Paul Sédir: His Life and Work

Paul Sédir, pseudonym of Yvon Le Loup (1871-1926), published numerous works on Christian Mysticism and Hermeticism. He first collaborated with several esoteric movements of his time; then, following his meeting with the remarkable Christian teacher and healer Master Philippe of Lyon, he devoted himself to serving Christ. In this service he gave numerous lectures, many of which were collected and published as books. Of Sédir's meeting with Master Philippe, the prolific author Dr. Gerard Encausse (Papus), wrote: "There was in Sédir's life a solemn, decisive event that made him grasp the emptiness of secret sciences and societies and placed him forever upon the sole way of the gospel."

The present work is the first biography of Paul Sédir published in English (nearly a century after his death!). Part I consists of biographical essays by Émile Besson and Max Camis, close associates of Sédir. Part II is made up of eleven short works and articles, among them: An Unknown, The Master, Druidic Initiation, The Little Shepherd, Meditations Concerning Art, The Faithful Dog, and The Friends of God in Modern Society. Part III contains many letters or letter-extracts to journals and individuals, many of the latter composed during the dark years of WWI, full of practical spiritual counsel.

"Sédir believed, not without reason, to have found in Master Philippe an authentic witness to spiritual reality, to Hermeticism understood in the same sense as we understand it in these Letters: as the tradition of authentic spiritual experience across the ages, which has the aspects named mysticism, gnosis, and magic."-Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

"After the death of the Austrian thinker and seer Rudolf Steiner in 1925, when the revered Bulgarian spiritual teacher Peter Deunov was asked whether great spirits who had already died ever came to his lectures, he replied that only Rudolf Steiner and Paul Sédir attended them."-Harrie Salman, Rudolf Steiner & Peter Deunov