Alleged Empiricism of the Ancients

Du prétendu « empirisme » des anciens, July 1934.

We have already explained the fundamental difference existing between
the nature of the sciences among the ancients and the moderns on many
occasions, a difference which is that of the traditional sciences and the
profane sciences; this is a question on which so many errors are so wide-
spread that we cannot return to them with too much insistence. This is
how we often see without any doubt that the science of the ancients was
purely 'empiric,' which basically means that it was not even a science
properly speaking, but only a kind of practical and utilitarian knowledge.
On the contrary, it is easy to see that preoccupations of this order have
never held so much room as among modern men, and without even going
back further than so-called 'classic' antiquity, all that pertains to experi-
mentation was regarded by the ancients as being able to constitute only
a knowledge of a very inferior degree. We do not see how this can be
reconciled with the previous statement; by an odd inconsistency, even
those who formulate it almost never fail to reproach the ancients for their
disdain of experience!
The source of the error in question, as a multitude of other errors, is
the 'evolutionist' or 'progressive' conception: thereunder they wish that
all knowledge begins in a rudimentary state, from which it would have
developed and elevated little by little. They postulate a kind of crude
primitive simplicity, which naturally cannot be the object of any obser-
vation, and they claim that everything is made from below, as if it were
not contradictory to admit that the superior can emerge from the infe-
rior. Such a conception is not merely an error but is properly a 'counter-
truth'; by this we mean that it is exactly the opposite of the truth, by a
strange reversal which is very characteristic of the modern spirit. On the
contrary, the truth is that there has been since the beginning a sort of
degradation or continual 'descent,' passing from spirituality to material-
ity, which is to say, from the superior to the inferior. Manifesting itself
in all domains of human activity, and from which arose in relatively re-
cent times, the profane sciences, separated from every transcendent prin-
ciple, and justified solely by the practical applications to which they give
rise, because this is, in sum, all that interests modern man, who cares
little for pure knowledge, and who, speaking of the ancients as we have
just said, attributed to them their own tendencies,^[393] because he cannot
even conceive that they could be any different, any more than he cannot
conceive that other sciences can exist in object and methods, other than
those he himself exclusively cultivates.
This same error also implies that 'empiricism' understood in the sense
that designates a philosophical theory, which is to say the very modern
idea that all knowledge derives entirely from experience, and more pre-
cisely from the sensory experience; in fact, this is just another form of
the affirmation that everything comes from below. It is clear that, apart
from this preconceived idea, there is no reason to suppose that the first
state of all knowledge must have been an empiric' state; this connection
between the two meanings of the same word is certainly not fortuitous,
and we could say that it is the philosophic 'empiricism' of the moderns
that lead them to attribute to the ancients an 'empiricism' of fact. But we
must admit that we have never been able to even understand the possi-
bility of such a conception, so much does it seem to go against the obvi-
ous: that there is knowledge that does not come from the senses, it is
there, pure and simple, a question of fact, but the moderns, who claim to
rely only on facts, do not know or readily deny this when they disagree
with their theories. In sum, the existence of this ‘empiricist' conception
simply proves, in those who have emitted it and in those who accept it,
the complete disappearance of certain faculties of the supra-sensory or-
der, starting, naturally, with pure intellectual intuition. ^[394]
Science as understood by the moderns, which is to say, the profane
sciences, does not suppose anything in a general way other than the ra-
tional development of sensory data; it is therefore they who are truly
'empiric' in their starting point, and one could say that the moderns un-
duly confuse the starting point of their sciences with the origin of all
science. Yet even in their sciences there are sometimes, like vestiges di-
minished or altered by ancient knowledge, whose real nature escapes
them, and we think especially of the mathematic sciences, whose essen-
tial notions cannot be drawn from sensory experience; the efforts of cer-
tain philosophers to explain 'empirically' the origin of these notions are
sometimes overwhelmingly comical! If some are tempted to protest
when we speak of diminishment or alteration, we will ask them to com-pare in this regard, for example, the traditional science of numbers to profane arithmetic; they will probably quite easily understand what we mean by that.
Moreover, most of the profane sciences really owe their origin only to debris or, one may say, the residues of traditional sciences not under-stood: we have cited elsewhere as particularly characteristic of this, the example of chemistry, it is not a question of true alchemy, but of its de-naturation by the 'blowers,' which is to say by laymen who, unaware of the true meaning of the hermetic symbols, took them in a grossly literal sense. We have also mentioned the case of astronomy, which represents only the material part of ancient astrology, isolated from all that consti-tuted the 'spirit' of this science, and which is irretrievably lost for the moderns, who repeat stupidly that astronomy was discovered, in a very 'empiric' way, by 'Chaldean shepherds,' without suspecting that the name of the Chaldeans was actually the designation of a sacerdotal caste! We could multiply examples of this kind and establish a comparison be-tween sacred cosmogonies and the theory of the 'nebula' and other sim-ilar hypotheses, or, in another order of ideas, show the degeneration of medicine from its ancient dignity as the 'sacerdotal art,' and so on. The conclusion would always be the same: the profane illegitimately seized fragments of knowledge of which they could not grasp the scope or sig-nificance of, and they formed so-called independent sciences, which are just worth what they were worth themselves; modern science, which has originated from it, is therefore only the science of the ignorant.^[395]
The traditional sciences, as we have said so often, are essentially char-acterized by their attachment to the transcendent principles, of which they strictly depend on as contingent applications, and this is the very opposite of the 'empiricism'; the principles necessarily escape the pro-fane, and that is why they, even if they are modern scholars, can only ever be 'empirical.' As a result of the degradation to which we alluded previously, men are no longer all equally qualified for any knowledge, which is to say, since the beginning of the Kali-Yuga, there must be those who are profane; in order for the truncated and distorted science to be taken seriously and to attribute to it what it is not, it was necessary for true knowledge to disappear, which the initiatic organizations were in charge of preserving and transmitting it, and this is precisely what has happened in the Western world in recent centuries.

We will add again that, in the way that the moderns consider the
knowledge of the ancients, we see clearly this negation of any 'suprahu-
man' element which forms the basis of the anti-traditional spirit, and
which is, after all, a direct consequence of profane ignorance. Not only is
everything reduced to purely human proportions, but because of this re-
versal of all things brought about by the 'evolutionist' conception, one
goes as far as to put the 'infrahuman' as the origin. The most grave thing
is that, in the eyes of our contemporaries, these things seem to be self-
evident: they have come to express them as if they could not even be
contested and the least founded hypotheses are presented as 'facts,' be-
cause one does not even have the idea that it could be otherwise; we say
this is the most grave thing, because that is what may make us fear that,
having reached such a point, the deviation of the modern spirit is not
entirely irremediable.

These considerations may further help to understand why it is abso-
lutely futile to try to reach any agreement or rapprochement between
traditional knowledge and profane knowledge, and why the former does
not have to ask the latter for 'confirmation' of which they do not even
demand of themselves. If we insist on it, it is because we know how wide-
spread this view is today among those who have some idea of traditional
doctrines, but an 'external' idea, if we may say so, is insufficient to allow
them to penetrate the profound nature of the traditional doctrines, as
well as to prevent them from being deluded by the deceptive prestige of
modern science and its practical applications. Thus placing on the same
plane things which are by no means comparable, they waste not only
their own time and effort, but they are still in danger of going astray and
misleading others in all kinds of false conceptions; the manifold varieties
of ‘occultism' exist to show that this danger is all too real.

Şūfism
Le Soufisme, August-September 1934.

Under the title Islamic Sufism, Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah has recently pub-
lished a volume^[396] which is not, as one may think, a more or less complete
and methodical treatise on the subject, but rather a collection of studies,
some of which relate to general questions, while others deal with more
particular points, especially with regards to the most prevalent turuq cur-
rently in India, such as the Naqshbandiyyah and the Chishtiyyah. Alt-
hough these latter are the most interesting in this book, it is not our in-
tention to dwell on them here, and we think it preferable to rather exam-
ine what touches more directly on the principles, which will, at the same
time, be an occasion for us to recall and clarify indications that we have
already given in various other circumstances.^[397]
Firstly, the title itself calls for an observation: why Islamic Sufism, and
is this not a kind of pleonasm? Assuredly, in Arabic one must say tașaw-
wuf islāmī, because the term tasawwuf generally designates any doctrine
of the esoteric or initiatic order, to whatever traditional form it is related;
the word 'Sufism,' in Western languages, is not really a translation of
tasawwuf, it is simply a kind of conventional term forged specially to
designate Islamic esoterism. It is true that the author explains his inten-
tion: he wanted, by adding the adjective ‘Islamic,' to avoid any confusion
with other things are sometimes also called 'Sufism' in ignorance; must
we consider the abuse of words at this point, especially in a disordered
period like one in which we live? It is certainly necessary to warn against
theories and against organizations which unduly hang on to titles which
do not belong to them, but, this precaution taken, nothing prevents the
use of words taken in their normal and legitimate meaning; besides, if it
were otherwise, it is without a doubt there would be few words that
could still be used.

On the other hand, when the author declares that “there is no form of
Sufism other than Islamic," it seems to us that there is an equivocation:
if he means to properly speak of 'Sufism,' this should go without saying,
but if he means tasawwuf, in the Arabic sense of the word, one must
understand the initiatic forms existing in all traditional doctrines, and
not only in Islamic doctrine. Even with such generality, this affirmation
is true in one sense: any regular initiatic form, indeed, essentially implies,
first and foremost, the consciousness of the Principle Unity, and, sec-
ondly, the recognition of the fundamental identity of all traditions, de-
rived from a single source, and consequently, from the inspiration of all
sacred books; at its essence, this is the strict equivalence of the two arti-
cles of the shahādah. Therefore, it may be said that mutasawwuf, what-
ever form he is attached to, is truly Muslim, at least implicitly. It suffices
to hear the word Islām in all the universality it contains; no one can say
that this is an illegitimate extension of its meaning, for then it would
become incomprehensible that the Qur'ān itself applies this word to tra-
ditional forms earlier than what is more specifically called Islamic: in
sum, it is, in its premier meaning, one of the names of the orthodox Tra-
dition in all its forms, all of which proceed directly from prophetic inspi-
ration, and the differences being due only to the necessary adaptation to
the circumstances of time and place. Moreover, this adaptation only re-
ally affects the outer side, what we can call the sharīʻah (or what consti-
tutes its equivalent); the inner side, or haqiqah, is independent of histor-
ical contingencies and cannot be subject to such changes, it is through
these means that, under the multiplicity of such forms, the essential unity
subsists. Unfortunately, in the work in question, we do not find a suffi-
ciently clear notion of the relation between sharīʻah and haqiqah any-
where, or, if you like, exoterism and esoterism; when we see in some
chapters doctrines and practices belonging to the most exoteric Islamism
presented as if they properly belonged to 'Sufism,' we cannot help but
fear that in the author's mind, there is some confusion between the two
domains which must always remain perfectly distinct, as we have often
explained. The exoterism of a certain traditional form is, for its adher-
ents, the indispensable support of esoterism, and the negation of such a
link between one and the other only results in some more or less heter-
odox schools; but the existence of this relation does not prevent the two
domains from being radically different: religion and legislation on the
one hand, and initiation on the other, do not proceed by the same means
and do not aim at the same end.

As for the origin of 'Sufism,' in the usual sense of this word, we fully
agree with the author that it is properly Islamic and proceeds directly
from the very teaching of the Prophet, to whom the authentic silsilah
ultimately leads back to. This means that anyone who really adheres to the tradition cannot accept the views of profane historians who claim to relate this origin to a foreign influence, Neo-Platonist, Persian, or Indian; this is another point that we have dealt with on several occasions, so that we do not have to insist on it now. ^[398] Even though some turuq have 'borrowed,' it would be better to say 'adapted, some details of their particular methods (although the similarities may be explained by the possession of the same knowledge, especially in regards to the 'science' of rhythm' in its different branches), this is of only a secondary importance. Sufism is above all Arabic, and its form of expression, in all that is truly essential, is closely related to the constitution of the Arabic language, just as the Jewish Qabbalah is to the constitution of the Hebrew language; it is Arabic like the Qurʼān itself, in whom its direct principles are held, just as the Qabbalah has its own in the Torah. But in order to discover these principles, the Qur'ān must be understood and interpreted according to the haqā'iq, and not simply by the linguistic, logical, and theological processes of the ʻulamā❜ az-zāhir (literally ‘learned from the exterior,' or doctors of the sharīʻah, whose competence extends only to the exoteric domain).
In this regard, it matters little whether the word Șūfī itself and its derivatives (tașawwuf, mutasawwuf) existed in the language from its origin or appeared only later, which is still a great subject of discussion among historians; it may well have existed before the word, either under another designation or even without having felt the need to give it a name. ^[399] As far as the origin of this word is concerned, the question is perhaps insoluble, at least from the point of view where we place ourselves most habitually: we would readily say that it has too many supposed etymologies, none of which are either more or less plausible than the others, to really have one; the author enumerates a certain number, and there are still others which are more or less known. For our part, we see there a purely symbolic denomination, a kind of 'figure,' if you wish, which, as such, does not need to have a strictly linguistic derivation; in other traditions, one would find comparable cases (of course, to the extent where the constitution of the languages they use), without seeking further, the term 'Rose-Cross' is a rather characteristic example, and this is what certain initiations call 'covered words.' As for the so-called etymologies,
they are in fact only linguistic similarities, which correspond to relations
between certain ideas which thus come together more or less incidentally
around the word in question; those who have knowledge of what we
have said elsewhere about the very existence of a certain general pho-
netic symbolism cannot be surprised. But here, given the character of the
Arabic language (a character which is in fact common to the Hebrew
language), the first and fundamental meaning must be based on numbers;
indeed, what is particularly remarkable is that the word Şūfi has the same
number as Al-Hikmah al-Ilahiyyah, which is to say 'Divine Wisdom.'^[400]
The true Șūfi is therefore the one who possesses this Wisdom, or, in other
words, he is al-'ārif billāh, which is to say 'he who knows God,' for He
can only be known by Himself; whoever has not reached this supreme
degree cannot be said to really be Șūfī, but only mutasawwuf ^[401]
These last considerations give the best possible definition of at-tașaw-
wuf, in so far as it is permissible to speak here of a definition (for there
can only be one properly when it is limited by its very nature, which is
not the case with at-tasawwuf); to finish, we should repeat all that we
have said previously about initiation and its conditions, and we can do
no better than to refer our readers to it. The formulas found in the most
well-known treatises, some of which are quoted in the work to which we
refer, cannot really be regarded as definitions, even with the reservation
we have just expressed, because they do not directly reach the essential;
they are only 'approximations,' so to speak, intended above all to provide
a starting point for reflection and meditation, either by indicated the
means and by hinting at the goal in a more or less veiled way, either by
describing the external signs of the interior states attained to such and
such degree of the initiatic realization. There are also a large number of
enumerations or classifications of these degrees and states, but all of
them must be taken as having only, in sum, a relative value, because
there may be an indefinite multitude; we necessarily consider only the
principal stages, which are 'typical' in a way, and which can also differ
according to the points of view in which we place ourselves. Addition-
ally, it should not be forgotten that there is, especially for the initial
phases, a diversity which results from the individual natures, so that
there can be no two cases which are strictly similar;^[402] and this is why it is said that 'the ways to God are as numerous as the souls of men' (at-turuqu ilallāhi ka-nufūsī banī Ādam).^[403] These differences are effaced only with 'individuality' (al-annīyyah, from 'anā, 'me'), which is to say, when the higher states are attained, and when the attributes (șifāt) or al-abd or of the creature (which are strictly limitations) disappear (al-fanā or 'extinction') to leave only those of Allāh (al-baqa' or 'permanence'), being identified with those in his 'personality,' or 'essence' (adh-dhāt). In order to develop this more fully, the fundamental distinction between the 'soul' (an-nafs) and the 'spirit' (ar-rūh) should be particularly empha-sized, which, oddly, the author of the book in question seems to ignore almost entirely, which brings a lot of vagueness to some of his exposes; without this distinction, it is impossible to truly understand the consti-tution of the human being, and, consequently, the different orders of pos-sibilities that he carries within himself.
In relation to this final thing, we must also note that the author seems to delude himself about what can be expected from 'psychology'; it is true that he considers it differently from the present-day Western psy-chologists, and as likely to extend much further than they can suppose, in which he is completely right. Despite this, psychology, according to the etymology of its name, will never be anything other than 'ilm an-nafs, and, by definition, all that is of the domain of ar-rūh will escape it. This illusion at its essence proceeds from an all too common tendency, which we unfortunately find other marks of in this book: the tendency, against which we have risen often, to wish to establish a sort of connec-tion or concordance between traditional doctrines and modern concep-tions. We do not see what use the quoting of philosophers who, even though they employ some apparently similar expressions, do not in real-ity speak of the same things; the testimony of the 'profane' cannot be worth anything in the initiatic domain, and the true 'Knowledge' has nothing to gain from these erroneous or superficial assimilations.^[404] Nev-ertheless, taking into account the few observations we have made, it will
certainly be of interest and of benefit to read this book, especially the
chapters devoted to the more special questions of which we cannot think
of giving even the slightest preview. Moreover, it must be understood
that we must not demand of books, whatever they may be, any more than
they can give; even those of the greatest Masters will never make some-
body a mutasawwuf simply by reading them. They cannot provide either
natural 'qualifications' nor an attachment to a regular silsilah, and if they
can certainly bring about a development of certain possibilities in the
person who is prepared for it, so to speak, only as an 'occasion,' because
the true cause is always elsewhere in the 'world of the spirit;' we must
not forget that, in the end, everything depends entirely on the Principle,
before which all things are as if they were not:
Lā ilāha illallāh wahdahu lā sharīkah lahu, lahu al-mulku wa lahu al-
hamdu, wa huwa ʻalā kulli shay’in qadīr!

Initiatic Organizations
and Secret Societies
Organisations initiatiques et sociétés secrètes,
October 1934.

We have often insisted on a point which we consider absolutely essential
when speaking of initiatic organizations: such organizations totally differ
in their very nature from all that we call ‘societies' or ‘associations,' who
are defined by their external character which may be entirely lacking in
initiatic organizations, and even if external characters are introduced to
them they are always accidental and must be regarded only as the effect
of a kind of degeneration or, if you will, a 'contamination,' in the sense
that it is the adoption of profane or exoteric forms, without any real re-
lation to the real purpose of these organizations. Therefore, it is quite
wrong to identify 'initiatic organizations' and 'secret societies' together
as is commonly done; as we have been asked from various sides to fur-
ther specify the distinctions that should be made in this regard, we will
return to it more explicitly, at the risk of repeating ourselves to dispel as
much confusion as possible.

Firstly, it is quite obvious that the two expressions can in no way co-
incide in their application, for there are many kinds of secret societies,
many of which certainly have nothing initiatic about them; it can be
formed by the act of an individual leader without any traditional attach-
ment, and for any purpose whatsoever, we will have to return to this
later. On the other hand, and this is undoubtedly the primary cause of
the error we have just recalled, if it happens that an initiatic organization
accidentally takes the form of a society, it will necessarily be secret, in at
least one of the meanings that we will ascribe to this word in such a case.
In fact, it must be said that in common usage there are several meanings,
which are quite different from each other and do not seem interrelated,
attached to the expression 'secret societies,' hence the differences of
opinion as to whether this designation is appropriate for a particular
case. Some wish to restrict it to associations that conceal their existence,
or at least the name of their members; others extent it to those which are
simply 'closed,' or which keep the secret only in certain special forms,
ritualistic or not, which are adopted by them in certain means of recog-nition reserved for their members, or other such things of this kind. Nat-urally, the former will protest when the latter qualifies an association as secret when it is not within their own definition. We say 'protest' be-cause, as is all too often, discussions of this kind are not entirely selfless: when the more or less openly declared opponents of any association say it secretly, rightly or wrongly, they manifest a polemic and more or less insulting intention, as if the secret could only have 'unspeakable' mo-tives. It can even sometimes be discerned as a kind of barely disguised threat, in the sense that there is an intended allusion to the ‘illegality' of such an association, for it is scarcely necessary to say that it is always on the 'social' ground, if not more precisely ‘political,' in which such discus-sions are preferable. In these circumstances it is quite understandable that the members or supporters of the association in question endeavor to establish that the epithet 'secret' cannot truly be suitable for it, and for this reason they do not wish to accept the most limited definition, that which most obviously, cannot be applicable to it. It may be said generally that most discussions have no other cause than a want of understanding as to the meaning of the terms used; when any interests are at stake, as it happens here, behind this vergence in the use of word, it is very likely that the discussion may continue indefinitely without the adversaries ever coming to an agreement. In any case, the contingencies which in-tervene therein are certainly very far from the initiatic domain, the only one which concerns us; if we thought it necessary to say a few words, it is only to 'clear the ground' in a way, and also because that would be enough to show that, in all the quarrels pertaining to the secret societies or those which are so-called, it is not initiatic organizations which are involved, or at least it is not the character of these in questions, which would otherwise be impossible for other reasons more profound than the rest of our exposé will make better understood.
Placing ourselves entirely outside of these discussions, and from a point of view that can only be that of a completely disinterested knowledge, we can say this: an organization, whether or not it has the particular external forms that make it possible to define it as a society can be described as secret, in the broadest sense of the word and without attaching any adverse intention to, when that organization possesses a secret of whatever nature, and that it is so by necessity or by virtue of a more or less artificial and express convention. We believe this definition is broad enough to accommodate all possible cases, from that of the ini-tiatic organization which is the furthest away from any external mani-festation, to that of the mere societies of any purpose, political or other-wise, which have, as we said above, nothing initiatic about them. It is
therefore within the domain that each embraces, and basing ourselves as much as possible on its very terms, that we must make the necessary distinctions in a dual way, on the one hand between organizations which are societies and those which are not, and on the other hand between those which have an initiatic character and those which do not, because of the 'contamination' mentioned at the beginning these two distinctions do not precisely coincide; they would only coincide if the historical con-tingencies had not, in certain cases, led to the intrusion of profane forms into organizations which, by their origin and essential purpose, are in-contestably initiatic in nature.

On the first of the two points we have just mentioned, it is not neces-sary to insist for long, because, besides the fact that which we have al-ready spoken of it on various occasions, everyone knows well enough what a 'society' is, which is to say an organization that has statutes, reg-ulations, meetings at fixed time and place, a register of its members, ar-chives, records of its meetings, and other written documents, which are surrounded by an entire exterior encumbering apparatus. We repeat that all this is perfectly useless for an initiatic organization, which, in terms of exterior forms, needs nothing but a certain set of rites and symbols, which, like the teachings which accompany and explain them, must reg-ularly be transmitted by oral tradition. We recall in this connection that, even if it sometimes happens that these things are put in writing, it can never be anything but a simple ‘aide-memoire,' and this would not dis-pense with oral and direct transmission in any way, which is the only transmission that is valid, since only it allows for the communication of a 'spiritual influence,' which is the fundamental reason for any initiatic organization. A layman who knows all the rites by having read the de-scriptions in books would not be initiated into it: it is for this same reason that, according to the Hindu doctrine, a mantra learned in some way without being regularly communicated by a guru is devoid of all efficac-ity, because the 'spiritual influence' required to 'awaken' or 'vivify' him is totally lacking in such a case.

An immediate consequence of what we have just said is that an initi-atic organization, so long as it does not take on the accidental form a society with all its external manifestation, is in some way ‘elusive' to the profane world; it is easy to understand that it leaves no trace accessible to the investigations of ordinary historians, whose method has the es-sential character of referring only to written documents, which are non-existent here. On the contrary, any society, however secret it may be, presents itself 'outside' which is necessarily within the reach of the lay-man's research, and by which it is always possible that they come to know it to a certain extent even if they are unable to penetrate their more
profound nature. It goes without saying that this last restriction concerns
initiatic organizations having taken such a form, or, we may say, degen-
erated into societies because of the circumstances and environment in
which they are located; we will add that this phenomenon has never oc-
curred as clearly as in the modern Western world, where it affects all that
still exists of organizations that can claim an authentic initiatic character,
even if, as we see all too often, this character in its current state comes
to be unrecognized or misunderstood by most of its members themselves.
We do not wish to look here for the causes of this misunderstanding,
which are diverse and manifold; we will only point out that this form of
society may well be such because, the exterior inevitably taking on a dis-
proportionate importance in relation to its real value, the accidental ends
up completely covering the essential, and the apparent similarities with
profane societies can also give rise to many misconceptions about the
true nature of these organizations.
We will give only one example of these misunderstandings, which
touches more closely to the very essence of our subject, and which we
have already indicated in a previous study: when it comes to a profane
society, we can exit it just as we entered it, and then we find ourselves
where we were before, purely and simple; a resignation or a radiation is
enough for any link to be broken, this link obviously being of an entirely
exterior nature and not implying any profound modification of the begin.
On the contrary, once one has been admitted to an initiatic organization,
whatever it may be, one can never, by any means, cease to be attached
to it, since, as we have explained on other occasions, initiation is con-
ferred once and for all and possesses a character that is truly ineffaceable:
it's 'interior' order is a fact against which no administrative formality
can do anything. But wherever there is a society, there are also adminis-
trative formalities, there may be resignations and cancellations, by which
they cease to be a part of the society in question; one immediately sees
the equivocation that will result from it if it represents nothing but the
'exteriority' of an initiatic organization. It would then be necessary, in all
rigor, to make, in this regard, a distinction between societies and initiatic
organizations as such; since the former is, as we have said, only a mere
accidental and 'superimposed' form, the second of which, in itself and in
all that constitutes its essence, remains entirely independent, the appli-
cation of this distinction is actually much less different that it may seem
at first glance.
Another consequence to which we are logically led to by these con-
siderations is this: a society, even a secret society, can always be subject
to attacks from outside, because in its constitution there are elements
which situate, so to speak, at the same level as these outside powers; it
will thus be able to be dissolved by the action of a political power. On the
contrary, the initiatic organization, by its very nature, escapes such con-
tingencies, and no external force can suppress it; in this sense as well, it
is truly 'elusive.' In fact, since the quality of its members can never be
lost or removed from them, it preserves an effective existence as long as
only one of them remains alive, and only the death of the last will lead
to its disappearance; this very eventuality supposes that its authorized
representatives will, for reasons of which they are the only judges, re-
nounce to ensure the continuation of the transmission of which they are
the depositories, and so the only possible cause of its suppression is nec-
essarily within itself.

Finally, any initiatic organization is still ‘elusive' from the point of
view of its secret, the latter being such by nature and not by convention,
and therefore cannot be penetrated by the profane in any case, a hypoth-
esis which would imply in itself a contradiction, because the true initiatic
secret is nothing but the 'incommunicable,' and initiation alone can give
access to its knowledge. But this relates rather to the second of the first
distinctions which we have indicated above, those which have an initiatic
character and those which do not; we will have to return to it more fully
in the second part of this study.