Mystic discourse 9

Continuing our examination of the instruction given by our Venerated Master, Martinez Pasquales, let us consider a little more in detail his statement that creation is an emanation from Omneity of Its own virtues and aspects. This is pure mysticism, one of the oldest and most substantial teachings of the secret schools of Egypt and the Orient. All things have emanated and are emanating from Omneity, the eternal and inexhaustible source.

Furthermore, the point of emanation is conceived as the centre of being, the centre of the universe. Plato, an initiate of Egypt and one of our noblest predecessors, described the universe as “A central point, seat of the presiding Deity, enveloped by concentric circles of mingled light and darkness, and bounded by a wall of flame.”

Without entering minutely into Martinist cosmology or the theory of the shape and organization of the Cosmos, suffice it to say that the universe is undoubtedly circular or cellular in general formation, perhaps a combination of concentric spheres, with a positive central, divine point, or condition, known in mystical literature as the central fire, or throne, of Omneity.

It is also true that the Source, from which emanates all that is, is pure spirit, undefiled by the gross forms and lower octaves of vibration of matter. The farther we are from the point of emanation, the grosser, denser, heavier the condition and the lower the rate of vibration; until at the outer part of the cosmic sphere, we encounter the region where the universal essence, or spirit energy, is formed into matter.

Our conception of Omneity does not limit Its power or activity to any one part of the universe. Actually, the entire universe is only a breath of Omneity, an exhalation, we might say. In the fullness of time and in accordance with Its inscrutable wisdom and power, Omneity will complete the process through a figurative inhalation, or indrawing, to Its own immensity of all that was created. These are immense conceptions; yet they indicate the scale on which the drama of human history and individual aspiration is being worked out.

Our Venerated Master, Martinez Pasquales, emphasized in considerable detail the role of the first perverse spiritual beings, who in turn plotted and gained the Fall of Man. He occasionally spoke of them as evil demons and perverse spirits. By turning their wills against the will of the Creator, they created or caused to manifest temporarily what we call evil. Speaking of this, Martinez Pasquales said:

“It would be wrong to say that evil comes from the Creator, because all emanates from him. From God has come all that is spiritual, good, and perfect. No evil has ever or can ever emanate from him.

“Evil is nurtured by beings but not created. Creation belongs to the Creator, not to the creature. Evil thoughts are nurtured by evil beings just as good thoughts are nurtured by good beings. It is up to man to reject one and accept the other, according to his free will, which gives him a right to participate in the rewards of good works, but which also may cause him to remain for an indefinite time deprived of his spiritual rights.

“Evil is born uniquely from the tendency and will of Omneity’s creatures.”

As a result of the widespread acceptance of naturalistic doctrines of evolution and the abuses of theology and Biblical teaching, the doctrine of the Fall of Man is in disrepute among the majority of modern thinkers. Evolution as taught in the public schools would indicate that modern man stands at the peak of personal and spiritual development, climaxing a long and arduous ascent from lesser beings, on down through the various classifications of species, ending in unicellular creatures existing in the primordial ooze. Within the frame of such thinking, any notion of the Fall of humanity is absurd and fantastic.

Likewise, Biblical literalists, with their rigid interpretation of each passage of the Bible, have done much harm to the true concept of the Fall of Man

However, mysticism throws new light upon the problem and offers a method of reconciling the seeming contraries in keeping, let us note, with the symbolism and the spirit of this degree! As for the Bible, its truth is that of sublime mystical allegory and symbolism. Properly interpreted with the correct esoteric keys, it becomes a storehouse of mystic wisdom and prophetic knowledge.

The Fall of Man, properly conceived and broadly interpreted, is a fact. The traditional history of many peoples refers to a time when men lived in greater spiritual glory and closer attunement with Omneity. This tradition is older than histories, legends of the Flood, and the existence of lost and mighty civilizations. Perhaps, too, our conceptions of sin are derived from faint recollections of our collective “original sin,” that of turning our wills from the will of the Creator, conspiring to ignore His laws, setting our wills against His commands and precepts.

After the Fall, collective man undoubtedly was in a miserable condition. Considering the misery, lust, and greed of a large proportion of humanity after many epochs of supposed evolution, the sense of man’s privation and darkness immediately after the Fall seems real and appalling. It must have been like abruptly leaving an intensely lighted room and plunging into a black and impenetrable abyss that was devoid of light and all other sense perceptions.

Especially tormenting must have been the faint memories of divine felicities and privileges enjoyed in the former high estate—the freedom of manifesting in a spiritual body, unencumbered by the wants and demands of the flesh; the ineffable peace and joy of participating intimately in divine thoughts, of basking, as it were, in the effulgence of Omneity’s love and goodness. All of this, exchanged for a miserable, limiting physical body, which constantly warred against the inclinations of the subtler self within and imposed chains upon the freedom of the soul personality! It is small wonder that the body came to be known as the prison house of this world, the abode of the devil, a demon whose design was to work eternally for man’s destruction and obliteration.

In reconciling the above thoughts with the concept of evolution, it is evident that some progress has been made by collective man since the Fall. Many have evolved, perfected, and released their soul personalities to a considerable extent. Higher types of men and women do exist today. We are evolving upward—forward and onward—to the goal, the only worthwhile and enduring goal, that of reconciliation and reintegration with our First Spiritual Principle.

In the view of our Venerated Master, then, there were virtually two Falls: The first, by which the perverse beings found themselves separated from Omneity because of their attempted assumption of Its powers of creation; the second, when Adorn, the MAN-GOD, was himself deceived by the perverse beings over whom he was placed as a guard.

In the “Treatise On the Reintegration of Beings,” many passages are given to the activities of perverse beings. A few paragraphs may be enlightening:

“By insinuating a multitude of material passions which they know conform to the weakness of material and spiritual senses, the demonic beings stir up in the minors (human beings) actions opposed to one another, thus keeping them in confusion.

“This is why among material men we do not find two thoughts, two actions, or two operations that are in harmony. The persistency of the demons in sowing dissension among men has resulted in giving them inordinate thoughts of pride and ambition, so that men live continually in spiritual discord. Not knowing the motive and cause of the troubles and sufferings to which they are condemned, they lose completely the idea of the proper worship they should render the Creator.

“To conceive of the subtlety of the demonic chiefs, one must realize that they are everlastingly trying to degrade all forms and to corrupt all spiritual beings.

“They persecute the minors (humans) from the moment they enter into this world, surrounding the corporeal form as soon as the spiritual being is incorporated in it.”

Whatever be the precise nature of the forces affecting man in his spiritual privation, there is no denying that we are very often tempted to do that which is evil or which is not expressive of the best and purest in us. St. Paul expressed this inner conflict thus: “The good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” (Romans 7:19)

There are implications in the writings of Martinez Pasquales which suggest a systematic demonology, or hierarchy of demonic beings, and a philosophy pertaining to them. Remembering the law of contraries impressed upon our consciousness in the Initiation of this degree, it is not surprising that men have sought to personify evil influences which they sense and contend against within and without their own natures. Lucifer, Satan, or the devil, is thus a personification of the demonic chief, or prince, of demons.

Powerful as the forces of evil, or negation, may seem in today’s world, Martinists are never dismayed by the onslaught of the adversary. Evil has no real, no final power; in fact, it has no real existence at all! Part of the process of purification in readying ourselves for Reconciliation is to combat, resist, and eventually overcome these demonic and hateful forces as they impinge upon our individual lives.

Happily, we are not without aid in our contest with so-called perverse forces. The Creator has emanated spiritual beings from His own divine immensity in accordance with His pure desire, many of whom are more evolved and closer to the divine than man. These angelic and celestial beings have among their duties the assistance of humanity and the spiritual instruction of the Adamic race. In a symbolical sense, man’s nature is a battleground of furiously contending forces, each striving to capture his will and thinking consciousness. The Creator has granted to man the power of choice between them, constituting his essential free will.

These angelic and celestial beings form a great spiritual hierarchy, reaching upward from man through progressive levels of spiritual attune- ment and divine power to the radiant Throne of Omneity. The universe is a perfect spiritual autocracy, ruled and directed in harmony by the Absolute, the Will of Omneity.

As has been stressed before, the punishment of man, following the misuse of his will, was the exchange of his glorious, spiritual, non- material form for the physical body which he inhabits during the present period of privation. Note that the anguish of privation, of man’s exile from the Creator, centers about the material body. What is wracked by pain and suffering, enfeebled and twisted by disease, tormented by insensate lusts and passions, anguished by worldly appetites which disconcert the soul personality? Obviously, the body.

Therefore, the dominance of the material body over the soul personality must be overcome. A mistaken understanding of this has led many to the path of asceticism, which for us is a false and unprofitable one. In mastering the body, its harmonious functioning and possibilities as a vehicle for good should neither be weakened nor destroyed but rather subjected to the spiritual needs and aspirations of the soul personality within.

Summary
The essential instruction of our Venerated Master, Martinez Pasquales, may be summarized thus: Omneity, absolute in power and knowledge, is largely unknowable to man.
The first spiritual beings emanated by Omneity challenged Its wisdom and were exiled to a condition of privation.
Humanity, emanated as a second group of beings to rule nature and material creation, likewise became a victim of its own pride.
Privation brought about the physical body and its continual harassment by so-called perverse forces.
The history of mankind has become the record of man’s attempted reintegration with the Divine.
Evil does not and cannot ever emanate from Omneity. It claims only a spurious existence.

Reference

A Brief History of the Martinist Order.

Mystic discourse 8

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.

Reference

A Brief History of the Martinist Order.

Providence

Peeke says:

“God sends every individual by His Law of self-development to this world for a purpose, but only to a few is delegated a particular mission for the world.”

Reference

Numbers and Letters: Or, the Thirty-two paths of Wisdom, M. B. Peeke, 1908.

The creator

Martinez’s instruction, appropriately and significantly, began with YHVH[1] (God), the everlasting Creator of all that is. The following excerpt is a translation of the first paragraph of the ‘Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings’:

“Before time, God emanated spiritual beings, for his own glory, in his divine immensity. These beings were to perform a cult that the Divinity had set by eternal laws, precepts and commandments. They were therefore free and distinct from their Creator, and one cannot refuse them the free will with which they were emanated without destroying their faculty, property and spiritual and personal virtue, which were necessary for operating with precision within the bounds where they were to exercise their power. It was positively within those bounds that these first spiritual beings had to accomplish the cult for which they had been emanated. These first beings can’t deny nor ignore the conventions that the Creator made with them by giving them laws, precepts and commandments, because it was upon those conventions only that their emanation was founded.”

At the very beginning of his Treatise, Martinez describes the emanation of spiritual beings before time. Thus, he talks about things “before” the creation of heaven and earth. What Martinez tells us is that YHVH emanated. The emanated beings are of the same essence of the “emanator”. Emanation, according to Martinez, is the first step of creation. The popular use of the word “creation” is what Martinez calls emancipation.

So, YHVH emanates spiritual beings. Martinez uses the word spiritual not divine to mark the essential difference between YHVH and his creatures, the latter being created, thus having a beginning. The emanation of a spiritual being begins its origin, and YHVH is its source.

YHVH is absolute in power and knowledge. YHVH’s understanding surpasses that of any created mortal being; therefore, YHVH is, in a sense, inscrutable and unknowable to us. YHVH, as the Creator, existed before any created thing, before the world of nature —man, or plant, or animal. YHVH’s thought and power encompassed every possibility. YHVH 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.

Why did YHVH emanate? For his own glory, says Martinez. What were those spiritual beings meant to do? Martinez tells us that they were emanated in order to perform a cult. They were given a task to fulfil, which is in fact the true and only proper form of divine cult. Thus, they were given laws, precepts and commandments. A three-fold contract was established between YHVH and his creatures. 

Why would such a contract be needed? To accomplish their duty, it would have made no sense if these spiritual beings were mere robots. For there to be a meaning to their acts, these beings had to voluntarily choose to follow their duty towards their Father. That is why their commandments were matched to their precepts according to their law (nature or attributes).

Martinez explains that they were both free and distinct from their Creator. He further insists that without free will, they would have no faculty, property or spiritual and personal virtue. In other words, they would simply not exist. Their free will is what makes them beings in their own right, thereby having the ability to keep those attributes (law, precepts and commandments) that allow them to accomplish the divine cult in an orderly rather than in an anarchic way.

Martinez insists that these first spiritual beings knew the conventions upon which they had been emanated. Without that knowledge, there would not have been the kind of free will that allowed them their very existence.

However, these conventions were not respected, as the Bible goes on to describe. Some of the spiritual beings decided, on their own accord, not to follow YHVH’s commandments. This prevarication is what Martinez calls the first Fall.

---

[1] God told Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” Moses was to tell Israel, “I AM has sent me to you” Ex 3:14. Then God replaced I AM with “Yahweh (YHVH), the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob… This is My name forever” (Ex 3:15). Yahweh is probably a third person singular equivalent of I AM. Its pronunciation was almost lost because Jews considered it so holy that they replaced its vowels with those of other divine names.  God did not reveal this name to the patriarchs (Ex 6:3), but Yahweh occurs in Genesis dialogue (Gen 14:12). Either the meaning was previously unknown, its significance had not been fully appreciated, or Genesis reflects later language. Moses’ mother Jochebed might have a shortened form of Yahweh in her name (Jo-) if the name follows later practice. The name Yahweh is connected etymologically with the Hebrew verb “to be” . (HCSB Study Bible).

Martinez Pasquales’s “Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings”: The Fall

The doctrines of Martinez Pasquales were essentially Kabbalistic and the Kabbalah formed the framework on which he based his rituals and expositions. Pasquales was 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 God, the everlasting Creator of all that is.

The Treatise says that God is absolute in power and knowledge. God’s understanding surpasses that of any created mortal being; therefore, God is, in a sense, inscrutable and unknowable to us.
Let us think for a moment in terms of the BEGINNING. God, as the Creator, existed before any created thing, before the world of nature —man, or plant, or animal. God’s thought and power encompassed every possibility. God 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 God, God emanated a class, or group, of spiritual beings. 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 God: 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. God, noting their crime and misuse of will, punished them by absenting Himself from them and by thrusting them into the prison house of the material world. The material world was emanated at this time for the express purpose of punishing these beings and teaching them humility, obedience, and harmonious cooperation.

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 Kaballah 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 wilfulness, 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 God, and thus 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.

In the view of our Venerated Master, then, there were two Falls: The first, by which the perverse beings found themselves separated from God because of their attempted assumption of His powers of creation; the second, when Adarn, the MAN-GOD, was himself deceived by the perverse beings over whom he was placed as a guard.

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, God.

The Fall of Man, properly conceived and broadly interpreted, is a fact. The traditional history of many peoples refers to a time when men lived in greater spiritual glory and closer attunement with God. This tradition is older than histories, legends of the Flood, and the existence of lost and mighty civilizations. Perhaps, too, our conceptions of sin are derived from faint recollections of our collective “original sin,” that of turning our wills from the will of the Creator, conspiring to ignore His laws, setting our wills against His commands and precepts.

After the Fall, collective man undoubtedly was in a miserable condition. Considering the misery, lust, and greed of a large proportion of humanity after many epochs of supposed evolution, the sense of man’s privation and darkness immediately after the Fall seems real and appalling. It must have been like abruptly leaving an intensely lighted room and plunging into a black and impenetrable abyss that was devoid of light and all other sense perceptions.

Especially tormenting must have been the faint memories of privileges enjoyed in the former high estate—the freedom of manifesting in a spiritual body, unencumbered by the wants and demands of the flesh; the ineffable peace and joy of participating intimately in divine thoughts, of basking, as it were, in the effulgence of God’s love and goodness. All of this, exchanged for a miserable, limiting physical body, which constantly warred against the inclinations of the subtler self within and imposed chains upon the freedom of the soul personality! It is small wonder that the body came to be known as the prison house of this world, the abode of the devil, a demon whose design was to work eternally for man’s destruction and obliteration.

In reconciling the above thoughts with the concept of evolution, it is evident that some progress has been made by collective man since the Fall. Many have evolved, perfected, and released their soul personalities to a considerable extent. Higher types of men and women do exist today. We are evolving upward—forward and onward—to the goal, the only worthwhile and enduring goal, that of reconciliation and reintegration with our First Spiritual Principle.

As has been stressed before, the punishment of man, following the misuse of his will, was the exchange of his glorious, spiritual, non- material form for the physical body which he inhabits during the present period of privation. Note that the anguish of privation, of man’s exile from the Creator, centers about the material body. What is wracked by pain and suffering, enfeebled and twisted by disease, tormented by insensate lusts and passions, anguished by worldly appetites which disconcert the soul personality? Obviously, the body. Therefore, the dominance of the material body over the soul personality must be overcome. A mistaken understanding of this has led many to the path of asceticism, which for us is a false and unprofitable one. In mastering the body, its harmonious functioning and possibilities as a vehicle for good should neither be weakened nor destroyed but rather subjected to the spiritual needs and aspirations of the soul personality within.

Stanzas on the Origin and Destiny of Man by Louis Claude de Saint-Martin

Taken from http://www.martinism.com/

I.

The Voice of the Soul.
Supernal torch, thy light descends on me,
My life’s enigma is explained by thee.
‘Tis not because thy kindly warmth I hail
As fire derived from fonts that never fail;
Torch which enlightens, in thy splendors bright
I see myself derived from thy pure light;
Immortal townsman of a heavenly place,
From the eternal day my days I trace.

II.

My shining birthright makes all glories fade,
No light shall cast the inner light in shade;
Who seeks to shroud or dim that sacred beam,
I hold thereby would God Himself blaspheme;
Attest it, Laws, which Truth’s most holy plan
Graved deep within the incorporeal man
When first engendered from that virtue’s breast-
Words in Truth’s temple heard, ye too attest!

III.

The Divine Voice.
Resplendent type of mine almighty power,
Of my pure essence the most perfect flower-
Majestic man, thy high election know!
If forth on thee my secret unction flow,
‘Tis to confirm the mission of thy birth,
My justice making known through all the earth,
Bearing my light through falsehood’s dark domain,
By thine own self declared my grandeur’s reign.

IV.

The Voice of the Soul.
Ye elements, in all your actions bound,
Still blindly follow your unending round-
Not yours the functions of the Gods to share;
Man of that right divine alone is heir;
Exclusive minister of Wisdom’s laws,
Beams from the sun supreme he only draws.
Their splendors darting all the dark disperse,
And God in man shines o’er the universe.

V.

Is man a God? What strange deceit is here!
Behold this prodigy divine appear
Vested in weakness, with disgrace his crown-
What foe has stripped him of his old renown?
Not king but captive now, to sense a thrall,
And, exiled far from his imperial hall,
The sacred accents of the heavenly shore,
The harp’s harmonious strains, he hears no more.

VI.

The Divine Voice
O’er all that lives his once established right
Peace to its empire gave beneath my sight;
Ye slaves who now your ancient lord subdue,
Peace when he seeks must be implored of you!
Once from life’s stream he drew, which heard my voice,
And, leaping down, did earth with fruits rejoice;
What waters now will make that desert bear?
Tears from his eyes alone, descending there!

VII.

To him alone this agony refer
Who did my justice and its stripes incur,
My law renounced, invoked to aid his reign
Foul falsehood’s hosts, and against me armed in vain;
For hope on crime established soon betrayed,
The priest of idols was their victim made,
Death the one fruit such service bears this slave,
And life the costly sacrifice he gave.

VIII.

The Voice of the Soul.
Eternal God, did man’s most hapless race
For aye Thine image and Thy work debase?
Say, are Thy sons brought down so deep in shame
That they can rise not in Thy virtue’s name?
Is Thy most sacred character destroyed?
Thy highest title-that of Father-void?
And must that name of child, whose powers transmit
Life without end to them, turn void with it?

IX.

Oh, when Thy glory was my home of yore
I learned Thy love endured for evermore,
Unfathomed and unbound Thy mercy’s sea!
Ah, Holy God, confirm Thy first decree!
With favors fresh increase Thy former grace-
Lo, they shall teach me yet my steps to trace
Beneath Thy wings, and compass that design
For which my nature first was drawn from Thine.

X.

The Divine Voice.
Volcanic forces, in their gulfs compressed,
By rocks and torrents are denied all rest,
But the fierce flame leaps round them and subdues-
Do thou, O timid man, like forces use!
A constant power direct to rend the chain,
To burst the bar, and thus thy freedom gain;
Inert are they, nor shall withstand thy strength,
Far from their fragments shalt thou soar at length!

XI.

When the swift lightning, ere the thunder’s peal,
Doth all the vault of heaven by fire reveal,
It manifests a master to the air;
Such work is thine; discern thy symbol there.
Lo, I have launched thee from the starry height,
‘Tis thou who dartest downward trailing light,
And flash-like striking on the earthly ground,
Dost with the shock to thy first heaven rebound.

XII.
Man is the secret sense of all which seems;
That other doctrines are but idle dreams,
Let nature, far from all contention own,
While his grand doom is by her day star shown.
To vaster laws adjusted, he shall reign,
Earth for his throne, and his star crown attain,
The universal world his empire wait,
A royal court restore his ancien state.

XIII.

The Voice of the Soul.
That voice restores me! Angels free from sin,
Agents of God, who dwells your hearts within,
My transports share! A jealous Lord is He,
But for my wisdom and felicity-
To justify mine origin sublime-
To bare the treasures of my natal clime-
That I with you may draw from springs above
The draughts of science and the draughts of love.

XIV.

O if such love, despite the void between,
Impel you sometimes towards this earthly scene,
Will not its virtues and its powers upraise
Us earthly dwellers towards your heavenly ways?
O friends at least, whatever chance betide,
May nought your natures from mine own divide,
May my poor hymns to mix with yours be meet,
And in your council may I find a seat!

XV.

Sacred and saintly truth! Thy voice I hear,
Thine is the victory, Thy word comes near;
Its beams divine transmute the sense of sight
Till scene and eye diffuse the same rich light.
O founts divine, with darkness all unmixed,
For God therein His holy place hath fixed,
Time’s twisted paths beneath my feet swim by,
I lose them leaping towards eternity

Pronouncing the Creator’s Name