 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(July 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Joseph Alexandre Saint-Yves Marquis d’Alveydre | |
|---|---|
 Saint-Yves in 1892 | |
| Born | (1842-03-26)26 March 1842 Paris, France |
| Died | 5 February 1909(1909-02-05) (aged 66) Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France |
| Occupation | Author |
| Known for | Agarttha |
| Movement | Occultism Synarchism |
Joseph Alexandre Saint-Yves, Marquis d’Alveydre (French:[sɛ̃tiv]; 26 March 1842 – 5 February 1909) was a Frenchoccultist who adapted the works ofFabre d'Olivet (1767–1825) and, in turn, had his ideas adapted byGérard Encaussealias Papus. His work onL'Archéomètre deeply influenced the youngRené Guénon.
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.[1]
Born in Paris, from afamily of Parisian intellectuals and son of psychiatrist Guillaume-Alexandre Saint-Yves, he started his career as a physician at a naval academy inBrest which he soon abandoned after becoming ill. In 1863, he relocated toJersey where he connected withVictor Hugo. In 1870, he returned to France to fight in theFranco-Prussian War 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 ofHonoré de Balzac, and friend of the EmpressEugénie de Montijo, a move which made him independently 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 MarquisStanislas de Guaita,Joséphin Péladan andOswald Wirth and was a member of a number ofRosicrucian, andFreemason 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 theLyrical Testament, a collection of poetry, andKeys of the Orient. In the latter book, he presents a solution (based on developing a religious understanding between Jews, Christians andMuslims) to theQuestion of the Orient, brought about by the decay of theOttoman Empire which caused tensions in theNear andMiddle East.
He also began to study the development of industrial applications of marine plants (Utilising extracts fromseaweed was published in 1879) but he could not perform the operation for lack of capital. In 1880, he was granted the title ofMarquis of Alveydre by the government ofSan Marino.
His bookMission des Juifs (1884) was favourable toJews. The material from it was used forThe Secret of the Jews, ananti-semitic tract attributed toYuliana Glinka.
Saint-Yves used the term "synarchy" in his bookLa France vraie to describe what he believed was the idealform of government.[2] In reaction to the emergence ofanarchist ideologies and movements, Saint-Yves had elaborated a more conservativepolitical-theological formula over a series of 4 books from 1882 onwards which he believed would result in a harmonioussociety by considering it as anorganic unity. 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, and Ancient Egypt. He defended social differentiation andhierarchy with co-operation betweensocial classes, transcendingconflict between social and economic groups: synarchy, as opposed toanarchy. Specifically, Saint-Yves envisioned aEuropean society with a government composed of threecouncils, representingeconomic power,judicial power, andscientific community, of which themetaphysical chamber bound the whole structure together.[3] These ideas were also influenced by works such asPlato'sThe Republic and byMartinism. They also influenced the youngRené Guénon who published several articles onL'Archéomètre in his early life.L'Archéomètre was edited and published byGérard EncaussealiasPapus after Saint-Yves' death.
As part of this concept of government Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, gave an important role tosecret societies or, more precisely,esoteric societies, which are composed oforacles and who safeguarded the government from behind the scenes. He saw theRosicrucians as having fulfilled this role in medieval Europe and was involved with a number of Freemason and other groups who claimed descent from theKnights Templars.
During 1885, Saint-Yves was allegedly visited by a group of Eastern Initiates, one of them being named Prince Hardjij Scharipf. It was then that he associated synarchy with "ascended masters" based in caverns ofAgarttha, who supposedly communicated with himtelepathically. He wrote about this secret location in hisMission de l'Inde en Europe published in 1886. Worried he had revealed too much and apparently under the influence of his oriental contacts, he destroyed all but two copies of this book. One of which was owned byGérard Encausse aliasPapus, who edited and published it in 1910.
Saint-Yves believed that an ancient synarchistworld government was transferred to Agarttha within ahollow Earth at the start of theKali Yuga age, around 3,200 BC.[4] Saint-Yves d'Alveydre was the man who really introduced the concept of Agarttha to the Western world. This concept was later developed byZam Bothiva and theFraternité des Polaires in France, and more importantly by theThule-Gesellschaft inNationalist circles of Germany.
After Saint-Yves's death, portions of the writings he left behind were compiled by a group of his friends and devotees, driven byGérard Encaussealias Papus, into a volume entitledl'Archéomètre. The title is Saint-Yves's name for a colour-coded diagram he developed, showing symbolic correspondences between elements inastrology, music, alphabets,gematria, and other areas. This book has been translated into Spanish and was translated into English for the first time in 2007 (publication pending).[citation needed]
Saint-Yves's main disciple was the prominent occultistGérard Encaussealias Papus who established a number of societies based on synarchist ideas. Other notable followers includedVictor Blanchard (1878–1953),Nizier Anthelme Philippe,René A. Schwaller de Lubicz,René Guénon andEmile Dantinne.
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 inMexico where synarchist groups have had a major political role. Theories concerning synarchist groups also have become a key element in a number ofconspiracy theories.
One of Saint-Yves's most influential theories nowadays was a minor feature of his work. This is his claim that theGreat Sphinx was much older than Egyptologists thought, being created around 12,000 BC. He believed the Sphinx was created by escapees from the destruction ofAtlantis. He did not base this claim on any physical evidence. Saint-Yves' discipleRené A. Schwaller de Lubicz was thus inspired to investigate the age of the Sphinx and, as a result, inspired an ongoing Great Sphinx controversy over the age of the monument.
