Papus and the Martinist Order: Gérard Encausse's Occultism

Papus was the pen name of Gérard Encausse (1865–1916), a French physician and the most energetic organiser of the Paris occult revival of the 1880s and 1890s. He wrote popular textbooks on occult science, Kabbalah and the tarot, edited the journal L'Initiation, and in the late 1880s founded the Martinist Order, an initiatic society that claimed descent from the eighteenth-century mystic Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin. Martinist orders derived from his work still exist in Europe, the Americas and Africa.

The Life of Gérard Encausse§

Gérard Anaclet Vincent Encausse was born on 13 July 1865 at A Coruña in Spain, to a French father, the chemist Louis Encausse, and a Spanish mother. The family settled in Paris when he was a child. As a medical student in the 1880s he spent long hours in the Bibliothèque nationale reading the alchemists, the Kabbalah and the works of Éliphas Lévi, and he chose his pseudonym from the Nuctemeron, a text attributed to Apollonius of Tyana that Lévi had printed as an appendix to his Dogme et rituel de la haute magie, where Papus appears as a genius of medicine.

Like many young occultists of his generation he joined the Theosophical Society, but he soon left, objecting to its Eastern orientation; he wanted to defend what he called the Western esoteric tradition. He qualified in medicine in the 1890s and practised as a doctor in Paris for the rest of his life, combining conventional practice with an interest in what he called hermetic medicine. His closest collaborators included the poet and Kabbalist Stanislas de Guaita, the novelist Joséphin Péladan in the early years, the writer Paul Sédillot ("Sédir") and the engineer Marc Haven.

L'Initiation and the Paris Occult Network§

Papus's gift was for organisation and popularisation. In 1888 he founded the monthly review L'Initiation, which became the main organ of the Paris occultists, and soon afterwards the weekly Le Voile d'Isis. He worked closely with the publisher Lucien Chamuel, whose Librairie du Merveilleux became a meeting place for the movement, organised lectures, and in the late 1890s set up a school, the Groupe indépendant d'études ésotériques, later a "free school of hermetic sciences", that offered courses to the public.

In 1888 he joined Guaita in founding the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross, a small learned order that awarded degrees on examination in occult subjects. He was also consecrated a bishop in Jules Doinel's neo-Gnostic Church and later became prominent in irregular Masonic rites, including the Rite of Memphis-Misraïm, and in 1908 he presided over an international spiritualist and Masonic conference in Paris. The wider landscape of these groups is surveyed in our article on French occultism.

Papus's Writings: Tarot, Kabbalah and Occult Science§

Papus wrote or compiled dozens of books. They are rarely original, but they are clear, schematic and generously illustrated, and they did more than any other works to give French occultism the form of a teachable system.

The Tarot of the Bohemians§

Le Tarot des Bohémiens (1889), translated into English as The Tarot of the Bohemians in 1892, presented the tarot as an ancient book of universal wisdom preserved by the Romani, whom many writers then believed had come from Egypt. Following Lévi, Papus linked the twenty-two trumps to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and organised the deck around the four letters of the divine name, Yod-He-Vau-He, which he treated as a key to every science. The book included designs by Oswald Wirth and became one of the main channels by which French tarot theory reached English-speaking occultists; see the history of tarot.

The Methodical Treatise and other works§

The Traité méthodique de science occulte (1891), a book of over a thousand pages, set out occultism as an integrated science of analogy, running from the doctrine of correspondences through astrology, alchemy and magic to the history of secret societies. La Kabbale (1892) introduced Jewish and Christian Kabbalah to French readers through the lens of Lévi and the Christian Kabbalists, and the Traité élémentaire de magie pratique (1893) described ritual magic as the training of the will. Throughout, Papus insisted that occultism was compatible with science and with Christianity, a position shared by his whole circle.

Saint-Martin and the Origins of the Martinist Order§

The Martinist Order drew its name and spirit from Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin (1743–1803), a French aristocrat and former army officer who wrote under the name "the Unknown Philosopher". As a young man Saint-Martin had been a disciple of Martinès de Pasqually (died 1774), founder of the Order of Élus Coëns, a Masonic body that practised elaborate theurgic rituals intended to restore fallen humanity to communion with God. Saint-Martin later turned away from ceremonial operations to an inward path of prayer and contemplation, the "way of the heart", and in his final years he was deeply influenced by the German mystic Jacob Boehme, whom he translated.

Saint-Martin seems to have initiated a few friends privately, by a simple personal transmission, but he founded no formal order. In the 1880s Papus and his friend Augustin Chaboseau each claimed to have received such a transmission through separate chains of individual initiates: Papus through the writer Henri Delaage, Chaboseau through a relative. Around 1886 to 1887 they exchanged their initiations, and between then and 1891, when a Supreme Council was formed in Paris, they organised the Ordre Martiniste. Historians regard the claimed lines of descent as impossible to verify, and the order as essentially a creation of the 1880s inspired by Saint-Martin's writings.

Degrees, symbols and purpose§

The order worked three degrees, usually called Associate, Initiate and Unknown Superior, the last abbreviated S∴I∴. Initiations used symbolic objects such as a mask and cloak, signifying the anonymity and inner silence of the initiate, and a cord, and the meetings took place in small groups, or lodges, before an altar with lights. Unlike Freemasonry, the order admitted women from early on. Its declared aim was the "reintegration" of the human being, a term taken from Martinès de Pasqually, through study, prayer and charity in a Christian and Hermetic framework. By the early twentieth century it had lodges in many European countries and in the Americas. The Martinist model of personal, small-group initiation is discussed among other initiatory orders.

Maître Philippe and the Russian Court§

From the 1890s Papus became devoted to Nizier Anthelme Philippe (1849–1905), a healer of Lyon known as "Maître Philippe", who practised cures through prayer and was prosecuted several times for the illegal practice of medicine. Papus regarded him as a living spiritual master far above any occult technique, and in his later writings he placed simple Christian devotion above magical operations.

Through aristocratic Russian admirers, Philippe was introduced to Tsar Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra in 1901 and spent periods at the Russian court. Papus himself visited Russia in 1901 and again around 1905. Stories that he conducted séances for the imperial family, including one in which he supposedly evoked the spirit of Alexander III, circulated widely, but they rest on later and uncertain testimony. Philippe's influence on the empress prepared the way, in the view of several historians, for the later ascendancy of Rasputin.

Death and the Later Martinist Tradition§

When war broke out in 1914 Papus volunteered as a military doctor. He contracted tuberculosis at the front and died in Paris on 25 October 1916. Without his personality the Martinist movement fragmented. Charles Détré ("Teder") and then Jean Bricaud led one line from Lyon; Augustin Chaboseau and others founded the Ordre Martiniste Traditionnel in 1931; and Papus's son, Philippe Encausse, revived the Ordre Martiniste after the Second World War. The Ordre Martiniste Traditionnel became closely associated with the Rosicrucian organisation AMORC, through which Martinism reached many members in North America.

Papus's reputation has risen and fallen. Contemporary critics such as René Guénon, who passed through the Paris occult schools as a young man, dismissed his work as superficial "occultism" and contrasted it with authentic traditional teaching. Modern historians see him instead as a characteristic figure of the Belle Époque: a positivist-trained doctor who sought to reconcile science and religion through a revived Hermetic tradition, and who built the networks, journals and orders through which the ideas of Lévi reached the twentieth century. His place in the broader movement is traced in our article on the occult revival.

Frequently asked questions§

Why did Gérard Encausse call himself Papus?§

He took the name from the Nuctemeron, a list of spirits of the twelve hours attributed to Apollonius of Tyana and printed by Éliphas Lévi. In that text Papus is named as a genius of medicine, which suited a young doctor.

What is Martinism?§

Martinism is a form of Christian esotericism inspired by Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin and his teacher Martinès de Pasqually. As an organised order it was created by Papus and Augustin Chaboseau in the late 1880s, and it teaches the spiritual reintegration of the human being through study, prayer and initiation.

Is the Martinist Order a branch of Freemasonry?§

No. Martinist orders are independent of regular Freemasonry, admit women, and use their own simple degrees. There is, however, a historical overlap: Martinès de Pasqually's Élus Coëns were Masonic, and many Martinists have also been Freemasons.

Did Papus really advise Tsar Nicholas II?§

Papus visited Russia and met the imperial family in the early 1900s, largely through his association with Maître Philippe. Accounts of séances he held for the Tsar are poorly documented and should be treated with caution.

Sources and further reading§

• The Tarot of the Bohemians — Papus, 1889
• Traité méthodique de science occulte — Papus, 1891
• Saint-Martin the French Mystic and the Story of Modern Martinism — Arthur Edward Waite, 1922
• Eliphas Lévi and the French Occult Revival — Christopher McIntosh, 1972
• Papus, biographie: la Belle Époque de l'occultisme — Marie-Sophie André and Christophe Beaufils, 1995
• The Theosophical Enlightenment — Joscelyn Godwin, 1994