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Descent and Return

The Gorsedd Prayer concludes:

And in the Love of Justice, the Love of All Existences
And in the Love of All Existence, the love of God

A final line or clause admits of variation. The version in the Barddas has "God and all goodness." Some Druid orders have "God [variant: Goddess, Great Spirit, the Gods], the Earth our Mother, and all goodness." As is often the case, the choice is left to the individual Druid.

Love

True Knowledge of Justice is contact with the Form of Justice, Iustitia herself. This contact cannot help but change us: We are purified and become just, and then act with justice in all our doings.

What is that which binds us to Justice?

This is Love, the Power which binds all things together, and especially which unites humankind to the Divine.

Notice, again, that our prayer is leading us through a process of descent from Ceugant (God) to Abred. That journey is now complete, as we turn toward "All Existences." This is the opposite from how things usually work from our perspective as dwellers in Abred. Here, we begin by seeking God, and that which animates and binds us to God is Love. Animated by Divine Love, we endeavor to practice the virtues, and in their practice come to know them, and thereby to become them. Having by degrees become just, courageous and temperate, we finally become wise, which is to say, our third eye opens and we are given a glimpse of the Higher Reality of Gwynvydd. Even this brief contact is enough to change us, and we begin to understand what we have seen. Our third eye, which is the eye of our heart, remains open for ever longer durations, and we are animated by the fire of God, which becomes our strength. Finally, resting in the Divine Presence, we are protected, preserved from declining again toward matter and vice by the living presence of God.

In the Gorsedd Prayer, we ask all of these things in what appears to us to be the reverse order. But this only true from our perspective: This is the true order of creation, as all things arise from God and descend by slow degrees into matter.

At the end we come to All Existences. This reminds us that God is not one being, or one existence, among others; not one thing among many things. God is that in whom and through whom there is any existence whatsoever. Each existence has its origin and its fulfillment in God. And now, we pray that, having become Just, we may act Justly toward all other beings, which is to say, to act toward them with Love. And it is this very justice which leads us back to God, because it is, ultimately the divine nature within others which we love.

Variations

To each Druid the Name of the final terms, which occur at the beginning and end of the prayer, are left as a matter of their own decision. The reason is this: As God is beyond all existences, no name can truly be given to him without limiting him to that name. And yet, in order to act and to think, the human being during its sojourn in the world of names and images, which is Abred, must have a name. By allowing each other to choose a name of God appropriate to our own practice, we acknowledge the complete transcendence of the Divine Absolute. It is as though we say to the Deity, "I know that no Name that I give can truly contain Thee, who art beyond all Names, but I offer unto thee this Name as a holy sacrifice: Let it be a bond between us, and deny not the sacrifice of my sister, though it differ from mine." In allowing our Fellow Druid that Name suited to her or to him, we humble ourselves, and do not allow the conceit of our intellect to rise greater than the love of our heart. And all are led back by degrees to that Eternal Presence who abides unchanging within all existences.

Our prayer continues:

And in Understanding, Knowledge,
And in Knowledge, Knowledge of Justice
And in the Knowledge of Justice, the Love of It

From Understanding immediately proceeds Knowledge. This is somewhat different from our usual way of using these words. Ordinarily they are either synonyms, or else understanding is a more complete form of knowledge. What's going on here?

The answer is that in our ordinary way of living, we ascend from knowledge to understanding. But in the Gorsedd prayer, we follow the emanations of divinity from the highest to the lowest. In the order of creation, Understanding gives rise to Knowledge.

By "Understanding" we particularly mean intellection or noesis-- the immediate knowledge of the noetic level of being, at which knower and object of knowledge are united. By Knowledge, we mean discursive reasoning or dianoia, which knows by applying the faculties of mind in sequence toward an object of knowledge. As separation has been introduced, we see that we have, again, made a descent in terms of the planes of being. Understanding is the activity of the highest part of the mind, called Intellect or Nous. Knowledge is its first-born, its image in the soul.

Now, we ask that we may direct our knowledge in a specific direction, toward Justice. Now, the very fact that we are directed toward "Justice" in particular rather than "Virtue" in general also indicates that we are moving further from the Divine Untiy, toward the realms of separation and generation.

Like Knowledge and Understanding, the term "Justice" is often misused (and mis-understood) in modern discourse. This is especially the case as it has become more common. And so it's worth taking a moment to remember that the ancient meaning of "Justice" is not "Governments take revenge against large segments of their own population for crimes they never committed." Justice means, very specifically, the right relationships between things. Aristotle defines it as rendering to each what is due to him. Plato tells us that it consists, internally, in the state in which each part of the soul performs its correct task, not seeking to usurp the role of others, and, externally, the same relation between the parts of the state.

It naturally follows that for Justice to be possible, there must be separation; only when there are parts is it possible for a relationship between parts to exist. Notice, too, that Justice is the only virtue given a name, but all of the virtues are present:

The Protection of God produces an abiding stability in the soul, which is the virtue of Temperance.

The Strength, given by God and unfolding from the Protection of God is the virtue of Courage.

The Understanding which arises from the Protection and Power of God, and the Knowledge which unfolds from Understanding, is the virtue of Wisdom.

From these Justice is unfolded, as a right application of power and knowledge toward the multitude which arise from the overflowing creative fire of the divine unity.

Finally, from the Knowledge of Justice is born Love. This is another simple statement which hides many layers of meaning.

We must always remember that, for the ancients, powers that move the human soul like "Love" are not simply choices or acts or events. They are gods or spirits. For Plato, Love (Eros) is divine: A daimon who causes us to desire unity with that which is beautiful, and, if we properly follow his teachings, will lead us to union with God. But Love is also an act of will, and the nature of that act for Plato as well as for Christ is "to will the good of another."

Justice, Courage, Wisdom, Temperance: We know all these things to the extent we know them only as we know their Paradigms, and these are living Ideas in the mind of the Father. All abide as great Powers in Gwynvydd, and when we act justly or temperately in Abred we unite ourselves to them. Here we invoke their son, Divine Love, and ask his aid in uniting ourselves to Them.

How exactly do we do this? We'll see tomorrow.

In Barddas we read:

Some have called God the Father HEN DDIHENYDD, because it is from His nature that all things are derived, and from Him is the beginning of every thing, and in Him is no beginning, for He can not but exist, and nothing can have a beginning without a beginner. And God the Son is called IAU, that is, God under a finite form and corporeity, for a finite being cannot otherwise know and perceive God. And when He became man in this world, He was called JESUS CHRIST, for He was not from everlasting under a finite form and body. And the man who believes in Him, and performs the seven works of mercy, shall be delivered from the pain of Abred, and blessed for ever be he who does so. Jesus Christ is also called GOD THE DOVYDD; and He has also other names, such as PERYDD, and GOD THE NER, and GOD THE NAV.

Now, "Hen Ddihenydd" means "ancient and unoriginated one"; apparently it is the Welsh translation of "Ancient of Days." "Iau" means "Younger," in that the Son is younger than and generated from the Father-- but it also means "Jupiter" and is, I believe, the modern Welsh name for Thursday (Dies Iovis, Jupiter's Day). Notice, too, that the word IAU is a cognate of IAO, which is an ancient Gnostic name for the Supreme Deity. The suggestion is that the God whom we can see and name as Supreme Being, IAO, Iuppiter or Jesus Christ, is himself an image of the Hidden One, the First Father. This idea is also found in the Oracles, where we read:

The Father perfected all things, and delivered them over to the Second Mind, whom all Nations of Men call the First.

The titles given to Christ mean: Dovydd, the Tamer; Perydd, the Cause; Ner, the Mighty or Energy; Naf, the Shaper or Creator. And elsewhere in Barddas we encounter other Names of God, including a poem which reads:

Duw, Dofydd mawr, Ionawr, Iau.
Ener, Muner, Ner, Naf ydyw.

Each of these represents one facet of the Second Mind, the Divine Intellect, who is God as He appears to human minds. As we have discussed before, since God is superessential, the names are inexhaustible, both in their particular meanings and in their variety. The particular Names are given to humanity through inspiration, as we read in Dionysius:

Let the rule of the Oracles be here also prescribed for us, that we shall establish the truth of the things spoken concerning God, not in the persuasive words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit-moved power of the Theologians, by aid of which we are brought into contact with things unutterable and unknown, in a manner unutterable and unknown, in proportion to the superior union of the reasoning and intuitive faculty and operation within us. By no means then is it permitted to speak, or even to think, anything, concerning the superessential and hidden Deity, beyond those things divinely revealed to us in the sacred Oracles

This is from the Areopagite's treatise on the Divine Names, which then proceeds to analyze many of the Names of God.

Let us come to the appellation "Good," already mentioned in our discourse, which the Theologians ascribe pre-eminently and exclusively to the super-Divine Deity...

For, even as our Sun----not as calculating or choosing, but by its very being, enlightens all things able to partake of its light in their own degree----so too the Good----as superior to a sun, as the archetype par excellence, is above an obscure image----by Its very existence sends to all things that be, the rays of Its whole goodness, according to their capacity. By reason of these (rays) subsisted all the intelligible and intelligent essences and powers and energies.

Readers of this blog will, of course, have no trouble identifying the source of this particular idea of Dionysius's.

This tradition, of reciting, contemplating and meditating upon the revealed Divine Names is an ancient one. We may well believe that the Druids of old practiced it, and it is preserved, as we see, in Dionysius, the great disciple of Proclus (or the great companion of Saint Paul, or both). Many know that the system of transcendental meditation is based on the repitition of one of the Names of the Hindu pantheon. The tradition of Dhikr, the meditative recitation of all of God, is an Islamic version of the practice. Moreover, the Ismaili tradition within Islam explicitly understands the Names to refer to the second divinity, Divine Intellect, their understanding of which is drawn from the writings of Plotinus.

Morganwg-- perhaps we should call him Saint Iolo Morganwg, or Niomh Iolo Morganwg-- was a trickster, to be sure-- just as the mysterious author of the Dionysian letters was a trickster. If Dionysius merits the title "saint," "holy," then so in my view does Morganwg. Perhaps we might call him "Niomh* Iolo Morganwg." And, reading from the deep well of the Barddas, we might pray,

Niomh Iolo Morganwg, ora pro nobis!

*(Yes, I did that on purpose, feel free to share if you get the joke.)

Today, a selection of triads from the Barddas preceding the previous one, which shed more light on it:

13. The three states of existence of living beings: the state of Abred in Annwn; the state of liberty in humanity; and the state of love, that is Gwynvyd in Heaven.

14. The three necessities of all animated existences: a beginning in Annwn; progression in Abred; and plenitude in Heaven, that is, the circle of Gwynvydd; without these three things nothing can exist but God.

15. Three things are necessary in Abred: the least of all animation, and thence a beginning; the material of all things, and thence increase, which cannot take place in any other state; and the formation of all things out of the Dead, hence diversity of existence.

16. Three things cannot but happen to all living beings by the justice of God: co-sufference in Abred, ecause without that none could obtain the perfect knowledge of any thing; co-participation of equal privilege in the love of God; and co-ultimity, through the power of God, in respect of such as are just and merciful.

In Iolo's vision, as we have seen, every soul has its beginning in Annwn, its progression in Abred, and its culmination in Gwynvydd. Humanity is at an intermediate state; still incarnate in Abred, but able, to a greater or lesser degree, to peer into the higher Reality of Gwynvydd.

Abred is incarnate existence. Its lowest depth is Annwn, which encompasses the Underworld and the mineral creation, the closest possible there is to death. The Chaos prior to the creation is called Cythraul or Devil. This is evil absolute, and it is total disorder, total powerlessness. Through an act of mercy, God organizes the Cythraul, brings it into life and order.

Now, creative act of God can be viewed in two ways. From the perspective of God, which is Eternity, the Cythraul is immediately animated, organized, and perfected. Time is a moving image of eternity, and within Time that which is immediate in Eternity must unfold sequentially. And so from the perspective of the human soul, the process unfolds across vast ages, as incarnation follows up incarnation until the soul reaches its plentitude in Gwynvydd. And even arriving in Gwynvydd the journey is incomplete. As Ceugant is traversed by God alone, it remains ever out of reach. In the same way, in Utter Chaos, not one thing can be said to exist, because to be "one thing" is to have both unity and particularity, and unity requires order, particularity requires distinction, and "to exist" requires God. Therefore the Cythraul too remains forever out of our reach, but in the opposite direction.

From the perspective of God, the act of Creation is an outpouring of infinite love and mercy. Hence Plato, "|Good was he, and in one who is good there never arises about anything whatsoever any grudge; and so, being free of this, he willed that all things should come to resemble himself as much as possible." From the perspective of Cythraul, the act of Creation was a slaying; hence the deaths of Ymir, Tiamat, and all other primordial giants and dragons. From the perspective of Mankind, the creation is a journey, in which we rise from the cauldron of Annwn, traverse the circles of Abred, and find our completion in Gwynvydd.

If you've ever tried to help a drug addict, you can see the same process at work. From your perspective, you performed a work of mercy; from the addict's perspective, you took away their joy; the addict who recovers receives the act of mercy and begins a journey toward becoming who they were intended to be. The memory of their addiction, kept before the mind's eye, becomes an incentive toward recovery. Hence another triad:

There are three benefits to be had from Cythraul: the defection of evil; a view to goodness; and the triumph of victory over what is contrary to the beneficial.

Iolo's Seventeenth Triad reads:

The three necessary occasions of Abred: To collect the materials of every nature; to collect the knowledge of every thing; and to collect strength to overcome every adverse and Cythraul, and to be divested of evil; without this traversing of every state of life, no animation or species can attain to plenitude.

Overall, this triad presents Iolo's evolutionary vision of the incarnate human soul, and the purpose of material existence. We have our beginning-- according to this view-- in the Cauldron of Annwn, which is identical with the mineral creation. Over the course of long ages we rise through the various forms of material life, plant, animal, and finally human. The human is the balance point, wherein the evil of Abred is balanced by the light of Gwynfydd; here we may press onward and establish ourselves in the Luminous Life of Gwynfydd, or else fall back into animal existence for a time.

I want to zero in on one of the terms he uses here, "Cythraul." This word means "Devil" in Welsh, and in Iolo's theology it stands in for the principle of Evil, opposed to the Good. This principle, however, has a rather different meaning than that found either in dualistic systems such as those of Gnostics or Manichaeans, or even in traditional Christian theology. In these systems, whatever else the principle of Evil is, it is a principle of Power. In Iolo's vision, it is quite the opposite-- a principle of utter powerlessness.

Elsewhere in Barddas we read:

Cythraul is destitute of life and intention--a thing of necessity, not of will, without being or life, in respect of existence and personality; but vacant in reference to what is vacant, dead in reference to what is dead, and nothing in reference to what is nothing. Whereas God is good with reference to what is good, is fulness in reference to fulness, life in life, all in all, and light in light.

In The Mysteries of Britain, Lewis Spence elaborates:

God is goodness and power, and is opposed in duality to Cythraul, darkness and powerless inability . God mercifully united Himself with this lifelessness or evil with the intention of subduing it unto life or goodness, and from this intellectual existences and animations sprang.

These began in the depths of Annwn, or the abyss, the lowest and least grade, for there can be no intellectual existence without gradation, and in respect of gradation there cannot but be a beginning, a middle, an end or extremity-- first, augmentation, and ultimate or conclusion.

This view both of evil and of God is a bit foreign to our usual way of thinking about these things. It isn't a new conception, however, nor foreign to the ideas that I've been developing on this blog. Compare this account to Plato's account of the Demiurge's reason for creation in Timaeus 30A:

Now let us say through what cause the Creator constructed becoming and this All. Good he was, and in one who is good there never arises anothering whatosever of grudge, and so, being free of this, he willed that alll things should come to resemble himself as much as possible. That this above all is the lordliest principle of becoming and Cosmos one must receive, and correctly so, from wise men. Since he wanted all things to be good and, to the best of his power, nothing to be shoddy, the God thus took over all that was visible, and, since it did not keep its peace but moved unmusically and without order, he brought it into order from disorder, since he regarded the former to be in all ways better than the latter.

This idea sees good as order and harmony, and, in Plato, it is directly linked to the harmonies of music. (Remember that professor from a while back who claimed that Plato wanted to ban music? Here we see the reality, which is that music has a specific metaphysical meaning in the work of Plato. It is united both to mathematics and the practice of the virtues. Its opposite is Chaos, which is inharmonious, disorderly, unmusical. It is also utterly weak-- evil accomplishes nothing. Chaos is linked to the Dyad in numbers, and to Matter, which is incapable of accomplishing anything on its own but is only the final expression of active Spirit.

If some of these ideas seem familiar, there's a reason for that. A version of this teaching-- simplified, but apparently still quite helpful for some people-- has in recent years been taken up by the pop intellectual Jordan Peterson. Now, by the way, you know the meaning of the hysterical opposition Peterson has attracted from the media. And I think you can also see the hidden meaning of Materialism, the belief that Matter is the only reality and mind or spirit a mere "epiphenomenon."

Each of us has within us certain capacities, a certain level of energy, and a certain destiny or telos. In keeping with the Druidical teachings, we can call this latter our personal Awen. This is the summit of what we can accomplish in this incarnation. Each of us also comes equipped with a whole series of vices and negative tendencies. If you pay attention, you will discover that each of your vices is in fact the root of a virtue. The vain and pretentious are often natural leaders who can do a world of good if they can temper their vanity with humility. The violent are often those who possess both great will and great strength, but need to learn to use them in service of a high cause, and not their passions. Addicts are very often seeking a higher state of consciousness, and programs like AA and NA can teach them to find that in a direct encounter with the divine, rather than a bottle or a needle. Notice that the person living from their vices is 1. powerless, being driven from one thing to the next by whims of the moment; 2. incapable of accomplishing anything; 3. easy prey for the manipulative, including those who wish to sell

In Thaeatetus, Plato teaches us that the goal of the philosophical life is to become like God. The Timaeus as well as Iolo's triads teach us exactly what this means. Just as the Creator impresses order onto the primordial chaos of existence, we must, with divine aid, impress order and virtue onto all that is chaotic and inharmonious within ourselves.

The journey of the soul in Abred is precisely this process of becoming like God, by gathering, over long ages, the knowledge of the nature of all things, that we may overcome the Cythraul within and take our place in the Luminous Life of the Gods.

The next two Theological Triads of the Barddas read:

2. Three things proceed from the three primeval Unities: All Life; All Goodness; All Power.

3. God consists necessarilyh of three thingts: the greatest in respect of life; the greatest in respect of knowledge; and the greatest in respect of power; antd there can be only one of what is greatest in any thing.

These two triads are best read together and in reverse order.

The second triad is the familiar Intelligible Triad. The Supreme God is understood as having life, which in this case stands for being; knowledge, which is to say, mind or intellect; and power, which is life or activity.

But in the prior triad, goodness, life, and power are said to proceed from the three unities, which are God or Being; Knowledge or Intellect; and Liberty or Soul. We can therefore see that life in this triad stands for being; goodness, in this case, for Intellect, for to know the fullness of Truth is to be good, and evil is always rooted in a lie; and power stands in for life or activity. These three are found at every level but resolve into unity in Ceugant, the Highest.

Section II of the Barddas of Iolo Morganwg is entitled "Theology," and opens with a long series of triads, largely concerning hte nature of God. As an ongoing project, I want to share some of these triads and provide a brief commentary based on the Platonic-Druidic philosophy I've been developing here.

The First Triad

There are three primeval Unities, and more than one of each cannot exist: one God; one truth; and one point of liberty, and this is where all opposites equiponderate.

Naturally, the first triad is one of the most difficult. I would rather have started with any of the succeeding five or ten. This raises the question, of course, of why this one comes first? Set before all that follows, it acts as a kind of roadblock, or, in esoteric terms, a Watcher Upon the Threshold. We can either work with this first Triad, or give up and turn back.

Let's break it down, piece by piece.

One God

The Druidic tradition is repleat with deities. We have Hu the Mighty, and Ced the Earth Mother, and Ceridwen the Moon-Goddess who is also a form of Ced. We have Esus and Hesus, Taranis, Toutatis and Cernunnos. If Morganwg is teaching monotheism, should his writings be discarded as non-Druidic? Or if we would preserve them, must we discard the gods, and submit to monotheism?

The answer to both is "No." The One God is the One Itself, the First Cause which precedes all things, and even precedes existence. Proclus, the last great pagan philosopher of antiquity, wrote of the One that nothing at all can be said of it. It was not even to be understood-- for Proclus-- as the leader of a triad, which makes it utterly unique in his thought.

I have written before that we can use the term "Awen" for the One in Druidry. And, of course, those who see the First Cause as triadic (or Trinitarian) are perfectly free to disagree with Proclus.

The realm of being which can only be traversed by the unitary God is called Ceugant in the Druid tradition.

One Truth

Let's turn to Proclus again. Criticizing another philosopher named Origen (not, apparently, the Christian Church Father, but another Origen), he writes

Origen ends in intellect and the first being, but omits the One which is beyond every intellect and every being. And if indeed he omits it, as something which is better than all knowledge, language, and intellectual perception, we must say that he is neither discordant with Plato, nor with the nature of things.

What Proclus is saying here is that the One is prior to knowledge, language, and intellectual perception. In what follows he will discuss that which immediately follows upon the One, which are the very highest of the Gods. These Gods are called "Intelligible," because they can be known by the highest faculty of the Mind-- and only by the highest faculty of the mind. They are beyond the material world entirely; they cannot be encountered via the senses. And yet-- this is critical-- they are more real than the things of the material world, and they determine everything which is found in the material world. What is true about them is eternally true, while truth has no fixed existence in the material world, which is the world of becoming.

This, then, is the meaning of One Truth. The One Truth is that which immediately proceeds from the One Itself, which is God or the First God. This is the highest of hte gods, starting with the First Triad and unfolding from there. Gathered into a unity, these are also One God, and One Truth.

This Truth is also Gwynfydd in the Druid, the Intellectual Realm of luminous life.

One Point of Liberty

...and this is where all opposites equiponderate. This is the hardest of the three to understand. But if we follow the preceding method of interpretation, it will become easier. The Point of Liberty is the third level of being, which is called Abred. Abred is the realm of material existence as it is encountered by the soul. That is to say, it isn't Matter Itself, which is a lower thing, called Cythraul ("Devil"), but matter encountered by mind. It is a paradox that it is here, in this realm of limitation and imprisonment, that the soul is able to free itself. This is because it is only by working against limitation that anything is able to be created, and only by experiencing suffering that suffering may be overcome. And it is also because it is only here that there can be found those beings who are in need of liberation, and have begun to work towards it. In Abred, Good and Evil are balanced, these "opposites equiponderate," and thus either may be chosen. God abides alone in Ceugant, and Gwynfydd is the realm of liberated beings. At the bottom of Abred is Annwn, the realm of the Dead; its inhabitants have not yet begun the journey.