The Martinist Order of the Netherlands

The Martinist Seal

The following is a quotation from the book On Numbers of Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin (Chapter XVII),related to the Universal Pantacle he designed as an explanation of the Universe, and is used as the Seal of all the Martinist Orders:

“The natural Circle has shaped itself in a different way from the geometrical circle. The center has attracted the uppertriangle and the lower triangle, both of which, reacting on one another, have manifestedLife.

It is then that the quadruple Man appeared. It would be impossible to find this quadruple principle in the circle without tracing lost or superfluous lines, if we are limiting ourselves to the methods of mathematics.

Nature loses nothing: it coordinates all parts of its works, the one with the other. So, in the Circle regularly drawn by Nature, we can see the two triangles, uniting to determine the emancipation of Man in the Universe and Man’s place in relation to the divine center.

We can see [in the symbol of the Pantacle] that the Light receives Life only by the reflections surging from the opposition that the True receives from the False; that the Light receives it from the Darkness; and that Life, in matter, always depends upon both actions. We see that the fourfold Man embraces the six directions of the Universe, and that those [six] regions, being bound two by two [in the triangles], the power of Man operates within a triple fourfold in the location of his glory.

Here are manifested the laws of this superb knowledge, of which the Chinese have left us some traces, I mean the knowledge of the keou-kou. Man, by giving in to guilty incitations, has left the divine center, where he was originally placed; but even though he has left it, the center is still at its place, as it cannot be moved by any force at all. (Sedes tua in seculum seculi. Ps. 14:7)

So, since Man has left his glorious post, it is the Divinity that is ready to replace him and to operate for him, in the universe, that same Power of which he has been dispossessed by his mistake. But when the Divinity takes the place of Man, it is dressed in the same colors, and is attached to the material regions, where Man was originally established, as it is impossible to appear at the center of this circle without being placed in the midst of all those regions.

Here is what the study of the natural circle can reveal to the intelligent eye. The figure represented, although imperfect, can indicate the way.”

Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin