These people are those whom I call the modern indigenous persons. And these are the people who are gradually forming what I've called the new tribal order - that is to say a brand new unity, a brand new circle of people who are living by the very values that modernity had to do away with in order to affirm itself. As more people join, it's going to build up into an energy field, a force field strong enough to act as an antibiotic, a force field capable of sustaining a much brighter, healthier situation in the future. I think that this last decade of the Twentieth Century is very pivotal in that sense. And I'm really fortunate, probably, to be in the midst of it.
Initiation is a six-week long journey into the magical world.
It begins when families walk their young ones to the outskirts of the village and surrender them to the wilderness after stripping them of their clothes. The young ones walk into the bush naked and scared, a condition necessary for the ritual remembering. Throughout the ordeal there is no food except that which can be found in the bush. I was told to sit in front of a tree and to gaze at it. The hot tropical sun broiled me, ants bit me, and I was blinded by sweat.