Raymond Abellio

A path leading to gnosis

From political engagement to phenomenological awakening

Georges Soulès's adolescence was marked by "mystical crises" which, at irregular intervals, punctuated a solitary, introspective, and studious existence. Expressed spontaneously through a religiosity lived apart from others and a deeply personal liturgy, this "inner" mysticism, while already an aspiration to the absolute, remained nonetheless without a defined structure, without a precise object, without a conscious motive—a diffuse and instinctive mysticism. In 1928, following a conversation with the chaplain of the École Polytechnique , who introduced him to the concept of the inner man of Saint Paul and, above all, invited him to evangelize the socialist masses—a conversation that constituted one of the defining events of his life and gave rise to a new and decisive inner experience—Soulès began his Marxist turn. His mysticism thus found in what Abellio later called a "social physics" both an objective ("the socialist revolution") and a field of action (political activism), but also a rigorous system capable of channeling, ordering, and polarizing his enthusiasms and giving them meaning. Marxism was therefore for Soulès the first true and living contact with the world of ideas and rationality. The theme of the dialectical confrontation between soul and spirit, between heat and light—a theme that would later find its keystone and its precise formulation in Abellio's relationship between gnosis and mysticism—thus took shape for the first time in the course of his life. Throughout his Marxist commitment, which lasted until 1938, but also during the period from 1939 to 1943, Soulès sought to reconcile what he called the "will to power" and the "ideal of purity," thus blending the realm of ideas with that of power. But his failed political experiments, a growing awareness of the impossibility of reconciling the interests of the individual with those of the species, and finally, an ever-increasing hunger for knowledge brought him back from his illusions. It was yet another encounter, more precisely a double encounter, that definitively detached him from the world of facts, actions, and sociopolitical roles, and led him into the realm of the mysteries of knowledge. Indeed, almost at the same time (March 1943At that time, the man still known as Georges Soulès met both a woman, Jane L., who would "lead him into those enigmatic realms beyond love which are the very reason for love," and the man who would become his spiritual mentor, Pierre de Combas. Soulès thus found himself embarked on his "second birth," which would very soon bring him back to life under the name Raymond Abellio.

From esotericism to modern philosophy

Pierre de Combas was that singular individual—a former schoolteacher, then healer, and finally recluse—who initiated Soulès into esotericism. The latter term should be understood here as a heterogeneous collection of doctrines referring to a universal Tradition. Thanks to this man, whose teachings were based primarily on two major works: the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita , Soulès truly discovered traditional traditions and sciences (particularly Numerology and Kabbalah ) and "truly entered into esotericism as such." This encounter occurred at a critical time when Soulès was questioning his political commitment. His entry into esotericism thus marked his departure from the realm of political ideology and action. This entry was made more specifically through Christian esotericism, that is to say, more precisely, through what later became Abellio's esoteric relationship to Christianity.Christianity thus came to occupy a privileged place in Abellio's quest for knowledge, without, however, excluding other esotericisms or other particular traditions. Ultimately, what Soulès sought in esotericism, in this body of doctrines that suddenly presented itself to him in its breadth, richness, and teachings, was "an ethical basis to justify and legitimize a profound, vital transformation." He found there elements that, once reappropriated, would become, for some, the foundations of his Gnostic philosophy, and for others, symbolic markers allowing him to better understand the present and the future of things: the existence of a veiled primordial unity resting on universal interdependence; the principle of similarity; non-duality; the existence of a spiritual influence; the qualitative value of numbers; the precept that one must see positivity and meaning in everything; the conception of true knowledge as both doctrine and praxis; The designation of the contemporary world as a "dark age" or "end of a cycle"; the possible construction of an (inner) Ark. This entry into esotericism was also, for Soulès, the defining moment and gesture of his first significant and reflective return to himself, to his inner self, "his only faithful anchor." This teaching, however, soon appeared insufficient to him, incapable, in his eyes, of meeting the demand for clarity, universality, and personal trial that dwelt within him. The two main criticisms he formulated against the teachings of his master, as well as against the numerous modern and contemporary esoteric gnoses and doctrines, are, on the one hand, their dogmatism, and, on the other hand, the external nature of their critique of Tradition. It was, in reality, more the esotericists than esotericism itself that the man who, from 1944 onward, definitively adopted the name Raymond Abellio, began to attack.

From modern philosophy to gnosis

According to Abellio, there exists a central core, a foundation of truth inherent to Tradition, which must be "unveiled" through "internal critique." This process, which we must undertake, corresponds to the third meaning of esotericism: a true lived experience that highlights and rationally articulates the message of Tradition based on its internal trial, a personal journey that grants access, through a "conversion and a self-awareness of the inner being," to an "illuminative" state that Abellio calls the "transfiguration" of the world, and which corresponds to the end of esotericism, in both senses of the term. Esotericism, understood henceforth as "unveiling," presents itself as the Gnostic path opened by Abellio, a path leading to renewed knowledge. This path was made possible in particular by his encounter with certain modern philosophies, an encounter that allowed him to implement his requirements, clarify his intuitions, and organize the numerous materials inherited from esoteric doctrines. Modern philosophy indeed acted as a catalyst, providing him with both the impetus, as a reaction against Sartre 's thought , and the orientation, framework, and tools necessary for the constitution of his own philosophy. As he himself points out, it was in reaction against the philosophy of the father of existentialism, against the principles and inferences of his thought (the transcendence of the ego or project; consciousness as an empty form and impersonal reality; the annihilation of the present moment; the non-communicability of consciousnesses; the reduction of the dimensions of being to two realms: being-in-itself and being-for-itself), that he began to conceive and explicate what would become the founding principles of his own philosophy. It was by seeking, contrary to Sartre, to re-establish the age-old subject/object relationship—a re-establishment taking as its starting point and primary object of analysis what is generally recognized today as a central and unavoidable problem, but also as a fundamental epistemological issue in phenomenological research, namely perception—a re-establishment whose corollary is the discovery of the structure of intuition and the "present moment," that Abellio arrived at the "absolute structure" and the logic linked to it, namely the "dialectics of the double crossed contradiction." We can also say that it was undoubtedly from his encounter with Sartre's work, more particularly with Being and Nothingness , that he conceived the idea of correlating ontology and phenomenology . From Sartre, whom he thus deemed insufficient and agnostic, Abellio went back to Husserl , for the phenomenological aspect, but also to Heidegger., for the ontological side. From the first, considered by him as the philosopher who crowns philosophy, the one in any case whose philosophy marked him most profoundly, he appropriated, integrated and accomplished, not from an analytical or conceptual point of view but by constituting them as real powers and by completing them, the main axes of his transcendental phenomenology, namely: the eidetic reduction; the epoché; the transcendental field; the phenomenological reduction; the transcendental subject; intentionality (to which Abellio associated, on the one hand, intensity, by which consciousness melts into it and fills itself with the object aimed at, and, on the other hand, intensification, concrete and personal power of qualitative increase of intensity); intuition; constitution; the "life-world"; transcendental intersubjectivity. As for Abellio's relationship with Heidegger's philosophy, that is, with his fundamental ontology, his position seems to have shifted somewhat over time. While in The Absolute Structure , "Heidegger's new ontology" appears to Abellio "as a complement to transcendental phenomenology," he writes, on the other hand, in his Manifesto of the New Gnosis , his last book, that "Heidegger's repeated assertions on the radical nature of the problem of Being in relation to that of consciousness seem to us, moreover, more peremptory than clear." That said, since Abellio never called into question the project of an ontological foundation for phenomenology, he acknowledged Heidegger, more or less explicitly, for having opened up certain fruitful avenues of thought, for having introduced illuminating categories into the history of ideas, and for having made salutary clarifications. Here are some of the key elements of Heidegger's philosophy taken up by Abellio: the ontological difference; the difference between Presence and that which is present in and through it; historicity; the Open; the Stimmung; the project of overcoming the old metaphysics.

Abellian Gnosis

This confrontation between the fundamental teachings of the esoteric tradition and those brought by modern philosophical thought leads to, and thus characterizes, this "unveiling" we have discussed. It is through and within this unveiling that the message of the primordial Tradition, or primordial Knowledge, is elucidated, and that the universal keys to eternal gnosis are rediscovered, or more precisely, reconstituted internally. Here, simply stated, are the categories to which these different keys correspond, along with their specific translation in Abellio's philosophy: postulate ("universal interdependence"); tool ("absolute structure"); logic ("logic of the double crossed contradiction"); genesis or process ("integration" and "intensification"); aim and end ("transfiguration"). The genesis of Abellian gnosis, already Gnostic in its trajectory, must therefore be understood as the actualization and the "lived vision," asserting itself as such from a certain point in its development, of this unveiling. It embodies the new approach to knowledge, what Abellio calls the "new gnosis"; it is the path, the task, and the work proper to the West, this spiritual place of the advent of transcendental consciousness but also of the mobilization and transcendence of reason. It is by this path, therefore, which is that of the building of the inner self, that Abellio arrives at the constitution, practice, and application of "genetic phenomenology," another name he uses to describe this new gnosis. Strengthened by these results, Abellio could once again immerse himself, without losing himself, in the multiplicity of sciences, philosophies, and traditions, seeking everywhere the trace and illustration of the universal foundation. All that remained for Abellio then was to bear witness, through certain signs sent to humankind, to the existence of a new gnostic conduct, the existence of a new, Western path to knowledge.

The Work

The work, the thought, and the meaning

Such a Gnostic philosophy, simultaneously doctrine, method, and practice, requires those interested in it to engage as early as possible, consistently and wholeheartedly, with the works that reveal, illustrate, name, demonstrate, evoke, and apply it. The works of the Abellian corpus thus each constitute a particular expression of this philosophy in its quest for the meaning of things, some capturing it in its gestation phase, others in full maturation, still others in evident maturity, and some finally unveiling its entire genesis or summarizing its essential tenets. As for this philosophy, it must be said, in accordance with one of the major paradoxes inherent in the gnosis it unfolds, that it is simultaneously contained entirely within each of these works and yet entirely present outside of them all. If Abellio took up the challenge of signs, it was therefore in order to transmit, on the one hand, the signs of a Gnostic ordeal, and, on the other hand, the meaning it acquires. Meaning is always primary for Abellio; it is meaning that dictates a style and signs. The uniqueness and unity of the central issue always commanded and ordered the multiplicity of signs and perspectives employed, whether in his literary, philosophical, autobiographical, or theatrical works. Novels, essays, memoirs, journals, plays, articles, and interviews were all written with the same concern to express, according to the moment and the possibilities offered by each genre , the emergence, stature, and implications of the inner self; they all converge on this lofty figure of human reality. An example of this correspondence and complementarity between genres is provided by the relationship Abellio establishes between the novel and the essay. According to him, while the essay is necessary for vision to account for its own lucidity, its own self-transparency, and its capacity to articulate forms, in the novel—a noble and indispensable genre in his view—vision strives to "capture life in its nascent state"; it is, in and through the novel, a journey and experience of lived duration, and invites the reader to journey and experience that same duration. This distinction/complementarity between the essay and the novel is metaphorically evoked by him: if the former is "of the order of the fruit," the latter is "of the order of the germ."

The literary work

The novels, of metaphysical inspiration and essence, consist first of a first novel ( Happy are the pacifists ) written at the end of the Second World War, a novel which constitutes the first book published by Abellio and which received the Sainte-Beuve Prize in 1947, a novel through which the pseudonym Raymond Abellio became visible and public, then of a trilogy ( Ezekiel's eyes are open ; The pit of Babel ; Still faces ) which would occupy Abellio until the end of his life. These four novels follow the evolution of the narrator (first named Saveilhan, then Dupastre), that is to say, the one who is on the path to inner peace and who, gradually, participates without taking sides, in the heart of contemporary global history and its upheavals, among characters each embodying, with multiple nuances and facets, a particular metaphysical type: the warrior, the sage, the prophet, the sorcerer, the "original" woman, the "ultimate" woman. The play Montségur , which deals with the crusade against the Cathars , employs two key metaphysical motifs: on the one hand, the conflict between knowledge and power, and on the other, the awakening of a particular consciousness to this conflict and its implications.

The trials

The series of essays—six in total, to which we can add Approaches to the New Gnosis , which is a collection of articles and prefaces—comprises what we call Abellio's philosophical work. With the exception of his very first essay, Towards a New Prophecy , which analyzes the relationships that can and could exist, in the West and within the modern era, between the sacred and the profane, the spiritual and the temporal, spirituality and the world of politics, prophecy and power, and which elucidates the metaphysical figures of the prophet and the magician, the other five are to be understood in relation to the major work, The Absolute Structure . Thus, the work entitled *The Bible, a Ciphered Document * (in two volumes), published before this one, and even before Abellio's discovery of the absolute structure, is nonetheless subject to this reading rule, since it was itself, through a collaboration with Charles Hirsch, revised, reworked, clarified, and expanded thanks to the new operational possibilities offered by this discovery, and republished under the title * Introduction to a Theory of Biblical Numbers *. In these last two works, the aim is to carry out what Abellio calls an "essay in Kabbalistic numerology." * The Assumption of Europe *, written before * The Absolute Structure * but at the time when the latter was becoming essential to Abellio, can be seen as a preparatory work without neglecting its own analytical specificity. In it, Abellio sets forth the link he establishes between a West understood in a spiritual sense and the advent of transcendental consciousness. This is, in a way, a metaphysical reading of history and politics, based on highlighting certain key concepts, elevating each to the respective ranks of metahistory and metageopolitics. When his reflections on absolute structure were finally mature in his eyes, he presented his discovery in the eponymous book. This work remains, notably, the first attempt to master and systematize the increasing complexity of the human sciences, along with the fundamental concepts of his "genetic phenomenology," the analyses he had conducted, and the ontological, anthropological, and theological implications he had drawn from them. As for the short essay entitled " The End of Esotericism,"This is a reflection on the method of approaching the metaphysical message of the Universal Tradition from the perspective of absolute structure. Abellio discusses esoteric doctrines, their applications, and, above all, the path to their transcendence (this is the double meaning of the word "end") through the transfiguration of the world within humanity, a path he considers the specific destiny of the West and its rationality. Finally, the Manifesto of the New Gnosis is an updated summary of Abellio's discoveries, meditations, and research, a kind of unfinished Testament in which the meaning and stakes of knowledge, the locus of its fulfillment, the Abellian phenomenological method, and the relationship between gnosis and the various fields of investigation of reality (sciences, philosophies, religions, symbolism, history, ethics) are once again clarified.

The Memoirs

As for the Memoirs, generically and significantly titled My Last Memory , three volumes covering the first forty years of his life, they are the fruit of what Abellio calls the "function of historicization," which allows consciousness to access the "second memory"—that is, the integration of the meaning subtly woven into the course of a life's events, a meaning that one day becomes definitively clear to the thinker and transfigures all actions, all thoughts, all situations, and all changes, past, present, and future. The choice to interrupt his autobiography in 1947 is explained by the fact that this was the period of Abellio's second birth, through which he embarked on his Gnostic journey beyond events and anecdotes. In this area, let us add a work dealing with the course and meaning of a life, published in 1973 under the title In a Soul and a Body - Journal 1971 : a singular experience for Abellio who is only interested in meaning and not in daily anecdotes, a real challenge that he set himself to seek and find a "hidden order" behind "the apparent disorder of daily life, both physical and psychic".

Other written forms of expression

First and foremost, we must mention the texts written for the Circle of Metaphysical Studies [ 7 ] , part of which ("Dialectic of Initiation") was reworked and revised in The Absolute Structure. The other part, consisting of editorials, articles, and reports, was published in the Circle's internal journal . Some of these editorials were reprinted in the Cahier de l'Herne dedicated to Abellio. We also find in this Notebook some fundamental texts by Abellio (“The Postulate of Universal Interdependence”; “Foundations of Aesthetics”; “Foundations of Ethics”; “Foundations of Cosmology”) as well as a partial edition of a Journal de Suisse devoted to the year 1951. Abellio wrote numerous articles in various journals and some magazines; we will not cite them here and refer for this to the bibliography in the Proceedings of the Cerisy Colloquium or to that found in the work From Politics to Gnosis (interviews with Marie-Thérèse de Brosses). Three journals, however, deserve special mention due to the importance of the articles by Abellio they contain, three journals directly devoted to Abellio's work and thought: Études abelliennes (published by the Association of Friends of Raymond Abellio, four issues published between 1979 and 1982), Cahiers Raymond Abellio (two issues published in 1983 and 1984), and issue 72 of Question de, entitled "The Absolute Structure." Numerous interviews and discussions (written, radio, or audiovisual) were conducted; we will only mention the most important here, forming a body of work in its own right: De la politique à la gnose (interviews with Marie-Thérèse de Brosses), containing a fundamental lecture by Abellio ("Genealogy and Transfiguration of the West"); Dialogue avec Raymond Abellio (conducted by Jean-Pierre Lombard); The program "Portrait" (1973) for the " Archives of the 20th Century " series featured Dominique de Roux and Jean José Marchand ; the program "The Man in Question" (1977), produced by Roger Pillaudin, included Abellio's own introduction in issue no . 1 of Études abelliennes . Abellio also wrote numerous prefaces. We note that a selection of his articles and prefaces was compiled by Philippe Camby in the book entitled Approaches to the New Gnosis .

Abellio Fund and Correspondence

Following a purchase in 1983, the National Library of France possesses a considerable Abellio collection consisting of manuscripts and typescripts, as well as a significant volume of correspondence. A small portion of this correspondence has been published in journals dedicated to Abellio and in books written by some of his correspondents or about them.

Abellio was a collection director in three major publishing houses: Grasset (collection “Correspondances”), Publications premières (collection “En marge”) and Fayard (collection “Recherches avancés”).

Works

Tests

With the signature of Georges Soulès: The End of Nihilism , essay, 1943, Fernand Sorlot Publishing (in collaboration with André Mahé )
Towards a New Prophecy , essay, Éd. Gallimard, 1947, 1950, 1963.
The Bible, an encrypted document , essay, Gallimard Publishing, 1950 (2 vols.).
Assumption of Europe , essay, Au Portolan, Ed. Flammarion, 1954.
The Absolute Structure , essay, Gallimard Publishing, coll. "Library of Ideas", 1965.
The End of Esotericism , essay, Flammarion Publishing, 1973.
Approaches to the new gnosis , essay, Éd. Gallimard, 1981.
Introduction to a Theory of Biblical Numbers , in collaboration with Charles Hirsch, essay, Éd. Gallimard, 1984.
Manifesto of the New Gnosis , essay, Gallimard Publishing, 1989.

Memoirs

My Last Memoir , an Autobiography
- I. A suburb of Toulouse (1907-1927) , Éd. Gallimard, 1971.
- II. The militants (1927-1939) , Éd. Gallimard, 1975.
- III. Sol Invictus (1939-1947) , Pauvert chez Ramsey, 1980 Prix des Deux-Magots .
In a Soul and a Body (Journal 1971), Éd. Gallimard, 1973.

Prefaces, articles

preface to Marcel Berger, La voyance m'a appris , Montaigne, 1958.
Preface to Dostoevsky 's The Idiot , Le livre de poche, 1963.
"Astrology: Science, Art, or Wisdom?", Janus , no. 8, pp. 132-135 (1965)
preface (on alchemy ) to Armand Barbault, L'or du milleème matin (1969), J'ai lu, 1970.
preface to Balzac 's The Search for the Absolute , Gallimard, 1976.
Preface to Jean Barets, Astrology meets science. Evidence from 112 political facts , Dervy, 1977.
preface to Dominique de Roux , The Fifth Empire , Le livre de poche, 1980.
preface to Jacques Dorsan, Return to the Zodiac of Stars , Dervy, 1986.
Preface to Léo-Georges Barry, Nuclear Magic Numbers, Key to Kabbalah followed by The I Ching: Basis of the Genetic Code , Dervy, 1975

Fiction

Happy are the peacemakers , novel, Flammarion Publishing, 1947 Sainte-Beuve Prize .
Ezekiel's eyes are open , novel, Gallimard Publishing, 1948.
The Pit of Babel , novel, Ed. Gallimard, 1962.
Montségur , theatre, Éd. L'Âge d'homme, 1982.
Still Faces , novel, Gallimard Publishing, 1983.

Appendices

Bibliography

Raymond Abellio , Cahiers de L'Herne no . 36 [ archive ] , Jean-Pierre Lombard (editor), 1979
Cerisy Colloquium, Raymond ABELLIO , Cahiers de l'Hermétisme, Éditions Dervy, 2004; Cerisy-La-Salle International Cultural Center [ archive ] , 2002
Approaches to the thought of Raymond Abellio, Selected Proceedings of the ARARE collective 2004-2024, L'OEil du Sphinx, 2026.
Dialogue with Raymond Abellio , Jean-Pierre Lombard, Éditions Lettres Vives, 1985
Marie-Thérèse de Brosses, Interviews with Raymond Abellio, Pierre Belfond Publishers, Paris, 1966
From Politics to Gnosis , interviews with Marie-Thérèse de Brosses, Éditions Pierre Belfond, 1987.
Question from (number 72), The Absolute Structure .
Marc Hanrez, Under the Signs of Abellio , Lausanne, l'Âge d'Homme , 1976 (essay in literary analysis)
Jean Parvulesco, Raymond Abellio's The Red Sun , Guy Trédaniel , "Initiation and Power" collection
Éric Coulon, Departure and Return of the Son: The Messianism of Raymond Abellio [ archive ] , Éditions de la Tarente , 2025
Éric Coulon, Rendez-vous avec la connaissance, la pensée de Raymond Abellio , Éditions Le Manuscrit, 2005.
Yves Branca , Sol Invictus. For the centenary of Raymond Abellio , DVX, 2008.
Éric Conan and Henry Rousso , Vichy, a past that won't go away , Fayard, Paris, 1994. ( ISBN 2-213-59237-3 )
Jeannine Verdès-Leroux , Refusal and Violence: Politics and Literature on the Far Right from the 1930s to the Aftermath of the Liberation , Gallimard, Paris, 1996. ( ISBN 2-07-073224-X )
Christine Tochon-Danguy, The Novels of Raymond Abellio: an imaginary interpretation of the contemporary crisis , doctoral thesis, history, Grenoble 2, 1996.
Notebooks of Hermeticism , Magic and Literature , Albin Michel. An article by Viviane Couillard-Barry: "Did Raymond Abellio speak of magic? (or magic in Still Faces , his last novel)"
Question from (number 53), The Eternal Gnosis , "The Gnostic Way According to Abellio", by Robert Amadou .
The World ofOctober 1 , 1971"The Renaissance of Occultism: A New Definition of Man and His Powers."
Nicolas Roberti, The itinerary of a French gnostic — Georges Soulès, known as Raymond Abellio — a critical historical, psychological and philosophical study , doctoral thesis in Philosophy and Religious Sciences (EPHE, Sorbonne, 2003).
Nicolas Roberti, Raymond Abellio, Vol. 1. A Mystical Leftist , Vol. 2. Structure and Mirror , L'Harmattan,May 2011
Thierry Paquot , “Abellio (Raymond) [Raymond Soulès]” , in Jacques Julliard and Michel Winock (eds.), Dictionary of French Intellectuals: People, Places, Moments , Paris, Le Seuil,2009 ( ISBN 978-2-02-099205-3 ) , p. 30-31.
Vital Nescine, Raymond Abellio. A new gnosis for Europe , Paris, La Nouvelle Librairie , coll. “Long memory of the Iliade Institute”, 76 p., 2025 ( ISBN 978-2-38608-051-7 )

Notes and references

BnF Authority [ archive ]
Jean Pierre Lombard ( dir. ), Raymond Abellio: notebook , Paris, Editions de L'Herne, coll. “The Herne” ( no . 36),1979 ( ISBN 2-85197-036-4 and 978-2-85197-036-7 , OCLC 6531136 , SUDOC 000374016 ) , Biographical Notes, p. 14
Pascal Ory, Les collaborateurs , Seuil, coll. « Points histoire », Paris, 1980, page 100
Jean-Yves Camus and René Monzat , The National and Radical Right in France: A Critical Repertory , Lyon, Presses universitaires de Lyon,1992, 526 pp. ( ISBN 2-7297-0416-7 ) , p. 397.
Pierre Milza , French Fascism. Past and present , Paris, Flammarion, Champs, 1987, p. 372-373 .
Abellio himself published his biography in From Politics to Gnosis (interviews with Marie-Thérèse de Brosses).
Founded in late 1953 at the request of two students, Jean Largeault and Bernard Noël , this philosophical research group, in which Raymond Abellio actively participated, lasted until 1955