Initiatic Education

L'enseignement initiatique, December 1933.

As a complement to our previous studies on the question of initi- ation, and more particularly with regards to the essential differ- ence between the methods of initiatic education and those of pro- fane education, we reproduce here, without any modifications, an article we published earlier in the journal Le Symbolisme (January 1913 issue). Since most current readers of Voile d'Isis may have never heard of this article, we believe that its reproduction will not be untimely; at the same time, it will show that whatever may be imagined by those who judge too easily according to them- selves, our way at looking at these things has never changed.

It seems that, in a rather general way, one does not realize a very exact account of what is, or what should be, initiatic education, what essen- tially characterizes it, by differentiating it deeply from profane education. In such matters, many view things in a superficial way, they stop at ex- ternal appearances and forms, thus seeing nothing more, as a peculiarity worthy of remark, they find the usage of symbolism strange and at the least useless, they do not understand its raison d'être, we may even say the necessity for it. Apart from this, they suppose that the initiatic doc- trine is basically only a philosophy like all others, perhaps a little differ- ent by its methods, but in any case, nothing more because their mentality is thus made that they are unable to conceive of anything else. Those who will agree to recognize the education of a doctrine as having some value from one point of view or another, and for any reason which usu- ally are not initiatic reasons, those even can never be more than a type of profane education, a complement to ordinary education, for the use of a relative elite. Now, it is perhaps even better to deny its value altogether, which amounts to ignoring it altogether, than to belittle it in this way and to present in its name and in its place the expression of particular views, which are more or less coordinated, on all sorts of things that, in reality, are not initiatic either in themselves or by the way they are treated.

If this defective way of looking at initiatic education is due only to a lack of understanding of its true nature, there is another that is about as equivalent, though apparently quite opposite to this. It consists in want-ing to contradict it with profane education, while at the same time attrib-uting to it a certain special science, which is more or less vaguely defined, at each moment putting it in contradiction and in conflict with the other sciences, and always declaring superior these without knowing much of why, since it is not less systematic in its exposition, nor less dogmatic in its conclusions. Partisans of a teaching of this kind, so-called initiatic, affirm, it is true, that it is of a very different nature from ordinary educa-tion, be it scientific, philosophical, or religious; from that they give no proof and, unfortunately, they do not stop there in facts of gratuitous or hypothetical assertions. Moreover, grouping themselves into multiple schools and under different denominations, they contradict each other no less than they contradicted, often in a biased way, the representatives of the different branches of profane education, which does not prevent each of them from pretending to be taken at his word and considered more or less infallible.

But if initiatic teaching is neither an extension of profane education, as some would like, nor its antithesis, as others claim, if it is neither a philosophical system nor a specialized science, one wonders what it is, because it is not enough to have said what it is not, it is necessary, if not to give a strict definition which is perhaps impossible, at least try make it understood what its nature is. To make its nature understood, at least insofar as can be done, it is to explain at the same time, and by the same token, why it is not possible to define it without distorting it, and also why it is so generally and in a certain way necessarily despised for its true character. Thus, the basis which forms this teaching is the constant use of symbolism in the transmission of this teaching, it could however be for anybody who thinks even a little, as is simply logical to do, a mode of expression quite different from ordinary language which must have been created to express, at least at its origins, ideas other than those ex-pressed by the latter, and conceptions which cannot be translated inte-grally by words, for which we would need a less limited language, which is more universal, because they are themselves measures of a more uni-versal order.

But if the initiatic conceptions are other than the profane conceptions, it is because they proceed above all from a different mentality than these, of which they differ less by their object than by the point of view under which they envisage this object. Now, according this essential distinction which exists between these two orders of conceptions, it is easy to admit that, on the one hand, all that can be considered from the profane point of view can be so, but then they can be so in a completely different way and with another understanding from the initiatic point of view, while, moreover, there are things which completely escape the profane domain and which are peculiar to the initiatic domain, since it is not subject to the same limitations.

That symbolism, which is like the sensible form of all initiatic educa- tion, if we consider that every symbol is susceptible to multiple interpre- tations which are not in contradiction with each other, but on the con- trary complement each other which are all equally true though proceed- ing from different points of view, it is not allowed to be doubted for even a moment that it is indeed in reality a language more universal than hu- man languages; if this is so, it is because the symbols is the synthetic and schematic representation of a whole ensemble of ideas and conceptions that everyone can grasp according to his own mental abilities and to the extent that they have prepared their intelligence. And so the symbol, for which it penetrates its own deep meaning, will be able to conceive of far more than is possible to express by words; this shows the necessity of symbolism: it is the only way to transmit the inexpressible which consti- tutes the proper domain of initiation, or rather to deposit conceptions of this order to germinate in the intellect of the initiate, who will then have to transfer them from power to action, to develop and elaborate them by his own personal work, because nothing more can be done than to pre- pare it by outlining for him by appropriate formulas, the plan that he will have to realize in himself to achieve the effective possession of initiation that he has received from outside symbolically.

But if symbolic initiation, which is only the basis or support of true and effective initiation, is the only thing that can be given externally, at least it can be preserved and transmitted even by those who do not un- derstand its meaning nor scope. It is enough for the symbols to be kept intact so that they are always capable of awakening, in him who is capa- ble of it, all the conceptions of which they appear in the synthesis. And it is in this fat the true initiatic secret lies, whose nature is inviolable and which defends itself against the curiosity of laymen, and whose relative secret of certain external signs is only a symbolic figuration. There is no other mystery than the inexpressible, which is obviously thereby incom- municable, each will be able to penetrate it according to the extent of his intellectual horizon; even if he has penetrated it in full, he will never be able to communicate to another what he understands himself, at most it will help to reach this understanding only by those who are currently able.

Thus, the initiatic secret is something that lies well beyond all the rituals and all the sensory forms used for the transmission of external and symbolic initiation, which does not prevent these forms from having in the early stages of initiatic preparation, their necessary role and their own value originating in what they do to translate the fundamental sym-bols into gestures, and from this they are a way to give the initiatic the teaching that is presented to him which is the most adequate and gener-ally applicable way of preparing him for assimilation, since all the man-ifestations of human individuality are translated, in its present conditions of existence, into various mode of the vital activity. But, it would be wrong to go further and pretend to make life, as many would like, a kind of absolute principle; the expression of an idea in the vital mode is after all only a symbol like others, as well as, for example, its translation in the spatial mode which constitutes a geometric symbol or ideogram. If any process of initiation present in its different phases and correspondence, either with individual human life, or even with the whole of terrestrial life, it is that one can consider the vital evolution itself particular or gen-eral, like the development of a plan similar to that which the initiate must realize in order to realize himself in the complete expansion of all the powers of his being. They are always and everywhere plans correspond-ing to the same synthetic conception, so that they are identical in princi-ple, although they are different and indefinitely varied in their realiza-tion, they proceed from a single ideal Archetype, the universal plan drawn by a cosmic Force or Will that, without in anyway prejudging its nature, we can call the Great Architect of the Universe.

Therefore every being, whether individual or collective, tends, con-sciously or not, to realize in itself by the means appropriate to its partic-ular nature the plan of the Great Architect of the Universe, and to com-plete there, according to the function which belongs to him in the cosmic whole, the total realization of this same plan, which is, in sum, only the universalization of his own personal realization. It is at the precise point of its evolution where a being is actually aware of this finality that the true initiation beings for him; when he has become aware of himself, he must lead himself, according to his personal path, to this integral reali-zation which is accomplished, not in the isolated development of certain special and more or less extraordinary faculties, but in the complete, har-monic, and hierarchical development of all the virtual possibilities in-volved in the very essence of this being. Since the end is necessarily the same for all that has the same principle, it is in the means employed to achieve it that lies exclusively what constitutes the proper value of any being, considered within the limits of the special function which is de-termined for him by his individual nature, or by certain elements of it; moreover, this value of the being is relative and exists only in relation to its function, for there is no comparison of inferiority or superiority to establish between different functions which correspond to so many dif-ferent particular orders, although all are equally included in the Univer-sal Order, of which they are, all in the same way, necessary elements. Thus, initiatic instruction, envisaged in its universality, must include so many applications in an indefinite variety, of the same transcendent and abstract principle, all the particular ways of realization which are not only limited to each category of beings, but also to each individual being; comprehending all thus, it totalizes them and synthesizes them in the absolute unity of the Universal Way. Therefore, if the principles of initi-ation are immutable, their symbolic representation can and must vary so as to adapt to the multiple and relative conditions of existence, conditions whose diversity means that, mathematically, there cannot be two identi-cal things throughout the universe, because if they were really identical in all, or in other words, if they were perfectly coincidental in the full extent of their understanding, they would obviously not be two separate things, but one and the same thing. We can therefore say, in particular, that it is impossible for two dif-ferent individuals to have two absolutely similar initiations, even from the external and ritual point of view, and, a fortiori, from the point of view of the internal work of the initiate. The unity and immutability of the principle in no way demands the uniformity and immobility, which are in any case unrealizable for external forms, and this allows, in the practical application which must be made according to the expression and transmission of the initiatic teaching, reconciling the two notions, which are so often wrongly opposed, of tradition and of progress, but recognizing a purely relative character of the latter. It is only the external translation of the initiatic instruction and its assimilation by this or that individuality which are susceptible to modifications, and not the instruc-tion envisaged in itself; indeed, insofar as such a translation is possible, it must necessarily take relativities into account, whereas what it ex-presses is independent in the ideal universality of its essence, and it can obviously not be a question of progress from a point of view which in-cludes all the possibilities in the simultaneity of a single synthesis. Initiatic education, external and transmissible in forms, is and can only be a preparation of the individual to receive the true initiatic in-struction by the effect of his own personal work. We can thus indicate to him the path to follow, the plan to realize, and arrange it to acquire the mental and intellectual attitude necessary for the intelligence of the ini-tiatic conceptions; we can still assist and guide him by controlling his work in a constant way, but that is all, because no one else, even a Master in the fullest sense of the word, can do this work for him. What the ini-tiate must necessarily acquire on his own, because no one or anything external to him can communicate it to him, is precisely what escapes him by his very nature of profane curiosity, which is to say the effective possession of the initiatic secret itself. But for him to able to achieve this possession in all its extent and with all that implies, the teaching that serves as a sort of base and support for his personal work must have unlimited possibilities, and thus enable him to extend his conceptions indefinitely, instead of confining them within the more or less narrow limits of a systematic theory or of any dogmatic formula.

Now, this being established, how far can this teaching go when it extends beyond the first phases of the initiatic preparation with the external forms which are most especially attached to it? Under what conditions can it exist as it should be to fulfill the role assigned to it and effectively assist those who participate in it, provided only that they themselves are capable of reaping the benefits? How are these conditions realized by the various organizations with an initiatic character? Finally, to what extent do the hierarchies of such organizations correspond in actual initiation? There are so many questions that it is hardly possible to deal with in so few words, and all of which would deserve to be amply developed, without it being possible, by doing so, to provide something other than a theme for reflection and meditation, and without having the vain pretention of exhausting a subject that is expanding and deepening more and more as one advances in one's study, precisely because who studies it with the necessary dispositions of mind, it opens up truly unlimited conceptual horizons.