Joséphin Péladan

Joséphin Péladan was a French  jesuit trained freemason and occultist, who in 1888  founded the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose Cross with Papus, Antoine de la Rochefoucauld (patron of Emile Barnard, owner of van Gogh paintings) and Stanislas de Guaita. He helped promoting the Symbolist movement in the art scene (artist as priest, precursor to Surrealism, early Modernism) through his Salon de Rose + Croix in Paris with Arnold Böcklin (Isle of the Dead), Erik Satie (Chat Noir cabaret in Montmartre, Ballets Russes with Pablo Picasso), Fernand Khnopff (Order of Leopold, Young Belgium with jesuit Emile Verhaeren and jesuit Maurice Maeterlinck), Jan Toorop (friend of James Ensor), Theosophist Jean Delville. He claimed to be of Babylonian royalty. He pushed the transgender agenda (the androgynous as key to unification with the divine).

Papus was in contact with Eliphas Levi, Jules Doinel, the Theosophical Society, Hermetic Brotherhood of Light (Carl Kellner, Pascal Beverly Randolph) and Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Russian Romanovs (Nicolas II, cousin of George V Saxe-Coburg of Britain, Order of St John). They promoted Félicien Rops, Stephane Mallarmé, gay agenda of Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud WB Yeats (HOGD), Stefan George, Maurice Maeterlinck,..He founded the Martinist Order, based on the teachings of Louis-Claude De Saint Martin, who was influenced by Jakob Böhme and in contact with the nephew of Emanuel Swedenborg.

Péladan was influenced by Edgar Allen Poe. He designed his own Tarot deck. Like Otto Rahn, he identified Montsalvat of Richard Wagner's Perceval as the Montsegur castle of the Cathars.

Maurice Maeterlinck wrote the Blue Bird (dissociation techniques later perfected in Project Bluebird). Fernand Khnopff formed Les XX with Félicien Rops.

Symbolists like Gustave Moreau were influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of Dante Gabriel Rosetti (addicted to chloral hydrate, painting of Lilith as red haired woman).

Pascal Beverly Randolph founded a rosicrucian lodge to practice sex magic in San Francisco.

Jules Doinel founded a Gnostic Church to revive Catharism.

Stanislas de Gauita published The Key to Black Magic with famous goat's head-inverted pentagram symbol (inscription Samael-Lilith).

JM Charcot and Joseph Babinski were experimenting with hypnosis to access the subconscious and trained André Breton to create the Surrealist movement.

In 2017 the Guggenheim Museum used works of his Salons for the Mystical Symbolism exhibition.

born 3/28/1858.

died 6/27/1918.

Papus

Rosicrucianism

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