A BRIEF HISTORY of MARTINISM

Of all the Mystical Orders that flowered in France during the 18th century
none has had an influence comparable to that which entered into history
under the name of MARTINISM.

Its appearance coincided with that of a remarkable personage named Joachim
Martinez Pasquales.

Joachim Martinez Pasquales was born in Grenoble in 1710, and he spent his
life teaching a religious system to which he gave the name Elus Cohen, that
is to say the Elect Priests. (Cohen, in Hebrew, means Priest)

It is necessary to permit light to spread little by little, otherwise it
would be too dazzling and would blind mankind instead of lighting up his
path. This was why Pasquales distributed his teachings in small amounts. In
May 1772, Martinez went to Santo Domingo (now Haiti) and he died two years
later, at Port-au-Prince, on September 20, 1774.

One of the disciples of Pasquales was Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, a French
nobleman, who was serving as a lieutenant in the Foix Regiment when he first
heard about Martinez Pasquales and his rite of Elus-Cohen.

Louis Claude de Saint-Martin resigned from the French army and went to
Bordeaux where he was initiated into the degrees of Elus-Cohen by Honore de
Balzac's brother. For three years he acted as secretary to Pasquales and as
a result he bacame firmly immersed into the inner spirit of the Elus-Cohen.

He also achieved considerable progress as his extensive studies enabled him
to penetrate very quickly into all aspects of Martinist illuminism. He
travelled frequently to Lyons which had become an influential centre of the
Elus-Cohen.

In Lyons he drafted the book Des Erreurs et de la Verite (Of Errors and
Truth). This book had a considerable impact on mystical thought at the end
of the 18th century. It was one of his many literary achievements.

Saint-Martin found himself disturbed by the ceremonies associated with his
master's teachings and he gradually withdrew fron the Elus-Cohen in order to
devote himself soley to the study of spirituality and mysticism.

He eventually went to Paris where he was well recieved. He disagreed
strongly with the "male only" rules prevalent at that time as he had many
women amoung his close circle of friends. Women in particular quarrelled
among themselves as to which of them should be privileged by his company.

St Martin formed small groups which were purely spiritual and which excluded
ritualistic ceremonies.

Up to the outbreak of the French Revolution, he alternated the lessons to
his students with travel outside France where he established firm
connections with those of like mind. It was during one of these trips that
he discovered the works of Jacob Boehme whose theories he added to those of
Pasquales. Moreover, he discovered that they could be superimposed, one onto
the other.

The disciples of de Saint-Martin spread the Doctrine of the Unknown
Philosopher in France, Germany, Denmark and above all in Russia. It was
through one of them, Henri Delaage, that in 1880 a brilliant young Parisian
doctor, Gerard Encausse (Later to be known as Papus), became acquainted with
the doctrines of Saint-Martin and decided to become their champion. For this
purpose, in 1884, together with some of his associates, he established a
Mystical Order which he called the Ordre Martiniste or the Marinist Order.

Gerard Encausse, when he died in 1916, had become the author of over 240
books, many of which were the result of his vast medical knowledge as well
as his work inside the mystical tradition. He was well known in government
circles throughout Europe. Since that time the Martinist Tradition has
spread world-wide and has been perpetuated, by diffrent Martinist Orders,
from then right up to the present time.

On Sunday 13 October 1991 the British Martinist Order was born in the
Templar Chapel at Rothley in England. The aims of the British Martinist
Order are to perpetuate the Christian Mystical tradition in the same spirit
as Martinez Pasquales, Louis Claude de Saint-Martin and Gerard Encausse.

The British Martinist Order has established centres in Manchester, Leicester
and London in England, Edinburgh in Scotland, Trinidad in the West Indies
and in Norway.