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The Creation of a Universal System:

Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and his Archeometerby Joscelyn Godwin

t published as “La Genèse de l’Archéomètre: Documents inédits de Saint-Yves d’Alveydre rassemblés et introduits par Joscelyn Goitiation, 2 & 4 (1988): 61-71, 153-166. Abbreviated English version published as “The Creation of a Universal System: Sailveydre and his Archeometer,” Alexandria, 1 (1991): 229-249. This complete English version produced and edited by Ariel Godwauthor’s gracious permission. [Publisher’s Note: The various articles referred to in the following document have a

nslated and are included in the Sacred Science Translation Society Edition of The Archeometer, making it the most cocomprehensible version of this important work ever presented.]

When one opens a heavy folio volume entitled The Archeometer: Key to All the Religions an

ences of Antiquity; Synthetic Reformation of All Contemporary Arts, something tells one that i

quite live up to its ambitions.[1]

Unfortunately the work of Saint-Yves d’Alveydre which bear

ounding title is not even the work of his own hand: it is a collection made by Papus (Gérard Enca

d other “Friends of Saint-Yves” of some fragments from the universal synthesis that the great esot

s putting in order when death interrupted him in 1909. Although it would be churlish to underra

votion of this group, and particularly that of its leaders, Papus and Dr. Auguste-Edouard Chaust be said that they were worried, up to the last minute, about the principles and the coherence of

mpilation.[2]

Thanks to the patronage of Count and Countess Keller, Saint-Yves’ son- and daught

w and his heirs, the elegant edition of L’Archéomètre, with its many illustrations and colored p

peared in a form more fit for admiration than for comprehension.

Nevertheless, the serious scholar will know to refer to another explanation of the system

led L’Archéomètre, published between 1910 and 1912 in twelve numbers of the short-lived revie

ose: the periodical that also carried the astonishing articles of the 21-year-old René Guénon.[3

icles on the Archeometer are signed “T,” the pen-name of the journal’s editor, Alexandre Thomasown as “Marnes”). They are thought to be based on information furnished by F.-Ch. Barlet (= A

ucheux), another friend of Saint-Yves who had evidently parted company from the official “Frie

énon supplied some very erudite notes, mostly on the Hindu tradition.[4]

But all in all, one is at

find any indications of the original source of this imposing and ambitious scheme. Should one reg

traditional doctrine, as independent revelation, as pure fantasy, or as an inextricable mixture

se?

For Papus, the work of the man he acknowledged as his “intellectual master” went, like much

hout criticism or question. For the dignitaries of the Gnostic Church, it was more of a basis for

n speculations.[5]

Guénon never renounced it, no matter how far he traveled from Saint-Yves’ ki

nking, and he cited Saint-Yves approvingly in Le Roi du Monde —a subject to which I have devo

ecific article.[6]

Here we are concerned solely with the enigmatic figure of the Marquis himself, a

circumstances which led him to construct so profound and so personal a system. There was a

en one might accept some individual’s system as an infallible dogma; but we have seen too ma

m! All the same, the Archeometer remains a true summation of the intellectual and esoteric curre

nineteenth century, just as Saint-Yves himself—more than Papus, Stanislaus de Guaita, or Pélada

archetypal “universal man” of the Symbolist (and “decadent”) period. He is the supreme Herm

his epoch.



There is fortunately a third primary source for archeometric studies: Saint-Yves’ own manusc

led by Papus (died 1916) to some public library, and eventually deposited by his son, Dr. Ph

causse, in the Sorbonne Library in 1938, as part of the enormous “Papus Bequest” (including se

ndred books, many of them from Saint-Yves’ own collection).[7]

Our interest here is not in the he

pers concerning the posthumous edition of L’Archéomètre, but rather in the scruffy school notebo

ich Saint-Yves recorded and worked out his systems, philosophy, schemata, and visions. Some

itten in a fine, flowery hand, sometimes in a scarcely legible scrawl, these notebooks reveal a p

st, of the events that preceded the elaboration of the Archeometer as it is found in the printed sour

The life and work of Saint-Yves have not yet been described adequately in English, which is ce he is often mentioned superficially. The reader of French needs only to be referred to Jean Sau

dispensable book.[8]

We meet him in 1885, aged 43: the author of a mystical book on Life, Death

Sexes (Clefs de l’Orient ), a huge historical study ( Mission des Juifs), and a few other boo

itics and poetry. He was living in a fine house near the Etoile with his aristocratic wife Marie-Vi

orn de Riznitch), his senior by fourteen years; dreaming up developments of his theory of

vernment which he called Synarchy; and beginning to study Sanskrit. At this point, the Archeomet

exist. We will follow its progress through a series of six “revelations”—for that is how they se

Saint-Yves, whether given by more or less mysterious Orientals, by the soul of his wife (who d

95), or in response to his prayers and meditations. They are:

1. The Vattanian Alphabet (1885)2. The Aum (1885-86)3. The cosmic correspondences of Vattan (1885-86)4. The Definition of Life (1896)5. The table entitled “The Heavens declare” (1897)6. The Triangle of Jesus (1898)

st Revelation: The Vattanian Alphabet

Saint-Yves learned this from Haji Sharif (or “Hardjji Scharipf”), his Sanskrit teacher. Haji m Bombay and lived in Levallois-Perret, a suburb of Paris. The lessons took place three times a

ginning on June 8, 1885, and continued with a few interruptions at least until November 12,

metimes the Marquise was also present. These lessons, written out very carefully by Haji, are

rbonne Library (MS. Carton 42); they are also interesting for the information they contain on “Aga

ich I have treated elsewhere.[9]

Already in the first lesson, which Haji entitled “Secret and sacred method of a guru for his D

wice-born), Vattan was mentioned as “the primitive source of all the languages in the world

tober 25, 1885, Haji wrote Saint-Yves’ name and title in these characters.

[10]

As Haji also brew (and Arabic), he was evidently the source for the equivalents of the 22 letters of Vattan

se of Hebrew—crucial for the Archeometer—and with part of the Sanskrit alphabet.

As for the sources from which Haji got this Vattanian alphabet, totally unknown to philologists

mystery. Certainly he belonged to some secret Brahmin society, which Saint-Yves chose to imagin

at university, and in the end as the subterranean realm of Agartha. Could there be some connection

language and alphabet of “Senzar” that H. P. Blavatsky and other Theosophists were mentioni

most exactly the same time, but which has never been revealed? For Saint-Yves, according t

erpreters in the Gnose articles, “This [Vattanian] alphabet, which was the original script o

anteans and of the Red Race, whose tradition was transmitted to Egypt and India after the catast

which Atlantis disappeared, is the exact transcription of the astral alphabet [...] The prim



habet of the Atlanteans has been preserved in India, and it is through the Brahmins that it has

wn to us.”[11]

But their presentation of such facts is so much woven in with concepts reminisc

bre d’Olivet that I cannot believe in them as coming from Haji Sharif, any more than the fantasies

derground world which Saint-Yves wrote as Mission de l’Inde. Table 1 shows this alphabet, w

uivalents.

cond Revelation: The Aum

The notebooks contain an essay entitled “On the Aum 1st degree,” and described as the “S

ching of the Brahmins, communicated to me by Rishi Bagwandas-Raji-Shrin.”[12]

This name m

t of the “other Oriental” to whom several commentators (Barlet, Jean Reyor, etc.) have alluded;

text one also finds the suggestive words “Haji says...” The essay, which is extremely com

ptical in style, and peppered with Sanskrit, Hebrew, and Vattanian letters, centers on the cosmo

planation of the Sanskrit word Aum; it also treats the correspondences of the primary sounds o

man voice with the primary signs of Vattan: a symbolic link of the audible with the visible

ample, the Vattanian A is the masculine principle; the OU, the breath or soul; the M, the ne

mporal, and terminal principle.

The “revelation” consists in the fact that this alphabet encodes the archetypal realities bsmic manifestation, shown through the cosmogonic analysis of the Sanskrit word Aum, wit

respondences of the primordial sounds of the human voice to the primordial letters of Vatt

mbolic link between eye and ear. A secondary layer, which could open up many ling

velopments, is the correspondence of Sanskrit with Hebrew words. But one cannot be sure how

that came from the guru, and how much from the pupil, who had already made a thorough stu

brew from the work of Fabre d’Olivet.



Table 1

On the Aum 1 st degree

The unity in the trinity: masc. fem. neuter m f.

The the great breath of God, creative soul and essence the in the created beings.

and he formed

Wa I BaRa Alahim ath ha Adam: Moses c. 1, v. 27-28.

The Brahmins say Al-LaHIM the Powerful among them, and, mystically, say his two prin

ich, before Creation were united into a single abode, the Thohou VVa Bohû. Ala great, A

bitation. Alâhym the great abode of the ● . The all, the whole, the of the Veda Aham, the ●

A, masc. principle. 1st chief, scepter, staff, unity, seed, power.

There, breath, soul, existence, secret, marvel, terror.

● Circle, serpent, continuation, measure, time, respiration, expiration, thought, spirit, death, etc

Trinity of functions: father, mother, husband corresponding to water, air, fire. [41'] Science

stic Union. The primitive tongue Veda has been constituted on the ● . The echo of the ●

image and resemblance of ● . Thus, the Infinite , . The analysis of this mystic word in the Ve

itten thus . The human Being cannot exist without being attached to the soul of souls, breath



d is the ● , the mortal is the , nasal respiration; because other than , action and armor, n

s but the .

Hashdi-bibyah secret name one finds inlaid in all ancient [illegible] of Vedo-Brahm. anti

analysis:[13]

Hardji says: the supreme breath always present i

athed. This, he says, is the mystery of Yôgâ, yogi, yogâm. This is the ihova.

Thus the ● in its origin has been the neuter Principle, neither vowel nor consonant, nor sig

stract circular dot in the imagination of the human spirit. [42]

Only when it has become supreme thought, in order to show itself outside of itself, has it maurn into itself to show itself in . Thus is the Vasdéva, the abode of God, when he was hidden

Holy of Holies which is the ž . M’V. in Vedic elevation exaltation of Being. This is the Sanskri

by euphony and often through , above, on male force, and Amoûvi: I am the ● prod

A, the O producing the I.

The Vedic compound would relate to IHOH, and would signify: The all is breath

pported by the great breath.

The Kabbalists call the the Nicod bila SOPh, the point of the Infinite, and the ‚, saman

gn of the Union” (s masks Sh of Moses, the Prophets, Daniel, Jesus and his Apostles).[42'] Secret pronunciation of the Kabbalists: IhHOuHa of the initiates IaHh-Va-Ha. in order n

onounce it, one substitutes IOD Ki for IOD Kyam, eternal Point. Why the point? IOD is enough.

nagogues, ADONa-I the Lord I. Adûni, my Lord. ADONa-I the Lord of the Iod or the Nicod. Acco

the Manu Veda as the Cabbalists secretly pronounce it the day of Kipor, IOM Kipor. Lik

day of the : of the complete Aum. The Panditas with the Bratma and the Yogis bear i

mbol on their foreheads, toques and miters, thus A, H, M, O, H, I. (Putting I in the place

HIOHI and reversed, 1. IHo-MaHa; 2. IHOHI-A. Moses is written MOShIaH according to the M

stra Veda lect. 100 Sloka 1. The Kabbalists for their part say Shem Moshe Sha Ma ha ShiM: The

name of Moses, is the name of God. In writing [43] MOShoH, MOShaH one has IShOH-Ma

hi. The rule of Oshi-Ri.

The Nothing. in Hebr.ר

AiN [sic], means exactly what one conceives neither as cause n

ence. AiN KaDMON – AbVaT the primitive non being would be the Anterior to the uni

urvalokam, anterior even to the wisdom Jajnanas on which the world was founded.

Jajnanas indicates the e.

Moshi, a name that sacerdotally made the Title of Pharaoh given to Moses[14]

MOShI-Hah say the Sastras[15]

BaRAShITh movement : Dêvyo Brasthananta gâtis. The movem

incessant divine march, the Circle of Life.

What is the essence of Wisdom, how, by what mode is it contained in Non-Being (?) (anterior

supreme crown?

To this question the Vedo-Brahm answers ● and O breath of the ● in the masc. S

at breathes it into the fem. Principle .

ird Revelation: The Cosmic Correspondences of the Vattanian Alphabet

For his first attempt to align the 22 Vattanian letters with the cosmic archetypes, Sainturally referred to the Sephir Yetzirah, where the Hebrew alphabet is divided into groups of 3, 7



letters, the last two categories corresponding to the seven Chaldean planets and the twelve signs

diac. There remain three “mother letters,” A, M, and Sh (see Table 2, left-hand columns). Saint-

ote this system down in his “Hermetic Notebook,” where the corners of the pages are signed with

arif’s monogram, denoting the guru’s approval.[16]

But the pupil was not satisfied.

From a note in the same notebook, it appears that Saint-Yves was currently—like many oth

nsulting the History of Magic of “Paul Christian” (actually the historian J.-B. Pitois). In that book

another system of correspondences for the planets and zodiacal signs. In a context of pra

rology, but without giving any source, Pitois aligns them with the 22 major arcana of the Tarot, w

recognizes as also correlating with the Hebrew alphabet.[17]

Saint-Yves adopted the letter-equivalences of the first twelve planets and signs (see Table 2). B

had only to read the titles that Pitois gives to the arcana to think up a better arrangement from the

rteenth letter onwards.[18]

For number 14, the “solar genius,” why not the Sun itself? And the 15th

yphon, genius of catastrophes,” fits very well with the symbol of duality, the primordial source of

e “crocodile” of Arcanum 0 could be the serpent that devours time, thus Chronos or Saturn. Whate

reasonings, Saint-Yves arrived, after a few pages, at a new and definitive system which would

come that of the Archeometer (see columns 4-7 of Table 2).

[19]

The very shapes of the traditional symbols seemed to confirm his choices, as shown in a large

wn by a professional hand, found among the papers concerning the publication of L’Archéomè

Friends of Saint-Yves.[20]

This leaf was doubtless intended to take its place in the finished wo

mprises three columns, titled “Vattanian alphabet,” “Derivation,” and “Astral alphabet.”

rivations were presumably arrived at as a speculative exercise by Saint-Yves, perhaps with

arif’s collaboration.



Table 2

The reader can judge their validity (see Table 2, columns 6-9), keeping in mind that the deriv

es from right to left; the signs of the zodiac and planets are supposed to have been derived fro

mordial letters of Vattan.

Saint-Yves played with these materials for a few months—one cannot say much more than thaed about forty pages of his Hermetic notebook with alphabets, herbal recipes, messages in cod

her more magical than Hermetic in content. In the course of these pages, Haji’s monogram gets

d more cursory, then, in the middle of a section on “Botanical magic,” it disappears entirely. Pe

e can see in this the process of the guru’s disillusionment to which several commentators have allu

urth Revelation: Marie-Victoire provides a Definition of Life

Marie-Victoire de Riznitch, born 1827, the divorced wife of Count Keller, married Saint-Yv

ndon in September 1877. Thanks to her, he was able to resign from his job at the Ministry o

erior, acquire the Italian title of Marquis d’Alveydre, have his books published, and pursue his esearches and his plans for political reform through Synarchy. Their marriage is said to have been



ppy, but Marie suffered much from ill health in her last years, and died on June 7, 1895.

Towards the end of 1895, Saint-Yves installed an oratory in his apartment on the ground floo

e Colbert, just opposite the Palace of Versailles, and had it consecrated in correct Catholic fashio

ne 6, 1896, the eve of the anniversary of Marie’s death, he had a mass celebrated there, after whi

d an ecstatic experience. He described it on a blank page of the Hermetic notebook which h

glected for nine or ten years.[21]

This seems to have been the first reappearance of Marie,

peared to him again on July 21, 1896 “in a blinding light,” as he told Alfred Erny on August 16

is initiated a new period of researches, which would fill out this notebook and several others. Ses writes: “My wife demonstrated to me a definition of life, and inspired me to find it in this gro

the sacred letters.”[23]

There follows the Hebrew alphabet with its numerical equivalences, and t

ouping of it into threes and twos:

ג ד ה ו ז

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

י כ ל מ נ ס

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

ק ר ש ת

100 200 300 400

111 222 333 444

י ר כ ש ל ג ת מ ד נ ה ס ו ע ז פ ח

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

יק center of obedient activity

כר compression inwards, manifestation spreading outwards

גלש revolution of the celestial spheres, universal exchange, brewing and mixing of the c

substance

דמת integration and disintegration of bodies, assimilation and de-assimilation of elem

fixation and mobilization of souls, astral identification of beings and migration throug

transition of death הנ such is life

וס fruit of the celestial ocean

זע present agitation in fear of the future

חפ repose, assured security

טצ temporary and mobile shelter of mortal man, eternally stable goal of his immortality.

The “words” thus obtained make no sense in Hebrew. They appear with quite another meanOedipus Aegyptiacus of Athanasius Kircher as “names of God” in the “Saracenic,” namely, A



bbalah.[24]

Without a doubt, Saint-Yves consulted La Langue Hébraïque Restituée (The He

ngue Restored) of Fabre d’Olivet, which includes a “Radical Vocabulary” of all the po

mbinations of two letters, and many of three. Fabre d’Olivet’s interpretations are taken virtually

word by Saint-Yves, except in the case of the sixth root, where the earlier writer understa

ispering in the ear, even a temptation of the devil, that would not fit very well in the present case

the last word, which Fabre d’Olivet says is not used in Hebrew or Arabic.

For Saint-Yves, this grouping confirmed his cosmogony, the first three words corresponding c

the hypostases symbolized by his three “foundation letters” Aleph, Shin, Thau. And of course, M

itation was the experiential proof of life beyond death. It inspired him to write a poem, “Let the PJesus, King of Heaven, be on Us.” Then he started an essay called “Life after Death.” But he sto

er having written only a few words on the parts of the human being according to the Egyptians. Th

ge of his notebook carries a new revelation.

fth Revelation: Marie-Victoire helps in the composition of the table, “The Heavens declare.”

This is the most important revelation of all (see Table 3). It confirms Saint-Yves’ or

angement of the cosmic elements (planets and signs of the zodiac) with the Hebrew alphab

ived at in the Third Revelation. The confirmation consists in the numbers which result from addi

se of the signs, in two groups of six, and the planets. Saint-Yves uses kabbalistic means to reducembers and to find in them archetypal words. For example, the sum of the twelve signs of the zo

5, becomes 5, 6, 5, corresponding to the letters He, Vau, He. These make the name of Eve, and wi

dition of Yod, that of Yahweh. The sum of the seven planets’ numbers, 469, gives the Sanskrit wor

ta, or “God.”

Finally, by a procedure that some would class as mere juggling, Saint-Yves succeeds in extra

name of Jesus (Ye, Sh, V): a discovery which moved him profoundly, as he relates in the

mmentary below, to which I have applied the title “The Word.”[25]

The emphasis of this revelation of the Word which created all things in six days is the key not

the integration of colors and tones into the Archeometer, but also to the philosophy behindlosophy that is at once religious, moral, and historical. Anticipated in Saint-Yves’ Mission

etched out in this unfinished commentary, it finds its fullest expression in the essay “La Sagesse v

ich prefaces L’Archéomètre.



Table 3

Saint-Yves drew the table which he entitled “Coeli enarrant” (The heavens declare) twice

rmetic notebook.[26]

He followed the first version with a Sanskrit alphabet, ecstatic exclamation

“Glory! Glorify him! Sing, whirl!,” and an equally ecstatic poem, “Glory! Glorify IEVE, Angel

ds!” Then he constructed a circle of the zodiac and its Vattanian letters on which he tried to dist

musical tones—seven diatonic and twelve chromatic—and the seven colors of the rainbow. B

s not yet contented with the result.

The second version of the table bears the rubric: “Made with my Angel, Easter Sunday 1

hat was new here were the numbers and letters beneath the table, in which, as Saint-Yves describ

commentary, he saw emerging the sacred name of the Word. The discovery of the name of

coded, as it were, in the heavens themselves confirmed the words of the Psalmist: “The he

clare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork” (Ps. 19.1). It gave him the impu

ite the extraordinary commentary in which one can see Saint-Yves in his philosophic workshop

tory and laboratory, writing at top speed with the red ink that he reserved for his most imp

ough also most illegible) notes. Without any care for literary style, the author’s mind ranges aroun

covery in ever-widening circles. After explaining the kabbalistic derivations, he throws himsel

tory—the polemical history that he had published in Mission des Juifs— with the added dimens

“Brahmin universities” unveiled in Mission de l’Inde.[27]



the three letters and numbers 4, 6, 9 gives us 19, the 19 letters of the three columns opposite or o

-ר

of the creative Word speaking through his creation.

The sum of the two zodiacal columns has given us 565 ,הוה

, absolute Life.

The Universe therefore tells us in its living Word: Divinity is absolute Life. But to utter the w

AME, the 19 unite 1 + 9 into 10, on the central column, which contracts them into itself alone [163

DVT, deVata 469 = 19 has its absolute union in its God in 10, that is to say in orי

. It is now th

ative Word pronounces, through all the Angels, all the fluid-heavens, all the astral heaven div

logized, the sanctification of the NAME, the perfect accomplishment of his work, that of the six d

uminations, of the six supreme and primordial geneses, in which nothing can die, in which every

es again eternally because everything is constituted in God Life Eternal. And it is only on the 7

t the Name is and can be uttered and sanctified by the universal Life united to its unity. Unity, abs

issoluble Life, manifested by the Word in Universality, infinite Life, enjoys all of its Gift of d

ve, given, received, and returned in the Adoration; and in this absolute, infinite, eternal union,

d Life, Husband and Wife are a single Godיהוה

.

Here is what the absolute Word has just proven to us through all its genesic letters through all

mbers, through all their Angels, through all their fluid heavens, through all the astral heaven, viv

d organized.

[164] It is therefore not IêVê who is theשית

-ר

at least in a direct manner, because the NAM

y uttered on the 7th day.

The 6 preceding illuminations are the work of the 6 ALOHIM of the central column who fo

mselves: six on the right, six on the left in the Zodiac of the Gods of which that of the Heavens is

Shadow.

But a Power, the organic Power, the creative Word, theר

of the 6, has itself created all theמ

d through the Gods all the Angels Aleph-Thau, living Alphabet of the fluid-heavens and Aleph-Th

astral heaven, that is to say organic Powers, instrumentally organizing functionalities of this

genic Word incarnate in the universe. The Elohim therefore have a Master, a King of the Gods; an

ng is not directlyיהוה

: it is his Son engendered from his unity,רי

, from all Eternity, befor

avens, before the Gods.It is therefore to the Son, to the Word Himself, that we say his Name in his absolute Speech.

Let us examine the middle column. Its dé, Va, ta, 4, 6, 9, then its Ya, Ta, 10, 9, [164'] all retu

mmation to the number 10, to the letter Y. Therefore I is the first letter of the King of the Gods, o

n ofיהוה

who will only pronounce the Name of the Father after having totally manifested and throu

s living manifestation. By this letter he is one with the Father, consubstantial, co-essential.

The 2nd letter is at the base of the middle column of the 6. Its Angel has two faces, the one t

r in the anterior Eternity of life, the other forward. Its letter is Shin, its star is Saturn, its zod

aven by right is Capricorn. For there are not two absolute words but a single one, and that of the

ates that of the Heaven of Glory.All the patriarchal universities have called Capricorn the Gate of the Gods. It is through this

t at the northern solstice Mother Night is the Mother of the Savior, and the King of Glory open

smic year.

It is thus in the astral world, because it is thus in the divine world. The name of the creative W

refore IS, pronounced IêSh in Hebrew. And since he is the lord of the 6 and, through them, o

verse, there must be added to his name the letter of the number [165] 6 and this divine Name b

ich everything bows, from heaven down into Hell, heaven itself shows us this and utters it to us

solute Speechישו

IeShV, in numbers 10, 300, 6 and by summation 10, namely again the le

nsubstantiality, co-essence with the Father, which must be confirmed thus, both in front and behiving Eternity.



יש

in the Hebrew of Moses signifies the divine Man, the Hero of the Spiritsישו

, the s

refore the King.

Anterior to Moses and his sacerdotal Hebrew, in the triple patriarchal anteriority, in Sansk

dic, in Vattan, I Sh V signifies the lord of the Spirits, the King, the Master of the spiritual or an

rld, its sun. In Egyptian I Sh V has the same meaning.

The ancient Noachide and pre-Noachide or Adamic patriarchal university had read this Name

solute Speech of the Angels and the heavens as we have just read it, and they worshiped it as I wo

Read in Egyptian style, from right to left, this name is found in O-Sh I-RIS, and inversely SIV I

lord InShV. Read from left to right, in Sanskrit it is IShU-Ra Ra, Light, Fire, Motion or

tive cause, divine desire, prayer.

râ archetypal Gift, sacrifice to heal and save and redeem.

riah glory and glorification by Gift and sacrifice.

The ancient word I.Sh.Va Ra, the lord of Glory, has passed from the ancient Church whose s

guage was Vattan, to the Noachide or Manavic Church in Vedic, then into Sanskrit, then from

mids of India and Egypt to the Abramids of Chaldea. Moses, who knew all this through the an

otherhood of the metropolitan patriarchal universities, made this name into the hierogrammatic sta

the Egyptian pariah people which he had established only in order to carry these sacred relics. “of the desert,” as its terrible master called it, this people, cobbled together by Moshe, receives

m the name of the King of Glory, the celestial Messiah: ISh-ra; and if the letter of the number 6, the

appeared, it is because it is replaced by the word AL signifier of the ALOHIM Gods, Angels, Yng

Let us dwell again on this word sacred. The exactitude of our zodiaco-planetary sphere of the

verified by first of all verifying the [167] NAME, the archetypal Shêmah. For this, all the organi

creative Word had to be exactly placed, all his powers, each in its letter and its angelic, cele

ral number, was in its place and concordance in the A-Th, in the Aleph-Thau, that is to say i

irling ray that emanates from the Absolute out of the point of the ungraspable center that constitut

undless sphere of the Infinite, that is to say again the universal Living Soul or the Vital Glory of B

also needed an interior circle, that of the letter S or Samek, and all that it signifies, to make possib

ft of Love, in the Soul, in the universal Essence Aleph-Thau, and this time gave us the ASTh, the A

archetypal substance of this essence. Jesus having said: I am the Aleph-Thau, this was our first

light, meditating on the Vedic characters, and above all the Vattanian in which the sacred morphol

served in the alphabet of the most ancient temple, the Atlantean or Adamic alphabet of theכ

wers. That of the Jews is also exact in its number of letters and letters of numbers, but it ceases

red or holy, that is to say true and just, in terms of the forms of these letters or the morphology

ord. In this respect as in many others, the Master Scribe, the remarkable theologian, the diplomat w

o was Esdras shows himself to be no more a disciple of Moses than directly living and seeing in

7'] no more epopt than prophet. He was a good Jew but not an Israelite at all, not a patriatholic of the angelical Judias ISh-ra-El, of the Word I Sh V son of IHOH. He was all the more the

the Jewish political bourgeoisie who despite Samuel had annihilated the social synarchy of Mo

had been more than that, they would have assassinated him like all the prophets. Besides, this ca

pture with the divine and social synarchy was not only the plague of the Jewish nation, it also stan

earth after the schism of Irshou. Master of all through the political State Niniveh which was born

nd died from it, Babylon (Bab-ilon the city of the partisans of the nature, people of [illegible]) ch

the divine synarchy of the IAO of Orpheus, the social Zodiac of the Greece was already disfigur

politician Prudhommeries of Sparta, Thebes, and Athens, the divine synarchy of IEVE, o

uscans, the social zodiac of Italy was already devoured from heart to head by the enraged wolf th



demonic conspiring of the bourgeois of Rome. All that Moses had seen, read, and understood [i

versity sanctuaries and in the Word that lives in the past, present, and future, all that his wild ass

lt and exercised in the desert under the [illegible] to save the sacred relics through the accursed

memories and promises of the Patriarchs, all the anti-Word of the anti-God, the anti-Christ and

wound his anti-Bereshith into action year by year, century by century, cycle by cycle, sepher by se

oll by scroll. Only Chinese Prudhommery born of the bourgeois schism of Irshou having had the

nse to establish itself in the Celestial Empire of IAO, in social although anti-sacerdotal syna

mpeted in vitality with [168] the ancient Indo-Egyptian metropolises. As for the Tur

udhommeries, rotten from anarchy for more than fifteen hundred years, they were overcom

terialism in all the attacks on the Faith, the Law, the economy of the ancient social State o

riarchs, imposing its ringleaders on Assyria, assailing Iran, the supreme protestation of the an

bysah from before the Hebrews of Moses. A last Zoroaster would be incarnated in a last prophet

religious and social Greece had found only one brilliant aid in the initiate Homer, but his Ilia

ant [sic] of joy at the annihilation of Trojan Prudhommery says a great deal, read with the keys o

diac of the Word. It is still ancient religious science, although already disrupted and degenerated

s its seducer. Troy is Ilion, word for word Matter conceived as the source of the principal Bei

ow opposed to the Bereshith of above by a Prudhommery rupturing the patriarchal ban, hated b

ohim because of its anti-religious anti-royal anarchy, erected in the Mother Doctrine of universalit

itical State. The emblem of this Alma Mater was not the ancient winged Yonah, the divine subn ima da, but its terrestrial antithesis through the patriarchal Templars, having been thus rais

vado by the [illegible]. The sow there was Prudhommery satiated. Likewise, the Prudhommer

tium, connecting to their Trojan anti-patriarch and initiator Aeneas, the anti-Enosh, raising as a sta

carnal, the symbol of the coat of arms that the Italian synarchists applied to them, Lupa, the She-

rving anarchy, devouring dissolution. She generated for herself a Cain, an Abel, the one pol

resenting her as the Master Mind of her City of Election, the other social, assassinated by this De

would reduce social Italy to slavery. The names, although altered, recall those of the Ramid

rahamid patriarchs. Rom-ulus is the Rama of matter and the emanation [?] of a future Ramaya

utality. Likewise the new name given to the Etruscan city ruptures it from the sacred metropolis, Rerses the device Amor, and opposes the Land of hatred to the ancient universal Charity.

[169] But the Vattanian Alphabet itself [would] never have been useful to us, had we not ha

piration to group it first into the letter of the ray, A – letter of the great sphere indicated by

micircles joined as a code, and finally by the letter of the small sphere ●● sa, marked by two poi

dicate two foci of the ellipse or ovoid.

Having the Aleph-Thau of the absolute Essence, the A.S., and the Sath of the bi-pola

bstance or the biogenic prism of the egg of the world, 19 letters remained for me. Their morpholo

ationship with the most ancient celestial signs, 12 zodiacal and 7 planetary, struck me. I arrange

elve and 7 letters consequently, and verified the harmonic and melodic positions and revolutions quisite Bekestein [sic] piano and on the no less fine Mustal [?] organs. For need I say that the

rld is simply the weight of the numbers of the divine world and its word, that the dodecenary zod

nstituted by and upon the creative mode of all the past, present, and future modes of [169'] 12 tone

mitones, that the planetary septenary is simply the correct septuple weight, and the exact sep

asure of the diatonic scale of 7 divine numbers. I did the same testing for the primary and com

ors, then through other correspondences, and I arrived at the supreme proof, at the Sacred Name

Day. But the first 6 days remained closed to me, even in terms of their true genesic sense, that is t

ther metaphysical nor physical, but divinely biogenic because God is Life.

Jesus, who had opened to me the Way, the Truth, and the Life of the Word, by telling me ispel I am the Aleph-Thau, had also guided me infallibly, telling me I am the Bereshith. From th



s word, animating itself in my heart, poured forth living as far as my brain, and I felt, in a superh

y of all my being, that a True principle is not an abstraction but an animation containing all its an

ngs, not [170] only in potential of being in the vain manner of metaphysicists, that is to say noth

hing real, but that which is the opposite in the Potential of Being, that is to say in the eternal real

ir realization, always at the present in Him. So that a Veritable Principle contains in itse

redness, its means which are sextupling, its finality which is septenary.

If the Bereshith is what the metaphysicists say, we are all lost, and the universe as wel

cording to them there is no reality except in the temporal progressions of Principles outside o

nciple. But happily, it is the contrary, and the constitution of the angelic and astral universe in abs

ing is infinitely living, is the guarantee, the indestructible reality of every particular life in its ante

ra-temporal specificity. Show me the death of a being, vegetable, animal, or man, in the wor

reshith, before the [170'] Fall of Adam. Death is not possible there in the Living God who rules

cle to cycle. One does not die in Absolute Life, nor in the world created in its image by its Bere

t everything that dies in our world, destroyed by us, is resurrected in that other world. For the Ber

ates always and eternally in the present, preserving and saving its creature of love. For it is c

ve itself, the absolute love of all love, the absolute life of all life, the absolute organizer

bstance organized according to its specific species by him, in him, and in .יהוה

When this light of life was made in me, I understood that the creative Word of the 6 was on

m because they were in Him as Him in IEVE, operating through them as through his organictional powers, and I opened the Zodiac and the Planetarism of the Word in trifatic sexenary. The

Jesus pours forth from it according to his own laws of living light through the heavens of heave

as the astral heaven. For the heavens of mortal time are the shadow projected by the light o

avens of eternal Life.

[171] It remains for us to see, on the Sphere of the Living Word, the Shema, the Name o

LHIM, the Vattanian A shows us the radiants of the Aleph Thau and of the ASoTh of the Ethereal, 6

mes = 18 six times = 36, 6 60 times = 360, the number of the Decans, then the infinity of radiances

ond letter L in Vattan shows us the winged beings of the celestial air, the sign of Libra, sign

d the autumnal equinox of the heavens, their quality as Judges of Lives at the council of the sided over by the King of Glory, ad Dexteram Patris, because the I, the

י

and the of IEVE is

n of Virgo, sign of the earth of glory, or translucent. The H, in Vattan , shows them to us at the v

uinox of the heavens in the sign of Aries or the solar Lamb where the Sun of the Spirits ha

altation in his Gift, in the Agni in the Fire of love of his supreme sacrifice, Life, the letter Y in V

unites them to Ie Sh V and to IEVE in the sign of Virgo, and of the earth of glory above, the letter

tan shows us Scorpio, the executive of their judiciary right after the council of the Gods pre

er by the king of Glory, sign of the Living Waters of Heaven, vivified by them and where all L

ivified in the celestial Water and in the spirit, which bears witness to it.

[171'] Finally the ALHIM in musical numbers of their letters say 1, 30, 5, 10, 40 and by summ

the Ph (80) the speech in 6 or the breath of the 6. These 86 yield 14 = ID, in Sanskrit or

rify, to bear witness to God through worship. Read from left to right, this is Mihla or miêla [e

ay].

xth Revelation: The Triangle of Jesus

The idea of the hexad in combination with the zodiac naturally led to an investigation o

uilateral triangles joining the signs by elements, which form a double Star of Solomon. Saint-

ped to find significances that would confirm those that “the Heavens declare.” The four triangles

lows:



irection Element Zodiacal signs Numbers Letters

ast Fire Aries, Leo, Sagittarius 5 + 9 + 70 = 84 E, T, Ou

outh Water Cancer, Scorpio,

Pisces

8 + 40 + 200 =

248 H, M, R

West Air Libra, Aquarius,

Gemini

30 + 100 + 7 =

137 L, K, Z

orth Earth Capricorn, Taurus,Virgo 80 + 6 + 10 = 96 P, V, Y

Saint-Yves began by treating the four sums as the limiting numbers of musical scales, namely,

mber assigned to the highest (or lowest) tone, which would allow all the other tones to be giv

ir proper proportion, as whole numbers. He discovered that a harmonious scale cannot be made

numbers 137 or 84, but that 96 and 248 give satisfactory tuning systems, for example:

String length Tone OR Vibrations per

sec.

Tone

48 cm. E' 96 C'

54 D 90 B

60 C 80 A

64 B 72 G

72 A 64 F

80 G 60 E

90 F 54 D

96 E 48 C

But if only the letters of these triangles gave equally beautiful results! Saint-Yves was at

h the barbaric triglyphs ETOu, HMR, LKZ, PVY. Even Fabre d’Olivet’s book had no more h

er.

Saint-Yves found the solution at Pentecost, May 29, 1898.[31]

The Triangle of Earth is no

er than the Triangle of Jesus—so long as one substitutes for the tiresome P of Capricorn the Sh

er, Saturn. Thereupon it is transformed into YShV, “Jesu.” The other musical triangle, that of W

ealed itself at the same time, but without casuistry, as the name of Maria, MRHa: Marie-Victoi

urse, no less than the Blessed Virgin. These triangles are much discussed in L’Archéomètre.[32]

Now the Archeometer was practically finished; it would be ready for Papus to demonstrate

ptember 26, 1900, at the International Spiritist and Spiritualist Conference in Paris.[33]

A pa

lows in which Saint-Yves, for the first time, gives it a definition:



Table 4

The WisdomThe universal Fact, and every fact within it, is in the Law, the Law is in the Principle, the Three are indivisible, and

from the Principle nothing emanates, everything immanates in Him. The Fact is experimental, the Law is revealed by the Fact,the Principle by the Law. The integral science is this revelation, and the Revelation is this science itself. Antiquity called it

Wisdom, profane superstition called it magic, Christianity calls it religion, total synthesis in the Law and by the Law in thePrinciple, creative Word and preserver of the universal Fact and its supreme miracle: Life. St. Paul, who knew to their depthsthe most secret traditions of the Jews, declared them absolutely ignorant of sacred Wisdom. Three thousand years before him,the hieroglyphic Christian poem known by the name of Job proclaimed it lost. It is this supreme Wisdom of the pre-HebraicPatriarchs that Saint Augustine calls the True Religion, the Christianity of the creative Word, then of the incarnate Word. [213]

This knowledge was experimental, and the supreme instrument of its experiments is that which I have reconstitutedunder the name of the Archeometer.

I cannot give a better brief definition of the Archeometer than “the mother Prism of the Principle and of the universal

Correspondences therein.”[34]

nclusions

I doubt that there is anyone today—even that there ever was anyone—who shares the opinint-Yves: that the Archeometer is the result of his rediscovery of the true, primordial wisdo

nkind, disfigured and denatured no less by the Jewish Kabbalists than by the profane Greco-R

ilization of which we are the unfortunate heirs—a wisdom familiar to Moses and Jesus, but

served solely in the secret universities of the Brahmins, their very existence unsuspected to this d

Nevertheless, the origin of this Vattanian alphabet remains an open question until Hindu sch

d philologists can explain its existence. It is not enough simply to dismiss it, or to veil it in fu

stifications: one needs to know exactly where Haji Sharif learned it, and what he understood (not

pupil understood!) by the “great Agarthian school” whose tradition he is supposed to have prese

5] At present, the information of Hindus on Saint-Yves’ work is anything but satisfactory



ormants of Marco Pallis, for example, absolutely deny any Hindu origin for the name “Aga

roduced by Saint-Yves in his Mission de l’Inde.[36]

But the anonymous informant of Whitall N.

irms it, and even provides it with an etymology![37]

It is also up to the Hindus and Sanskritists to judge the validity of the Second Revelation

m.” Do they know of any metaphysic of letters such as is found here, with its striking resemblan

t of Hebrew? It is at least an ingenious linguistic synthesis of the Vedic and Hebrew cosmogonies

milar to that which Madame Blavatsky was working on at exactly the same time, with the assistan

iental sources no less mysterious than those of Saint-Yves.The decisive point in the Archeometer’s development was the decision to reject the tradi

respondences of the Kabbalah. Without that, nothing in the geometry of the diagram would

rked. In perhaps the most intelligent article ever written on the Archeometer, Jean Reyor writes o

nt:

Whatever some people have said, the correspondences indicated in L’Archéomètre seem to us worthy of consideration; thefact that they differ from those given in the Sepher Ietsirah, for example, does not necessarily mean that one or the other iswrong. Divergence is not always contradiction; it may be a question of a simple difference in point of view. [Note] Thus, totake one example, the correspondence of the letter Beth of the Hebrew alphabet with the Moon, as indicated by

L’Archéomètre, can be defended just as well as the correspondence with Saturn indicated by the Sepher Ietsirah.

[38]

Admittedly there are at least two systems of cosmic correspondences in the traditional Kabb

other one gives the Moon the letter Ain, and Saturn the Lamed. But one wonders just how far

fferent points of view” can go. Certainly Saint-Yves justified his system by its results, a

ditional Kabbalists do theirs. Every constructor of a cosmological system adapts the traditiona

entific data (planets, constellations, etc.) to his own point of view. Perhaps the author of the S

sirah did exactly that; this, at least, is the conclusion that one is led to on admitting different poi

w, and for my part, I do not find it troubling. Unlike purely metaphysical principles, questio

respondences of a cosmological order are subject to the psychological and racial formations th

ich they are viewed. Cosmologies change with time—even with individuals—but that does not pr

ch from having a certain degree of truth.

We are touching here on the problem of all universal systems, of which there have been so

ce the Renaissance, if not since the Ionian philosophers. To say, with Thales, that “All is Water”

very different from saying with Saint-Yves that the universe is created on Archeometric principle

ch of them, it is a satisfying explanation of a cosmos which defies the rational mind. But at the

me as Thales, Heraclitus was saying, with just as much reason, that “All is Fire”; and contemporary

nt-Yves there is the admirable Charles Henry whose system also connects, but in a very different

es, words, colors, numbers, and even the survival of the soul.

This last subject leads us to reconsider the revelations which Saint-Yves received after the dearie-Victoire. Was he a spiritualist? To answer this question, it must be understood that the whole

his wife’s death—oratory, rituals, apparitions, and inspirations—was the natural consequence of

had expressed twenty years before, in his book Clefs de l’Orient (1877).[39]

There he describe

ocedures to be used in assisting the soul to leave the body, and recommended that this scien

sychurgy” should be cultivated within the family. There can be no doubt that he used it hims

arie’s death.

There is more. A small dossier of manuscripts, dating from the same period as Clefs de l’O

ntains the valuable evidence that Saint-Yves had drawn up at least the plans for a secret sancdicated to psychurgy, that is, to the evocation of souls for obtaining messages, either through



ping or through a human medium. This sanctuary had obvious links with the cult founded by

Olivet in the last months of his life.[40]

But twenty years later, Saint-Yves doubtless regarde

itations of Marie-Victoire, either in a “blinding light” or more inwardly, not as spiritualist pheno

t as mystical experiences: as encounters with a reintegrated being—he calls her “a Saint in Paradi

om he rightly named his “Angel.”[41]

Yet it is not obligatory to believe everything that people say about “angels.” Althoug

perience may have been authentic from his point of view, the human vessel is not always a fa

nsmitter of what it has received from above; its confessional and psychological traits have a lot h it. I would guess, for example, that in Saint-Yves’ case it would have been impossible for him

scover” the name of Jesus as the crown of his system. Like every universal system of modern tim

d I am thinking particularly of Saint-Yves’ French precursors Fabre d’Olivet, Charles Fourier, H

ronski, and his contemporaries Charles Henry, Azbel (= Emile Chizat), Maurice Griveau

cheometer is primarily an exteriorization of the interior cosmos that constitutes the soul of its a

d how is it possible, after all, to reproduce the Macrocosm without filtering it through

crocosm?

L’Archéomètre: Clef de toutes les Religions et de toutes les Sciences de l’Antiquité; Réforme Synthètique de tous ltemporains (Paris: Dorbon Ainé, n.d. [1912]). The best of several reissues (Paris: Gutenberg Reprints, 1979) has an introduction

nier, and is followed by L’Archéomètre musical and La Théogonie des Patriarches.

Letter from Chauvet, probably to Papus, July 13, 1912: “It is inadmissible: we owe it to the master to make a readable bookrogeneous compilation.” During the previous days, Chauvet was writing to the printer Darantière, still discussing the order of the s

he book, whose publication date is customarily given as 1911. (Letters in the Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, MS. Carton 42)

Beginning with No. 9 (July-Aug., 1910), 179, and continuing through the last number of the journal (Feb. 1912).

Mostly collected by Nicolas Séd in J. P. Laurant, ed., René Guénon (Paris: Cahiers de l’Herne, 1985), 117-135.

Also for their spiritualist séances, following (whether they knew it or not) in the footsteps of Saint-Yves. See Robert Amadou, “Lte de René Guénon,” Sphinx (Beaugency), No. 3/4 (Autumn, 1978): 21 unpaginated pages; no. 5 (Spring, 1979): 45-60; No. 7/8 (Ater, 1979): 83.

J. Godwin, “Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and the Agarthian Connection,” in The Hermetic Journal (Tysoe, G.B.), 32 (1986): 24-34; 33:3

See the summary of R. Amadou, “Les Fonds Saint-Yves d’Alveydre à la Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne,” in L’Initiation, 2 & 3 (e adopted his numbering of the manuscript notebooks.

J. Saunier, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre ou une synarchie sans énigme (Paris: Dervy-Livres, 1981).

J. Godwin, “Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and the Agarthian Connection,” op. cit.

This can be seen in the otherwise undeciphered inscription that prefaces Saint-Yves’ posthumous book Mission de l’Inde (Paris: D

é, 1910; more complete edition, Nice: Bélisane, 1981).La Gnose 9 (1910), 185. Saint-Yves explains thus the etymology of the word Vattan: “Vat signifies to speak, say, share, m

ibute, envelop, connect, knot. Vata signifies circle, sphere, equality of form and dimension. Tan signifies to deploy.” (MS. 1823, N44')

This is how the essay is catalogued in MS. 1826, Notebook 26. The essay itself is in MS. 1823, Notebook 2, beginning f. 41. The written rapidly in black ink; the complete text appears below, translated into English as literally as possible, in order to pres

ntaneous character.

In the margin, in pencil: “Shda, ShdeH. haYBi.”

In the Margin: 356.

In the Margin: 366.

MS. 1823, Notebook 5, f. 126'.



P. Christian, Histoire de la Magie (Paris: Furne, Jouvet, n.d.), 495.

P. Christian, op. cit., 115.

MS. 1823, Notebook 5, f. 134'.

MS. Carton 42.

MS. 1823, Notebook 5, f. 166'. For the description of the mass, see Saunier, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, 401.

The notes of Erny’s visit and conversations are partly in MS. carton 42, and partly in the Fonds Papus of the Bibliothèque Municn. They range over a fascinating variety of topics, and deserve to be published as a contribution to the very sparse documentation o

s’ later thought.MS. 1823, Notebook 5, f. 157.

A. Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptiacus, Vol. II (Rome: V. Mascardi, 1652-54), 382-383.

MS. 1823, Notebook 5, ff. 163-165', 167-171'. Folios 166-166' contain the description of the mass of June 6, 1896.

MS. 1823, Notebook 5, ff. 158', 162', drawn in red, black, and green ink. My redrawing follows the first version, with the additionsecond version at the head and foot of the diagram.

See Mission des Juifs, 2nd ed. (Paris: Dorbon Ainé, 1928), chapter XVI, 576ff.

MS. 1823, Notebook 4, f. 105: 144,000 is called “the theogonic number for the divine Wisdom and for its cyclical mode . . . Responangel, All Saints’ Day, 1901.”

The musical notes are scarcely legible on the Archeometer (see Table 4); they follow the planets in their zodiacal houses, the Sunsame A as the Moon. The archeometric developments in music and architecture take these notes as the bases of triads, proportions

MS. 1823, Notebook 3, ff. 66-70.

MS. 1823, Notebook 5, f. 191'.

L’Archéomètre, 186-206.

See R. Amadou, “Démonstration de l’Archéomètre par Papus,” L’Autre Monde 77 (Dec. 1983): 28-32, for the stenographic rus’ demonstration.

MS. 1823, Notebook 5, ff. 212'-213.

See J. Godwin, “Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and the Agarthian Connection,” op. cit.

M. Pallis, letter to J. P. Laurant, René Guénon, 354.

W. N. Perry, “Gurdjieff in the Light of Tradition,” part I, Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 8, no. 4 (1974), 215n.

J. Reyor (= Maurice Clavelle), “Saint-Yves d’Alveydre et l’Archéomètre,” Le Voile d’Isis, Vol. 40 (July 1935): 290.

Reissued with introduction by J. Saunier (Nice: Bélisane, 1980).

See Léon Cellier, Fabre d’Olivet (Paris: Nizet, 193), 312-321; and Cellier’s edition of Fabre d’Olivet’s La Vraie Maçonnereste Culture (Lausanne: La Proue, 1977). The dossier on the Psychurgic Sanctuary is in MS. carton 42.

The Abbé Simonin, who celebrated the mass of June 6, 1896, “brought sacerdotal vestments of white and gold, believing with me ved wife is a Saint in Paradise.” See Saunier, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, 401.