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Rites

Beginning

Initiation ceremonies and admission

The initiation ceremonies are something like ethnological concept, which was introduced in the year 1909 by the French anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep, although it is thought that they are much more ancient, especially in the epoch where it was a commune to listen to histories about lodges or secret groups.

Basically an initiation ceremony is realized so that a person manages to be admitted into a community, sect, religious group or lodge, and consists of the fact that the person who wants to deposit the group fulfills with a series of challenges that they evaluate and put themselves to the test the suitability of the interested person in entering, especially his value, and also the Inquisition of some esoteric knowledge. Generally the initiation ceremonies are conceived like a symbolic death, this means that the initiated person does not have to die, but if to be reborn with a new identity and is very common that to achieve this, initiated they change the name to themselves and acquire some type of mark, which can be a scar provoked by some ritual mutilation, a tattoo or perhaps, some symbolic emblem like a medallion, a ring or a chain.

In several societies there is carried out an initiation ceremony that is based on the step of the adolescence to the adulthood; the young man is kidnapped and metaphorically devoured by a monster so that this way the child dies, and the young man could it was restoring the society like an adult, always after happening for a period of different tests; the fact of being able to happen you her prove that they are imposed in this initiation ceremony it makes them deserving of right to form a family and to take part in the corresponding institutions. Now then, all that young people who do not overcome the tests that are imposed on him in the initiation ceremonies, they are alienated. On the other hand, in the modern society, the initiation ceremonies are usually carried out to manage to deposit sects or ocultistas groups and secret societies, as the Freemasonry in his epoch.

Also it is important to emphasize the fact that the initiation ceremonies have left his trace in many accounts and traditional, fantastic histories, as there is the history of the hero of all the initiated ones, which had to fight against a monster against powers on natives, turning today into one of the most excellent metaphors of the initiation ceremonies. Also we must mention that there can be recognized features of the process typical of the initiation ceremonies in many other ceremonies that perhaps should not be related straight to the same ones, for example the service to serve frequently is interpreted as an initiation ceremony that marks the step of the adolescence to the adulthood. The baptism is considered to be one of the most excellent initiation ceremonies of the Christian faith, since if want you to continue the way of the gentleman and to be "accepted" in his community, we have to then take this sacrament and this way we will be worth of the God's compassion.

Current sectarian initiation ceremonies

The Vanuatu there are a community belonging to the country to which they owe his name, where the initiation ceremonies therefore his aplicantes must happen are usually quite frightening and with slightly suicidal tendencies. For example, at the age of 8, the children of those who are already a part of the sect must demonstrate his masculinity jumping from a tower that is constructed in wood and that is provided with at least 50 meters high. The slogan is basically to be thrown from an abyss without any put pledge and with a rope tied to the ankles, (of this ritual of beginning it is from which the famous sport arose Bungee jumping Jumping). In addition to demonstrating his masculinity, and managing to be accepted in a future inside the community, these initiation ceremonies also take that as a purpose of impressing the gods, but to achieve this, according to the tradition, the head of the aplicante must touch the soil, something extremely dangerous since a strong blow can cause them the death.

On the other hand, the original aboriginal tribes of Australia, usually submit to adolescent man of between 16 and 17 years to a procedure that is considered to be one of the most barbaric initiation ceremonies in the world. Basically the boy must be imprisoned in some place alone, and must happen at least approximately 6 hours realizing original canticles of the culture. The purpose of this is that the young man is calm at the time of that the initiation ceremony is carried out; the enchanting doctor of the tribe realizes a circumcision without anesthesia and the young man must not demonstrate any type of sensation of pain since but he is considered to be a coward who does not deserve to be a part of the tribe.

But the rite does not end here, since one week later there is realized an orifice that the sexual orno of the young man crosses so that one manages to insert in a luck of splinter that he will avoid that the conduit closes himself. This initiation ceremony symbolizes the step of the “child the man”. For úlitmo we cannot leave aside the rituals of beginning any more famous persons in Latin America; so that a child of the sect of the hunters Matis de Brasil could turn into a man, he must support that poison is applied to him in the eyes, since as they say, this helps to increase his ocular capacity; once done this the young one must be submitted to golpizas where also whips and all kinds of heavy objects are used. Then, it departs from the arm of the child it is burned by the purpose to insert poison since supposedly this increases the force of the child, something that, the faint provokes generally, I vomit them and sometimes convulse in the young man. Once the child spends these tests it is accepted inside the sect. Undoubtedly this one represents one of the most violent initiation ceremonies in the world.