Initiatic Death

De la mort initiatique, June 1934.

The question regarding what is called 'initiatic death,' like almost all those of this order, seems very little understood by those of our contem- poraries who claim to be dealing in these things; thus, when speaking on this we often encounter an expression such as 'fictitious death,' which testifies to the most complete incomprehension. Those who thus express themselves evidently see only the exteriority of the rite and have no idea of the effects it must produce on those who are truly 'qualified;' other- wise, they would realize that this 'death,' far from being 'fictitious,' is on the contrary, even more real than death understood in the ordinary sense of the word, because it is obvious that the layman who dies does not become initiated by that, and the distinction between the profane order and the initiatic order is, in fact, the only one that goes beyond the con- tingencies inherent in the particular states of being and which, conse- quently, have a profound and permanent value from a universal point of view. We will be content with recalling in this regard, all traditions insist on the essential difference which exists in the posthumous states of the human being according to whether it is the profane or the initiate; if the consequences of death, taken in its usual sense, are thus conditioned by this distinction, it is therefore that the change that gives access to the initiatic order corresponds to a higher degree of reality.

It is understood that the word 'death' must be taken here in its most general sense, according to which we can say that any change of state, whatever it may be, is both a death and a birth, according to whether it is considered from one side or the other: death in relation to the anteced- ent state, birth to the consequent state. Initiation is generally described as a 'second birth,' which it is indeed, but this 'second birth' necessarily implies death to the profane world and follows immediately in a certain way, since these are only two sides of the same change of state. As for the symbolism of the rite, it will be based on the analogy that exists be- tween all the changes of state; due to this analogy, death and birth in the ordinary sense symbolize initiatic death and birth, the images borrowed from them being transposed by the rite into another order of reality. In this connection, it should be remarked that any change of state must be regarded as being accomplished in the darkness, which gives the expla-nation of the symbolism of the color black in relation to this question:^[390]the candidate for initiation must pass through complete darkness before entering the 'True Light.' It is in this phase of darkness that what is re-ferred to as the 'descent into the underworld' takes place, which we have discussed extensively elsewhere:^[391] it is, one may say, a sort of 'recapit-ulation' of the antecedent states, by which the possibilities of the profane domain will be definitively exhausted, so that the being can then freely develop the possibilities of the higher order that he carries within him, and whose realization properly belongs to the initiatic domain.

On the other hand, since similar considerations are applicable to any change of state, and the subsequent and successive degrees of initiation naturally correspond also to changes of state, we can say that there will still be for each accession a death and birth, although the 'disconnect,' if it is allowed to be expressed as such, is less clear and of less fundamental importance than for the first initiation, which is to say, for the passage from the profane order to the initiatic order. Moreover, it goes without saying that the changes undergone by the being during its development are truly in an indefinite multitude; the initiatic degrees conferred ritu-ally, in any traditional form whatsoever, can therefore only correspond to a sort of general classification of the main stages to be covered, and each of them can summarize an entire ensemble of secondary and inter-mediate stages. But it is in this process a more particularly important point, where the symbolism of death must appear once again in a most explicit way, and this still requires some explanation.

The 'second birth,' understood as corresponding to the first initiation, is what one may properly call a 'psychic regeneration,' and it is indeed in the psychic order, which is to say, in the order which the subtle modes of the human being are situated, that the first phases of the initiatic de-velopment must take place; these do not constitute an end in themselves, and they are only preparatory for the realization of possibilities of a higher order, we mean of the spiritual order in the true meaning of this word. The point of the initiatic process to which we have just alluded is therefore that which will mark the transition from the psychic order to the spiritual order, and this passage may be regarded more especially as constituting a 'second death' and a 'third birth.'^[392] It should be added that this 'third birth' will be instead represented as a 'resurrection' than as an ordinary birth, because it is no longer a 'beginning' in the same sense as in the first initiation; the possibilities already developed and acquired once and for all, will have to be found after this passage, but 'trans- formed' in a way analogous to that of the 'glorious body' or the 'body of resurrection' which represent the 'transformation' of human possibili- ties, beyond the limiting conditions that define the mode of existence of individuality itself.

The question, thus reduced to its essentials, is overall rather simple; what complicates it is, as almost always happens, the confusions that one commits by mixing considerations that are actually related to something else. It is particularly the case with regards to the 'second death,' to which many attach a rather unfortunate significance, because they do not know how to make certain essential distinctions between the various cases in which this expression may be used. The 'second death,' accord- ing to what has just been said, is nothing but the 'psychic death;' this fact can be considered as likely to occur, more or less long after death for the ordinary man outside of any initiatic process, but then this 'second death' will not give access to the spiritual domain, and the being, coming out of the human state, will simply pass to another individual state of manifes- tation. This is a formidable possibility for the layman, who has every ad- vantage in being maintained in what we have called the 'extensions' of the human state, which is, in all traditions, the main raison d'être for fu- nerary rites. But it is quite different for the initiate, since the latter only realizes the possibilities of the human state in order to overcome it, and they must necessarily exist out of this state, without actually needed to wait for the dissolution of the corporeal appearance to pass to the supe- rior states.

To not omit other possibilities, let us add that there is another adverse aspect of the 'second death,' which refers to ‘counter-initiation;' indeed, the latter imitates true initiation in its phases, but its results are, in a way, at the opposite of it, and can in no way lead to the spiritual domain. When the being who follows this path arrives at the 'psychic death,' he finds himself in a situation not exactly similar to that of the layman, but even worse in some respects, because of the developments he has given to the possibilities of the subtle order; we will not insist on this anymore, for this is a case which can only be of interest from a very special point of view, and which, in any case, has absolutely nothing to do with true ini- tiation. The fact of the 'black magicians,' as is commonly said, regard only themselves, and it would be useless to add fuel to the fantastic rav- ings which this subject gives rise all too often already. It is proper to deal with them only to denounce their misdeeds when circumstances require it, and to oppose them as far as possible; unfortunately, at a time like ours, these misdeeds are oddly more extensive than those who have not had the opportunity to realize it directly.