An initiation is a willed and permanent change in energy and consciousness, guided and started through a ritual. You may regard it as taking another step forward on the ladder of your life, or as taking off one of the many veils over your body of light. Energetically spoken an initiation is equal to the removal of certain energy blocks.
Initiations form a conscious Yes to alignment of your self with your Self. It is an important steppingstone in your personal development.
Initiations seem to be of every time and culture. Societies, religions, magickal orders and esoteric systems all have their initiations or attunements, as they are usually called in reiki teachings.
Societal initiations mark the beginnings of certain life phases, for instance the transition from boy to man. Such a rite of passage is both an outer change (getting a different status in society) and an inner change (the consciousness of the boy changes to that of a man).
Self-chosen initiations into for instance a magickal order, tantra or reiki, do not result in an altered position in society, but have big implications for one's inner life. Your energy changes, your perception of yourself and the world alters, thought patterns and emotional behavior change, since you have opened up another door to yourself.
This may mean that an initiation is experienced as a big heavenly orchestra with many bells and whistles, because suddenly an important psychological burden falls off your shoulders.
It may as well imply that you'll have to work through hidden and suppressed parts of the personality, that are brought back into your consciousness through the ritual. Initiations speed up your personal growth, so you can no longer avoid shedding light on the parts of you that were kept in the darkness until now.
This is a profound and important process, but it is not always easy. 'Ora et labora', finding God through work, the old alchemists said. Please keep in mind that it is healing on a very deep level, allowing yourself to spread your wings, blosom, fly, and shine like a star.
The above makes clear that it is important to find a teacher or master whom you feel comfortable with to guide you, although that is not necessary for everybody.
The decisive factor in an initiation is the intent of both the initiator and the candidate, not the ritual itself. That's why both simple and intricate rituals will work, and why the different attunement methods in reiki all work.
The real ingredient is the meeting of spirits, the openness to receive of the attunee and the willingness to give of the initiator. In this oneness the following words from the bible come true: "where two or more are gathered in my name, I shall be in the midst."
In my reiki attunements I have literally seen a white circle of energy building up around myself and the student. When performing distance attunements I regularly have the same visions as my students, while I only know them by email and live on the other side of the world.
I may for instance see whirling waves of energy, while the attunee the same time hears the word 'wave' inside.
I once wanted to breathe in a ball of golden energy, but it insisted on being a white angel with impressive large wings; so I decided to give my student this angel. The next day she emailed that this angel was quite familiar to her; she even had played with its large wings.
Sometimes a deep working therapy acts as an initiation, or an important event in your life that changes your perception. The personality surrenders to something that previously was not allowed a place in his or her life. But the mystery is that we need all the facets of the diamond.
