Queen of Swords

One of the most important qualities which sets initiations apart from other milestone events is that of transformation. After going through an initation you are not who you were before, and there is no going back to your pre-initiatory state. You have changed.

Gods yes. I've had four that truly changed me - (in order) my priest initiation (which was actually in 3 parts, 1st, 2nd, & 3rd), the magical bonding ritual I did with teaotter (info here), the dragon bonding ritual my HPS & HP did for me (which essentially resulting in my becoming otherkin), and the magical bonding that both teaotter & I did with amberite. The 2nd and 3rd were in many ways the most powerful, but all have majorly changed my life.

Hmm, using your definitions, I'd perhaps raise that number to 6: there's this ritual to find love that I did almost precisely 5 months before I met and fell for amberite. I did an almost idential ritual 2 months before teaotter and I first started writing to one another.

Not all of my initiations have involved pain, but several have. Whether they did or not mostly seemed to involve how willing and able I was to accept the changes the initiation brought. In the case of the two rituals to find love, they both made certain that I was emotionally ready for a lasting romance - in the first case I was very far from that state (I'd never had one that lasted more than 4 months before) and over the next 2 and a half years, I became (swiftly and painfully) ready.