Synthesis and Syncretism

Synthèse et syncrétisme, December 1935.

Among those of our contemporaries who claim to study traditional doc- trines without penetrating their essence, especially those who consider them from a 'historic' and academic point of view, have an unfortunate tendency to confuse ‘synthesis' and 'syncretism.' This remark applies in a very general way to the 'profane' study of the doctrines of the exoteric order as well as those of the esoteric order; the distinction between them is seldom made, and the soi-disant 'science of religions' deals with a mul- titude of things which, in reality, have nothing 'religious' about them, as is the case in the initiatic 'mysteries' of antiquity. This 'science' itself clearly affirms its 'profane' character, positing in principle that he who is outside of all religion, and who, consequently, cannot have any reli- gion (we would rather say tradition, without specifying any particular modality), that an entirely external knowledge is the only one qualified to deal with it 'scientifically.' The truth is that, under the pretext of dis- interested knowledge, a clearly anti-traditional intention is concealed: it is a 'criticism' intended above all, in the minds of its promotes and less consciously in those who follow them, to destroy all tradition, by wishing to think of it as a set of psychological facts, social or otherwise, but in all cases as being purely human. We will not dwell on this point further, because, currently, we propose only to point out a confusion which can obviously exist independent of this anti-traditional intention although characteristic of the ‘profane' mentality.

'Syncretism,' understood in its true meaning, is nothing more than a simple juxtaposition of elements from various sources, gathered 'from the outside,' so to speak, without any principle of a more profound order unifying them. It is obvious that such an assemblage cannot truly consti- tute a doctrine, any more than a heap of stones constitute a building; even if some who superficially consider fall under this doctrine, this illu- sion cannot withstand scrutiny. There is no need to go far to find authen- tic examples of this syncretism: modern counterfeits of tradition, such as Occultism and Theosophy, are nothing other than this at essence; no- tions borrowed from various traditional forms, being generally misun- derstood and distorted, are mixed with conceptions belonging to philos- ophy and profane science. There are also philosophical theories formed almost entirely from fragments of other theories, and here syncretism usually takes the name of ‘eclectism'; this case is less serious in fact than the preceding one, because it is only a matter of philosophy, i.e. of pro-fane thought which, at least, does not try to pretend to be something else.

Syncretism, in any case, is always an essentially profane process, by its very 'externality'; not only is it not synthesis, but, in a sense, it is quite the opposite. Indeed, synthesis, by definition, begins with principles, i.e. from what is most internal; one might say, it goes from the center to the circumference, while syncretism stands at the circumference itself, in pure multiplicity, in an 'atomic' sense by the indefinite detail of elements taken one by one, considered in themselves and for themselves, sepa-rated from their principle, i.e. separated from their true raison d'être. Therefore, syncretism has an entirely analytical character, whether it likes it or not; it is true that no one speaks so often or so willingly of synthesis as certain 'syncretists, but this proves only one thing: they feel that if they recognized the true nature of their composite theories, they would confess that they are not the depositories of any tradition, and the work they have done is no different from the work that the premier 're-searcher' came to by somehow assembling the various notions that he would have drawn from books.

If they have an obvious interest in passing their syncretism off as syn-thesis, the error of those we spoke of at the beginning usually occurs in the inverse: when they find themselves in the presence of a real synthe-sis, they seldom label it as syncretism. The explanation of such an atti-tude is very simple: adhering to the point of view which is the most nar-rowly profane and the most external as can be conceived, they have no consciousness of what is of another order, as they do not wish or cannot admit that certain things escape them, they naturally seek to reduce eve-rything to processes that are within the reach of their own understand-ing. Imagining that all doctrine is only the work of one or more human individuals, without any intervention of superior elements (for it must not be forgotten that this is the fundamental postulate of all their 'sci-ence'), they attribute to these individuals what they themselves would be capable of doing in such a case; it goes without saying that they do not care at all about whether the doctrine they study in their own way is or is not the expression of the truth, because such a question, not being 'historical,' does not even arise for them. It is even doubtful that the idea has ever occurred to them that there can be a truth of a different order than simple 'truth of fact,' which alone can be an object of erudition; as for the interest that such a study may present for them in these condi-tions, we must admit that we cannot render it so, because it is a mentality that is foreign to us.

Be that as it may, what is particularly important to notice is that the false conception that wants to see syncretism in traditional doctrines has the direct and inevitable consequence of what may be called the theory of 'borrowing': when one finds the existence of similar elements in two different doctrinal forms, one hastens to suppose that one of them must have borrowed from the other. Of course, this is not a question of the common origin of traditions, nor of their authentic filiation with the reg- ular transmission and the successive adaptations that it entails; all this, escaping the means of investigation available to the profane historian, does not exist for him. They wish to speak only of loans in the grossest sense of the word, of a kind of copy or plagiarism of a tradition by an- other with whom it has been in contact as a result of all contingent cir- cumstances, of an accidental incorporation of detached elements, not an- swering to any profound reason, and that is indeed what the definition of syncretism implies. Moreover, one does not wonder if it is not normal that the same truth receives more or less similar expressions or at least those that are comparable between them, independently of all borrow- ing, and they cannot ask this, since, as we said earlier, they are resolved to ignore the existence of this truth. Furthermore, this last explanation would be insufficient without the notion of primordial traditional unity, but at least it would represent a certain aspect of reality; let us add that it must in no way be confused with another theory, no less profane than that of 'loans,' although of a different kind, which invokes what is com- monly called the 'unity of the human mind,' by hearing in this an exclu- sively psychological meaning, where, in fact, such a unity does not exist, and implying that any doctrine is merely a product of the 'human mind,' so that this 'psychologism' does not consider the question of doctrinal truths any more than the 'historicism' of proponents of syncretic expla- nations does. We will also point out that the same idea of syncretism and ‘borrow- ing,' applied more specifically to the traditional scriptures, gives rise to the search for hypothetical 'sources' and the assumption of 'interpola- tions,' which is, as we know, one of the greatest resources of ‘criticism' in its destructive work, whose sole real goal is the negation of any 'supra- human' inspiration. This is closely related to the anti-traditional inten- tion that we indicated at the beginning; let us just note this in passing, since this point of view is not what we intend to develop at the moment. But, at the least, we must recall the incompatibility of any 'humanist' explanation with the traditional spirit, an incompatibility which is obvi- ous, since not considering the ‘non-human' element is to properly ignore what the very essence of tradition is, without which there is nothing that deserves to bear this name.

On the other hand, it suffices, in order to refute the syncretistic con-ception, to recall that all traditional doctrine necessarily has as its center and starting point the knowledge of metaphysical principles, and that all that it entails, in a more or less secondary capacity, is only the application of these principles to different domains; this amounts to saying that it is essentially synthetic, and, from what we have explained above, synthesis excludes all syncretism by its very nature. We can go further: if it is impossible for there to be syncretism in the traditional doctrines themselves, it is equally impossible for any of those who have truly understood these doctrines to resort to syncretism, those who have necessarily understood the vanity of such a process, as well as the vanity of all those processes which are peculiar to profane thought. All that is really inspired by traditional knowledge always proceeds 'from within' and not 'from without'; anyone who is aware of the essen-tial unity of all traditions may, in order to expound and interpret the doctrine, appeal to means of expression coming from various traditional forms depending on the case, if he considers that there is some advantage in this, but there will never be anything that can be assimilated from near or far to any syncretism or the 'comparative method' of scholars. On the one hand, the central and principal unity illuminates and dominates eve-rything; on the other hand, this unity being absent or, to put it better, hidden from the eyes of the profane 'seeker,' he can only fumble in the 'outer darkness,' vainly thrashing about in the midst of a chaos that could only be brought into order by the initiatic Fiat Lux which, due to his lack of 'qualification,' will never be proffered for him.

The Being and the Milieu L'être et le milieu, December 1935.

With regards to the determination of castes, we have said that the individual nature of a being results first from what it is in itself and secondarily from the influences of the milieu in which it manifests itself; it is important to distinguish between these two elements and mark their relations at the same time in a precise manner. For this purpose, we can use the geometric representation which we have expounded in The Symbolism of the Cross, relating the first element to the vertical direction and the second element to the horizontal direction. Indeed, the vertical will then represent what connects all the states of manifestation of the same being, which is necessarily the expression of this very being, or, if you will, of its 'personality,' the direct projection by which it is reflected in all states, while the horizontal plane represents the domain of a certain sense of manifestation, considered here in the ‘macrocosmic' sense; consequently, the manifestation of the being in this state will be determined by the intersection of the vertical considered with this horizontal plane.

That being so, it becomes obvious that the point of intersection is not arbitrary, but that it is itself determined by the verticality in question, inasmuch it differs from any other verticality, i.e., in sum, this being is what it is and not what any other being is also manifesting in the same state. In other words, it could be said that it is the being who, by its very nature, itself determines the conditions of its manifestation, being subject that these conditions can only be a specification of the general conditions of the contemplated state in any case, since its manifestation must necessarily be a development of possibilities contained in that state, to the exclusion of those who belong to other states; this reservation is marked geometrically by the preliminary determination of the horizontal plane.

The being will manifest itself by putting on, as it were, elements borrowed from the environment; in the case of the individual human state, these elements will belong to the different modalities of this state, i.e., both to the corporeal order and to the subtle or ‘psychic' order. This point is particularly important in order to avoid certain complications which are due only to erroneous or incomplete conceptions: indeed, if we translate this in terms of 'heredity,' we can say that there is not only a physiologic heredity, but also a psychic heredity, both of which are explained in exactly the same way, i.e., by the presence of elements coming from the specific milieu in the constitution of the individual when the being's birth took place. In the Occident, some people refuse to admit psychic inheritance because, knowing nothing beyond the domain to which they relate, they believe that this domain must be the one that belongs to the being itself, which represents what it is regardless of any influence from the milieu. Others, who will, on the contrary, admit heredity, believe that it can be concluded that the being, in all that it is, is entirely determined by the milieu, that it is nothing more than the milieu which makes it to be, because they cannot conceive of anything outside the corporeal and psychic domains. These are therefore two errors, somehow being opposed, but which have one and the same source: both reduce the entire being to its individual manifestation, and they equally ignore any transcendent principle with respect to the being. What is at the heart of all these modern conceptions of the human being is always the idea of the Cartesian 'body-soul' duality, which, in fact, is purely and simply equivalent to the duality of the physiological and the psychic, considered as irreducible and as comprehending all of the being in two terms, when in reality they represent only the superficial and the external aspects of the manifested being, that they belong to one and the same degree of existence which is the horizontal plane that we have envisaged, so that one is no less contingent than the other, and true being is beyond one as well as the other. To return to heredity, we must say that it does not fully express the influences of the milieu on the individual, but that it constitutes only the most immediately attachable part of it; in reality, these influences extend much further, and one might even say that they extend indefinitely in all directions. Indeed, the cosmic milieu, which is the domain of the state of manifestation under consideration, can only be conceived as an ensemble of which all the parts are linked together without any solution of continuity, because to conceive it otherwise would be to suppose it as a 'void,' whereas this, not being a possibility of manifestation, could not have any place. Consequently, there must necessarily be relations, i.e., at essence, reciprocal actions and reactions between all the individual beings who are manifested in this domain, either simultaneously or successively; from the nearest to the farthest, it is only a matter of difference of proportions or degrees, so that heredity, whatever its relative importance in relation to all else, no longer appears as only a special case. In all cases, be it hereditary or other influences, what we said at the beginning is still true: the situation of the being in its milieu is ultimately determined by its own nature, the elements that it borrows from its im- mediate environment and also those it draws in some way from the in-definite whole of its domain of manifestation must necessarily be in cor-respondence with this nature, otherwise it could not effectively assimi-late them so as to make as secondary modifications of itself. This is what the 'affinity' we have previously alluded to is: the being, one might say, only takes from the milieu that which is in conformity with the possibil-ities it carries within it, which are those of no other being than that which, because of this conformity, must provide the contingent condi-tions allowing these possibilities to develop or 'actualize' during its indi-vidual manifestation. Moreover, it is evident that any relation between any two beings, to be real, must necessarily be the expression of some-thing which belongs at once to the nature of both; thus, the influence that a being seems to undergo from outside and to receive from someone other than itself is never really of a possibility inherent in the very nature of the being itself, when viewed from a more profound point of view as a sort of translation in relation to the milieu.

However, there is a sense in which one can say that the being really experiences the influence of the milieu in its manifestation; but it is only insofar as this influence is envisaged by its negative side, i.e. insofar as it properly constitutes a limitation for the being. This is an immediate con-sequence of the conditioned nature of every state of manifestation: the being is subjected to certain conditions which have a limiting role, and which include firstly the general conditions defining the state under con-sideration, and then the special conditions defining the particular mode of manifestation of this being in this state. Moreover, it is easy to under-stand that, whatever the appearances, the limitation has no positive ex-istence, that it is nothing other than a restriction excluding certain pos-sibilities, or a 'deprivation' in relation to what it thus excludes, i.e. it is something purely negative in whatever way one wishes to express it.

On the other hand, it must be understood that such limiting condi-tions are essentially inherent in a certain state of manifestation, that they apply exclusively to what is included in that state, and that, conse-quently, they cannot attach themselves in any way to the being itself and follow it to another state. The being will naturally also find, to manifest itself in this state, certain conditions having a similar character, but which will be different from those to which it was subjected in the state which we envisaged at first, and which will never be able to be described in terms that are appropriate only to the latter, such as those of human language, for example, which cannot express conditions of existence other than those of the corresponding state, since this language is found in all things determined and shaped by these very conditions. We insist upon this, because, if we admit without great difficulty that the elements drawn from the atmosphere to enter the constitution of the individuality must be restored to it when this individuality has completed its cycle of existence and passes to another state, as everyone can directly see, at least as far as corporeal elements are concerned, it seems less easy to admit that the being then entirely exits the conditions to which he was subjected in this individual state, although the two things are closely related. Without a doubt, this owes above all to the impossibility, not of conceiving, but of representing conditions of existence other than those of the corporeal, for which one cannot find any term of comparison in this state. An important application of what we have just indicated is that which relates to the fact that an individual being belongs to a certain species, such as the human species, for example: there is obviously in the very nature of this being something that determined his birth in this rather than in any other. It is therefore subject to the conditions which expressly define the very species, and which will be among the special conditions of its mode of existence as an individual; these are, one could say, the two positive and negative aspects of the specific nature, positive being a manifestation of certain possibilities, negative being a limiting condition of existence. Only, what must be understood is that it is only as an individual manifested in the state considered that the being actually belongs to the species in question, and that in any other state, it escapes him entirely and does not remain bound to him in anyway. In other words, the consideration of the species applies only in the horizontal sense, i.e. in the domain of a certain state of existence; it cannot intervene in the vertical sense, i.e. when the being passes to other states. Of course, what is true in this respect for the species is also true, for all the more reason, for race, for family, in short for all the more or less restricted portions of the individual domain in which the being is included as to its manifestation in the considered state. Naturally, the case of caste is no exception here; this comes, more visibly than in any other case, from the definition of caste as being the very expression of the individual nature and uniting with it as it were one, which indicates that it exists only so long as the being is envisaged within the limits of individuality, and that, if it necessarily exists as long as it is contained, it cannot survive by itself beyond these same limits, all that constitute its raison d'être being found exclusively within these limits and cannot be transported to another area of existence, where the individual nature in question no longer meets any possibility.

To close this exposé, we will say a few words as to how, from the foregoing considerations, we may consider what is called 'astral influ- ences'; first of all, it should be pointed out that we must not exclusively understand, or even principally, the proper influences of the stars whose names serve to designate them, although these influences, like those of all things, probably also have their own reality, but these stars represent above all symbolically, which does not mean ‘ideally' or figuratively, but on the contrary, by the virtue of actual correspondences founded on the very constitution of the 'macrocosm,' the synthesis of all the various cat- egories of cosmic influences exercised on individuality. If we consider, as is most commonly done, that these influences dominate individuality, this is only the most external point of view; in a more profound order, the truth is that if the individuality is related to a definite set of influ- ences, it is because this whole is the same which is in conformity with the nature of being manifested in this individuality. Thus, if ‘astral influ- ences' seem to determine what the individual is, it is only in appearance; at heart, they do not determine it, but they only express it. True determi- nation does not come from without, but from the being itself, and the outward signs simply allow it to be discerned, giving it a sort of sensory expression, at least for those who will be able to interpret them correctly. In fact, this consideration certainly does not alter the results that can be obtained from the examination of 'astral influences,' but, from the doc- trinal point of view which alone interests us here, it seems essential to us to understand the true role of these, i.e., in short, the real nature of the relations of the being with the milieu in which its individual manifesta- tion is fulfilled, since what is expressed through these influences, in a form intelligibly coordinated, is the indefinite multitude of diverse ele- ments which constitute this whole milieu.