What does initiation mean to you?

[ianphanes]

In nonwiccanwitch , sarasuperid asked: "What does initiation mean to you?"  The one quick thing I can add to the discussion is to point out that my favorite description of initiation is the Twelfth Step from the Twelve Steps programs (Alcoholics Anonymous, and its descendants).
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps,
we tried to carry this message to

Comments

[ianphanes]

I don't believe that all initiations are into a group. for example, I experienced what I now refer to as my ContraryWise 1* initiation before there was a ContraryWise Lineage. But without that experience--which was NOT a ritual--I couldn't have founded the lineage.

However, I don't believe in "self-initiation". I classify all the rituals I've seen for "self-initiation" as self-dedication, not as initiation. (I performed one of them myself, about a year and half before the initiation I mentioned above.) I am convinced that initiation must come from without the self, but not necessarily from a corporeal and/or human being.