Help! I don't get the right prompt!

Don't panic.

If you got the normal maxima prompt "(C1)" instead of the error message and the "MAXIMA>>" prompt, you probably forgot to rename the file init.lsp to initialize.lisp.  Do so now.

When you invoke maxima again, you will get the same prompt.  In order to get maxima to start up in lisp, you need to create a new init.lsp file, containing just the following line:

(setq SYSTEM::*TOP-LEVEL-HOOK* nil)

Now when you start maxima you will see the prompt ">".  This means you are now typing directly to Lisp.  Now go back to the original instructions, except skip the command ":q" which gets you to the Lisp prompt from the error prompt.

When you get to the end of Step 4 and you are asked to rename the file initialize.lisp back to init.lsp you can remove the init.lsp file you created and continue as usual.