INITIATIC ORGANIZATIONS & SECRET SOCIETIES
There is another very frequent error concerning the nature of initiatic organizations that deserves closer attention than does the error of assimilating them to religious 'sects', for it relates to a point that seems particularly difficult for most of our contemporaries to understand, but is one that we consider absolutely essential. This is that initiatic organizations differ entirely in nature from all that in our day are called 'societies' or 'associations', these being defined by outward characteristics that may be completely absent from initiatic organizations, for even if such characteristics are sometimes introduced therein, they remain altogether accidental and, as we have said from the beginning, must not be regarded as anything but the effect of a kind of degeneration, or, if one prefers, of a contamination, in the sense of adopting profane or at least very exoteric forms with no real relation to the true aim of these organizations. Thus it is altogether erroneous to identify 'initiatic organizations' with 'secret societies', as is commonly done. First of all, it is very evident that the two expressions cannot in any way coincide in their application, for in fact there are many kinds of secret societies that have nothing initiatic about them since they can be formed by mere individual initiative and for any goal whatsoever, a point to which we shall have to return later. On the other hand, if it happens that an initiatic organization should accidentally take on the form of a society (and this is doubtless the principal cause of the error just mentioned), it would necessarily be secret in at least one of the
meanings of this word, meanings not always distinguished with sufficient precision.
Indeed, it must be said that current usage appears to attach to the expression 'secret societies' several rather different meanings that do not seem necessarily connected, hence the divergence of opinion when it comes to knowing whether a designation really fits in this or that particular case. Some wish to restrict the expression to organizations that conceal their existence, or at least the names of their members; others extend it to organizations that are merely 'closed' or that keep secret only certain special forms, ritual or not, adopted as means of recognition for their members, or other things of this kind; and naturally the first group will protest when the second qualify as secret an association that cannot meet their own definition. We say 'protest' because all too often discussions of this kind are not at all of an entirely disinterested nature. When more or less openly declared adversaries of some organization call it secret, rightly or wrongly, they obviously have a polemical and more or less insulting intention, as if in their eyes the secret could only have 'unavowed' molives, and one can sometimes even discern a sort of thinly-veiled threat in the guise of a deliberate allusion to the 'illegality' of such an organization, for it is hardly necessary to say that it is always on the 'social' if not on the merely 'political' aspect of things that such discussions dwell. It is quite understandable under such conditions that members or partisans of the organization in question do their best to prove that the epithet 'secret' could not really be applied to it, and that for this reason they wish to accept only the most restricted definition, which most evidently cannot be applicd to them. Furthermore, one can say in a general way that most of these discussions have no other cause than a lack of agreement about the meanings of the terms employed; but when, as is the case here, any interests are involved underneath this divergence in the use of words, it is very likely that the discussion will be pursued indefinitely without the adversaries ever arriving at an agreement. In any case, the contingencies that occur in such cases are surely very far from the initiatic domain, which is the only one to concern us; if we have felt obliged to say a few words about this here it is solely to clear the ground, as it were, and also to demonstrate that in
all of the quarrels relating to secret socictics, or to what are so called, either initiatic organizations are not involved, or at least it is not their initiatic character as such that is involved, something, moreover, that would be impossible for other more profound reasons that the rest of our account will better explain.
Placing ourselves entirely outside of such discussions and at the point of view of disinterested knowledge, we can say that whether or not an organization clothes itself in the particular and moreover wholly outward forms that permit it to be defined as a society, it can be qualified as secret in the widest sense of this word, and without attaching to it the least unfavorable intention, [1] when it possesses a secret of any kind whatsoever, whether by the very force of things or only in virtue of a more or less artificial and explicit convention. We think this definition is wide enough to include all the possible cases, from initiatic organizations furthest removed from any outward manifestation to mere societies of any purpose, political or otherwise, which, as we said above, have no initiatic or even traditional character at all. It is thus from within the domain it embraces, and basing ourselves as much as possible on its own terms, that we must make the necessary distinctions, and this in a twofold way: on the one hand, between organizations that are societies and those that are not; and on the other, between those that have an initiatic character and those that do not; for owing to the 'contamination' we have pointed out, the two distinctions do not exactly coincide; they would coincide only if historical contingencies had not led in certain cases to an intrusion of profane forms into organizations that by their origin and essential purpose are nonetheless of an incontestably initiatic nature.
There is no need to dwell at great length on the first of the two points just noted, for everyone knows well enough what a 'society' is, that is to say an association having statutes, rules, and meetings at fixed times and places, keeping a roll of its members, possessing archives, minutes of meetings, and other written documents; in a
word, hedged round by a more or less cumbersome exterior apparatus. [2] All of this, we repeat, is perfectly useless for an initiatic organization, which in the matter of outward forms and symbols has need of nothing but a certain collection of rites and symbols which, as with the teaching accompanying and explaining them, must be transmitted in a regular fashion by oral tradition. In this connection we will again recall that even if these things are sometimes set down in writing, this can only be as a mere 'mnemonic device' and could in no case obviate direct and oral transmission, since this latter alone permits communication of a spiritual influence which is the fundamental purpose of every initiatic organization. A profane person who knew all the rites from having read their descriptions in books would still not be initiated in any way, for it is quite evident that the spiritual influence attached to these rites would in no way have been transmitted to him.
An immediate consequence of what we have just said is that, as long as it does not take on the contingent form of a society with all the exterior manifestations that this implies, an initiatic organization is as it were 'ungraspable' by the profane world; and one can understand without difficulty that it leaves no trace accessible to the investigations of ordinary historians whose essential method is to refer solely to written documents, which in this case are nonexistent. On the other hand, every society, no matter how secret it may be, presents an 'outside' that is necessarily open to investigation by the profane, and through which it is always possible for them to acquire some measure of knowledge about it, even if they are incapable of penetrating to its more profound nature. It goes without saying that this last proviso concerns initiatic organizations that have taken on such a form, or, let us say freely, have degenerated into societies because of their circumstances and the environment in which they find themselves; and we will add that this phenomenon has never occurred so plainly as in the West, that it affects all
that remains of organizations still able to claim an authentically initiatic character, even if, as cannot be pointed out too often, in their present state most of their members themselves have come to misunderstand this. We do not wish to investigate here the causes of this misunderstanding, which are diverse and numerous and derive in great part from the special nature of the modern mentality; we will only point out that this form of society may well be a factor, for since in this form the exterior inevitably takes on an importance out of proportion with its real value, the accidental ends up completely masking the essential; and what is more, the apparent similarities with profane societies can also occasion many errors concerning the true nature of these initiatic organizations.
We will give only one example of such misunderstandings, one that touches the very heart of our subject. Where a profane society is concerned, one can leave it as one entered it and thereupon find oneself purely and simply what one was before; a resignation or a dismissal suffices to break all ties which are obviously of a wholly outward nature and imply no profound modification of the being. On the contrary, once one has been admitted into an initiatic organization, whatever it may be, one can never by any means cease to be attached to it, for by the very fact that it consists essentially in the transmission of a spiritual influence, initiation is necessarily conferred once and for all and possesses a strictly ineffaceable character. Here we have a fact of an 'interior' order against which no administrative formality can do a thing. But wherever there is a society there are by that very fact administrative formalities through which there can be resignations and dismissals, by means of which one ceases to all appearances to be a part of the society in question; and one sees immediately the ambiguity that results when the society represents only the 'exteriority' of an initiatic organization. Thus it is necessary in all strictness to make a distinction between the society and the initiatic organization as such; and since, as we have said, the first is merely a contingent and 'superadded' form of which the second-in itself and in all that constitutes its essence-remains entirely independent, the application of this distinction really presents much less of a difficulty than might at first appear.
Another consequence to which we are logically led by these considerations is this: every society, even a secret one, can always be the target of attacks coming from the outside because it has in its makeup elements that situate it, so to speak, on the same level as these attacks; thus, in particular, it can be dissolved by the action of a political power. On the contrary, the initiatic organization by its very nature escapes such contingencies, and no external force can suppress it; in this sense, too, it is truly 'ungraspable'. In fact, since the quality inhering in its members cannot be lost nor the existence of the members be taken away, the organization preserves an effective existence as long as even one single member remains alive, and only the death of the last one will bring about its disappearance. But even this eventuality supposes that its authorized representatives, for reasons of which they alone can judge, will have decided not to ensure the continuation of the transmission of which they are the depositaries; and thus the sole possible cause of its suppression, or rather of its extinction, is necessarily found only within itself.
Finally, every initiatic organization is also 'ungraspable' from the point of vicw of its secret, this secret being such by nature and not by convention and consequently impenetrable by the profane; the converse is a self-contradictory hypothesis, for the true initiatic secret is nothing other than the 'incommunicable' of which initiation alone can give knowledge. But this relates rather to the second of the two distinctions indicated above, that between initiatic organizations and those secret societies devoid of any initiatic character at all. Moreover, this distinction seems apparent enough when we consider the different ends that each kind of organization proposes, though in fact the question is more complex than it may seem at first glance. There is one case, however, that brooks no doubt: if the origin of any organization whatsoever is fully documented as the work of individuals whose names can be cited and which thus possesses no link to tradition, one may rest assured, despite the claims, that there is absolutely nothing initiatic about the organization. The existence of ritual forms in some of these organizations changes nothing in this regard, for such forms, borrowed or imitated from initiatic organizations, are merely a parody lacking any real value;
and this applies not only to organizations of which the ends are wholly political or, more generally, 'social', in whatever sense can be attributed to this word, but also to all those modern constructions that we have called pseudo-initiatic, including those claiming a vague 'ideal' affiliation with some tradition.
On the other hand, there may be some doubt in the case of an organization of which the origin has something enigmatic and which cannot be linked to definite individuals; for even if its manifestations clearly have no initiatic character it may nonetheless be a deviation or a degeneration of something that was originally initiatic. This deviation, which occurs especially under the influence of social preoccupations, implies that incomprehension of the organization's primary and essential end has become general among its members; in practice, this incomprehension can be of a greater or lesser degree, and what still remains of initiatic organizations in the West represents in a certain way an intermediate stage in this respect. The extreme case is where the ritual and symbolic forms are preserved but no awareness remains of their true initiatic character, so much so that they are no longer interpreted except according to some contingent application. Whether this function be legitimate or not is in any case not the question, for degeneration consists precisely in the fact that nothing is envisaged beyond this application and the more or less exterior domain to which it is particularly related. It is quite clear that in such cases those who see things only 'from the outside' are unable to discern what is really involved or to distinguish between this kind of degenerate initiatic organization and the kind we first spoke about [that is, between initiatic organizations that have degenerated into mere societies and those, pseudo-initiatic or not, having origins that can be traced to individuals], all the more so in that once the former have lost all comprehension of any purpose except one similar to that for which the latter were artificially created, there results a sort of de facto 'affinity' by virtue of which both can find themselves in more or less direct contact, and even sometimes more or less inextricably mixed.
To better understand this point let us consider a pair of organizations that seem outwardly similar but nonetheless clearly differ in origin, and belong respectively to each of the two catcgories we have
just distinguished: the Illuminati of Bavaria and the Carbonari. Regarding the first, their founders are known, as is the manner in which they elaborated its 'system' on their own initiative and with no connection whatsoever to anything already existing; and we also know the successive stages by which the grades and rituals were transmitted-though some of these were never practiced and existed only on paper-for everything was written down from the beginning as the founders' ideas developed and became more precise; this, indeed, was what led to the miscarriage of their plans, which, of course, referred exclusively to the social domain and did not in any respect go beyond it. There is thus no doubt that all of this was only the artificial production of certain individuals and that the forms they adopted were only a simulacrum or parody of initiation, for a traditional affiliation was lacking and a truly initiatic purpose was foreign to their preoccupations. With Carbonarism, on the contrary, it is obvious both that it is impossible to assign it an 'historical' origin of this sort and that its rituals clearly present the character of a 'craft initiation', as such akin to Masonry and the Compagnonnage. But whereas the latter have always retained a certain understanding of their initiatic character, however diminished through the intrusion of preoccupations of a contingent order and the ever greater part accorded them, it does seem-although one cannot be certain, since a few members who are not necessarily the apparent leaders can always prove an exception to the general incomprehension, without it being obvious [3] -that the degeneration of Carbonarism finally reached such a degree that it became no more than an association of political conspirators whose activities in the history of the nineteenth century are well known. The Carbonari then mingled with other organizations of quite recent formation that had never possessed any initiatic character at all, while, on the other hand, many of them at the same time also belonged to Masonry, which can be explained both by the affinity of these two organizations and by a certain degeneration of Masonry itself in the same direction, though not carried as far, as that of Carbonarism.
As for the Illuminati, their relationship with Masonry had a completely different character: those who joined did so only with the firm intention of acquiring a preponderant influence and using it as an instrument for realizing their particular designs, an attempt that also failed, as did everything clse; and one can see well enough by this how far from the truth are those who claim to make of the Illuminati themselves a 'Masonic' organization. Let us add further that the ambiguity of the name 'Illuminati' should give us no illusions. It is used here only in a strictly 'rationalist' sense, and it must not be forgotten that in eighteenth-century Germany the term 'enlightenment' had a meaning almost cquivalent to that of 'philosophy' in France, which is to say that nothing more profane and even more formally contrary to any initiatic or even merely traditional spirit than this can be conceived.
Let us open yet another parenthesis regarding this last remark. If it happens that some 'philosophical' and more or less 'rationalist' ideas infiltrate an initiatic organization, this must be seen only as the effect of individual or collective error on the part of its members duc to their incapacity to understand the true nature of the organization and thus to secure themselves from all profane 'contamination'. This error of course in no way affects the very principle of the organization, but is one of the symptoms of that actual degeneration of which we have spoken, regardless of how far this may have advanced. And we can say as much of 'sentimentalism' and of 'moralism' in all their forms, which are no less profane in nature, all of this being gencrally linked more or less closely to a predominance of social preoccupations. But it is especially when these preoccupations take on a specifically 'political' form in the narrowest sense of the word that the degeneration risks becoming practically irremediable. Onc of the strangest phenomena of this kind is the penetration of 'democratic' ideas into Western initiatic organizations (here we are naturally thinking of Masonry above all, or at least of certain of its factions) without their members appearing to recognize that this is a purc and simple contıadiction, and indeed in two respects, for by very definition every initiatic organization is formally opposed to the notion of the 'democratic' or the 'egalitarian', firstly with respect to the profane world, in regard to which it is, in the most exact
acceptation of the word, a separate and closed 'elite', and secondly in itself, by virtue of the hierarchy of grades and functions that it necessarily establishes among its own members. This phenomenon is but one of the manifestations of the deviation of the modern Western spirit which spreads and penetrates everywhere, even where it ought to encounter the most unyielding resistance; moreover, this does not apply to the initiatic point of view alone, but applies equally to the religious point of view, that is, in sum, to all that has a truly traditional character.
Thus, in addition to organizations that have remained purely initiatic there are others that for one or another reason have degenerated or deviated more or less completely but that nonetheless remain initiatic at their core, however misunderstood this core may be in the present conditions. Then there are the counterfeits or caricatures, that is to say the pseudo-initiatic organizations; and finally there are the more or less secret organizations that harbor no initiatic claims and of which the ends obviously have nothing to do with this domain. But it must be understood that pseudo-initiatic organizations, whatever the appearances, are really just as profane as this last group and that both belong together and stand in opposition to initiatic organizations, whether these be pure or 'contaminated' with profane influences.
But to all this it is necessary to add still another category, that of organizations belonging to the 'counter-initiation', which in the contemporary world certainly have a much more considerable importance than is commonly supposed. We shall limit ourselves here simply to mentioning them-failing which our enumeration would be gravely lacking-and only note a new complication that results from their existence. In certain cases it happens that they exercise a more or less direct influence on profane organizations, especially pseudo-initiatic organizations, [4] and this raises one more difficulty in determining the true character of this or that organization. But of course we do not have to occupy ourselves here with the examination of particular cases, and it suffices to explain clearly the general classification that was to be established.
However, this is not all, for there are organizations that, despite having only a contingent purpose, nonetheless possess a true traditional affiliation because they proceed from initiatic organizations of which they are, as it were, only an emanation, and by which they are 'invisibly' directed even when their apparent leaders are unaware of it. This is particularly true among Far-Eastern secret organizations: formed solely for a special purpose, these organizations generally have only a temporary existence and disappear without trace once their mission is accomplished. But they really represent the last and most outward rung of a hierarchy that rises ever closer to those initiatic organizations that are purest and most inaccessible to the gaze of the profane world. Here there is no longer any question of a degeneration of initiatic organizations, but rather of formations expressly willed by them-although they themselves do not descend to this contingent level and intervene in the action exercised therefor ends that are naturally very different from what a superficial observer might see or suppose. Recalling what was already said above on this subject, we see that the most exterior of these organizations can sometimes find themselves opposed to and even struggling against each other while nonetheless sharing a common direction or inspiration, for this direction lies beyond the domain of their opposition, in which alone it is valid; and perhaps this situation is found in places other than the Far East, although such a hierarchization of superposed organizations is found nowhere more clearly or more completely than in the Taoist tradition. In this tradition there are organizations of 'mixed' character, if one may so express it, which cannot be said to be either strictly initiatic or mercly profane since their affiliation with superior organizations confers on them a participation, even if indirect and unconscious, in a tradition whose essence is purely initiatic; [5] and something of this essence is always present in their rites and symbols for those who know how to penetrate their deepest meaning.
All the categories of organizations that we have considered have nothing in common but the sole fact of harboring a secret, whatever
its nature may be; and it goes without saying that this secret can differ greatly from one category of organization to another. There is obviously no possible comparison between the true initiatic secret and a political project that is kept hidden, or the dissembling of an organization's existence and that of the names of its members for reasons of mere prudence. And let us not even speak of the many fantastic groups of our day, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries, which 'ape' the forms of initiatic organizations but conceal absolutely nothing and which truly lack any importance and even any meaning, pretending to keep a secret that has no serious justification. This last case holds no interest except to illustrate clearly the current misunderstanding in the mind of the general public about the nature of the initiatic secret, which they imagine refers simply to rituals and to words and signs used as means of recognition, which would make it as outward and artificial a secret as any other, that is to say, a secret that exists finally only by convention. Now, if such a secret in fact exists in most initiatic organizations, it is only a wholly secondary and accidental element and in reality has no value except as a symbol of the true initiatic secret, which is itself such by the very nature of things and which in consequence could never be betrayed in any way since it is of a purely interior order and, as we have already said, lies strictly in the 'incommunicable'.