h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of the biggest problems for modern Druids is all the written sources regarding our forebears are written by outsiders, often enemies. The Druids themselves, despite frequently being literate in the ancient scripts of latin and greek, refused to commit their knowledge to papyrus or stone. Many non-Druids have used this in the past to challenge me and my kindred. "An unwritten spirituality has no consistency" they claim, and point to the Bible, Qu'ran, Talmud and endless Vedas as role models for a 'decent' religion.

Well I think our forebears had it about right. The written word can be dangerous, particularly when recording our thoughts and beliefs. The problem being is that it can quickly become dogma. I'm not decrying books and other written media, but I have heard that our forebears considered the written word to be 'dead', no longer capable of growth or mutation by the flowing spirit.

Many of us have been lucky enough to listen to a good storyteller. It is here that a story truly comes alive as they draw upon their creativity, the hopes and experiences of their audience, and the Awen (the Druidic term for the flowing spirit of inspiration) to fuel the communal experience. If you have heard that storyteller retell the same story, to a new audience, the story changes. Details that were missed or rushed past in the first telling, come to the fore in the second, and others fade into the background. The central thread of the story remains, but all about it the storyteller surfs the wave of the Awen and the audience's dreams, creating a new landscape about it. If you ask members of the audience afterwards what they heard, for each the story will have been different. This is the beauty of the spoken word, the storyteller opens the mind to the Awen and allows the listener to roam a shared, yet personal landscape.

This relationship with the Awen, the opportunity for each person and each concept to grow and change with each passing on of the knowledge - through story, prayer, poem and song - is what I believe to be at the heart of what our forebears wanted to achieve by not writing down their beliefs.

A fixed, written relationship with our gods is a dead one. For it is not our relationship, but that of another, committed to dogma perhaps hundreds of years before our time. It is a crude, yet effective, method of social control.

I see a parallel with our written system of laws. In the western hemisphere we have a great deal of law, but seemingly precious little justice. The attempt to codify every aspect of human relationships and behaviour has ultimately created a bureaucratic monster, not a social saviour. As I understand it one of the roles of our forebears was to provide a moderately objective judiciary. The concepts of 'fairness' and 'rightness' were considered far more important than 'precedence' or 'law'. The integrity and wisdom of the Druid was considered to be more relevant in passing judgement than an encyclopaedic and technical knowledge of a codified law.

I still read books, and I do learn from them. However, I learn far more from watching my children play, from talking with friends, and discoursing here with all of you. A day spent in meditation amongst the trees, building upon my relationship with Brigidh is worth more than any two thousand year old tome to me, and I feel it brings me closer to my forebears.

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

I disagree, but I'm twitching when I look at the screen and I still need to mark three people's courseworks. So I'll wait until I say anything.

- Jordan

Hi Jordan .

I shall look forward to it as always.

Get some sleep!

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

I'll agree with Math.

The ancient Egyptians had a similar idea; when the god Thoth brought writing to mortals he was opposed by some of the other gods on the grounds that it would destroy their ability to use their memories creatively. (something like that anyway).

I suppose an even more modern equivalent would be "I saw it on the telly, so it must be true."

The medium is the message?

Writing has its uses, of course. But whatever the medium there's no substitute for learning to discriminate.

Noggin

Now there's an interesting slant on the 'oral history' thing. And yet reading is such a central and vital part of my life. Hmmm.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Hi Pattern-Chaser .

I love reading as well, but not as much as having a story told me. This is probably why the Theatre, Radio and Television are so popular. The problem is, of course, that they have now replaced story-telling in the home. Parents are even encouraged now to buy story-tapes for their children rather than read to them - Good Grief!!

Have you ever read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury? It is about a society that outlaws written literature and has a fire service that raid peoples houses and burn their books (at 451 degrees fahrenheit - the temperature at which paper burns). Towards the end the hero meets a group of people who are memorising all the great works of literature, and retelling them to people. Each person is one great book, and they pass on the story to an young apprentice. It is one of the most marvellously uplifting parts of any book I have read.

My forebears, the druids of Celtic Europe, underwent training in mnemonics (something they taught the Greeks who gave it its name). The mnemonic method they used was free verse. During their training, which took between 14 and 30 years, they were required to memorise 30,000 verses. They were given tough oral exams by their teachers before they were allowed to bear the name Druid. Each Druid became a walking college on everything from theology, through astronomy, genealogy and medicine to animal husbandry.

Druids were encouraged to reinterpret tales to meet the needs of the people they served, because if you did not the tales lost their meaning and became quaint little fairy stories.

Although our society has achieved much in the two hundred years since it became widely 'literate', we must not lose our oral culture. If we do we shall lose our freedom of thought and expression because we shall come to rely on the printed text only and not, as was put so eloquently above, our discrimination.

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F34365?thread=102947&latest=1 See post 119 on this thread, according to this the Bible was transmitted orally, in part. We are told repeatedly to apply Jesus' words to ourselves. That's all part of being a Christian. Otherwise, as you say, they become 'fairy stories'. What's more, the written word is an excellent medium. I have the chance to codify my thoughts, as in vocal language - and, what's more, I can change them as I work, or see what I said before and alter it to better suit its end. And there is a limit to how far the voice can be heard. Sure, there's radio and television - but when you read a book, you can go back, re-read, think it through again. You have an idea of how far you've came and how far you've got to go. It enables us to preserve our thoughts. Finally, we have a medium, more reliable than memory, that can (when used correctly) be used to record without distortion events from millenia ago. And when the distortion comes from the readers, why, we are truly experiencing something as magic and entrancing as in the case of our good bard. We are giving a story life in our minds. The only difference is that the /telling/ is less personal, not so carefully tailored to the audience. But the number of hearts a book can reach compared to the number our storyteller could! He can react to his audience, but he can't be there to tell a story on demand, to fit it into the free time of millions, and he can't react to all their expectations as a group. In short, it's economics. The written word might be less powerful than our charismatic orator, but finally the tools to transmit can be placed in the hands of the masses. There's more. What is a library? A room of paper, ink and bookshelves? No! It's a land of voices, millions of them, all silenced. Yes, they seem impotent. But turn the pages, and lo! a miracle occurs, and each of these cuboid blocks of text has the potential to become a kingdom of expression, of emotion and of information! No, a library isn't a room - it's a larder. It feeds a universe - the universe in our heads. - Jordan

Hi Jordan .

Yes, the original stories that combined to become the Bible were originally passed on orally. However once the state of Israel was established these were codified and became effectively frozen in time. Similarly the Christian texts of the NT were originally witness statements (and bear all the hallmarks of these - innaccuracy and bias), but were quickly codified into the dogma that still tortures the Western World today.

Thus the prejudices and needs of a bunch of homicidal, nomadic hebrews became the template upon which we still try to live our lives. Hardly a great recommendation for the written word.....?

Do not misunderstand me, I do not wish to see all books destroyed, nor the inspiration and knowledge they bring lost. However, as a medium through which to communicate the core values of the society we wish to live in the written word is fatally flawed.

I have attended the sacred festivals of many religions upon my journey. Many are glum, stilted affairs where people sit in rows like school children and are lectured verbatim from a Holy Text. Better are the ones where the leader of the congregation engages them with a story or parable. Where she or he abandons the text and tries to bring the story to life in a modern idiom. This isn't entertainment it is engagement.

Best of all are those festivals where each person in the congregation is encouraged to bring their own creativity to the fore. Where the meeting becomes a celebration of the divine spirit through stories, poems and song. The central message of that faith is not lost, but enhanced to become a living thing.

You are bright enough to recognise the source of the first example above. The second comes from my experiences in some evangelical churches, and at a Hindu wedding. The latter from most pagan celebrations in which I have had a hand.

The written word is dead, it just doesn't know it yet .

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

Isn't this just about horses and courses? My thanks, Matholwch, for directing my attention toward storytelling again. It's easy to forget the immediate impact of interactive speech. However, it's simply not true that the written word is dead, except in the sense that fewer and fewer people can read with accuracy and genuine comprehension. But that applies to speech too.

Written and spoken words complement one another. There are times when the inflexibility of writing is a problem, and others when the need to check what was agreed makes oral practices less useful.

Just my

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I read a book sometime somewhere that said if God decided to send a piece of paper down to earth with the real truth written on it, it wouldn't take long before before we had 'Paperists' and 'Paperfundametalists' all fighting one another about the meaning of the words.
I still believe that we all have a direct connection to God on a personal level,(even if we are sometimes not aware of it) and do not really need the written or verbal words of others to validate our beliefs.
Our own experiences are validity enough. The trouble starts when we feel the need to believe what the majority tells us is true, even if it is not in our own experience.
We can listen to or read the experiences of others, but the bottom line is what we *feel* to be truth.

And what of the unsane? The consensus view of reality may or may not be correct, but it is shared by the vast majority, who regard those who hold (significantly) different views as unfit to be at large in society. The only way these people can return to live with the rest of us is to accept the consensus view.

I'm not trying to muddy the waters here, just to submit what seems to be a problem with what you say. *Is* it a problem?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Hi Pattern-Chaser .

In answer to your question about the insane I give you this quote:

"If I speak to God, I am pious.
If God speaks to me, I am schizophrenic!"
Lily Tomlin.

Interesting thought huh? However, if we go about accepting only the consensus view of reality, and allowing it to rule our decisions then we are all in serious danger.

For example; 17th Century Salem, Massachusetts. Consensus reality was that evil Witches, servant of Satan, who could summon demons and curse good people existed. Consensus reality demanded their sacrifice for the greater good.

Another example; I am a Druid. I revere nature, regard the earth as sacred and maintain ongoing relationships with a number of Gods, Spirits of Place and other beings. Consensus reality says that I am undoubtedly a schizophrenic and probably a danger to myself and possibly others. Consensus reality demands my isolation and treatment for the greater good.

The 'consensus view of reality' is a myth thought up by those who wish to ensure that in fact it is their view of reality that is upheld at the expense of all others. In reality every living being is quite different from all others. We may share some common aspects or behaviours at certain times, but these change daily.

To get back to the point. What is 'insane' anyway? To be obtuse perhaps we can say it is the opposite of 'sane'. Which of course begs the question: What is Sanity?

Show me one person on this planet who isn't a morass of little psychoses and neuroses, fears and obsessions, doubt and self-loathing. Put any person in front of a group of 'professional' psycho-analysts and they will find fault (certainly enough to keep them both entertained and well-paid for a given number of years).

'Sanity' is what I refer to as a control word or phrase, like 'normal', 'the greater good', 'the majority' and 'democracy'. Each is designed to give the ruling classes another way to steer the herd...


Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

Trust me, you're not schizophrenic. Or have you been to a psychiatrist?

http://www.schizophrenia.com/newsletter/buckets/diag.html

That should help you familiarise yourself with the diagnostic criteria.

- Jordan

Matholwch, I accept all that you say. I could've written your reply myself, and only the choice of words would differ. And yet I am not satisfied.

<'Sanity' is what I refer to as a control word or phrase, like 'normal', 'the greater good', 'the majority' and 'democracy'. Each is designed to give the ruling classes another way to steer the herd...>

And yet one could also see 'sanity' (and its definition) as a way of society safeguarding itself (i.e. the (vast?) majority of its citizens) from those few whose doings could cause real and significant harm to themselves or others. I think this is different from wanting to control the masses. It is the masses themselves placing limits on the actions of their contemporaries for mutual benefit. Just like the law prohibiting murder. It's common to most societies, and not generally viewed as a means of dictatorial control.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I'm losing it.

Society. Is it more or less than the sum of its parts? Well, that depends on who you are. If you're part of it, it can be far, far more. If you're George Bush, it's a lot of numbers.

Do you think that those people behind the Light Brigade's doomed charge agonised over the lives of the men they had ordered to death? Did the general care that most of the men he sent over the trenches would die, pointlessly? How saddened was Napoleon to hear of the loss of fifty troops, knowing that he was victorious?

The answer might seem too horrible to bear, if you think about humans as people. It's so awful, I see little more than a huge gap when I try to recreate the thought processes of such a monstrous machine - the mass executioner, an archetype we have known from times immemorable and feared for just as long.

No, the solution is that they don't think of people. All they see are numbers.

That's it, surely. Numbers are a wonderful abstraction. From the mathematician's point of view, there is nothing tragic about taking five from fifty. A negative coefficient is not a cause for grief, a skewed distribution is but a trifle, and should a relation yield a boolean falsehood he will seldom feel betrayed. Numbers fit the void perfectly.

And so I'm forced to ask: is society all that great anyway?

- Jordan

I agree it's Bad to view humans as numbers - you can successfully ignore terrible things that way.

<...is society all that great anyway?>

Well you owe it almost every aspect - down to the finest detail - of the life you live today. Do you consider that 'great'? Society allows us all to specialise, and not have to attempt self-sufficiency by all trying to wrest a living from the earth directly. By combining our talents and working together in a family, group, tribe or society (call it what you will, it's the same thing ), we gain a great deal, IMO.

Yes, society *is* great, and more than that. It empowers and enables our humanity.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

The unsane are variously people who do not perceive the world as the majority.
If this view makes them happy then let them get on with it I say.
many of them have created much entertainment for us all - many artists, comediens, writers, actors, musicians have had this label in our history. Lest they harm nobody let them perform their lives to a different drum.
If their experience of life has unfortunately led them to believe that harm is the norm, then they are best helped to dissuade them from this belief in the gentlist way possible.
Most pyschopaths would appear to have such terrible young lives that their imaging is twisted.
However saying that we have a man in the Whitehouse at present who would appear to have this mental problem and is considering harm to innocent bystanders in the name of paranoia.
Somehow he is believed to be mentally stable and his view carries some weight.

while I was on a trip to Spain last year a young spanish girl showed me how to cook spanish omelette.
She had a peculiar way of slicing a potato. she held it in her hand and cut lengthwise and widthwise with a small knife so that the potato look like those hedgehog loaves you can buy in the UK.
Then she sliced it over the pan and small squares of potato fell into the oil. When I mentioned it was a peculair way to me, she said that this was the way her mother has always done it.
Yesterday I saw another woman do the same thing. She was Brazilian and I thought about the connection between those two countries . When she was queried she too said "this is the way my mother always did it."
The point of this tale, is that there is a third way that is non verbal and non written (and sometimes we don't even know it is happening!)to pass on things which span the centuries.
Example.
interestingly I cannot do this method of cooking without being cumbersom and prefer to chop on a board with a large knife, - just as my mother does.