Initiation Quotes

The coldness surprised him. It entered his vein, and the initiation proceeded. Veils were falling from large and solemn tableaux that Culafroy's eyes could not make out. Alberto took another snake and placed it on Culafroy's bare arm, about which it coiled just as the first had done. "You see, she's harmless." (Alberto always referred to snakes in the feminine.) Just as he felt his penis swelling between his fingers, so the sensitive Alberto felt in the child the mounting emotion that stiffened him and made him shudder. And the insidious friendship for snakes was born. ~ Jean Genet

Go out in the woods, go out. If you don't go out in the woods nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

I didn't realize until that moment that Dauntless initiation had taught me an important lesson: how to keep going. ~ Veronica Roth

The average man may be capable of benefiting by initiation, or he may not; it also depends upon his capacity; but each individual should have the opportunity of advancing to the highest development of which he is capable. ~ Dion Fortune

Whatever your problem, it is but a test in love. If you meet that test through love, your problem will be solved. If you do not meet that test through love, your problem will continue until you do! Your problem is your initiation in love. ~ Catherine Ponder

There is no ceremony, no initiation ritual, no secret hand-shake. All you need to be a writer is to write. ~ M. Kirin

It always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of children into the ways of life when they are scarcely more than infants. It checks their confidence and simplicity, two of the best qualities that heaven gives them, and demands that they share our sorrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments. ~ Charles Dickens

I called it a baptism in flaming ink that forced me to shed my shyness about recognizing myself as a poet and to accept the fact that life had never given me any choice in the matter. And then I had to discover exactly what that meant. ~ Aberjhani

He hooks a thumb in one of his belt loops and says, "How are you, Beatrice?" "Did you just call me Beatrice?" "Thought I would give it a try." He smiles. "Not good?" "Maybe on special occasions only. Initiation days, Choosing Days ... ~ Veronica Roth

The initiation with its various tortures lasted about a week, and I cheerfully accepted penances which, if they were imposed in a monastery, for a supernatural motive, and for some real reason, instead of for no reason at all, would cause such an uproar that all religious houses would be closed and the Catholic Church would probably have a hard time staying in the country. ~ Thomas Merton

You pigs, you. You rut like pigs, is all. You got the most in you, and you use the least. You hear me, you? Got a million in you and spend pennies. Got a genius in you and think crazies. Got a heart in you and feel empties. All a you. Every you ... '
[ ... ]
Take a war to make you spend. Take a jam to make you think. Take a challenge to make you great. Rest of the time you sit around lazy, you. Pigs, you! All right, God damn you! I challenge you, me. Die or live and be great. Blow yourselves to Christ gone or come and find me, Gully Foyle, and I make you men. I make you great. I give you the stars. ~ Alfred Bester

By characterizing the use of illegal drugs as quasi-legal, state-sanctioned, Saturday afternoon fun, legalizers destabilize the societal norm that drug use is dangerous. They undercut the goals of stopping the initiation of drug use to prevent addiction ... Children entering drug abuse treatment routinely report that they heard that 'pot is medicine' and, therefore, believed it to be good for them. ~ Andrea Barthwell

A woman's hand, your hand in its starry paleness only to help you walk downstairs, refracts its beam into my own. Its slightest touch branches out inside me and in a moment will trace above us those delicate canopies where the inverted sky stirs its blue leaves with misty aspen or willow. As for me, to what do I actually owe this remission of a pain that so many others suffer because of less guilt than I feel today? Before I met you I'd known misfortune, despair. Before I met you, come on, those words mean nothing. You know very well that when I first laid eyes on you I recognized you without the slightest hesitation. And from what borders did you come, so fearfully protected against everyone, what initiation to which no one or almost no one was admitted has consecrated what you are. ~ Andre Breton

Can the purpose of a relationship be to trigger our wounds? In a way, yes, because that is how healing happens; darkness must be exposed before it can be transformed. The purpose of an intimate relationship is not that it be a place where we can hide from our weaknesses, but rather where we can safely let them go. It takes strength of character to truly delve into the mystery of an intimate relationship, because it takes the strength to endure a kind of psychic surgery, an emotional and psychological and even spiritual initiation into the higher Self. Only then can we know an enchantment that lasts. ~ Marianne Williamson

Severe initiations increase a member's liking for the group. ~ Carol Tavris

For me, therapy is partly translation therapy, the talking cure a second-language cure. My going to a shrink is, among other things, a rite of initiation: initiation into the language of the subculture within which I happen to live, into a way of explaining myself to myself. But gradually, it becomes a project of translating backward.
The way to jump over my Great Divine is to crawl backward over it in English. It's only when I retell my whole story, back to the beginning, and from the beginning onward, in one language, that I can reconcile the voices within me with each other; it is only then that the person who judges the voices and tells the stories begins to emerge. ~ Eva Hoffman

Other cultures make a clear delineation between childhood and adulthood; there are rites of passages and initiation ceremonies to mark these transitions. People expect and are willing to expose young people to hardship and pain, because it helps them grow. ~ Jeff Goins

But as I look at him, my anger ebbs away, like the changing of the tide. And standing in the place of my anger is my initiation instructor and friend, alive again.
I grin.
"So you're alive," I say.
"More importantly," he says, pointing at me, "you are no longer upset about it."
He grabs my arm and pulls me into an embrace, slapping my back with one hand. I try to return his enthusiasm, but it doesn't come naturally
when we break apart, my face is hot. And judging by how he bursts into laughter, it's also bright red.
"Once a Stiff, always a Stiff," he says.
"Whatever," I say. ~ Veronica Roth

The world had always loved the saint as being the nearest possible approach to the perfection of God. Christ, through some divine instinct in him, seems to have always loved the sinner as being the nearest possible approach to the perfection of man. His primary desire was not to reform people, any more than his primary desire was to a relieve suffering. To turn an interesting thief into a tedious honest man was not his aim. He would have thought little of the Prisoners' Aid Society and other modern movements of the kind. The conversion of a publican into a Pharisee would not have seemed to him a great achievement. But in a manner not yet understood of the world he regarded sin and suffering as being in themselves beautiful holy things and modes of perfection.

It seems a very dangerous idea. It is - all great ideas are dangerous. That it was Christ's creed admits of no doubt. That it is the true creed I don't doubt myself.

Of course the sinner must repent. But why? Simply because otherwise he would be unable to realise what he had done. The moment of repentance is the moment of initiation. More than that: it is the means by which one alters one's past. The Greeks thought that impossible. They often say in their Gnomic aphorisms, 'Even the Gods cannot alter the past.' Christ showed that the commonest sinner could do it, that it was the one thing he could do. Christ, had he been asked, would have said - I feel quite certain about it - that the moment ~ Oscar Wilde

Recognise that the apparent is unreal, while the unmanifest is abiding. Through this initiation into truth you will escape falling into unreality again. ~ Ashtavakra

This is where the factionless live. Because they failed to complete initiation into whatever faction they chose, they live in poverty, doing the work no one else wants to do. They are janitors and construction workers and garbage collectors; they make fabric and operate trains and drive buses. In return for their work they get food and clothing, but, as my mother says, not enough of either. ~ Veronica Roth

Male initiation does not move toward machoism; on the contrary, it moves toward achieving a cultivated heart before we die. ~ Robert Bly

The launch of the report coincides with the initiation by WHO of the global strategy for the prevention and control of osteoporosis, and I think a good partnership could be established in our common efforts to prevent osteoporosis. ~ Gro Harlem Brundtland

To the non-initiate, whose experience of sexuality and bodily pleasure may be distorted by negative cultural conditioning, the introduction of sexuality into a sacred context is often mistakenly misconstrued as the ordinary pursuit of sex for recreation. ~ Zeena Schreck

In the afternoon dark clouds suddenly color the sky a mysterious shade and it starts raining hard, pounding the roof and windows of the cabin. I strip naked and run outside, washing my face with soap and scrubbing myself all over. It feels wonderful. In my joy I shut my eyes and shout out meaningless words as the large raindrops strike me on the cheeks, the eyelids, chest, side, penis, legs, and butt - the stinging pain like a religious initiation or something. Along with the pain there's a feeling of closeness, like for once in my life the world's treating me fairly. I feel elated, as if all of a sudden I've been set free. I face the sky, hands held wide apart, open my mouth wide, and gulp down the falling rain. ~ Haruki Murakami

Most people create their first Selves to deal with a bad situation, the death of a parent, the loss of a home, or the loss of their first boyfriend or girlfriend. These Selves aren't usually very well made, but they are the forces that awaken us to the need to create ourselves out of the materials of our life. ~ Don Webb

Our goals can only be achieved with a society that respects and equally protects the rights of every human being, old and young, rich and poor, regardless of gender, color, race, or creed. We must reject the initiation of violence by individuals or government as morally repugnant. ~ Ron Paul

Aleister Crowley's reception of The Book of the Law was a direct manifestation and result of his initiation in the Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn was, in fact, the basis of the proclamation of the New Aeon of Horus and the Law of Thelema. ~ David Cherubim

Funerals consist of older generations initiating the younger into another adulthood. Filling spaces of the one passed. ~ Darnell Lamont Walker

The male sphere of Norse shamanism consisted of the elite warrior groups known as the berserkir ("bear-shirts") and the úlfheðnar ("wolf-skins"). The berserkers (as we'll refer to the members of both of those groups for the sake of convenience), were shamans of a very different sort. After undergoing a period of rigorous training and initiation, they developed the ability to fight in an ecstatic trance that rendered them fearless - and, according to some sources, impervious to danger - while nevertheless inspiring a tremendous amount of fear in their opponents by their behavior, which was
at once animalistic and otherworldly. Perhaps needless to say, there was no ergi associated with being a berserker. Quite the opposite, in fact - the berserker was seen as something of a model of manliness. ~ Daniel McCoy

Among wolves, when the bitch leavers her pups to go hunting, the young ones try to follow her out of the den and down the path. She snarls at them, lunges at them, and scares the bejeezus out of them till they run slipping and sliding back to the den. Their mother knows that they do not yet know how to weight and assess other creatures. They do not know who is a predator and who is not. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

It is one of the strictest conditions of initiation that occult knowledge may never be sold or used for gain. ~ Dion Fortune

You know after any truly initiating experience that you are part of a much bigger whole. Life is not about you henceforward, but you are about life. ~ Richard Rohr

Until the end of the Middle Ages, and in many cases afterwards too, in order to obtain initiation in a trade of any sort whatever
whether that of courtier, soldier, administrator, merchant or workman
a boy did not amass the knowledge necessary to ply that trade before entering it, but threw himself into it; he then acquired the necessary knowledge. ~ Philippe Aries

When speaking of initiation, I mean engaging in practices that establish an exchange between conscious reflection and the unconscious material, and developing a form of analogical language: the acquisition of a poetic literacy. I believe this literacy of the imagination arises from a creative dialogue with the unconscious and involves recurring motifs or symbols that transform with time and seduce the initiate. And of course as conscious thought is not independent of the world, similarly the unconscious draws its ancient forms from all things around us in the this secret dialogue. New forms arise out of chaos. As the alchemists proclaimed, there can be no generation without decay. ~ Stephen J. Clark

There is no study in the world which brings into more harmonious action all the faculties of the mind than [mathematics], ... or, like this, seems to raise them, by successive steps of initiation, to higher and higher states of conscious intellectual being ... ~ James Joseph Sylvester

The theme of submission as an essential attitude toward promotion of the successful initiation rite can be clearly seen in the case of girls or women. Their rite of passage initially emphasizes their essential passivity, and this is reinforced by the physiological limitation on their autonomy imposed by the menstrual cycle. It has been suggested that the menstrual cycle may actually be the major part of initiation from a woman's point of view, since it has the power to awaken the deepest sense of obedience to life's creative power over her. Thus she willingly gives herself to her womanly function, much as a man gives himself to his assigned role in the community life of his group. ~ C. G. Jung

Of all the joint ventures in which we might engage, the most productive, in my view, is educational exchange. I have always had great difficulty-since the initiation of the Fulbright scholarships in 1946-in trying to find the words that would persuasively explain that educational exchange is not merely one of those nice but marginal activities in which we engage in international affairs, but rather, from the standpoint of future world peace and order, probably the most important and potentially rewarding of our foreign-policy activities. ~ J. William Fulbright

True initiation is a response to an inner calling; it requires that you face personal challenges heroically and experience a genuine rebirth into a new way of being. ~ Alberto Villoldo

problematic within post-Reformation dogmatics. Is faith something I `do' to earn God's favour, and, if not, what role does it play? Once we release Paul's justification-language from the burden of having to describe `how someone becomes a Christian', however, this is simply no longer a problem. There is no danger of imagining that Christian faith is after all a surrogate `work', let alone a substitute form of moral righteousness. Faith is the badge of covenant membership, not something someone `performs' as a kind of initiation test. ~ N. T. Wright

You know the difference between right and wrong,' he repeated finally. 'Man, why did you need Initiation - by the Golden Dawn, or by anybody else? You are a genius, a sage, a giant among men. You have solved the problem which philosophers have been debating since antiquity - the mystery about which no two nations or tribes have ever agreed, and no two men or women have ever agreed, and no intelligent person has ever agreed totally with himself from one day to the next. You know the difference between right and wrong. I am overawed. I swoon. I figuratively kiss your feet. ~ Robert Anton Wilson

We take spiritual initiation when we become conscious of the Divine within us, and thereby contact the Divine without us. ~ Dion Fortune

Back in the past metaphysical realisation needed only the will of realisation. Later realisation also needed initiation. Even later initiation already presupposed preparation. Today even preparation has to be prepared, but first of all a self-correction should take place. ~ Andras Laszlo

1] The absence of the personal story: in order for magical rites to pass from generation to generation, the sorcerer (shaman) must forget all he learned before his initiation into magic. According to tradition, a man or women who are tied to his past, will in the end allow himself to be governed by his parents' way of thinking, or that of the society in which he lives. This is why all those who are initiated choose a new name and seek to free themselves from their memories, both good and bad. ~ Paulo Coelho

War is an initiation into the power of life and death. Women touch that power on the moment of birth, men at the edge of death. ~ William Broyles Jr.

To enter into the initiation of sound, of vibration and mindfulness, is to take a giant step toward consciously knowing the soul. ~ Don G. Campbell

Once we have broken free of the prejudices of our own provincially limited ecclesiastical, tribal, or national rendition of the world archetypes, it becomes possible to understand that the supreme initiation is not that of the local motherly fathers, who then project aggression onto the neighbors for their own defense. The good news, which the World Redeemer brings and which so many have been glad to hear, zealous to preach, but reluctant, apparently, to demonstrate, is that God is love, the He can be, and is to be, loved, and that all without exception are his children. Such comparatively trivial matters as the remaining details of the credo, the techniques of worship, and devices of episcopal organization (which have so absorbed the interest of Occidental theologians that they are today seriously discussed as the principal questions of religion), are merely pedantic snares, unless kept ancillary to the major teaching. Indeed, where not so kept, they have the regressive effect: they reduce the father image back again to the dimensions of the totem. And this, of course, is what has happened throughout the Christian world. One would think that we had been called upon to decide or to know whom, of all of us, the Father prefers. Whereas, the teaching is much less flattering: "Judge not, that ye be not judged." The World Savior's cross, in spite of the behavior of its professed priests, is a vastly more democratic symbol than the local flag. ~ Joseph Campbell

There has already been the karmic work: that what life has transformed in me, this initiation brought on, of necessity, by trials. ~ Isabelle Adjani

Between giving up and holding on
Between initiation and rejection
Between the saids and unsaids
Between the understood and miss-understood
Between Life's priorities
We lost each other. ~ Wordions

Goal Selection: They can choose goals based on priority, relevance, experience, and knowledge of current realities while also anticipating consequences and outcomes. Key Words: Choose Goals and Anticipate Outcomes. Planning and Organization: They can generate steps and a sequence of linear behaviors that will get them there, knowing what will be needed along the way, including resources, and create a strategy to pull it off. Key Words: Generate Behaviors and Strategy. Initiation and Persistence: they can begin and maintain goal-directed behavior despite intrusions, ~ Henry Cloud

I can look back at it now as definitely like an initiation into adulthood. Almost overnight in the NFL, I was put on a pedestal and I was supposed to be this icon or this image of what a professional athlete was supposed to be. I felt like I just got stuck trying to be someone else and I forgot who I actually was. ~ Ricky Williams

Maybe I could rewrite the fairy tale of my life, transforming every blow to the head, and every cut to the cunt, and every crucified doll into some kind of an initiation. ~ Ariel Gore

When government does more than guard against the initiation of force, inevitably it becomes a means of theft and bamboozlement. ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

[The wilderness] had caressed him, and - lo! - he had withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation. ~ Joseph Conrad

A real Guru's initiation is beyond the divisions of sects and creeds: it is the awakening to our own inner reality which, once glimpsed, determines our further course of development and our actions in life without the enforcement of outer rules. ~ Anagarika Govinda

As artists and traders in medieval cities began to form organizations, they instituted tough initiation ceremonies. Journeymen in Bergen, Norway, were shoved down a chimney, thrown three times into the sea, and soundly whipped. Such rites made belonging to the guild or corporation more precious to those who were accepted, and survived. ~ Isaac Asimov

It was the circle of perfect motion. Of the light-bringer and dark-giver, the world-starter and shadow-ender. Of initiation and completion. It was the symbol of the Cahr Awen. Cahr Awen. ~ Susan Dennard

A true initiation never ends. ~ Robert Anton Wilson

At critical junctures, outer trouble and the inner need to grow conspire to set each of us on a path of awakening and initiation. ~ Michael Meade

The symbolic display seen by the abductees is identical to the type of initiation ritual or astral voyage that is imbedded in the [occult] traditions of every culture ... the structure of abduction stories is identical to that of occult initiation rituals ... the UFO beings of today belong to the same class of manifestation as the [occult] entities that were described in centuries past. ~ Jacques Vallee

This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade 'Know Thyself!' and taught Initiation. ~ Aleister Crowley

I prefer the gradual path My feeling is that mythic forms reveal themselves gradually in the course of your life if you know what they are and how to pay attention to their emergence. My own initiation into the mythic depths of the unconscious has been through the mind, through the books that surround me in this library. I have recognized in my quest all the stages of the hero's journey. I had my calls to adventure, my guides, demons, and illuminations. ~ Joseph Campbell

Mythology is the womb of man's initiation to life and death. ~ Joseph Campbell

Occultism, then, can reasonably be regarded as metaphysical speculation - speculation about the nature of ultimate reality and of our relation to it. Typically nontheistic and monistic, it is also typically mystical. All...assume the possibility of direct contact between living human beings and ultimate reality, the noumenal, the transcendent, or the divine. Contact with ultimate reality can be achieved either through a spontaneous mystical revelation or through some ritual initiation such as those of the mysteries at Eleusis. The possibility of illumination through initiation distinguishes the occult from mysticism and connects it to secret societies such as Masonry. (13) ~ Leon Surette

The greatest danger hanging over our children and grandchildren is initiation of changes that will be irreversible on any time scale that humans can imagine. ~ James Hansen

A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The libertarian approach is a very symmetrical one: the non-aggression principle does not rule out force, but only the initiation of force. In other words, you are permitted to use force only in response to some else's use of force. If they do not use force you may not use force yourself. There is a symmetry here: force for force, but no force if no force was used. ~ Stephan Kinsella

As the fight wore on, it became obvious that Streak was beating the other wolf. He wasn't as heavily built, but he was faster and sharper, and for every swipe to the head he took, he delivered two or three of his own.

All of a sudden, the dark wolf stopped, lay down, and rolled over, baring his throat and belly. Streak opened his mouth and clamped his teeth around the dark wolf's throat, then let go without breaking the skin and stood back. The dark wolf got to his feet and slunk away, tail between his legs.

I thought the wolf might have to leave the pack, but he didn't. Although he slept by himself that night, none of the wolves tried to chase him away, and he took his regular place in the hunting pack the next time they set out.

I thought about that a lot over the next day or two, comparing the way wolves handled their losers to how vampires handled theirs. In the world of vampires, defeat was a disgrace and more often than not ended with the death of the defeated. Wolves were more understanding. Honor mattered to them, but they wouldn't kill or shun a member of their pack just because it had lost face. Young wolf cubs had to endure tests of maturity, just as I'd endured the Trials of Initiation, but they weren't killed if they failed. ~ Darren Shan

VISION is the voice inside that transcends words and shines through the initiation! ~ Charles A. Brown II

I don't think it's possible for the Fed to end its easy-money policies in a trouble-free manner. Recent episodes in which Fed officials hinted at a shift toward higher interest rates have unleashed significant volatility in markets, so there is no reason to suspect that the actual process of boosting rates would be any different. I think that real pressure is going to occur not by the initiation by the Federal Reserve, but by the markets themselves. ~ Alan Greenspan

So I had to face the fact that I was blessed with abilities that were considered symptoms of emotional abnormality or mental derangement by psychology, often thought of as demonic by religion, and whose very existence was denied altogether by science. So in my darker moments I used to think that my psychic initiation and subsequent experiences were a mixed bag, to say the least. But the fact is that I was very sensitive to criticism for the very good reason that often I shared many of the beliefs that stimulated it. ~ Jane Roberts

Two Dimensions of Executive Skills: Thinking and Doing Executive skills involving thinking (cognition) Working memory Planning/prioritization Organization Time management Metacognition Executive skills involving doing (behavior) Response inhibition Emotional control Sustained attention Task initiation Goal-directed persistence Flexibility ~ Richard Guare

He who has followed the path of love's initiation in the proper order will on arriving at the end suddenly perceive a marvelous beauty, the source of all our efforts ~ Plato

No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to worship Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a Luciferian Initiation ~ David Spangler

When we have an inner initiation into pure love, we are in contact with our true nature. Judgment of ourselves and others disappears. Compassionate, discerning wisdom then enters the equation in all of our relationships. ~ Michael Beckwith

She has been to the compound before. She remembered this hallway. She knows about the initiation process.
My mother was Dauntless. ~ Veronica Roth

Many women do not even have the basic teaching about predators that a wolf mother gives her pups, such as: if it's threatening and bigger than you, flee; if it's weaker, see what you want to do; if it's sick, leave it alone; if it has quills, poison, fangs, or razor claws, back up and go in the other direction; it it smells nice but is wrapped around metal jaws, walk on by. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Carezza, like Tantra, considers the sex act to be a true feast of love, and ejaculation is seen as a clumsy, crude incident-something quite banal which kills sexual desire. The man who, a few minutes before was seized by a frantic sexual desire, changes as soon as he has ejaculated and turns away from his wife, damaging her in her self-respect and her love as well. ~ Andre Van Lysebeth

As long as we string out the ecstasy of awe, we won't do the work required to mine its precious teachings. ~ S. Kelley Harrell

How come only curmudgeonly old men are considered endearing, discerning, and honorable? My own Shamanic journeying on this matter has shown me that at midlife women are invited beyond the nurturing Moon-Earth embrace into the vastness of the Milky Way, where we have light, darkness, stars, moons and meteorites at our creative, reflective, and destructive disposal. ~ Mary Trainor-Brigham

One example of an uniquely Sethian approach towards initiation is for the initiate to regard his or her own life with the same urgency and need experienced as in a war zone in which every move and action must be weighed yet determined swiftly, as necessity dictates. During battle, situations such as missed opportunity, lingering sentimentality, second or third chances, or excessive contemplation would be fatal; and so it is on the sinister path. ~ Zeena Schreck

The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic was Israel Regardie's last book, the final token of his True Will. Through this book he bequeathed to us the means to carry on the Great Work of the Golden Dawn which, in a nutshell, is Initiation. ~ David Cherubim

We have then, a basic social coin. With awe on one side and shame on the other. The audience senses secret mysteries and powers behind the performance, and the performer senses that his chief secrets are petty ones. As countless folktales and initiation rites show, often the real secret behind the mystery is that there really is no mystery; the real problem is to prevent the audience from learning this too. ~ Erving Goffman

The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence. ~ Ron Paul

The two most challenging tasks a man can face in life is education of the heart and education of the child-every other task he contemplates in life before him pales in comparison to those two. On this path of absolute uncertainty, the descending heart will permiate the education of the mind ... An initiation rite for young heart. An initiation rite for young men. ~ Adam Kovacevic

In a rational state it would be more appropriate to ensure that a cobbler passed an examination than an executive civil servant; because shoe-making is a craft in the absence of which it is still possible to be a good citizen and a man in society. But the necessary 'knowledge of the state' is a precondition in the absence of which one lives outside the state, cut off from the air one breathes and from oneself. Thus the 'examination' is nothing but a Masonic initiation, the legal recognition of the knowledge of citizenship, the acknowledgement of a privilege.

This 'link' between the 'individual' and his 'office', this objective bond between the knowledge of civil society and the knowledge of the state, namely the examination, is nothing but the bureaucratic baptism of knowledge, the official recognition of the transubstantiation of profane knowledge into sacred knowledge (it is plain that in every examination the examiner is omniscient).

It is not recorded that Greek and Roman statesmen ever took examinations. But then what is a Roman statesman compared to a Prussian civil servant! ~ Karl Marx

The disorientation and reorientation which comes with the initiation into any mystery is the most wonderful experience which is possible to have. ~ Henry Miller

start something, with a knowledge to end it. ~ Krishna Sagar

Religion exalts mystery as an unknowable secret that must be sealed in glass like the corpse of an enchanted princess and fearfully worshipped from afar. Initiation, on the other hand, requires direct participation and demands each of us to smash the casket and press mad lips to mystery, wooing her as a lover who will offer up her treasurers in a succession of sweet surrenders. This she will do, but only in exact ratio to our evolving ability and worthiness to receive them. ~ Lon Milo DuQuette

We all have our moments of initiation into the Society of Former Negroes. Mine was in a class in undergrad when I was asked to give the black perspective, only I had no idea what that was. So I just made something up. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The journey up to battle camp started badly.
"If you can't even load a bloody truck with all your kit properly, then you've got no bloody chance of passing what's ahead of you, I can assure you of that!" Taff, our squadron DS, barked at us in the barracks before leaving.
I, for one, was more on edge than I had ever felt so far on Selection.
I was carsick on the journey north, and I hadn't felt that since I'd been a kid heading back to school. It was nerves.
We also quizzed Taff for advice on what to expect and how to survive the "capture-initiation" phase.
His advice to Trucker and me was simple: "You two toffs just keep your mouths shut--23 DS tend to hate recruits who've been to private school."
The 23 SAS were running the battle camp (it generally alternated between 21 and 23 SAS), and 23 were always regarded as tough, straight-talking, hard-drinking, fit-as-hell soldiers. We had last been with them at Test Week all those months earlier, and rumor was that "the 23 DS are going to make sure that any 21 recruits get it the worst."
Trucker and I hoped simply to try and stay "gray men" and not be noticed. To put our heads down and get on and quietly do the work.
This didn't exactly go according to plan.
"Where are the lads who speak like Prince Charles?" The 23 DS shouted on the first parade when we arrived.
"Would you both like newspapers with your morning tea, gents?" the DS sarcastically enquired.
Part of me was tempted ~ Bear Grylls

This was when he first suspected that the kindly child-loving God extolled by his headmistress might not exist. As it turned out, most major world events suggested the same. But for Theo's sincerely godless generation, the question hasn't come up. No one in his bright, plate-glass, forward-looking school ever asked him to pray, or sing an impenetrable cheery hymn. There's no entity for him to doubt. His initiation, in front of the TV, before the dissolving towers, was intense but he adapted quickly. These days he scans the papers for fresh developments the way he might a listings magazine. As long as there's nothing new, his mind is free. International terror, security cordons, preparations for war - these represent the steady state, the weather. Emerging into adult consciousness, this is the world he finds. ~ Ian McEwan

Marion's view allowed her experience with cancer to be full of meaning, to be replete with possibility, and it enabled Death to bring her more deeply into Life. She got the initiation. ~ Stephen Cope

I see a direct connection between the Fuenta Magna Bowl and Ogma, I believe the former is an authentic yet misplaced artifact that has its origins in the Middle East as the Irish/Celtic mythology as well. Ogma -being the god/originator of speech and language- carries the syllable of 'Og' in his name (according to a renowned authority on Irish Mythology, James Swagger) which signals some process of initiation through which other members could join into this culture. His family connections were confused (according to, The Dictionary Of Mythology) but it is said that he was the brother of Dagda and Lugh; and Dagda owned a magical cauldron known as Undry, which was always full and used to satisfy his enormous appetite. The [Tales depict Dagda as a figure of immense power, armed with a magic club to kill nine men with one blow]. This symbolism shows another remarkable link, however, to ancient Egypt with the Nine Bows representing its enemies. With Richard Cassaro's work, we now know the significance of the Godself icon which we see on the Fuenta Magna Bowl; and yet my observation and surprise here lies in the fact that the Godself icon could simply refer to Dagda being a figure of immense power, but what is more astounding is when I found that the Latin word caldaria (whence 'cauldron' was taken) means a 'cooking pot'. This is indeed amazing, but that's not all! This Latin word has its etymological roots in the Semitic languages, where the Old Babylonian word 'kid' meaning 'to cu ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim

The challenge with being an initiator of projects is that you are never, ever done. ~ Seth Godin

Initiation means the Journey Inwards: nothing is changed or can be changed; but all is trulier understood with every step. ~ Aleister Crowley

My first few weeks in New York were an initiation into the kingdom of guts. ~ Shirley Maclaine

Deep, unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state. ~ Ira Gershwin

Timing of creation of AVF and AVG is important in determining use of VA in prevalent HD patients. KDOQI recommends creation of AVF when either creatinine clearance is <25 mL/min, creatinine is >4 mg/dL, or initiation of HD is expected within 1 year. ~ Arif Asif

[Keeping kosher was] the symbol of an initiation, like the insignia of a secret brotherhood, that set her apart and gave her freedom and dignity. Every law whose yoke she accepted willingly seemed to add to her freedom: she herself had chosen ... To enter that brotherhood. Her Judaism was no longer a stigma, a meaningless accident of birth from which she could escape ... It had become a distinction, the essence of her self-hood, what she was, what she wanted to be, not merely what she happened to be. ~ Jessie Sampter