INITIATION AND THE CRAFTS
Rene Guenon
Initiation and the Crafts was published in the Journal
of' The Indian Society of Oriental Art, Volume VI. 1938
We have frequently said that the "profane" conception of the
sciences and the arts, such as is now current in the West, is a very modern one
and implies a degeneration with respect to a previous state in which both of
them had an altogether different character. The same can be said about the
crafts; the distinction, moreover, between arts and crafts or between
"artist" and "craftsman" is also specifically modern, as if
it were born of this profane deviation and had no meaning outside it. The
"artifex", with the ancients is without differentiating, a man who
practises an art or a craft. He is neither an artist nor a craftsman in the
sense these words have today, but something more than the one or the other, for
his activity, in its origins at least, issues from principles of a far more
profound order.
In all the traditional civilisations, in fact, every activity, of man,
whatever it be, is always considered as essentially derived from the
principles; on account of that derivation it is as if "transformed"
and, instead of being reduced to what it is simply in its exterior
manifestation (this would be the profane point of view), it is integrated in
the tradition and, for the one who performs it, it is a means of effectively
participating in this tradition. Even from the simple exoteric point of view
this is so: if one views, for example, a civilisation like that of Islam or the
Christian civilisation of the Middle ages, it is easy to see the
"religious" character which the most ordinary acts of existence
assume in it. Religion there, is not a thing that holds a place apart and
unconnected with everything else as in the case of the modern Westerners (those
at least who still consent to acknowledge a religion); on the contrary, it
pervades the whole existence of the human being; or, it would be better to say,
all that constitutes this existence and the social life particularly, is as if
included in its domain, so much so that under such conditions there cannot
really be anything "profane", but for those who for one reason or another
are outside the tradition and whose case is then a mere anomaly. In other
civilisations, where there is nothing to which the name religion can be
properly applied, there is none the less a traditional and " sacred"
legislation which, while having different characteristics, exactly fulfils the
same role; these considerations can therefore be applied without exception to
all traditional civilisations. But there is something further still; if we pass
from the exoteric to the esoteric (we use these words here for the sake of
greater convenience, although they do not fit all the cases with equal rigour),
we observe, generally, the existence of an initiation bound up with the crafts
and taking them as its basis; these crafts then are still susceptible of a superior
and more profound significance; we would like to indicate how they can
effectively furnish a way of access to the domain of initiation.
Our understanding of it is made easier by the notion of what in Hindu
doctrine is called "svadharma", that is the performance by every
being of an activity consistent with his own nature, and it is also by this
notion, or rather by its absence, that the deficiency of the profane conception
is most clearly marked. In the latter, a man can adopt any profession and he
can even change it according to his will, as if this profession were something
purely exterior to him, without any real connection with that which he really
is and by virtue of which he is himself and not another. According to the
traditional conception, on the contrary, every one must normally fulfil the
function for which he is destined by his very nature; and he cannot fulfil any
other without a grave disorder resulting from it which will have its
repercussion over the whole social organisation to which he belongs; more than
that: if such a disorder becomes general, it will have its effects on the
cosmical realm itself, all things being linked together according to strict
correspondences. Without insisting any further on this last point, which,
however, could easily be applied to the conditions of the present epoch, we may
remark that the opposition of the two conceptions, in a certain connection at
least, can be reduced to that of a "qualitative" and a
"quantitative" point of view: in the traditional conception, the
essential qualities of beings determine their activities; in the profane
conception, the individuals are considered as mere "units",
interchangeable, and as if in themselves they were without any quality of their
own. This last conception is closely connected with the modern ideas of
"equality" and "uniformity" (the latter is contrary to true
unity, for it implies the pure and "inorganic" multiplicity of a kind
of social "atomism") and can lead logically to the exercise of a
purely "mechanical "activity only in which nothing properly human
subsists; it is just this, in fact, that we can see today. It is thus well
understood that the "mechanical" crafts of the modern age, being but
a product of the profane deviation, cannot by any means offer the possibilities
of which we intend to speak here; they even cannot in truth be considered as
crafts, if one wishes to preserve the traditional meaning of the word, the only
one with which we are concerned at present.
If the craft is something of' the man himself and is, in a way, a
manifestation or expansion of his own nature, it is easy to understand, as we
have already said, that it can be used as a basis for an initiation and that
generally even it is the fittest thing for this end. In fact, if initiation
essentially has for its aim a surpassing of the possibilities of the human
individual, it is equally true that only this individual such as he is in
himself, can be taken as its point of departure; this accounts for the
diversity of the ways of initiation, that is to say, of the means wrought up to
act as "supports", in conformity with the difference of individual
natures. a difference which subsequently intervenes less and less, as the being
goes on advancing on his way. The means thus employed can be efficient only if
they correspond to the very nature of the beings to whom they are applied, and
as it is necessary to proceed from the more accessible to the less accessible,
from the outer to the inner, it is normal to take these means from the activity
by which the nature is manifested outwardly. It is evident, however, that this
activity can play such a part only inasmuch as It really expresses the inner
nature; here is truly a question of "qualification", in the
initiatory sense of this term; in normal conditions this
"qualification" should be a necessary condition for the exercise
itself of the craft. This is at the same time related to the fundamental
difference which separates the initiators teaching from profane teaching:
whatever is simply "learnt" from outside is here without any value;
the question is to "wakeup" the latent possibilities which the being
has in himself (and this ultimately is the true significance of Platonic
"reminiscences").
Following these last considerations, one can also understand that the
initiation, taking the craft as its "support", will have at the same
time, and inversely in some way, a repercussion in the practice of this craft. The
being, in fact, having fully realised the possibilities of which his
professional activity is but an external expression, and having thus an
effective knowledge of the principle itself of this activity, will henceforth
fulfil consciously what hitherto had been but an instinctive consequence of his
nature; if thus the initiatory knowledge, for him, is born of the craft, the
latter, in its turn, will be the field of application of this knowledge from
which it can never be separated any more. There will be then a perfect
correspondence of the interior and the exterior, and the work produced will be
an expression, not only to some degree and more or less superficially, but a
really adequate expression of the man who conceived and executed it; it will be
a master-work in the true sense of this word.
This, one sees, is very far from the so-called "inspiration-,
unconscious or subconscious in which modern people want to see the criterion of
the real artist, who is nevertheless considered superior to the artisan or
craftsman, according to -the more than contestable-distinction which they are
in the habit of making. The artist or artisan, if he acts under such an
"inspiration", is in any case but a profane person, he shows, no
doubt, by his -inspiration- that he carries within himself certain
possibilities; as long however as he has not effectively become conscious of
them, be it even that he attains to being what is generally called a
"genius", this does not make any difference; unable as he is to
control his possibilities, his success will be but accidental and this is
granted as one commonly says that the "inspiration" is sometimes
lacking. All one may concede so as to bring the present case nearer to the
other where true knowledge intervenes, is, that the work which consciously or
unconsciously flows from the nature of the person who performs it, will never
give the impression of a more or less painful effort; the effort always carries
with it some imperfection, being anomalous, whereas such a work derives its
perfection from its conformity with the nature; this conformity implies
directly and necessarily that it is exactly suited to the end for which it is
destined.
If now we intend to define more rigorously the domain of what may be
called the initiations through the crafts, we have to say that they belong to
the "lesser mysteries". referring as they do to the development of
the possibilities which belong to the human state proper; this is riot the last
aim of initiation, but constitutes at least its first obligatory phase. It is
necessary, in fact, that this development is accomplished in its integrity in order
then to allow a surpassing of the human state; beyond this, however, it is
evident that individual differences, in which these initiations through the
crafts have their support, disappear completely and play no part any more. As
we have explained elsewhere, the "lesser mysteries" lead to the
restitution of the "primordial state", as it is called in traditional
doctrines; yet, once the being has arrived at this state, which still belongs
to the domain of human individuality (and which is the point of communication
between it and the superior states), the differentiations which give birth to
the diverse "specialised" functions have disappeared,
"although" it is there that they all have equally their source, or
rather "on account" of this very fact; to this common source one has
to remount so as to possess in its plentitude all that is implied by the
exercise of any function whatever.
If we view the history of humanity as taught by traditional doctrines,
in conformity with cyclical laws, we must say that in the beginning man had the
full possession of his state of existence and with it he naturally had the
possibilities corresponding to all the functions prior to any distinction of
these. The division of these functions came about in a subsequent phase, representing
a state already inferior to the -primordial state", in which however every
human being, while having as yet only some definite possibilities, still
spontaneously had the effective consciousness of them. It is only in a period
of greater obscuration that this consciousness became lost; hence initiation
became necessary so as to enable man to find once more along with
consciousness, also the former state in which it inheres; this is, in fact, the
first of its aims, and the one at which it aims immediately. In order to be
possible, this implies a transmission going back by an uninterrupted
"chain" to the state to be restored and thus step by step to the
"primordial state" itself; still, the initiation does not stop there
and the "lesser mysteries" being but the preparation for the
"great mysteries", that is for the taking possession of the superior
states of the being, one has to go back even beyond the origins of humanity. In
fact, there is no true initiation, even , in the most inferior and elementary
degree, without the intervention of a "non-human" element, which is
the "spiritual influence" regularly communicated by the initiatory
rite. If this is so, there is obviously no room for searching
"historically" for the origin of initiation-a search which now
appears bereft of sense-nor the origin of the crafts, arts and sciences, viewed
according to their traditional and "legitimate" conception, for all
these, through multiple, but secondary, differentiations and adaptations,
derive similarly from the "primordial state" which contains them all
in principle, and from there they link up with other orders of existence, even
beyond humanity itself; this is necessary so that all and each, according to
its rank and measure, can concur effectively in the realisation of the plan of
the Great Architect of the Universe.