Josephin Péladan (1858-1958)
Introduction 2013: This is the fourth segment of a rather cryptic, fragmentary and very personal ‘travelogue’ I wrote, whilst travelling two months through the devastated ruins of Catholic France during 2010.
Yes, Catholic France I saw was a wasteland …
And I found myself musing on what hope there was for France and therefore on the traditional Catholic movement.
The series is probably best appreciated by starting with the first part here.
From 2010:
Somewhere in France. Soul contents. Very personal.
Our Lady is calling me, calling me to be more decisive.
On fundamental things.
To be in fact more like that writer who has moved me so deeply.
That writer, that Papal Knight Charles A. Coulombe.
I do not agree with Mr Coulombe on all things, to be sure.
I cannot support his Feeney positions, even if I hope I understand them.
At any rate, he seeks a solution to the Horror which he sees so very acutely.
He sees the horror of That Hideous Strength.
Destroying piety. Destroying culture. Destroying Christianity. Condemning souls to living Hell. Like Larkin.
I feel like urging folk: Read the Good Knight.
You do not have to agree with everything he says. You may be scandalised and outraged.
But perhaps you will see the Good Knight is onto something.
Onto something, which less courageous writers seldom dare to broach.
This Knight of old French stock sees clearly the Tragedy that happened toLa Vraie France. The true France.
The Tragedy that seeks now to engulf us everywhere.
He is NOT apathetic and complacent.
He is working, working. Steadily and consistently.
Travelling through this French desert of Triumphant Materialism, I think …
I think of Josephin Péladan.
Josephin Péladan, that special friend of Valentin Tomberg.
Although they never met. At least, in the flesh.
I think of you departed Josephin Péladan.
You lived a bitter life in the epoch from the 1870s onward, where the Third Republic in France was systematically destroying, all which you held dear.
Was working systematically to destroy the Church.
Or at least to render her as impotent as humanly possible.
Péladan, you saw clearly what was coming.
You saw this dessicated France. Dessicated, arid, stripped of soul.
You saw all that was being stripped, stripped away in the name of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.
And in your novel Le Vice Supreme, you uttered words to this effect:
DUTY – it is the true name of Liberty.
HIERARCHY – it is the true name of Equality.
CHARITY – it is the true name of Fraternity.
Charles A. Coulombe, Josephin Péladan, Valentin Tomberg – in so many, many ways, you are all saying the same thing.
Note: far more of my thinking regarding Charles A. Coulombe can be found here.
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3 Comments
Sorry – Looks too wierd to me! I will pray to Our Lady for you that you do not go in the wrong direction.
You are a modern Jeremiah lamenting our Jerusalems. Let me invoke Ezekiel and say Prophecy and Vision are possible even in Exile. Love to you and Kim.
Epsilon, Edwin …
First Epsilon, I thank you for your frank honesty here.
Among other things, such honesty helps orient me to where the readers of this site are “coming from”.
And believe me, I can understand your concerns.
Charles Coulombe and I come from such very different places that years ago I scarcely would have believed I would be converging with him.
But converging I indeed am on many significant fronts – if indeed as I indicate not all.
I think Charles sense of horror for modern secular civilisation is grounded in an understanding of history few people have. The more I have looked at that history trying to read on both sides, left and right, the more I have felt his lonely voice was onto something very very important.
But all of this is very complicated indeed, filled with paradox and perhaps it is worth asking you to recall if you find my trajectory weird and disturbing, it is not the same as Charles’ on every front.
What I say at this website is what I stand for. Not everything at every site I link to.
Even if I do think Charles Coulombe is very worth reading
Again I thank you and for your prayers.
And Edwin, thank you very deeply indeed …
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