The subjective and simple Principle, realized in the heart, presents itself first of all as immanent; but It is equally transcendent in relation to the empirical subject–the ego woven of IMAGES and tendencies–otherwise the ego as such would be identified with the absolute Subject, with the divine Self. Essays NATURE AND UNITY OF THE PRINCIPLE
The modes are not always intelligible at first sight; for example, one might wonder what the relevance is of a discipline such as the Tea Ceremony, which combines ascesis with art, while being materially based on manipulations that seem a priori unimportant, but are ennobled by their sacralization. First of all, one must take into account the fact that in the Far Easterner, sensorial intuition is more developed than the speculative gift; also, that the practical sense and the aesthetic sense, as well as the taste for symbolism are at the basis of his spiritual temperament. In the Tea Ceremony, the symbolic and morally correct act — the “profound” act if one will — is supposed to bring about a sort of Platonic anamnesis or a unitive consciousness, whereas with the white man of the East and the West it is the Idea that is supposed to lead to correct and virtuous acts. The man of the yellow race goes from sensorial experience to intellection, roughly speaking, whereas with the white man, it is the converse that takes place: in starting out from concepts, or from habitual mental IMAGES, he understands and classifies phenomena, without, however, feeling the need to consciously integrate them into his spiritual life, except incidentally or when it is a question of traditionally accepted symbols. Essays Norms and Paradoxes in Spiritual Alchemy
All this evokes the question of the Symbol and of symbolism; what is the role of the Symbol in the economy of spiritual life? We have just shown that the object of concentration is not necessarily an Idea, but that it can also be a symbolic sign, a sound, an image or an activity: the monosyllable Om, mystical diagrams– mandalas — and IMAGES of the Divinities are in their way vehicles of consciousness of the Absolute, without the intervention of a doctrinal element; the “contemplation of the naked Lady,” in certain circles of the troubadors or the Fideli d’Amore, suggests a vision of the Infinite and of Pure Being– not a seduction, but a catharsis. The PRE-eminence either of the Idea or of the Symbol is a question of opportuneness rather than of principle; by the nature of things, the modes of the Path are as diverse as men are, and as complex as the human soul. But whatever be our points of departure — Idea or Symbol or their combination — there is also, and essentially, concentration on the Void, concentration made of certitude and serenity; as Shankara said: “That which is the ceasing of mental agitation and the supreme Peacefulness that is the true Benares, and that is what I am.” Essays Norms and Paradoxes in Spiritual Alchemy
Creation – or “creations” – should then be represented not as a process of transformism taking place in “matter” in the naively empirical sense of the word, but rather as an elaboration by the life-principle, that is to say, something rather like the more or less discontinuous productions of the imagination: IMAGES arise in the soul from a non-formal substance with no apparent link between them; it is not the IMAGES which transform themselves, it is the animic substance which causes their arising and creates them. That man should appear to be the logical issue, not indeed of an evolution, but of a series of “sketches” more and more centered on the human form – sketches of which the apes seem to represent disparate vestiges – this fact, or this hypothesis, in no way signifies that there is any common measure, thus a kind of psychological continuity, between man and the anthropomorphic and in some sense “embryonic” bodies which may have preceded him. The coming of man is a sudden “descent” of the Spirit into a receptacle that is perfect and definitive because it conforms to the manifestation of the Absolute; the absoluteness of man is like that of the geometrical point, which, strictly speaking, is quantitatively unattainable starting from the circumference. (NA: The same thing is repeated in the womb: as soon as the body is formed the immortal soul is suddenly fixed in it like a flash of lightning, so that there is complete discontinuity between this new being and the embryonic phases which have prepared its coming. It has quite rightly been maintained, against transformism, not only that “the greater cannot come from the less” (Guénon), but also that even though something existent may gain more precision or become atrophied, there cannot on the other hand be a motive, in a species, for the adjunction of a new element, not to mention that nothing could guarantee the hereditary character of such an element (according to Schubert-Soldern).) (Stations of Wisdom, p.89). sophiaperennis: Sophia Perennis and the theory of evolution and progress
The Absolute and the Infinite are complementary, the first being exclusive and the second inclusive: the Absolute excludes everything that is contingent; the Infinite includes everything that is. Within contingency, the Absolute gives rise to perfection and the Infinite to indefiniteness: the sphere is perfect, space is indefinite. Descartes reserved the term “infinite” for God alone, whereas Pascal speaks of several infinites; one must agree with Descartes yet without taking Pascal to task, for the absolute meaning of the word does not result from its literal meaning; IMAGES are physical before they are metaphysical, even though the causal relationship is the converse. Theology teaches that God is infinitely good and infinitely just since He is infinite; but, this would be a contradiction if one were too fastidious, for an infinite quality in the absolute sense would exclude any other quality. sophiaperennis: Descartes and the Cogito
Absolute and the Infinite are complementary, the first being exclusive and the second inclusive: the Absolute excludes all that is contingent, and the Infinite includes all that is. Within contingency, the Absolute gives rise to perfection, and the Infinite to indefiniteness: the sphere is perfect, space is indefinite. Descartes reserved the term infinite for God alone, whereas Pascal spoke of many infinites. One has to agree with Descartes, yet without blaming Pascal, for the absolute meaning of the word does not result from its literal meaning; the IMAGES are physical before being metaphysical, even though the causal relationship is inverse. Theology teaches that God is infinitely good and infinitely just since He is infinite, which is contradictory if one wished to be too particular, for an infinite quality in the absolute sense would exclude any other quality. sophiaperennis: Pascal
It is necessary to distinguish between an idolatry that is objective and another that is subjective: in the first case, it is the image itself that is erroneous, because it is supposed to be a god; in the second case, the image may pertain to sacred art and it is the lack of contemplativity that constitutes idolatry; it is because man no longer knows how to perceive the metaphysical transparency of phenomena, IMAGES and symbols that he is idolatrous. sophiaperennis: ART, ITS DUTIES AND ITS RIGHTS
But not only is there the iconophobia of the Semites of nomadic origin, there is also the absence of IMAGES among most of the shamanistic Mongol peoples, notably the Red Indians; in this case, the divine image is absent, not because of a theological principle concerned with preventing given abuses, but because virgin Nature is itself “divine image”; because it is for the Great Spirit, and not for man, to furnish the image-sacrament of the Invisible. sophiaperennis: ART, ITS DUTIES AND ITS RIGHTS
As regards sacred art, it must be said that painted and sculpted IMAGES also have God as their author since it is He who reveals and creates them through man; He offers the image of Himself by humanizing it, for if man is “made in God’s image,” it is because God is the prototype of the human image. If virgin Nature is the image of God, then man, who is situated at the center of this Nature is so as well; on the one hand, he is witness to the Divine image that surrounds him, and on the other hand, he is himself this image when God, in sacred art, takes on the form of man. sophiaperennis: ART, ITS DUTIES AND ITS RIGHTS
No art in itself is a human creation; but sacred art has this particularity, that its essential content is a revelation, that it manifests a properly sacramental form of heavenly reality, such as the icon of the Virgin and Child, painted by an angel, or the icon of the Holy Face which goes back to the holy shroud and to St Veronica; or such as the statue of Shiva dancing or the painted or carved IMAGES of the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Taras. To the same category – in the widest acceptation of the term – belong ritual psalmody in a sacred language – among others Sanskrit, Hebrew and Arabic – and, in certain cases, the calligraphic copying – likewise ritual – of the sacred Books; architecture, or at least the decoration of sanctuaries, liturgical objects and sacerdotal vestments are in general of a less direct order. It would be difficult to do justice in a few lines to all possible types of sacred expression, which comprises such diverse modes as recitation, writing, architecture, painting, sculpture, the dance, the art of gestures, clothing; in what follows we shall be concerned only with the plastic arts, or even only with painting, the latter being moreover the most immediately tangible and also the most explicit of the arts. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART
Besides the icons of Christ and the Virgin, there are also a multitude of other hieratic IMAGES, relating the facts of sacred history and the lives of the saints; likewise in Buddhist iconography, after the central IMAGES come the numerous representations of secondary personifications; it is this more or less peripheral category which may be called indirect sacred art, even though there may not always be a rigorous line of demarcation between it and direct or central sacred art. The function of this ramification – apart from its didactic significance – is to enable the spirit of the central IMAGES to shine through a diverse imagery which rivets the movement of the mind by infusing into it the radiance of the Immutable, and which, in so doing, imposes on the moving soul a tendency towards interiorization; this function is thus entirely analogous to that of hagiography or even to that of tales of chivalry, not forgetting fairy stories whose symbolism, as is well known, belongs to the realm of the spiritual and so to that of the sacred. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART
Moreover, this point of view is also present in the ancient world, at least partially: the prohibition of IMAGES by Judaism and Islam proceeds in fact from an analogous or symbolically equivalent perspective, and it makes itself felt in the world as a sort of beneficent aeration or as a factor of equilibrium. The difference is that in the case of the Redskins, the motivation for the rejection or abstention lies in the inimitability of nature – apart from practical reasons which are in any case relative – whereas in the case of the monotheistic Semites it lies in the sins of luciferianism, magic and idolatry. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART
The Semites reproach the iconodules for worshipping wood, stone and metal, and IMAGES made by man; they are right when they are speaking either of their own past or present paganism, or that of their habitual pagan neighbours, but not when they include in their reproach Christian or Asiatic iconodules. The sacred IMAGES of these communities are, precisely, not made by human hand; Christians express this by attributing the first icon to an angel, with or without the participation of St Luke. As for the inert matter which the idolaters seem to worship – in reality it contains a magical power – it ceases to be inert in sacred art because it is inhabited by a heavenly or divine presence; the sacred image is created by God, and it is sanctified and as if vivified by His presence. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART
In order to forestall any possible objection, we would stress the fact that in intellectually healthy civilizations – the Christian civilization of the Middle Ages for instance – spirituality often affirms itself by a marked indifference to forms, and sometimes even reveals a tendency to turn away from them, as is shown by the example of St. Bernard when he condemned IMAGES in monasteries, which, it must be said, in no wise signifies the acceptance of ugliness and barbarism, any more than poverty implies the possession of things that are mean in themselves. But in a world where traditional art is dead, where consequently form itself is invaded by everything which is contrary to spirituality and where nearly every formal expression is corrupted at its very roots, the traditional regularity of forms takes on a very special spiritual importance which it could not have possessed at the beginning, since the absence of the spirit in forms was then inconceivable. sophiaperennis: CONCERNING FORMS IN ART
The majority of moderns who claim to understand art are convinced that Byzantine or Romanesque art is in no way superior to modern art, and that a Byzantine or Romanesque Virgin resembles Mary no more than do her naturalistic IMAGES, in fact rather the contrary. The answer is, however, quite simple: the Byzantine Virgin – which traditionally goes back to Saint Luke and the Angels – is infinitely closer to the ‘truth’ of Mary than a naturalistic image, which of necessity is always that of another woman. Only one of two things is possible: either the artist presents an absolutely correct portrait of the Virgin from a physical point of view, in which case it will be necessary for the artist to have seen the Virgin, a condition which obviously cannot be fulfilled – setting aside the fact that all naturalistic painting is an abuse – or else the artist will present a perfectly adequate symbol of the Virgin, but in this case physical resemblance, without being absolutely excluded, is no longer at all in question. It is this second solution – the only one that makes sense – which is realized in icons; what they do not express by means of a physical resemblance, they express by the abstract but immediate language of symbolism, a language which is built up of precision and imponderables both together. Thus the icon, in addition to the beatific power which is inherent in it by reason of its sacramental character, transmits the holiness or inner reality of the Virgin and hence the universal reality of which the Virgin herself is an expression; in contributing both to a state of contemplation and to a metaphysical reality, the icon becomes a support of intellection, whereas a naturalistic image transmits only the fact – apart from its obvious and inevitable lie – that Mary was a woman. It is true that in the case of a particular icon it may happen that the proportions and features are those of the living Virgin, but such a likeness, if it really came to pass, would be independent of the symbolism of the image and could only be the result of a special inspiration, no doubt an unconscious one on the part of the artist himself. Naturalistic art could moreover be legitimate up to a certain point if it was used exclusively to set on record the features of the saints, since the contemplation of saints (the Hindu darshan) can be a very precious help in the spiritual way, owing to the fact that their outward appearance conveys, as it were, the perfume of their spirituality; but the use in this limited manner of a partial and ‘disciplined’ naturalism corresponds only to a very remote possibility. sophiaperennis: CONCERNING FORMS IN ART
To come back to the symbolic and spiritual quality of the icon: one’s ability to perceive the spiritual quality of an icon or any other symbol is a question of contemplative intelligence and also of ‘sacred science’. However, it is certainly false to claim, in justification of naturalism, that the people need an ‘accessible’, that is to say a platitudinous art, for it is riot the ‘people’ who gave birth to the Renaissance; the art of the latter, like all the ‘fine art’ which is derived from it, is on the contrary an offence to the piety of the simple person. The artistic ideals of the Renaissance and of all modern art are therefore very far removed from what the people need, and, in fact, nearly all the miraculous Virgins to which people are attracted are Byzantine or Romanesque; and who would presume to argue that the black colouring of some of them agrees with popular taste or is particularly accessible to it? On the other hand, the Virgins made by the hands of the people, when they have not been corrupted by the influence of academic art, are very much more ‘real’, even in a subjective way, than those of the latter; and even if one were prepared to admit that the majority demand empty or unintelligent IMAGES, can it be said that the needs of the elite are never to be taken into consideration? sophiaperennis: CONCERNING FORMS IN ART
The monks of the eighth century, very different from those religious authorities of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries who betrayed Christian art by abandoning it to the impure passions of worldly men and the ignorant imagination of the profane, were fully conscious of the holiness of every kind of means able to express the Tradition. They stipulated, at the second council of Nicaea, that ‘art’ (i.e. ‘the perfection of work’) alone belongs to the painter, while ordinance (the choice of the subject) and disposition (the treatment of the subject from the symbolical as well as the technical or material points of view) belongs to the Fathers. (Non est pictoris – ejus enim sola ars est-rerum ordinatio et dispositio Patrum nostrorum.) This amounts to placing all artistic initiative under the direct and active authority of the spiritual leaders of Christianity. Such being the case, how can one explain the fact that during recent centuries, religious circles have for the most part shown such a regret table lack of understanding in respect of all those things which, having an artistic character, are, as they fondly believe, only external matters? First of all, admitting a priori the elimination of every esoteric influence, there is the fact that a religious perspective as such has a tendency to identify itself with the moral point of view, which stresses merit only and believes it is neces sary to ignore the sanctifying quality of intellectual knowledge and, as a result, the value of the supports of such knowledge; now, the perfection of sensible forms is no more ‘meritorious in the moral sense than the intellections which those forms reflect and transmit, and it is therefore only logical that symbolic forms, when they are no longer understood, should be relegated to the background, and even forsaken, in order to be replaced by forms which will no longer appeal to the intelligence, but only to a sentimental imagination capable of inspiring the meritorious act – at least such is the belief of the man of limited intelligence. However, this sort of speculative provocation of reactions by resorting to means of a superficial and vulgar nature will, in the last analysis, prove to be illusory, for, in reality, nothing can be better fitted to influence the deeper dispositions of the soul than sacred art. Profane art, on the contrary, even if it be of some psychological value in the case of souls of inferior intelligence, soon exhausts its means, by the very fact of their superficiality and vulgarity, after which it can only provoke reactions of contempt; these are only too common, and may be considered as a ‘rebound’ of the contempt in which sacred art was held by profane art, especially in its earlier stages. (NA: In the same way, the hostility of the representatives of exotericism for all that lies beyond their comprehension results in an increasingly ‘massive’ exotericism which cannot but suffer from ‘rifts’; but the ‘spiritual porousness’ of Tradition – that is to say the immanence in the ‘substance’ of exotericism of a transcendent ‘dimension’ which makes up for its ‘massiveness,’- this state of ‘porousness’ having been lost, the above-mentioned ‘rifts’ could only be produced from below; which means the replacement of the masters of medieval esotericism by the protagonists of modern unbelief.) It has been a matter of current experience that nothing is able to offer to irreligion a more immediately tangible nourishment than the insipid hypocrisy of religious IMAGES; that which was meant to stimulate piety in the believer, but serves to confirm unbelievers in their impiety, whereas it must be recognized that genuinely sacred art does not possess this character of a ‘two-edged weapon’, for being itself more abstract, it offers less hold to hostile psychological reactions. Now, no matter what may be the theories that attribute to the people the need for unintelligent IMAGES, warped in their essence, the elites do exist and certainly require something different; what they demand is an art corresponding to their own spirit and in which their soul can come to rest, finding itself again in order to mount to the Divine. Such an art cannot spring simply from profane taste, nor even from ‘genius’, but must proceed essentially out of Tradition; this fact being admitted, the masterpiece must be executed by a sanctified artist or, let us say, by one in a state of grace’. (NA: The icon-painters were monks who, before setting to work, prepared themselves by fasting, prayer, confession and communion; it even happened that the colours were mixed with holy water and the dust from relics, as would not have been possible had the icon not possessed a really sacramental character.) Far from serving only for the more or less superficial instruction and edification of the masses, the icon, as is the case with the Hindu yantra and all other visible symbols, establishes a bridge from the sensible to the spiritual: ‘By the visible aspect’, states St. John Damascenus, ‘our thoughts must be drawn up in a spiritual flight and rise to the invisible majesty of God.’ sophiaperennis: CONCERNING FORMS IN ART
The pseudo-Christian art inaugurated by the neo-paganism of the Renaissance seeks and realizes only man. The mysteries it should suggest are suffocated in a hubbub of superficiality and impotence, inevitable features of individualism; in any case it inflicts very great harm on society, above all by its ignorant hypocrisy. How should it be otherwise, seeing that this art is only disguised paganism and takes no account in its formal language of the contemplative chastity and the immaterial beauty of the spirit of the Gospels? How can one unreservedly call ‘sacred’ an art which, forgetful of the quasi-sacramental character of holy IMAGES and forgetful, too, of the traditional rules of the craft, holds up to the veneration of the faithful carnal and showy copies of nature and even portraits of concubines painted by libertines? In the ancient Church, and in the Eastern Churches even down to our own times, icon painters prepared themselves for their work by fasting, by prayer and by sacraments; to the inspiration which had fixed the immutable type of the image they added their own humble and pious inspirations; and they scrupulously respected the symbolism – always susceptible of an endless series of precious nuances – of the forms and colours. They drew their creative joy, not from inventing pretentious novelties, but from a loving recreation of the revealed prototypes, and this resulted in a spiritual and artistic perfection such as no individual genius could ever attain. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE
Apart from that, there exist simple metaphors: these are pseudo-symbols, that is to say, IMAGES which all told are ill-chosen. An image which does not touch the essence of what it seeks to express is not a symbol but an allegory. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE
There has been much speculation on the question of knowing how the sage — the “gnostic” (NA: This word, here and elsewhere, is used in its etymological sense, and has nothing to do with anything that may historically be called “Gnosticism”. It is gnosis itself that is in question and not its pseudoreligious deviations.) or the “jnani” — “sees” the world of phenomenon, and occultists of all sorts have not refrained from putting forward the most fantastic theories on “clairvoyance” and the “third eye”; but in reality the difference between ordinary vision and that enjoyed by the sage or the Gnostic is quite clearly not of the sensorial order. The sage see things in their total context, therefore in their relativity and at the same time in their metaphysical transparency; he does not see them as if they were physically diaphanous or endowed with a mystical sonority or a visible aura, even though his vision may sometimes be described by means of such IMAGES…. The “third eye” is the faculty of seeing phenomena sub specie aeternitatis and therefore in a sort of simultaneity; to it are often added, in the nature of things, intuitions concerning modalities that are in the ordinary way imperceptible. sophiaperennis: The Sophia Perennis and Neo-spiritualism