If the craft is something of’ the man himself and is, in a way, a manifestation or expansion of his own nature, it is easy to understand, as we have already said, that it can be used as a basis for an initiation and that generally even it is the fittest thing for this end. In fact, if initiation essentially has for its aim a surpassing of the possibilities of the human individual, it is equally true that only this individual such as he is in himself, can be taken as its point of departure; this accounts for the diversity of the ways of initiation, that is to say, of the means wrought up to act as “supports”, in conformity with the difference of individual natures. a difference which subsequently intervenes less and less, as the being goes on advancing on his way. The means thus employed can be efficient only if they correspond to the very nature of the beings to whom they are applied, and as it is necessary to proceed from the more accessible to the less accessible, from the outer to the inner, it is normal to take these means from the activity by which the nature is manifested outwardly. It is evident, however, that this activity can play such a part only inasmuch as It really expresses the inner nature; here is truly a question of “QUALIFICATION”, in the initiatory sense of this term; in normal conditions this “QUALIFICATION” should be a necessary condition for the exercise itself of the craft. This is at the same time related to the fundamental difference which separates the initiators teaching from profane teaching: whatever is simply “learnt” from outside is here without any value; the question is to “wakeup” the latent possibilities which the being has in himself (and this ultimately is the true significance of Platonic “reminiscences”). Journal of The Indian Society of Oriental Art, Volume VI. 1938 INITIATION AND THE CRAFTS