Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Alexandre Saint-Yves, Marquess of Alveydre (26 March 1842 – 5 February 1909) was a French occultist who adapted the works of Fabre d'Olivet

Fabre d'Olivet

Antoine Fabre d'Olivet was a French author, poet and composer whose Biblical and philosophical hermeneutics influenced many occultists, such as Eliphas Lévi and Gerard Encausse. His best known work today is his research on the Hebrew language, Pythagoras's thirty-six Golden Verses and the sacred...

(1767–1825) and, in turn, had his ideas adapted by Papus. He developed the term Synarchy—the association of everyone with everyone else—into a political philosophy, and his ideas about this type of government proved influential in politics and the occult.

Early years

Born in Paris, from a family of Parisian intellectuals

Saint-Yves

Saint-Yves can refer to:Christian saints:*Saint Yves, also Saint Ives, one of two Christian saints: Ivo of Kermartin or Ivo of ChartresPeople:...

and son of psychiatrist Guillaume-Alexandre Saint-Yves, he started his career as a physician at a naval academy in Brest

Brest, France

Brest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...

which he soon abandoned after becoming ill. In 1863 he relocated to Jersey

Jersey

Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...

where he connected with Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....

. In 1870, he returned to France to fight in the Franco-Prussian War

Franco-Prussian War

The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...

during which he was injured.

He then began a career as a civil servant. In 1877 Saint-Yves met and married Countess Marie de Riznitch-Keller, a relative of Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....

, and friend of the Empress Eugénie de Montijo

Eugénie de Montijo

Doña María Eugenia Ignacia Augustina de Palafox-Portocarrero de Guzmán y Kirkpatrick, 16th Countess of Teba and 15th Marquise of Ardales; 5 May 1826 – 11 July 1920), known as Eugénie de Montijo , was the last Empress consort of the French from 1853 to 1871 as the wife of Napoleon III, Emperor of...

, a move which made him independly wealthy. He dedicated the rest of his life to research and had a large number of influential contacts including Victor Hugo. Saint-Yves later knew many of the major names in French occultism such as Marquis Stanislas de Guaita

Stanislas de Guaita

Stanislas de Guaita was a French poet based in Paris, an expert on esotericism and European mysticism, and an active member of the Rosicrucian Order. He was very celebrated and successful in his time. He was an expert on magic and occultism. He had many disputes with other people who were involved...

, Joséphin Péladan

Joséphin Péladan

Joséphin Péladan was a French novelist and Martinist. His father was a journalist who had written on prophecies, and professed a philosophic-occult Catholicism.-Biography:...

and Oswald Wirth

Oswald Wirth

Oswald Wirth was a Swiss occultist, artist and author. He studied esotericism and symbolism with Stanislas de Guaita, and in 1889 he created a set of Tarot trumps based on the Marseilles deck. His interests also included Freemasonry and astrology.-External links:* * *...

and was a member of a number of Rosicrucian

Rosicrucian

Rosicrucianism is a philosophical secret society, said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by Christian Rosenkreuz. It holds a doctrine or theology "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe...

, and Freemason style orders. Saint-Yves supposedly inherited the papers of one of the great founders of French occultism, Antoine Fabre d'Olivet (1762–1825).

In 1877 he published the "Lyrical Testament", a collection of poetry, and "Keys of the Orient". In the latter book, he presents a solution (based on developing a religious understanding between Jews, Christians and Muslims) to the "question of the Orient", brought about by the decay of the Ottoman empire which caused tensions in the Near and Middle East.

He also began to study the development of industrial applications of marine plants ( "Utilising extracts from seaweed" was published in 1879) but he could not perform the operation for lack of capital.
In 1880, he was granted the title of Marquis of Alveydre by the government of San Marino

San Marino

San Marino, officially the Republic of San Marino , is a state situated on the Italian Peninsula on the eastern side of the Apennine Mountains. It is an enclave surrounded by Italy. Its size is just over with an estimated population of over 30,000. Its capital is the City of San Marino...

.

His book the Mission des Juifs (1884) was favourable to Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

, but material from it was used for The Secret of the Jews an anti-semitic tract attributed to Yuliana Glinka

Yuliana Glinka

Yuliana Dmitrievna Glinka was a Russian occultist born to a prominent family in Orel, Russia.Her grandfather, Colonel Fyodor Nikolaevich Glinka was investigated as a leader of "a secret society of mystics" during Prince Alexander Nikolaevich Galitzine's investigation of masonic lodges following...

Development of Synarchy

Saint-Yves used the term Synarchy in his book La France vraie to describe what he believed was the ideal form of government

Form of government

A form of government, or form of state governance, refers to the set of political institutions by which a government of a state is organized. Synonyms include "regime type" and "system of government".-Empirical and conceptual problems:...

. In reaction to the emergence of anarchist ideologies and movements, Saint-Yves had elaborated a more conservative political-theological

Political theology

Political theology or public theology is a branch of both political philosophy and practical theology that investigates the ways in which theological concepts or ways of thinking underlie political, social, economic and cultural discourses....

formula over a series of 4 books from 1882 onwards which he believed would result in a harmonious society

Society

A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...

by considering it as an organic unity

Organic unity

Organic Unity is the idea that a thing is made up of interdependent parts. For example, a body is made up of its constituent organs, or a society is made up of its constituent social roles....

. This ideal was based partially on his idealised view of life in medieval Europe and also on his ideas about successful government in India, Atlantis

Atlantis

Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....

and Ancient Egypt. He defended social differentiation and hierarchy

Hierarchy

A hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another...

with co-operation between social class

Social class

Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...

es, transcending conflict

Class conflict

Class conflict is the tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests between people of different classes....

between social and economic groups: Synarchy, as opposed to anarchy

Anarchy

Anarchy , has more than one colloquial definition. In the United States, the term "anarchy" typically is meant to refer to a society which lacks publicly recognized government or violently enforced political authority...

. Specifically, Saint-Yves envisioned a Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an society with a government composed of three council

Council of State

The Council of State is a unique governmental body in a country or subdivision thereoff, though its nature may range from the formal name for the cabinet to a non-executive advisory body surrounding a head of state. It is sometimes regarded as the equivalent of a privy council.-Modern:*Belgian...

s, representing economic power

Economic power

There is no agreed-upon definition of power in economics. At least five definitions of power have been used:*Purchasing power, i.e., the ability of any amount of money to buy goods and services. Those with more assets, or, more correctly, net worth, have more power of this sort...

, judicial power, and scientific community

Scientific community

The scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science. Objectivity is expected to be achieved by the scientific method...

, of which the metaphysical chamber bound the whole structure together. These ideas were also influenced by works such as Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

's The Republic and by Martinism

Martinism

Martinism is a form of mystical and esoteric Christianity concerned with the fall of the first man, his state of material privation from his divine source, and the process of his return, called 'Reintegration' or illumination....

.

As part of this concept of government Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, gave an important role to secret societies or, more precisely, esoteric societies, which are composed of oracle

Oracle

In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination....

s and who safeguarded the government from behind the scenes. He saw the Rosicrucian

Rosicrucian

s as having fulfilled this role in medieval Europe and was involved with a number of Freemason and other groups who claimed descent from the Knights Templars.

Contact with Agartha

During the year 1885 Saint-Yves was supposedly visited by a group of Eastern Initiates, one of them being named prince Hardjij Scharipf. It was then that he associated synarchy with "ascended master

Ascended master

Ascended Masters, in the Ascended Master Teachings is derived from the Theosophical concept of Masters of the Ancient Wisdom or "Mahatmas", though they differ in important aspects...

s" based in subterranean caverns of Agartha

Agartha

Agartha is a legendary city that is said to reside in the earth's core. It is related to the belief in a hollow earth and is a popular subject in esotericism....

, who supposedly communicated with him telepathically

Telepathy

Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...

. He wrote about this secret location in his "Mission de l'Inde en Europeä" published in 1886. Worried he had revealed too much he destroyed all but two copies of this book, which did not become available again until 1910.

Saint-Yves believed that an ancient synarchist world government

World government

World government is the notion of a single common political authority for all of humanity. Its modern conception is rooted in European history, particularly in the philosophy of ancient Greece, in the political formation of the Roman Empire, and in the subsequent struggle between secular authority,...

was transferred to Agartha within a hollow Earth

Hollow Earth

The Hollow Earth hypothesis proposes that the planet Earth is either entirely hollow or otherwise contains a substantial interior space. The hypothesis has been shown to be wrong by observational evidence, as well as by the modern understanding of planet formation; the scientific community has...

at the start of the Kali-Yuga era, around 3,200 B.C. Saint-Yves d'Alveydre was the man who really introduced the concept of Agartha to the Western world.

Final Years

After Saint-Yves's death, portions of the writings he left behind were compiled by a group of his friends and devotees into a volume entitled l'Archéomètre. The title is Saint-Yves's name for a color-coded diagram he developed, showing symbolic correspondences between elements in astrology, music, alphabets, gematria

Gematria

Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning numerical value to a word or phrase, in the belief that words or phrases with identical numerical values bear some relation to each other, or bear some relation to the number itself as it may apply to a person's age, the calendar year, or the like...

, and other areas. This book has been translated into Spanish, and was translated into English for the first time in 2007 (publication pending).

Influence

Saint-Yves's main disciple was the prominent occultist Papus who established a number of societies based on Synarchist ideas. Other notable followers included Victor Blanchard (1878–1953), Nizier Anthelme Philippe

Nizier Anthelme Philippe

Anthelme Nizier Philippe was born on April 25, 1849 in Le Rubathier, Loisieux, Savoy, France, the son of peasants. He was also known as "Maître Philippe" or "Maître Philippe de Lyon". His mother was Marie Vashod and his father Joseph Philippe . From the age of fourteen he stayed with his uncle...

, René A. Schwaller de Lubicz and Emile Dantinne

Emile Dantinne

Emile Dantinne was a Belgian philosopher and esoterist.Member, then leader, of several esoteric societies based in Belgium such as 'La Rose+Croix Universitaire' and 'L'Ordre d'Hermès Tétramégiste', he founded in 1936 the F.U.D.O.S.I., or 'Fédération Universelle Des Ordres et Sociétés Initiatiques'...

. Saint-Yves' works were also utilised in the development of Theosophy

Theosophy

Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...

and Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...

used Synarchy as a major influence in developing his political thought.

Saint-Yves's ideas influenced the turbulent French politics of the early twentieth century where they served as a model for a number of right-wing groups and also in Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

where synarchist groups have had a major political role. Theories concerning Synarchcist groups also have become a key element in a number of conspiracy theories.

Saint-Yves on The Great Sphinx of Giza

One of Saint-Yves's most influential theories nowadays was a minor feature of his work. This is his claim that the Great Sphinx was much older than Egyptologists thought, being created around 12,000 B.C. He believed the Sphinx was created by escapees from the destruction of Atlantis