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Strube Julian 2016 Socialist Religionandthe Emergenceof Occultism
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Julian Strube
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Julian Strube
To cite this article: Julian Strube (2016) Socialist religion and the emergence of occultism: a
genealogical approach to socialism and secularization in 19th-century France, Religion, 46:3,
359-388, DOI: 10.1080/0048721X.2016.1146926
Julian Strube*
University of Heidelberg, Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”, Karl
Jaspers Centre, Voßstraße 2, Building 4400, Heidelberg, 69115 Germany
*Current address: Heidelberg University, Institut für Religionswissenschaft und Interkulturelle Theolo-
gie, Kisselgasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany. Email: julian.strube@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de
secularization is often based on societal developments since the end of World War
II, especially since the 1960s. This more or less implicitly implies a precedent secu-
larized period (cf. Gabriel 2014, 432; Koschorke 2013). Indeed, this assumption
becomes tangible in theories of “post-secular” (Habermas 2008) or “post-
modern” societies, but it is likewise implied in the language of a “return of religion”
or a “return of the gods,” of “de-secularization,” “de-privatization,” or a “post-
modern religious revival” (Beck 2008; Berger 1999b; Casanova 1994; Hellemans
2010; Pollack 2009; Riesebrodt 2001).
Thanks to a multitude of studies, it has become clear that the 19th century can
hardly be regarded as “secular.” The period not only saw the emergence of new
religious identities, but also the strengthening of existing ones, an actual “re-confes-
sionalization” (e.g., Bayly 2004, 325–365; Blaschke 2000, 2014; Gabriel 2014; Graf
2009; Lehmann 1997; Linse 1997). Some scholars have argued for the appearance
of particularly modern forms of “secular religions” or “secular spirituality” that
were closely linked to radical political-reform movements like socialism (e.g.,
Chadwick 1975; Sharp 2006). However, the role of socialism in the emergence of
new religious identities in the 19th century is still widely neglected outside special-
ist circles focusing on the history of religions in the period.
Among scholars focusing on the history of socialism, the subject of religion is
usually treated on the basis of an understanding of secularization more or less
explicitly rooted in Marxism. Since the second half of the 19th century, the
success of Marxist historiographies and theories has led to the widespread assump-
tion that Marxism had been the apogee of a longer materialistic development that
played a major role in the emergence of a secular society. Even scholars without a
Marxist background tend to perceive the history of socialism through the lens of
such narratives and dismiss the central role that “religion” played in socialist the-
ories prior to Marxism. Consequently, the religious aspects of pre-1848 socialism
were often either completely ignored, marginalized, or interpreted in a purely
pragmatic way as a means employed by educated reformist leaders in order to
satisfy the alleged “religious enthusiasm” of the working class (e.g., Manuel
1956, 348–349; Pilbeam 2000, 39–52, 2014, 26). A wide variety of recent scholarship
has convincingly illustrated that “religion” was not only intrinsic to the vast
majority of socialist theories, but that it lay at their very core (e.g., Abensour
1981; Bénichou 1977; Berenson 1984; Bowman 1974, 1987; Desroche 1959; Isambert
1961; Jones 1981; Musso 2006; Prothero 2005). However, this scholarship still seems
to have had marginal influence on the secularization debate and the particular role
that socialism is supposed to have played in 19th-century processes of seculariza-
tion and modernization. This article aims to draw attention to the relevance of
socialism for the European history of religions, functioning as a corrective to preva-
lent historical narratives.
France is of particular importance for this. As the homeland of the Revolution
and Enlightenment philosophy, it is usually seen as the leading example of the
unfolding of modernity and secularity. The emergence of laïcité at the end of the
19th century and the separation of Church and state in 1905 are often described
as the hallmarks of a longer process that reached its peak at the beginning of the
20th century. In French scholarship, this has been most prominently expressed in
the work of Marcel Gauchet, who describes the emergence of democracy and the
modern state as a transition from a “society of religion” to a society that is increas-
ingly “structured outside religion,” despite the role religion might still play for
Religion 361
many individuals (Gauchet 1985, 248–290, here 248; cf. Gauchet 2004). It was the
Christian understanding of a remote God that had originally started that
process, enabling a “society subject to itself,” which, especially following the
French Revolution and the concern for the “social question” after 1848, eventually
led to the laïcité of the modern French state, notably being an expression of the uni-
versal development of humanity. Variants of this narrative are deeply inscribed into
French culture and its scholarship, where the religious aspects of its national histor-
iography remain the subject of controversial debates (see e.g., Kselman 2006; cf.
Graf 1997).
The secularizing role of radical reformers like republicans or socialists in this his-
torical context is usually taken for granted. This is not only the case in French scho-
larship. Charles Taylor has prominently argued that the emergence of a “secular
age” has been, to a large extent, the result of a struggle between the French reaction-
ary Catholics of the ancien régime and secular Republicans (Taylor 2007, 412–414,
442–445; cf. Bruce 2011, 8). This thesis assumes a dichotomy between progressive
reformers who were, according to Taylor, characterized by a “Republican hostility
to religion [ … ] later radicalized [ … ] in Marxist socialism” and the adherents of a
traditionalist Catholic Reaction (412). As impressive as Taylor’s narrative undoubt-
edly is, it contains a wide lacuna reaching from the end of the 18th century to the
emergence of Marxism: exactly the period when religious aspects formed the foun-
dation of socialist theories. A closer look at this period can significantly add to the
identification of the complex nature of a historical context that is crucial for the
better understanding of the emergence of “secular” identities and “modern”
forms of religion.
In what follows, it will firstly be discussed that the most radically “progressive”
forces in 19th-century France actively opposed “secularization.” Striving for a unity
of religion, science, and philosophy, French socialists envisioned “religion” as the
very foundation of an ideal society. However, this did not render them anti-
modern thinkers: their idea of “religion” was thoroughly “modern” in the sense
that they aimed at reconciling Enlightenment philosophy and science with religious
faith by developing new “rational” and “scientific” forms of religion (Strube 2014).
The result was a vivid and diverse pluralization of new religious identities in
France.
Secondly, it will be shown that socialist discourses regarding religion are not only
of relevance for the first half of the century. They were inherently intertwined with
the emergence of new religious movements from the 1850s onward, notably Spirit-
ism and occultism. This argument might come as a surprise, not only due to the
rather counter-intuitive relationship between socialism and occultism, but also
because of the widespread perception of occultism as a decidedly “anti-modern”
and reactionary current. It is often maintained that “occultism” has to be seen as
the expression of a tradition opposing reason, science, and Enlightenment ideals
– a “force of darkness” that resisted the modernizing and secularizing progress
through the centuries. In contrast to this teleological narrative, several studies
have convincingly argued for the “modernity” of occultism (e.g., Harvey 2005;
Monroe 2008; Owen 2004; Pasi 2009; Sharp 2006; Treitel 2004; Verter 1998; Wolffram
2009). However, those studies only paid attention to fin de siècle occultism, which
they regarded as the continuation of earlier esoteric currents (e.g., the influential
definition by Hanegraaff 1996, 422; cf. Hanegraaff 2006, 888, 2013, 39–40; Pasi
2006, 1366–1368). This treatment of the emergence of occultism as the result of a
362 J. Strube
rejected esoteric tradition perpetuates an implicit dichotomy that this article aims to
overcome. It will be argued that the “founder” or supposed rénovateur of occultism,
the socialist author Alphonse-Louis Constant (1810–1875), who adopted the pen-
name of Eliphas Lévi, developed his ideas not in an esoteric, but rather in a socialist
context.
The present article seeks to underline the necessity of a consequent historical con-
textualization in order to contribute to the understanding of “modernity.” The
research upon which it is based followed a genealogical approach critical
towards an essentialist ontology and teleological historiography. Consequently,
the following argumentation does not seek to establish what “religion,” “social-
ism,” or “occultism” actually meant, but how those signifiers were used in different
historical contexts. It is not the origin as a location of pure truth that is of concern
here, but the discursive production of meaning and identity in a specific historical
context (Bergunder 2014, 257–273; Foucault 1977; Laclau 1994, 2000, 44–59, 2005,
67–171; Laclau and Mouffe [1985] 2001, 111–113, 127–134). In what follows, some
light will be shed on the context of emergence of socialist ideas about “religion,”
as well as on the developments of those ideas, with explicit consideration of their
ruptures and discontinuities. This will finally allow for some general observations
about the role of socialist religious discourses in the 19th century against the back-
ground of theories of secularization.
“reactionary sects” who propagated the “new Gospel” (Marx and Engels [1848]
2012, 285–288). The two German Communists opposed their own “scientific social-
ism” to “utopian socialism,” a distinction that was most prominently elaborated by
Engels in his Anti-Dühring (1877/1878), in a passage that was published as the influ-
ential essay “Socialism. Utopian and Scientific” in 1892. Therein, Engels further
rejected the “mystical” elements of the “underdeveloped” French socialists
(Engels [1877/1878] 1988, 428–430).
As Frank Paul Bowman and Gareth Stedman Jones have argued, the socialist cur-
rents of the early 19th century had emerged out of religious reformist movements, a
circumstance that was actively, and successfully, concealed by Marx and Engels in
their Manifesto and replaced by a socio-economic genealogy (Bowman 1974, 307–
308; Jones 1981; cf. Jones in Marx and Engels [1848] 2012, 17–18). Marxist scholar-
ship has been decisively influenced by the narrative developed by Marx and Engels
from 1848 onward. For that reason, the religious aspects of early socialist thought
had been either marginalized or ridiculed and sorted out as childish allures of a
movement that had yet to reach adulthood.
The Saint-Simonians can be regarded as the most prominent example in this
respect. Influential historians have interpreted the Saint-Simonian religiosity as
“religious antics” and “absurdities” (Cole 1959, 56), as “extravagances” and “eccle-
siastical nonsense” (Manuel 1965, 152, 163–164, 184; cf. Manuel 1956). Those
opinions were at odds with the obviously paramount importance of religion in
the Saint-Simonian doctrine. George Lichtheim, in The Origins of Socialism (1969),
somewhat reluctantly implies this fact when he sarcastically writes that “by 1830
the Saint-Simonian ‘religion’ – the term was employed in deadly earnest – released
an emotional torrent that swept thousands of men and women off their feet”
(Lichtheim 1969, 54). However, he dismisses it as an expression of irrational and
embarrassing elements that had to be overcome so that socialism could “emanci-
pate itself” from its “inherited illusions” and obtain “consciousness of its true
nature” (Lichtheim 1969, vii). This verdict is representative of a widespread atti-
tude that is not only shared by scholars of the Marxist cohort. As early as in the
1950s, criticisms have been leveled that the “utopian” socialists have barely
attracted scholarly attention (e.g., Ramm 1956). From a Marxist perspective, they
are still often treated as “pre-Marxists,” a mere object of comparison to later
Marxist doctrine (e.g., Hobsbawm 2011; cf. Hahn 1982, 26–70; Musso 2006, 9–15).
socialisme absolu and a principally good socialism, thus emphasizing that his criti-
cism was only directed against errant reformist currents (Leroux 1850a, 161,
1850b, 380). This differentiation illustrates that socialiste and socialisme had
become self-referential expressions by the beginning of the 1840s (cf. Reybaud
1840; V–XI and Stern 1850, XXXV).
In a new edition of his article from 1833, published in the Revue Sociale in 1845
under the title “De l’individualisme et du socialisme,” Leroux emphasized this
fact in a footnote. He explained that, when he used the term socialisme for the
first time in a derogative way, he could not have predicted that it would soon be
used to denote “every form of démocratie religieuse. ” Today, he explained, he
would proudly identify as a socialiste (Leroux 1850b, 376). It will be noted that
Leroux defined socialisme as a religious doctrine – with good reason. As will be illus-
trated below, the emergence of the different socialist “schools” was marked by the
centrality of religious ideas right from the outset, which by the 1840s had led to an
almost universal religious self-identification among French socialists.
The Nouveau christianisme was no aberration from this idea, but its apogee. Saint-
Simon declared that this writing was the accomplishment of a “divine mission”
whose goal was a “rejuvenation” of Christianity, purging it from the teachings of
the corrupted, “heretical” churches and their “superstitious and useless practices”
(Saint-Simon 1825, 60–61, 87). Fulfilling the providential progrès instead of simply
returning to earlier stages of religious development, Saint-Simon wished to estab-
lish a new, positif form of Christianity. Similar to an idéologue like Cabanis, or thin-
kers from the idéologue sphere such as Condillac or Laplace, he was convinced of the
perfectibilité of humanity and its gradual advance to a final, “regenerated” state
(Manuel 1956, 158–167). But in contrast to the idéologues as well as to established
Church doctrines, Saint-Simon maintained that it was the task of humanity to
actively accelerate that progress in the here and now, especially by the “amélioration
of the poorest class.” This could only be achieved by one force: religion (Saint-
Simon 1825, 12).
After his death, this idea was enthusiastically elaborated by Saint-Simon’s fol-
lowers who had formed a school, an école, in order to propagate his doctrine
(Allemagne 1930; Charléty 1931; Manuel 1965; Pilbeam 2014; Weill 1896). The
period following the July Revolution of 1830 was of crucial importance for this.
In the face of the new and increasingly repressive liberal régime of Louis-Phi-
lippe, the grave disappointment over the outcome of the revolution in the refor-
mist camp led to the actual emergence of socialist currents, on which the Saint-
Simonians exerted a short but decisive influence (Pilbeam 1991, 150–186).
While it is true that members of the école saint-simonienne pushed the religious
character of Saint-Simon’s new Christianity to the extreme, it can hardly be
said that their religious ideas were an aberration or distortion of an originally
“non-religious” doctrine.
The very basis of socialisme consisted of its opposition to individualisme and
egoïsme, which formed the semantic counterpart when Pierre Leroux first popular-
ized the term in the French language. The Saint-Simonians and other socialists saw
themselves struggling against a social fragmentation and “coldness” that had sup-
posedly resulted from 18th-century atheism and materialism. In their eyes, those
circumstances were responsible for the disruption of the social bonds, as they
were the driving force behind the egoist “mercantilism” suffocating the lower
classes. Hence, the socialists’ relationship to the philosophes was deeply ambiguous.
Clearly their striving for a rational, scientific religion and the acceleration of human
perfectibility had its roots in 18th-century Enlightenment philosophy. At the same
time, they criticized the “destructive” doctrines deriving from it.
The Saint-Simonians saw themselves as the heralds of a new Golden Age that
would overcome the social fragmentation and realize a harmonious unity of reli-
gion, science, and philosophy. They declared themselves a “church,” the église
saint-simonienne, choosing Saint-Amand Bazard (1791–1832) and Prosper Enfantin
(1796–1864) as their pères suprêmes, or Supreme Fathers (Charléty 1931, 61–78). As
they announced in a series of immensely successful public lectures focusing on the
religion saint-simonienne, they regarded themselves not as the theoreticians of a poli-
tico-economic doctrine, but as “apostles” preaching the revelations of their
“prophet,” Saint-Simon (Enfantin 1831). Those developments led to increasing ten-
sions. The authoritative behavior of the Enfantin faction resulted in a schism at end
of 1831, leaving Enfantin as the single père and “Pope.” The movement fragmented
further after the Saint-Simonian commune in Ménilmontant, where the “brothers”
366 J. Strube
used to live as “monks” wearing spectacularly eccentric garments, was shut down
by the authorities in 1832 (Charléty 1931, 121–204). Nevertheless, its doctrine
exerted a lasting influence.
The first and foremost principle of the Saint-Simonian doctrine was unité. The
Saint-Simonians called for the establishment of a science universelle according to
the universal divine law, encompassing the whole of creation (cf. Reybaud 1840,
VII). They strived for an “organic” synthèse of all human and ultimately divine
knowledge, leaving behind the (necessarily) destructive “critical” and “analytical”
epoch of the philosophes and the Revolution. Finally, they aimed at the régénération
of society and the whole world: the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth
(cf. Chadwick 1975, 76–77). The Saint-Simonians were firm believers in the progrès
of mankind, according to the evolutionist scheme of Fetishism, Polytheism, Mono-
theism, and a final synthèse:
[ … ] following Saint-Simon, and in his name, we will proclaim that humanity has
a religious future; that the religion of the future will be bigger, more powerful
than those of the past; that it will be, like all those who have preceded it, the syn-
thesis of all the conceptions of humanity, and of all its ways of being; that it will not
only dominate the political order, but that the political order, in its entirety, will be
a religious institution [ … ]. (Bazard 1831, 334)
This final order was referred to as the association universelle, a society organized by a
three-class hierarchy headed by “priests.” Several contemporary observers from
different political camps took notice of those ideas with loathing. Even socialist
critics like Leroux accused the Saint-Simonians of wanting to establish an absolutist
“theocracy.” Instead of distancing themselves from such an accusation, the Saint-
Simonians reacted in quite a remarkable manner:
If one understands as theocracy the state in which the political law and the reli-
gious law will be identical, where the leaders of society are those who speak in
the name of God, it is certainly, and we do not hesitate to say it, a new theocracy
that is approached by humanity [ … ]. (Bazard 1830, 139)
It becomes evident that “religion” lay at the core of the Saint-Simonian doctrine,
and that it cannot reasonably be regarded as a superficial appendix. The association
universelle was not envisioned as an “enlightened rule of philosopher-kings”
excluding the belief in the “Christian God” (Bayly 2004, 310). It was a hierarchical
theocracy led by priests.
The historical context of those ideas has often been identified with French
Romanticism, which is why the most thorough studies of July Monarchy socialism
have coined the term “Romantic Socialists” (see the summary in Beecher 2001, 1–8).
Indeed, it is telling that the “priests” of the association universelle were identical with
the artists, and there is no question that a great number of young artists and famous
Romantics like Alphonse de Lamartine, Victor Hugo, or George Sand were – in
various degrees – involved with socialism. It would be hasty, though, to regard
the Saint-Simonians as an omnium-gatherum of sentimental poets. The movement’s
majority consisted of students and alumni of the élite Ecole polytéchnique: highly
educated engineers and scientists, as well as lawyers and economists (Pinet 1894;
Weill 1896, 18–20, 32–34). It seems like the Saint-Simonian project of a unity of reli-
gion, science, and philosophy struck a chord among the young educated gener-
ation in post-revolutionary France.
Religion 367
Fourierism
After the failure of the église saint-simonienne, the Fourierist école sociétaire rose to the
rank of the most influential socialist school in France. Similar to the Saint-Simo-
nians, the Fourierists developed into a heterogeneous movement whose doctrines
gradually diverged from the ideas of Charles Fourier (Beecher 1986, 431–452; cf.
Pilbeam 2005). The Fourierists took great pains to turn the often confused, ambigu-
ously satirical, and sometimes contradictory writings of Fourier into a comprehen-
sible and coherent set of doctrines – much to the dislike of their master, who was
increasingly alienated from his disciples before he passed away in 1837. Until the
1840s, the école sociétaire had developed an essentially religious doctrine that was
marked by a Christian language. In contrast to the rather spectacular religion
saint-simonienne, the religious ideas of the Fourierists remain practically unnoticed.
Fourier’s relationship to religion was ambiguous. There is no doubt that Fourier
was staunchly opposed to Christianity. However, his critique of the institutiona-
lized Christianity of the Churches should not be confused with a general critique
of religion. Not unlike Saint-Simon, whom he notably accused of plagiarism,
Fourier strived for the establishment of a new “universal science” reconciling
science and religion, referring to himself as the successor of both Newton and
Jesus Christ (Beecher 1986, 334; Bowman 1987, 181). In his famous Théorie des
quatre mouvements from 1808, Fourier declared that, “on the ruins of the inexact
sciences,” he would now establish the “theory of universal harmonies” that
would eventually lead to a nouveau monde (Fourier 1808, 268). This “exact
science” would be based on the correspondences and analogies of the “four move-
ments” deriving from the “effect of the mathematical laws of God on the universal
movement” (21, 48–50). He criticized his opponents of being “isolated from religion
and the exact sciences” (261). This exemplifies the obvious importance of religion in
his thought, which was noticed by his contemporaries (cf. Reybaud 1840, 166–167)
but seems to have been dismissed as a mere “logical axiom” and “beneficial illu-
sion” by later commentators because of its scientific claim (Morilhat 1994).
Fourier’s wish for a unity of science and religion was enthusiastically taken up by
the adherents of the école sociétaire. The most prominent example is Victor Consid-
erant (1808–1893), considered as the school’s leading figure (Beecher 2001). It is not
by chance that the volumes of his famous Destinée sociale (1838), which are known
to have been read far more often than the writings of Fourier, are introduced by an
epigraph by Fourier next to one by Lamennais. The second volume begins with a
chapter entitled “The Doctrine of Salvation and the Return to the Christianity of
Jesus Christ,” where Considerant denounces the doctrines of the Churches as adult-
erated and calls for a restoration of “the unity of the social and religious law” that
must overcome “the separation of the worldly and the spiritual.” Only the estab-
lishment of a “new law,” based on the true teachings of Christ, could lead humanity
Religion 369
They encountered the fierce resistance of the National Guard. The June Uprising
left about 10 000 workers dead or wounded and led to the imprisonment or depor-
tation of about 15 000 individuals. Large parts of the people, including many
workers and, notably, women, had taken part in an uprising so violent that even
many radicals protested against it (Tocqueville [1893] 1954, 203–214; cf. Traugott
1985). The bloodshed left a lasting heritage of hatred and aggravated an irreconcil-
able hostility between the “reds” and the conservatives (Beecher 2001, 213–216).
The following year was marked by political struggles. In an atmosphere of
impending civil war, a large socialist demonstration on June 13, 1849 resulted in
one of the biggest fiascos in the history of the Left (Beecher 2001, 255–263).
Although its leaders had emphasized their peaceful intention, the demonstration
was violently broken up and resulted in total chaos. Mutual accusations and turf
wars followed among the reformers. After a period of counter-reformist politics
and propaganda, a new law was passed on May 31, 1850 that left 2.5 million
workers bereft of their right to vote.
Louis-Napoléon, the nephew of Napoléon Bonaparte who had been elected pre-
sident in 1848, made use of this situation. On December 2, 1851 he staged a coup
that marked the end of the Second Republic and the beginning of the Second
Empire. On the one hand, he presented himself as the people’s defender against
the oppressive National Assembly. On the other hand, he promised to put an
end to the threat of revolutionary violence. His actions were confirmed by a plebis-
cite with overwhelming majority and initially greeted even by socialists like Con-
siderant, Enfantin, and many others, including Proudhon (cf. Krier 2009, 130–151
who showed the ambivalence of his reaction). However, the “people’s Emperor”
soon established a rigid dictatorship that violently suppressed reformist ten-
dencies. Most socialists either went into exile or were imprisoned if they were
not willing to retreat from public life or conceal their political ambitions.
“tableau des excentricités religieuses,” which featured several of the Revue’s contri-
butors. The journal also functioned as a platform for a French-German exchange,
whose primary actors were, most remarkably, Moses Hess (1812–1875) and
Hegel’s publisher Karl Ludwig Michelet (1801–1893) (Régnier 2007).
The lively debates in the Revue show the clash between two vehemently opposed
strands of socialism. This can be illustrated by a passionate letter by the exiled Four-
ierist Henri Dameth (1812–1884), written in October 1857 to Charles Fauvety.
Dameth accused the editors of the Revue of propagating a “cult of synthesis” and
a “theological dogmatism” that resulted from the hopelessly outdated “sentimental
tendencies of present democracy.” He declared his adherence to the “pantheism” of
the “German school” whose “scientific experiments” had made tabula rasa with all
“Metaphysics” and “a priori dogmas” once and for all. In his opinion, the ideology
represented by the Revue challenged “reason and science,” and was “blasphemy to
logical progress,” bound to end in “religious mysticism.” Dameth exclaimed:
We have seen emerging a mass of revelators and theosophists, of prophets … For
thirty years we are the prey of that cholera of illuminism! What was the outcome
of that? you know it as well as me!!!
After the disaster of the recent years, Dameth maintained, it was now time to get rid
of the “sickness of doctrines” that had led to the “cannibalism” of all the “little
sects.” However, the journal appeared to promote the exact opposite: “You have
opened a refuge, a museum of mystico-sentimental syntheses. The Revue is the
Ark of utopias, the refugium peccatorum of theosophical socialism” (Fauvety 1857,
6–9).
Dameth’s accusation of “theosophical socialism” was not far-fetched. The social-
ist interest for theosophical authors such as Saint-Martin and Swedenborg has
already been noted above. Indeed, literally every French historiography of social-
ism that was published between the 1830s and the early 1850s depicted the July
Monarchy socialists as the heirs of movements such as “mysticism,” “illuminism,”
and “theosophy.” The most notable example is to be found in Louis Reybaud’s pio-
neering and highly influential Etudes sur les réformateurs ou socialistes modernes
(Reybaud 1840, 132–133, cf., Reybaud 1842, 12–18). From today’s perspective,
there is no question that those strands of socialism were lost after the demise of
the Second Republic. It was the faction of the critics like Dameth that would even-
tually dominate the second half of the century and obliterate the failed “utopians.”
However, the Revue is a primary example of the new paths that some of those
socialists chose to take in the 1850s. Among those socialists was the author who
is known today as the founder of occultism: Alphonse-Louis Constant.
which Lévi was “initiated” into occultism. This narrative was adopted by the occul-
tist publisher and bookseller Paul Chacornac (1884–1964) in his seminal biography
of Constant, published in 1926. Chacornac was well aware of the socialist past of
Eliphas Lévi, but he maintained that a profound rupture had taken place
between the socialist Constant and the occultist Lévi. While Chacornac’s work is
obviously a hagiography, it still exerts a major influence on scholarship (Chacornac
[1926] 1989; cf. e.g., Bowman 1969, 8; Frick [1975–1978] 2005, 396–401; McIntosh
1975, 11; Mercier 1974, 10–11; Viatte [1942] 1973, 93, 96–97). Some studies
mention a continuity of the socialist ideas of Constant well into his occultist writ-
ings, however without attempting to contextualize the respective influences
(Cellier 1954, 211; Webb [1971] 2009, 398–414, 471; Wilkinson 1996, 21–24; Williams
1975, 7, 146–147; Francis Lacassin in Lévi 2000, VII–XIX; Goodrick-Clarke 2008,
192–193; cf. Seijo-Lopez 1995). On the other hand, works dealing with the socialist
writings of the 1840s do not attempt to relate them to his later occultist writings
(Andrews 2002, 2006; Bravo 1970; Hunt 1935, 161; Maitron 1964, 451; Sencier
[1912] 1977, 233–234). In what follows, it shall be demonstrated that Constant
not only developed his “occultist” ideas in a socialist context, but that his “occult-
ism” was directly derived from his socialist and Neo-Catholic ideas.
Occultism
After Constant had adopted the name of Eliphas Lévi, he would become one of the
most important esoteric writers of all time. His most famous books, Dogme et rituel
de la haute magie (1854–1856), Histoire de la magie (1860), and La clef des grands mys-
tères (1861) are considered to be the founding works of occultism. They would go
on to inspire a number of key esotericists such as Helena Blavatsky and Aleister
Crowley. Constant’s theory and history of magic, his interpretation of the Kabbalah
and the Tarot, as well as his emblematic drawings like the “Baphomet,” remain
highly influential.
Why did Constant turn to “magic” and “Kabbalah”? As surprising as this might
seem from today’s perspective, it can clearly be shown that it did not result from an
initiation or a sudden new interest, but that it should be seen as a resignification
and further development of the leading themes that had been underlying his pub-
lications since 1841. The concrete reasons for this can be found in the historical
context of the 1850s. This is, firstly, the emergence of spiritisme that was initiated
by the phenomena of turning and rapping tables – the tables tournantes – in 1853,
several years after American Spiritualism had emerged in 1848 and spread to
England, then to Germany and France.
Many socialists were enthusiastic about the phenomena (Monroe 2008, 48–63; cf.
Edelman 1995). This enthusiasm was especially shared by Fourierists such as
Eugène Nus, a friend of Charles Fauvety who began to organize séances in the
offices of the now defunct Fourierist organ, La démocratie pacifique, to whose feuil-
leton Constant had frequently contributed. Many socialists were convinced that
the phenomena were proving their theories, and that the synthesis of religion
and science, the establishment of an empirical, mathematical, rational religion
had now become possible. Some of the reasons for this proximity can be traced
back to the American context of emergence of Spiritualism. Leading figures like
Andrew Jackson Davis (1826–1910) had expounded a mixture of Fourierism, Swe-
denborgianism, and Mesmerism (Albanese 2007, 171–176, 208–218; Linse 1996, 55–
374 J. Strube
59; cf. Noyes 1870, 529–550), which was highly similar to what French socialists had
been discussing in the recent decades. It is no wonder, then, that the ideas of the
French spirites movement that emerged under the leadership of Allan Kardec in
the following years were profoundly influenced by the ideas of Fourier, also in
addition to those of Leroux and his early companion Jean Reynaud (1806–1863).
Constant observed the events of 1853 with great interest. Unlike other socialists,
however, he took a hostile stance towards the phenomena. Both he and his wife
Marie-Noémi, whom he had married in 1846, wrote critical articles about the spec-
tacles in the Revue progressive. Constant polemicized against the “supposed occult
sciences,” expressing his conviction that the tables tournantes were a “folly” and a
“profanation” of a much older art (Constant 1853). His writings from that period
show that he regarded the fuss about the phenomena as an expression of a social
degeneration that he was determined to oppose. On a political level, the “dabblers”
who preoccupied themselves with the tables tournantes were to him the victims of
the “dreamers” and “utopians” whose “hallucinations” had led the social reform
into oblivion. On a religious level, Constant unleashed scathing polemics against
Catholic authors such as Jules-Eudes de Mirville (1802–1873) and Roger Gougenot
des Mousseaux (1805–1876) who were interpreting the phenomena as the work of
Satan and his demons, thus supposedly reviving an old “superstition.” Constant
had always claimed to represent the “true” socialism and Catholicism, and in the
following years he would be fighting his enemies on those two fronts on the
basis of his own theory of magie.
The “magic” that Constant propagated in the 1850s was fundamentally identical
with his concept of a science universelle that had been a leading theme in his earlier
publications. Since 1841, he had shared the socialist vision of a final synthesis of
religion, science, and philosophy. From 1845 on, he began to express this idea
through a blend of Swedenborgianism, Fourierism, and Neo-Catholicism. As he
explained in his Livre des larmes from 1845, the future of humanity depended of
the regeneration of the world through “the necessary alliance of reason and faith,
of dogma and science.” Only then would the “veritable Catholicism” be realized
(Constant 1845, 62). This would – nota bene – happen on the basis of the teachings
of Fourier, Saint-Simon, Lamennais, and Swedenborg (241–242; cf. 1848, 127, 146–
148). At that time, Constant regarded Fourierism as the apogee of a long reformist
tradition that had started with Jesus Christ, the first revolutionary. This tradition
had, in his eyes, always been identical with “true Christianity,” that is “true Cath-
olicism.” As he wrote in a socialist almanac, “By explaining the word Catholic
Church by association universelle, Fourier and his school have said: no salvation
outside of the association universelle!” (Garnier and Bonnin 1845). In a publication
from 1846, he exclaimed: “Socialism is no system anymore; it is the universal reli-
gion of all active intelligence and all young and living hearts.” Christianity would
soon fulfill its promises and the final synthesis would sound the bell of a harmo-
nious social order and the end of all superstition (Constant 1846a, 119–120).
It might appear strange that Constant continued these ideas in his occultist writ-
ings using the language of “magic,” but a preoccupation with this subject area had
already been commonplace among his friends in the 1830s. His closest companions
had been enthusiastic about the sciences occultes, Mesmerism, Kabbalah, and so on –
topics that were omnipresent in contemporary Romantic literature and very
popular among the circle of young socialist artists that Constant belonged to. A
major example is the case of Constant’s childhood friend and longtime comrade,
Religion 375
Alphonse Esquiros (1812–1876; cf. Linden 1948). As early as his Evangile du peuple
(1840), which earned him a prison sentence around the same time as Constant,
Esquiros had linked magic, the occult sciences, and especially magnetism, to social-
ist theories (e.g., Esquiros 1840, 93; cf. 1850, 100). When Constant collaborated with
Charles Fauvety on the Vérité in 1846, the latter published an enthusiastic article
about the identity of the doctrines of Swedenborg, Mesmer, and Fourier. He even-
tually became an influential Spiritist (Delalande 2007, 278, 306–308, 320–338). In the
Revue, he explained that magicians had always been the “priests of the periods of
transition,” and that the current form of magic was magnetism (Fauvety 1857, 23–
24).
Unlike his friends, Constant only began to discuss the occult sciences after 1851.
This is due to his reorientation after 1848 and the enthusiasm about magnetism that
was stirred up in the early 1850s. Constant’s sources clearly show the historical
context in which he developed his theory of magic, which he expressly equated
with magnetism. It is important to note that those sources were highly political.
They were written by anti-materialist authors who shall here be called “spiritualis-
tic magnetists” (cf. Monroe 2008, 64–94). One of their most influential representa-
tives was Jean Du Potet de Sennevoy (1796–1881). Between 1846 and 1848, Du
Potet had edited the prominent Journal du magnétisme, where he compared the doc-
trines of Fourier, Saint-Simon, and Mesmer, calling Mesmer a “great Republican”
and printing long excerpts of Fourier’s writings. After 1848, he did not abandon
his vision of a social society based on the universal laws of magnetism that lay
hidden behind a primordial tradition of magic. In his Magie dévoilée (1852), a
major source for Constant, he promised the social changes promised by the
science of magic, but was quick to add: “However, God forbid that I formulate
these changes; one would take me for an outright red socialist” (Du Potet de Seven-
noy 1852, 112).
Another influence on Constant was Henri Delaage (1825–1882), a collaborator
and friend of Esquiros. In 1851, Delaage had published his Monde occulte,
wherein he insisted that the profane magnetic somnambulism was in need of a
“Kabbalistic initiation” based on the knowledge of the sciences occultes. He saw
himself as a member of the “glorious battalion of artists and men of letter” that
marched against the bourgeoisie, the priests of the future who heralded the
unity of religion and science, as well as of “the social and religious institutions,”
the “Paradise on Earth” (Delaage 1851, 128–134). Both Du Potet and Delaage pre-
sented magic as an old tradition of knowledge that should function as the basis for
a synthesis of religion and science, leading to a perfect social order. The historical
dimension of that tradition provided the narrative of a “chain of initiates” that was
extended to the contemporary social reformers.
The works of Du Potet and Delaage exerted a strong influence on the Freemaso-
nic and reformist author Jean-Marie Ragon de Bettignies (1781–1862), whose
Maçonnerie occulte from 1853 was repeatedly cited by Constant. Ragon had used
the term occultisme just before Constant began to employ it. He equated the
occult science of magisme with magnetism and discussed its origins at lengths.
One of the most important representatives of that occultisme, according to Ragon,
was Charles Fourier (Ragon 1853, 173–177).
Constant was one of many authors with reformist backgrounds who published
about “magic” in the 1850s. His occultist writings were published at Germer Bail-
lière, a medical publishing house that hosted the most influential spiritualistic
376 J. Strube
1847, Alphonse Esquiros had just published his Histoire des Montagnards that pre-
sented la cabale as the core of that revolutionary tradition. As a matter of fact, the
protagonists of the historical narrative that can be found in Constant’s Histoire
the la magie are identical with the “revolutionary heretics” who appear in those his-
toriographies (cf. Strube 2016).
Secondly, and most decisively, Constant’s understanding of “Kabbalah” resulted
from Neo-Catholic traditionalism. One of the most important projects of the Neo-
Catholics had been the science catholique that should offensively face the challenges
of historical-critical studies of the Bible (Laplanche 1994, 127–147; McCalla 2009).
Its core concept was the révélation primitive that had been developed by Lamennais
in his famous Essai sur l’indifférence en matière de religion (1817–1823). This theory
was based on classical Christian apologetics and maintained the existence of a
primitive and universal revelation as the origin of all human traditions. While
the traces of that revelation could hence be found in all religions, only Catholicism
was, thanks to the revelation of Christ, the heir of the pure and eternally true divine
revelation. As early as his Bible de la liberté, Constant had referred to the unity of all
religion (e.g., Constant 1841, 88), and he frequently invoked the respective theories
of Lamennais and his disciples. His occultist writings abound with references to the
révélation primitive. For example, he maintained that the occultist tradition was
based on “the existence of a primitive and universal revelation” that explains all
secrets of nature, all mysteries, and reconciles faith and reason (Lévi 1860, 256).
Similar to the Neo-Catholics, he adopted the theories of idéologue authors such as
Dupuis and Volney, but criticized them for their ignorance of the Catholic character
of the universal religious tradition. As he wrote in his Dogme, Dupuis and Volney
should have recognized “the Catholicity, that is the universality of the primitive,
one, magical, Kabbalistic, and immutable dogma of revelation” (Lévi [1856]
1861a, 364). It could hardly become more obvious that Kabbalah, magic, and
occultism were, for Constant, just other expressions of tradition, and that this
only true tradition was Catholicism.
It will be recalled that “Catholicism” had always meant for Constant the essence
of the “true socialism.” It is no wonder, then, that his occultism was profoundly
political: the final goal of occultisme was the creation of the association universelle
by the successive emancipation of humanity. Later observers argued that Constant
had performed an ideological U-turn and founded a tradition of “occultism on the
right” (Godwin 1994, 204). This supposedly reflected a renunciation of his socialist
ideas (Baier 2009, 274, 2013, 70–74). This interpretation is due to the fact that the
ideas of many pre-1848 French socialists are, from today’s perspective, hardly com-
patible with what is commonly understood as “socialism.” Also, one should not be
misled by the various (and sometimes highly ambiguous) attacks against socialists
that can be found in Constant’s occultist writings. When he polemicized against
socialist theories – something he had already done extensively in the 1840s – it
was against the “materialist,” “atheist,” and “anarchist” socialism embodied by
Proudhon and similar thinkers (e.g., Lévi [1856] 1861b, 158–159). After 1848, Con-
stant opposed stronger than ever before what he regarded as the “wrong” aberra-
tions of socialism. His concept of “occultism” revolved around his unbroken
ambition to finally realize its “true” form.
Of course, the historical events left traces in the socialism of Constant. He had
begun to make scathing remarks against the “reveries” or “folie” of the Fourierists
and Saint-Simonians, although he still frequently referred to their theories (e.g.,
378 J. Strube
Lévi 1860, 470, 494–495). Most importantly, he had lost his trust in the ability of “the
people” to emancipate themselves. This rupture was not as deep as it might seem at
first. As early as in his Livre des larmes, Constant had explained that the “Catholic
authority and hierarchy” was necessary before everybody would eventually
become a priest and the association universelle would be realized. He had wondered
if the people were ready for the “great emancipation,” and if it did not need the
“instruction” of a class of priests (Constant 1845, 100–123). In his Testament de la
liberté, he had emphasized this fear and expounded his ideas about an élite of
“initiates” or “hierophants” who should lead the people to emancipation (Constant
1848, 33). In the 1850s, Constant was deeply convinced that the present “intellectual
and social chaos” showed the necessity of an “initiated” élite who must lead the
people to its final emancipation (e.g., Lévi [1856] 1861b, 147, 384). This concept
was in perfect accordance with other socialist theories, for example the Saint-Simo-
nian class of priests. The Saint-Simonians were convinced of the inequality of
human beings and the necessity of hommes d’élite who would control the destinies
of society. Constant frequently employed this Saint-Simonian terminology, for
example when he declared that the hommes d’élite should be the administrators of
“the interests and the goods of the universal family” according to the apostolic tra-
dition (Lévi 1861, 64). It may be noted that similar ideas were not only restricted to
doctrines like Saint-Simonism. They might arguably be compared to later concepts
like the Leninist Avantgarde or the Marxist-Leninist Partei neuen Typs.
The ideal social order in Constant’s post-1848 writings can be described as a mer-
itocracy that functioned very similarly to the Saint-Simonism principle “A chacun
selon sa capacité, à chaque capacité suivant ses œuvres.” It can be said that Con-
stant’s vision was less static and more progressive. His occultist system had
shifted away from a spontaneous collectivism to an elitist individualism leading
to collectivism. The first and foremost step to realize this was “to create oneself”
(se créer soi-même) and thus successively prepare society for its emancipation. The
whole concept of Constant’s “occultism” was, as he wrote, to “offer the key to
everybody who will take it: and this one will be a doctor of nations and a liberator
of the world” (Lévi [1856] 1861b, 375). He declared that the people had to “initiate
itself,” and although “there will always be the people like there will always be chil-
dren,” the path to “personal, successive, progressive emancipation” will be open to
everybody. Then “magic will only be an occult science for the ignorant, but it will
be an incontestable science for everybody.” The “universal revelation” will be
joined and the “human epic” completed. The “purified dogma” will realize the
perfect universal, Catholic order (Lévi 1860, 558).
Constant’s socialist ideas might be difficult to discern in Dogme et rituel and the
Histoire. However, after Louis-Napoléon had declared a General Amnesty in
August 1859, Constant resumed openly to use a socialist language. In La clef des
grands mystères – the first publication that was actually written after the Amnesty
– he suddenly presented himself as a revolutionary again and extensively quoted
his Bible de la liberté. In the wake of the Paris Commune of 1871, he even turned
to frank radicalism. In the posthumously published Livre des sages, he openly
declared that “the solidarity of socialism is the last word of Christianity,” and
that “this Revolution will happen” according to the progress of science and faith.
However, the true socialism that will be the last step – “Messianism” or occultism
– was, at least at the moment, only comprehensible for “the elected, that is the
initiated” (Lévi [1870] 1912, 50–51, 118, 138, cf. the chapter about “L’Occultisme,”
Religion 379
Conclusion
The religious ideas of the French socialists and their development in the writings of
Alphonse-Louis Constant allow for some remarks about general developments in
the European history of religions. With regards to historiography, it can be con-
cluded that many of the most radical progressive and reformist forces in 19th-
century France actively opposed a “secularization” if this concept is understood
as comprising a decline of the (public) importance of religion and the wish for
the separation of politics, science, and religion. This is also relevant because the
belief in “progress” belongs to the core of the secularization thesis. However, the
relationship between tradition and progress has been much more complex than
it is usually assumed. This has become evident in the light of the traditionalist lean-
ings of the socialists and the “progressive traditionalism” of the (Neo-)Catholics.
380 J. Strube
“Progress,” in their theories, meant a future synthesis of religion, science, and phil-
osophy, as well as of the religious and political social institutions. The last thing that
the majority of the contemporary social reformers had in mind was a secular or lai-
cistic society. Obviously, the path to the Republican laïcité was not predetermined,
but rather a result of contingent, alternating, and complex power struggles. Fur-
thermore, the Third Republic’s laïcité certainly did not result in a disappearance
of religion, even from the public sphere. The end of the century marked not only
the separation of church and state, but also the period of what has been called
the “mystical” or “occult revival,” an intense growth of new religious movements
that shaped the religious landscape of the 20th century (Monroe 2008, 9–10). As this
article has hopefully shown, those developments have been inherently intertwined
with the first half of the century.
Despite the legitimate criticism of the classic secularization thesis, it would be too
simple to dismiss it as a mere outcome of 19th-century polemical concepts or
Kampfbegriffe. Many observations made by the theoreticians of secularization can
be confirmed in light of the sources that have been discussed above. However,
the conclusions of this article significantly differ from the “secularist” interpret-
ations of those observations. First and foremost, this concerns the loss of insti-
tutional authority that has been lamented by the Catholic traditionalists from
Louis de Bonald and Joseph de Maistre until Lamennais’s Essai sur l’indifférence
en matière de religion. There is no doubt that the Catholic Church had structurally
suffered since the French Revolution. However, this circumstance did not lead to
an outright decline of Christianity or even Catholicism, but to a blossoming of
new forms of religion that often took place outside of the traditional church struc-
tures. In many cases, it was even the very meaning of “Catholicism” that was
debated. Constant’s Catholic identity can be seen as one of the most remarkable
examples of that development, but it was anything but an isolated incident.
This directly concerns the aspects of individualization and differentiation. The reli-
gious ideas of the socialists demonstrate a great ambivalence in this respect.
Socialism was, self-referentially, the very response to a perceived fragmentation
and individualization of society since the 18th century. Its antagonism to “indivi-
dualism” shows that contemporaries were aware of such processes. The French
reformers were striving to create a universal unity because they wanted to meet
those challenges. Ironically, it was a pluralization of religious identities that
resulted from those efforts. Constant’s occultism shows an extreme degree of indi-
vidualization by focusing on the “self-creation” of the mage – a characteristic that
should become representative for later occultists. In this respect Constant is an
impressive example of the growing importance of the religious individual, but
this is only so because he refused the power of the present Church and strived
for the creation of a “true” Catholicism that he had, from an early point on, ident-
ified with socialism. Constant did not reject the Church because he rejected Cath-
olicism, Christianity, or religion, but because he wanted to unveil and realize its
true essence. This endeavor, which he shared with countless contemporaries,
shows that it was not “religion” that was questioned but the power structures
that represented it in society.
It can be said that the religious pluralization that has become evident in this
context resulted from a profound dislocation (Laclau 1990, 3–85) that took place
since the end of the 18th century. It must be kept in mind that Europe was conse-
quently shaken by violent wars and revolutions that entailed several changes of the
Religion 381
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Acknowledgements
The author of this article would like to thank the referees for their careful and
thought-provoking remarks. Special thanks are due to Russell Ó Ríagáin, who
eliminated the Teutonic traces in the article’s language.
Note
1. It should be noted that the differentiations between “communism” and “socialism” were unclear at
the time and remain so up to this day. By “communism,” Engels referred to the doctrine of the
founder of “Icarian Communism,” Etienne Cabet, who had coined the phrase “Le communisme
c’est le christianisme.”
Notes on contributor
Julian Strube studied History and the Study of Religions at Heidelberg University
and the University of Amsterdam. He focuses on the relationship between religion
and politics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as processes of
modernization, secularization, and globalization. In 2015, he received his Ph.D. for
his dissertation about “Socialism, Catholicism, and Occultism in Nineteenth-
Century France.” Currently he is working on a project about “Tantra in the
Context of Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Global Religious History.”
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