"Initiation has been so frequently presented as being a ceremony, that I have felt it necessary to offset strenuously that erroneous significance. If, however, you are to comprehend that which I have to say, you will have to call in what measures of enlightened understanding you may possess. Initiation is only a ceremony in so far that there comes a climaxing point in the initiatory process, in which the disciple's consciousness becomes dramatically aware of the personnel of the Hierarchy, and his own position in relation to it. This realisation he symbolises to himself - successively and on an increasingly large scale - as a great rhythmic ceremonial of progressive revelation in which he, as a candidate, is the centre of the hierarchical stage... I am not here saying that the teachings given in the past by various occult groups, or in my book Initiation, Human and Solar, are not correct, or do not recount accurately what the candidate believes has taken place. The point I seek to make is that the ceremonial aspect is due to the thought-form-making capacity of the disciple."