Profane & Initiatic Names
While speaking earlicr of the different kinds of more or less outward secrets that may exist in certain organizations, whether initiatic or not, we mentioned one bearing on the names of their members, which at first glance may seem no more than a precautionary measure meant to ward off dangers from adversaries and requiring no more profound explanation. Indeed, this is surely so in many cases, and it is at least the case with those secret organizations that are purely profane; but when it is a question of initiatic organizations there may well be something else, and this secret, as indeed everything else, may take on a truly symbolic character. It is all the more interesting to dwell briefly on this point in that curiosity about names is one of the most usual manifestations of modern 'individualism', which, when it comes to apply itself to things of the initiatic domain, bears still further witness to a grave misunderstanding of realities of this order and to an annoying tendency to want to reduce them to the level of profane contingencies. The 'historicism' of our contemporaries is not satisfied unless it gives proper names to everything, that is to say unless it attributes everything to specific human individualities following the most restricted conception possible, that which is current in profane life and which takes into account the corporeal modality alone. However, the fact that the origins of initiatic organizations can never be traced back to such individualitics already ought to be matter for reflection in this regard; and when it is a question of the origins of the most profound organizations, even their members cannot be identified, not because they conceal themselves, which, however carefully it may be
done, could not always be effective, but because strictly speaking they are not 'personages' at all in the sense intended by historians, so that whoever might think he is able to name them would by this very fact inevitably be in error. [1] Before entering into a more ample explanation of this, let us say that something analogous is found, mutatis mutandis, at all degrees of the initiatic ladder, even the most elementary, so that if an initiatic organization is really what it ought to be, the designation of any of its members by a profane name, even if 'materially' exact, will always be tainted with falsity, as would be the confusion between an actor and the character he plays, if one insisted on applying to him this character's name in all the circumstances of his life.
We have already emphasized the notion of initiation as a 'second birth'; it is precisely as an immediate logical consequence of this idea that in many organizations the initiate receives a new name different from his profane name; and this is no mere formality, for this new name must correspond to an equally different modality of his being, that of which the realization is made possible by the spiritual influence transmitted by the initiation. Moreover, it is to be noted that even from the exoteric point of view the same practice exists for analogous reasons in certain religious orders. We then have two distinct modalities of the same being, one manifesting itself in the profane order and the other within the initiatic organization; [2] and normally each modality ought to have its own name, that belonging to one being unsuitable for the other since these modalities are indeed situated in two different orders. We can go further: to each degree of effective initiation there corresponds yet another modality of the being, which therefore ought to receive a new name for each of these degrees; and even if that name is not given in fact, one might say it exists nonetheless as the characteristic
expression of that modality, for a name is really nothing other than this. Now, just as these modalities are arranged hierarchically in the being, so is it with the names that represent them respectively. Thus, a name will be all the more truc to the extent that it corresponds to a deeper modality, for by this very fact it will express something closer to the true essence of the being. Contrary to popular opinion, therefore, it is the profane name, attached as it is to the most outward modality and the most superficial manifestation, that is the least true of all; and this is especially the case in a civilization that has lost all traditional character, and where names convey scarcely anything of the nature of the being. As to what one might call the true name of the human being-the truest of all, the name that furthermore is properly a 'number' in the Pythagorean and kabbalistic sense of this word-it is the one that corresponds to the central modality of its individuality, that is, to its restoration in the 'primordial state', for that is what constitutes the integral expression of its individual essence.
It follows from these considerations that an initiatic name need not be known in the profane world since it represents a modality of the being that cannot manifest itself therein, so that any knowledge of it would as it were fall into the void, finding nothing to which it could really be applied. And inversely, the profane name represents a modality that the being must cast off when it enters into the initiatic domain, and which thenceforth is nothing but a mere role to be played outwardly; this name can therefore no longer be valid in the initiatic domain, where what it expresses is as it were non-existent. Moreover, it goes without saying that these profound reasons for the distinction and for the separation, so to speak, of the initiatic name from the profane name insofar as these designate truly different entities, may not be consciously recognized everywhere that such a change of names is in fact practiced; it may happen that, because of the degeneration of certain initiatic organizations, and notwithstanding that it was originally something quite different, attempts are made to explain it by wholly outward motives, simply as a measure of prudence, for example, which, when all is said and done, is worth about as much as interpretations of ritual and symbolism
along moral or political lines. On the other hand, if it is a matter of profane organizations only, these same exterior motives are indeed really valid, and nothing more can be involved, at least unless in certain cases there is also, as we have already said with regard to rites, the desire to imitate the practices of initiatic organizations, though naturally without this corresponding to the least reality. All of which illustrates once more that similar appearances may in fact hide the most unlike things.
Now, all that we have said to this point about the multiplicity of names representing as many modalities of the being, relates solely to the extensions of the human individuality taken in its integral realization, that is, initiatically, and to the domain of the 'lesser mysteries', as we shall explain more precisely later. When the being proceeds to the 'greater mysteries', that is to say to the realization of supra-individual states, it thereby passes beyond name and form since, as Hindu doctrine teaches, these (nāma and rüpa) respectively express the essence and the substance of the individuality. Such a being truly no longer has a name, since that is a limitation from which it is henceforth liberated; in case of need it can take any name in order to manifest itself in the individual domain, but this name will not affect it in any way, since it is as 'accidental' to it as is a mere garment which is taken off or changed at will. This is the explanation of what was said above. In organizations of this order, the members have no name, and, furthermore, no longer do the organizations themselves; in these conditions, what is left that could pique profane curiosity? Even if certain names are discovered, they will have only an altogether conventional value; and this can even occur in organizations lower than these, where, for example, 'collective signatures' are used to represent either the organizations in their entirety or functions considered independently of the individualities fulfilling them. All of this, we repeat, results from the very nature of the initiatic order, where individual considerations count for nothing, and is never merely to divert inquiries, even though this might in fact be their consequence; but then, how could the profane understand anything besides the intentions they themselves might have?
From this also comes the difficulty, or even impossibility in many cases, of identifying the authors of works with an initiatic character. [3] Either they are entirely anonymous or, which amounts to the same thing, they have only a symbolic mark or conventional name as signature; moreover, there is no reason why their authors should have played any apparent role in the profane world. When, on the contrary, such works bear the name of an historic individual, things are not necessarily any more straightforward, for this does not necessarily reveal who or what is involved. The individual may very well have been only a spokesman or even a disguise, and in such a case his putative work would imply knowledge that he never really had; or he may have been only an initiate of a lower degree or even a merely profane person who was chosen for some contingent reason, [4] in which case it is obviously not the author who is important but solely the organization that inspired him.
Morcover, even in the profane order it is astonishing to see the importance attributed in our day to the author and all that concerns him, whether closely or remotely; does the value of the work then depend in some way on these things? On the other hand, it is easy to see that a concern to attach one's name to some work is found less in a civilization to the degree that it is more strictly linked to traditional principles, of which 'individualism' in all its forms is truly the very negation. It can be understood without difficulty that this is all of a piece, and we do not care to dwell on it further, all the more so as we have already explained these matters elsewhere; but it was not useless to note once again the role of the anti-traditional mentality, so characteristic of the modern age, as the principal cause for the
incomprehension of initiatic realities and of the tendency to reduce all things to profane points of view. It is this mentality that under such names as 'humanism' and 'rationalism' has for several centuries been at work reducing everything to the proportions of the ordinary human individuality, that is, to the restricted part of the individuality known to the profane, and to deny anything that transcends this narrowly limited domain, particularly all that relates to initiation of any degree whatsoever. It is hardly necessary to observe that the considerations we have just expressed are essentially based on the metaphysical doctrine of the multiple states of the being, of which they are a direct application. [5] How could this doctrine be understood by those who claim to make of individual man, and even of his corporeal modality alone, a complete and enclosed whole, a being sufficient unto itself, instead of secing in it only what it really is, the contingent and transitory manifestation of a being in a very particular domain among the indefinite multiplicity of all those that, in their totality, constitute universal Existence, and to which, for this same being, correspond as many different modalities and states of which it can become conscious precisely by following the way opened to it by initiation?