Preface Acknowledgments ONE "Memories Weigh More than Stone": Edmond Bailly's Bookshop 1888 Victor-Emile Michelet at Bailly's Bookshop TWO The Build Up Politics and Power Decadence Recovering Lost Powers THREE Meetings with Remarkable Men St. Martin Fabre d'Olivet Eliphas Levi FOUR Theosophy and the Tradition Lady Caithness Saint-Yves d'Alveydre Agarttha FIVE Stanislas de Guaita Abbe Lacuria SIX The Sar The Peladans SEVEN The Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross Vicomte Louis Charles Edouard de Lapasse and the Rose-Croix of Toulouse Peladan and the Templars De Guaita and Boullan The Order Paul Adam Barlet EIGHT Papus Paul Sedir and Marc Haven NINE Rosicrucial Differences The Order of the Catholic Rose-Croix, the Temple and the Graal TEN The Salon of the Century The Manifestation ELEVEN The Boullan Affair TWELVE Satie and Debussy: Moved by the Gnosis Gnossiennes--Erik's Gnostic Twist The Way Out The Esoteric Debussy The Magic in Music THIRTEEN The Gnostic Church Jules Doinel Leonce-Eugene Joseph Fabre des Essarts (1848-1917) Developments within the Gnostic Church--the Palladium Controversy FOURTEEN How to Become a Magus: The Rose-Croix Salons 1893-1897 The Salon of 1893 The Rose-Croix Salons of 1894 and 1895 FIFTEEN The Martinist Order SIXTEEN The Boys Move In Joanny Bricaud (1881-1934) Deodat Roche The Ancient & Primitive Rites of Memphis and Misraim Theodor Reuss, Ancient & Primitive, and the Universal Gnostic Church SEVENTEEN To the End with Papus EIGHTEEN The Legacy: A Forgotten Dream Extramural Synarchy Notes Bibliography
Tobias Churton is Britain’s leading scholar of Western Esotericism, a world authority on Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and Rosicrucianism. An Honorary Fellow of Exeter University, where he is a faculty lecturer, he holds a master’s degree in Theology from Brasenose College, Oxford, and is the author of many books, including Gnostic Philosophy and Aleister Crowley: The Beast in Berlin. He lives in England.
". . . a massive, focused exploration of the relationship between
the mystical and the creative. . .This entertaining volume will
please fans of esoterica and the City of Light."
*Publishers Weekly*
“With Tobias Churton as the cicerone--or dare I say
psychopomp?--the reader is expertly guided in the labyrinthine
world of the Occult Paris of the Belle Époque (1871-1914). This is
the best introduction to the French occult revival ever written in
English.”
*Henrik Bogdan, professor of religious studies at the University of
Gothenburg*
“Music, art, literature, mysticism--fin-de-siècle Paris had it all
in great abundance, and in Tobias Churton’s latest tome he uncovers
the hidden and not-so-hidden connections between Satie, Debussy,
Redon, Rops, Khnopff, Gauguin, Crowley, Lévi, Papus, Mathers,
Péladan, Michelet, Blavatsky, Reuss, Huysmans, Breton, and
countless others. . . . Eminently readable and filled with
meticulous historical details, this is a fabulous depiction of one
of the most exciting and fervent periods of creativity in modern
times.”
*John Zorn, composer-performer*
“A tour de force. A stunning account of fin-de-siècle Occult Paris
and its lasting influence on the counterculture. . . . Churton
gives comprehensive portrayals of such occult luminaries as
Péladan, Papus, and de Guaita as well as a portrayal of their
movements and a seminal analysis of esoteric art--in particular the
‘Rosicrucian’ art of the salons--locating its place in the
intellectual, cultural, and political milieu of the Belle Époque.
Tobias is as erudite as he is excited and exciting. His scholarship
is alive with passion, imagination, humor, and, most of all,
humanity. A must-read for students of European history, Art
Nouveau, Symbolism, Idealism, Surrealism, and the Decadents as well
as for neo-Rosicrucian, Templar and Gnostic esotericists, and
modern-day alchemists and magicians.”
*Stephen J. King (Shiva X°), Grand Master, Ordo Templi
Orientis*
“No one can evoke the feel of a place and an era like Tobias
Churton! This is Paris in the Belle Époque, but behind the city of
the can-can, Toulouse-Lautrec, and the Moulin Rouge, Churton shows
us a Paris of seekers in mysterious worlds--magic, Hermeticism,
Kabbalah, alchemy--and of artists, writers, and composers who were
also drawn to those realms. The spirit of their compelling quest is
stamped on every page of this book.”
*Christopher McIntosh, Ph.D., author of Eliphas Lévi*
“Tobias Churton brings this amazing era to life. Gnostics, Free
Masons, Rosicrucians, Hermetics…The echos of Paris’ Belle Epoque is
still heard in cultural and spiritual movements today.”
*The Echo*
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