Lots them have to be "talked to" multiple times, before they convert. And you get devotion skill every time you do that.

worship the hand ("honoring") on their own, but I don't know if this increases their skill level.

i am at a loss also. i built all buildings, bought all 3rd level skills and have a BUNCH of guys that have no devotion whatsoever and no more blue guys to convert! i solved all the puzzles including mama heathen, collected all the collectables Chief has been changed to worshipping the hand and i tried dropping him on the remaining yellow and red masked heathens - with no affect - and cannot figure out how to make a believer earn devotion points... i ended up with 4 villagers total at devotion 100% but now no others at all, well a few with bare minimum devotion level... Hmmm, wait up, i got a scathingly brilliant idea... will follow up tomorrow morning after some Z's and a new attempt. i also may have messed up cuz with my new "YOUNG" God power i turned my old chief into a bumbling 5 year old with all his skills intact! <G>

The only way I have figured out is to pass the skill on to the children (as in paremts pass skills to off spring) and they get more in school, so they can become Masters.

The only way that peeps can get any Devotion skills if there are no more blue-masks to convert is by learning it in the nursery. I suggest that someone who is a Master Devotee is used as the teacher; They can increase Devotion skills by "honoring", but you can't train a villager to do that; they have to initiate it themselves, and they will only do that if they already have some skill.

polishing the statue

If you have a villager with devotion skill (the more the better), set the skill of this villager on "Devotion" and put him/her to the statue - he/she will polish the statue and gain building skill, but sometimes he/she will honor the statue and will gain devotion skill. I've got two masters in this way

If your peep has any devotion skill you can increase it by dropping him/her into the lake, provided the lake has not been revived. Dropping your person into the lake causes them to decide to do something: walk along the stream, eat, study , build, OR HONOR. When the caption says honoring, they will go to the statute. If they need to go again, just drop the peep back into the lake until they decide to honor. After they have been in the lake a couple of times they are usually trainees and will continue to gain devotion skills. It's how I have gotten most of my masters.

If they don't have any devotion skill and dropping them in the lake doesn't work, then I will have them talk to a heathen.

I haven't revived the lake yet, I'm just using the hand of bloom to keep the garden going. I just realized you can probably just drop them in place and you wouldn't need to use the lake. I'm off to see if that works.

The other way is to set both parents skills to devotion before they embrace. Hope this helps.

I recently trained 5 villagers in Devotion. I decided that dropping them by the statue seemed to be the only way to do it since I have already converted all the "Heathens". I always look at the skills screen of my "kids" to see what skill they seem to be drifting towards. If any one of them is leaning towards devotion I put the checkmark by that skill no matter how young they are. Once the kid reaches working age, I drop them by the statue. Now you're going to get the "polishing the statue" message but that's okay. I got the same message but decided to keep them polishing the statue anyhow. Even if they stray away from the staute and "aren't sure what to do" I just dropped them by the statue again. I did nothing else but let the game run and checked on them from time to time. Now all 5 of them have mastered "Devotion" and 3 of them have also mastered "Building" as well!! We all know that some skills from the parents can be passed on to their kids so it doesn't hurt to have your "Devotion" trained villagers have kids. I'm not sure but I think that when they are polishing the staute they must also do some "honoring" somewhere in there as well.

Have a master Devotee teach at the school also in the detail make sure devotion is checked on the kids that you want to learn it. This way if you put more than one master witch I do they learn devotion opposed to say farming.

I started with one male 3 year old, three male 14 year old and one female 14 year old. I took turns with the males converting the blue masked heathens. As the blue masked and master heathens converted, I included any new male converts in the cycle of conversion. Eventually I had 10 males with at least trainee level Devotion. I choose males because I'm using Grant Youth to cycle them through a few life times to master all disciplines. I'm not using females because there is a bug when you Grant Youth to a female. When she starts nursing, her clock never runs down and she nurses for the rest of her life.

to be rejuvenated in the hope that they gain more skills over several lifetimes.

I've had the most success using the nursery. I use the retired chief as a teacher, plus others who have high devotion skills (as well as the others). Kids generally "graduate" with at least adept-level skills all round and, of course, often greater skills if they've been rejuvenated.

granting youth to a master devotee. I never thought it the other way like that, as I was trying to make a child become a devotee before turning 18!

converting the blue masked heathens. After converting one, just tick the devotee option on your villager's doings and he or she is going to start honoring by themselves. Once the blue heathens are converted, the only thing to do is follow arnie's advice and make a villager with devotion skills teach at the nursery

First, and most important, have your villagers master at least three other skills. This method seems to work much better once they have other masteries under their belt, so to speak. Set your villager to Devotion, and take them to the statue. Hover them so that the Action reads: " _____ sees a magnificent statue." Set them down near the statue, but not on it. Wait, and be prepared to do the same action a few times. When the action says "nothing", leave them alone. 8 times out of 10, "nothing" will precede "honoring" - and that's what you want.

having them attend school with a JOAT teaching them, while both teacher and student have been set to Devotion

getting them a uniform for easy recognizing