A portrait of Abbé Calixte Mélinge,

also known as ‘Abbé Alta’.

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Today’s sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA is Part I of a planned few in a new series devoted to the memory of Abbé Calixte Mélinge (born in 1842 & died in 1933), known for his pen name, Abbé Alta, who was a important figure in the esoteric movement of the French Fin de Siècle and what followed after the first world war, Les Années Folles.

After a biographical sketch taken from Serge Caillet’s trail-blazing ‘Les Sars de la Rose-Croix‘ page 106 & 107, we will share excerpts from ‘La Vie Nouvelle‘, published by Les Editions Chacornac in 1929. Part II, will be sharing soon some excerpts from his ‘Saint Paul, traduit du Grec & commenté‘, also published by Les Editions Chacornac a year earlier in 1928.

Abbé Alta’s voice is warm, close to us; it displays lucidity and a gently biting irony and finally, his concerns are very, very modern, perhaps too much for his time…The title ‘La Vie Nouvelle‘, ‘The New Life‘, is based upon Dante’s ‘La Vita Nuova‘.

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1-A little biographical sketch about Abbé Alta

by Serge Caillet

…Son of a schoolmaster, ordained priest in 1865, Calixte Méllinge (1842-1933) worked as a vicar in Jonzac, then as a teacher at the small seminary in Montlieu, before being transferred to the diocese of Perigueux, in 1869; being transferred again three years later as a vicar to the commune of Saint Jean d’Angely. In 1876, he obtained ‘with flying colors’ his doctorate in theology, with a thesis about ‘The philosophy of the supernatural‘, which owed him praise from Monsignor Maret and the Canon (chanoine) Elie Meric. In 1878, he is found in the locality of Marennes, then he became the priest in charge of the commune of Tugeras, then he was named canon (in French: chanoine) in the ‘La Providence’ institution in Rochefort; in 1892, he was the priest in charge in Chaniers; the same year, he is sent to Villepreux, and after a little while he became the chaplain of the House of the Legion of Honor, in Ecouen. Eventually, he finally settled in 1896 in Montigny, as the priest in charge.

During all this time, Calixte Méllinge, who took his hieronym-Alta– from Joséphin Péladan’s ‘Le Vice Suprême‘, started collaborations with magazines and revues, such as Lady Caithness’ ‘L’Aurore du jour Nouveau‘, with Albert Jounet’s ‘L’Etoile‘, with Albert de Pouvourville’s ‘La Voie‘ and even with Papus’ ‘L’Initiation‘ and the ‘Le Voile d’Isis‘. Papus invited Abbé Alta to become a member of the Supreme Council of the Martinist Order, while Stanislas de Guaita offered him a seat at the Supreme Council of the O+K+R+C, a.k.a. ‘Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose+Croix‘). Abbé Alta would also teach at the Hermetic School, and participate, in June 1908, to the famous ‘Masonic & Spiritualist Congress‘ held in Paris.

In all of his publications, Abbé Alta voiced for a return to the sources of Christianity and condemned papacy and clericalism, advocating for closer ties between Christianity and Free-Masonry-aiming at a Synarchic Christianity. It was not long when our Abbé Alta got reprimanded for his wanderings: singled out as a duty of universal charity (!) by an Abbé called Barbier who, in an article titled ‘The masonic infiltrations within the Church‘, snitched out his true name and denounced his works; this denunciation got him suspended by the ecclesial hierarchy. Abbé Alta in response, while being in a forced vacation of his ecclesial duties, boldly started writing the few books he will be remembered for: ‘Original Christianity‘, ‘Cesarian Christianity‘, ‘The Catechism of Reason‘, ‘The New Life’. He also translated ‘The Enneads’ & ‘The life of Plotinus‘, and finally, Saint Pauls’ writings.

Abbé Calixte Mélinge died in Saint-Mandé, on the 3rd of December 1933, in the most edifying manner, according to the Catholic news of the time-does it mean that he found his way back to Rome, again? God only knows…

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2-From ‘La Vie Nouvelle’

Saint Paul-despite all of his fraternal zeal as an advocator to establish a complete equality between the members of the Christian communities that he established-was forced to admit that, intellectually & morally, three categories persisted in the human kind, after baptismal as before.

The first category he points out is  known with its Greek name, ιδιοται, idiotai. It is, probably, the origin of the French word, idiots, but this word in our language has a more insulting tone, while the Greek word simply means someone who is a no-good, rough beings, ignorant and un-intelligent, vulgar, the crowd.

The second category, he calls it, φρονιμοι, fronimoi, the intelligent and the skilled-ones: but in his letters, more than one time, he complains, in the ‘Letters to the Corinthians‘, for instance, that these intelligent, these skilled-ones, only focus their intelligence, their thoughts towards knowledge of material things and to earthly interests. I believe that he would criticize our French contemporary intellectuals in general, and to the middle class almost in its entirety in particular!

He pleads his disciples, his followers to rise higher and to become τελετοι, teletoi. This Greek word, that our traditions usually translate as perfect, or the perfect ones, is here quite incorrectly translated; why? Because if we want to express its meaning in French, we then need to use a periphrasis; it means: those who are conscious of the aim of life. The Perfect Ones are not of this world; this may put a balm upon our imperfections: Saint Paul had some himself, despite all of his genius and his admirable virtue. Sometime, He pushed his energy towards him and people at the limit of violence, as by nature he was a violent person. We ought then to tend towards perfection, but this is an infinite always superior to all beings, excepted God Himself, who IS, Him, infinite by Nature. And within this progression towards perfection, the first step, is to know the aim of life.

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The Roman world, the Greco-Latin civilization, for not having evolved, perished in the Fifth century AD, under the assaults of the barbarians. So will it be in our 20th century, if we continue to perpetuate the same errors and allow so many acts of negligence!

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‘Life is energy‘ says Plotinus after his master Ammonius Saccas; which is, according to the meaning of the Greek word ενεργεια, energeia, a movement that holds its principle in itself, a movement that acts by itself, and-we ought to notice this-the exact opposite of matter, steam, gas, electricity, ether, which movements are a loss, a disintegration: The life-force is a movement of conquest, of development, by acquisition and assimilation.

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The word Nature, of Latin origin, from Natura, what is born, means the totality of the beings that are born, that had a beginning.

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Man is a being condemned to earn merit; this is what his glory is about, but also the duty and trials of all the free beings.

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As i said earlier, Man is condemned to earn merit. Man is born on Earth to earn merit, not to indulge: i mean by ‘indulge’ the gratification of the beast in us, laziness, cruelty, hedonism. We ought to be worthy of the name ‘Man’, we ought to use our joy to be striving to grow intellectually and spiritually.

All those who strive to only accumulate a fortune so to indulge in the pleasures of the body in leisure & lust and all those who inherited a ready made fortune and who use it for the satisfaction of their vices, all of them I said, will fall under the law of Nature, of which they forgot the Law of Liberty: the infirmities, the diseases originating from their laziness and lust, will make them atone for their vices and cowardice. Even through suicide they cannot escape it: in vain would they invoke the nothingness, as what is cannot cease to be; in this world or in another one, we will be re-born with the benefits of our past lives. Do you not see this huge amount of children born with disabilities, deformities, in pain and lame?

What explanation do you give of that? Is it God’s will ? No certainly not! God does not commit injustices and it would be an abominable injustice if an innocent child is born due to such divine curse! Then, is it Nature? Yes, but Nature provides only the body, and it models it upon the soul. Each spirit incarnating in this world is born in such and such families, in such and such bodies, in such and such conditions of health or illness, of intelligence or incapacity, exactly according to what he is, to what his value is and finally, to his earned merits.

Mathematics are the expression of the law of all existences; our freedom does not consist in changing this law; we ought to change ourselves through a continuous progression towards the Good & the Better.

The doctrine of pleasure is obviously easier to grasp. The aristocracy of the XVIII th century agreeing with it, indulging deep in it, and received ‘as a reward’ the hard lessons of the French revolution. The XX th century bourgeoisie, if it does not benefit from the lessons of last past wars, will also be rewarded by the anarchists.

‘An-archy’ means ‘the suppression of principles.’ If it persists in the minds of people, it will without fail be achieved in fact. Nowadays,  ‘There is nothing above Man; no Divine Law. Only human rights!‘ do we hear everywhere. And then, why does the stronger person have not the right to crush the weaker one?

The skillful managed to lure until now the crowd and manipulate it. The crowd is not eager to be fooled anymore; it wants to ‘indulge’ itself, in turn; the skillful and the talented speakers cannot stop this huge wave that is now rising: the Socialism of tomorrow; if we do not go back to the rule of reason, if we do not rise God’s rule again above the human rights, the Socialism of tomorrow will only be an empty phraseology and give birth to hoardings and killings; death without a phrase, such will be the last word of the bourgeoisie, the socialist eloquence!

God does not want a political order that is striving to suppresses the moral dimension of our lives; God cannot have given virtue as a law to Man and provided resources especially to make him go the opposite way of His Law! ‘The Republic is the natural form for a society of Christians‘, said the great philosopher I am the disciple of, Antoine Blanc de Saint-Bonnet. ‘We don’t have the government we want, we have the one we deserve‘. Time will tell who we are…

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I recommend that we ceaselessly keep-everywhere & always-our right to think by ourselves, according to the data provided by reality & light. There is a space located between tyranny and anarchy; and it is in this free space that a free spirit dwells. The free spirit is not an anarchist-living without principles-because he recognizes truth within light: But he respects the freedom of others, and does not pretend to coerce them into a forced union into whatever doctrine.

If in order to fraternize we needed to have the same ideas and feelings, we cannot find two spirits, two hearts, that would achieve absolute unity; even with those people who are very much alike, diversity subsists; and according to this diversity, the same speech heard or read, the same object perceived, produces within every soul’s nature & spirit diverse impressions. Therefore, the tyrannical spirits have to bare this: they will never coerce another spirit, not even one, to morph into the exact shape of their spirit.

The only manner to fraternize, is to understand that diversity does not prevent fraternity. Get over it, as we will never have identical ideas, even the similar appreciation of Good & Beauty; we can nonetheless  fraternize upon Good & Beauty. Greater are the possibilities that we will apprehend Christ’s psychology, the Holy Trinity or the Christian cult & sacraments according to the intelligence, the science and the nature of each of us! Let’s remain brotherly in Jesus-Christ, despite all of these diversities, instead of condemning each other and anathematizing one another! May each school of thought benefit from the Good & Beauty that manifests in the neighboring schools. I repeat: Unity ought not to suppress diversity, likewise, diversity ought not to suppress Unity!

May each of us be conscious of the honor to be ‘one’s self‘, judging according what we see ourselves in the light of facts, in the clarity  of God, and we ought to grant others with the same right and the same honor.

A day will come when every spirit will have but one orthodoxy: Light. A day will come when every heart will have but one law: Devotion. Then, ultimately, the Kingdom of Heaven will be manifested below on Earth, as it is above.

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Coming soon:

A Little Abbé Alta Sampler – Part II:

Excerps from ‘Saint Paul, traduit du Grec & commenté’

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Note: Our Via-HYGEIA-Bibliography book review of

Serge Caillet’s ‘Les Sars de la Rose-Croix’

can be found here .

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