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Louis Claude de Saint-Martin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Louis Claude de Saint-Martin (January 18, 1743 [1] 14 October 1803) was a French philosopher, known as le philosophe inconnu, the name under which his works were published.

Contents
1 2 3 4 5 Life Works Inuence References External links

Life
He was born at Amboise, into a poor but noble family.

Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, the "unknown philosopher"

As his father wished, he tried rst law and then the army as a profession. While in the garrison at Bordeaux, he came under the inuence of Martinez de Pasqually, usually called a Portuguese Jew (although later research has revealed the probability that he was a Spanish Catholic), who taught a species of mysticism drawn from cabbalistic sources, and endeavoured to found thereon a secret cult with magical or theurgical rites. Around September 1768 Saint-Martin was introduced to the Elect Cons. From 1768 until 1771, Saint-Martin worked at Bordeaux as secretary to Martinez de Pasqually. In 1771, Saint-Martin left the army to become a preacher of mysticism. Same year he was living with Jean-Baptiste Willermoz at Lyon, while writing his rst book. His conversational powers made him welcome in Parisian salons; but his zeal led him to England, where he made the acquaintance of William Law, the English mystic, and to Italy and Switzerland, as well as to the chief towns of France. In 1784, Saint-Martin joined Society of Harmony in Paris. In 1787, he met William Law on a trip to London. From 1788 until 1791 he resided at Strasbourg, where he met Baron Karl Gran Silfverhjelm, the nephew of Emanuel Swedenborg. At Strasbourg, in 1788, he met Charlotte de Boecklin, who introduced him to the writings of Jakob Bhme. In July 1790, he resigned from Rectied Scottish Rite and asked Jean-Baptiste Willermoz for his name to be removed from all Masonic

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registers. In 1792, Saint-Martin began corresponding with the Swiss theosopher Niklaus Anton Kirchberger von Liebisdorf. A nobleman, he was interned and his property was conscated during the French Revolution. He was later freed by local ocials, who wanted him to become a school teacher. He was brought up a strict Catholic, and always remained attached to the Church, although his rst work, Of Errors and Truth, was placed upon the Index. He died at Aulnay (now Chtenay-Malabry), from October 13 to October 14, 1803.

Works
He was the rst to translate the writings of Jakob Bhme from German into French. His later years were devoted almost entirely to the composition of his chief works and to the translation of Bhme. His published letters show that he was interested in spiritualism, magnetic treatments, magical evocation and the works of Emanuel Swedenborg. His chief works are Lettre un ami, ou Considrations philosophiques et religieuses sur la rvolution franaise (Letter to a Friend, or Philosophical and Religious Considerations on the French Revolution), clair sur l'Association humaine, L'Esprit des choses ou Coup d'il philosophique sur la nature des tres et sur l'objet de leur existence and Le Ministre de l'Homme-Esprit. Other treatises appeared in his uvres posthumes (1807). Saint-Martin regarded the French Revolution as a sermon in action, if not indeed a miniature of the last judgment. His ideal society was a natural and spiritual theocracy, in which God would raise up men of mark and endowment, who would regard themselves strictly as divine commissioners to guide the people. All ecclesiastical organization was to disappear, giving place to a purely spiritual Christianity, based on the assertion of a faculty superior to the reason moral sense, from which we derive knowledge of God. God exists as an eternal personality, and the creation is an overowing of the divine love, which was unable to contain itself. The human soul, the human intellect or spirit, the spirit of the universe and the elements or matter, are the four stages of this divine emanation, man being the immediate reection of God, and nature in turn a reection of man. Man, however, has fallen from his high estate, and matter is one of the consequences of his fall. But divine love, united to humanity in Christ, will work the nal regeneration.

Inuence
Admirers of his works formed groups of Friends of St. Martin, which later became known as Martinists. They were inuential on the formation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

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References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
1. ^ Note biogrque (http://www.philosophe-inconnu.com/Homme/bio_Gence4.htm)

External links
Louis Claude de Saint-Martin (http://kingsgarden.org/English/Organizations /OM.GB/StMartin/StMartin.html) Detailed biography (Eleazar Institute) (http://homepage.mac.com/s.babayan /Apokatastasis/page0/page10/page10.html) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Louis_Claude_de_SaintMartin&oldid=600315737" Categories: 1743 births 1803 deaths People from Amboise Martinism French philosophers Mystics Christian mystics This page was last modied on 19 March 2014 at 15:17. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-prot organization.

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