The Letters of martinez de Pasqually

Martinez de Pasqually Letter of 9 May, 1772 (Port-au-Prince, Saint-Domingue)

I take a lively interest in the mortification of your having had so little success. I was hindered during my work while you have had considerable satisfaction in yours, but meanwhile I have discovered something, as follows.

I have no doubt the same as this has transpired in whole or part in your presence, although you have seen nothing. If you had been able to fix upon the least impression, or only to perceive it in the swiftness of passing, that would have been a great guide for you, which would have served to disclose the rest; for this experience will never be realized except by yourself, and your right understanding, which will come to instruct and inform you, either in work or interpretation. Nevertheless, it is not necessary to alarm you concerning that which is so rigorous and intractable for you. On the contrary that should increase your courage and confidence in the certainty that your time and happiness cannot fail to arrive, if you will it, for at the last man is master.

Martinez de Pasqually, Letter of 19 September, 1767

We are all men, and in this quality no one of us is just before Him (God). Let us recall that He has not sent us here for Himself but for ourselves. It rests with us to be in Him, since it is thus alone that we can find rest for ourselves.

God has punished me by smiting me in this manner, but his just chastisement should relieve all my doubts. Man has never been like a beast, in that the beast remains without punishment, and the man is of God when he has failed, and the punishment which the man receives, the moment he has sinned, assures him the favour of this Perfect Being. Not willing to lose him completely, He afflicts him and makes him see by that ?? has not withdrawn His mercy and grace.

Man is ambitious, inquisitive, and insatiable. His imagination follows his thought; his laxity and disgust destroy in an instant the performance of his projects. All this renders him uneasy, wicked, and hostile to those who have wished to elevate him, admitting of no other success than by him who directs their operations, putting in him incomparable confidence, taking him even for a god in their demand, and willing even to ignore that such an one is only a man like themselves. As for me, I am ? man and do not think that I have in myself more than any other man. I have always said that every man has before him all the convenient materials to do all that I have been able to do in my small way. Man has only to will, and he will have authority and power.

Martinez de Pasqually, Letter of 13 April, 1768

Be not impatient; await your time; this class of things is not at the discretion of man alone, but even to that of T… H… and T… P… Eternal. It would be speaking rashly and foolishly if I should declare to you that these things were in my power alone. I am only ? feeble instrument whom God wishes well, unworthy as I am to be used by him to recall men, my fellow creatures, to their first estate of masonry, which would speak spiritually to man or his soul to make him see truly that man is divine, created after the image and likeness of this Almighty Being.

Concerning that which you have spoken to me that you absolutely wish to be truly convinced of the object of the Order that depends upon yourself. Place it well before you that God and he who has charge of your conduct in this matter have you always before then the Order embraces a true science. It is founded upon truth, pure and plain. It is impossible that sophistry rules there or that charlatanism presides there. On the contrary, the false is only for a time, it flees away, and the truth abides. To be convinced of this verity it is necess??? that you should have followed me a much longer time than have done, as by this means all doubts will be dissipated.

You possess about you all the emblems of this pure truth. Observe only the five unequal digits upon your hands and feet (fingers and toes) and try to divine these different emblems. l vow to you that you will have no greater thing to ask of me to Part 4: Notes, Extracts & Letters be assured that the Order embraces, for the child of this low world, things very necessary and essential for his advantage; therefore, the Order seeks the man of the 31st, and when he allows himself to be led he is content.

Observe, ?… ?… ?…, all that I can answer upon all the questions which you have put to me in your letter. I answer without disguise or without flattery. I have never sought to lead a person into error nor to deceive those who have come to me in good faith, to receive any knowledge which my predecessors have transmitted to me. I will always prove the contrary before God and men and even for those who are my most cruel enemies.

Martinez de Pasqually, Letter of 5 May, 1769

By the power of commandment man will be still further able to restrain evil demons in bereavement by refusing them all communication with him, which is presented to us by the inequality of the five fingers of the hand, of which the middle finger typifies the soul, the thumb the good spirit, the index fingers the good intellect, the two others representing equally the spirit and the demonical intellect. We readily understand by this figure that man has only been created face to face with the evil demon in Order to restrain and combat him.

The power of man was much superior to that of the demon since the man joined to his science that of his companion and intellect, and that, by this means, he is able to oppose three good spiritual powers against two feeble demonical powers, which should totally subjugate promoters of evil and in consequence destroy evil itself.

You tell me that you have not been received by me into the truth. I am not aware of having a surer way than that by which I have received you. My Condition and quality of a true man have always held me in my present position. I repeat to you, P… M…, that I have, in regard myself, for every defence, only the truth. It is true that some-times I have imprudently divulged a little too much, and, above all, to persons who have not deserved it.

I have received your letter, which it pleased you to write me last month. I see with much heartache the pain and suffering which your original nature has caused your body to suffer; but these things are innate and for that reason it is impossible to find means to oppose the different effects of this first principle. We are corporeally born with seven original evils, every corporeal form of which is not known, and it is not possible to avoid evil under every form in which it may exist. But, with a little serious reflection, man is yet able to weaken and diminish the many annoyances consequent and dangerous to the integrity and stability of our individuality. Therefore, wise legislators have well foreseen the great inconvenience which man was susceptible of inflicting upon his individuality, by the strength and authority of his free will, able to consider by it and able to reflect with his relative ignorance after his own pattern and ordinary habit. Therefore, the celebrated spiritual legislator has given seven principal and capital crimes to man and not to his body, although the seven things are attached to the body and not to the man.

Man is alone responsible to God for the little care and consideration he has had of having unwisely sent into unusual activity the things named above, which I am unable to explain in long detail, but it should be done. It is, P… ?…‚ the great knowledge of the legislator, as well as the intimate friendship which he has had for man, his imitator, and for his spiritual and bodily preservation, that he has made seven principal commandments, to which he subjects and constrains the man of desire to follow scrupulously. These commandments are based upon the conservation of nature, hence all that may be done against nature will be called capital sins. Reflect upon that; you will see that I speak no enigma when I say that failing towards ourselves we fail towards God, who is the true Father of the creature.

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