Pasqually, Martines de (ca. 1710-1774)

French Kabbalist, Mason, and mystic, and founder of the Order of Elect Cohens. The date of his birth is not known definitely, and even his nationality is a matter of uncertainty. It is commonly supposed, however, that he was born about 1710 somewhere in the south of France, most likely Grenoble. Several writers have maintained that his parents were Jewish, but this theory has largely been dismissed.

It is said that from the outset he evinced a predilection for mysticism in its various forms, while it is certain that in 1754, at Montpellier, he founded an organization called the Scottish Judges, most likely a lodge of speculative Freemasonry. It failed, but around 1760 at Bordeaux he instituted a ceremonial magic organization that combined elements of the Catholic mass with any material from magic texts that he could gather. The members of his order were styled cohens, Hebrew for "priests."

He propagated this Rite des élus Cohens (Order of Elect Cohens) in several Masonic lodges of France, notably those of Marseilles, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Paris. In 1767 he settled in Paris, where he gathered around him many people ready to pursue the magic rituals he proposed. In 1772 he left after he heard that some property had been bequeathed to him on the island of Haiti, and he hastened there with the intention of asserting his rights; but he did not return to France, his death occurring in 1774 at Port-au-Prince, the principal town in Haiti. Pasqually is credited with having written a book, Traité de la ré-integration des etres, but this was not published until the end of the nineteenth century. A rather extensive summary of the rituals he proposed for the order were gathered and published by René Le Forestier in 1928.

The rituals drew heavily upon the Kabala, which Pasqually felt was the essence of true Judaism. The format, however, followed one that would have been familiar to a pious Roman Catholic. The members began the day with a reading of the office of the Holy Spirit. Around ten in the evening, following a time of prayer, the members entered a private ritual space where a ritual diagram would be drawn on the floor. The invocation would begin at midnight. Its purpose was to communicate with what Pasqually termed the "Active and Intelligent Cause" (God).

Members of the order were forbidden to consume blood, fat, or kidneys of any animal, were to refrain from fornication, and not indulge the senses.

Pasqually was succeeded as head of the order by his chief disciple, J. B. Willermoz, but is largely remembered today because of the work of a younger disciple, Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, who carried his work toward a mystical, rather than magical, direction.

Sources:

Le Forestier, René. La Franc-maconnerie occultiste au XVIII siecle et l'ordre des Elus Coens. Paris: Dorbon, 1928.

McIntosh, Christopher. Eliphas Levi and the French Occult Revival. New York: Samuel Weiser, 1974.

Pasqually, Martines de. Traité de la réintegration des etres. Paris: Chacorac, 1899.