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Initiatory Experiences

  
 
Sekhmet
18:32 / 22.11.04
Initiations. Single or serial, self or group, incidental or perpetual, ceremonial or casual. Anyone willing to share their thoughts and experiences?

I have been trying to discern the turns and windings of the path I've stumbled along to where I now find myself. I've noted major alterations in lifestyle and thought process at certain stages, and at the fulcrum of each change was a single incident which could probably be defined as initiatory in nature, though unsought and at the time generally unrecognized.

Initiations are of course very personal things, but I wonder if anyone is comfortable sharing their stories. Have you been initiated? What does that mean to you? Did you get it from a group or do it yourself? Did you seek it out, or did it just happen? Have you had many initiations or just one? Do you feel that initiation is a perpetual process of becoming, or do you recognize individual points of revolution? Anyone attempted an initation and failed? Anyone have good advice about going through initiation?
 
 
Wyrd
22:37 / 22.11.04
Initiations are tests. They reveal character. Usually by forcing the individual through a crisis situation (simulated or real), to reveal his/her true nature.

Initiations -- at their best -- tear holes in the masks we wear; especially the ones we use to hide from ourselves.

There are many kinds of initiations, both personal and group, and it all depends on what you want to achieve.

Facing a fear is the easiest, and most powerful, initiation. Education -- be it scholastic, practical or esoteric -- is an initiation. Performance is an initiation. Ritual use of entheogens is a powerful initiation.

I've undertaken all of the above, and each experience has been wonderful -- the more effort put into the task, the more I have gained from it. Even if it was as simple as learning to "let go."
 
 
Sekhmet
01:48 / 23.11.04
Thank you, Wyrd! Good framework for defining something very nebulous.

So, fear is a factor. Initiation is a crossing of boundaries, breaking of habits; a forced recognition and destruction of masks and defenses, through which we realize something deeply significant about ourselves or the world around us. Possibly both.

To be fair, since I'm asking for stories, I'll share one:

I found myself in a movie theater not long ago, having eaten a pot brownie that was altogether too strong - that or the stars were wrong, I don't know which - and I found myself tripping. Hard. I do not use weed often, and was previously unaware that it had this capability if ingested. Nevertheless, I was white-knuckled, grinding my teeth and gripping the arms of my seat, twitching in horror as the utter certainty came over me that this was a Test. This was an initiation, and if I failed, I was going to go insane, and possibly lose my soul. I fought against the impulse to flee, whimpered, and forced myself to remain still through rising waves of panic. As the movie progressed, I was completely unable to follow the plot, but became hung up on symbolism; this character was an avatar of Osiris; that character's sinking into the water and coming back up was a spiritual baptism; this sequence represented a journey to Hell to consult the shades of the dead. I strained to retain a sense of ego, but it dissolved in the light from the screen, and suddenly, I was able to see through the movie. The special effects became worthless; I could clearly see the set pieces as cardboard and painted styrofoam, the bodies as mannequins spattered with unconvincing fake blood, the makeup on the faces of the actors. For a few minutes I was even able to see the black spaces between the frames of film as time slowed to a crawl. By the time the movie ended I was exhausted and jittery, trembling, and still unsure whether either my mind or my soul had outlasted the experience. My friends' critiques of the movie were met with bemused incomprehension from me; I had simply not seen the same movie they saw. When I watched it later on DVD I hardly recognized it, and felt a bit silly; in many ways, it wasn't even a very good movie.

It was Underworld. The White Wolf Vampire/Werewolf ripoff. The title itself, during the experience, seemed fraught with significance; I was in a dark, cavelike environment, isolated, sent on a shamanic journey through a strange country inhabited by magical and inhuman creatures.

I haven't felt quite the same since.

Can an accidental drug trip during a half-assed movie count as an initiation experience? I'll leave that question open... and hope that someone else feels like embarrassing themselves similarly...
 
 
Unconditional Love
04:09 / 23.11.04
simply put yes.
anything that rewires you in any way has the potential to be an initiation experience.

fear and panic can be big stimulus to that effect, its not the best way to experience through fear or panic, but then if nature is the initiator she chooses whats nessecary.

group led initiations can often let you down in comparrison to what old mother nature can set up herself.

mine is from near death experience, which ive discussed in other threads so i am not going to indulge it again, but ive had other lesser initiations involving drugs and some just through dreaming, nightmares and blissmares.

do you feel like youve been initiated into something more than you were before? if so that is an initiation and like they say it never stops. no one else should be the judge of initiation but you in my opinion.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
08:27 / 23.11.04
No time to engage with this thread this morning, but just wanted to say welcome back to Wyrd! We've missed you round here. Great to see you posting again.
 
 
Sekhmet
13:38 / 23.11.04
Wolfangel, could you link the thread where you describe that experience?
 
 
gale
16:35 / 23.11.04
I agree that an initiatory experience changes, or rewires you. It can take any form.

For me, I guess it happened about 12 years ago when I was diagnosed with MS. Suddenly I went from being "well" to "unwell, never to be well again." Even worse, I always look "well." My horizons were shortened, and for a time they were gone. I was devastated, shaken to the core. It took me about a year to adapt, but I did.

Every time I have physical problems, it's like getting knocked down. And every time I get up again, I feel that much better--especially when I can do it without prescription drugs, which I've done for nearly 10 years. My one big regret is that I had to give up martial arts. I could probably still do it, but I pushed myself too far once and don't want to repeat it, thanks.

In the end, who I am now is a vast improvement on who I was before all of this happened. I'm serious. Initiation is waking up. That was the big one for me.

Sekhmet, I think you are the best judge of whether your experience was initiatory--it sure sounds like it was.

PS Got the recipe for those brownies?
 
 
---
20:26 / 23.11.04
I'll share something that I PM'd King Mab/Seamus a while back that I wrote down for my Magickal diary about my Barbelith, or what I think was, my Barbelith experience/initiation :

'At some point from the beginning of the 10th to the 14th or 15th (April) I had the most amazing experience with Magick that I remember in a long time, maybe the most amazing I've ever had. It was definately contact with something else, or if it wasn't, I must be an Adept at deluding myself.

I'd say with 99% certainty that I came into contact with a higher intelligence. I'd just had a joint sometime before the experience, I remember sat on the edge of my bed, totally smashed and waiting for the weed to wear off a bit when I could sense something infront of my head. When I say sense, I mean that I started to feel a presence near my head and I think I could percieve some type of yellow or orange light in my minds eye.

Then, all of a sudden it felt like it was forcing it's way into my head from a point in the center of my forehead, I tried to fight it for maybe half a second, or a few seconds, I can't remember, but then I just gave in. When I did this, as soon as I did, it felt like my head was forced open but it didn't hurt. It was terrifying and amazing at the same time. My head felt like it was being opened more and more until it was wide open and this energy or, intelligence, that I percieved as a sphere of glowing light, was just shining love and light into my head.

It was so intense that I can't describe it. I was just sat there with my hands touching my head, trying not to be overwhelmed by it's power. Then after what seemed like just under a minute it wore off and I was just awestruck. I won't ever forget it I don't think, it was like it came to me and did this just to let me know that there are other things out there, thing's that are there to help us. It was one of the most amazing things that's ever happened to me. It makes me think that after all of the up's and downs of trying to learn Magick in the last six or seven years something has worked out at last.'
 
 
Simulacra
23:06 / 23.11.04
Neon shade, that sounds very much like an experience Philip K Dick had, which he tried to explain in Exegesis and the more readily available VALIS.

I am up for an initiation in less than a month and is shit scared. I know it is a part of the process, but that doesn't reassure me. Having an exam is nothing like this, because I have realised that it is me who are testing me. This realisation makes it very personal and tense.
 
 
Unconditional Love
00:43 / 24.11.04
i was living in barnsley in a place called sheffield road a poor end of town needles in the back garden methodone clinic down the road, prostitution etc etc

i was a student studying music learning to sing opera and other styles, i was 28 ish, learning about music in general, id had a pretty regular drug and drinking pattern from about 16/17 onwards stoned everyday tripping most weekends, drinking on top of it every few days, binge drinking. id always had an intrest in occultism from about the first time i took acid, before that in a naughty school boy way with the black arts by richard cavandish which my nan lent me.

in barnsley i was more in the student union than uni, id stopped getting stoned by this point and was heavily into drink id wake up in the late afternoon and spend most of the night drinking, id stopped eating alot before my nde, for about 3 months i was eating sporadically.

id started working with a shamanic system basic tunneling into the underworld looking for power animals, id been having visions of serpents over the period of a few years( this is common in my family at times of crisis we will have nightmares or hallucinations of serpents, mainly to my fathers side.) dreams of serpents started to come in january of 2000 (i spent the new year drunk on a sofa, what celebrations?) i remember one dream of a serpent winding its way up a horse carcass along the spine.

another event that figures heavily into this is a nightmare i had laying next to an old girlfriend just before christmas 1999, id cut her to tiny pieces and spread her around the room we were in, i woke up scared shitless and moved to another room.

just after the new year id started to suffer the delusion that i was an angel i was having telepathic communication with everything, which was complete overload for my mind, i started drinking more heavily.

january 14th 2000, i havent moved from the bed for about 2 days, id been dreaming about a friend from child hood we were on a pyramid trying to get to the top it was a tropical country as we were climbing we started a coversation, i cant recall what about, something moved to the side of me a lizard like creature i stayed still trying to avoid it, it bit me and i lost my footing and fell.

i woke up, unable to move, panic started to set in, i felt myself sinking, as if my life were leaveing me, then it did, it rose up from out of my navel in the form of a serpent, it was flowing away from me, somehow i new if it left i died, it gave me a choice it spoke to me and said something like "dont you want me" it ment if i stay you live if i go you die. i started to move into a darkness with shadowy silvery grey figures surrounding me. i managed to say yes, it flowed back towards me and coiled back into my navel,(where i could feel it for a longtime and still can to some degree) i was able to move i was terrified and confused not knowing what to do, i had a life review with my head in my hands crying for most of a day in intense pain as i experienced all my shame guilt and all the damage i had done to other people through my behaviour.( i can feel my stomach tighten as i write this)

i was home in 2 days at my fathers place. i went through rehab, and started following serpents around through various spiritual systems and i still am.
 
 
ghadis
02:01 / 24.11.04
My main initiationary story happened about 4 years ago in Sri Lanka at the age of 28. I?d been into magic and the occult from an early age into my early teens but had had that beaten out of me by punk music and general teenage stuff. Got back into it in my late 20s. Played about with sigils with some really good results and that along with chatting to some people and reading more stuff had me thinking that there was a lot in it. My big WOW moment was in Sri Lanka on the beach on the south coast. Was there with my girlfriend at the time and her sister and boyfriend. We?d been out for dinner. Had a few drinks. The three of them went to bed and I stayed up for another drink and went for a walk down to the beach. It was about 1sh.

Got down to this huge beautiful stretch of beach. Nicely moonlit. No one about so I thought I?d try a bit of magic. Nothing in mind. All chaos magic at that time for me so I thought I?d do an Eris invocation. Never done an invocation or any thing like it I just made it up really. Started by tracing a huge chaosstar in the sand and then ran frantically around it chanting Eris over and over. After running around a few times I started tracing more stuff into the sand. I got into the pattern of tracing something, random stuff added onto the chaosstar, running around it until I was completely out of breath, lots of Eris shouting, taking off an item of clothing them running into the sea and ?baptising? the item of clothing. I did this over and over again until I was naked and completely out of breath. Got completely taken away by this and looking back on it it was my first ?possession?.

This went on until I collapsed in the sand for a while and caught my breath and got my self together. After a while I picked up my clothes, including my bright lime green shirt which I still use now as a magical piece of clothing, and started walking, naked, back up the beach. As I was walking I suddenly felt this huge urge to turn around. Like someone was right behind me. Turned around but no one there. Empty beach but far down the beach I could see someone walking along by the sea. And straight away I thought, ?This is Eris? and dropped my clothes and started running down the beach towards them. As I got closer I realised that it wasn?t a person it was a tree. Quite a large tree with branches and leaves etc. Got to it and sat down underneath it with my back against the trunk and the branches over me convinced that this was Eris. I sat there for a while. Picking leaves off the branches and talking to her as the tide came in. I sat there until the tide was up to my waist. The sea all around and I was there sat under Eris the tree chatting to her.

When the sea got too deep I got up, gave my thanks, and walked back up the beach and picked up my clothes. On the way back to the Hotel I accidentally cut my hand on this huge cactus plant so then smeared the blood off my hand over my face. Seemed like exactly the right thing to do. Got back to the hotel. My girlfriend was still asleep so I went out onto the balcony and started writing in an A4 pad of paper. I must of sat there for a few hours until dawn. Scribbling everything and anything down. Some of it was diary stuff. Some of it was heavy upsetting family stuff. Some of it was just mad stupid stuff. I can?t remember hardly anything of it but I remember I was bawling in tears at points and laughing at some joke I made up about cowboys at others. A lot of it was just scribbles. Automatic drawing. Finally dawn came up and I crawled into bed.

When I got up the next day sometime in the afternoon and walked down to the beach with my girlfriend and her sister I mentioned that I wanted to go and see the tree that I saw on the beach the previous night. They quite rightly said that trees don?t grow on beaches and I must have imagined it. Then my girlfriends sister mentioned that the fishermen often use big branches shoved into the beach for navigation so it might have been that.

Anyway. It blew me away. I know what its like to be really pissed and I?ve taken a fair amount of a lot of different drugs and that experience was like nothing I?ve had before. It was one of the most amazing and moving things in my life. So after that I was hooked. That?s me for life. I may go through periods when I do a lot of ?magic? or periods when I don?t seemingly do much at all but it?s always there.

Saying that, after my huge long rambling story, I?d like to say that initiations happen all the time. I?ve never had anything that is like that for blowing me away but I?ve had a couple that come close. But the initiations that are ongoing seem just as important. Losing a job, relationship break ups, loved ones dying. These are the initiations. But in all of them it seems like that the initiation is not in the actual situation but in what you do with yourself afterwards.
 
 
ghadis
02:27 / 24.11.04
'But the initiations that are ongoing seem just as important. Losing a job, relationship break ups, loved ones dying.'

Just wanted to add in case the above seems to imply that personal initiations are all about coming out from the abyss of seemingly negative situations that getting a job, making a new relationship and becoming a parent are all totally valid forms of initiation.Take your challenges as they come.
 
 
illmatic
12:16 / 24.11.04
Losing a job, relationship break ups, loved ones dying. These are the initiations. But in all of them it seems like that the initiation is not in the actual situation but in what you do with yourself afterwards.

Neon Shade: With regard to what you've written, so if this was an initiation, in what ways did it change you after the event? In what ways have you gone on to be more functional, more critical, capable of greater insight or compassion etc? Did this experience emerge out of any work within a magical system (real work that is, not just reading about it)? Should we have some sort of crieria for talking about initiation, in terms of it's what comes afterward, how this experience changes one, that makes it "valid"? The kind of thing Wyrd is talking about above. A doorway for change. Otherwise, whats to differentiate one man angelic visitation from anothers stoned hallucination?

BTW, I'm doing a course at the moment which I'm finding very challenging. I'm not saying this is an initation but it's certainly putting me through a few hoops that I find very uncomfortable, and are forcing me to question some aspects of myself in a light that I otherwise wouldn't. It may not be very mystical but it really is a difficult for me. I see initation more in this light, rather than just "weird experiences".
 
 
Sekhmet
12:37 / 24.11.04
Ilmatic brings up a good point. Change should be a major criteria for determining the status of the experience. If there is no difference between You Before and You Afterward, it's not an initiation. Either that, or you failed it.
 
 
---
11:12 / 25.11.04
Illmatic, I'll get back to this when I have time and I'm on a PC that actually works, mines broken at the moment.

Briefly I'd say that it differed from stoned hallucination in the sense that I clearly felt the physical sensation of it opening up my head. With hallucinations I just see things.

Anyway, will post back later.
 
 
illmatic
11:31 / 25.11.04
I’m not really interested in whether or not it was a hallucination, NS, for several reasons. One, I’m not interested in passing judgement on anothers experience – I wasn’t there after all, and two, I think this forum on Barbelith should be one place where people are free to share slightly odd experiences without judgement - unless they're claiming psychic nonce detection ability or somesuch.

What I’m more interested in is the other stuff I alluded to – what did it do? If and experience is getting classed as an initiation, what’s changed? I think of initation more as long term changes, overcoming fears, kleshas, conditioning - not just every crazy thing that happens. What's more valid to us?
 
 
Unconditional Love
16:36 / 25.11.04
this isnt an initiation so excuse the thread rot but, today i actually, said i work for him, and no campbells in charge, at a meeting, i wasnt actually trying to be arrogant egotistical and dominate the room trying to get the best looking women in the rooms attention(most definately steffi), well only for a little bit but, heres the weird part it actually felt good giving up power, not completely just a little bit, if you can follow it felt empowering to give up power if that makes any sense, i also pulled people up about impoliteness and manners, heh me and they actually listened to me and warmed to me, it was a new environment new people, i usually hide in a corner, but something seems to of just clicked. for me its the tiny things like this that can collect together at at a certain point become a peak to raise me to a new wave and that can be an initiation that creates a definate change in aspects of the personality turning old wounds into new enthusiasm and rounding off the edges of newly forming character attributes. i think its a constant on going process, the best way in my opinion to approach it is to try and gain the awareness of its movement of its lows highs, polarities in everyday life its not a thing that has a definate beginning except perhaps from birth the initial initiation from the womb into the light, and it arguable from some traditions that youve experienced that before, so birth could be seen as a rememberence, but still each birth is a unique process in time.

alot of the idea of initiation depends on what context you wish to put it in, from one view point all i have done is encounter something new, from another ive become aware of a way of being i never new i was capable of.( and was previously shit scared of), perspectives an all dat stuff.
 
 
---
17:22 / 25.11.04
Apologies for any crazy mistakes, this is written in XP notepad and it's being really dodgy for some reason.

OK then I'll try and explain as clear as I can what happened. I can understand your confusion seeing as I didn't explain it very clearly. This is cool though because it's teaching me a lesson about writing and explaining things better when I put things in my diary. A lot of things can get missed when time isn't taken and I know this now because in thinking about it more I'm remembering just how powerful it was for me personally, and when I think back to it I'm still sat there with it beaming into my head. (All time co-existing at once maybe.) Don't worry about me if after I've said this it still doesn't seem like an initiation experience, I won't feel offended because it doesn't matter to me in the end, all that matters to me is that I had it and am better for it.

So I'm sat there on the edge of my bed smashed. Been there dozens and dozens of times before, wanting something to happen that doesn't feel like I'm forcing it myself, then I see little creatures, like little crazy aliens, but mad. They move in fast forward and seem really mischeivous, like they're upto something and they know that you know it. They've been stopping by for the last few nights and they come to me and kind of wheel out the Barbelith symbol and loads of other mad stuff that I unfortunately cannot remember at all. I'm like 'not again'. It's never led to anything before but a few visions that even though they look pretty amazing, don't really give me anything solid to go on.

It doesn't feel real. It feels forced. Fake. like I'm just wanting it to happen and am imagining it. I'm not expecting anything special. The symbol appears and then goes away again, along with the little aliens that I'm associating with Machine Elves. I'm like : big fucking deal. It's done nothing but reinforce the fact that I'm pushing for this too hard and am making the whole thing up.

Then I see another thing in my minds eye surfacing on the astral. It's about a foot in diameter, faint colour of yellowish/orange right in front of my face. I reach out my senses to it, then either it gets brighter or I feel a sensation in the center of my forehead, like a dissolving of the physical. I can't remember which one came first. Then it gets brighter and a bigger area is dissolving in the same part of my forehead. Then more, then more and then I get a really strong euphoric sensation in my head and now it's inside, dissolving away what's inside my head. Now I'm fixed. I start feeling ecsatic and I can't move. It's dissolved a little area in the center of my forehead but now it's moved inside and 'opened up' an area inside my head a lot bigger where my brain is. Then when it feels so amazing and pure it gets even stronger and stronger and I'm seeing this thing in front of me now as a shining ball of light and it's sending this energy into my head that's so strong that it feels too strong, way too strong.

By now I've got both hands up at my forehead and I'm kind of pressing them against it holding onto myself. There's no way I can move and this thing isn't letting up. It's like it's beaming love and light into my head but it's too fucking much, way too much for me to take. I want to cry, I want it to stop and I'm really fucking scared. I don't want to project anything negative at it and I'm trying to silence any thoughts that might arise because I'm really frightened that I offend it. My mouth's open in shock and ecstasy and I'm still unable to move. This goes on for what seems like a minute and then the sensation fades away, the light dies down and it goes. After it's gone I'm just sat there and I'm totally awestruck, like I said in my post further up. I can't remember if I started crying or not but I think I did. I at least had tears in my eyes.

Now months after it has been and gone I'm still not sure what it was, but I think it was a higher energy/being contacting me in the form of the Barbelith entity because it's the only thing that for some reason, I had total trust and belief in and I constantly tried to get in touch with it. Probably because I felt so close to the whole Invisibles story for many reasons and after coming here and seeing that others where doing Magickal work with Barbelith I thought that I could relate to you a lot more than I could to anyone else practising Magick.

It's changed me for good because for years and years I've dabbled with the Occult, Magick, Buddhism, etc and then after not having any type of real Magickal experience I've just given up. Either because I didn't think I was ready or because I didn't think that the powers where interested in having me as a Magician. Now that this has happened I feel reassured and like they've definately got into contact with me this time, and that no matter what happens to me I can no longer go back to just dabbling with things, I'm in this for good now. From feeling like this I'm now taking on my Magickal work a lot more seriously and it seems to be paying off. Magick doesn't feel like something that I dabble with, read about and chat about on the net every time I feel like it, it feels like an irreplaceable part of me that I have to work on so that it grows to it's fullest potential as much as it possibly can.

If it doesn't sound like an initiation experience to you, that's fine, but I'm still happier that I had it because it's basically changed the way I am and given me a lot more focus, belief and direction that even though wasn't apparent at first, is now becoming more and more apparent with each day that passes.
 
 
Sekhmet
14:51 / 29.11.04
Intense stuff... If you haven't read VALIS, you really, really should...

Those of you who are in/have been in organized groups which practice initiation ceremonies - how was the experience? Transformative? Disappointing? You are not required to disclose Great Secrets, of course, but supply some general impressions.

By all accounts, some groups have ceremonies which are in themselves rather lame, but the initiate's fear and anticipation, and the entrusting of hir well-being to the group for the duration of the proceedings, seem to often make up for whatever the ritual itself might lack in substance. Opinions?
 
 
---
15:46 / 29.11.04
Oh, sorry Simulacra, Sekhmet : I have read VALIS, it was an amazing book, and I'd say that even though my own experience was pretty crazy for me personally, P.K.Dick's was definately on a whole other level.
 
 
Sekhmet
16:07 / 29.11.04
Well, provided you haven't gone completely bonkers insane and been committed, that may well be true. It's also possible that you were just a bit more prepared for that sort of contact than PKD was...
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:41 / 01.12.04


I posted it before in another thread, but I guess it bears repeating here.

I've been a few times since, this weekend just gone for two days in a row, Saturday and Sunday, in different venues.

The whole two day malarkey was just a whole other level. Unbeleivable energy. It is the most powerful experience I know of on a par with witnessing childbirth. New Years is the next one. Then I may go to Mapia and spend three months making the stuff. I mean, why not?
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:42 / 01.12.04
Oops. Sorry about the whole link-post clusterfuck.
 
 
Unconditional Love
07:15 / 02.12.04
another experience, this is from a dream.
id been reading my first kenneth grant book, the tunnels of set one, and researching baphomet and was taken by pete carrolls description of it as a kind of amorphous multi faceted representation of nature similar at least to me as a horned god. id started to work with paintings and drawings of baphomet and started to use gutteral chants and make offerings of incense and something else, i forget.
probably semen.

anyway the dream, i am in a local car park where i am approached by a local man who tells me when he comes to tell him the name johannes( an old hermeticst) forget the last name at present, this guy is suited and carries a brief case, he comes he is a flower seller from the top of my town, he leads me into the town, i tell him the name i was given by the other guy, he looks at me in shock, and looks around him, we continue into the town which becomes a labyrinth, he dissappears their are others with me in the labyrinth wandering through we all know our way, the labyrinth is made of bone like marble carved with beautiful figures spiralling in and out of each other, we flow through it a procession knowing our way, at the centre there is an old mirror framed in the same spiralling motiff, when its my turn to look in i step up hesitant and look in, i am transformed, i am have become a satyr, full of the most powerful intoxicating passions, that drive the expressions on my face into an insane ecstacy and longing to satiate all the worldly desires within me, i can still see myself in the mirror, then we walk past out back into the town transformed and the town becomes itself again, but some how i dont, ive seen myself like that once before on acid projected out as an external hallucination, from then on and still i have to know every sexual lust and desire within me, i have to explore them and satiate them only as the awareness grows does my maintanence of them become possible, they no longer are overiding instincts that seem distant too me, but instinct that has become more familiar and friendly. and it may not seem like alot but it has helped me understand my sexuality to greater degree than i did previously.
 
 
Eron
15:31 / 26.03.05
I think initiation is your first experience with a way of thinking and feeling you've never had before. I think it does make a wrinkle in your brain but it might take yearts for it to really impact your life.

Mine occured when I was 15, and still living in SOuth Africa watching a play called iMumbo Jumbo.

The story is based on the true story of a Xhosa (African) chief who, in 1996 went to Britain to retrieve the skull of his ancestor, a Xhosa chief who was beheaded by a colonial posse in 1836. He claimed that that South Africa was being ravaged by his ancestor's angry spirit and would only find peace once the skull was brought back to SA.

(SA after 1994 was magical. We were all so positive and dismayed to discover that there was still so much vioence happening. So when this guy came out and said this stuff, it sounded weird but we all wanted to believe him. It became big news! )

I never heard the end of that story, so I wanted to check out the play but was wary because in South Africa there's a lot of exoticisation of Africa and I didnt want to watch pseudo-african theatre.

The audience was arranged in a semi circle around a fire, and a proper stage filled the other half of the circle. The actors began by proudly proclaiming that this piece "isn't like other plays where you can sit on your ass, you have to be involved too!" Also, because the show was about spirits, it also featured sangoma's, who are healers, herbalists and shamans.

The piece ended up being very funny and cool. I noticed at one point that these little kid actors were looking at me and the words "interactive theatre" filled my heart with dread. And then, they gave me a banana. Huh? Then I noticed some other people receiving beer. Damn.

The show continued until the climax, dancing around the fire. And then, the kids again. This time, they had no beer and no bananas. Instead they both grabbed my hands and pulled me onto the stage.

Inspite of being self-conscious and in the "black trenchoat" stage of adolescence, I suddenly felt happy and wanted to dance! It felt so good that I went and pulled my my 2 other friends onto the dance-floor so that they could feel good too, and we all danced around the fire.

After the show there was Q&A with the director, who said real sangoma rituals were respected and integrated into the show. "Aha!" I thought to myself. NOw I could believe stuff about voodoo. It felt amazing!

Walking outside, the program sellers saw me and my banana and said "Hey! You got the spirits!"

Excuse me?

"No, the banana shows you have the spirits. Thats cool!"
Puzzled but feeling cool, I walked around, waiting for my lift.

And then I got hungry.

Not wanting to anger the spirits, I went back to the program sellers and asked if I could eat the spirits.

"No man! Don't be silly. The spirits aren't IN the banana. That just shows you have the spirits on your side."
Oh, oops. They went on to explain that "the spirits are cool. WHen you have the spirits, you dont ever have to worry about homework or having problems meeting girls." (I really liked their approach to spirits )

I felt really felt good about myself, I never felt unique like that. There was always my goal to be unique at school, but this was different. I felt good. I didnt care about spirit, I didnt want to understadn them,, I just knew I felt good and unique.

I never followed up the sangoma thing, but it appears that it followed me because when I danced to music I loved, my bullshit would fall away, often I would understand problems clearly and find their solutions and could finally stop worrying when I danced.

I've had more powerful beautiful situations where I danced for hours and felt amazing things and played with energy, but for me those 2, 3 minutes around the fire were the most important because they brought me into this world of dance.
It turns out my family are born dancers. My mom's brothers were ballroom dance champions, her aunt's a dance judge but alas my mother couldnt tell left from right when they started teaching her, so they gave up. And I dreamt that dance on my father's side was sublimated into love of music.(dance wasn't a possible avenue of expression where he was from")

SO, initiation for me is a breakthrough into this world. I only understood how clearly while writing this. So I think it doesnt mean that you change your life from that day on. But, its the seed for a new life. The later "initiations" of life are situations that allow this new seed to grow. I had to encounter a lot more shit for the seed to finally blossom but it's finally peaked. I now know dance is my calling and am now learning Butoh, a modern dance from Japan.
 
 
grant
00:58 / 29.03.05
That's a gorgeous story.
 
  
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