Etoile d'Orient, L'.
Revue de Hautes etudes Psychiques.
Penser est creer
1908--1908
Paris, France.
Language: French.
Publisher: Dr. A. de Sarak.
Editor: F. Ch. Barlet (Albert Faucheux).
Succeeds: Philadelphia (Argentina)-->La Verdad (Valparaiso, Chile)-->El Loto (Lima Peru)-->The Radiant Centre-->The Radiant Truth-->Bulletin of the Oriental Esoteric Center/Society Succeeded by: The Esoterist-->Prophecy Bulletin
Corporate author: Organe officiel du Centre esoterique oriental de France
1/1, January 24, 1908-1/12, December 1908.

This was the organ of the short-lived Centre esoterique Oriental de France. Barlet (1838-1921), whose real name was Albert Faucheux, was the grand old man of French occultism. He had his hand in the Theosophical Society in France, the Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix--of which he was a founder, along with Josephin Peladan, Stanislas de Guaita, "Papus" (Gerard Encausse), Paul Adam, and Charles Melinge ("Alta")--, the Universite libre des Hautes etudes, the revival of Martinisme, the H.B. of L., the Mouvement Cosmique (whose journal, Revue Cosmique, he edited) and the myriad of other groups around Papus. Barlet was lured into the Centre Êsoterique Oriental by Count Albert de Sarak ("Rama," "Alberto de Das," "Albert de Sarak, Count of Das," Boudh Sadou, Sartini de Rosarno, etc.) who claimed to have been born in Tibet, the son of a Tibetan Raja and a French marchioness, and to have been instructed personally by the Mahatmas of Tibet. Sarak in actuality was Alberto Santini-Sgaluppi, an Italian medium, confidence man and prestidigitator who had been jailed for fraud in Italy, Belgium, France and Spain and expelled twice from the Theosophical Society. One of his more notable tricks was the instantaneous hatching of goldfish from caviar--exposed, it is said, when his small son recognized the fish as his pets, or, alternatively, when a rubber reservoir containing fish was found under his garments. As General Inspector of the Supreme Council of the Order of the Initiates of Thibet Sarak founded centers all across South America, usually leaving one step ahead of exposure, then in New York, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. (where he captivated Agnes Elizabeth Marsland (1855-c. 1939), Mexico City, and then Paris (announced in the first issue of this journal), where he ensnared the aging Barlet. In 1899 Sarak started La Verdad in Valparaiso, Chile (3 issues), then in 1900 El Loto in Lima, Peru, and then La Luz in Mexico City (two issues). On Marsland, see James Santucci, "H.N. Stokes and the O.E. Library Critic," Theosophical History 1/6 (April 1986) 129-139. On Sarak, see also the note under Bulletin of the Oriental Esoteric Center/Society; Gaston and Henri Durville, "Un Audacieux Fraudeur de Phenomènes Psychiques," Revue de Psychisme Experimental (November 1910): 51-58, and "Le Mage Prestidigitateur sera-t-il Accusateur ou Accuse?" and "The Order of the Initiates of Tibet," in the same journal the next year; "Dr. Graf von Sarak," Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychische Forschung, December 1910. See also the entertaining discussion by Henry Ridgely Evans, The Old and the New Magic (Chicago: Kegan Paul, Trübner, 1906), 254-270, who reports his meeting with Sarak in Washington. Interestingly, one of the General Delegates of the new order (inducted in Washington) was Arnoldo Krumm-Heller (1876-1949), who has his own history in O.T.O. circles, and edited El Reflejo Astral, Der Rosenkreuzer, and Rosa-Cruz. In 1917, Sarak announced the imminent appearance of a new (unnamed) journal to appear in Washington, but the journal never apeared. See "C:.A:.S:," "Decree of the General Inspection of the Order of the Initiates of Thibet, Received by Agnes E. Marsland, President of the O.E. Society May 13, 1917," Bulletin of the Oriental Esoteric Society (May 25, 1917). BNF.

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