Work continues apace for my three-volume anthology of Joséphin Péladan’s vast oeuvre, contracted to Theion Publishing. The first of these will be submitted by the end of 2025, for publication in 2026.
The anthology series is organised by theme, covering the breadth of Péladan’s output. What follow are working titles, but cover the structure of the series:
- Escaping the Claws of the Sphinx. This deals with his esoteric curriculum for self-initiation.
- Repairing the Error of Orpheus presents his prescribed methods for creating ensouled art to subvert society.
- Tales for the end of an Era anthologises his ritual theatre and literary works designed to lead the unsuspecting reader or spectator to spiritual awakening.
Each volume is introduced with a scholarly essay that provides context and explains the rationale for the selection, followed by annotated, translated excerpts curated from Péladan’s most representative works, and a selected bibliography. Together with my 2022 full length study of Péladan’s life and work, already available from Theion, the anthology will form the most complete presentation of Péladan ever published in English.
Synopsis for Book 1
Notorious French occultist and Rosicrucian writer Joséphin Péladan is best known for his organization of the fabled Salons de Rose-Croix and his chaotic impact on the Parisian Occult Revival. Standing at the cusp of the twentieth century, he was convinced that the end of Western civilization was in sight, and issued a battle cry to artists and occultists to join him in his desperate attempts to bring about the spiritual regeneration of society through mythopoetic art underpinned by esoteric thought.
Deeply informed by Platonic thought and his Luciferian rewriting of Genesis, his esoteric texts include a series of manuals for self-initiation directed at men, women, and artists respectively. He called his method kaloprosopia, an art of transformation of personality and ‘sublimation of man,’ through a life lived as a work of art with the purpose of discovering, cultivating, and exteriorising one’s divine nature with the aim of manifesting social regeneration. He believed that initiation could not occur in a vacuum, but is a social affair that had to take place on the material plane and in the public sphere; that it incorporates a profound act of inner transformation, and stands in direct opposition to the secrecy of conventional esoteric orders.
The essence of his teaching is the transmission of an esoteric process of self-knowledge and spiritual development, based on the cultivation of the intellect and the development of conscious individualism. This book presents a distillation of his esoteric teachings from Comment on devient mage (for men); Comment on devient fée (for women), and Comment on devient Ar(t)iste (for artists) alongside a carefully curated selection of annotated translations from the original manuals designed to guide his reader to redefine and re-establish their relationship with society, the opposite sex, material pursuits, and to evolve a conscious mode of being in the world. Péladan displayed a considerable understanding of human nature in his work, and catered for different types of individuals depending on their intellectual abilities and spiritual sensibilities. Introduced with an extensive essay providing context and insights into Péladan’s worldview, this is the first scholarly treatment of Péladan’s work in English that also provides practical material and sufficient context for newcomers and seasoned readers alike to discover, and if they wish, apply the esoteric intricacies of his occult vision.
Excerpt:
To explain the notion of the ideal feminine to his readers and exhort them to manifest it, Péladan thought that he first had to beat down the socially imposed façade foisted on the women of his time. This sentiment is reflected throughout the book, and Péladan vociferates not against women per se, but what women had been moulded into by social expectations:
From boarding school where spontaneity is reprimanded, to the salon where again, games of wordplay and double meanings are forbidden to her, the modern woman obeys negative commandments. To wait, to refuse, to retreat and to be silent, there is the entire behaviour expected [of women]: and society which is […] made of generalised selfishness, overwrites the individualism of souls as if by State decree.
To communicate his message to women thus conditioned, he thought that he needed to break through the silliness, hysteria, snobbery, ignorance, or religious fervour with which their heads were filled by social demands, to “ruin the temple of Woman” by inspiring women to break out of these moulds and discover their inner power. The book begins thus:
Receive, my sister, this precious gift that the hierophants once gave only to young queens. If a true princess still existed in the world, […] a woman who was simultaneously powerful as the sun and intelligent before God, I would have given her this book instead of publishing it. Alas! The intelligent ones are not princesses, and the princesses are no longer intelligent. […] You, Miss or Mrs Everywoman, […] who believe someone because the moonlight makes you dreamy, you who seek amorous impressions in art, will you understand? Will you understand when I […] explain the binary secrets? A flying pistol, a hand of glory, the ring of Gyges, the hat of Fortunatus, the rod of Aaron, a singing mandragore, Abraxas: these are what you desire to receive from the Mage. The devil, his pacts and possessions, the sabbath and its luxuries, sorcery and its captivation: this is what you avidly read. Instead of this criminal hodgepodge, my work is a kind of brass serpent: at its touch nervous maladies, hallucinations of passion, [and] feminine obsessions will be cured. I have thrown the nets of Vulcan over the eternal couple, and I invite thinking beings to consider what love […means] in the matrix of metaphysical law.
Read more about my biography and overview of Péladan’s work here:
