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Post by littleraven on Aug 25, 2009 20:31:38 GMT -1
given that this is specifically deity possession, there may well be other practices (Hinduism is a huge fuckoff religion ;D), but given the explicit references to trance posession, I thought the info pertinent Pertinent indeed, thanks Adam.
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Post by megli on Aug 25, 2009 20:54:21 GMT -1
I wasn't looking at it from the Garderian perspective, I took it directly from Horace. EDIT: HAd to go back and check that as I was sure there was more. A large part of the description of Erichtho in Pharsalia is specifically concerned with the raising of a spirit into a body. Whilst a necromantic practice, the possession of a living body is not that far removed from an occult perspective. Or, put it another way, if you can do one, you can do the other. Again, the point of the erichtho episode is that she is utterly, irredeemably evil: this is a huge 'gothic' set piece. She's a parody or inversion of virgil's wise sibyl who is a kind of oracle, not an example of a particular type of religious life. So you can't take erichtho---the most over the top, gloriously hammy, parodic, profoundly wicked and disgusting literary witch ever---and say that the description of her gives us insight into religious practice. it doesn't. (Lucan is explicitly anti-religious btw----the pharsalia famously removes the gods from the machinery of the epic poem). It's like taking the witches scenes in Macbeth as examples of early modern scottish cookery practices. Can you give me this Horace quote? i taught Horace last term and it's not ringing a bell.
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Post by megli on Aug 25, 2009 21:00:23 GMT -1
Or, to put it another way, imagine that christianity dies out. In two thousand years' time, people try to recreate american late 20th century catholicism.
You wouldn't get a very accurate recreation if you took The Exorcist as a major source.
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Post by littleraven on Aug 25, 2009 21:03:04 GMT -1
Or, to put it another way, imagine that christianity dies out. In two thousand years' time, people try to recreate american late 20th century catholicism. You wouldn't get a very accurate recreation if you took The Exorcist as a major source. No indeed, but it would give you pointer that exorcism may have existed in Catholocism.
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Post by megli on Aug 25, 2009 21:03:33 GMT -1
Good question- i imagine it's the idea of not being yourself, losing consciousness yet still speaking. I'd like to know what the latin says. (I suspect the verb used is rapio, 'seize' but I need the text.) If someone is seen to lose consciousness yet continues to speak, perhaps in a different voice, where is that voice likely to be thought to be coming from? Not from possession by an ancestral spirit!! From the awen, the mantic force of poetry itself.
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Post by littleraven on Aug 25, 2009 21:13:44 GMT -1
If someone is seen to lose consciousness yet continues to speak, perhaps in a different voice, where is that voice likely to be thought to be coming from? Not from possession by an ancestral spirit!! From the awen, the mantic force of poetry itself. So you agree it's an outside agent speaking through the individual?
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Post by littleraven on Aug 25, 2009 21:16:23 GMT -1
I wasn't looking at it from the Garderian perspective, I took it directly from Horace. EDIT: HAd to go back and check that as I was sure there was more. A large part of the description of Erichtho in Pharsalia is specifically concerned with the raising of a spirit into a body. Whilst a necromantic practice, the possession of a living body is not that far removed from an occult perspective. Or, put it another way, if you can do one, you can do the other. Again, the point of the erichtho episode is that she is utterly, irredeemably evil: this is a huge 'gothic' set piece. She's a parody or inversion of virgil's wise sibyl who is a kind of oracle, not an example of a particular type of religious life. So you can't take erichtho---the most over the top, gloriously hammy, parodic, profoundly wicked and disgusting literary witch ever---and say that the description of her gives us insight into religious practice. it doesn't. (Lucan is explicitly anti-religious btw----the pharsalia famously removes the gods from the machinery of the epic poem). It's like taking the witches scenes in Macbeth as examples of early modern scottish cookery practices. Can you give me this Horace quote? i taught Horace last term and it's not ringing a bell. Thing about Father Ted is, it takes some stereotypes about Catholicism and makes a comedy out of it. Unless people knew about those stereotypes of a Catholic priest, the comedy wouldn't work. Fifth Epode btw.
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Post by megli on Aug 25, 2009 21:25:12 GMT -1
It seems references to Hindu temple priests invoking and being possessed by the spirits of deceased ancestors seem quite common, although I can't find a *specific, referenced* source that you may require. Simon Weightman in the section on Hinduism in the Penguin reference Handbook of Living Religions. Devata seem to be a minor deity, usually associated with the village. He states that all villages have such informal priests... the practice seems to be primarily rural. Techniques involve drumming, intoxicants and flagellation, classic trance inducers. He cites Pocock, D., Mind, Body and Wealth: A Study of Belief and Practice in an Indian Village, Oxford, Blackwell/Totowa, Rowman and Littlefield, 1973 and Babb, L. A., The Divine Hierarchy: Popular Hinduism in Central India, New York, Columbia University Press, 1975 I find it interesting that this activity lies outside the mainstream religious life and is a rural practice but is so widespread Here's the problem. is this practice of indo European antiquity, part of the deep inheritance shared by Vedic India, the Slavs, Greece, Rome, Celts and Germanic speakers alike? How cd we tell? Well, if something similar is widely attested in several different I-E cultures. There are plenty of such things: the ideology connected with the poet as seer and word-shaper; the idea of a primordial war between gods and titans; a tripartite structure to society, human and divine; a sky-god-father figure, often associated with lightning and the oak; a dawn goddess; female minor deities of natural phenomena; a culture hero who slays a serpent; the idea of a primal being who is dismembered to fashion the universe. All these things are attested widely, in several peoples who speak or spoke I-E languages, so it is perfetly reasonable to see these concepts as ancient and I-E in date. But this possession thing---it's not widely attested, and in my view not attested at all in any actually ancient evidence about celtic religion, archaeological or otherwise. (medieval literature is problematic as we know, and i don't think you can do much with it.) We do know they had diviners and prophets, but possession by gods and spirits is not mentioned. As a result, this indian thing is difficult. It COULD be a relic of an ancient I-E custom that has survived for 3000 years in india and nowhere else; or the celts, or another I-E people, might have done it too and left us no record; or it might be a local innovation of post I-E date restrictyed to parts if India. Given the huge complexity and fertlity of Hindu religious life---which is full of ideas which are non I-E, and which can be seen as far back as the Vedas--this is, I suspect, an Indian innovation, given that there are no close parallels from other I-E peoples. We're back to the sacred korma. There's nothing WRONG with having trance possession in a religion. I know the likes of Jenny B. have tried it for Asatru, explicitly inspired by candomble and vodoun. So if you want it, LR, why not just do it, without going through these improbable hermeneutic processes?! It might work brilliantly. But I really, really don't think you could argue that you are reviving or reconstructing or restoring something once germane to brythonic religion by doing so. Extempore soothsayers, on the other hand, and professional diviners....they would be perfectly Brythonic.
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Post by megli on Aug 25, 2009 21:27:58 GMT -1
Not from possession by an ancestral spirit!! From the awen, the mantic force of poetry itself. So you agree it's an outside agent speaking through the individual? No. ;D it is an impersonal and metaphorical power, not an 'agent' in the sense of a consciousness.
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Post by megli on Aug 25, 2009 21:34:34 GMT -1
Just looked at the Horace---nothing at all about trance possession. It's the standard witches-can-move-the-moon topos. (Horace ups the ante and adds the stars too!) Thessalian incantations just refers to the fact that Thessaly is where all the best witches were supposed to come from---a classically 'spooky' place like we associate transylvania with vampires---there's nothing about a special voice: spells from Thessaly just means very powerful witches' spells.
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Post by littleraven on Aug 25, 2009 21:38:00 GMT -1
So you agree it's an outside agent speaking through the individual? No. ;D it is an impersonal and metaphorical power, not an 'agent' in the sense of a consciousness. Doesn't need to be conscious, it's the action of something outside a person through the individual.
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Post by Lee on Aug 25, 2009 21:43:23 GMT -1
so, tonights homework - see i you cab track down IE references to trance possession or mediumship.
extra marks for neat and tidy writing.
seriously though, this is a fascinating area especially in terms of brython regardless of whether there are precedents or not.
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Post by littleraven on Aug 25, 2009 21:45:02 GMT -1
Just looked at the Horace---nothing at all about trance possession. It's the standard witches-can-move-the-moon topos. (Horace ups the ante and adds the stars too!) Thessalian incantations just refers to the fact that Thessaly is where all the best witches were supposed to come from---a classically 'spooky' place like we associate transylvania with vampires---there's nothing about a special voice: spells from Thessaly just means very powerful witches' spells. No, it's not explicitly about trance possession, but then it's not talking about tidal effects either. The version I read specifically mentioned 'Thessalian voice'. Now granted this doesn't necessarily imply any kind of possession it's identifying something about the voice/words in association with the pactice. Given connection with spirit raising it's not something you can discount from an occult perspective.
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Post by megli on Aug 25, 2009 21:52:08 GMT -1
I don't think a frenzy of prophetic-poetic inspiration can be called 'possession'---that's the thing. It's clearly a kind of trance or ecstasy, but not possession. If I say 'yes, it's the action of something outside a person though the individual, in a sense' you'll say, triumphantly, 'aha, well, if the impersonal flow of poetry rapture can act like that, why not an ancestral spirit?!'
Well, why not indeed?
But that's NOT what this awenydd thing's about IMO, and to say that it was would be to misrepresent it.
Again, if you want to have trance possession by ancestral spirits, there's nothing stopping you; but in my opinion there is no evidence that that was ever part of brythonic or celtic religion, and it is twisting the evidence about awenyddion to say that it does.
Mebs this should be confronted---as I've said before, if Brython is to work, you're going to have to make 95% of it up by UPG and trial and error. Personally I have a limited appetite for that kind of thing---it feels too much like improv.
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Post by littleraven on Aug 25, 2009 21:54:03 GMT -1
There's nothing WRONG with having trance possession in a religion. I know the likes of Jenny B. have tried it for Asatru, explicitly inspired by candomble and vodoun. So if you want it, LR, why not just do it, without going through these improbable hermeneutic processes?! It might work brilliantly. But I really, really don't think you could argue that you are reviving or reconstructing or restoring something once germane to brythonic religion by doing so. It's really not a question of trying to restore or revive ancient practice, it's an exploration of possibilities IMHO. Whose to say that this method isn't appropriate now, even if in the past it wasn't done? But as you point out, it's necessary to be fully aware that it isn't original. And in that awareness, be aware you could be changing the inherent nature of what you are trying to do. So for me, I'll happily explore the minutiae until it's gone one way or t'other.
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Post by Adam on Aug 25, 2009 21:56:00 GMT -1
No. ;D it is an impersonal and metaphorical power, not an 'agent' in the sense of a consciousness. Doesn't need to be conscious.... Or personal (vs impersonal) But megli, what do you mean by a "metaphorical power"? Is the abstraction something we might expect to see in a christian culture that has a tradition of the Pentacost for example? You already mentioned in another post how the perception of the supernatural is shaped by the culture (and the history of trance itself as a phenomenon is littered with the same issue).
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Post by potia on Aug 25, 2009 21:56:12 GMT -1
Ding ding - rest in your corners now please gentlemen ) Seriously though if I am understanding this correctly so far we have not come across any evidence that suggests or even implies that ritual possesion by deities was a part of ancient Brythonic practice. Have I understood correctly that there are strong implications that trance states (without possession) that lead to poetic and prophetic utterances were a part of ancient Brythonic practice? I'm still a bit confused about the possibilty of invoking ancestral spirits within ancient Brythonic practices. What we eventually decide to do or not do in Brython today is another question entirely. So far it seems clear to me that some seem to like the idea of developing something along the lines of the Wiccan drawing down the moon ritual or Heathen Seidr techniques while others have serious reservations about these kinds of practices based on their considerable experiences of trance states in general. Does that seem like a fair summary of the discussion so far?
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Post by littleraven on Aug 25, 2009 21:58:17 GMT -1
Sidestepping a little for a different take on it.
IE religion does have necromantic spirit raising, it does have demonic possession. Trance possession is a willing possession of the body, but even now in occult circles such things are seriously major and not to be done lightly.
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Post by Lee on Aug 25, 2009 22:03:26 GMT -1
spot on i would say
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