INITIATIC Qualifications
We must now come back to the questions concerning the first and preliminary condition of initiation, that is to what are called initiatic 'qualifications'. Indeed, it is hard to treat this subject completely, but we can at least bring to it a few clarifications. First of all, it must be well understood that these qualifications belong exclusively to the individual domain. Indeed, if only the personality or the 'Self' were considered, [1] there would be no difference between beings in this respect, and all without exception would be equally qualified. But the question presents quite another face by the fact that the individuality must necessarily be taken as a means and a support of initiatic realization, and thus must possess the necessary aptitudes for this role, which is not always the case. The individuality in a way is only the instrument of the true being, though if this instrument has certain defects it can be somewhat or even altogether unusable for what is needed. Besides, there is nothing to be astonished at if one reflects that, even in profane activities (or at least what have become such in the present epoch), what is possible for one individual is not possible for another, and that, for example, the exercise of any particular craft requires certain special aptitudes, both mental and physical. The essential difference in this case is that the activity in question belongs exclusively to the individual domain which it does not transcend in any way or in any respect, whereas with initiation the result to be attained is, on the contrary, beyond
the limits of the individuality; but again, this must be taken as the starting-point, and this is an inescapable precondition.
We can also say that the individual undertaking the work of initiatic realization must perforce start from a certain state of manifestation, the one in which he is presently situated, and that this state includes a whole cluster of determinate conditions, both those inherent to that state and gencrally defining it, and those within this same state that are particular to the individual and distinguish him from all others. It is cvident that it is the latter that must be considered with respect to initiatic qualifications because they are by very definition not common to all individuals but properly characterize only those who belong, at least virtually, to the 'elite' understood in the sense in which we have often used this word elsewhere, a sense that we will explain even more precisely later in order to show how it is directly related to the question of initiation.
Now it should be clearly understood that the individuality must be taken here as it is in fact, with all its constituent elements, and that there may be qualifications that concern each of these elements, including the corporeal element itself, which from this point of view must in no way be treated as something indifferent or negligible. Perhaps there would be no need to stress this were we not confronted by the grossly oversimplified idea of the human being held by modern Westerners. Not only do they consider the individuality to be the whole being, but they reduce it to two parts that they suppose to be separate from each other, one being the body and the other something rather ill-defined that is indifferently designated by the most varied and sometimes least appropriate names. But the reality is altogether different: the multiple elements of the individuality, however one may wish to classify them, are not at all thus isolated from each other but form a whole in which there cannot be a radical and irreducible heterogeneity; and all these elements, the body as well as the others, are in the same way manifestations or expressions of the being in the different modalities of the individual domain. Among these modalities there are correspondences, so that what happens in one normally has repercussion in the others, with the result that on the one hand the state of the body can favorably or unfavorably influence the other modalities, and on the other, since
the inverse is just as true (and even truer, since the possibilities of the corporeal modality are the most restricted), the body can furnish signs that manifest states of the other modalities, [2] and it is clear that each of these two complementary considerations has its importance in regard to initiatic qualifications. All of this would be perfectly obvious if the specifically Western and modern notion of 'matter', Cartesian dualism, and more or less 'mechanistic' ideas had not so obscured these things for most of our contemporaries, [3] and these are the contingent circumstances that oblige us to tarry over such elementary considerations which otherwise could be stated in a few words without having to add the least explanation.
It goes without saying that the essential qualification, which takes precedence over all the others, is that of a greater or lesser 'intellectual horizon'; but it can happen that intellectual possibilities existing virtually in an individual are prevented from developing, either temporarily or even definitively, because of the individual's inferior elements (elements at once psychic and corporeal). This is the first reason for what one could call secondary qualifications; and there is also a second reason following immediately from what was just said: in these inferior elements, which are the most accessible to observation, one may find marks of certain intellectual limitations, and in this case the secondary qualifications become, as it were, the symbolic equivalents of the fundamental qualification itself. In the first case, on the contrary, it may happen that they do not always have an equal importance; thus there may be impediments opposing any initiation, even simply virtual, or only an effective initiation, or again the passage to particular more or less elevated degrees, or finally only the exercise of certain functions within an initiatic organization (for one can be qualified to receive a spiritual influence without being for this reason necessarily qualified to transmit it); and it must also be added that there are special impediments that concern only certain forms of initiation.
On this last point it suffices to recall that the diversity of modes of initiation, whether among different traditional forms or within one
and the same traditional form, has for its goal precisely a response to the diversity of individual aptitudes; such a diversity of modes would obviously be to no purpose if a single mode were equally suitable to all who were generally qualified to receive initiation. Since things are not so, each initiatic organization must have its particular 'technique', and it can naturally admit only those able to conform to it and receive from it an effective bencfit, which implies, with respect to qualifications, the application of a whole order of special rules valid only for the organization in question, and which, for those who will be rejected thereby, in no way excludes the possibility of finding an equivalent initiation elsewhere, provided that they possess the general qualifications that are strictly indispensable in all cases. One of the clearest examples we can give of this is the fact that there exist forms of initiation that are exclusively masculine, while there are others to which women can be admitted in the same way as men, [4] from which it follows that there is a certain qualification required in one case but not in the other, and that this difference belongs to the particular modes of initiation in question, a point to which we shall return later, for we have noted that this fact is generally very poorly understood in our time.
Where a traditional social organization exists, even in the outward order, each person occupies the place that befits his own individual nature, and, if he is qualified, this very fact allows him more easily to find the mode of initiation that corresponds to his own possibilities. Thus if we consider the caste system from this point of view, the initiation of the Kshatriyas cannot be identical with that of the Brahmins, and so forth; [5] and in a yet more particular way, a certain form of initiation can be linked to the practice of a given craft and cannot be completely effective unless the craft practiced by the individual is indeed that to which he is destined by the aptitudes inherent in his very nature, so that these aptitudes will also be at the same time an integral part of the special qualifications required for the corresponding form of initiation.
On the contrary, where nothing is any longer organized according to traditional and normal rules, as with the modern West, there results a confusion that extends to all domains and that inevitably entails many complications and difficulties regarding the precise determination of initiatic qualifications, since the place of the individual in society no longer has, then, anything but a remote connection to his nature, with only its most outward and least important aspects most often taken into consideration, that is to say those aspects that really have no value, even a secondary one, from the initiatic point of view. Another cause of difficulties, one somewhat responsible for this situation, is the loss of the traditional sciences, for the information supplied by some of them could furnish the means of recognizing an individual's true nature, and once these criteria are lacking, no other means can make up for them entirely and with perfect exactitude, since whatever else may be done will always include a greater or lesser share of 'empiricism', which can lead to many errors. In the final analysis, one of the principal reasons for the degeneration of certain initiatic organizations is the admission of unqualified individuals, whether through mere ignorance of the rules that should eliminate them or through the impossibility of applying these rules with any certainty. The latter is indeed one of the factors that most contributes to this degeneration, and if it becomes general it can even finally lead to the complete ruin of the organization.
After these general considerations, we ought to give some welldefined examples of the conditions required for gaining access to a given initiatic form, and to show in each case their meaning and true importance in order to further clarify the real significance of secondary qualifications. But, when it must be addressed to Westerners, such an exposition becomes very difficult in view of the fact that even in the most favorable cases they are familiar with only a very limited number of initiatic forms, and references to all others risk remaining almost wholly misunderstood. Again, all that remains in the West of ancient organizations of this kind is in all respects very much diminished, as we have already said many times before, and it is easy to confirm this more particularly in regard to the question now at hand. If certain qualifications are still required
in these organizations, it is more out of habit than from any understanding of their purpose; and in these conditions it is not surprising if the members of these organizations sometimes protest against the retention of such qualifications in which their ignorance sees only a sort of historical remnant, a vestige from a state of things that has long since disappeared-in a word, a pure and simple 'anachronism'. Nonetheless, since one is obliged to take as a starting-point what is most immediately to hand, even this might provide the occasion for information that, despite everything, is not without interest, and that, although having in our eyes only an 'illustrative' value, can still provoke reflections of a broader application than might at first appear.
There are scarcely any initiatic organizations in the West that can still claim an authentic traditional affiliation (outside of which condition, let us recall once more, there can only be a question of pseudo-initiation) other than the Compagnonnage and Masonry, that is to say initiatic forms based, at least at their origins, essentially on the practice of a craft and consequently characterized by particular symbolic and ritual methods directly related to this craft itself. [6] However, there is a distinction to be made here: in the Compagnonnage, the initial link with the craft has always been maintained, whereas in Masonry it has in fact disappeared, whence the danger in this case of a complete misunderstanding of the need for certain conditions that are nonetheless inherent to this initiatic form itself. Indeed, in the former case it is evident that the conditions necessary for the craft to be effectively and indeed fully practiced can never have been forgotten, even if nothing more than this is consideredthat is, even if one takes into account only its outward purpose and forgets its more profound and properly initiatic purpose. On the contrary, where this deeper purpose is no less forgotten and where the outward purpose itself no longer exists, it is natural enough (which, of course, is not to say legitimate) that the persistence of such conditions comes to be seen as an altogether unnecessary and annoying restriction, even an injustice (a notion much abused in
our day in consequence of an 'egalitarianism' destructive to the notion of the 'elite') imposed on recruitment, a recruitment that the mania for 'proselytism' and the democratic superstition of the majority-traits very characteristic of the modern Western mindwishes to make as broad as possible, something that, as we have already said, is truly one of the most certain and most irremediable causes of degencration for an initiatic organization.
In the final analysis, what is forgotten in such cases is simply this: if the initiatic ritual takes the craft as a 'support' in such a way that it is so to speak derived from it by an appropriate transposition (though in the beginning things were no doubt envisaged in reverse, for from the traditional point of view the craft is really only a contingent application of the principles to which the initiation directly relates), then in order to be really and fully valid the accomplishment of this ritual requires conditions that include those required by the practice of the craft itself, for the same transposition applies equally here in virtue of the correspondences that exist between different modalities of the being; and from this it is clear that, as we said above, whoever is qualified for initiation in a general way is not thereby qualified unreservedly for any initiatic form whatsoever. We should add to this that the misunderstanding of this fundamental point, which leads to the wholly profane reduction of such qualifications to mere corporative rules, appears, at least in Masonry, to be linked rather closely to a misunderstanding of the true meaning of the word 'operative', regarding which we will later have to provide the necessary clarification, for it raises quite broad questions about initiation.
Thus, if Masonic initiation excludes women in particular (which, as we have already said, does not mean that they are unqualified for every initiation) as well as men with certain infirmities, this is not merely because those who are admitted used to have to carry burdens or climb scaffolds, as some assure us with a disconcerting naiveté; rather, the Masonic initiation itself could not be valid for such people and could have no effect because of their lack of qualification. The first thing that can be said here is that even if the link with the craft has been broken with respect to outward practice, it nonetheless continues in a more essential way insofar as it remains
necessarily inscribed in the very form of this initiation, for if this connection were eliminated, the initiation would no longer be Masonic but something completely different; moreover, since it would be impossible to substitute legitimately another traditional filiation for the one that actually exists, there would really no longer be any initiation at all. This is why, wherever there still exists at least a certain more or less obscure consciousness-for lack of a more effective understanding-of the true value of ritual forms, the conditions we are speaking of continue to be considered as integral parts of the landmarks (this English term, in its 'technical' acceptation, has no exact equivalent in French) that can in no circumstances be modified, and the suppression or neglect of which would risk entailing a veritable initiatic nullity. [7]
There is still more: if we closely examine the list of bodily defects considered to be impediments to initiation, it will be noted how some do not seem outwardly very serious and, in any case, would not prevent a man from practicing the craft of the builder. [8] And so this, too, is only a partial explanation, although exact in the measure to which it applies, for, besides the conditions required by the craft, the initiation requires others having nothing to do with these but relating solely to the modalities of the ritual work considered not only in its 'materiality', so to speak, but above all as having to produce effective results for the one who accomplishes them. This will appear all the more clearly when, from among the diverse formulations of the landmarks (for although in principle not written down, they have nevertheless often been the object of more or less detailed enumerations), we go back to the most ancient ones, that is, to an epoch when the things in question were still known, and even, for some at least, known in a way that was not merely theoretical or 'speculative' but really 'operative' in the true sense to which we alluded above. This examination reveals something that many today would surely think altogether extraordinary if they were capable of
noticing it: the impediments to initiation in Masonry coincide almost exactly with what constitute impediments to ordination in the Catholic church. [9]
This last point is one that requires some commentary in order to be well understood, for at first one might be tempted to suppose that we have here a certain confusion between things of different orders, all the more so in that we have often insisted on the essential distinction that exists between the initiatic and religious domains, and that consequently must also be found between the rites belonging to each respectively. However, there is no need to reflect very long in order to understand that there must be general laws conditioning the accomplishment of rites of whatever order they may be, for in the end it is always a matter of bringing into play certain spiritual influences, although the goals naturally differ according to the case. Moreover, it could also be objected that in the case of ordination what is important is the aptitude for fulfilling certain functions, [10] whereas the qualifications required for receiving initiation are distinct from those that might be necessary to exercisc in addition a function in the initiatic organization (a function that principally concerns the transmission of the spiritual influence); and it is precisely not from the point of view of functions that the similarity is really applicable. What must be taken into account is that, in a religious organization like Catholicism, only the priest actively accomplishes the rites, whereas the lay people participate in them only in a 'receptive' mode; on the contrary, activity in the ritual is always and without any exception an essential element of every initiatic method, so that this method necessarily implies the possibility of accomplishing such an activity. In the final analysis, then, it is this active accomplishment of rites that, besides the properly intellectual qualification, requires certain secondary qualifications, varying in part according to the special character assumed by these rites in this
or that initiatic form, but among which the absence of certain bodily defects always plays an important role, whether these defects be a direct impediment to the accomplishment of the rites or the outward sign of corresponding defects in the subtle elements of the being. It is this latter conclusion above all that we wished to draw from all these considerations, and what seems to relate more particularly to the case of Masonic initiation has been only the most convenient way for us to explain these things, which we must make even clearer with the help of some particular examples of impediments due to bodily defects or to psychic defects outwardly manifested by them.
If we are to consider infirmities or merely bodily defects as outward signs of certain psychic imperfections, it will be fitting to make a distinction between defects that the being exhibits from birth or that develop naturally over the course of its existence as a consequence of a certain predisposition, and those that are merely the result of some accident. It is evident that the first reveal something that more strictly inheres in the very nature of the being, and that consequently is more serious from our present point of view, although, since nothing can happen to a being that does not really correspond to some more or less essential element of its nature, even apparently accidental infirmities cannot be considered entirely indifferent in this respect. From another point of view, if these same defects are considered as direct impediments to the accomplishment of rites or to their effective action on the being, the distinction we have just made no longer applies; but it must be clearly understood that defects that do not constitute impediments of this kind are nonetheless impediments to initiation for the first reason, and sometimes even more absolute impediments, for they express an inward 'deficiency' that makes the being unfit for any initiation, whereas there can be infirmities that impede only the 'technical' methods peculiar to this or that initiatic form.
Some may be astonished that accidental infirmities thus correspond to something in the very nature of the being affected by them; but this is after all only a direct consequence of the real relationships the being has with the environment in which it manifests itself: all the relationships among beings manifested in one and the same
world, or what comes to the same thing, all their reciprocal actions and reactions, can only be real if they are the expression of something that belongs to the nature of each of them. In other words, cverything a being undergoes, as well as all that it does, constitutes a 'modification' of that being, and must necessarily correspond to one of the possibilities in its nature, so that there can be nothing that is purely accidental if this word be understood in the sense of 'extrinsic', as it commonly is. The difference is thus only one of degree, for certain modifications represent something more important or deeper than others, so that there are as it were hierarchical values to observe in this respect among the different possibilities of the individual domain; but strictly speaking, nothing is indifferent or without meaning because, in the end, a being can receive from outside only 'occasions' for realizing, in manifested mode, the virtualities that it first carries within itself.
It might also seem strange to those who judge by appearances that certain infirmities that are hardly serious from an outward point of view should always and everywhere have been considered as impediments to initiation, a typical case of this kind being stuttering. It suffices to reflect only a little to realize that in this case we find both impediments we have mentioned. First there is the fact that the ritual 'technique' almost always includes the pronunciation of certain verbal formulas which must naturally be correct above all in order to be valid, something stuttering does not permit in those afflicted by it; and, secondly, there is in this infirmity the manifest sign of a certain 'arrhythmia' in the being, if we can use this word; indeed, the two things are closely linked, for the very use of the formulas we have just alluded to is really only one application of the 'science of rhythm' to the initiatic method, so that the incapacity to pronounce them correctly depends in the final analysis on an internal 'arrhythmia' of the being.
This 'arrhythmia' is itself only one particular case of disharmony or disequilibrium in the constitution of the individual, and one can say in a general way that if all bodily anomalies that are the mark of a more or less accentuated disequilibrium are not always absolute impediments (for obviously there are many degrees to observe), they are at least unfavorable signs in a candidate for initiation.
Moreover, it can happen that such anomalies, which are not properly speaking infirmities, are not of a nature to oppose the accomplishment of the ritual work, but if they become serious enough to indicate a deep and irremediable disequilibrium, this may itself suffice to disqualify the candidate, as we have already explained above. Examples are noticeable asymmetries of the face or limbs; but of course, if it were a matter of very minor asymmetries, they might not even really be considered anomalies, for in fact no one exhibits an exact bodily symmetry in every respect. Besides, this can be interpreted to signify that, at least in the present state of humanity, no individual is perfectly balanced in all respects; and indeed, the realization of the perfect equilibrium of the individuality, which implies the complete neutralization of all the opposing tendencies acting in it and thus their fixation in its very center-the only point where these oppositions cease to manifest themselves-is, by this very fact, purely and simply equivalent to the restoration of the 'primordial state'. It is clear, then, that nothing should be exaggerated, and that if there are individuals qualified for initiation, they are so despite a certain state of relative disequilibrium that is inevitable but which initiation precisely can and must attenuate if it is to produce an effective result, and which it must even remove entirely if it is to be carried to the degree that corresponds to the perfection of the individual possibilities, that is, as we shall explain a bit further, to the term of the 'lesser mysteries. [11]
We must also note that there are certain defects which, though not opposed to a virtual initiation, may prevent it from becoming effective, and it goes without saying that here, especially, one must take into account differences of method among the diverse initiatic forms; but in every case there will be conditions of this kind to consider once we pass from the 'speculative' to the 'operative'. One of the most general of these cases consists notably in such defects as curvatures of the spinal column that hinder the normal circulation
of subtle currents in the organism, for it is hardly necessary to recall the important role that these currents play in most processes of realization even from the outset, and up to the point where the individual possibilities have been surpassed. In order to avoid any misunderstanding in this regard it is appropriate to add that if the effectuation of these currents is accomplished consciously in certain methods, [12] there are others where it is not, but where such an action no less effectively exists and is no less important; a thoroughgoing examination of certain ritual particularities, of certain 'signs of recognition', for example, which are at the same time something altogether different when truly understood, could furnish very clear although assuredly unexpected evidence of this for those unaccustomed to consider things from this point of view, which is specifically that of initiatic 'technique'.
As we must limit our remarks, we will content ourselves with these examples, which are doubtless few, but are deliberately chosen as most characteristic and instructive so as best to explain what is really involved; after all, it would be of little use and would even be quite tedious to multiply them indefinitely. If we have dwelt so much on the bodily side of initiatic qualifications it is because this is certainly what risks being least visible to many and what our contemporaries are generally most disposed to misunderstand, so that it requires their attention all the more; and here we have also found an opportunity to illustrate as clearly as possible how far is what relates to initiation from the more or less vague theories read into it by those who, because of the all too common modern confusions, claim to speak of things about which they have not the least real knowledge, but which they believe themselves no less able to 'reconstruct' at the whim of their imagination. And finally, it is particularly easy to see, through 'technical' considerations of this sort, that initiation is something altogether different from mysticism and could not really have the least connection with it.