Joséphin Péladan was a French novelist and Martinist. His father was a journalist who had written on prophecies, and professed a philosophic-occult Catholicism.

Biography

His eldest brother Adrien studied alchemy and occultism as well. In 1882 he came to Paris where Arsene Houssaye gave him a job on his artistic review, L'Artiste. In 1884 he published his first novel, Le Vice Supreme, which recommended the salvation of man through occult magick of the ancient east.

He claimed that a Babylon

Babylon

Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...

ian King left the title of "Sâr" to his family. Péladans Le vice suprème was interwoven with Rosicrucian

Rosicrucian

Rosicrucianism is a philosophical secret society, said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by Christian Rosenkreuz. It holds a doctrine or theology "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe...

 and occult

Occult

The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...

 themes. After reading Péladan's novel, the French poet Stanislas de Guaita

Stanislas de Guaita

Stanislas de Guaita was a French poet based in Paris, an expert on esotericism and European mysticism, and an active member of the Rosicrucian Order. He was very celebrated and successful in his time. He was an expert on magic and occultism. He had many disputes with other people who were involved...

 became interested in occultism. In Paris, De Guaita and Péladan became acquainted, and in 1884, the two decided to try to rebuild the Rosicrucian Brotherhood.

De Guaita and Péladan recruited Gérard Encausse

Gerard Encausse

thumb|Papus in a Martinist Lodge from la [[Belle époque]]Gerard Encausse , whose esoteric pseudonym was Papus, was the Spanish-born French physician, hypnotist, and popularizer of occultism, who founded the modern Martinist Order.- Overview :Gerard Encausse was born at Corunna in Spain on July 13,...

 to help rebuild the brotherhood. Encausse, who went by the pseudonym “Papus”, was a Spanish-born French physician and occultist who had written books on magic

Magic (paranormal)

Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...

, Kabbalah

Kabbalah

Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...

 and the Tarot

Tarot

The tarot |trionfi]] and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) is a pack of cards , used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play a group of card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot...

. In 1888, De Guaita founded the Cabalistic Order of the Rosicrucian. The Rosicrucian Order is a legendary and secretive Order that was first publicly documented in the early 17th century.

Guaita's Rosicrucian Order provided training in the Kabbalah, an esoteric form of Jewish mysticism, which attempts to reveal hidden mystical insights in the Hebrew Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 and divine nature. The order also conducted examinations and provided university degrees on Kabbalah topics. De Guaita had a large private library of books on metaphysical issues, magic, and the "hidden sciences." He was nicknamed the "Prince of the Rosicrucian" by his contemporaries for his broad learning on Rosicrucian issues.

By the 1890, De Guaita, Papus, and Péladan’s collaboration became increasingly strained by disagreements over strategy and doctrines. De Guaita and Papus lost the support of Péladan, who left to start a competing order. In June 1890, Péladan left the Martinist Order and created a Catholic Order of the Rose and the Cross. Péladan was the leader of the new order, and he took the titles of "Imperator" and "Super Magician".

Publications

• Le Vice suprême, novel, 1884
• Curieuse, 1885
• Femmes honnêtes!, 1885
• L'Initiation sentimentale, 1887
• Istar, 1888
• A coeur perdu, 1888
• Coeur en peine, 1890
• Le prochain conclave; instructions aux cardinaux, 1890
• Comment on devient mage, 1891
• L'androgyne, 1891
• La gynandre, 1891
• La Typhonia, 1892
• Le panthée, 1892
• La queste du Graal - proses lyriques de l'éthopée - la décadence latine; published "au salon de la Rose+Croix" (1892)
• Le theatre complet de Wagner les XI opéras scène par scène avec notes biographiques et critiques, 1894
• L'art idéaliste et mystique: doctrine de lordre et du salon annuel des Rose + Croix , 1894
• Babylone, tragedy, 1895
• Mélusine, 1895
• Le dernier Bourbon, tragedy, 1895
• Le livre du sceptre: politics, 1895
• La Prométhéide : trilogie d'Eschyle en quatre tableaux, 1895
• Le Prince de Byzance, tragedy, 1896
• Œdipe et le Sphinx, tragedy in prose, 1903
• Sémiramis, tragédie en prose, 1904
• La Dernière Leçon de Léonard de Vinci, essay, 1904
• La Clé de Rabelais, 1905
• De Parsifal à don Quichotte, essay, 1906
• La Doctrine de Dante, 1908
• La philosophie de Léonard de Vinci d'après ses manuscrits, essay, 1910 (rééd. Stalker, 2007)
• De l'Androgyne. Théorie plastique, essay 1910

See also

• Stanislas de Guaita
  Stanislas de Guaita
  Stanislas de Guaita was a French poet based in Paris, an expert on esotericism and European mysticism, and an active member of the Rosicrucian Order. He was very celebrated and successful in his time. He was an expert on magic and occultism. He had many disputes with other people who were involved...
  
  
• Joseph-Antoine Boullan
  Joseph-Antoine Boullan
  Abbé Joseph-Antoine Boullan was a French Roman Catholic priest and later a laicized priest, who is often accused of being a satanist although he continued to defend his status as a christian.He was a friend and inspiration of the writer Joris Karl Huysmans...
  
  
• Henri Antoine Jules-Bois
• Joris K. Huysmans