Initiation -what the heck is it?

My previous post was about orders. This is an addendum:

Initiation can be into many things.

In order of importance:

1
Into a mystery
-a change in consciousness brought on by someone else not yourself that leads to a new level of being. Might also be the final initiation, as when by laying on of hands a sinner is raised and freed form the cycle-.

2
Into certain mystery schools/egregores
-When it means that you will understand the symbols and how to interpret them
-when you are "allowed" to work with certain things.

3
Into a club
-As when you receive your tattoo into certain brotherhoods or that piece of paper that proves you enrolled in a nice university-
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Self initiation usually leaves me with a smile that looks like a cross between a spider, when a juicy fly lands on a web, and the look on a father's face when the child stands on the top of their toy fort screaming "I'm the king of the world".
In order to initiate into a "club" you need the recognotion of the other members of the club. You can't fake it till you make it. No matter how much you hang out in a cop-bar, you don't have a badge. You can buy all the G rings you want with squares and compasses and read the masonic primers, you're still not a mason.

There are, of course exceptions and times when one actually self-initiates, even though unaware self-initiation is more common, then missguided self-initiation.

You can self-initiate into discordianism easily enough. Do the rite, read the book. The grimoires are also designed for self initiation. Creating the tools needed and doing the rituals prescribed in the grammars are sure ways of getting into the current.

You cannot self-initiate into many things: The apostolic succession, linages of tantra, established mystery schools, the mystery-

Someone in posession of the keys to the mysteries must initiate you into a mystery school. You can never guess yourself into this. No matter what any bigshot says, the textual initiatory papers are not where the good shit is.

Initiation into the mystery or a mystery is never something you can do to yourself. It is always a gift. Becoming Asogwe in voudoun is not something you make yourself, you are made it by all the others during your kanzo. You do not make yourself into a bishop no matter how much you go to church. Another bishop gives the lineage to you and raises you a bishop.
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When receiving an initiation be aware what it actually is that you are receiving and what it purports to be:

If it claims that this is an "initiation into our mysteries" yet all you are actually getting out of it is a membership for social reasons, then the people initiating you are in error-

And be aware that some orders and lineages mix these.

You might first receive an initiation that makes you a member of the club and a part of the cells of the group

the second initiation might be an empowerment so you can work with certain things

the third initiation might be a portion of the philosophers stone, ala the gold und rozenkreutz.

What have you been initiated into that ended up being useless?