Initiation is Initiation, initiation

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

The world is changing, but man remains a social being. The ability to coexist in a certain structure means to be one's own in it. Almost all peoples on earth have had an initiation ritual since ancient times. It went hand in hand with the ideology of the era and was essentially a technique of initiation into a new elite social group.

From neophyte to prince

Initiation is the procedure for acquiring a new status by an initiate. The neophyte becomes a supporter, changing not only externally, but also internally. Religious rituals are divided into three cohorts. Almost everyone goes through the first one. It is performed by adults when a boy or girl grows up. This can be a group or individual initiation.

The second cohort is for the elect, those who consider themselves wise enough to join the brotherhood. The third cohort is elite. From ancient times, it included exceptional people who developed specialqualities and personality traits: shamans or priests.

According to the laws of nature

Initiation is just the stages that a person goes through in the natural periods of growing up. We are talking about spiritual growth, which in a harmonious person correlates with physiological changes. Adolescents at the age of 12-13 begin to demonstrate antisocial behavior, turning into a new, previously unfamiliar personality. The rite of initiation was intended to return the young man to a human form, however, endowing him with mature experience, introducing new values into the subtle world. In ancient times, the names of the gods were revealed to the teenager, the meaning of the legends was revealed, and the sacred traditions of the tribe were introduced. The young man had to eventually catch the connection between the "world of the living", the memory of the ancestors and supernatural manifestations. Today, this process is left to chance, parents either suppress changes in the child, or completely leave it to themselves. It is not always possible for a person to go through this process on his own.

Temporary death

Initiation is ritual death. A significant part of the initiations involves symbolic dying, forgetting the former self, but the person is necessarily resurrected. Death prepares birth for a higher quality life, of a different meaning. In an ancient tribe, for example, only after a sacred ritual did a young man acquire the status of a member of society. After that, he received equal rights with adult men and carried new responsibilities for himself. Thus, the cult is important precisely because of its unique life experience, which we all must receive in order to discover a new sense of values and meanings. Very often in ancient societies, teenagers underwent a rite of military and sexual initiation. These rituals have been preserved in a number of African tribes.

For intercourse with a woman, a young man is tested, after which he gets the first sexual experience that changes the idea of the opposite sex and makes it possible to create a full-fledged relationship.

In turn, the loss of innocence for a girl can also symbolize a "small" death. Now a woman has access to new sensations and understanding of her body.

Traditional technology

The process of initiation follows the same pattern in all traditions. These are three stages: the individual is expelled from society (isolation); liminal or borderline stage (initiation); initiation into a new team.

Insulation

To pass initiation means to go through all the stages in order. Before the event, a person endures the test of loneliness. Isolation in prison or a madhouse is associated with the same stage, when a person who is changing personally acquires new qualities for a powerful breakthrough in later life. If we are talking about a teenager in modern society, then the child often destroys old friendships, moves away from his parents. He is no longer interested. New strong relationships cannot yet be born, because their values are not yet clear.

Purification or transformation

The main meaning of the process is to return a part of it to the "other" world. Man is born into the world "impure", not free. The first stage that cuts him off from the worldthe dead, is the naming. Next is the initiation into adulthood, again through death and purification.

Besides this, rebirth helps to get rid of ballast alien qualities that were instilled as a result of insensitive upbringing. Initiation is like clarifying the route of your path along the compass needle.

When moving to a new quality, for example, from an apprentice to a master, death means overcoming a kind of wall, an obstacle that cannot be overcome by conventional means. The former person did everything to be near this section, and now she can die, then the transformed person will be born on that side and continue her path of spiritual development.

An insurmountable barrier in traditional ways is the difference between a layman and a warrior, a servant and a sorcerer, a bride and a wife, a squire and a knight, a free man and a sovereign.

Rebirth

From a psychological point of view, moral death is a stage that frees a person from childhood fears and complexes. After all, with this load it is impossible to move on in adult life, where there is much more responsibility. If you do not pass the ritual, then it will be very difficult to move on.

Personality is freed from the past, emptied, becomes empty, so sometimes the next stage - filling with new values - is a long time. This is how the hero grows in initiation schemes, fairy tales. Having retained his persona and transformed his personality, a person begins tocreate new strong and interesting relationships, integrate into a new environment.

Ritual stories

Each nation has its own heroes, symbols that fill the rite of initiation. Getting acquainted with the ethnos in stories and legends, from this point of view, plots where the main character dies and is resurrected are of interest. In the world heritage there are a huge number of myths and legends, where a god or demigod passes through this reincarnation, like a phoenix. Based on the goals of the ritual, they choose a plot and stylize it to the context. You can write your own script or combine several.

The story plays out in an altered state of consciousness in order to reach the beyond, where there are no boundaries. This is achieved through special music, dances, products. At the liminal stage, a person makes a breakthrough, the personality is transformed, gaining new qualities.

Code of death

Death is the place where all restrictions are lifted. In Mediterranean legends, killing is depicted as a monster that swallowed a hero, in the Russian epic - death is equated with leaving home for foreign lands. Saying goodbye to life can be expressed through beating, mutilation, physical abuse, or intense emotional humiliation. In Scandinavian and Oriental epics, death is characterized by the battle and slaying of a dragon.

In the Kuban and in other traditional Cossack cultures, young men went through the stage of initiation. At this time, they were not allowed to eat, drink, or talk. They were morally humiliated, for example, by making them crow while sitting on a pole, or smearedsewage. The process of initiation for marriageable girls went through the same moral pressure. They could be whipped, kicked out of the house, thrown into the water in front of everyone. Shameful humiliation will end as soon as the girl becomes a wife.

Heroes of Russian and Ukrainian fairy tales also go through this stage. Ivanushka has to lie, lose face and please Baba Yaga in every way. Baba Yaga is the main female goddess of the folk epic, and the inhabitants of the forest are her priests. Having got out of the witch's machinations, Ivanushka gets new abilities, which are encrypted in the fairy tale in the form of magic items.

Characters personifying death in fairy tales have the features of a dead man: the yaga has a bone leg.

The biggest fear for a person is death, and for the spirit - oblivion. A person who has gone through the ritual of initiation and has come into contact with it acquires the most valuable resource - the experience of rebirth, which means immortality. Initiation is about overcoming your greatest fear and gaining true freedom.