Anyone researching the Rosicrucians will encounter the term “initiation order.”
What does the term “initiation” mean? It comes from the Latin word “initium,” which refers to a beginning, an entrance, or the start of a new process. What does this new beginning look like?
It is the embarking on a new path and the associated decision to devote oneself henceforth, above all, to the inner, personal development of the soul’s personality.
The framework for this is created during the initiation ceremony through a solemn, dramatic ritual that, above all, deeply impresses the candidate’s (neophyte’s) emotions and unconscious.
In antiquity, the term “initiation” referred to admission to the ancient mystery cults or acceptance into a secret society or spiritual community. The word “secret” implied that these groups possessed knowledge about God, the world, and the true nature of humanity that was hidden from the general public.
Through gradual initiations, the well-prepared neophyte could be “initiated” (eingeweiht in German) into various levels of knowledge. These initiations followed traditional, strictly secret rites and were aimed at the neophyte’s ascent into a different state of being.
Essentially, the neophyte underwent a holistic rebirth. That is to say: he experienced symbolic “death” and reemerged “reborn” (with expanded consciousness).
The focus of any successful initiation, or spiritual initiation, is the “renatio,” the rebirth at a higher level of consciousness.
The poet Johann W. von Goethe expressed this process of development of the soul’s personality in the following verses:
“And as long as you do not have
This dying and becoming!
You are but a gloomy guest
On this dark earth.”
This continuous process is also illustrated by the symbol of the Rose Cross:
The goal is to overcome (to “crucify”) identification with the outer “I” (ego) so that the “true Self,” the Christ within us (the rose), can blossom.
