36 Initiation 'SERVICE'
There is perhaps no more general or more striking characteristic of modern pseudo-initiatic organizations than the attribution of an esoteric and initiatic value to considerations that can really have an acceptable meaning only in a purely exoteric domain. Such confusion, which corresponds quite well to the use of those images drawn from 'ordinary life' of which we spoke earlier, is in any case inevitable on the part of profane individuals who, wanting to pass for something they are not, claim to speak on matters of which they are in fact ignorant and about which they naturally form an idea cut to the measure of their own understanding. No less naturally, the considerations of this kind that they most insist on will always conform to the predominant tendencies of the present age, which shape even their secondary variations. Here one might ask how submitting to the influence of the profane wotld in this manner can be reconciled with the slightest initiatic claim, but of course those concerned are not at all aware of the contradiction. One could easily cite organizations that initially gave the illusion of a kind of intellectuality, at least to those who did not go to the heart of the matter, but which later came to limit themselves more and more to the worst sentimental banalities; clearly, this display of sentimentality only corresponds to what one presently sees in the 'outside world'. In both, moreover, one finds exactly the same formulas, as empty as they are pompous, the effect of which results from those 'suggestions' we mentioned earlier, although those who employ them are certainly not always conscious of where all this leads; and
their absurdity in the eyes of anyone capable of even a little reflection becomes even greater when they parody esoterism. Such absurdity is furthermore a true 'mark' of the influences that are really behind all of this, even if those who yield to them are very far from suspecting it; but rather than continue with these general remarks, we wish to consider here a particular case that we find especially significant and which is connected in a certain way with what we have just said about 'passivity'.
In the special phraseology of these organizations, the words 'service' and 'servant' recur with ever-increasing frequency; one finds them everywhere, no matter what the subject. It is like a kind of obsession, and one might legitimately ask to what kind of 'suggestion' are they due. We must no doubt make allowances here for the Western mania for 'humility' or, more precisely, for its outward display, for the reality may be quite different, as when the most violent and hateful quarrels are accompanied by grand words about 'universal brotherhood'. Furthermore, it is clear that this is only a 'secular' and 'democratic' humility, perfectly consonant with an 'ideal' that, instead of raising the lower as much as possible, reduces the higher to the level of the lower. One must clearly be imbued with this modern and essentially anti-hicrarchical 'ideal' not to see what is so disagreeable in such expressions, even where the intentions behind them are completely praiseworthy; it would doubtless be necessary in this last regard to distinguish among the very different applications that could be made of these expressions, but what is important to us here is only the state of mind betrayed by the words employed.
If these general considerations are equally valid in all cases, they are nonetheless insufficient when pseudo-initiation more particularly is involved; this brings in an additional confusion due on the one hand to the preponderance given by moderns to action, and on the other to the social point of view, and this leads them to imagine that these points of vicw should apply even to a domain where in reality they have no place. By one of those strange reversals of every normal order so customary to our epoch, the most external activities come to be regarded as essential conditions of initiation and,
sometimes, even its goal, for, incredible as it may be, some even go so far as to see in initiation nothing but a means for better 'service'; and a further aggravating circumstance should be noted: that these activities are conceived in the most profane manner, devoid of the traditional, though of course entirely exoteric, character they could at least assume if envisaged from a religious point of view. But it is certainly a long way from religion to the mere 'humanitarian' moralism that is the mark of pseudo-initiates of cvery category!
On the other hand, it is undeniable that all forms of sentimentality are disposed toward a certain 'passivity'; here we rejoin the question treated previously, and here also is very likely the principal reason for the 'suggestion' now under consideration and what, in any case, renders it particularly dangerous. Indeed, by repeating to somcone that he must 'serve' something, even if only vague 'ideal' entities, he is eventually put into such a disposition that, when the occasion presents itself, he is ready to 'serve' all who claim to incarnate those entities or to represent them in a more positive way; and the orders that he will receive from them, whatever their charactereven if of the worst extravagance-will thus find in him the obedience of a true 'servant'. We can readily understand how this is one of the best possible means for molding instruments that the counterinitiation can have at its disposal; it also has the advantage of being one of the least compromising, since the 'suggestion' in such cases can very well be cxercised by ordinary dupes, that is, by other unconscious instruments, so that those in charge need never intervene directly.
Let no one object that where there is a question of 'service' there might be what the Hindu tradition would call a bhaktic way. Despite the sentimental clement it possesses to a certain degree (although it never degenerates into 'sentimentalism'), it is something else altogether; and even if one wishes to render bhakti as 'devotion' in Westein language, as is usually done-though this is at most a derived meaning, for the first and essential meaning of the word is 'participation', as A.K. Coomaraswamy has shown-'devotion' is not 'service', or it could only be 'divine service' and not 'service' to anyone or anything. As for 'service' to a guru, if one insists upon using this word, where such a thing exists it is only as a preparatory discipline,
and concerns only those one might call 'aspirants' and not those who have already achieved an effective initiation; and here we are still very far from the lofty spiritual goal so curiously attributed to 'service' by the pseudo-initiates. Finally, to forestall all possible objections, let us note that, in regard to the bonds between members of an initiatic organization, one obviously cannot give the name of 'service' to the assistance rendered by the superior as such to the inferior, nor more generally to relationships where the double hierarchy of degrecs and functions (to which we shall return) must always be strictly observed.
We will not dwell any longer on this subject, which, all told, is a rather disagreeable one; but we thought it necessary, in view of the many diverse and doubtful 'services' to which people today are invited from all quarters, to point out the danger they hide and to say as clearly as possible what it is. To conclude on a brief note, we will simply add this: the initiate need not be a 'servant', or, at least, must be a servant only to the Truth.[^1]