Understanding Initiation Author(s): George Weckman Reviewed work(s): Source: History of Religions, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Aug.

, 1970), pp. 62-79 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1061823 . Accessed: 10/04/2012 06:34
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George Weckman

UNDERSTANDING INITIATION

The phenomenon of initiation is one of the most persistent and ubiquitous aspects of religion. Like religion itself, however, a single definition which can apply to all instances and ramifications has proved very difficult to achieve. The term "initiation" is not a problem, in that it does refer rather clearly to a type of social activity with attendant notions of change. The French use l'initiation to mean any introduction, for example, to a new area of study-but such usage is obviously derivative and nonreligious. The problem seems to lie instead with the multileveled meaning of this type of religious activity and its occurrence in so many cultures and doctrinal contexts. It is the purpose of this essay to summarize the kinds of conclusions which various students of initiation ceremonies have made regarding some examples or the total phenomenon. Recognition of the valid aspects which each approach has uncovered will lead into a way of relating these discoveries and bringing them into a larger conceptual framework. The correlation of the various approaches to initiation will also indicate new significance in the further subdivision of the general category of initiation rites. I find four kinds of approaches to initiation patterns by which scholars have tried to explain various rites or myths. In the first group I place all interpretations which remove the significance of the rite from the religious sphere. This is a great body of literature, of course, since so many scholars in former years have assumed that a religious meaning is no meaning at all. Most prominent of
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these approaches to initiation is the notion that such rites reinforce social values. A second group of scholars emphasizes the meaning of the symbolism or mythology of transformation, which is to be found in rites of initiation but also in less directly connected religious phenomena. The third group in my list focuses on the structure of the rite. Here the key word is "transition" and under this rubric initiation flows over into other religious and social situations such as the celebration of seasonal change. The fourth approach is the one I am trying to develop here. Structure is important, but it is the structure not only of the rite but of the whole situation, social and symbolic, that must be considered. Thus the fourth opinion is an attempt to include aspects of the other three. Each of these four types of initiation scholarship will be more closely studied later in this article. It may be wise first, however, to point out areas of interpretation and investigation of cult which are not involved here at all. (We have no full phenomenology of worship or ritual1 which could clarify the distinctions we must make briefly.) Most important of these other areas of cult scholarship is the structural analysis of the basic cultic situation. In this endeavor Johan Huizinga2 has stimulated the perception of the gamelike aspects in cult: boundaries, special time and rhythm, different clothing, and the assumption of the "make-believe" attitude. None of these aspects is peculiar to initiation rites, however; they are a part of any cultic practice. Another way of studying cult is the examination of the emotions involved. Heiler's famous book on prayer is a work of this type.3 This and similar books are admittedly exercises in the psychology of religion, and this is not necessarily a part of every investigation of religious phenomena. Reference must be made to assumed or desired psychic states. Some attitudes are culture-formed poses and are a part of the objective structure of the rite. However, the psychology of religion does not investigate these ideal emotional patterns but probes into the actual feelings of a worshiper, including the extent to which he may personally reject the prescribed emotion or in some other way become self-conscious concerning the situation. We cannot and should not entertain more than the possibility of these individual feelings in most investigations because they have little to do with public intention
1 The major attempt to this date, but insufficient at many points, is Robert Will, Le culte, 3 vols. (vol. 1, Strasbourg, 1925; vol. 2, Paris, 1929; vol. 3, Paris, 1935). 2 Johan Huizinga, Homo ludens (Boston, 1955). 3 Friedrich Heiler, Prayer (New York, 1932). 3 63

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of the cult. We must admit only the possibility of sincere participation in the prescribed states of mind in order to proceed. Subsequent studies can entertain, on the basis of the coherent structure of the rite, how, for example, it may disintegrate under external pressure or through the disappearance of its original world view. Other areas of scholarship not directly concerned in initiation would include the so-called myth-ritual approach.4 There may be a myth which is clearly dramatized in an initiation rite,5 but the connection is not as prominent as in the Akitu and similar festivals on which this school was based. Myths must be used where present to determine the conscious framework with which the rites are practiced, but it is unnecessary here to press a detailed connection. Indeed it is part of my argument that mythological elements are added to the type of rite under discussion because of their structural meaning or basic symbolic reference (e.g., death); the rite does not dramatize the myth, but the myth gives conscious form to the meaning of the rite. Of course, it would be possible to continue into more and more remote areas of irrelevance. These paragraphs, I hope, are sufficient to avoid some confusion. That which is relevant in the discussion of initiation is reviewed next.
NONRELIGIOUS INTERPRETATIONS: SOCIOGENIC

The main thrust of the reductionist position has come from anthropological studies of the "puberty rite" among primitive peoples. It has not been easy for former generations to see the serious and transcendent significance in such behavior as would be deemed foolish and obtuse in modern Western society. This, plus the assumption that religion is not a basic factor in life but merely a cloak for more practical and scientific processes, has led to a variety of valid but, in my opinion, secondary interpretations. Two basic directions are recognizable in literature of this type: an emphasis on sexual identity and an emphasis on social roles. Both are aspects of the change in life patterns induced by physiological puberty. The ethnologists' opinion does not stand or fall on the celebration of physiological change alone but on the wider implications of such a change for the society and for the individual. Since this change is more marked socially for the boy becoming
4 S. H. Hooke, ed., Myth and Ritual (Oxford, 1933). 5 W. E. H. Stanner, On Aboriginal Religion (Sydney, 1966), chaps. 1, 2.

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History of Religions a man, it is male puberty which has had the most elaborate public recognition. Note well that this type of interpretation centers on the event of social, psychological, and physical maturation. Some of the other approaches to initiation discussed below begin instead with the pattern of the rite of change. This difference in the immediate object of attention when approaching initiation must be remembered in order to understand the variations in defining initiation. Saying that puberty is an event does not seem accurate, however, since the three areas of change hardly ever occur simultaneously in any individual, let alone in a group. It is characteristic of human societies and their rites, nevertheless, to be arbitrary in deciding when and where change will be recognized. This fact should not disturb the scholar (or the believer, for that matter), for it is a regular aspect of that general structure of any cult, referred to above. The cultic recognition of puberty is on the same order as conventional activity such as weeping for Tammuz or a wedding ceremony for a couple in common law marriage. The facts of the case, internal or external, one's feelings or actual relationships, are the prescribed and assumed situation which the rite itself never questions. On the social level this can be enforced. To be specific, a boy may have been physically mature for a number of years before he is officially permitted to marry, join men's sphere of activities, and change his abode. Certainly psychological maturity would depend on both the physiological and social factors plus many more individual elements. The argument that puberty initiation effects a social change, and that its regular elements can be so explained, proceeds in this fashion: Social equilibrium is endangered by the growing prowess of the young boys. Their strength and sexual capabilities threaten the order of society. Therefore they must be socialized; this consists of teaching them the patterns of life in that particular society and enforcing this learning with various acts of intimidation and torment, both psychological and physical. While the elders might not be aware of it, their action is capable of interpretation as selfish desire for continued power in the village, but in any case social order is also maintained.6 In addition to this somewhat negative function, an equally social concern can be seen in the
6 See, for example, Society (Glencoe, Ill., Some of the political Duks-Duk8 (Chicago,

A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, Structure and Function in Primitive 1953); Paul Radin, Primitive Religion (New York, 1957). implications are discussed in Elizabeth Anne Weber, The 1929). 65

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interpretation of some of the puberty-rite syndrome, including torture, as growth magic.7 Frank Young has called this type of interpretation "sociogenic," in which category his own theory predominantly rests; this is to be compared with the "psychogenic" type of approach to which we will turn presently.8 Young admits that he examines the function of the rite in the society and not its meaning for the society; in this he distinguishes his study from the analysis of myths and symbols which occupies our second group of investigators. But what is left when both the psychological dimensions and native interpretation are rejected? Young concludes that the whole puberty rite is geared to the social recognition of the sex role. His book proceeds on this assumption to analyze fifty-four primitive societies to see how great a degree of male or generally social solidarity is reflected by the intensity with which the rites are observed. Young's pursuit of sociological indications in the puberty rites is not invalid, but it is somewhat naive from the point of view of a historian of religions. He does not recognize a difference between culturally (or religiously) creative and degenerate situations; he assumes that any valid meaning in the rite must be clearly present in every example and that a particular example cannot illuminate the others; and he does not deal responsibly with differences of types or levels of culture within the general terminology of "primitive peoples" in order to understand why the puberty rites might or might not be important.9 Rigidly scientific (or should we say "scientistic"?) studies like Young's remind me of Yinger's comparison of American and European sociologists: the former do not care whether their findings are significant as long as they are true (i.e., according to statistical tables and other semiscientific devices). It is not my concern to probe more deeply into the methods and results of this kind of study, since it is apparent that its focus is radically different from mine. The word "social" is used by both of us, but for Young it refers to the particular society that can be observed at one point in its history, while for me it means the social pattern recognized by the people themselves. What I wish to understand is their social world, but Young and others want to
7 Hans Nevermann, Masken und Geheimbiinde in Melanesian (Berlin, 1933), p. 160. 8 Frank W. Young, Initiation Ceremonies (Indianapolis, 1965), p. 2. 9 Ibid., pp. 6, 16, and passim. 66

History of Religions translate their world into modern, Western terms and values. Surely modern institutions have as many ulterior functions as the primitive, and the historian of religions finds himself seeing religious functions in contemporary society much as the anthropologist finds science among the simpler cultures. It is necessary only to state clearly, to oneself and the reader, just what the goals and terms of the investigation are. The recent publication of a study of Melanesian initiations by M. R. Allen displays a continuation of the social-solidarity line of thought but gives somewhat more attention to the psychology of sex involved. In addition to an understanding of the general puberty rite as a reflection and validation of sex-role differentiation, Allen brings up another element common in this type of analysis, that rites act out sentiments which are otherwise undesirable. For example, sex envy or antagonism is displayed in a somewhat less harmful way than out-and-out bitterness and cruelty.10 Now this statement seems to be directly opposed to the opinion, widely held among believers, historians, and psychologists, including Allen, that rites act out desirable emotions or rehearse necessary although uncomfortable events. From this point of view a rite symbolizing or marking death is a way in which men introduce the dread thought of their own demise into their consciousness. Allen, however, is not alone among those who would also see man expressing in rite those attitudes which are all too much with him and need no reinforcement. I think that it is possible to admit both interpretations, even in the same ritual situation. But the crux of the problem lies in which we decide is most important. For ethnologists like Allen man's mind is basically devious, for it is supposed to have made up ritual games in order to sublimate impulses antithetical to long-range social goals. It seems more reasonable to me to give priority to the positive function, that is, the celebration of life with all its processes including death and maturation and to see the expression of antagonism (or even sadism) as an incidental although functional accompaniment. What does lie at the basis of Allen's comments is the admittedly valid and important role of sex identity. This is among the life values to which I can readily concede a basic place in man's creative ritualization.
10 M. R. Allen, Male Cults and Secret Initiations in Melanesia (Melbourne, 1967), p. 121. 67

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NONRELIGIOUS INTERPRETATIONS: PSYCHOGENIC

Turning our attention now toward those who place most importance on the psychological effects of puberty rites in primitive societies, we note first the semisociological function already mentioned, that of reinforcing male identity. Primitive social patterns leave the male child entirely within the mother's care and thus in a feminine world. Lest the transition to male roles and attitudes be insufficiently accomplished by casual means, primitive man institutes a practice which will call attention to the change and force its appropriateresults." Quite opposite to this theory of a helpful attitude on the part of the adult males is the notion proposed by Freud that the puberty rites act out feelings of hostility. The fathers project their feelings of hostility onto the mythological monster who kills or swallows the boys, while the actual motive force is their threat of castration and the enforcementof the incest taboo.12Circumcision, as a common form of mutilation, assumes importance as a subterfuge for castration. In his famous book Bruno Bettelheim showed clear continuity with the Freudian approach, but he shifted the emphasis from Oedipal rivalry to male envy of the female sexual role.13 Many elements of tribal initiations were to be found in male envy as he saw it in the lives of disturbed children. Many elements receive new meanings with this approach;for example, penile bloodletting indicates envy of menstruation,subincisionis an attempt at imitating female sex organs, and secrecy is seen as a veil for the fact that none of this is really successful. Most interesting is the fact that through Bettelheim's theory attention is removed from the adult role and the rites are seen in terms of the desires of the adolescent. I would be willing to grant some significance to Bettelheim's notions only through this fact: that it may explain some of the feelings with which a young boy undergoes initiation; but precisely for this reason his theory cannot explain the whole institution, especially its social permanence and adult interest. When all has been said, the social and psychological aspects of puberty initiation, alone or together, do not deal with the phenomenon at the level of its cultural form. This, rather than any
11 J. W. M. Whiting, Richard Kluckhohn, and Albert Anthony, "The Function of Male Initiation Ceremonies at Puberty," in Readings in Social Psychology, ed. E. E. Macoby, T. M. Newcomb, and E. L. Hartly (New York, 1958), pp. 359-70. 12 Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo (New York, 1952); Theodor Reik, Ritual: Psycho-analytic Studies (New York, 1946), pp. 103-9. 13 Bruno Bettelheim, Symbolic Wounds (Glencoe, Ill., 1954). 68

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detailed refutation, dismisses such theories from the purview of the historian of religions. Cultural elements are aspects of human creativity, and so the search for subliminal and ulterior factors is always something of a rejection of the distinctly human aspects. If we wish to understand religion and its structures, human consciousness must be taken at face value in at least part of a total investigation. Therefore I leave whatever of validity there may be in the analysis of unconscious personal or social forces and proceed to the main locus of religious studies, the imagination and creative apprehension of conscious man.
THE SYMBOLISM OF INITIATION

The second major group of scholars who have contributed to the literature on initiation concentrates on the myths and ritual acts as a kind of language for expressing human awareness of transformation. Compared with the focus by the first group on specific cultural data, that is, primitive puberty rites, the shift of attention to symbolism expands the reference of initiation. Now dreams, visions, and modern literature become sources for initiation patterns. Puberty rites, furthermore, are joined by secret-society rites and "ordinations" to shamanism or other special religious roles, as cultic expressions of initiation symbols. Recalling the history of religious studies, however, we should note a few of the ways in which older scholarship understood the symbolism of puberty initiation. Frazer saw the rites as a means of exchanging one's soul for the soul of the totem; Frobenius thought the natives thereby became spirits; Crawley added the concept of sex contagion.14 All such notions of the sense behind initiation acts and myths have disappeared with the growing recognition of the primacy and ubiquity of the death-rebirth symbolism. It is this symbolic scheme with its variations and modifications which provides the main platform today for the analysis of initiation symbolism. Mircea Eliade, in many places but most completely in the 1956 Haskell Lectures and the resulting publication,15 has summarized and analyzed the symbolism of death and rebirth with authority and comprehension. The definitive nature of his analysis was confirmed in the presentations of the Strasburg 1964 study conference of the International Association for the History of Religions.16 Against Young's objection that such symbolism does
14 15

16 C. J. Bleeker, ed., Initiation (Leiden, 1965), pp. 2, 18-19.

Hutton Webster, Primitive Secret Societies (New York, 1908), p. 25. Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation (New York, 1965). 69

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not clearly appear everywhere, Eliade's approach recognizes the possibility of incomplete or degenerate examples of a ritual system whose overall dynamics are nevertheless too common to be ignored. Certainly the feeling of death and renewal is too basic and too apparent to be faulted by a lack of scientifically verifiable statistics. In any event, Eliade's work draws on a wide variety of examples to present both the main theme and its variations in the whole history of initiation ritual. Eliade sees three categories of initiation rites among primitive peoples plus various uses of the basic initiation pattern in higher religions, for example, Greek mysteries. These three categories are the puberty rites, entrance into a secret society, and the adoption of a mystical vocation, for example, being a shaman.17 From the point of view of the symbols involved, however, these three categories cannot be distinguished. Eliade sees that it is the social framework in each case which permits this differentiation, but his analysis does not dwell on the social aspects. Instead he presents a unified picture of the basic initiation symbol pattern and comments on the differences only as departures or adjustments of that pattern. This description does not by any means invalidate his work, but it does explain why the secret-group initiation and other particular applications of initiation symbolism do not emerge as separate, coherent types. It is clearly the dramatization of death and rebirth which underlies the various scenarios of initiation. Sometimes the boys are simply killed; sometimes they are swallowed by a monster; sometimes embryo imagery is emphasized. The details vary but the general notion persists. After the pain of death the boy and his whole society are regenerated to become fully human and to participate in significant human life. One particular form of the general pattern is the imagery of the difficult journey, which Eliade associates with "heroic" initiations.18 This is really not an alternative to the experience of death, for the journey is typically a descent to the underworld or an impossible passage (e.g., the Symplegades) from which one cannot return alive. Heroic journey myths thus form a connection between obvious death images and ordeal rites or mythologems where the presence of death symbolization might not be immediately apparent. As the death motif can expand and utilize various mythic
17 Eliade, p. 2. 18 Ibid., pp. 61-66; Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (Cleveland, 1963), pp. 427-28. 70

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elements, like the devouring monster or the dangerous journey, so the correlative movement of the rite or myth has many ramifications. Rebirth can be seen in personal, social, and spiritual ways. With this realization the connection between symbols of rebirth and conversion becomes apparent. Images derived from or similar to the psychological transformation at puberty can be found in rites and experiences of conversion to specific religious groups. In each case the individual enters upon a life that is new and also more powerful than his former existence. Eliade is aware of three ways in which the many symbols and their many applications can be differentiated. His recognition of a distinction based on the type of group entered has already been mentioned, along with the fact that he does not expand it. Instead he pursues two other scales with which incidents of initiation can be organized and related. First is the type of symbolism (simple separation, death through ordeals, emphasis on gestation, individual withdrawal into a wilderness, magical victory, dismemberment of the body, and paradoxical or impossible actions).19 This, of course, is no true scheme for the analysis of initiation but a list of the dominant historical examples. While it is instructive as an overview of the whole range of symbols which express initiation processes, it explains neither the unity nor the variation in initiation. The other scale of comparison is much clearer but is very difficult to demonstrate historically. This is the observation that rites and symbols become more intense the more complex the culture.20 The understanding of initiation in terms of symbols or myths of transformation can be supplemented but never replaced as scholars continue to find corroboration in variations on the basic pattern. Nevertheless, the attempt to comprehend the peculiar nature of initiations as ritual situations raises questions which a study of the symbolism does not answer. After a careful examination of the role of the myth or symbol within a total ritual, one might come to the conclusion that it is at variance with the dominant action. It seems that a study of ritual symbolism is akin to the study of word meanings or etymologies. Whether in its treatment of historical development or in a consensus of common usage, a dictionary or dictionary of symbolic elements can only help in the discovery of meaning in a sentence (or a total ritual situation). There are simply too many instances in which a word
19 Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation, p. 130. 20 Ibid., p. 131. 71

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or even a whole statement may be forced to bear unexpected connotations for the careful linguist to depend entirely on the fixed and isolated definitions of a lexicon. This problem is most acute in the translation of poetry, which, like rite, often carries meanings and produces effects which are not immediately recognizable. Therefore, the myths and symbols of ritual transformation provide the vocabulary with which a rite speaks. What exactly is being said in each instance, however, will be determined by many other factors. For example, the most common way in which rites put mythic language to a new use is in creating an ancient and hoary aura through their traditional associations. Words, actions, myths, and even whole rites have been maintained in some cultures almost purely for their function in connecting the present with the past, hallowing the new by importing age-old associations, The preservation of the Vedas in Hinduism can be understood to a great extent according to this principle. An awareness of transformation symbolism is very important to the analysis of any initiation rite. It is best as an introduction, however, for one must proceed to an investigation of the other typical factors, especially the social framework. Only then, if then, does one have adequate categories for a full appreciation of any instance.

THE STRUCTURE OF INITIATION

If Eliade has given us the classic study of the vocabulary of initiation, it is Arnold Van Gennep who has been the master grammarian. His study of the rites of transition21 first appeared in 1909 but has never been seriously refuted. He called attention to aspects of ritual which immediately commended themselves to ethnologists and sociologists. He did not deal directly with the symbolic vocabulary, nor did he examine the social worlds in which the cultic statements are made; but he did formulate the basic mechanism of rituals. In continuing the comparison with other types of approaches to initiation, we note that Van Gennep's structural analysis includes more than is usually denoted by the term "initiation rites." This is so because the structure of ritual transition applies not only to celebrations of human change but also to transitions in the natural world. Thus seasonal or new
21 Arnold Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (Chicago, 1960).

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year rites are seen to be comparable with "puberty" initiation. Chapple and Coon suggest that the term "rites of intensification" be applied to the seasonal rites,22 and this may be of help in narrowing the broad scope of the "rites de passage." The essence of Van Gennep's presentation is the subdivision of the total cultic act into separate rites. These have three distinct effects: separation, transition, and incorporation. With these three basic moments in mind, a wide variety of actions and statements are organized and a framework with almost universal application is disclosed. Much more than this Van Gennep does not do; his major premises are stultified by excess exemplification.23 Furthermore, his description of the mechanics of the rite as seen by the native mind is dependent on Tylor and Marettt and is consequently outdated.24 His basic contribution to the structural analysis of the cult remains important nonetheless. Another step in this same direction has been made by W. E. H. Stanner in the course of his study of Australian aboriginal rites. Here the initiation structure is homologized with the pattern of sacrifice and yields the following structure: consecration, immolation, transformation, return, and sharing.25 Again initiation is forced to share its root dynamics with another arena of cultic activity, but a great deal is thereby explained. Certainly the notion of initiation as sacrifice looms large in personal experience, and the primitive mutilations become homeomorphic with the taking of life in a sacrifice rite.

INITIATION AS A LIFE STRUCTURE

Each of the approaches to the phenomenon of initiation which have been mentioned so far has been based on undeniably real aspects of initiation rituals. Their major fault lies in an unwillingness to take the other factors into serious consideration. With the possible exception of the psychogenic approach, however, all of these elements are necessary for the historian of religions to
22 Eliot D. Chapple and Carlton S. Coon, Principles of Anthropology (New York, 1942), pp. 507 ff. 23 Max Gluckman, ed., Essays on the Ritual of Social Relations (Manchester, 1963), p. 7. 24 Van Gennep, pp. 7-9. 25 Stanner (n. 5 above), pp. 2-16. Also see the application of sacrifice myths to puberty-rite situations in Greece as illuminated by Angelo Brelich, "Symbol of a Symbol," Myths and Symbols: Studies in Honor of Mircea Eliade, ed. Joseph M. Kitagawa and Charles H. Long (Chicago, 1969), pp. 195-207. 73

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grasp the distinct nature of initiation rites. Therefore it becomes obvious in the course of this investigation that the whole study of initiation patterns must be reexamined. One should begin with an awareness of the social patterns which are created or affected by the rite. Then one must note the language by which the social transition is accomplished, carefully listening to see whether it is being used for its immediate symbolic reference or for some other associations in the culture. Third, the structure of the rite itself will help in determining how symbolic elements are being used and what kind of social implications may result. One student of initiation patterns has tried to integrate all these concerns: Jean Cazeneuve.26 He notes, for example, the role of civil laws. If one is being initiated into human life, confession and purification are stressed (as also sexuation); but in other initiations where the human condition is to be transcended, impurity, transgression, and assexuation are dominant themes.27 Cazeneuve's comments are based on a division of initiations into two groups, "puberty" and "magical," but a much more careful and detailed division is possible. The best single term by which to identify this fourth approach to initiation phenomena is the description of the rites as "incorporation." Social change, transformation, and transition-all of these themes concentrate on the ritual moment alone. But incorporation emphasizes the direction of the movement toward more restricted and more highly valued levels of being. In an initiation a person changes not only his relationship with the spiritual world or the social world alone but his relationship with both together. He is incorporated into a sacred social reality, which can be compared with his former state and the groupings in which his neighbors are located. Because the cultural structure is so important in defining the purpose of the initiation ceremony it is invalid to center an analysis on the personal psychology of the transition, thus ruling out any effective help from psychological investigations. Furthermore, the other approaches must be combined and supplemented in order to give the corporate goal its due. We are forced to adopt this stance by the recognition of a reality in the minds of peoples who practice such rites, even though modern viewpoints generally ignore or reject such a
26 Jean Cazeneuve, Les rites et la condition humaine (Paris, 1958), esp. chap. 17, "L'initiation et les actes archetypiques." 27 Ibid., p. 327. 74

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reality. The reality I refer to is the conception of qualitatively different levels of human existence, ontological inequality. The lack of any such notion among men can be demonstrated by reference to maturation as currently understood. Social scientists are concerned today to underline the tremendous significance of maturation processes in human life; adolescence and youth have been seldom as disturbingly noticeable as today. So, if I were to argue a contemporary issue from the perspective of this essay, it would be to the end that realities like the traditional life structures into which initiation was required need to be created or renewed. Once demolished, however, can man ever again recover his sense for the structural nature of his ontology It may be impossible that adulthood can mean once more the entrance into a level of perception and receptivity which is qualitatively different from that of childhood. This new state of life in traditional cultures demanded responsibility and other aspects of maturity, not because they were practical necessities or because of any similar modern notion, but because they were part of one's participation in the operation of the universe, partnership with divinity. The direction of initiation situations was upward toward higher realms of being and action. With ease they were fueled by man's ambition to be more than is immediately given, to strive and to transcend the "given." The contrast between the mind-sets of modern and traditional peoples regarding initiation might become clearer by use of an analogy. Modern man builds from the bottom up; whether it be a novel or a skyscraper, it is constantly dependent on its foundations. Traditional man reaches heights by means of a ladder or a rope-the upper level is already there, whether he or his neighbors get up to it or not, and the process of reaching it depends on something attached and firmed above. The most important thing in the phenomenon of initiation, therefore, is the fact of the change in level and the relationship of that level to other levels. Let us extend the preceding analogy so that it applies to the ways of studying initiation as reviewed above. Sociologists concentrate on the ways in which daily life is affected by the supposed change in level. Symbologists study the terms with which the traditional mind in various situations describes each level and the mode of getting from one to another. The structural study of ritual describes the shape and length of the ladder or rope. Keeping all this in mind, we are prepared to view the total situation, emphasizing the contrast in levels.
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TYPES

Initiation
RITUAL

OF INITIATION

None of the schools of interpretation alone could explain the unity of all that goes under the term "initiation" plus the distinct aspects of the various kinds of examples at the same time. Social solidarity or psychological reinforcement fit primitive societies but are difficult to apply to the Greek mysteries or individual consecrations. The structural and symbological approaches, on the other hand, extend into areas far removed from anything we can call initiation ritual. In no case does it seem to be anything more than convenience that divides the range of examples into smaller categories. If I have been convincing, however, we do have a conceptual framework which accounts for all examples of initiation rite and nothing else. A ritual can be identified as an example of initiation when it effects an ascent in status from one social and ontological level to another. Having identified the basic intention of the rite, one can, of course, return to any one of the avenues of approach traditionally pursued. To achieve a synoptic view of the scope of initiation, however, it is now possible to take the analysis even further at the general level. The most sensitive subdivision of the whole area is, I think, accomplished by a series of dichotomies. First one makes a division into initiations which usher the candidate into the human realm and those which take him beyond it. This is comparable with Cazeneuve's distinction between puberty and magical initiations. The child is not really on the human level socially or ontologically until the rite is performed. But in many places one has the further option of transcending the normal human state; so another initiation can take a person out the opposite side of normal human life. This second area must be divided into initiations which make the candidate a special functionary in the human community and those states which are their own reason for being. This distinction sounds confusing, but it is merely the separation of priests, shamans, and the like into a special category. Such religious functionaries must be initiated into a special mode of being because of their familiarity with powerful, sacred things. Although priests and prophets are to be found in close-knit groups, their primary role is performed individually,28 and it is a service to a laity which defines them. This is not characteristic of the kind of
28 If many priests are present at a complex ceremony, they do not operate as a single group, but many specific roles are designated.

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History of Religions initiation which bestows a new being and special character which have their own value and through which an individual shares in the essence of a group. In order to be specific about the latter type if initiation, we must divide the possibilities into two areas once again. The first nonfunctionary, transcendent type of initiation is mainly salvatory. The group formed by those who have been initiated may or may not be very rigorous and usually coexists with other social groupings. Initiations into the mysteries of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as Christian baptism, are examples of this type. The group formed by the initiatory fellowship is what Wach puts under the heading of the "specifically religious organization of society,"29 to be contrasted with the religious comprehension of natural groups. In other words, this is the ecclesia, the religious group "called out" of ordinary life. Although such an ecclesial and salvific community is ritually separated from the rest of society, it is not a completely closed-off group. Troeltsch's distinction between sect and church is based on the degree to which a group is rigorously exclusive.30 The sect is that pole of the church-sect continuum which most nearly approaches the initiation group which separates itself socially as well as religiously from the rest of society. The final dichotomy in the series is that which distinguishes the two kinds of rigidly closed groups. The one which is best exemplified by the utopian community attempts to reproduce total society within its own group. Thus members are of both sexes and children are often present; there is as little connection with or dependence on people outside the group as possible. Examples include Qumran, some aspects of the Anabaptist side of the Reformation, American experiments like Oneida, Amana, the Shakers, and perhaps the early "communistic" Christian community in Jerusalem. The second group here is the monastery, and I would also include the secret society as found among primitive peoples. Unlike the utopian community's rejection of other religious groups, this type of community recognizes the validity of religious perceptions outside its own group. It maintains a living relationship with nonmembers who share the same religious symbols. Since the listing of so many distinctions may have become
29

1960), pp. 331-43.

30 Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches (New York,

Joachim Wach, Sociology of Religion (Chicago, 1944), pp. 109 ff.

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Understanding

Initiation

confusing, it is helpful to see the scheme I propose in the following summary chart:
I. Initiation into the human condition ("puberty rites") II. Initiation into a level of being which transcends the human condition A. Religious functionaries B. Transcendent status 1. Specifically religious group intermixed with nonmembers 2. Separated religious group a) Utopian community b) Monastery
PATTERNS OF COMPLICATION

Once a typology like the above is established, the dual task of identification and definition is not complete. The scholars are legion who fight any notion of a typological framework because they are too well aware of the variations and combinations which characterize most examples. But even the possibilities for complication are not limitless and can be anticipated. The first and obvious fact to be noted is that in many religious traditions a person can have more than one initiation; some initiations, in fact, demand a previous one. Thus a Christian priest should be baptized, confirmed, and ordained. Second, one initiation can replace another. For example, areas of Melanesia which have highly developed secret societies do not have puberty initiations, since so few men do not eventually join the society. This is not merely a particularization of puberty rite into secret-society initiation, however, but a genuine replacement. Third, different types of initiation can be conflated. Baptism celebrated at puberty, for example, among American Baptists, joins sections I and II.B.1 in the chart above. A whole new area of possible confusion arises when one of the resulting groups imitates the role and structure of another. Buddhist monks are often called upon to act like priests, and Christian priests have been "canonized" to look and act like monks. The notion of ancient Israel as a nation of priests, used by Israelite and Christian writers (Exod. 19:5-6; 1 Pet. 2:4-10), makes an identification between circumcision or baptism and priestly ordination which serves a homiletic purpose. Furthermore, two kinds of historical connections between different uses or types of initiation occur to me at this point. Specific rites or general patterns can be found which have no religious overtones. Primitive secret societies may indeed be nothing more than social clubs in some instances. One could also
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History of Religions
note here the secularization of the initiatory society of freemasonry or the use of initiation patterns by college fraternities. Finally, the connections are even more peculiar when, for example, a utopian community asserts its identity with early Christianity, because its theological history and the actual historical development are opposed.
FINAL COMMENTS

All the questions have not been answered nor all the problems solved. I can anticipate that such intimate connection of religious patterns with status in society and ontological value will seem inappropriate to minds informed by certain strains of Christian thought and piety. Likewise, the peculiar transformation of symbols, both mythical and ritual, which I have just sketched in these paragraphs demands a three-dimensional approach to cultural data. This complex but necessary adjustment of traditional investigation into religious symbolism takes a bit of getting used to. If, however, opinions and facts about initiation phenomena have come into clearer focus through this essay, its primary goal will have been achieved.

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