Quotes:Ragon de Bettignies, Jean-Baptiste-Marie

Zirkoff, Boris

Ragon de Bettignies, Jean-Baptiste-Marie. French Mason, distinguished writer and great symbologist, who tried to bring Masonry back to its pristine purity. He was bom at Bray-sur-Seine (Seine et Mame), Feb. 25, 1781, where his father was a notary public. His mother, Juliana Colmet d’Aag, was a native of Tournai. His business career commenced at Bruges (formerly Department de La Lys) as clerk in the Treasury Department of the Ministry of the Interior; later he served as Cashier and Paymaster to Armed Forces during the war, and became a Freemason. At the close of the war, he was transferred to Paris, where he took charge of the office of the Garde Nationale, and was reappointed to this position under several administrations. In 1819, Ragon went to the U.S.A, with some friends, to take possession of land purchased at Big Guyandotte, on the Ohio river in Kentucky. At the time, he was married to Nathalie de Bettignies and had two children by her. Mortgages on the property were discovered which he had not been told about; the capital was lost, and within two years or so he was back in Paris, where he devoted himself to literary work and to inventions (tubular railways and steam engines for what we would now call motor cars). He died March 22, 1862 and was buried in Paris.

As early as 1803, Ragon had been initiated into the Masonic Lodge Réunion des Amis du Nord, at Bruges. Somewhat later he assisted in the founding of the Lodge of Vrais Amis in the same city. On his removal to Paris, Ragon founded in 1805 the Society of Les Trinosophes. He delivered in that Lodge a remarkable series of lectures, in 1818, on ancient and modem Initiation; twenty years later these lectures were repeated, and finally published in 1841 as *Cours philosophique et interprétatif des Initiations anciennes et modernes, printed with express permission of the Grand Orient of France, although the same body denounced its second edition for containing some additional matter. In the years 1818-19, Ragon was editor-in- chief of Hermes ou Archives Maçonniques, a Journal founded by the Librarian Bailleul. In August, 1853, he published another remarkable work entitled Orthodoxie Maçonnique, abounding in historical information, and in 1861 followed it up with *Tuüeur Général de la Franc-Maçonnerie, où Manuel de l’Initié, enriched with valuable notes. Another work of great importance is his *La Messe et ses Mystères comparés aux Mystères anciens (Paris: E. Dentu, 1882). In addition to various other Masonic publications which he published in advanced old age, Ragon projected several other important works, 588 and partly completed some of them before he died. In the Preface to his Orthodoxie, he states his intention to crown his Masonic labors by writing a work entitled Les Fastes Initiatiques, giving an exhaustive view of the ancient mysteries, of the Roman colleges of architects, their successors, etc. This work was to have six volumes. Its unfinished MSS. was purchased by the Grand Orient of France from his heirs, for the price of 1,000 francs; it was then quietly deposited in the Archives of this body, because, as confessed, no Mason could be found in France who had ability enough to supply its lacunae and prepare it for the press. Ragon taught that primitive ideas of Masonry are to be found in the initiations of the ancient Mysteries, and that for its present-day form it was indebted mainly to Elias Ashmole of the 17th century.

Contemporary students did not hesitate to call Ragon “the most learned Mason of the 19th century.” It has been rumored that he was the possessor of a number of papers given to him by Count de Saint-Germain, from whom he had derived his profound knowledge upon early Masonry. It is also rumored that Jesuits hastened to buy up every edition of his works they could find after his death. It is an obvious fact that Ragon’s works are extremely rare nowadays, and that some of them have entirely disappeared.

Cf. K. MacKenzie, The Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, London, 1877; Latonia, Freimaurische Vierteljahrschrift, Leipzig, J. J. Weber, Vol. XXI, 1862, pp. 331-32; Albert G. Mackey, An Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry; Ars Quatuor Coronatorum. Vol. XVIII, No. 2076, pp. 97-103.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 11, pp. 587-588