Antonin Gadal

Antonin Gadal (May 15, 1877 – June 15, 1962) was a French mystic and historian who dedicated his life to study of the Cathars in the south of France, their spirituality, beliefs and ideology.

Gadal was born in 1877 in the Pyrenean town of Tarascon in the Ariège region in the south of France,[1] which was one of the centres of the heretical gnostic Christian movement known as the Cathars or the Albigensians in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Gadal grew up in a house next to the Tarasconian historian Adolphe Garrigou who specialised in the history of the Cathars (along with his son he is honoured by a plaque on the building he lived in one of the squares in Tarascon).

[3] Gadal's theories and ideas subsequently became a very important element in the cosmology of the Lectorium and to this day members of the society embark on pilgrimages to the Ariège and the Lombrives caves every five years.

As well as his work in the Ariège region, Gadal travelled widely through Europe and the world lecturing on the Cathars, his findings and theories, many of which were rejected by academics as being too mystical or speculative.