It may be remarked that the ‘counter-initiation’ works with a view to introducing its agents into ‘pseudo-initiatic’ organizations, using the agents to ‘inspire’ the organizations, unperceived by the ordinary members and usually also by the ostensible heads, who are no more aware than the rank-and-file of the purpose they are really serving; but it is as well to add that such agents are in fact introduced in a similar way and wherever possible into all the more exterior ‘movements’ of the contemporary world, political or otherwise, and even, as was mentioned earlier, into authentically initiatic or religious organizations, but only when their traditional spirit is so weakened that they can no longer resist so insidious a penetration. Nevertheless, except for the last-named case, in which there is the most direct application possible of dissolutionary activity, the ‘pseudo-initiatic’ organizations doubtless furnish the field of action most worthy of the attention of the ‘counter-initiation’, and they must be the object of special efforts on its part for the very reason that the work it undertakes is above all anti-traditional, and that it is wholly concentrated on that work and on nothing else. This is the probable reason for the existence of numerous links between ‘pseudo-initiatic’ manifestations and all sorts of other things that at first sight might appear to have no connection whatever with them, but that are all representative of the modern spirit in one or another of its most fully developed forms;[147] why indeed, if it were not so, should ‘pseudo-initiates’ constantly play so important a part in such affairs? It could be said that, among all the instruments or measures of all kinds employed in this sort of way, ‘pseudo-initiation’ must from its very nature logically take first place; it is of course but a cog in the machine, but a cog that controls many others, and one with which the others become engaged, as it were, in such a way that they derive their movement from it. Here again counterfeit makes its appearance: ‘pseudo-initiation’ imitates in this way the function of an invisible prime mover [moteur invisible], properly belonging in a normal order to initiation; but great care must be taken not to forget that initiation truly and legitimately represents the spirit, principal animator of all things, whereas so far as ‘pseudo-initiation’ is concerned the spirit is obviously absent. The immediate result is that action instigated through such channels, instead of being truly ‘organic’, can only have a purely ‘mechanical’ character, and this fact fully justifies the analogy with cogs used above; moreover, as we have already seen, is it not obvious that the most striking feature of everything we meet with in the world today is its mechanical character, this world where day by day the machine invades new fields, and where the human being himself is reduced to being more and more like an automaton in all his activities, because all spirituality has been taken away from him? That is where all the inferiority of artificial productions is most blatant, even if a ‘satanic’ cleverness has presided over their elaboration; machines can be manufactured, but not living beings, because, once more, it is the spirit that is bound to be missing and must always remain so.
An ‘invisible prime mover’ has been mentioned, and in addition to the imitative tendency that is again in evidence from this point of view, ‘pseudo-initiation’ derives for the purpose it has in view an incontestable advantage over anything that is more ‘public’ in character from its comparative ‘invisibility’, however relative it may be. It is not as if ‘pseudo-initiatic’ organizations for the most part took much trouble to hide their existence, many of them indeed going so far as openly to indulge in a propaganda totally incompatible with their esoteric pretensions, but in spite of this they continue as organizations to be among the least apparent, and to be those that best lend themselves to the exercise of a ‘discreet’ action, so that the ‘counter-initiation’ can get more directly into contact with them than with anything else, without having to fear that its intervention will be unmasked, and all the more so because in any such environment it is always possible to find some means of escape from the consequences of an indiscretion or a lack of prudence. Moreover the greater part of the general public, while it is more or less aware of the existence of ‘pseudo-initiatic’ organizations, is by no means clear as to what they are and is not inclined to attach much importance to them, as it sees nothing in them but mere ‘eccentricities’ without serious significance; and the very indifference of the public serves the same purpose, albeit unwittingly, as could be attained by strict secrecy.
So far, an attempt has been made to describe as clearly as possible the real, though unconscious, part played by ‘pseudo-initiation’ and the true nature of its relations with the ‘counter-initiation’; and it should be added that the latter may in certain cases find in the former a field of observation and selection for recruitment to its own ranks, but that aspect of the matter need not be pursued here. There is also something of which not even an approximate idea can be conveyed, and that is the unbelievable multiplicity and complexity of the ramifications that in fact subsist between all these things, for they are indeed such that they could only be clarified by a direct and detailed study; but it will probably be agreed that only the ‘principle’, if that is the right word, is of interest for the present. Nevertheless this is not alclass="underline" a broad view has been given of the reason for the counterfeiting of the traditional idea by ‘pseudo-initiation’; it remains to be shown more precisely how this is achieved, so that the treatment of the matter may not appear to have been too exclusively ‘theoretical’.
One of the simplest means at the disposal of ‘pseudo-initiatic’ organizations for the fabrication of a false tradition for the use of their adherents is undoubtedly ‘syncretism’, which consists in assembling in a more or less convincing manner elements borrowed from almost anywhere, and in putting them together as it were ‘from the outside’, without any genuine understanding of what they really represent in the various traditions to which they properly belong. As any such more or less shapeless assemblage must be given some appearance of unity so that it can be presented as a ‘doctrine’, its elements must somehow be grouped around one or more ‘directing ideas’, and these last will not be of traditional origin, but, quite the contrary, will usually be wholly profane and modern conceptions, and so inherently anti-traditional; it has already been remarked that in ‘neo-spiritualism’ the idea of ‘evolution’ in particular plays a preponderant part in this capacity. It is easy to understand that any such procedure greatly enhances the gravity of the situation; under such conditions it is no longer a question of making a sort of ‘mosaic’ of traditional odds and ends, which might after all provide no more than a perfectly useless but fairly inoffensive amusement; it becomes a question of denaturing, and it could be described as a ‘perversion’ of traditional elements, since people will be led to attribute to them a meaning altered so as to agree with the ‘directing idea’, until finally it runs directly counter to the traditional meaning. Of course those who do this sort of thing may not be acting with any clear consciousness, for the modern mentality that is theirs can be the cause of a real blindness in such matters, in all of which due account must always be taken, first of the simple incomprehension arising from that very mentality, and then, or rather perhaps especially, of the ‘suggestions’ victimizing in the first place the ‘pseudo-initiates’ themselves, so that they may in their turn join in inculcating the same suggestions into other people. This kind of unconsciousness in no way alters the results or diminishes the danger of such things, nor does it make them any less suited to serve, even if only ‘after the event’, the ends at which the ‘counter-initiation’ is aiming. There are of course cases in which agents of the ‘counter-initiation’ may have promoted or inspired the formation of ‘pseudo-traditions’ of the kind described by a more or less direct intervention; a few examples could no doubt be found, but it should not be assumed that even in these cases the conscious agents have themselves been the known and apparent creators of the ‘pseudo-initiatic’ forms in question, for it is clear that prudence demands that they should always hide as much as possible behind mere unconscious instruments.
147
A number of examples of activities of this kind have been given in