Martinism
form of Christian mysticism and esoteric Christianity
Martinism is a form of Christian mysticism and esoteric Christianity concerned with the fall of the first man, his materialistic state of being deprived of his own divine source, and the process of his eventual (if not inevitable) return, called 'Reintegration'.
As a mystical tradition, it was first transmitted through a Masonic high-degree system established around 1740 in France by Martinez de Pasqually, and later propagated in different forms by his two students Louis Claude de Saint-Martin and Jean-Baptiste Willermoz.
The term Martinism applies to both this particular doctrine and the teachings of the reorganized "Martinist Order" founded in 1886 by Augustin Chaboseau and Gérard Encausse (aka Papus). It was not used at the tradition's inception in the 18th century. This confusing disambiguation has been a problem since the late 18th century, where the term Martinism was already used interchangeably between the teachings of Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin and Martinez de Pasqually, and the works of the first being attributed to the latter.
Three branches
Martinism can be divided into three forms through which it has been chronologically transmitted: the theurgic tradition of Martinez de Pasqually (Martinezism), the Masonic Templarism of Jean-Baptiste Willermoz (Willermozism) and the Christian Theosophy of Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin. This heritage was reorganized into the 'Ordre Martiniste' in 1886 by Augustin Chaboseau and Gerard Encausse (also known as Papus).
The Élus Coëns
The Élus Coëns (Cohen being the Hebrew for "priest" and "Elus" means "the elect" or "the chosen") was the first, and explicitly theurgical, way that 'reintegration' was to be attained. The Élus Coëns were founded by Martinez de Pasqually, who was Saint-Martin's teacher. The original Élus Coëns ceased to exist sometime in the late eighteenth or early 19th century, but it was revived in the 20th century by Robert Ambelain, and lives on today in various Martinist Orders, including the branch reinstigated by Ambelain himself.
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This entry incorporates text from “Martinism” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.