Nature had shown me a great mountain, crowned with a peak of immaculate whiteness, but she was unable to teach me the way leading to it.

In 1910 Schwaller became a pupil of the painter Matisse and met Martha (last name unknown), who managed the painter's workshop. They married and had a son named Guy. After a few years  René and Martha were divorced, but the date is unknown. In 1913, René Schwaller was admitted to the French Section of the Theosophical Society. While a member, from 1917 through May 1919, he wrote a total of sixteen articles for the Theosophical journal Le Theosophe. However, he soon resigned from that organization, in the latter part of 1919.  Sometime in the early 1920s, Schwaller met Jeanne (nee Germain) Lamy, widow of a wealthy coal merchant and shipping magnate, Georges Lamy.  René and Jeanne were married in 1927; by this time they were both known to their friends and associates by their occult names: AOR and Isha, respectively

When he was a Theosophist, Schwaller made the acquaintance of several personalities from the Parisian occult world. They included Pierre Dujols, a bookseller and writer; Jean-Julien Champagne, a symbolist painter, alchemist and friend of the de Lesseps family; Eugene Canseliet, a teacher; and Louis Alain-Guillaume, who managed a coal company which employed René Schwaller. Another acquaintance, an important alchemical adept not well-known to the public, was the chemical engineer, Henry Cotton Alvert; he is the person who taught Schwaller the principals of alchemy.

When World War I broke out in 1914, René Schwaller, who was technically a German citizen, refused to join the German Army which was just then invading France. Instead, he volunteered for the French Army but in a non-combat capacity. He served first as a stretcher-bearer, then as an Army laboratory technician where he performed chemical tests on quality of the food being used to supply the French troops. During the War, Schwaller began to think about the creation of a group that would seek to restructure French society that was being exhausted by the War. In 1917, a small group of Theosophists, led by Schwaller, began to meet at the French Theosophical Society in Paris. The group included the coal merchant and shipping magnate, Georges Lamy (died 1927); the coal negotiator for England who was also Schwaller's employer, Louis Alain-Guillaume; and the Lithuanian poet and diplomat, Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz-Milosz (1877-1939). In 1919, Schwaller was given the title "de Lubicz" by the Lithuanian Nationalist, Oscar de Lubicz-Milosz, for Schwaller's efforts made towards the establishment of an independent Lithuania in the aftermath of World War I.

In 1919, the group decided to create a new organization, independent of the Theosophical Society, called the "Watchers;" this was a co-masonic, initiation society, which sought to promote the attainment esoteric knowledge. At this time, Schwaller resigned from the Theosophical Society. Among the "Watchers", was a rather curious symbolist painter and alchemist named Jean-Julien Champagne (1877-1932), who a few years later was suspected to be the real name of the mysterious alchemist known as Fulcanelli. Champagne and René Schwaller had first met in 1913, at the "Closerie des Lilas", a famous brasserie in the Montparnasse district of Paris.

Soon an inner circle of all-male members of the "Watchers" was formed; it was called "the Brotherhood of Elijah" consisting of 12 members: René Schwaller, Oscar Milosz, Henry Cotton-Alvart, Elmiro Celli, Gaston Revel, Carlos Larronde, René Bruyea, Luis de la Rocha, Louis Alainguillaume, Le Carpentier, Georges Lamy and Louis Alain-Guillaume.

These Brothers of Elijah were in some way associated with Julien Champagne, but he was not thought to have been an actual member. Champagne worked for Bernard de Lesseps, son of the great Ferdinand de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal. In 1915, Champagne acquired an enthusiastic disciple, the young Eugene Canseliet (1899-1982). At that time, most Parisian occultists frequented a bookshop called the  Librairie du merveilleux located at 35 rue de Rennes in Paris. In that bookstore, the occultists could hold fruitful discussions with the bookseller, the noted scholar and alchemist Pierre Dujols de Valois (1862-1926) Dujois was a particularly close friend of Julien Champagne. Henry Cotton-Alvart held the highest admiration for Dujols; he considered Dujols to be a master of alchemy but his opinion of Champagne was no where near as high.

René Schwaller had previously studied the French Gothic cathedrals, especially Notre Dame de Paris, in terms of alchemical symbolism. He had prepared a draft manuscript which he had entrusted to Champagne in order to obtain his opinion as to whether the work could and/or should be published. After an extended period of time, Champagne finally returned the manuscript to Schwaller and expressed the opinion that the analysis was well done but that it gave away too many alchemical secrets that should be kept away from the eyes of those who had not been properly initiated. Champagne recommended that the manuscript not be published. Schwaller concurred and ceased all attempts to publish the work. Unfortunately, in 1926, much of Schwaller's manuscript appeared in the book by Fulcanelli entitled Le Mystère des Cathedrales!

Schwaller de Lubicz's Egyptian studies were only a part of his overall work as a 20th Century alchemist and philosopher. One book by Schwaller de Lubicz, Symbol and the Symbolic (Du symbole et de la symbolique), expresses much of the philosophy of Time elaborated by the Zen masters. To read Lubicz is to understand how an Adept alchemist thinks, how the Elixir affects or clears his perception of reality. Lubicz only understood Egyptian esotericism after completing his alchemical studies. He makes clear that comprehension of ancient Egyptian thought will only be feasible if we change our Western mental paradigm.