Abstract
The cultural hero Fúxī
1 Introduction
A usual list of important philosophical, intellectual, religious, as well as politically relevant thinkers and personalities of Chinese history would typically include well-known figures such as Confucius or Lǎozǐ
My goal with this article is to study the reception history of Fúxī starting with the earliest available information in the Jesuit sources, which was the actual basis of all the following expositions, and then scrutinise the most important authors referring primarily to Fúxī. This sample will include four important writers of the French occult nineteenth century: Éliphas Lévi (1810–1875), Joseph Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre (1842–1909), Eugène Albert Puyou de Pouvourville (1861–1939), and René Guénon (1886–1951). One of the aims is to focus both on the continuity regarding the major argumentative frame and expose important trajectories across the various authors and approaches, with their origin in the earliest reports on China and the process of adaptation in the larger frame of the reception history of China and its religious and cultural tradition.1
2 Preliminaries: Fúxī in the Chinese Tradition and in Early Jesuit Reports on China
In the Chinese mythological historiography, Fúxī features as an eminent figure. He is credited with some momentous inventions and reformist endeavours in primeval Chinese history, including the introduction of hunting, fishing, as well as music. Most importantly, he became known as the originator of the eight trigrams (bāguà
In the classic accounts, Fúxī either conceptualised and discovered the trigrams by contemplating the world and the general structure of the cosmos (Smith 2012: 19–21) or – in a more spectacular version – is introduced to them when sighting a mythical animal, commonly described as lóngmǎ
Certain aspects of this material became available in early Christian missionary compilations on Chinese history, which were adopted from available Chinese original materials (Standaert 2016: 94–163) and remained the most important source on China at least until the early nineteenth century (Mungello 1985; 2009: 88–94; Rowbotham 1956). Therein, Fúxī is commonly introduced as the first “king” of China with his aforementioned major cultural innovations. One typical example of this early Jesuit publications which was quoted throughout the nineteenth century was the Description geographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de l’empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise (A Geographically, Historically, Chronologically, Politically and Physically Oriented Description of the Empire of China and the Chinese Tartary) by the Jesuit Jean-Baptiste Du Halde (1674–1743), a comprehensive four-volume compilation of materials that were sent to Europe from China by Jesuit missionaries and edited together by Du Halde in 1735 (Landry-Deron 2002). Therein, Fúxī holds a rather prominent position and is placed at the beginning of the Chinese emperors’ list (Du Halde 1735: 217–273). In a comparable way, he is also encountered in another important early and widespread collection on Chinese history, which goes back to the Jesuit missionary Joseph-Anne-Marie de Moyriac de Mailla (1669–1748). Mailla translated a Manchu version of the Chinese historiographical work Zīzhì tōngjiàn gāngmù
Notably, most of the commonly available sources did not include the more impressive version, that with the mythical figure and the markings of its back. This is in accordance with a certain demythologising tendency not untypical for some of the early Jesuit reports (Standaert 2016: 94–95, 116–163), but the information was still available in some sources. One representative example is a concise introduction to and overview of Chinese history by the Jesuit missionary Joseph de Prémare (1660–1736), which was printed as the preface to the widely distributed early French translation of the ancient Chinese compilation Shūjīng
3 Éliphas Lévi: Fúxī and a Perennial Tradition of “Magic”
It is rather obvious that the importance of Fúxī and the references to him in the esoteric context are closely linked to his prominent position in the work of Éliphas Lévi (nom de plume of Alphonse-Louis Constant; 1810–1875), a pivotal figure in the history of French esotericism and occultism in the nineteenth century with a wide-ranging influence to the present time. Some of his publications remain a constant source of inspiration for alternative religiosities, with his framing of the word “magic” in particular being of seminal importance within specific cultural and religious contexts to date (Davies 2012: 39–41; Otto 2015).
A major characteristic in Lévi’s work is an integral interpretation of the history of humankind that includes both “the West” and all the major cultural regions with their various philosophical and religious traditions, wherein he is trying to isolate a common core. This one “true” tradition developed through the ages and cultures, with its traces being visible and detectable if one has the correct knowledge and the right tools to access it. This supposed stream of wisdom is referred to as “magic” by Lévi and defined as “exact and absolute science of nature and its laws” (science exacte et absolue de la Nature et de ses lois), or “high science” (haute science) and “absolute science” (science absolue) (Lévi 1860: 1, 3).
China makes up part of this perennial tradition and features prominently in both Lévi’s major works, the Histoire de la magie (History of Magic) (1860) and the Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic) (1854–1856). Lévi introduces both Fúxī (referred to as Fo-hi in his texts, which became the common version in the further French reception history) and Confucius as central figures in the presupposed true lineage of magic, given that they both relate to the history of the Yìjīng (mostly referred to as l’y-Kim in his writings) but they have different grades of access to the perennial tradition behind it.
Important information is given in the Histoire de la magie, Lévi’s probably best-known publication, which might be understood as a historically oriented approach towards the stream of the supposed “magic” tradition encompassing the whole history of humanity (Otto 2015: 421). In the relevant passages, Fúxī is introduced along with the alternative mythological version, that is, the discovery of the trigrams on the back of the fantastic creature emerging from the river which is referred to as “sphinx,” that is, an “allegoric animal with the mixed form of a horse and a dragon” (un animal allégorique ayant la forme mixte d’un cheval et d’un dragon; Lévi 1860: 409).2 In the general portrayal, the Yìjīng is connected with one of the pillars of Lévi’s understanding of magic, namely, the notion of basic polarity, which is “the magic law of universal equilibrium” (la loi magique de l’équilibre universel; ibid.: 55; also referred to as “the science of equilibrium” or “the unchangeable law of equilibrium” [la science de l’équilibre and la loi immuable de l’équilibre, respectively; ibid.: 77, 171]), directly linked to Fúxī as its discoverer. The Yìjīng mirrors an original worldview and is therefore compared to other concepts that allegedly witness this presupposed basic polarity. This is more thoroughly explained in Lévi’s Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, which was conceptualised as a practical guide to magic. In the first volume, devoted to the “dogma,” which is written (as the second volume) in twenty-two parts following the order of the Hebrew alphabet, an allusion to the basis of “Fohi’s” trigrams is included in the exposition of the Hebrew letter beth
It is important to note that the aforesaid line of transmission, clearly pointing to deterioration, has remained important in the ensuing reception history of Fúxī. In Lévi, the Yìjīng was perceived as a key-text of the presupposed magic truth tradition, and Fúxī was credited with introducing the supposed “high science” to China. To a certain extent, the mythical hero stands in-between the primordial wisdom, which is the object of search for Lévi, and its actual historical appearance, which later became a constant object of misunderstanding and therefore increasingly obscure.
4 Joseph Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre: Fúxī and the Foundation of the Chinese Empire
Joseph Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre is an eminent figure in the history of French esotericism whose publications became an important reference point for the history of occultism and esotericism both in France and beyond. In the course of his adventurous life (Laurant 2005; Saunier 1981), he became a kind of patriarch within the French esoteric and occult milieu of his time (Churton 2016). In the further reception, his special position was fostered by the immense importance attributed to his work by significant admirers and followers, such as the prolific author Gérard (Anaclet Vincent) Encausse (1865–1916; better known by his nom de plume Papus), who praised d’Alveydre’s work as a major inspiration for his own (Papus 1903: 1–24).
With his publications, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre introduced a fully developed mythical description of the history of humankind that centres around the idea of a hidden stream of wisdom (a concept we encountered already with Lévi) that had once flourished in an ancient highly developed culture, an ancient kingdom. This particular concept of the culturally advanced “Empire of Ram” (as it is called in his writings) – which due to certain events was shattered and perished, with glimpses and fragments of its original wisdom remaining to be discovered in various cultural contexts of the known history (if the correct “esoteric” interpretation is applied) – is probably the most original contribution by Saint-Yves d’Alveydre to the history of esotericism with its own, specific reception (Godwin 2008).5
On the practical level, this concept led to a fresh look on various ancient cultures which were literally scanned for alleged residues and vestiges of its mythical precursor. Among them, China has a special position as it represents the ideal version of government, which is a major object of interest in Saint-Yves d’Alveydre’s works as will be shown in the following pages.
As in the case with Lévi, it is once again the elevated position of the Yìjīng and its link with Fúxī as its originator that constitutes the starting point for the interpretation of his importance as thoroughly explained in the posthumously published L’Archéomètre (The Archaeometer), which is essentially a summary of most of Saint-Yves d’Alveydre’s ideas edited by a group of “amis” (friends, namely of him) with the suggestive subtitle “clef de toutes les religions & de toutes les sciences de l’antiquité, réforme synthétique de tous les arts contemporains” (Key to All Religions and Sciences of Antiquity, Synthetic Reform of All Contemporary Arts). In this work, the Yìjīng is equated in importance with the Biblical book of Genesis, but due to its enigmatic character remains “unintelligible” (inintelligible) and therefore in need of an in-depth elucidation (Saint- Yves d’Alveydre 1911: 238–239). The trigrams in particular are interpreted as one of the most ancient expressions of cosmic hierarchies, and Saint-Yves d’Alveydre even gives an image of them together with their alleged Sanskrit (sic!) equivalents, proving thereby their universal value (ibid.). In the same publication, the Yìjīng also features prominently in a list of five “sacred books” (livres sacrés) which he proposes for every ancient culture he is interested in, including: the “oriental Aryan” (orient-arya), that is, India and Persia; “Semitic Africa” (Afrique sémite); “Semitic Chaldean” (Kaldée sémite); and the “Far East Mongolian” (extrême-orient-mongol). For the latter, he gives a list comprising the “Y-King, Chou-King, Chi-King, Li King, Yo-King”6 and interestingly attributes all of them to his most important reference figure in China, Fúxī, which further elevates his position in this regard (ibid.: 120).
However, it is not only the link with the Yìjīng that makes Fúxī important, but also his position as the first “emperor” of Chinese history. As shown above, this is a standard ingredient of the early Jesuit depictions of Chinese history and becomes important for Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, given that a certain political agenda is a significant aspect of his esoteric interest, which is quite typical in the nineteenth century French occult tradition (Harvey 2005; Strube 2016). In his publications, this is centred around the concept of a so-called “trinitarian synarchy,” which designates a supposedly ideal combination of three areas that are relevant for a functioning governmental system, namely, science, justice, and (social) economy (la Science, la Justice et l’Économie sociale) as is partially explained in one of his most important and wide-spread publications (Saint-Yves d’Alveydre 1884: 217–218).
In this regard, the Chinese governmental and social system that was supposedly founded by Fúxī, who is directly connected to the Empire of Ram (on details of this relation, see Winter 2024a: 56), is a major reference point in the description of the ideal political system. A rather lengthy passage in the Mission des Juifs describes “the celestial Empire of China” (le Céleste Empire de la Chine) in addition to those that emerged in India, Tibet, or Japan (Saint-Yves d’Alveydre 1884: 240–250). Therein, China “bears the unmistakable mark of the ancient Order of things to which Fúxī has looked up” (porte la marque indéniable de l’ancien Ordre de choses sur lequel Fo-hi avait les yeux levés) when establishing it, which puts China in an elevated position when compared to the others (ibid.: 240). Even the Chinese state cult was initiated by Fúxī as an ideal version of worship, performed in the “temple of heaven” (le temple du Ciel) as the representation of an “ancient sacerdotal science” (l’ancienne Science sacerdotale) (ibid.: 245). It is a system based on the spirit of justice and deliberate arbitration, consciously divided between a hierarchical centre and liberties at the local level (ibid.: 241). The success of this invention is also promoted by the establishment of a social order organised by families who preserve the heritage in the course of China’s ongoing history. It is basically a “college” (collège) of the “educated” (lettrés) or the “scholars” (savants) which is organised according to merit. Obviously, and in an idealised way, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre refers to the European perception of the ancient Chinese system of imperial examination (kējǔ
In his admiration for China, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre follows specific strands of the nineteenth century European perception of China which has been portrayed as surpassing Europe with regard to social and political arrangements, whereas Europe was superior in theoretical and scientific knowledge (for an overview, see Mungello 2009: 125–127; Perkins 2004; summarised in Pokorny and Winter 2024b: 2–3).7
5 De Pouvourville: Fúxī as Originator of a Metaphysical School
Although virtually unknown today, Eugène-Albert Puyou de Pouvourville was an important figure in the French fin de siècle intellectual and cultural milieu. Already from his early youth, while receiving an elite education as member of an aristocratic family with military careers, he developed an interest in Asia and, from 1887 until 1892, he took part in three military missions in French Indochina, that is, modern-day Vietnam.8 There, according to his own account, he met two Vietnamese men, Nguyễn Văn Luật
In the writings of Matgioi-de Pouvourville, Fúxī appears as the “enigmatic emperor” (empereur énigmatique) that first introduced what de Pouvourville refers to as “the primordial tradition” (la tradition primordiale) or the “first tradition” (la tradition première), simply due to the fact that he is dated to the middle of the fourth millennium BCE (Matgioi 1905: 4–5). This early dating is an essential argument in this specific outlining of the Chinese tradition as it positions Matgioi, viz. de Pouvourville, as the one who is able to reveal “this treasure hidden since five thousand years” (ce trésor caché depuis cinq mille années) to the world (ibid.). As with the authors discussed in the previous pages, the Yìjīng and its link with Fúxī are the major reason of this special attention. In de Pouvourville, the Chinese classic is introduced as no other than the oldest book of China – indeed even of humankind’s entire history (ibid.: 10) – and a perfect presentation of the supposed primordial tradition. The specific status of the Yìjīng is also related to its special structure and content. De Pouvourville highlights that its author, i.e., Fúxī, avoided any mythological content but remained “abstract,” which is a perfect mirror of the supposed primordial tradition preserved in the “undeniable clarity of the Chinese tradition” (l’indéniable clarté de la tradition chinoise; ibid.: 4). It is in fact a tradition unblemished of all the faults that became important later, such as an “imposed theocratic doctrine” (tradition théocratique imposée) or “religious dogmas” (dogmes religieux) (ibid.: 5; see also Matgioi 1941 [1907]: 16–17). In contrast to all major religious traditions that appeared later in history, de Pouvourville highlights the greatness of the Yìjīng, which is literally about the fundamentals of the cosmic order and provides principles applicable to everything, including cosmogony, the nature of the divine, but also – as a divination manual (sic) – the future of humankind, showing a way to reintegrate into the divine original source.11 Following the comparable presentation in Lévi, the principles of duality and polarity are a major focus of attention. In this version, Fúxī not only coins the original trigrams (as in the traditional account), but the tradition evolving with him is also responsible for the hexagrams (Matgioi 1905: 12–13). They are introduced as pertaining to a primordial “graphics of God” (graphiques de Dieu) presenting the fundamental original polarity that is visible throughout the universe.12
With this explicit elevated position, the Yìjīng becomes, as already mentioned, the finest outcome of the supposed primordial tradition, representing thus the “doctrine of Fuxi” (doctrine de Fohi; Matgioi 1905: 11) that was developed into a separate “school,” that is, being not only about Fúxī but also his kinship and followers. In this regard, de Pouvourville uses the term “metaphysical school” (école métaphysique) to describe this specific tradition and emphasise its importance as the original source of wisdom in and from China (ibid.).
Despite this obvious focus on Fúxī, it is important to note that other traditions and figures, who were not so prominent in the accounts we encountered so far, moved to the fore. And this is mainly about the evaluation of Daoism and Confucianism, that is, Lǎozǐ and Confucius. As already stated above, the first important publication going back to Matgioi-de Pouvourville is a translation of the Dàodéjīng, which seems to point towards that further development. Although Fúxī remained in an elevated position, he appeared as a more mythical figure initiating a kind of religio-philosophical “school,” but remained clouded in the mists of history with the Yìjīng as the only surviving testimony. In de Pouvourville’s writings, this is demonstrated in a type of triangulation: Fúxī was the originator and in principle everything is contained in his tradition, referred to as the “metaphysical way” (la voie métaphysique); Lǎozǐ developed a rationalised version of all that which de Pouvourville calls “the rational way” (la voie rationelle); and Confucius became responsible for the evolvement of the complementary “social way” (la voie sociale). In fact, these three “ways” were the object of book publications presenting the view on Chinese history systematically (with only two of them eventually materialising).13 What becomes clear with this presentation is that Lǎozǐ and Confucius, although living later, are directly connected to the origin, and thus do not differ from it substantially. From this perspective, the portrayal of Fúxī in de Pouvourville seems to be that of an intermediary between the overall focus on Fúxī in Lévi and Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and the growing importance of Lǎozǐ and Confucius in the following period of reception. As we will see, the writings of René Guénon, which conclude our survey, continued on this very path.
6 René Guénon: Fúxī and His Legacy in the Tradition of Confucius and Lǎozǐ
The last important French author to refer to Fúxī, elevating his position – although evidently with some reservations – but clearly shifting the viewpoint was the highly influential French writer René Guénon, who is credited with the beginning of a school of thought that is commonly referred to as Traditionalism (Dickinson 2021; Sedgwick 2023). Its major argumentation is that the Western world is deeply corrupted through the effects of modernity and the only escape route is to re-introduce ancient wisdom that has survived in the “East,” that is, comprising primarily Indian, Chinese, and Islamic traditions (as stated in particular in Guénon 1994 [1973]). In the final stage of his life, Guénon’s major focus of interest turned towards Islam, as the latter was credited with an intermediary position between West and East. All that eventually led to Guénon’s transfer to Cairo in 1930, where he spent the remainder of his life.
However, China and the Daoist tradition in particular remained a major focal point of interest (Grisson 1985), addressed extensively in various publications. Obviously, important aspects of Guénon’s take on China were informed by the works of Lévi, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, and de Pouvourville, although his general relation to esotericism and occultism is highly complicated due to major intellectual shifts in his life.14
Yet, his interest in Chinese material and the basic information he presents in his works is a vital sign of the close allegiance to the occult tradition. An important work in this regard, a short treaty entitled “Taoïsme et Confucianisme” (Daoism and Confucianism), was published in 1932 in the important esoteric magazine Le Voile d’Isis (The Veil of Isis) founded by Papus (on the publications therein in general, see Sedgwick 2004: 32–33).15 However, even in the last book published during Guénon’s life-time, La grande triade (The Great Triad; 1946), the major framework and the overall interpretative pattern follow the scheme of the authors mentioned, particularly in the references pertaining to Fúxī.
Once again, the Yìjīng remains the starting point for the Chinese cultural tradition and, consequently, Fúxī is placed at the beginning of this supposed stream of wisdom. Similarly to Lévi’s, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre’s, but also de Pouvourville’s schemes, the Chinese cultural hero functions as an intermediary between the supposed primordial tradition – which remains the same throughout the history of humankind – and the specific way this wisdom was articulated in China. Fúxī literally drew “the teachings contained in the Yijing” (les enseignements renfermés dans le Yi-king) from “a very ancient past” (d’un passé très ancien) as he got access to this ultimate source of insight (Guénon 2003 [1973]: 42). As in Lévi, the concept of polarity expressed in the yīn-yáng juxtaposition is highlighted: it is interpreted as relating to the “ultimate metaphysical unity” (la suprême Unité métaphysique) which Fúxī realised when contemplating heaven and earth, and later with the help of the fantastic creature emerging from the river (ibid.). Evidently, the discovery of the basic trigrams is described by combining the two aforesaid versions and with an obvious reference to Lévi’s account. Notably, Guénon brings in additional mythological material in this regard when he also refers to the mythical sister and consort of Fúxī, Nǚwā
However, what becomes obvious with Guénon is a shift in emphasis towards a proper evaluation and better classification of Confucianism and Daoism by linking them to the Yìjīng. In his interpretation of Chinese cultural history, the teachings of the Yìjīng become “the common basis” (la base commune) of these two traditions that guide China to the present time. They are partially “readaptations” (readaptations) of Fúxī’s primordial wisdom as both Confucianism and Daoism have not “invented” anything new (Guénon 2016 [1946]: 4–5). The development itself is described as the consequence of major social and historical shifts in the middle of the first millennium BCE which induced a major transformation (Guénon 2003 [1973]: 43).16 In general, Guénon primarily focused on Daoism as being related to a kind of pure higher wisdom, whereas Confucianism carries an emphasis on daily life and the practical and social dimension. In La grande triade, this is described as the distinction between “esoteric” (as contained in Daoism) and “exoteric” teachings (in Confucianism) (Guénon 2016 [1946]: 4–5, 87).
What becomes quite evident is that Guénon followed the general portrayal of the function and importance of Fúxī but focused more on the actual “historical” continuation of the primordial wisdom, which remained more accessible. In this approach, he showed a more optimistic stance than the authors mentioned above, with Daoism in particular becoming his favoured tradition of China with its continuing history to the present time.
7 Concluding Remarks
Noticeably, there is a clear difference between the references in the writings of the first two authors studied in detail in this article and the second cohort: whereas Fúxī and the Yìjīng were assigned a highly elevated role in the writings of Lévi and Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, the emphasis shifted towards Lǎozǐ and the Dàodéjīng, as well as partially to Confucius particularly in de Pouvourville and Guénon. Undoubtedly, one of the reasons of this shift was the ongoing influx of available information on Chinese cultural and religious history. Particularly the Dàodéjīng rose to immense popularity in the last decades of the nineteenth century, with an additional boost in the first half of the twentieth century (Walf 2005), and eventually eclipsed the popularity of the Yìjīng which was always difficult to handle due to its enigmatic nature. This is also evident in the history of the esoteric perception of these texts: in addition to de Pouvourville, several esoteric authors increasingly focused on this classic and made it accessible to the interested readership (Pokorny 2024b; for the German reception history, see also Grasmück 2004: 25–28). All that is in accordance with the longer European reception history. In the beginning, and already in the early Jesuit tradition, the Yìjīng rose to prominence and was for some time the primary object of attention, with the Figurist author Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730) being an important propagator and responsible for Yìjīng’s first description and introduction to European intellectuals at the beginning of the eighteenth century (von Collani 2007). The enormous interest of the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) in precisely this text is indicative of this early period (Mungello 2009: 98–104; Smith 2012: 177–179). But its status was always debated as it was a divination manual, and large portions of the actual textual material were difficult to understand outside this context. In his influential translation, James Legge (1815–1897) considered the Yìjīng in a rather ambivalent way to be “a farrago of emblematic representations, albeit a highly influential one” but “very bizarre in its conception and execution” (Legge 1882: 25, 17). Although some aspects, such as the often-cited principles of polarity (in the yīn-yáng dyad) are easy to present, and the trigrams and the hexagrams are obviously fascinating graphical representations, the rest of its content and, when taking a detailed look, the actual text(s) themselves, do not provide too much material for further exploration when compared with the much richer Dàodéjīng in this regard.
However, even in the further reception history of the Yìjīng, Fúxī did not receive much attention. This is evident in the most important turning point and actual beginning of a new phase of reception of the divination manual with the translation provided by the Protestant missionary and most famous German sinologist of the first half of the twentieth century Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930), which appeared in 1924 and whose English translation was published with a foreword by Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) in 1950 (Wilhelm 1950; on Wilhelm’s relevance for Jung, see Baier 2024: 176–184), initiating thus an intense reception of its own thereafter (Redmond 2021).
It is important to note that the four authors discussed in this article were not the only esotericists interested in Fúxī. One example would be the already mentioned prolific esoteric writer Papus who – obviously inspired by both Lévi and particularly Saint-Yves d’Alveydre – highlighted the tradition pertaining to Fúxī and the Yìjīng, which is said to introduce us to information on an original “astral language” (langage astral), making Fúxī comparable in function to Moses (for the Hebrew tradition, that is, the Kabbala and its symbolism) (Papus 1901: 55–56).17 In the same vein, the esoteric writer Edouard Schuré (1841–1929) mentions Fúxī in his influential and widespread book on Les grands initiés (The Great Initiates) as one those figures who “created” religion for their people putting him on the same scale with Rama, Krishna, Hermes, and Zoroaster (Schuré 1921: 177). Another important example outside the Francophone circle was Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), who had a particular interest in the Yìjīng (see Djurdjevic 2024; Nilsson 2024) and mentioned Fúxī as well, but he did not receive the attention we encountered in the authors presented in this article. Altogether, later references remain cursory and are mostly deriving from the approaches of the authors presented here. Evidently, Fúxī lost his eminent position even in the esoteric tradition and disappeared in the mists of a mythical history.18
References
Adler, Joseph A. 2022. The Yijing: A Guide. New York: Oxford University Press.
Baier, Karl. 2024. “The Archetypal Dao: A Look at C. G. Jung’s Reception of Chinese Thought.” In Lukas K. Pokorny and Franz Winter, eds., Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of China. London and New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 163–200.
Chacornac, Paul. 1958. La vie simple de René Guénon. Paris: Éditions Traditionnelles.
Churton, Tobias. 2016. Occult Paris: The Lost Magic of the Belle Époque. Rochester, NY: Inner Traditions.
Davies, Owen. 2012. Magic: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Dickinson, William R. 2021. “René Guénon and Traditionalism.” In Muhammad Afzal Upal and Carole M. Cusack, eds., Handbook of Islamic Sects and Movements. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 589–611.
Djurdjevic, Gordan. 2024. “Do what Dao wilt: The Integration of East Asian Concepts and Practices into Aleister Crowley’s Thelema.” In Lukas K. Pokorny and Franz Winter, eds., Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of China. London and New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 125–144.
Du Halde, Jean-Baptiste. 1735. Description geographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de l’empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise, vol. 1. Paris: Le Mercier.
Fabre d’Olivet, Antoine. 1813. Les vers dorés de Pythagore expliqués et traduits pour la première fois en vers eumolpiques français: précédés d’un Discours sur l’essence et la forme de la poésie, chez les principaux peuples de la terre. Paris and Strasbourg: Treuttel et Würtz.
Godwin, Joscelyn. 2008. “Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and the Agartthian Connection.” In Marquis Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, The Kingdom of Agarttha: A Journey into the Hollow Earth. Translated by Jon E. Graham with a Preface by Joscelyn Godwin. Rochester, NY: Inner Traditions, pp. 1–29.
Grasmück, Oliver. 2004. Geschichte und Aktualität der Daoismusrezeption im deutschsprachigen Raum. Münster: LIT Verlag.
Grisson, Pierre. 1985. “L’Extrême-Asie dans l’oeuvre de Réne Guénon.” In Jean-Pierre Laurant and Paul Barbanegra, eds., René Guénon. Paris: L‘Herne, pp. 144–151.
Guénon, René. 1994 [1973]. La crise du monde moderne. Paris: Gallimard.
Guénon, René. 2001 [1958]. Le roi du monde. Paris: Gallimard.
Guénon, René. 2003 [1973]. Aperçus sur l’ésotérisme islamique et le taoïsme: Avant-propos de Roger Maridort. Paris: Gallimard.
Guénon, René. 2016 [1946]. La grande triade. Paris: Gallimard.
Harvey, David Allen. 2005. Beyond Enlightenment: Occultism and Politics in Modern France. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press.
Landry-Deron, Isabelle. 2002. La preuve par la Chine: La “Description” de J.-B. Du Halde, jésuite, 1735. Paris: Éditions de l’école des hautes études en sciences sociales.
Laurant, Jean-Pierre. 1982. Matgioï, un aventurier taoïste. Paris: Dervy.
Laurant, Jean-Pierre. 2005. “Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, Joseph Alexandre.” In Wouter J. Hanegraaff, ed., Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 1031–1032.
Laurant, Jean-Pierre. 2010. “Autour de ‘Mat Gioi’ le Passeur et l’empreinte des écrits occultistes du comte de Pouvourville en France et au Vietnam.” Péninsule. Études interdisciplinaires sur l’Asie du Sud-Est Péninsulaire, 60 (1), pp. 99–120.
Le Blanc, Charles. 2008. “L’invention du mythe de Fuxi et Nügua.” In Charles Le Blanc and Rémi Matthieu, eds., Approches critiques de la mythologie chinoise. Montréal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal, pp. 249–307.
Legge, James. 1882. The Sacred Books of China: The Book of Changes. London: Clarendon.
Lévi, Éliphas. 1860. Histoire de la magie, avec une exposition claire et précise de ses procédés, de ses rites et de ses mystères. Paris: Germer Baillière.
Lévi, Éliphas. 1861 [orig. publ. 1854–1856]. Dogme et rituel de la haute magie. Deuxième édition très augmentée. Paris: Germer Baillière.
Liu, Yu. 2015. “The Dubious Choice of an Enemy: The Unprovoked Animosity of Matteo Ricci against Buddhism.” The European Legacy, 20 (3), pp. 224–238.
Lundbaek, Knud. 1991. Joseph de Premaré (1666–1736), S.J.: Chinese Philology and Figurism. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Mailla, Joseph-Anne-Marie Moyriac de. 1777. Histoire générale de la Chine, ou Annales de cet Empire, traduites du Tong-kien-kang-mou. Publiées par M. L’abbé Grosier, vol. 1. Paris: P.D. Pierres, Clousier.
Marino, Davide. 2024a. “The Daoist Who Wasn’t: Albert de Pouvourville, Matgioi, Nguyễn Văn Cang and the Problem of Indochinese Masters in Fin de Siècle Occultism.” In Lukas K. Pokorny and Franz Winter, eds., Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of China. London and New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 83–108.
Marino, Davide. 2024b. “The Path to Gnosis: A Microhistory.” Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies, 16, pp. 1–28.
Matgioi [=Albert de Pouvourville]. 1894. Le Tao de Laotseu: Traduit du chinois par Matgioi. Paris: Librarie de l’art indépendant.
Matgioi [=Albert de Pouvourville]. 1905. La voie métaphysique. Paris: Éditions Traditionnelles.
Matgioi [=Albert de Pouvourville]. 1941 [1907]. La voie rationelle. Paris: Éditions Traditionnelles.
McCalla, Arthur. 2005. “Fabre d’Olivet, Antoine.” In Wouter J. Hanegraaff, ed., Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 350–354.
Mungello, David E. 1985. Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology. Stuttgart: Steiner.
Mungello, David E. 2009. The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500–1800. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Nilsson, Johan. 2024. “Manipulating the Sticks: Reconstructing Aleister Crowley’s Use of Yijing Divination.” In Ive Brissman, Paul Linjamaa, and Tao Thykier Makeeff, eds., Handbook of Rituals in Contemporary Studies of Religion: Exploring Ritual Creativity in the Footsteps of Anne-Christine Hornborg. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 135–147.
Otto, Bernd-Christian. 2015. “A Catholic ‘Magician’ Historicizes ‘Magic’: Éliphas Lévi’s ‘Histoire de la Magie’.” In Jörg Rüpke, Susanne Rau, and Bernd-Christian Otto, eds., History and Religion: Narrating a Religious Past. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 419–444.
Papus [=Gérard Encausse]. 1889. Le tarot des bohémiens. Le plus ancien livre du monde. Paris: Ernest Flammarion.
Papus [=Gérard Encausse]. 1901. Qu’est-ce que l’occultisme? Paris: Chamuel.
Papus [=Gérard Encausse]. 1903. La cabbale: Tradition secrète de l’occident. Paris: Chacornac.
Perkins, Franklin. 2004. Leibniz and China: A Commerce of Light. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pokorny, Lukas K. 2024a. “The Ascended Confucius: Images of the Chinese Master in the Euro-American Esoteric Discourse.” Numen: International Review for the History of Religions, 71 (1), pp. 29–47.
Pokorny, Lukas K. 2024b. “The Theosophical Daodejing.” In Lukas K. Pokorny and Franz Winter, eds., Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of China. London and New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 61–82.
Pokorny, Lukas K. and Franz Winter. 2024a. “Euro-American Esoteric Readings of East Asia: Introductory Remarks.” Numen: International Review for the History of Religions, 71 (1), pp. 1–8.
Pokorny, Lukas K. and Franz Winter. 2024b. “China in the Western Esoteric Imagination: Contouring a Lacuna.” In Lukas K. Pokorny and Franz Winter, eds., Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of China. London and New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 1–14.
Premaré, Joseph Henri de. 1770. “Discours préliminaire ou recherches sur les tems antérieurs à ceux dont parle le Chou-king, & sur la Mythologie Chinoise.” In Antoine Gaubil, ed., Le Chou-king, un des livres sacrés des Chinois, qui renferme le fondements de leur ancience histoire, les principe de leur gouvernment & de leur morale. Revu et corrigé sur la texte chinois. Paris: Tilliard, pp. xliv–cxxxviii.
Redmond, Geoffrey. 2021. “The Yijing in Early Postwar Counterculture in the West.” In Benjamin Wai-ming Ng, ed., The Making of the Global Yijing in the Modern World: Cross-cultural Interpretations and Interactions. Singapore: Springer, pp. 197–221.
Robinet, Isabelle. 2011. “Taiji tu. Diagram of the Great Ultimate.” In Fabrizio Pregadio, ed., The Routledge Encyclopedia of Taoism. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 934–936.
Rowbotham, Arnold H. 1956. “The Jesuit Figurists and Eighteenth-Century Religious Thought.” Journal of the History of Ideas, 17 (4), pp. 471–485.
Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, Alexandre. 1884. Mission des Juifs. Paris: Calman Levy.
Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, Alexandre. 1911. L’Archéomètre: Clef de toutes les religions & de toutes les sciences de l’antiquité, réforme synthétique de tous les arts contemporains. Paris: Dorbon-Ainé.
Saunier, Jean. 1981. Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, ou, Une synarchie sans énigme. Paris: Dervy.
Schilling, Dennis R. 2009. Yijing: Das Buch der Wandlungen. Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Verlag der Weltreligionen.
Schuré, Édouard. 1921. Les grands initiés: Esquisse de l’histoire secrète des religions. Paris: Perrin.
Sedgwick, Mark. 2004. Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sedgwick, Mark. 2023. Traditionalism: The Radical Project for Restoring Sacred Order. London: Pelican.
Simon, Rainald. 2014. Yijing: Buch der Wandlungen. Chinesisch/Deutsch. Stuttgart: Reclam.
Smith, Richard J. 2012. The I Ching: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Standaert, Nicolas. 2016. The Intercultural Weaving of Historical Texts: Chinese and European Stories about Emperor Ku and his Concubines. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Strube, Julian. 2016. Sozialismus, Katholizismus und Okkultismus im Frankreich des 19. Jahrhunderts. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter.
von Collani, Claudia. 2007. “The First Encounter of the West with the Yijing.” Monumenta Serica, 55 (1), pp. 227–387.
Walf, Knut. 2005. “Fascination and Misunderstanding: The Ambivalent Western Reception of Daoism.” Monumenta Serica, 53 (1), pp. 273–286.
Wilhelm, Richard. 1950. The I Ching or Book of Changes: The Richard Wilhelm Translation Rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes. Foreword by C. G. Jung. Preface to the 3rd ed. by Hellmut Wilhelm. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Winter, Franz. 2024a. “Introducing ‘the Heavenly Empire of China’ (le Céleste Empire de la Chine): China versus India in the Quest for an Ancient Model Society in Joseph Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre.” Numen: International Review for the History of Religions, 71 (1), pp. 48–70.
Winter, Franz. 2024b. “Looking Out for Magic in Ancient China: The Yijing, Its Trigrams, and the Figurist Tradition in Éliphas Lévi.” In Lukas K. Pokorny and Franz Winter, eds., Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of China. London and New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 35–60.
Wu, Li-jing. 2021. “Historicizing the Yijing in the Anglophone World.” In Benjamin Wai-ming Ng, ed., The Making of the Global Yijing in the Modern World: Cross-cultural Interpretations and Interactions. Singapore: Springer, pp. 41–61.
This approach follows ideas that were introduced in Pokorny and Winter 2024b: 1–5. Also, see Winter 2024b: 35–36, 48–51; Pokorny and Winter 2024a: 2–4.
For a detailed analysis of the Jesuit sources used by Lévi, who even mentions authors he refers to in his text, and his dependence on the above-mentioned presentation by de Premaré, see Winter 2024b: 41–43.
In this passage, Confucius is characterised as “unveiler” (révoilateur) of the primordial wisdom, not its “revealer” (révélateur), thereby clearly marking his position in a slightly subordinate place.
This is in accordance with the Jesuit material and their portrayal of Buddhism that Lévi was obviously using. On this, see Winter 2024b: 43, 50; Liu 2015.
Evidently, the “Empire of Ram” has a prehistory in the publications of the enigmatic French author Antoine Fabre d’Olivet (1767–1825), who wrote about it in his two volumes Histoire philosophique du genre humain (Philosophical History of the Human Race), a seminal publication for the history of French occultism in the nineteenth century (McCalla 2005: 352). From the viewpoint of reception history, the story of Ram is loosely based on traits of the Indian epic Rāmāyaṇa, which has been the object of a certain Western reception since European Romanticism, but presented in a highly distorted manner (Harvey 2005: 56). The close allegiance of Saint-Yves d’Alveydre to Fabre d’Olivet even provoked accusations of plagiarism, which were never fully disproven, but did no major harm to his reputation. For details, see Laurant 2005: 1031; Saunier 1981: 85–88; summarised in Winter 2024a: 54–55.
For a detailed analysis of this curious list with some major peculiarities and its Chinese complements, see Winter 2024a: 63–64.
It is worth noting that the above-mentioned Fabre d’Olivet also contains references to Fúxī, in some instances directly derived from the Du Halde compilation of the Jesuit reports from China. See, for instance, Fabre d’Olivet 1813: 364 in the footnote; but these references are rather cursorily and not as prominent as in Sain-Yves d’Alveydre.
A traditional account of his life is given in Laurant 1982. All that information has to be revised according to recent studies by Davide Marino (see particularly Marino 2024a).
On details of this peculiar term, see Marino 2024a: 103 n. 4.
On this journal, see Marino 2024b.
This peculiar approach to the Yìjīng is most thoroughly developed in a treaty entitled “Le premier monument de la connaissance” (“The First Monument of Knowledge”), which originally appeared in La voie in 1904, but was later republished as second chapter of the already cited La voie metaphysique (Matgioi 1905: 10–16).
This is extensively described in the third chapter of La voie metaphysique from 1905, entitled “Graphics of God,” which was also published a year earlier in La voie as a separate contribution.
Both publications, La voie metaphysique and La voie rationelle, appeared in 1905, and are mostly put together from various earlier contributions from La voie. There were plans for a book on La voie sociale, but this did not work out. On this, see Matgioi 1905: 1–2.
Regarding his biography and the major aspects of his intellectual development, which was initially fully delving into the occult tradition, later split from it, followed by a Catholic phase, and eventually initiating his own path, see Sedgwick 2004: 21–83. As a matter of fact, Guenon followed one of d’Alveydre’s inner concepts, that of the fantastic subterranean kingdom of Agarttha, even in his later publications (e.g., Guénon 2001 [1958]: 7–12).
In the following, quotes from this important piece will refer to a re-edition of the posthumously published Aperçus sur l’ésotérisme islamique et le taoïsme (Guénon 2003 [1973]: 41–50).
The same trajectory is also introduced in the later important publication La grande triade. See Guénon 2016 [1946]: 4–5.
Further positive references are also in his influential Le Tarot des Bohemiens, clef absolue des sciences occultes (Papus 1889: 111) or in the major treatise on the Kabbala (Papus 1903: 13).
The only exception would be some later New Age references to Fúxī, which deserve a detailed separate study.
