But this is still not alclass="underline" from time to time, on the strength of the ‘prophecies of the Great Pyramid’ or of other predictions, and as a result of calculations of which the basis is never very clearly defined, it is announced that such and such an exact date will mark ‘the entry of humanity into a new era’ or else ‘the coming of a spiritual renewal’ (we shall see later on how this must really be understood); several of these dates are already past, and it does not appear that anything very notable has happened; but what does all that sort of thing really signify? In fact, it is just another way of making use of predictions (additional, that is, to their use for increasing the disorder of our times by broadcasting seeds of trouble and disorganization), and perhaps not the least important, for it turns them into an instrument of direct suggestion, thus contributing to the effective determination of the course of certain future events; for instance, to take a simple and easily understood example, does anyone believe that the repeated announcement of a revolution in a particular country at a particular time will not assist those who have an interest in its breaking out at that time? Underlying the present situation is the fact that certain people want to create a ‘state of mind’ favorable to the realization of ‘something’ that is part of their plans; this ‘something’ can no doubt be modified by the action of contrary influences, but they hope that their methods will serve to bring it about a little sooner or a little later. It remains to be shown more exactly to what this pseudo-spiritual’ enterprise is leading, and it is necessary to say, without meaning to be in any way ‘pessimistic’ (all the more so because, as has been explained on other occasions, ‘optimism’ and ‘pessimism’ are opposed sentimental attitudes which as such, must remain wholly outside the strictly traditional point of view adopted here), that the outlook for the fairly near future is anything but reassuring.
38
From Anti-Tradition to Counter-Tradition
The previous chapter was concerned with matters that, like everything else belonging essentially to the modern world, are radically anti-traditional; but in a sense they go even further than ‘anti-tradition’, understood as being pure negation and nothing more, for they lead toward the setting up of something that can more appropriately be called a ‘counter-tradition’. The distinction between the two is similar to that made earlier between deviation and subversion, and it corresponds to the same two phases of anti-traditional action considered as a whole. ‘Anti-tradition’ found its most complete expression in the kind of materialism that could be called ‘integral’, such as that which prevailed toward the end of the last century; as for the ‘counter-tradition’, we can still only see the preliminary signs of it, in the form of all the things that are striving to become counterfeits in one way or another of the traditional idea itself. It is as well to point out at once that, just as the tendency to ‘solidification’, expressing itself as ‘anti-tradition’, has not been able to reach its extreme limit — since that limit would have been outside and beneath all possible existence — it may be expected that the same will apply to the tendency to dissolution, expressing itself in its turn in the ‘counter-tradition’. The very conditions of manifestation, so long as the cycle is not entirely completed, obviously demand that this should be so; and as far as the actual end of the cycle is concerned, it presupposes the ‘rectification’ whereby the ‘malefic’ tendencies will be ‘transmuted’ to produce a definitely ‘benefic’ result, as has already been explained above. Moreover, all the prophecies (the word is of course used here in its rightful sense) indicate that the apparent triumph of the ‘counter-tradition’ will only be a passing one, and that at the very moment when it seems most complete it will be destroyed by the action of spiritual influences which will intervene at that point to prepare for the final ‘rectification’.[158] Nothing less than a direct intervention of this kind would in fact suffice to bring to an end, at the chosen time, the most formidable and the most truly ‘satanic’ of all the possibilities included in cyclical manifestation; but that is enough by way of anticipation, and it is now necessary to continue with a more careful examination of the real nature of the ‘counter-tradition’.
For this purpose, the part to be played by the ‘counter-initiation’ must again be referred to: after having worked always in the shadows to inspire and direct invisibly all modern movements, it will in the end contrive to ‘exteriorize’, if that is the right word, something that will be as it were the counterpart of a true tradition, at least as completely and as exactly as it can be so within the limitations necessarily inherent in all possible counterfeits as such. Just as initiation is, as explained, the thing that effectively represents the spirit of a tradition, so will the ‘counter-initiation’ play a comparable part with respect to the ‘counter-tradition’; but obviously it would be quite wrong and improper to speak of the spirit in the second case, since it concerns that from which the spirit is most completely absent, that which would even be its opposite if the spirit were not essentially beyond all opposition; nevertheless opposition is undoubtedly attempted, and is accompanied by imitation in the manner of the inverted shadow previously referred to on more than one occasion. That is why the ‘counter-tradition’, however far it carries the imitation, will never succeed in being anything but a parody, but it will be the most extreme and the most gigantic of all parodies, and we have only so far seen, despite all the falsification of the modern world, some very partial ‘trials’ and some very pale ‘prefigurations’ of it; something much more formidable is in preparation for a future considered by some to be near, the growing rapidity of the succession of events today being an indication of its proximity. Needless to say, no attempt will be made here to fix on more or less precise dates, after the fashion of the followers of the so-called ‘prophecies’; and even if it were possible to do so through a knowledge of the exact length of cyclical periods (the main difficulty in such cases lying always in the establishment of the right starting-point to take as a basis of calculation), it would nevertheless be proper to maintain the strictest reserve about the results, and that for reasons exactly contrary to those that actuate the conscious or unconscious propagators of denatured predictions, that is to say, in order not to run the risk of contributing to a further growth of the anxiety and disorder now reigning in our world.
However that may be, the thing that makes it possible for affairs to reach such a point is that the ‘counter-initiation’ (and this is something that must be said) cannot be regarded as a purely human invention, such as would be in no way distinguishable by its nature from plain ‘pseudo-initiation’; in fact it is much more than that, and, in order that it may really be so, it must in a certain sense, so far as its actual origin is concerned, proceed from the unique source to which all initiation is attached, the very source from which, speaking more generally, everything in our world that manifests a ‘non-human’ element proceeds; but the ‘counter-initiation’ proceeds from that source by a degeneration carried to its extreme limit, and that limit is represented by the ‘inversion’ that constitutes ‘satanism’ properly so called. A degeneration of this kind is obviously much more profound than is that of a tradition merely deviated to a certain extent, or even truncated and left with only its lower part; something more is involved even than in cases of dead traditions so completely abandoned by the spirit that the ‘counter-initiation’ itself can make use of their ‘residues’ for its own purposes, as explained earlier. This leads logically to the thought that this extreme degeneration must go a very long way back into the past; and, however obscure the question of its origins may be, there is some plausibility in the idea that it may be connected with the perversion of one of the ancient civilizations belonging to one or another of the continents that have disappeared in cataclysms occurring in the course of the present Manvantara.[159] In any case it is scarcely necessary to say that as soon as the spirit has withdrawn itself it is no longer possible to speak of initiation; the representatives of the ‘counter-initiation’ are in fact as completely ignorant as ordinary profane people, and more irremediably ignorant, of the essential, in other words, of all truth of a spiritual and metaphysical order, for this truth has become completely strange to them, even in its most elementary principles, ever since ‘heaven was closed’ to them.[160] Since it can neither lead beings toward ‘supra-human’ states as can initiation, nor confine itself exclusively to the human domain, the ‘counter-initiation’ inevitably leads them toward the ‘infra-human’, and the power to do so is precisely the only effective power left to it; it is only too easy to see that this is something quite different from the comedy of ‘pseudo-initiation’. In Islamic esoterism it is said that one who presents himself at a certain ‘gate’, without having reached it by a normal and legitimate way, sees it shut in his face and is obliged to turn back, but not as a mere profane person, for he can never be such again, but as a sāher (a sorcerer or a magician working in the domain of subtle possibilities of an inferior order).[161] It would be impossible to put the position more clearly; it is a question of the ‘infernal’ way trying to oppose the ‘celestial’ way, and actually achieving the outward appearances of opposition, although such appearances can only be illusory; and, as was pointed out earlier when speaking of the false spirituality in which some beings, who are engaged in a sort of ‘inverted realization’, lose themselves, this way can only end at last in the total ‘disintegration’ of the conscious being and in its final dissolution.[162]
158
To this truth is really related the formula ‘when everything seems lost, then it is that everything will be saved’, repeated in a sort of mechanical way by a considerable number of ‘seers’, each of whom has of course applied it to something he can understand, usually to events of comparatively minor importance, even to such as are quite secondary and merely ‘local’, by virtue of the ‘minimizing’ tendency already mentioned in connection with the stories about the ‘Grand Monarch’, leading to his being seen as no more than a future king of France; needless to say, real prophecies are concerned with affairs of quite different dimensions.
159
The sixth chapter of Genesis might perhaps provide, in a symbolical form, some indications relating to the distant origins of the ‘counter-initiation’.
160
The symbolism of the ‘fall of the angels’ can be applied analogically to the matter in hand, which corresponds exactly thereto in the human order; and that is why the word ‘satanic’ can be used in its most precise sense in this connection.
161
The last degree of the ‘counter-initiatic’ hierarchy is occupied by what are called the ‘saints of Satan’ (
162
A finality so conclusive of course represents only an exceptional case, which is that of the