From: brook@crl.com (Brook Schoenfield)
Subject: Re: something that is bothering me
Date: 13 Oct 1993 22:14:45 -0700

Golly, there's a plenty of nonsense about. I've run into a few of the
secret, gotta get through this level kinda witchy types and it makes
me just as sick as everybody else: glad you all are here!

I do want to put in a plug for rituals like initiations, though
(touches a sore point, here): It doesn't have to be like a scientology
level.  My initiation opened doors and created a new awareness and
commitment for me.  It was very meaningful.  It doesn't have to be
nonsense for building the ego (though too often is).  Mine was less a
recognition of gained power (how do you measure that anyway?) but an
opening to new possibilities.  Its like any good ritual: it sets a
certain course of magic and energy going.  Its up to the participants
to make that happen and to also become part of the process so that
change can take place. (by the by, in our tradition, nothing is
charged for intiation. One asks and is given challenges.  once the
challenges are answered and a year and a day have gone by, then the
intiate can have the ritual.  And the challenges are up to the
intiators - there must be a lot of trust.  It is possible to have
power from within without power over).

But in no wise should such a ritual ever be used to denigrate
another's spiritual or magical experience. Each has their own path,
and every path is sacred.  Respect is basic, for me.

IMHO, a naive child has as much access as the most sage crone though
the crone be far more technically adept. For me, that's one of the
great beauties of this religion: technique can't ever own it. In fact,
it may close one down by involving too much of the thinking brain and
not enough of "younger self", the poetic, inspirational, symbolic,
childness we all have.

Brook Schoenfield: brook@innosys.com brook@crl.com
"..desire cracks open the gates. If you're ready it will take you through.
But nothing lasts forever, time is the destroyer, the wheel turns again and
again, watch out it will take you through."