19.202 on Fri, 21 Aug 2015 16:22:36 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions