Talk:Gérard Encausse

Encausse and Thelema

Encausse was totally uninvolved in Thelema and should not be put in the Thelema category. Encausse died in 1916 - Crowley did not publish the Gnostic Mass until 1918 and it was not performed until 1933. Putting Reuss in the Thelema category is entirely reasonable as he was involved for a time with Crowley and Thelema. Encausse was not. The EGC was thoroughly a Christian Gnostic Church based on Doinel's vision throughout Encausse's life.

Crowley had little or no infuence on Encausse and Encausse had little or no influence on Thelema. A line has to be drawn somewhere, and this is it. Certainly he can be linked in from the History section of E.G.C. and O.T.O. articles, but to subsume him into the Thelema category would be misleading. Feel free to refute this view if you have references. You'll note that the word Thelema does not even occur in the article.

- 999 01:51, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Encausse was not involved with Crowley‘s Thelema but he did overlap and interact with Theodore Reuss who preceded Crowley as OHO of the OTO. You may find the following as per Peter Koenig on his website parareligion.ch (valuable especially for the sheer amount of primary source materials):

“By this stage – at least in Crowley's opinion – Reuss was a spent force; [38] nonetheless, there is evidence that he was enthusiastically planning to form a national Grand Orient, and to call a World Congress of Freemasons in Zurich during the summer of 1920. This would be analogous to the congress of 1908 in Paris; as once with 'Papus', Blanchard, and Détré, there would firstly be a busy trade in offices and dignities with Krumm-Heller; [39] but Reuss's second (and main) objective was to establish an 'International Union of Freemasons'. A third point in the programme of the Congress was the enactment of Patriarch Joanny Bricaud's proposal that Crowley's "Gnostic Mass" (claimed to date from 1913), [40] being the pivotal point of O.T.O. ritual and meant for public performance, "should be defined as the official religion of all followers of the Universal Freemasonic World Federation, including the 18th degree [41] of the Scottish Rite." [42] "In the Rite of Memphis and Misraim the Rose-Croix degree has no Christian character, on the contrary having mystico-gnostic significance [...] The missing exposition [...] is contained within the mystical degrees of VII°, VIII° and IX°." [43] Reuss would circulate his "Set Up of the Neo- Christian O.T.O." [44] plus a written vindication of any sexual scandals, [45] together with an essay entitled "The True Secret of Freemasonry and the Mystery of the Holy Mass" - https://www.parareligion.ch/consider.htm

Much more on the E.G.C.‘s Gnostic Mass and its connections to various people and organizations can be found here https://www.parareligion.ch/church.htm

and this may also be of interest https://www.parareligion.ch/hoeller.htm (while on parareligion the author is Hoeller but I would certainly advise you to check out the bracketed corrections Peter has added) AeonFluxus (talk) 21:26, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

History of Thelema, Reuss, Encausse, Crowley

Encause was more influential on and more connected to Crowley than you seem to notice.

1) Encausse was a member of the Paris chapter of the HOGD; Crowley was a member of HOGD as well, and specifically loyal to the Paris (Mathers) faction. Both Mathers and Encausse worked on translations of the Kabbalah; Crowley utilized their work in his own subsequent materials. Crowley was aware of and knew Encausse *before* Crowley entered acquaintanceship with Reuss.

2) Thelema is Crowley's building upon two pillars: HOGD and Reuss's OTO.

HOGD is built upon two pillars: Masonry and Syntesis of Hermeticicsm/Egyptophilia/Kabbalah.

OTO is also built upon two pillars: Masonry and the EGC.

Thelema incorporates all of these.

The EGC as it developed within the OTO is the direct result of Reuss's trading of patents with Encausse in 1901 and 1908. Crowleyan Thelema would not have incorporated the EGC nor been so tied to French neo-Gnosticism had not Crowley been inducted by Reuss and Reuss by Encausse.

3) To bring up the date of the PUBLICATION of Crowley's revisions of the Reuss OTO material and of Doinel's Gnostic Mass is not relevant to the subject of Thelemic currents or literary influences, in fact, it seems to represent a deliberate attempt to confuse the issue, because although Crowley's Gnostic mass revision was published in 1918, after Encausse had died, Crowley actually WROTE his revised Gnostic Mass in 1913 in Moscow, while Encausse was still very much alive -- and, on top of that, Encausse's connections to Crowley stretch all the way back to the Paris HOGD, long before Crowley met Reuss, and well before Reuss met Encausse -- back to when Encausse was writing on Kabbalah and Tarot, and both men owed allegiance to Mathers.

To deny that Encausse had an extremely strong role in the development of Thelema seems a-historical. I sense an agenda here, but i cannot understand it. Is Encausse persona non grata with Thelemites these days? if so, why? Or is this urge to remove Encausse from Thelemic history based in the notion that purging Encausse somehow makes Crowley seem more "original" and less influenced by Doinel, Encausse, and reuss?

No one is saying that Encausse was a member of the Abbey of Thelema. However, we cannot understand Thelema as it is presently manefested without understanding the Neo-Gnostic EGC aspcts of Thelema, which derive directly through Reuss, Encausse, and ultimately from Doinel. Please read the evidence at http://www.egnu.org/universalis.mhtml under the heading Masses.

I strongly believe that Encausse belongs in any article or article-set describing the history of Thelema because Crowley did not develop his revised OTO in a vacuum -- he got it from Reuss's OTO. Likewise Crowley's revised EGC Mass utilized Reuss's EGC, which was actually Encausse's EGC and thus utilized the Doinel Gnostic Mass text. This is historical fact.

Catherineyronwode 03:52, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree that he is historical background. But he was not a Thelemite, did not practice Thelema, etc., etc. so he doesn't belong in the category. Same with the "Gnostic saints", an article is appropriate, but to put Mohammed into the Thelema category b/c Crowley made him a saint is going to involve you in some serious arguments. That being the case, where is the line; the line is that people who did not self-identify as Thelemites or have any direct intentional contribution to it should not be coopted by an aggresive Thelemizing agenda. That's my position, and I'm sticking to it. :-) -999

P.S. I'm speaking here as a Wikipedian for accuracy in categorizing and not as either pro- or anti-Thelema, just so you know where I'm coming from in this position. -999 04:02, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Please don't move my responses on this talk page. This is supposed to be a discussion, using indentation to show the voices. Please see WP:TALK for talk page standards. -999 12:55, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

By the way, you are completely mistaken about Crowley having derived his Gnostic Mass from Doinel's Mass. He didn't. They are quite different and not at all related. Crowley derived the Gnostic Mass from a Mass of the Russian Orthodox Church, specifically from the liturgy of St. Basil. Have you read Doinel's Mass?

Basically, Encausse simply traded pieces of paper with Reuss. He wanted X° in O.T.O. and traded an authorization to form a branch of his Gnostic Church (the article is wrong b/c the E.G.C. was not yet in the OTO at the time). What is especially telling is that once Reuss actually moved EGC into OTO and started doing something with it, Encausse changed the name of his church so as not to be associated with Reuss's doings... -999 13:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Where to start? I suppose numbered paragraphs will do.

1) I did not put the Thelema cat on the Encausse page in the first place. I did reinstate it, though, because i thought it mde sense there. It now seems obvious to me that it is very important to Thelemites to eliminate Encausse -- even going so far as to draw specious parallels between him and Mohammed.

2) Contrary to your rhetorical slam at me, i did not claim "Crowley having derived his Gnostic Mass from Doinel's Mass." I said that the very existence of a Gnostic Mass in the OTO came about because Reuss had gotten a Gnostic Mass from Encausse who had gotten it from its author Doinel. If not for Encausse and Reuss, Crowley would have never have had cause to have written a Gnostic Mass.

3) Contrary to your complaint, i did not move anything on this talk page: i did notice, however, an "editing conflict" message came up when i posted last night -- we both tried to post at the same time, and everything got screwed up. I saved what i had in my buffer (your stuff and mine) and flowed it in, but some stuff was completely lost, including two more paragraphs that i had written. These things happen due to software issues and have nothing to do with intentions.

4) There are control issues surrounding Thelema's presence at WP that are evident, obvious, and hard-felt. In my opinion, this is not a good thing for Wikipedia.

Catherineyronwode 06:39, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Clearly, some people prefer to lecture rather than discuss. You also seem to be avoiding observing the guideline of assuming good faith. What you incorrectly characterize as "control issues" are, in my case at least, simply a good faith attempt to make the articles and categories as accurate as possible. I don't doubt that you are right as I'm sure certain organizations would like to only present their view of Thelema; to lay to rest your fear that I am one of these, you should know that I am not a member of any of them. :-) -999 13:52, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

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Why was he anti-semitic?

He was into Kabbalah which was begun by jews. This article doesn't have a source for this. Popish Plot (talk) 21:12, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Weird page title

It's 100% absurd to name this page "Gérard Encauss" while he is known by everyone as Papus — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E35:8A8D:FE80:9893:6B6E:8712:5C2B (talk) 06:31, 16 December 2016 (UTC)