From the late 1950\u2019s until around 1980, what is today labeled simply as modern Paganism was making its way through Britain and North America, slowly but inexorably growing and developing.\u00a0 During that time, those who were initiated to our beliefs were cautiously screened for certain qualities and the decision to allow them access to knowledge about us was made only after due consideration.\u00a0 In other words, newcomers were vetted before they were initiated.<\/p>\n
The usual procedure went something like the following:\u00a0 Someone who was already an initiate took notice of your interest in something that they considered a possible indicator of how you might favorably react to their way of thinking.\u00a0 After some preliminary cautious probing of your beliefs and patterns of behavior, if the person thought you could be approached a little more directly, they would take their findings and information to the person in charge of their group (usually the High Priestess of their own coven) and ask how to proceed.\u00a0 At that time, the rule of the High Priestess was nearly absolute and the etiquette involved in these matters was fairly clear.\u00a0 The coven model was almost exactly like the \u2018cell\u2019 system of the WWII French underground; everything was kept separate and only the heads of the cells knew anything about the other cells.\u00a0 You only became part of a cell after a careful and thorough investigation and some surreptitious testing.<\/p>\n
The reasoning behind the use of this system was complicated.\u00a0 It could be argued that it was a necessity because of the laws against witchcraft that existed in some places even until the \u201890\u2019s, but that would be too superficial of an explanation.\u00a0 The fact is that those laws were largely unenforced and often forgotten.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t the legal atmosphere that required such clandestine measures.\u00a0 By far, the cultural\/social atmosphere was a great deal more influential in such matters.\u00a0 At that time, to utter the word \u2018witch\u2019 was virtually guaranteed to raise the hackles of nearly every man, woman, and child within hearing distance.\u00a0 Anything that smacked of being odd or counter to what the general population considered \u2018normal\u2019 was met with immediate distrust and automatic condemnation.<\/p>\n
In the \u201850\u2019s, the world was beginning to recover from the ravages of WWII and the Korean War.\u00a0 Television was a relatively new and fascinating technology and method of communication.\u00a0 Its impact on the public\u2019s psyche was (and arguably still is) huge, greater than the movies, telephone, and radio combined.\u00a0 \u2018Normal\u2019 was shown on The Tube from 6:30 to 10:00 and every person, every family, nearly all of society gauged all behavior against the standard set by the makers of this form of \u2018entertainment\u2019.\u00a0 What was shown on the TV news was important; what wasn\u2019t shown was unimportant.\u00a0 What was portrayed as the modern family on TV was the way every family should be.\u00a0 And if you didn\u2019t look and act like that, you didn\u2019t measure up; you had failed.\u00a0 The pressure to maintain the image set by TV was enormous.\u00a0 And nearly everyone \u2018failed\u2019 in some way.<\/p>\n
The Bohemian movement that had risen in Europe during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century had made its way across the Atlantic, eventually becoming the Beat Generation of the \u201840\u2019s and then transforming into the Hippie culture of the \u201860\u2019s in America.\u00a0 One of the hallmarks of this phenomenon was an in-your-face rejection of the standards set by the TV programs.\u00a0 If it was considered \u2018normal\u2019 by most of society, it was almost automatically opposed by members of The Hip Generation.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, so-called \u2018organized religion\u2019 suffered the same kind of rejection.\u00a0 Many people who weren\u2019t quite brave enough to drop completely out of society in such a dedicated way still hovered around the edges of the counter-cultural Hippie movement and selectively took comfort in the no-rules-applied social and material lifestyle.\u00a0 The spiritual atmosphere was ripe for stunning changes and Paganism was well suited for growth in that environment.<\/p>\n
By the mid 70\u2019s, information about various forms of Paganism was becoming more available to the general population.\u00a0 More and more books and magazines were showing up with real information about \u2018witchcraft\u2019, magic(k), and several other varieties of what we now see as the rainbow of spiritualities covered by the term \u2018Pagan\u2019.\u00a0 The coven system, portrayed by medieval propaganda and encouraged by Gerald Gardner and others influential in the formation of modern witchcraft in the \u201850\u2019s, was well tailored to provide insulation from the pressures of social outrage.\u00a0 At that time, the word, \u2018Wicca\u2019 was almost never used; \u2018witchcraft\u2019 had a much more thrilling and even naughty allure.\u00a0 And it appealed to the freewheeling, freethinking members of the counter culture who saw mainstream religion as part of the problem of a society they had rejected.\u00a0 The increasing amount of information available to anyone created an evolutionary change in the coven system and the Pagan movement as a whole.<\/p>\n
The most obvious change was a breakdown of the stringent code of secrecy that surrounded the covens and their members.\u00a0 Whereas it once was seen as dangerous to proclaim one\u2019s self as a \u2018witch,\u2019 more and more people were doing just that.\u00a0 At first, only the people who either did not care about or perhaps even enjoyed the scandal elicited by the publicity of their behavior became visible.\u00a0 The media had a field day over them.\u00a0 Very few people saw (or wanted to believe) the more sophisticated public witches (such as the famous British witch, Sybil Leek) as representative of our beliefs.\u00a0 Instead, they saw the outlandishly gowned, silver ringed, garish, and rude behaving ex-Hippie who now justified his or her juvenile behavior by claiming to belong to a millennia-old belief system that could make anyone into toads.\u00a0 Most of the public pointed and laughed while serious Pagans groaned and shook their heads.\u00a0 Moreover, some elements in the public sector, most notably intolerant and militant representatives of some mainstream religions, saw a golden opportunity to capitalize on these displays and make anyone found \u2018guilty\u2019 of such peculiar beliefs a target for their condemnation.\u00a0 The immediate effect of the attacks launched from the pulpits of these fire-breathers was for the covens to close ranks.\u00a0 Paranoia and fear spread throughout the movement and was fueled by a few very public persecutions of some who had been \u2018caught\u2019 practicing their craft.\u00a0 Property damage and physical harm were tolerated and sometimes even encouraged by local officials and even some national politicians.\u00a0 Jobs were lost, children taken away, and rights violated with no more respect for law and order than that given by a lynch mob.<\/p>\n
But the covens didn\u2019t just hunker down and try to weather the storm.\u00a0 They began to band together, thinking that strength was to be found in numbers.\u00a0 Small groups became larger groups with the hope that their power would be increased.\u00a0 This had profound effects on the entire future of Paganism.\u00a0 One of the first was the further breakdown of secrecy.\u00a0 Not only did individual members of a coven know of and were intimately associated with members of other covens, but the larger the group became, the greater the number of tongues that spoke without due caution.\u00a0 Combined with the feeling by many that it was time for the world to know the \u2018truth\u2019 about our spirituality and a willingness for publishers to buy the writings of these people, the public was exposed to even more information about us.\u00a0 Luckily, some of it was even fairly accurate.\u00a0 As the groups grew, rivalries became more intense.\u00a0 So-called \u2018witch wars\u2019 began to explode with the result that we were fighting each other more than we were making the world safer for our kind.\u00a0 Thinking that the larger the group the more influence it would have, it followed that each group needed to grow in numbers faster than its neighbors.\u00a0 The standards that once excluded some from becoming initiated by a coven began to matter less and less.<\/p>\n
Anyone who wished could write in and get a card saying they were a first degree Witch.\u00a0 And a growing number of people didn\u2019t even bother with such formalities as getting a card; they would simply declare themselves to be this or that flavor of Pagan and claim to be self-initiated.\u00a0 Because of the initial paranoid reaction of the covens, the concept of self-initiation began to gain favor.\u00a0 Some less scrupulous persons would make claims about having such great knowledge of magic and spirituality it bordered on (and even crossed over the line of) the ludicrous.\u00a0 And even a few who were actual initiates but poorly trained and unqualified to teach set themselves up as gurus of \u2018esoteric mysteries\u2019 (often with an outrageous price tag) and \u2018masters\u2019 of occult knowledge.\u00a0 Most, if not all of the traditions and standards involving initiations changed from what they meant in the latter half of the twentieth century and were considered by some to be of little value.<\/p>\n
The system of three degrees that was maintained by most of the covens was being abandoned by many and there were some who argued that they never were anything more than meaningless ceremonies and fancy labels.\u00a0 In their place came various reputable (for the most part) training schools and facilities that provided well-organized lessons presented by educated and skilled teachers.\u00a0 The training offered to today\u2019s Pagan is in many ways superior to what was available only a few years ago.\u00a0 But initiations are still important and degrees still have meaning.<\/p>\n
Many people who now consider themselves Pagan have not been initiated.\u00a0 It used to be popular to say one was \u2018self-initiated\u2019 and then try to defend the claim and even the authority of the concept itself.\u00a0 Exactly what was meant by such claims was never well spelled out.\u00a0 Usually, if anything other than a way to authorize ones presence and participation, it meant that the person had made a self-dedication of some kind and marked that moment as the beginning of their search for spiritual understanding.<\/p>\n
This was and is admirable and it could even be argued as necessary for anyone who joins a religion of any kind.\u00a0 But is it an initiation?\u00a0 And if not, what is an initiation and why is it important?<\/p>\n
Initiations are important for some very sound emotional and psychological reasons.\u00a0 Initiations are quite literally a life-changing event.\u00a0 They should result in the initiate emerging from the ceremony as a changed person.\u00a0 The initiate should be able to look back to their former life and see it from a perspective that provides all of it with new meaning.\u00a0 And they should be able to look ahead with new understanding and meaning to every aspect of their life from that point on.\u00a0 To perform such a task by one\u2019s self is possible but highly unlikely.\u00a0 If done consciously, it requires a dual perspective that borders on multiple personality.\u00a0 Most who have gone through a real self-initiation have done so accidentally; events came together that caused an epiphany.\u00a0 Even then, however, the event is poorly understood by the initiate and its meaning is not clearly seen until a considerable time has passed.\u00a0 The subject may not even know that they are different from their former self until they have it pointed out to them by others who have known them well before the event.\u00a0 Also, such epiphanies usually don\u2019t have the lasting effect of a proper initiation conducted by others.<\/p>\n
A rite of initiation is a carefully planned event that takes the initiate through something close to an epiphany and gives substance to the new perspectives that result from it.\u00a0 The initiate knows they have changed and has at least a partial knowledge of what that change is supposed to engender.\u00a0 To do this, the initiation ritual must accomplish three things:\u00a0 It must place the initiate in a condition of psychic excitement that concentrates that person\u2019s mental and emotional resources into one area.\u00a0 Then it needs to separate the ego from that intense energy.\u00a0 This step puts the initiate in a mental state that allows them to see their former self in a non-judgmental way and gives them new information and perspective about that past life.\u00a0 Sometimes this is like a \u2018psychic knockout\u2019 and the initiators must realize that the initiate is extremely vulnerable while in this peculiar state of shock.\u00a0 Every measure should be taken to insure the initiate\u2019s physical, emotional, and psychic safety while this is going on.\u00a0 That is why the authority to initiate was reserved to only those who had proven their sensitivity, superior knowledge, and unquestionable honor in the old three-degree coven system.<\/p>\n
The third and last thing the initiation rite must do is to provide a meaning and focus to the new identity that will emerge in the initiate\u2019s life thereafter.\u00a0 Because this will be only a \u2018seed,\u2019 it should be mysterious.\u00a0 That is, each initiate should be able to interpret it in a myriad of ways and will do so throughout their life.\u00a0 Though mysterious, that seed should have a general purpose.\u00a0 What that purpose may be is up to the initiators and their tradition.\u00a0 We might say that a person has been initiated to a particular tradition or spiritual path, but in truth, they will be initiated to this seed of purpose and meaning.\u00a0 The tradition or path is only there as fertilizer to help the seed grow.<\/p>\n
The three-degree initiation system used by Gardner, et al was often seen as hierarchal.\u00a0 Many still refer to these degrees as \u2018levels\u2019 which unfortunately perpetuates the idea that they confer superiority of the person\u2019s position within the tradition.\u00a0 This is a misrepresentation of the entire concept.\u00a0 All three degrees are the steps everyone keeps going through as they follow their spiritual path.\u00a0 To say that a person is \u2018superior\u2019 because they are at a particular position along a circular path is ridiculous.\u00a0 It is by far more important that they are on a pathway and in motion than to ascribe rank to where they are.\u00a0 All paths are circular and, ultimately, we all begin from a point beyond this world and we shall all end up there as well.\u00a0 To assume one person is superior to another simply because they are on a different point of that circle is not worth further comment.<\/p>\n
The three degrees of initiation are three focal points.\u00a0 They represent the processes we go through as we try to understand our relationship to the world.\u00a0 The first initiation celebrates the act of discovery.\u00a0 This is characterized by wonder and excitement as well as a zeal for exploration of the object of discovery.\u00a0 In a way, discovery is an act of creation for us and we receive great satisfaction from diving head first into our investigations.\u00a0 We play (which is the highest form of discovery) with our new wonder and take great joy in all of it.\u00a0 This is the First Degree.<\/p>\n
Sooner or later, however, some parts of our discovery prove to be less wonderful than others.\u00a0 We begin to see things that we don\u2019t like or we think need improving.\u00a0 Our familiarity with our discovery has produced some dissatisfaction and we become critical.\u00a0 We might attempt to \u2018fix\u2019 it or we might cast about for something else, something more \u2018perfect\u2019 for us to play with.\u00a0 We may reject our discovery altogether and believe that we are changing pathways.\u00a0 During this phase, it is normal for the initiate to be highly critical, agitated, and to have feelings of being lost or adrift.\u00a0 This is the point at which the initiate is most creative but also the most headstrong.\u00a0 Second Degree is also where the initiate becomes more discerning and discovers new directions.\u00a0 It is a time in which they can discover an area of interest that fascinates and attracts them to the exclusion of all others.\u00a0 This is what is meant by The Great Work (a phrase undoubtedly borrowed from the Masonic orders) and it can simultaneously be both the most wonderful and the most terrifying of times.\u00a0 The initiate will usually need much comfort and moral support during this time.\u00a0 This is Second Degree.<\/p>\n
Third Degree is not as easy to describe.\u00a0 It is where the person has become familiar enough with their discovery that it has become part of their definition of self.\u00a0 Their experience has allowed them to see it from many perspectives and their judgment and critical analysis has been transformed into wisdom and involvement.\u00a0 They understand that their discovery is not just black and white, good or bad, but actually a rainbow and matrix that is always in a state of flux and connected to everything else.\u00a0 As they grow more able to deal with their discovery, they make new ones and extend their involvement in the world around them.\u00a0 And thus the cycle travels full circle and begins again.<\/p>\n
Initiations in the Craft focus on a person\u2019s discovery, analysis, and understanding of their magical and spiritual path and that is as it should be.\u00a0 But these initiations should in no way be construed as a ranking system.\u00a0 They highlight the initiate\u2019s position in their discovery of the Craft but are not a judgment of their worth or authority.\u00a0 Everyone operates on all three levels at all times.<\/p>\n
True self-initiation, though possible, is rare.\u00a0 But even initiation through others is difficult to accomplish in the strictest sense of the word.\u00a0 To initiate is to begin, and it is very difficult to cause another to begin their journey unless they have already placed their feet upon a road that is a branch of our particular spirit path.\u00a0 Consequently, most initiations are ceremonies created to improve the initiate\u2019s ability to understand their pathway.\u00a0 It is a procedure designed to help them make sense of the confusing and sometimes frightening journey ahead of them.\u00a0 And it is a celebration of their participation in that journey.<\/p>\n
There is every reason to continue initiations but it is important that they are done with considerable care and be crafted to fit our traditions as well as the person being initiated.\u00a0 Self-initiation is unlikely to accomplish what a group can do to help the initiate understand the changes that have and will happen to them.\u00a0 Our growth as a faith group is accelerating and it has changed how we are able to relate to one another as well as the rest of our society.\u00a0 But we should not abandon one of the best methods we have to make our spirituality meaningful and beautiful for all who wish to be a part of it.<\/p>\n
Oh Mighty Ones, I pray for understanding and compassion for the wonders of the world around me and all my relations.\u00a0 May my life be a celebration of the magic You have given the world and a worship of Your love.\u00a0 May all who seek, in whatever way they can, find You within their own hearts as I know You are in mine.<\/p>\n
When first you feel magic\u2019s thrall,<\/p>\n
And everywhere you turn,
\nYou hear its call,<\/p>\n
You never suspect that you will fall,<\/p>\n
Into that blissful trap:<\/p>\n
To Be ALL<\/strong>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the late 1950\u2019s until around 1980, what is today labeled simply as modern Paganism was making its way through Britain and North America, slowly but inexorably growing and developing.\u00a0 During that time, those who were initiated to our beliefs were cautiously screened for certain qualities and the decision to allow them access to knowledge about us was made only after due consideration.\u00a0 In other words, newcomers were vetted before they were initiated. The usual procedure went something like the following:\u00a0 Someone who was already an initiate took notice of your interest in something that they considered a possible indicator of how you might favorably react to their way of thinking.\u00a0 After some preliminary cautious probing of your beliefs and patterns of behavior, if the person thought you could be approached a little more directly, they would take their findings and information to the person in charge of their group (usually the High Priestess of their own coven) and ask how to proceed.\u00a0 At that time, the rule of the High Priestess was nearly absolute and the etiquette involved in these matters was fairly clear.\u00a0 The coven model was almost exactly like the \u2018cell\u2019 system of the WWII French underground; everything was kept separate and only the heads of the cells knew anything about the other cells.\u00a0 You only became part of a cell after a careful and thorough investigation and some surreptitious testing. The reasoning behind the use of this system was complicated.\u00a0 It could be argued that it was a necessity because of the laws against witchcraft that existed in some places even until the \u201890\u2019s, but that would be too superficial of an explanation.\u00a0 The fact is that those laws were largely unenforced and often forgotten.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t the legal atmosphere that required such clandestine measures.\u00a0 By far, the cultural\/social atmosphere was a great deal more influential in such matters.\u00a0 At that time, to utter the word \u2018witch\u2019 was virtually guaranteed to raise the hackles of nearly every man, woman, and child within hearing distance.\u00a0 Anything that smacked of being odd or counter to what the general population considered \u2018normal\u2019 was met with immediate distrust and automatic condemnation. In the \u201850\u2019s, the world was beginning to recover from the ravages of WWII and the Korean War.\u00a0 Television was a relatively new and fascinating technology and method of communication.\u00a0 Its impact on the public\u2019s psyche was (and arguably still is) huge, greater than the movies, telephone, and radio combined.\u00a0 \u2018Normal\u2019 was shown on The Tube from 6:30 to 10:00 and every person, every family, nearly all of society gauged all behavior against the standard set by the makers of this form of \u2018entertainment\u2019.\u00a0 What was shown on the TV news was important; what wasn\u2019t shown was unimportant.\u00a0 What was portrayed as the modern family on TV was the way every family should be.\u00a0 And if you didn\u2019t look and act like that, you didn\u2019t measure up; you had failed.\u00a0 The pressure to maintain the image set by TV was enormous.\u00a0 And nearly everyone \u2018failed\u2019 in some way. The Bohemian movement that had risen in Europe during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century had made its way across the Atlantic, eventually becoming the Beat Generation of the \u201840\u2019s and then transforming into the Hippie culture of the \u201860\u2019s in America.\u00a0 One of the hallmarks of this phenomenon was an in-your-face rejection of the standards set by the TV programs.\u00a0 If it was considered \u2018normal\u2019 by most of society, it was almost automatically opposed by members of The Hip Generation.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, so-called \u2018organized religion\u2019 suffered the same kind of rejection.\u00a0 Many people who weren\u2019t quite brave enough to drop completely out of society in such a dedicated way still hovered around the edges of the counter-cultural Hippie movement and selectively took comfort in the no-rules-applied social and material lifestyle.\u00a0 The spiritual atmosphere was ripe for stunning changes and Paganism was well suited for growth in that environment. By the mid 70\u2019s, information about various forms of Paganism was becoming more available to the general population.\u00a0 More and more books and magazines were showing up with real information about \u2018witchcraft\u2019, magic(k), and several other varieties of what we now see as the rainbow of spiritualities covered by the term \u2018Pagan\u2019.\u00a0 The coven system, portrayed by medieval propaganda and encouraged by Gerald Gardner and others influential in the formation of modern witchcraft in the \u201850\u2019s, was well tailored to provide insulation from the pressures of social outrage.\u00a0 At that time, the word, \u2018Wicca\u2019 was almost never used; \u2018witchcraft\u2019 had a much more thrilling and even naughty allure.\u00a0 And it appealed to the freewheeling, freethinking members of the counter culture who saw mainstream religion as part of the problem of a society they had rejected.\u00a0 The increasing amount of information available to anyone created an evolutionary change in the coven system and the Pagan movement as a whole. The most obvious change was a breakdown of the stringent code of secrecy that surrounded the covens and their members.\u00a0 Whereas it once was seen as dangerous to proclaim one\u2019s self as a \u2018witch,\u2019 more and more people were doing just that.\u00a0 At first, only the people who either did not care about or perhaps even enjoyed the scandal elicited by the publicity of their behavior became visible.\u00a0 The media had a field day over them.\u00a0 Very few people saw (or wanted to believe) the more sophisticated public witches (such as the famous British witch, Sybil Leek) as representative of our beliefs.\u00a0 Instead, they saw the outlandishly gowned, silver ringed, garish, and rude behaving ex-Hippie who now justified his or her juvenile behavior by claiming to belong to a millennia-old belief system that could make anyone into toads.\u00a0 Most of the public pointed and laughed while serious Pagans groaned and shook their heads.\u00a0 Moreover, some elements in the public sector, most notably intolerant and militant representatives of some mainstream religions, saw a golden opportunity to capitalize on these displays and make anyone found \u2018guilty\u2019 of such peculiar beliefs a target for their condemnation.\u00a0 The immediate effect of the attacks launched from the pulpits of these fire-breathers was for the covens to close ranks.\u00a0 Paranoia and fear spread throughout the movement and was fueled by a few very public persecutions of some who had been \u2018caught\u2019 practicing their craft.\u00a0 Property damage and physical harm were tolerated and sometimes even encouraged by local officials and even some national politicians.\u00a0 Jobs were lost, children taken away, and rights violated with no more respect for law and order than that given by a lynch mob. But the covens didn\u2019t just hunker down and try to weather the storm.\u00a0 They began to band together, thinking that strength was to be found in numbers.\u00a0 Small groups became larger groups with the hope that their power would be increased.\u00a0 This had profound effects on the entire future of Paganism.\u00a0 One of the first was the further breakdown of secrecy.\u00a0 Not only did individual members of a coven know of and were intimately associated with members of other covens, but the larger the group became, the greater the number of tongues that spoke without due caution.\u00a0 Combined with the feeling by many that it was time for the world to know the \u2018truth\u2019 about our spirituality and a willingness for publishers to buy the writings of these people, the public was exposed to even more information about us.\u00a0 Luckily, some of it was even fairly accurate.\u00a0 As the groups grew, rivalries became more intense.\u00a0 So-called \u2018witch wars\u2019 began to explode with the result that we were fighting each other more than we were making the world safer for our kind.\u00a0 Thinking that the larger the group the more influence it would have, it followed that each group needed to grow in numbers faster than its neighbors.\u00a0 The standards that once excluded some from becoming initiated by a coven began to matter less and less. Anyone who wished could write in and get a card saying they were a first degree Witch.\u00a0 And a growing number of people didn\u2019t even bother with such formalities as getting a card; they would simply declare themselves to be this or that flavor of Pagan and claim to be self-initiated.\u00a0 Because of the initial paranoid reaction of the covens, the concept of self-initiation began to gain favor.\u00a0 Some less scrupulous persons would make claims about having such great knowledge of magic and spirituality it bordered on (and even crossed over the line of) the ludicrous.\u00a0 And even a few who were actual initiates but poorly trained and unqualified to teach set themselves up as gurus of \u2018esoteric mysteries\u2019 (often with an outrageous price tag) and \u2018masters\u2019 of occult knowledge.\u00a0 Most, if not all of the traditions and standards involving initiations changed from what they meant in the latter half of the twentieth century and were considered by some to be of little value. The system of three degrees that was maintained by most of the covens was being abandoned by many and there were some who argued that they never were anything more than meaningless ceremonies and fancy labels.\u00a0 In their place came various reputable (for the most part) training schools and facilities that provided well-organized lessons presented by educated and skilled teachers.\u00a0 The training offered to today\u2019s Pagan is in many ways superior to what was available only a few years ago.\u00a0 But initiations are still important and degrees still have meaning. Many people who now consider themselves Pagan have not been initiated.\u00a0 It used to be popular to say one was \u2018self-initiated\u2019 and then try to defend the claim and even the authority of the concept itself.\u00a0 Exactly what was meant by such claims was never well spelled out.\u00a0 Usually, if anything other than a way to authorize ones presence and participation, it meant that the person had made a self-dedication of some kind and marked that moment as the beginning of their search for spiritual understanding. This was and is admirable and it could even be argued as necessary for anyone who joins a religion of any kind.\u00a0 But is it an initiation?\u00a0 And if not, what is an initiation and why is it important? Initiations are important for some very sound emotional and psychological reasons.\u00a0 Initiations are quite literally a life-changing event.\u00a0 They should result in the initiate emerging from the ceremony as a changed person.\u00a0 The initiate should be able to look back to their former life and see it from a perspective that provides all of it with new meaning.\u00a0 And they should be able to look ahead with new understanding and meaning to every aspect of their life from that point on.\u00a0 To perform such a task by one\u2019s self is possible but highly unlikely.\u00a0 If done consciously, it requires a dual perspective that borders on multiple personality.\u00a0 Most who have gone through a real self-initiation have done so accidentally; events came together that caused an epiphany.\u00a0 Even then, however, the event is poorly understood by the initiate and its meaning is not clearly seen until a considerable time has passed.\u00a0 The subject may not even know that they are different from their former self until they have it pointed out to them by others who have known them well before the event.\u00a0 Also, such epiphanies usually don\u2019t have the lasting effect of a proper initiation conducted by others. A rite of initiation is a carefully planned event that takes the initiate through something close to an epiphany and gives substance to the new perspectives that result from it.\u00a0 The initiate knows they have changed and has at least a partial knowledge of what that change is supposed to engender.\u00a0 To do this, the initiation ritual must accomplish three things:\u00a0 It must place the initiate in a condition of psychic excitement that concentrates that person\u2019s mental and emotional resources into one area.\u00a0 Then it needs to separate the ego from that intense energy.\u00a0 This step puts the initiate in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}