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WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE OA CEREMONY
PROPOSED AT THE 2025 NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHIEFS
Consolidated Notes from Attendees

Note: Material is based on input from multiple chiefs in attendance. Thus, the accuracy is limited. I understand that national has not yet released any recording, text, or summary. Corrections by participants and/or national officials are welcomed. Send to billhartman@acm.org

Listeners reported that it felt more like a show, not a ceremony.

  1. It had a narrator. Instead of being experienced as real, it was presented as a play.
  2. It used music in the background while people wern’t talking, much like a movie or play, turning an outdoor ceremony into a pageant. The music was described as pleasant but monotonous. It broke any sense of the out-of-doors and contributed further to the sense of a stage play.
  3. Some lines were in rhyme with each other and felt less serious. Some said that it sounded like Dr. Seuss. Given that our new focus is to appeal to high school aged kids, this is a strange choice.
  4. Delegates were told that lodges will require electricity at the ceremonial ring, which runs afoul of the (formerly?) outdoor nature of Scouting.
  5. Instead of candles being extinguished, lights are dimmed. It is presented as a stage, not a natural clearing in the outdoors.
  6. It is rumored that it was developed by NOAC shows people, which would explain why it has the characteristics of a show.
  7. Content shows little evidence of the deeper meanings and connections found in the existing ceremonies. Either the authors had no such training, or a decision was made to purposely abandon them. Either means that the Ordeal’s impact will be seriously diminished.
  8. The ceremony said that going out alone to commune with nature and seek answers (mountain top experiences) are “vain”. Didn’t the writers realize that immediately after this ceremony, those completing it will be going out alone to commune with nature?

Replacement Terminology for the Ceremonial Officers

  1. Narrator added. Boring. Documentaries have narrators. Experiences do not.
  2. The ceremonial officers are called Ambassadors. Ambassador evokes diplomatic bureaucracy, not lived virtue. It’s from the world of press releases, wildly out of place for a youth standing in a forest.
  3. Renaming Elangomats as “Luminaries” strips the role of its humility. The word Elangomat was meant to be unfamiliar; discovered through experience, not explained. It signifies a friend who leads by example. “Luminary” turns that into a lofty title, more official than companion, and reveals too much. Click here for how historically the word Elangomat was chosen.

Other Differences Compared to Current Ceremonies

  1. Ordeal Sash is awarded at the end of this ceremony, prior to taking the Ordeal.
    1. All three sashes currently represent completion of experiences (the Ordeal, the application of our principles to your unit, and the Vigil experience). It is unclear what the logic is for the Ordeal sash to no longer represent an OA experience.
    2. What happens if someone decides not to complete the Ordeal? Are they members anyway? Do you take the sash back? We don’t give insignia for awards that have not yet been earned.
    3. Giving the sash early would change the entire character of the experience. Is no one involved concerned about this?
  2. Total elimination of all Native American words.
    1. Even the word Elangomat has been scrubbed. Were the authors unaware that Elangomat is not just a title, but also the name of a method of conducting the Ordeal? Without a unique label, lodges will have difficulty organizing Ordeals. Yes, Elangomats are “Luminaries” as they light the way, so-to-speak. But the role of Elangomat is physical and exemplary, not symbolic and ostentatious. Does “Elangomat System” become “Luminary System”?
    2. Must we rename 25 of the 50 US states because their names are based on Native words?
    3. We worry that the Admonition is also scheduled to change.
  3. Candidates are sometimes referred to as such, othertimes as “Newly Chosen”.
  4. The “Newly Chosen” are asked to respond that they understand after being told what is expected of them at the Ordeal. But one report said that they were asked to accept each principle (such as Brotherhood), rather than each physical challenge of the Ordeal. The purpose of the Ordeal is to teach our principles, so such acceptance is premature.
  5. The Ambassadors’ apparel was based on the black robes of the earliest ceremonies. This seems an appropriate approach. But we are often asked by candidates if we are a cult. Are we trying to confirm this misconception? Do we really want to give it a Satanic feel?
  6. Some who are expert in the current symbolism noticed that perhaps the relationships between the officers (Ambassadors) and the principles of the Order, and symbols, might be different than current practice. Ambassador of Brotherhood is also concerned with adding wood to the fire? This is inconsistent with the Brotherhood ceremony.
  7. Lights are dimmed (equivalent to candles extinguished) and the Scout Oath and Law lauded at the end of this ceremony. Current practice leaves them lit until the end of the Brotherhood ceremony to symbolize that the induction does not end until then. The Ten Inductions Principles require following symbolic progression, not doing things before their time.

The Ordeal

  1. Silence is limited to the Night Alone. Ends in the morning. Since we are typically silent when sleeping alone at night, it essentially eliminates this challenge from the Ordeal experience.
    1. This would be a major fracture in the character of the Ordeal. Dr. Goodman went through a lengthy process to select the four tests using experimentation. We believe we know better?
    2. Yes, this test makes it more difficult to do the service. That is its objective. To force us to pay more attention to each other while working. It teaches Brotherhood.
  2. There was an incredibly strange and awkward challenge where Scouts were told to laugh and later dance together for a period of time, with nothing said that was funny.
    1. This sounds all to much like the kind of “team building exercise” used in some businesses. That kind of thing is stupid, and privately disparaged by employees. This Dilbert-like insanity has no practical use in businesses and even less in Scouting.
    2. The principle of Cheerfulness in the OA is not about laughter and having fun. It is about maintaining a “cheerful spirit even in the midst of irksome tasks and weighty responsibilities”.
    3. The test of Scant Food teaches the difficulty of being cheerful throughout the Ordeal. Real experiences are Scoutlike ways that change lives. Manufactured fake vignettes don’t.
  3. It was rumored that the period of service would be yet shorter than that recently shortened by adoptiom of the National Standard Ordeal.
  4. The Obligation was changed significantly, which upset many of the chiefs..

Conclusion

The proposal is not a ceremony. It is a multimedia spectacle. The BSA is rebuilding its programs around entertainment and instruction instead of lived experience.

Why is this wrong? Because shows are everywhere—on TV, on phones, on demand. That is not an experience. That is passive consumption. Scouts aren’t leaving because the program isn’t “modern” enough. They are leaving because it is less real, less primitive, and less authentic.

The power of Order of the Arrow ceremonies is that they are uniquely Scoutlike, involving campfires. In the wilderness. With natural, imperfect surroundings. And simple physical props. We can see multimedia spectacles on our phones any second of the day, on demand. The unique draw of Scouting is that it works without internet access or electricity. It is genuine. Today’s media is not. Neither is the proposal.