From: John P Hughes (john.hughes@anu.edu.au)
Date: Fri 22 Apr 1994 - 19:42:11 EEST
RE: INITIATION, CULTURAL OR OTHERWISE
WHAT EXACTLY IS INITIATION?
I'm off like a krashkid at a Stormbull temple bash...
Humans seem biologically programmed to learn certain things at certain times - language is the strongest example. Human cultures make use of the psychological and physiological changes of puberty to impress upon their young a set of lessons and values. This we call initiation. Initiation is a way of cutting someone off from one set of attitudes (childhood dependency, ignorance, self- centred pleasure, stagnation) and substituting another set in their place (adult selfdom, gnosis, conscious social will, growth). It tears apart one reality and replaces it with another. It is SYMBOLIC REBIRTH. Initiation rituals make use of fear, pain, hunger, thirst, exhaustion, isolation, ecstasy and transcendence to impart their lesson.
My first point is that (in terran cultures at least) initiation is not a test of skill except in the most rudimentary way. One's courage and patience may be tested, but not one's jumping or weapons skills. (You'll be expected to be reasonably fit and to be able to handle a weapon in some fashion - but you won't be considered for initiation until AFTER you can do all that). Remember initiandes will have been preparing for years, and the entire village will have been watching very carefully. Courage and dedication count for almost everything, skill levels very little.
(Major exception: hunting/gathering societies where if you can't hunt or gather enough to feed yourself, then you won't survive. But here the test is 'scrounge by yourself in the desert for a week', not spear 50% check, jump 50% check etc).
My second point is that initiation (sometimes quite literally) scares or sears a new way of thinking, a new set of symbolic orientations (religious or moral ideas) into your head. Because of this, religious symbols ALWAYS take their part, whether or not the initiation is overtly cultic. (Our own society is one of the few on either world where one can realistically separate religion and community).
What I'm suggesting is that rather than a test of skills - the explicit game model - initiation is primarily a kind of self- transforming heroquest. In my own thinking three of the twelve major types of heroquest (those of the INNOCENT, ORPHAN, and SEEKER) occur almost exclusively during childhood and initiation, while that of the WARRIOR must lay its foundation there. And if there's one lesson that comes out of heroquest, its that dice rolls and skill tests CAN'T recreate the experience.
Initiation is dangerous, and sometimes deadly. I believe it must be tailored by the MLD to the individual storytelling and transformative needs of questers. Initiation should strip them down to their core, and will begin their reintegration. It should release their adult personalities, both the noble and ignoble sides. And it should align them absolutely with the values of their people/cult.
Some netters have argued that you can be an adult without being initiated. I believe the opposite, that the uninitiated (or those initiated 'elsewhere'), whatever their status, cannot be completely trusted, for their loyalty and devotion to the clan can only be skin deep. Initiation literally scars that loyalty onto the depths of your soul. Hence the almost universal distrust of strangers and foreigners in the tribal world.
(If I wanted to be electronically incinerated, I'd suggest that initiation tells us that we have to LEARN to be human, and that we have to ACTIVELY CONSTRUCT a 'reality' from the infinitude of possibilities that surround us (this we call 'culture'). Those who have lost true initiation (i.e. us) - it went the way of the extended family - either create their own (the street gang model) or wade through life buffeted by meanings and loyalties, unanchored and relatively adrift. However, I want to stick to the direct implications of the topic so I won't mention it :-).
GODLEARNERS & PROTESTANTS Joerg said:
^ The God Learners with their large scale
^ experiments are unparalleled on Earth (except for a few small
scale
^ Jesuit experiments in South America).
And China. I would have thought the entire rise of European Protestant rationalism, with its techo-industrial ethic, its abolition of the magic and pagan elements of Catholicism, it's philosophical and empirical traditions, it's expansionary/colonising ethic and its subversion of traditional beliefs (including - with the rise of historical bible scholarship and form criticism - it's own) was a pretty good take-off of the entire GL trip.
'Cept of course Protestants said reality was absolute, and its OUT THERE, while the GLs said its fluid, and its IN HERE.
JOERGISH BITS Thanks for the reminder about 'were' ducks Joerg. Wheww.
And your list of Rokari Seshnel all-in-the family roleplaying suggestions was BRILL. Up there with "Argrath & the Devil" and the RQIII 'Dropped Oil Lamp Table' (:-)) for maximum ideas per square centimetre. The more I play, the more I'm convinced that family/community/clan based play is the way to go, rather than lone adventurers out for themselves and their god. In fact for Heroquest, I think clan-based is the only way to go. (I'm writing some TOTRM column stuff on this right now). Your list has been taped to the inside cover of my campaign book, even though I'm an Orlanthi Far Pointer. Great Stuff.
RELIGION - THE ETERNAL FLAME WARNING: MAINLY NON-GLORANTHAN RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION FOLLOWS Sandy said
> I consider this thread closed unless you can find me an
> example of a large-scale religion that thinks it's good to rob and
> kill on an everyday basis, w/o special permission from God.
Just a few years ago tens of thousands (some estimates 250,000) innocent men, women and children were murdered by citizens of the United States, mostly in a painful and horrific (though mercifully quick) manner. The murders occurred under the express orders of the US legislature. Those who committed the killings represented a cross-section of most of America's major religious traditions, though there were some exceptions. American tv crews covering the mass-murder were ignored and finally fired by their network employees. Yet apart from the Quakers, I know of not ONE single American religious body to have spoken up against the murder (though organisations of concerned individuals from many of these bodies have, and I thank them).
The murders occurred in Iraq, and the killings (the results of 'surgical' bombing raids- masterly propaganda that) occurred because one US-sponsored henchman (Hussein) turned against his old masters and threatened America's cheap oil supplies.
Now Christianity, Judaism and Islam all have theological notions of what constitutes a 'just war', and in this case the necessary preconditions were NOT fulfilled. Most nations have codes of conduct (and in most cases legislation) relating to the protection of civilians in wartime, not to mention having signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Now this example was chosen only to illustrate a general principle - I could use examples from most other major world powers fairly easily. My point is that this entire religion/morality discussion seems to run aground because:
Now moralists have been struggling with these questions for thousands of years, and the jury is still out. Me, I'm concerned with the seriousness of these issues, obviously, but suspect we aren't going to make much headway with them. Flame Off? (tendency for throwaway line curtailed by delicacy of entire situation).
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