Oswald Wirth

Oswald Wirth, whose real name is Joseph Paul Oswald (* August 5, 1860 in Brienz Switzerland, † March 9, 1943 in the department of Vienne ) was a Ministerialbibliothekar in Paris and Masonic writer.

Life

Oswald Wirth was raised Catholic by his parents, but became interested in his youth for mesmerism. He left Switzerland to work temporarily as a bookseller in London, but then moved to France where he became a Freemason, and began to work as messmerianischer healer. In 1887, he met with Stanislas de Guaita, with which he became befriended and his secretary. In 1888 he was one of the founding members of the Ordre de la Rose Croix Kabbalistique. In 1889, Wirth published a designed in collaboration with de Guaita Tarot and wrote for Papus ' book The Tarot of the Gypsies an essay on the astrological symbolism of the Tarot. After the death of de Guaitas in 1897 Oswald Wirth took a job at the library of the French colonial museum.

In the following forty years, Oswals Wirth dealt extensively with occult themes and in 1927 released another Tarot game. Oswald Wirth was a member of the Supreme Council of the A. and A. Scottish Rite. His Masonic brothers he criticized, they would neglect the rituals and symbols, and called on them to work more at the Masonic ideals. When in 1940 the Germans occupied France, Oswald Wirth was on a vacation trip in the Ardennes. He was able to escape to the département of Vienne, where he died in 1943. He is buried in the cemetery of Mouterre -sur- Blourde south of Poitiers.

Works

• Founder (1912 ) and editor of the Masonic magazine " Le Symbolisme "
• Instruction works: " Le livre de l' Apprenti "
• " Le livre du Compagnon "
• " Le livre du Maître "