The Unknown Philosopher (eBook)

The Unknown Philosopher: The Life of Louis Claude De Saint-Martin and the Substance of His Transcendental Doctrine

Louis Claude de Saint-Martin was a French philosopher, also known as “le philosophe inconnu”.  Under the influence of Martinez de Pasquales, who taught him a species of mysticism drawn from cabbalistic sources, he founded a cult of secret, magical and theurgical rites. He went on to become one of the major preachers of mysticism. Arthur Edward Waite’s biography of his life is one of the most detailed works about this man, who was influential on the formation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

A midst the fever of the French Revolution we find certain men, whether actively or not participating in the turmoil of the time, whose intellectual eyes were fixed far off amidst the luminous peace of another and truer order. Here it is the Marquis de Condorcet, while the chaotic forces of the Reign of Terror are surging madly round his quiet study. Again, it is the author of Obermami, forlorn philosophic exile amidst the scented pines of Switzerland. And, once more, it is Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, as isolated amongst the peaks of his spiritual aspirations as ever was Étienne Pivert de Senancour amidst the Alpine snows. Of these three, all after their manner illustrious, Saint-Martin only had a message of permanent importance to the human race. Condorcet was a materialist, and, in the restricted sense, an infidel, who looked to the state for salvation; his considerable gifts were useful perhaps in their day, and he has passed with it, not untenderly remembered, but still to be classed among those whose prophecies have been made void and those whose tongues have failed. The ice of intellectual despair had enervated the soul of Senancour before he went to dwell under the shadow of Jaman, and he, who rightly called himself un solitaire inconnu, had no anodyne for himself or his age.

Contents:

• Preface
• The Life Of Saint Martin
• In The Occult World
• In The Inward Man
• Later History Of Martinism
• Sources Of Martinistic Doctrine
• Swedenborg And Boehme
• Saint Martin And The Occult Sciences
• Primeval Mission Of Man
• The Fall Of Man
• General Consequences Of The Fall
• XMan And Nature
• The Privation Of Man
• Immortality And Death
• The State After Death
• The Doctrine Of The Repairer
• The Nature And State Of Man
• The Inward Way
• Good And Evil
• The Two Principles
• Of Liberty In Man
• Man In His First Estate
• The Word And Its Manifestation
• The Way Of Reintegration
• Minor Doctrines Of Saint Martin
• The Mystical Philosophy Of Numbers
• Appendices

About the Author

Arthur Edward Waite was a British poet and scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider–Waite tarot deck.