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 a mystical tradition, it was first transmitted through a masonic high-degree system established around 1740 in France by Martinez de Pasqually, and later propagated in different forms by his two students Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin and Jean-Baptiste Willermoz. The definition Martinism is a collective term used to describe both this particular doctrine, as well as the teachings of the reorganized 'Martinist Order' founded in 1886 by Augustin Chaboseau and Gerard Encausse (aka Papus). It was not used at the traditions inception in the 18th century. This confusing disambiguation has been a problem since the late 18th century, were the term martinism already was used interchangeably between the teachings of Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin and Martinez de Pasqually, and the works of the first being attributed to the latter.