J.M. Ragon (1781–1862)

John Lenoir has recently (2011) published his own English translation of Jean-Marie Ragon's La Messe et ses Mysteres Compares aux Mysteres Anciens (1844). This book was praised by Madame Blavatsky in a feature review in Lucifer in 1889, and later cited by Aleister Crowley in his commentary to The Book of Lies. Lenoir is a Thelemite, as witnessed by his use of the Thelemic year CVIII in the book's indicia, and his dedication of the volume to Marcelo Motta.

The hefty tome is an analytical and comparative study using the solar-phallic model of religion, very much in the vein of Charles-François Dupuis and Richard Payne Knight. (Ragon cites the former in his first footnote.) The focus is on liturgical concerns. Additional sections after examining the ritual of the Latin Mass with its pagan precedents include a long comparison of the Christian liturgical year with festival dates from earlier and remote cultures, a study of credal and liturgical reforms in the "Principle (sic) Councils," and a summary of "Primitive Christianity in Egypt."

There are two very key terms in this text which seem to have been translated ineffectively. Lenoir translates Ragon's French morale with the English false cognate "morale" (or often as not "MORALE"). These two words do not have the same meaning: French morale is English "morality," rather than the confidence or enthusiasm which is the usual denotation of the word in English. In the second case, théisme has been consistently, and lexicographically enough, translated as "theism." I cannot speak to the history of the theism/deism distinction in French letters, but it is clear from the context in this book that by théisme Ragon means "deism." (He does not use the word déisme.) In particular, he sets up an opposition between théisme and polythéisme (126 [143] ff.), which makes perfect sense if theisme is read as "deism," but not if it is read as "theism." Ragon's appeals to Volney and his general anticlericalism clearly align him with the French deists.

And ultimately, deism is at the core of Ragon's message regarding the modern rites of traditional Christianity and the customs of ancient paganism. He takes the esoteric truth of all these systems to be the same: heliolatrous deism. There is an unknowable creator godhead of the universe, whom Ragon denotes with the ancient appellation Cnef (i.e. Kneph -- the winged or serpent-wound orb or egg). The most suitable sole focus for human reverence is, however, the sun, lord of the heavens whose energy sustains all life. These facts have been conserved by priesthoods in all ages, and can be unearthed in every religious system. But they are also inevitably covered with a constantly compounding material of superstition which diversifies and provincializes deity into manifold gods, angels, and saints.

While Ragon is clearly anticlerical and anti-Catholic, he praises the traditional Latin rite, with reservations regarding its superficial crudities. He takes a similar approach to the ceremonies of Freemasonry. The volume is in fact addressed throughout to Masons of the Scottish Philosophical Rite (an antecedent/cousin of the Oriental Rite of Mizraim).

This heliolatrous deism is in fact the exoteric theology presented by the Gnostic Mass of O.T.O., while the esoteric content of the Gnostic Catholic rite of Thelema pertains to the Supreme Secret of its Sovereign Sanctuary, the true secret of all practical magick. So it is little wonder that Crowley praised Ragon's book, and even seems to have taken a few cues from it (or from some common source) in his reforms of O.T.O. ceremonies.… (más)