19 Rites & Ceremonies
Having clarified the principal questions relating to the true nature of symbolism as far as we are able, we now return to the question of rites, regarding which there remain a few unfortunate confusions to dispel. In our day it has become possible for the most extraordinary assertions to be made and routinely accepted, since both those expressing them and those giving ear to them are afflicted with the same lack of discernment. Anyone who observes the various manifestations of the contemporary mentality continually witnesses so many things of this kind, in all orders and in all domains, that he reaches a point where he is astonished at nothing. Still, it is very difficult to avoid a certain amazement upon seeing socalled spiritual teachers, whom some even believe to have special 'missions', entrench themselves behind their 'abhorrence of ceremonies' in order to reject all rites indiscriminately, no matter what their nature may be, and cven declare their resolute hostility to them. In itself this abhorrence is perfectly allowable, perhaps even legitimate, on condition that it be understood largely as a matter of individual preference and that there be no insistence that all share it. For our part, we understand it without any difficulty, but we would never have thought that certain rites could be assimilated to 'ceremonies', nor that rites in general must have such a character in themselves. It is here that the confusion lies, and this seems truly strange when it appears in those who claim more or less explicitly to guide others in a domain where it is rites, precisely, that play an essential and most important role as indispensable 'vehicles' of spiritual influences, for without these influences there can be no question of any effective contact whatsoever with realities of a higher order, but only of vague and inconsistent aspirations, of a nebulous 'idealism' and speculations into the void.
We will not pause to investigate the origin of the word 'ceremony', which seems to be rather obscure and on which linguists are far from agreement. [1] We use it of course according to its current meaning, which all know too well to need further emphasis, since it always involves a greater or lesser display of outward pomp, whatever may be the circumstances that provide the occasion or pretext in any particular case. It is obvious that it can happen, and in fact often does happen, especially in the exoteric order, that rites are surrounded by such pomp; but then the cercmony is merely superadded to the rite itself and is thus accidental and in no way essential to it, a point to which we shall return shortly. On the other hand, it is no less obvious that there also exist, and today more than ever, a multitude of ceremonies of a purely profane character that are in no way connected to the accomplishment of any rite; and if these have come to be dignified with the name of 'rite' this is only due to one of those prodigious abuses of language we have so often denounced, which, moreover, is explained by the fact that behind all such things lies the intention of establishing 'pseudo-rites' meant to supplant true religious rites, but which naturally can only imitate them in a wholly outward fashion, that is, precisely according to their 'ceremonial' side alone. The rite itself, of which the ceremony is only a sort of 'envelope', would then be entirely non-existent, since there could never be a profane rite, which is a contradiction in terms; and it can be asked whether the conscious inspirers of these gross counterfeits simply count on the general ignorance and incomprehension to effect such a substitution or whether they themselves share them to some degree. We will not try to resolve this last question, and we will only remind those who might be astonished that it can even be raised, that a comprehension in whatever degree of properly spiritual realities is strictly closed to the 'counter-initiation'. [2] But all that concerns us at the moment is the fact that there exist ceremonies without rites as well as rites without ceremonies, and
this suffices to show how wrong it is to identify or assimilate the two in any way.
We have often said that in a strictly traditional civilization everything has a truly ritual character, even including the activities of daily life; must we therefore suppose that traditional men live in a state of perpetual ceremony? This is literally unimaginable, and the question has only to be formulated to reveal its absurdity immediately. It even ought to be said that the contrary is true, for in a traditional civilization rites are something altogether natural and in no way exceptional, as they may seem to be when consciousness of the tradition weakens and the profane point of view grows in proportion to this weakening; in such a case, the ceremonies accompanying these rites and underlining as it were their exceptional character would surely have no raison d'être. If one goes back to its origins, a rite is nothing other than 'what conforms to order', according to the meaning of the Sanskrit rita; [3] it is this alone, therefore, that is really 'normal', whereas ceremony, on the contrary, always and inevitably gives the impression of something more or less abnormal, outside of the habitual and regular course of the events that fill the rest of existence. This impression, let us note in passing, might help to explain the very singular way in which modern Westerners, who now can scarcely separate religion from ceremonies, regard rites as something wholly isolated and having no real connection with all the other activities to which they 'consecrate' their lives.
Every ceremony has a character that is artificial, even conventional, so to speak, because it is, after all, a wholly human product; and though it may be meant to accompany a rite, this character is opposed to the rite itself, which, on the contrary, includes an essentially 'non-human' element. If the one who accomplishes a rite has attained a certain degree of effective knowledge, he can and must know that there is something about it that transcends him, that does not depend in any way on his own individual effort; but as for ceremonies, even if they overawc those who witness them (and whose role here is reduced to that of mere spectator rather than 'participant'), it is quite clear that those who organize them and
oversee their execution know perfectly well what is going on, and clearly recognize that any efficacy depends entirely on the arrangements they themselves have made and the more or less satisfactory manner in which they are performed. In fact, precisely because it is no more than human, this efficacy cannot be of a truly profound order since in the final analysis it is purely 'psychological'. This is why it can be said that it is indeed a matter of impressing those present or of overawing them by all sorts of sensible means; and even in ordinary language, is not one of the greatest commendations that can be made of a ceremony precisely that it is 'imposing, [4] even if the true meaning of this epithet is gencrally not well understood? In this connection let us note further that those who see only 'psychological' effects in rites confuse these latter with ceremonies in this way as well, perhaps without being aware of doing so, and this because they are ignorant of that 'non-human' character in virtue of which the real effects of rites properly so called and independently of any accessory circumstance are, on the contrary, of a wholly different order from that of the psychological.
Now, it might be asked why ceremonies are thus attached to rites, as if the 'non-human' had need of this human assistance, when it should much rather remain as far removed as possible from such contingencies. The answer is that all of this is simply a consequence of the need to take into account the actual conditions of terrestrial humanity, at least in this or that period of its existence; it is a concession made to what is, from the spiritual point of view, a certain state of degeneration on the part of the men who are called to participate in the rites, for it is they and not the rites who need the help of ceremonies. There can be no question of reinforcing or intensifying the effect of the rites in their own domain, but solely of making them more accessible to the individuals to whom they are addressed, of preparing these individuals as much as possible by putting them into the appropriate emotional and mental state; this is all that ceremonies can do, and it must be admitted that they are far
from useless in this respect since, for the generality of men, they fulfill this function quite well. This is also why they have no purpose except in the exoteric order, which is meant for all without distinction; as for the esoteric or initiatic order, the case is entirely different, since this is reserved for an elite that by very definition has no need of these wholly outward 'aids', its qualifications implying precisely that it is superior to the state of degeneracy affecting most people. Thus if ceremonies are sometimes introduced into the esoteric order, this can only be explained by a certain degeneration of the initiatic organizations where this has taken place.
What we have just said defines the legitimate role of ceremonies, but side by side with this there are also abuses and dangers. Since what is purely outward is also by the very force of things what is most immediately apparent, it is always to be feared that the accidental will obscure the essential, and that, in the cyes of those who witness them, ceremonies will acquire much more importance than rites, which they so to speak conceal under an accumulation of accessory forms. Even worse, those whose function as authorized representatives of the tradition is to accomplish rites may sometimes share this error if they themselves are affected by the general spiritual degeneracy of which we have spoken. Once true comprehension has disappeared, everything is reduced, at least at a conscious level, to an excessive and baseless 'formalism' that devotes itself primarily to maintaining the pomp of ceremonies, which it magnifies inordinately, while the rite, which alone should matter, is held to be almost negligible. For a traditional form, this is a kind of degeneration that borders on 'superstition', this being understood in its etymological sense, for concern with forms has here outlived the comprehension thereof, and thus the 'letter' completely stifles the 'spirit'. 'Ceremonialism' is by no means the observance of ritual but rather the forgetting of its profound value and real meaning, and in the end amounts to the more or less crude materialization of this or that individual's notions of its nature and role, and, finally, to the repudiation of the 'non-human' for the sake of the human.