Czesław Czyński Punar Bhava

Introduction.

Occultists in the English speaking world have comparatively few sources of information about Continental adepts and occult orders. As far as I know there were only a few books on this subject published in English and so an average British or American occultist usually associates France with Eliphas Levi and Germany with Theodor Reuss, and perhaps Russia with H. P. Blavatsky or Gurdjieff. There are, however, many more individuals and groups who deserve serious study. One such individual is certainly Czeslaw Czynkski (pronounced: chess-wav chin-ski), a Polish magician mentioned in The Tarot by Mouni Sadhu (who is Polish himself and met Czyński personally before World War II).

Czyński's Biography.

The life of Czyński was indeed a very extraordinary one and may be compared to that of Cagliostro: he travelled from one end of Europe to another, everywhere causing scandals and winning new students and admirers. His biography is also difficult to reconstruct, as there is very little information available, and the facts, which are known, are often contradictory. The difficulty begins with the date of Czyński's birth: one source gives 1845, but it seems more propable that he was born on 16 July 1858 in Turzenko (Southern Poland) as a son of Józef, (a wealthy land owner) and Matylda.

In is early years his parents sent him to Paris, where he began to study medicine, but soon he came back to Poland and began teaching in a parochial school. Then he settled down in Cracow making a living by teaching French. Also practising palmistry, graphology, hypnotism and mesmerism (he must have picked up these things in Paris). At the same time he attended lectures at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, and later was for a short time teaching in a secondary school in Stryj. Seemingly a handsome young man with strange piercing eyes, who knew several languages and was well educated, Czyński exerted great influence on the people who met him, easily winning love and admiration of women.

About 1875 (or perhaps later: it is difficult to see how he could do all those things in such a short period of time unless 1845 is the correct year of his birth) Czyński began his tour around Europe, mainly Germany and Austria, which lasted fop many years. He gave lectures on hypnosis and magnetism, healing people with the use of mesmerism and making predictions. At the same time Czyński nade acquaintances with many members of the aristocracy, who frequently sought his advice, and was a regular visitor to both the court of Kaiser Wilhelm and that of Franz Joseph. In 1888, for example he was asked for advice by Archduke Karl Ludwig and pointed out to him that Austria was moving towards the abyss. When it was repeated to the Emperor Franz Joseph, he remarked: "I do not believe in prophets, but I do believe in the will of God ..."

At about that time he met the countess von Seydlitz, a close relative of Kaiser Wilhelm II, whom he seduced and got to marry him. When the members of the royal Hohenzollern family learned about that marriage, they accused Czyński of using hypnotic suggestion in order to force the countess to do his will, and also of bigamy, as it turned out that he had been married before. Moreover the marriage itself was a mysterious event because it was given by a friend of Czyński dressed as a pastor.

His trial for Bigamy took place in the Berlin court of justice in 1894 and Czyński was sentenced to three years in Moabit - the infamous Berlin prison (One source, however says that he was acquitted.) This process, which got great publicity, made the name of Czyński known throughout Europe and caused that his case was described in criminological and sexo-pathological literature. Thus, for example, a German attorney, Dr. Erich Wulffen, described Czyński in his book Sexualverbrecher as follows:

A hypnotizer, a pathological type of a swindler, Czyński seduced a respectable lady from the German Aristocratic circles and wanted to marry her. He hynotised her reputedly for curative purposes, then simulated great love, which, as it happens with this kind of swindlers, he may have indeed partly felt. Making a skilful use of hypnotic suggestion, he increased the sexual attraction in the wealthy countess and led her to absolute submission lo his will.

Having left prison, Czyński went to Paris where he had already been known as a hypnotist and Mesmerist. There he met all the leading figures of the French occult revival and became a close friend of Dr. Gérald Encausse (known as Papus). He stayed in Paris for several years working in the Charite Hospital under the supervision of Dr. Papus and at the same time obtaining doctoral degrees on various hermetic academies and being initiated in several occult orders then active in France.

The most important of the latter was the Martinist Order revived by Papus in 1879, in which Czyński quickly progressed and soon became an S.I. (Suporier Inconnu - the highest grade) and a member of the Supreme Council of the Order. His name in the Martinist Order was Puna Bhava. At the beginning of the century Czyński obtained from Papus a diploma of the Sovereign Delegate of the Martinist Order for the Russian Empire [1913: see picture] and left Paris for St. Petersburg.

He was probably instrumental in founding a Martinist Lodge near Petersburgh, in which the Czar Nicholas II himself was initiated. Due to this fact perhaps, Czyński got access to the court and became a frequent visitor there. He is said to have organized a number of magical seances with the Czarina and to have evoked tht apparition of Simon Magus in her presence. Maybe he would have obtained a similar power over her as Rasputin some years later, if he had not been the cause of another scandal.

At the court he met a lady-in-waiting, a relative of the Czar, who he again seduced and also made her give him large sums of money. Having been expelled from the court, Czyński still retained good reputation as a magnetic and hypnotic healer, which he continued to practise professionally. He also taught occultism and magic to a considerable number of students and made enough money to buy a land estate Koczewo in Nowogrod district and a house in Warsaw (which belonged to Russia at that time).

Shortly after 1911 he moved to Warsaw, (probably to escape the persecutions of the lady-in-waiting's family) Czyński continued his hypnotic and magnetic therapy as well as initiating new students into arcana of occultism. However the lady-in-waiting's family succeeded in finding him in Warsaw, so in order to avoid the penalty he simulated insanity and found shelter in the asylum in Tworki. When the German army marched into Warsaw soon after the beginning of the Great War, Czyński left the asylum and regained the fame of a great magician.

After Poland became independent in 1918 Dr. Czesław Czyński made a tour round the country with lectures on hypnosis, mesmerism, magic and occultism. However the tour was interrupted by the authorities, who found features of blasphemy in these lectures. So Czyński again settled down in Warsaw acting as a hypnotist and a palmist, and at the same time organising a lodge of the Martinist Order, the activities of which will be described below. These things occupied him until his death in 1932. Shortly before it he became a very strict ascetic and vegetarian, by which he may have intended to balance the negative Karma gathered by his egoistic magical operations.

Dr. Czesław Czyński was the author of about fifty published books and twenty five left in manuscript (I do not know if these have survived). His books were published in Poland, France, Russia, England and Bulgaria and covered such subjects as hypnotism, mesmerism, palmistry, occultism, practical magic, hermetism, alchemy, political prophecies, as well as a number of language handbooks (of French, Sanscrit, Hebrew, and the international language Volapd'k). Czyński also wrote a number of articles which appeared in Polish, Russian, French, English, German and Italian magazines, including "Curative Results of Mesmerism" published in Proceedings of the Society for Psychic Research. As far as the magical powers or Czyński are concerned it seems to be certain that he was successful in his application of hypnotism and mesmserism to medicine, but the most extraordinary ability that he displayed was that of exteriorization and bilocation. There are at least three well documented cases of it.

Czyński's Abilities.

The first of them took place in St. Petersburg when the Russian police offered a reward of 500 roupels for finding a Polish engineer named Gilewicz, who had murdered another man arranging it in such a way that it seemed it had been his own body in order that his wife could get a large sum of money from an insurance company. The chief of Police asked Czyński for help and the latter took several objects belonging to Gilewicz and closed himself in a seperate room for some fifteen minutes. Then he went out and said that Gilewicz was in a well known Parisian Hotel "Trevise" gave the address, room number and other details. A telegram was sent to the French police immediately and it was found out that Gilewicz indeed was in that hotel.

Moreover the hotel personnel claimed they had seen a strange man asking about Gilewicz a few hours earlier, the description of whom fitted Czyński exactly.

Another similar event ocured in Warsaw during the Great War, when Count Jozef Zaluski asked Czyński to find his brother-in-law Count Waldemar Tyszkiewicz. Czyński found him in Samara and gave the exact date of his return to Poland. He also uttered a few words to Count Tyszkiewicz, when visiting him astrally - which he later confirmed.

The third case had a more selfish aim. Czyński wanted to get rid of a woman who lived in his house and appeared to her every night, threatening her with all kinds of disaster including death. The woman reported it to the police, but since there was no law against apparitions she had to eventualy quit the house to get some peace.

The unorthodox activities of the Polish branch of the Martinist Order founded and led by Dr. Punar Bhava, i.e. Czesław Czyński.

It is not exactly known when the order was established in Poland. Before the World War I there were several Polish members of the Martinist Order, including Mieczysław Genjusz (an engineer working on the Suez Canal and initiated in Cairo) and Józef Jankowski (a poet and mystic, whose name in the order was Dr. Jod, and who was also a friend of Papus, with whom he wrote an introduction to Political Prophecies by Czyński published in Warsaw in 1914) but it seems that a regular lodge was founded not earlier than in 1918. [see scan]

It joined the group led by Teder (Charles Détré), Jean Bricaud and Chevillon (there were others who also claimed to be the rightful successors of Papus who died in 1916). The earliest document of Polish Martinists I know is from 1920 and was signed by Jean II Bricaud. the Chief of the order, J.C. de Burzyński, the secretary for Polish affairs, and Punar Bhava, Who put the following degrees after his name: S.'. I.'. (the highest Martinist degree), 33.'. (the highest degree of Scottish masonry), 90.'. (the highest degree of the Rite of Misraim), 96.'.

The next to the highest degree in the Rite of Memphis, being a honorary one of the Grand Master of a given country - 97 was held by the Grand Hierophant of the Rite of Memphis-Misraim and belonged successively to John Yarker, Gerald Encauss (Papus), Theodor Reuss and Aleister Crowley, I do not know who was next), VII° (the first of the "sexual" degrees of the original O. T. O, ), Legate of the Gnostic Catholic church.

On December 1923 (registered 14 January 1924) the Society for Esoteric Studies was founded in Warsaw Dr Wacław Kłoczkowski (president), Stefan Trojanowski (secretary general) and Bohdan Filipowski. The idea of such a society, however, was Czyński's, and it was intended to attract people interested in occult matters from whom the members of the Martinist Order were to be chosen. A little later the Institute of the Heremetic Sciences was established to teach the members of the Society various aspects of occultism. Its director was also Bohdan Filipowski, and one of the lecturers was Henry Block. According to later accounts (circa 1920) Czyński introduced to the Polish lodge "occult teachings and practices being in formal contradiction to the Order's constitutions and its spiritual aims".

Some of the members did not like these unorthodox activities and in 1925 one of them wrote a petition signed by those opposed to Czyński and sent it to Lyon to the Grand Master Bricaud in 1926. As a result Czyński was ordered to resign and transmit his office ol the Sovereign Delegate to Colone J. Czaplin. Czyński left the Martinists Order with a considerable numbers of his followers and founded the Order of the White Orient. Colonel Czaplin does not seem to have changed the character of the teachings and practices of the Polish Martinists and in 1931 all the Polish lodges of the order were held to be dormant and the Delegation was withdrawn. It was probably caused by the police searches of the flats of Martinists, who were accused of practising Satanism and celebrating Black Masses.

These searches began on 30 August 1930 lasted for a few weeks but the matter was never brought to the court of the justice. The following information comes from popular press from September 1930 and so it is not very reliable but some opinion about the nature of the Martinist practices may be formed on this basis. First some data about the chief members of the order in 1930.

The Grand Master Mikołaj Mikołajewicz Czaplin was a Russian, formerly a police officer in Brzesc and during the war a colonel of the Russian Army. In 1919 he settled down in Warsaw, telling fortunes, teaching magic and selling "the elixir of life". He wrote and published two small volumes of "The Occult Library", one of which was in Russian and the other in Polish. Bolesław Wójcicki (Frater Jonathan) was probably connected with the Mysteries of Venus (or maybe even was their founder as he translated and published a book by the French Occultist Pierre Piobb in 1910, the Polish title of which was the Morality of Pleasure. Venus - the Magical Goddess of Love. The Mysteries of Venus were active in Poland until the early 1920's and their members practised sexual intercourse with spirit beings and ecloplasmic materializations. They used a seal showing a naked woman with an incubus sitting on her.

Wojcicki was admitted to the Martinist Order by Czyński on 28 November 1920. On 28 July 1921 he received the degree of S.I. and on 30 April 1922 that of Philosophe Inconnu. On 15 February 1926 he was made a honorary member of the Society for Esoteric Studies, in appreciation of his series of lectures on the Qabalah. He died commiting " suicide. Bohdan Filipowski, already mentioned in connection with the Society for Esoteric Studies, was a mesmerist and lecturer on magic.

At that time there were about twenty members of the Warsaw Lodge, at least half of which were women. One of them was a Miss Hirsz (her name in the Order was Astarte) who was famous in the capital for her beauty. She was said to be always naked during the rituals. There were probably two other lodges of the Martinist Qder in Poland: In Katowice and Sosnowiec, or at least there were active members of the order there.

In Sosnowiec lived Stanisław Sławomir Jastrzębiec-Kozłowski, a high initiate whose name in the order was Dr. Peterson and "the qabalistic name" Braakoliab (I do not know if the latter was also a Martinist one or from some other order). He had various occult titles such as "Doctor of the Hermetic Sciences", "Honorary Professor of the Academy of the Occult Science in Buhara", "a member of the Academy of the Occult sciences and Knowledge in St. Petersburg", etc. I have also seen a copy of the book by Grand Master von Mebes of Petersburg (on which The Tarot of Mouni Sadhu was based) dedicated to him by the author in 1912.

The police found in his flat in 1930 various magical rituals, images of Baphomet, his own poem on the glory of Satan, a list of names of adepts in Poland, letters from Papus, Bricaud, Czyński and others, and, which is very strange, a document stating that Kozlowski was converted to Islam, dated 17 April 1922 and signed by a Miesaid Chafirow. He also told the police that he was the rightful successor of Papus as the head of the Martinist Order and other occult societies.

Baphomet in Poland.

In Katowice there was a man named Wojciechowski, formerly a soldier of the Polish division in Siberia during the civil war of 1919-1923, where he organized magical circles. The rituals were held in private flats of any one of the three main members: all of them had complete temples at home. These rituals were described by journalists as "Black Masses" or "Great Sacrifices", celebrated in front of a painting of a he-goat's head inside a triangle apex downward with the letters S.I. M.O.N, written on it. A maniple was used made of black silk on red silk lining. It was a 15 centimeters wide band having an inverted triangle on each end containing the word "Sheloshet" and a pair of horns and a beard embroided with small pearls. There was also a purple triangle on the same band with seven triangular dark red transparent gems. An eye-witness's account of such a ritual follows:

"Wojcicki told me to prepare for taking part in the black mass for a week, encouraging me to take narcotics and have weakening baths. The aim of these practices was to evoke the state of ecstasy in me and to weaken my will. When on the appointed day Wojcicki showed me into a secret apartment at Pulawska Street, I met there four men in robes and masks.

The floor was covered with a carpet. Inverted triangles hung on the walls, and on one of the walls was an image of Baphomet, I.E. a he-goat sitting on the globe. In front of Baphomet there were two triangles with copper bowls full of narcotic incense. Suddenly Wojcicki appeared dressed in a black chasuble with an image of a he-goat embroided in red. He had a red cap on his head. Three women followed him, completely naked except for the faces covered with masks. They lay down on the carps front of the image of Baphomet, forming a triangle. Wojcicki stepped inside it, ignited the incense, and started to tell blasphemous prayers, desecrating the Catholic religion. After this ceremony he walked to each person present, giving narcotic pills. Then he returned to the triangle of women and, bowing before the image of Baphomet, recited a hymn to the glory of Satan, asking him to appear among his devotees.

The rest of those gathered repeated his conjuration in whisper. "Suddenly a hazy figure of a man with burning eyes and mouth drawn awry in a grimace appeared on the wall. A loud, groan of awesome joy and affection was heard among those present. Wojcicki celebrating the devilish ritual shouted in an inhuman voice: "In his name I bless you! Offer your sacrifices!" The silence of intense concentration was now broken by hysterical shouting and squealing of women. Tne narcotics started to show their effects. The three naked women, forming the triangle in front of Baphomet, rushed to Wojcicki and a general orgy began."

It must be stressed once again that such journalistic accounts are not reliable. However, there certainly must be something in it. My own conjecture is the following. As it was mentioned above Czyński was a member of the VII° O.T.O. in France of Reuss. It seems that Papus himself never practised the sexual magic of the Order of Oriental Templars, but Czyński was very sexually inclined and would not miss the occasion to join both of his interests. So it appears quite logical to state that he may have introduced the sexual teachings of the O.T.O. (in the original Reuss's scheme the members of the VII° studied the "sex secret" in theory) to the Polish Martinist lodges. These were probably the teachings to which some members objected in 1925 and because of which Czyński was expelled from the Martinist Order by Jean Bricaud in 1926.

The worship of Baphomet also suggests the Templar tradition, and the document uf Jastrzebiec-Kozlowski's conversion to Islam reminds of a popular theory that "Baphomet" is a corruption of "Mahomet". It is not clear whether the "Polish satanists" had any connnections with Crowley. It seems more probable that they continued the original teachings of the O.T.O. from before the Crowleyan reformation, and that they were changing them by themselves. There is nothing more I can add about this "satanistic" sect.

I will only say a few words on the further evelopement of the Martinist Order in Poland. After the lodges had been closed in 1931 there was no Martinist activity (at least not formally recognized by the center in Lyon) until about 1935, when Jan Czarnomski, a historian specializing in the history of freemasonry, obtained the Delegation for Poland and established a Martinist Lodge in Warsaw. He also got a charter to create the Grand Mystic Temple of Poland of the Memphis-Misraim Rite, on the basis of which the lodge "La Pyramide du Nord en la Vallee de la Vistule" No. 16 and the Rose Croix chapter "Le Pelican à l'Aube Naissante" No. 3 were established.

Czarnomski was also the founder of a lodge of the Order of Illuminates from Austria. In 1939 he signed the act of joining The Universal Federation of Orders, Societies and Fraternities of Initiates created by Clymer (the American Rosicrucian) as the Legate of the Martinist Order for Poland and Greece (he also possessed the legation for Madagascar). The Second World War put an end to the Martinist activities and those of related orders in Poland.

As far as I know these orders were not revived after the war.