+168+. The origin of circumcision suggested above seems to account sufficiently for all usages and ideas connected with it; the possibility of several different origins need not be denied, but the practical identity of the customs in all parts of the world in which the institution exists, makes the simpler hypothesis the more probable. +169+. Certain features of ceremonies of initiation appear to be designed to secure _union_ between the initiate and the clan. Such, for example, is the custom found in New South Wales of the initiate's drinking the blood of his companions. In other cases there is a union with other parts of the body. Such usages arise from the idea that physical union is essential to social union--a conception which elsewhere takes the form of blood-brotherhood.[320] This is a scientific rather than a religious idea, depending on the belief that the body is an essential part of the personality.[321] +170+. Another noteworthy custom is the feigned _resurrection_ of the initiate. In Australia the women are informed that the youth during the process of initiation is slain by a supernatural being and brought to life again. Elsewhere the initiate is supposed to forget his former life completely and to be obliged, on emerging from the ceremony, to recover slowly his knowledge of things.[322] The origin of this custom is obscure, but it appears to express the idea that the youth now enters on an entirely new life, and having come into new relations and responsibilities, is to forget what he was and what he did before--a profound conception which has been taken up into some of the most advanced religions (as, for example, in baptism and confirmation). +171+. In certain half-civilized tribes a higher type of initiatory ceremonies is found. The youth must perform a lonely vigil, going into the forest or some other solitary place, and there wait for the vision or revelation of a supernatural protector.[323] This procedure is connected with the advance of individualism, the old totemic or other relation being superseded by an individual relation to a guardian spirit. The development of this higher religious conception will be discussed below.[324]