Socialist Religion and The Emergence of Occultism: A Genealogical Approach To Socialism and Secularization in 19th-Century France

Religion
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Socialist religion and the emergence of occultism:

a genealogical approach to socialism and
secularization in 19th-century France
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, DOI:
10.1080/0048721X.2016.1146926
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Download by: [University of California, San Diego] Date: 31 March 2016, At: 14:53
Religion, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2016.1146926
Socialist religion and the emergence of occultism: a

genealogical approach to socialism and secularization
in 19th-century France
Julian Strube*
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 14:53 31 March 2016
University of Heidelberg, Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”, Karl
Jaspers Centre, Voßstraße 2, Building 4400, Heidelberg, 69115 Germany
It is often assumed that the history of 19th-century France was determined by a

struggle between anti-religious progressive reformers and Catholic reaction-
aries, culminating in laïcité. In this process, the role of socialism as a secular
force is usually taken for granted. This article will argue that a more complex
approach to socialism can contribute to a better understanding of secularization
and the emergence of “modern” forms of religion. Firstly, it will be discussed
that pre-1848 social reformers were highly religious, despite their depiction in
historical narratives influenced by Marxism. Secondly, it will be shown that
socialist ideas continued, after 1848, in new religious movements. This will be
demonstrated on the basis of the intellectual development of the socialist
Alphonse-Louis Constant who, under his pen-name Eliphas Lévi, is regarded
as the founder of occultism. An analysis of his writings will help to illuminate
the ambiguous relationship between socialism and secularization.
K EY W ORDS socialism; Catholicism; occultism; spiritualism; spiritism; secular-
ization; modernity; France
Nineteenth-century socialism and the question of “Secularization”

The classical secularization thesis, implying a decline in the importance of “reli-
gion” in “modern” societies, has been thoroughly criticized and revised in recent
decades. By now, even prominent early propagators such as Peter L. Berger have
come to a more complex understanding of “secularization” that assumes an
ongoing “pluralization” of religious identities that often do not fit into traditional
categories (Berger 1999a, 2012; cf. Bruce 2002, 1–44, 2011, 26–56). In this respect, the
relationship between secularization and “modernization” has been the subject of
much controversy, as several scholars have questioned the supposedly necessary
tensions between religion and “modernity” (for a recent summary, see Gabriel,
Gärtner, and Pollack 2014; Willems et al. 2013). However, the 19th century has
received comparatively little attention in these general debates, as the criticism of
*Current address: Heidelberg University, Institut für Religionswissenschaft und Interkulturelle Theolo-
gie, Kisselgasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany. Email: julian.strube@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de
© 2016 Taylor & Francis

2 J. Strube
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 3
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
4 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.
The eclipse of socialist religion

The Marxist verdict
The French socialist movements that emerged under the July Monarchy between
1830 and 1848 were largely eclipsed by the success of other forms of socialism –
especially Marxism – in the second half of the century. This had particular conse-
quences for the perception of their religious ideas. From an early point on, Friedrich
Engels and Karl Marx were well aware of the religious character of the French refor-
mists. In his article entitled “Progress of Social Reform on the Continent,” pub-
lished in 1843 in The New Moral World, Engels wondered about the
“unintelligible mysticism” of the French socialists, notably the Saint-Simonians
and Fourierists. While his goal was to call for a coordinated effort of the fractured
European reformists, Engels pointed out the oddly religious nature of the French.
He found it “curious, that whilst the English Socialists are generally opposed to
Christianity [ … ], the French Communists, being a part of a nation celebrated for
its infidelity, are themselves Christians” (Engels [1843] 1985, 503).1 Engels was
obviously puzzled that, of all reformist currents, those hailing from the cradle of
the Revolution had articulated an expressly religious identity.
Both Engels and Marx were well aware that their reformist thought was indebted
to the French socialists. In his Deutsche Ideologie (1846), Marx revealed an exact
knowledge of the Saint-Simonian and Fourierist doctrines (Marx and Engels
[1845–1846] 1932, 479–516). When Marx and Engels propagated their own strand
of socialism in Das kommunistische Manifest (1848), they explicitly distanced them-
selves from their predecessors to form their own Communist identity. Religion
played a key role in that process. Instead of focusing on economic problems and
the class struggle, the so-called “utopian” socialists had, according to Marx and
Engels, developed ideas of no “practical value” and tended to turn into
Religion 5
“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).
The religious context of the emergence of “Socialism”

In contrast, the context of emergence of the signifier “socialisme” demonstrates the
great significance of “religion” for early socialist doctrines. Pierre Leroux (1797–
1871) is credited with introducing the term into public discourse (Gans 1957; cf.
Grünberg 1912). He initially used it in a derogative way. In the October 1833
issue of the Revue Encyclopédique that was published in 1834, Leroux juxtaposed
the terms individualisme and socialisme, distancing himself from both extremes of
“the absurdities of present-day mercantilism” and “the tyrannical theories” of
socialism, “that new papacy” (Leroux 1834, 109). Leroux clearly referred to the
Saint-Simonians from whom he had distanced himself at the end of 1831. In the
coming years, however, the signifier “socialisme” was endowed with a more posi-
tive meaning. In later editions of the article, as well as in an influential article “Aux
politiques” that was published in 1841/1842, Leroux made a distinction between a
6 J. Strube
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.
Socialism and religion in Pre-1848 France

Saint-Simonism
The Saint-Simonians formed the first influential socialist school in France. Their
doctrine evolved from the writings of Henri Saint-Simon (1760–1825) who, next
to Charles Fourier (1772–1837) and Robert Owen (1771–1858), is considered as
one of the founding fathers of socialism (Saint-Simon 2012, 1–42). In his year of
death, 1825, Saint-Simon published his famous Nouveau christianisme, which
would become his most successful and arguably most influential writing.
Therein he proclaimed to be the revelator of a superior form of Christianity that
cemented his reputation as a “prophet” and founder of a new religion. Tradition-
ally, historians used to see the Nouveau christianisme as a strange “aberration”
from Saint-Simon’s former “rational” teachings. According to Frank E. Manuel, it
resulted from a state of mental illness and “left the false impression that [his doc-
trine] was an essentially religious, moral faith” (Manuel 1956, 260). George
Lichtheim was convinced that the writing falsely set off the Saint-Simonians on
the road “to becoming a quasi-religious sect,” although “it cannot be said to
contain anything specifically socialist” (Lichtheim 1969, 48).
In contrast, observers from the French sociological tradition following Emile
Durkheim have convincingly shown that Saint-Simon’s “new Christianity”
resulted from a coherent and continuous development that was rooted in his ear-
liest writings (Durkheim 1971, 208–218; cf. Durkheim 1925; Desroche 1969, 5–44;
Musso 2006, 247–281; cf. the more cautious Picon 2003). As soon as in his Lettres
d’un habitant de Genève, published in 1803, Saint-Simon had suggested the establish-
ment of a scientific religion, a “Cult of Newton,” where scientists were to take the
place of priests (Musso 2006, 49–79). Saint-Simon had expressed his conviction that
the exploration of natural laws would serve the discovery of the laws governing
society. The ultimate task of the “Council of Newton” was the rapprochement of
“human intelligence” to “divine providence” in order to find the “unique law”
that governs the universe (Saint-Simon 1803, 92–93). In his subsequent writings,
Saint-Simon elaborated this new science sociale that assumed the existence of laws
of attraction governing society as well as nature (Manuel 1956, 117–167).
Religion 7
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”
8 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 9
The context of Catholicism

French Catholicism is a frequently overlooked part of the historical context of July
Monarchy socialism. It has been noted that the structure of the association universelle
was openly modeled after that of the Catholic Church (Schmidt am Busch 2007, 64–
75). Indeed, one of the most quoted and admired authors in Saint-Simonian publi-
cations was the “father” of Catholic traditionalism, Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821).
The Saint-Simonians were decisively inspired by Maistrean philosophy of history,
which revolved around the progressive unfolding of God’s providence. De Maistre
looked at the French Revolution with disgust and understood it as “satanic,” but he
regarded it as a necessary expiatory “sacrifice” that would “regenerate” humanity
and elevate it towards a reconciliation with its creator. This redemptive under-
standing of history was easily compatible with socialist thought. So too the “spiri-
tual authority” and the peaceful religious – that is, Catholic – “hierarchy” described
by de Maistre in his famous writing Du Pape (1819).
There is no doubt that Catholic traditionalism can be regarded as one of the most
important influences on Saint-Simonism and numerous other socialist doctrines (cf.
Armenteros 2011, 283–314). This circumstance can only be understood against the
background of the new forms of Catholicism that had emerged in the 1820s, in the
writings of thinkers like Pierre-Simon Ballanche (1776–1847). His “palingenetic,”
redemptive understanding of history figured as the most “progressivist” strand
of Catholic traditionalism that was immensely popular among July Monarchy
socialists (McCalla 1998, 344–371). These developments in French Catholicism
found their most famous and outstanding expression in the so-called “Neo-Catho-
lic” movement that emerged around the priest Félicité de Lamennais (1782–1854).
The young and enthusiastic Neo-Catholics wanted to reconcile Catholicism with
post-revolutionary society, by establishing a liberal, progressive, and social Catho-
licism that sought to actively engage with contemporary philosophical, political,
and scientific discourses (see esp. Bénichou 1977; Derré 1962; Harrison 2014,
111–148; Le Guillou 1966).
Parallel to the Saint-Simonians, the Neo-Catholics achieved a public break-
through in 1830 with their journal L’Avenir, bearing the motto “Dieu et la
liberté.” However, the movement was swiftly and violently crushed between the
fronts of Gallicanism and Rome. In August 1832, Pope Gregory XVI issued his
encyclical Mirari vos, which scathingly condemned liberalism and progress, in
addition to freedom of speech, conscience, and the press. While his companions
submitted to the verdict of Rome and continued their activities in more moderate
ways, Lamennais scandalously broke with Roman Catholicism and turned towards
a radical Christian socialism. This development began with the publication of his
extremely successful Paroles d’un croyant in 1834, which quickly reached 100 edi-
tions with at least 400,000 sold copies. It was translated into almost every European
language (Berenson 1984, 49–50; Bowman 1987, 189–195; Derré 1962, 688–690; Le
Guillou 1966, 233–245; cf. Laski 1919; 255 and Talmon [1960] 2013, 255–269). The
Paroles were immediately condemned in another encyclical, Singular nos. Together
with Lamennais’s subsequent writings, they inspired a whole generation of social-
ists and other reformers.
The spectacular transition of Lamennais to socialism, as well as the great success
of his writings among social reformers, was due to the fact that, from an early point
on, there had been significant overlaps between socialist and Neo-Catholic
10 J. Strube
discourses (Strube 2014). The Saint-Simonians and other socialists enthusiastically

adopted both the ideas of “classical” and “neo” Catholic traditionalism. This can be
exemplified by an article in the Saint-Simonian Globe from March 3, 1831, proclaim-
ing that there was no lack of “prophets of the coming” including Kant, Lessing,
Hegel, Goethe, de Maistre, Lamennais, Madame de Staël, Chateaubriand, and Bal-
lanche. To the author, their writings seemed to confirm that the “religious era” fol-
lowing a “new revelation” was afoot: “this so eagerly awaited unity. ”
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 11
to salvation. As Considerant explained, theologians had misunderstood the sacri-

fice of Christ as an act of salvation. Instead, it was humanity that must actively
realize the laws of justice, love, brotherhood, harmony, and association in order to
achieve salvation on Earth (Considerant 1838, XLI-LXXXVI). Ten years later, in
the atmosphere of revolution, Considerant exclaimed in Le Socialisme devant le
vieux monde that the time had finally come for the peoples “to rapidly convert to
Christianity, that is to say to the good socialism, to the simultaneously scientific
and evangelical socialism” (Considerant 1848, 198).
This “Christian Fourierism” did not just emerge after the death of its eccentric
founder. The earliest disciple of Fourier, Just Muiron (1787–1881), is known to
have been enthusiastic about “theosophical” or “mystical” authors (Erdan 1855a,
581–586; cf. Beecher 1986, 160–167; Viatte [1942] 1973, 74). In his Nouvelles trans-
actions sociales, religieuses et scientifiques, published in 1832, Muiron declared the

identity of Fourier’s ideas with the magnetical and physiological theories of
Mesmer, Puységur, and Lavater, as well with the “theosophical” and “mystical”
theories of illuminés like Fénelon, Madame de Guyon, Swedenborg, Saint-Martin,
and Fabre d’Olivet (Muiron 1832, 148).
In a similar vein, Philippe Hauger (1798–1838), the son of the famous Pietist
Juliane von Krüdener (1764–1824), explained in the Revue du progrès social that he
was convinced of the affinity of Fourierism and the teachings of the “mystics” or
“theosophists,” including Ballanche, de Maistre and Fabre d’Olivet, but also
Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Böhme, Swedenborg, and Saint-Martin, who were quoted
extensively (Hauger 1834, 408–435). Hauger called for a universal “synthesis”
that should open the “transcendental point of view” for society and enable the
“regeneration” of nature and humanity, thus actively realizing paradise on earth
(427–429). The ideas of Muiron and Hauger do not reflect a coherent body of Four-
ierist thought, but they do represent a growing tendency among socialists to articu-
late their identities in decidedly religious terms, a tendency that would become
commonplace in the 1840s.
The emergence of occultism

The disaster of 1848
The February Revolution of 1848 and the founding of the Second Republic held
high promise for the social reformers (Agulhon [1973] 2002; David 1992, 171–
371; Vigier 1998). In the eyes of many socialists, the universal association seemed
to be at hand. Many contemporaries noted the highly religious atmosphere of
the revolution that stood in stark contrast to the July Revolution (e.g., Tocqueville
[1893] 1954, 162; cf. Fauquet 1990, 327). However, the following months saw an
increasingly hostile atmosphere that eventually led to a bloody escalation. This
was partly due to the activities of the radical Montagnard clubs (Amann 1975; cf.,
Stern 1851, 156–170; Tocqueville [1893] 1954, 181–186) who attempted to overthrow
the National Assembly on May 15. The sympathies for socialist tendencies that still
had been tangible in April vanished swiftly and were replaced by a reaction of anti-
reformist policy.
When the National Assembly decided to close the National Workshops that had
been established according to the ideas of the socialist Louis Blanc, about 50 000
workers and other citizens took up arms against the government on June 23.
12 J. Strube
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.
The struggle for a new socialism

The disastrous failure of the Second Republic led to a profound crisis of French
socialism and to the demise of the socialist schools that had been dominating refor-
mist discourse before 1848. For their remaining members, the 1850s marked a
period of reorientation that was not only determined by the repressions of the auth-
orities but also by power struggles between the different reformist cohorts.
One of the most remarkable socialist projects at that time was the Revue philoso-
phique et religieuse (1855–1857). It can be seen as a final attempt to revive socialism in
its pre-1848 vein and consisted of a whole generation of July Monarchy veterans. It
was led by the former prominent Saint-Simonians Charles Lemonnier (1806–1891)
and Léon Brothier, as well as by the socialist Charles Fauvety (1813–1894) whose
salons functioned as nodal points for oppositional circles, often with a freemasonic
background (Caubet 1893, 1–13; cf. Erdan 1855a, 492–503, 823–840; cf. Combes
1995; Nord 1995, 15–30). Further contributors to the Revue included the former con-
fidents of Enfantin, Charles Lambert and Louis Jourdan, as well as various other
socialists such as Constantin Pecqueur (1801–1887), Charles Renouvier (1815–
1903), Ange Guépin (1805–1873), Louis de Tourreil (1799–1863), and the known
Fourierist François Cantagrel (1810–1887). Also Comtists like Emile Littré (1801–
1881) wrote for the journal, as well as independent thinkers such as Alexandre
Erdan (i.e., Alexandre-André Jacob 1826–1878), to whom we owe an extensive
Religion 13
“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.
The Abbé Constant

A former deacon who had to abandon his clerical career shortly before his conse-
cration, the “Abbé Constant” was one of the most radical French socialists of the
1840s. In 1855, he published a series of articles in the Revue entitled “The Kabbalistic
Origins of Christianity” and the Kabbalah as the “Source of all Dogmas” (Constant
1855a, 1855b). At the end of the preceding year, he had adopted the pseudonym
Eliphas Lévi when he had begun to publish the first livraison of the first volume
of his famous Dogme de la haute magie, although only to a small readership. The pub-
lication of his articles in the Revue – notably under his civil name – was the first time
14 J. Strube
that he expounded his “Kabbalistic” theories to a wider readership: a socialist read-

ership. As a matter of fact, Constant’s “Kabbalistic” articles were sincerely dis-
cussed in other contributions by Cantagrel and Tourreil, and they received
critical attention from Moses Hess, who noted that the “Kabbalah of Monsieur Con-
stant” was representative of the systems that wanted to deduce everything from a
single principle (Hess and Brothier 1857, 143–144). Constant’s fellows took it as
quite natural that he introduced such topics in a socialist journal.
Constant was no stranger to many of the Revue’s authors. Since the 1840s, he had
been the collaborator and friend of Charles Fauvety, who remained one of his
closest peers and cordially received him in his salons. When the two men had pub-
lished a journal in 1846 with the rather humble title, La vérité sur toutes choses, Con-
stant had been known for his radical blend of Romanticism, socialism, and Neo-
Catholicism that he self-referentially called communisme néo-catholique (Constant

1846b, 14).
He had published his first radical writing in 1841, La Bible de la liberté, which was
clearly inspired by the Paroles d’un croyant and contained an extravagant mixture of
socialist, mystical, Romantic, and feminist ideas. The authorities brought him to
trial shortly after the publication. He was put in the prison of Sainte-Pélagie,
where Lamennais and other radicals were being held at the same time. At this
time, Constant was perceived by contemporaries as the most radical and notorious
disciple of Lamennais, although he never seemed to have had personal contact with
the former Neo-Catholic leader (Cabet 1841; Carné 1841, 730; Grün 1846, 31–34;
Max 1847, 37; Proudhon 1843, 34–35; Schmidt 1858, 307; Seiler 1843, 29–43; Stein
1850, 422; Thomas 1841, 19). Nevertheless, Constant had already been decisively
influenced by Neo-Catholicism during his time as a seminarian. After 1841, he
intensified his orientation towards Catholic traditionalism, especially towards the
teachings of de Maistre, but he also developed close ties to the école sociétaire
whose publishing house printed several of his writings.
Constant went through a period of further radicalization in the wake of 1848.
Because of the publication of a violently revolutionary pamphlet, La voix de la
famine (1846b), he was again imprisoned in 1847. After the February Revolution,
he presided over the Club de la Montagne which not only claimed to propagate
the “most radical socialism” but was also described by contemporaries as one of
the most radical clubs (Chenu 1850, 105, 111; Lucas 1851, 183–185; cf. Erdan
1855b, 289). At that time, Constant published his Testament de la liberté (1848),
which has later been misunderstood as representing the end of his political ambi-
tions, but was in fact a euphoric writing about the beginning of a new regenerated
world and the emancipation of the people. Against this background, his devas-
tation after the June Uprising is a matter of course – it was impressively described
by his friend Esquiros (1850, 57–58). The years between 1848 and 1855 marked for
him, as for many other socialists, a period of great uncertainty. After he had initially
partaken in the enthusiasm about Louis-Napoléon, he turned against the repressive
Emperor with a highly polemical chanson that led to his third political imprison-
ment, in 1855. As a result, he kept a low profile in subsequent years, albeit
without abandoning his political stance.
At the outset, it was noted that Constant, as Eliphas Lévi, is usually depicted as
the continuator or rénovateur of an older occult or esoteric tradition that had
nothing to do with his earlier socialism. This perception is based on a narrative
that was developed by French occultists in the late 19th century, according to
Religion 15
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–
16 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 17
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
18 J. Strube
magnetists and advertised Constant’s works as magnetistic studies. Constant

clearly developed his theory of magic in the particular historical context of the
1850s. His reception of early-modern or medieval sources was remarkably super-
ficial and selective. For this reason, it can hardly be said that early-modern or med-
ieval sources formed the “frame of reference” for his magical theory (Otto 2011,
524–525). It was exactly the other way around, if he showed any actual knowledge
of such writings.
Neither can Constant’s interest in magic simply be explained by an initiatory
journey to London (Chacornac [1926] 1989, 149; cf. Laurant 1992, 105). He had
indeed travelled to London in May 1854 because of two personal catastrophes:
His wife had left him for another man, and shortly after their young daughter
Marie died from an illness at only seven years old. As devastating as those
events certainly were, they had not caused Constant to turn to magic, as he
already had been preoccupying himself with the sciences occultes prior to this. He
was also highly critical about his experiences at London, especially with regard
to his English hosts (Lévi [1856] 1861a, 265–272). Constant was convinced that
the majority of the English comprised of “charlatans” and sensation-seekers who
were mere dabblers in the magical arts.
Constant’s unwavering claim for superiority was based on his historical under-
standing of magic. This historical dimension is inherently intertwined with his
second major theme: Kabbalah. As mentioned before, Kabbalistic motifs were
central in the environment of Constant. His own concept of Kabbalah, however,
was as exceptional as it was fascinating because of its Neo-Catholic background.
For Constant, “Kabbalah” meant nothing else but tradition, and for him, the one
and only true tradition had always been Catholicism. Consequently, he frequently
expressed the conviction that occultism was nothing else but Catholicism. This
caused bewilderment or even hostility among later observers (e.g., Blavatsky
[1888] 1893, 533, 537–539, 617; Waite 1886, xviii–xxi), and it was only recently
noted, although not historically explained, that the Catholicism of Eliphas Lévi
was essential for his identity as a magician and cabbalist (Hanegraaff 2012, 244–
248 and Otto 2015, cf. Hanegraaff 2010). A look at his publications from the
1840s shows that this is anything but surprising. Just as “tradition” had served
him to distance himself from other socialists and the clergy, it became the arguably
most central distinction between his “occultism” and the spectrum of spirites doc-
trines. While the followers of Kardec usually looked upon Kabbalah, magic, and
the sciences occultes as outdated superstitions, Constant and later occultists would
base their sense of superiority exactly on the traditional wisdom contained
therein. Against this background, it is most telling that Constant could easily
dismiss Kardec, the spirites, and earlier mediums as puerile amateurs (cf. Lévi
[1856] 1861a, 191; Lévi 1865, 122, 364–365) while he invested a great amount of
energy into his refutations of the Catholic authors de Mirville and Gougenot des
Mousseaux.
As noted earlier, Constant had expressed his conviction that the order of the true
Catholic Church was identical with the association universelle. After the disaster of
1848, he had embarked on an intensive search for the historical roots of the tra-
dition of this true Catholicism that implied the true socialism. From 1851, he
began to discuss the Kabbalah as the leading thread for this endeavor. This is
due to two major influences: firstly, the contemporary historiographies about
social reform, which depicted socialism as the outcome of a heretical tradition. In
Religion 19
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.,
20 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 21
98–103, which is entirely political). In another posthumous publication, Les portes de

l’avenir, Constant demanded the implementation of free and mandatory primary
education that should instruct the people. Most remarkably, he demanded that
“the Kabbalah of the Hebrews and the spirits of comparative mythologies will
be studied at all schools, be they lay schools or ecclesiastical schools” (Lévi 1870,
179; cf. Harvey 2005, 199–203 who is unaware of the socialist context).
This shows that Constant, in similar fashion to his writings from the 1840s, did
not envision the socialist revolution on the basis of economic doctrines but on the
basis of education and individual perfection. As he explained in his Dogme, the role
of the priest in this process would not only be restricted to preaching the consola-
tions of the afterlife. Instead he was to work through charity, “this sublime
expression of humanité divine, ” in order “to help in the here and now the suffering
of the poor, to instruct, protect, and direct him in his travail.” The science économique
would only support him in his work (Lévi [1861] 1861a, 35).
However, Constant’s hopes were once more dashed. The Commune saw the final
triumph of Proudhonism and Blanquism, the very “atheist” and “materialist” cur-
rents that Constant had always despised. He watched the developments, which
were obviously the exact opposite of what he had envisioned, with loathing. In
Le Catéchisme de la paix, written in his year of death 1875 and published posthu-
mously, he reflected upon the repeated failure of the people to listen to the
“sages.” He suggested that every voter had to undergo an examination regarding
his “virtues,” in order to guarantee that the voters did not only turn to the “most
unreasonable” demagogues (Lévi [1875] 1902, 17–18, 40–43). His vision was still
a progressive emancipation from above: “Everything for the people, by the élite
of the people” (Lévi [1875] 1902, 62). Only on those grounds, he insisted, would
the final synthesis and unity become possible: the “veritable theocracy.” Constant
was convinced that these ideas were not at odds with what he had always been pro-
pagating: “This is what the author of these pages has already written in a daring
brochure, published twenty years ago and titled: LA BIBLE DE LA LIBERTÉ “ (Lévi
[1875] 1902, 21–22).
It would be misleading to assume that the socialist Constant had ceased to exist
when the magician Eliphas Lévi entered the stage. Rather, his occultism should be
seen as one of the most remarkable ways in which early socialist ideas transformed
after 1848, and how those ideas continued to shape the religious landscape of
Europe well up to the present day.
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.
22 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 23
social order. A multitude of sources suggest that contemporaries perceived the

beginning of the 19th century as a time of undecidedness and terrifying uncertain-
ties. The first concern of practically all social reformers was to put an end to this and
establish a social “harmony.” This is where socialist, Neo-Catholic, and Romantic
criticism essentially met and became intensely interwoven. Religion played a
crucial role in this. As Alexandre Erdan has observed, all those currents were
part of a “religious search” that resulted from the maladie contemporaine and led
to a “reawakening” of Christianity in the first half of the century (Erdan 1855b,
XXVII–14).
The proponents of that religious reawakening who have been discussed here
were consciously engaging with the philosophical developments since the 18th
century. First and foremost, this becomes evident in the light of the rationalization
of their religious ideas. The socialists, and the Neo-Catholics in a different yet
similar vein, sought to establish a Nouveau Christianity, a Néo-Catholicism that
should be “rational” and “scientific.” These efforts show, on the one hand, the
“modernizing” effects of rationalization. On the other hand, they show that con-
temporaries were well aware of an ongoing differentiation. The very wish for a syn-
thesis of religion, science, and philosophy resulted from the circumstance that they
were perceived as being separated from each other. However, the constellation and
meaning of those signifiers remained highly contested throughout the century, and
arguably up until today. The historical actors who favored or opposed a separation
or unity of those signifiers hardly fit the roles that are commonly assigned in his-
torical narratives about the 19th century.
Finally, the immanence or worldliness of the socialist religious ideas shall be high-
lighted. It has become clear that the socialists envisioned the creation of the
Kingdom of God on Earth and rejected the passive expectation of a transcendent
ideal state. Both contemporary observers like Louis Reybaud and later scholars
like Henri Desroche have distinguished the socialists from medieval Millenarianists
on that account. The religion of the socialists should be positive, to use the
expression of Saint-Simon, and fulfill an immanent social function: the emancipa-
tion of mankind. This Saint-Simonian understanding of religion adds to the com-
plexity of 19th-century positivisme, especially if one keeps in mind that Auguste
Comte had been the secretary of Saint-Simon, and that the French sociological tra-
dition up to Emile Durkheim has discussed quite similar ideas.
In sum, the conclusions of this article confirm that “modernity” in 19th-century
France meant a complex pluralization of religious identities, but certainly not a
decline in the importance of religion. Instead, it was the very meaning of “reli-
gion” and its place in post-revolutionary society that was passionately discussed
by contemporaries. However, new forms of religion, as they have been discussed
here, have frequently been overlooked for the very reason of their “modern”
character. Interestingly, this seems to have been the case not only in recent scho-
larship. A striking example of this can be found in La Presse of June 29, 1845. In
an article about the contemporary reformist founders of religions, Gérard de
Nerval, one of the best known petits romantiques and a collaborator of Esquiros
and Delaage, wrote: “We live, according to the well-informed people, in a time
of unbelief and skepticism.––Still, there is neither a lack of gods, nor of prophets.”
It seems as though this statement has not lost any of its validity in the intervening
years.
24 J. Strube
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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Accepted: January 23, 2016

Socialist Religion and The Emergence of Occultism: A Genealogical Approach To Socialism and Secularization in 19th-Century France

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Socialist religion and the emergence of occultism: a

It is often assumed that the history of 19th-century France was determined by a

Nineteenth-century socialism and the question of “Secularization”

© 2016 Taylor & Francis

The eclipse of socialist religion

The religious context of the emergence of “Socialism”

Socialism and religion in Pre-1848 France

theism, and a ﬁnal synthèse:

The context of Catholicism

discourses (Strube 2014). The Saint-Simonians and other socialists enthusiastically

nians, the Fourierists developed into a heterogeneous movement whose doctrines

to salvation. As Considerant explained, theologians had misunderstood the sacri-

actions sociales, religieuses et scientiﬁques, published in 1832, Muiron declared the

The emergence of occultism

wars followed among the reformers. After a period of counter-reformist politics

The struggle for a new socialism

The Abbé Constant

that he expounded his “Kabbalistic” theories to a wider readership: a socialist read-

Catholicism that he self-referentially called communisme néo-catholique (Constant

degeneration that he was determined to oppose. On a political level, the “dabblers”

magnetists and advertised Constant’s works as magnetistic studies. Constant

98–103, which is entirely political). In another posthumous publication, Les portes de

social order. A multitude of sources suggest that contemporaries perceived the

Graf, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1997. “‘Dechristianisierung’: Zur Problemgeschichte eines kulturpolitischen

Thought. Leiden/New York: State University of New York Press.

Stern, Daniel. 1851. Histoire de la Révolution de 1848. Paris: Gustave Sandré.

The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Submitted: May 28, 2015

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