Re: Initiation

From: Peter Larsen <peterl_at_...>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 13:18:09 -0600


>
>>
>> The subject of this thread is 'Initiation'. The discussion was
>about
>> how a male Heortling could take part in the standard Heortling
>> Initiation rites without killing someone (given that the Initiation
>> would result in their 'becoming' a Chalana Arroy cultist as a
>result
>> of the quest. Killing someone ON THE QUEST that MAKES you a Chalana
>> Arroy cultist would be a bit hard to atone for. Your point is,
>> therefore, irrelevant. It's not my fault is a year-old message gets
> > dredged up and the actual point of it gets ignored.

        Maybe this has been raised already (I've been on vacation), but, as I recall, the standard Heortling initiation a) makes you a provisional adult in Heortling society, b) inducts you into the Storm Tribe as a communal worshipper, and c) maybe makes sure that you aren't chaos or a meldek or something else unspeakable. The dedicated CA worshipper would initiate to that goddess two or more years after the "standard" initiation in a rite that, as you point out, should require no killing at all (although it probably does require you you abandon violence in some suitably mythic struggle against the standard Heortling "Violence Is Always an Option" (perhaps Heort or Orlanth had a Son who became a healer and laid down the path for renouncing violence rather than never being violent in the first place)). I suppose a child called by CA with a big CA destiny might, as others have pointed out, Find Another Way in their initiation, but that would surely be the stuff of heroes, not a common occurrence.

Peter Larsen

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