Initiation is ... Initiation, initiation

The world is changing, but man remains a social being. The ability to coexist in a certain structure means to be in it. Almost all peoples on earth had a ritual of initiation from ancient times. He went hand in hand with the ideology of the era and in fact was a technique of initiation into a new elite social group.

From the neophyte to the princes

Initiation is the procedure for acquiring devotees a new status. The neophyte becomes a supporter, changing not only externally, but also internally. Religious rituals are divided into three cohorts. Through the first pass almost everything. It is committed by adults, when a young man or a girl grows up. This can be group initiation or individual initiation.

The second cohort is for the elect, those who consider themselves wise enough to join the brotherhood. The third cohort is elitist. From time immemorial, exceptional people treated themselves, who developed in themselves special qualities and individual traits: shamans or priests.

According to the laws of nature

Initiation - this is just the stages passed by the person during the natural periods of growing up. It is a matter of spiritual growth, which in a harmonious person is correlated with physiological changes. Adolescents aged 12-13 years begin to demonstrate antisocial behavior, turning into a new, previously unknown person. The initiation rite was called upon to return the human form to a young man, however, having endowed him with mature experience, introducing new values into the subtle world. In ancient times a teenager was discovered by the names of the gods, revealed the meaning of legends and acquainted with the holy traditions of the tribe. The young man had to catch in the end the connection between the "living world", the memory of ancestors and supernatural manifestations. Today this process is let go of its own accord, parents either suppress changes in the child, or completely provide themselves. Independently a person through this process can not always pass.

Temporary death

Initiation is a ritual death. Much of the initiation involves symbolic dying, oblivion of the former, but the person is necessarily resurrected. Death prepares the birth for a better life, of a different meaning. In the ancient tribe, for example, only after the sacred ritual the young man acquired 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 for its unique life experience, which we all need to get to discover a new meaning of values and meanings. Very often in ancient societies, adolescents underwent a rite of military and sexual initiation. These rituals are preserved in a number of African tribes. To get married with a woman, a young man is tested, after which he gets the first sexual experience, changing the idea of the opposite field and making it possible to create a full-fledged relationship.

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

Traditional technologies

The process of initiation has the same pattern in all traditions. These are three stages: the personality is expelled from society (isolation); Liminal or border stage (initiation); Dedication to a new collective.

Insulation

To go through initiation means to go through all the steps in order. Before the event, a person stands the test of loneliness. The same stage is associated with isolation in prison or in a madhouse, when a person who changes personally, acquires new qualities for the most powerful breakthrough in later life. If we are talking about a teenager in modern society, the child often destroys old friendships, moves away from his parents. He is not interested in this anymore. New strong relationships can not yet arise because their values are still incomprehensible.

Purification or transformation

The main meaning of the process is to return to the "other" world its part. Man is born into the world "unclean", not free. The first stage, which cuts it from the world of the dead, is naming the name. Further, this initiation into the adult state, again through death and purification. In addition, rebirth helps to get rid of ballast alien qualities, which were grafted as a result of incomplete upbringing. Initiation is like a refinement of the route of your path along the arrow of the compass.

When moving into a new quality, for example, from an apprentice to a master, death means overcoming a peculiar wall, an obstacle that can not be overcome in the usual ways. 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 way of spiritual development.

An irresistible traditional barrier is the difference between a layman and a warrior, a servant and a sorcerer, a bride and wife, a squire and a knight, a free man and a lord.

Revival

From the psychological point of view, moral death is a stage that relieves the individual from childhood fears and complexes. After all, with this cargo it is impossible to move on in adult life, where there is much more responsibility. If you do not go through 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 - this is a long time. So the hero grows in schemes of initiation, fairy-tale subjects. By retaining his personality and transforming personality, a person begins to create new strong and interesting relationships, integrate into a new habitat.

Ritual Plots

Each nation has its own heroes, symbols, which fill the rite of initiation. Getting acquainted with ethnos in legends and legends, from this point of view, subjects are of interest, where the main character dies and resurrects. In the world heritage a huge number of myths and legends, where the god or demigod passes through this reincarnation, like a phoenix. Based on the purposes of the ritual, choose a story and stylize it to the context. You can write your own script or combine several. History is played in an altered state of consciousness in order to enter an otherwise transcendental space where there are no boundaries. This is achieved through special music, dance, food. At the liminal stage, a person makes a breakthrough, the person is transformed, receiving new qualities.

Death Code

Death is the place where all restrictions are lifted. In the mediterranean legends, killing is portrayed as a monster swallowing a hero in the Russian epic - death is equated with leaving the house for foreign lands. Farewell to life can be expressed through beating, mutilation, physical violence or severe emotional humiliation. In the Scandinavian and Eastern epic, death is characterized by the battle and killing of the dragon.

In the Kuban and other traditional Cossack cultures, the youths passed through the initiation stage. At this time they could not eat, drink, talk. They were humiliated morally, for example, forcing to crow, sitting on a pole, or smeared with sewage. Through the same moral pressure was the process of initiation for girls to be extradited. 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 pass this stage. Ivanushka has to lie, lose face and indulge Babu-yaga in all ways. Baba-yaga is the main female goddess of the folk epic, and the inhabitants of the forest are her priests. After getting out of the witch's wits, Ivanushka gets new abilities, which in the fairy tale are encrypted in the form of magic objects.

Characters that personify death in the tales have the features of the deceased: the yogi has a bone leg.

The greatest fear for a person is death, and for the spirit - oblivion. A person who has passed the initiation ritual and has come into contact with it, acquires the most valuable resource - this is the experience of rebirth, and hence - of immortality. Initiation is overcoming the greatest fear and gaining true freedom.