Colonel Charles "Griff" Seymour (1880-1943) was one of the most important esotericists of the twentieth century. He is almost unknown today.
Seymour was a close collaborator of the much more famous Dion Fortune, and he duly turns up in fictionalised form as the Priest of the Moon in Fortune's novel The Sea Priestess.
A formidable and unhappy figure, Seymour was an Irish Protestant by birth; he spent most of his career in the army. His approach to Paganism and other unorthodox spiritualities was eclectic. He had extensive knowledge of ancient religion, as well as practical experience of esoteric movements: specifically, Freemasonry and Dion Fortune's group, the Fraternity of the Inner Light.
I am going to be posting here a series of Seymour's esoteric lectures and articles. They are a useful resource, but they are hard to obtain today (they were published back in the 1980s by Aquarian Press in The Forgotten Mage, but that book is long out of print).
Here is the first piece....
The Meaning of Initiation
August 1934
[Summary. This piece describes what initiation into the mysteries is. Seymour divides initiation into solitary self-initiation and ritual initiation within a group. Both approaches ultimately lead to the same destination. Self-initiation is very difficult and is based on meditation. Ritual initiation aims at subconsciously linking the "inner self" with the unseen forces of the universe. There is a rather offputting imperialist analogy at the start of the piece.]
Kipling, talking of Englishmen of the nineteenth century, has pointed out that there is a 'divine discontent' that urges one on to seek beyond the skyline where strange roads go down.
As a rule it is only the restless soul, who, driven by this strange but divine feeling of discontent, seeks for the Ancient Mysteries of the Western Tradition. Thus, looked at from this point of view, Initiation into the Western Tradition may be said to be the goal of such a one.
It is also very true that the roads which lead to Initiation are among the strangest of the many strange roads leading beyond that skyline. During the nineteenth century, man sought to satisfy this restlessness by exploring the unknown territories of this physical globe. In this century, however, he is beginning to seek and explore the vast unknown territories that lie within the soul of mankind, and within the soul of 'that' which appears to our senses as physical nature.
Here we are talking in symbols, for this particular skyline is not that which bounds our view of the earth. It lies outside time and space, deep within the inmost self of those who seek truly.
The seeker after Initiation and its 'results' will find the roads he travels are many, varied and strange, yet all have one thing in common. If they are to lead anywhere they must first go deep into the consciousness of the one who seeks. Speaking generally, one may classify these roads under two headings: the solitary roads that lead, if you follow them far enough, to self-initiation; and the roads of ritual experience. Both lead to the same goal in spite of a preliminary divergence.
Those that travel the first road must leave (in their solitary meditations) the state of being we call the conscious consciousness far behind. To reach self-initiation they must go far beyond the restricted mental skyline that bounds the focused mind of man.
These roads must travel through the Ring Pass Not of everyday experience, and it is here that the weak fall by the wayside. Only the strong and very determined soul can force its way through. Travellers may, in very rare cases, cleave their way through to that 'Thrice Greatest Darkness' lying at the heart of the Limitless Light of the fully developed mystic. [These are references to Kabbalistic teachings.] Here is that rare state of being that can only be described by means of a paradox. For while it is the fullest and most developed state of consciousness, it is also the utter negation of all consciousness as we humans understand the word. It is the true state of Nirvana.
But this is a type of initiation which is rare and so intensely personal as to be utterly beyond description. It may be dimly felt by those who have just touched the fringes of such an experience, but neither they nor the person who has fully experienced Nirvana can really describe what it is like.
The roads of the second type are broader, easier and more companionable. They have been worn quite plain and clear to the sight by the feet of countless thousands who have gone before. The ordinary man who is prepared to work and obey can travel with speed and safety along them, once he has picked up the trail of the Western Tradition and resolved to stick to it.
In modern Europe there are many roads along which the would-be Mystae of the Western Tradition can seek for the 'Grail' of ritualistic initiation. But, you may ask, what is meant by this?
Speaking generally - for no two people ever get the same result from the same ritual - we can say this much. The preliminary initiation ritual aims at linking the inner self with the unseen but conscious nature forces that have their existence behind the material world of the five senses. So, speaking in terms of the Alexandrian Graeco-Egyptian Mysteries, rather than those of Eleusis, we may call the early forms of initiation 'the Lesser Mysteries', which aim at lifting the 'Veil of Isis' and giving the initiate a better comprehension of his universe. In modern terms, he is being given his 'contacts'.
From this necessarily condensed explanation it should be evident that an initiation into the Mysteries by means of ritual is a long-drawn-out process of self-development, that does not take place in a world of time and space. In this respect it differs from, say, a Masonic initiation which is an event in time and space and received from human hands.
In a genuine initiation few can say where or when or at what moment 'realization' came to them. It is not always understood that a Mystery initiation is a symbolic presentation to the conscious mind, while the actual initiation is a subconscious experience of the 'potencies' at work in the Temple — potencies that cannot be measured by psychic researchers or scientists in terms of physics.
Initio means 'I begin', and even the most successful initiation merely means a mental and spiritual process in the soul of the candidate. To this process there is no finality. It also occurs, however, in the much larger process of human evolution. Humanity as a whole is flowing slowly and steadily, but in most cases blindly, with the great tides of evolution. The ordinary man is unconscious of this progress. He knows not where these tides will bear him; nor does he much care, so long as he is fairly comfortable.
So we may describe initiation, as practised in this Fraternity, as follows: Initiation is a ritualistic and symbolic ceremony which begins a spiritual and mental process that aims at enabling the candidate to become a conscious and competent co-worker with those beings who, from higher states of consciousness than this physical state, guide and guard humanity.
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