After Initiation Chapter Shut Down... Now What?

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by jazing

I assume she meant during pledging. Most initiations use blindfolds . . .

Maybe, maybe not.

. . . as the freemasons did as well, which is where the root of most come from.

Maybe, maybe not.

[jazing]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe, maybe not.

I'll take this as a satisfactory answer. Perhaps some still use it, some don't. Freemason initiation, from what is public knowledge, involves blindfolds. Many of the founding members of Greek letter organizations had masonry background. If that translated into the sororities as well, I would not be surprised.

[AZTheta]

Originally Posted by jazing

I'll take this as a satisfactory answer. Perhaps some still use it, some don't. Freemason initiation, from what is public knowledge, involves blindfolds. Many of the founding members of Greek letter organizations had masonry background. If that translated into the sororities as well, I would not be surprised.

I think that the difficulty arises with your statement "most initiations use blindfolds" because you cannot possibly know about every GLO's Initiation practices. It's a pretty sweeping statement and connects dots in a fashion that assumes facts not in evidence. The majority of posters will restrict themselves to commenting on what they know to be true, and that typically translates to their own GLOs (without divulging ritual or other private/confidential information).

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by jazing

Many of the founding members of Greek letter organizations had masonry background. If that translated into the sororities as well, I would not be surprised.

Yes, many fraternity founders had a masonic background. Many others did not. Sometimes, rituals were written by someone other than the founders, and sometimes those ritual writers had a masonic background and sometimes they did not. Sometimes they had background in other fraternal organizations, sometimes they had familiarity with liturgy or cultural ceremonies, sometimes they had familiarity with classical mysteries, and so on.

The point is this: While it might be reasonable to speculate that, at least as to rituals written by founders and others who were masons, those rituals will bear signs of masonic influence, this is still speculation. It is equally reasonable to speculate that masons would avoid too much masonic influences in rituals they wrote so as not to lead to speculation of similarities. As AzTheta says, unless you are familiar with rituals of orgs other than your own, then you are only guessing. And unless you are familiar with "most" rituals, then you really can't make statements about what happens in "most" rituals.

As for sororities, I see no reason to automatically assume that masonic influence would "translate" to their rituals.