PILGRIMAGES
The recent appearance in Le Voile d'Isis of a remarkable article by Grillot de Givry on places of pilgrimage brings us back to a question we have already considered in these pages, as we are reminded in Clavelle's introduction to this article.
Let us note first of all that the Latin word peregrinus, from which 'pilgrim' comes, means both 'traveler' and 'stranger', and this simple observation already points to some rather curious connections. Among the Companions there are on the one hand, those who qualify as 'wayfarers' and others who as 'strangers', corresponding exactly to the two meanings of peregrinus (meanings also found in the Hebrew gershôn), and on the other hand, the symbolic ordeals of initiation are called 'journeys' even in modern 'speculative' Masonry. In many traditions the various initiatic stages are described as stages of a journey, sometimes an ordinary journey, sometimes a voyage, as we have pointed out on other occasions. This symbolism of the journey is perhaps more widespread than that of war, to which we alluded in an earlier article. Moreover, both symbolisms share a certain connection which is sometimes even expressed outwardly in historical facts. We are thinking especially of the close connection during the Middle Ages between pilgrimage to the Holy Land and the Crusades. And let us add that even in the most ordinary religious language, earthly life, considered as a time of trials, is often likened to a journey, and even qualified more particularly as a pilgrimage-the celestial world, which is the object of this pilgrimage, also being identified symbolically with the 'Holy Land' or 'Land of the Living'.[1]
The state of 'wandering', if one may so put it, or of migration, is therefore in general a state of 'probation'; and here again we note that such is in fact its actual characteristic in organizations such as the Compagnonnage. Besides, what is true in this respect for individuals can in certain cases also be so to some degree for peoples taken collectively, a very clear example is this being the Hebrews' wandering for forty years in the desert before reaching the Promised Land. But a distinction must be made here, for this state, which is essentially transitory, must not be confused with the nomadic state normal for certain peoples: even after their arrival at the Promised Land, and up to the time of David and Solomon, the Hebrews remained a nomadic people, but this nomadism obviously did not have the same character as their wandering in the desert.[2] We could even envisage a third case of 'wandering', which could be referred to more exactly as 'tribulation': it is that of the Jews after their dispersion, and in all likelihood also that of the Bohemians; but this would lead us too far afield, and we shall say only that this case is equally applicable to groups and to individuals. One sees by this how complex these things are and how distinctions are to be made among men who appear outwardly identical to the ordinary pilgrims with whom they mingle; and beyond this, sometimes it even happens that initiates who have attained the goal, or even 'adepts', may for special reasons adopt this same guise of 'traveler'.
But to return to pilgrims, we know that their distinctive signs were the scallop shell (so called from Saint-Jacques) and the staff. The latter, which is also closely connected to the walking-stick of the Compagnonnage, is naturally an attribute of the traveler, but it has many other meanings, and perhaps one day we shall devote a special study to this question. As for the scallop shell, it was in certain regions called the 'creusille', a word that must be linked to 'crucible', again recalling the notion of trials, envisaged here more particularly in connection with alchemical symbolism and understood in the
sense of 'purification', the Pythagorean catharsis, which was precisely the preparatory phase of initiation.[3]
Since the scallop shell is regarded as a special attribute of St James, we are led to an observation regarding the pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostello [Santiago de Compostela]. The routes formerly followed by the pilgrims are even today often called 'paths of Saint-Jacques', but this expression has at the same time quite another application: in the language of the peasants, the 'Way of Saint James' is in fact also the 'Milky Way', and this will perhaps seem less unexpected if we note that etymologically Compostello means 'starlit field'. Here we come upon another idea, that of 'celestial voyages', and this moreover in connection with a terrestrial voyage. This is a point on which we cannot dwell at present, but let us at least note that this gives one a sense of a certain correspondence between the geographic location of the places of pilgrimage and the ordering of the celestial sphere itself, and thus that the 'sacred geography' we mentioned is here integrated in a true 'sacred cosmography'.
While on the subject of pilgrimage routes, we should recall that Joseph Bédier had the merit of recognizing the connection between the sanctuaries marking the stages of pilgrimage, and the development of the chanson de gestes. This fact could be applied generally, so that the same could be said spread of many legends whose real initiatic import unfortunately almost always goes unrecognized by moderns. Owing to the plurality of meanings, accounts of this kind could appeal simultaneously to the multitude of ordinary pilgrims and... to others; each would understand them according to the measure of his own intellectual capacity, and only a few would penetrate the profound meaning, as is the case for all initiatic teaching. We should also note that because so many kinds of people, including pedlars and even beggars, crossed paths on these routes, a certain solidarity was established among them for reasons no doubt difficult to define, which was expressed in the common adoption of a special conventional language, the 'Scallop argot' or 'pilgrim's tongue'. In one of his recent books Léon Daudet makes the interesting remark
that many words and phrases belonging to this language are found in Villon and Rabelais.[4] In Rabelais' case he also points out that for several years
he wandered through Poitiers, at that time a province celebrated for the mystery plays and farces performed there and also for its cycles of legends; in Pantagruel we rediscover traces of these legends and farces as well as a certain number of specifically Poitevan terms.[5]
We cite this last phrase because, apart from its reference to the legends of which we spoke just now, it raises still another question relevant to our present topic, that of the origins of the theater.[6] In the beginning the theater was on the one hand itinerant, and on the other assumed a religious character, at least as to its outer forms-a religious character that connects it with those pilgrims and others who challenged its appearance. What lends still more importance to this fact is that it is not unique to the Europe of the Middle Ages; the history of the theater in ancient Greece is quite similar, and other examples could be found in most of the countries of the East.
But we must limit ourselves here, and shall raise only one final point regarding the expression 'noble travellers' applied to initiates, or at least to some among them, precisely because of their wanderings. On this point O.V. de L. Milosz[7] wrote:
Transmitted by oral tradition to initiates of the Middle Ages and of modern times, Noble Traveller is the secret name of initiates of antiquity. The last time that it was pronounced in public was on May 30, 1786, in Paris, at a session of Parliament devoted to the cross-examination of a famous defendant [Cagliostro],
victim of a pamphleteer, Theveneau de Morande. Initiates' wanderings did not differ from ordinary travels for study except that their itinerary, though apparently haphazard, rigorously coincided with the adept's most secret aspirations and gifts. The most illustrious examples of these pilgrimages are offered to us by: Democritus, who was initiated into the secrets of alchemy by Egyptian priests and by Ostanes, the magus, and into Asiatic doctrines during his stays not only in Persia but also, according to some historians, in India as well; Thales, instructed in the temples of Egypt and of Chaldea; and Pythagoras, who visited all the countries known to the ancients (and, very probably, India and China), whose sojourns were distinguished-in Persia by conversations with Zaratas the magus, in Gaul by his cooperation with the Druids, and in Italy by his speeches at the Assembly of the Elders of Crotona. To these examples it would be proper to add Paracelsus' stays in France, Austria, Germany, Spain and Portugal, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Valachia, Carniola, Dalmatia, Russia and Turkey, as well as the travels of Nicholas Flamel to Spain where Maistre Canches taught him how to decipher the famous hieroglyphic figures of the Book of Abraham the Jew. The poet Robert Browning has defined the secret character of these scholarly pilgrimages in a stanza particularly rich in intuition: 'I see my way as birds their trackless way.... In some time, His good time, I shall arrive: He guides me and the bird.' William Meister's years of travel have the same initiatic meaning.[8]
We wanted to reproduce this entire passage despite its length because of the interesting examples it contains. No doubt one could find many others more or less well-known, but these are particularly characteristic, even if they do not perhaps belong to the same category as those discussed earlier, and which should not be confused with 'study travels', even when these latter are really initiatic and involve special missions of adepts or even of initiates of a lesser degree.
Returning to the expression 'noble travelers', the point we wish to emphasize is that the epithet 'noble' seems to indicate not just initiation in general but more particularly a Kshatriya initiation, or what may be called the 'royal art', according to an expression Masonry still employs. In other words, the initiation concerned does not pertain to the order of pure metaphysics, but to the cosmological order and to the applications attached to it, that is, to everything that in the West has been given the general name 'Hermeticism.[9] If such is the case, Clavelle was quite right to say that whereas Saint John corresponds to the purely metaphysical point of view of the Tradition, Saint James corresponds rather to the point of view of the 'traditional sciences'; and even without claiming a connection however plausible, with the 'Master James' of the Compagnonnage, many concordant indications do tend to establish that this correspondence is justified. It is really to this domain, which can be called 'intermediary', that all the matters associated with pilgrimages as well as the traditions of the Compagnonnage, or of the Bohemians, refer. Knowledge of the 'lesser mysteries', or of the laws of 'becoming', is acquired in traversing the 'wheel of things'; but knowledge of the 'greater mysteries', being that of immutable principles, requires unmoving contemplation in the 'great solitude' at the fixed point which is the center of the wheel, the fixed point around which the manifested Universe revolves.