Mystical Lyon: Unveiling Sorcery and Occultism

Objective

• Discover the city of esotericists, mystics, and sorcerers: Lyon  
• Take a journey back to 1903 in the Croix Rousse district, guided by the writer Esquirol, eager to share what he has learned about the occultists and sorcerers of his city.
• Explore an authentic and secret history, like a hidden side of Lyon, a Lyon of shadows.
• Through the provided documents and novel, continue the exploration through writing.

Program

Lyon is the city of a thousand secret societies. Esotericism, mysticism... the city has two hills and many more hidden places.

In the company of the writer Esquirol – the unfortunate author of a novel titled "Searching for the Heretic" published nearly a hundred years ago – to find the "eccentric" or "enlightened" characters who populated Lyon during the Belle Époque era. A fascinating gallery awaits us! A Masonic lodge disturbed by the "magnetic" demonstration of the mage Cagliostro; a haunting case from the Renaissance in the convent of the ladies of Saint-Pierre; a heresy that originated in Lyon and then spread throughout Europe; a White Lady and a wayward priest who casts spells... these are some of the (true) stories that the tour evokes with vivid details.

Get to Know Your Guide/Character:

Dressed from head to toe in a suit and bowler hat, sometimes preceded by the swirls of his cane, Jules Esquirol is a Lyonnais writer, but above all, an upright and honest bourgeois. However, at the beginning of the tour, in this beautiful month of... 1903, he had just published his major novel, "Searching for the Heretic!"... Unfortunately, the stocks were destroyed by the printer at the request of Esquirol's scandalized family. The visitors encounter a not-at-all discouraged Esquirol, but rather eager to share what he has learned about the occultists and sorcerers of his city.