[Poindexter]

Say I have a magic of 5 and a max of 6.
Then say I get some chrome and my magic drops to 4 and a max of 5.
Now say i spend the karma to raise my magic mack to a 5 with a max of 5.

Now, can I go ahead and spend the karma to go initiate level 1, which will bring my magic to 6 with a max of 6?

Also could I have done the initiate level BEFORE i bought my magic up to 5? And if so, what are the advantageous and disadvantageous of doing it early?

[DigitalZombie]

Initiating only raises your max magic attribute. So youd still be at magic 5, but with a max of 6 again. The third time you initiated youd be at magic 5 with a max of 8, etc.

[Reaver]

Correct, you then have to spend karma to actually RAISE your magic attribute.

[8-bit]

Initiating only increases your maximum magic, not your current magic attribute. To get to the raised value, you need to spend Karma to raise it as you would with buying any other attribute.

It should be noted you cannot initiate if your current magic rating is 0, even if your maximum is not.

[Michael Chandra]

Say I have a magic of 5 and a max of 6.
Then say I get some chrome and my magic drops to 4 and a max of 5.
Now say i spend the karma to raise my magic mack to a 5 with a max of 5.

Now, can I go ahead and spend the karma to go initiate level 1, which will bring my magic to 6 with a max of 6?

Also could I have done the initiate level BEFORE i bought my magic up to 5? And if so, what are the advantageous and disadvantageous of doing it early?

Since the costs of initiation do not depend on your magic rating, initiating does not raise your magic in itself (only your MAX magic), and initiation is capped at your curent magic rating, unless you initiate so high that losing essence costs you an inititation grade it's rather irrelevant costwise.