9 SOME CONCLUSIONS

Our chief purpose in this work has been to show how it is possible, by the application of traditional data, to find the most direct solution to the questions that are being asked nowadays, to explain the present state of mankind, and at the same time to judge everything that constitutes modern civilization in accordance with truth, instead of by conventional rules or sentimental preferences. We make no claim to have exhausted the subject, or to have treated it in full detail, nor to have developed all its aspects completely and without omissions. The principles that have inspired us throughout make it necessary, in any case, to present views that are essentially synthetic, and not analytical-as are those of 'profane' learning; but just because these views are synthetic, they go much further in the direction of a true explanation than could any analysis, which indeed can scarcely have more than a merely descriptive value. We think that enough has been said to enable those who are capable of understanding to deduce for themselves at least some of the consequences implicitly contained therein; and they can rest assured that the work of so doing will be of far more value to them than reading something that leaves no matter for reflection and meditation, for which latter, on the contrary, we have sought to provide an appropriate starting-point, that is to say a foundation from which to rise above the meaningless multitude of individual opinions. It still remains to comment briefly on what might be called the practical bearing of such a study; this could be passed over or ignored if we had confined ourselves to purely metaphysical doctrine, in relation to which no application is more than contingent and accidental; but in the present study, applications are precisely the thing with which we have been concerned. These have a twofold justification quite apart from any practical value: they are the legitimate consequence of principles, the normal development of a doctrine which, since it is one and universal, must embrace all orders of reality without exception and, at the same time, as we explained when speaking of 'sacred science', these principles also form, at least for some, a preparatory means for attaining to a higher knowledge. Furthermore, while in the realm of applications, there is no harm in considering these for their own sake, provided that in so doing one is never led into losing sight of their dependence on principles. This last is a very real danger, since it is the source of the degeneracy that made 'profane science' possible, but it does not exist for those who know that everything derives from, and is altogether dependent on, pure intellectuality, and consequently that anything that does not proceed consciously therefrom can be no more than illusion. As we have said many times already, the starting-point of everything should be knowledge; and thus what appears to be most remote from the practical order is nevertheless the most potent even within this order, since it is impossible here as anywhere else to accomplish without it anything of real value or anything that will prove more than a vain and superficial agitation. But to return more particularly to the question that concerns us here, it may be said that the modern world would immediately cease to exist if men understood what it really is, since its existence, like that of ignorance and everything that implies limitation, is purely negative: it exists only through negation of the traditional and supra-human truth. Thus, through knowledge, the change could be brought about without the intervention of a catastrophe, a thing that seems scarcely possible in any other way; is it then not right to say that such knowledge can have truly incalculable practical consequences? At the same time, it is unfortunately very difficult to conceive of all men attaining to such knowledge, from which most of them are further removed than ever before; but as a matter of fact, it is quite unnecessary for them to do so, and it would be enough if there were a numerically small but powerfully established elite to guide the masses, who would obey its suggestions without even suspecting its existence, or having any idea of its mode of action; is it still possible for this elite to be effectively established in the West? We do not intend to repeat here everything we have already said elsewhere as to the part that the intellectual elite will have to play in the various circumstances that can be regarded as possible in a not too distant future. We will confine ourself to saying this: in whatever way the change, which may be described as a passage from one world to another, may come about-whether these 'worlds' be larger or smaller cycles does not matter-it can never involve absolute discontinuity, since there is always a causal chain linking the cycles together, even though the change may have the appearance of an abrupt breach. If the elite of which we spoke could be formed while there is still time, it could so prepare the change that it would take place in the most favorable conditions possible, and the disturbances that must inevitably accompany it would in this way be reduced to a minimum; but even if this cannot be, it will still have another, and more important, task-that of contributing to the conservation of the elements that must survive from the present world to be used in forming the one to follow. One knows that a reascent must come, but it is nevertheless unnecessary to wait for the descent to reach its nadir before preparing the way for the re-ascent, even though it may prove impossible to prevent the descent ending in some cataclysm beforehand. This means that, whatever may happen, the work done will not be wasted: it cannot be useless, if only because of the benefit that the elite itself will draw from it, but neither will it be wasted from the point of view of its later effects on humanity as a whole. Here then is how things may be envisaged: the elite still exists in the Eastern civilizations, and, granting that it is becoming ever smaller due to modernist encroachment, it will nevertheless continue to exist until the end, because this is necessary for the safeguarding of the 'ark' of tradition-which cannot perish-and for the transmission of everything that is to be preserved. In the West on the other hand the elite no longer exists; the question may therefore be asked whether or not it will be reconstituted before the end of our epoch, that is, whether the Western world, despite its deviation, will take part in this work of preservation and transmission. If not, the result will be that Western civilization will have to disappear completely, since, having lost all trace of the traditional spirit, it will no longer contain any element that is of use for the future. The question, thus posed, may have only a very secondary importance as far as the final result is concerned; it nevertheless has, from a relative point of view, a certain interest that cannot be overlooked, once we decide to take into consideration the particular conditions of the times in which we live. In principle, it would be sufficient to note that this Western world is a part of the whole from which it appears to have become separated at the beginning of the modern era, and that all parts must to a certain extent contribute toward the ultimate reintegration of the cycle. But this does not necessarily imply any prior restoration of the Western tradition, since the latter may be preserved only in a state of permanent possibility at its source, and not in any particular form that it may have assumed at a given period. We merely mention this in passing, for in order to make it fully understandable it would be necessary to examine in detail the relationship between the primordial tradition and the subordinate traditions, and this we cannot do here. In itself, this would be the most unfavorable outcome for the Western world, but the present state of things in the West gives rise to the fear that it is the one that is actually being realized; however, as we have said, there are some signs that seem to show that all hope of a better solution need not yet be entirely abandoned. There are at present more people in the West than one might suppose who are beginning to see what is wanting in their civilization; if they fall back on vague aspirations and embark on research that is often barren, and if they sometimes even lose their way altogether, it is because they lack real knowledge, which nothing can replace, and because there is no organization that can give them the doctrinal guidance they need. We do not refer here, of course, to those who have succeeded in finding such guidance in the Eastern traditions and who are therefore, intellectually, outside the Western world; such persons must necessarily remain exceptional cases, and cannot in any way form an integral part of a Western elite; they are in reality a prolongation of the Eastern elites and might form a link between these and that of the West, once this be established; but a Western elite can by definition only be established by Western initiative, and therein lies the whole difficulty. This initiative could come in one of two ways: either the West would have to find in itself the means of bringing it about through a direct return to its own tradition, a return that would be a sort of spontaneous reawakening of latent possibilities; or certain Western elements would have to bring about this restoration with the help afforded by a knowledge of the Eastern doctrines; this however could not for them be quite direct, since they would have to remain Westerners, but it might be obtained by a sort of second-hand influence working through intermediaries such as those of whom we have just spoken. The first of these two hypotheses is very unlikely, since it depends on the existence in the West of at least one rallying point where the traditional spirit has been preserved intact, and as we have already said, this seems to us very doubtful, notwithstanding certain affirmations to the contrary; it is therefore the second hypothesis that needs to be examined more closely. In this case it would be better, although not absolutely necessary, for the elite to be able to take as its basis a Western organization already enjoying an effective existence. It seems quite clear that there is now but one organization in the West that is of a traditional character and that has preserved a doctrine that could serve as an appropriate basis for the work in question, and this organization is the Catholic church. It would be enough to restore to the doctrine of the Church, without changing anything of the religious form that it bears outwardly, the deeper meaning that is truly contained in it, but of which its present representatives seem to be unaware, just as they are unaware of its essential unity with the other traditional forms-these two things being, as a matter of fact, inseparable from one another. This would mean the realization of Catholicism in the true sense of the word, which etymologically expresses the idea of 'universality', a fact that is too apt to be forgotten by those who seek to make of it no more than the denomination of one particular and purely Western form, without any real connection with the other traditions. Indeed, it may be said that in the present state of things Catholicism has no more than a virtual existence, since it does not possess any real awareness of universality; but it is nonetheless true that the existence of an organization bearing such a name is in itself an indication that there is a possible basis for a restoration of the traditional spirit in its fullest sense, the more so because throughout the Middle Ages it already served as a support for it in the West. All that would be necessary therefore is to re-establish what already existed prior to the modern deviation, though with the adaptations called for by the conditions of a different period; and if such an idea astonishes or offends some people, it is because they themselves, though unconsciously and perhaps even against their will, are so completely governed by the modern outlook as to have quite forgotten the meaning of a tradition of which they retain only the outer shell. The important question is whether the formalism of the 'letter'-this being also a variety of materialism as we have defined it earlier on-has utterly smothered spirituality or only temporarily overshadowed it, leaving the possibility of a re-awakening within the existing organization; only the course of events can give an answer to this question. It is possible that this same course of events might sooner or later force on the leaders of the Catholic church, as an unavoidable necessity, a decision whose intellectual import they would be far from properly understanding. It would certainly be a matter for regret if they should be driven to reflection by circumstances as contingent as those springing from the field of politics, at least as long as this is considered apart from any higher principle. But at the same time, it must be admitted that the opportunity for the development of latent possibilities must be accorded to each person through those means that most immediately fall within the scope of his present understanding. For this reason, we do not hesitate to assert, in view of the ever increasing state of confusion, that it has become necessary to call for the union of all the spiritual forces whose action still makes itself felt in the outer world, in both the West and the East; and as far as the West is concerned, we can see no other such force than the Catholic church. If the latter could thus be brought into touch with representatives of the Eastern traditions, it would be a preliminary step, at which we would rejoice, being possibly the starting-point for what we have in mind, inasmuch as it would doubtless not be long before it became apparent that a merely outward and 'diplomatic' understanding was illusory, and could not yield the desired results; it would then become necessary to pass on to what would normally come first, namely to consider a possible agreement on principles. For this agreement, the one and only essential condition is for the representatives of the West to return to a real awareness of those principles, which the East has never lost. A true mutual understanding, be it said once more, can come only from above and within, which means that it must be in the domain that can be called, with equal truth, intellectual or spiritual, since the two words really bear the same meaning. From this starting-point, the understanding would be bound to extend over all other domains, just as, once a principle is enunciated, it only remains to extract-or rather to make more explicit-all the consequences implied therein. There can only be one obstacle in the way of such an understanding, and that is Western proselytism, which cannot bring itself to admit that it is sometimes necessary to have 'allies' who are not 'subjects'; to put it more correctly, the obstacle is the lack of understanding, of which this proselytism is only one of the products. Can this obstacle be overcome? If not, the elite, in establishing itself, would be able to count only on the efforts of those who were qualified by their intellectual capacity, apart from any particular environment, and also, of course, on the support of the East; its work would thereby be made more difficult, and its influence could only make itself felt after a longer interval, as it would itself have to create all the necessary instruments, instead of finding them ready to hand, as in the other case; but we are far from supposing that these difficulties, however great they may be, are of a kind that could in any way prevent the work that has to be done. We therefore consider it opportune to make the following statement: there are already, in the Western world, signs of a movement that is still ill-defined but that may-and even, if things take their normal course, must-lead to the re-establishment of an intellectual elite, unless a cataclysm comes too quickly for it to have had time to develop fully. It is scarcely necessary to say that the Church would have every interest, as far as the part to be played by it in the future is concerned, in giving its support to such a movement rather than letting it take place independently and being obliged later to follow it in order to retain an influence that threatened to disappear. It is not necessary to adopt a particularly lofty or difficult point of view to see that it is the Church that would benefit the most by an attitude which, far from involving the slightest compromise in the field of doctrine, would in fact have the contrary result of freeing it from all infiltration of the modern spirit, and which at the same time would entail no outward changes. It would be something of a paradox to see integral Catholicism realized without the collaboration of the Catholic church, which might find itself under the strange necessity of submitting to being defended against onslaughts more terrible than any it has yet faced by men whom its leaders, or at any rate those whom they allow to speak in their name, had at first tried to discredit by casting on them the most illfounded suspicions. For our own part, we would be sorry to see this happen; but if it is not to come to this, it is high time for those whose position places on them grave responsibilities to act with open eyes on the matters at issue, and no longer allow attempts, which might have consequences of the utmost importance, to run the danger of frustration owing to the incomprehension or ill-will of certain more or less subordinate individuals-a thing that has happened before now, and is one more sign of the extent to which confusion reigns everywhere today. We shall doubtless receive no gratitude for this warning, which is given quite independently and disinterestedly; but this is of no importance, and we shall continue nonetheless to say what has to be said, whenever it becomes necessary, and in the form that we consider most suited to the circumstances. The foregoing is only a summary of the conclusions to which we have been led by recent investigations, carried out, it is scarcely necessary to add, in a purely intellectual field. There is no need, at least for the moment, to give a detailed description of them, and indeed this could have little interest in itself; but it may be affirmed that not a single word of what has been said above has been written without ample reflection. It should be clearly understood that it would be utterly useless to put forward here, by way of objection, any more or less specious philosophical arguments; we are speaking seriously, of serious matters, and have no time to waste on verbal disputes that would be of no interest, and could serve no useful purpose. Moreover, it is our intention to remain entirely aloof from all controversies and quarrels of school or party, just as we refuse absolutely to accept any Western label or definition, since none is applicable; whether this is pleasing or displeasing, it is a fact, and nothing will change our attitude in this regard. A warning must be addressed to those who, because of their capacity for a higher understanding, if not because of the degree of knowledge to which they have actually attained, seem destined to become elements of a possible elite. There is no doubt that the force of modernism, which is truly 'diabolic' in every sense of the word, strives by every means in its power to prevent these elements, today isolated and scattered, from achieving the cohesion that is necessary if they are to exert any real influence on the general mentality. It is therefore for those who have already more or less completely become aware of the end toward which their efforts should be directed to stand firm against whatever difficulties may arise in their path and threaten to turn them aside. Those who have not yet reached the point beyond which an infallible guidance makes it henceforth impossible to stray from the true path always remain in danger of the most serious deviations; they need to display the utmost prudence; we would even say that prudence should be carried to the point of distrust, for the 'adversary', who up to this point has not yet been definitively overcome, can assume the most varied, and at times the most unexpected, disguises. It can happen that those who think they have escaped from modern materialism fall a prey to things that, while seemingly opposed to it, are really of the same order; and, in view of the turn of mind of modern Westerners, a special warning needs to be uttered against the attraction that more or less extraordinary phenomena may hold for them; it is this attraction that is to a large extent responsible for all the errors of 'neo-spiritualism', and it is to be foreseen that the dangers it represents will grow even worse, for the forces of darkness, which keep alive the present confusion, find in it one of their most potent instruments. It is even probable that we are not very far from the time referred to by the prophecy of the Gospel to which we have already alluded elsewhere: 'For false Christs and false prophets shall arise, and shall show signs and wonders to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.' The 'elect' (the 'chosen') are the elite in the fullness of its meaning, according to the sense in which we have invariably used the word: those who, by virtue of the inner 'realization' they have achieved, can no longer be seduced; but this is not the case with those who, as yet, possess only the possibilities of knowledge, and who are therefore, properly speaking, only the 'called'; and this is why the Gospels say that 'many are called, but few are chosen.' We are entering upon a period when it will be extremely difficult to 'separate the grain from the chaff' and carry out effectively what theologians call the 'discerning of spirits', both because of the general confusion manifesting itself in intensified and ever more varied forms, and also because of the want of true knowledge on the part of those whose normal function should be to guide the rest, but who today only too often are no more than 'blind guides'. We shall see whether the subtleties of dialectic are of any avail in such circumstances, and whether any philosophy, even were it the best possible, can have the strength to prevent the 'infernal powers' from being let loose; this also is an illusion against which some people need to guard, for it too often supposed, in ignorance of what pure intellectuality really is, that a merely philosophical knowledge, which even in the best of cases is a bare shadow of true knowledge, can put everything to rights and turn the contemporary mentality away from its deviation; in the same way, there are those who think they can find in modern science itself a means of raising themselves to the higher truths, whereas this science is in fact founded on the negation of those truths. All these illusions are so many influences leading people astray, and by their means many who sincerely desire to react against the modern outlook are reduced to impotence, since, having failed to find the essential principles without which all action is in vain, they have been swept into blind alleys from which there is no escape. Those who will succeed in overcoming all these obstacles, and triumphing over the hostility of an environment opposed to all spirituality, will doubtless be few in number; but let it be said once more that it is not numbers that count, for we are here in a domain whose laws are quite different from those of matter. There is therefore no cause for despair, and, even were there no hope of achieving any visible result before the modern world collapses under some catastrophe, this would still be no valid reason for not undertaking a work whose scope extends far beyond the present time. Those who might be tempted to give way to despair should realize that nothing accomplished in this order can ever be lost, that confusion, error, and darkness can win the day only in appearance and in a purely ephemeral way, that all partial and transitory disequilibriums must perforce contribute toward the greater equilibrium of the whole, and that nothing can ultimately prevail against the power of truth; their motto should be the one formerly used by certain initiatic organizations of the West: Vincit omnia Veritas.