Chapter 8 THE SUPREME CENTRE CONCEALED DURING THE KALI-YUGA

AGARTTHA, it is said, did not always exist underground, and will not always remain so. A time will come when, according to Ossendowski's report, 'the people of Agharti will come out of their caves and appear on the surface of the earth'. [1] Before its disappearance from the visible world, the centre bore another name since 'Agarttha', which means 'ungraspable' or 'inaccessible' (and also 'inviolable' as it is Salem, the 'abode of peace'), would not yet have become appropriate. Ossendowski dates its withdrawal underground as 'more than six thousand years ago', which turns out, given a reasonable approximation, to correspond to the beginning of the Kali-Yuga or 'Black Age', the 'Iron Age' of the ancient West, which is the last of the four periods into which the Manvantara is divided. [2] Its reappearance should therefore coincide with the ending of this same period. Reference has already been made to something that is lost or hidden, reported in all traditions, and which is represented by different symbols; in a general sense this loss tallies exactly with the conditions of humanity during the Kali-Yuga. The current period is one of occlusion and confusion, [3] its conditions are such that initiatory knowledge must remain hidden for as long as they endure, hence the nature of the 'Mysteries' of historical antiquity (which does not even reach back to the beginning of this period) [4] and the secret societies of all peoples. Such organizations provide an effective initiation only where an authentic traditional doctrine still exists, offering but a shadow when the spirit of the doctrine no longer vivifies the symbols that are merely its external representation; this happens when for different reasons the conscious connection with the supreme spiritual centre of the world is finally broken. This loss of a direct and effective link with the supreme centre is the most significant aspect of the loss of a tradition and that which particularly affects secondary or dependent centres. It is important to realize that we should be talking of something that is hidden rather than truly lost, because it is not lost to everybody but still possessed in its entirety, albeit by a very few. This gives rise, of course, to the possibility for others to rediscover it, provided they search in the proper manner, which is to say that their intention must be directed in such a way that, through the harmonious vibrations it awakens, it enables an effective spiritual communication to be made with the Supreme Centre, [5] through the law of 'concordant actions and reactions'. [6] In all traditional forms this right intention is always symbolically represented generally by a ritual orientation, properly directed towards some spiritual centre that - whatever it may be - is always but a reflection of the true 'Centre of the World'. [7] However, the further the KaliYuga progresses, the more difficult it becomes to attain unity with this centre, which in its turn becomes more and more closed and concealed; at the same time those secondary centres that represent it externally become rarer; [8] yet when this period finishes the tradition will of necessity be manifested again in its entirety, for the beginning of each Manvantara coincides with the end of the preceding one, thus implying the inevitable return of the 'primordial state' for humanity on earth. [9] In Europe, every consciously established link with the centre through the medium of orthodox organizations is now broken, as has been the case for several centuries. This severance was gradual, completed in various successive stages rather than at once. [10] The first of these breaks occurred at the beginning of the fourteenth century, at which time one of the principal roles of the Orders of Chivalry was to make a direct connection between East and West. The importance of such a link will be readily understood when it is recalled that the centre has always, at least in 'historical' times, been depicted as being situated in the Orient. After the destruction of the Order of the Templars, the liaison was maintained in a less overt fashion by the Rosicrucians, or those to whom this name was afterwards given. [11] The Renaissance and the Reformation marked another critical phase, after which, as Saint-Yves appears to suggest, the complete and final rupture coincided with the treaties of Westphalia which ended the Thirty Years War in 1648. It is a remarkable fact that several writers have agreed that the true Rosicrucians left Europe shortly after the Thirty Years War to retire into Asia: it may be recalled that the Rosicrucian adepts numbered twelve like the members of Agarttha's inner circle; both, therefore, complied with the constitution common to so many other spiritual centres formed in the image of the supreme centre. Since that last period, the store of effective initiatory knowledge has not been truly kept by any western organization. According to Swedenborg, the 'lost Word' must henceforth be sought among the Sages of Tibet and of Tartary, where the mysterious 'Mount of Prophets' of Anne-Catherine Emmerich's vision is also set. The fragmentary information that Madame Blavatsky was able to gather on this subjectwithout fully understanding its true significance - gave birth to her conception of the 'Great White Lodge', which we should call not an image, but quite simply a caricature or imaginary parody, of Agarttha. [12]