Why Initiation? Why Now?

[Aaron (Al) Lewis]

In March of 1993, I asked myself that question (Why Initiation) as I was deciding to make a decision to attend an initiation that was described as radical and transformative. Initiations were nothing to new to me as I had been initiated into several organizations including the Cub Scouts, the Boy Scouts, a Gang, the United States Navy, the Masons, the Shriners, the Baptist Church, The Church of Christ and the Catholic Church, in that order. 

 

There were also phases of life I later learned I was initiated into although those phases were not ceremonial or formal. When I was in college I was approached  by a few of the greek organizations to pledge, but by then I was a veteran and the likely hood of some youngster talking that kind of insanity to me had the potential to be  disastrous for all parties. The most difficult phase of life for me was young adulthood or manhood as I was told it was. "You got to be a man", I was told; yet the statement was seemed so abstract. Everyone appeared to have a different opinion of what a man was. I have sat in circles with the masons and the shriners and just cats on the corner and heard them argue for hours on what a man was without anyone reaching any mutual agreement. More than usual a heated argument broke out and I was left confused as I suspect most of those arguing were also.

 

So there I was back in 1993 with a check in my hand for $550 extending it to man who said I was in for the adventure of my life. That training was called The New Warrior Training Adventure and it did and would turn out to be one of the most significant adventures of my life and it was also a transformative and pivotal point in my life. Personally, it was frightening and exhilarating. As I have previously stated I have attended lots of initiations, and even though some were scary, none were transformative.  This was the real deal! 

 

After I completed the trial or “The Hero’s Journey” as they called it, I totally immersed myself into researching and studying initiation processes all over the world. It took me years of study and tens of thousands of dollars and interviews and phone calls and encounter sessions and even more initiations similar to the NWTA to learn that initiation was one major component that was left out of American life with the exception of a few and most of those are either ceremonial, meaning that the outcome was already known, torture, meaning that some silly assholes had you doing some painful stupid stuff for their voyeuristic pleasure or initiations into death like the military or into a gang. None of those initiations are designed to transform the thing (me) into a higher being (I)  or to live a higher level of Self.

 

Simultaneously, after being absent for what was left of “the movement” for a while I renewed my interest and study of the difficulties so called black people were suffering and had suffered. When I thought about the oppression and suppression of people of color and asked myself and several others what would be the psychological and emotion consequences of having lived under the conditions of forced labor and legal bondage commonly referred to as slavery what became apparent to me was that would have been no time for the kind of debriefing and healing people would normally need to recover from the mental conditioning a system as heinous as “slavery” would impose upon a person’s soul. In fact, after first meeting and talking with Dr. Clifford Black in June of 1994, it became apparent to me that the majority of the people who had lived under those conditions would have had a hard time even seeing themselves as persons since they were treated and learned to survive and live as “sub persons.”

 

What is equally disconcerting is the people who they finally decided to mimic were the very people who caused or aided their condition in the first place. They mimicked their ways, their manners, their religions, their traditions and their values. How then could they ever hope to evolve when the people they emulated were themselves a devolved people and anyone who could justify the kidnapping, imprisonment, bondage and mass exploitation of people were indeed a devolved people. However this was the only template our ancestors had or at least the one they chose to use as an example. It’s a poor and limited choice when people have to choose their oppressors, users, kidnapers, rapists and brutalizers as their icons of being. 

 

You see, after talking to Dr. Black, what became apparent to me was that our ancestors had never had the opportunity to become persons and in fact had not had very good examples of what real persons were. Thus my aim became one to design and create an initiation experience for people of color into personhood. Along with several other men we created an initiation initially entitled “Leaving the Mental Plantation.” It was later renamed The Underground Railroad Odyssey Training. It was started right here in Memphis, TN, now with chapters in Rochester, NY, Chicago, and Denver, CO, with emerging chapters in NYC and New Orleans.

 

To my knowledge it is the only experience of its kind in the country. We don’t  advertise or accept grant money or donations from anyone who will have any control over what we do. We are fully self sustaining and self supporting and we have been doing it since 1996.

 

We have no leader, no doctrine or dogma and no belief system and only three rules to date. We think so highly of our process that we make this unconditional offer. If you attend and don’t get what you came for we will refund your money. Try asking any other organization to do that and see what happens.

   

To learn more go to www.inwardjourney.org 

 

Al Lewis

National Training Coordinator

Inward Journey, Inc.

Copyright February, 2011

[Aaron (Al) Lewis]

What is so amazing to me is how many people think they got by without the infect. How many people believe that just by adopting an African name and learning something about some of the cultures on the continent would magically erase all the loaded data that went in? I pondered that, I thought it through logically and realized that was another trick of the construct. It was still a replication of what it wanted you to do. As Huey P. Newton wrote, "That is reactionary suicide."  It is a reaction to trauma, not a response to heal trauma. It is a function of the false ego to become ashamed of its true identity and thus assume another. In depth psychology they call that an identity wound. If one doesn't know his or her identity then the obvious choice would seem to make one up, but in actuality one os no closer to knowing ones true identity because there is only one way to do that and that is to come to know self. 

 

Self is not from Africa or Asia or Europe or the Americas. Self predates all those names and is not in need of an identity because it is. Self is not concerned with shame, or pity or loathing or even that much thrown around term self hatred. If one knows self one has no need to hate self in fact it doesn't exist in that state of being. It cannot exist. Self knows that hate is just a variant or gradient of love. In other words it is just a painful way of staying connected to your enemy or your false selves which have come to be defined as a fractured ego.

 

The intergenerational pain and trauma that has been passed down from the survivors of the African Diaspora to their children and their children's children's children's children's children's children is a great and an infected destructive pain if left in its putrid state. One of the first requirements to heal it is to allow oneself to feel it. That is no easy feat and the brain has many tricks to avoid feeling displeasurable emotions. One of its first lines of defense is denial and then denial of impact. It will tell you, "You are not one of those people, you are beyond that." It is lying and you are lying to yourself. For most to confront those kind of toxic emotions you will need assistance and guidance from someone who have faced those toxic emotions. You will need their validation and encouragement to go deep into the bowels to the belly of the beast to confront your personal demons that were placed into being long before you were even born.

 

This is an old story. You had nothing to do with its creation. You were born into it without knowing its authors, producers, or directors. You were given your part to play as soon are you were conceived and only rarely would one escape playing the role(s) it was assigned. There are many paths to escape, but I know of no one that did so without a guide or in most cases some guides. All paths lead to the same place. Be careful because there are many tributaries off of the path that lead to nowhere. They are enticing and seductive and at first glance offer much promise. Some of them are long and winding and convoluted. You can get so far down the path you may find it damned near impossible to find your way back. I have seen that happen to many, too many.

 

In fact that was what happen to Negores. The believed they saw the light down the path to integration and now they got stuck and got many of us stuck with them in an illusion that has now become a delusional reality. You see the secret is not to go towards the light at all. To get there one must go deeper into the dark unknown, inside. Then you will know.

[Clifford Black]

Brother Al, Namaska.

This is more evidence to support the contention that YOU have graduated from the ELEMENTARY and so now get ready to engage in some real strange flying lessons. TAKING OUR TIME IS MORE THAN IMPORTANT.

[Clifford Black]

As I was re-reading this post about INITIATION, I thought about the video "BLOOD INITIATION".....lOOK it up in the video list if you get the chance and comment so that we can start a dialog about this most serious topic.

[Aaron (Al) Lewis]

Doc, I misspoke when I said to you I hadn't seen that video, I have. All over the planet where there are indigenous people as a rule they have initiation especially for males and in many cases females, but males have a much different role to play. As the hunters and protectors of the clan or group or tribe the young men must prove their heart (courage) to the Elders so as not to endanger them all in the hunt or battle. Some thing has to be initiated inside as to show up both for the initiate and the clan. It is a matter of trust.

 

In 1994 when we first met it was you that suggested to me that so called black people were never initiated into personhood. You didn't say those exact words, what you said was, "They brought people over here", and that resonated deeply with me. I thought about that statement for months. I started to ask myself questions. What happened to our personhood? 

 

After years of hearing people I was relative to referred to as Niggers, Colored, Negroes, Blacks, Boots, Splives,

Mose, Shine, Monkey, Boy, Hoe, Bitch, Uncle, Ainty, I wanted to know what happened to the people that got here? That led me to start thinking abut all the identities so called black people adorned rather than be what they were, people and persons. It led me to transport back to the shores of the continent in another time when that first man from the continent stepped off that boat and to see this thing through his eyes. From that vantage point what most Negroes had been doing since that time and most especially in the mid 20 century to now was and is utterly ridiculous.

 

I had heard about and read about many rites of passage programs in the USA, but they were mostly ceremonial with predictable outcomes. Real and true initiation must have an element of death and pain in them. Ceremonial death, will not provide the transformation required to serve yourself and your clan or group. 

 

The chief dilemma was convincing people to not skip over the entire history of people of color in the USA to Africa as if they didn't exist and as they were and still are prone to do. I learned there was much shame driving that action thus, as I shared with you before, I was amazed at how suddenly so called black people adorned African garb and names and attempted to group the entirety of Africa's world views and traditional practices into one thing called Afro-Centrism. That did and does deeply offend me. And so........ 

 

 

[Clifford Black]

@Al---Namaska Brother,

Reading this post and I come to "and so" and I want to send a transmission---and then something wispers, "NO", U must wait and so I will try to hold on to this thought for as long as I can.

Peace Lord!!

[hannaan joplin]

Al, you were on the path to creating follow up initiations to new levels of being prior to stepping away from IJ for a while. I hope you plan to eventually pick up where you left off. Peace Lord

[Aaron (Al) Lewis]

Arjuna, I had to graduate Kindergarten first. Doc conferred an honorary degree upon me so now I think I can proceed. That's what  is coming up for me. Initiate means to go into. It is the beginning not the end. The passage is now what is needed. We leave in a very complex world woven with many lies and illusions. To navigate through this one needs a guide, a good one at that. The preparation that is required can be overwhelming if one rushes it. I now have the name of the initiation. It will be called The Inner Magi.