ABSTRACT
Modernity began with the Protestant Reformation, which rejected the security offered by a Catholic Church and its priesthood, and it culminated during the Enlightenment with its deification of Reason in the French Revolution and the total rejection of religious belief as valid knowledge. Social scientists, historians and philosophers adopted this line of thought as well. Modernity has finally created an irreversible and highly defensible type of consciousness that no longer depends on or needs myth and symbol. Initiation into the spiritual continues today, moreover, and in earnest at the psychological level despite the severe inhibitions imposed by modernity. Initiations by the spirit introduce and induce people into a new kind of consciousness that answers questions related to a sense of identity and consequently lead to meaningful action. This serves as a mnemonic tool for keeping awareness that initiation into the Spirit of the Depths can catch moderns by surprise at any time and any place.
