22 The Rejection OF 'POWERS'
Having shown how little interest the so-called psychic 'powers' present, and the absence of any connection between their development and a spiritual or initiatic realization, before leaving the subject we ought to emphasize further the fact that in regard to this realization they are not only indifferent and useless, but even truly harmful in most cases. They are in fact a 'distraction' in the rigorously etymological sense of the word. The one who lets himself be absorbed by the many activities of the corporeal world will never 'center' his consciousness on higher realities, nor consequently develop within himself the corresponding possibilities; this will be all the more true for one who goes astray and 'disperses' himself in the incomparably more vast and varied multiplicity of the psychic world, with its indefinite modalities; and apart from exceptional circumstances it is very likely that he will never succeed in freeing himself from such phenomena, especially if he also harbors illusions concerning the value of these things which at least activities in the corporeal world do not entail.
This is why anyone who firmly intends to follow an initiatic path not only must never seek to acquire or to develop these all too famous 'powers', but on the contrary must reject them pitilessly as obstacles that will divert him from the single goal toward which he strives, even when they come spontaneously and wholly accidentally. It is not that one must necessarily see them as 'temptations' or as 'diabolical tricks' in the literal sense, as some too readily believe; but something of the sort nevertheless does exist in that the world of individual manifestation, as much in the psychic order as in the
corporeal order-if not even more so-seems as it were to try by every means to detain anyone who seeks to escape it. There is here something like a reaction of opposing forces, which, as with many other kinds of difficulty, can be due simply to a kind of unconscious hostility of the environment. Of course, since a man cannot isolate himself from this environment so as to become entirely independent of it as long as he has not arrived at the goal, or at least at a stage marked by liberation from the conditions of the individual human state, nothing prevents these manifestations from being at the same time the very natural though purely accidental results of his interior work, of which the outward repercussions sometimes take the most unexpected forms, going far beyond anything that can be imagined by those who have not themselves had occasion to experience them.
On the other hand, those who possess certain abnormal psychic powers are thereby, as we have already said, naturally at a certain disadvantage with regard to their spiritual development. Not only is it indispensable that they entirely dissociate themselves from them and hold them of no importance, but it may even be necessary to reduce the exercise of these powers to a minimum or even to suppress them altogether. Indeed, if it is recommended that the use of the corporeal senses be reduced to a minimum during periods of more or less prolonged effort in order to avoid distraction, the same thing is equally true of the psychic faculties; and furthermore, whereas man could not live if he completely and indefinitely ceased to exercise his senses, this is obviously not so in the other case and no serious inconvenience will result from this 'inhibition'. On the contrary, the being can only profit with regard to its organic and mental equilibrium, and thereafter be in a better condition to undertake the development of its higher possibilities without the risk of being hampered by a more or less pathological and abnormal state.
Those who produce extraordinary 'phenomena' are usually rather inferior beings intellectually and spiritually, or else have even gone wholly astray due to the special 'training' they have undergone. It is casy to understand that anyone who has spent part of his life engaged exclusively in producing 'phenomena' becomes incapable
of anything else and that possibilities of another order are henceforth irremediably closed to him. This is what generally happens to those who give in to the attraction of the psychic domain. Even if they have previously undertaken a work of initiatic realization, they come to a halt on this path and go no further, and in fact are quite fortunate if they remain where they are and are not drawn little by little in the direction that, as we have explained elsewhere, is strictly the reverse of spirituality and which can only lead finally to the 'disintegration' of the conscious being.[1] But even leaving aside this extreme case, assuredly the mere cessation of all spiritual development is already in itself a consequence serious enough that it should give pause to devotees of such 'powers', if they are not already wholly blinded by the illusions of the 'intermediary world'.
One might perhaps object that there are authentically initiatic organizations that train certain individuals in the development of these 'powers'; but the truth is that the individuals involved lack initiatic qualifications and, on the contrary, have a special aptitude in the psychic order, so that this is really all that can be done with them; in such conditions, moreover, the development of psychic powers is guided and controlled so as to keep the disadvantages and dangers to a minimum. These beings even really benefit from the link thus established with a traditional organization, which in its turn can use them for ends of which they themselves are not conscious, not because they are willfully concealed from them, but solely because, given the limitations of their possibilities, they are wholly incapable of understanding them.
It goes without saying that the dangers we have just spoken of do not exist for one who has arrived at a certain degree of initiatic realization; and it could even be said that such a one implicitly possesses all such 'powers' without having to develop them particularly in any way, by the very fact that he controls the forces of the psychic world 'from above'; but generally such an initiate will not exercise powers of this kind because they have no more interest for him. In an analogous way, one who has understood the inmost essence of certain traditional sciences takes no interest whatsoever in their application
and never makes any use of them; pure knowledge suffices him, and is truly the only thing that matters, for all else is but mere contingency. Besides, all manifestations of such things are necessarily a 'descent' as it were, even if only an apparent one that cannot really affect the being itself. It must not be forgotten that the non-manifest is supcrior to the manifest and that consequently the fact of remaining in this 'non-manifestation' will be, so to speak, the most adequate expression of the state that the being has inwardly realized. This is what some people state symbolically by saying that 'the night is preferable to the day', and this is also represented by the image of the turtle withdrawing into its shell. If it later happens that such a being should manifest certain 'powers', this will only be, as we have already indicated above, in altogether exceptional cases and for particular reasons that the outer world necessarily cannot appreciate, reasons that of course differ entirely from those of ordinary producers of 'phenomena'. Besides these cases, such a being's only mode of action will be what the Far-Eastern tradition designates as 'non-acting activity', which, precisely by its character of non-manifestation, is the very fullness of activity.
Let us recall in this connection the perfect insignificance of phenomena in themselves, since it can happen that similar phenomena proceed from entirely different causes which may not even be of the same order. Thus it is easily understood that if the being that possesses a high degree of spirituality should occasionally produce some phenomenon, it will not do so in the same way as one that has acquired this power by means of some psychic 'training' and will act according to completely different modalitics; the comparison of 'theurgy' with 'magic', which lies beyond our scope here, would occasion the same remark. This truth also ought to be recognized without difficulty by those belonging to the exoteric order, for if numerous cases of 'levitation' or 'bilocation' can be found in the lives of the saints, just as many can certainly be found in the lives of sorcerers. The appearances (that is to say, precisely, 'phenomena' in the strict and etymological sense of the word) are exactly the same in both cases, but no one would conclude from this that the causes are also the same. Even from the merely theological point of view two facts can be similar in every respect, but one may be considered
a miracle while the other is not, and to distinguish them it would be necessary to resort to a different order of proofs, independent of the facts themselves. From another point of view, we could say that a fact will be a miracle if it is due to the action of a spiritual influence and that it will not be a miracle if it is due to the action of a psychic influence. This is illustrated very clearly by the contest between Moses and the Pharaoh's magicians, which also represents the contest between the forces of initiation and counter-initiation, at least in a certain measure and on the common ground where such a contest is possible. The counter-initiation can of course only exert its action in the psychic domain, as we have explained elsewhere, for everything of the spiritual domain is by its very nature absolutely forbidden to it.[2]
Enough has been said on this subject, and if we have dwelt on it so much, perhaps even too much in some people's eyes, it is because we have only too often seen the need for doing so. No matter how disagreeable the task may be at times, it is necessary to warn those with whom we are here concerned about the errors they court at each moment on their way, errors that are far from harmless. To conclude in a few words, we will say that initiation could never have the goal of acquiring 'powers' that, as does the very world in which they are exercised, belong in the final analysis to the domain of the 'great illusion'. Far from tying himself to them ever more strongly by new bonds, the one on the path of spiritual development must on the contrary loose himself from them entirely; and this freedom can only be obtained by pure knowledge on condition, of course, that this not remain merely theoretical but on the contrary become fully effective, for it is in this alone that the very realization of the being in all its degrees consists.