Some Aspects of the Symbolism of Janus

Quelques aspects du symbolisme de Janus, July 1929.

We have made many references and allusions in our works to the sym- bolism of Janus; to completely explain this symbolism, with its complex and multiplicity of meanings, and to point out all the links with a large number of similar figurations which we meet in other traditions, would require a whole volume, which we may write someday. Until then, it seemed to us interesting to gather some notes concerning certain aspects of the symbolism in question, and to more completely, than we have able been to do so as of yet, consider the links established sometimes between Janus and Christ, which may seem strange at first glance, but is none the less perfectly justified. Indeed, a curious record expressly representing Christ as Janus was published a few years ago by Mr. Charbonneau-Lassay in Regnabit, ^[41] and we commented on it ourselves in the same journal. ^[42] It is a cartouche illustrated on a detached page of a fifteenth century church manuscript found in Luchon, which completes the leaf of the January issue of the opening calendar of the book. At the top of the inner medallion is the IHS monogram surmounted by a heart; the rest of the medallion is occu- pied by a bust of Janus Bifrons, with both a masculine and a feminine face, as is depicted quite frequently; he wears a crown on his head, and holds in one hand a scepter and in the other a key. Mr. Charbonneau-Lassay wrote on the Roman monuments:

Janus is shown, as on the cartouche of Luchon, with a crown on his head and the scepter in his right hand, because he is King; he holds in the other hand a key which opens and closes the ages; that is why, by an extension of this idea, the Romans dedicated the gates of homes and cities to him... Christ too, like the ancient Ja- nus, carries the royal scepter to which he is granted by his Father in Heaven and his ancestors here below; and his other hand holds the key of the eternal secrets, the key tinged with his blood which opened to humanity the lost door of Life. This is why, in the fourth of the great antiphons before Christmas, the sacred liturgy ac-claims him thus: “O Clavis David, et Sceptrum domus Israel!... Thou art, O Christ, long awaited, the Key of David and the Scepter of the House of Israel, who opens, and no man shuts, who shuts and no man opens.^[43]

The most common interpretation of the two faces of Janus is in regard to them as respectively representing the past and the future; this inter-pretation, though accurate from a certain point of view, is very incom-plete. This is why, in a large number of figurations, the two faces are that of a young and old man; such is not the case in the emblem of Luchon, which an examination reveals that it is the androgynous Janus, or Janus-Jana;^[44] and it is scarcely necessary to point out the close relationship of this form with certain Hermetic symbols such as the Rebis.^[45]

From the point of view where the symbolism of Janus is related to time, it is necessary to make a very important note: between the past that is no more, and the future that is not yet, the true face of Janus, he who looks at the present is, it is said, neither of which we can see. This third face, indeed, is invisible because the present, in its temporal manifesta-tion, is only an elusive moment;^[46] but when we rise above the conditions of this transitory and contingent manifestation, the present conditions, on the contrary, all is reality. The third face of Janus corresponds, in an-other symbolism, that of the Hindu tradition, to the frontal eye of Shiva, which is also invisible since it is not represented by any corporeal organ, and which represents the 'sense of the eternity.' It is said that one look of this third eye reduces everything to ashes, which is to say, it destroys all manifestation; but when succession is transmuted into simultaneity, all things remain in the 'eternal present,' so that apparent destruction is, in reality, only a 'transformation,' in the most strictly etymological sense of the word.

By this respect, it is easy to understand already that Janus really rep-resents Him who is not only the 'Master of the triple time' (a designation which is also applied to Shiva in the Hindu doctrine), ^[47] but also, and above all, the 'Lord of Eternity.' “Christ,” Mr. Charbonneau-Lassay writes, “in this respect, dominates the past and the future; Coeternal with the Father, he is like him the ‘Ancient of Days:' 'In the beginning was the word,' says Saint John. He is also the Father and the Master of the centuries to come: Jesu pater futuri sæculi, the Roman church repeats daily, and Himself proclaiming the beginning and end of everything: 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.' He is the 'Lord of Eternity.'" It is quite obvious, indeed, that the 'Master of time' cannot himself be subject to time, which has its origin in him just as, according to the teachings of Aristotle, the first motor of all things or the principle of universal motion is necessarily motionless. It is the Eternal Word that the Biblical texts often refer to as the 'Ancient of Days,' the Father of ages or cycles of existence (this is the proper and primeval meaning of the Latin word sæculum, as well as the Greek aion and the Hebrew olam which it serves to translate); and it should be noted that the Hindu tradition gives it the name of Purana-Purusha, whose meaning is strictly equal. Let us now return to the figuration we have taken as a starting point for these remarks: we see, as has been noted, the scepter and the key in the hands of Janus, as well as the crown (which can be regarded as a symbol of power and elevation in the most general sense, in the spiritual as well as in the temporal order, and which here seems to refer to this twofold meaning), the scepter is the emblem of the royal power, and the key, for its role, is that of the sacerdotal power. It should be noted that the scepter is on the left of the figure, on the side of the masculine face, and the key is on the right, on the side of the feminine face; according to the symbolism employed by the Hebrew Kabbalah, the right and the left respectively correspond to two divine attributes: Mercy (Hesed) and Justice (Din), which are manifestly suited to Christ, and more so when one considers his role as Judge of the living and the dead. The Arabs, making a similar distinction in the divine attributes and their corresponding names, say 'Beauty' (Jamāl) and 'Majesty' (Jalāl); and one can even better see, with these final designations, that these aspects are represented each by a feminine and masculine face. ^[48] In short, the key and the scepter, substituted here for a set of two keys which is perhaps a more common insignia of Janus, only makes even more clear one of the meanings of this emblem, which is that of a double power proceeding from a single principle: sacerdotal power and royal power, united, according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, in the person of Melchizedek, who is, as Saint Paul says, “made unto like the Son of God."^[49] We have just said that Janus, most commonly, carries two keys; these keys are that of the two solsticial doors, Janua Cæli and Janua Inferni, corresponding respectively to the winter solstice and the summer sol- stice, which is to say to the two most extreme points of the race of the sun in the annual cycle, for Janus, as 'Master of time,' is the Janitor who opens and closes this cycle. Furthermore, he was also the god of initiation into the mysteries: initiatio derives from in-ine, 'to enter' (which is also related to the symbolism of the 'gate'), and, according to Cicero, the name of Janus has the same root as the verb ire, 'go;' this root, moreover, is found in Sanskrit with the same meaning as in Latin, and in this language it has among its derivatives yana, 'way,' whose form is very similar to the name of Janus. “I am the Way,” says Christ;^[50] should we see here the possibility of another link? What we have said seems to be a way to jus- tify it; and it would be the greatest mistake, when it comes to symbolism, not to take into consideration certain verbal similarities, the reasons for which are often very deep, although unfortunately they often escape modern philologists, who are ignorant all of that can legitimately be called 'sacred science.' Be that as it may, as Janus was considered the god of initiation, his two keys, one of gold and the other of silver, were those of 'grand mys- teries' and 'minor mysteries;' to use another equivalent language, the sil- ver key is that of the 'terrestrial paradise' and the golden key is that of the 'celestial paradise.' These same keys were one of the attributes of the Sovereign Pontificate, to whom the function of 'hierophant' was essen- tially attached; like the boat which was also a symbol of Janus, ^[51] these remained among the principal emblems of the Papacy; and the evangeli- cal words relating to the 'power of the keys' are in perfect accord with the ancient traditions, all of which derive from the great primordial Tra- dition. Furthermore, there is a rather direct relation between the meaning just indicated and that according to which the golden key represents the spiritual power and the key of silver the temporal power (the latter being sometimes replaced by the scepter as we have seen):^[52] Dante, in fact, as-signs to the Emperor and the Pope the duty of leading humanity respec-tively to the 'terrestrial paradise' and the ‘celestial paradise. '^[53]Furthermore, by virtue of a certain astronomical symbolism whichseems to have been common to all ancient people, there are also veryclose links between the two meanings of the keys of Janus and the twosolsticial gates or the 'grand mysteries' and 'minor mysteries.’^[54] Thissymbolism to which we allude is that of the zodiacal cycle, and it is notwithout reason that this cycle, with its two ascending and descendinghalves which each have their respective starting points at the two sol-stices of winter and summer, is affixed on the gates of so many medievalchurches.^[55] Here we see another meaning of the two faces of Janus: he isthe 'Master of the two ways' to which give access to the solsticial doors,these two ways of right and left (for here we find the same symbolism asgiven above) which the Pythagoreans represented by the letter Y,^[56] andit is included in an exoteric form in the myth of Hercules, between Virtueand Vice. These are the same two ways that the Hindu tradition, desig-nate as the 'way of the gods' (deva-yana) and the 'way of the ancestors'(pitri-yana); and Ganesha, whose symbolism has many links with that ofJanus, is also the 'Master of two ways,' by an immediate consequence ofhis character as the 'Lord of Knowledge,' which brings us again back tothe idea of initiation into the mysteries. Finally, these two ways are also,in a sense, like the doors to which one reaches the heavens and hell;^[57] and it can be noticed that the two sides to which they correspond, the right and the left, are those to where the chosen and the damned are distributed in representations of the Last Judgement, which, also, by a very significant coincidence, are also frequently found on the church gates, and not in any other part of the building.^[58] These representations, as well as those of the Zodiac, we believe, show something quite funda-mental in the conceptions of the cathedral builders, who proposed to give their works a 'pantacular' character, in the truest sense of the word,^[59] which is to say, to make their work as a kind of synthetic summary of the Universe.^[60] The Guardians of the Holy Land Les Gardiens de la Terre sainte, August 1929.

Among the attributes of the chivalric orders, and more particularly of the Templars, which is the best known, but not the best understood in gen- eral, is that as the 'guardians of the Holy Land.' Certainly, if we adhere to the outermost meaning, we find an immediate explanation in the con- nection that exists between the origin of the Orders in the Crusaders, because, for Christians as it is for Jews, it seems that the 'Holy Land' means nothing but Palestine. However, the issue becomes more complex when one realizes that a variety of Oriental organizations, whose initiatic character is a certainty, such as the Assassins and the Druze, have also taken as their title 'guardians of the Holy Land.' Here, indeed, is the re- alization that it can no longer simply be Palestine; and it is also remark- able that these organizations have quite a number of features in common with the Western chivalric orders, so much so that some of them even have been historically connected. What then is to be really understood as the 'Holy Land,' and in what way is the role as 'guardian' attached to a certain kind of initiation, which may be called a 'chivalric' initiation, in giving this term a more general meaning than is usually done, but which is justified through the variety of forms of which legitimize it?

We have already shown elsewhere, but in particular in our study of The King of the World, that the expression ‘Holy Land' has a number of synonyms: 'Pure Land,' 'Land of the Saints,' 'Land of the Blessed,' 'Land of the Living,' and 'Land of Immortality,' that these equivalent designa- tions occur in the traditions of all people, and that they always apply essentially to a spiritual center whose location in a given region can, de- pending on the case, be understood literally, symbolically, or a mix of the two. Each 'Holy Land' is still designated by expressions such as the 'Cen- ter of the World' or the 'Heart of the World,' and this requires some ex- planation, as these uniform designations, although applied in a variety of ways, could easily lead to some confusion.

If we consider, for example, the Hebraic tradition, we see that in the Sefer Yetzirah there is spoken of the 'Holy Palace,' or the 'Inner Palace,' which is the true 'Center of the World' in the cosmogonic sense of the term; and we also see that this ‘Holy Palace' has its image in the human world in the Shekinah, which is the 'real presence' of Divinity.^[61] For the people of Israel, this residence of Shekinah was the Tabernacle (Mishkan), which for this reason was considered by them to be the 'Heart of the World,' because it was in fact the spiritual center of its own tradition. This center, furthermore, was not at first a fixed location; when it comes to nomadic peoples the spiritual center must move with him, while re-maining always the same during his displacement. “The residence of the Shekinah,” Mr. Vulliaud says, “had no fixity until the day when the Tem-ple was built, for which David had prepared the gold, the silver, and all that was necessary to complete the work.^[62] The Tabernacle of the Saint-hood of Jehovah, the residence of the Shekinah, is the Sacred of Sacreds which is the heart of the Temple, which is itself the center of Zion (Jeru-salem), as the Holy Zion is the center of the Land of Israel, as Israel is the center of the world.”^[63] We can notice here that there is a series of exten-sions gradually attributed to the idea of the center in the applications which are made successively, so that the name of ‘Center of the World' or 'Heart of the World' is finally extended to the entire Land of Israel, as it is considered the 'Holy Land;' and it must be added that, in the same respect, it also receives, among other designations, that of 'Land of the Living.' It is spoken of as 'the Land of the Living including seven lands,' and Mr. Vulliaud observes that “this earth is Canaan in which there were seven peoples, World,' and who have regarded it as an image of Heaven, two ideas which do not contradict one another in reality. The use of the same sym-bolism is found among other people who also possessed a 'Holy Land,' which is to say a country where a spiritual center was established that had a role comparable to that of the Temple of Jerusalem for the He-brews. In this respect, the ‘Holy Land,' as well as the Omphalos, was al-ways the visible image of the 'Center of the World,' for the people living in the regions where it was located.^[66] The symbolism of which is a question that is particularly found among the ancient Egyptians; in fact, according to Plutarch, “the Egyp-tians give to their country the name of chemia,^[67] and they compare it to a heart.”^[68] The reason given by Plutarch is rather strange: “This country is hot and humid indeed, including the southern portions of the inhabited earth, extended to the South, as in the body of man the heat of the heart extends to the left,” because of this "the Egyptians consider the East to be the face of the world, the North as the right, and the South as the left.^[69] These are only rather superficial similarities, and the true reason must be quite different since the same comparison of the heart has been ap-plied equally to any land to which a sacred and ‘central' character, in the spiritual sense, has been applied, no matter the geographical location. Furthermore, according to the report of Plutarch himself, the heart, which represented Egypt, also represented the Heavens: “The Egyp-tians," he writes, "depict the Heavens, which cannot age because of their eternality, as a heart resting on a flame which feeds its ardor."^[70] While the heart is the hieroglyph of both Egypt and that of Heaven, it is also represented as a vase, which is then the same as that of the 'Holy Grail' in the legends of the Western Middle Ages. The conclusion to be drawn from these considerations is that there are as many specific ‘Holy Lands' as there are ordinary traditional forms, since they represent the spiritual centers that correspond respectively to these different forms; but, if the same symbolism applies uniformly to all these 'Holy Lands,' it is because these spiritual centers all have an analogous constitution, often even in their precise details, because they are so many images of the same unique and supreme center, which alone really is the 'Center of the World,' but whose attributes they take as a participant in its nature through direct communication, in which traditional orthodoxy resides, and as the actual representative, in a more or less external way, for certain times and places. In other words, there exists a 'Holy Land' par excellence, of which is the prototype of all the others, a spiritual center to which all the others are subordinated as to the seat of the primordial tradition, of which all traditions are derived by adaptation to such or such defined conditions defined by a people or a time. This ‘Holy Land' par excellence, is the 'supreme land,' following the meaning of the Sanskrit term Paradesha, which the Chaldeans named Pardes, and in the West as paradis; it is in- deed the 'terrestrial Paradise,' which is the starting point of all tradition, having in its center the sole source from which flow the four rivers flow- ing towards the cardinal points, and which is also the 'residency of im- mortality,' as is readily apparent from the first chapters of Genesis.^[71] We cannot think of reviewing here all the questions concerning the Supreme Center, which we have already treated elsewhere more or less completely: its preservation in a fluctuating manner according to the pe- riods of the cycle, that is, from the ‘Terrestrial Paradise' to the 'Celestial Jerusalem' which represents the two most extreme phases; the multiple names under which it is designated, such as Tula, Luz, Salem, Agartha; the various symbols that appear, such as the mountain, the cave, the is- land, and many others, or in an immediate relation, with the symbolism of the 'Pole' or the 'Axis Mundi.' To add to these figurations, we may also point out the city, the citadel, the temple, or the palace, according to the aspect under which it is especially contemplated; and this is where we will recall, together with the Temple of Solomon, which is more di- rectly related to the subject, the triple precinct of which we have spoken recently as representing the initiatic hierarchy of certain traditional centers, ^[72] and also the mysterious labyrinth, which, in a more complex form, is related to a similar conception with the difference of an emphasis on a 'journey' towards the hidden center.^[73] We must now add that the symbolism of the 'Holy Land' has a double meaning: whether it is related to the Supreme Center or to a subordinate center, but also, by an association that is quite natural, the tradition that emanates from it or is preserved therein, which is to say, in the first case, the primordial tradition, and, in the second, a particular traditional form.^[74] This double meaning is also present very clearly in the symbolism of the 'Holy Grail' which is at the same time a vase (grasale) and a book (gradale or graduale); this last aspect clearly indicates the tradition while the other concerns it in a more direct manner, the state corresponding to the effective possession of this tradition, which is to say the ‘Edenic state' if it is the primordial tradition; and whoever has reached this state is thereby integrated into the Pardes, so that one can say that his dwelling is now in the ‘Center of the World.'^[75] It is not without reason that we have displayed the close similarity of these two symbolisms, because when we speak of the 'chivalry of the Holy Grail' or the 'guardians of the Holy Land,' what we must hear by these two expressions is exactly the same thing; what remains for us to explain is the functions of these 'guardians,' a function that was particularly attributed to the Templars.^[76] To fully understand what it is, we must first distinguish between the holders of the tradition, whose function is to preserve and transmit it, and those who receive only to a degree, a communication, or we might say, somebody that takes part in tradition. Regarding the first, deposito- ries and dispensers of the doctrine stand at the source, which is naturally near the very center; from there, the doctrine is communicated and dis- tributed hierarchically according to the various initiatic stages, according to the currents represented by the four rivers of the Pardes, or, if we wish to resume from the figuration which we have studied recently, by the channels which, going from the interior to the exterior, connect together the successive precincts which correspond to these varying degrees. All those who participate in the tradition have therefore not reached the same degree and do not fulfill the same function; it would even be nec- essary to make a distinction between two things, which, although gener- ally corresponding in a certain way, are not strictly united, for it can happen that a man is intellectually qualified to attain the highest degrees, but is not fit to perform all the functions in the initiatic organization. Here, it is only the functions that we must consider; from this point of view, we will say that the 'guardians' stand at the borders of the spiritual center, taken in its widest sense, or at the last precinct, the one by which the center is at the same time separated and connected from the 'outside world.' Therefore, these 'guardians' have a dual function: on the one hand, they are properly the defenders of the 'Holy Land,' in the sense that they forbid access to those who do not possess the qualifications required to enter into it, and they constitute what we have called an 'outer cover,' which is to say, they hide it from profane eyes; on the other hand, they also ensure regular relations with the outside, as we will ex- plain later. It is obvious that the role of the defender is, to speak the language of the Hindu tradition, a function of Kshatriyas; and, precisely, any 'chival- ric' initiation is essentially adapted to the proper nature of the men who belong to the warrior caste, which is to say the Kshatriyas. From this comes the special character of this initiation, the particular symbolism which it makes use of, and in particular, the intervention of an affective element, very explicitly designated by the term 'Love.' We have already explained it sufficiently that we do not have to go any further than this.^[77] But, in the case of the Templars, there is something more to consider: although their initiation was essentially ‘chivalric,' as it suited their na- ture and function, they had a dual character, at both the military and religious levels; and it must be so if they were, as we have many reasons to think, among the 'guardians' of the Supreme Center, where spiritual authority and temporal power are united in their common principle, and which communicates the mark of this meeting to all which is directly attached to it. In the Western world, where the spiritual takes the specif- ically religious form, the true 'guardians of the Holy Land,' as long as they had an existence that was 'official,' they were to be knights, but knights who were monks at the same time; and indeed, that is what the Templars were. This brings us directly to the second role of the 'guardians' of the Supreme Center, a role which consisted, as stated earlier, in ensuring certain external relations, and above all we will add, in maintaining the link between the primordial tradition and secondary derived traditions. For this to be so, there must be, for each traditional form, one or more organizations constituted in this model, in all manifestations, composed of men with the consciousness of what is beyond all forms, which is to say, from the unique doctrine which is the source and essence of all the others, and which is nothing less than the primordial tradition. In the world of the Judeo-Christian tradition, such an organization should nat- urally take as a symbol the Temple of Solomon; having long since ceased to exist materially, could at that time have only an ideal meaning, as be- ing an image of the Supreme Center, as well as any subordinate spiritual center; the very etymology of the name of Jerusalem indicates quite clearly that it is but a visible image of the mysterious Salem of Melchize- dek. If such was the character of the Knights Templar, they must, to fulfill the role assigned to them which concerns a specific fixed tradition, that of the Occident, remain attached externally to the form of this tradition; but at the same time, the inner consciousness of true doctrinal unity should enable them to communicate with other representatives of other traditions:^[78] this explains their relations with certain Oriental organiza- tions, and naturally, with those that play a role similar to their own. Furthermore, one can understand, under these conditions, that the destruction of the order of the Temple caused for the West the rupture of the regular relations with the 'Center of the World' and it is indeed in the fourteenth century that this rupture first occurred, and which has been progressively accentuated until our time. However, this is not to say that every link was broken at one fell swoop; for quite a long time, relations could be maintained to a certain extent, but only in a hidden manner, through organizations such as the Fede Santa or the 'Fedeli d'Amor,' such as the 'Massenie du Saint-Graal,' and no doubt many oth- ers, all heirs to the spirit of the order of the Temple, and for the most part attached to it by a more or less direct filiation. Those who preserved this living spirit and those who inspired these organizations without ever constituting themselves into any definite group, were those who were called, by an essentially symbolic name, the Rosicrucians; but a day came when these Rosicrucians themselves had to retire from the West, whose conditions had become such that their action could no longer be exer- cised, and, it is said, they then retired to the Orient, absorbed somehow in towards the Supreme Center of which they were an emanation. For the Western world, there is no longer any 'Holy Land' to maintain since the path that leads to it is now is completely lost; how long will this sit- uation last, and should it even be hoped that communication will ever be restored? This is a question that is not for us to answer; besides that we do not wish to risk any prophesying, the solution depends only on the West itself, because it is by returning to normal conditions and by recov- ering the spirit of its own tradition, if it still has some, he will be able to see the path to the 'Center of the World' open once more.

Atlantis and Hyperborea Atlantide et Hyperborée, October 1929.

In Atlantis (June 1929), Mr. Paul Le Cour brings up the note in our article in the previous May issue (The Thunderstones, p. 348), in which we af- firm the distinction of Hyperborea and Atlantis, against those who would confuse the two and who speak of a 'Hyperborean Atlantis.' Truth be told, although Mr. Le Cour does indeed hold this notion, we do not think only of him when writing this note; it is also found in Herman Wirth, author of an important book on the origins of mankind (Der Aufgang der Menscheit) recently published in Germany, which constantly uses the term 'North Atlantic' to designate the region that was the origin of the primordial tradition. On the other hand, Mr. Le Cour is indeed the only one, to our knowledge at the least, who has given us an affirmation of the existence of a 'Hyperborean Atlantis;' if we had not named it in this respect, it is because people's questions matter very little to us, and the only thing that concerned us was to warn our readers against a false in- terpretation, wherever they might come from. We wonder how Mr. Le Cour interpreted us; we ask ourselves now more than ever, because now he is telling us that the North Pole, at the time of its origin, "was not that of today, but a neighboring region, it seems to be Iceland and Greenland;" how did he come up with this? We are absolutely certain to never have written a single word about this, to have never made even the slightest allusion to this issue, incidentally which is secondary to our point of view, of a possible pole displacement from the beginning of our Manvan- tara;^[79] it is even more so because of this that we have never specified this in relation to the original issue, because, for a variety of reason, it is ra- ther difficult to define in relation to present-day lands.

Mr. Le Cour also says that, “in spite of our Hinduism, we agree that the origin of traditions is Western;" we do not agree with this, on the contrary, because we say that it is of a polar origin, and the pole, as we know, is not more Western than Eastern; we continue in our thinking that, as we said in the note referred to, North and West are two different cardinal directions. It is only at a time that is distant from the origin that the seat of the primordial tradition, transferred to other regions, could become either Western or Eastern, Western in some periods and Eastern for others, in any case, surely recently it is Eastern and already well be- fore the beginning of the so-called ‘historical' times (because they are the only times accessible to the investigations of ‘profane' history). Further- more, it is notable that it is not "in spite of our Hinduism” (Mr. Le Cour, in using this word, probably does not believe it to be entirely accurate), but on the contrary it is because of our Hinduism' that we regard the origin of traditions as Nordic, and even more exactly as polar, since this is expressly stated in the Vedas, as well as in other sacred books. ^[80] The land where the sun circled the horizon without going to sleep was in fact much closer to the pole, if it is not the pole itself; it is also said that, later, the representatives of the tradition moved to a region where the longest day was double the shortest day, but this already relates to a later phase, which, geographically, had obviously nothing to do with Hyperborea. It may be that Mr. Le Cour is right in distinguishing between southern Atlantis and northern Atlantis, although they should never have been originally distinguished; but it is none the less true that northern Atlantis was not hyperborean. What complicates the question greatly, we very readily admit, is that the same designations have been applied in the course of time to very different regions, and not only to the successive locations of the primordial center of tradition, but also to secondary cen- ters that proceeded more or less directly. We have pointed out this diffi- culty in our study on The King of the World, where, precisely on the very page which Mr. Le Cour references (p. 115), we write this: “We must first distinguish between the Atlantic Thule (the place of origin of the Toltecs, which was likely located in northern Atlantis) and the Hyperborean Thule; and it is the latter which, in reality, represents the first and highest center for the whole of the present Manvantara; it was it which was the 'sacred island' par excellence, and its location was literally polar. All the other 'sacred islands,' which are designated everywhere by names of identical signification, were only images of this one; and this applies even to the spiritual center of the Atlantean tradition, which governs only a secondary historical cycle subordinate to that of the Manvantara."^[81] And we added in a note: “A great difficulty to determine the junction point of the Atlantean tradition with the Hyperborean tradition, this is due to certain substitutions of names which can lead to confusion, but the ques-tion, in spite of everything, may not be entirely unsolvable."

Speaking of this 'junction point' we thought first of all of Druidism; and here it is precisely that, concerning Druidism, we find again in At-lantis (July-August 1929) another note which proves how difficult it is to understand. With respect to our June article on the 'triple precinct,' Mr. Le Cour writes: “It is restricting the scope of this symbol to only make it a druidic symbol; it is likely that it is older and radiates beyond the dru-idic world." But we are far from restricting it merely as a druidic symbol, in this article, after noting, according to the work of Mr. Le Cour himself, examples from Italy and Greece, we said (p. 397): “the fact that this same figure is found elsewhere than among the Celts would indicate that there were, in other traditional forms, hierarchies built on the same model, which is perfectly ordinary.” As for the question of anteriority, it would first be necessary to know at what precise time Druidism originates, and it is probable that it goes back much farther than one believes usually, especially as the Druids were the possessors of a tradition of which a notable part was incontestably of a hyperborean origin.

We will take this opportunity to make another remark which is im-portant: we say 'Hyperborea' to conform to the usage that has prevailed since the time of the Greeks; but the usage of this word shows that even at this 'classical' time, it had already lost the meaning of its primitive designation. Indeed, it would be sufficient to say 'Borea,' a word strictly synonymous to the Sanskrit Varaha, or rather, when it comes to a land, to its female derivative Varahi: it is the ʻland of the wild boar,' which also became the 'land of the bear' at one time, during the period of Kshatriyas dominance that Parashurama ended.^[82] To conclude this necessary explanation, we have yet to say a few words on three or four questions which Mr. Le Cour incidentally mentions in his two notes; firstly, there is an allusion to the swastika, of which he says that "we make as the sign of the pole." Without affixing the least animosity, we will here pray that Mr. Le Cour does not affix his case to ours, for we finally we must say things as they are: we consider him to be a 'researcher' (which is not to lessen his merit), which offers explanations according to his personal views, which sometimes are a bit adventurous, and this is his right since he is not attached to any tradition currently alive and is not in possession of any data received by direct transmission; we could say, in other words, that he does archaeology while we do initiatic science, and there are two points of view for the two, even when they touch on the same subjects, that cannot coincide in anyway. We do not 'make' the swastika the sign of the pole; we say that it is, and always has been, that this is its true traditional meaning, which is quite different; it is a fact to which neither Mr. Le Cour nor ourselves can change. Mr. Le Cour, who obviously can only make more or less hypothetical interpretations, claims that the swastika “is only a symbol referring to an ideal without elevation;”^[83] this is his way of seeing things, but it is nothing more, and we are all the less disposed to discuss it, which, after all, represents a mere sentimental appreciation; 'elevated' or not, an 'ideal' is for us something rather hollow, and, in truth, it is much more 'positive,' and we would say so willingly had this word not been abused. Mr. Le Cour, on the other hand, does not seem satisfied with the note we have given (in the June issue, p. 430) when speaking of the article by one of his collaborators who was anxious to see opposition between East and West, which showed quite clearly, vis-à-vis the Orient, a deplorable exclusivism.^[84] He writes some astonishing things about this: “Mr. René Guénon, who is a pure logician, cannot seek, both in the East and in the West, other than the purely intellectual side of things, as his writings prove; he again shows it by stating that Agni is self-sufficient (see Regnabit, April 1926) and he ignores the Aor-Agni duality, which we often Ramachandra, which is to say, the sixth and seventh avataras, which are distinct in all respects.

return to because it is the cornerstone of the building of the manifested world." Despite our indifference to what has been written about us, we cannot say that we are a 'pure logician,' whereas we do not consider logic and dialectic only as mere instruments of exposition, sometimes used in this respect, but of an entirely external character, and without any inter- est in themselves; we repeat ourselves only once more that anything other than the initiatic point of view, and everything else, which is to say all that is 'profane' knowledge is entirely devoid of value in our eyes. If it is true that we often speak of a 'pure intellectuality,' it is because this expression has a very different meaning for us than for Mr. Le Cour, who seems to confuse 'intelligence' with 'reason,' and who considers on the one hand, an 'aesthetic intuition,' whereas there is no other true intuition than 'intellectual intuition' of a supra-rational order; that is something more formidable than anyone who obviously does not have the slightest suspicion of what 'metaphysical realization' may be, and who is probably thinking that we are only a type of theoretician, which proves once again that he has misread our writings, which oddly appear to irritate him. As for the history of Aor-Agni, which we do not "ignore" at all, it would be good to conclude once and for all with these reveries, which Mr. Le Cour does not have a stake in: if 'Agni is self-sufficient unto himself,' it is for this reason that this term, in Sanskrit, designates fire in all aspects, with- out any exception, and those who claim the contrary prove simply by this their total ignorance of the Hindu tradition. We did not say anything else in the note of our article in Regnabit, which we believe necessary to reproduce here, verbatim: “Knowing that the readers of Regnabit are aware of the theories of a teaching whose work, though very interesting and highly estimable in some respects, calls for some reservations, we must say here that we cannot accept the use of the terms Aor and Agni to designate the two complementary aspects of fire (light and heat). In- deed, the first of these two words is Hebrew, while the second is Sanskrit, and we cannot thus associate terms borrowed from different traditions, whatever the actual concordances that exist between them, and even in the innate identity that hides under the diversity of their forms; we must not confuse 'syncretism' with a real synthesis. Furthermore, if Aor is ex- clusively light, Agni is the igneous principle in its entirety (the Latin ignis being the same word), so both as light and as heat, the restriction of this term to the designation of heat is quite arbitrary and unjustified.” It is scarcely necessary to say that, in writing this note, we have not thought in the least bit of Mr. Le Cour; we thought only of the Hieron of Paray- le-Monial, to whom the invention of this odd verbal association is at- tributed. We feel that we do not have to ignore a whimsy from the some- what fertile imagination of Mr. de Sarachaga, which is therefore entirely devoid of authority and not of any value from the traditional point of view, to which we maintain strictly.^[85] Finally, Mr. Le Cour takes advantage of the situation to assert anew the anti-metaphysical and anti-initiatic theory of Western ‘individual-ism,' which, after all, is his affair and binds him; he adds, with a sort of pride that shows there is, in reality, very little individual contingencies present: “We maintain our point of view because we are the ancestors in the domain of knowledge." This pretension is really quite extraordinary; does Mr. Le Cour really think that he is so old? Not only are modern Westerners the ancestors of no one, but they are not even legitimate de-scendants because they have lost the key to their own tradition; it is not that 'in the Orient there has been deviation,' whatever those ignorant of Oriental doctrines may say. The 'ancestors,' to use Mr. Le Cour's words, are the effective holders of the primordial tradition; there can be no oth-ers, and at the present time they certainly do not exist in the West.

Concerning the Masons of the Middle Ages A propos des Constructeurs du moyen âge, November 1929.

An article by Mr. Armand Bédarride, published last May in the respective issue of Symbolisme, which we have previously alluded to in our review column, seems to us to be an opportunity to reflect on some useful notes. This article, entitled The Ideas of our Forerunners, deals with the construc- tion corporations of the Middle Ages that are considered to have trans- mitted something of their spirit and traditions down to modern Masonry. It should first be point out on this note that the distinction between 'operative Masonry' and 'speculative Masonry' seems to us to be inter- preted in a totally different sense than is ordinarily attributed to it. In- deed, it is often that the 'operative' Masons were only mere workers and craftsmen, nothing more, nothing less, and that the symbolism with more or less profound meanings would only have come later, as a result of the introduction of different artisans outside the art of building that were introduced into the corporate organizations. This is not the opinion of Mr. Bédarride, who cites a large number of examples, notably in religious monuments of figures whose symbolic character is incontestable; in par- ticular, he speaks of the two columns on the Würzburg cathedral, “which prove,” he says, "that the fourteenth century Masons built a philosophi- cal symbolism,” which is true, provided, that you understand this in the sense of ‘hermetic philosophy,' and not in the ordinary sense that would be profane philosophy, which, furthermore, has never made the slightest use of any symbolism. We can multiply the examples indefinitely; the very plan of the cathedrals is eminently symbols, as we have already re- marked on other occasions; and it must be added that among the symbols used in the Middle Ages, besides those which the modern Masons have kept the memory of while hardly understanding the meaning, there are many others of which they have not the slightest idea.^[86] In our opinion, it is necessary, to counter the current opinion, and to consider 'speculative Masonry' as, in many respects, a degeneration of 'operative Masonry.' The latter, indeed, was really complete in its order, possessing both the theory and the corresponding practice, and its des-ignations may, in this regard, be understood as an allusion to the 'oper-ations' of 'sacred art,' whose construction according to traditional rules was one of the operations. As for 'speculative Masonry,' which came into being at a time when the Mason corporations were in full decay, its name indicates quite clearly that it is confined to pure and simple 'speculation,' which is to say, a theory without realization; certainly, it would be odd to look at it as 'progress.' If even there had been just a diminution, the evil would not be as great as it really is; but, as we have already said several times, there was also a real deviation at the beginning of the eighteenth century, during the formation of the Great Lodge of England, which was the starting point for all modern Masonry. We shall not press further for the moment, but we wish to point out that, if we really wish to understand the spirit of the Masons of the Middle Ages, these obser-vations are absolutely essential; otherwise, one would only have a false idea, or at the least, a very incomplete one. Another idea that is no less important to rectify is that the use of symbolism would have simply been imposed due to reasons of prudence. That these reasons have sometimes existed we do not dispute, but this is only the outermost and least interesting part of the question; we said it about Dante and the 'Fedeli d'Amor', ^[87] and we will reiterate it once more with regard to the corporations of Masons, all the more so because there have been close links between all these organizations, apparently so dif-ferent in character, but all of them participating in the same knowledge of tradition.^[88] Symbolism is the normal mode of expression for knowledge of this order; this is its true raison d'être, and this, in all times and in all countries, even in cases where there was no need to conceal anything, and simply because it consists of things which, by their very nature, cannot be expressed otherwise than in this form. The mistake which we often find in this respect, and of which we find to a certain extent as an echo in the article of Mr. Bédarride, seems to have two principal reasons, the first of which is that, generally speaking, it is difficult to imagine what Catholicism was in the Middle Ages. It should not be forgotten that, just as there is a Muslim esoterism, there was also at that time a Catholic esoterism, we mean an esoterism that takes its base and its point of support in the symbols and rites of the Catholic religion, superimposing upon it without opposing it in any manner; and there is no doubt that certain religious orders were far from being foreign to this esoterism. If the tendency of most modern Catholics is to deny the existence of these things, it only proves that they are not better informed in this respect than the rest of their contemporaries. The second reason for the error that we have pointed out is that they imagine that what is hidden under the symbols are almost exclusively social or political conceptions;^[89] in reality, it is far more than this. The conceptions of this order could not have, in the eyes of those who possessed certain knowledge, an altogether secondary importance, which is that of a possible application among many others; we will even add that wherever this assumption has come to assume too great a place and become predominant, they have invariably been a cause of degeneration and deviation.^[90] Is this not precisely the reason why modern Masonry has lost the understanding of what it still retains of the old symbolism and traditions of which, in spite of all its insufficiencies, it seems to be, the sole heir in the Western world today? If we object to, as proof of the social concerns of the Masons, satirical figures that are more or less licentious that is sometimes encountered in their works, the reason is very simple: these figures are primarily intended to baffle the laymen, who stop at the external appearances and do not seek what lies deeper. There is something here that is far from being unique to the Masons; certain writers, such as Boccaccio, Rabelais especially, and many others, have taken the same mask and used the same processes. It must be believed that this scheme has been successful, since, even today, and perhaps especially today, the laymen still are fooled. If we wish to reach the bottom of things, we must see in the symbolism of the Masons the expression of certain traditional sciences, related to what we can, in a general way, denotate by the name of ‘hermeticism.' Only, we should not believe, because we are speaking of 'sciences,' that it is something comparable to secular science which is known only to almost all moderns; it seems that an assimilation of this sort has been made in the mind of Mr. Bédarride, who speaks of “the changing form of the positive knowledge of science," which applies properly and exclusively to secular science, and who, taking literally what is purely symbolic images, believes in discovering 'evolutionary' and even 'transformative' ideas, ideas which are in absolute contradiction with all traditional data. In many of our works we have developed at length the essential distinction between sacred, or traditional, science and secular science; we cannot think of reproducing all these considerations here, but at the least we have seen fit to draw attention once more to this important point. We shall add but a few words to conclude: it is not without reason that Janus, among the Romans, was both the god of initiation into the mysteries and the god of the guilds of artisans; it is not sound reason either that the Masons of the Middle Ages kept the same two solsticial feasts of the same Janus, that became the two Saint Johns of the winter and the summer; and when we learn of Saint John's connection with the esoteric side of Christianity, does it not immediately appear that, under another adaption required by circumstances and by the 'cyclical laws,' it is the same initiation into the mysteries that it once was?