nesia, Melanesia, in New Guinea, and in India-not to speak of the traces of it still found among the civilized peoples of antiquity. Its function is to confer on the adolescent the rights and obligations of an active member of society; i.e., it enables him to take part in war, to lay the foundations of family life, and to observe the customs and rites necessary for the well-being of the tribe. Initiation, so understood, may be considered as the oldest form of public instruction. This was realized by the Tuscarora of North Carolina when they explained to Lawson more than two hundred years ago that initiation was the same to them as it is to us to send our children to school to be taught good breeding and letters.'1 This instruction, nevertheless, retains a magicoreligious character which often envelops the whole official cult of the tribe. Women also are divided into similar age classes; but with them initiation, even when it is a close imitation of the men's ceremony, is less important because it confers fewer privileges. There are many other social transitions entailing rites which may be considered as initiatory-e.g., naturalization, adoption, marriage, the consecration of priests, funeral ceremonies, etc. Sacrifice, too, at least in connexion with cults which regard it as a means of penetrating into the sacred world, assumes the form and functions of initiation. The spot on which all these ceremonies take place is, as it were, a sanctuary, to which access is forbidden to the uninitiated. The organization of the rites of initiation remains in the hands of the old men, who are the natural guardians of the tribal traditions, and they lay down as the first duty of man obedience to the ancients and to their teaching. 3. Evolution of initiation. -The initiation of adults loses its general character in proportion as the authority of the chiefs develops and legal institutions become separated from the magicoreligious rites of which they were at first part and parcel. The age classes tend to become subdivided into a hierarchy of different grades, which fill up their ranks sometimes without regard to age or seniority. The initiated of the higher grade think that they have a right to rule over those of the lower grades. Sometimes even their privileges become hereditary, at least to the extent that their children alone have a right of initiation into the grade. The age class is thus turned into one or more secret societies, which sometimes recruit their members from various tribes and even open their doors to women, as, e.g., in West Africa and North America. In the district of Gabun, we are told, there was a secret society exclusively composed of women, who, like the ancient Bacchantes, celebrated orgiastic rites in the depths of the forest, and were much feared by men, who ran the risk of death if they surprised them in their ceremonies.3 The same individual can thus belong to several 'brotherhoods,' especially when they have different aims. Some of these societies become mere schools for working magic arts, and thus assimilate themselves to the societies of sorcerers who unite for mutual benefit in the exercise of their art. Most of the societies, however, continue to play some part in the affairs of the community. In Africa they sometimes reinforce and sometimes limit the authority of the chiefs. Sometimes, like the Vehmgericht of medieval Germany, they form a sort of superior police acting with repressive justice, and they are all the more to be feared that they do their work in secret. The societies whose members belong to different tribes contribute towards the maintenance of peace, and on occasion we find them performing the function of arbiters. Yet almost all these societies respect the social and religious traditions and customs that have 1 J. Lawson, History of Carolina, London, 1714, p. 380 ff. 2 H. Webster, Primitive Secret Societies, p. 45. 3 J. L. Wilson, Western Africa, London, 1856, p. 393. come down to them, and transmit them to their successors. As de Jonghe says with regard to the Lower Congo, they form, in spite of their abuses, a centre of religious instruction and civic formation.'1 An analogous evolution has taken place among the Kafirs, the Polynesians, the Melanesians, and the tribes of New Guinea. America deals with some kind of magical operation which influences the course of nature-the ripening of crops, the falling of rain, the success of hunting or fishing, and the treatment of innumerable individual ailments. In the Oceanic Islands and among the American Indians, the ceremonies connected with all these societies are partly public and partly secret, according as they represent scenes from current mythology or explain to their neophytes the esoteric meaning of these representations. Each of the numerous secret societies of the natives of North When belief in the efficacy of magic begins to disappear, or when public cults gain in importance, secret societies gradually develop into mere clubs, from which all mystic element has disappeared; their old sanctuaries become the social meetingplaces of the club, and their rites degenerate into popular rejoicings or mere buffoonery. But we must not lose sight of the fact that these brotherhoods, which monopolize all communication with the domain of the sacred, are able to fulfil the characteristic functions of a cult as well as the magic rites proper to sorcery. The transition may be seen in the order of the Areof in Polynesia, who accompany the worship of the god Oro with all sorts of magic practices. There were eight or nine different grades, entrance to which was gained by successive ceremonies of initiation. All the great religions of the East had room for initiation ceremonies over and above their public cults. Some of the Greek mysteries certainly go back to the pre-Homeric period.2. Texts analyzed by Moret, Lefébure, and others confirm the opinion of Herodotus and Plutarch that there was in the Egyptian cult an initiation reserved for a chosen few, which besides the regular and official cult included the celebration of the passion of Osiris.3 The famous Chaldæan poem describing the descent of Ištar to the gloomy abode of Aralu to look for her lover Tammuz presents all the characteristics of an initiation ceremony. From texts edited by A. H. Sayce we learn that certain priests or soothsayers had to submit to a formal initiation; they were made to pass through an artificial representation of the under world, where they were shown 'the altars amid the waters, the treasures of Anu, Bel and Ea, the tablets of the gods, the delivering of the oracle of heaven and earth, and the cedar-tree, the beloved of the great gods, which their hand has caused to grow.'4 C. P. Tiele has shown that, among the Western Semites, Byblos and other centres of Syrian cults had their mysteries from before the time of the Assyrian conquest of the country. The OT has more than one allusion to mysteries reproved by the Prophets.6 In India, a man was a Brahman by right of birth, but could not exercise sacrificial functions without first having passed through a complicated initiation. Even the subjection of a nation by conquerors and the superimposing of new cults tend rather to develop than to discourage initiation ceremonies. Sometimes the victors organize them for the use of peoples desirous of adopting the cult of the victorious god. Thus the Mazdæan religion, which was essentially a national religion (to be born a Mede or a Persian was also to be born a worshipper of Ormazd and Mithra),7 had no initiation ceremony other than the admission of children into the cult; but, when the Achæmenians had extended their sphere of influence as far as the Mediterranean, Mazdæism had to organize the mysteries of Mithra, which were to become of such importance in the Western world. become converts to the cult of the conquered On the other hand, the victorious people often nation. After the subjugation of Eleusis, the Athenians could not gain admission to the sacra gentilicia of some Eleusinian families who 1 E. de Jonghe, Les Sociétés secrètes au Bas-Congo,' in Revue des questions historiques, 9th ser., xii. [1907) 511. secret cults after the invasion of the Greeks (see art. 'Eleusinien,' 8 A. Moret, Mystères égyptiens (Musée Guimet Lecture), Châlons, 1911, p. 1 ff. 4 A. H. Sayce, Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians3 (Hib. Lect. 1887), London, 1891, p. 241. 5 C. P. Tiele, Religions de l'Égypte et des peuples sémitiques, Fr. tr., Paris, 1881, p. 296. 6 W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem.2, p. 358 ff. 7 F. Cumont, Les Mystères de Mithra, Brussels, 1900, i. 259. worshipped Demeter, until they had gone through the formalities of an initiation ceremony. This ceremony, which was instituted exclusively for the citizens of Attica, was gradually opened to the other inhabitants of Greece, and even to all the subjects of the Roman Empire, as a sanctuary common to the whole earth' (Aristides, Eleusinios, ed. W. Dindorf, Leipzig, 1829, p. 415). Every foreign religion which spread through the Roman world assumed the form of mysteries open to all who showed themselves worthy or merely desirous of being initiated into them. ties. Thus initiation paved the way for universalistic cults by substituting community of beliefs and rites for nationality as the foundation of religious The Christian sacrament of baptism (q.v.), the primary rite of initiation into the Church, was elaborately developed by the Gnostics. Two MSS, belonging to the sect of the Valentinians, the Pistis Sophia and the Book of the Great Logos according to the Mystery, give a description of four grades of initiation: the Baptism of water, which gives access to the place of Truth and the place of Light'; the Baptism of fire, which admits one into the company of the heirs of the kingdom of Light'; the Baptism of the Spirit; and, finally, the mystery which forces all the Archons to remove iniquities from off the Disciples and make the Disciples immortal.'1 Among the Druses, according to the Arab historians al-Maqrizi and al-Nuwairi, there were no fewer than nine grades of initiation where the hidden meaning of the Qur'an, the real origin of the universe, the inaccessibility of the supreme principle, and, finally, the equivalence of all cults were successively taught.2 The Christian sects of the Middle Ages had frequent recourse to initiation ceremonies, the secrecy of which served to protect them from the attacks of orthodoxy. The favour which symbolism then enjoyed allowed them to attribute to texts and to sacred or at least inoffensive emblems an esoteric significance which was gradually revealed to neophytes. Even such exclusively technical details as the formula and tools employed in the art of building lent themselves in the apprenticeship of medieval freemasons to a moral or philo. sophical interpretation, which has preserved their use in the initiation of modern Freemasons, though freemasonry (q.v.) has long ago lost its professional character.3 It is of importance to note that, while preserving its outward form throughout this evolution, initiation changed its object somewhat in passing from magic to the service of religion. What was required of it now was to make the gods better known, and to bring about a closer intercourse with them. As a consequence, we notice among neophytes new feelings of curiosity, anxiety, and even anguish, allied with an ardent desire for communion with their religious and moral ideal. The rites giving them access to the sacred worldwhether these ceremonies were originally held in connexion with the changing of the seasons, the revolutions of the stars, or the transformations of the crops recurred in a rhythm of periodicity and alternation which the initiated applied to their own destiny. In the liturgical drama, in which he had to play a part, the novice now saw the passion of a god-some divine sacrifice, the benefit of which he was personally called upon to reap. All the symbolism of the ancient mysteries found an outlet in this direction. The aim of initiation thus became once more the attainment of an individual advantage, but this time on a different plan: "Thanks to these beautiful mysteries which come to us from the gods,' we read in an Eleusinian inscription, death is for mortals no longer an evil, but a boon.'4 tion: Will the brigand Poetacion be happier after his death because he has been initiated than Epaminondas, who has not been initiated?' In Greece an attempt was made to satisfy the demands of morality more or less by excluding from initiation all traitors, perjurers, and criminals-in a word, all those who had not 'clean hands.' The Egyptians had found a more practical expedient. They introduced as part of the ceremony representing the supreme journey into the infernal regions a summons before the tribunal of Osiris; only those who were acquitted there could benefit by the formula and amulets provided to help the dead to attain safely to the blessed region of the fields of Aalu. If this had not been the case when the culture of the ancients was at its height, men like Plato, Cicero, Plutarch, and Diodorus would have been more careful about proclaiming the moralizing and civilizing influence of initiation into the mysteries of their time. 4. The ritual of initiation. - The formalities of initiation, whether its dominant function is magical or religious, present striking general Andrew Lang notes the following resemblances. general characteristics: (a) mystic dances; (b) the use of the turndun, or bull-roarer (q.v.); (c) daubing with clay and washing this off; (d) performances with serpents and other mad doings.' To these we might add: (e) a simulation of death and the initiated; (g) the use of masks or other disresurrection; (f) the granting of a new name to guises. In any case, we may say that initiation ceremonies include: (1) a series of formalities which loosen the ties binding the neophyte to his former environment; (2) another series of formalities admitting him to the superhuman world; (3) an exhibition of sacred objects and instruction on subjects relating to them; (4) re-entry or reintegration rites, facilitating the return of the neophyte into the ordinary world. These rites, especially those of the first three divisions, are in all initiation ceremonies, both among savages found fulfilling a more or less important function and among the civilized. (1) Separation rites.-In every initiation of any importance the neophyte has to leave his family, live in isolation, consent to all kinds of restrictions and tabus, and submit to purifications, aspersions, purgations, fasting, flagellation, even mutilation (and, more particularly, circumcision), and, finally, assist at his own burial, or at least pretend to have left this world. Sometimes spirits wearing masks corresponding to their supposed character come and carry him off to some hut or enclosure, or to some isolated spot where he lives in their company for a certain period, which may be months or even years, as in Africa, America, New Guinea, and but a mere transmission of magical powers, the other countries. Even when initiation is nothing neophyte is supposed to be carried off to the spirit world. Among the Eskimos, an angakok goes through the ceremony of killing the aspirant to magical powers, and his soul then learn the secrets of nature. On its return it resuscitates the body, which has been lying stretched on the frozen ground, and the patient then becomes an angakok in his turn. It would be useless to insist upon the importance of this practice of simu lating death in the initiation ceremonies of the ancients. Many mysteries included, we are told by Lampridius in connexion The question is to discover whether, as Paul Foucart maintains, initiation confined itself to furnishing the neophyte with topographical in-flies off to probe the depths of sky, sea, and earth, and thus formation, as it were, to prevent him from losing his way in the under world, and with magic formula to baffle the demons lying in ambush in his path, or whether it insisted also on the necessity of his having led a just and righteous life. It would seem that initiation was sufficient in itself to ensure eternal life, and Diogenes of Sinope was more or less justified in putting the crucial ques1 E Amélineau, Le Gnosticisme égyptien, Paris, 1887, p. 2431. A. L. Silvestre de Sacy, Exposé de la religion des Druses, Paris, 1838, p. lxxiv f. 3 R. F. Gould, Concise History of Freemasonry, London, 1904, Pp. 127, 304 ff. 4 Εφημερίς ̓Αρχαιολογική, Athens, 1983, p. 82. P. Foucart, Recherches sur l'origine et la nature des mystères d'Eleusis, Paris, 1895, 1st Mémoire, p. 63. with Mithraic mysteries, something similar to an immolation 'which was described or represented so as to produce unneces sary fear.' There is a story that the Emperor Commodus, filling 1 Plutarch, de Audiendis Poetis (=Moralia, ed. F. Dübner, vol. i. [Paris, 1841] p. 26). 2 Andrew Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, i. 282. 3 Van Gennep adds to these what he calls marginal' rites or periods, the object of which is 'to facilitate changes of state, without violent shocks or abrupt stops to individual and collective life' (Rites de passage, 14). 4 Hubert and Mauss, 'Théorie générale de la magie,' in A Soc, vii. 38. the role of mystagogue, one day took his part too seriously and really killed the unfortunate candidate.1 The allusion of Apuleius to his initiation into the mysteries of Isis is well known. Even to-day, in the 'profession of vows' in use among the Benedictines, the novice is laid out on the ground between four candles, and covered with a winding sheet, the service of the dead is performed above his body, and the whole congregation chants the Miserere for him. It is noticeable that among nearly all peoples funeral ceremonies themselves imply a sort of initiation of the deceased into the society of the dead; without this, he would have no choice but to remain on earth and torment the living. (2) Admission rites.-Plato has rightly written TeλEUTâV TEλEÎo bat, 'to die is to be initiated'; we might reverse the order and say, 'to be initiated is to die.' But it is only to die so as to be re-born under better conditions. That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die' (1 Co 1536) is a reflexion which must always have occurred to man from the day when he conceived the idea of a higher life in the sacred world. We find this notion wherever initiation ceremonies exist, as we may see by a glance over the examples collected by Frazer in GB2 ii. In the Lower Congo, initiation ceremonies are called kimbasi, which means 'resurrection.' During a dance the neophytes fall dead, and then the sorcerer resuscitates them. Sometimes the rôle is filled by persons who have already been initiated, and the neophyte is present simply as a spectator. On the River Darling in New South Wales, an old man lies down in a grave which has been dug and holds a small bush in his hand. He is then covered with a thin layer of earth and the branch is allowed to protrude, to look as if it were growing. Other bushes are stuck in the soil to heighten the effect. The novices are then brought to the edge of the grave, when a singer begins a chant invoking the totem, and a dance is performed by old men. The dancing and singing are continued till the bush held by the buried man begins to quiver, and he rises from the grave.4 In the Fiji Islands the novices are set before a row of men lying on the ground and seemingly dead, their bodies having been previously covered with the blood and entrails of pigs. At a given signal they rise and run down to wash in the neighbouring river.5 Among the Omahas of the United States the neophyte is bound to a plank, after which one priest pretends to kill him, and another brings him back to life.6 Where we can penetrate behind the veil of secrecy overhanging the initiation ceremonies of the ancients, we find in nearly all cases the representation of the passion of a divine or semi-divine being, who is attacked or carried off by infernal powers, descends to the realm of the dead, is liberated by the intervention of some higher divinity, and brought back to the region of light in the presence or company of those assisting in the ceremony. It is curious to find the same idea not only in Japan, Polynesia, etc., but also among peoples who could never have had any connexion whatever with the mythology of the ancient world. Father de Smet discovered in 1840 among the Pottawatomies of North America a legend about the introduction of agriculture and organization of mysteries which bears an astonishing resemblance to the drama played at Eleusis.7 Still more recently, J. W. Fewkes, describing the secret rites performed among the Hopi of Arizona by the Brotherhood of the Antelope and the Snake, reports that there the initiated are treated to a representation of the adventures of a personage called Ti-Yo-his journey to the spirit world, the ordeals he passed through there, and his return to the land of the living, bringing with him the knowledge of the rites for making rain.8 Sometimes the idea of re-birth is still more clearly marked: the initiated passes into a state of embryo. Initiation with the Nosairis of Lebanon was closely connected with child-birth, and the neophyte received the embryonic name of alakali, lit. 'clot of blood.'9 In Egypt the Pharaoh, who was solemnly consecrated in ceremonies which were supposed to ally him with Osiris, had to wrap himself up in an animal's skin which was called 'the cradle skin,' or 'the place of becoming, of transformations, of renewed life,' and this skin was used also in funeral ceremonies as a temporary shroud. According to A. Moret, a similar ceremony was celebrated for 1 Lampridius, Commodus, ch. ix. 2 Apuleius, Met. xi. 23. 8 De Jonghe, in Revue des questions historiques, 9th ser., xii. 467 ff. 4 A. W. Howitt, 'On some Australian Ceremonies of Initia tion,' in JAI xiii. (1883-84] 453 f. 5 L. Fison, The Nanga,' ib. xiv. (1884-85] 22. 6 J. G. Kohl, Kitschi-Gami, Bremen, 1859, i. 59 ff. 7 P. de Smet, Missions de l'Orégon, Ghent, 1848, i. 284. 8 J. W. Fewkes, 'The Snake Ceremonials at Walpi,' in Journ. of Amer. Ethnol. and Archæol. iv. [Boston, 1894]. 9 R. Dussaud, Histoire et religion des Nosaïris, Paris, 1900, p. 110. certain privileged persons, whose return to a state of embryo was simulated in the same way as in the legend of the resurrec tion of Osiris; this is what is called 'passing through the skin.'1 The same symbolism is found in India, where the young Brahman had also to assume the attitude of an embryo in the course of his initiation, by setting himself on a black antelope's skin which represented the womb. After this cere mony he was called dvija, 'twice born.' The Romans had an analogous expression (in æternum renatus) to designate one who had passed through the ceremonies of the Taurobolium and the Criobolium; and we find the same expression again in an inscription which Pope Xystus III. had carved on the baptistery of the Lateran: 'Coelorum regnum sperate, hoc fonte renati. Non recipit felix vita semel genitos.' It is obvious in all these cases that initiation is in two ways: (a) the ceremony evolves mystic inliterally a re-generation. This is brought about fluences which modify the spiritual and even the physical nature of the neophyte. Among the Australians these influences materialize as pebbles or bits of quartz which are supposed to enter the body of the candidate for magicianship.3 Some clans even believed that his entrails were replaced by new ones. In other parts, a snake is supposed to enter his head. In still other cases there is the substitution or even the superposition of a new soul which comes down from the spirit world; J. G. Frazer has shown that this is a very common way of explaining the change, but he is mistaken in thinking that this avatar is invariably the work of a totem which communicates its own soul to the novice, while retaining its own individuality. There is, as a matter of fact, nothing to prevent the soul or spirit thus incarnated from being ascribed to an entirely different source. This new factor may be merely a quality, a virtue, or a gift of grace, which the sanctifying influence of initiation has poured down on the neophyte to purify and exalt his inner nature. (b) The neophyte may pass for the time being into the spirit world. He lives the life of the spirits, becomes like one of them, and so enjoys their privileges. Perhaps the idea here is, reasoning from imitative magic, that, since the neophyte has once died and been resuscitated, the same thing will happen again when he dies in reality. It is impossible to enter into details of the rites which finally admit the neophyte into the superhuman world. Those which are quoted by Andrew Lang nearly all belong to this category. It is a curious thing that among almost all uncivilized peoples the noise produced by the bull10arer, or rattle, is supposed to be the voice of spirits; but it is still a moot point whether this instrument was in general use in initiation cere monies among the ancients. Daubing with clay, chalk, or other colouring substances is a very common rite, but the washing which follows it is not to be confused with the lustrations whose object is to rid the novice of all pernicious taints, and which belong rather to the rites of separation. On the other hand, the mutilations which were classed under separation rites (circumcision, the drawing of a tooth, the removal of a phalanx, etc.) may also be taken as admission rites when their object is to test the courage of the neophytes and their power of resistance, or to set a mark on them by which they will know each other. Dancing, as Lucian noted when he wrote 'there is no mystery without dancing," may be regarded as of universal use in initiation ceremonies, if we include under it all rhythmic movements, from the corroboris in which the Australians imitate the actions and gestures of their totems, to circumambulations (q.v.), which aim at drawing a circle to separate the two worlds (except when these circumambula. tions are a magic ceremony to influence the course of nature). The giving of a new name is often accompanied by the use of a new language, formed either from archaic expressions or turns of speech, or from everyday words which are given a new intonation. Again, we must notice the frequent recourse to communion, through which the neophytes, 14. Moret, Mystères égyptiens, 90. 2 Satapatha Brahmana, III. ii. 1. 6 (=SBE xxvi. 27). 8 M. Mauss, L'Origine des pouvoirs magiques dans les sociétés australiennes, Paris, 1905, p. 16. 4 Ib. p. 43. 5 Περὶ ὀρχύσεως Χ. by partaking of the food of the initiated, become assimilated with them, or, in the case of sacrifice, with the gods themselves. (3) Communication of the sacra.-The communication of the sacra is at once the complement and the essential object of the admission rites. It includes: (a) exhibitions, (b) actions, and (c) instructions-a threefold distinction already made by the ancients (at Eleusis: rà deɩKvúμeva, 'what is shown'; Tà Spwuera, what is done'; and rà Aeyoueva, what is said '). (a) The exhibitions inelnde magical or evocatory instruments (amulets, charms, relics, the churingas of the Australians, certain shells, the rattle of the American Indians and Negroes, the contents of the medicine bags, the cithern of the Egyptians, the fan, the cist, the tympanum of the Greeks); representational and symbolic objects (various images and effigies, masks, animals, ears of corn, etc.); or pictures representing the adventures of superhuman beings or scenes from the other world. In this way the novice gets to know the inhabitants of this higher world, to familiarize or identify himself with them, and to live their life. (b) The performances vary according to the goal aimed at, but we must distinguish between those whose object is initiation properly so called, and which are performed only once for each neophyte, and those which are repeated periodically and form the essential aim of the institution.1 (c) The instruction, which often comprises several grades or degrees, bears of necessity on what the neophytes are to gain by initiation, but it generally extends to other matters than the explanation of rites and the teaching of formulæ. It includes the communication of the real name of divine personages, theogonies, and cosmogonies, mythical history, common law, the exercise of certain arts, moral and social obligations, tabus, and marriage laws. Among the Basutos, the initiated are adjured to 'be men, fear theft, fear adultery, honour your father and mother, obey your chiefs. 2 Here we are reminded of the laws attributed to Triptolemus, and said by St. Jerome to have been carved in the sanctuary of Eleusis: To honour one's parents, to worship the gods by offerings, and not to eat flesh.'3' previous existence and re-learn everything connected with ordinary life. In the Congo, he must pretend that he cannot either walk or eat by himself, and he has to be fed like a new-born infant. In In New Guinea, he has to go backwards into his house. Among Virginia, he has to learn the language of his tribe all over again. the Brahmans, he throws his old garments into the river and puts on new ones. These precautions are only transitory, yet a man who has once been initiated is, throughout his whole life, subjected to a special and more or less strict discipline. Sometimes he bears a special mark or wears special garments or insignia, as, e.g., the cord worn by the Brahmans, the white dress of the Essenes and Pythagoreans, etc.; he must also respect certain tabus and avoid certain localities. In every case he gains great prestige in the eyes of the uninitiated. one has visited the infernal regions, even though it is only after the manner of Dante, some trace of it always remains. When York, 1908; A. van Gennep, Les Rites de passage, Paris, 1909; tion.-Admission to the Buddhist Order (samgha) ceremony one goes out from a prior state of life, (a) Pravrajya means 'going out'; and by this either from the worldly life in the case of an ordinary person, or from a monastic life in the case of one changing to another faith. This is in a certain way analogous with the Brahmanical initiation (upanayana) by which a boy is admitted to a teacher's hermitage (asrama [q.v.]) in order to live with him (antevasin) as a brahmacharin. With Order, and is henceforth obliged to live with a the Buddhists a layman is thereby admitted to the preceptor, without whose directions he is not allowed to do anything. The lowest limit of age With this ordination the child begins his life as a is eight, children under that age being ineligible. homeless one' (pravrajita, pabbajita), and is called a śrāmaṇera (sāmanera), 'novice.' The period of novitiate lasts for twelve years, and, in the case of one initiated at eight, his higher ordination takes place only in his twentieth year. The revelations may even include, under pressure of a more advanced state of culture, a supposed rational interpretation of vulgar beliefs, or even a religious philosophy agreeing with the most advanced philosophical views of the time. In any case, this instruction is protected by the obligation of secrecy, which the neophyte cannot infringe without laying himself open to the gravest consequences. But, as Seneca says, speaking of the mysteries of his time, the secrecy could apply only to the sacra, i.e. to the formula of incantation, the esoteric explanation of symbols, and the signs (b) Upasampada means arrival,' and is the by which the initiated recognized each other; it entry into the circle of the fully accredited memcould not cover philosophical precepts, if philo-bers of the samgha. This second and full ordinasophy there was, because they were current among tion is never conferred on a novice under twenty the uninitiated also. (4) Reintegration rites.-It is only very rarely that the initiated can remain for ever in the realm of the sacred. By some means or other he has to renew his relations with the ordinary world. But he does not return in exactly the same state as he went away. Since he reappears laden with mystic influences, which are, of course, dangerous for the uninitiated, he has to be, so to speak,detabuized' and readmitted to his original sphere. He has, for a certain period, to submit to rules of silence and abstinence, and, yet more, he must, in his new character, pretend to have forgotten all about his 1 Perhaps some such distinction is alluded to in Hom. Hymn to Demeter, 481, where the author seems to mention successively initiation into' and 'participation in' the mysteries: "Os 8' areans iepir, os quμopos (cf. Goblet d'Alviella, Eleusinia, Paris, 1903, p. 60). 2 E. Casalis, Les Bassoutos, Paris, 1860, p. 278. 3 Jerome, adv. Iovinianum, ii. 14. 4 Seneca, Ep. xcv. years of age; but, if he receives the pravrajyā ordination at or after twenty, and is otherwise properly qualified, he can proceed at once to the upasampada. One who has gone through the upasampada is henceforth an upasampanna bhiksu (fully ordained mendicant'), and will be called, after ten years' standing, a sthavira (thera), elder,' elders only being allowed to instruct others, that is, to become an upādhyāya (upaj. jhaya), preceptor,' or an acharya (achariya), Those who cannot as yet be named 'elders' are called daharas ('small teachers'), according to I-tsing.1 'tutor.' ་ The names, ramana (Pāli, samana), one performing austerity, ascetic,' bhiksu (Pali, bhikkhu), one begging, mendicant,' and especially sakyaputriya śramana (sākyaputtiyasamana), an ascetic belonging to the son of the Sakya tribe,' are ap 1 I-tsing, Record of the Buddhist Religion as practised in India, tr. J. Takakusu, Oxford, 1896, p. 104. the role of mystagogue, one day took his part too seriously and really killed the unfortunate candidate.1 The allusion of Apuleius to his initiation into the mysteries of Isis is well known. Even to-day, in the 'profession of vows' in use among the Benedictines, the novice is laid out on the ground between four candles, and covered with a winding sheet, the service of the dead is performed above his body, and the whole congregation chants the Miserere for him. It is noticeable that among nearly all peoples funeral ceremonies themselves imply a sort of initiation of the deceased into the society of the dead; without this, he would have no choice but to remain on earth and torment the living. (2) Admission rites.-Plato has rightly written TeλEUTâv Teλéîobai, 'to die is to be initiated; we might reverse the order and say, 'to be initiated is to die.' But it is only to die so as to be re-born under better conditions. That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die' (1 Co 1536) is a reflexion which must always have occurred to man from the day when he conceived the idea of a higher life in the sacred world. We find this notion wherever initiation ceremonies exist, as we may see by a glance over the examples collected by Frazer in GB2 ii. In the Lower Congo, initiation ceremonies are called kimbasi, which means 'resurrection.' During a dance the neophytes fall dead, and then the sorcerer resuscitates them. Sometimes the rôle is filled by persons who have already been initiated, and the neophyte is present simply as a spectator. On the River Darling in New South Wales, an old man lies down in a grave which has been dug and holds a small bush in his hand. He is then covered with a thin layer of earth and the branch is allowed to protrude, to look as if it were growing. Other bushes are stuck in the soil to heighten the effect. The novices are then brought to the edge of the grave, when a singer begins a chant invoking the totem, and a dance is performed by old men. The dancing and singing are continued till the bush held by the buried man begins to quiver, and he rises from the grave.4 In the Fiji Islands the novices are set before a row of men lying on the ground and seemingly dead, their bodies having been previously covered with the blood and entrails of pigs. At a given signal they rise and run down to wash in the neighbouring river.5 Among the Omahas of the United States the neophyte is bound to a plank, after which one priest certain privileged persons, whose return to a state of embryo literally a re-generation. Among the Australians these influences materialize as pebbles or bits of quartz which are supposed to enter the body of the candidate for magicianship.3 Some clans even believed that his entrails were replaced by new ones. In other parts, a snake is supposed to enter his head.4 In still other cases there is the substitution or even the superposition of a new soul which comes down from the spirit world; J. G. Frazer has shown that this is a very common way of explaining the change, but he is mistaken in thinking that this avatar is invariably the work of a totem which communicates its own soul to the novice, while retaining its own individuality. There is, as a matter of fact, nothing to prevent the soul or spirit thus incarnated from being ascribed to an entirely different source. This new factor may be merely a quality, a virtue, or a gift of grace, which the sanctifying influence of initiation has poured down on the neophyte to purify and exalt his inner nature. (b) The neophyte may pass for the time being into the spirit world. He lives the life of the spirits, becomes like one of them, and so enjoys their privileges. Perhaps the idea here is, reasoning from imitative magic, that, since the neophyte has once died and been resuscitated, the same thing will happen again when he dies in reality. It is impossible to enter into details of the rites which finally admit the neophyte into the superhuman world. Those which are quoted by pretends to kill him, and another brings him back to life.6 Where we can penetrate behind the veil of secrecy overAndrew Lang nearly all belong to this category. hanging the initiation ceremonies of the ancients, we find in It is a curious thing that among almost all unnearly all cases the representation of the passion of a divine or civilized peoples the noise produced by the bullsemi-divine being, who is attacked or carried off by infernal powers, descends to the realm of the dead, is liberated by the 10arer, or rattle, is supposed to be the voice of intervention of some higher divinity, and brought back to the spirits; but it is still a moot point whether this region of light in the presence or company of those assisting in instrument was in general use in initiation cere the ceremony. It is curious to find the same idea not only in monies among the ancients. Daubing with clay, Japan, Polynesia, etc., but also among peoples who could never have had any connexion whatever with the mythology of the chalk, or other colouring substances is a very ancient world. Father de Smet discovered in 1840 among the common rite, but the washing which follows it is Pottawatomies of North America a legend about the introduc- not to be confused with the lustrations whose tion of agriculture and organization of mysteries which bears an astonishing resemblance to the drama played at Eleusis.7 Still object is to rid the novice of all pernicious taints, more recently, J. W. Fewkes, describing the secret rites per- and which belong rather to the rites of separation. formed among the Hopi of Arizona by the Brotherhood of the On the other hand, the mutilations which were Antelope and the Snake, reports that there the initiated are treated to a representation of the adventures of a personage classed under separation rites (circumcision, the called Ti-Yo-his journey to the spirit world, the ordeals he drawing of a tooth, the removal of a phalanx, etc.) passed through there, and his return to the land of the living, may also be taken as admission rites when their bringing with him the knowledge of the rites for making object is to test the courage of the neophytes and by which they will know each other. Dancing, as their power of resistance, or to set a mark on them Lucian noted when he wrote 'there is no mystery without dancing," may be regarded as of universal use in initiation ceremonies, if we include under it all rhythmic movements, from the corroboris in which the Australians imitate the actions and gestures of their totems, to circumambulations (q.v.), which aim at drawing a circle to separate the two worlds (except when these circumambula. tions are a magic ceremony to influence the course of nature). The giving of a new name is often accompanied by the use of a new language, formed either from archaic expressions or turns of speech, or from everyday words which are given a new intonation. Again, we must notice the frequent recourse to communion, through which the neophytes, 1 A. Moret, Mystères égyptiens, 90. rain.8 Sometimes the idea of re-birth is still more clearly marked: the initiated passes into a state of embryo. Initiation with the Nosairis of Lebanon was closely connected with child-birth, and the neophyte received the embryonic name of alakali, lit. clot of blood.'9 In Egypt the Pharaoh, who was solemnly consecrated in ceremonies which were sup posed to ally him with Osiris, had to wrap himself up in an animal's skin which was called 'the cradle skin,' or 'the place of becoming, of transformations, of renewed life,' and this skin was used also in funeral ceremonies as a temporary shroud. According to A. Moret, a similar ceremony was celebrated for 1 Lampridius, Commodus, ch. ix. 2 Apuleius, Met. xi. 23. 8 De Jonghe, in Revue des questions historiques, 9th 467 ff. ser., xii. A. W. Howitt, On some Australian Ceremonies of Initia tion,' in JAI xiii. [1883-84] 453 f. L. Fison, The Nanga,' ib. xiv. [1884-85] 22. 6 J. G. Kohl, Kitschi-Gami, Bremen, 1859, i. 59 ff. 7 P. de Smet, Missions de l'Orégon, Ghent, 1848, i. 284. 8 J. W. Fewkes, The Snake Ceremonials at Walpi,' in Journ. of Amer. Ethnol. and Archæol. iv. [Boston, 1894]. 9 R. Dussaud, Histoire et religion des Nosaïris, Paris, 1900, p. 110. 2 Satapatha Brahmana, III. ii. 1. 6 (=SBE xxvi. 27). 3 M. Mauss, L'Origine des pouvoirs magiques dans les sociétés australiennes, Paris, 1905, p. 16. 4 Ib. p. 43. 5 Περὶ ὀρχύσεως Χ. |