The War of the Magicians: Part 1

Those who know him, describe the abbé Boullan as a cheerful little old man with eyes of fire which seem to delve into the brain, with the high forehead of the mystic – and uttering his sibylline words – but with the mighty jaws of the watchdog. He lives very withdrawn in Lyon, where he has installed his headquarters first with “Adhalnaël, pontiff Vintrasien” and then, in 1884, with an architect named Pascal Misme, “pontiff of the Divine Melchisedek”, in the Rue de La Martinière. This Mr Misme is an excellent old man who had dedicated his life to the search of the elixir of Paracelsus.

Boullan has with him two visionairies: Ms. Laura and Ms. Thibaut – who, for years, only eats bread dipped in milk and only has to raise her eyes over her glasses to see the legions of the invisible. He also is surrounded by a small circle of  “faithful”, with whom he attends the rites of the “Glory of the Sacrifice of Melchisedek” or the “Provictimal Sacrifice of Mary” and especially the ceremonies of “the Law of Sacred Redemption” and the “Union of Life”. Boullan teaches his followers that “the Fall from Grace in the Garden of Eden resulted from an illicit act of love, so the Redemption of Humanity can only be achieved through acts of love accomplished in a religious manner”. He advocated intercourse with celestial entities if an adept wanted to redeem himself, or with inferior beings if he wished to help them up “the ladder of life” out of charity. In that way, Boullan turned fornication into a liturgical practice.

But gradually he lost his prudence and he admitted to his circle a certain canon Roca, an occultist who published a anticlerical magazine and who soon left Lyon in disgust. As did Stanislas de Guaïta, who came to Lyon in 1886 as “a little child at school”, and the occultist Oswald Wirth who – after pretending more than a year to adhere to the doctrines of Boullan – broke sharply with him once he was in the possession of a written document which summarized them all.

Early 1887, Wirth and Guaita came together and set up a tribunal to judge Boullan. In May 1887, in a letter dictated by Guaita and signed by Wirth, his self-appointed judges informed Boullan that he was a condemned man. At the moment, Boullan’s house in the Rue de la Martinière is placed on a war footing, because the abbot is convinced that he has been condemned to death. He has made ready to ward off the spells and incantations he himself has taught Guaita and Wirth, and which he now believes are turned against him…

The Weird War Continues Here:

The War of the Magicians: Part Two

Read also:

Down There: A History of Satanism

Black Magic in Nineteenth Century France

The Code of the Holy Blood