The Message Rediscovered challenges the rationalist thinking

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are assembled here as guests in this venerable house, with a history of over 700 years, and which was founded to restore the study of Theology, that is, of the Word of God. Is it a coincidence that my talk is entitled Louis Cattiaux, The Word Lost and Rediscovered?

I would like to first thank Mr. Bernard Renaud de la Faverie, as well as Mr. Johan Dreue, for inviting me to participate in this Eugène Canseliet conference to discuss the work of «Louis Cattiaux, poet, painter, and apothecary»; this is how his business cards were written.

We knew him well, my brother Emmanuel and I. I would like to remind you that Emmanuel d’Hooghvorst passed away this year in May; I pay tribute to him for his insightful contribution to the dissemination of Alchemical Art. His work will be discussed at the end of this conference by one of his friends, Mr. Stéphane Feye.

We were friends of L. Cattiaux from 1949 to 1953, the year he departed this world, on 16th July, at the age of 49. Presenting a man of such stature is a task of which I feel quite unworthy; nevertheless, it is the bond of friendship we shared that permits me to speak to you of him.

This extraordinary character, born in Valenciennes in 1904, lived in Paris in the heart of the Latin Quarter with his wife Henriette and his cat Poupinet, a superb Persian, which he would stroke and jokingly refer to as «My big Jesus!». One can understand this somewhat irreverent nickname, if we remember that the cat is the emblem of the Word of our Master Hermes, because it says Miaou (Meow), with the four vowels of the divine Name; it is IAKHOU for the Ancient Egyptians, or also HELOUIA, who, according to Louis Cattiaux, is the true author of The Message Rediscovered, his main work, of which we shall speak presently. This seems quite normal to us, since the mysteries of prophecy are none other than those of the Word, which is the divine thought incarnated, or embodied.

Referring to Hermes, god of the Word, Emmanuel d’Hooghvorst, disciple of L. Cattiaux, writes in his work Le Fil de Pénélope (Penelope’s Thread), published by the French publisher, La Table d’Émeraude:

It is preached and it is taught, but all despise it and none recognizes it.

We are indeed talking, according to one tradition, about the lost Word, the Verbum Demissum or Dimissum, Hiram, the great architect of Solomon’s Temple, who was assassinated by evil companions, after what the Temple was devastated. The Masters, thanks to the acacia, know where to find his tomb in order to resurrect him, and restore the Temple.

But let us return to Louis Cattiaux.

A first encounter with this unique man left no-one indifferent. Disconcerting, unpredictable in his reactions, guided by a peculiar logic that would catch his visitors off guard, he enjoyed shocking and even scandalizing, but always with humour. He was the man without complexes, perfectly free in the world, living intensely in the present like a happy child, without malice.

Often playing the fool or the clown, he refused to take the world seriously, no more seriously than he took himself; never one to lecture, if he taught it was in the manner of the Court Jester, who possesses the Art of talking to those who wish to understand while making the others laugh, without the possibility of their being offended. Nevertheless, a warmth that was something quite different from ordinary cordiality emanated from this man; it was like the presentiment of an immense secret, alive, but jealously guarded.

His major work is The Message Rediscovered, the writing of which took up the last fourteen years of his life. In it we find, for example, this verse that serves as a good illustration of the humility and discretion of the man by comparison with his inspired message:

We have taken up the habit of the charlatan, for the disinterested despise of the world is less difficult to bear than its interested admiration. (MR XXIII- 61)

We shall call ourselves incapable, useless and stupid when we rest in the contemplation of the Unique One; or else we shall call ourselves charlatans, jugglers and clowns when we teach his holy law in the world. (MR XX-66)

It is not up to us to take ourselves seriously, nor to demand of others that they do so. That is up to God, who is the only one to see the inside of creatures clearly. (MR XX-66’)

A first edition of The Message Rediscovered had been published in 1946 at the author’s expense, containing only the first twelve chapters, those that had been finished by then.

That first edition was received by the public with complete indifference, and literary critics scarcely gave it a mention, except for a few rare ones, among them René Guénon.

The Message Rediscovered opens with two prayers in triangular form; one represents the sign of ascending fire, as the Father; the other, the sign of falling water, as the Mother. On uniting them by their base one obtains the geomantic figure Carcer, which would represent the sown earth. If we unite them by their point, we see the figure Conjunctio, the fertilized mother. What we have, then, are the two main phases of the work, presented in a figurative manner from the beginning of the book.

The Message Rediscovered contains 40 books, or chapters, and is presented as a series of verses in two columns that should generally be read horizontally from left to right. Each book is preceded by epigraphs at the beginning and at the end of the chapters, drawn from the holy Scriptures of all Nations.

We speak a new language, but we repeat the ancient unique revelation, for nobody invents anything in the ART of God. (MR XXXIII, 42)

This is the affirmation of the universality of a single and identical revelation since the beginning through all the holy books.

The Message Rediscovered does not necessarily have to be read like an ordinary book, from beginning to end. One way of approaching it is to open it at random and to read the verses that catch your eyes. Or even better, one can consult it on a particular topic by inserting the tip of a paper-knife into the edge of the closed book and then read the response indicated by the tip. For it is, in fact, a kind of magical book that replies to questions one puts to it with simplicity and without malice. I’ve often had this experience.

But to approach it does not mean to penetrate it. With regard to its profound contents, we read:

The Book is like the ark that carries and transmits the secret of the Unique One. Many shall carry it, but few shall penetrate it. (MR XXIII-61’)

Here there is more than a moral and more than an asceticism, more than a philosophy and more than a mysticism. Here is the key to the restitution of man and the world in God. (MR IX-36’)

The Book teaches us how to come out of death and repose in life, but how many of the believers are passionate about this mystery? (MR XII-5’)?

This is the true content of this Message, which has been called prophetic.

This book addresses itself to intuition and profound memory, and not to speculative reason. Very few in number are those that have had the intelligence and the patience to read it and ponder over it, so as to penetrate it and discover the way that leads to the living secret of man, buried in the deepest depths of the nature of this world.

Has the murkiness of ignorance descended so thickly to that extent upon today’s humanity to make it forget the trace of the holy science of the disciples of Hermes, transmitted from age to age through filiation?

At the time, even those who still believed in it and who practised alchemy did not recognize L. Cattiaux as one of their own.

This book is all very fine, they say, leafing through The Message, but it has nothing to do with our alchemy; it contains not a single practical formula like those taught by our masters. It is just one more mystical book among so many others.

Did the learned masters not also reject the Book as being alien to their revelations, their traditions and their sciences? (MR XXXVIII-13)

This verdict was almost unanimous.

In short, The Message Rediscovered, in an uncommon language, that is to say, in a language other than that normally used by masters of alchemy, a language with which Cattiaux was perfectly acquainted from having studied the works of the ancient masters, The Message Rediscovered, as I was saying, speaks nevertheless on every page of their famous matter, light of Nature, secret fire of the opus capable of dissolving vulgar gold without violence, of making it germinate, fructify and multiply, that is, of converting vulgar mercury into the mercury of the Philosophers and maturing it, through the union of that which is most high with that which is most low.

That which is most high is Hiram, the architect of the Temple; Hai Ram in Hebrew means Life from above.

With regard to this famous matter, we can cite, for example, verse 14’ of book XXXVIII:

What is, then, the thing that is neither flesh nor fish, neither stone nor plant, and that nevertheless IS? (MR XXXVIII-14’)

Is this not an allusion to that universal soul, that ethereal fire, food of this low world, which ceaselessly becomes embodied under the veil of the mixtures of the three kingdoms?

And in verse 19’ of book IV we read:

The light of the sun, of the moon and of the stars perpetually fertilizes the water of heaven that carries the seed to the depths of the earth, from which springs the life of beings and things. (MR IV-19’)

The Spirit works before everyone. Few see it. Only one grasps it and fixes it. (MR II-56’)

The love of gold means that it is even searched for in the rubbish, but few men are capable of grasping it from heaven and fixing it on earth. (MR II-24’)

What is lighter than sunlight?

Nevertheless, it is what gives weight to all things in the world. (MR X-3’)

The all-powerful sun awakens life even in dead earth and makes it germinate as far as the heaven of resurrection, but it is the mother water that makes the seed of pure gold bear fruit. (MR III-43’)

That is always the big question – what and how? – to which each tries to reply according to one’s understanding of the texts of the masters, for the latter tell us only what the thing resembles, and not the thing such as it is, and without which, they say, it is useless to put the hand to work.

Things say the word, but the word is not said by things. Words say the thing, but the thing is not said by words. (MR XXXVIII-59’)

In this regard, let us consider the words of Louis Cattiaux’s master, Nicolas Valois, who warns us at the beginning of his treatise Les Cinq Livres:

Let it be known that all speak in the same way, in two manners, one of which is true and the other false. The true one is such that it can only be understood by Enlightened ones who walk straight and in accordance to nature, which is therefore full of comparisons and examples under wrong names and ambiguities, that do not belong to Science at all but are indicative of it. For in science only one thing is needed and one single means of operation, through a simple and natural way without getting lost in the plurality of things contrary to our unique leaven. The false one is this confusion of regimes and wicked drudgery. (N. Valois, Les Cinq Livres, op. cit., pp. 160-161).

For this thing cannot be known but by cabalistic transmission. As you know, the Hebrew word qabbalah means simply transmission, or more precisely, receipt, receipt of the GIFT of God. The cabalists are therefore those who have received this gift. The crowned Adept who possesses it can transmit it to the disciple with God’s permission. Without that blessing, the alchemic opus cannot be undertaken successfully. In verse 13 of book XXIV we indeed find:

It is the essential and substantial word transmitted by the master that makes us the heirs to the Highest, on condition that we receive it in a holy way with gratitude and not profanely with malice.

The Highest is always Hiram, the lost word. It seems, indeed, to be a question here of a highly secret occult experience called initiatory death, to which the Philosophers have often made discreet allusions.

The extreme humiliation of death is the compulsory entry to the splendour of heavenly life, for earthly separation is the beginning of heaven manifested. (MR II- 76’)

Death is a light veiled with terror; the sage considers it with serenity and experiences it with intelligence and benefit. (MR I-52’)

There is a Spanish proverb that says:

Quien antes de morir no muere, se pudre cuando muere.

Which can be translated as: «He who before dying does not die, rots when he dies».

And there is this:

She offers silver and gold, the diamond and the ruby, but everyone rejects her hand because it is black. (MR IV-8’)

And yet she offers the materia prima, that divine water of which our good friend Valois speaks:

It is therefore rightly that our divine water is called the Key, Light, Diana who illuminates in the thickness of the night. For it is the entrance to the whole Work, and that which enlightens every man. It is the bird of Hermes, which has no rest day or night, striving only to embody itself in all places of the earth. […] It is this maiden Beya, who has not yet been corrupted nor lost her freedom, to marry infirm and impure bodies. (N. Valois, op. cit., pp. 175 and 180).

Eugène Canseliet, disciple of the most learned Fulcanelli, in his Deux Logis Alchimiques, writes this comment about Gideon’s fleece, watered by the dew of heaven:

The miracle, achieved by the son of Joas, is the same as that which the alchemist benefits from, thanks to his nocturnal «office», and which provides him with the celestial water essential for the successful continuation of his arduous efforts. Also referred to as the blessed water by reputable authors (Deux Logis alchimiques, Pauvert, Paris, 1979, p. 115).

Let’s add a word about this initiatory death to say that it seems to be the experience that Jacob had at night, at the foot of the ladder, and that some alchemists commented on it after the Jewish cabbalists. Eugenius Philalethes discusses it in his treatise Magia Adamica. Therefore, there is no true alchemy without cabala.

In his fifth book, Valois writes:

What I tell you, as I have been taught by a certain copy of that Jewish traditive cabala, which was called magic, which is the philosophical Science, of which Hermes, Pythagoras, Numa Pompilius, and several others have established schools (N. Valois, op. cit., p. 242).

We know that Nicolas Flamel also received the revelation from a Jewish cabalist. That is why the Philosophers insist on the need for the oratory adjoining the laboratory.

He who seeks the mystery of union and of life without the blessing and without the love of God shall only find dispersion and death. These words are very true. (MR XXXVI-2)

There is the trap laid for all the ignorant, the impatient, the proud and the avaricious ones who always confuse base materials and noble metals.

The gardener is the most learned of all men, but he does not know it, because he works with darkened seeds and with a soil mixed with death. (MR I-25’)

Those that cultivate the land often lack the main heavenly food, which is God’s blessing. (MR I-34’)

The sage places the seed and God opens it by means of water and fire. (MR I- 35’)

Let us now consider some texts cited by Louis Cattiaux in his alchemic verses:

The universal and spiritual Catholic seed never rises but always descends, and the sheath in which it is wrapped in bodies teaches us that this celestial seed is covered, that it does not show itself naked, but that it carefully conceals itself from the eyes of the ignorant and the sophists, and is totally unknown to the vulgar.

First, we need to take our substance, which we can call REBIS or RES BINA, meaning that it consists of two things, although individually they exist in a single body. Once it is well contained in a glass vessel, it must be divided in the manner of philosophers through a single decoction, by which it alters, rots, and calcines.

All that is done in the world cannot be done without the stars.

All philosophers emphasize the necessity of assistance from divine grace symbolized by a secret fire descending from heaven (Le Fil d’Ariane, Écriture et tradition, 1996, nos 57-58, pp. 12 to 24, § 96, 19, 33, and 36).

An athanor, heavy with its living secret, was it guarded in that mysterious little shop of an unknown painter at No. 3 Casimir-Perier Street, in front of which the distracted inhabitants of this quiet neighbourhood passed by repeatedly? And how is it that those who entered by chance did not perceive the subtle fragrance of the Chemical Rose?

Yet, there, in total ignorance of the outside world, verse by verse, was being crafted, each word weighed carefully like a patiently distilled quintessence, drop by drop. There was being elaborated, let us say, this Message Rediscovered, testimony to the mystery of Palingenesis rediscovered; we say rediscovered for it has always been reiterated by the Adepts of Hermes and by the prophets since the dawn of mankind. (It is known that palingenesis means «new birth» or «regeneration».)

Allow me to quote some texts that I have gathered from the handwritten notes of Louis Cattiaux:

Palingenesis is the highest term of alchemy, just as Chrysopoeia is the lowest term. Alchemy is the realization of the Priestly Art and the Royal Art. It is the golden key that opens the traditional secret, which is the regeneration of the fallen creation.

Alchemy is not of purely inner nature. This is the gross error of all intellectuals, philosophers, mystics, spiritists, and spiritualists.

 It is indeed a material operation combined with a spiritual operation, but hidden under the terms of vulgar chemistry, which has deceived the profane.

 One does not exclude the other; far from it, for they necessarily complement each other.

 A verse from the Message indeed says:

 Its necessary to dissolve before coagulating.

That is the law of heaven and earth (MR XXXI, 39 and 39’).

These are the two ways, the wet way and the dry way, which necessarily follow one another.

And in his handwritten notes, Cattiaux continues:

Pernety emphasizes the difference between hermetic philosophy and vulgar chemistry; this is true, but it does not mean that alchemy is disembodied and solely spiritual. It is the Science of Sciences, and it is effective.

One must not confuse alchemy with chrysopoeia, for alchemy, which is the practice of hermeticism, is the total science of being, while chrysopoeia is merely the part that concerns metals, like argyropoeia as well.

 Hermeticism is the very core of tradition, and that is why it can incorporate all facets of tradition represented by the different religions. Alchemical science is genuine and tangible.

 On this assertion from a 20th-century expert, I conclude, hoping not to have overstayed your kind attention, and I hope that those of you, Ladies and Gentlemen, who are awakened to the mystery of the Holy Science of our master Hermes, will have the curiosity to examine this Message Rediscovered without prejudice and with patience, which is the prophetic fruit of the Great Work accomplished.

I would, however, like to add a word, if you allow me, which is not without interest, to say that Louis Cattiaux was also a seer. We have an example in Book XXXVIII, which was written at the beginning of the year 1953:

Did we not announce accurately and well in advance the fall and the failure of the regime without God? (MR XXXVIII, 4).

One remembers the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet regime that resulted from it, which is now clearly verifiable. The following verse also states:

Did we not warn the sleeping ones of the geological catastrophes that are beginning to torment the world gone astray? (MR XXXVIII, 4’).

The two following verses also deserve consideration, for they foretell far more serious events.