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readoldthings) wrote2023-11-06 08:23 pm
readoldthings) wrote2023-11-06 08:23 pm
Entry tags:
The Circles
Another passage from Barddas, on the Circles of Existence:
As we have seen, the extremity of Abred is Annwn, the realm of the Dead; and this can also be seen as the meeting point of Abred and Cythraul, the Devil and Primordial Chaos.
I've said a great deal from within the Druid perspective on these ideas. I want to look a little more at Iolo's Druidry from a kind of "outside perspective," analyzing them, rather than understanding them. This mode of thinking, which is related to the sophistry employed by our university professors, is a lower mode to be sure, but it has its uses.
Now, the great open question regarding Morganwg is precisely what were his sources, and, of course, the great question about our modern Druidry is what links it has to the Druidry of the ancient world. The old answer, which was untrue, was "It is the ancient Druidry, preserved down the ages." The current answer is, "It is not the ancient Druidry but a modern movement inspired in part, but only in part, by what we know of the ancients, intended to meet the spiritual needs of modern people."
To me, the second answer is more than sufficient-- but I wonder if it is not true either.
I've already discussed the great Ninth Century clergyman and philosopher of Ireland, John Scotus Eriugena. Eriugena's great work was entitled the Periphysion. I've only begun to explore Eriugena in detail, but from what I can tell, the essence of his metaphysics was a four-layered system of ontology, which exactly replicates the ancient Four Worlds of the Neoplatonists:
And so, again, we see a source for Iolo's thought in the mystical Christianity of the Celtic world, and particularly in Eriugena. Eriugena's source was Dionysius, and Dionysius was (probably) a student of Proclus.
So is modern Druidry simply Classical or Medieval, and Platonic, rather than ancient and Celtic?
Let us remember that Proclus didn't come out of nowhere. "Neoplatonism" is marked by scholars to begin with Plotinus, several centuries earlier, but "Neoplatonism" is a Neologism. Plotinus thought of himself as a follower of Plato, and it is only in very recent times that university professors, themselves blinded by the parochialism of their profession, have suggested that he was anything but. The ancients themselves saw the Philosophers of Greece as one example of a type, which included the Brahmins of India, the Magi of Persia, the sages of Chaldaea and Egypt-- and the Druids of the Celts. Pythagoras was said to have sojourned among the Druids. In all likelihood "Platonism" is only the specifically Greek expression of a Great Tradition common to the Indo-European peoples. If the specifically Celtic expressions were lost to time, it was natural enough to fill them in with their analogs from other, better-preserved sources, from Greece to India. This many modern Druids have done.
Finally, we need to take off our modern way of looking at these things. To the modern mind, a book is an object, an idea is a creation, and a truth is a discovery. But on the older way of looking at things, Truth is eternal, Ideas are living and more than living, and books very often have their own spirits, and to encounter them is to come under their power.
The Circle of Abred, in which are all corporal and dead existences.
The Circle of Gwynvyd, in which are all animated and immortal beings.
The Circle of Ceugant, where there is only God. The wise men describe them thus, in three Circles.
As we have seen, the extremity of Abred is Annwn, the realm of the Dead; and this can also be seen as the meeting point of Abred and Cythraul, the Devil and Primordial Chaos.
I've said a great deal from within the Druid perspective on these ideas. I want to look a little more at Iolo's Druidry from a kind of "outside perspective," analyzing them, rather than understanding them. This mode of thinking, which is related to the sophistry employed by our university professors, is a lower mode to be sure, but it has its uses.
Now, the great open question regarding Morganwg is precisely what were his sources, and, of course, the great question about our modern Druidry is what links it has to the Druidry of the ancient world. The old answer, which was untrue, was "It is the ancient Druidry, preserved down the ages." The current answer is, "It is not the ancient Druidry but a modern movement inspired in part, but only in part, by what we know of the ancients, intended to meet the spiritual needs of modern people."
To me, the second answer is more than sufficient-- but I wonder if it is not true either.
I've already discussed the great Ninth Century clergyman and philosopher of Ireland, John Scotus Eriugena. Eriugena's great work was entitled the Periphysion. I've only begun to explore Eriugena in detail, but from what I can tell, the essence of his metaphysics was a four-layered system of ontology, which exactly replicates the ancient Four Worlds of the Neoplatonists:
Nature includes both God and creation and has four divisions: nature which creates and is not created (God), nature which creates and is created (the Primordial Causes), nature which is created and does not create (the Created Temporal Effects), and nature which is neither created nor creates (Non-Being).
This division of things in a descending hierarchy from that which creates and is uncreated to that which neither creates nor is created is identical to the ontology of Proclus, who divides things into that which is immovable; that which moves itself and moves others; that which is only moved. And so, again, we see a source for Iolo's thought in the mystical Christianity of the Celtic world, and particularly in Eriugena. Eriugena's source was Dionysius, and Dionysius was (probably) a student of Proclus.
So is modern Druidry simply Classical or Medieval, and Platonic, rather than ancient and Celtic?
Let us remember that Proclus didn't come out of nowhere. "Neoplatonism" is marked by scholars to begin with Plotinus, several centuries earlier, but "Neoplatonism" is a Neologism. Plotinus thought of himself as a follower of Plato, and it is only in very recent times that university professors, themselves blinded by the parochialism of their profession, have suggested that he was anything but. The ancients themselves saw the Philosophers of Greece as one example of a type, which included the Brahmins of India, the Magi of Persia, the sages of Chaldaea and Egypt-- and the Druids of the Celts. Pythagoras was said to have sojourned among the Druids. In all likelihood "Platonism" is only the specifically Greek expression of a Great Tradition common to the Indo-European peoples. If the specifically Celtic expressions were lost to time, it was natural enough to fill them in with their analogs from other, better-preserved sources, from Greece to India. This many modern Druids have done.
Finally, we need to take off our modern way of looking at these things. To the modern mind, a book is an object, an idea is a creation, and a truth is a discovery. But on the older way of looking at things, Truth is eternal, Ideas are living and more than living, and books very often have their own spirits, and to encounter them is to come under their power.