On this occasion, we shall consider certain waymarks of our Order’s origin, growth, and development as a means of furthering our knowledge of the Wisdom—Foolishness opposition, which was set forth at our previous Conventicle. The survival of our Order attests its adherence to the principle of spiritual education which decrees that wisdom must be found within and cannot be imposed without. It would contravene the whole spirit of mysticism were it otherwise.
During the years of restless inquiry in the Eighteenth Century, when the seeker after truth became almost frantic in his search for a satisfying sense of unity with Omneity, Martinez Pasquales presented himself to many Masonic gatherings with a doctrine of assurance. That his message seemed vague and somewhat tenuous was overbalanced by his evident sincerity and his ability to present certain phenomena convincingly. Like a wandering evangel, Martinez worked now here and now there organizing Men of Desire into lodges of Cohens Elus, or Elect Priests, that they might through a theurgic ritual prepare themselves for converse with Angelic beings. That he was deeply in earnest, no one has questioned; and that he was possessed of an illuminated consciousness, his many followers have assured us.
His influence on those who became initiates of his Order is acknowledged to have been great in spite of his failure to arouse and develop in them powers commensurate with his own. His lodges drew their inspiration and very breath of life from his person; and when he finally withdrew from France to Haiti, spiritual apathy fell upon his disciples. They had not developed sufficient spirit or power to maintain their inheritance as Elect Priests. He had bound his disciples to him by ties too fragile to withstand his separation from them. He had sought in vain to perfect a ritual that would accomplish by magic what could only be developed by growth.
Jean Baptiste Willermoz strove hard to follow him, but succeeded only in retreating into Masonry with dead-letter rites and ceremonies. Even deputized successors failed to assume the position and reward he had bestowed on them.
Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, although having the utmost respect for and confidence in Martinez Pasquales as his spiritual teacher, almost from the first perceived that form and ceremony were at best only poor means to an end. To him, they seemed unnecessary to the process of bringing man to inner light. He was a mystic, not a ritualist; consequently, having found an inward way that did not call for the elaborate practices which his teacher thought so necessary, he turned more and more to writing and to working with individual students rather than with groups.
From the instruction which Martinez Pasquales gave, therefore, and from the practices he developed, each of his initiates drew what he was best prepared to receive. Looked at broadly in the light of more complete information as to the character of the Eighteenth Century, the doctrines of Martinez Pasquales were essentially Kabbalistic. At least, we may say that the Kabbalah formed the framework on which he based his rituals and expositions. Even to his closest disciples, Pasquales was something of a man of mystery, saying little about his own teachers or the mystic schools in which he had been instructed. His manuscript, called a “Treatise On the Reintegration of Beings,” makes plain, however, that he was fulfilling a mission and that his sources of Light were traditionally correct in spite of his failure to make his theme altogether plain as a system of philosophy. Since there were several copies of his work in manuscript, all somewhat different in style and phrasing, it is possible that he taught verbally and depended upon his disciples to record his teachings. It is equally possible that he improved his instruction from time to time.
His instruction, appropriately and significantly, began with Omneity, the everlasting Creator of all that is.
Omneity is absolute in Its power and knowledge. Its understanding surpasses that of any created mortal being; therefore, It is, in a sense, inscrutable and unknowable to us. Let us think for a moment in terms of the BEGINNING. Omneity, as the Creator, existed before any created thing, before the world of nature —man, or plant, or animal. In the immensity of Its thought and power; Omneity encompassed every possibility. It existed without limitation, want, hindrance, or insufficiency. In the divine Immensity, in the bosom of the Creator, existed the potentiality of an infinitude of beings, as well as endless types of creations. For reasons knowable only to Itself, Omneity emanated from Its own immensity a class, or group, of spiritual beings not greatly unlike ourselves. These were the first created beings. At the time of their emanation, they received laws of order and purpose appropriate to their natures and a free will. The crime of these first spiritual beings was that they turned their wills against Omneity: They willed to change the order and purpose of their beings and even desired to challenge the powers of the Creator by creating other beings themselves—a thing absolutely forbidden to them.
Omneity, in Its perfect knowledge, noting their crime and misuse of will, punished them by absenting Itself from them and by thrusting them into the prison house of the material world. There is even the intimation that the material world was emanated at that time for the express purpose of punishing these beings and teaching them humility, obedience, and harmonious cooperation.
We must note, too, that humanity was emanated as a second class, or group, of spiritual beings known as MAN-GODS, who were to be rulers of nature, the material creation, and the first perverse beings.
In the words of Pasquales:
“God would not be the Father and the Master of all things if he had not within himself an inexhaustible source of beings that he emanated at will through his pure desire.
“It is by this infinite multitude of emanations of spiritual beings without himself that he holds the name of CREATOR. His works form the divine creation—spiritual, temporal, and animal.”
Following his emanation, Adam (collective Man, known in the Kabbalah as Adam Kadmon) enjoyed enormous powers and privileges. He had free access to the centre of the universe, to the divine thoughts, and his being was clothed in a spiritual form of glory—not subject to the ravages of time or the limitations of space.
One of the duties of Adam was to rule the first perverse beings and see that their proper and necessary lesson was learned. However, the chief, or prince, of these beings enticed Adam (collective Man), suggesting that he, too, challenge the immutable and absolute power of the Creator. Filled with pride and willfulness, Adam succumbed to these blandishments and temptations, and attempted spiritual operations beyond his ordained powers. He set his will against the immutable Will and decrees of Omneity, and thus, as we say, sinned.
As a result of this weakness, this inability to resist temptation, this misuse of his free will, Adam fell. His FALL meant that he no longer dwelt in the centre of divine thoughts, in a body of spiritual form, clothed in glory. He was forced to exchange his glorious form for a material body, subject to the action of time and space. Furthermore, he lost his enormous powers as MAN-GOD of nature and created beings. He had to live in spiritual darkness, privation, pain, sorrow, and misery.
The long story of mankind (the Adamic history) has been a ceaseless struggle to overcome the limitations and sufferings imposed by the FALL, to obtain reconciliation with the Creator, to recover the lost status as MAN-GOD, the favoured and intimate one of the Eternal Power. From this sad condition stems the power of the word Reintegration. The hopes and longings of the race are embodied in it. No one can ever find permanent rest and felicity until humanity, the collectivity of mankind, has regained completely the divine favour and obtained oneness, absorption, reintegration with the Creator of All, Omneity.
Summary
- Our venerated Master, Martinez Pasquales, taught a doctrine that broadly considered was Kabbalistic.
- His mission was to feed the inquiring minds of his age with ideas that would give man a satisfying hope of reuniting himself with his Creator.
- The essence of Pasquales’ instruction is embodied in a “Treatise On the Reintegration of Beings.”
- Clearer light has been given on many matters since our Venerated Master’s day; nevertheless, his teaching was fundamental and essential.
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