“Usually no one has offered [young men] anything more than Jacob’s cheap “soup.” We are sons of Esau, having sold our birthright for fast-food religion (Genesis 25). It does not deeply transform the self or the world…You cannot fake it by any mere belief system, any moral performance, the reassurance of belonging to a group, ar any herioc endurance contest… An unitiated ego becomes rigid about words and rituals when it lacks any real inner experience…

The great spirituality is letting go. Instead we have made it be about taking it in, attaining, performing, winning and succeedding. Spirituality has become a show we perform for ourselves, which God does not need. True spirituality mirrors the paradox of life itself. It trains us in both detachment and attacment, detachment from the passing so we can attach to the substantial…

The general assumption underlying all initiatory rites is that unless a young male is shown real power through a community of wise elders, he will always seek false power and likely spend much of his life seeking prestige, perks and possessions.”