25 On the Initiatic DEGREES

We were greatly astonished to note recently that certain people, who should have had a better understanding of our repeated explanations of initiation, were still committing rather strange errors concerning this subject, bearing witness to altogether inaccurate notions on questions that are after all relatively simple. Thus we have heard the assertion-perfectly inexplicable coming from anyone who possesses, or ought to possess, some knowledge of these things-that between the spiritual state of an initiate who has simply 'entered the path' and the 'primordial state' there is no intermediate degree. The truth is that on the contrary a great number of such degrees exist, for the path of the 'lesser mysteries', which leads to the 'primordial state', takes very long to travel, and in fact few ever reach its end; how then could anyone maintain that all who travel this path are really at the same point, and that there are none who have reached different stages? Besides, if such were the case, how could it be that the initiatic forms related to the 'lesser mysteries' generally include a plurality of degrees (three in some, seven in others, to mention only the best known examples), and to what could these degrees correspond? We have also cited a Taoist enumeration in which mention is made of two intermediate degrees between the state of the 'wise man' and that of the 'true man'; [1] and this is a particularly clear example, since the 'primordial state' (which is that of the 'true man') is expressly situated at the fourth degree of an initiatic hierarchy. Regardless of the way they are distributed, these degrees always represent (theoretically at least, or symbolically in cases involving a merely virtual initiation) nothing less than the different stages of an effective initiation, to which there necessarily correspond the same number of distinct spiritual states, of which they are the successive realizations; were it otherwise, they would be entirely devoid of any meaning. In reality, the intermediate degrees of initiation can even be indefinitely multiple, and it must be well understood that the degrees found in an initiatic organization never constitute anything but a more or less general and 'schematic' classification, limited to the consideration of certain principal stages, or those that are more sharply characterized which moreover explains the diversity of these classifications. [2] Also, it goes without saying that even if for reasons of 'method' an initiatic organization does not confer degrees that are clearly distinct and marked by specific rites, this does not prevent the same stages from necessarily existing for those who are attached to them (at least as soon as they pass to effective initiation), for there are no means that allow one to attain the goal directly. We can present the matter in another way, which will perhaps render it more 'tangible'. We have explained that initiation into the 'lesser mysteries', which naturally takes man such as he is in his present state, requires him to retrace as it were the cycle traversed in a descending direction by humanity as a whole in the course of its history, in order to lead him back finally to the 'primordial state' itself. [3] Now it is evident that between this latter state and the present state of humanity there have been many intermediate stages, as is proven by the traditional distinction of the four ages, each of which can be further subdivided; and since the spiritual degeneration was not accomplished at a single stroke but in successive stages, then logically regeneration cannot occur except by passing through the same stages in reverse sequence, thereby gradually approaching the 'primordial state' that is to be regained. We can better understand how some might believe that there are no distinct degrees on the path of the 'greater mysteries'-the path, that is, between the state of 'true man' and that of 'transcendent man'-for although such a belief is equally false, it is at least a more readily explicable illusion. There are however multiple supra-individual states, among which are some that are in reality very far from the unconditioned state in which alone is realized 'Deliverance' or the 'Supreme Identity'; but as soon as a being has passed beyond the 'primordial state' to any supra-individual state, those still in the individual human state lose sight of that being, as it were, just as an observer whose view is limited to a horizontal plane would know of a vertical only at its single point of intersection with that plane, all its other points necessarily escaping him. This point, which properly corresponds to the 'primordial state', is thus at the same time the sole 'trace' of all the supra-human states, as we have said elsewhere; that is why, from the human state, the 'transcendent man', along with all who have only realized supra-individual states that remain conditioned, are truly 'indistinguishable' from one another, which is also true of the 'true man' himself, who has however only reached the center of the human state and is not in effective possession of any superior state. [4] These remarks have had no other purpose than to recall certain notions that we have previously explained, but that have apparently not always been sufficiently understood; and we thought it all the more necessary to return to them because it is truly dangerous for those who are still only at the first stage of initiation to imagine that they are already immediate candidates (if we may so express it) for the realization of the 'primordial state'. It is true that some go even further and are persuaded that, to obtain 'Deliverance' itself immediately, it is enough to experience a sincere desire accompanied by absolute confidence in a guru, without having to make the least effort oneself. In the presence of such aberrations one cannot but think that one is surely dreaming!