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Initiation   /ɪnˌɪʃiˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Initiation

noun
1.
A formal entry into an organization or position or office.  Synonyms: induction, installation.  "He was ordered to report for induction into the army" , "He gave a speech as part of his installation into the hall of fame"
2.
The act of starting something for the first time; introducing something new.  Synonyms: creation, foundation, founding, innovation, instauration, institution, introduction, origination.  "The foundation of a new scientific society"
3.
Wisdom as evidenced by the possession of knowledge.  Synonyms: knowledgeability, knowledgeableness.  "His dullness was due to lack of initiation"
4.
An act that sets in motion some course of events.  Synonyms: induction, trigger.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Initiation" Quotes from Famous Books



... to within two years, and indeed rather less, of the time for my initiation into the mysteries of the Red Axe, and still I remained at home, an idle boy, playing at single-stick and fence with the men-at-arms, drinking beer in the evening with my bosom cronies, and in the well-grounded opinion of all honest people, ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... itself, through and in spite of the ceaseless noises of your normal world. Within this world of silence you seem as it were to lose yourself, "to ebb and to flow, to wander and be lost in the Imageless Ground," says Ruysbroeck, struggling to describe the sensations of the self in this, its first initiation into the "wayless world, beyond image," where "all is, yet ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill

... It was the initiation of a daily lesson together in the New Testament, which, while it drew their hearts closer to each other, drew them, with growing delight, nearer and nearer to the ideal of humanity, Jesus Christ, in whom shines the glory of ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... and Senate are elected annually from among the members of four or five years' standing to manage the affairs of the corps. In order to become a member, a freshman, or 'green,' as he is called in Holland, has to go through a rather trying initiation, which lasts for three or four weeks. Having given in his name to the Senate, he must call on the members of the corps and ask them to sign their names in a book, which is inspected by the Senate from time to time, and at each visit he comes in for a ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough

... adequately maintained the quality of his best previous animistic work. To those who found a new imaginative world in "The Centaur" and "Pan's Garden," the old familiar magic still has power in many of these stories,—almost completely in "The Touch of Pan" and "Initiation." Hardly inferior to these stories for their passionate reality are "The Other Wing," "The Occupant of the Room," "The Tryst," and "H. S. H." There is no story in this volume which would not have made the reputation of a new writer, and I can hardly ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... political ability which inspired every confidence in the future. On the 12th of the same month works were commenced at Versailles for the formation of a railway-station sufficient for all the wants of an important army, the initiation of which was due to M. Thiers; a conference was opened on the 19th April with the Western Railway Company, the plans were approved on the 22nd of the same month, and the preliminary works were commenced ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... perilous and unwholesome maturity; and when his new duties demanded his attention, he entered on them with the same sincerity of enthusiasm which his boyish coevals would have exhibited towards a new sport. His gradual initiation into the mysteries of his religion created a strange, voluptuous sensation of fear and interest in his mind. He heard the oracles, and he trembled; he attended the sacrifices and the auguries, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... Baker, a clergyman of the Establishment, and with whom I had been in habits of intimacy for some time. Dr. Baker was a learned and pious man. He had performed the duties of his profession, from the time of his initiation into the church, in an exemplary manner; not only by paying a proper attention to the customary services, but by the frequent visitation of the sick and the instruction of the poor. This he had done, too, to admiration in a particularly extensive parish. ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... the problem vary so greatly. One person may be exhausted by four hours of intellectual effort, whereas another is less fatigued by eight; and further, the daily occupations vary greatly in the demand that they make on attention and on such qualities as reason, judgment, and power of initiation. Those who teach or learn such subjects as mathematics, or those who are engaged in such occupations as portrait-painting and the higher forms of musical effort, must necessarily take more out of themselves than those who are employed in feeding a machine, in nursing ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly

... as he the ceremonies necessary for initiation into the religion of Moses, and, consequently, the exercise of those solemn offices was to him another source of gain. One day, as he walked in the fields about Cairo, conversing with a youth on the interpretation of the law, it so happened that the Angel of Death smote the young man suddenly, ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... "Poor child! the initiation has been too much for her unformed mind," she murmured complacently, pleased with herself for having secured a disciple. "The path is narrow and rugged at the beginning, but it will broaden out before her as ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon

... inquiring. The face wears weird and tremulous lights and shadows; it asks us mysterious questions, and troubles us with the suggestions of our relations to some dim unknown. The sad, blue eyes that gazed into Mary's had that look of calm initiation, of melancholy comprehension, peculiar to eyes made clairvoyant by "great and critical" sorrow. They seemed to say to her, "Fulfil thy mission; life is made for sacrifice; the flower must fall before fruit can perfect itself." A vague ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... a flash of illuminating light, and according to him was in some cases a religious rite, a ceremony of initiation, perhaps even a custom inculcated by an established religion. The child who had been subjected to it and had survived — as probably most of the victims did survive, — attained to a certain position and ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... sharply and swept out of the room, the sense of united triumph had made him bend down to her and made her stretch her arms tip to him, so that, in their long embrace, he seemed to consecrate her to those "realities" that the pretty, foolish mother flouted. That had been her initiation and her consecration. ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... subject many conjectures have been made: Aristotle surrounded by emblems illustrating the objects with which his philosophy was concerned, an initiation into some mystic rite, the poet musing in sadness on the mysteries of life, the philosopher imparting wisdom to the young, etc. etc. I believe Giorgione is simply giving us a poetical rendering of "The Golden Age," where, like Plato's philosopher-king, the seer all-wise and all-powerful ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook

... member of the College by paying half-a-crown; so I paid, was admitted to the privilege of the reading-room, and sat down to read up, from the Magazine, as to the working of the College. It appeared, that, after my initiation, I might join any class, though it were not at the beginning of the term. So I boldly proposed to Mr. Shorter that I would join Mr. Ruskin's class. To tell the whole truth, I thought the experiment would be well worth making, if I only gained by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... deny, in which my very faith in God Himself seemed wholly gone; in which it was merely incredible to me that if He were in Heaven such things could happen on earth. But sorrow of such a dreadful kind as this is, in truth, if we will but yield to it, a sort of initiation or revelation, rather than an obscurer of truth; and, by the time that my three days were over I thought I saw where my duty lay, and to what all those events tended. I had come from a monk's life that I might taste what the world was like; I had tasted and found it very bitter; ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... in a voice of great sadness, "had he but listened to Mejnour, had he delayed the last and most perilous ordeal of daring wisdom until the requisite training and initiation had been completed, your ancestor would have stood with me upon an eminence which the waters of Death itself wash everlastingly, but cannot overflow. Your grandsire resisted my fervent prayers, disobeyed my most absolute commands, and in the ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... new member is obliged to pay an initiation fee of $500 toward the general funds of the town, and he and his family are then welcome to join the settlement as soon as ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 36, July 15, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... a diversified modern industrial economy; per capita income is now on par with Western Europe. As a member of the European Union, Finland was the only Nordic state to join the euro system at its initiation in ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... Associate members shall be chosen from those who by their furtherance of the objects of the Club, or general qualifications, shall recommend themselves to the Executive Committee. Associate and honorary members shall be exempt from dues and initiation fees, and shall ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... Mason's conjecture of 'initiation' as void of meaning and harmony. Now my ear deceives me if 'initiation' be not the right word. In fact,'imitation' is utterly impertinent to all that follows. Bertoldo tells Antonio that he had been initiated in the manners suited to the court by two or three sacred beauties, and that a similar ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... by Penrod for use in uncertain emergencies) and passwords for admission to the shack, also instructions for recognizing a brother member in the dark, and a rather alarming sketch of the things to be done during the initiation of a candidate. ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... is a matter of the exclusion (not the stultification), the suspension of moral prepossessions, the absence of sympathetic sentimentalism, the habit of shirking nothing and smiling at all things. These qualities are not characteristic of the average Englishman. Now, satiric comedy did not in its initiation depend upon the average Englishman. It took its cue from the court of Charles the Second, who—with a dash of thoroughly English humour—was more than half- French in temperament, and attracted to himself all that was artistically ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... it is a sort of vaccination that renders death by some malignant type of fever less probable. Some regard it as a sort of initiation, like that into the Odd Fellows, which renders one liable to his regular dues thereafter. Others consider it merely the acquisition of a habit of taking every morning before breakfast a dose of bitters, composed of whiskey and assafoetida, ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... enrich his youthful mind with some branches of information, which in that retired corner, his pupil might otherwise have been some time in attaining. Amongst these were certain games at cards and dice, in which the pupil paid, as was reasonable, the price of initiation by his losses to his instructor. After a long walk with this youngster, whose advice, like the unwise son of the wisest of men, he probably valued more than that of his more aged counsellors, Richard Middlemas returned to his lodgings ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... Mazzini joined the Carbonari, or Charcoalmen, a society which worked in different countries with one aim—opposition to the despot and the legitimist. The young man of twenty-two was impressed, no doubt, by the solemn oath of initiation which he had to take over a bared dagger, but he soon had to acknowledge that the efforts of the Carbonari were doomed to dismal failure. Membership was confined too much to the professional class, and there were too few appeals ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... mental atmosphere of the uneducated mass. When that atmosphere disappears these poor people are exposed to all pernicious influences. We are therefore responsible to the Church to build around them the protective wall of Catholic life. The initiation to their Canadian life should not be at the ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... the Candidates for Initiation into the science of "Raja Yoga," when they apply to the Yogi Masters for instruction, are given a series of lessons designed to enlighten them regarding the nature of the Real Self, and to instruct them in the secret knowledge whereby they ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... Stephen was good-humoured, and accustomed to give and take, and they both found their level, as well in the Dragon court as among the world outside, where the London prentices were a strong and redoubtable body, with rude, not to say cruel, rites of initiation among themselves, plenty of rivalries and enmities between house and house, guild and guild, but a united, not to say ferocious, esprit de corps against every one else. Fisticuffs and wrestlings were the amenities that passed between them, though always with a ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... over these domestic duties to speak of state affairs and the gradual initiation therein by the Princess of this young couple. During the campaign of Italy in which Philip V. was anxious to take part, Madame des Ursins, suitably to the duties and prerogatives of her charge, did not quit the Queen for a single moment. She was present with her on every occasion at the ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... Since the performance of this play, the world all over has seen a great light. Aside from the prefaces of Mr. Shaw on the subject of children and their education, plays, pamphlets, even legislation have dealt with the theme. A reaction was bound to follow, and we do not hear so much now about "sex initiation" and coeducation. Suffice it to say that Frank Wedekind was the first man to put the question plumply before us ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... days after the date of the enactment of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Librarian of Congress shall cause notice to be published in the Federal Register of the initiation of voluntary negotiation proceedings for the purpose of determining reasonable terms and rates of royalty payments for the activities specified by paragraph (1) of this subsection during the period beginning on the date of the enactment of such Act and ending on December ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.

... repent. But why? Simply because otherwise he would be unable to realise what he had done. The moment of repentance is the moment of initiation. More than that: it is the means by which one alters one's past. The Greeks thought that impossible. They often say in their Gnomic aphorisms, 'Even the Gods cannot alter the past.' Christ showed that the commonest ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde

... the appearance of such an association has received from all classes. I have indeed seen nothing but the kindest criticism. Although I believe some gentlemen have been good enough to propose we should postpone the initiation of this institution for the present, and should wait for the short and moderate space of exactly 100 years, and look forward to its incorporation in the year of grace 1980. It is difficult to meet such gentle criticism, but the Academy may be allowed ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... him, agreed joyfully to forward the funds for his journey and to make arrangements for his stay in Rangoon before proceeding to Mandalay, where he was to be received as a Buddhist priest after a certain course of initiation. ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates

... close this introductory explanation with two remarks, made by the distinguished musician, mechanician, and inventor, Theobald Boehm, of Munich, whose inventions were not limited to the flute which bears his name, but include the initiation of an important change in the modern pianoforte, as made in America and Germany. Of priority of invention he says, in a letter to an English friend, "If it were desirable to analyze all the inventions ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various

... sailing invisibly "on the wings of the cool east wind"; the palace of that Angus remains to this day at New Grange, wrought over with symbols of the Astral Fire and the great Serpentine Power. The De Dannans lived in the heart of mountains (crypts for initiation), and today the peasant sometimes sees the enchanted glow from the green hills he believes they still inhabit. Perhaps he believes not foolishly, for, once truly occult, a place is preserved from pollution until the cycle returns, bringing back with ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... and the weight of ten stone, a beginner at cycling often finds it more convenient to learn to ride on a lady's machine than on a gentleman's. The former offers greater facilities for rapid dismounting, a quality not to be despised in the earlier stages of initiation. But, though this is undoubtedly the case, and though Charteris knew that it was so, yet he felt instinctively that there was something wrong here. Hooligans of twenty years and twelve stone do not learn to ride on ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... function is to be provided for by a method of congregation and organization approved by experience, leadership is to be provided and occasional stimulus applied, and life is to be enriched at many points. It is for the people themselves to carry on such enterprises, but the initiation of them often comes from outside. Usually, perhaps, the number of people locally who have a real desire for culture are few, but it is through the training of these few that judicious, capable leaders of the community ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... proved himself equal to a forty-miles' walk among the Welsh mountains on a warm summer day; and also in remarking the boyish exhilaration of spirits in which Mr. Lane writes, which he tells us is quite a characteristic result of 'initiation into the excitements of ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... spoke to several of the dimly-seen figures, but so low I could not hear. Then one stepped toward me, leaving the others standing in a circle about us. This was the captain of the band, and he at once proceeded to my initiation, not a word being spoken by any one but him, and the whole formula being of course repeated from memory, for the place was dark as night could make it. The following was the form, not half of which I could have remembered ...
— The Oaths, Signs, Ceremonies and Objects of the Ku-Klux-Klan. - A Full Expose. By A Late Member • Anonymous

... God by the sacrifice of every moral virtue. There were many who pretended to confess or to relate the ceremonies of this abhorred society. It was asserted, "that a new-born infant, entirely covered over with flour, was presented, like some mystic symbol of initiation, to the knife of the proselyte, who unknowingly inflicted many a secret and mortal wound on the innocent victim of his error; that as soon as the cruel deed was perpetrated, the sectaries drank up the blood, greedily tore asunder the quivering members, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... had received his initiation and had become inured to rough, incessant work, for now he came to know the real stuff of which these Mormons were made. No obstacle barred them. They penetrated the gullies to the last step; they rode weathered slopes ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... us much amusement when narrating it, as being his initiation into the great city of Chicago. He had written me in answer to my letter, that he was ready to start at any time; and as I had received an invitation to attend a ball to be given in the city on the South Side on a certain day, I wrote him to be on hand at that ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston

... confess a fault. It was his impulsiveness that led him to volunteer and serve four years in the Confederate army,—trying years to my mother, with a brood of seven children to feed, garb, and house. The war brought me my initiation as a cowboy, of which I have now, after the long lapse of years, the greater portion of which were spent with cattle, a distinct recollection. Sherman's army, in its march to the sea, passed through our county, devastating that section for miles ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams

... milliners who furnish "drapery Misses"[583] Throughout the season, upon speculation Of payment ere the Honeymoon's last kisses Have waned into a crescent's coruscation, Thought such an opportunity as this is, Of a rich foreigner's initiation, Not to be overlooked—and gave such credit, That future bridegrooms swore, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... A fuller initiation into the kaleidoscopic divergencies of adult standards was given Sylvia during the visits of her Aunt Victoria. These visits were angelic in their extreme rarity, and for Sylvia were always a mixture of the beatific and ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... the new day, if we thoroughly realized what is, however, matter of common experience, to wit: that at the day's close, sleep, rest without dreams or thought of awaking, may be as welcome as all this pleasant bustle of the morning? The knowledge of these mysteries, initiation into which comes late and silently, is, as I hinted, perhaps the final compensation; allowing us to face the order of things without superfine cavillings. But there are earlier, less awful and secret compensations, ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... showed me his own methods of embryological investigation. He had already been the teacher of Karl Ernst von Baer; and though the pupil outran the master, and has become the pride of the scientific world, it is but just to remember that he owed to him his first initiation into the processes of embryological research. Dollinger was a careful, minute, persevering observer, as well as a deep thinker; but he was as indolent with his pen as he was industrious with his brain. He gave his intellectual capital to his pupils without stint ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... conversation with Mr. Polly; he would come along to him whenever he appeared at his door, and converse about sport and women and fisticuffs and the pride of life with an air of extreme initiation, until Mr. Polly felt himself the faintest underdeveloped intimation of a man that had ever hovered on the verge ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... having been adopted, the doors of the Committee Rooms on Sacramento Street were opened for initiation into the body. The greatest caution was exercised to prevent the admission of any disreputable or unreliable man. Every person presenting himself was carefully scrutinized at the outer door by a trusty guard and at the ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb

... majesty, and she has an only brother, two years younger than herself, whose astonishing resemblance to her has created continual mistakes; this brother is promised the inheritance of his father's office; and, under pretext of acquiring the due initiation for future post, has been permitted every morning to attend the king's rising. "'However, this embryo page is the sister, who comes each morning disguised in her brother's clothes. The king has had many private conversations with the designing beauty; and, seduced by her many charms of ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... would have agreed that the direct knowledge of God is incommunicable to others, they undoubtedly seem to have held that there were what may be described as intermediate or preparatory processes or energisings which could be communicated: (1) by initiation into a holy community; (2) by a duly qualified master; (3) under the veils of symbols ...
— The Gnosis of the Light • F. Lamplugh

... trivial and noble ends. They love a stunt even (or especially) at the risk of their lives. Half the aeroplane accidents are due to the fact that many men prefer risk to safety. To do some things that other people cannot do seems to them the only way of justifying their existence. It is an initiation into aristocracy. Every man is the rival of all other men, and he is not satisfied till he has beaten them. If he is a great cricketer, or a great poet, or a Cabinet Minister, or wins the Derby, his ambition as a rule is ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... the similar surveillance and extradition of Anarchists.[55] At the same time the Count suggested that the Pope should be asked to adhere to this new Holy Alliance. This strange proposal was approved by the Tsar, who ordered the immediate initiation of negotiations with the Wilhelmstrasse. In due course this instruction was acted upon,[56] but in the following May Count Lamsdorf fell, and with the entry of M. Izvolsky into the Russian Foreign Office a new ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf

... As to the initiation of private suits, let the manner of deciding causes between all citizens be the same as in cases in which any freeman is disobedient to the state in minor matters, of which the penalty is not stripes, imprisonment, or death. But as regards attendance at choruses or processions or ...
— Laws • Plato

... out for his initiation, in the raw blackness before daybreak, and lay in the blind, with only his guide for a companion, he felt far away from artificial luxuries. The first pale streamers of dawn soon streaked the east, and the wind ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... Our initiation into American ways began with the first step on the new soil. My father found occasion to instruct or correct us even on the way from the pier to Wall Street, which journey we made crowded together in a rickety cab. He told us not to lean out of the windows, not to ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... this introduction: my initiation, as I have confessed, was primarily an emotional one. My interest in Birth Control was awakened by experience. Research and investigation have followed. Our effort has been to raise our program from the plane of the emotional to ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

... at no time with the Army of Northern Virginia, and know nothing of it but the bare outline of its glorious and unequaled record. Cavalry officers, after long and arduous service, and a thorough initiation into all the mysteries of their craft, were rewarded and encouraged by having some staff officer, or officer educated to shoot heavy artillery, run steamships, or mix chemical preparations, promoted over their heads; ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... been variously imputed to the taste or irreligion of Virgil; but, according to the more elaborate interpretation of Bishop Warburton, the descent to hell is not a false, but a mimic scene; which represents the initiation of AEneas, in the character of a law-giver, to the Eleusinian mysteries. This hypothesis, a singular chapter in the Divine Legation of Moses, had been admitted by many as true; it was praised by all as ingenious; nor had it been exposed, in a space of thirty years, to a fair and critical discussion. ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... example, the preamble to the Military, Naval and Air Clauses of the Treaty of Versailles: "In order to render possible the initiation of a general limitation of the armaments of all nations, Germany undertakes strictly to observe the military, naval and air ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller

... did not want then to know too much. She wished the mystery still kept up. And he, on his side, had made it plain to her that he would not attempt to disturb her inherited ideas—so long as she herself did not ask for the teaching and initiation that could only, according to his own deepest conviction, bear fruit in the willing and ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... game at cards; of which he knew as much as of the art of playing the trombone. But I remarked that the Old Soldier took him into custody directly, for her partner; and instructed him, as the first preliminary of initiation, to give her all the silver he had ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... and Gerard stored for harvest decorations. They ran and danced on together with Monsieur at their heels, while the elders watched them with some sadness and anxiety. Free-masonry had soon made both Mary and Mr. Dutton aware of each other's initiation, and they had discussed the matter in all its bearings, agreed that the man was a scoundrel, and the woman an angel, even if she had once been weak, and that she ought to be very resolute with him if he came to terms. And then they looked after their young companions, and Mr. Dutton ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... time that I should pass from these brief and discursive notes about things in Flatland to the central event of this book, my initiation into the mysteries of Space. THAT is my subject; all that has gone ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott

... began to attend to some of the ceremonies of what may be called the initiation of warriors, this being the first time I had been on a war-party. For the first three times that a man accompanies a war-party, the customs of the Indians require some peculiar and painful observances, from which old warriors may, if they choose, be exempted. ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... blood, and gave only to them. And this the evil demons imitating, commanded it to be done also in the mysteries of Mithras; for that bread and a cup of water are set forth with certain explanations in the ceremonial of initiation, you either ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... the Ambraciotes, having asked a most insulting question of his minion, was murdered by him, so exasperated was he. But with women and wives all this is the beginning of friendship, and as it were an initiation into the sacred mysteries. And pleasure plays a very small part in this, but the esteem and favour and mutual love and constancy that result from it, proves that the Delphians did not talk nonsense in giving the name of Arma[146] to Aphrodite, nor Homer in giving the name ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... horde so suddenly brought together understood the obligations of the workman's chivalry. The selfish and the lawless rushed in with the prudent and sincere. But a resolution of the executive board to stop the initiation of new members came too late. The undesirable and radical element in many communities gained control of local assemblies, and the conservatism and intelligence of the national leaders became merely a shield for the rowdy and the ignorant who brought the ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... the brothers Van Eyck, of Memling, of Roger van der Weyden, of the painter of the death of Mary, of Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and of the old Umbrian masters. It was, however, neither Bruges, nor Cologne, nor Sienna, nor Perugia, that completed my initiation; it was in the little town of Arezzo that I became a conscious adept in primitive painting. That was ten years ago or even longer. At that period of indigence and simplicity, the municipal museums, though usually kept shut, ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... chin in his hand and scowled at the flames. "It's too bad, March; and I put your name up for the Golf Club, too. You will join that, won't you? You must, now that I've put you up. It's only a dollar initiation fee and ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... rock. Whereupon they mightily smote the water with their long oars, and in the evening by the injunctions of Orpheus they touched at the island of Electra, [1105] daughter of Atlas, in order that by gentle initiation they might learn the rites that may not be uttered, and so with greater safety sail over the chilling sea. Of these I will make no further mention; but I bid farewell to the island itself and the indwelling deities, ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... to say," writes Dorothy Sayers, "he read his part of the initiation ceremony with tremendous effect ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... historic name, Cochin or Mangalore or Calicut, white places of old memory, sleeping by the blue waves as if no Vasco de Gama had ever come sailing up out of the West to disturb their enchanted slumber. The approach to these dreamy shores was dark and tumultuous, as if nature had set an initiation of contrasting toil before the enjoyment of that light and peace. It followed the bed of a mountain stream, which began in a mere pleat of the hills, tumbling often in white cascades, and enduring no boat upon its waters until half its course was run. But here ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... late Lieut.-Governor Letellier is due the initiation of the soirees litteraires, which united under his hospitable roof the literary talent of the Ancient Capital, and his successor, Lieut.-Governor Robitaille, not only followed this enlightened course, but also added ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... transported for life as an accomplice in an assault and alleged robbery, of which, from circumstances which have since transpired, I have little doubt he was entirely innocent. During a long imprisonment on Horsham jail, he received an initiation in crime, which was finished during the outward voyage. Upon his arrival in New South Wales, he was assigned to a settler in the interior, a notoriously hard and severe man, who gave him but a scanty supply of food and clothing, ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous

... Eleusis.—What follows at Eleusis? The "mysteries" are "mysteries" still; we cannot claim initiation and reveal them. There seem to be manifold sacrifices of a symbolic significance, the tasting of sacred "portions" of food and drink—a dim foreshadowing of the Christian sacrament of the Eucharist; especially in the great hall ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... of the Australian Boy," by A.W. Howitt, in his book, Native Tribes of Southeast Australia, showing the Initiation Ceremonies that separated the youth from ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... stars. The symbol was the same as that of the seven stages of Borsippa, the Pyramid of vitrified brick, near Babylon, built of seven stages, and each of a different color. In the Mithraic ceremonies, the candidate went through seven stages of initiation, passing through many fearful trials and of these the high ladder with seven rounds or steps was the symbol. You see the Lodge, its details and ornaments, by its Lights. You have already heard what these Lights, the greater and lesser, are said ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... mysteries of the natives of New South Wales and Victoria. (See chapter x.) What they found was a belief in 'the great spirit, Twanyirika,' who is believed 'by uninitiated boys and women' (but, apparently, not by adults) to preside over the cruel rites of tribal initiation.[2] No more is said, no myths about 'the great spirit' are given. He is dismissed in a brief note. Now if these ten lines contain all the native lore of Twanyirika, he is a mere bugbear, not believed in (apparently) by adults, ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... prior to initiation, and the novice was taken there that she might recognise solemnly what she was about to do on ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short

... nightfall the girl is carried on the old woman's back to her mother's hut. When the customary period of a few days has elapsed, she is allowed to cook again, after first whitewashing the floor of the hut. But, by the following month, the preparations for her initiation are complete. The novice must remain in her hut throughout the whole period of initiation, and is carefully guarded by the old women, who accompany her whenever she leaves her quarters, veiling her head with a native ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... and of the savages of Louisiana by Bossu; I beg to mention a remarkable one furnished by Catlin—the sufferings endured by the youths among the Mandans, when admitted into the rank of warriors, {110} reminding us of the probationary exercises which the priests of Mithras forced the candidates for initiation to undergo. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various

... strength and beauty, dreaming that life was an easy thing, and that it was pitiful weakness to be unhappy—the bride, passing with trembling joy from the outer court to the inner sanctuary of woman's life—the wife, beginning her initiation into sorrow, wounded, resenting, yet still hoping and forgiving—the poor bruised woman, seeking through weary years the one refuge of despair, oblivion:—Janet seemed to herself all these in the same moment that she was conscious of being seated on the ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... dwija, or twice-born, is usually appropriate to Brahmans, but is applicable to the three higher castes. Investiture with the sacred thread and initiation of the neophyte into certain religious mysteries are regarded as his ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... their fate. And rather than have forfeited that poignant yet mighty vision of the onward groping of the mass, rather than have missed the widening of his own nature that had come through sharing their hopes and pains, he would still have turned from the easier way, have chosen the deeper initiation rather ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... true, for the master-at-arms, who was also the secretary, had drafted the rules and was responsible for the initiation ceremonies and passwords of ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... looking at things has become the common possession of all the world. But though a belief, when it prevails, may at last be adopted by the whole of a generation, it rarely happens that a widespread conviction has grown up spontaneously among the multitude. "The initiation," it has been said, "of all wise or noble things comes, and must come, from individuals; generally at first from some one individual," to which it ought surely to be added that the origination of a new folly or of a new form of baseness comes, and must in general come, at first from individuals ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... successfully passed through her probation, was admitted as a Wood-gatherer and awarded the white badge of service. Several younger girls also received initiation into membership. With the League ceremonial, songs, stories, and cocoa-making, the evening passed very swiftly away. At nine o'clock everybody was expected to turn in. A night under canvas was a new experience. The stretcher-beds ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... was succeeded, in the sense only of followed, by the Katipunan,—a native word also meaning league. The makers of this "league," though avowing the same purpose as the members of the other, were men of very different stamp. Their initiation was a blood-rite: they sought immediate independence; they preached a campaign of force, if not of violence. That a recent reviewer should have connected Dr. Rizal's name with the Katipunan is difficult to understand. Not alone are his writings, ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... by chance, he would have perished hopelessly in the windings, or have fallen into one of those pits which lead to the boil below. But I carried the chart of the true course clearly in my head, remembering it from that old initiation of twenty years back, when, as an appointed viceroy, I was raised to the highest degree but one known to our Clan, and was given its secrets ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... The arrangements of the Comitia were readjusted to restore to wealth a decisive preponderance in the election of the magistrates. The tribunes of the people were stripped of half their power. Their veto was left to them, but the right of initiation was taken away, and no law or measure of any kind was thenceforth to be submitted to the popular assembly till it had been considered in the Curia and ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... endless repetition of genealogies, comments, anecdotes to which Dickie lent most attentive ear. He was keen to learn, his attention was on the stretch. He was in process of initiation, and every moment of the sacred rites came to him with power and value. Yet it must be owned that he found the lessening of the strain on his memory and attention not wholly unwelcome when Mr. Chifney, sitting beside him ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... well as men, and presided over learning and the arts. In a niche at the farther end of the hall were painted the divine Triad of Thebes, with Rameses I. and his son Seti, who approached them with offerings. The priests were placed with strict regard to their rank, and the order of initiation. Pentaur's was the lowest ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of initiation were peculiarly solemn. After undergoing a severe fast, and spending whole nights in prayer, the candidate confessed, and received the sacrament. He then clothed himself in snow-white garments, and ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... jurisdiction in different localities. In order not to be confounded with the vulgar mechanics who could only use the hammer and the trowel, the Freemasons invented signs of mutual recognition and certain ceremonies of initiation. A traditionary secret was handed down, revealed to the initiated, and that only according to the degrees they had attained. They adopted for symbols the square, the level, the compass, and the hammer. In some lodges and in higher grades (for they differ almost in every nation) we find the ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... bearing upon his back an enormous caldron, followed by a witch and a dwarf. This caldron was the instrument of the supernatural power of a family of giants. It cured all ills, and gave back life to the dead, but without restoring to them the use of speech—an allusion to the secret of the bardic initiation. In the same way Perceval's wariness forms the whole plot of the quest of the Holy Grail. The Grail thus appears to us in its primitive meaning as the pass-word of a kind of free-masonry which survived ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... liked. From a modest house on Henry Street he moved to Fifth Avenue. At his summer home in Greenwich he erected a stable with stalls of finest mahogany. His daughter's wedding became a prodigal exhibition of great wealth, and admittance to the Americus Club, his favourite retreat, required an initiation fee of one thousand dollars. To the poor he gave lavishly. In the winter of 1870-71 he donated one thousand dollars to each alderman to buy coal and food for the needy. His own ward received fifty thousand. Finally, in return for his gifts scattered broadcast to the press ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... and amid the immense religious movement which characterized the apogee of the Middle Ages. Father Hecker discovered the cause of this lessening influence in the fact that since the sixteenth century the Church had been compelled to stand upon the defensive. This had greatly paralyzed her power of initiation and her liberty. As a consequence of the Protestant heresy, which threatened the utter destruction of the principle of authority, the Church had been forced to concentrate on that side of her fortress all her means of defence. In order to protect ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... murmur was heard which precedes the day. She then once more lay down, and when she rose, she was richer by a very simple conception, but still richer. She felt as a novice might feel who had been initiated, and had been intrusted at least with the preliminary secrets of her community. She owed her initiation to Mr. Armstrong, but also to her husband. Experts no doubt may smile, and so may the young people who, in these days of universal knowledge, have got up astronomy for examinations, but nevertheless, in the profounder study of the science ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... hearing on the water contract, several labour unions elected me to honorary membership. The carriage makers' union had so elected me, and a night was set for my initiation. It was a wild winter's night—the streets of the city were covered with snow, and the thermometer registered five above zero. Few hard-working men would come out a night like this. Who would expect them? I was rather glad of the inclement weather. I was weary and tired, and hoped ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... following wise sentiment:—'It was too great a consumer,' he said, 'of four things—time, health, fortune, and thinking.' But a writer in the Edinburgh Review seems to doubt Selwyn's reformation; for his initiation of Wilberforce occurred in 1782, when he was 63; and previously, in 1776, he underwent the process of dunning from Lord Derby, before-mentioned, and in 1779 from Mr Crawford ('Fish Crawford,' as he was called), each of whom, like Mr Shafto, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... dolmen and menhir that loomed out at him, gigantic, terrible. All London was one grey temple of an awful rite, ring within ring of wizard stones circled about some central place, every circle was an initiation, every initiation eternal loss. Or perhaps he was astray for ever in a land of grey rocks. He had seen the light of home, the flicker of the fire on the walls; close at hand, it seemed, was the open door, and he had heard dear voices calling to him across the gloom, but he had just ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... accomplished their initiation into the process of walking under a knapsack, with the most complete and encouraging success. You, who in these days of vehement bustle, business, and competition, can still find time to travel for pleasure alone—you, who ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... the intercession of his brother Aminias, who bared in sight of the judges the wounds which he had received in the battle of Salamis. He perhaps believed that in the communication of the poetic feeling was contained the initiation into the mysteries, and that nothing was in this way revealed to any one who was not ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... basis, aim, sanction, and source of action at the present day. Its source of action in the past was derived from a conception of heaven since changed,—from a notion of life since proved imperfect,—from a conception of the moral law inferior to that of the new epoch in course of initiation,—from a solution of the eternal problem of the relation between man and God since rejected by the human ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... emotions purifies and spiritualises the man; nay, not merely does it spiritualise him, but it initiates him also into noble feelings of which he might else have known nothing, the word [Greek text which cannot be reproduced] having, it has sometimes seemed to me, a definite allusion to the rite of initiation, if indeed that be not, as I am occasionally tempted to fancy, its true and only meaning here. This is of course a mere outline of the book. But you see what a perfect piece of aesthetic criticism it is. Who indeed but a Greek could have analysed ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde

... you can show that you are pleased, Natalie," her father said, lightly, "by going and writing a pretty little note, asking your new friend, Mr. Brand, to dine with us to-night, after the initiation is over, and I will ask Evelyn, if ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... custom among savages is the amputation of a finger as a sacrifice to a deity. In the tribe of the Dakotas the relatives of a dead chief pacified his spirit by amputating a finger. In a similar way, during his initiation, the young Mandan warrior, "holding up the little finger of his left hand to the Great Spirit," ... "expresses his willingness to give it as a sacrifice, and he lays it on the dried buffalo skull, when another chops it off near the hand with a blow of the hatchet." ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... inheritance as a factor, but it is surprising that in the former case he does not consider environment as a factor, although he elsewhere gives striking evidence of unconscious influence proceeding from one individual to another via sex initiation. ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... in the presence of the timekeeper Leveson and as many other menials of the Fifth as thou canst find. It is a souvenir from thy brethren to celebrate thy initiation to the Mystic Order. ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... generations working to meet one social necessity, of an apostolic succession of masters living in the service of one ideal. And so it is these brotherhoods of labor, it is these grim brotherhoods covered with grime and scars, that stand before you to-day inviting you to initiation. ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... no system of seclusion of either boys or girls on attaining puberty, or in connection with initiation, or on attaining a marriageable age. Nor is there any initiation ceremony, or wearing of ceremonial masks, or use of bull-roarers. The custom by which chiefs' children, when assuming the perineal band, are made to stand on a ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson

... rising. "You are a woman, or rather one should say a bud which has yet to unfold into womanhood. When that unfolding comes many secrets will be clear to you that have no part in a girl's dreams and that cannot be explained; experience is the sole key to these secrets. I call you to your initiation, Vera; I show you the path of life. But you stand hesitating on the threshold, and your advance is slow. The serious thing is that you ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov

... imposed a long courtship on us, my Clara; and I, perhaps lamenting the laws of decorum—I have done so!—still felt the benefit of the gradual initiation. It is not good for women to be surprised by a sudden revelation of man's character. We also have things to learn—there is matter for learning everywhere. Some day you will tell me the difference of what you think of me now, from what you thought when we ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... government still rested on the basis of popular election, but was made more aristocratic than before. The Comitia Centuriata was left in possession of the nominal power of legislation, but it could only be exercised upon the initiation of a decree of the Senate. The Comitia Tributa was stripped of the powers by which it had so long controlled the Senate and the State. Tribunes of the people were selected from the Senate. The College of Pontiffs was no longer filled by popular ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... day was indeed a miserable initiation into the hitherto unknown horrors of the sea, and no greater contrast could be possible than the calm of the night before and that wretched Sunday. It rained and blew great guns all day long, and by 6 P.M. the weather culminated ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... was you who first taught me the delights and joys of love; it was you who first kindled that flame of desire that has caused me to experience twelve years of delirious bliss; it was to your gentle teaching, sweet friend, that I owe my initiation in all the mysteries of the Court of Venus; it was your soft hand that pointed out to me that path of pleasure—and all the delight shown on the wayside. The incident happened in ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival

... the duchesse, "you have never given me a single sign of life since our interview at Fontainebleau, and I confess that your presence there on the day of the Franciscan's death, and your initiation in certain secrets, caused me the liveliest astonishment I ever experienced ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... never be satiated in this life, for but a single draught of that wisdom and truth which flows like a sea about the great white throne. And it is this which makes me comprehend how even an unregenerated soul—and how much more the Christian—can long for that which we call death, but which is but the initiation into the mysteries of the Beyond. It is this which, even aside from religious aspirations and fears, wraps our departure in an awful sublimity. To die that we may KNOW—to give up the transitory, the perishing, the earthly, that we may grasp the all-enduring, the imperishable, the divine; to pass ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... young hero. His father was in the condition of the country; he had incurred the expences of fitting out, for services which this compromise rendered unnecessary. Peace, however, while it can be preserved with safety and honour, is always preferable to war; and initiation in an honourable profession, where so much depends on seniority, though it may not be immediately productive, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... of a harsh and cruel temper. Among other atrocities whereof he was guilty was the murder of his brother, Artabanus, whom he put to death, together with his wife and son, apparently upon mere suspicion. This bloody initiation of his reign spread alarm among the nobles, who thereupon determined to exert their constitutional privilege of deposing an obnoxious monarch and supplying his place with a new one. Their choice fell upon Vardanes, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... utilized in the support of the customary or the established, as well as in initiation and support of the novel. People ape the great, or those that pass for great, in manners and morals. The words of a distinguished public man have prestige in the maintenance of the established. Men will follow, and if the socially conspicuous lead them along the ways of the established, ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... and Robinson jumping on board a street car, while Brown took Sam to his room. It was not the one in which Sam's initiation had taken place, but another in the same dormitory, and was handsomely furnished. The walls were lined with fine engravings, and various ornaments adorned ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger

... journeys was largely determined by circumstances, such as the unregulated enthusiasm of the mob, the spite of the scribes at Capernaum, or the anger of Herod's court at Tiberias. Towards the end of the ministry in Galilee our Lord devoted Himself to the deeper instruction of His Apostles and their initiation into the mystery of His death (vii. 24 ff.; viii. 27 ff.). For such teaching the mountain slopes of Lebanon and Hermon afforded scenes ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan

... fulfil at his own initiation or upon the recurrence of the occasion for them. But the great part of his duties were those imposed upon him from above in special cases—that is to say, in carrying out the warrants and precepts of the justices of the peace, ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... days. Here the heads were watched by young boys of from six to ten years old, who, for the whole time the process of drying occupied—from seven to ten days—were never allowed to step out of the hall, or neglect their sacred trust. This was the commencement of their initiation in the endurance of hardships, that they also might become warriors. Night after night the men used to meet in front of the hall, dancing and singing, and beating their gongs. They used to address their heads, taunting them, telling them that they were their slaves, and that they must send the rest ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... labor element of clumsiness and stupidity. Civil duties demand intelligence and morals. The best patriotism of the South joins hands with that of the North in the elevation of the lowly and ignorant. What has been done is only the initiation of the ten times more which ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 01, January, 1900 • Various

... nice to you, too—after a bit. Of course, everybody new has to expect some hazing. Thank your stars that you won't have to be put through the initiation of the marble harp," and she pointed to a marble figure in the tiny Italian garden in the middle ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson

... set up an establishment and cut a dash if he had known how. He admired the grand style in living, not so much as a matter of display, because presumably it stood for all sorts of mysterious refinements for which he possessed the yearning without the initiation. The highest flight he could take by his own unaided efforts was in engaging the best suite of rooms in the best hotel, when he was quite content with his dingy old lodgings; in driving in taxicabs, when the tram-car would have suited him just as well, and ordering champagne, when ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... begins by being a man wearing a lion's skin: he ends, as we have seen, by feeling himself to be a lion wearing a lion's skin. And who is this man? He may on particular occasions be only a candidate for purification or initiation. But par excellence he who has the right is the priest, the medicine-man, the divine king. If an old suggestion of my own is right, he is the original theos or thesos, the incarnate medicine or spell or magic power.[24:3] He at first, I suspect, is the only theos or 'God' that ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... "Standard Oil" is largely due to two things—to the loyalty of its members to each other and to "Standard Oil," and to the punishment of its enemies. Each member before initiation knows its religion to be reward for friends and extermination for foes. Once within the magic circle, a man realizes he is getting all that any one else on earth can afford to pay him for like services, and still more thrown in for full measure. Moreover, while a "Standard ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... Spirit-Self. His religious experiences, as well as many others, are stamped upon the etheric body, making it into the Life-Spirit. In the ordinary course of life this happens more or less unconsciously; so-called initiation, on the contrary, consists in man's being directed by occult science to the means through which he may quite consciously take in hand this work on the Spirit-Self and Life-Spirit. These means will be dealt with in later parts of this book. In the meantime ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... its attributes discursively, it was at the period of its original initiation in London my privilege to be present; nor must I omit to graphically allude to my belief, not choosing to be otherwise than candid with my first impressions, that I had never listened to anything which so rapturously illustrated the spirit of those soul-elevating ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater

... left the campus for his room, as each man slapped is expected to do, followed by Diamond, where he was notified formally of his election and told to appear for initiation at the society hall ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... which had forced Britain into war did much to cool his indignation, and Bethmann-Hollweg's cynical explanation of the violation of Belgium's neutrality went far to justify Britain's action consequent upon that outraging of treaty faith. The deliberate initiation of the policy of "frightfulness" which had heaped such unspeakable horrors upon the Belgian people tore the veil from the face of German militarism and revealed in its sheer brutality the ruthlessness and ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... sweetness and persuasion for the jury. He could coax, intimidate, terrify; and his questions cut like knives." The author of "Bench and Bar in Massachusetts", who was in college with him, says of him: "During the five years of his practice at the Middlesex Bar he underwent such an initiation into the profession as no other county could furnish. Shrewdness, energy, resource, strong nerves and mental muscles were needed to ward off the blows which the trained gladiators of this bar were accustomed to inflict. With the lessons learned at ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse

... was hailed with acclamation by Anne, Nora and Jessica. Miriam Nesbit, Marian Barber, Eva Allen and Eleanor Savell were chosen as candidates and promptly notified to report at Jessica's home the next Thursday evening for initiation. They at once accepted the invitation and solemnly promised ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower

... Martin's initiation into the joys of sea life was a strenuous one. The gale that had sent the Cohasset flying from San Francisco, died out, as Ruth had predicted. Followed a couple ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... the term, MEN OF LETTERS, by virtue of (as Ruskin calls it) "the kingship of words." "Charm" is derived from the Latin "carmen," a song that fascinates, and means to control by incantation, to subdue; while Teleo concerns the secret powers and wisdom of consecration and initiation. It is because of modern misuse of antique terms that, we have considered this somewhat lengthy explanation necessary, in order to clear away the accumulated debris of the ages, from the true foundation ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne

... unutterable amazement, not unmixed with awe. But there was little else that Mrs. Bullimore could teach John Clare, either in her schoolroom or in the yard. The instruction of the good old woman was, in the main, confined to two things—the initiation into the difficulties of A B C, and the reading from two books, of which she was the happy possessor. These books were 'The Death of Abel' and Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress.' Their contents did not stir any thoughts or imaginings in ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... the military order of the "red lodges," the "miayuma," came to the Bat with charcoal, and he fasted many days before undergoing his initiation. The sacred symbols of the body, their signs and ceremonies, were given him, and he had become a pillar ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington

... use among most professors of the Christian name—water baptism, and what is termed the Lord's supper. The first of these is generally esteemed the essential means of initiation into the church of Christ, and the latter of maintaining communion with him. But, as we have been convinced that nothing short of his redeeming power, inwardly revealed, can set the soul free from the thraldom of sin, by this power alone ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... all the slave States north of such part will then say, "The Union for which we have struggled being already gone, we now choose to go with the Southern section." To deprive them of this hope substantially ends the rebellion, and the initiation of emancipation completely deprives them of it as to all the States initiating it. The point is not that all the States tolerating slavery would very soon, if at all, initiate emancipation; but that, while the offer is equally made to all, the more northern shall by such initiation make ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... entangled with two young men, who were expected to grow into ascetic sages. The scandal was so great that Madame Blavatsky had to call the penitent before her and to speak after this fashion, 'We think that it is necessary to crush the animal nature; you should live in chastity in act and thought. Initiation is granted only to those who are entirely chaste,' and so to run on for some time. However, after some minutes in that vehement style, the penitent standing crushed and shamed before her, she had wound up, 'I cannot permit you more than one.' She was quite sincere, ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats

... had furnished me with an extract of his vakayeh nameh, or his instructions, I walked out to an adjacent cemetery to read it over undisturbed. I kept the paper carefully folded in the lining of my cap, and as it was my first initiation into public business, the principal contents of it have remained in ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... the religious world from Little Bethel to St. Peter's." Don dropped into an armchair and began to load his pipe from the Mycenaean vase. "Some of your facts are startlingly novel. For instance, where on earth did you get hold of that idea about the initiation of Christ by the Essenes at ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer



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