Who was Tau Harmonius?

Tau Harmonius were the ecclesiastical name for Constant Martin Chevillon

(born 26.10.1880 – dead 22.03.1944), Patriarch for both Eglise Gnostique Universelle and the Eglise Gallicanne. With respect of EGU, Harmonius succeeded Jean Bricaud, in ecclesia Tau Jean II – when the latter died 21.February 1934. With respect of Eglise Gallicanne, Constant Martin Chevillon were elected Patriarch to succeeded Jean Bricaud on 5. January , 1936 were he received consecration to that central position by Louis Francois Giraud. He was additionally representative for the following esoteric and initiatory orders: L’Ordre Martiniste de Lyon, The Order of Knights Masons of Elus Cohen and the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Mizraim of which he was Grand Master after Jean Bricaud (c.1934-1944). Constant Martin Chevillon was born in Annoire (Jura) the 26th October 1880, he was of a philosophical and literary disposition and wrote several books in addition to countless articles on a great variety of topics. It appears Chevillon had from the early 1920`s onwards a penchant for the perspective provided by the awakening in France towards the idea and ideal of the Universal Tradition and treated the subject more consistently than many Theosophists who were greatly enchanted and enthused about the idea but lacked the expertise of actual and consistent comparative scholarship. Another aspect of Harmonius work were his vision of a Spiritual and Christian socialism, ever since the inference of certain philosophies of a libertarian and communalistic kind into France, by for instance Charles Fourier and Antoine-Hoene Wronskij, the latter incidentally one of the tutors of Alphonse Louis Constant aka. Eliphas Levi – the ideals contained in that Vision has been central for the Esoteric initiatory traditions in France and the Benelux countries. Doubtless some of this fervour also influenced the way and manner Harmonius treated his many responsibilities as leader for colleges and orders of a Hermetic and Esoteric nature, so also with Masonry – drawing on inspiration from Count Cagliostro`s organization of the Rite of Egyptian FreeMasonry, which included a Feminine Rite – he decided that the Masonic work he lead should also respect and facilitate a specifically feminine actual Masonic initiatory progress – this became very controversial, just as the later inclusion of a feminine Episcopate which initially in the “non-apostolic” Gnostic Church had presedence with Doinel`s consecration of female Bishops, so-called Sophia`s and Priestesses – would cause controversy in the later incarnations of the Eglise Gnostique.

On March 22, 1944, somewhere outside Lyon,Constant Chevillon faced a firing-squad, formed by a pseudo police-unit. In reality they were collaborating Frenchmen , by order of the ‘ Parti Populaire Francais” and the ‘M.S.R.’ -after having been arrested and interrogated consistently for a long period of time.

The Nazis had formed an iron fist since their occupation of France, to deal with the different movements and orders there which would pose a threat to their new Reich, among those were chiefly Masonic orders, especially those that had developed on French soil, autonomous since the French Revolution, and also those that had developed in England, like Yarker`s charter of the Rite of Memphis-Mizraim. Some leaders of Esoteric colleges did not comprehend the danger they were in, they thought that the occupational forces would empower non-Catholic and anti-Catholic groups such as their own, for example, Les Polaires thought the Third Reich would become the beacon of a coming new race, and became fascinated by the Nationalsocialists own mythology and “technology”.

Rather than bring the man to court for supposed subversive activities, the Nazi occupation goverment and their pawns elected to shoot the man down anonymously. Thus ended a very fertile and yet frustrated period of Underground esoteric work in Europe, from which arose a situation which still haunts continental Initiatory and Gnostic circles.

Milko Borgaard reports in his paper on the FUDOSI:

“Many members and dignitaries of the initiatic brotherhoods and societies were threaten with their lives or simply put into concentration-camps.

Robert Ambelain, a close friend of Chevillon, had a wife and child both deported to the concentration-camps. Jean Mallinger was constantly persecuted by the Gestapo. Fr.Serge Hutin (Sar Pascal), who was the Archon of ‘forreign affairs’ for the ‘Ordre Hermetistse Tetramegiste et Mystique’ (Order of Hermes), was arrested in Cherbourg, France. He was deported to “Camp-Neuengam” were he died in Februari, 1945. Nico Wolff (Sar Ignis) was arrested on March 5, 1943 and deported to ‘Camp Flossenburg’ were he died on April 22, 1943, after prolonged torturing. Raoul Fructus , who was the chairman of the Grand-Council of the Memphis-Misraim Rite (under the F.U.D.O.S.I., part 5-6), died after his deportation in 1945.”

You can find a brief biography written by one of Chevillon`s pupils-

The True Face of French Masonry by Tau Renatus (Renè Chambellant) at Apostolic Gnosis:Journal of the Eglise Gnostique Apostolique & the Athenea Theologica Seminary Institute.

I am finishing my study of Yuri Stoganov`s The Other God – which traces the history of religious dualism from Late Antiquity until the time of the Cathars… my impression is that we are fed too many loose ends to really get a good overview of the “phenomenon”, there is a consistent lack of a red thread in there, although it is incredibly detailed and varied, this is the books strenght, that it could be a kind of historical map of the phenomenon.

Stoganov basically redoes every step Steven Runciman, a famous “historian” of the Cathar movement, takes in his The Medieval Manichee and in terms of this its almost like a replacement with corrections and a more current and thorough perspective.

A much needed revision is the way the author consistently distinguishes between Monarchian dualism (which is the belief that evil emanates out of a created and inferior/subservient being or principle which will be dissolved or redeemed/transformed at the end of the cosmic cycle, including the assertion of two creators, two “universes” and two qualitatively and essentially different diametrically opposed to eachother, but where the other originates in the first and what proceeds from this one will be reconciled into the first) and Radical dualism (Two eternally co-existent principles which never be reconciled and which originally inhabited two completely realms, eternal struggle more or less defines being) – as well as philosophical dualism (Mind/Body etc.) versus religious dualism (Two gods, two authorities, two worlds, two ontological realms – a duality which is spiritual and essential rather than one of Spirit against Matter). He also consistently describes Catharism, Bogomilism, Zurvanism and to a lesser extent Manichaeism – without attempting to mix metaphors and describe either of these by way of sources and quotations from Gnostic sources. This is very helpful for those who seek to get an idea of what either of these were, with a basis in the studies of Gnosticism.

I haven`t made my mind up about it yet – the “best” is yet to come : A summary of the Bogomil and Cathar mythologies, which is the most detailed I have found.

I found a very interesting (but demanding) article in the 4th Volume of

Arthur Versluis excellent Esoterica Journal, which addresses some of my chief interests in the work of Henri Corbin.

Tom Cheetham`s Within This Darkness:Incarnation, Theophany and the Primordial Revelation. What haunts me somewhat is the preface to the article which is a quote from a

fragment which Henri Corbin wrote, 29 years old, at his visit to Lake Siljan

in Sweden, Theology by the Lakeside:

“Everything is but revelation; there can only be re-velation. But revelation comes from the Spirit, and there is no knowledge of the Spirit.

It will soon be dusk, but for now the clouds are still clear, the pines are not yet darkened, for the lake brightens them into transparency. And everything is green with a green that would be richer than if pulling all the organ stops in recital. It must be heard seated, very close to the Earth, arms crossed, eyes closed, pretending to sleep.

For it is not necessary to strut about like a conqueror and want to give a name to things, to everything; it is they who will tell you who they are, if you listen, yielding like a lover; for suddenly for you, in the untroubled peace of this forest of the North, the Earth has come to Thou, visible as an Angel that would perhaps be a woman, and in this apparition, this greatly green and thronging solitude, yes, the Angel too is robed in green, the green of dusk, of silence and of truth. Then there is in you all the sweetness that is present in the surrender to an embrace that triumphs over you.

Earth, Angel, Woman, all of this is a single thing that I adore and that is in this forest. Dusk on the lake, my Annunciation. The mountain: a line. Listen! Something is happening! The anticipation is immense, the air is quivering under a fine and barely visible rain; the houses that stretch out along the ground, their wood red and rustic, their roofs of thatch, are there, there on the other side of the lake. Something will begin this evening, something promised, in that I believe. Ah! This evening? When, then, this evening? If it were truly in a few hours, it would never be, because it would be necessary to finish and then begin again, and that would always end and never begin. Do you know what it means to wait, and do you know what it means to have faith?

The Mystery of Holy Communion where you will be ushered in, where all the beings will be present, yes, you can only say it in the future. Because at each moment where you read in truth as now what is there before you, where you hear the Angel, and the Earth and Woman, then you receive Everything, Everything, in your absolute poverty. But as soon as you have read and have received, as soon as you consider, as you want to understand, as you want to possess, to give a name and restrain, to explain and recover, ah! there is only a cipher, and your judgment is pronounced.

For at every instant you are judged, and someday you will die. So you die, when your existence is decided and realized, for then its is over: what was is not, you want without renouncing, renounce without wanting.

No, you are the poor one, you are man; and he is God, and you cannot know God, or the Angel, or the Earth, or Woman. You must be encountered, taken, known, that they may speak, otherwise you are alone, and perhaps it is better thus, and will be always thus, always, that is, there would be no eternity for you. Because you were born in a sin that was sinned before you, and Thou you have had fear, great fear, and you have cried, cried because the Earth is immense, cried because the Woman was too beautiful, cried because the Angel was invisible, and because Thou you were Adam, and Adam would want to live.

Adam established Love, poetry, religion, for he wanted life, he wanted that is, to be God, and then to speak as he would want to three beings. To Question; Alas! and he alone responded. To listen; Alas! to give a concert to himself alone.

But then, surely comes surging suddenly from this lake a cortege of beautiful beings. They sing the funeral chant of Adam; and because Adam is dead, it will be sung in a chorale where more voices will be raised than there is anguish in all its guises: “Christ is born! Christ is Risen!”[1]

Here he addresses seeing without object and classification, the young man were an initiate of the intelligentsa of the Universities, with a poetic heart – confronted with the Theophany of the scenery, he became intoxicated and lucid at once.

I remember my own experiences by the small lake which were right outside of my door the summer of 2002, how awake I felt sitting at the edge of the lake at 5am, watching the sun rise above the forest behind it. Similarly, in such an solitude and quiet, you loose appetite for the conquest of things pertaining to Nature. We observe, when we have let our eyes become accustomed to actual sight, that Nature is change and room for change, forms as such, are interchangeable with eachother. Funny I should write this in view of the exhibition in the Museum right now, where a Swedish artist have made animals out of common houshold objects and cartyres – with a precision revealing a unconscious coincidence of man-made materials with organic structures in animals of every kind and variation. Strange I should concur so much with Henri Corbin in these ecstatic observances and his orientation, when I am a Gnostic and am accused from every kind of polemists for hating Nature,

but I don`t – and neither did my brethren in the Gnose for over two thousand years ago, but this business with Creator and the arrogance of all possible systems claiming to be whole,total,perfect and capital letter “t” True is what

we, including me, rage against. Which is restriction, bondage and subservience

to Death as the High Lord of the Universe. Nature is not to be confused with

Matter, because once you remove the forms – from the cell to the molecule,

– then you have removed Matter from Nature and it becomes the total abstract

with which we have no associating personally, before we somehow become the corpse. But having become the corpse, we are nothing but the residue of an organic life, when that echo ceases there is nothing more.

If we believe in Spirit, there exists an absolute and irreversible distinction between it and Body. If we are confused and believe in the bodily

resurrection as read from the book of materialistic literalism; which is to say – that we believe Spirit is nothing without the body of matter, and somehow doubt

that there is anything, anywhere – into which the memory of the being we have been and what we essentially are – can go, when the physical world have managed to forget – we harbour an actual superstition that the Matter, not the form, is that which is alive, and again that this material could reconstruct out of nothing. As such, let me ask those who are very literal in the issue of “bodily resurrection” – how is it possible of not confessing in sincerity adherence to

an absolute faith and confidence in Positivistic Atheism and radical materialism?

Corbin`s theological fragment contains the seeds of the core and centre of Christianity neglected by literalists who adhere to flesh and error – preoccupied with the body, and with sin – as centred in the body – at the end of

the fragment we find his appreciation of the Hope of Glory, In the death of the mortal selves in the Baptism, which here is his vision at the lake containing nativity and annihilation at the same time – and the resurrection of Christ on the third day: …surely comes surging suddenly from this lake a cortege of beautiful beings. They sing the funeral chant of Adam; and because Adam is dead, it will be sung in a chorale where more voices will be raised than there is anguish in all its guises: “Christ is born! Christ is Risen!”.

Both the nativity and the resurrection, and between it the Cross. This is the Journey of the Soul. Every ecstatic theophany contain within itself a map, a pattern which has all three.

The research and wisdom of french orientalist Henry Corbin (1903-1978) have influenced me greatly the last four years.

A particularly Gnosis-oriented book of his I have been reading on and off since 1996 when I rediscovered it (began reading it in 1991, but it was too “unhermetic” for my tastes, a very poor judgement) and saw a new relevance for it in my own studies…

The book in question is Henry Corbin`s The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism,
it is wonderfully relevant to the Gnostic path since it is all about
the acquiring of the Vision, of communication with and union with
the Angel, the divine celestial twin – as well as listening to the interior
witness…especially interesting is the red thread of excerpts from
Persian Ishraqist Najmoddin Kobra`s journal on the Visio Smaragdina
; one favourite Gnostic theme is:

“Natural existence is made up of four elements superimposed on one another, all of which comes to constitute a darkness: Earth, Water, Fire, Air;
and you yourself are buried beneath them all. The only way to separate yourself from them is to act in such a way that every rightful part in you comes together with that to which it rightfully belongs, that is, by acting in such a way that each part comes together with its counter-part: Earth receives the earthly part, Water the watery part, Air the etheric part, Fire the fiery part. When each has received its share, you will finally be delivered of these burdens.”

It has an Alchemical, a Reintegrationalist (cf. the teachings of Martinist “founder Louis Claude de Saint Martin and his first initiator, Martinez de Pasqually) , a Manichaean, a Valentinian and a Hermetic practical address, in my view.

Another book of great interest to me, is the collection of his later papers:
Temple and Contemplation. The chief portion of the book , ‘The Imago Templi in Confrontation with Secular Norms,’ one of Corbin’s last Eranos lectures (1974), pursues the motif of the Temple from its introduction into the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism-Islam and Christianity) to the great masonic romances of the 17th century, such as Wolfgang von Eschenbach`s Parzival.
In the paper to the Eranos conference of 1950, “Sabian Temple and Ismailism” we find Corbin investigating a dense and obscured landscape of dialogue between astral religion (such as found in Babylon) and a
beginning of interior-oriented mysticism à la Sufism; the result could be read as a Gnostic criticism of different kinds of ceremonial magic ..
The theme of the Holy Guardian Angel is also central to the study, and shows how he is transformed from an exterior “single star” visualized as a direct corollary in the stellar firmament into the Interior _shahid_ or Witness, this is important for any deeper acquiantance with the texts of the chief Sufi teachers, among whom we find the unimitable Suhrawardi and Ibn al-Arabi, but also Mansur al-Hallaj.

His Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth is an anthology of ancient Iranian; Mazdean through Sufi – texts written by the greatest teachers of the traditions, I were especially captivated by the theme of the Fravartis and the Daena and wrote a series of meditations on the text, which I shared with the Philosophia forum at Yahoo among other places. In time I might edit and publish it on my website or some such…

Further Resources
A Henry Corbin forum at MSN.com Henry Corbin World of the Imaginal

I´d appreciate it very much if those Gnostics out there who have a blog of their own, would share the address with me..

I found Thomas Leavitt, with whom I have had contact through the net, on and off for almost 8 years now, have a relatively recent blog. Thomas Leavitt founded and donated space for the Gnosis Archive and have participated in a heap of the same discussion lists I have. He and his father, Michael Leavitt, participate in the same Church as I do, Ecclesia Gnostica, which is a continuation of an English revival of the Ancient Christian Gnoses.