Tradition & Transmission
We have previously noted that, etymologically, 'tradition' expresses no idea except transmission; when one speaks of 'tradition' in the sense we intend, its meaning really does not extend beyond this perfectly normal usage, as our previous explanations should make clear. Nonetheless, some have raised an objection in this regard, so that we must dwell upon this point further in order that no ambiguity may remain. The objection runs thus: anything at all can be the object of a transmission, even things of the most profane order; why then could one not just as well speak of 'tradition' for everything transmitted, regardless of its nature, instead of restricting this word to that domain called 'sacred'?
A preliminary remark will greatly reduce the scope of this question. If one returned to primordial conditions, the objection would never arise, for the distinction it implies between 'sacred' and 'profane' did not then exist. Indeed, as we have often explained, there is no such thing as a profane order to which certain things could belong by their very nature; there is in reality only a profane point of view, which is the consequence and product of a particular degeneration that itself results from the descending march of the human cycle and its gradual movement away from the principial state. One can therefore say that before this degeneration, that is to say in the normal state of a not yet fallen humanity, all things possessed a traditional character, for all things were envisaged in their essential dependence on and conformity to principles, so that a profane activity, separate from and ignorant of these principles, would have been altogether inconceivable, even in what we presently call
'ordinary life', or rather in what would have corresponded to it at that time. This life, however, had an aspect quite different from that which our contemporaries understand by the term, [1] and this was even more true for the sciences and the arts and crafts, the traditional character of which was long maintained and is still found in every normal civilization, so much so that one could say that the profane conception is, excepting 'classical' antiquity to a certain degree, exclusive to modern civilization, which itself represents the final degree of degeneration.
If we now consider the state of things following the onset of this degeneration, we can ask why the idea of tradition excludes what thereafter was considered to belong to the profane order (that is, what no longer has any conscious link with principles), and is applied only to what has kept its original character and retains its 'transcendent' aspect. It is not sufficient to say that usage required this, at least as long as those confusions and altogether modern deviations to which we have previously called attention had not yet been produced; [2] it is true that usage can often modify the original meaning of words, especially by broadening or restricting them, but for such usage to be legitimate it must have its raison d'être, and especially in such a case as this the reason cannot be unimportant. Let us observe, moreover, that this situation is not limited only to those languages that employ derivatives of the Latin word 'tradition'; in Hebrew, kabbalah, which has exactly the same meaning of transmission, is similarly reserved to designate tradition as we have understood it, and cven ordinarily its strictly esoteric and initiatic aspect, that is, what is most 'inward' and elevated in that tradition and thus what constitutes its very spirit as it were; and this again demonstrates that here is surely something more important and more significant than a simple question of usage in the sense of mere modifications in current language.
What first follows from this is that what the term tradition can be applied to remains fundamentally, though not necessarily in its outward expression, what it was originally, that is, something that has
been transmitted from a previous state of humanity to its present state. At the same time we can sce that the 'transcendent' character of everything traditional also implies a transmission in another sense, starting with the very principles that are communicated to the human state; this sense thus joins with the preceding one and obviously completes it. Again calling on terms we have used elsewhere, [3] we could speak of a 'vertical' transmission from the suprahuman to the human and a 'horizontal' transmission across the states or successive stages of humanity; the vertical transmission is of course essentially 'non-temporal', the horizontal transmission alone implying chronological succession. We might add that the vertical transmission, which we have just envisaged as from above, when taken in the reverse direction from below, becomes a 'participation' by humanity in realities of the principial order, indeed, a participation assured by tradition in all its forms since it is precisely through it that humanity is put into effective contact with a superior order. For its part, horizontal transmission, if considered as a reascent over the course of time, becomes a 'return to origins', a restoration of the 'primordial state'; and we have already indicated that this restoration is precisely a necessary condition for man to raise himself effectively to the superior states.
But there is still more to be said on this point. To the character of 'transcendence', which essentially belongs to principles and in which everything effectively linked to them participates to some degree (this participation expressing itself as the presence of a 'non-human' element in all that is properly traditional), is added a character of 'permanence', which explains the immutability of these same principles and which is similarly communicated, in the measure possible, to their applications, even when these belong to contingent domains. Of course, this is not to say that tradition is not susceptible of conditioned adaptations in certain circumstances; yet beneath these modifications there is always permanence in what is essential, and even where contingencies are involved, they are, as it were, surpassed and 'transformed' through their attachment to principles. On the contrary, when we place ourselves at the profane point of
view, which is characterized in an entirely negative way by the absence of any such attachment, we are, as it were, within pure contingency, with all the consequent instability and incessant change, and with no possibility of extricating ourselves; in a certain way this is 'becoming' reduced to itself, and it is not difficult to see that every profane idea is subject to continual change, as are the modes of activity deriving from such ideas, of which what is called 'fashion' is the most striking example. From this we may conclude that tradition includes not only everything worthy of transmission but also everything capable of it, since all that lacks a traditional character and that consequently falls within the profane point of view is so dominated by change that all transmission soon becomes a pure and simple 'anachronism', or a 'superstition' in the etymological sense of the word and no longer corresponds to anything real or valid.
We should now understand why tradition and transmission without any abuse of language may be regarded as nearly synonymous, or at least why in every respect tradition can be called transmission par excellence. Moreover, if the idea of transmission so essentially inheres in the traditional point of view that this latter could legitimately derive its very name from it, our remarks about the need for a regular transmission in what pertains to the traditional order (and more especially the initiatic order, which is not only an integral but even an 'eminent' part of it) are thereby reinforced and even acquire the kind of immediate evidence that should, by the simplest logic and without further appeal to more profound considerations, decisively preclude any argument on this point concerning which only pseudo-initiatio organizations could have an interest in maintaining ambiguity and confusion, precisely because they lack this transmission.