by René Guénon
Here this already long discussion must be brought to a close; it has amply sufficed to indicate in a general way the nature of the many ‘pseudo-initiatic’ counterfeits of the traditional idea that are so characteristic of our times: a mixture, more or less coherent but rather less than more so, of elements partly borrowed and partly invented, the whole dominated by anti-traditional conceptions such as are peculiar to the modern spirit, and for this reason serving no purpose other than the further spread of these same conceptions by making them pass with some people as traditional, not to mention the manifest deceit that consists in giving, in place of ‘initiation’, not only something purely profane in itself, but also something that makes for ‘profanation’. Should anyone now put forward the suggestion, as a sort of extenuating circumstance, that there are always in these affairs, despite all their faults, some elements derived from genuinely traditional sources, the answer would be this: in order to get itself accepted, every imitation must take on at least some of the features of the thing imitated, but that is just what makes it so dangerous; is not the cleverest lie, as well as the most deadly, precisely the lie that mixes most inextricably the true and the false, thus contriving to press the true into service in order to promote the triumph of the false?
37
The Deceptiveness of ‘Prophecies’
The mixture of truth and falsehood met with in the ‘pseudo-traditions’ of modern manufacture is found again in the so-called ‘prophecies’ that have been propagated and exploited in every way, especially in the last few years, for ends of which the least that can be said is that they are highly enigmatic. They are described as ‘so-called’ prophecies because the word ‘prophecy’ can only be properly used of the announcements of future events contained in the sacred books of the various traditions and proceeding from an inspiration of a purely spiritual order; any other use of the word is entirely misleading, ‘prediction’ being the proper word to use in all other cases. Predictions may come from quite varied sources; at least some have been a result of the application of certain secondary traditional sciences, and these are certainly the most valid, but only on condition that their meaning can really be understood, and this is not always very easy, because for many reasons they are usually formulated in rather obscure terms, which often do not become clear until after the events to which they relate have taken place; it is therefore always as well to be mistrustful, not of the predictions themselves, but of the erroneous or ‘tendentious’ interpretations that may be made of them. As for the rest, insofar as there is anything authentic in them, it emanates almost exclusively from ‘seers’ — sincere no doubt, though only very partially ‘enlightened’ — who have experienced certain confused perceptions related more or less accurately to a future that is usually not at all clearly determined, particularly as to the date and the order of succession of events, and who have unconsciously mixed those perceptions with their own ideas and consequently expressed them still more confusedly, so much so that it becomes possible to find in their statements almost anything one wants to find.
It is easy to see what purpose this sort of thing can serve under present conditions: such predictions almost always present everything in a distressing or even in a terrifying light, because that is the aspect of events that has naturally struck the ‘seers’, it is therefore enough, in order to disturb the mentality of the public, merely to spread them about, accompanied if necessary by commentaries that will emphasize their threatening aspect and will treat the events they are concerned with as imminent.[148] If one prediction agrees with another their effect will be reinforced, and if they contradict one another, as often happens, they will only produce all the more disorder; in either case there will be so much the more gained by the forces of subversion. It must be added too that all these things, proceeding as they generally do from fairly low regions in the psychic domain, carry with them for that reason unbalancing and dissolving influences that add considerably to their danger, this no doubt being why even those who put no faith in them experience, in many cases, a kind of discomfort in their presence, comparable to that induced even in people who are not at all ‘sensitive’ by the presence of subtle forces of an inferior order. One would scarcely believe, for example, how many people have become seriously and perhaps irremediably unbalanced through the numerous predictions connected with the ‘Great Pope’ or the ‘Grand Monarch’. These predictions do contain a few traces of certain truths, but strangely distorted by the ‘mirrors’ of an inferior psychism, and in addition brought down to the measure of the mentality of the ‘seers’ who have to some extent ‘materialized’ them and have ‘localized’ them more or less narrowly so as to force them into the framework of their own preconceived ideas.[149] The way in which this group of predictions is presented by the ‘seers’ in question, who are very often the subjects of ‘suggestions’,[150] makes a near approach to certain very dark and ‘underground’ matters, the astonishing ramifications of which, at least since the beginning of the nineteenth century, would be particularly interesting to follow for anyone who wanted to write a history of those times, a history would certainly be very different from the one that is taught ‘officially’. But needless to say there can be no question of going into the detail of these matters, and it must suffice simply to have mentioned this very complex affair, which has obviously been intentionally confused in all its aspects;[151] for it could not have been passed over in silence without leaving too big a blank in the list of the principal elements characteristic of the modern period, since it constitutes one of the most significant symptoms of the second phase of anti-traditional action.
Moreover, the mere propagation of predictions such as those alluded to is only the most elementary part of the work now going on in this field, for almost all the propagation that needs to be done has already been done, though unwittingly, by the ‘seers’ themselves; other parts of the work demand the elaboration of subtler interpretations if the predictions are to be made to serve the desired ends. The predictions used in this way are more particularly those that are based on certain forms of traditional knowledge, and then it is their obscurity that is chiefly taken advantage of for the purpose in view;[152] some of the Biblical prophecies themselves are for the same reason the objects of this kind of ‘tendentious’ interpretation, the authors of which are incidentally often acting in good faith, but can only be regarded as the victims of ‘suggestion’ and as being made use of to apply ‘suggestion’ to others. It is as if there were a sort of highly contagious psychic ‘epidemic’, but it fits too neatly into the plan of subversion to be ‘spontaneous’; on the contrary, like all other manifestations of the modern disorder (including the revolutions, which the ingenuous also believe to be ‘spontaneous’) it necessarily presupposes a conscious will at its starting-point. The worst form of blindness would be to see nothing more in all this but a mere question of ‘fashion’ without real importance;[153] and the same could be said of the growing diffusion of certain ‘divinatory arts’, which are certainly not as inoffensive as people who do not get to the bottom of things may suppose: they are generally the uncomprehended residues of ancient traditional sciences now almost entirely lost, and, apart from the danger already attached to them by virtue of their ‘residual’ character, they are arranged and combined in such a way that their employment opens the door, under the pretext of ‘intuition’ (and this approach to the ‘new philosophy’ is in itself rather remarkable), to the intervention of all those psychic influences that are most dubious in character.[154]
Use is also made, along with appropriate interpretations, of predictions more suspect in origin but nonetheless fairly old; these were perhaps not originally made in order to be of use in present circumstances, although the powers of subversion had evidently acquired some considerable influence at the time of their origin (the time in question being that at which the modern deviation may be said to have begun, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries), and it is not impossible that thos
e powers then had in view, not only some more special and immediate objective, but also the preparation for a work not intended to be accomplished until after a long interval.[155] This preparation has in fact never ceased: it has been carried out in other modalities, of which the ‘suggestion’ applied to modern ‘seers’ and the organization of ‘apparitions’ of a very unorthodox kind represent an aspect in which the direct intervention of subtle influences is most clearly shown; but this aspect is not the only one, and, even when it is a question of predictions apparently manufactured ‘from start to finish’, similar influences may very well come into play to no less an extent, firstly for the very reason that their original inspiration emanates from a ‘counter-initiatic’ source, and secondly because of the nature of the elements that are taken to serve as ‘supports’ to their elaboration.
These last words are written with an example in mind that is quite astonishing, as much in itself as in the success it has had in many quarters; for those reasons it deserves rather more than a mere mention: the example is that of the so-called ‘prophecies of the Great Pyramid’, widely disseminated in England and thence to the whole world for ends that are perhaps in part political, but which certainly go beyond politics in the ordinary sense of the word. They are closely linked to another piece of work undertaken in order to persuade the English that they are the descendants of the ‘lost tribes of Israel’; but here again it would be impossible to go into details without getting involved in developments that would be out of place here. However that may be, here is the gist of the matter in a few words: by measuring, in a manner not wholly free from arbitrariness (all the more so because nobody is in fact quite sure about the measures actually used by the ancient Egyptians), the various parts of the corridors and chambers of the Great Pyramid,[156] an attempt has been made to discover ‘prophecies’ in the form of correspondences between the numbers thus obtained and the dates of history. There is in this an absurdity so manifest that one cannot but wonder how it is that nobody seems to notice it; it only shows the extent to which our contemporaries are victims of ‘suggestion’, for even supposing that the constructors of the Pyramid really did build some sort of ‘prophecies’ into it, there are two things that would on the whole be plausible: either that the ‘prophecies’, which would necessarily have to be based on some knowledge of cyclic laws, should be related to the history of the world in general and of humanity, or that they should be adapted so as to deal more particularly with Egypt; but in fact neither turns out to be the case, for all the information extracted is in a form related to the point of view of Judaism in the first place, and of Christianity in the second, so that the only logical conclusion would be that the Pyramid is not an Egyptian monument at all, but a ‘Judeo-Christian’ monument! This alone should be enough to put this unlikely story into its proper place; but it is worth adding that the whole is conceived in accordance with a so-called ‘chronology’ of the Bible that is highly contestable and conforms to the narrowest and most Protestant ‘literalism’, doubtless because the material had to be adapted to the special mentality of the environment in which it was to be chiefly circulated in the first place. Many other curious features could be noted: thus it appears that no date since the beginning of the Christian era can have been of sufficient interest to be recorded before that of the invention of railways; if that were so one would have to believe that these ancient builders brought a very modern perspective to bear on their appreciation of the importance of events; in this appears the element of the grotesque never lacking in that sort of thing, and it is precisely that which betrays their real origin: the devil is no doubt very clever, but he can never help being ridiculous in one way or another![157]
But this is still not all: 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 a
nd 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.
