What is an Initiation?
Literally, initiation is the crossing of the threshold, it is above all a personal process of inner transformation. An initiation, even lived in forms, is only virtual. It is only the first step on the path that the initiate or rather the future initiate will have to take to make it effective. The initiation, and references to it are very little present in our society, this is not the case in traditional societies. There, it marks the passage, change of status, loss of an identity to access another. The initiation assumes that one accepts the idea of a possible evolution. A radical or progressive change, initiation is aimed at the Psyche, the soul as much as the psyche. It participates in both and tends to bring them together. Some schools make Man a fallen God, imprisoned by his Ego, which prevents him from identifying with his true Nature (because Psyche is also a sometimes distorting mirror). The initiation process will bring this “man of desire”, blinded by his passions, to get rid of his slag and thus gain access to a clear vision of things. The initiation will mark the beginning of reintegration.
The initiatory process is concerned with the body and our illusions in the face of matter. It strives to give us control over our vital energies and their cycles. It confronts us with our desires and with our race to satisfy them. More difficult, it attacks our mind, our principles of reality, conditioning forces, elements of the past which prevents us from recognizing our true nature.
The initiation finally is knowledge, gnosis, scouring look at the world and on ourselves. It inspires us to free ourselves from the illusion of our conditioning by stimulating the patch of Light that is within us and leads us to freedom. An individualization process, it gives everyone the status of being unique and full, but connected to everything.
To be initiated is first to die to yourself, to be reborn under a new dawn. Consent withdrawn, retreat from what constitutes our social self, but also vision of a possible.
The initiate by finding in himself his resources becomes responsible. Responsible to the world and to his actions, he can no longer attribute the source of his difficulties to others. The initiation therefore does not necessarily lead to a better being but rather to a greater clarity of being.
Traditional initiation uses symbols to “speak” to the soul. It begins with the symbolic death of the one receiving the initiation and then brings him back to the true Light. Sometimes using the symbolism of the 4 elements, it reconstitutes a new being, purified of its slag. We find this pattern in the alchemy with the couple, destruction-reconstruction. Lived in an initiatory society this new birth is sometimes accompanied by the attribution of a new, sacred name, it is it which also confers the status of Brothers between the members of the same group (born from the same initiatory chain ).
The initiation can also be looked at from an energetic aspect during which, the vital energy is redirected towards a new path, path of the tree of life of Kaballah or Nadis of the oriental tradition. It is when this new path becomes habitual that the grantee becomes a true initiate, initiation being only the primitive process of opening the way.
Joseph offers you different initiations
Introduction to Fa Destin, a secret practice in Togo
Fa Destiny is one of the practices of the Voodoo initiation. It’s the whole base of Voodoo. To start his journey, the applicant must first go through the washing of fate. This amounts to washing his karma so that he can continue his life on new foundations. It all begins with an oracle with an old sage. Then the future initiate receives from him the sign of his destiny, a symbolic figure which resembles a drawing by Yi Qing. So this is a fully personalized initiation. Afterwards, the ceremony of washing of destiny takes place in the sacred wood. There are of course other ritual ceremonies related to the Fa, but we cannot reveal everything here because it is a secret practice. Those who have been there have seen their chances increase considerably in life. Past errors are erased. Doors open, dreams and projects come true, more easily. The initiate constantly has strength to help him in all situations of life. The initiation to the Fa takes place in Togo, the cradle of Voodoo. Like all truly operational and transformative initiations, initiation to the Fa lasts several days.
Initiation to Haitian Vodoo
If there are still voodoo followers who find it difficult to publicly assume their religious affiliation, vodoo has not been penalized since the last Constitution in 1987 and no longer functions as an underground cult. Persecuted by the Catholic clergy on several occasions (1896, and especially in 1941) with the support of the State during major campaigns known as “anti-superstitious”, also demonized by most Protestant denominations (including Baptists and the Pentecostals), the voodoo knew how to adapt very well to survive: it knew, for example, to make the worship of the saints a support for its polytheistic beliefs and to use the catholic calendar for its own ceremonies. Haitian voodoo has an impressive mythology with a plurality of gods who are also called “angels” or “mysteries”, or Lwa in the Creole language.
Introduction to Traditional Healing
The term traditional medicine refers to practices, methods, knowledge and beliefs in matters of health which imply the use for medical purposes of plants, parts of animals and minerals, spiritual therapies to cure and prevent diseases or preserve health,
Traditional medicine remains widespread in all regions of the developing world and its use continues to grow.
Introduction to the Reading of the Cowries
The divinatory art of cowrie shells is without doubt one of the oldest divinatory arts in the world. Practiced all over West Africa, cowries make it possible to read the future. They are just as much used by voodoo priests in divination sessions. This practice is done by throwing the cowries on a carpet, a flat basket or a drawn circle.