Arcana and Secrets

Published on: 07.05.2009

“Secret societies,” “secret doctrines,” and similar “secrets” have been known to humanity since the dawn of civilization. Mass culture has created an extremely alluring — yet utterly false — image of such institutions. It suggests that any person who finds a “secret book” or a “secret amulet” automatically receives Power and strength that strike the imagination.

At the same time, in advanced “esoteric” circles it is customary to claim that such books and amulets are merely products of imagination, and that Power is always from within. Yet experience and Tradition suggest otherwise. Of course, fantasies about Indiana Jones discovering sacred relics are implausible; but the idea of purely inner sources of Power is not true either. The world is more mysterious than is commonly assumed.

Let us begin with terminology. I will allow myself a quotation from G. O. Möbes — an unquestioned authority in the occult tradition:

Secretum is that which several people, by whim or for certain everyday considerations, have agreed to conceal from others. Arcanum is a mystery necessary for the knowledge of a definite group of facts, laws, or principles; a mystery without which one cannot do at the moment when the need for such knowledge arises; a mystery accessible to an intelligence sufficiently inquisitive in the domain of these knowledges. In the broad sense, all scientific propositions defining the scope of some practical activity would fit this term.

It is worth noting that secrets may be disclosed to any person, and he becomes their bearer; Arcana are not accessible to everyone — and not because they must be hidden, concealed, and veiled. In fact, the “secrecy” of Magical Orders and societies arose not from the need to safeguard their “secrets,” but from the danger that lay in wait for them, since Power always increases the amount of resistance in the environment.

An Arcanum has internal mechanisms of protection. The first mechanism is obvious: an Arcanum cannot be understood — and therefore cannot be applied — without appropriate preparation, without the corresponding level of development, both intellectual and energetic. There is no need to “protect” the Arcana from profanes; they will gain nothing from them anyway. One example is the public accessibility of Tarot — a system of arcana that contains universal knowledge, in the words of J. Dee,

if I were put in a dungeon for 10 years, given only a Tarot deck, I would come out possessing full knowledge of the Universe and man.

And yet the best use of Tarot available to the general public is fortune-telling and primitive divinations. The same is true of Grimoires, many of which are publicly accessible and entirely safe because the ordinary person cannot fulfill all the conditions of the operations described in them.

Another matter is certain Grimoires and Symbols (such as, for example, the “Seals of Solomon”), which possess Power in and of themselves. Contrary to common opinion, some magical artefacts can draw even a completely unprepared person into interaction with Powers that infinitely surpass human capabilities. Yet such objects, too, have “self-protection” that saves them from thoughtless use — and saves the world from losing its balance. The chief mechanism is their “repelling Power.” Such artefacts can, as it were, become invisible to an unprepared person: he may pass within two steps and notice nothing special. Moreover, even if a person sets himself the goal of finding such an Artefact, Power will lead him away — denying approach, arranging circumstances so that interaction does not occur. Only for one who has a potential or actual capacity to engage the Power of that Artefact will the Way to it open.