In the insight where we touched on esotericism we said the words "knowledge for the initiated few". To talk about the initiated aspect of that phrase, initiation can be said to be "to cause or facilitate the beginning of : set going - To begin something new." This happens first at an individual level, and then when there are enough initiates, their changes can eventually have a knock on effect, applying to the aggregate.
There are different levels of initiation. But as a culture and society, even in a more free and open democratic society, which you could argue is not yet really democratic but still mainly autocratic and plutocratic, we have no real higher level initiation for young people. Some of us can have multiple lower level initiations through our lifetimes. Which used to be having to live on your own in the wilderness like getting pro at bushcraft. But more modern versions are to cease being a couch potato by traveling abroad for an extended period, or volunteering with an organization doing honorable good work, all of which can be life transformative. But beyond that all we really have are initiations into the school of hard knox of young people having to learn how to support themselves - Living on their own for the first time, starting a job in the professional workforce, etc... and that's basically it till you die.
One of our problems with our dysfunctional culture is that we often lack maturity. Where we have adults that essentially act like children their whole lives. Especially when put out of their comfort zone. The native Americans knew of the importance of the spirit quest where young people would go off and have a life changing experience for betterment and improvement at an individual level, and when coming back from said spirit quest, just as the Hobbits returning to the shire, they were forever changed for the better transitioning from children to mature adults, individuals bettering themselves to thus better the tribe. What is important here is the maturity aspect, and sadly we often have children who never really mature into adulthood. Let alone becoming mature loving adults. So society does not evolve as much as it could as a result.
In terms of the aggregate - meaning "constituting or amounting to a whole; total", we do deserve credit having made it through past civilization level initiations as things progress, such as the use of agriculture, or abolishing overt slavery (now we just have covert slavery in the form of human trafficking), or more modern examples such as the standardization of seatbelts in cars, or disposing of waste in bins and trash cans, where even the most regressive elements of society rarely fall below that level anymore, but what we don't have are medium let alone higher level initiations into higher states of being. More coming to know thyself.
In our currently heavily overloaded technological world we've heavily decoupled from higher level initiations into nature and thus spirit. Ask an indigenous person what's wrong with the technologically advanced modern world, not the organically advanced world, and they will say we need to re-connect to spirit and nature. This is what climate change and climate chaos are really about. Which are a species level initiation, forcing us to fix our shit, having to evolve or perish, grow up or die. We also evolved through initiations at a cultural level to the point where most everyone now sees the benefits of having a vegetable garden at least or doing some sort of permaculture, eating naturally, etc... but since that's exoteric, for the body, what are the further esoteric initiations for the mind, spirit, or soul? Those types of nature based initiations happen through esoteric and occult means at primarily an individual level on an individual's phycology. Having a meditation practice is one example. Because if you help improve yourself, meaning improving your mind, you help improve the world.
Also, as the co-creator of a documentary series on indigenous medicine and mental healing, we agree with Graham Handcock's idea that any politician should be required to be initiated into drinking Ayahuasca 10 times just to even be considered for office. That should be like step 3 of 10 and if you're brainwashed into thinking that's in any way a hippy thing to say, think again. As sane civilizations throughout history/mystery had their people go through initiations into higher states for thousands of years. Look at the Kykeon at Elusus. Which was likely done for well over a 1000 years if not more like 2, in ancient Greece and made those who went through it more mature, more sophisticated, more compassionate, more conscious, more nature connected human beings.
So, the next one will give an ever so slight insight into the top tier level of initiation, and how it affects hierarchy and thus who runs and administers modern society.