Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

54 LIFE AND IDEAS OE MITRINOVIĆ

indefinitely. When this shall be rightly and really begun it will grow into a power of understanding that will change the mind of the human world . . . We must begin it now.”3!

Philip Mairet was partly mystified and somewhat frightened by this lecture, and by the last sentence in particular. It was obvious that Mitrinovic was asking for something more than friendship. He was seeking commitment. But a commitment to what? Was it a religious movement that was being proposed? Were there any others who would be willing to participate in the earnest and dedicated collaboration that was being demanded? Mairet would have found some answers to these questions in the works on Mitrinovic’s shelves and in Gutkind’s Sidereal Birth especially. The world lay on the brink of a new epoch in which, according to Gutkind, selfish egoism must be transcended and the “ We’ must “put forth life.” For Mitrinovic it was not sufficient merely to verbalise this, one must seek to attain this “We-consciousness’ in concert with others. The task was to try, initially with one or two others, to create a relationship founded on the recognition of the organic relatedness of all things, wherein the conflict between the interests of the individual and the needs of others might be transcended. One would then be working towards a prototype of a new form of human relationship, an example and a model which others might follow as the need for a re-ordering of personal and communal life became ever more apparent to wider circles of people, and as people in increasing numbers began to take upon themselves the ‘God-like’ task of creating their world anew.

Mairet was joined in the preparation for the initiatives that lay ahead by another who had come under the ‘spell’ of Mitrinovic. This was Helen Soden, the wife of a doctor serving in France, who Mitrinovic had encountered in the Palace Hotel, Bloomsbury, towards the end of 1916. A fairly conventional middle class lady in early middle age, Helen Soden presented something of a contrast to the younger Mairet with his idealism, his sensitivity, his self-doubt, his stammer and his search for truth and self-knowledge. This bringing together of people with disparate qualities and placing upon them the onus of working harmoniously and honestly together was, however, to become a fundamental element of Mitrinovic’s method. It was relatively easy to create a sense of community amongst those who thought and felt alike. The real world, however, was made up of many groupings with widely differing outlooks, beliefs and interests. If the task was to prepare for an initiative that would transform this wider world, then its heterogeneity should be reflected by the microcosm created within the group.