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Post by megli on Aug 24, 2009 21:05:05 GMT -1
might it be that awenyddion is a leftover from practices such as trance mediums and shamanic practice? |Hm. I think it reflects a very old and genuinely pre-christian sense of poetic inspiration as something external that comes and takes you over, and that makes you in some sense a seer. ('fili'---poet in irish--- = 'seer' etymologically). I don't think we need to link it to shamanism: this idea of poetry is an ancient indo-european thing.
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Post by Lee on Aug 24, 2009 21:19:13 GMT -1
wasnt the actual practice of the awenyddion much more dramatic though? thrashing about, shaking and shivering? all these are things you can find in shamanic practices and have led to the idea that epilipsy plays a prevalent part in shamanic cultures and the 'choosing' of community shamans.
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Post by littleraven on Aug 25, 2009 6:14:31 GMT -1
wasnt the actual practice of the awenyddion much more dramatic though? thrashing about, shaking and shivering? all these are things you can find in shamanic practices and have led to the idea that epilipsy plays a prevalent part in shamanic cultures and the 'choosing' of community shamans. The description of the Awenyddion always reminds me of the way people appear when possessed in Voudoun etc. There are also similarities to the way it can appear in Christian Glossalalia, which certainly occurs when the holy spirit speaks through them.
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Post by littleraven on Aug 25, 2009 6:45:12 GMT -1
Well, it falls into the category of something a) alien to indo-european religion, of which the celtic peoples were a subset, and as such demonstrably inherited a lot of ancient I-E religious stuff; I'm going to have to dig around to find them, but I definately recall accounts of ritual possession in Roman paganism and Hinduism. and b) there's no *evidence* they did anything like being possessed by gods in the vodou/santeria way. There's no evidence that the druids chanted litanies to the gods in temples, for example, but given that that's a common thing in religious practice in I-E society it's not unreasonable to imagine they did. Yes, but we do have accounts of the Druids chanting over someone during the bull-sleep. Considering the weight of the purpose of the sleep the words of a third party may be the entire point of this. But trance possession by a deity would be highly unusual in terms of the deepest layer of their cultural background AND no evidence. So thus it's improbable. The 'absence of evidence' thing is useless--of course the druids fanned their sacred temple quail with fans made out of swans' wings, and poured honey onto the heads of cult statues, and wore green buskins, as we all know. Well, libations over the cult statues is entirely plausible given the later rise of the Romano-British temple ... Basically, this vodou thing---common possession by deities of priests as a major part of ritual--is very, very african. It doesn't 'gel' with what we know of the ancient celts and their religous life. There may have been oracles---that's possible---but druids being possessed by taranis or rigantona? nah. I'm not thinking of possession by actual deity, as I'm with the Hebrews on this - "He who looks into the face of god will be destroyed", but possession by ancestral spirits. We have evidence of necromantic practice, implied through archaeology and literary source. From an esoteric/occult viewpoint, the possibility of ritual possession by an ancestral spirit could be seen as the ultimate conclusion of these practices.
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Post by megli on Aug 25, 2009 8:00:21 GMT -1
Well, it falls into the category of something a) alien to indo-european religion, of which the celtic peoples were a subset, and as such demonstrably inherited a lot of ancient I-E religious stuff; Yes, but we do have accounts of the Druids chanting over someone during the bull-sleep. Considering the weight of the purpose of the sleep the words of a third party may be the entire point of this. the point of the bullsleep is to have a dream-vision. nothing to do with possession. Basically, this vodou thing---common possession by deities of priests as a major part of ritual--is very, very african. It doesn't 'gel' with what we know of the ancient celts and their religous life. There may have been oracles---that's possible---but druids being possessed by taranis or rigantona? nah. I'm not thinking of possession by actual deity, as I'm with the Hebrews on this - "He who looks into the face of god will be destroyed", but possession by ancestral spirits. We have evidence of necromantic practice, implied through archaeology and literary source. From an esoteric/occult viewpoint, the possibility of ritual possession by an ancestral spirit could be seen as the ultimate conclusion of these practices. [/quote] Yes, but as ever this stuff depends on Irish material--the ghost of Cu Chulainn and fergus mac roich etc---and I tend to think such necromantic episodes are really derived from the witch of Endor story in the Bible. Again, we just can't take Irish literary stories from the middle ages and use them as evidence for pre-Christian religion, despite the fact that J&C Matthews have conditioned us to feel this is reasonable. If we're talking ancestral spirits, then the model of santeria etc is irrelevant---only orishas and not ancestors (egungun) 'ride' worshippers. There were such techniques in africa but they were lost, and santeria people now use kardecian spiritualism to replace them. Of all things. Basically my own feeling, LR, is that if you want trance possession to be part of Brython, why not? go for it. But I don't think you would be likely to be reviving or recreating something brythonic---you'd be importing something. Nothing necessarily wrong with that.
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Post by megli on Aug 25, 2009 8:17:20 GMT -1
wasnt the actual practice of the awenyddion much more dramatic though? thrashing about, shaking and shivering? Well----'Among the Welsh there are certain individuals called Awenyddion who behave as if they are possessed... When you consult them about some problem, they immediately go into a trance and lose control of their senses... They do not answer the question put to them in a logical way. Words stream from their mouths, incoherently and apparently meaningless and lacking any sense at all, but all the same well expressed: and if you listen carefully to what they say you will receive the solution to your problem. When it is all over, they will recover from their trance, as if they were ordinary people waking from a heavy sleep, but you have to give them a good shake before they regain control of themselves... and when they do return to their senses they can remember nothing of what they have said in the interval... They seem to receive this gift of divination through visions which they see in their dreams. Some of them have the impression that honey or sugary milk is being smeared on their mouths; others say that a sheet of paper with words written on it is pressed against their lips. As soon as they are roused from their trance and have come round from their prophesying, that is what they say has happened... ' Doesn't say they shiver and shake, but that they go into a trance. several things are really interesting here: first it's obvious I think that these awenyddion were real. The passage has the ring of truth, even though this is our only source. second, the term 'awenydd' is drawing on the oldest layer of vocabulary associated with poetry---awen as poetic inspiration---but Gerald doesnt tell us if these apparently nonsensical but 'well-expressed' words come out in metrical form. From what he says, I suspect they do, and that what you got was a heavily symbolic, obscure poem with lots of symbolism but which made grammatical sense. say you want to know whether to build a barn for your corn now that your eldest son has been killed, say. So what you don't get is this-- (Awenydd): Grk, urgh, glguglguglgug the lozenge, the lozenge!!!but more like: (Awenydd): When one fowl leaveth a second fowl cleaveth; hark under the soil the blind mole's toil doth plump his hearth against coming dearth....Which is a symbolic answer to your question in figurative language. This of course is similar to a lot of the staccato prophetic poetry which survives from the middle ages---I suspect the awenyddion were doing less literary, more spontaneous version of what welsh prophetic poets like Dafydd Llwyd and so on did for their bread and butter. These spontaneous prophecies wd almost certainly be what was termed gwawd at the time, the original meaning of which was 'prophetic poetry', though now it means 'mockery'. So anyway, they're not possessed by ancestral sprits or gods---they're extempore hedge-soothsayers filled with the rather impersonal, mantic spirit of poetry itself, awen, as the name indicates. (the more i've thought about this today, the more I'm sure 'well expressed' means 'in metrical format'. again, the latin wd be helpful.)
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Post by Adam on Aug 25, 2009 10:09:29 GMT -1
Well----'Among the Welsh there are certain individuals called Awenyddion who behave as if they are possessed... Begs the question, what would behaving "as if they are possessed" meant to Gerald in the 12th century... given the lack of qualification regarding the behaviour other than regards the utterances (btw, thanks for the lozenge example, megli... I'm still cleaning the coffee from my screen ;D), it would seem that Gerald expected his readers to understand this reference... what would have possession meant in the social and religious context of 12th century Wales?
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Post by megli on Aug 25, 2009 11:12:09 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.)
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Post by Adam on Aug 25, 2009 11:48:49 GMT -1
Can't help you there unfortunately ;D (though I have looked on line for a latin text version... none to be had that I can see) as an aside, an object lesson in how romanticism can propogate so many spurious layers of meaning... "Cambrensis describes the Welsh magical poetry specialists known as awenyddion (people inspired) as going into deep ecstatic inspirational trance with the body in frenzied paroxysms, chanting wildly" Google books link
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Post by megli on Aug 25, 2009 13:44:12 GMT -1
it's a good example of the way that as 'celtic pagans' of whatever hue we think we know these things whereas all too often we have an image in our heads and refer to that. With something like the awenyddion, for which we have only this source, it's very important to look at what's actually said not on what we imagine is said. There aren't any 'frenzied paroxysms', certainly, nor any 'chanting'!
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Post by littleraven on Aug 25, 2009 15:08:54 GMT -1
Well, it falls into the category of something a) alien to indo-european religion, of which the celtic peoples were a subset, and as such demonstrably inherited a lot of ancient I-E religious stuff; I'm going to have to dig around to find them, but I definately recall accounts of ritual possession in Roman paganism and Hinduism. 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. The Thessalian witches and the origins of the Wiccan 'Drawing Down the Moon' allude to potential possession. Horace spoke of this rite, and speaking with 'Thessalian voice', suggesting a different type of voice during the rite. Again, from an esoteric perspective that is *very* suggestive of a possessive practice.
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Post by Heron on Aug 25, 2009 15:13:28 GMT -1
In transit between two short trips away, but it might be worth throwing this in here :
from a letter from Henry Vaughan to John Aubrey October 1694:
"As to the later Bards, you shall have a most curious Account of them. This vein of poetrie they called Awen, which in their language signifies rapture, or a poetic furore & (in truth) as many of them as I have conversed with are (as I may say) gifted or inspired with it. I was told by a very sober, knowing person (now dead) that in his time, there was a young lad fatherless & motherless, soe very poor that he was forced to beg; butt att last was taken up by a rich man, that kept a great stock of sheep upon the mountains not far from the place where I now dwell who cloathed him & sent him into the mountains to keep his sheep. There in Summer time following the sheep & looking to their lambs, he fell into a deep sleep in which he dreamt, that he saw a beautifull young man with a garland of green leafs upon his head, & an hawk upon his fist: with a quiver full of Arrows att his back, coming towards him (whistling several measures or tunes all the way) att last lett the hawk fly att him, which (he dreamt) gott into his mouth & inward parts, & suddenly awaked in a great fear & consternation: butt possessed with such a vein, or gift of poetrie, that he left the sheep & went about the Countrey, making songs upon all occasions, and came to be the most famous Bard in all the Countrey in his time."
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Post by megli on Aug 25, 2009 15:37:32 GMT -1
I'm going to have to dig around to find them, but I definately recall accounts of ritual possession in Roman paganism and Hinduism. 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. The Thessalian witches and the origins of the Wiccan 'Drawing Down the Moon' allude to potential possession. Horace spoke of this rite, and speaking with 'Thessalian voice', suggesting a different type of voice during the rite. Again, from an esoteric perspective that is *very* suggestive of a possessive practice. You've misunderstood the idea of 'drawing down the moon' in the ancient world---or rather Gardner misunderstood it. Witches in the ancient world---or rather, l iterary witches like the fabulously horrible Erichtho in Lucan's Pharsalia--were supposed to be able to literally alter the position of the moon, to make it descend from its sphere. Nothing to do with possession or the Wiccan concept--daft old gardner got the wrong end of the proverbial. Hutton discusses this at Triumph p. 245.
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Post by megli on Aug 25, 2009 15:43:34 GMT -1
In transit between two short trips away, but it might be worth throwing this in here : from a letter from Henry Vaughan to John Aubrey October 1694: "As to the later Bards, you shall have a most curious Account of them. This vein of poetrie they called Awen, which in their language signifies rapture, or a poetic furore & (in truth) as many of them as I have conversed with are (as I may say) gifted or inspired with it. I was told by a very sober, knowing person (now dead) that in his time, there was a young lad fatherless & motherless, soe very poor that he was forced to beg; butt att last was taken up by a rich man, that kept a great stock of sheep upon the mountains not far from the place where I now dwell who cloathed him & sent him into the mountains to keep his sheep. There in Summer time following the sheep & looking to their lambs, he fell into a deep sleep in which he dreamt, that he saw a beautifull young man with a garland of green leafs upon his head, & an hawk upon his fist: with a quiver full of Arrows att his back, coming towards him (whistling several measures or tunes all the way) att last lett the hawk fly att him, which (he dreamt) gott into his mouth & inward parts, & suddenly awaked in a great fear & consternation: butt possessed with such a vein, or gift of poetrie, that he left the sheep & went about the Countrey, making songs upon all occasions, and came to be the most famous Bard in all the Countrey in his time." I've always loved this---this is exactly consonant with what Gerallt Gymro says about the awenyddion, including the detail about dreams and the feeling of ingestion--here a hawk instead of honey, milk, or text. It's clear, I think, that this orphaned lad was an awenydd, four centuries after gerald wrote. Interesting that there is no prophetic, soothsaying element in this account, although prophecy and poetry had usually been closely connected in medieval wales. It goes to show that human experience of the supernatural has fashions, just like everything else.
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Post by littleraven on Aug 25, 2009 19:17:44 GMT -1
You've misunderstood the idea of 'drawing down the moon' in the ancient world---or rather Gardner misunderstood it. Witches in the ancient world---or rather, l iterary witches like the fabulously horrible Erichtho in Lucan's Pharsalia--were supposed to be able to literally alter the position of the moon, to make it descend from its sphere. Nothing to do with possession or the Wiccan concept--daft old gardner got the wrong end of the proverbial. Hutton discusses this at Triumph p. 245. 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.
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Post by littleraven on Aug 25, 2009 19:21:28 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?
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Post by Adam on Aug 25, 2009 19:56:27 GMT -1
I'm going to have to dig around to find them, but I definately recall accounts of ritual possession in Roman paganism and Hinduism. 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
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Post by littleraven on Aug 25, 2009 20:05:07 GMT -1
I find it interesting that this activity lies outside the mainstream religious life and is a rural practice but is so widespread Excellent stuff. The mentions I found referred to it as a temple thing though <shrug>. Even so, I knew I'd read about it before, somewhere.
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Post by Adam on Aug 25, 2009 20:27:43 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
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