Fragments of an Initiatory Reality

Fragment 3: Notes on the meanings of surface esotericism

If, as it is supposed, before the organ was born, there was the thought that originated it; and if the cause for every manifested phenomenon is necessity, then it is possible to believe that, according to the same rule, the esoterist was born before esotericism.

Before talking about esotericism, though, we must get rid of the misunderstandings of the popular imagination, through which the knowledge of sacred representation, prerogative of Initiates, has been replaced by the mystery of supernatural events. In this way the mysterial secretness was replaced by as many products of fantasy, with the result that their representations became a parody of themselves.

The mysterial secretness, though, survives.

Despite every parody, in the trace of some eastern and western tradition an initiatory Teaching still exists. It is a summa of teachings scarcely spread that, hidden in hermetic forms, contain the testimony of an ancient cult-ure.

We must make a distinction between the initiatory Teaching and the practice of esotericism. Esotericism itself is not a doctrine or a philosophy, but only a method for deep observation and analysis. It is an observation method that must be learnt by putting into the right perspective the subjective characteristics of the observed object.

Just as we did for esotericism, in order to define the esotericist it is necessary to free him from the meanings that a fanta-mysterial cliquishness that, holding to high-flow labels, recalls the popular imagination towards neo-templar, neo-crucian, neo-chimist, neo-hermeticist myths or whatever matches the spiritualistic or erudite trash that is typical of the ‘new age' devotion.

Even the youngest adept, though, knows that nothing new can appear under the sun but a better consciousness of what has already happened. And eventually, with what's left, we can sketch the first profile of the esotericist. It is not a play on words to say that the esotericist search for the present truths in ancient principles and finds the ancient principles in the present truths. In other words, the best virtue of the esoterical researcher is to correlate , by browsing free from obstacles, the continuum of knowledge that joins the archaic to the ancient and the ancient to the modern , so that he can then project his own mind in the possible future scenario.

The esotericist, deep, patient and careful observer, looks for the understanding of the sense of life by experiencing several speculative fields, such as the scientific, the philosophic, the humanistic, the analytical one, astronomy and ethnology; he compares religions to sociology and traditions. He studies semantics (meaning and strength of the words), psychology and psychodynamics, both eastern and western.

The esotericist, with a balanced method, studies every expression of the world of phenomena, looking for the constructive and intelligent activity of the essence called life, because he thinks that in the matrix of that vital essence there is the joining point of all physical, cosmic and spiritual phenomena.

The esotericist studies the symmetries of the vital structures in every physical representation, up to the nuclear ones in their most subtle expressions. He goes deep into the study of the ability of thought: it is a strength that gives power to the word and was hidden in the signs of particular Mandala and in other less accessible ideograms.

The highest point of the research is to perceive the interaction that every form has, by assonance , with the motion of one's metaphysical part. Furthermore, the esoterical practice suggests to the young researcher that his best source of information is in the extremely small entity because being specular to the extremely big it has the advantage of being easier to observe.

The esotericist finds and experiences on himself every point of his research, both physical and metaphysical. He is the living laboratory of himself, therefore his process is an empirical one.

This has the advantage, but also the danger, of growing fast. With a speed that is proportional to one's research, but that sometimes becomes too much for the very malleable mental structure of a neophyte.

When the young researcher forms a wise and conscious, but detached vision of an idea, he is ready to use his first instrument of observation and he will be introduced to the art of visualizing every thought form. Visualizing, in this case, means to observe every objective reality (even a man) in his subjective dimension, so that every subject is considered at the same time in his exterior and interior dimension.

The result will be to perceive a reality in itself, with a vision not any more mediated by individual expectations, wishes and passion. It is a vision that, even if limited to the surface of the speculative object, is still detached and avoids the intrusion of those personal elements that inevitably end up by affecting the ability of the common sense of judgement.

The esoterical research helps to reveal even in the myths and popular dreams the feelings that pushed many men to create them and make them a guide for emotions and ideals; it helps to find out what caused humankind to found their cultures on myths and legends amongst the first revealed truths of esotericism. This will lead the researcher to a double question: resolve the sense of life and that of existence.

To give a sense to life, to one's own life, the researcher might find it useful to apply the esoterical aspect of psychology, whilst in order to resolve the second matter, the sense of existence, it might be useful to know the esoterical aspect of philosophy (*).

(*): The sense of life and the sense of existence contain the meanings of form and substance. A lot has been discussed about the sense of life and a lot will still be discussed. For the initiate, though, so it is said, the problem doesn't exist, because there isn't such a thing as a specific “sense of life”. The sense of life is what man gives to it; he is the director, the actor and the author of every choice he makes. The sense of life, then, is a psychodrama that belongs to the man who decides its forms, colors and emotional hues. But if the sense of life belongs to man then he belongs to existence.

If man chooses, even unconsciously, the sense to give to his life, he doesn't know of being an unconscious instrument of existence that animates him for its purposes. The sense of existence exists, but it is put in terms of time and space so dilated for an individual and transitory perception, that it appears to him as pure abstraction, an infinite and eternal concept.

The Initiate can reach a dilation of his own conscious perception; so much so that he reproduces those terms up to perceiving the relation between himself like a momentary entity and the contest of an eternal change, where everything moves to evolve and not to disappear. The relativity of one's microcosm can make the perception of the macrocosmic model closer to the initiate. In this perception, the dimensions of time and non-time intersect, join and cancel each other, until a third point of view is formed, paradoxical for the reason, that is the sense of immense stillness and immobility in motion, that mystics call beatitude or nirvana. This is, as well, an illusion. It is the last and supreme perceptive mirage, that the initiate must shatter in order to continue in his process towards freedom.

Athos A. Altomonte