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Re: [evola_as_he_is] The 'Polaires'

"In 'Le Voile d'Isis', June 1931, Guénon stated :
"These people are amazingly wrong in assuming they can make us feel uncomfortable about that preface (...).
As for claiming that it is the author of the book who
"withdrew voluntarily" that preface, it is an insolent
lie; in fact, to obtain its withdrawal, we had to
threaten to have the book seized, if that preface had
been included in it against our will." 
 
 
 
evola_as_he_is <evola_as_he_is@...> wrote:

Here we attempt to deepen our acquaintance with the 'Polaires',
beyond the introduction to them provided by Joscelyn Godwin
in 'Arktos : The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism and Nazi Survival'
(1996), pp. 87-90, where he tells us the following :

"In 1908 [...] a young Franco-Italian, Mario Fille, met a hermit who
lived in the hills near Rome. Going by the name of father Julian,
this hermit confided to Fille a sheaf of old parchments, telling him
that they contained an Oracle. Consultation of this Oracle took place
through word and number manipulation, but the processes called for
were painstaking and lengthy, and Fille did not bother with them
until about twelve years later (that is, about 1920), at a time of
personal crisis. Thereupon he followed the instructions, which were
to phrase one's question in Italian, adding one's name and the maiden
name of one's mother, turn them into numbers, and make with them
certain mathematical operations. At the end of several hours' work, a
final series of numbers emerged which, when retranslated into
letters, gave a cogent and grammatically correct answer to one's
question. Fille was amazed. Apparently the Oracle never failed to
behave with perfect reliability, though its answers were sometimes in
English or German. Obedient to Père Julian's command, Fille alone
possessed the key to its manipulation.

"One of the first questions to ask such an oracle is "Who are you?"
Working with his friend and fellow-musician Cesare Accomani, Fille
learned that this was called the "Oracle of Astral Energy": that it
was not a method of divination like some Kabbalistic oracles or the I
Ching, but an actual channel of communication with the "Rosicrucian
Initiatic Center of 'Mysterious' Asia" situated in the Himalayas and
directed by the "Three Supreme Sages" or the "Little Lights of the
Orient," who live in - Agartha. These at first included Father
Julian, then, after his passing on 8 April 1930, purported to come
from a "Chevalier Rose-Croix" who was guessed to be a favorite of the
neo-Theosophists, the "Master Racoczy," sometime incarnated as Roger
Bacon, Francis Bacon, and the Comte de Saint-Germain.

"Fille and Accomani settled in Paris, where the Oracle was
demonstrated to a group of journalists and writers in the hope that
they would publicize it. Some were favorably enough impressed to
contribute to Accomani's book about it: Asia Mysteriosa, published in
1929 under the pseudonym of "Zam Bhotiva." One of these was Fernand
Divoire, editor of L'Intransigeant and author of Pourquoi je crois
l'occultisme (Why I believe in occultism, 1929). Another was Maurice
Magre: poet, novelist, and author of Pourquoi je suis Bouddhiste (Why
I am a Buddhist, 1928). Implicitly equating the Oracle's source with
that of Blavatsky's Theosophy, Magre wrote that "The existence of
this brotherhood, variously known as 'Agarttha' and as the 'Great
White Lodge,' is what it has always been, but unproven by
those 'material evidences' of which the Western mind is so fond." And
after paying further respects to Blavatsky and her Masters, he adds
that "The revelations of Saint-Yves d'Alveydre in La Mission de
l'Inde, despite their apparent improbability, must contain part of
the truth."

"A third supporter of Asia Mysteriosa was Jean Marquès-Rivière, who
had written on Tibetan Buddhism and Tantrism. In his Foreword, he
mentions that both Emmanuel Swedenborg and the early nineteenth-
century visionary Anne Catherine Emmerich had believed in a spiritual
center in Tibet or Tartary. He continues:

"Now, the center of transhuman power has a reflection on the earth;
it is a constant tradition in Asia, and this Center (a terrestrial
one? I do not know to what degree) [his emphasis], is called in
Central Asia Agarttha. It has many other different names which there
is no point in recalling here. This Center has as its mission, or
rather as its reason for existence, the direction of the spiritual
activities of the Earth.

"If the Polaires' center was somewhere in Asia, then one might ask
what was "polar" about them. The Bulletin des Polaires, 9 June 1930,
explained:

"The Polaires take this name because from all time the Sacred
Mountain, that is, the symbolic location of the Initiatic Centers,
has always been qualified by different traditions as "polar." And it
may very well be that this Mountain was once really polar, in the
geographical sense of the word, since it is stated everywhere that
the Boreal Tradition (or the Primordial Tradition, source of all
Traditions) originally had its seat in the Hyperborean regions.

"For a mouthpiece of the spiritual center of the whole earth,
associated if not identified both with Blavatsky's White Brotherhood
and Saint-Yves' Agartha, the Oracle fell sadly short of expectations.
Its answers were elaborate, but not always conclusive. For example:

"Q. Do the Three Supreme Sages and Agarttha exist?

"A. The Three Sages exist and are the Guardians of the Mysteries of
Life and Death. After forty winters passed in penitence for sinful
humanity and in sacrifices for suffering humanity, one may have
special missions which permit one to enter into the Garden, in
preparation for the final selection which opens the Gate of Agarttha.

"Few of its statements provided any precise occult or mystical
knowledge. One point of interest, however, is that it shared with
René Guénon a strong aversion to the theory of reincarnation. One of
the "Little Lights," Tek the Wise, says that:

"They are without number, the planets which must be traversed in
innumerable existences; but what is certain is that there is no
return to the same planet.

"A fourth article in support of the Oracle was to have been
contributed by Guénon himself. He had been interested, he said, by
its enigmatic aspects, and had tested it by posing certain doctrinal
questions. But the Oracle's responses were vague and most
unsatisfactory, and moreover, between Guénon's question and the
arrival of its answer, Fille and Accomani founded "a society dressed
up with the baroque name of 'Polaires', "whereupon Guénon dissociated
himself from them.

Others who briefly accepted the Oracle's authenticity and are cited
in 'Asia Mysteriosa' include Arturo Reghini, the Italian writer on
oriental traditions and alchemy, who was responsible for introducing
Julius Evola to the works of Guénon; and Vivian Postel Du Mas, who
had been a member of Schwaller de Lubicz's "Veilleurs" after World
War I, and in the 1930s led an esoteric-political group whose
doctrines were based on the Synarchy of Saint-Yves. Maurice Girodias
paints a lively picture, in his autobiography The Frog Prince, of the
vaguely Theosophic community run by Du Mas and Jeanne Canudo, and of
their efforts to fight Hitler and Mussolini on the astral plane by
directing thought-waves, just as the Polaires had tried to influence
world events and heal lost souls by mental projection." Thus far
Joscelyn Godwin.

However, just like Guénon, Reghini soon distanced himself from
the 'Polaires' by criticising Zam Bhotiva's 'Asia misteriosa' and by
doubting the authenticity of the oracle, after having accepted it. As
for Guénon, as Godwin fails to note, he had gone so far as to write a
preface to 'Asia misteriosa', preface which was finally removed
before the publication of this book by Zam Bothiva himself. Before
reading this preface, it should be pointed out that this distancing
took place during the Evola-Reghini controversy. In the second issue
of Krur (February 1929), Julius Evola published the essay 'Diffida
contro Ignis' ('Ignis' was one of Reghini's papers), in which,
besides replying to the accusations of plagiarism levelled by Reghini
against him on the publication of the former's 'Imperialismo pagano',
he came to the defence of Zam, who was one of the collaborators of
Krur (1), also accused by Reghini of plagiarism, in the
review 'Civiltà Cattolica', of having written an essay on a heathen
magic conspiracy supposed to have been discovered by two Italian
archaeologists in excavation sites near Rome in 1851. Evola found
both accusations rather poorly evidenced (in due course, we shall
publish Regini's 'Imperialismo pagano', a 15-page essay, so that the
reader can make up his own mind about those accusations of plagiary
made by Reghini).

Here now is Guénon's preface to 'Asia misteriosa' (1929), written
just after the second edition of 'The King of the World' (1927), and
in which, as a matter of fact, many ideas developed in that work can
be found  :

"The method with which we are concerned here has a special character,
which it distinguishes it essentially from all others which could, at
first sight, be mistaken for it owing to some outer resemblances :
the fact is that it appears to be a means of communication with some,
quite mysterious, initiatory centre, which, from the indications
given by the answers which the method has allowed us to obtain, seems
to be located somewhere in Central Asia. On this account, throughout
the several years that we have already been aware of this method, it
seemed to us worthy of interest, whereas, if we had regarded it as a
mere divinatory process, then, no matter its value in this respect,
we would never have been tempted to attach the slightest importance
to it. But, of course, this claim cannot be admitted without
control ; in what way can we determine whether it is well-founded?
Obviously, it is here that difficulties start ; however strange the
use of such a mode of communication may seem, it doesn't present any
impossibility a priori, and it may even seem quite natural for an
initiatory centre coming under a tradition in which numerical
symbolism plays a preponderant rôle. To go beyond this mere
possibility, it is necessary to examine the answers themselves,
especially those which refer to doctrinal questions ; we cannot think
of undertaking a detailed examination here, and in any case, it would
be unnecessary given the exposition contained in this volume. Each
and everyone, after having read this exposition, may make up their
own mind whether it offers sufficient evidence in favour of an actual
communication ; as far as we are concerned, we think that the least
which can be said is that all the other hypotheses which could be
imagined are even more unlikely than this one.

"If, therefore, we admit that what we are dealing with here is a
spiritual centre actually existing somewhere in the East, another
question arises straight away ; is it possible, at least to some
extent, to determine its true nature? Once again, the character of
the answers obtained will give us the solution ; now, these answers,
which are all perfectly consistent among themselves, show tendencies
which allow us to connect them undeniably with a Judeo-Christian
teaching. Thus, this would be a Western initiation (2), and not an
Eastern one ; but then, how come such an initiation is located in
Central Asia? There is something here which seems contradictory, and
our first inference was that the Western turn of the answers was
merely the result of an adaptation to the mentality of the
consultants ; but this inference subsequently appeared to us
inadequate to explain everything, and we have since been led to
realise that the difficulty vanished if it was admitted that this was
a Rosicrucian centre. As a matter of fact, it has been said that the
true Rosicrucians left Europe in the seventeenth century, to withdraw
to Asia ; the Saxon priest Samuel Richter, who founded the 'Golden
Rose-Croix', under the name of Sincerus Renatus, stated, in a work
published in 1714, that the Masters of the Rose-Croix had left for
India some time before, and that none remained in Europe ; the same
thing had already been announced previously by Henri Neuhaus, who
added that they departed on the occasion of the declaration of the
Thirty Years' War ; and other authors, among them Saint-Yves
d'Alveydre, stated more or less explicitly that the signing of the
Treaty of Westphalia, which ended this war in 1648, marked for the
West the complete and definitive breaking of any regular traditional
links which might still have existed up to that point. We can combine
these assertions with that of Swedenborg, namely that it is now among
the wise men of Tibet and Tartaria that the 'Lost Word', that is to
say, the secrets of initiation, are to be found, as well as with the
visions of Anne-Catherine Emmerich, referring to the mysterious place
which she calls the "Prophets' Mountain", and which she places in the
same area. Furthermore, the traveller Paul Lucas, who explored the
length and breadth of Greece and Asia Minor in the time of Louis XIV,
tells us that he met in Brousse four dervishes, of whom one, who
seemed to speak all the languages of the world (which is also one of
the faculties attributed to the Rose-Croix) told him he was part of a
group of seven persons who met every twenty years in a town
designated in advance ; this dervish assured him that the
philosophical stone allowed one to live one thousand years, and told
him, in this connection, the story of Nicolas Flamel, who was thought
dead but who lived to that day in India with his wife. Now, it is
certain that the Rose-Croix (which, in any case, never constituted
a 'society' in the modern sense of this word) had direct links with
Eastern, and more especially Muslim, organisations, which allows us
to think that the character met by Paul Lucas may well have been a
member of one of them ; and, by a rather remarkable coincidence, it
will be seen that, in the case which we are discussing currently, a
few answers suggest precisely the existence of certain relations with
Islam.

"The rôle of the Rose-Croix, or of what was designated by this name
from a certain period on, may have been above all that of keeping
open, as long as possible, the communication of the Western world,
linked with the Judeo-Christian tradition, with the supreme spiritual
centre, the bearers of the great Primordial Tradition, from which all
particular traditions are derived more or less directly. The
Rosicrucian centre is thus only one of many secondary centres,
subordinate to the supreme centre, and corresponding to so many
different traditional forms ; besides, all are like images of the
supreme centre, which they represent in some fashion in a more
exterior domain, and whose constitution they reflect exactly ; is it
not for this reason that we find here three wise men, similar to the
three supreme leaders of 'Agarttha', that is, of the true 'Centre of
the World', but who must not be mistaken for them, since they are
only in charge of the direction of a secondary centre? It should be
added that the members of all those subordinate centres must still,
in order to be able to fulfil their function, be connected directly
with the Primordial Tradition, and thus must be aware of the deep
unity hidden under the variety of more or less outward forms ; this
is why it is said that the Rose-Croix can speak all languages ; but
they only appear as Rose-Croix in that they descend into the realm of
form, so to speak, to play the rôle which is assigned to them, which
concerns especially a certain determinate tradition, that of the
Christian West. Just as, besides, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
constitute, in the filiation of the various traditions, a closely
linked whole, and it is easy to understand that there are more
special relations between the initiatory centres within which are
deposited the esoteric knowledge relating to these three traditional
forms.

"This being said, let us go back over the question of the
localisation of the spiritual centres, which may be real and symbolic
at the same time. It is well known that the mountain is one of the
main symbols of the 'Centre of the World' ; this sacred mountain,
which bears different names according to different traditions, is
described as polar, and must have actually been so originally, since
it is affirmed everywhere that the Primordial Tradition had its first
seat in the hyperborean region. That seat may have shifted later, and
may have had, in each of the periods into which the cycle of our
humanity is subdivided, different successive locations ; in the
symbolic and spiritual sense, nevertheless, it is still 'the Pole',
that is to say, the fixed and unmoving point around which the world
accomplishes its revolutions. If we consider the figure of the
mountain, we could say that, while its peak coincides exactly with
the supreme centre, secondary centres, through which the influences
emanated from the peak descend into the world, may be represented as
being located on the slopes of the mountain, where they are gathered
according to the particular affinities of the traditional forms to
which they correspond. Thus, in a sense which is principally
symbolic, all those centres are, as it were, gathered in the same
place ; and that seems to be signified, among other things, by
the 'Mountain of the Prophets' of Anne-Catherine Emmerich, who saw in
it mainly what refers to Western tradition, although it is certainly
at the same time the true 'Centre of the World', so that she places
it in the East - where it is said to be, now and since many
centuries, actually located.

Yet, from another, less purely symbolic, point of view, it can also
be said that each secondary centre must be located in the part of the
world where the traditional form to which it is especially allocated
is found. At least, this will normally be the case, and thus each
part of the world can maintain its links with the supreme centre ;
but things are different when those links become broken, as is the
case for the modern West. Then, the secondary centre, without ceasing
to exist, withdraws from the outer domain where its action was
exercised, and is as it were re-absorbed by the supreme centre,
where, in a continuous and constant manner, what could be called 
the 'interiority' of all traditions is maintained in full ; it is to
that kind of re-absorption that the withdrawal of the Rose-Croix to
Asia, of which we have spoken before, corresponds. Today, there is no
longer any regular initiatory organisation in the West, and
everything of this sort which still survives there represents mere
remains of a former state, forms emptied of their spiritual content
and no longer understood. Under these conditions, if a contact with
the centre is sometimes still possible, it can happen only in a quite
exceptional manner, through unique and temporary manifestations of
certain representatives of that centre, or through communications
received individually via more or less extraordinary and abnormal
means, to which the situation itself forces one to resort. Who could
say whether we are not hear dealing with something of this kind, and
whether the method which is studied in this book is not precisely one
of these means of communication? In other words, why could not this
method, beneath its strictly arithmetical appearance, be meant to
give a support to certain spiritual influences, more or less in the
same way that material objects may do, or other expedients of which
examples could be found in all traditions? Although we cannot here
explain this in more detail, we think that these clarifications will
be enough, at least for those prepared to examine the question
without bias, to understand that, not only there is nothing
impossible in this, but that it accords closely with all the most
authentically traditional data." Thus far Guénon.

Zam Bhotiva finally decided to remove this preface from 'Asia
misteriosa', before its publication in 1929. Guénon wrote a highly
critical article about the 'Polaires' in Le Voile d'Isis, in 1931.
Zam Bhotiva replied with the following article, published in Issue 11
of the 'Revue des Polaires' of the 9th of March of the same year, in
which he reproduced Guénon's preface to his book : "Mr. Guénon wrote,
in Le Voile d'Isis of February, an insolent pamphlet against the
Polaires. We say, 'insolent' ; as a matter of fact, Mr Guénon
writes : "We have heard in the meantime that some serious persons who
had initially given their adherence did not hesitate to withdraw
it ..." But we must acknowledge that those differences of language
would have left us absolutely indifferent if Mr Guénon did not
demonstrate, by his pamphlet, his inconsistency, his thoughtlessness,
and, in the true sense of the word, his 'anger' against all which
represents 'action'.  And the Polaires, who must fight 'false
enlightened persons', will not miss this opportunity to give a small
lesson to this 'Great Master' of occultism, who distributes, with
the 'haughtiness' and smugness of Molière's Doctor, hermetic plasters
and ointments ... Now, Mr Guénon simply forgot that he himself had
corrected the manuscript of 'Asia misteriosa' that he proof-read it,
and that he even wrote a preface, which was withheld, VOLUNTARILY by
the author of the Book. To recall it to him, we here reproduce his
preface in extenso." Zam Bhotiva added : "The preface exhibits
completely both the smugness and the inconsistency of Mr Guénon. In
our next issue, we shall explain why the preface was withheld by us,
and we shall expose the reasons why the name of Mr Guénon COULD NOT
BE USED for the POLAIRES' PROPAGANDA. And we shall thus refute,
formally, that presumptuous lampoonist, who, quite seriously, likes
to think of himself as the 'Deus ex machina' of Esoterism."

Whether this last mentioned refutation was published or not, we don't
know. However this may be, this was not the last time Guénon was to
refer to the 'Polaires' and to 'Asia misteriosa'. In 1948, 'Etudes
Carmélitaines', a review led by a Christian 'integrist' called A.
Frank-Duquesne, published a special issue on the theme of the figure
of Satan, which, we may note in passing, contained exactly 666
pages ; it was reviewed by Guénon in 'Les Etudes Traditionnelles'. In
this review, we may note, again in passing, that Guénon evidently
considered Hitler and National Socialism to be fiends of counter-
initiation ; something which, however, is far from being clear from
the first page of 'The Reign of Quantity'. Following that review, A.
Frank-Duquesne sent a letter to Guénon, and an epistolary controversy
developed between the two men. It was published later in 'Comptes
Rendus', Ed. Traditionnelles, Paris 1982. In fact, it was Frank-
Duquesne who reminded Guénon of the 'Polaires' and of 'Asia
Mysteriosa' :

"You truly surpass yourself when you write : "The height of disgrace'
(bear well in mind this word, 'disgrace', Guénon, for it will come to
stink in a moment) 'is that he' (i.e., me) 'even brings up
the 'Polaires' and their fantasmagorical 'Asia misteriosa'." But who
wrote the preface to 'Asia misteriosa'? A certain René Guénon. Who
launched the 'Polaires'?" [here we have to remove many names which we
are unable to verify] " ... and Mr René Guénon, who doesn't consider
it beneath him to become hooked on the 'astral light'. Indeed, it's
you, Great Epopt, who became interested in that 'psychic'
entertainment, about which I wouldn't have bothered! By February
1931, it was too late to get involved with the 'Polaires'".

There follows Guénon's answer :

"'Asia misteriosa' was published with three forewords, of which none
is ours ; certainly, we had written one, which, however, contained
only generalities, as uncompromising as was possible, but we had done
this only in order to allow ourselves to wait, without forcing
anything, for the result of a certain verification which we were
awaiting (...) Since this result was negative, we quite simply
withdrew that foreword, formally prohibiting its appearance in the
volume, where it is easy for anyone to ascertain that it is actually
not found. That happened, not in February of 1931, but during the
summer of 1929 ('Asia misteriosa' being published at the end of that
year); and from 1927 onwards we were so unwilling to 'launch' the
Polaires that we refused formally to take part in any way in
their 'works', never having had the slightest taste for the
atmosphere of 'ceremonial magic' which ended up constituting its main
part."

Leaving aside this 'memory gap' of Guénon's - which affected also the
memory of Jean Reyor, who, in 'Souvenirs et perspectives sur René
Guénon' (the Spanish translation of this text can be found at
http://www.geocities.com/symbolos/s19ined1.htm ), stated that it was
the latter who withdrew his preface from 'Asia misteriosa', rather
than the contrary - one may wonder why Zam Bhotiva removed it. We
agree with the moderator of gruppo_di_ur that that preface was a sort
of 'fool's deal'. To have accepted it would have meant, on one hand,
gaining Guénon's acknowledgement of the validity and traditional
orthodoxy of the oracle of the 'Polaires', but, on the other hand,
admitting his assumption that the West was by that time totally
devoid of any regular initiatory organisation, something which Zam
Bhotiva could not agree to do. Let's go further, by asking two
obvious questions in this connection : are we to accept that the Rose-
Croix was the only regular initiatory organisation left in the West,
at the time indicated, simply because Guénon told us so? And, since,
according to Guénon, no regular initiatory organisation leaves any
traces, how come the Rose-Croix made public, in a Manifesto, their
withdrawal from Europe, and not content with making that information
public, told the world where it was they had decided to withdraw to,
namely, Asia? In any case, if Zam Bhotiva was not a mountebank, it is
obvious that he couldn't allow Guénon to assert that the answers
given by the oracle connected them "undeniably with a Judeo-Christian
teaching".

The moderator of that list points out that it is no accident
that 'The 'Polaires' got a solid foothold in France, or that the
manoeuvres of Guénon, to ruin or discredit any Western initiative,
and to deliver the West over to Islam, were not unknown. He will
doubtless draw our attention to the enthusiastic support given at
first by Guénon to the urgent offer made to Reyor in 1934 by Schuon,
just a few days after he had become a Moqaddem, to 'islamise Europe' -
 an offer which left Reyor flabbergasted, since he "didn't consider
it suitable for Europeans to convert to Islam".

Notes

(1) Mario Fille was another of these collaborators, who wrote under
the pen-name of 'Agarda', an Italianisation of the word 'Asgaard'.
Incidentally, the first to connect this term with Asia was the French
Catholic author Joseph Ernest Renan (1823-1892), who, in  'Dialogues
Philosophiques', written in 1876, just after the defeat of Sedan and
the Paris Commune, stressed the need to "rebuild in Central Asia
(...) a centre of Asen (...), Asgaard".

(2) This is another proof of the fact that Guénon regarded the 'Judeo-
Christian' tradition as
typically western! 


 


Sat Nov 12, 2005 6:10 pm

charltonroad36
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Here we attempt to deepen our acquaintance with the 'Polaires', beyond the introduction to them provided by Joscelyn Godwin in 'Arktos : The Polar Myth in...
evola_as_he_is Offline Send Email Nov 11, 2005
11:22 pm

"In 'Le Voile d'Isis', June 1931, Guénon stated : "These people are amazingly wrong in assuming they can make us feel uncomfortable about that preface (...). ...
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Nov 12, 2005
6:23 pm

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