Thursday, January 05, 2006
MARTINISM AND ELITISM
It has often been said of the New Ecclesial Movements that they are perceived as being elitist. This fact surfaced recently here in the discussion with Robert Duncan about Opus Dei. My own experience with one of these movements at my former liberal parish was that the organization was infected with elitism. I often heard the "in-crowd" comment to a parishioner "You're ready for a Life in the Spirit Seminar." Needless to say, I was among the great unready unwashed.
I find it especially interesting, therefore, to discover that encouraging this very elitism was a tenet of Louis-Claude de Saint Martin's methodology. It's explained at gnostique.net. There you can read the words of Saint Martin:
"The harder we have to struggle for something, the more precious it becomes. Somehow, in sacrificing, we prove to ourselves that what we're seeking is valuable. This holds true when we're pursuing membership.
Sacrifice locks commitment. As people strive to make it through rigorous selection standards, and work to prove their worthiness, they persuade themselves that being a part of the group matters.
Initiation rites - like high walls and narrow gates of entry - build commitment to the group through making acceptance hard to come by. Being allowed to join becomes something special. An achievement. A privilege. And it creates a sense of exclusiveness.
Belonging doesn't count much if almost anybody can drift in or drift out of your group at will. If it's easy to join up, then leave and return, only to leave again, commitment can be hard to find.
Initiation rites also create a common bond of experience that unites all who make it through the ordeal. A strong sense of "we-ness" comes from having gone through a common struggle. This identification with the group feeds commitment.
Finally, stiff criteria for admission cause the weak-hearted to deselect themselves.
Looks like the Pentecostals in Roman Catholicism studied Saint Martin's methods and mastered them to a "T".
This same website also indicates that Saint Martin taught the "heart" doctrine.
There is a quote as well from Rene Chambellant, Patriarch, that indicates a Master Mason degree is required for someone to be ordained to the clergy, and that through these first three degrees of Masonry the candidate achieves "the immortal, liberated and androgynous spirit". He indicates as well that women are ordained "as in the 2nd and 3rd centuries where female bishops held the title of 'Sophia'." That, I presume, means that he is talking about the Cathar/Albigensian Heresy.
