INITIATIC ORGANIZATIONS & RELIGIOUS SECTS

As we have said, the study of initiatic organizations is a particularly complex matter, and we must add that it is further complicated by too frequent errors that usually proceed from a more or less complete misunderstanding of their real nature. Among these errors the first we should note is the application of the term ‘sects’ to such organizations, for this is much more than a simple impropriety of language. Indeed, in such a case this expression should be rejected not only because it is disagreeable and offensive but also because it is apparently the work of adversaries, even though some may use it without an especially hostile intention through imitation or habit, just as there are those who describe the doctrines of antiquity as ‘paganism’ without even suspecting that this is quite an abusive term belonging to a low order of polemics.^[1] This is in truth a serious confusion of things of entirely different orders, a confusion that hardly seems inadvertent on the part of those who create or maintain it. In the Christian world, and occasionally even in the Islamic world,^[2] this confusion is chiefly due to enemies or negators of esoterism, who wish by a false assimilation to project upon esoterism something of the disrepute attached to ‘sects’ properly speaking, that is, to ‘heresies’ in the specifically religious sense.^[3]

Now by the very fact that it is a question of esoterism and initiation, it has nothing whatsoever to do with religion but rather with pure knowledge and ‘sacred science’. Though this latter possesses a sacred character (certainly not the monopoly of religion, as some wrongly believe),^[4] it is nonetheless essentially a science, though in a sense quite different from that given this word by those moderns who know of nothing but profane science, which is devoid of all value from the traditional point of view, since, as we have often explained, it stems from a change in the very idea of science. Doubtless this confusion is facilitated by the fact that esoterism has more direct links with religion than with anything else in the exterior order by reason of the traditional character common to both; and as noted previously, esoterism can in certain cases even assume a base and support in a specific religious form; but it is nonetheless related to a domain quite different from this, and thus can enter neither into opposition nor competition with it. By definition, moreover, it involves an order of knowledge reserved for an elite, whereas, also by definition, religion (as well as the exoteric aspect of every tradition, even if it be without a specifically religious form) is addressed to all without distinction; initiation in the true sense of the word implies particular ‘qualifications’, and thus cannot be of a religious order.^[5] Even without looking any further, the supposition that an initiatic organization could compete with a religious organization is truly absurd, for its ‘closed’ character and restricted recruitment place it at too great a disadvantage in such a case;^[6] but that is neither its role nor its aim.

Etymologically, whoever says ‘sect’ necessarily says scission or division; and ‘sects’ are indeed divisions engendered at the heart of a religion by more or less profound differences among its members. Consequently, sects are inevitably numerous^[7] and their existence implies a departure from the principle, to which, on the contrary, esoterism is by its very nature closer than is religion and than is exoterism in general, even when these latter are free from any deviation. It is through esoterism that all traditional doctrines are in fact unified, beyond the differences of their outward forms, in certain respects necessary in their own order; and from this point of view not only are initiatic organizations not ‘sects’, but they are even exactly the opposite.

Sects, whether schisms or heresies, are always derived from a particular religion, of which they constitute irregular branches so to speak. On the contrary, esoterism can never be derived from religion; even where it takes religion as a support, that is, as a means of expression and of realization, it does nothing but effectively join it to its principle, and in reality, with respect to religion, it represents the Tradition anterior to all particular exterior forms, religious or otherwise. The inner cannot proceed from the outer any more than the center can proceed from its circumference; nor can the greater proceed from the less, any more than the spirit can proceed from the body. The influences presiding over traditional organizations always move in a descending direction and never re-ascend, any more than a river can return to its source. To claim that initiation could have issued from religion, and even more so from a ‘sect’, is to reverse all the normal relationships resulting from the very nature of things.^[8] What the spirit is to the body, so truly is esoterism to religious exoterism, so much so that when a religion has lost all points of contact with esoterism^[9] nothing remains but a ‘dead letter’ and a misunderstood formalism, for what had invigorated it was an effective communication with the spiritual center of the world, which can be established and consciously maintained only by esoterism and by the presence of a true and regular initiatic organization.

Now, to explain how the confusion we are attempting to dispel was able to assume an appearance convincing enough to be accepted by a rather large number of those who see things only superficially, we must note the following: it does seem that in some instances religious sects could have sprung from the thoughtless diffusion of fragments of misunderstood esoteric doctrine; but esoterism itself could in no way be held responsible for this kind of ‘popularization’ or ‘profanation’, in its etymological sense, which is contrary to its very essence and has never occurred except at the expense of doctrinal purity. Such a thing could happen only where these teachings were received with such little comprehension—due to a lack of preparation or perhaps even of ‘qualification’—as to attribute to them a religious character entirely denaturing them; after all, does not error always proceed from an incomprehension or deformation of truth? Such was probably the case of the Albigensians, to give an example from the Middle Ages; yet if these were ‘heretics’, Dante and the Fedeli d’Amore, who kept strictly to the initiatic domain, were surely not;^[10] and this example further elucidates the principal difference between sects and initiatic organizations. We should add that even if certain sects thus may have arisen out of a deviation from initiatic teaching, this very fact assumes the prior existence of this teaching and its independence with regard to the deviation; historically, as well as logically, the contrary opinion would seem to be completely untenable.

One question still remains to be examined: how and why have such deviations come about? This risks taking us too far afield, for obviously a complete answer would necessitate examining each particular case in detail; but we can say in general that on the surface it appears nearly impossible to prevent completely all divulging of initiatic doctrine regardless of the precautions taken; and if such disclosure is in any case only partial and fragmentary (bearing after all only on what is relatively most accessible) the resultant deformations are therefore all the more accentuated. But from another and more far-reaching point of view one could perhaps say that such things are necessary in certain circumstances as a mode of action that must be exerted on the march of events; in human history sects also have a role to play, even if only an inferior one, and we must not forget that every apparent disorder is in reality only one element in the total order of the universe. In any case, the disputes of the outside world lose much of their importance when seen from the point of view where all the oppositions that provoke them are reconciled, which is the case for the strictly esoteric and initiatic point of view; but precisely on this account it could never be the role of initiatic organizations to become involved in disputes, or, as it is commonly put, to ‘take sides’ in them, whereas sects, on the contrary, find themselves inevitably engaged in them by their very nature, and in the final analysis this is even perhaps their entire raison d’être.