The Order of Knight-Masons Elect Priests of the Universe, known as the Elus Cohen, is the source from which the whole Martinist current flows, and its distinguishing feature is a commitment to theurgy, ritual operations intended to contact the divine.
Theurgy within a Masonic frame
Founded in France in the early 1760s by Martinez de Pasqually within the world of eighteenth-century Freemasonry, the order taught a system of ceremonial magic set inside a Masonic structure of grades, drawing on the Kabbalah and on Christian theosophy. Its central concern was reintegration, the return of fallen humanity to its original divine state, pursued through elaborate theurgic rites reserved to the higher grades, which is what sets it apart from the purely symbolic Masonry of its day.
The inheritance
After the death of Pasqually in 1774 the order declined, but its teaching passed to students who shaped the later tradition, above all Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, who moved away from ceremonial theurgy toward an inward mystical path, and Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, who carried elements of it into other Masonic systems. The modern Martinist orders organised in the late nineteenth century trace their descent to this eighteenth-century foundation, so that the Elus Cohen stands behind a family of currents far larger than itself.