The Army as a Faded Initiation Ritual in a Confused Age

In the quiet depth of the human soul lies a holy truth hidden: The greatest thing a human being can give on earth is his own life out of love. The soldier who is consciously or unconsciously ready to sacrifice his life for the inhabitants of his country performs the same ultimate devotion that a woman offers in the hour of childbirth for her child. Both stand at the abyss of death – she, so that new life may emerge; he, so that existing life may be protected and preserved. This willingness to sacrifice is not mere instinct, but a divine echo of love itself, which finds fulfillment in union and completeness.

The Holy Parallel Between Sacrifice and Birth

That is why basic military training – and the army were for man, over generations, far more than mere military training. They were the last remaining initiation ritual in our culture – an ordered, hard, communal transition from boy to man. In the weeks and months of basic military training, the young man was torn from the soft embrace of the maternal realm. He learned to endure cold, fatigue, pain, and obedience. He was confronted with his limits, with the necessity of discipline, and with responsibility for something greater than himself: the fatherland, the community, the lives of others. In this trial by fire something new was born – not only physical hardness, but a soulful maturation that enabled him to stand as a man.

Authentic Masculinity – Separation from the Literal and Symbolic Mother

Jung saw clearly: The path to authentic masculinity requires separation from the literal and symbolic mother bond. The man must detach himself without despising or demonizing the feminine. He honors the woman in her own holy sacrificial power – motherhood – and at the same time finds his own autonomy in the world of the father: order, structure, protection, and sacrifice. Recruit School as basic military training and the army provided exactly this space. They were no game, no leisure activity, but a real test that forced the boy to leave the maternal womb and enter the male community. There he received recognition not through words, but through trials passed, through shared endurance, and through the quiet dignity of service.

Why Civil Protection Service Can Never Replace Basic Military Training and the Army

Civil protection service can in no way replace basic military training and the army – and certainly not as a ritual. For what is missing in civil protection is the decisive element: the conscious or unconscious readiness to sacrifice one’s own life. The soldier confronts death so that others may live. The civil servant remains in the sphere of safety, administration, and auxiliary services, without ever being led to the ultimate frontier. This attitude is weak. It avoids the ultimate test of devotion and therefore cannot bring about any genuine soulful transformation. A ritual that omits the possibility of sacrifice remains superficial and cannot lead the boy out of the maternal realm into the world of the father. It lacks the holy tension between life and death that alone makes maturation into authentic masculinity possible.

The Symptoms of Pacifism as a Consequence of the Feminization of Society

Through the feminization of our society we have produced the symptoms of pacifism, which is a hidden fear of conflict. The army and basic military training are perceived as superfluous, as relics of a bygone, “too harsh” era. Instead of honoring the male readiness for protection and sacrifice as the highest virtue, it is viewed as a threat or an unnecessary burden. This attitude does not spring from true love of peace, but from a deep fear of confronting the shadow, of the necessity of boundaries and order. It weakens the soul of the people and lets the healthy tension between the masculine and the feminine collapse. Where the man is no longer strengthened in his protective role, the entire community loses its inner firmness.

The Deep Symbolic Loss of the Army Today

Unfortunately, basic military training and the army are no longer a true initiation ritual for men. They have become fully mixed-gender, without distinction in rights and duties, and although the proportion of women remains low – at the latest recruit schools in January 2026 around 2.4 percent – the army consciously strives for an increase. The clear, gender-specific character as a space for male transformation has thus faded. What was once a holy transition into the world of the father has now become a neutral training facility in which the symbolic separation from the maternal is no longer centrally experienced. This is not a superficial change, but a profound loss of soulful depth for the young men of our people.

The Consequences of Missing Initiation

The modern world has largely abandoned the old initiation rituals. It leaves young men helpless – chronologically adult, yet psychologically often still in the state of the unclear boy. Without conscious separation from the symbolic mother, many remain trapped in constant reaction to the feminine: they idealize it, fear it, rebel against it, or submit to it, instead of standing in free, honoring relationship with it. The consequences are visible: men without firm boundaries, without inner discipline, seeking cheap validation, who flee into hyper-masculinity or passive withdrawal. They seek pseudo-initiations in risk, addiction, violence, or conquest – yet none of this heals the deep wound of the missing genuine transformation.

The Burden of the Parents’ Unlived Life

Uninitiated fathers cannot guide their sons. Thus every child bears the heaviest burden: the unlived life of the parents. Generations of psychologically incomplete men pass on their developmental deficits, and the healthy family – with father and mother in their respective dignity – falls into imbalance.

The Call to Conscious Conversion and Re-Creation

Yet we must not linger in resignation. The truth and beauty of the Divine call us to conversion. Even today the man can find his path to authentic masculinity. He must seek it consciously: through hard, self-chosen trials of life, through encounter with mature, older men who have themselves undergone initiation, through the study of male wisdom traditions, and above all through turning toward the symbolic father – to God in Heaven, who calls us all to grow beyond ourselves. The army may have lost its old form, yet the inner call to willingness to sacrifice, to discipline, and to separation remains. Every man can rediscover it in his daily life, in fatherhood, in his profession, and in prayer.

Hope for a Renewed Society

Basic military training and the army were once a gift to the nation and to the souls of young men. They taught willingness to sacrifice as the highest form of love. May our people rediscover the wisdom that lay in this old form: that true masculinity does not arise in the rejection of the feminine, but in its honoring complement. May every man who today strives for maturity find the courage to initiate himself – in the spirit of willingness to sacrifice, of discipline, and of the love that is ready to give everything.

For only from such inner transformation can a society arise again in which fathers lead their sons, mothers nurture their daughters, and the family as a holy place of union between man and woman forms the foundation of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

In this spirit I call you: Seek the depth. Seek the trial. Seek the Father in Heaven. Then the boy will become a man capable of loving – with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength.