Antoine Faivre, "Dictionary of Gnosticism and Esotericism", and the entry about Bô Yin Râ, and its errors.

 Antoine Faivre, in his article in the Dictionary of Gnosticism and Esotericism, 2005, about the german painter and master Bô Yin Râ (born as Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, 1874-1943), seems to approach him in a unsympathetic way, or even biased, and that can been discerned in more than one point of his exposition or bio-bibliographic review.

As Antoine Faivre is one of the best universitary teachers or academicians, knower of esotericism and its "avatars", and as we meet in Portugal two times with good talks, may be I should point my questions or doubts.
After a good artistic biography, Antoine Faivre marks the year of 1914 as his first book publication, and says or uses the expression he «continued to work at his “cycles” – series of prose writings – like: Das Buch der königlichen Kunst (The Book of Royal Art; 1913-1932).» 
Is it the best way to describe his books, of a such valuable spiritual teaching, as «cycles – series of prose writings», even if two of them have received transformations, as for example the Book of Art Royal,  which attained its last redaction in 1932, at the second edition with such title? 

This space or cycle of years, 1913-1932, aplies mostly to the span of time for writing his 32 books, called in themselves as a Hortus Conclusus, meaning a Garden Closed, which was also the name given to his last book of the thirty two...

In reality the process of giving to the light his first books was like that:  during is artistic stay in Greece, from 1912 to 1913, painting so beautifully monuments and landscapes,  after his initiation with an Oriental master, the first small book, Licht von Himvat,  was send to Germany and published in 1913-1914, and  the second one, Aus dem Lande der Leuchtende, 59 pages, was given to the light in 1916,  in Leipzig,  as also a third one, Der Wille sur Freude, 45 pages, all of them without name of author, having just the initials B. Y. R. 

 In 1920 they become the first, second and third chapters of Das Buch der königlichen Kunst, 120 pages (to which he added only a Nachwort, afterword, of 3 pages),  and only after being written and published in 1932 the third edition of the book, with many modifications, was the process "explained" in the subtitle: The Book of Royal Art: final design after the unfinished editions from 1913 to 1920. 
                                                          

After telling the names and dates of his two main books, Das Buch der königlichen Kunst and  Das Buch von lebendingem Gott, explaining that only after 1920 (as we can see in the photo above, 1920 edition) the books began to be signed as Bô Yin Râ, Antoine Faivre goes to say: «From then on Bô Yin Râ became a prolific writer. Most of his pieces are of small size, and he often put many of them together to constitute larger books.»

  Prolific, is a already a bit a critical expression. Then he adds “pieces of small size”, and "putting them together to constitue larger books", what is not true, except the mentioned case of Das Buch der königlichen Kunst, as we find only alterations in a few cases, generaly from the first to the second edition, like in Mehr Licht, More Light, a very deep and spiritual book.

Also a bit critical and misguiding (specially to someone that doesn't know the work and value of Bô Yin Râ) is the information that «As before [after arriving to Swizerland], he continued to devote much time procuring new editions (enlarged or modified) of his former or more recent publications. In Switzerland he became acquainted with the publisher Alfred Köber-Stähelin, who from 1927 on published all his works.»
“As before he continued to devote much time procuring new editions”... This description by Antoine Faivre it is may be correct for a formal writer, mostly interested in just publishing more, but not in this case: how a master as Bô Yin Râ, painter, seer and writer, would be devoting much time to that...
Antoine Faivre would have written better like that: Bô Yin Râ continued to deepen his awareness of how to write, in the best possible way, giving different perspectives of the teaching of the spiritual path in our days, and from that resulted some alterations or enlargements of the already published books... 
And if Bo Yin Râ was given to the public light in more than one publishing house, that is natural, specially as he traveled until to settle down in Swizerland, from 1923 onwards, and finding a very good friend and disciple, the owner and founder of Kober Verlag's editions, Dr. Alfred Kober-Staehelin (1885-1963, in the photo), who from 1927 onwards began to publish all books, in such a beautiful way, of Bô Yin Râ.

The characterizations of Antoine Faivre seems a bit biased, as being almost against the knowledge and teaching of Bô Yin Râ, and that can be seen still further, as we shall  be now entering into the substantial critic, or the appreciation of the book's contents.
What will be the aspects that Antoine Faivre will sellect, how he will caracterize the teachings, we wonder before reading. Let us listen him:
«Bô Yin Râ is lavish in clues about post-mortem life which are sometimes reminiscent of Swedenborg’s. He explains, for instance in Das Buch vom Jenseits, [Book of the Beyond, Livro do Além] that “life beyond” is in reality the very life we live on earth, only it is experienced by means of different senses. He occasionally touches upon the topic of reincarnation, discussing under which conditions it may be possible», and we may add, a very few cases indeed, in contrast with the normal trend of spiritual doctrines and new age views...

So, after calling him prolific, now Antoine Faivre sees him as  “lavish in clues”, and relates him to Swedenborg, a scientist and visionary, who had many visions and encounters with spirits. By the contrary, Bô Yin Râ is very sober in his descriptions of the invisible worlds and writes as someone awakened to the three worlds and describs just some most important aspects, mostly with the intention to make people aware of what will happen when they will die, and what they will find in subtle worlds, in order to awake them to their spiritual duties of realization still living in the physical level of earth.
Also is misleading to resume almost a book of Bô Yin Râ on the life beyond, as saying it is the same life as here on earth physical level but only experienced with other senses, subtle ones. And about reincarnation also Faivre is not very clear, as Bô Yin Râ is not endorsing at all the idea of successive reincarnations.
Antoine Faivre also  misguides people, voluntary or involuntary or, better, by ignorance or not, when says that Bô Yin Râ presented 21 paintings in different books, and then another time in a cosmological book Welten, Worlds, when in truth they appear only in Welten.
About his unique and so original and powerful paintings Antoine Faivre adds a few names of them, like “Lux in Tenebris” (reproduced down), “Birth of the External Cosmos”, “Astral Luminescence”, and “Inferno”. 

And then writes, “these are meant to depict the very nature and dynamic structure of eternal life. His views here are reminiscent of those of the classical theosophical current (although he rarely quotes his predecessors), and he evinced a particular interest in  Jacob Bœhme. Most of these works of art have a cosmological or cosmogonic character. In Welten: Eine Folgekosmischer Gesichte, (Worlds: A Series of Cosmic Visions; 1924), a work introduced by a poem of Giordano Bruno, he again presents twenty such paintings.»
Not only we find here another time that error about Bô Yin Râ repeating his paintings in the books, but also there is no poem of Giordano Bruno at the beginning of that work. Also they are not just cosmogonic but they are also visions of the spiritual world and of its levels and archetypal events, in Welten specially related to the human spiritual evolution and path.
And saying “he rarely quotes his predecessors” is also misleading, as Bô Yin Râ is not follower of any occultist order and teacher, but a master in himself. By other side, Bô Yin Râ gives more than one time the name of the true masters of the Light, of the Unio mystica, as for example, Lau Tse, Budha, Jesus, the mystics of Greece and Persia, Patanjali, S. Paulo, Eckhart, Tauler, the auctor of Theologia Germanica and Imitation of Christ, Jacob Boehme, Ramakrisna... 

 Also misleading is the aproach of Antoine Faivre to the Brotherhood of the spiritual masters, also called White Loge, explained many times by Bô Yin Râ, and using differents names, as Faivre writes, a bit joking: «The expression “White Lodge” (possibly linked to the name of Kurt Wolff’s Publishing Company) seems to be meant in a metaphoric sense, and does not refer to any actually existing association.» 

Some lines after he registers another designation of that Community of the Bearers of the Primordial Light, and he tries to connect with what Eckarhausen have written. So, we can ask, is the occultist and printer Kurt Wolff (1887-1963), or the christian mystic Eckartshausen (1753-1802), or some other esotericist reading of books,  the source of the acquaintance of Bô Yin Râ with the Masters and the designation of the Community, that he said also to be source of the legend of the Holy Grail, as Faivre wants? Or it is an inner knowledge, a vision and communion at will, as he is a true initiate or master, that we don't find in the occultists and free masons so studied and extolled by Antoine Faivre and other historians of the esotericism and spirituality?

 And at the end of the article, Antoine Faivre does another time a biased presentation of Bô Yin Râ as a master: «In a narrative set within Das Buch der Gespräche (The Book of Conversations, 1920), Bô Yin Râ tells us about his own initiation into this community of the “Leuchtenden” [bearers of Light], in Greece, but this description appears to be merely metaphorical.»

In fact I would say that the description is not at all “merely metaphorical”, as it was lived and contains clues to the inner process of initiation, which in others book, like in the Book of Art Royal, are also given.
Then, Antoine Faivre approaches the people who read, love or follow Bô Yin Râ, in this way, also a bit depreciative:«A wide readership (there are countless [!!] new editions and translations) bears witness to Bô Yin Râ’s continuing influence, which may be seen operating in various contemporary movements, particularly in neo-Rosicrucian groups [→ Rosicrucianism] such as the A.M.O.R.C. and the Lectorium Rosicrucianum». What a nasty irony, someone would say...
I can't see why Bô Yin Râ is especialy more popular in these two neo-rosicrucians groups presented. What were the sources of Antoine Faivre for that statement? Or is it mostly based in the hermetic axiom “like atracts like”, and so Antoine Faivre is sugesting that Bô Yin Râ's teaching is similar or akin to the ones of A.M.O.R.C. and Lectorium  Rosicrucianum, in themselves already quite different?  We feel that Faivre is putting the teaching as having a low level of quality, appropriate for the mass..
We can sense that there is a certain underestimation of the teaching of the books, that probably Antoine Faivre didn't read them, as it is visible another time when he goes to say that he was very critical latter, specially on Mehr Licht, of Theosophical Society, and of Jewish Kabbalah. 

As a matter of fact, Bô Yin Râ since his first books was critical of the ways that Theosophical Society of Blavatsky, Olcott, Besant and others have presented the existence of the Masters, and also about their teachings and said more than one time that Blavatsky was mostly a passive medium.
About Kabbalah, in that book Mehr Licht, Bô Yin Râ just points that the most important teachings or pratices have their origin in India, and only criticizes the mystifications presented by the occultists of the 19 and 20 century. And in the main book of his teaching, Das Buch von Lebendigen Gott, he has even a chapter with the title Ain Soph, although in fact he doesn't speak almost (good or bad) on Kabalah.
Then, Antoine Faivre goes on, without full acuracy when he says: «In any case, Bô Yin Râ’s teachings are self-initiatory in character, devoid of any specific ritual». 

 Although Bô Yin Râ had given to a small group of men, eager to develop their spirituality, some rituals (and after withdraw himself from the one who asked him to give them), and Antoine Faivre should have known that, as he quotes (not fully the title...) Alexandre de Dánann, and his book  Un envoyé de la Loge Blanche Bô Yin Râ: De la Taychou Marou au Grand Orient de Patmos. Milano, Archè, 2004, (who revealed that aspect, with much research, although with incorrect commentaries, and biased information),  it is true that in the path explained in his books, he says that people who love the rituals of their religions can follow them, as he is teaching the inner source of the spiritual life and the perennial path for reaching that union with the spirit, with the masters, with the living God,  that is the the essence of the religions.

Still it is not completely self-initiatory, as he says more than one time that the path of the disciples is seen or observed by the masters and when they have accomplished the needful conditions and given the utmost of themselves, then  they receive the forces, the light, the sound, the initiation, that comes from the Divine through the masters or master...
Last error to point, at the end Antoine Faivre writes: «Most of his works can be found in: Nachlese: GesammelteProsa und Gedichte aus Zeitschriften.» Or in fact, all the book are published individually, and in the book Nachlese we just find  articles published in the twenties in magazines or reviews, and some small tracts.
He hope that Antoine Faivre will correct in the next edition of his Dictionary of Gnosticism and Esotericism the chapter or entrance on Bô Yin Râ, for the sake of the truth and light. 

    Ornament of Bô Yin Râ...