From: tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney)
Subject: Re: Initiation ritual ideas wanted (Wiccan)
Date: 20 Aug 93 16:47:05 GMT

In article <CA9zrF.4LG@cbnews.cb.att.com> jap@cbnews.cb.att.com
(james.a.parker) writes:

> I am to be initiated into a coven on Lughnasagh (sp?), and am
> looking for initiation rituals and/or ideas.  The coven (Full Light,
> based at the notorious Salem West in Obetz, OH) is less than two
> months old and does not yet have any formal traditions, and our high
> priest feels that initiations are a very personal thing, and asked
> me what I want. Unfortunately, I am really only familiar with
> Buckland's version, and Cunningham's self-dedication.  I would like
> to get some other ideas to figure out what is "best" for me.

That's pretty liberal! Usually there's a real dominance and submission
aspect to initiation, where the ritual serves as much to reinforce the
authority of the elders as to consecrate the candidate into the sacral
order recognized by the group.

I highly recommend the book INITIATION by Jean La Fontaine, Penguin
Books, 1985, for penetrating insight into the meaning and function of
initiations around the world and in our own backyard.  Less insightful
and highly flawed, but still worthwhile, is Mircea Eliade's RITES AND
SYMBOLS OF INITIATION, from Harper Colophon Books, 1975.  Neither of
these is specifically Wiccan, but remember that Wicca is a process of
reclaiming and rejuvenating anthropological and comparative religious
research, and turning it into practical ritual for the modern day.  I
was also quite startled on studying the subject to find out just how
similar initiations are around the world and in various times and
cultures.  The von Gennep three-stage model seems to hold very well,
and the roles of things like secret knowledge, sacral order and
authority are remarkably consistent.

Of course, if you want to check out Wicca specifically, then there's
always the Farrars, currently available in A WITCHES' BIBLE from
Magickal Childe.  The Gardnerian rituals there are worth study, and
will make more sense in the light of La Fontaine and Eliade.  You
should also study the Freemasonic precursors of the Gardnerian rites
in DUNCAN'S RITUAL OF FREEMASONRY, which will elucidate the meaning of
quite a few of the symbols; and it couldn't hurt to read the Golden
Dawn and O.T.O. initiations, in Israel Regardie's THE GOLDEN DAWN from
Llewwellyn and Francis King's THE SECRET RITUALS OF THE O.T.O.  As
other variants on the Freemasonic rituals they should make the whole
picture even clearer.

Best wishes, and good luck!
-- 
Tim Maroney, Communications and User Interface Engineer

FROM THE FOOL FILE:
"Those Mayas were sacrificing not only pagan children, but baptized
 Christian children, for crying out loud!  And they were carrying out
 those sacrifices, those barbarities, with great savagery, without
 giving the victims the benefit of the humane types of death that the
 European Church accorded even to heretics and witches during that
 century, such as burning at the stake."
		-- Matthew Rosenblatt, rec.arts.books