Some Esotericists are heavily focused on processes of initiation, and becoming an initiate; which involves the adept seeing-through the illusory nature of 'normal life' to discern the supernatural reality beneath.
In modern terms, this corresponds to seeing-through the illusory surface of Godless, meaningless, pointless materialism assumed by all our public discourse, all of mainstream social interactions; and discovering the hidden but real world of divine creation and purpose, of living and conscious Beings, and our personal involvement in destiny.
One common observation is that throughout history initiation became more and more difficult, and the initiation rituals and processes more extreme and prolonged; fewer and fewer people were able to 'pierce the veil'. Eventually, in modern times (the past few hundred years, increasing recently), initiation procedures, rituals, formal practices etc. pretty much ceased to work altogether.
Nonetheless, the problem of illusory, fake 'normality' remains, and has indeed become much worse with mass and social media; and the vast scale of systematic lying and manipulation to which populations are subjected in the modern developed nations: far beyond anything attainable previously.
On top of which; the modern rejection of divinity means that many people have suppressed or lost the capacity to know the difference between fake and real, to the point of inversion.
So... we find ourselves in the position of needing initiation more than ever, but without any 'method' of achieving it, and no reliable and trustworthy institution or person to assist us. We each therefore must 'quarry-out' our own initiation; by thinking upon the subject, making individual efforts; by trial-and-error.
And furthermore, such is the resistance of our modern natures; that initiation is often two-steps forward then two-steps back again; since we cannot hold-onto psychological change.
Initiation is more like a glimpse than an achievement. We have the memory of initiation insights, there are some lasting effects from initiation - but we do not become 'an initiate'. We are neither lastingly nor comprehensively transformed in our understanding of reality.
This fits the general nature of modern life, which is highly 'experimental'; mostly about experiencing and learning. And, after we have experienced and learned something about the living, conscious, divine world behind the veil - we should expect to return to (pretty much) where we were before. And we are then intended to go on, and have more (and different) experiences, and to learn more and different things.
In sum; initiation experiences are available to everybody, in multiple forms, on an everyday basis - and our job is to develop a basic (metaphysical) understanding that will recognise these experiences when they happen; and will acknowledge their significance - because only by recognition and acknowledgement can we then learn what the experiences have to teach.
