The “Lord of Falsehood” — a brief history

"It is he who sets all wars in motion." [MA March 26, 1959]

Some stories are truer than our rational philosophies or scientific ontologies can ever be. This is one of them.

Before there was time, there was the One. Both time and space came into being when the One decided to exteriorize itself, so as to know itself objectively.¹ To that end, the One took on four great aspects: Light (or Consciousness), Ananda (or Love), Life, and Truth. And — just to see what happens — they were given the freedom to act as they please. What happened was (i) that they became enthralled by the power they derive from being aspects of the One, and (ii) that they came to think of it as their own independent power. And so, as a result, they turned into their opposites — the four great Asuras of the Indian tradition.² “Light or Consciousness became Darkness and Inconscience. Love and Ananda became Hatred and Suffering, and Truth became Falsehood, and Life became Death”.³

The contact with the great Asuras, the first Asuras, is like that: the full consciousness of their formidable power, their marvelous capacities — they forget one thing, it’s that they deserve no credit for it, it’s not their exclusive property! So they cut the connection and become instruments of disorder and confusion. [MA August 2, 1967]⁴

It was not by choice that I met all the four Asuras — it was a decision of the Supreme. The first one, whom religions call Satan [a.k.a. Lucifer], the Asura of Consciousness, was converted and is still at work. The second [the Asura of Suffering] annulled himself in the Supreme. The third was the Lord of Death (that was Theon). And the fourth, the Master of the world, was the Lord of Falsehood; Richard was an emanation, a vibhuti,⁵ as they say in India, of this Asura. Theon was the vibhuti of the Lord of Death. [MA November 5, 1961]

Who were these two gentlemen, Max Theon and Paul Richard?

Max Theon

The Mother met Max Theon (meaning “Greatest God,” no less) in 1905. The occult abilities of Max Theon and his wife Alma were quite extraordinary. For Alma in particular, the Mother had nothing but the highest praise: “She had unheard of faculties, that woman, unheard of!” Soon thereafter Max and Alma moved to Algeria, where they built a villa on the outskirts of Tlemcen, a town at the foot of the Atlas Mountains. Invited by Theon and Alma, the Mother travelled to Tlemcen in July 1906, where she stayed till October. As she and Theon walked up towards his house,

suddenly, without warning, he spun around, planted himself in front of me, and said, “Now you are at my mercy. Aren’t you afraid?” Just like that. So I looked at him, smiled and replied, “I’m never afraid. I have the Divine here.” (Mother touches her heart.) Well, he really went pale. [MA February 4, 1961]

The Mother had been a convinced atheist, to the extent of being incensed by the word “God,” which evoked to her “a monster” who would be “the one and only” and who had created, to his satisfaction, this absurd world of endless suffering. But then, when she was “perhaps 20 or 21,” she met an Indian who advised her to read the Bhagavad Gita.

He said, “Read the Gita knowing that Krishna is the symbol of the immanent God, the God within.” That was all. “Read it with THAT knowledge — with the knowledge that Krishna represents the immanent God, the God within you.” Well, within a month, the whole thing was done! [MA August 25, 1954]

Theon had underestimated his guest. While the presence of the Divine in the heart was part of Theon’s teaching, he himself had neither the realization of it nor the Power that it imparts.

Max Theon. Drawing by the Mother

In July 1907, the Mother arrived for her second stay with Theon and Alma, which lasted two months. They worked together, but of this occult work we know little. We know that it was quite perilous, involving exteriorizations which left the Mother’s body in a cataleptic state. And we have the following account of a rather dramatic incident:

It was a peculiar kind of catalepsy in the sense that my body could speak, though very slowly — Theon had taught me how to do it.... However, this state is not without danger, the proof being that while I was working in trance, for some reason or other (which I no longer remember, but obviously due to some negligence on the part of Theon who was there to watch over me), the cord — I don’t know what to call it — went snap! The link was cut, malevolently, and when it was time and I wanted to return, I could no longer re-enter my body. But I was still able to warn him: “The cord is cut.”

Then he used his power and knowledge to help me come back — but it was no joke! It was very difficult.... Theon instantly told me to concentrate (I was finding it all interesting — Mother laughs — I was making experiments and getting ready to go wandering off, but he was terribly scared that I would die on him!). He begged me to concentrate, so I concentrated on my body.

When I re-entered, it hurt terribly, terribly — an excruciating pain, like plunging into a hell. It was frightful. it doesn’t last long.

He made me drink half a glass of cognac (he always made me take some every day after the trance because I would work in trance for more than an hour, which is generally a forbidden practice). Still, I am quite sure that with anybody but me and him, this would have been the end. I would not have reentered. [MA August 25, 1954]

Here is what had happened. During her trance, the Mother had discovered the location of the “mantra of life”:

he wanted me to give it to him, he wanted to possess it — it was something formidable! It was the mantra that gives life (it can make anyone at all come back into life, but that’s only a small part of its power). And it was shut away in a particular place, sealed up, with my name in Sanskrit on it. I didn’t know Sanskrit at that time, but he did, and when he led me to that place, I told him what I saw: “There’s a sort of design, it must be Sanskrit.” [...] He told me to reproduce what I was seeing, and I did so. It was my name, Mirra, written in Sanskrit — the mantra was for me and I alone could open it. “Open it and tell me what’s there,” he said. (All this was going on while I was in a cataleptic trance.) Then immediately something in me KNEW, and I answered, “No,” and did not read it. [MA November 5, 1961]

This made Theon violently angry, and his anger cut the cord.

Paul Richard

Richard had studied philosophy and theology and been a French Protestant minister. In 1905 he resigned his ministry and dedicated himself to humanitarian work. He visited Tlemcen for a few weeks in January/February 1907, and one may suppose that Theon and Alma told him about Mirra Morisset, as the Mother was then called. Mirra and Richard met shortly afterwards, some say during a game of tennis. They grew closer after Mirra’s divorce in March 1908.

Having obtained his law degree in 1908, Richard joined a political party in 1910. It was supposedly this party that sent him to Pondicherry, a French anchoring place described by K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar⁶ as “a dead city ... like a backwater of the sea, a stagnant pool by the shore ... akin to a cemetery .... infested by ghosts and goblins.” It seems, however, that Richard was more interested in finding a spiritual master, a yogi, than in his political pursuits. As reported by the people who met with him on his arrival in Pondicherry, one of his first questions was where he could find a yogi. Somebody told him: “You are incredibly lucky!  the yogi has just arrived.” The yogi in question was Aurobindo Ghose, at that moment the most famous Indian revolutionary who had turned his political revolution into a spiritual one.

Rabindranath Tagore with the Mother and Paul Richard in Japan, June 1916. Wikimedia Commons

Mirra married Paul Richard in May 1911, and went to live in his house in Paris, at 9 Rue du Val de Grâce. The ostensible reason for the marriage was that, after divorcing his Dutch wife, Richard wanted the custody of their three children, “but to do so he had to be legally married, so he asked me to marry him — and I said yes. I have always been totally indifferent to these things. Anyway, when I met him I knew who he was and I decided to convert him” [MA November 5, 1961]. In the same conversation the Mother points out that “my relationship with Richard was on an occult plane, you see, and it’s difficult to touch upon. What happened was far more exciting than any novel imaginable.... He isn’t dead and he’s still terribly dangerous because of what’s behind him.”

This should be kept in mind when trying to understand what their relationship actually meant and how it unfolded. The Mother would clearly state that she was Richard’s guru. Everything he came to know about occultism and spirituality he had from her, and the books he wrote were based on her inspiration. She would accompany him to Pondicherry and to Japan, each time paying for the passage from the money she had left. Outwardly she would be the cultured, intelligent, refined Madame Mirra Richard, while inwardly she would be battling for Richard’s soul, having to swallow the venom of his antagonism and to weather the fury of his Asuric revolt. The Mother sometimes described their relationship as ‘infernal’ and ‘diabolical.’ She was not given to exaggeration and she had, indeed, dared to challenge a demon, one of the most demonic kind — although he too, just like Max Theon, could be extremely gentle and affable, and hardly anybody would have guessed his real nature. (Georges Van Vrekhem⁷)

Paul Richard travelled to Pondicherry once more, this time accompanied by Mirra. They arrived in March 1914. Soon thereafter Richard was called up in the general mobilization, having to leave Sri Aurobindo “in the lurch with 64 pages a month of philosophy all to write by my lonely self” (see this post). He managed, however, to have himself exempted from military service on medical grounds — “a yogic heart ailment!” [MA November 5, 1961] In 1916 he received a commission to promote the export of French products in China and Japan. (It wasn’t all that difficult to get this kind of overseas commission, for at the time nobody else wanted to run the risk of the voyage.) In May 1916 the Richards arrived in Japan, where they spent four years before returning to Pondicherry in April 1920.

And that’s when the tragi-comedy began....

For twelve years I had been Richard’s “guru” (that’s where our relationship stood), but I hadn’t succeeded in converting him, and when we came back here I said, “I’m through with it. I’ve tried and I’ve failed. I’ve failed completely. Ask Sri Aurobindo.” When Sri Aurobindo took him in hand, that was another story.... He couldn’t take it — he left. But the whole affair was diabolic, you know; it had turned into something fantastic....

There was the great argument (for he was perfectly aware of who I was): “But after all,” he would tell me, “since you are the eternal Mother, why have you chosen Aurobindo as Avatar? Choose me! You must choose me — me!” It was the Asura speaking through him. I would smile and not discuss it. “That’s not how it’s done!” I would tell him (laughing). Then one day he said, “Ah, so you don’t want to.... (gesture to the throat) Well, if you don’t choose me, then....” He was a strong fellow with powerful hands. I kept quite calm and said inwardly, My Lord, my Lord.... I called Sri Aurobindo and I saw him come, like that (gesture enveloping Mother and immobilizing everything). Then Richard’s hands loosened their grip. There were marks on my neck.

A few days later, it was the same scene again. It was always the same scene.... Then he would take the furniture (it wasn’t ours, we had rented a furnished apartment) and start throwing it out the window into the courtyard!

A novel....

And you understand, it wasn’t the struggle of a man against a god, but the struggle of a god against a god. And when he was like that, he clearly had a formidable, formidable Power! He forced everybody to obey him — but it was Falsehood. And he preached an ascetic spirituality, you can’t imagine! He was incredibly convincing, but he couldn’t see a petticoat without.... Boys, girls, nothing got by him! [MA November 5, 1961]

On September 3, 1919, the Mother made the following entry in her spiritual diary⁸:

Since the man refused the meal I had prepared with so much love and care, I invoked the God to take it.

My God, Thou hast accepted my invitation, Thou hast come to sit at my table, and in exchange for my poor and humble offering Thou hast granted to me the last liberation. My heart, even this morning so heavy with anguish and care, my head surcharged with responsibility, are delivered of their burden.... Nothing remains of the past but a potent love which gives me the pure heart of a child and the lightness and freedom of thought of a god.

In 1961, the Mother spoke of the experience which prompted the above invocation:

this experience was concrete to the point of being physical. It happened in a Japanese country-house where we were living, near a lake. There was a whole series of circumstances, events, all kinds of things — a long, long story, like a novel. But one day I was alone in meditation (I have never had very profound meditations, only concentrations of consciousness — Mother makes an abrupt gesture showing a sudden ingathering of the entire being); and I was seeing.... You know that I had taken on the conversion of the Lord of Falsehood: I tried to do it through an emanation incarnated in a physical being [Richard], and the greatest effort was made during those four years in Japan. The four years were coming to an end with an absolute inner certainty that there was nothing to be done.... And I was intensely concentrated, asking the Lord, “Well, I made You a vow to do this, I had said, ‘Even if it’s necessary to descend into hell, I will descend into hell to do it....’ Now tell me, what must I do?” … The Power was plainly there: suddenly everything in me became still; the whole external being was completely immobilized and I had a vision of the Supreme ... more beautiful than that of the Gita. [See this post.] A vision of the Supreme. And this vision literally gathered me into its arms; it turned towards the West, towards India, and offered me — and there at the other end I saw Sri Aurobindo. It was ... I felt it physically. I saw, saw — my eyes were closed but I saw (twice I have had this vision of the Supreme — once here, much later — but this was the first time) ... ineffable. It was as if this Immensity had reduced itself to a rather gigantic Being who lifted me up like a wisp of straw and offered me. Not a word, nothing else, only that.

Then everything vanished.

The next day we began preparing to return to India.

The Lord of Nations / Hitler

In May 1940, a few months after the invasion of Poland by Hitler (from the West) and Stalin (from the East), Sri Aurobindo conversed with a small group of disciples in his room. One evening one of them, Purani, mentioned Hitler’s declaration that the war has to be finished and peace agreed upon before August 15, Sri Aurobindo’s birthday. “That,” Sri Aurobindo remarked, “is the sign that he is the enemy of our work. And from the values concerned in the conflict it should be quite clear that what is behind him is the Asuric, the Titanic power.” In response to another observation by the disciple, Sri Aurobindo revealed that it was not Hitler but “the Being behind him” who took his decisions — “a very powerful Being” albeit not the only one of its kind. He then asked Purani whether he has read Paul Richard’s book Lord of the Nations and explained that Richard was “in communion with this Being,” and that “the plans and methods he has written of in his book are the same as those carried out now” [by Hitler].⁹

How did the Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s work relate to the Lord of Nations and Hitler? The Mother explains:

Throughout the war Sri Aurobindo and I were in such a CONSTANT tension that it completely interrupted the yoga. And that is why the war started in the first place — to stop the Work. At that time there was an extraordinary descent of the Supermind; it was coming like that (massive gesture), a descent! Exactly in ‘39. Then the war broke out and stopped everything cold. For had we personally continued [the work of transformation] we were not sure of having enough time to finish it before “the other one” crushed the earth to a pulp, setting the whole Affair back ... centuries. The FIRST thing to be done was stop the action of the Lord of Nations. [MA November 5, 1961]

He it is indeed the biggest obstacle in the universe, this constant negation of the truth. And he has a very strong hold on the terrestrial world, on the material world. Besides, here (on the earth), those who see him, see him as an absolutely marvellous, splendid being. He entitles himself the “Lord of the Nations”, and he appears formidable, luminous, powerful, very impressive.... Historically, he was the inspirer of certain heads of State, and he proclaims himself the Lord of the Nations because it is he who governs the peoples. He is evidently, at the source, the supreme organiser of these last two wars. It was on that occasion that he manifested himself as the Lord of the Nations. And he declared, besides, that he would never be converted. And he knows that his end will come — naturally, he will try to make it as late as possible. And he declared that he would destroy all he could before being destroyed.... We may expect all possible catastrophes.¹⁰

And I saw him, oh! I saw this Lord of Nations. During the last war I had some dealings with him again, but not through Richard — directly. The being who used to appear to Hitler was the Lord of Nations. An incredible story! ... And I knew when they were going to meet (because after all, he’s my son! That was the funniest part of it); and on one occasion I substituted myself for him, became Hitler’s god and advised him to attack Russia. Two days later he attacked Russia. But upon leaving the ‘meeting’ I encountered the other one [the real Asura] just as he was arriving! He was furious and asked me why I had done that. “It’s none of your business,” I said, “it’s what had to be done.” “You will see,” he replied, “I KNOW, I know you will destroy me, but before being destroyed I will wreak just as much havoc as I can, you can be sure of that.” [MA November 5, 1961]

When the Mother recalled this in 1967, she added the following laconic comment: “Childishness.” [MA August 2, 1967]

Of Hitler, the Mother had this to say¹¹:

as a man he was very weak-minded, very sentimental … what is called in French “fleur bleue”, very weak.

But he was possessed. He was rather mediocre by nature, very mediocre. He was a medium, a very good medium — the thing took hold of him, besides, during spiritism séances. It was at that moment that he was seized by those fits which were described as epileptic. They were not epileptic: they were attacks of possession.... [W]hen he wanted to know something from that power, he went away to his castle, and there, in “meditation”, there truly he invoked very intensely what he called his “god”, his supreme god, who was the Lord of the Nations.... [This being] appeared to him all in silver armour, with a silver helmet and golden plume! It was magnificent! And a light so dazzling that hardly could the eyes see and bear that blaze.... And it was at such times that he had his fits: he rolled on the ground, he drivelled, bit the carpet, it was frightful, the state he was in. The people around him knew it. Well, that being is the “Lord of the Nations”. And it is not even the Lord of the Nations in its origin, it is an emanation of the Lord of the Nations, and a very powerful emanation.

At another time the Mother remarked¹² that this Being

played with him as with a monkey or a mouse. He had decided clearly to make Hitler commit all possible extravagances till the day he would break his neck, which did happen. But cases like this are frequent, though on a smaller scale, of course. Hitler was a very good medium, he had great mediumistic capacities, but he lacked intelligence and discrimination. This being could tell him anything whatever and he swallowed it all. It was he who pushed Hitler little by little. And he was doing this as a distraction, he did not take life seriously. For these beings men are very tiny things with whom they play, as a cat plays with a mouse, till finally they eat them up.

1. In some traditions this is called “creation,” but if it’s a creation by the One, it’s also a creation within the One and out of the One.

2. And not only the Indian tradition. The Mother spoke more than once of a tradition anterior to the Vedic Rishis and the Chaldeans, from which both originated. Georges Van Vrekhem (The Mother: The Story of Her Life, p. 53, Kindle Edition 2014) quotes the Mother as saying: “I have memories — these are always lived experiences for me — very clear memories, very precise, of a time which was assuredly much prior to the Vedic times and to the Kabbalistic knowledge of the Chaldean traditions. So personally I am convinced that there was in fact a tradition prior to those two traditions.”

3. The Mother, Questions and Answers 1954, p. 173 (Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, 2003).

4. MA = Mother’s Agenda (Institut de Recherches Evolutives).

5. Indian tradition makes a distinction between a direct incarnation (avatar) and a “mere” emanation (vibhuti) of a god (or a devil).

6. K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, On the Mother, p. 47.

7. Georges Van Vrekhem, The Mother: The Story of Her Life, p. 85.

8. The Mother, Prayer and Meditations, p. 377 (Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, 2003).

9. Nirodbaran, Talks with Sri Aurobindo II, May 20, 1940.

10. Questions and Answers 1954, pp. 375–376.

11. The Mother, Questions and Answers 1953, pp. 377–378 (Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, 2003).

12. The Mother, Questions and Answers 1950–1951, p. 186 (Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, 2003).