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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 JUNIO DE 1942 Nº 2 En el folleto distribuido a principios de 1942 por la Orden Martinista, está la estampa del Venerable Maestro Maharishi, sobre cuyo Ashram nos ha hablado Maya en el número pasado de “La Iniciación”.
2En la estampa se ve sobre un diván, un hermoso y robusto cuerpo dominado por una nobilísima cabeza.
3Llama la atención la pureza escultural del cuerpo la perfección de sus proporciones y la línea del vientre, índice de largo cultivar de músculos y plexos por procesos suaves y duraderos; llama todavía la atención la pequeña ardilla que, tan arisca en general, parece tan reposadamente feliz sobre la pierna del Maestro; pero más que todo, impresiona al sensitivo la nobleza de la cabeza, verdadera cabeza de Rishi puro, poderosa y suave, en la cual se siente el hábito y el poder de pensar y meditar profundamente y sin esfuerzo, en la cual se identifica, desde luego, el Templo físico de un Pensamiento elevadísimo, la morada de un Espíritu luminoso.
4Es sobre esa Venerable Personalidad que quiero hoy ofrecer rápidas notas.
5Sri Ramana Maharishi era, cuando joven, el estudiante de derecho hijo de noble familia de que nos habló Maya en su artículo precedente.
6Estudiante, no sentía amor a los estudios que hacía, y su hermano, también estudiante, le comentó cierta vez: “Si tu pensamiento está siempre dirigido a las cosas espirituales, ¿por qué insistes en estos estudios?” La veracidad de tal observación despertó en la joven profunda reflexión, y la consecuencia fue que partiera, secretamente, de su casa, en aquella misma noche, dejando una carta dirigida a su familia, pidiendo que no perdiesen ni tiempo ni dinero en buscarle, porque se iba a buscar AQUELLO que su vocación espiritual le indicaba.
7Sin recursos, con tres rupias rápidamente terminadas, se lanzó a la aventura, siguió el impulso que lo llevaba siempre adelante; caminó, anduvo leguas y leguas, días y meses, viendo, observando, buscando y no hallando satisfacción en ninguna de las enseñanzas, eternos comentarios que, de las más diversas fuentes, recogía en su peregrinación.
8Y de valle en valle, de montaña en montaña, de región en región, iba, sin que la Voz interna le diera descanso.
9Inflexiblemente, le dirigía hacia la Montaña Sagrada, la Montaña Roja, la Montaña de ARUNACHALA, célebre en las tradiciones de la India por su santidad, por haber sido, desde tiempos inmemoriales, habitada por Elevados Seres, Santos Yoguis e Iniciados de las elevadas categorías.
10Llegando al Templo de Arunachala sintió que allí encontraría lo que buscaba, y fue tal la intensidad de su sentir, tan sincera la fe de su alma que, antes de entrar al Templo, abandonó TODO, hasta la propia ropa, y desnudo el cuerpo y abierta el alma penetró en el Templo, dispuesto a no salir más de allí sin haber encontrado la Luz.
11Los sacerdotes del Templo, pensando que las personas que iban allí en peregrinación no aceptasen la presencia de esta figura, siempre en meditación, completamente desnuda, tanto le pidieron, que obtuvieron que usara por lo menos un pequeño calzón, la única vestidura que hasta hoy usa, desde entonces.
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 · JUNE 1942 · Nº 2 — In the pamphlet distributed at the beginning of 1942 by the Martinist Order there is the picture of the Venerable Master Maharishi, of whose Ashram Maya spoke to us in the last number of “La Iniciación”.
2In the picture one sees, upon a divan, a beautiful and robust body dominated by a most noble head.
3One's attention is drawn by the sculptural purity of the body, the perfection of its proportions and the line of the abdomen, the mark of a long cultivation of muscles and plexuses by gentle and enduring processes; attention is drawn also by the little squirrel which, so shy in general, seems so restfully happy upon the Master's leg; but more than all, what impresses the sensitive is the nobility of the head, a true head of a pure Rishi, powerful and gentle, in which one feels the habit and the power of thinking and meditating deeply and without effort, in which one identifies at once the physical Temple of a most elevated Thought, the dwelling of a luminous Spirit.
4It is upon that Venerable Personality that I wish today to offer some rapid notes.
5Sri Ramana Maharishi was, when young, the law student, son of a noble family, of whom Maya spoke in her preceding article.
6As a student he felt no love for the studies he was pursuing, and his brother, also a student, remarked to him on one occasion: “If your thought is always directed to spiritual things, why do you persist in these studies?” The truth of such an observation awakened in the young man a profound reflection, and the consequence was that he departed, secretly, from his house that very night, leaving a letter addressed to his family asking that they waste neither time nor money in seeking him, because he was going to seek THAT which his spiritual vocation indicated to him.
7Without resources, with three rupees quickly spent, he threw himself into the adventure and followed the impulse that carried him ever forward; he walked, he covered leagues upon leagues, days and months, seeing, observing, seeking and finding satisfaction in none of the teachings, the endless commentaries which, from the most diverse sources, he gathered in his pilgrimage.
8And from valley to valley, from mountain to mountain, from region to region he went, without the inner Voice giving him rest.
9Inflexibly it directed him towards the Sacred Mountain, the Red Mountain, the Mountain of ARUNACHALA, celebrated in the traditions of India for its sanctity, for having been, from time immemorial, inhabited by Elevated Beings, Holy Yogis and Initiates of the elevated categories.
10Arriving at the Temple of Arunachala he felt that there he would find what he sought, and such was the intensity of his feeling, so sincere the faith of his soul, that before entering the Temple he abandoned EVERYTHING, even his own clothing, and with body naked and soul open he entered the Temple, resolved not to leave it again without having found the Light.
11The priests of the Temple, thinking that the persons who came there on pilgrimage would not accept the presence of this figure, always in meditation, completely naked, so entreated him that they obtained that he should wear at least a small loincloth, the only garment he has worn from that day to this.
Our translation, period-faithful. Citable as our translation, never as the source.
Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) was living at Arunachala when these accounts were written, and would remain there until his death eight years later. The article is therefore reportage on a living teacher, not hagiography of a historical one — which is unusual for this corpus, most of whose subjects are long dead.