Initiatic Rites
In preceding chapters we have been obliged almost continually to refer to rites, for they constitute the essential element in the transmission of the spiritual influence and attachment to the initiatic 'chain', so much so that it can be said that without rites initiation is not possible. We must now return to this question in order to clarify certain particularly important points, but it should be understood that here we are not claiming to treat exhaustively of rites in general-their purpose, their role, the diverse types into which they are divided-for that is a subject which would demand a complete volume in itself.
It is important to note at the outset that the presence of rites is a characteristic common to all traditional institutions of whatever order, exoteric as well as esoteric, taking these terms in their broadest sense as we have already done earlier. This characteristic is a consequence of the 'non-human' element that is essentially implied in such institutions, for it can be said that the purpose of rites is always to put the human being in contact, directly or indirectly, with something that goes beyond his individuality and which belongs to other states of existence. It is obvious however that it is not always necessary for the communication so established to be conscious in order to be real, for it is most often effected by means of certain subtle modalities of the individual, into which most men today can no longer transfer their center of consciousness. However this may be, whether the effect is apparent or not, or whether it be immediate or deferred, the rite always carries its efficacy in itself, on the condition of course that it be accomplished in conformity with the traditional rules that ensure its validity and outside of which it would only be an empty form and a useless imitation; and this efficacy has nothing
'marvelous' or 'magical' about it, as some people occasionally say with the clear intention of denigration and negation, for it results simply from the clearly defined laws according to which spiritual influences act and of which the ritual 'technique' is, at root, nothing but the application and implementation. [1]
This inherent efficacy, founded on laws that allow no place for fantasy or for the arbitrary, is common to all rites without exception, and it holds for rites of the exoteric order as well as for initiatic rites, and, among the former, for rites belonging to non-religious traditional forms as well as for religious rites. In this connection we must again recall, for it is a most important point, that this efficacy is, as has been said, entirely independent of the worth of the individual who accomplishes the rite, for it is the function alone that counts here and not the individual as such. In other words, the necessary and sufficient condition is that the officiant should have regularly received the power to accomplish the rite, and it makes little difference if he does not truly understand its significance and even if he does not believe in its efficacy, for this cannot prevent the rite from being valid if all the prescribed rules have been properly observed. [2]
Having said this, we can now speak more particularly about initiation, and we will remark first of all that its ritual character brings
out one of the fundamental differences that separate it from mysticism, which has no such character, something easily understood if one refers to what we have said about its 'irregularity'. It might perhaps be objected that mysticism sometimes seems to be more or less directly linked to the observance of certain rites, but these rites do not in any way belong to it as such since they are nothing other than ordinary religious rites; moreover this link has no necessary character, for it is in fact hardly present in every case, whereas, we repeat, there is no initiation without special and particular rites. Indeed, unlike mystical initiations, initiation is not something that falls from the clouds, so to speak, without it being known how or why; on the contrary, it rests on positive scientific laws and on rigorous technical rules. [3] We cannot insist too much on this whenever the occasion presents itself, in order to avoid every possibility of misunderstanding as to its true nature.
As for the distinction between initiatic and exoteric rites, we can indicate it here only rather summarily, for entering into detail on this subject would risk taking us very far afield. In particular, it would be necessary to draw all the consequences from the fact that initiatic rites are reserved solely for an elite possessing certain qualifications, whereas exoteric rites are public and addressed indifferently to all the members of a given social milieu, which well shows that, despite their sometimes apparent similarities, their goals cannot really be the same. [4] Unlike initiatic rites, exoteric rites do not in fact have as their goal the opening of the being to certain possibilities of knowledge for which all cannot be qualified; on the other
hand, it is essential to note that, although they also necessarily involve the intervention of an element of the supra-individual order, their action is never meant to go beyond the domain of individuality. This is very apparent in the case of religious rites, which we can take more particularly as a term of comparison because they are the only exoteric rites that the West knows at present; every religion intends solely the 'salvation' of its adherents, which is a finality that still relates to the individual order and, by definition as it were, its point of view does not extend beyond this; even the mystics always envisage only 'salvation' and never 'deliverance', even though the latter is, on the contrary, the final and supreme goal of all initiation. [5]
Another point of capital importance is the following: initiation of any degree represents for the being who receives it a permanent acquisition, a state that virtually or effectively it has reached once and for all and that nothing can ever take away. [6] Let us note that this is one more very clear difference from mystical states, which are passing and even fugitive and from which the being returns as it entered, and which it may even never find again, all of which is explained by the 'phenomenal' character of these states, received from outside as it were rather than proceeding from the very 'interior' of the being. [7] From this the consequence immediately follows that rites of initiation confer a definitive and ineffaceable character;
moreover, it is the same in another order with certain religious rites, which, for this reason, could never be renewed for the same individual and thus present the closest analogy to initiatic rites, to the point that one could in a certain sense consider them a sort of transposition of these latter into the exoteric domain. [8]
Another consequence of what we have just said is something we have already noted in passing, but which merits more emphasis: once received, the initiatic quality [9] is in no way bound to the fact of the recipient's active membership in this or that organization; once the attachment to a traditional organization has been effected, it cannot be broken by anything at all, and it continues even when the individual no longer has any apparent relationship with that organization, which then has only a wholly secondary importance in this regard. In the absence of any other consideration, this alone would suffice to show how profoundly initiatic organizations differ from profane associations to which they cannot be assimilated or even compared in any way, for whereas one who resigns or is expelled from a profane association no longer has any link to it and becomes again exactly what he was before he became part of it, the link established by the initiatic character on the contrary does not in any way depend on contingencies such as a resignation or expulsion, which are of a merely 'administrative' order, as we have already said, and affect only outward relationships; and if these relationships are entirely in the profane order, as is the case with associations having nothing else to offer their members, in the initiatic order, on the contrary, they are only an altogether accessory and nowise necessary
means in relation to the inward realities that are alone of real importance. A little reflection suffices, we think, to make this perfectly evident; what is astonishing is to note, as we have many times had occasion to do, an almost universal misunderstanding of such simple and elementary ideas as these. [10]