The word "initiation" is tossed around a great deal. So much so that it has come to be an almost meaningless term. I have seen people call themselves "initiates" because they bought (or even shoplifted) a book or video, because they took some drug, or because some idiot taught them a secret handshake in a bar. Since human beings, by their (mainly forgotten) better natures, long to improve themselves, there is a great hunger for such "initiations" -- they are as popular as that perennial best-seller, toilet paper printed to look money.

And certainly they are as valuable.

I would like to discuss Initiation as seen from a Left Hand Path perspective. The Left Hand Path is the path of nonunion. Our Right Hand Path brothers and sisters look for patterns external to themselves to harmonize with -- be it god, goddess, or dialectical materialism. We look for existent but underdeveloped patterns of the divine within our own experience to bring forth to create a unique harmony within ourselves and our world. Our path is burdened by strife, false pride, and true anguish of not knowing what to do -- and rewarded by Love, personal victories, mindful cooperation, and the sense of the unknown. Given our values, and our weaknesses, Initiation is a very important concept to us. Now keep in mind that I am the CEO of a Initiatory School and not-for-profit corporation, so you will remember my biases, which is the first step of changing reading into Reading . . .

Since we live in an age of distrust, any group that seeks to recreate mankind's legacy of Initiation will be (and for the sake of keeping the group honest, *should* be) viewed with two types of distrust. The first is the commendable, "Why are these bozos any better than the rest of us?" If that answer is made by reference to scripture or lineage, rather than the achievements of the students, the group deserves the contempt it gets. The second type of distrust is a subtle and ignoble one, "I don't think I can get better." The latter view breeds a nihilism and cynicism that eventually rots both its holder and his culture.

Initiation is about Process, not (merely) ceremony. I wonder if any intellectual historian has paid attention to the fact that Process philosopher Henri Bergson's sister was MacGregor Mather's wife. The essential idea of Process philosophy is that, "The many become One and are enriched by one." As we develop into the only open place for us, the future, we are constantly putting our lives together. Generally this is done on a haphazard plan. We are somehow the product of our genes, our relationships, our education, and so forth. The Initiate, however, seeks to control more and more of how her life is put together. Life should not be a blender into which all things are thrown, but a vessel in which care is exercised as soon as people realize that everything is going into the whole. The ceremonies of Initiation don't do this work: they can however focus it by use of Symbols which represent the new whole the Initiate has made of her life. Since the ceremonial part of Initiation is the visible bit that anyone can get, foolish people assume that it is Initiation. This assumption has spawned countless cults and kooky books that focus on ceremony. These are as misleading as a book that describes the cap-and-gown ceremony -- but fails to mention the four or five years of university beforehand.

Initiation is about Exchange not (merely) book learning. People love to read and surf the Web, and otherwise amuse themselves. Playing with new ideas is lots of fun. But amusement is not change of a very high order. Change is an interesting word, because it holds two ideas. One, that something exists that can be changed by applying materials and labor from a particular man or woman's Subjective Universe. Two, that this process is different than simple intellectual or cultural change. The Work of a School is not simply changing people's ideas, the TV does that very well. The Work of a School is to create a space where certain ideas, moods, artistic achievements, and magical powers will cluster. Now this is very hard work, because no one wants to hear a new idea. Everyone thinks they want to hear a new idea, and the Teacher is deluged with people that are willing to take up her banner, but with no deep idea of what they are marching for. People marching under her banner may come to ask themselves -- exactly what is this thing that I am marching under? And if that question is met by the right word, or gaze, or article from the Teacher, a certain Transmission can occur. This moment can not be planned for; although certain situations can be set up to make such things likely. What happens then is very surprising. The would-be follower then Teaches the Teacher by example. This is the sort of Work that is possible with a living teacher. In the Left Hand Path traditions of India, there are many stories of how the guru achieves rebirth by becoming the disciple of his disciple -- and the disciple achieves immortality by finally "getting" and then demonstrating the lesson of his guru. This Exchange is beyond what can be had reading about a philosophical concept, however helpful, or engaging in debate and discussion with well-meaning enlightened people. Georges Dumezil once pointed out, "within the corporate body of sorcerers, the disciple is just as important as his master as concerns the continued transmission . . . of the supernatural knowledge that is its commonwealth and its justification. Each needs the other." (cited in David Gordon White's _The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India_.)

Initiation is real-world testable. Primates appear to be hard-wired to travel in packs, and a good deal of our "ritual" behavior is there to make us fit in. Secret Societies and Initiatory Schools are both aided and retarded by this evolutionary tendency. It's fun to "fit in" -- doubly so for people who have spent a good deal of their lives as misfits. However learning social codes is hardly Initiation. Initiation is meaningless unless it helps you deal both with the crises of your life and with achieving your enlightened goals. The would-be Initiate must ask himself two questions. One: Is this group I'm in really a School? Are other people really getting better? An individual may get better in any group -- you may have learned your social skills in a coin-collecting club -- but that doesn't mean that numismatic associations are Initiatory. Two: Am I really getting better? Am I able to perform greater feats of mind, heart, body, and magic? The former questions require an easily obtainable skepticism. (Easily obtainable in that as much as 1% of the population can honestly ask them.) Asking the later question is the force that divides the Initiate from the social critic. (Probably about 1% of the first group can become the second . . . meaning at a guess that .01% can become Initiates.) If you come across a School where people hold high grades and fancy titles, but work for minimum wage and live with their folks -- RUN, don't walk away.

Initiation is about being True. We sadly live in a world where Oaths are taken very lightly. The idea that one should get beyond infantilism and actually seek to yoke themselves to Ideals -- even self-chosen Ideals -- is a bit quaint. Yet people who will join and leave occult societies at the drop of a hat, lie to their spouses, and betray their friends, often actually expect their words and deeds to have some weight in the spiritual world. They don't have enough discipline to stick with anything tough, yet expect their spells to accomplish the impossible. If a person can't be true to a path for a year, what possible chance do they have at personal immortality? If a person can't stand by a friend in trouble, what chance of their Will doing anything out of the ordinary? They can't even do the ordinary. If a person can not be loyal to her School, how can she expect the many parts of herself to be loyal to her greater goals?

Initiation is about specialization, not generality. This is the Secret the occult industry would rather you not know. The occult industry has a vested interest in people not becoming deeply interested in anything. They want to promote a myth that you are somehow a better person if you have wide-ranging interests. You know a little of this and a little of that. Real self-change doesn't work that way. The parts of yourself that you really need to change are pretty entrenched in you, and finding and learning to use the tools that will work for you (and you alone) is a lifetime quest. If you really want to change yourself, first you learn about a system of magic, then you practice it on a playful level, then you research it to as deep a level as you have intellectual resources to do, then you teach it, then you actually create more of it at the cutting edge. If it sounds like hard work, it is. It is easier to own many books than to write books. It is very hard to write good books. It is harder still to develop oneself to the level that one can Transmit information by means other than words, and even harder still to renounce your power over those you teach for a greater Power of then letting them Teach you. But this is the way real Initiation works, which is a long way from the day you first walked into an occult shop and bought a silly book that began to suggest that maybe things are not as they seem. It is the difference between reading about the Illuminati and being the Illuminati.