There are two kinds of substitution: one says a stands for b, and implies that a cancels b, it kills it, sometimes to discover how it works; the other says: a stands for b, but in the same way that a fragment of granite stands for the mountain from which it has been separated. In these two kinds of substitution there is a Y-shaped fork that had long wandered in the cosmos and is now portrayed in the amygdala of the mind. The symbol—not that of the linguists but that of the Mysteries—belongs to the second kind of substitution, always returning to superimpose itself on an invisible mountain. The fact that the symbol is a discontinuous ripple forever facing the continuous is made clear in the origin of its name: symbolon is the putting together of two broken halves of a piece of wood or pottery; in this way it returns to being a smooth and solid surface, barely incised by a crack across it. More than substitution, to which it must nevertheless pay homage, the symbol reveals interpenetration, the indissoluble superimposition of things: symbol is a specter that enters another specter, mingles with it, merges into it, disappears. The symbol drags behind it, as a catena aurea, all that it has crossed.

Everything changes according to whether or not one accepts the “sacrificial interpretation of life,” a formula tucked away in a short review by Guénon in Études traditionnelles of a paper by Ananda Coomaraswamy. According to that interpretation, “actions, having an essentially symbolic character, have to be treated as supports to contemplation (dhiyālamba), which presupposes that every practice implies and includes a corresponding theory.”⁴³⁴ Every practice, every gesture, voluntary or involuntary: what is indeed more sacrificial than breathing? Every instant is now being held in an invisible clamp that forces it into a perpetual oblation. But, if nothing is offered, if sacrifice is discounted as a superstition, what will happen? “Revolution, through sacrifice, confirms superstition,” warns Baudelaire.⁴³⁵ Without being named, sacrifice continues to demand its victims, once again it’s nomadic and moves its places of worship everywhere. Why? Perhaps reason, which has banned sacrifice, is not powerful enough to stamp it out? Or is it perhaps the case, as Baudelaire claimed, that “superstition is the depository of all truths”—and truths come out in the end, like the traces of a crime?⁴³⁶

The threefold deception of sacrifice. There is a deception toward the gods, through the substitution of the victim; there is a deception toward the victim: the knife is concealed among ears of corn, for it is feared to the very end that the victim might rebel; there is a deception toward men on the part of the gods, who demand the sacrifice so that life may be guaranteed—and yet, in the act of sacrifice, they allow death to be confirmed.

The rice thrown at newlyweds can be traced back to the grains of barley scattered over the victim, which can be traced back to the stoning of the victim, the safest way of killing, since there is no need to even touch the victim.