We cannot understand the interest of a thoughtful and humanistic initiatory approach if we do not remember the archetypical issues that accompany us and that could be grouped into three categories:
- The need for protection
- The relationship with having
- Concern for sustainability.
The initiatory process can also be seen as a willingness to find answers to these archetypal issues.
Intuitively, each individual experiences answers in the immediacy of life experiences: very often, strength, wealth and power appear as solutions; these three myths constitute the eternal paths taken by generations, whether at the tribal level or in a national or international dimension.
On reflection, strength and wealth and power reveal themselves as dead ends; in truth they are only the appearance of a sadomasochistic mode of operation that seeks assurance in either possession or submission!
Throughout history, other human beings have sought more empathetic and above all more altruistic ways of living!
But many obstacles exist; some may be found in the will of ideologies to impose their prerogatives but more fundamentally, are they not linked to the binary modality of our behaviour as human beings?
- On the one hand, trust, empathy, altruism,
- On the other, violence, perversity, submission, sadomasochism.
These two sides can be found, to varying degrees, in each of us, and our behaviour, whether individual or collective, also reflects these influences.
Presenting Masonic initiation as a "revelation" that the practice of a rite would provide is a reductive and primary reading that erases all the difficulties encountered, because everyone knows that authentic Freemasons who may have had a certain notoriety in the grades of their rites are known by their relatives as real "perverts"!
If we admit that the Masonic, humanistic and thoughtful initiation has the pretension to bring lasting answers that bring elevation, peace and harmony, this cannot be conceived without the establishment of a relationship of trust based on mutual respect. It is only in a climate of tranquillity that human beings can hope to move beyond their limits, a factor of personal and societal progress.
It is understandable that the benefits of this new approach to initiation can only be acquired through a process of learning and research; this presupposes time, personal work and availability.
If we accept this approach, we can really end up with the rebirth of a being capable of discovering his potentialities, freed from this fascination to break the prohibitions by a perverse behaviour!
In any case, the initiation process may be disrupted, particularly because of the many obstacles that have not been overcome.
Among all the obstacles, we can distinguish:
- The conflict between knowledge and imagination: the characteristic of the human being in the animal world is our ability to project ourselves thanks to our capacity of imagination. This projection allows us to create imaginary worlds for ourselves using symbolic thought. Very often, these imaginaries can be confronted with knowledge in a broad sense: scientific knowledge, knowledge of realities, knowledge of individual experiences. This confrontation can lead to a denial of knowledge by privileging the imaginary. Isn't the most characteristic example the mystical experience?
- the lack of availability: the Masonic approach requires time and great availability both physically and intellectually; time is needed to participate in meetings but especially to read, think and write; this lack of availability is generally transitory but it can lead to a certain lack of interest and therefore the abandonment of the approach! It is also a question of financial availability: to attend a lodge regularly implies a budget which is not necessarily available to everyone!
- the conceptual blockage: it concerns above all the content of the ritual used by the lodge where the person concerned is; the language used, with words that date from the 17th century, requires an indispensable interpretation; for personal reasons, this reformulation that each person must make comes up against a blockage that prevents reappropriation. The most frequent result leads to a kind of schizophrenia: a gestural practice and language for outfits where people act "as if" and another behaviour outside of outfits because "that's life!
- The risk of S&M behaviour: The term "S&M" is sometimes used to refer to sexual behaviour, but in psychology it has a much broader meaning as it refers more generally to the "victim-executioner" couple.
Erick Dietrich, Physician, Sexologist, explains well the use of the terms :. "In society to talk about these things, the language is commonly used. Many professionals thus prefer to refer to this kind of relationship with executioner/victim or stalker/victim rather than continuing to refer to it as sado/maso. And for good reason, the executioner/victim is still much less disturbing. In the latter case, it makes both actors less perverse and the victim is not considered perverse. With executioner/victim it's quite easy, the executioner is the "bad guy" of the story and the victim is the "good guy". As we have seen that this distinction is rather hypocritical, we will use the term sadist, stalker or aggressor to refer to the executioner and maso or submissive to qualify the victim. »
The sadomasochistic behaviour favours a "domination-submission" reading of Masonic rituals, which is the source of many conflicts and resignations! Dr. Stephen Karpman, a great figure of Transactional Analysis and contemporary psychology, theorized the underlying manipulation by adding a third element, the rescuer!
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