Name Antoine-Joseph Pernety | Role Writer | |
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Died October 16, 1796, Avignon, France Books Treatise on the great art | ||
Antoine-Joseph Pernety, known as Dom Pernety (23 February 1716, Roanne – 16 October 1796, Avignon) was a French writer. At various times he was a Benedictine, and librarian of Frederic the Great of Prussia. Together with the Polish Count Tadeusz Grabianka, also influenced by the Christian mysticism of Swedenborg he founded in 1760 the secret society of ‘Rite hermetique’ or Illuminati of Avignon.
Pernety took part in the 1763-64 expedition under Louis Antoine de Bougainville that established the Port Saint Louis settlement in the Falkland Islands, and published a two-volume account of his nature exploration of the Falklands and the Brazilian island of Santa Catarina. In particular, he gave the first description of the Falklands stone runs phenomenon.
In 1767 Pernety moved to Berlin. In 1779 he became a member of Illumines of Avignon. In 1780 the oracle "la Sainte Parole" began to advice the Illumines of Avignon to leave Berlin to establish elsewhere the foundations of a new Sion. In 1783 Pernety left Berlin at the command of the oracle. In October 1784 the oracle told the group that it should move to Avignon. In 1793 Illumines of Avignon were suppressed by law.
In 1782 Pernety translated from Latin into French Emanuel Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell and in 1786 Swedenborg's Divine Love and Wisdom.