initiation n. f. [from the late Latin initiatio -onis] – TRECCANI
– 1. Act or series of acts and ceremonies by which one is admitted, or is admitted, to participation in mystery cults, to knowledge of occult doctrines, to be part of a society, a community, a group from which the non-initiated are excluded: rite, initiation rites; i. to Freemasonry; in ethnology and in the history of religions, a complex of practices and rites through which an individual or a group of individuals passes from one condition to another (for example, from the pubertal state to the adult state), or assumes particular powers and privileges: i. tribal, i. magical. More generally, admission to a sect, a secret society, a closed social group, and the like.
– 2. By extension, training, initiation to a discipline, an art, a technique, a specialized study, the exercise of a particular activity, a practice: i. to political life; i. to welfare activities; i. priestly, i. ascetic; he had had from his father his first i. to music (or painting, a taste for poetry, etc.); i. amorous, or even simply initiation, the first sexual experience.