Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin (1743-1803)

 

The last two of which translated theosophic thought into terms accessible to his contemporaries. Among the most delightful of Saint-Martin’s works is his correspondence with the Swiss Baron Kirchberger during the French Revolution, testimony to the spiritual balance theosophy provided them during the most turbulent of eras. Saint-Martin did not come to the works of Böhme until relatively late in life; his early works were written from the perspective of his theurgic school, founded by Martinez-Pasquales, a sect that employed theurgic rituals and and “operations.” 

This school, called Martinists, or later, Elects Cohens, fought vigorously the growing atheism of contemporary France, and in this battle Saint-Martin played a major role. Saint-Martin’s public role began with his books Des Erreurs et de la Vérité, ou les Hommes rappelés au Principe universel de la Science, (1775), and Tableau Naturel des Rapports entre Dieu, l’Homme, et l’Univers (1782). 

In these works Saint-Martin explained the traditional doctrine of correspondences between man and nature, and the idea of man as a microcosm. He sought to oppose the reductionist atheist assertion—which incidentally has by no means disappeared since—that religion originated in mere delusion inspired by a fear of nature’s powers.

His works alluded to the scriptures, but were couched in a parabolic Hermetic language that, because it referred to God, for instance, as the active intelligent Cause, was designed to lead a materialistic, atheistic or scientistic readership back toward authentic religion. 

It was not until the mid 1780’s that Saint-Martin was introduced to Böhme’s works, but he immediately recognized in the theosopher “the greatest human light that had ever appeared,” and the revelation in toto of what he had glimpsed in his earlier theurgic school. 

From this time on, St. Martin’s works and life were increasingly informed by Böhmean theosophy, seen especially in such books as De l’Esprit des Choses, ou Coup-d’oeil philosophique sur la Nature des Êtres, et sur l’Objet de leur Existence, (1800), and Le Ministère de l’Homme-esprit, (1802). 

In the latter book especially, one sees Saint-Martin emphasizing the necessity for human regeneration in the Logos, which is the Gospel way and the simple key to wisdom—something not seen in the spiritism of the day nor in authors like Swedenborg. In his later years, Saint-Martin learned German and translated several works of Böhme into French, and there is in this a special symbolism. 

For Saint-Martin’s later works are also, in a different way, an effort to translate Böhme into modern terms. Here is a characteristic passage from Le Ministère de l’Homme-esprit, (1802) [The Ministry of Spiritual Man]:

The original generation or formation of the planets and all stars was, according to our author [Böhme], in accord with the way that the wondrous harmonic proportions of Divine Wisdom have been engendered from all eternity. For when the great change took place in one of the regions of primitive nature, the light went out in that region, which embraced the space of the present nature, and this region, which is the present nature, became as a dead body, unmoving. 

Then Eternal Wisdom, which the author sometimes calls SOPHIA, Light, Meekness, Joy, and Delight, caused a new order to be born in the center, in the heart of this universe or world, to prevent and arrest its entire destruction. 

This place, or center, according to our author [Böhme], is the place where the sun is kindled. Out of this place or center all kinds of qualities, forms, or powers, which fill and constitute the universe, are engendered and produced, all in conformity with the laws of divine generation; for he admits in all beings and eternally in the Supreme Wisdom, a center in which a sevenfold production or subdivision takes place. He calls this center the Separator.

Info's :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Claude_de_Saint-Martin

http://www.blavatsky.net/magazine/theosophy/ww/setting/martin.html

http://www.mystica.gr/bios_lcdsm.htm

http://www.thenazareneway.com/aphorismsmaxims.htm

THEOSOPHIC CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN 

Louis Claude de Saint-Martin

(THE "UNKNOWN PHILOSOPHER") 

AND Kirchberger, Baron de Liebistorf

(MEMBER OF THE GRAND COUNCIL OF BERNE) *

Translated and Edited by Edward Burton Penny

Link * : http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/stmartin/stm-hp.htm

Book for you :

Waite, Arthur Edward, 1857-1942 - The life of Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, the unknown philosopher, and the substance of his transcendental doctrine; (1901)

Link : http://www.archive.org/details/lifeoflouisclaud00wait