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Eight numbers, from May to December 1942, printed in Montevideo by a body calling itself the Grupo Independiente de Estudios Esotéricos. The name is not incidental. Papus had founded a Groupe Indépendant d'Études Ésotériques in Paris in 1888 and given it a review called L'Initiation; Nº 6 of this magazine names him as its president and founder in so many words. What you are reading is a deliberate re-founding of that institution on the other side of the Atlantic, half a century later, with the same name and the same title over the door.
The first number sets out what the review means to be: the organ of an independent society of thought, open to criticism from its readers, "not a business either, nor anyone's means of livelihood", falling into "no particularism, and still less into any personalism". That claim is worth holding onto, because the volume keeps testing itself against it. A commentary on masonic ritual praises the symbols and then says plainly that the institution has forgotten what they mean. An article on Schopenhauer complains that philosophers and occultists each miss half of him. A poem on the second page rebukes the very piety the editorial has just described.
Four long series run through the volume and none of them finishes: Jehel's commentary on the masonic degrees, which reaches the raising of Hiram; Surya's astrology course, which builds one real chart for one real birth in Montevideo across six instalments; Asuri Kapila's course in the postures, with a Sanskrit glossary that reaches its seventy-third entry; and a treatise on the planetary hours that does conclude, in Nº 8, with Saturn and Jupiter. Threaded between them is something stranger — a Uruguayan woman signing herself Maya, who went to India, sat on the floor of Sri Ramana Maharshi's hall, and wrote it down. He asked her, as she left, whether she would visit the temple at Madura. She said the chance had gone. A railway official then sent her eight hundred kilometres in the wrong direction and she arrived at Madura. The magazine gives that sequence three issues and lets the reader draw the conclusion.
The volume closes in French, with Saint-Martin's "Le Cimetière d'Amboise" — begun in Nº 6, continued in Nº 7, still unfinished at the end of Nº 8.
On the apparatus. Every page of this volume carries commentary: 392 notes across 179 pages, marked by evidence tier, saying where a claim has been checked against a text the Press holds and where it has not. Quotations have been verified where verification was possible. Dante is misquoted here — nostri for vostri, which turns a rebuke of humanity into a shared observation. The "Prayer of Saint Francis" on p. 9 of Nº 4 is not by Francis; it first appears anonymously in 1912. Three arithmetical faults in the astrology course are identified, including one that does not affect its result and is marked as such. Where a contributor is right, that is recorded too, and he often is: the Gita is quoted accurately, the elemental triangles are correctly assigned, Montevideo's coordinates are right, and the mean daily motion of the Sun is given correct to the arcsecond.
On what is withheld. Five passages in this volume are not reproduced, amounting to 1,153 characters — about two hundredths of one per cent of the text. Each is marked where it stood, with the reason. The Press does not reproduce racial theory, racial-improvement doctrine, or period race-language used in pseudo-historical claims. Nothing is removed silently and nothing else has been altered; passages that merely use the vocabulary of 1942 while arguing against racial distinction — and there are several — stand as printed.
On the medical claims. The courses in this volume promise cures: of sterility, of gallstones, of arteriosclerosis, of spinal deformity. Nº 7 prints two clinical reports describing a man whose grey hair, baldness and wrinkles are said to have reversed over eleven years. These are reproduced because they are what the magazine said, and they are endorsed by nobody. Read them as evidence of what this readership was invited to believe.
1AÑO 1 MAYO DE 1942 Nº 1 Presentación de la Revista “La Iniciación” Las palabras y los actos de un ser humano son siempre el reflejo de su individualidad.
2Una colectividad cualquiera, una sociedad, de cualquier naturaleza que sea, tiene también una individualidad.
3El “GIDEE”, (Grupo Independiente de Estudios Esotéricos) sociedad de finalidad cultural, iniciática en su fondo y ecléctica en su forma, debía tener un portavoz, también iniciático de fondo y ecléctico de forma.
4Ese portavoz es la Revista que hoy presentamos: LA INICIACIÓN.
5Su nombre es tradicionalista, por ser el mismo que llegó la revista fundada por el GIDEE organizado por PAPUS en otros tiempos y lugares.
6Pero, si el fondo es tradicionalista o iniciático, la forma es adaptada a nuestra época; las páginas de la Iniciación están, desde ya, abiertas a toda colaboración que pueda ser de interés general en búsqueda de la Verdad, de esa Verdad que nos e concibe sin mirar los más variados aspectos de la vida, sin abordar los más diversos aspectos del conocimiento sin hacer el estudio sintético de las verdades parciales que se llaman: Ciencia, Arte, Religión y Filosofía.
7Su redacción obedece, pues, al criterio de interesar por igual, tanto al que está en el camino llamado de “LA INICIACIÓN” como a todos aquellos que buscan en la Ciencia, en la Religión, en la Belleza (Literatura y demás manifestaciones de Arte) la forma particular de manifestación de la Verdad más adaptada a su temperamento, cultura o profesión.
8El propio título de la Revista, “LA INICIACIÓN”, pone en evidencia ese propósito de universalidad de búsqueda, de absoluta tolerancia de exposición.
9Porque ¿cómo sería posible que alguien pretendiera llegar a la Verdad, a la Iniciación que es la Verdad Vívida, sino hubiese abierto primeramente su mente y su corazón a la más amplia y total tolerancia científica, religiosa, filosófica, a todas las manifestaciones de la Belleza?
10Por eso, también, brilla sobre la tapa de la Revista ese SOL que a todos alumbra y vivifica, sin particularidades de escuelas o de creencias, sin predominios de ninguna clase.
11Para vivir, basta existir, respirar, absorber libremente ese aliento, que, si no es la propia vida, es por lo menos y seguramente su medio indiscutible de manifestación en nuestra condición humana.
12Para vivir espiritualmente, intelectualmente, emotivamente también y solamente es necesario respirar, absorber ese aliento de Luz que es la Verdad o el Conocimiento, que nos llega, como los rayos del Sol, por la propia vida, y que absorbemos conforme a nuestro estado de salud y de disposición física, moral y mental o espiritual.
13La revista “LA INICIACIÓN” pretende recibir la mayor cantidad posible de todo rayo de Luz, de toda manifestación de Verdad, de Conocimiento, de Emoción sincera que sus colaboradores puedan traerle.
14Presentar los aspectos más diversos, hasta los más opuestos en apariencia, quizás, de esa inquietud de todos los investigadores de la Verdad, de la Vida, en una palabra; ésa es la misión que nuestra revista se impone como única finalidad.
15Lo hará, quizás, modestamente 1
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1YEAR 1 · MAY 1942 · Nº 1 — Presentation of the Review “La Iniciación”. The words and the acts of a human being are always the reflection of his individuality.
2Any collectivity whatever, a society of whatever nature it may be, has an individuality also.
3The “GIDEE” (Independent Group of Esoteric Studies), a society of cultural purpose, initiatic in its substance and eclectic in its form, ought to have a mouthpiece — initiatic likewise in substance and eclectic in form.
4That mouthpiece is the Review we present today: LA INICIACIÓN.
5Its name is traditionalist, being the same as that of the review founded by the GIDEE organised by PAPUS in other times and places.
6But if the substance is traditionalist or initiatic, the form is adapted to our epoch; the pages of La Iniciación are, from this moment, open to every contribution that may be of general interest in the search for Truth — that Truth which is not conceived without regarding the most varied aspects of life, without approaching the most diverse aspects of knowledge, without making the synthetic study of those partial truths that are called Science, Art, Religion and Philosophy.
7Its editing obeys, therefore, the criterion of interesting equally the one who is on the road called “THE INITIATION” and all those who seek, in Science, in Religion, in Beauty (Literature and the other manifestations of Art), the particular form of the manifestation of Truth best adapted to their temperament, culture or profession.
8The very title of the Review, “LA INICIACIÓN”, makes evident that purpose of universality of search, of absolute tolerance of exposition.
9For how would it be possible that anyone should claim to arrive at Truth, at the Initiation which is Truth Lived, had he not first opened his mind and his heart to the widest and most complete scientific, religious and philosophical tolerance, and to all the manifestations of Beauty?
10For that reason too there shines upon the cover of the Review that SUN which lights and quickens all, without particularities of schools or of creeds, without predominance of any kind.
11To live, it is enough to exist, to breathe, to absorb freely that breath which, if it is not life itself, is at least and assuredly its indisputable means of manifestation in our human condition.
12To live spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally too, it is likewise and only necessary to breathe, to absorb that breath of Light which is Truth or Knowledge, which reaches us like the rays of the Sun through life itself, and which we absorb according to our state of health and our physical, moral, mental or spiritual disposition.
13The review “LA INICIACIÓN” intends to receive the greatest possible quantity of every ray of Light, of every manifestation of Truth, of Knowledge, of sincere Emotion that its contributors can bring to it.
14To present the most diverse aspects — even, perhaps, the most apparently opposed — of that disquiet common to all investigators of Truth, of Life in a word: that is the mission our review sets itself as its sole purpose.
15It will do so, perhaps, modestly — 1
Our translation, period-faithful. Citable as our translation, never as the source.
The founding statement of the review, May 1942. The GIDEE names itself for the Independent Group of Esoteric Studies that Papus organised in Paris, and takes the title of its journal from Papus's own — a claim of descent made in the first paragraph of the first issue.
The GIDEE describes itself as “initiatic in its substance and eclectic in its form”. That formula governs the whole run: doctrine from one tradition, method from another, and no obligation to reconcile them. It is why the same issue can print a Martinist degree commentary, an Indian asana course and a chromotherapy protocol without remarking on the combination.