Two Initiatic Devices
Theri are two devices in the higher grades of Scottish Masonry of which the meaning relates to several of our earlier considerations. One is Post Tenebras Lux |After Darkness, Light|, and the other Oido ab Chao [Order from Chaos]; and in truth their meanings ate so closely connected as to be almost identical, although the second is perhaps susceptible of a wider application than is the first.[1] Both refer to initiatic 'illumination', the first dieecily and the second by way of consequence, since it is the original vibration of the Fiat Lux that sets in motion the beginning of the cosmogonic process by which 'chaos' will be so ordered as to become 'cosmos.'[2] In traditional symbolism, darkness always represents the state of undeveloped potentialities that constitutes 'chaos';[3] and, correlatively, light is related to the manifested world in which these potentialities will be actualized, namely the 'cosmos;[4]
this actualization being determined or 'measured' at each instant of the process of manifestation by the extension of the 'solar rays', starting from the central point whence was uttered the initial Fiat Lux.
Light is thus truly 'after darkness', not only from the point of view of the 'macrocosm' but also from that of the 'microcosm', which is the point of view of initiation since in this respect darkness represents the profane world from which the newly elected member comes, or else his original profane state up to the exact moment when he is initiated by 'receiving the light'. Through initiation the individual being therefore passes 'from darkness to light' as does the world at its very origin (and the symbolism of 'birth' is equally applicable in both cases) through the act of the creating and ordering Word;[5] and thus initiation, in conformity with a general characteristic of traditional rites, is in truth an image of 'what was done from the beginning'.
'Cosmos' on the other hand, insofar as it is order or the ordered ensemble of possibilities, is not only drawn from 'chaos' as 'nonordered', but is also produced from it as such (ab Chao), for in 'chaos' these same possibilities are contained in a potential and 'undifferentiated'state, thus making it the materia prima (in a relative sense, but more exactly, and with respect to the true materia prima or universal substance, the materia secunda of a particular world)[6] or the 'substantial' starting-point for the manifestation of this world, just as the Fiat Lux is, for its part, the 'essential' starting-point. In an analogous way the state of the being prior to initiation is the 'undifferentiated' substance of all that it can effectively become
thereafter,[7] for as we have already said, initiation cannot introduce possibilities that are not present in the being from the beginning (and this is the reason for the qualifications required as a precondition to initiation), any more than the cosmogonic Fiat Lux can add anything at all 'substantially' to the possibilities of the world for which it is uttered. But these possibilities are still only in the 'chaotic and dark' state,[8] and require 'illumination' to begin to be put in order and thereby pass from potency to act. It must be understood that this passage is not effected instantaneously but continues throughout the course of the initiatic work, just as from the 'macrocosmic' point of view it continues throughout the entire course of the cycle of manifestation of the world in question; the 'cosmos' or 'order' exist only virtually by the fact of the initial Fiat Lux (which in itself must always be regarded as having a strictly 'timeless' character, since it precedes the unfolding of the cycle of manifestation and thus cannot be situated within it), and in the same way initiation is only virtually accomplished by the communication of the spiritual influence for which the light is as it were a ritual 'support'.
The other considerations that can be deduced from the device Ordo ab Chao relate more to the role of initiatic organizations in regard to the outer world: since, as we have just said, the realization of 'order', insofar as it is equivalent to the very process of manifestation for the state of existence in a world such as ours, proceeds in a continuous fashion until all the possibilitics implied in it are exhausted (and by which the extreme limit of this world's 'measure' is reached), all beings capable of becoming aware of this-each in its own place and according to its own possibilities- should cooperate effectively in this realization, which is also called the 'plan of the Great Architect of the Universe' in the general and outward order; at the same time, by the initiatic work properly so called, each also
realizes within himself, inwardly and in particular, the plan that corresponds to this from the 'microcosmic' point of view. It is easy to understand that this can be applied in diverse and multiple ways in all domains; thus, in the social order in particular it could be a question of establishing a complete traditional organization under the inspiration of initiatic organizations which, as its esoteric part, would constitute something like the 'spirit' of the whole social organization,[9] the latter indeed representing, even in its exoteric aspect, a true 'order', as opposed to the 'chaos' of the purely profane state represented by the absence of such an organization.
We will also mention, though without dwelling on it unduly, another more particular signification that is more or less directly linked to what we have just discussed, for it refers essentially to the same domain. This signification relates to the use of exterior organizations, unconscious of this plan as such and apparently mutually opposed, for the realization of a common plan under a single 'invisible' direction which itself stands above all oppositions; we alluded to this previously when we noted that such an application is particularly evident in the Far-Eastern tradition. By the disordered action they produce, these oppositions constitute a kind of 'chaos' among themselves, at least apparently; but it is precisely a question of using this very 'chaos' (taken as in a way the 'matter' on which the 'spirit', represented by the highest and most 'interior' initiatic organizations, acts) in the realization of the general 'order', just as in the 'cosmos' as a whole all things that are apparently opposed are in the final analysis no less truly elements of the total order. For this to be so, that which presides over 'order' must fulfill the role of 'unmoved mover' with respect to the 'outer' world. This latter, which remains at the fixed point that is the center of the 'cosmic wheel', is thereby. like the pivot around which that wheel turns, the norm by which its motion is regulated; it can play this role only because it does not itself participate in that motion, and it plays it without intervening
in this motion expressly, without mingling in any way, then, with that outward action which pertains entirely to the circumference of the wheel.[10] It is only contingent modifications, which change and pass, that are drawn along by the revolutions of this wheel; only that remains which, united to the Principle, stands unvarying at the center, immutable like the Principle itself; and the center, which nothing can affect in its undifferentiated unity, is the starting-point for the indefinite multiplicity of those modifications that constitute universal manifestation; and it is also their culminating point, for it is with respect to it that they are all finally ordered, just as the powers of each being are necessarily ordered in view of its final reintegration into principial immutability.