The 'Polaires'
Oct 23, 2019 17:58:04 GMT
Post by Evola As He Is on Oct 23, 2019 17:58:04 GMT
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 centers must still, in order to be able to fulfill 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 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
"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 centers must still, in order to be able to fulfill 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 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