René Guénon - The Reign of Quantity and The Signs of the Times

The existence of the first of these two sources of danger goes a long way toward explaining the harmful character of certain vestiges of extinct civilizations when they come to be exhumed by people who, like the modern archaeologists, know nothing of such matters, and so inevitably fail to act with prudence. That is not to say that there may not sometimes be other factors in the situation: for instance, a particular ancient civilization may have degenerated through an excessive development of magic in its final phases, [123] Such appears to have been the case with ancient Egypt in particular. and its remains will naturally then always bear the imprint of that development in the shape of psychic influences of a very inferior order. It is also possible, even in the absence of any degeneration of that sort, that places or objects may have been specially prepared by way of defensive action against anyone who might touch them improperly, for precautions of this kind are in no way illegitimate as such, although the fact of attaching too great an importance to them is none too favorable an indication, for it affords evidence of preoccupations rather remote from pure spirituality, and even perhaps of a certain lack of knowledge of the power possessed by pure spirituality, which should make it unnecessary to resort to such ‘extras’. But apart from all this, persistent psychic influences, when deprived of the ‘spirit’ that formerly directed them, are reduced to a sort of ‘larval’ state, and can easily by themselves react to a particular provocation, however involuntary it may be, in a more or less disordered manner, and in any case in a manner quite unrelated to the intentions of those who used them formerly for purposes of quite another order. Just in the same way the gruesome manifestations of psychic ‘corpses’ that sometimes occur in spiritualist seances, have absolutely no relation in any circumstances whatever to the possibilities of action or of desire of the individualities whose subtle forms they were, and whose posthumous ‘identity’ they imitate more or less badly, to the great amazement of the ingenuous who are all too ready to take them for ‘spirits’.

So under many conditions the influences in question can be quite pernicious enough, even when they are simply left to themselves; this fact is merely a result of the inherent nature of the forces of the ‘intermediary world’, about which nobody can do anything, any more than they can prevent ‘physical’ forces, meaning the forces belonging to the corporeal order studied by the physicists, from acting in certain circumstances so as to cause accidents for which no human will can be held responsible; what is revealed by all this is the true significance of modern antiquarian researches, and the part they actually play in opening up some of the ‘fissures’ previously referred to. But in addition, these same influences are at the mercy of anyone who knows how to ‘capture’ them, just as are ‘physical’ forces; it goes without saying that either can be made to serve the most diverse and even the most contradictory ends, according to the intentions of whoever has taken control of them and can direct them to his chosen purpose; and, when subtle influences are involved, if their controller happens to be a ‘black magician’, it is obvious that they will be used by him for a purpose quite contrary to that for which they might have been used in earlier times by the qualified representatives of a regular tradition.

All that has been said so far relates to the vestiges left by an entirely extinct tradition; but there is another case to be considered alongside this one: that of an ancient traditional civilization that lives on so to speak for itself alone, in the sense that its degeneration has proceeded to such a point that the ‘spirit’ has at last withdrawn entirely from it. Certain kinds of knowledge, having nothing of the spiritual in them and belonging only to the order of contingent applications, may still continue to be transmitted, particularly the more inferior among them, but they will naturally thereafter be liable to every kind of deviation, for they themselves represent nothing more than ‘residues’ of another kind, the pure doctrine on which they ought normally to depend having disappeared. In this sort of case of ‘survival’ the psychic influences set to work in earlier times by the representatives of the tradition will again be liable to be ‘captured’, even without the knowledge of their apparent guardians, who will thenceforth be illegitimate and entirely without real authority; those who really make use of the influences through them will thus have the advantage of having at their disposal not only so-called ‘inanimate’ objects as unconscious instruments of the action they want to exercise, but also living men who serve no less well as ‘supports’ to the influences, and whose real existence confers on them a much greater vitality. Exactly this sort of thing was in view in quoting an example like that of ‘shamanism’, but of course with the reservation that it must not be held to apply indiscriminately to all the things that are commonly grouped under that rather conventional heading, for they may not all have arrived at an equal degree of decadence.

A tradition deviated to that extent is really dead as such, just as dead as a tradition that no longer even appears to be in existence; if there were any life left in it, however little, no such subversion could in any event take place, for it consists in nothing but a reversal of what remains of the tradition so as to make it work in a direction by definition anti-traditional. It is however as well to add that before things reach that point, and as soon as traditional organizations are so diminished and enfeebled as no longer to be capable of adequate resistance, the more or less direct agents of the ‘adversary’ [124] The literal meaning of the Hebrew word Shayṭān is ‘adversary’, and the ‘powers’ now under consideration are truly ‘satanic’ in character. can begin to work their way in with a view to hastening the time when ‘subversion’ will become possible; they are not always sure to succeed, for whatever still has some life can always recover itself; but if death takes place, the enemy will then be found to be as it were in possession and ready to take advantage of his position and to use the ‘corpse’ for his own purposes. The representatives of everything in the Western world that still retains an authentically traditional character, in the exoteric as well as in the initiatic domain, might be thought to have the strongest possible interest in paying attention to this last observation while there is still time, for all around them the menacing signs indicating ‘infiltrations’ of this kind are unfortunately by no means indiscernible by anyone who knows how to find them.

Another consideration having its own importance is this: if the ‘adversary’ (as to whose nature some more exact indications will follow) has something to gain by taking possession of places that were the seat of former spiritual centers, it is not solely because of the psychic influences accumulated in them and more or less free to be made use of, but it is also for the very reason that the places are where they are, for of course they were not chosen arbitrarily for the part they had to play at one time or another, and in connection with one traditional form or another. ‘Sacred geography’, the knowledge of which determines the choice in question, is susceptible, like every other traditional science of a contingent order, of being diverted from its legitimate purpose and of being applied ‘inversely’. If a place is ‘privileged’ to serve for the emission and direction of psychic influences when they are operating as vehicles of a spiritual action, it will be no less so when these same psychic influences are used in quite another way and for ends opposed to all spirituality. It may be observed in passing that the danger of the misdirection of certain kinds of knowledge, of which this last is a very clear example, accounts for much of the secrecy that is quite natural in a normal civilization; but the moderns show themselves to be entirely incapable of understanding this, for they commonly mistake what is really a measure designed as far as possible to prevent the misuse of knowledge for a desire to monopolize that knowledge. And in truth secrecy only ceases to be effective when the organizations that are the repositories of the knowledge in question allow unqualified individuals to penetrate into their ranks, for these individuals may even be agents of the ‘adversary’, and if they are so one of their first objects will be to discover the secrets. All this has of course no direct relation to the true initiatic secret, which resides, as explained earlier, exclusively in the ‘ineffable’ and ‘incommunicable’, and is therefore obviously protected from all indiscreet research; nevertheless, although none but contingent matters are in question here, it must be recognized that the precautions that may be taken within the contingent order with a view to avoiding all deviation, and thus all harmful action that might arise from it, are far from having in practice only a relatively negligible interest.