What Voltaire Tries to Tell Us - The Esoteric Substance of Voltairian Thought by Denise Bonhomme (2000).pdf - Magia - historia magii(1) - insideCOREi3

Contents

Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................................v

Quotations to Ponder ............................................................................................................... vii

Dedication Epistle of Zadig to Sultana Sheraa ....................................................................... viii

Foreword.....................................................................................................................................x

Zadig ...........................................................................................................................................1

Micromegas .......................................................................................................................... 260

Candide................................................................................................................................. 336

Acknowledgments

This writer wishes to thank all persons who gave her moral support during the difficult and

rewarding years devoted to the preparation of the first edition of this book.

No one engaged in such work needs a great deal of psychological support other than the

work itself. But the "slings and arrows" which are expected and received are many, making

sources of support all the more precious.

I wish to thank my foul-weather friends who followed and encouraged my slow progress. I

wish to thank my daughter Claire and my son, Norman, who shared the experience.

I wish to most specially thank my loyal students. Their loyalty was not primarily directed at a

person. The young people understood very well that, if the teacher was sometimes "inspiring," it

was only because of something other and far greater than herself.

The students did not care if the teacher was more than thirty. They did not care whether she

was "straight" or non-straight. They did not care which kind of "coat of skin" she wore. They did

not care whether she was known or unknown. They pursued knowledge for its own sake. Their

concerns were the nature of the new field of study and its potential value to mankind.

The teacher watched attentive young faces brighten with unfakable light. She took those

faces home. The faces were there at night, when physical exhaustion threatened, when the right

words would not come.

1. As the 2000 edition of this study is being completed, I also wish to thank my devoted friend

Jerry Wechsler for his help with the removal of typographical errors and for his helpful

suggestions. I also wish to thank Michael and Elizabeth Degn, my wonderful neighbors without

whose generosity and technical help this edition would have been next-to-impossible to produce.

Acknowledgments vi

They reminded the teacher and writer that the task must be done for them and for other

"children" of all ages who would be heartened by the esoteric message of great men. The teacher

watched the students come to class "loaded to the gunwales"—as Celine would have it—with the

happy burden of their own findings.

To those who claim—as has been claimed through the ages—that young people have "gone to

the dogs"—this teacher wishes to say: "Give them something truly pure and beautiful. And

watch them go!....

Quotations to Ponder

(Re: the 'Parent doctrine,")... "the ever-flowing perennial source, at which were fed all its

streamlets—the later religions of all nations from the first down to the last."

'The public must be made acquainted with the efforts of many world-adepts, of initiated

poets, writers, and classics of every age, to preserve in the records of Humanity the knowledge of

the existence, at least, of such a philosophy, if not actually of its tenets." (H.P. Blav-atsky, The

Secret Doctrine, p. xlv, Vol. I)

"We could fill a whole volume with names of misunderstood sages, whose writings—only

because our materialistic critics feel unable to lift the 'veil,' which shrouds them—pass off in a

current way for mystical absurdities. —That there was and there is a secret no candid student of

esoteric literature will ever doubt." (H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, p. 308, Vol. 1)

"—the great writers have never done but one work, or rather, have refracted a same beauty

through diverse media, which they bring to the world." (M. Proust, A la Recherche du temps

perdu, p. 375, Vol. III)

"What the world needs is an encyclopedia of rejected facts and realities that have been

condemned." (L. Pauwels & J. Bergier, The Morning of the Magicians, The Vanished

Civilizations, Ch. II)

"My real literary education was the one I gave to myself..." 1 (Alfred de Vigny, Diary, 1847)

And no grown-up will ever understand how very important that is!" (Antoine de Saint-

Exupery, Le Petit Prince, final words)

1. How true! (This writer)

vii

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