Impact of Men's Initiation Training on Self-Actualization and Spiritual Maturity

Abstract

Modern industrial society and the influence of the women’s movement have had a powerful impact on the lives of men in our society, resulting in problems with confidence in masculinity and isolation from feelings and spirituality. Evidence of this impact includes increasing divorce rates, prevalence of absent fathers, and increases in stress-related illness among men. As a product of the mythopoetic branch of the contemporary men’s movement, the ManKind Project presents the New Warrior Training Adventure (NWTA) in an effort to help men to adopt a mature masculinity, live with integrity and awareness of feelings, and a sense of personal mission. This study measures the effectiveness of the NWTA training program as measured by the Personal Orientation Inventory (POI), which assesses self-actualization, and the Spiritual Experience Index (SEI), a measure of spiritual maturity. In addition, distribution of personality type among participants is assessed using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The mythopoetic branch of the contemporary men’s movement is generally agreed to have begun with the May 1982 interview of the poet Robert Bly by Ken Thompson published in the New Age Journal (Barton, E. R, personal communication 2001; as cited in Wilson, 2003), and to have risen to popular awareness with the 1990 appearance of the book Iron John: A Book About Men, also by Robert Bly (Jesser, 1996; Schwalbe, 1996b; Wicks, 1996). Wicks states that Bly’s