Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education
Print Reference
pp. 3-8
Abstract
All traditional societies have such a process-called initiation. For millennia, tribal and religious rites have supported and directed youth on their path to a healthy adulthood. Cultures worldwide have almost universally held rituals of transformation for their young. These traditional customs endured for centuries as part of a carefully structured and effective rite of passage into adulthood. Culture after culture believed if the young man was not introduced into "the Mysteries," he would not know what to do with his pain and would almost always abuse his power. Young men were thus initiated into the social and ecological heritage of their community, enabling initiates to perpetuate their society in a meaningful and orderly way. Today, however, we live in a clockwork reality that is linear, rational, and mechanistic. Initiation is perceived as an artifact of the ancient past. Modem communities and cultures have discarded the initiation process, long practiced in traditional and indigenous societies, at enormous social and ecological cost.
Recommended Citation
Christopher M. Paddon
(2000)
"The Earth Wisdom of Male Initiation,"
Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education: Vol. 12:
Iss.
1, Article 3.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.cortland.edu/taproot/vol12/iss1/3