Rites and symbols of initiation
Subtitle: the mysteries of birth and rebirth
By: Mircea Eliade ; translated from the French by Willard R. Trask ; and with a new foreword by Michael Meade.
Publisher: Spring Publications; Distributed in the U.S. by Continuum Pub. Group
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Dallas; [New York]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 175
Subjects: Initiation rites -- Religious aspects
Description: Organizing data from cultures the world over, Eliade lays out the basic patterns of initiation: group puberty rites, entrance into secret cults, shamanic instruction, individual visions, and heroic rites of passage. The vast information, assembled so beautifully, transcends usual scholarship. Eliade always affirms the greater experience in all initiations - the indissoluble tie between humans and the cosmos of Gods, spirits, animals ancestors, and nature.

The absence of initiation in our culture has left modern men and women often isolated from each other, from the invisible powers beyond, and from the myths that sustain daily life. The primal soul desire for symbolic rituals pushes youth into substitutes for initiatory experience: gangs, suicide, car crashes, teenage pregnancy, street drugs. These "symptoms" show the unquenchable urge for existential transformation and the need for elders, mentors, and rituals.

This book is about crossing - from confusion to knowledge, from innocence to experienced elder.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-165) and index.
Originally published: New York : Harper Bros., 1958, in series: The Library of religion and culture.