Overview: Gerard Encausse was a special student of Philippe de Lyon. He was known as Papus – a doctor and occultist. He founded the School of Mystery, which was more important in Europe. He divided illness in 3 types: Physical disease (fever, trauma, fractures) treated with allopathic medicine; Astral (tuberculosis, cancer, nervous conditions) that he would cure through the use of homeopathy and magnetism; and Spiritual maladies (hysteria, epilepsy) that he alleviated through prayer.
As a young man, Gerard Encausse spent a great deal of time at the Bibliotheque Nationale studying the Kabbalah, occult tarot, magic, and alchemy. He joined the French Theosophical Society, but resigned soon after joining because he disliked the Society’s emphasis on Eastern occultism.
Encausse was also a member of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn temple in Paris, as well as Memphis-Misraim and probably other esoteric or paramasonic organizations, as well as being an author of several occult books. Outside of his paramasonic and Martinist activities he was also a spiritual student of the French spiritualist healer, Anthelme Nizier Philippe.
Gérard Encausse, usually known by his pseudonym “Papus,” was a Spanish-born French physician, hypnotist, and popularizer of occultism.
Encausse’s pseudonym “Papus” was taken from Lévi’s “Nuctemeron of Apollonius of Tyana” and means “physician.” Papus is primarily remembered as an author of books on magic, Qabalah and the Tarot, and as a prominent figure in the various occultist organizations and Parisian spiritualist and literary circles of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
