On July 13, 1865, the occultist, magician, freemason and writer in one person was born - the legendary Papus. Many call him a charlatan, because they believe he powdered people's brains with his fairy tales for the sake of money. Who he really was.
Papus (which means "doctor") is the pseudonym of this man, and his real name is Gerard Anaclet Vincent Encausse. He was born in Spanish A Coruña and then moved with his family to Paris. Who knows, if Gerard had not grown up in Paris, where he could spend every day at the National Library studying Kabbalah, magic, alchemy, perhaps no Palus would have appeared.
One of Gerard's passions was to create and resurrect all kinds of orders and organizations. Together with his like-minded person in 1887, he founded the so-called Martinist Order. Having made friends with influential French masons, Papus began to publish the newspaper of the order - "Initiation". In addition, he took up the establishment of the "Kabbalistic Order of the Rose and Cross."
Palus strengthened his fame with numerous printed works. He, like a conveyor belt, churned out books and articles on esotericism and traveled with lectures on the art of magic throughout all European countries. Actually, Palus did not invent anything new - he only qualitatively, as they would say now, rewrite the works of his predecessors.
Mr. Papus.
He penned over 400 articles and 25 books on the subject of his interests. They were replicated in large numbers and translated into other languages, including Russian. By the way, Papus repeatedly visited the Russian Empire, where the Russian Martinist Order also appeared in St. Petersburg. And some historians and eyewitnesses claim that he predicted the death of Emperor Nicholas II himself. "The Philosopher's Stone", "The Devil and the Occult", "Treatment of Local Diseases", "Anarchy and Synarchy", "Genesis and Development of Masonic Symbols" - all this was composed by Papus, masterfully using the compilation method.
Tarot cards.
The prototypes of the Tarot cards were found in the Middle Ages, but it was Palus who developed their system. In his book "Predictive tarot or the key of all kinds of card fortune-telling", he described in the most detailed way what's what. These cards, and they are very popular in Russia, are used to guess the future.
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It was an amazing combination of passion for the occult and science. For example, in 1894 he received his M. D. from the University of Paris for his dissertation on "philosophy of anatomy." And later, during the First World War, Papus volunteered for the front, where he worked as a doctor in a field hospital.
The magician and the wizard died rather prosaically for his time - from tuberculosis.