Dear all, thank you for the many messages you’ve sent me since last year. Because many of you asked, I’ve decided to write a post on my spiritual journey and the future of this website.

As probably some of you already know, I’ve resigned from Freemasonry and all other esoteric orders I was involved with, including Rosicrucianism and Martinism.

A little background:

I joined UGLE quite a few years ago and after the 3^rd degree I joined other side orders in England: Royal Arch, Mark, Knights Templar, SRIA, and many others.

I have always been fascinating by the ‘unknown’, that’s why I’ve joined all these orders: I was hoping to find some ‘light’ and growing spiritually.

Being an avid learner, I’ve deeply studied all I could get my hands on. In regards to Masonic organised learning, there wasn’t much in England, so I went to the US to join another masonic lodge and the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, becoming a 32º. There I’ve studied the curriculum organised by the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction, three complete courses on Freemasonry and the Scottish Rite. These courses fully explored the Symbolic (Blue) Lodge, the Scottish Rite history and ritual, and the Scottish Rite philosophy; it was a lot of reading and studying (including the whole Pike’s Morals and Dogma). I think they provided me with a comprehensive understanding of Freemasonry and the Scottish Rite, or at least a solid foundation where I later built my masonic knowledge on. Then I became involved in researching subjects on a deeper level, joining many academic and esoteric study circles, and began to write a few articles for masonic magazines around the world.

Then I’ve joined Martinism and immediately became very involved with it. It was interesting to notice that, contrary to Freemasonry where the majority of people are interested almost exclusively in the social aspect of it, many in Martinism were on a real spiritual quest, hoping to find the Light.

With Martinism came many other ‘associated’ orders, such as the Élus Coëns and others that I won’t mention here. Many were esoterically active: rituals for the various degrees, material to study (some with a well-structured curriculum), rituals to do at home, and other related subjects to explore, such as Kabbalah, Alchemy, Astrology, etc.

The Three Luminaries blog

The Three Luminaries website came at this point of the story: because of the lockdown, I’ve created this blog and started to share my research and studies.

I speak five languages quite fluently so this skill came very handy in studying material in other languages. Regarding Martinism, there isn’t much material published in English, so I started buying old French books (mostly from the time of Papus) and translated and published some of them.

I found strange that in the Martinist orders that I was involved with, the writings of Saint-Martin were not really studied. Most of the people I know, especially in the UK, did not even read one book written by Saint-Martin. Very few people read The Unknown Philosopher by Waite (a summary of Saint-Martin’s philosophy) and almost nobody read the books written by Saint-Martin himself. Probably because most of those books are not translated in English. Anyway, everybody was more interested in ‘modern’ Martinism and its related subjects than the philosophy of the Unknown Philosopher from which the Order got its name. I wanted to learn everything about Saint-Martin so I began reading and studying his books.

Then I moved to ‘modern’ Martinism, particularly the writings of Papus and the activities and writings of his fellows, including Paul Sédir.

Modern Martinism

This is not the time to discuss Saint-Martin but I will briefly tell you what I think: Saint-Martin never created any Order, and I believe he did not want to create any, otherwise he would have done so. He knew how to do it, he was Martinez de Pasqually’s secretary and he was in charge (administratively) of the Order of the Élus Coëns. He also structured Pasqually’s thoughts and helped him in writing the Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings. Do you really think that Saint-Martin was not able to create an Order for the new philosophy he embraced when he started following Jakob Bohme and Swedenborg’s teachings? I don’t think so. If he didn’t create a structured Order, it is because he didn’t want to do so.

It was Papus (who was involved with all sorts of esoteric orders) that created the Martinist Order in the late 1800s, claiming a lineage from Saint-Martin himself. Again, not the topic of this post but I would mention en passant that the French Martinist historian Serge Caillet stated that Papus made it all up. Given the scarce material at Papus’ disposal and the discrepancy between Saint-Martin’s writings and Papus’ ‘new’ Martinist Order, I very much agree.

Papus was very active in his field and wrote hundreds of papers and books. He organised conferences and even created a magazine. At that time (and still today in some Martinist orders) everybody was studying everything. All subjects involved with esotericism were deeply studied and researched. Papus called them Sciences Occultes and some of these topics were Kabbalah, Alchemy, Astrology, Tarot (Papus even created his own version), Egyptian Masonry, Hermeticism, Philosopher’s Stone, Secret Traditions, Mysteries, Operative Magic, Talismans, grimoires, etc.

After reading all Saint-Martin’s books, I’ve realised that modern Martinism is actually in contrast with Saint-Martin’s mysticism, and I am quite sure Saint-Martin would not have approved many of the subjects studied by modern Martinists. Let’s not forget that Saint-Martin left the theurgy of his former master Martinez de Pasqually for a reason. Nowadays there are some people who think Saint-Martin never abandoned theurgy: wishful thinking in my opinion.

The Papusian approach was that of mixing everything: Martinez, Saint-Martin, and Willermoz for the ‘Martinist’ lineage, plus all the subjects cited above, and more! Also, Papus deviced the Martinist Order as the outer order of something else. Originally, he was hoping to have the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor as the inner order (and this is one of those order based on the magic-sexual theories of Paschal Beverly Randolph, in some respects similar to OTO…), but because he couldn’t have it, he fell back on the Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix, making the S:::I::: a requirement to join this order.

All this was very interesting to me but I couldn’t help in noticing a clear dichotomy: the writings of Saint-Martin do not really reflect the Papusian approach. On one side there is the ‘way of the heart’ of Saint-Martin, his thoughts on mystic Christianism, on the other there are theurgy and all the rest. I don’t think mixing them was a good idea.

Change of spiritual direction

As this is a very personal story, I won’t share it here on the blog for now, perhaps in the future.

I just tell you that, coincidentally, my story is very similar to that of Paul Sédir, one of Papus’ closest friends and a crucial character in the development of Martinism and its associated orders. After having met Maître Philippe (who by the way later radically changed his ideas on Catholicism; more on a future article), Sédir abandoned his titles, rejecting any initiation and esoteric ‘wisdom’, and dedicated himself exclusively to living and spreading the Gospel.

For me it was different, Our Lady gave me the grace to realise that everything I was involved with was wrong. This was not a realisation that came from human knowledge, but a knowledge that came from the Holy Spirit in a very particular circumstance. It was so powerful, so magnificient and different from all I had experienced before that everything was clear in the light of Faith: not only all I was involved with was not consistent with the Revealed Truth, but I was also going towards the path of losing my soul; in a few words, I felt into the old trap of the enemy, the master of deception that bring people into complete confusion about how their souls can be saved. He makes you think you are going one way, in reality you are going in the opposite direction.

I knew that I only had one choice to save my soul: to fully return to the real Christ and His Church and renouncing all involvement with esotericism, and that’s what I did.

Future of this website

So, where does this take The Three Luminaries now?

Well, as you have probably understood by now, I no longer share the views I had when I started this blog.

On the opposite, I now believe that esotericism, occultism, and all the various initiatic orders associated with Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Martinism, Martinezism, Gnosticism, Ceremonial Magic, etc. are not only useless for one’s spiritual growth, but even harmful. Including the studies of the subjects I mentioned above such as Kabbalah, Astrology, Alchemy, Divination, etc. They are not an aid to progress in our spiritual quest, but a hindrance.

I know that this sounds harsh and many of you will vehemently disagree but after my experience and studies, this is what I think, and I will state my reasons in the future articles on this website.

I hope you all will keep following this blog, you might find some good food for thought.

God Bless