Nigredo Monastery: Origin of the Initiation Ritual for Men

In the depth of Christian mysticism and the archetypal wisdom that Carl Gustav Jung helped us rediscover, the Initiation Ritual for Men stands as a sacred passage – a dying and rising in the Spirit. It is the courageous journey of the boy through the darkness of the unconscious toward the symbolic Father: God in Heaven, the eternal source of Truth, Beauty, and the Good.

This ritual calls the young man to leave behind his childish dependence, to accept the trials of life, and through courage, reason, and depth of soul to become the mature guardian of the family. It teaches him to understand love not as mere emotion, but as union and wholeness – as the sacred bond between man and woman, which reflects the Divine on earth in the healthy family of father and mother.

In the search for wise male role models – the Saints, the Fathers of the Church, the silent heroes of everyday life – the initiated man becomes a living witness to the rediscovery of the Divine. He receives the strength to pass this wisdom on to his children: not through words alone, but through his very being, his sacrifice, and his steadfast guidance. Thus every generation is newly called to conversion, back to the heavenly Father who completes us all in His love.

The Personal Journey of the Master: From the Paternal Vacuum to the Search for the Symbolic Father

This practice is inseparably linked to the Master’s own profound spiritual journey, which had its origin in the emptiness of a fatherless youth in Switzerland. Raised in Zurich, in the midst of a society torn apart by divorce, the pill, and the upheavals of the 1968 movement, he experienced an inner abyss: the loss of the father, the fragmentation of the family, and a profane world that replaced the Eternal with the transient. Studies in philosophy and mathematics remained barren; a severe injury after an accident confined him to bed, with lasting pain that taught him that life is a path of sacrifice and surrender.

The Roots in the East – Japan – Korea

In this darkness, the longing for the mystical Father in Heaven awoke. Zen dialogues touched the unconscious spirit of the father, awakened the Logos, and transformed emptiness into burning longing. Then the call to the East came: ordination as a monk in Japan by his master Noritake Kotoku, who gave him the name Masan Doam. Ten intense years followed – first in Empukuji Monastery, then as a wandering begging monk on a 3000-kilometer pilgrimage from Wakkanai in the north of Hokkaido to Ishigaki-Jima in the south, living on alms, day after day exploring life and death.

Rohatsu Sesshin – School of Unrelenting Hardness and Perseverance

In the frosty halls of Empukuji Zen Monastery near Kyoto, where the strict tradition of the Rinzai-shu school lives, the Rohatsu Sesshin was celebrated once a year, always in January – a week of complete, merciless surrender. Cold penetrated to the bones, sleeplessness exposed the mind, and uninterrupted meditation led body and soul to the outermost limits. Seven days and nights of pure sitting, breathing, and watching, in which meditation and religion merged into a single, purifying fire. It was the sacred tradition of all monasteries in Japan and Korea: an act of radical confrontation with Nothingness that forged the will to Truth.

Korea

In Korea he became the personal student and assistant of Patriarch Powha Sunim, where the trials continued around the clock. Here, in hermitages, temples, and mountains, the practice deepened. The Patriarch recognized that a single Rohatsu Sesshin per year was not enough – and introduced the additional Summer Sesshin to make the hardness a constant school of the spirit. This journey was more than training: it was the return to the symbolic Father, the preparation for the return home.

After the transmission of Zen mastery from Master Kotoku (Inka Shomeisho) in 2012, he promised to accompany his own father in Switzerland in his old age and to root his children in the Christian tradition. The birth of his first son awakened true fatherhood in him – a living symbol of the living God.

From Zen to the Christian Mysticism of Fulfillment

When Kloster Nigredo was founded in Reichenburg, Switzerland – initially as Honora Zen Monastery in a simple, rustic attic in Einsiedeln, the home of the paternal roots – it took over this sacred practice unchanged. Twice a year, in January and in summer, the Rohatsu Sesshin was held: the same unrelenting structure of cold or heat, sleeplessness, and deep immersion. Perseverance was forged, the will to Truth strengthened. Yet divine Providence led deeper.

What had begun in the Buddhist context as a path to emptiness was reborn in the fullness of Catholic mysticism. Zen, understood as a forgotten Eastern self-cultivation, found its fulfillment in Western mysticism – the direct encounter with God.

Master Reding, shaped by paternal rigor from Japan and maternal goodness from Korea, built the monastery as a place of conversion. Not in foreign distance, but back to God, to oneself, and to the spiritual homeland. The practice of sacrifice he had learned in the sesshins became the core of the Christian way: “It is not the way of comfort, but the way of sacrifice!” Thus the ritual transformed from an Eastern discipline into a sacramental act of initiation in the light of the Cross.

The Deeper Mystical Meaning: Animus, Anima and the Sacred Wholeness of the Soul

In the light of Carl Gustav Jung’s teachings, the beauty of this ritual is revealed in its full depth. The man who twice a year confronts cold, sleeplessness, and the edge performs a living integration of Animus and Anima. He learns not to set his masculine strength against the feminine, but to lead it into sacred union – to love as union and wholeness. This is not a mere test of endurance, but a mystical act of courage that calls to depth of soul. In the darkness of night and the heat of day he discovers the morality of reason, the beauty of the Good, and religion as the living bond to the Divine.

It is the call to the rediscovery of the Father in Heaven, which is so urgently needed in a fatherless age. The man becomes ready for the sacred task: the re-establishment of healthy families in which mother and father stand together in their God-given dignity, living the Divine in everyday life. The Master’s personal journey – from the paternal vacuum to the founding of a monastery that seeks the Church in its own spirit and God in its own self – is reflected in everyone who undergoes this ritual.

Initiation Ritual for Men: A Call to Courageous Conversion and Paternal Responsibility

In Kloster Nigredo this Initiation Ritual is today the last and first true gateway for men in our broken time. Twice a year it opens – in January and in summer – and invites radical surrender. Whoever passes through it does not leave the same. He carries the sacred fire within: the courage, the optimistic hope, and the paternal responsibility that arise from the encounter with God in Heaven.

It is a path of rediscovering the Divine, a gift of grace that makes the Master’s personal journey accessible to all. Brothers in the Spirit, whoever accepts this ritual becomes a living witness to the Truth and Beauty that find their full fulfillment only in Christ. May every man who dares the step feel the paternal embrace of Heaven, return strengthened, and proclaim anew in this world the Good, the True, and the Beautiful – courageously, optimistically, and forever united with the Divine.

May the sacred fire of Kloster Nigredo burn in many hearts and renew the families of our time. Amen.