43 The Notion OF AN Elite
There is a word we have used frequently on other occasions, the meaning of which we must now explain more precisely from the strictly initiatic point of view, something we did not do earlier, at least explicitly. This is the word 'elite', which we used to designate something that no longer exists in the present state of the Western world, something of which the constitution, or rather reconstitution, seems to us to be the first and essential condition for an intellectual rectification and a traditional restoration.[1] It must be said that this word is yet another of those that are strangely abused in our time, to the point where in their most current acceptation they no longer have anything in common with what they should normally signify. These deformations, as we have remarked in other connections, often take on the appearance of caricatures or parodies, and this is particularly so with words that, before any profane deviation set in, were in a way consecrated by traditional usage, which, as we shall see, was indeed the case with the word 'elite'.[2] Such words are related in a certain way, as 'technical' terms, to initiatic symbolism itself, and this symbolism does not cease to be what it truly is simply because the profane sometimes take a symbol they cannot understand, divert it from its meaning, and employ it in an
illegitimate way. Thus there is no valid reason why the abuse of a word should oblige us to avoid using it; besides, if it did, it is hard to see what terms would finally remain at our disposal, given all the disorder modern language displays.
When we began to use the word 'elite' as just described, the false conceptions to which it is commonly applied did not yet appear to be as widespread as we have noted since, and perhaps this was really so at the time, for these things continue to worsen noticeably and more and more rapidly; in fact, never has there been so much talk about the elite-on every occasion and from all quarters-as there has since it ceased to exist, and of course what is denoted by the word is no longer the elite in the true sense. But this is not all. There is now talk of 'elites', a term that claims to include all individuals who, by however little, surpass the 'average' in any order of activity whatsoever, be this the most inferior and furthest removed from any intellectuality.[3] Let us note in the first place that the plural here is truly nonsense; without cven leaving the merely profane point of view it can already be said that this word is one of those that can have no plural because their meaning is as it were 'superlative', or again because they imply the idea of something that is by its very nature insusccplible of fragmentation and subdivision; but for us it is time to raise other more profound considerations.
For the sake of greater precision and to avoid any possible misunderstanding, we have sometimes used the expression 'intellectual elite'; but this is tuuly almost a pleonasm, for it is not even conceivable that the elite should be other than intellectual, or if one prefers, spiritual, these two words after all being equivalents in our eyes since we resolutely refuse to confound true intellectuality with 'rationality'. The reason for this is that the eminence that characterizes the elite by very definition can only be effected from 'on high', that is, in respect of the highest possibilities of the being; and this is casy to understand even after minimal reflection on the truc meaning of the word, which quite directly stems from its etymology. Indeed, from the strictly traditional point of view, what gives this
word all its force is its derivation from 'elect'; and it is in fact thislet us say it plainly-that led us to use it as we did in preference to any other; but we must explain a bit further how it should be understood.[4] It must not be thought that we stop at the religious and exoteric sense, which is doubtless how the 'elect' are most often spoken of, although even this could easily enough allow of an analogical transposition appropriate to what is actually in question; but there is yet something else, which can be indicated by the well known and often cited, but perhaps insufficiently understood, Gospel text: Multi vocati, electi pauci ['For many are called, but few are chosen' (Matt. 22:14)].
In the final analysis, we could say that the elite as we understand it represents the totality of those who possess the qualifications required for initiation, and who naturally are always a minority among men; all men are in a sense 'called' by reason of the 'central' position the human being occupies among all the other beings found in this same state of existence,[5] but few are 'chosen', and in the conditions of the present age there are indeed surely fewer than ever.[6] It could be objected that this elite always exists in fact, for however few are qualified in the initiatic sense of this word, there are nonetheless always some; besides, number counts for little here.[7] This is truc, but such people represent only a virtual elite, or, one could say, the possibility of an elite; in order for this to be actually constituted it is above all necessary that they become conscious of their qualification. On the other hand, as we explained above, it must be understood that initiatic qualifications, such as they can be
determined from the strictly 'technical' point of view, are not at all of an exclusively intellectual order but include other constituent elements of the human being as well; but this changes absolutely nothing with regard to what we said about the definition of the elite, since whatever these qualifications may be in themselves, they mus always be considered in view of an essentially intellectual or spiritual realization, and since it is in this that their unique raison d'être ultimately resides.
Normally, all who are thus qualified ought by this very fact to have the possibility of obtaining initiation. If this is not so in practice it is solely because of the present state of the Western world; and in this regard the disappearance of an elite conscious of itself, and the absence, in any case, of initiatic organizations adequate to receive it, appear as two closely connected and in some way correlative facts, about which we need not ask which is a consequence of the other. But on the other hand it is evident that initiatic organizations capable of being fully and truly what they ought to be, and not merely more or less degenerated vestiges of what they once were, could only be reformed if they found members possessing not only the initial aptitude necessary as a preliminary condition, but also the effective dispositions determined by the consciousness of that aptitude, for it is above all up to these latter to 'aspire' to initiation, and it would be to reverse the normal relationships to think that this must come to them independently of that aspiration, since this aspiration is like a first manifestation of the essentially 'active' disposition required by everything of the truly initiatic order. This is why the reconstitution of an elite-we mean an elite conscious of its initiatic possibilities, although these may be only latent and undeveloped as long as a regular traditional affiliation has not been ob-tained-is the first condition on which all the rest depends, just as previously prepared materials are indispensable for the construction of a building, although these materials can obviously only fulfill their function once they have found their place in the building itself.
Supposing that initiation in the sense of an affiliation with a traditional 'chain' has really been obtained by those belonging to the
elite, it still remains to consider how far each may go, that is, in the first place, with regard to the passage from virtual to effective initiation, and then with regard to attaining a more or less elevated degree according to the extent of the being's particular possibilities. Regarding the passage from one degree to another, there is reason then to consider what could be called an elite within the elite itself,[8] this being the sense in which some have spoken of the 'elite of the elite'.[9] In other words, one can envisage successive 'elections', each more and more restricted with regard to the number of individuals concerned, always effected 'from above' and following the same principle, and corresponding to the different degrees of the initiatic hierarchy.[10] The initiate can thus rise step by step until he reaches the supreme 'election', that belonging to the 'adept', that is to say the fulfillment of the ultimate goal of all initiation; and consequently the elect in the most complete sense of this word, whom we might call the 'perfect elect', will be he who finally achieves the realization of the 'Supreme Identity.'[11]