You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Henderson has already introduced readers to his work on initiation in The wisdom of the serpent, which he published in collaboration with Maud Oakes. There he formulated his ideas under the headings of ‘Initiation as a spiritual education’ and ‘Initiation as liberation’; here he gives a more complete account of his views.
In his early days, when in London, he was much influenced by Jane Harrison and his father-in-law, Professor Cornford, in Cambridge, and many of his parallels with Greek myth and ritual are derived from their publications—a major source of inspiration to him. This starting-point has now been greatly enriched from many other sources.
Henderson's careful, scholarly approach is displayed to good effect in this wide-ranging volume, which bears the stamp of his authority and contains the support of long experience. He develops the provocative theory that there is an archetype of initiation and has assembled comparative material brought into relation with dreams from patients to expound its implications.
It seems unnecessary, in view of the weight of his material, to start off on a defensive note: ‘After thirty years of testing this theory and using it in my analytic practice, I am sure of its validity; but I am well aware that in trying to convey this to others, I shall receive responses varying from bland, unquestioning acceptance to stubborn skepticism’ (p. 3.)
His certainty, let it be said, is serious because it derives from long and painstaking research, well and clearly organized in this book; but there are other interpretations of his data, having substantial backing. In particular it is usual in evolutionary theory to point to man's capacity to accumulate and transmit experience as a prominent, if not the only, factor that has given him pre-eminence over his animal ancestry. This thesis can be combined well with the view that it is creative archetypal imagination which provides the dynamism for cultural development. But then initiation would be the re