You're welcome and thank you! The ADF Initiate program had an amusing origin. Quite a few years ago I wrote a piece comparing ADF and OBOD, explaining that ADF is a church while OBOD is an initiatory order. With utter predictability, the ADF leadership decided that they were going to have an initiatory dimension too -- they've got a real fixation on being the One True Holy Apostolic Church of Neopaganism, and so can't stand the thought that any other group has something they don't -- and with utter predictability, they didn't take the time to find out much about what magical initiation is or how it works before cobbling together a ritual and launching the thing with much fanfare.
The ritual was published -- one of many signs that they had no idea what they were doing -- and I know of rather a number of people with backgrounds in initiatory orders who had great fun chuckling over it. Have you ever read a fictional sex scene written by a teenage virgin who has only the most abstract notion of what actually happens when two people make love? That's how it compares to an actual ritual of initiation. That's why it didn't surprise me a bit that they did their 180 turn on Bonewits with no thought of the magical and spiritual consequences; it really was par for the course.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-18 05:24 am (UTC)The ritual was published -- one of many signs that they had no idea what they were doing -- and I know of rather a number of people with backgrounds in initiatory orders who had great fun chuckling over it. Have you ever read a fictional sex scene written by a teenage virgin who has only the most abstract notion of what actually happens when two people make love? That's how it compares to an actual ritual of initiation. That's why it didn't surprise me a bit that they did their 180 turn on Bonewits with no thought of the magical and spiritual consequences; it really was par for the course.