Functional meaning of the phenomenon of initiation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21847/1728-9343.2017.1(147).97557Keywords:
rites of passage, initiation, archetype, myth, the hero's journeyAbstract
The experience the world's cultural traditions has proved that the human existence with the change of vital biological processes and social conditions subordinates to and stands at the certain step of the hierarchy. In order to achieve higher status it needs to go through the frames of the tradition of ceremonial and ritual scheme, i.e. the process of conscious mode of management and transformation of the human personality. The ceremonies of initiation served as the means of control and transformation of human personality with the help of consciousness, the encoding of the subconsciousness of inner soul of a person took place. The article deals with the different approaches in the interpretationof initiations. But the determining thing is the fact that they formalized the entrance of a person to the communal and corporate unions that were closed for the outsiders, and the essence of the process of formalization was pointed to the regulating of different variance in behavior, its unification, typification, to the development of common schemes and standards. This trend can be seen in the fact that any society, taking care of its integrity, appeals to the collective memory, uses the mythological means, develops the system of social codes (programs) of behavior that are offered to its members as ceremonies and rituals that build the basis of the axiom of cosmology of the community. The article is an attempt to define functional and semantic meaning of the phenomenon of initiation from the point of view of the theories of psychoanalysis and some myth centered ideas and conceptions. The analysis of the essential characteristics of initiation as a conscious means of management and transformation of a person's identity is developed. The characteristics of an individual's behavior from the point of view of the tradition of ceremonial and scheme has shown that the modern perspective understanding of the anthropological catastrophe is possible at the conjuncture of retrieval of a personality's integrity in the process of spiritual initiation sublimation that is the most important stage of immersion of a person in his or her own Selfness.
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