Personal Initiation as the Key to Global Transformation

Vic Bishop, Staff Writer
Waking Times

So many of the deepest problems facing our world today go underreported or flat-out omitted from the 24-7 news cycle, which steals the narrative to keep people focused on politics, consumerism and other ego-driven pursuits.

The stories we tell ourselves drive our development and our evolution, but the mainstream stories are pushing our society over the brink and taking us ever closer to the realization of global disaster. Something has to change, but where do we begin? What can individuals do to really make a significance impact for the better?

“Patriotism is a story. Progress is a story. I think we’ve reached the end of a lot of governing myths of society, and we need to evolve new myths, new beliefs.” ~Daniel Pinchbeck

Evolutionary thinker Daniel Pinchbeck, author of How Soon is Now: From Personal Initiation to Global Transformation, points out that something deeply important is missing from modern society, and that is initiation. In many cultures from around the world, the idea of an initiation or rite of passage helps children to overcome the ego-driven way of being that is necessary for childhood, but doesn’t serve us well as we mature.

War, pollution, poverty, corporate greed, government corruption, and so on may all be in large part attributed to the lack of development of the individual. When a person is brought through an initiation that introduces them to the mystery and wonder of life, showing them what role they must play in order to honor the sacred gift of life for themselves and for their community, a shift happens, and the person is much more ready to face adulthood with a sense of responsibility and awe. Something severely lacking in our culture today.

“In traditional cultures, the function of initiation is to impel the young member of the tribe or community to overcome their ego-based identity. They undergo a dangerous, frightening ordeal which forces them to realize a visionary or transpersonal state. Once they have survived this passage, they have the capacity to take responsibility for the community as a whole, overcoming self-interest when necessary.” ~Daniel Pinchbeck

In the following short video, Pinchbeck explains this a bit further describing the current situation and how it relates to the idea of personal initiation. This could very well be the missing link that when honored helps us to re-write the future.

Read more articles by Vic Bishop.

About the Author

Vic Bishop is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com. He is an observer of people, animals, nature, and he loves to ponder the connection and relationship between them all. A believer in always striving to becoming self-sufficient and free from the matrix, please track him down on Facebook.

This article (Personal Initiation as the Key to Global Transformation) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Vic Bishop and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio and internal links. 

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