Metaphysics & Dialectic
We recently learned of an article that seems to deserve some attention because certain of the misapprehensions it evinces have been taken so far.[1] We were of course amused to read that those 'who have some experience of metaphysical knowledge' (among whom the author obviously places himself even while, with a remarkable impudence, denying us the privilege, as if he could possibly know!) will find nothing in our work but 'remarkably precise conceptual distinctions', that is, distinctions of a 'purely dialectical order', and 'representations that may serve as useful pre-liminaries, but that from the practical and methodological point of view do not advance one step beyond the realm of words toward the universal.' But we greatly fear that our contemporaries, so accustomed to stopping at external appearances, will commit similar errors: when we see them falling into error regarding traditional authorities such as Shankarāchārya for example, there is assuredly no reason for surprise that they do the same with regard to us, taking the 'husk' for the 'kernel'. However this may be, we would like to know how truth of any order whatsoever could be expressed without the use of words (excepting the case of purely symbolic figures, which are not under discussion here) and without a 'dialectical' form-in short,
those discursive forms imposed by the very requirements of all human language-and also, given the subject under discussion, how any verbal explanation, whether written or oral, could be more than a 'useful preliminary'. It seems however that we have sufficiently stressed the essentially preparatory character of all theoretical knowledge, which is obviously the only knowledge that can be attained through a study of such explanations; but this is not at all to say that, in this respect and within these limits, it is not rigorously indispensable for all those who then wish to go further. And to avoid any misunderstanding let us immediately add that, contrary to what is said regarding a passage from our Perspectives on Initiation, we have never had the intention of saying anything about either our own 'inner experience', which is of no concern or interest to anyone, or anyone else's, since it is always something strictly incommunicable by its very nature.
Fundamentally, the author scarcely seems to understand what we mean by the term 'metaphysical', and even less what we mean by 'pure intellectuality', the 'transcendent' character of which he would like to deny, thus betraying the common confusion between intellect and reason, an error not unrelated to another he commits concerning the role of 'dialectic' in our writings (and, we could also say, in any writing concerned with this same realm). This is all too obvious when he asserts that 'the ultimate meaning of our work,' about which he speaks with an assurance that his incomprehension scarcely warrants, resides in a 'mental transparency, not recognized as such and with limits that are still "human", which we see at work when we take this transparency for effective initiation.' Faced with such assertions, we must once again repeat as clearly as possible that there is absolutely no difference between pure and transcendent intellectual knowledge (which, as such and contrary rational knowledge, has nothing 'mental' or 'human' about it), that is to say effective and not merely theoretical metaphysical knowledge, and initiatic realization, any more than between pure intellectuality and true spirituality.
This explains why the author considered it necessary to speak out, and even with some vehemence, about our 'thought', that is, about something which strictly speaking ought to be considered as non-existent, or at least ought to count for nothing when applied to our work, since it is not at all what we have put into the latter, which is exclusively an exposition of traditional data-only the expression being our own; this data, furthermore, is not the product of any kind of 'thought' whatsoever, by very reason of its traditional character, which essentially implies a supra-individual and 'non-human' origin. His error in this regard appears most clearly when he claims that we have 'mentally rejoined' the idea of the Infinite, which moreover is an impossibility; we have not in fact 'rejoined' it mentally or otherwise, for this idea (and again, this word can only be used in such cases if we rid it of the exclusively 'psychological' meaning currently ascribed to it) can only be grasped directly by an immediate intuition that belongs, we repeat, to the domain of pure intellectuality; all the rest are but means intended to prepare for this intuition those capable of it. It must be understood that as long as they are only 'thinking' through these means they will achieve no effective results, any more than someone who reasons or reflects on what are commonly called the 'proofs of the existence of God' will attain an effective knowledge of Divinity by this means alone. What it is necessary to know is that 'concepts' as such, and above all 'abstractions', do not interest us in the least (it goes without saying that this 'us' includes all who, like ourselves, adopt a strictly and integrally traditional point of view), and we willingly leave all these mental elaborations to philosophers and other 'thinkers.[2] But when obliged to explain matters of an altogether different order, and especially in a Western language, we fail to see how one can avoid using words that in the majority of cases in fact only express simple concepts in current usage, since there are no others at our disposal;[3] if some are incapable of understanding the transposition that must be
effectuated in such a case in order to fathom the 'ultimate meaning', there is unfortunately nothing we can do about it. As for trying to discover in our work traces of the 'limits of our own knowledge', this is a waste of time, for, aside from this having nothing to do with 'us', our explanations are strictly impersonal by the very fact that they refer exclusively to truths of a traditional order; and, if we have not always succeeded in making this characteristic perfectly obvious, this should be ascribed rather to difficulties of expression.[4] This reminds us only too well of those who suppose that anyone who intentionally refrains from speaking about a thing is either ignorant of it, or does not understand it!
As for 'esoteric dialectic', this expression is acceptable only if one means by it dialectic in the service of esoterism as the external means used to communicate what can be expressed verbally, and always with the reservation that such an expression is necessarily inadequate, especially in the purely metaphysical order, by the very fact that it is formulated in 'human' terms. Dialectic is after all nothing but the use or practical application of logic;[5] now it hardly needs pointing out that the moment one wishes to say something it becomes necessary to conform to the laws of logic, which certainly does not mean that in themselves the truths to be expressed are dependent on these laws, any more than the fact that a draftsman is obliged to sketch a picture of a three-dimensional object on a twodimensional surface thereby proves his ignorance of the existence of the third dimension. Logic does in fact dominate everything pertaining to reason, and, as its name indicates, this is its proper domain; but on the other hand everything of the supra-individualand therefore supra-rational-order by this very fact obviously escapes that domain, for the superior could not be subservient to
the inferior. Regarding truths of this order, logic can therefore only intervene in an incidental way, and their expression in discursive, or 'dialectical' mode is a kind of 'descent' to the individual level, failing which these truths would remain totally incommunicable.[6]
With singular inconsistency the author, even while reproaching us-through pure and simple incomprehension moreover-for stopping at the 'mental' level without realizing it, seems particularly embarrassed by the fact that we speak of the 'renunciation of the mental'. What he says on this subject is quite confused, but at bottom he seems unwilling to admit that the limits of individuality can be transcended, and that, as regards realization, for him everything is restricted (if we may express it so) to a sort of 'exaltation' of these limits, since he claims that 'the individual, by itself, tends to rediscover its original source,' which is precisely an impossibility for the individual as such since it obviously cannot surpass itself by its own means; and if this source were of an individual order, it would still be something very relative. If the being which is a human individual were truly nothing more than a being in a certain state of manifestation, there would be no way for him to emerge from the conditions of this state, and as long as he has not effectively emerged from it, that is, as long as he is still only an individual according to appearances (and we must not forget that for his present consciousness these appearances are confounded with reality itself, since they are all that he can attain of it), all that is necessary to enable him to go beyond them can only present itself as 'external',[7] for he has not yet
arrived at the stage where such distinctions as 'interior' and 'exterior' cease to be valid. Every conception that tends to deny these incontestable truths is nothing but a manifestation of modern individualism, whatever illusions those who hold to them may entertain in this regard;[8] and in the present instance the final conclusions, which are in fact equivalent to a negation of tradition and initiation under the pretext of rejecting all recourse to 'exterior' means of realization, show only too well that this is indeed so.
The author's conclusions now remain to be examined, and here there is at least one passage we must cite in its entirety: 'In the interior constitution of modern man there is a fracture that makes tradition appear to be an external collection of doctrines and rites, and not a supra-human current of life into which he might plunge himself in order to revive; in modern man lives the error that separates the transcendent world from that of the senses, so that he perceives the latter as deprived of the Divine; hence re-union or reintegration cannot come about through an initiatic form that antedates the time in which such an error became an accomplished fact.' We, too, are altogether of the opinion that this is indeed a most serious error, and also that this error, which properly speaking constitutes the profane point of view, is so characteristic of the modern spirit itself as to be truly inseparable from it, to the extent that, for those dominated by this spirit, there is no hope of freeing themselves from it. It is obvious that from the initiatic point of view this error is an insurmountable 'disqualification', which is why 'modern man' is really unfit to receive an initiation, or at least to attain to effective initiation; but we should add that there are exceptions, because in spite of everything even in the West today there are men who, by their 'interior constitution', are not 'modern men' but are capable of grasping the essence of tradition and do not accept this profane error as a fait accompli; and it is to these that we have always intended to address ourselves exclusively. But this is not all, for the author next falls into a curious contradiction, for he seems to want to present as 'progress' what he first recognized as error. Let us again quote his own words:
To hypnotize men with the mirage of tradition and of an 'orthodox' organization to transmit initiation is in effect to paralyze that possibility of liberation and the conquest of liberty that for present-day man lies strictly in the fact that he has attained the ultimate degree of knowledge, that he has become conscious even to the point that the gods, the oracles, the myths, and the initiatic transmissions are no longer effective.
This is assuredly a strange misunderstanding of the real situation, for never has man been further than at present from the 'ultimate degree of knowledge', unless this be understood in the descending direction, and if he has really arrived at the point where all the things enumerated above no longer have an effect on him, it is not because he has climbed too high, but on the contrary because he has fallen too low, as is shown moreover by the fact that their many more or less crude counterfeits are quite effective in unbalancing him further. There is much talk about 'autonomy', the 'conquest of liberty', and so forth, always understood in a purely individualistic sense, but it is forgotten, or rather, remains un-known, that true liberation is only possible through emancipation from the limits inherent to the individual condition; one no longer wishes to hear of regular initiatic transmission or of traditional orthodox organizations, but what of the altogether comparable case of a man who, on the point of drowning, refuses the help offered him by a rescuer because it is 'external'? Whether we like it or not, the truth is-and this has nothing to do with any 'dialectic' whatsoever-that outside of an affiliation with a traditional organization, there is no initiation, and that without first being initiated, no metaphysical realization is possible; these are neither 'mirages' and 'ideal' illusions, nor vain 'speculations of thought', but entirely positive realities. Doubtless our opponent will argue that anything we say remains in the 'realm of words'; by the very nature of things, this is only too evident, and is equally true of what he says, but with one essential difference: however convinced he himself may be to the contrary, his words, for whoever understands their 'ultimate meaning', reflect nothing but the mental attitude of a profane person; and we ask him to believe that this is not meant as an insult on our part, but is merely the 'technical' expression of a simple fact.